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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Username: Admin
Post Number: 31233
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2012 - 11:03 pm: | 
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Mayan end-of-world prompt Michigan close schools
Posted by or from a variety of publications on EducationViews
December 20, 2012
More than 30 Michigan schools closed for the holidays two days early, in part because the Mayan calendar predicts the world will end on Friday, an official said.
Matt Wandrie, superintendent for Lapeer Community Schools, said doomsday “rumors” are running rampant in several districts, adding to fears raised by last week’s school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
“Given the recent events in Connecticut, there have been numerous rumors circulating in our district, and in neighboring districts, about potential threats of violence against students,” Wandrie wrote on his website.
“Additionally, rumors connected to the Mayan calendar predicted end of the world on Friday have also surfaced,” he added.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 31226
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2012 - 12:27 am: |
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The Unequal State of America: a Reuters series
The Decline of the "Great Equalizer"
Massachusetts, home to America's best schools and best-educated workforce, has seen income inequality soar. Why? The poor are losing an academic arms race with the rich.
By DAVID ROHDE, KRISTINA COOKE AND HIMANSHU OJHA / Reuters
BOSTON, DECEMBER 19, 2012
"Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of the conditions of men -- the balance wheel of the social machinery."
Horace Mann, pioneering American educator, 1848
"In America, education is still the great equalizer."
Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, 2011
BOSTON - When Puritan settlers established America's first public school here in 1635, they planted the seed of a national ideal: that education should serve as the country's "great equalizer."
Americans came to believe over time that education could ensure that all children of any class had a shot at success. And if any state should be able to make that belief a reality, it was Massachusetts.
image
The Bay State is home to America's oldest school, Boston Latin, and its oldest college, Harvard. It was the first state to appoint an education secretary, Horace Mann, who penned the "equalizer" motto in 1848. Today, Massachusetts has the country's greatest concentration of elite private colleges, and its students place first in nationwide Department of Education rankings.
Yet over the past 20 years, America's best-educated state also has experienced the country's second-biggest increase in income inequality, according to a Reuters analysis of U.S. Census data. As the gap between rich and poor widens in the world's richest nation, America's best-educated state is among those leading the way.
Between 1989 and 2011, the average income of the state's top fifth of households jumped 17 percent. The middle fifth's income dropped 2 percent, and the bottom fifth's fell 9 percent. Massachusetts now has one of the widest chasms between rich and poor in America: It is the seventh-most unequal of the 50 states, according to a Reuters ranking of income inequality. Two decades ago, it placed 23rd.
If the great equalizer's ability to equalize America is dwindling, it's not because education is growing less important in the modern economy. Paradoxically, it's precisely because schooling is now even more important.
 As usual, the press gets it exactly backwards. It isn't the amount of education that produces income disparity, it's the educated elite that causes it by writing laws and regulations that value the work they do far more than they value the work of others. Among those contributing to the problem of income disparity are public school teachers. The problem here isn't education, it's ethics.
quote:The least-educated Americans are the most exploited people in our society. In many instances, the most educated Americans exploit the less educated Americans to acquire great wealth.
--E. Maner, Augusta Georgia Educator, from this editorial.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 31207
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 17, 2012 - 10:30 pm: |
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Who Can Still Afford State U ?
As public colleges spend more and get less from the states, tuition costs are shifting to parents and students—often putting higher education out of reach.
By SCOTT THURM / WALL STREET JOURNAL with over 140 comments
Dec 14, 2012
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A number of factors have helped to fuel the soaring cost of public colleges. Administrative costs have soared nationwide, and many administrators have secured big pay increases—including some at CU, in 2011. Teaching loads have declined for tenured faculty at many schools, adding to costs. Between 2001 and 2011, the Department of Education says, the number of managers at U.S. colleges and universities grew 50% faster than the number of instructors. What's more, schools have spent liberally on fancier dorms, dining halls and gyms to compete for students.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 31181
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2012 - 11:59 pm: |
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People Worldwide Are Living Longer But Sicker
Medical News Today
14 Dec 2012
People worldwide are living longer and sicker; injuries, mental health disorders, pain and disabilities are undermining people's overall health, according to the "Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010)", published in The Lancet today.
