Monday, November 7, 2011

 STEAL THIS BLOG PLEASE!
I, Praetorian


Published Online: November 7, 2011
Published in Print: November 9, 2011, as Justice Dept. Pressures Ala. Districts for Data

Federal department of Justice Pressures Alabama Schools for Attendance Data

  • As litigation over Alabama's tough new immigration law continues, federal civil rights authorities have ramped up pressure on the state's public schools to show they are not violating federal law by denying students access to schooling because of their immigration status.
  • Saying Alabama's immigration law "may chill or discourage student participation" in public education, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez—who is the head of the civil rights division for the U.S. Department of Justice—last week ordered 39 school districts in the state to submit detailed enrollment data to his office, including information about students who have withdrawn from school since the current academic year began. Those districts were targeted because they have a "considerable number of Hispanic students," said Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department.
  • But Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange told school superintendents late last week to hold off on providing the data until the Justice Department cites what legal authority it has for requesting the information. In a Nov. 2  letter Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to Mr. Perez, Mr. Strange wrote that he is "perplexed and troubled" by the demand for student-enrollment data and questioned the Justice Department's standing to ask for it.
  • In a Nov. 4 letter to the Alabama attorney general, Mr. Perez wrote that the Justice Department has requested the information to review compliance under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the federal Equal Educational Opportunities Act. The letter also said the request for information is similar to statewide student enrollment data released to the press by Alabama last week. District leaders got no further clarity after Mr. Strange wrote back to Mr. Perez Nov. 4 asserting that the federal official had failed to cite legal authority to compel school districts to provide the enrollment data.

  • Caught in the Middle

  • The Obama administration has sued Alabama over its tough, new immigration lawRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which took effect Sept. 29. The law includes a provision requiring school districts to ask new students to show proof of citizenship or lawful immigration status when they enroll and report that information to the state department of education.
  • School districts across the state have reported widespread absences and withdrawals of Latino students this school year, especially in the days after Sept. 28 when a U.S. District Court judge in Birmingham upheld that provision. That part of the law has since been put on hold by a federal appeals court in Atlanta, and some districts have since seen an uptick in Hispanic students returning to school. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, in Atlanta will likely hear full arguments in the case later this year.

  • In the meantime, school district leaders around the state have become increasingly frustrated as they try to abide by both state and federal law while the dispute over the immigration law plays out, said Eric Mackey, the executive director of the School Superintendents of Alabama, a Montgomery-based group that represents local school chiefs. The data request from the Justice Department that the state attorney general is now challenging is just the latest example, he said.
  • "Our educators need to make sure that teaching and learning is happening every day in their schools, but they keep getting sidetracked by these legal issues and things that seem to be changing on a daily basis," said Mr. Mackey.

  • The Justice Department letter to superintendents specifically requests that school districts report information about students' race, national origin, and status as English-language learners. Besides asking for information about students who have withdrawn, the Justice Department is seeking data on students who have had even one "unexplained" absence this year. School districts have until Nov. 14 to respond. Additionally, Mr. Perez asks the districts to provide monthly reports on withdrawals and unexplained absences on an indefinite basis.
  • 'Troubling' Implications
  • Local school officials who received the Justice Department letter said they are disturbed by its implications.

  • "That they would assume that there's been some movement to discourage students from coming to school is very troubling to us," said Tom Salter, a spokesman for the 32,000-student school system in Montgomery, the state capital. "We've been trying our best to contact families and assure them that they are welcome in our schools. It doesn't matter what color they are, or where they are from, or if they have documentation."

  • Mr. Salter said Montgomery schools have not experienced a mass exodus of Hispanic students, whose current enrollment is about 1,250, but noted that roughly 40 Hispanic families have withdrawn their children and not returned.


  • In Birmingham's 25,000-student system—where district officials also received the Justice Department letter—about 72 Latino students have withdrawn and not returned since the beginning of the school year, said spokeswoman Michaelle Chapman. The district enrolls about 500 Hispanic students, and most of them are English-language learners, she said.

  • Like Montgomery schools, Birmingham has made a concerted effort to communicate directly with parents of Hispanic students and assure them that sending their children to school won't jeopardize their families.

  • "We want all children to be in school and to take advantage of the educational opportunities we offer," Ms. Chapman said.
  • Mr. Mackey said superintendents initially interpreted the letter as a 



  • warning that their districts might be targeted for legal action.
  • But Justice Department officials have since spoken to a few superintendents and reassured them that is not the case, he said.

  • "They were told that they had done nothing wrong and that the Justice Department is simply collecting data [related to the litigation]," Mr. Mackey said.

