NASHVILLE — More than 3,200 Tennesseans have signed the petition opposing Governor Bill Haslam’s proposal to increase class sizes at public schools, the Tennessee Democratic Party announced Wednesday.
“Some proposals aren’t even worth the paper they’re printed on, and Governor Bill Haslam’s plan to increase class sizes is one of them,” said Chip Forrester, Chairman [...]
TNDP News
Today is the one year anniversary of Representative Scott Desjarlais’s (TN-04) Republican Congress of chronic chaos that nearly shutdown the government three times, tried to end Medicare, failed to create jobs, and blindly protected tax breaks for Big Oil and billionaires. With so much work to do to get the economy back on track and Americans back to work, Desjarlais is spending his one year anniversary on vacation — only working 6 days in all of January.
In this first year for Desjarlais’s Republican Congress, their partisan extremism has protected the ultra wealthy at the expense of Medicare for seniors, tax cuts for the middle class, and creating jobs for American workers.
“The first year of Representative Scott Desjarlais’s Republican Congress is marked by extreme partisanship and unbending protection of Big Oil and the ultra wealthy,” said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Desjarlais and House Republicans have spent this first year in chronic chaos — failing to protect the middle class or create jobs — and are now off on vacation rather than putting Americans back to work. Middle income Tennessee families can’t afford another year of Representative Scott Desjarlais choosing to blindly protect tax breaks for Big Oil instead of protecting Medicare for seniors.”
According to new polling by Pew Research Center, voters blame House Republicans like Desjarlais for Congress’s failures and give the Republican Congress its lowest approval rating in history.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM HOUSE REPUBLICANS FIRST YEAR
No Jobs Plan for 365 Days: For 365 days, Republicans refused to introduce a comprehensive jobs agenda. (12/2/11)
Voted for Middle Class Tax Increase: Republicans voted four times against consideration of an extension of the payroll tax cut needed to stop a ,000 tax increase on 160 million working Americans from taking effect on January 1st. (Vote 922, Vote 925, Vote 918, Vote 944)
Voted to End Medicare: Three times, House Republicans passed a plan that ends Medicare. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Republican plan would increase seniors’ out-of-pocket health care costs by more than ,000 in 2022 and by nearly ,000 in 2030. (Vote 277, Vote 382, Vote 606)
Voted to Slash College Aid: The Republican budget slashes funding for Pell Grants, which make college affordable for millions of students each year. The Republican budget cut the maximum Pell Grant by 45% to the lowest level since 1998. (Vote 277)
Voted to Protect Big Oil: Republicans voted seven times to protect taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil — even while they’re making record profits. (Vote 153, Vote 109, Vote 277, Vote 293, Vote 313, Vote 676, Vote 810)
Voted for Tax Cuts for Millionaires: Making reducing the deficit harder, the Republican budget provides 0 billion in additional tax cuts for the 300,000 people who make over million a year. (Vote 277)
Voted Against Leveling the Playing Field with China: Republicans voted against a bipartisan effort to crack down on unfair Chinese currency manipulations that are currently costing nearly 2.8 million American jobs. (Vote 780)
Voted to Repeal Health Care Reform: Republicans voted to repeal the new law allowing millions of young people (those up to age 26) to receive health insurance coverage by remaining on their parents’ health plan, to repeal new prohibitions that stop insurers from denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions, and to increase prescription drug costs for millions of seniors. (Vote 14)
Voted Against Protecting Social Security and Medicare Benefits from Privatization: Republicans voted against a proposal to prohibit funds from being used to privatize and cut Social Security, or from being used to cut Medicare and turn it into a voucher program. (Vote 178)
Click here to view the embedded video.
Via Rumproast… MA Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren:
I hear all this, you know, “Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.”—No!
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.
You built a factory out there—good for you! But I want to be clear.
You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for.
You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.
You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.
You didn’t have to worry that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.
Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea—God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.
But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
She’s got spunk… lot’s of it apparently. The question to whoever wins the Dem nomination here in MA is “can you attract the independent voters,” who all flocked to Scott Brown in the election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat?
Elizabeth Warren is already showing an “announcement bump” in polls. Time will tell…
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BLACK REPUBLICAN: National Black Republican Association E-News
One second Governor Bill Haslam applauds Tennessee teachers. The next moment Mr. Haslam subtly paints Tennessee teachers as broadly ineffective.
Recently Mr. Haslam gave us more of the later.
Addressing a group of young women, the governor said that class size doesn’t matter. He followed it up by saying, “having a great teacher with 25 students is better than having a mediocre teacher with 18 students.” [Chattanooga Times Free Press, 6/1/11]
Doubling down on this thinking, Mr. Haslam said his goal is “to push our education [system] toward making sure we have a great teacher in front of every classroom regardless of the classroom size.” [Chattanooga Times Free Press, 6/1/11]
Is the hunt for “great teachers” an implication that the majority of Tennessee teachers are not “great teachers” — regardless of classroom size?
And he says there’s no morale problem.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press chastised Haslam for his plan to increase classroom size:
In fact, relying on the myth that “quality teachers” are all that matters will only add to teachers’ burdens.
Gov. Haslam’s comments came in an address in Nashville to hundreds of rising seniors attending the Volunteer Girls State leadership program. He also used the “quality teachers” theme to justify the authority he successfully secured from the Legislature this spring to tighten teacher tenure standards.
He said those standards, which both extended the time needed for teachers to receive tenure from three to five years, and made tenure more conditional, were key to his efforts to “push our education (system) toward making sure we have a great teachers in front of every classroom regardless of the classroom size.”
That’s gimmickry baloney. In reality, his tenure bill, like his charter school initiative and the Legislature’s new ban on teachers’ bargaining rights and political action committees, are political ploys, not education improvements. As a practical matter, it will take much more to pull Tennessee’s public education ranking out of the cellar.
While no one denies that a great teacher can do wonders in a child’s education, lower class sizes can have an across the board positive impact on student achievement.
The amount of research done on the effects of class size is extensive, and all of it comes to the same conclusion. Smaller class size is a concrete, measurable, and replicable way to increase student achievement.
QUESTIONS LINGER
Mr. Haslam’s comments open the door for many questions about his education agenda for next legislative session:
» Do you plan on increasing class size limits or eliminating the caps?
» Do you plan on extending the school year?
» Do you plan on pay raises for “great” teachers?
» Who decides which teachers are “great”?
» How would you entice more of these “great teachers” to Tennessee? Pay? Benefits? Job security?
» Larger classrooms means fewer teachers. What is the plan for firing teachers who are not “great”? Should mass layoffs be on the table?
» Is the relentless “reforming” of education an effort to solve a problem that could be caused, indirectly, by other factors you’re not addressing, i.e. 300,000 jobless Tennesseans, poverty, etc.?
