Community outrage sparks board to set a Sept. 19 re-vote on its plan to limit bus service.
By Peter Verry, Editor,The Smithtown Patch
After more than two months of public outcries over bus cuts, the Smithtown Central School District Board of Education voted Wednesday night to give the public a chance to overturn a controversial transportation referendum.
The new vote, set for Sept. 19, was approved by President Gladys Waldron and Vice President Scott Martella, who were the only two votes to accept community petitions for a new vote on the referendum in June, as well as Theresa Knox, Grace Plourde and Joanne McEnroy.
Board members Louis Liguori and Joseph Saggese were the only two board members to oppose the re-vote.
read more at the Patch
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Public Schools in Worse Shape Than We Feared
By: Walter Williams | Examiner Columnist | 07/18/11 8:05 PM
Last December, I reported on Harvard University professor Stephan Thernstrom's essay, "Minorities in College -- Good News, But...," on Minding the Campus, a website sponsored by the New York-based Manhattan Institute.
Thernstrom was commenting on the results of the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), saying that the scores "mean that black students aged 17 do not read with any greater facility than whites who are four years younger and still in junior high. ... Exactly the same glaring gaps appear in NAEP's tests of basic mathematics skills."
Thernstrom asked, "If we put a randomly-selected group of 100 eighth-graders and another of 100 twelfth-graders in a typical college, would we expect the first group to perform as well as the second?"
In other words, is it reasonable to expect a college freshman of any race who has the equivalent of an eighth-grade education to compete successfully with those having a 12th-grade education?
Maybe this huge gap in black/white academic achievement was in the paternalistic minds of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals justices who recently struck down Michigan's ban on the use of race and sex as criteria for college admissions.
The court said that it burdens minorities and violates the U.S. Constitution. Given the black education disaster, racial preferences in college admissions will become a permanent feature, because given the status quo, blacks as a group will never make it into top colleges based upon academic merit.
The situation is worse than we thought. The July 7 edition of U.S. News & World Report featured a story titled "Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal," saying that "for 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history, according to a scathing 413-page investigative report released Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal."
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/07/public-schools-worse-shape-we-feared#ixzz1SaEVMsrd
Last December, I reported on Harvard University professor Stephan Thernstrom's essay, "Minorities in College -- Good News, But...," on Minding the Campus, a website sponsored by the New York-based Manhattan Institute.
Thernstrom was commenting on the results of the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), saying that the scores "mean that black students aged 17 do not read with any greater facility than whites who are four years younger and still in junior high. ... Exactly the same glaring gaps appear in NAEP's tests of basic mathematics skills."
Thernstrom asked, "If we put a randomly-selected group of 100 eighth-graders and another of 100 twelfth-graders in a typical college, would we expect the first group to perform as well as the second?"
In other words, is it reasonable to expect a college freshman of any race who has the equivalent of an eighth-grade education to compete successfully with those having a 12th-grade education?
Maybe this huge gap in black/white academic achievement was in the paternalistic minds of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals justices who recently struck down Michigan's ban on the use of race and sex as criteria for college admissions.
The court said that it burdens minorities and violates the U.S. Constitution. Given the black education disaster, racial preferences in college admissions will become a permanent feature, because given the status quo, blacks as a group will never make it into top colleges based upon academic merit.
The situation is worse than we thought. The July 7 edition of U.S. News & World Report featured a story titled "Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal," saying that "for 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history, according to a scathing 413-page investigative report released Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal."
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/07/public-schools-worse-shape-we-feared#ixzz1SaEVMsrd
Friday, July 8, 2011
"...you've got... to get a little bloody when necessary."
A BATTLE IS BEING WAGED AND MOST AMERICANS DIDN'T GET THE MEMO
See this short video....it sheds a small, bright light into the workings of a government union.
Now, what can YOU do about it?
See this short video....it sheds a small, bright light into the workings of a government union.
Now, what can YOU do about it?
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Wisconsin on the Thames?
Read Michelle Malkin on Necessary Teacher Reforms in England--Sound Familiar?
by Michelle Malkin 7/1/11 in the Patriot Undate
LONDON — Big Labor looks the same wherever you go: petulant, irrational and wholly aggrieved beyond its means. I’m here on vacation with family as some 750,000 public-sector employees strike in protest over modest pension reform proposals. It’s a taste of Wisconsin on the Thames.
