At least someone in the Obama White House gives a damn about dead queer kids.I voted for her in the primary, but I did have my misgivings: I don't like the idea of family political dynasties, no matter how competent she is.
TRENTON -- State employees could be eating turkey one day and bagging it for lunch the next under a decision by Gov. Chris Christie's administration to rescind the customary day off after Thanksgiving.
A memo from the governor's office has announced that employees will not be able to take the traditional "Black Friday" off from work even though former Gov. Jon S. Corzine had allowed the unions to trade for that day in a Memorandum of Agreement signed in June 2009.
The unions had exchanged Lincoln's Birthday in February as part of the agreement. State workers receive a total of 13 holidays.
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In his memo announcing the decision, David A. Cohen, director of the Governor's Office of Employee Relations, said that legislation was needed to make the holiday change because under current law, Lincoln's Birthday is still a state holiday until 2012.
Hence, employees could be given the day after Thanksgiving off and then end up with Lincoln's Birthday off, too, Cohen said in the memo.
The memo indicated that Christie, a Republican, is not interested in seeing last-minute legislation, because the Democratic-controlled Legislature has not seen fit to pass a series of proposals aimed at reducing property taxes.
"It is the position of the governor that seeking legislation, in these difficult economic times, would not be a productive use of the Legislature's time," Cohen wrote.Dear lord, that is pathetic. He won't even allow a bill to take care of this without stamping his feet and holding his breath until he turns blue.
First of all, Rhee gave up any pretense of being anything more than a political hack when she stepped into the DC mayoral race. When you say that your patron's loss is "devastating" for the children of your city, you're pretty much giving into the political gamesmanship a school superintendent should be above.TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie has courted Michelle Rhee to become the state’s next education commissioner, but the job’s distance from her family may prove an insurmountable stumbling block, two officials familiar with the negotiations said.When state officials initially approached Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools, she quickly turned back the overture, thinking the governor wanted her to make a lateral move and run the Newark Public Schools. Even Oprah Winfrey endorsed the possibility of Rhee becoming Newark’s next superintendent.In fact, the Christie administration wanted Rhee to consider the vacant state education commissioner’s post, a more attractive offer to her because it signified a step up on the ladder of national education reform influence, according to sources who sought anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss confidential matters. But the state could not get Rhee “past the gate” because of frustration that a move to New Jersey would take her away from her family.
What does Rhee say she learned here in Baltimore? According to Rhee, students performing far below grade level quickly achieve at the highest levels—if they’re exposed to a quality program. In our view, that’s a pleasing, music man’s tale; it has taken the place, in the past forty years, of serious thought about low-income schools. But as we’ve shown you, there is no evidence that this educational miracle ever occurred in Rhee’s classroom. And quite frankly, her pleasing tale about national acclaim has been looking a bit shaky too.She sounds perfect for the NJ press. I'm sure they'll all tell us what a master teacher Rhee was without a shred of proof; if it's out of Christie's mouth, they believe it.
Here at THE HOWLER, we don’t know what happened in Michelle Rhee’s classroom. But in our own thirteen years in the Baltimore schools, we came to regard that pleasing tale as the hallmark of hustlers, con men and do-dos. (For the record, we were inclined to believe it too—before we spent time in the classroom.) It substitutes for serious thought—and wins big pay-days for its adherents. Everyone loves to hear this tale. And no one seems to care if it’s true.
DC’s news orgs can do as they will. But at present, there is no real evidence—none at all—that Rhee’s miracle ever occurred. But here’s the question: Will these newspapers do their job—will they try to check Rhee’s claims? Or will they do what they so often do? Will they decide to serve the elites whose members file into their board rooms?
Professor, could you or someone else - ANYONE - actually run a cost-benefit analysis and show us how this vaunted toolkit is going to save us so much money? So much money that towns and schools - many of which have lost most or all of their state aid - will not have to raise their property taxes or slash their services like they did this past year?Christie’s reason for urgency is simple: His financial promises for next year — in short, not raising taxes — rely on those toolkit proposals getting in place, said Brigid Harrison, political science professor at Montclair State University.“His budget doesn’t work without it,” she explained.