Should have left the smokers alone.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 31125
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 - 9:54 pm: |
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Is a Teacher, Employer Skills Mismatch Driving Unemployment?
Julia Lawrence / Education News
Dec 6, 2012
Of course the mismatch is contributing to problems. But the biggest mismatch isn't teachers, it's classrooms. We don't need 50% of the classrooms we have. We need anytime, anyplace, online real-life simulations for students to learn by. Subject-based, age-determined classroom instruction has got to go.
Even when mixed with the grim aggregate unemployment data from around the country, rates of joblessness for young people appear particularly dire. While the unemployment rate for the country as a whole continues to bounce between 8.5% and 9.5%, the number of working youth dropped by almost half since 2000 and is now at its lowest rate since 1950.
A recent report from The Annie E. Casey Foundation blames structural economic problems, including the fallout from the 2008 fiscal collapse for the high joblessness numbers. The report speculates that more experienced adults, left out in the cold by employment market shrinkage, are taking unskilled entry level jobs that would have previously gone to young people between the ages of 16 and 24.
However, according to research conducted by McKinsey & Co, the real reason behind this chronic underemployment could be much more complex. According to a graphic published by qz.com, it could be the teachers – or as the McKinsey report calls them, education providers — who are contributing to this problem most by chronically overestimating the skill level of their students, especially compared to how those skills are assessed by potential employers.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 31120
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 05, 2012 - 11:05 pm: |
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Youth Unemployment Soars in Past Decade
Number of working youth dropped by almost half since 2000; employment among young people at lowest level since 1950s
Annie E. Casey Foundation
Dec. 3, 2012
BALTIMORE — Nearly 6.5 million U.S. teens and young adults are neither in school nor in the workforce, veering toward chronic underemployment as adults and failing to gain the skills employers need in the 21st century, according to a new KIDS COUNT® report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Many of these young people, ranging from ages 16 to 24, face numerous obstacles, according to the report, Youth and Work: Restoring Teen and Young Adult Connections to Opportunity. Often described as disconnected youth, they are encountering greater competition from older workers for increasingly scarce entry-level jobs, especially in light of the recession. Many lack the higher skill set required for the well-paying jobs that are available. They often don’t graduate from high school on time or prepared for college, further decreasing their employment options. And a number of them contend with hurdles beyond their control, such as growing up in poverty, having few working adults as role models, attending low-performing schools and living with a single parent.
The lack of education, opportunity and connection to school or work has long-term implications, the report shows. Disconnected youth may become adults unable to achieve financial stability and without employment prospects. They also can present a significant cost to taxpayers, as government spends more to support them. In addition, the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey shows about 20 percent, or 1.4 million of these youths, have children of their own, which means their inability to find work and build careers can perpetuate an intergenerational cycle of poverty.
“All young people need opportunities to gain work experience and build the skills that are essential to being successful as an adult,” said Patrick McCarthy, president and CEO of the Foundation. “Ensuring youth are prepared for the high-skilled jobs available in today’s economy must be a national priority, for the sake of their future roles as citizens and parents, the future of our workforce and the strength of our nation as a whole.”
Youth and Work presents state-by-state data and highlights how these issues are exacerbated among youth from low-income families and among minority populations. Among black and Hispanic teens (ages 16 to 19), 16 percent are out of school and work, compared to the national average of 13 percent. Similarly, 29 percent of black young adults (ages 20-24) and 23 percent of their Hispanic peers are disconnected, exceeding the nation’s 20 percent average. Teen employment also varies widely among states, from 18 percent in California and Florida to 46 percent in North Dakota in 2011.
