When Hillsborough County first rolled out its new school choice plan, critics weren’t sure that it would accomplish its goal of resegregation, but, defying the naysayers, the school board has managed to turn the clock back 50 years in an impressively short period of time.
The plan is brilliant in its simplicity, yet just burdensome enough to discourage undesirable students from actually making a choice, thus ensuring that the good schools are able to fill up with a homogeneous non-mix of students on their way to one of Florida’s lily white universities, while the poor schools are left to make do with underachievers and other undesirables.
First, the school board crafted rules that put the burden on poor and minority parents to take action if they wanted their kids to remain in the better school away from their neighborhoods. If parents desired a healthy learning environment they were to fill out a school choice application. Or maybe just an intent to return form. Before one deadline or another. If the proper application was not returned to the school board, the children would be housed in neighborhood schools.
The only group of students who had to make this choice were those who were being bused to desirable schools from poor neighborhoods. Whiter, wealthier kids were simply kept in the good schools nearer to their homes.
If parents from poor neighborhoods failed to indicate a preference to have their children return to the good school which they had been attending, they were to indicate which schools they would rather attend. The only catch: all the good schools were already full of wealthy kids, so there was no room for any students from other neighborhoods.
Now, there were a few glithces at first – some parents of poor and minority students who managed to jump through the confusing application process which involved multiple forms and deadlines were actually informed that their kids would be going to good schools. Thanks to the work of some alert wealthy parents, they were soon set straight.
Blaming a computer glitch, Hillsborough school officials said Tuesday that dozens of students were wrongly assigned to crowded schools through the new controlled choice process.
The computer incorrectly enrolled students in schools in which there is no available space, officials said.
The error means these students will not be able to attend their chosen schools next fall despite being notified by mail last week that they could.
……
Students will be enrolled in other schools in their area, preferably those they listed as their second or third choices - as long as those schools have room.
“We’re checking name by name, school by school,” said deputy superintendent Randy Poindexter. “This has to be corrected.”
The problem is the biggest one so far for the choice plan, a new method of assigning students to schools that replaces busing for desegregation. About 47,000 students were eligible to fill out their top three choices of schools in seven geographic regions.
Less than two weeks ago, administrators said 84 percent of the 6,488 students who participated in the choice plan received their first pick of schools.
But as the numbers of students assigned to specific schools began trickling out last week, parents at crowded campuses, including Wilson Middle and Mitchell Elementary, wanted to know why more children were being packed into their already-burgeoning classrooms.
Wilson parent Leigh Joyner complained in an e-mail to School Board members.
“I understand that with Wilson’s outstanding performance it is one of the more desirable middle schools to attend - but at what cost?” she wrote. “Giving someone outside the boundaries the choice to attend an already overcrowded school does not make the school choice program successful.”
Wilson and Plant High parent Jeanne Tate said she has no problem with additional students assigned to her children’s schools if there’s room. But since the schools are packed, she said she believes more crowded conditions would take away from the learning process there.
“We’re very fortunate we have the quality education those schools provide in a public school setting,” she said. “We certainly don’t want to detract from that.”
The school district has a general policy of closing enrollment at schools at 100 percent of capacity. Through the choice program, students were only supposed to be assigned to schools where space was available.
Poindexter said a random review of student assignments showed many anomalies. One was that several Burns Middle School students who are currently bused for desegregation are now assigned through the choice program to Wilson, which is over capacity.
The students should have been assigned to either Coleman, Madison or Monroe middle schools, all of which have space. Wilson, with 637 students, is built to hold 554.
Coleman, Madison and Monroe have room because no one who is concerned about a strong education wants their kids to go to those schools. But they should be good enough for poor kids, right?
Derwin and Loretha Bozeman applied for choice by the Jan. 9 deadline. They showed up with a worn notification card saying they got their first choice of Tampa’s Wilson Middle School for their daughter, Bianqa, who has been attending Pierce Middle School. They then got a letter saying they failed to participate in choice and needed to come to Tuesday’s meeting, they said.
“We were told we can go to either Booker T. Washington or back to Pierce,'’ Derwin Bozeman said. “We want Wilson. It’s the only blue-ribbon school in the area, and we live closer to Wilson than Pierce.'’
As of Friday, the family had made no decision. “This is like a big evacuation of air from the balloon. We don’t know what we’re going to do.'’
