Who Are The 1%? | OurFuture.org

Who Are The 1%? | OurFuture.org:

Who Are The 1%?

By Dave Johnson

February 28, 2012 - 12:01pm ET

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Who are the 1%?

Who is getting rich exploiting the 99%? Meet the worst of the 1%. This is a series of 1-minute videos by Brave New Films.

"The 1% in 1 Minute. These videos show the facts, plain and simple. Share them with your friends and family so Americans can understand exactly how their democracy is being taken from them."

Click through to see the rest! From the site:

KNOW THE FACTS

In just the last generation, the richest 1% almost quadrupled their incomes.

The average wealth of the 1% is 225 times bigger than the wealth of the typical household – the highest it’s ever been.

Three decades ago, CEOs made about 40 times as much as an average worker – now CEOs make almost 200 times as much as regular employees.

Last year, half of Americans earned less than $26,000 while CEOs at top 500 companies raked in an average of $11 million.

Over the past decade, earnings for middle-class Americans actually fell. In fact, working Americans’ wages are now a lower percentage of our economy than they’ve ever been.

The divide between the richest and the poorest is worse in America than it is in nearly all of Europe and Asia and much of Africa. It’s about as bad as in Rwanda and Serbia – and it’s bad for our economy.

The 1% is not an accident – it is the result of policies our government chose to pursue.

Jim Broadway on Chicago charters and turnarounds. « Fred Klonsky

Jim Broadway on Chicago charters and turnarounds. « Fred Klonsky:

Jim Broadway on Chicago charters and turnarounds.

by Fred Klonsky

Jim Broadway, who publishes the authoritative Illinois School Policy Updates (subscription here), comments on recent developments in Chicago and the impact on Springfield.

The Chicago public schools are a kind of laboratory for school “reform” efforts. The turnaround concept is one example. Most Illinois charter schools are also in Chicago (and generally not producing the kind of results they promised).

The most successful reform of the last three decades in Chicago appears to have been the establishment of the Local School Councils – the Chicago equivalent of the elected school boards serving all other districts in Illinois – which have been doing their jobs and out-achieving the top-down model with little fanfare.

The relative ineffectiveness of top-down school governance models is

On Education: Shedding Light on Teacher Data Reports – SchoolBook

On Education: Shedding Light on Teacher Data Reports – SchoolBook:

On Education: Shedding Light on Teacher Data Reports

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Feb. 28, 2012, 11:18 a.m.

By MICHAEL WINERIP

I’m delighted that the New York City education department has finallyreleased its teacher data reports.

Finally, there are some solid numbers for judging teachers.
Using a complex mathematical formula, the education department’s statisticians have calculated how much elementary and middle-school teachers’ students outpaced — or fell short of — expectations on annual standardized tests. They adjusted these calculations for 32 variables including “whether a child was new to the city in pretest or post-test year” and “whether the child was retained in grade before pretest year.” This enabled them to assign each teacher a score of 1 to 100,

Huey Long: An Original Voice of the 99% | Dissident Voice

Huey Long: An Original Voice of the 99% | Dissident Voice:

Huey Long: An Original Voice of the 99%

by Kathleen Wallace Peine

Every individual is a blend of struggling motivations, except perhaps for the garden variety sociopaths that seem to occupy many places of power these days. Most of us, however, endeavor to exhibit the noble of our character as we try to calm the howls of ego that so often derail the best of intentions.

Perhaps no historical figure exemplifies this strange dichotomy better than Louisiana’s Huey Long. Progressive internet sites have revisited the man and his words in recent weeks. His evaluation of wealth disparity echoes from the halls in which he delivered his thunderous speeches during the roaring 20s and the Great Depression. You can even view some of his more rousing talks with a simple search — the films exist. Long served as governor and Senator for the state of Louisiana, advancing a radical populism unheard of in our present time. An unabashed supporter of wealth re-distribution when obscene levels were met, his speeches and early deeds did quite a lot to restructure feudal Louisiana society. Long even coined the use of the 99% well before Occupy found that to be a unifying theme.

But that was only part of the story.

I became fascinated by Long many years ago after reading Robert Penn Warren’s gorgeous work “All the King’s

The Dreadful Candy Caper

by David Macaray

What happened recently at the Hershey candy factory, in Palmyra, Pennsylvania, has to be considered one of the weirdest and most outrageous labor stories of the new year.

First the outrageous part. According to a story in the New York Times (February 21), Exel, the logistics company hired by Hershey to oversee its Palmyra operation, was found guilty by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) of intentionally failing to report 42 serious injuries in the plant over a period of four years. Those 42 accidents constituted 43-percent of all such injuries that occurred during that period.

The majority of those injuries were related to the lifting and rehandling of large crates (some weighing 60 pounds) of Reese’s cups, Kit-Kat bars, and Hershey’s Kisses. The Labor Department issued fines in the amount of $280,000, and David Michaels, the Assistant Secretary of Labor in charge of OSHA, was quoted as saying, “Exel understood exactly what the law was on reporting. They were aware of these other injuries, and they just

How Social Isolation Kills

by Billy Wharton

Sitting down to create a life plan is a time for people, especially young people, to demonstrate their hopes for the future. For the young the possibilities seem endless so you will hear a good sprinkling of pro-basketball player, astronaut and race car driver during these conversations. Few would identify the fate of an elderly couple and their son in the Japanese city of Saitama as desirable. Last week, the emaciated bodies of these three people were found in their apartment. They had died of starvation and no one had even bothered to check. Isolated, despondent and starving may not make into the typical life plan, but it is increasingly becoming a real possibility for people in the advanced capitalist economies all over the world.

Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that the bodies of the three victims remained in the apartment one month after they had starved to death. They were only discovered when the landlord of the apartment complex called the police and went with officers to demand payment of months overdue rent. Newspaper reports indicate that the family was several months behind on the rent and that electric and gas service to the apartment had

Arthur Camins: Why are Education Innovations Always Slip Slidin' Away? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Arthur Camins: Why are Education Innovations Always Slip Slidin' Away? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Arthur Camins: Why are Education Innovations Always Slip Slidin' Away?

by Anthony Cody

Guest post by Arthur Camins.

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
Paul Simon

The current narrative for improving education in the United States is based on two undeniable charges and several simple and compelling solutions.

The current charges: Despite decades of effort we have failed to substantially mediate the effects of race and class on educational outcomes. Compared to product innovations in the private sector, innovations in the education sector are infrequently dispersed or institutionalized... they don't stick. We've all been there. Just when we think we nearing our destination.... real sustainable learning gains for students... the innovation just

The Narrative of Poverty - Dana Goldstein

The Narrative of Poverty - Dana Goldstein:

The Narrative of Poverty

by Dana Goldstein

When I was reading Katherine Boo's Beyond the Beautiful Forevers, about day-to-day life in the Mumbai slum of Annawadi, I couldn't stop thinking about how much the book had in common with one of my all-time favorites,Random Family, Adrian Nicole Leblanc's masterpiece about love and the drug trade in the South Bronx of the 19080s and 90s. So I wrote an essay for The Daily Beast about the two works--and about what Indian poverty and American poverty have in common.

...the affinities between the two books—set 7,800 miles and two decades apart—are astonishing. The way Annawadi’s savvier operators make a business out of government corruption, skimming off the top of generously funded anti-poverty efforts, is not dissimilar from the way the drug economy operates in American inner cities. “Corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained” for personal advancement in a Mumbai slum, Boo observes; several of the garbage-pickers she profiles accept their dirty lot in life only after giving up on dreams of a good education and clean, service-sector work in nearby luxury

Safe at School and Ready to Learn | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Safe at School and Ready to Learn | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights:

Safe at School and Ready to Learn

by NEA Health Information Network

Question: What is found throughout the school meal program that can be deadly dangerous?

If you answered food allergens, you would be right. Six percent of students have a food allergy and the big eight of food allergies (soy, eggs, milk, fish, wheat, shellfish, tree nuts, and peanuts) are found throughout school meal programs and family meals alike. It is very likely that a school will have one or more students whose life could be threatened by eating the wrong thing. Data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2006 School Health Policies and Programs Study indicate that approximately 88% of schools had one or more students with a food allergy. School employees need to know what to do to prevent life threatening reactions and families need to know that their children are being protected.

On Wednesday, February 22 NEA HIN participated in a School Nutrition Foundation webinar, entitled Teamwork is Key to Successful Food Allergy Management in Schools. Over

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Modern School: Fox Guarding Hen House: Rhee Buddies Up to Duncan During Investigation of DC Cheating Scandal

Modern School: Fox Guarding Hen House: Rhee Buddies Up to Duncan During Investigation of DC Cheating Scandal:

Fox Guarding Hen House: Rhee Buddies Up to Duncan During Investigation of DC Cheating Scandal

by Michael Dunn

Michelle Rhee was the chancellor of Washington, D.C. schools from 2007 to 2010, during the time D.C. school officials cheated to raise test scores. The Office of the Inspector General in Arne Duncan’s Education Department has been investigating the case for the past six months. Considering how much the outcome the investigation could influence her career, it would seem a no-brainer that Duncan should not be fraternizing with her.

Nevertheless, the two sat side by side last month, as two of four featured panelists at an education conference in Washington. The conference was about the use of educational data.

Schools Matter: Why Bill Gates Makes Me Throw Up

Schools Matter: Why Bill Gates Makes Me Throw Up:

Why Bill Gates Makes Me Throw Up

by Jim Horn

The chart above shows market capitalization trends for Apple and Microsoft over just two months in 2010.

To show that this trend of Microsoft's failing hegemony is not a fluke, here is another showing operating income

How to Demoralize Teachers - Bridging Differences - Education Week

How to Demoralize Teachers - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

How to Demoralize Teachers

by Diane Ravitch

Dear Deborah,

Two weeks ago, New York state's highest court ruled that the New York City Department of Education could release for public scrutiny the value-added ratings of teachers of mathematics and English in grades 4-8. Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, joined by other media, had filed a "freedom of information" request to obtain the testing data, and the United Federation of Teachers opposed their release, saying that the ratings contained many inaccuracies.

According to The New York Times, current schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott had "mixed feelings" about the naming of names, but his predecessor, Joel Klein, had "championed" their release. A story in the Columbia Journalism Review said that the city's department of education had encouraged reporters to file "freedom of information" requests and responded with uncustomary speed when the requests were received.

The scores were released to the public last Friday.

Just for the record, it should be noted that on Oct. 1, 2008, then-president of the UFT Randi Weingarten signed a

IRS targeting charter schools? (OneNewsNow.com)

IRS targeting charter schools? (OneNewsNow.com):

IRS targeting charter schools?

Bob Kellogg - OneNewsNow - 2/28/2012 3:45:00 AM

A school choice advocate says the Internal Revenue Service's proposed changes to the definition of "governmental plans" could make school teachers ineligible for participation in state pension systems.

The IRS' "Determination of Government Plan Status" would force states to prohibit public charter school teachers from participating in state retirement plans. Todd Ziebarth, vice president for state advocacy and support for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, says the IRS claims it did not intend to take aim at charter schools when these changes were proposed. But his group warns that it will negatively affect more than 90 percent of the charter school workforce -- all of whom will either be forced to leave their schools or lose their accrued pension wealth.

So members of Congress are urging IRS officials to clarify the plan.