The report emphasizes the need to provide multiple, flexible pathways to success for disconnected young people and to find ways to reengage high school dropouts. Youth and Work also advocates creating opportunities for youth in school or other public systems that allow them to gain early job experience through such avenues as community service, internships and summer and part-time work. Its major recommendations include:
* A national youth employment strategy that streamlines systems and makes financial aid, funding and other support services more accessible and flexible; encourages more businesses to hire young people; and focuses on results, not process.
* Aligning resources within communities and among public and private funders to create collaborative efforts to support youth.
* Exploring new ways to create jobs through social enterprises such as Goodwill and microenterprises, with the support of public and private investors.
* Employer-sponsored earn-and-learn programs that foster the talent and skills that businesses require — and develop the types of employees they need.
“No one sector or system can solve this problem alone — it demands a collective and collaborative effort,” said Patrice Cromwell, director of economic development at the Casey Foundation. “Businesses, government, philanthropy and communities must work together with young people to help them develop the skills and experience they need to achieve long-term success and financial stability as adults.”
Youth and Work includes the latest youth employment data for every state, the District of Columbia and the nation. Additional information on disconnected youth and young adults is available in the KIDS COUNT Data Center, which also contains the most recent national, state and local data on hundreds of indicators of child well-being. The Data Center allows users to create rankings, maps and graphs for use in publications and on websites, and to view real-time information on mobile devices.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Username: Admin
Post Number: 31021
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, November 18, 2012 - 8:36 pm: |
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Dr. Barbara Bellar – Obamacare Summed Up In One Sentence
Lybio with video
Nov 2012
[Dr. Barbara Bellar - Obamacare Summed Up in One Sentence - Candidate For Illinois State Senate]
[Dr. Barbara Bellar] Source: LYBIO.net
So let me get this straight. (This is a long sentence.)
We’re going to be gifted with a healthcare plan we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t, which puportedly covers at least 10 million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding (laughing & applause) same sentence – with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted social security and medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and (laughing & applause) and financed by a country that’s broke. (laughing & applause)
So, what the blank (laughing & applause) could possibly go wrong?
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 30918
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, October 21, 2012 - 10:02 am: |
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High salaries break students
An Albany (NY) Times Union Letter to the Editor
October 20, 2012
I read with interest the article on the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute president's pay raise that increased her salary to approximately $2.3 million ("A six-figure salary hike for Jackson," Oct. 16). The same day, a letter writer noted the $555,000 salary for the University at Albany's president ("Compare salaries of college chiefs," Oct. 16).
I do not undervalue the importance of our educators in sustaining America's lead in producing the best and the brightest, though we are falling behind other countries. However, with these exorbitant salaries and benefits, we are bankrupting our children and their parents with unbearable debt.
In fact, because of this debt burden, many of our best and brightest are not seeking education in professional schools (medicine, law, engineering, etc.) as the additional debt of this continued education is becoming staggering.
My goodness, the President of the United States earns a salary of $400,000. Do university presidents shoulder a similar weight of responsibility? Much as they are important, I don't believe so.
DR. WALTER RIVERA
Loudonville
The educated elite are a disgrace to the nation when it comes to the size of their compensation. Obama's desire to achieve economic justice through the tax code by taxing the wealthy more can never fix what is fundamentally wrong. The wealthy must acquire the ethics to work for less. Without a change of ethics, the nation will weaken and no amount of increased taxes paid to the government will be able to compensate for that.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 30908
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - 10:05 pm: |
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Five Common Legal Misconceptions in Education
Posted by Michael Keany / School Leadership 2.0
October 17, 2012
“Principals and other educators often have perceptions about key issues in school law that are remarkably wrong,” says legal expert Perry Zirkel (Lehigh University) in this helpful article in Principal Leadership. “When that is the case, they help reinforce those prevailing perceptions by sharing them with teachers, parents, and other administrators and by contributing to misguided practices and policies.”