The Bozeman family is among a group of 1,500 families the district erroneously assigned to already-crowded schools. They were all supposed to be called, but the Bozemans said they never were.
Choose One Or The Other
Other families said they had applied for choice and magnet programs and were confused about assignments.
That was another problem for the district, Evans said. Families were encouraged to apply for choice and magnet schools, and computers were supposed to sort them out. Instead, they were assigned to both, snapping up spots that others could have had.
Now families dissatisfied with their assignments are being encouraged to apply for special assignments to any district school they want as long as it has room and they provide their own transportation. The deadline is June 30.
Stupid poor people: they should have known that they wouldn’t be allowed to send their daughter to a decent school. Now they’ve gotten all agitated about it. All they have to do is buy their kid a car or provide some other form of reliable transportation and they can send her to any school in the county. Well, any school that is not already full. What’s the big deal?
Anyway, as the resegregation plan started showing results, the school board realized that it had a problem on its hands: so many poor and minority students were being displaced that there just wasn’t enough room in the neighborhood ghetto schools to contain all the kids. Something had to be done, so the school board dusted off some moldy old buildings and declared them fit for learning.
Washington K-8 and James K-8 schools started the school year without enough books, teachers and working toilets.
Students at two others, Oak Park Elementary and Franklin Middle, remain in portable classrooms for a second full year. There’s limited computer access for Franklin students because their portables lack enough security.
Admittedly surprised by the spike, district officials rushed extra tutors to some of the schools in advance of this week’s FCAT testing. They will begin special teacher training in the summer and plan a separate teacher recruiting day, where they will offer more money to experienced teachers.
Frustrated parents are taking note.
“As far as this school getting a fair shake, I don’t see it happening,'’ said Dwayne Ellis, Franklin’s PTA president. His two daughters attend the school.
A year ago, a dozen Hillsborough public schools reported nearly 90 percent or more of their children qualified for free or reduced-price meals based on federal guidelines.
Now there are 23 such schools, a transition tied to a district plan to let some families choose their own schools.
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Hillsborough is following a nationwide pattern of resegregation as it enters its first year of school choice.
The choice plan, which went into effect in August, allows families of certain students to choose from schools in their assigned region as long as there is room. That includes families living in Tampa’s generally impoverished inner core, where forced busing to the suburbs took place for decades to desegregate schools. It ended this year.
Few families from the inner core ended up choosing schools, so most were assigned to their neighborhood schools.
“This was a predictable outcome,'’ said Sam Horton, president of the Hillsborough County branch of the NAACP and a retired educator. “It was about this way in 1954. It’s no different now.'’
Of course it was a predictable outcome: the plan was well designed from the beginning to unfairly place the burden on poor and minority parents to educate themselves about the confusing different application deadlines and requirements that were needed just to allow their kids to remain where they were. If there was room. See, if there was room, that meant that the school wasn’t all that desirable.
Then some brilliant computer ‘glitches’ caused many kids whose parents had successfully navigated the labyrinthine application process to be thrown back to inferior homeland schools thus sparing the privileged children the extreme burden of sharing their good fortune.
But the proof is in the numbers. Just how well is this plan actually working to divide the school system into two or more separate and decidedly unequal educational experiences? Let’s see:
In the last year before school choice, 53 schools had fewer than 30 percent white students. Now the number is 77. Fourteen of those schools are more than 60 percent Hispanic, up from 10 during busing. Nineteen are more than 60 percent African-American, up from 13.
Good job!
For background on Hillsborough’s Homeland Schools Initiatrive, see the following BlogWood posts:
School choice separate but equal
Hillsborough schools achieve goal of resegregation
School resegregation: separate and failing
Posted as Florida, Tampa, War on the poor
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Pat-downs halted - for now
A Hillsborough judge on Thursday ordered a halt to pat-down searches before Tampa Bay Buccaneers games at Raymond James Stadium.
Hillsborough Circuit Judge Perry A. Little issued the temporary injunction nearly two weeks after high school civics teacher Gordon Johnston, 60, sued the Tampa Sports Authority, claiming its decision to implement the searches was unconstitutional.
Little said he initially had doubts about the complaint, but in the end was convinced by legal precedents that the NFL-mandated searches should end.
“I didn’t think personally that what the Tampa Sports Authority was requiring was unreasonable, but our personal beliefs are not the standard we must be guided by,” Little said from the bench. “A random search of 65,000 people every Sunday is not the way.”
