Why Crist Now Leads Rubio in Florida Senate Race | The Atlantic Wire

Why Crist Now Leads Rubio in Florida Senate Race | The Atlantic Wire

Why Crist Now Leads Rubio in Florida Senate Race

Florida's Republican Governor Charlie Crist is now leading in polls against Republican Marco Rubio for the 2010 Florida Senate race, where Crist will run as an independent. Crist's break with his party was seen as a sign that the GOP's hard-line conservatives were growing in power over the moderate wing of the party. A recent poll by the Florida Chamber of Commerce shows Crist with 42 percent support, giving Rubio 31 percent and Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek 14 percent. After months of Rubio leading Crist, often by double digits, the new poll is the latest showing a Crist resurgence. How did he do it and what does it mean for the Florida and for national races?

• Economy No Longer at Forefront The Florida Chamber of Commerce's Marian Johnson reports, "Interestingly, our poll also shows immigration and property taxes to be in the top three issues concerning Floridians for the first time in several years. ... Though the economy and job creation will certainly be weighing heavily on voters' minds going into the 2010 election cycle, education and the oil spill in the gulf are now two of the most important issues to voters and will become increasingly important on a statewide level."

• Dems Giving Up on Meek Liberal blogger Taniel writes, "Sure, these numbers could evolve once [Democratic candidate Kendrick] Meek starts increasing his name recognition but with all the noise about Democratic officials starting to move

Why the Jobs Bills Failed | The Atlantic Wire

Why the Jobs Bills Failed | The Atlantic Wire

Why the Jobs Bills Failed

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By MAX FISHER on June 17, 2010 11:04am

A new jobs bill failed in the Senate by 45 to 52 on Wednesday, with 12 Democrats voting against. The $80 billion bill would have extended unemployment benefits, implemented new tax breaks, and given states aid for government employees such as teachers and policemen. Why did it fail and what's next for Democrats hoping to push economic recovery?

• Concerns About Ballooning Unemployment Spending Bloomberg's Brian Faler reports, "Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, said lawmakers want to begin paring the extended unemployment benefits created in response to the recession because 'this is not something that can go on indefinitely.' McCaskill said that 'if you don't start having those discussions then it begins to look like a brand-new level of entitlement program, which is something that we really can't afford to do right now in this country.'"

• Senate Losing Interest In Job Creation The Washington Post's Ezra Klein sighs, "Unemployment may be at 9.7%, but the Senate is moving on. Or, at the least, they care about the deficit more. ... There'll come a time when we need to start reducing the deficit. If we can get the economy back into gear, that time might even be soon. But for now, increasing the size of the deficit isn't some nasty side effect of stimulus spending. It is, quite literally, the point of the enterprise."

• Because Defense Spending Is Too High The Atlantic's Joshua Green summarizes his most recent column, "Job bill fails because deficit's at all-time high. So's military spending. And that's why Obama should cut it." Green adds, "Targeting wasteful military spending -- like, say, those subsidies to the French -- might even channel Tea Party anger over government spending toward a productive purpose."

• The Coming Stunemflation Crisis The American Prospect's Tim Fernholz predicts, "The American economic doldrums of the seventies were summed up with the term 'stagflation.' Since there seems to be no will to do anything productive about our current situation, and little promise of a better approach next year, perhaps we'd best come up with a new portmanteau. Somehow we can jam together 'unemployment,' 'deflation' and 'stagnation': Maybe 'stunemflation'?"

Philadelphia school uses art for fulfillment, profit Notes from the news, June 21 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, June 21 | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Notes from the news, June 21

by Erika Owens

Suffering from search engine overload The Notebook blog
Tracing the big money leadership and backers of charter schools.
Shake-up of Ackerman team continues The Inquirer
More high level movement in the District administration, with school principals moving to administrative roles. Also, Leroy Nunery's new position earned him a $50,000 raise.
Philadelphia school uses art for fulfillment, profit The Inquirer
Art teachers at Woodrow Wilson Middle School brighten up the school with student art, and earn money for the program by auctioning off the works.
Editorial: Applaud, but lightly The Inquirer
Philly students showed gains on the PSSA, but Superintendent Ackerman acknowledged there is a long way to go.
School-reform lessons from Phila.: Choosing Excellence in Public Schools The Inquirer
Review of new book by former Philly superintendent David W. Hornbeck and longtime educator Katherine Conner.
Phila. School Dist. Uses Protest Music in Civil Rights Classes KYW
Finding my Element Philly Teacher blog
Video of Graduation: My Speech and the Diplomas Practical Theory blog
Pa. Lawmakers Launch Web Site to Help Solve Budget Woes KYW
Fattah Announces $622,963 Grant to Drexel U. To Train School Librarians BigNews.biz
Parkside: The School of the Future Relies on Forward Thinking, Not Technology Philadelphia Neighborhoods
Father's Day is still busy for a full-time dad The Inquirer
Please email us if we missed anything today or if you have any suggestions of publications, email lists, or other places for us to check for news.
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Notes from the news

