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Tuesday, June 19, 2012
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Mayors back parents seizing control of schools
(Reuters) - Hundreds of mayors from across the United States this weekend called for new laws letting parents seize control of low-performing public schools and fire the teachers, oust the administrators or turn the schools over to private management.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors, meeting in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday unanimously endorsed "parent trigger" laws aimed at bypassing elected school boards and giving parents at the worst public schools the opportunity to band together and force immediate change.
Such laws are fiercely opposed by teachers' unions, which stand to lose members in school takeovers. Union leaders say there is no proof such upheaval will improve learning. And they argue that public investment in struggling communities, rather than private management of struggling schools, is the key to boosting student achievement.
But in a sign of the unions' diminishing clout, their traditional political allies, the Democrats, abandoned them in droves during the Orlando vote.
Democratic Mayors Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and Kevin Johnson of Sacramento led the charge for parent trigger - and were backed by scores of other Democrats as well as Republicans from coast to coast.
"Mayors understand at a local level that most parents lack the tools they need to turn their schools around," Villaraigosa said. Parent trigger laws, he added, can empower parents to do just that.
Representatives from the two largest teachers' unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, were not available for comment Sunday.
Parent trigger laws are in place in several states including California, Texas and Louisiana and are under consideration in states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. So far, though, the concept has never successfully been used to turn around a school.
Parents in two impoverished, heavily minority California cities, Compton and Adelanto, gathered enough signatures to seize control of their neighborhood schools but the process stalled in the face of ferocious opposition from teachers' unions. Both cases are now tied up in court.
Though it has not yet been shown to work, parent trigger has support from many of the big players seeking to inject more free-market competition into public education, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.
Major philanthropies and wealthy financiers have poured money into backing political candidates and advocacy groups, including one called Parent Revolution, that promote parent trigger, according to campaign finance records in several states.
The concept has even inspired an upcoming Hollywood film, "Won't Back Down," in which Maggie Gyllenhaal portrays a single mother who organizes parents to take control of their failing school over union opposition. The movie was financed by Walden Media, which also backed the 2010 documentary "Waiting for 'Superman,'" which advocated for another central goal of education reformers - expanding charter schools.
For their part, mayors may have jumped on the bandwagon because parent trigger fits neatly with two of their key goals, said Kenneth Wong, a political scientist focused on education policy at Brown University.
'CONSUMER ORIENTED'
"Mayors are moving in a new direction on education, one that's more consumer oriented... and focused on serving parents and giving them choices," Wong said. Facing tight budgets and huge pension liabilities, many mayors are also looking to rein in the power of teachers unions and force them to accept more austere contracts, Wong said.
Teachers unions have long been among the biggest donors to Democratic politicians, but that alliance has frayed in many cities in the past 18 months.
In Los Angeles, Mayor Villaraigosa blasted union leaders as an "unwavering roadblock to reform." In Philadelphia, Mayor Nutter has backed a plan to close dozens of neighborhood schools and convert many others to charters, which are publicly funded but privately run - and typically non-union.
And in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel successfully pushed to cancel a scheduled 4 percent raise for teachers and extend the school day by more than an hour. Teachers are so angry, nearly 90 percent of union members just voted to authorize a strike if ongoing contract negotiations falter.
"We are on the path to change," said Gloria Romero, a former California state senator who now runs that state's branch of Democrats for Education Reform, an advocacy group that funnels donations to politicians willing to buck the teachers unions. She called the mayoral vote a "landmark" that would inspire poor and minority parents to demand change in their schools. "This is a civil rights fight," she said.
Opponents of parent trigger, however, pointed out that the mayors' endorsement was largely symbolic, since such policies typically require legislative approval.
They said they would continue to fight - in part by reminding voters that parent trigger can be a mechanism for turning public schools over to private control. Some of the private management companies that run charter schools are for-profits that do not divulge much about how they spend public funds.
"Parents don't have control once they pull the trigger," said Kathleen Oropeza, co-founder of Fund Education Now, an advocacy group that successfully fought to derail a parent trigger bill in Florida earlier this year. "Who profits? Not parents and children."
(Editing by Vicki Allen)
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Monday, June 18, 2012
Shaka turns smartphones into wind meters, gives surfers and kiteboarders the gnar they need (hands-on)
Ever missed an amazing set in spite of your sick surfboard because you packed it in not knowing that the wind was picking up and about to deliver the perfect wave? Or maybe you didn't realize just how hard the breeze was blowing and as a result, your tee shot wound up deep in the rough. Good news, sporting friends, because start-up company Shaka is here to make you more air-aware with a wind meter that plugs into the 3.5mm jack on your smartphone. It's a small, plastic fan, not much bigger than a box of matches, that pairs with the company's app to deliver wind speed and direction wherever you are -- and it works by simply holding the thing up in a stiff breeze. The app then keeps a record of all your measurements and allows you to share them via your favorite social networks. Not only that, it also overlays the results on a map so you can see where the wind is just right for all your favorite wind-reliant activities. It's currently iOS-only, but we're told Android and Windows Phone versions are in the works as well. The price for knowing when wind perfection is upon you? For now Shaka's seeking to sell them for around $59 bucks, but that could change if the powers that be (read: investors) decide otherwise.