Under the judge’s ruling, the Tampa Sports Authority has a right to appeal the injunction and can fight to reinstate the pat-downs in a civil court proceeding.
Until then, however, Bucs fans will not be subject to the controversial searches at home games, including the next one Nov. 6 against the Carolina Panthers. If Johnston wins his lawsuit, the pat-downs would be permanently banned.
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“9/11 was a tragedy in and of itself, but that doesn’t mean, in my opinion, the Constitution has to be ripped up and thrown out the door,” Little said.
Pat-Down Injunction Ordered
The Tampa Sports Authority began the searches this year as an antiterrorism measure mandated by the National Football League.
Two weeks ago, high school civics teacher Gordon Johnston, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit against the Tampa Sports Authority asking for an end to physical searches.
……
John Goldsmith, who represented Johnston, congratulated his client.
“I think a lot of times the easiest thing for people is to go along,” Goldsmith said. “Unfortunately, going along is what allows our constitutional rights to be violated. It takes somebody who’s willing to stand up and protest to make our country work.”
Richard Zabak, who represents the sports authority, said he was disappointed by the ruling and was not sure what authority officials will do next.
“We respectfully disagree,” he said. “I don’t know how this is going to evolve.”
The injunction’s effect on the rest of the nation was unclear Thursday.
NFL officials stood by their policy.
“We are disappointed by this initial decision,” said Greg Aiello, an NFL spokesman. “Pat-downs at other NFL stadiums should not be affected by this ruling. We believe these limited screenings are reasonable and important to the protection of our fans.”
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In closing arguments Thursday, Goldsmith asked a rhetorical question: “Where do we draw the line?”
Do we pat-down people when they leave their house, he asked; do we search them before they get on a bus; do we search them before a baseball game or a basketball game?
“To permit that is to undo the very principles this country was founded on,” he said.
Well, the pat downs are gone, for now, as they should be. But what both articles seem to be missing is that the case hinges on the fact that the searches are being paid for by a governmental agency. If the Bucs decide to bear the cost themselves, the intrusive unconstitutional searches may well resume.
Posted as Civil Liberties, Florida, National, Tampa
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Everyone knows that for years the godless heathens on the left have been waging a war against Christmas, mustering their troops to steal the season from the righteous in an evil attempt to secularize the holy holiday.
When we began the Christmas season this year, we were all very much aware that a war was being waged by the Christmas grinches — the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and other secularists, to steal Christmas from America. To not only take Christ out of Christmas, but to remove Christmas totally from the American scene. I am happy to announce today that we are winning the Christmas war.
If Jerry Falwell says that the war is being won, well, you better believe it. In fact, it seems that the war against the war against Christmas is going so well that the faithful can now go on the offensive. Over ten people in more than one state have joined together to fight Goth teenagers and others who would dare to celebrate autumn by gorging on candy and dressing up in silly costumes. These brave Christian heroes are willing to sacrifice themselves and their families, quite possibly becoming victims of tricks as they wage the war against Halloween.
Ghosts, goblins and gremlins, get thee behind me. There’s no such ghoulish decor at Pam and Bill Malone’s house — just a twinkling angel.
Trick-or-treaters here will get a different sort of goody, too: prayers, a Bible tract, a pe ncil that says, “Smile, God loves you.”
Since 1996, the Wesley Chapel couple have been observing Halloween by celebrating their faith — with anyone who happens by.
“We also give out Krispy Kreme doughnuts and something hot or cold to drink,” said Pam, 61. “This gets them to hang around for a while.”
The Malones, founders of Pray U.S.A! ministry, call their hallowed alternative Light the Night; it’s replicated across the country by dozens of supporters. They pull out the Christmas lights a month early, set up tables stocked with religious trinkets and refreshments, and prepare for prayer.
“There’s a lot of evil that goes on Halloween night,” said Bill Malone, 65, who traded in a career in sales for ministry. “We want to be just the opposite of that and show peace, joy and love.”
Besides, he said, it’s the perfect night to evangelize.
“Instead of knocking on people’s doors, we stay home and they come to us.”
The Malones figure they’ve ministered to thousands of youngsters and their parents, first in San Francisco, then St. Louis, and now in their Westbrook subdivision. Only once was their offer of a blessing rejected, they said.