U.K. government teachers are just as shameless and entitlement-mongering as their American counterparts. More than half of England’s schools shut down on Thursday as union members took to the streets.
to read more click here
by Michelle Malkin 7/1/11 in the Patriot Undate
LONDON — Big Labor looks the same wherever you go: petulant, irrational and wholly aggrieved beyond its means. I’m here on vacation with family as some 750,000 public-sector employees strike in protest over modest pension reform proposals. It’s a taste of Wisconsin on the Thames.
U.K. government teachers are just as shameless and entitlement-mongering as their American counterparts. More than half of England’s schools shut down on Thursday as union members took to the streets.
to read more click here
Friday, July 1, 2011
A Letter from Senator Flanagan
Dear friend,
Yesterday, I joined Governor Andrew Cuomo as he signed the landmark Property Tax Cap measure, which I sponsored and voted for, into law. This tax cap will help ease the burden that skyrocketing tax increases have placed on hardworking middle-class homeowners, senior citizens and small businesses throughout our state by limiting the growth of school and local taxes to less than two percent or the Consumer Price Index (CPI), whichever is lower.
While this much-needed legislation is aimed at protecting our taxpayers, it is important to note that steps have been taken to make sure our schools and our local governments are able to continue providing the critical services we all rely on. That is why the tax cap legislation that was signed into law included important mandate relief with $127 million in savings to local governments and the creation of a Mandate Relief Council to identify and repeal unsound, unduly burdensome laws and regulations.
This package has been my number one priority this year because it is a sensible way to help our families stay here on Long Island without harming the overall quality of life we all have come to expect and appreciate.
The enactment of the property tax cap is just one of the many key measures approved during the recently concluded 2011 Legislative Session -- a session many observers are calling the most productive in many years. Working with Governor Cuomo, we were also successful in passing a responsible on-time budgetthat achieved my key goals of reducing state spending and cutting taxes, as well as an historic ethics reform packagethat increased accountability and transparency for government.
While these changes to the Albany status quo were long overdue, there is much more work that lies ahead and I will be sure to keep you posted.
As always, your input on the issues that matter most to you and your family, and I encourage you to respond to this email if you have thoughts on this or any other state matter.
Sincerely,
John J. Flanagan
New York State Senator, 2nd District
P.S. If any of the links on this e-mail will not open in your Internet browser, please visit my web site (flanagan.nysenate.gov) for more information.
Yesterday, I joined Governor Andrew Cuomo as he signed the landmark Property Tax Cap measure, which I sponsored and voted for, into law. This tax cap will help ease the burden that skyrocketing tax increases have placed on hardworking middle-class homeowners, senior citizens and small businesses throughout our state by limiting the growth of school and local taxes to less than two percent or the Consumer Price Index (CPI), whichever is lower.
While this much-needed legislation is aimed at protecting our taxpayers, it is important to note that steps have been taken to make sure our schools and our local governments are able to continue providing the critical services we all rely on. That is why the tax cap legislation that was signed into law included important mandate relief with $127 million in savings to local governments and the creation of a Mandate Relief Council to identify and repeal unsound, unduly burdensome laws and regulations.
This package has been my number one priority this year because it is a sensible way to help our families stay here on Long Island without harming the overall quality of life we all have come to expect and appreciate.
The enactment of the property tax cap is just one of the many key measures approved during the recently concluded 2011 Legislative Session -- a session many observers are calling the most productive in many years. Working with Governor Cuomo, we were also successful in passing a responsible on-time budgetthat achieved my key goals of reducing state spending and cutting taxes, as well as an historic ethics reform packagethat increased accountability and transparency for government.
While these changes to the Albany status quo were long overdue, there is much more work that lies ahead and I will be sure to keep you posted.
As always, your input on the issues that matter most to you and your family, and I encourage you to respond to this email if you have thoughts on this or any other state matter.
Sincerely,
John J. Flanagan
New York State Senator, 2nd District
P.S. If any of the links on this e-mail will not open in your Internet browser, please visit my web site (flanagan.nysenate.gov) for more information.
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