• Myth #1: There has been an explosion of education litigation. In fact, school litigation peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has gradually declined since (with an upward tick of special-education cases in federal courts in the first decade of the 21st century). In terms of decisions, says Zirkel, the trend has been in favor of school defendants.
• Myth #2: Educators should fear being held liable for negligence. Actually, in only 11 percent of cases did student plaintiffs win at least partial damages, and individual educators were not held liable in any of them (institutions were). Of course, school personnel need to be alert to issues of student safety, including in science labs, but fear of liability should not be the primary motivation.
• Myth #3: Student rights are ascendant. In fact, since the Tinker case of 1969 (students’ right to wear black armbands in school to protest the Vietnam war), there has been a shift toward more district-favorable decisions in First Amendment cases. Similarly, says Zirkel, “The belief, whether held by students or school personnel, that teachers cannot touch students, including but not limited to reasonably intervening to stop student bullying, is lore, now law.”
• Myth #4: Bad teachers can’t be removed because of tenure. In fact, when school leaders evaluate and dismiss incompetent teachers, courts have upheld their actions in the majority of cases. The same has been true when school boards have taken action against superintendents. The problem, says Zirkel, is that school administrators are not exercising their legal authority.
A very few bad teachers can be removed at great expense. The rest are left in their jobs. This isn't about legal authority. It's about the outrageous cost of litigation.
• Myth #5: Educators can’t take strong disciplinary action against misbehaving students, especially if they have special needs. In fact, courts have been “extremely deferential” to school districts on discipline of general-education students, says Zirkel, and with special-needs students, the federal law does not generally apply to suspensions of up to ten days. In cases where a student’s misconduct is linked to a disability, recent litigation has generally favored the school district. Professional recommendations should not be confused with legal requirements, says Zirkel.
Surely, you knew the playing field isn't level. Educrats have lots of money and influence to see that their needs are met before your needs. It's bullying through lobbying.
“Lore v. Law: Prevailing Beliefs and Objective Knowledge” by Perry Zirkel in Principal Leadership, October 2012 (Vol. 13, #2, p. 50-54), http://www.nassp.org/pl
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 30883
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2012 - 8:49 pm: |
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The Power of Social Norms to Change Behavior
Posted by Michael Keany / School Leadership 2.0
October 13, 2012
In this intriguing Harvard Business Review article, Arizona-based author/consultant Steve Martin describes research demonstrating that the tough approach to getting people to fulfill obligations – pay their taxes, shell out for overdue bills, show up for doctors’ appointments – is less effective than softer approaches capitalizing on social norms. [How might these insights apply to dealing with students and parents in K-12 schools?]
• In 2009, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (in Britain) tried the following language in place of the usual threats of interest charges, late fees, and legal action: “We collect taxes to make sure that money is available to fund the public services that benefit you and other UK citizens. Even if one person fails to pay their taxes it reduces the services and resources that are provided.” Another round of letters said, in part: “Over 93% of citizens living in your town pay their tax on time.” These language changes raised the collection yield from 57 to 86 percent. Combined with some best practices borrowed from the private collections industry, the agency collected £5.6 billion more in overdue revenue than it had the previous year. The message about 95% of citizens in a town got the highest return rate (83%) – more than a message about on-time taxpayers in their postcode (79%) and among UK citizens (73%). The more local, the better.
• In hotel bathrooms, changing the sign on re-using towels from an emphasis on the environmental benefits to a message saying that the majority of guests do re-use towels resulted in a 26 percent increase in re-use, saving thousands of dollars in laundering and delivery costs. Changing the sign so it said people who stayed in that room reused their towels brought about a further increase in re-use.
• In Britain’s National Health Service, patients skip 6 million appointments a year, costing £700 million in lost revenue. Martin conducted a study in which he tracked data on three successive interventions. First, receptionists got a verbal commitment from patients to call if they had to cancel an appointment: “Will you call if you can’t make it?” This resulted in a 3.5 percent improvement in attendance. Having patients write down the date and time of their appointment on a card resulted in an 18 percent improvement in attendance. And adding a sign in the clinic, “87% of Patients Arrived for Their Appointments Last Month” resulted in a 31.7 percent improvement in attendance.