“That just tells us that people are hungry, and it’s not just for doughnuts,” Bill said.
(Ed. note: or maybe, just maybe people are too polite to tell Bill to fuck off.)
In St. Louis, Irma Weber, of Evangelistic Team Concept Ministries, has been lighting up the night since 1999, giving out free notebooks, palm-size books of Bible verses and doughnuts with hot chocolate or cider. She estimates she and her husband get 800 to 1,000 visitors a year.
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Sharon Feliciano, of Granite City, Ill., said she and her husband abandoned tradition and started their own Light the Night three years ago, giving out Twinkies and Bible tracts. They decided it was a welcome alternative to the “ghoulish Halloween production” set up on their neighbor’s lawn across the street.
“We had a few Goth-dressed people who backed away from us, but they were teens who shouldn’t have been out anyway,” she said. “For the most part, everyone loves it.”
Goths in the streets?!? What has become of our beloved country? Thank God people like Sharon are around to save us from the evil teens dressed in black. (Some of them even put black polish on their fingernails, and they’re known to fornicate outside of marriage!)
Anyway, by seizing control of Halloween and occupying the holiday with an army of Christians, this movement may well hobble the evil that gallops in every fall. Be strong.
Some may consider celebrating Halloween as only a little compromise. However, it is the “little foxes” that spoil the vines and this little compromise can open the door to other evils. Many Christians do not realize that certain traditions that are celebrated in the world have evil origins. Just because our society partakes in certain activities does not make them acceptable for Christians.
Posted as National, Tampa, Religion, Culture war
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It’s New Orleans redux in South Florida, as FEMA drops the ball and Jeb! tries to deflect blame from his brother by taking responsibility for sloppy planning and implementation of disaster recovery.
Well, Jeb!’s not accepting full responsibility – he thinks that people who were unable to stockpile supplies are dumbasses because they failed to attain the financial means necessary to fully prepare for the destruction of a storm that most experts felt would blow through without causing severe damage to South Florida. Really.
“People had ample time to prepare. It isn’t that hard to get 72 hours worth of food and water,…” Bush said.
Like the imbecile who blames a rape victim for inviting an attack by dressing provocatively, Jeb! just doesn’t get it.
Posted as Florida, War on the poor
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Don’t be fooled by the rhetorical crap spewing forth from orificial Wal-Mart sources. While the company publicly claims to have seen the light on environmental issues and has even come out in favor of raising the minimum wage, internal documents reveal the truly sinister nature of the evil behemoth.
The AP reports that Wal-Mart is going green, sorta. Seeking to cut costs and salve a wounded reputation, the retailer will buy trucks that get better mileage and try to make do with less cardboard boxes.
And in a bid to divert attention from the fact that Wal-Mart employees can’t afford basic necessities such as health care and rent, Wal-Mart has generously called for the feds to raise the minimum wage. The company has no plans to increase the wages it pays to its workers.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. unveiled an environmental plan Tuesday to boost energy efficiency, reduce waste and trim greenhouse gases as part of a wider effort to address issues where it has been pummeled by critics.
Wal-Mart chief executive Lee Scott said even a slight increase in Wal-Mart pay would eliminate a profit margin that generated $10-billion in profits last year.
Scott said the world’s largest retailer had to be a “good steward for the environment” and thought that adopting greener practices would also be good for business by cutting costs.
“We are going to do well by doing good,” he said.
But while Wal-Mart touted its environmental plan, Scott rejected calls to increase workers’ pay that unions and other critics say is often below poverty level. Instead, he urged Congress to look at raising the U.S. minimum hourly wage for the first time since the mid 1990s.
Finally, in a much ballyhooed move, Wal-Mart loudly announced that it was making health care more affordable. Now, Wal-Mart associates need only fork over a sixth or so of their salary to see a doctor.
But wont all of these progressive sounding moves have an impact on Wal-Mart’s huge annual profits? Uh, probably not.
An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart’s board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer’s reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.
In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years’ seniority earn more than workers with one year’s seniority, but are no more productive.
To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for “all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering).”
The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefit costs because critics had attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart’s 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid.
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Under fire because less than 45 percent of its workers receive company health insurance, Wal-Mart announced a new plan on Monday that seeks to increase participation by allowing some employees to pay just $11 a month in premiums. Some health experts praised the plan for making coverage more affordable, but others criticized it, noting that full-time Wal-Mart employees, who earn on average around $17,500 a year, could face out-of-pocket expenses of $2,500 a year or more.