  • Ms. Hinojosa declined to comment on the specific purpose of the data request, other than to say that the Justice Department is responsible for enforcing federal laws that guarantee equal access to public education.

  • Still, Mr. Mackey said the data request itself will be a difficult undertaking for school systems, should it proceed. Some of the information the Justice Department is seeking, such as national origin of students and reasons for unexplained absences, is not collected at all by schools. And the request to submit enrollment reports on a monthly basis for an indefinite period of time is "egregious," he said.

  • Immigration advocates welcomed the Justice Department's request for student data.

  • "We are very appreciative of the Justice Department's presence here," said Isabel Rubio, the executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, an immigrant advocacy group based in Birmingham. "And we appreciate the level of detail they are asking for because one of the best ways we are going to be able to fully understand the impact of this law is how it has impacted students coming to school."



Sunday, November 6, 2011

"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH"




Study Warns of Limited Savings from Closing Schools
Edited by I, Praetorian

Description: Article Tools
·         Description: PrintPrinter-Friendly

Closing schools doesn’t save air academic progress. And it says school districts can help generate some acceptance for a downsizing plan by involving the community early and establishing clear reasons for why certain schools must close.

The report, released Oct. 19, was written by the Philadelphia Research Initiative to foreshadow what the 154,000-student Philadelphia district can expect over the next few years as it plans to close a number of schools because of declining enrollments. The district currently has 70,000 empty seats, according to the report. School administrators have not decided which schools to close and how many, but internal school documents published in June by the website Philadelphia Public School Notebook listed 26 schools that could be shut down.

The report looks at school closings in Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Mo., Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and the District of Columbia. Each of those districts has closed at least 20 schools in the past decade, and most of the buildings have been shuttered in the recent past.
For example, Pittsburgh, with around 25,300 students, went through a “right-sizing” effort that closed 22 schools in 2006. The district is now discussing closing seven more schools. The 17,400-student Kansas City district closed 29 schools—nearly half of its school buildings—in 2010.
A Matter of Context
Closing schools does save money, but in districts whose budgets add up to hundreds of millions of dollars or more, the final savings are relatively small, said Larry Eichel, the program director for the Philadelphia Research Initiative, which is a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Philadelphia’s current annual budget, for example, is $2.8 billion.
Six Cities Shuttering Buildings
To inform deliberations over plans to close schools in Philadelphia, researchers conducted case studies of recent school closings in six other urban districts.
Chicago
Closure Period: 2001-2009
Number Closed: 44
Buildings in Use: 602
Detroit
Closure Period: 2009-2010
Number Closed: 59
Buildings in Use: 130
Kansas City, Mo.
Closure Period: 2009-2010
Number Closed: 29
Buildings in Use: 29
Milwaukee
Closure Period: 2005-2010
Number Closed: 20
Buildings in Use: 137
Pittsburgh
Closure Period: 2006
Number Closed: 22
Buildings in Use: 64
District of Columbia
Closure Period: 2008
Number Closed: 23
Buildings in Use: 11
*As of 2011.
Source: The Philadelphia Research Initiative

“The savings are under a million dollars per school,” Mr. Eichel said. “That’s real money, but not money that changes anything fundamentally.”
The biggest chunk of district money is spent on teachers, and those staff members typically are still needed, just at different locations.

A district also has to pay for some maintenance on shuttered buildings so they don’t become neighborhood eye sores.

And districts should not expect a windfall from selling their old buildings. Those facilities are undesirable to businesses for some of the same reasons that districts decided to close them: The buildings are often located in areas that are losing population. Also, they tend to be in poor condition, and it may be hard to convert them to other purposes, Mr. Eichel said.
The study found examples of repurposing, however. In Milwaukee, a former middle school was bought last year for $600,000 to be converted into senior housing. In Chicago, several closed schools have been converted to charter schools.
Impact on Learning

In examining the academic performance of students in schools slated to be closed, the report focused on a studyDescription: Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader by the Consortium on Chicago School Research that looked at students whose schools were closed between 2001 and 2006. That study found that student performance fell at schools that were slated to be shut down and remained low for the rest of the school year. A year later, though, the academic performance of those displaced students had rebounded to preclosure levels.
The Pew report also cites a studyDescription: Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader led by researchers from the RAND Corp. that examined achievement from students from closed schools in a “midsized urban district in the Northeast.” Though the district was not named, the paper noted that the district closed 22 schools in the 2005-06 school year, which corresponds with Pittsburgh’s experience.
That paper said students in the district whose schools were closed did see a drop in their reading and math scores, but researchers found the effect could be mitigated or eliminated if the students were moved to schools that were higher-performing than the ones they left behind.

