The Healthcare Bill in Plain English

What’s the in the health care bill being reconciled in Congress? Here’s a clean break down from the Washington Post.

White House Begins To Strengthen Support for Education Plan

President Obama introduced his blueprint for Education Reform last Friday and Saturday detailing how his administration plans to move forward on reforming the latest incarnation of the ESEA Act, No Child Left Behind. Department of Education officials have described this as a scaling back of federal presence in good schools while applying strong intervention methods and strict mandates for the lowest performing schools in the country.

Education Secretary Arnie Duncan points out that this revision fixes the problem of dumbed down tests, an occurrence that was recorded in many states after the passage of NCLB by requiring each state to pass rigid and challenging standards.  One of the boldest moves by President Obama is a change in how Title I federal education funds is disturbed. By asking states to compete for them through grants rather than a per pupil formula the administration is ready to change “about 40 years of established formula funding and to change an accountability system that a lot of people are wedded to because it’s forced us to come to grips with the achievement gap,” said Bob Wise a former West Virginia governor who leads the Alliance for Excellent Education, a nonprofit group

Many of its detractors, especially among union leaders, have focused on changes to teacher evaluation procedures that moves away from certifying a teacher’s credentials and focusing on new systems that distinguish effective instructors by using student progress as its foundation. Both the UFT and the NEA have publicly commented that Obama’s plan will allow unnecessary micromanagement over local school district, massive teacher firings and place 100% of the accountability on teachers with little or no power to create change in the system.

While these sides fight it out take a look for yourself by downloading the President’s plan here.

Census: It’s Important… Really, REEAALLLY Important

Right-wing radio is making an issue of the fact that the Census Bureau is over budget already. They also don’t think the money spent on the Super Bowl Commercial was wisely allocated.  I’m enormously supportive of the idea of the Census being everywhere, including the Super Bowl. In modern society, you have to be completely overwhelmed with something for it to register as a big deal. The Census is certainly a big deal. So I’m glad that I saw an ad at the movie theater last night. It’s on TV, fliers litter the streets, it’s in the papers, on the radio, even on the internet: Census 2010 Website (it’s actually pretty awesome; you should check it out).

On that note, the Census has sent out its questionnaires, and if you’re even thinking about not filling it out or sending it in, read on:

You see, there is a tremendous amount riding on this year’s Census. The political wonk in me wants to wax poetic about the Census’s effects on redistricting: the process which immediately follows the Census where we reexamine each State’s allotment of Congressmembers and redraw our legislative district lines, from Congress to City Council, accordingly. NY will likely lose a congressional seat, and our State Legislature’s lines will be redrawn to either promote or prevent progressive legislation for the next 10 years, depending on the party in power when the lines are drawn.

But, that’s not even the worst consequence on not fulfilling your civic duty. Our esteemed Borough President Scott Stringer just sent me an email that sums it up pretty well:

Based on the results of the Census, the federal government distributes $400 billion in aid among the states – a significant portion of which may benefit New York City.

This funding supports vital social service programs that may affect you or someone you know, such as the Medical Assistance Program for healthcare, Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers for public housing, Federal Transit Capital Investment Grants for transportation initiatives, Title I Grants for our schools, Head Start educational programs and many more. Without these programs, thousands of families would go without public housing assistance and New York City children would lack additional educational programs to help them succeed in school. That is why every person must be counted.

The letter goes on to explain that this is a community outreach effort coordinated by Manhattan elected officials and community groups to get the word out.  They have a Facebook group. Become a fan! You can watch a video from the Census below.

Read more

Democratic Party In Manhattan

Party politics is complicated and people throw terms around like state committeeman, district leader, party club, and county committee and almost no one knows what they all mean. Over the last week or so, I’ve been working to decode the tea leaves and come to grips with all the various layers of the Democratic Party here in the city and the state.

Districts
The start of the confusion is that there are many different “districts” that every voter belongs to. Lets go through the types of districts that are important to Democratic party structure from biggest to smallest, starting with the Assembly District. As a disclaimer, I am only sure of this structure in Manhattan. The state committee is the same everywhere, but district leader can mean different things in different Boroughs, and certainly the structure does not translate well to different parts of the state which can have assembly districts spanning multiple counties, town committees, etc.