• On the flip side, messages can unintentionally increase negative behavior. In 2007, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) informed taxpayers that there would be additional penalties for anyone knowingly submitting a false return. The following year, there was a 22 percent increase in tax fraud. Why? Martin believes it’s because the IRS was broadcasting the message, “Look at all the people who are already doing this undesirable thing!”
What drove the improvements in behavior, says Martin, is the fact that people’s behavior is largely shaped by the behavior of those around them, especially if it’s a group with which they identify. Interestingly, the impact of these messages is almost completely unconscious; if people are asked why they paid their taxes or showed up for their doctors’ appointments, they would not attribute it to the messages they received. This means that conducting surveys or focus groups is not the way to track effectiveness. The best way is to look at the results and continue to tweak messages for the best outcomes.
98% of HBR Readers Love This Article” by Steve Martin in Harvard Business Review, October 2012 (Vol. 90, #10, p. 23-25), no e-link available
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 30873
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 13, 2012 - 4:46 pm: |
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State debt, your share
Comptroller's report shows each resident owes $3,253 in public borrowing
By Rick Karlin / Albany (NY) Times Union
October 12, 2012
ALBANY — Forget about credit cards and mortgages. New Yorkers are on the hook for a record-setting $3,253 per person in public borrowing, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said.
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Much of the money went to health and education spending, where New York outstrips every other state.
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And as Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said repeatedly, New York spends more on public schools than any other state, with expenditures of $18,618 per pupil during the 2009-10 school year.
The per capita national debt was $48,358 at the end of 2011. Combined with the state debt, NY'ers owe more per person than most spend to purchase their homes. The average household size is 2.59. So, the average household owes $133,672 in state and national debt. With all that spending, our infrastructure has been neglected. In effect, instead of paying for repairs and improvements from current receipts, politicians have put us into debt so they can pay public employees higher salaries and benefits. Infrastructure doesn't have a vote and doesn't make campaign contributions. It doesn't slap the backs of legislators and make them feel good. Government employees do.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 30795
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2012 - 8:06 pm: |
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Big Firms Overhaul Health Coverage
By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS / WALL STREET JOURNAL with over 150 comments
Sept 26, 2012
Two big employers are planning a radical change in the way they provide health benefits to their workers, giving employees a fixed sum of money and allowing them to choose their medical coverage and insurer from an online marketplace.
Sears Holdings Corp. ... and Darden Restaurants Inc. ... say the change isn't designed to make workers pay a higher share of health-coverage costs. Instead they say it is supposed to put more control over health benefits in the hands of employees.
This will make health care more fair, and more expensive for everyone, as the bargaining power of large businesses fades and everyone pays closer to the same rates, on average. Unfortunately, people will take more risks to avoid insurance costs, which will hurt some people severely.
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The hope is that insurers will compete more vigorously to get workers to sign up, which will lower overall health-care costs. Darden and Sears are both currently self-insured, meaning that the cost of claims each year comes out of company coffers.
On average, U.S. employers and workers are estimated to spend $15,475 in annual premiums for health insurance this year for a worker with family coverage, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust. The average employee pays about 28% of that amount and the employer picks up the balance.
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"Within the next two or three years, it's going to be mainstream," said Ken Goulet, executive vice president at WellPoint Inc. WLP ...
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Jim LeMuir Wrote:
I remember when health care didn't represent a major portion of the U.S. economy. This was when you would just visit the doctor and pay the office manager on the way out. Or you might just pay the doctor directly, when he made a house call.
It was a lot less expensive when I was paying a few people for my health care (a doctor, a nurse, and an office manager). But now that I'm paying a doctor, a nurse, an office manager, an accountant, a lawyer, an insurance broker, a wellness expert, some actuaries, more accountants, the attorneys, and the government bureaucrats things are significantly more expensive.