The Pew report offers several tools that districts can use to reduce the pain of closing schools. For example, it suggests that outside experts can bring a level of objectivity to the proceedings. Seeking community support early is also essential, the report notes.
It says that the 45,000-student District of Columbia school system committed a misstep by moving too quickly to close schools in the face of a 30 percent decline in enrollment. Under the leadership of then-Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, the school system announced that closures were coming in September 2007, and the final vote to close 23 schools came, after much controversy, four months later.

Mary Filardo, the executive director of the Washington-based 21st Century School Fund, studies school facilities issues and agrees that the system in Washington moved too quickly to shut down schools. Too many school districts distrust the public when it comes to closure decisions, she said.
Taking It to the Public

“The reason you involve the community is not to make [closings] palatable,” she said. “The reason you involve the community is because you want to make better decisions.”
She added that people whose children attend school in such urban areas often “are working-class or low-income. They know about making tough decisions and struggling” and can understand the necessity for some closings.

As District of Columbia school officials learned, making a misstep in school closings can cause political fallout. The community uproar over the closings in Washington was one of the ingredients that led last year to the primary-election defeat of then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who had selected Ms. Rhee, and to the chancellor’s departure.
And after community members in Chicago protested that school- closure decisions were being made in secret, the Illinois legislature passed a law in August that governs how that 409,000-student system can make facilities decisions.

“The political fallout is from not having a trusting relationship with your public,” Ms. Filardo said.
Being Transparent
But involving the public can be a delicate balancing act, said Nancy R. Kodman, the executive director for academic and operations integration for Pittsburgh schools. Just introducing the problem to the community, she said, leads to people saying, “You don’t have any solutions? You don’t have any ideas?” But a full plan is criticized for being drawn up in secret.

“You lessen that by being as transparent as you can,” Ms. Kodman said.
When Pittsburgh closed more than 20 schools, she said, the district talked with the public about what it was hoping to achieve. Academic improvement was put forward as the top goal, and to eliminate some political horse-trading, the closures were considered as a group, in a single up-or-down vote by the school board.

While many urban districts are struggling with how to handle excess space, Ms. Filardo noted that Seattle is dealing with overcrowded classrooms, thanks to unexpected population growth. The Seattle Times reported in October that in one school, a 4th grade class is meeting in a hallway, and many classes are meeting in portables. An infusion of about 1,500 more students than expected is prompting the district to reopen some schools that it had closed, over community objection, in the past few years.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

I know not everyone is a heavyweight boxing fan...

Brought to you by Praetorian Invictus Publications and Trash Pick Up. Coming to you from high a top mount Olympus. STEAL THIS BLOG PLEASE!


 I, Praetorian


Joe Frazier's legacy will include more than his battles with Muhammad Ali

Sunday, November 06, 2011, 12:08 AM
  By Jerry Izenberg edited by I, Praetorian

   Former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier, shown in 2009, has been diagnosed with liver cancer.
   Joe Frazier is dying inside a hospice in Philadelphia. He has liver cancer. Soon the Philadelphia left hook that seemed to have a life all its own will have lost every ounce of its thunder. Soon, Joe will be gone.
But Death, be not proud because you will not beat Joe. He will simply have run out of time before the final bell rings. In his last moments, his mind will still have him moving forward with that little bounce in his stride. And it will be as if he's saying:
   "Come on, Death. Show me what you got. You might win, but before you do I got something here for you."
So what follows here is the way I will always remember him. I covered his career. I was there on the night in the Philippines when he and Muhammad Ali left giant footprints as their legacy.
   Perhaps the best way to understand that is to begin in the wake of their first dramatic meeting in New York. This was one week after Joe Frazier had dumped the once and future heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali on his rear end on that long-gone night in Madison Square Garden.
Now we were standing outside a deli not far from the Joe Frazier Gym in North Philadelphia and these three kids, maybe 9 years old each, were running toward us shouting:
   "Joe Frazier ... Joe Frazier ... Joe Frazier."
   And the smile on Joe's face as they came nearer and nearer seemed to light up the tired, gray neighborhood. As they danced around him, Joe sent an aide back to his Rolls-Royce for autographed pictures. He gave one to each and Joe told them: "Now y'all stay in school. Don't make me have to find you."
Two of them laughed, but the third one said:
   
"My daddy says Muhammad Ali was drugged,"