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Ms. Chambers proposed that employees pay more for their spouses’ health insurance. She called for cutting 401(k) contributions to 3 percent of wages from 4 percent and cutting company-paid life insurance policies to $12,000 from the current level, equal to an employee’s annual earnings.
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Ms. Chambers’s memo voiced concern that workers were staying with the company longer, pushing up wage costs, although she stopped short of calling for efforts to push out more senior workers.
She wrote that “the cost of an associate with seven years of tenure is almost 55 percent more than the cost of an associate with one year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity. Moreover, because we pay an associate more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases, we are pricing that associate out of the labor market, increasing the likelihood that he or she will stay with Wal-Mart.”
The memo noted that Wal-Mart workers “are getting sicker than the national population, particularly in obesity-related diseases,” including diabetes and coronary artery disease. The memo said Wal-Mart workers tended to overuse emergency rooms and underuse prescriptions and doctor visits, perhaps from previous experience with Medicaid.
The memo noted, “The least healthy, least productive associates are more satisfied with their benefits than other segments and are interested in longer careers with Wal-Mart.”
The memo proposed incorporating physical activity in all jobs and promoting health savings accounts. Such accounts are financed with pretax dollars and allow workers to divert their contributions into retirement savings if they are not all spent on health care. Health experts say these accounts will be more attractive to younger, healthier workers.
“It will be far easier to attract and retain a healthier work force than it will be to change behavior in an existing one,” the memo said. “These moves would also dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Wal-Mart.”
Ron Pollack, executive director of Families U.S.A., a health care consumer-advocacy group, criticized the memo for recommending that more workers move into health plans with high deductibles.
“Their people are paying a very substantial portion of their earnings out of pocket for health care,” he said. “These plans will cause these workers and their families to defer or refrain from getting needed care.”
Posted as National, Workers, War on the poor
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Ag-Mart, the Plant City producer of the popular Santa Sweets brand pesticide laden tomato, continues to rack up fines for possibly poisoning its workers, and at least one major grocery chain has decided to stop carrying its products pending an internal investigation into the possible poisoning of customers.
This time, it’s North Carolina making the accusations that the farming giant broke rules about pesticide use, including sending workers into freshly sprayed fields and sending produce off to market too soon after applying poisons. Last week, Florida imposed over $111,000 in fines for similar violations.
And Publix has decided to drop Santa Sweets until it can be determined if tomatoes with excess pesticide residue are being shipped and sold.
Despite the mounting evidence, record fines in 2 states, and an ongoing investigation in a third state, Ag-Mart seems to be in a state of denial, claiming that all the investigators are wrong and that this whole thing is just a big misunderstanding.
See, despite a complex mapping and labeling system for their fields, they really don’t know when workers are actually in said fields, so the investigators have no way of knowing, based on the shoddy records that Ag-Mart provided, whether or not workers were exposed to illegal and unsafe levels of freshly applied chemicals.
But even with the company’s strident protestations to the contrary, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Santa Sweets brand tomatoes are evil.
On September 26th……, Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson stood on the steps of the courthouse …… with a basket of potentially toxic fruit. Despite warnings that its poison would turn his blood to acid, he told several hundred cheering spectators that he planned to eat the entire basket - and survive.
“The foolish Colonel will foam and froth at the mouth,” his own doctor shouted, “and double over with appendicitis…… one dose and he is dead. He might even be exposing himself to brain fever. Should he by some unlikely chance survive his skin will stick to his stomach and cause cancer.”
Posted as Florida, National, Tampa, Workers
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C.S. Lewis and Christian Allegory:
The problem is, Lewis either wasn’t capable of or didn’t think highly of subtlety. The Christian allusions in the books come on fast and strong, with little apparent effort to construct a story that might exist independently of the religious references. As a point of contrast, consider J.R.R. Tolkein’s books which also contain Christian references. In that case, the references can be missed because they are buried in a deep, complex story that can stand independently of Christianity.
Group wants nonreligious book for contest
Gov. Jeb Bush’s promotion of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for a statewide reading contest violates the U.S. Constitution, the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said Thursday, asking in a letter that Bush add an alternative, nonreligious book to the contest.
Students should have the option of reading a book other than a Christian-themed book by C.S. Lewis, the group’s director, Barry Lynn, wrote Thursday.
