BET.COM: Philly School System under investigation for cheating

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This is a problem…that many of those far left liberals predicted

Philadelphia’s public school system is being rocked by allegations that nearly 140 teachers and administrators have been implicated in a cheating scandal, according to officials of the school system.

Officials said they anticipate that disciplinary action or even termination proceedings will be taken against several school employees within the next few weeks.

The Philadelphia school district is the 10th largest in the United States with an enrollment that is roughly two-thirds African-American.

The scandal, which was first reported in the Wall Street Journal, has already led to the firing of three principals in the last week. That was the result of a probe that started in 2009 that looked at erasure patterns that investigators deemed as being suspicious.

from: Philadelphia School System Faces a Cheating Investigation | News | BET.

Note: this is after the school reform commission has implemented tons of it’s recommendations including high stakes testing.

Corbett’s Retreat

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Cobra Commander Retreat

“Retreaaat!”: Cobra Commander reenacts Corbett’s retreat to the Bellevue

Yes, if suburban Philly voters re-elect Corbett they will lose Regional rail

And Yes, Tom Corbett has enacted policies that have been detriments to Philadelphia, Chester and other Pennsylvania cities.

He skipped out on an appearance at Central High School, which would have been his first appearance at a Philadelphia public school, because students and alumni were waiting to protest him for his cuts to public education across the state. (video courtesy CBS Philadelphia):

Corbett’s visit is part of a campaign to commend high-achieving schools on Pennsylvania’s first-ever performance scores. He was joined by school Superintendent William Hite.
The Philadelphia School District is weathering its worst financial crisis in recent memory and some parents and teachers say it was worsened by Corbett’s budget-balancing cuts to education aid in 2011.
Corbett, a Republican who is running for re-election in November, is critical of teachers’ unions and has worked to advance private, parochial and charter schools.

By the way, Philadelphia schools under public funding cuts, high stakes testing requirements and the have been implicated in one of the biggest test cheating scandals during the tenure of corporatist administration of now deceased former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman.

The Philadelphia Public School Notebook reports: “After more than two years of investigations by both the state and the School District, 138 Philadelphia educators have been implicated in test score cheating, according to information given to the School Reform Commission Thursday.”

via This Could Be The Largest Cheating Scandal in America | News | Philadelphia Magazine.

The venue was moved from Central H.S., one of Philadelphia and the state’s best public schools to the posh Bellevue Hotel in downtown Philadelphia. Fitting?

Elections Matter: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”

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“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”.

“Got it.”

That is, until this morning. The Bergen Record”s Shawn Boburg published details that connect the scandal to the governor’s office in ways that raise the stakes of the controversy considerably.
A cache of private messages between Governor’s Christie’s deputy chief of staff and his two top executives at the Port Authority reveal a vindictive effort to create “traffic problems in Fort Lee,” apparent pleasure at the resulting gridlock, and insults used to refer to the borough’s mayor, who had failed to endorse Christie for re-election.
The documents obtained by The Record also raise serious doubts about months of claims by the Christie administration that the September closures of local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge were part of a traffic study initiated solely by the Port Authority. Instead, they show that one of the governor’s top aides was deeply involved in the decision to choke off the borough’s access to the bridge, and they provide the strongest indication yet that it was part of a politically-motivated vendetta – a notion that Christie has publicly denied.
In mid-August, just a few weeks before the lane closures, Bridget Anne Kelly, one of three deputies on Christie’s senior staff, emailed David Wildstein, the top Christie executive at the Port Authority who ordered the closures.
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” she told him. “Got it,” he replied.

 

This is what Christie Aide and appointee decided to do to the town of Fort Lee.

The NBA is a truly international league

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Rodman and others in North Korea

The NBA is a truly international league for even despots love NBA basketball

The colorful former NBA star known as “The Worm” elicited widespread condemnation Tuesday when he suggested in an exclusive interview with Chris Cuomo of CNN’s “New Day” that American Kenneth Bae had done something to deserve his 15-year sentence.

On Wednesday, Bae’s family accused Rodman of “playing games” with Bae’s life. Relatives and U.S. officials have insisted Bae committed no crime.

“There is no diplomacy, only games, and at my brother’s expense,” Bae’s sister, Terri Chung, said Wednesday in a prepared statement.

[…]

Instead, she said he made the situation worse in his Tuesday CNN interview by intimating that Bae was guilty.

“Do you understand what he did in this country?” Rodman asked Cuomo. “No, no, no, you tell me, you tell me. Why is he held captive here in this country, why?”

Just let “The Worm” slither away to North Korea forever.

Atrios Started It: “expanding Social Security a respectable idea”

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From Pacific Standard Mag: How a Blogger Made Expanding Social Security a Respectable IdeaWhat’s left? Social Security. Though it was never meant to be a national retirement system all by itself, that’s increasingly what it has become. For Americans over age 65 in the bottom half of the income distribution, Social Security makes up at least 80 percent of retirement income.

And yet, when Social Security has been in the news in recent years, it has usually been because someone wants to cut it.