   In that instant a cold, cold mask seemed to slide across the champion's face. "Yeah ... yeah," Joe said, "I drugged him with a left hook." And they saw the look in his eyes and all three of them ran away.
Frazier turned to me and said:
   "You heard that. What I got to do? What the hell I got to do?"
There was nothing he could do. Not then. Not ever. The sheer force of Ali's personality would doom him to a role as destiny's stepchild. The impossible riddle Joe posed that afternoon would follow him through his always courageous and often brilliant career. It was a question with no answer.
This is what Herman Melville meant when he wrote of Ahab's pursuit of the great white whale in Moby Dick. He and Ali would be linked forever inside a crucible of their own making. You could not mention one without the other.
Each time they would push each other to a place where neither had been before. Styles make fights and the very nature of their styles dictated that each time they met, they were not fighting for a belt or a crown. They did not fight for the championship of the world or Paraguay or Manila.
   No matter that Ali had the personality, the charm, the wit to dominate America's memory. Joe had the tools to force greatness upon Muhammad. That's why the thing they fought to claim was the heavyweight championship. The true fight was for claim over the other.
And they both knew it.
   It was never more obvious than on a sweltering day inside the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City just beyond the Manila skyline. It was at least 100 degrees inside that arena. At the start, Ali was, well, Ali — dancing, jabbing, taunting, winning. But something out of the ordinary happened in the fourth.
For virtually all of his career, Joe Frazier was a one-handed fighter (but what a hand!). His left hook was ferocious. His right hand? Well, you had to wonder whether he could even tie his shoes with it.
   But in the gym in Philly, Eddie Futch, the head trainer, and Georgie Benton, his assistant, worked for weeks on that right hand. "You are going to give him something to think about," Futch said over and over.
And in that fourth, Joe threw a right hand that landed on Ali's head.
   “You ain't got no right hand," Muhammad chanted shaking off the amazement. And then — POP. Another one.
"They told me you old," Ali said, breathing hard.
"They told you wrong," Joe shot back.
   And now suddenly it was a fight. A fight? Hell, it was the greatest heavyweight fight since Cain and Abel.
The ebb and flow was incredible. Guys get up off the mat in a fight and, once in a while, win. But you rarely see one guy losing and then winning and then losing and then ...
Well, you get the idea.
   In the end this fight was decided by anatomy. The shorter Frazier began to experience huge swelling around the eyes. In order to see, he had to straighten up — the exact opposite of his corner's game plan.
Ali now was winning. But in Round 13, he was so exhausted at a time when Frazier stood there with both arms down and legs exhibiting all the power of wet spaghetti. All Ali had to do was walk 5 feet or so and touch him and it would have been over. But Ali was too weak to do it.
   In the corner after 14, Futch told Benton to cut Joe's gloves off. Joe pushed and shoved and threatened, but they came off. Then Ali saw that it was over and collapsed.
   Nobody was tougher than Joe Frazier. Nobody had a bigger heart.
Death will probably win this last fight, but knowing Joe in that hazy limbo that spells the end, he'll probably tell old Death, "Don't gloat. Fifteen years ago, you wouldn't have laid a glove on me."
And forever after, I'll believe Joe was right.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Brought to you from the good folks at Praetorian Invictus Publications and trash pick up. Coming to you from high a top mount Vesuvius. STEAL THIS BLOG PLEASE!
I, Praetorian




 — Montgomery High School Principal Lee Romero sees the $24 million deficit the Sweetwater Union High School District is trying to close in its $320 million budget through layoffs and wonders if there isn’t a better solution.
Such as salary cuts.
Romero said he and his wife, who is a teacher, along with others would be willing to take a pay cut if it meant saving the four instructors slated to be laid off at his school if class sizes grow from 31 to 34 students, as proposed by the district.
“At what point do we do the right thing and take the cuts away from the classroom, because it is going to hurt our kids? Nobody including the district, including the unions, are talking about taking a pay cut,” Romero said. “If we go this route (by increasing class sizes), it is going to be bad for everybody.”
Alex Anguiano, president of the teachers union, said it was premature to discuss the possibility of salary cuts because negotiations on a new contract have not formally begun. But did express dissatisfaction with other areas of the district’s budget.
“Our district is spending money like there is not an economic crisis at all, so if we evaluate economy based on what school board has been approving, then there is not an economic crisis,” he said. “There are already less teachers. Classrooms are pretty overcrowded. That was our contribution to this fiscal crisis. We have already paid significantly.”
Among the teachers Romero expects to lose under seniority rules that come into effect during layoffs is special education teacher Juan Carrillo and county Teacher of the Year nominee Rhea Walker. They have been teaching for four years and 11 years, respectively.
According to Romero, those who could lose their jobs have contributed to his campus seeing an 85-point increase on the state’s performance index.
“To have more students in a classroom means more special ed students in a classroom, and it almost seems impossible,” Carrillo said.
Romero said no one should be laid off.
“In my 24 years of education, I have never seen a teacher released due to their ineffectiveness,” Romero said. “To lose some of the people who work the most or are effective, that’s just not right.”  (True for my 15 years, nor any rotten DO level administrators)
Walker can see both sides of the tenure system. (I can see both sides of a traffic wreck doesn't mean I advocate for causing one)
“Time and again you have proven your worth, but the bottom line is still the dollars,” Walker said. “You are thankful and grateful to have something there to guarantee you have a job, but at the same time it’s a double-edged sword.”
Romero said pay cuts need to be addressed.
“There’s 10 percent unemployment in California and people are taking cuts, but we have not,” he said. (much higher for Socal in general)
About 110 pink slips were issued last year; all but six Spanish teachers were called back to work. Administrators are taking four furloughs this year.
Anguiano said the union will defer to the will of its members in matters such as class size and salary reductions. The bargaining team for the union will be seeking member input through a series of open hearings and a survey, he said.
The district cut $11 million from this year’s budget to help close a more than $23 million deficit. The shortfall was covered with stimulus funds and previously restricted money that the state freed up for use in other areas.