And all of them (but the first few) keep telling me how much money they are saving me.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 30776
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, September 23, 2012 - 8:01 pm: |
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Life Expectancy Plunges For White High School Dropouts In U.S.
By Bonnie Kavoussi / Huffington Post links omitted
09/21/2012
In a stunning development, life expectancy for some Americans is actually declining.
The life expectancy of white high school dropouts in the U.S. has dropped since 1990, according to a new study published by Health Affairs, which analyzed government data. The researchers found that the life expectancy of white female high school dropouts plunged to about 73 years in 2008 from 78 in 1990. The life expectancy of white male high school dropouts has fallen by 3 years to 67 years in the same time period, according to the New York Times.
“We’re used to looking at groups and complaining that their mortality rates haven’t improved fast enough, but to actually go backward is deeply troubling,” John G. Haaga, head of the Population and Social Processes Branch of the National Institute on Aging, who was not involved in the new study, told The New York Times.
The education gap in life expectancy has widened too, according to the research. The lifespans of white females with a college degree grew by more than 3 years from 1990 to 2008. They can expect to live a decade longer than female high-school dropouts.
Researchers are unsure why life expectancy plunged for dropouts.
Really? Just look at Chicago, where upper middle class teachers went on strike to get even more so others can keep falling behind. The educated elite are thumbing their noses at the underclass. They are writing rules and laws to benefit themselves.
Here's just one tiny example. Our town gave permission for Target to locate a store, here. The store is spending millions, not just for the building, but also for the upgrades to public areas. The town imposed all kinds of conditions on the project from streets and traffic flow to design and appearances.
At the end of the parking lot there is a bus stop. Did the town require Target to build a shelter for the bus stop for a very few thousand dollars? Hell, no. Let the poor wait outside in the rain and the snow for their buses. No wonder they live shorter lives. It's the direct consequence of the decisions of the educated elite.
Some believe that lack of health insurance, rising obesity, smoking and prescription drug overdoses among young whites may be partly to blame, according to the New York Times.
Smoking? The poor smoke far less, today than they did in 1990. They smoke far less than the Italians and the Japanese, both of which outlive us.
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The poor job prospects for Americans without a college education may be partially to blame. Workers without a bachelor's degree earn $2.8 million less over their lifetimes than college graduates, according to a study by Georgetown University. Most recent high school graduates not in college are unemployed, and those with jobs are getting paid barely enough to stay out of poverty, according to a study by Rutgers University.
The U.S. has a lower life expectancy than a number of countries. Life expectancy in the U.S. was roughly 78 years, according to the World Bank. Meanwhile, life expectancy in Japan, Australia, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Norway, and other developed countries is more than 80 years.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 30713
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 13, 2012 - 12:19 am: |
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Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011
U.S. Census Bureau
SEPT. 12, 2012
The income of the typical U.S. family has fallen to levels last seen in 1995, a long and pernicious slide that likely means it will be a generation before Americans regain the peak income levels reached at the close of the '90s [Household Income Sinks to '95 Level].
The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that in 2011, median household income declined, the poverty rate was not statistically different from the previous year and the percentage of people without health insurance coverage decreased.
Real median household income in the United States in 2011 was $50,054, a 1.5 percent decline from the 2010 median and the second consecutive annual drop.
The nation's official poverty rate in 2011 was 15.0 percent, with 46.2 million people in poverty. After three consecutive years of increases, neither the poverty rate nor the number of people in poverty were statistically different from the 2010 estimates.
The number of people without health insurance coverage declined from 50.0 million in 2010 to 48.6 million in 2011, as did the percentage without coverage - from 16.3 percent in 2010 to 15.7 percent in 2011.
