Date posted: March 14, 2008 - Friday
Title: TW3 03/14/08
Current mood: tired
Nah, You Gotta Go To A Classroom
A recent court decision in Los Angeles has a large number of parents sitting on the edge of their chairs and fearing the future.
A state appellate court ruled parents "do not have a constitutional right to home school their children." It is estimated there are between 100,000 and 200,000 children being home schooled in California alone.
The ruling actually came about by accident and was not a deliberate attack on home schooling. The case was brought against an abusive father whose wife was inadequately educating their two younger children, but it has sent ripples through a community that practices the alternative method of educating their children. What used to be a practice which seemed confined to ultra-religious families has become much more widespread.
California has allowed home schooling as long as one of three conditions are met. The parents filed a petition which essentially made their home a school, they hired a credentialed tutor or they participated in an independent study program provided by a licensed school. The ruling of the appellate court says parents can’t educate their children without a credential and the state has a right to regulate how parents home school children.
Parents of home schooled children in California are now waiting for the other shoe to drop. The California Department of Education is reviewing the court decision.
Who knows what will come as a result to this review. Knowing the way bureaucracy operates, I would imagine a series of new regulations will emerge that will make things difficult for people who want to home school.
I believe in education. I think it is a life-long process. I also believe education can come from almost anywhere.
A ruling that says the state has the ultimate right to determine methods and practices of all education is frightening to me. Almost anyone who has been involved in education for any amount of time has seen politics and changing theories shake through the education system much like a dog shakes a stuffed toy.
I have relatives in education. Two sisters are teachers. My brother-in-law is a school district psychologist. I actually have a community college teaching credential myself. All this is by way of demonstrating I have seen some of the total bullshit that can come from warring factions within the education system. I have also heard enough war stories and seen enough examples from my own family that confirm classroom teachers do not have a monopoly on being qualified to teach. Almost anyone else can look at the Bush administration’s "No Child Left Behind" program and see how things can go horribly wrong when politicians get involved in setting up regulations which govern education.
I don’t know what will eventually come from the state, but I suspect it won’t be good news. And once California opens the gates, what will happen in other states?
Don’t Count On That Real Estate Just Yet
Data from the Federal Reserve last week shows rough sailing ahead for the economy. For the first time since 1945 when the agency started tracking such things figures show homeowners have more debt tied up in their homes than the equity they have built up in them.
Foreclosures are at an all time high. Home equity is at an all time low. Homeowner equity slipped below 50 percent in the second quarter of last year and dipped below 48 percent in the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter also saw a rise in the rate of mortgages in foreclosure or past due to 7.9 percent. Before the third quarter of last year the rate of foreclosures had never exceeded 7 percent since 1979. Foreclosures totaled 2,296 in the forth quarter and that was three times the figure from the preceding year.
The news sparked the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, to call for additional action to prevent more distressed homeowners from falling into foreclosure. "This situation calls for a vigorous response," he said in a speech to Florida bankers. He also called for bankers to write down the principal on some loans to allow homeowners to build up equity and be more willing to try and remain in their homes.
In the past permanent mortgage modifications have more typically been a reduction in interest rates and not a reduction in the principal of the loan. Bernanke said the idea would be a tough sell to bankers, but said reducing the principal of home loans might make it easier for troubled homeowners to get out of debt and lower the risk to banks of default and foreclosure.
Just when the housing market looked bad enough the economic news took another hit. New figures on unemployment in February showed employers slashed jobs by the largest amount in five years. And, hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the labor force. For the second month the labor reported last Friday that employers sliced payrolls. 63,000 jobs cut in February added to 22,000 sliced in January.
The figures were so troubling the Federal Reserve is expected to cut key interest rates by three quarters of a point when it meets again March 18. The unemployment figures even prompted President Bush to say, "It’s clear our economy has slowed."
Duh, ya think, George?
You Get A Bonus With Your iPod
Yep, there’s a fringe benefit of using cheap foreign labor to produce things like iPods, digital picture frames and GPS navigation devices.
And what do you get?
A virus on your computer.
Apparently lax quality control in places like China have allowed viruses to infect these devices at the factory and then infect consumer computers the first time they plug the device in. Digital picture frames sold at Target stores and Best Buy outlets showed up with viruses and Tom Tom navigation gear has been infected as well.
The viruses do things like steal passwords, open doors for hackers and cause your computer to spew spam. And one completely new virus which infected digital picture frames sold at Sam’s clubs not only stole online gaming passwords but actually disassembled virus software.
Knowing just how many of these devices have been infected and passed along to consumers is impossible because of the secrecy kept by electronics manufacturers and the companies they use to build the products. And experts say the numbers of infected products could be huge.
Yep, another example of American business looking out for the best interest of the consumer. And when the foreign companies building the electronics were asked what measures they were taking to help correct the problem they all refused to comment.
Are You Reading The Same Reports I Am?
UCLA issues a report on the economy called the Anderson Report. It has been called "ahead of the curve" in predicting changes in the economy.
Well, this week I think it lost its’ credibility.
In the past the report had been right on in forecasting the downturn in the California housing market and the decline in the economy, but this week it said the state and the nation would not fall into a recession.
Say What????
Three economists on the panel say the present economic conditions don’t match the profile of previous recessions. "The data don’t yet add up to a recession, and there is nothing to challenge the basic story of sluggishness that we have had for two years. Don’t worry, be happy," Edward Leamer said.
Well, pardon me for disagreeing, but take a flying leap economists. The previous model for recession was based on an economy where large layoffs in manufacturing jobs created the problem. But, since we seem to have exported a large number of manufacturing jobs overseas, maybe we need a new measure of what constitutes a recession. Aren’t the crisis in the mortgage market, the unemployment figures and other signals of a slowdown enough?
UCLA needs to get some better economists. Or they need to explain to all those people who just lost their jobs last month how it’s all just a ripple that doesn’t mean anything.
Quickies
True to his word, President Bush vetoed a bill that would have limited the types of interrogation practices the CIA can pursue. The law would have eliminated the use of "waterboarding" and some other tactics that are already prohibited by the military and law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately Congress couldn’t muster the votes to override the veto either.
Some have said Bush is cementing his ’legacy’ in fighting for strong executive powers.
Hell of a legacy if you ask me.
What does it say about a society when it adopts tactics in abhors in others?
Big surprise. A report says the FBI continued in 2006 to improperly use the "national security letter" that allows them to obtain personal information on citizens without a warrant.
The original report on the abuse of the practice covered 2004 and 2005, but since the report wasn’t issued until 2007 no changes could be instituted in time to curb the improper use in 2006. The FBI and Department of Justice claim improvements have been made in the process but a lot of work still needs to be done.
The fight goes on over surveillance legislation. House Democrats agreed Thursday to a closed door discussion of the bill which would extend surveillance programs but not include provisions that exempted telecommunications companies from responsibility for bowing to illegal requests for information.
The rare closed-door session, only five have been held since 1825, hopes to iron out the impasse between Congress and the Bush administration over the immunity. Whether or not any progress will be made before the Easter recess, Bush is still calling for delivery of the bill on his desk before Congress departs.
Another big surprise coming out of the Senate was the failure to pass a bill that would limit the use of earmarks in legislation. Despite all three presidential hopefuls endorsing a one-year limit on earmarks, the full Senate retained the ’privilege’ as one of their perks of office.