For more than 40 years educators have stated the obvious: for students to be successful in school...



BY P.E. STAFF WRITER   DAYNA STRAEHLEY dstraehley@pe.com
Published: 28 October 2011 10:24 PM


EDITED for this site October,30 2011 by I, Praetorian


For more than 40 years educators have stated what in the classroom is obvious; for students to be successful in school, they need their parents to be involved. Towards that end, the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools said Friday it is opening the second annual Parent and Family Engagement Summit.


The event, which attracted hundreds of parent volunteers to Palm Springs, is part of an effort to raise awareness of and support for parents to be involved in their children’s education, he said.


“There’s only so much the school can do without the parents,” Superintendent Kenneth Young said, adding he includes other caregivers in the word “parents.” “There’s not much a school can do without the parents.”


He cited a University of Arizona study of high school dropouts, who had missed an average of 124 days of school, about three weeks per year, by the time they got to eighth grade.


“They essentially dropped out before they ever got to high school,” Young said. Teachers could see the pattern starting in kindergarten.


“If parents knew what life was going to be like for a high school dropout, they would have made a greater effort to get that child to school and improve attendance,” he said.


More education is the only way to improve the area’s economy, said Angel Meraz, a leader of Pathways to Success as part of the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership.


Those who go to college in Inland Southern California lags the state average and the problem is even more acute in the Coachella Valley, which has one of the nation’s lowest college-going rates, he said. Some 75 to 80 percent of public school students live in poverty, so college seems financially inaccessible, Young said.


Pathways to Success had a contest last year to see which high schools could get the most students to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which also determines eligibility for state grants and low-interest college loans. Indio High won, with 65 percent of seniors filling out the FAFSA, based on parents’ income tax returns, in early spring. Meraz said she hopes to increase the application rate 10 percent this year. Young said he wants to spread the competition countywide.


Parent involvement in education has to start well before it’s time to figure out how to pay for college. It starts when babies are learning to tell which person is mommy and which one is daddy, said keynote speaker and educational consultant John Antonetti.


Empathy at home is the No. 1 predictor of whether fourth-graders will be mathematical problem solvers, or “how often do they before age 6 explain what they are doing and thinking.”


People learn best when they think for themselves. He reminded educators and PTA leaders to give children time to figure out answers themselves. Telling them the answer too soon steals the opportunity for learning, Antonetti said.
Friday’s summit in Palm Springs, attended mostly by parents, followed a county summit Thursday attended mostly by educators.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Should Private Universities Be Held to the Same Standards for Anti-Discrimination as Public? Are All Student's Backgrounds Checked and including MTV? Are All Students Who Lie on an Application Expelled?

BY DAVID OLSON STAFF WRITER dolson@pe.com
Published: 28 October 2011 08:17 PM
EDITED BY:  I, Praetorian, October 30, 2011

Domaine Javier, 24; stated that Cal Baptist University officials told her she was expelled for falsely claiming on her application form that she is a female. Javier revealed on MTV’s “True Life” that she is biologically male.
Letters the university sent to Javier say she was expelled for “committing or attempting to engage in fraud, or concealing identity,” and for presenting false or misleading information in university judicial processes.


However, Javier, 24, said she has identified herself as female since she was a toddler and correctly clicked the space next to “female” on the online application form.


“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “They said, ‘On your application form you put ‘female.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s how I see myself.’”
Javier’s expulsion was finalized on Aug. 30, the week before she was scheduled to begin a nursing program at Cal Baptist after transferring from Riverside City College.


In an emailed statement, university spokesman Mark Wyatt wrote, “California Baptist University does not comment on student disciplinary matters or other confidential student information.”