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The governor’s Just Read, Florida office last month announced that children could win a trip to a Disney resort and see the Orlando premier of the film version of the book if, depending on the grade level, they wrote an essay, drew an illustration or produced a short movie based on the story.
Lynn, a lawyer and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, cited court cases that he said support his idea that “the state’s sponsorship of this contest creates the appearance of a governmental endorsement of the book’s religious message, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
The movie is being co-produced by the Walt Disney Co. and Walden Media, which is owned by Philip Anschutz, a devout Presbyterian and Colorado billionaire who — with his family, his foundation and his company — has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates and causes.
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But Lynn’s letter cited Lewis, who said that he hoped his Chronicles of Narnia books, of which the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first written, would “make it easier for children to accept Christianity when they met it later in life.”
Posted as Florida, Religion, Politics
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Jeb!’s Medicaid Eradication Plan, which conservatives are fervently hoping to use a model in other states, has been approved by the feds.
A special session of the Florida Legislature will be required for the plan to meet its July 1 target date to start services in Broward and Duval counties. Otherwise, Jeb!’s plan to kill the poor will be delayed until the rules can be enacted in a regular session.
Both the SP Times and the Tampa Trib fail to point out that Florida’s rapidly rising Medicaid costs are inflated by a surge in enrollment – Medicaid is actually more efficient at treating patients than the private sector and per patient costs have risen less in Medicaid. Jeb! Refuses to say what the new premiums will cost, but rising profits for HMOs are in the forecast.
Here’s a BlogWood post from March with some relevant background on Jeb!’s Medicaid Eradication Plan:
Ever since Social Security was enacted, in 1935, Republicans have been questioning its solvency. They continue to use those same type of arguments today, disingenuously proclaiming that we must destroy Social Security in order to save it, when, in fact, a tiny bit of tinkering, such as raising the Social Security taxable income cap, is all that is really needed to keep the program strong.
In Florida, Jeb! is taking a page from the GOP’s anti-Security play book in an attempt to gut the state’s Medicaid system which provides health insurance for the poor and disabled.
It’s all about money. The affluent self-described conservative ruling class is comprised of greedy, short sighted con men. Born into wealth and power, they see themselves as self made (Jim Hightower would say ‘born on third base and thought he hit a triple…’), and they combine a lack of compassion for the lower classes with an avarice that knows no bounds.
The goal is the killing of government services that benefit all citizens, and the preferred method is starvation. Public schools, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare - these are all described as unnecessary wastes of taxpayer dollars, and all are under attack.
First, they cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy. The resulting loss of revenue predictably creates a fiscal crisis, and the only way out, we are told, is to cut spending on programs that the poor and middle class rely on to make ends meet and even to stay alive.
Jeb! has pushed through $11 billion in tax cuts since he became Governor. He’s proposing even more cuts this year, and, not surprisingly, he’s insisting that Medicaid is breaking the state budget’s back and that education spending will zoom out of control if the voter mandated class size caps are allowed to fully kick in.
His plan for Medicaid is to privatize by throwing money at HMOs, a group which has given heavily to the GOP cause. Jeb!’s other privatization schemes have largely crashed and burned, proving more costly than government run programs and often being accompanied by graft and corruption.
This time, he’ll insure the insurers by instituting draconian caps on Medicaid spending and greatly limiting prescription medications, thus providing EZ profits for the private healthcare providers. Many sick people will fall through the cracks and die, which should improve long term profits, but local municipalities and hospitals will be forced to pick up where the new Medicaid leaves off, a cost shift that will let Jeb! show a ’savings’ in the state budget.
Medicaid costs are rising, but that’s mostly due to a surge in enrollment - perhaps a result of the low wage jobs that have typically been created under Jeb! - and Medicaid’s per patient costs are rising less than private insurance per patient costs. In other words, Medicaid is more efficient than the private sector.
Further, much of Medicaid’s costs are paid for by the federal government. The costs to the state are much less than Jeb! would have you believe.
A close look at what we know of Jeb!’s proposal reveals that, much like his brother’s Social Security arguments, the ‘crisis’ is an invention, a PR tool designed to provide cover for the real agenda: the destruction of the social safety net.
Posted as Florida, National, War on the poor, Politics
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Despite the length of quoted text, I left a lot out. Go read the whole thing.