The toolkit proposals would limit union contract payouts, relax Civil Service rules, reduce the number of people eligible for state pensions, and make mergers of local services cost-effective by eliminating job-bumping rights and payouts for some contract benefits. In a town hall meeting in Ewing, Mercer County, last week, Christie had a message for legislators: “It’s time to get to work.”So, the plan is to bump workers out when consolidation just magically happens. And that's going to save us so much dough that we can easily pay for extreme hikes in health care costs AND make all of our past-due pension payments.
All signs are pointing to a Chris Christie campaign to be on the 2012 presidential ticket. He has started this campaign already by crisscrossing the country to promote Republican candidates in state-wide races.
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Given the secret funding of Republican candidates by shadow groups, the fact that the GOP has a propaganda arm in Fox News that is second to none, including Pravda, and the fact that the 2012 election will be the first under the census redistricting controlled mostly by Republican governors, there’s a good chance that Barack Obama will be a one-term president. If Christie is not on the 2012 ticket, his next chance to run for national office could potentially be 2020 – a lifetime in presidential politics. Sure, he’ll be only 58 years old then, but he will have had a much longer track record of mistakes and miscues than he has today. And the demographics of the electorate will be different, with a larger percentage of the non-white population included in the mix.I think deciminyan is right - he'd be crazy not to give it shot. Hell, Palin's practically the front-runner and she wasn't even governor for an entire term - why not him? And the Republicans have historically rewarded their perennials with nominations: Dole, McCain, Bush 41, Reagan - all took multiple runs at the nomination. What's he got to lose by making a bid this time around? He can always try again.
In short, education reform is a good cause. Experimentation is good -- and some of the best charter schools today have experimented in what could be valuable ways. But the push, coming from Wall Street and the extremely wealthy, for this specific form of charter schools, for this specific way of funding them, is part of both short-term and long-term drives for profit that will accrue to the wealthiest while weakening the middle class. The question is not whether we should back away from the cause of education, or the cause of education reform. The question is in whose interests it should be done and who should most strongly influence the outcomes.
Oh, it's just like running a business, is it? I find it very, very funny to hear NEWSPAPERS - which are dying across the nation - lecture about running businesses. But if you really want to make that analogy:The cap was just two bills in a 33-bill reform package Gov. Chris Christie unveiled in May. His tool kit was not just about putting a hard cap on tax increases and government spending increases, it was about loosening the rules of the game so towns, school districts and other government units could start to drastically reduce spending and require fewer taxpayer dollars to operate.It's like running a business -- you don't have to increase the price of merchandise in the store when the rent goes down and other overhead costs are reduced.That's what Christie's tool kit is all about.
Oh, it's insane alright: insane to think that runaway spending is the problem.It's insane. If the majority Democrats in the state Senate and Assembly think all they have to do is install a cap and just sit on their hands and hope the public and the governor forget about the other reforms, they're fools. They're fools who, like the leaders of public worker unions who support them, seem to think that if they dig in their heels enough, that New Jerseyans' desire for lower property taxes will disappear, that the budget deficits this state faces will vanish and that everything will be alright for them again, like it was in years past when governors were afraid to push for real spending reform.
Among the tool kit bills that would help greatly:
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Allowing furloughs by local governments.
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Meeting with the Courier-Post Editorial Board Thursday to discuss the frighteningly high number of police officers, firefighters and other city workers Camden will soon have to lay off, Camden Mayor Dana Redd -- a Democrat and a former state senator -- also made sure to mention that the tool kit legislation is needed.
If the foot-dragging Democrats in the state Legislature need a starting point for passing the remainder of the governor's toolkit, we have it: A cap on labor costs.
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Under Christie's proposals, the cost of salaries and benefits for public workers would be capped at 2.5% annually. The Legislature and the governor can haggle over the details - maybe place health benefits outside the cap - but a cap is crucial.
Union representatives call binding arbitration a bogeyman and predict a separate cap for teachers would make them paupers again. But it would take years for the pendulum to swing back that far - and the cap could be adjusted in better economic times.