California law prohibits employment, housing, government, insurance and other types of discrimination based upon gender identity. But private universities generally are not covered by the law, said Mark Wood, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center. The center is not aware of other transgender college students who were expelled.


Transgender refers to people whose gender identity differs from the biological sex they were born with. Some transgender people undergo sex-change operations; others do not.


Javier said university officials told her during expulsion hearings that they discovered her MTV appearance through a background check (Bullshit). They did not say whether that is how they discovered her gender identity, she said.
Javier was on an April episode of “True Life” entitled “I’m Passing as Someone I’m Not.” Cameras showed a man hitting on Javier while she danced at Riverside’s Club Sevilla in a low-cut pink and black dress and putting on make-up in the club’s bathroom. Javier said she only revealed her gender identity to family members.


“I am a girl trapped in a guy’s body,” Javier said on the show.
“When I’m out on a date, the loneliness goes away,” Javier said during a segment of her on one of her dates with a man who cut off the relationship after she told him she is transgender.


She said she applied to appear on the show to raise awareness on transgender issues and let other transgender people know that they’re not alone.
Javier said she was impressed with the nursing program at Cal Baptist, which is three blocks from her Riverside home. A university financial aid form shows she received a $3,500 dean’s academic scholarship. Javier said she was shocked when in July she received a letter that temporarily expelled her, pending hearings.


“I was devastated, because I really, really wanted to attend this campus,” she said.


Javier said the expulsion, that was finalized days before classes were set to begin, will delay her graduation from a nursing program by at least a year. She said she declined an admission offer by Cal State San Bernardino – that as a public university cannot discriminate against transgender students – to attend Cal Baptist.


Javier is back at Riverside City College but said she cannot enter the nursing program until next fall.


“This totally ruined my career path,” she said. “I’ve been trying to finish as soon as possible.”


Javier said she knew the university is a religious institution but did not realize it is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, the most conservative major Baptist denomination.


“I didn’t know they were that extreme,” said Javier, who attended Catholic schools in her native Philippines before immigrating to California eight years ago.


Cal Baptist’s written policies do not explicitly bar transgender students. But it has generally socially conservative rules, including a prohibition of social dances on university property and a requirement that applicants sign a form agreeing not to engage in homosexual behavior or to cohabit with someone of the opposite sex.


Despite the expulsion, Javier doesn’t regret her MTV appearance. She is buoyed by the support and positive comments she has received from about 200 people, most of them straight, through chats on the street or on Facebook.
“I’m a happier person now,” she said.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Part 1 of Deconstructing Hate Sites


This Information is Provided by the Victim of Such A Hate Site: A Man Still Fighting One Year Later to Clear His Name From the False Accusations of Belonging to Such Hate Based Internet Sewage... I am that Victim along with another outstanding person and Journalist MVgordie (mvgordie.com).


I, Praetorian






Responding to Online Hate
When people see hate on the Net, they just say: "Well, what can I do about it?" And they move on. But the only way people can start to get rid of the hate is by taking some interest in the ways in which we, as human beings, can prevent hate from spreading.
A Vancouver Island high-school student
MNet’s 2001 survey "Young Canadians in a Wired World" showed that when young people came across a "hateful" Web site, more than a third (36 per cent) simply ignored it. If they received hateful e-mail messages, again more than three in ten did nothing—though a similar percentage told a friend, an adult, or the police. There is no reason to believe that adults’ rate of response is any higher.
Granted, it’s not always easy to tell whether hateful online content is actually illegal, rather than just offensive and annoying. Sometimes material can only properly be defined as illegal by the courts. Still, the courts can’t prosecute what they don’t know about—so public response is crucial.
If people want to do something about hate material they see on the Internet, there are several options:
Contact the Internet Service Provider
All over the world, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are being forced to become more proactive about hate material on their servers. Most ISPs now have Acceptable Use Policies that clearly define the guidelines for using their services, as well as the penalties for violating those guidelines.
In Canada, most ISPs belong to the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP). CAIP’s Code of Conduct states that its members will not host illegal content, and will make a reasonable effort to investigate legitimate complaints about illegal content or network abuse—taking appropriate action, if needed. However, ISPs do not have the legal power to decide what material is illegal; and so most are reluctant to remove suspect content from their servers without official direction from a law enforcement agency.

Repor
t online hate to the police
Some urban police departments now have a High-Tech Crime Unit to investigate online offences. If none exists, a complaint can be made to the local police. It’s advisable to attach a copy of the offending material to the letter of complaint.

File a complaint with the F.B.I.
Good for the records otherwise pretty useless unless threats of violence are made.