Let those dopers be
# A former police chief wants to end a losing war by legalizing pot, coke, meth and other drugs
By Norm Stamper, Norm Stamper is the former chief of the Seattle Police Department. He is the author of “Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing” (Nation Books, 2005).
SOMETIMES PEOPLE in law enforcement will hear it whispered that I’m a former cop who favors decriminalization of marijuana laws, and they’ll approach me the way they might a traitor or snitch. So let me set the record straight.
Yes, I was a cop for 34 years, the last six of which I spent as chief of Seattle’s police department.
But no, I don’t favor decriminalization. I favor legalization, and not just of pot but of all drugs, including heroin, cocaine, meth, psychotropics, mushrooms and LSD.
Decriminalization, as my colleagues in the drug reform movement hasten to inform me, takes the crime out of using drugs but continues to classify possession and use as a public offense, punishable by fines.
I’ve never understood why adults shouldn’t enjoy the same right to use verboten drugs as they have to suck on a Marlboro or knock back a scotch and water.
……
It’s not a stretch to conclude that our draconian approach to drug use is the most injurious domestic policy since slavery. Want to cut back on prison overcrowding and save a bundle on the construction of new facilities? Open the doors, let the nonviolent drug offenders go. The huge increases in federal and state prison populations during the 1980s and ’90s (from 139 per 100,000 residents in 1980 to 482 per 100,000 in 2003) were mainly for drug convictions. In 1980, 580,900 Americans were arrested on drug charges. By 2003, that figure had ballooned to 1,678,200. We’re making more arrests for drug offenses than for murder, manslaughter, forcible rape and aggravated assault combined. Feel safer?
I’ve witnessed the devastating effects of open-air drug markets in residential neighborhoods: children recruited as runners, mules and lookouts; drug dealers and innocent citizens shot dead in firefights between rival traffickers bent on protecting or expanding their markets; dedicated narcotics officers tortured and killed in the line of duty; prisons filled with nonviolent drug offenders; and drug-related foreign policies that foster political instability, wreak health and environmental disasters, and make life even tougher for indigenous subsistence farmers in places such as Latin America and Afghanistan. All because we like our drugs — and can’t have them without breaking the law.
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In declaring a war on drugs, we’ve declared war on our fellow citizens. War requires “hostiles” — enemies we can demonize, fear and loathe. This unfortunate categorization of millions of our citizens justifies treating them as dope fiends, evil-doers, less than human. That grants political license to ban the exchange or purchase of clean needles or to withhold methadone from heroin addicts motivated to kick the addiction.
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How would “regulated legalization” work? It would: 1) Permit private companies to compete for licenses to cultivate, harvest, manufacture, package and peddle drugs.
2) Create a new federal regulatory agency (with no apologies to libertarians or paleo-conservatives).
3) Set and enforce standards of sanitation, potency and purity.
4) Ban advertising.
5) Impose (with congressional approval) taxes, fees and fines to be used for drug-abuse prevention and treatment and to cover the costs of administering the new regulatory agency.
6) Police the industry much as alcoholic beverage control agencies keep a watch on bars and liquor stores at the state level. Such reforms would in no way excuse drug users who commit crimes: driving while impaired, providing drugs to minors, stealing an iPod or a Lexus, assaulting one’s spouse, abusing one’s child. The message is simple. Get loaded, commit a crime, do the time.
These reforms would yield major reductions in a host of predatory street crimes, a disproportionate number of which are committed by users who resort to stealing in order to support their habit or addiction.
Regulated legalization would soon dry up most stockpiles of currently illicit drugs — substances of uneven, often questionable quality (including “bunk,” i.e., fakes such as oregano, gypsum, baking powder or even poisons passed off as the genuine article). It would extract from today’s drug dealing the obscene profits that attract the needy and the greedy and fuel armed violence. And it would put most of those certifiably frightening crystal meth labs out of business once and for all.
Combined with treatment, education and other public health programs for drug abusers, regulated legalization would make your city or town an infinitely healthier place to live and raise a family.
The demand for illicit drugs is as strong as the nation’s thirst for bootleg booze during Prohibition. It’s a demand that simply will not dwindle or dry up. Whether to find God, heighten sexual arousal, relieve physical pain, drown one’s sorrows or simply feel good, people throughout the millenniums have turned to mood- and mind-altering substances.
Posted as Civil Liberties, National, Politics
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