Shaka turns smartphones into wind meters, gives surfers and kiteboarders the gnar they need (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jun 2012 23:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Rodney King, whose beating led to LA riots, dies
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Just a few months ago, Rodney King was once again the center of attention as the world checked back in on the man whose videotaped beating by police sparked one of the nation's worst race riots.
King had left Los Angeles behind, moving an hour east to a home where neighbors would often hear him splashing in the pool late at night.
The physical and emotional scars from the more than 50 baton blows remained, but King struck an upbeat note on his life.
"America's been good to me after I paid the price and stayed alive through it all," he told The Associated Press. "This part of my life is the easy part now."
But King was found around 5:30 a.m. Sunday at the bottom of the swimming pool at his Rialto, Calif. Home.
His death at age 47 is being treated as an apparent drowning and there are no signs of foul play, but Capt. Randy De Anda said autopsy results would be needed to determine whether drugs or alcohol were a factor.
The autopsy is set for Monday.
De Anda said King was only in the water three to four minutes between the time his fiancee called 911 and when officers arrived and pulled him from the water. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:11 a.m.
It was a grim end for King, who symbolized the problem of police brutality and struggled with addiction and repeated arrests. Long after the $3.8 million he'd been awarded in a civil case was spent on record label and other failed ventures, King would periodically resurface, appearing on "Celebrity Rehab" or sparring in the occasional boxing match. He spent the last months of his life promoting a memoir he titled "The Riot Within: From Rebellion to Redemption."
Sandra Gardea, King's next-door neighbor said that around 3 a.m., she heard music and someone "really crying, like really deep emotions. ... Like tired or sad, you know?"
"I then heard someone say, 'OK, Please stop. Go inside the house.' ... We heard quiet for a few minutes Then after that we heard a splash in the back."
King was 25 years old and on parole for a robbery conviction when he led police on a high-speed chase in March 1991 that ended on a darkened Los Angeles street. He was finally stopped by four Los Angeles police officers who struck him more than 50 times with their batons, kicked him and shot him with stun guns. He was left with 11 skull fractures, a broken eye socket and facial nerve damage.
The violence was captured on videotape by a nearby resident, who turned it over to a TV station. It was played over and over for the following year, inflaming racial tensions across the country.
The images ? preserved on an infamous grainy video ? of the black driver curled up on the ground while four white officers clubbed him ? became a national symbol of police brutality in 1991. More than a year later, when the officers' acquittals touched off one of the most destructive race riots in history, his scarred face and soft-spoken question ? "Can we all get along?" ? spurred the nation to confront its difficult racial history.
It seemed that the videotape would be the key evidence to a guilty verdict against the officers, whose felony assault trial was moved to the predominantly white suburb of Simi Valley, Calif. Instead, on April 29, 1992, a jury with no black members acquitted three of the officers on state charges in the beating; a mistrial was declared for a fourth.
Rioting began immediately, starting in Los Angeles. It lasted for three days, killing 55 people, injuring more than 2,000 and setting swaths of Los Angeles aflame, causing $1 billion in damage. Police, seemingly caught off-guard, were quickly outnumbered by rioters and retreated. As the uprising spread to the city's Koreatown area, shop owners armed themselves and engaged in running gun battles with looters.
"Through all that he had gone through with his beating and his personal demons he was never one to not call for reconciliation and for people to overcome and forgive," Rev. Al Sharpton said Sunday. "History will record that it was Rodney King's beating and his actions that made America deal with the excessive misconduct of law enforcement."
The Los Angeles Police Department, after the King beating and other scandals, has instituted new policies including community policing that have resulted in crime drops, but continued complaints about racial profiling. Many of the hardest-hit areas in South LA, like King, have struggled. In the area around the Florence and Normandie intersection that was one of the riot's flash points, high school dropout rates are higher than in the rest of the city and incomes remain dramatically lower than in other sections of Los Angeles.
In his autobiography, King described his uneasy feelings about the events of his life.
"For many years I felt that I had been involuntarily burdened as the victim and resultant universal symbol of police brutality," King wrote. "I wanted no part of it, just wanted to stay home, drink and watch TV. ...The fact that this footage was sent out to be viewed by the entire world certainly didn't help my recovery."
"We may be scarred," he wrote, "and we may not be able to forget, but we can keep going, one step at a time, until we get to a better place."