Check out "hate watch" Web sites
A number of sites exist to monitor and document illegal material on the Internet. Some notable examples are B’nai Brith League for Human Rights, which hosts a hate hotline; and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which has identified thousands of offensive Web sites. Its CD entitledDigital Hate 2002 lists sites that promote antisocial and illegal activities ranging from hate music to suicide bombing. The Southern Poverty Law Center is another good resource.


Any hate found on a California Web site is now subject to new legislation—though hate encountered on other states sites must be dealt with differently. However, the U.S.-based Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League both recommend that surfers alert them to any online hate, so that they can try to get the offending material removed.


And since the active promotion of tolerance is one of the Abest responses to hate, check out the online pamphlet 101 Tools for Tolerance: Simple Ideas for Promoting Equity and Diversity, developed by the Web-based group Tolerance.org.

For more detailed information about the organizations mentioned here, a
s well as information on how to report online hate, see the links in the sidebar.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Freedom of Information Act | Restore Erased Email

Freedom of Information Act : Restore Erased Email

Electronic Records Had Been Discarded Under Interpretation of Retention Policy

Why Allow Deletion If Government Must Later Restore Records?
A county's formal policy on e-mail destruction failed to save it from the cost of recovering deleted e-mails in a lawsuit under Ohio's Public Records Act. Like FOIA laws in other states, Ohio's Records Act requires state government agencies like counties to disclose records to citizens upon request.
The case in question is a decision by the Ohio Supreme Court, State ex rel. Toledo Blade Co. v. Seneca County Board of Commissioners, 2008 WL 5157733 (Ohio Dec. 9, 2008).  Plaintiff sought e-mails of county commissioners concerning demolition of an old courthouse.  The county turned over some e-mails, but plaintiff managed to show that some relevant e-mails were missing because they had been deleted. It made this showing by analyzing the e-mails that were turned over and proving some logical gaps appeared within them.  Also, some commissioners admitted they had deleted some of their relevant e-mails.
The county's written policy allowed each user to delete e-mail that the user deemed to be of "no significant value." (Some people call such e-mails "non-records".)  Such a policy is a version of the make-a-decision style of e-mail (text and instant message) records management, where users are expected to decide the destruction/retention fate of each message.  
After the court determined that some relevant e-mails must have been deleted, it observed that through the use of forensics measures some e-mails might be recoverable from commissioner hard drives. The county argued it should not be required to restore deleted e-mails because they had been deleted in accordance with the county's record retention policy, which the county had adopted in good faith. Further, the county argued that forensics measures are excessively expensive.
The court disagreed with the county. The court ordered the county to undertake costly forensics steps to search for and restore deleted e-mail records that met certain criteria – all at the county's expense.
Gadzooks! If a government agency is required under a FOIA to incur great expense to recover deleted e-mails after officials had determined -- under a formally-adopted policy -- that the e-mails were of "no significant value," then it makes no sense to let officials delete e-mails in the first place.  Such a make-a-decision style of policy is unworkable because it will cause the government regularly to employ expensive forensics to recover deleted records.  As a policy matter, the government is wiser just to archive copious records and take decision-making out of the hands of individual users.
I have long questioned e-mail retention policies (the make-a-decision policies) that emphasize a user examining each particular message and then deciding whether to destroy it or to keep it.  But some learned people disagree with me.  An argument they sometimes make in favor of the make-a-decision style policy is that it mimics how paper was handled. With paper, they argue, lots of documents came across the desk of each official. The official would decide whether to throw the paper in the trash can, or to place it in folder A, or folder B or folder C.
Yet this Toledo Blade case demonstrates that e-mail is different from paper. Even after e-mail is deleted, it can still be recovered forensically.  The cost of recovery can be high, but this court forced government to incur that cost.
Technical footnote: The court ruled the commissioners had probably violated the county's policy by deleting e-mails that were of significant value, when the policy said that onlyinsignificant records would be deleted. However, this detail should not change our understanding of the case's import.  From the point of view of someone writing records management policy, the risk is ever-present that a court will second-guess users after-the-fact.  Looking back at past decisions, a court can always say, "user should not have allowed that e-mail to be deleted" or "user should have placed that e-mail in retention category X rather than retention category Y."  Users always make records management mistakes, and thus leave an enterprise constantly exposed to the threat of having to employ forensics (after-the-fact) to reverse user decisions.  Therefore, the policy writer is motivated just to remove users from retention/deletion decisions.
Background:  One of the purposes behind Freedom of Information Acts -- and public records acts generally -- is to enable citizens, FBI, police and internal auditors to investigate public officials for fraud, waste, corruption, embezzlement, conflicts of interest and misappropriation of funds.  The ever-present possibility of such a probe motivates officials to be fair and honest.
–Benjamin Wright

This is the fight of our professional careers. Are You In or Out?