These findings are contained in the report Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011 [pdf]. The following results for the nation were compiled from information collected in the 2012 Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC):
Income
Median family household income declined by 1.7 percent in real terms between 2010 and 2011 to $62,273. The change in the median income of nonfamily households was not statistically significant.
In 2011, real median household income was 8.1 percent lower than in 2007, the year before the most recent recession, and was 8.9 percent lower than the median household income peak that occurred in 1999. The two percentages are not statistically different from one another.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 05, 2012 - 10:01 pm: |
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Greece told rescue requires 6-day workweek
UPI
Sept. 5, 2012
Coming to a country near you. How else can you pay off trillions in national debt?
ATHENS, Greece -- International creditors are demanding Greece begin a six-day workweek as part of heavy-handed conditions for the country's second bailout, a letter indicates.
The European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, known as the troika, are also requiring other radical labor reforms affecting wages, overtime and work flexibility in return for a $37.6 billion bailout next month, the letter leaked to the British newspaper The Guardian said.
The EC, ECB, IMF and government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had no immediate comment on the report, which came as troika inspectors returned to Athens for a final assessment to determine if the debt-laden country gets any further money to help it avoid a default and possible removal from the eurozone.
The letter, sent to Greece's finance and labor ministries last week, orders Athens to extend the workweek into the weekend.
"Measure: increase flexibility of work schedules; increase the number of maximum workdays to six days per week for all sectors," The Guardian quoted the letter as saying.
"Increase flexibility of work schedules; set the minimum daily rest to 11 hours; delink the working hours of employees from the opening hours of the establishment; eliminate restrictions on minimum/maximum time between morning and afternoon shifts; allow the consecutive two-week leave to be taken any time during the year in seasonal sectors," the letter said.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 04, 2012 - 9:39 pm: |
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In Reality and Film, a Battle for Schools
By MICHAEL CIEPLY / NEW YORK TIMES
February 20, 2012
LOS ANGELES — On Tuesday officials in Adelanto, a California desert town, are set to consider whether parents there can be the first to take over a failing public school under a new state law that is being closely watched around the country.
The Hollywood version? It’s already a done deal.
In a rare mix of hot policy debate and old-fashioned screen drama, 20th Century Fox is preparing a September [28] release for “Won’t Back Down.” The film heads smack into the controversies around so-called parent trigger laws that in California and a handful of other states allow parents to dump bad teachers and overrule administrators in bottom-ranked schools.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 30653
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 9:51 pm: |
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Gallup Finds Americans Prefer Private Schools to Public
Julia Lawrence / Education News
Aug. 31, 2012
Americans believe that abetter education is to be had in private and charter schools rather than home or public schooling, according to the latest Gallup poll. When asked to assess each type of education provider separately as either excellent, good, only fair or poor, private schooling rated the highest percentage of excellent or good votes, followed by parochial schools, charters, and home schools — with public schools bring up the rear.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 30645
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, September 02, 2012 - 12:07 pm: |
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State wasting money subsidizing solar energy installations
A Schenectady (NY) Gazette Letter to the Editor
Sept 2, 2012
In the past several years, there have been numerous articles touting the cost and environmental benefits of photovoltaic solar energy installations in New York state. A few weeks ago a conference was held to discuss the most recent New York state action, an additional $800 million in incentives to encourage installation of more photovoltaic systems.
Mr. Francis J. Murray, president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), said it would reduce the cost of a typical $40,000 system to about $16,000 for the owner, not counting other federal rebates, with taxpayers covering about 75 percent of the total cost. This $40,000 system would have a rating of about eight to nine kilowatts direct current.
To understand the fallacies in this program, consider this example of a photovoltaic system installed in New York City.
The system would be expected to generate about 195,000 kilowatt/hours alternating current during its expected 20-year life, if the solar panels were mounted at the optimal angle. If we optimistically ignore the required backup or storage power systems and assume that there is no maintenance or panel replacement costs during the life of the system, the average generation costs for this $40,000 system would be 20.5 cents per kilowatt/hour.