State Assembly Districts
Each voter is in an assembly district, and each assembly district (shockingly!) elects a member of the state assembly, the New York State equivalent of the House of Representatives. There are 12 assembly districts that are within New York County (a.k.a. Manhattan), numbered from 64 to 75. After the 2000 Census, each assembly district contained about 126,510 people. Obviously that has changed over time, and the districts will be redrawn soon after the upcoming census. Every assembly district is represented in the New York State Democratic Committee (the state-level governing body of the Democratic Party) by two Democratic State Committee members: one male and one female.

Executive Districts (Assembly District “Parts”)
In certain counties within New York City, each assembly district is broken down into “parts.” In these counties, each assembly district can have between two and four parts. Unlike assembly districts, these parts need not be contiguous, but are always within the same assembly district. Each part is presented by two elected District Leaders: one male and one female.  District Leaders serve on the Executive Committee of their County Democratic Committee, and are more or less the NYC analog to Democratic chairmen of cities/towns/villages outside the five boroughs. Local Clubs, which often exist within one assembly district, can represent more than one Assembly District Part.

Election Districts
Election districts (sometimes called “EDs” by people who spend time on campaigns) are the smallest and most basic district type, and they are the building blocks out of which all the larger district types are constructed. The ED is made up of all the people who are assigned to vote on a particular voting machine (certain large EDs may have two voting machines, but you get the point). A typical ED has between 400 to 800 registered voters and never more than 1,000. Each ED can be directly represented on its County Democratic Committee by two (or sometimes up to four) county committee members.

Committees
We’re represented by various Democratic committees, that correspond to each of the districts above. Let’s go through them from biggest to smallest.

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Texas Board of Education Rewriting History

On Friday, the Texas Board of Education approved new social studies standards for their state. This might not sound all that important, but Texas is the second largest textbook buyer in the country, and since the largest market (California) has no money, it disproportionally affects what our nation’s students learn in their history classes.

After experts write proposed standards, the Board can amend them by majority vote. Seven of the 14 members make up a seriously conservative bloc and they have passed more than 160 amendments to the standards. The NY Times Magazine wrote a story on the board last month, and noted that one of the prominent conservative members

moved that Margaret Sanger, the birth-control pioneer, be included because she “and her followers promoted eugenics,” that language be inserted about Ronald Reagan’s “leadership in restoring national confidence” following Jimmy Carter’s presidency and that students be instructed to “describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.

Most of the amendments passed. Sad to think that for many students across the country, history is being shaped and rewritten by a bloc of members on the Texas Board of Education.

Read more

More Bad News From The MTA, More Hypocrisy From Albany

Ready to pay more for less subway and bus service? On Friday, the New York Post reported that the MTA may raise fares this year, as the transit agency’s finances continue to deteriorate.  The package of transit, student MetroCard, and paratransit cuts currently planned would close a $383 million budget gap — but since they were announced, that gap has grown to $750 million.  What are some of the reasons? Per the Post, “the state cut aid to the MTA, took money from its tax revenues, and miscalculated how much the agency would get in payroll tax revenues.”

Responding to the story, Streetsblog dug a little deeper into last year’s budget deal (the same one where the state basically abandoned its commitment to help pay for free student MetroCards) to illustrate what state politicians did: They raided funds from certain tax revenues that, by law, are supposed to go to transit in New York City and its suburbs.

By the way, voting in favor of what Streetsblog calls “picking money from straphangers’ pockets” has not stopped state politicians from blasting the MTA for its plans to cut service.  The Daily News has written a series of editorials (see part 1, part 2, and part 3) identifying those legislators who showed up at this month’s public hearings to complain about service cuts they helped create. If transit fares do go up this year, riders might want to send the bill to Albany.

States Are Starting To Move On National Standards

The results of a national common standards initiative were released this week by a panel commissioned through a partnership of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. This state-lead push for national standards has been given the thumbs up by the policy planners behind President Obama’s education agenda and the recent “Race to the Top” grant competition. If adopted on a large scale, this could have lasting implications on how education is structure in 48 states (Alaska and Texas declined to participate).

Experts believe that if the report’s recommendations was adopted, its effects would completely reform how we collect data on student’s performance impacting continuous areas of debate from classroom size to charter school funding

Chester E. Finn Jr., a former assistant secretary of education and an advocate for national standards for nearly two decades had this to say:

I’d say this is one of the most important events of the last several years in American education…Now we have the possibility that for the first time, states could come together around new standards and high school graduation requirements that are ambitious and coherent. This is a big deal.