What's taking so long? This is the fight of our professional careers. Are You In or Out? "Hell has a special level for those who sit by idly during times of great crisis."
Robert Kennedy

The Art of SETTING LIMITS, Its not as easy as it looks.

Art of Setting Limits Setting limits is one of the most powerful tools that professionals have to promote positive behavior change for their clients, students, residents, patients, etc. Knowing there are limits on their behavior helps the individuals in your charge to feel safe. It also helps them learn to make appropriate choices.


There are many ways to go about setting limits, but staff members who use these techniques must keep three things in mind:
Setting a limit is not the same as issuing an ultimatum.
Limits aren’t threats—If you don’t attend group, your weekend privileges will be suspended.

Limits offer choices with consequences—If you attend group and follow the other steps in your plan, you’ll be able to attend all of the special activities this weekend. If you don’t attend group, then you’ll have to stay behind. It’s your decision.
The purpose of limits is to teach, not to punish.
Through limits, people begin to understand that their actions, positive or negative, result in predictable consequences. By giving such choices and consequences, staff members provide a structure for good decision making.
Setting limits is more about listening than talking.
Taking the time to really listen to those in your charge will help you better understand their thoughts and feelings. By listening, you will learn more about what’s important to them, and that will help you set more meaningful limits.
Download The Art of Setting Limits

SYSTEMATIC USE OF CHILD LABOR


CHILD DOMESTIC HELP
by Amanda Kloer

Published February 21, 2010 @ 09:00AM PT
category: Child Labor
Wanted: Domestic worker. Must be willing to cook, clean, work with garbage, and do all other chores as assigned. No contract available, payment based on employer's mood or current financial situation. No days off. Violence, rape, and sexual harassment may be part of the job.

Would you take that job? No way. But for thousands of child domestic workers in Indonesia, this ad doesn't just describe their job, it describes their life.

A recent CARE International survey of over 200 child domestic workers in Indonesia found that 90% of them didn't have a contract with their employer, and thus no way to legally guarantee them a fair wage (or any wage at all) for their work. 65% of them had never had a day off in their whole employment, and 12% had experienced violence. Child domestic workers remain one of the most vulnerable populations to human trafficking and exploitation. And while work and life may look a little grim for the kids who answered CARE's survey, it's likely that the most abused and exploited domestic workers didn't even have the opportunity to take the survey.

In part, child domestic workers have it so much harder than adults because the people who hire children are more likely looking for someone easy to exploit. Think about it -- if you wanted to hire a domestic worker, wouldn't you choose an adult with a stronger body and more life experience to lift and haul and cook than a kid? If you could get them both for the same price, of course you would. But what if the kid was cheaper, free even, because you knew she wouldn't try and leave if you stopped paying her. Or even if you threatened her with death.



Congress Aims to Improve Laws for Runaway, Prostituted Kids

by Amanda Kloer

categories: Child Prostitution, Pimping

Published February 20, 2010 @ 09:00AM PT

The prospects for healthcare reform may be chillier than DC weather, but Democrats in the House and Senate are turning their attention to another warmer but still significant national issue: the increasing number of runaway and throwaway youth who are being forced into prostitution. In response to the growing concerns that desperate, runaway teens will be forced into prostitution in a sluggish economy, Congress is pushing several bills to improve how runaway kids are tracked by the police, fund crucial social services, and prevent teens from being caught in sex trafficking. Here's the gist of what the new legislation is trying to accomplish:

Shelter: Lack of shelter is one of the biggest vulnerabilities of runaway and homeless youth. Pimps will often use an offer of shelter as an entree to a relationship with a child or a straight up trade for sex. In the past couple years, at least 10 states have made legislative efforts to increase the number of shelters, extend shelter options, and change state reporting requirements so that youth shelters have enough time to win trust and provide services before they need to report the runaways to the police. Much of the new federal legislation would make similar increases in the availability and flexibility of shelter options.

Police Reporting: Right now, police are supposed to enter all missing persons into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database within two hours of receiving the case. In reality, that reporting doesn't always get done, making it almost impossible for law enforcement to search for missing kids across districts. This hole is a big problem in finding child prostitution victims and their pimps, since pimps will often transport girls from state to state. The new bill would strengthen reporting requirements, as well as facilitate communication between the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Runaway Switchboard

We Must Never Forget These Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and Women

We Must Never Forget These Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and Women
Nor the Fool Politicians that used so many American GIs' lives as fodder for the fight over an english noun - "Communism"