___
Dillon reported from Rialto and Linda Deutsch, Chris Weber and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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Sunday, June 17, 2012
Romney says he'll do 'opposite' on Israel
QUAKERTOWN, Pa. (AP) ? Standing in front of his campaign tour bus, Mitt Romney on Saturday told religious conservatives he would do "the opposite" of what President Barack Obama has done on Israel.
Romney spent most of the day appealing to voters in Pennsylvania, a battleground state he said he would win in the fall, although Democrats succeeded in pushing his bus tour through the state off of its original itinerary.
"I am going to win Pennsylvania," Romney told a cheering crowd in Cornwall, a small town in the center of the state, as his campaign bus rolled through on the second day of a five-day, six-state tour.
Romney took some time out of his tour to address religious conservatives at the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Washington via video uplink, telling the crowd he believes the president is more concerned about Israel attacking Iran than he is about Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. His hawkish speech was the first time he's discussed policy toward Israel at length since becoming the likely Republican presidential nominee.
"I think, by and large, you can just look at the things the president has done and do the opposite," Romney said when asked about Israel. He spoke to the gathering of religious conservatives from Weatherly, Pa., via video uplink with his campaign bus in the background.
Of Iran, Romney said: "He's almost sounded like he's more frightened that Israel might take military action than he's concerned that Iran might become nuclear."
Democrats accused Romney of distorting Obama's record on Israel. Spokesman Ben LaBolt said Obama has given Israel more security assistance than any other administration and has stood with Israel at the United Nations.
After his address, Romney's bus continued on to Quakertown, where Democratic protests forced him to take a detour. Romney rerouted his tour after former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and several other Democratic officials held a press conference outside the Wawa gas station where the former Massachusetts governor had planned an early afternoon stop. Protestors gathered outside the store.
So Romney decided to visit a different Wawa store instead.
"Why we're at this Wawa, instead of the other Wawa?" Romney said as he paid for a meatball hoagie. "I understand I had a surrogate over there already, so we decided to pick a different place. My surrogate is former Gov. Rendell, who said we could win Pennsylvania."
Instead of making prepared remarks to the crowd gathered outside the first location - Romney's advance team had set up a microphone - the Republican's bus went instead to the second Quakertown Wawa and made a quick tour through the store.
The detour threw Romney off the jobs-and-economy message he had been pushing earlier in the day.
"I think we have to have a very careful review of who's giving a fair shot to the American people," Romney told a crowd of several hundred packed into a warehouse at Weatherly Casting and Machine Co., next to the train tracks that run through Weatherly, Pa., about 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
That stop was the first of three appearances in small towns in this state with 20 electoral votes that Obama won in 2008 with 54 percent. No Republican presidential nominee has carried the state since 1988.
Romney appeared with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible running mate, who told the Weatherly crowd, "Mitt Romney's message is: It will be better."
The tour is intended to challenge Obama in states where he's strong. Romney is targeting smaller cities and towns through the state's more conservative midsection. Weatherly is in Carbon County, which Obama narrowly carried in 2008.
Romney also stopped Quakertown, in Bucks County, as well as at Cornwall Iron Furnace, a national historic landmark. That's in Lebanon County, which GOP nominee John McCain won in 2008.
Romney also took time to do an interview for CBS News' "Face the Nation" program. Sunday will mark the first time he has appeared on a weekend political talk show since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee.
Romney told host Bob Schieffer that the president's decision to allow some young illegal immigrants to stay in the country instead of deporting them was a largely political move.
"If (Obama) really wanted to make a solution that dealt with these kids or illegal immigration in America, than this is something he would have taken up in his first three and a half years, not in his last few months," Romney said.
Romney is on a bus tour, but he planned to fly each night to the next state and ride from town to town during the day. It's his first traditional campaign swing since the primary and is aimed at undecided voters in six pivotal states won by Obama four years ago: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa.
The tour represents a new mode for Romney in the general election. During the primary, Romney sometimes ran into trouble in less-scripted environments, and the bus tour probably will test him again. He also has long faced questions about his ability to connect with average people.
His efforts to connect were clearly on display Saturday, when he was careful to learn the Pennsylvania word for submarine sandwiches - hoagies - and noted the intra-state rivalry between Wawa, which is popular in eastern Pennsylvania, and Sheetz, another convenience store that's the favorite in the western part of the state.
"By the way, where do you get your hoagies here?" Romney asked the crowd in Cornwall. "Do you get them at Wawa's, is that where you get them? No? Do you get them at Sheetz?"
Unfortunately, Romney chose the town closest to the state's geographic center - Cornwall is near Harrisburg - and the crowd was split.
"Well, I went to a place today called Wawa's, you ever been to Wawa's, anyone's ever been?" he continued.
And then: "I'm sorry, I know there's a very big state divide."
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Romney pushing jobs on small-town America tour
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