Student MetroCards: Who’s to Blame?

The MTA has been holding public hearings on planned cuts that will decimate transit riders, add even more inconvenience to the lives of the disabled and others reliant on Access-a-Ride, and force New York City students to pay just to get to school. In a word, it’s shameful.

But does the MTA deserve all the blame? Take a look at this chart, from transit blogger Benjamin Kabak at Second Avenue Sagas:

The MTA, New York City, and the state agreed to split the cost of providing free student transit passes back in 1995. But since then, the school population has grown and the cost of the program has risen to $214 million — and the contributions from the city and state have remained the same. In fact, Gov. Paterson and the State Legislature cut the state’s share from $45 million to $6 million last year! (Paterson later agreed to increase it — but to just $25 million.)

The Daily News gets it. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Council Transportation Chair James Vacca get it. They wrote an op-ed in the Daily News saying the city should consider increasing aid to the student transit program if the state does too.

But a lot of elected officials don’t get it. It’s easy to call the MTA “immoral” for abandoning its responsibility to New York City students, as 24 State Assemblymembers did in a recent letter. It’s harder for them to understand that they have responsibilities too.

IBO Conducts Study On Charter Versus Public Spending

In a request by Patrick Sullivan, the Manhattan Borough president’s appointed representative to the Panel of Education Policy, the Independent Budget Office (IBO) focused their latest audit on per pupil funding allocations of taxpayer dollars to charter versus public schools.

The final results, with no surprise, were murky as to whether there is a clean cut winner or loser. Charter school supporters were more than eager to point out that despite claims made by their detractors, children in charter schools actually received less funding per head. The differences ranged from $305 for charter schools students on city owned property and shot up to $3,017 for schools that reside in private buildings. Charter school spending was compared to an average spending per pupil of $16,678 for a traditional public school student.

However public school defenders led by UFT President Michael Mulgrew shot back saying:

The difference between funding for public schools and charter schools in public buildings is negligible; when you add in the private funding that many charter schools get, I’m sure that we’ll find that many charter schools have resources that are well beyond those of public schools

Also the IBO notes the benefits of pass-through services provided by the Department of Education, especially those charters housed within already existing public schools. This arrangement allows them to avoid paying for much of the operational costs involved in maintaining a private building. Read more

Food Policy Is Next On The Plate For Some NYC Democrats

Public officials are making good on promises made last year to take a long look at food policy in New York City. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn included this topic in her recent State of the City address and spoke about the impact our local food industry has on economic development:

One of our strongest business sectors is food manufacturing. It’s a five billion dollar industry that employs tens of thousands of New Yorkers.

Last year, working with Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito, we began helping even more of our best cooks start their own businesses. Many of them can’t afford their own industrial kitchen space. So this summer we’re opening a brand new shared kitchen in East Harlem.

Working with Council Member Margaret Chin, we’re developing a proposal for a brand new public market for regional foods.

Public markets like these serve as major tourist attractions and centers of economic activity for other cities. Pike Place in Seattle is home to nearly 200 businesses and 5,000 jobs, and it attracts an average of 8 -10 million visitors a year. New Yorkers are hungry for those same opportunities.

Quinn is not alone. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is another Democrat who recognizes the importance of a uniformed approach to how food is handled, which is why his office has released “FoodNYC: A Blueprint for a Sustainable Food System” (click here to download pdf), a comprehensive plan for everything from sustainable food processing to  food education, a first for New York City. In a recent press release Stringer said

By devoting serious attention to our food system, city government can in one stroke improve public health, sustainability, and job creation. In recent years, there’s been growing interest in this issue, but we’re still left with a grab bag of disjointed, independent initiatives.  Now, with the help of hundreds of dedicated New Yorkers, the document we’re releasing today will for the first time present a single, comprehensive vision for food policy in this city.

Anna Lappé, food policy expert and author of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It added:

This report puts New York City at the forefront of an exciting movement across the country in which citizens are developing practical solutions to fixing our broken food system while improving our health, boosting the economy, and healing the environment

In a city known for its selection, its palette and its appetite, pragmatic approaches to protecting our food sources should bring big rewards in the future.

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