The teacher voice–or rather, voices � The Quick and the Ed

The teacher voice–or rather, voices � The Quick and the Ed

The teacher voice–or rather, voices

by Kris Amundson

Everybody, it seems, has an idea about how to improve the teaching profession. But often, those conversations don’t include teachers. So when Education Sector was planning “Finding the Link: Teacher Evaluation and Professional Development,” we decided to try a different approach.
The panel discussion, to be held on June 30 at 9:30 a.m., will bring together national experts including to discuss the link between evaluation (how are you doing?) and professional development (how can you improve?). You can see more about the panel and register here.
There’s no question that including the “teacher voice” is a challenge. The numbers alone are staggering—there are more than 3 million K-12 teachers, and they are a fiercely opinionated and independent group. In my former life as an elected official, I worked closely with teacher’s unions. I have enormous respect for the work they do. At the same time, I found that when you want to know what’s really going on in classrooms, you also have to talk to individual teachers.
So we are “convening” a second panel in conjunction with the first. Four teachers, all bloggers—will participate in

Joe Biden In Chicago: Fundraising For Alexi Giannoulias, Dan Seals

	Joe Biden In Chicago: Fundraising For Alexi Giannoulias, Dan Seals
	Jen Sabella - 06/21/2010 10:02 AM
	Joe Biden will be in Chicago Monday campaigning for Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias and Democrat Dan Seals, running for the open 10th district House seat. Following a morning trip to Michigan, where he will discuss the Recovery Act, he will headline two fundraisers at the Union Leagu...
	Colorado Department Of Education Cites Funding Issues As Reason For Failure Alerts For teacher Arrests
	The Coloradoan - 06/21/2010 10:33 AM
	Colorado education officials have been ignoring a law intended to "flag" the arrests of teachers and then alert all school districts and charter schools across the state, a Coloradoan investigation has found. The 2008 law requires the Colorado Department of Education to issue an alert every time ...
	CU-Boulder Diversity Not Growing As Quickly As Peer Institutions
	The Colorado Daily - 06/21/2010 09:14 AM
	Nationally, economic hardships and demographic changes are leading minorities to seek out higher education at a record pace, according to a new report. But the University of Colorado is not showing comparable minority enrollment growth during the recession years. ...
	Juan Manuel Santos Easily Wins Colombia's Presidency
	AP - 06/21/2010 09:52 AM
	BOGOTA, Colombia — A 58-year-old U.S.-educated economist who dealt withering blows to leftist rebels as defense minister has won Colombia's presidency by the largest margin in modern history. Juan Manuel Santos got 69 percent of the vote in Sunday's runoff in a ringing endorsement of his prom...
	States Spend Hundreds Of Millions To Treat A Few Thousand Sex Offenders; NY Tops List With $175,000 Per Sex Offender
	AP - 06/21/2010 09:52 AM
	MOOSE LAKE, Minn. — Just off the highway leading to this woodsy Minnesota town, more than 400 men live behind tall fences topped with razor wire. They spend their days shuffling between meals, group therapy sessions and activities such as painting state park signs. The men are sex offenders w...
	Our Visit to Japan
	Michael Kaiser - 06/21/2010 08:40 AM
	The Kennedy Center is fortunate to have the support of our International Committee on the Arts, a group of patrons from many countries who help to underwrite our international programming. This programming includes both the presentations of international artists and festivals at the Center and the ...
	NY Wants 'Sexting' Ban, In School And Home
	wcbstv.com - 06/21/2010 07:48 AM
	Schools now want to punish students caught "sexting" -- no matter where they do it. The Department of Education wants to ban both cyber bullying and sexting in New York City's public schools at all times, even outside of school hours. ...
	Assisted Suicide in November for the GOP
	Andrew Reinbach - 06/21/2010 08:41 AM
	The political gods have been good to Democrats lately. Republicans nominated several absolute loons to run for Congress; they painted themselves as protectors and apologists of BP; and in the course of punishing the unemployed, they seriously upset both doctors and governors. These are weapons ...
	Are You Trying To Criticize For Success?
	Russell Bishop - 06/21/2010 08:17 AM
	Do you have the ability to look at a situation and instead see what's wrong with it? Perhaps you have the ability to look at something and see how it could be improved? Same ability, really. If you have the ability to perceive what's wrong or to identify what would make something better, then y...

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: How the TIF game is played in Chicago

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: How the TIF game is played in Chicago

How the TIF game is played in Chicago

by Mike Klonsky

Mayoral control of the schools makes Daley's hand-picked school board merely an extension of City Hall. This in turn enables downtown, business-friendly TIF plan to loot the public schools for hundreds of millions of dollars without a peep from the board. This, combined with some of the lowest levels of state funding in the nation results in massive teacher lay-off and swelling class size. The newly-elected leadership of the Chicago