A snapshot of what is wrong with Oregon public schools, the OEA for starters.

This is from the local paper, the Bend Bulletin. I find it amusing that our local demosocialistacrats rail on the BB as it is sooo conservative and far right. Not even close but they do get it right on many issues, as evidenced here.
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No substitute for real K-12 reform

Published: September 27. 2010 4:00AM PST

 Seven Oregon school districts, including some in Central Oregon, learned last week that they’ll receive more than $13 million in federal grant money to design new ways to evaluate and pay teachers. That’s the good news.


The bad news is that the Oregon City teachers union is threatening to withdraw from the Chalkboard Project’s CLASS program, which received the grant. If any of that district’s money is used to provide “teacher incentives,” or merit pay, the union’s out, according to an article in The Oregonian.


Cooler heads may prevail, of course, and the Oregon City teachers may stay put. It no doubt would be difficult to explain to district taxpayers why factoring student performance into teacher evaluations is so problematic that the district can afford to turn its back on badly needed money.


But the union’s response to the conditions of the grant makes one thing clear. As good as the Chalkboard Project is, it’s no substitute for legislative action where education reform is concerned.


The Chalkboard Project does great things, to be sure. The creation of six of Oregon’s leading private foundations, it has worked to come up with reform ideas based on research and on broad discussions across the state. It currently is focusing attention on pilot programs, including the ones being set up in Bend, Redmond and Crook County, that seek to find new ways to evaluate teachers and to reward those who are effective. Its efforts are starting to pay off, too, though only a handful of districts around the state are involved.


For outsiders, the Chalkboard Project’s CLASS program includes two notable components. Teacher evaluation is one, and, to that end, participating school districts are using various criteria to determine who’s a good teacher and who is not. One such measurement is student performance. Union members have, generally, opposed any evaluation program that actually sought to see how well kids did with a given teacher at the front of the room. The CLASS project’s second notable component, rewarding teachers whose evaluations mark them as better than average, is equally unacceptable to the state’s largest teachers union, the Oregon Education Association.


The OEA’s refusal to support meaningful reform measures, in fact, helped sink Oregon’s application for federal Race to the Top funding.


Unfortunately, too many lawmakers appear to be prepared to look at Chalkboard and its successes, and cite them as proof that education reform is moving ahead briskly in Oregon. So it is, but on a very small scale. It’s no substitute for the kind of fundamental reform Gov. Kulongoski promised to support when he pulled the state out of the Race to the Top competition.

Original editorial is here

Obama standing in the way on Gulf cleanup to appease shipping unions

Clearly this is a president, the first Muslim president of the United States that will not change or alter his course for the good of anyone or anything. Except that which will further his, the progressive, regressive agenda of the modern day far left liberal, socialist agenda as set forth by Saul Alinsky and other 'mentors' of Obama. So this next post is absolutely no surprise at all. Obama courted and sold out to the unions which helped elect him. Now he is paying them back. Just like the Fifty Billion he is begging Congress to give to the unions to help save jobs across the country. Almost everyone we know has given up or cut way back on many things. Here where we live the only ones who have not are the school district unions, backed by the NEA and OEA.

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Obama Blocks Oil Cleanup Ships to Appease Unions

Fox Nation: President Obama is impeding clean-up efforts in the Gulf by kowtowing to unions and members of the American maritime industry, critics have charged in recent days. At issue is the president’s refusal to waive the Jones Act, a century-old law that effectively bars foreign-owned ships from moving between U.S. ports, a necessary component of participating in the cleanup effort.

When asked why President Obama hasn’t waived the Jones Act — which President Bush put on hold to facilitate Katrina rescue efforts — White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said a suspension wasn’t necessary.

But Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, and others say the act is keeping boats from getting on the water to lay boom and skim oil. In a letter to the Coast Guard’s Thad Allen, Nelson wrote:

Admiral, I believe the orange mousse of oil that is now in Florida’s waters is more than enough evidence that we need to take advantage of every appropriate global resource. Please advise as to whether we are taking full advantage of the offers of assistance from other countries.

Members of the American shipping industry, (arguably the sole beneficiary of Jones) are open to waiving the Jones Act in dire circumstances, but insist that as of right now: “American vessels are doing the job.”

“Countless American vessels are already responding in the Gulf. In addition, we know that many other American vessels are standing by ready to help,” reads a statement released Friday by the Maritime Cabotage Task Force, a lobbying group that represents scores of both unionized and nonunionized employees and employers in the American maritime industry.

The presser goes on to say that the maritime industry “has not and will not stand in the way of the use of these well-established waiver procedures to address this crisis,” so long as the Obama administration can prove that there aren’t American vessels willing to help but waiting in the wings.

MTCF spokesman Mark Ruge confirms that his organization, which represents groups as disparate as the AFL-CIO and the Goodtime Cruise Line, has communicated its position to White House officials.

Original article is here