If we then consider that the energy used to acquire the material and manufacture this system is about 10 percent of the lifetime output, the cost of the net power gain is 23 cents per kilowatt/hour.
However, to receive all these state government incentives, the owner only has to commit to using the system for 10 years, so the actual generation costs could be more than double — i.e. 50 cents per kilowatt hour! Compare these generation costs with the 5-7 cents per kilowatt/hour for coal, nuclear, hydroelectric and natural gas combined-cycle, or the 10-12 cents per kilowatt hour for wind. Regardless of the 10 or 20 year operating lifetime, about 9,800 tons of CO2 [carbon dioxide] will be released producing the system. That is orders of magnitude less CO2 than fossil-fueled plants, but significantly greater than hydroelectric and nuclear on a per kilowatt/hour basis.
Mr. Robert Hallman, the governor’s deputy secretary for energy and environment, believes such systems are our energy future. I believe we are on a fast track to an economic disaster and it illustrates the lack of an intelligent, comprehensive energy policy in this country and this state. The $800 million would be far better spent on research and development to improve solar cell efficiency and manufacturing; to improve the power grid; and to exploit all possible opportunities to increase hydroelectric, i.e. the 100 megawatt plant on Cohoes Falls, and small, modular nuclear power generation.
It is little wonder we have a national debt of over $17 trillion and a state that can’t properly support its educational or health care responsibilities. How many jobs were destroyed in the productive private sector of our state economy by confiscating $800 million in taxes so it could be wasted on economically unsustainable projects like this?
Thomas J. Donohue
Niskayuna
The writer is a professional energy consultant.
Thank you, Mr. Donohue. Regardless of whether solar power is a good investment or not, it is a relatively terrible investment in the Northeast. Why use scarce solar power resources in the Northeast when a far bigger bang for the investment is available in AZ, TX and other southern states?
If you owned the entire USA, would you put solar plants in NY and fossil fuel plants in AZ? You'd do exactly the opposite. Solar power should be outlawed in NY. But if NY wants to invest in solar power, let it build solar plants in the south and work out some kind of barter system to get the benefits.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Post Number: 30618
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 27, 2012 - 6:53 pm: |
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Same Doctor Visit, Double the Cost
Insurers Say Rates Can Surge After Hospitals Buy Private Physician Practices; Medicare Spending Rises, Too
By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS / WALL STREET JOURNAL
Aug. 27, 2012
Gaming the system to take more of your money to increase the wealth of the wealthy. These people are vampires.
After David Hubbard underwent a routine echocardiogram at his cardiologist's office last year, he was surprised to learn that the heart scan cost his insurer $1,605. That was more than four times the $373 it paid when the 61-year-old optometrist from Reno, Nev., had the same procedure at the same office just six months earlier.
David Hubbard in his Reno, Nev., neighborhood. As a cardiology patient, he became caught up in a structural shift in the U.S. health-care industry.
"Nothing had changed, it was the same equipment, the same room," said Dr. Hubbard, who has a high-deductible health plan and had to pay about $1,000 of the larger bill out of his own pocket. "I was very upset."
But something had changed: his cardiologist's practice had been bought by Renown Health, a local hospital system. Dr. Hubbard was caught up in a structural shift that is sweeping through health care in the U.S.—hospitals are increasingly acquiring private physician practices.
Hospitals say the acquisitions will make health care more efficient. But the phenomenon, in some cases, also is having another effect: higher prices.
As physicians are subsumed into hospital systems, they can get paid for services at the systems' rates, which are typically more generous than what insurers pay independent doctors. What's more, some services that physicians previously performed at independent facilities, such as imaging scans, may start to be billed as hospital outpatient procedures, sometimes more than doubling the cost.
The result is that the same service, even sometimes provided in the same location, can cost more once a practice signs on with a hospital.
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A version of this article appeared August 27, 2012, on page B1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Same Doctor Visit, Double the Cost.
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