IS THIS THE EXCEPTION OR ... The PTO President of a Huntington Beach elementary school, is charged with One Felony Count of Grand Theft by Embezzlement

The PTO president of a Huntington Beach elementary school, Gail Diane Panella-Monestere, 52, of Huntington Beach, is charged with one felony count of grand theft by embezzlement, prosecutors said.

Originally Published Online in 
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

By ALEJANDRA MOLINA and SEAN EMERY  

Gail Diane Panella-Monestere, 52, of Huntington Beach, was charged with one felony count of grand theft by embezzlement, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office. She is suspected of embezzling more than $22,000 from student fundraisers, authorities said if convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of three years in Orange County Jail.

The PTO is also known in other school districts as the PTA and the PTSA; a Parent-Teacher-Student- Organization. Panella-Monestere was responsible for tracking and maintaining fundraiser money for Sun View Elementary School between September 2010 and February 2011, the District Attorney's Office said.

Prosecutors said Panella-Monestere abused her position of trust and embezzled about $22,000 when she wrote unauthorized checks to herself from the PTO bank account in amounts ranging from $250 to $800. She cashed them for personal use, prosecutors added.

Panella-Monestere is accused of keeping cash raised from fundraising events intended to be deposited into the PTO bank account.

School administrators discovered fundraiser money was missing and reported the theft to the Huntington Beach Police Department, who investigated the case.

Panella-Monestere is scheduled to appear in court for an arraignment on June 29, court officials said.

IS THIS THE EXCEPTION OR ...

This story may sound unusual and appalling considering the accusations, however having worked as an ASB director for nearly 5 years and educator for 15, I can tell you that the kind of theft that is described in the article happens at almost every school - public or private. Without district direction, school level oversight and administrative accountability, these incidents happen with widespread regularity. State budget cuts have reduced the number of experienced administrators needed and the problem is multiplied.

BACKGROUND

Most of the time school fundraising, whether it's elementary, middle or high school, is done in cash. Checks and credit cards are seldom accepted. Checks – because of the large number that are return unpaid and credit cards because the schools themselves usually cannot afford the cost.

There are basically three entities that oversee various student fundraising; most are school clubs that fall under the auspices of the ASB (Associated School Body, or student government). Others are run completely by parents, and are independent of the school or district, these are called booster clubs. Neither the principal nor the school district maintains a functional oversight. The last is the PTSA, PTO or PTA, although it may be known under other names. This is the organization of parents who fundraise for the good of the school as a whole and who are governed-by a very strict code with district level and state level hierarchies. Still, the handling of the monies is left to the parent or parents in charge.

The PTSA or PTO works directly with the staff and principal in order to provide for or assist all the staff and students at that school. However the bookkeeping and handling of large amounts of cash is left up to the means of charter's officers, often parents without systematic direction and the temptation is too often that individuals undoing. Regardless of which three organizations, theft happens almost all the time somewhere at some school in your school district. Thefts from Booster Clubs, especially high school, often amount into the hundreds of thousands each year.

JUST ANOTHER LOCAL EXAMPLE?


At the Moreno Valley Unified School District middle school at which I was the ASB co-director, between 2008-2010, teachers and other staff including the principal and his relatives were responsible for stealing as much as $100,000 in cash from student funds.  This includes theft, illegal usage, deliberate misappropriation or laundering money into other bank accounts. Folks that's just one school in one medium sized school district! 

When this kind of mishandling becomes apparent, it is often impossible for concerned individuals to get district level administrators to respond to complaints or reports about stealing of student fundraising monies. Often, these administrators are afraid the situation will become public and the disappearance or mishandling of these monies will reflect poorly on them and their job performance. (In some instances it should.) So instead of fixing the problem, a labor intensive effort, many district administrators will take the easy way out and collaborate in a series of cover-ups hoping the problem can be quietly swpt away. But the problem just becomes systemic as has happened in Moreno Valley. 


Even when presented with evidence enough to warrant a formal investigation, the Riverside County Office of Education seems hard pressed to do anything about about uncooperative districts. In 2006 Moreno Valley Unified School District defied the Riverside County Grand Jury's direction to change its accounting practices. The then Assistant Superintendent of Fiscal Services lied in a letter to the Grand Jury regarding the matter and got away with it because his statements were not thoroughly investigated. The changes the grand jury directed have not been implemented to this day. And the relasted problems have grown much larger. In keeping with the ideology of cover-up is better, Moreno Valley Unified has also ignored the Federal Government Office of Civil Rights' list of demands for change after their investigation of the districts H.R. department practices in 2005.

This kind of system wide cover up also fosters acts of retaliation. District and site level administrators hoping to silence vocal staff or parents trying to do the right thing by way of the students and their schools. This is especially true if the issue has become endemic across the entire school district. For more than 15 years this has been the case in Moreno Valley.

Some of the irresponsibility and cover up allowing these problems occurs at the level of the district school board members. Often the issues are known and liabilities discussed in the board's "closed sessions." The personalities, backgrounds and voter perceptions of the board trustees influence their decisions. These factors make for a cauldron of personal vendettas, poor dicissions, illegal investigations – usually at the behest of one or more of the trustees, thousands of dollars in unnecessary legal fees, and/or blind adherence to the subjective recommendations by the above-mentioned district administrators whose very employment is determined by the whims of the board members they report to.


This problem is further complicated by the trustees need to show voters their school district is being well managed so these trustees will be reelected at the end of their terms. Conversely, a politician can not hope for election to a "higher office" if they are associated with some district scandal. For many trustees the school board is just a stepping stone towards a more powerful and well paying elected office.

For others being a board member is an extension of a narrcisstic facet of their personality. Where they can take the stage in front of neighbors and local individuals. For them, inspite of their retoric, students' and parents' educational needs are seldom their driving concerns.

Attorney Discipline: System Must Weed Out Unethical Lawyers Who Damage Profession's Reputation

Originally Published by the

Los Angeles Daily Journal 

December 16, 2002

By James C. Turner and Suzanne M. Mishkin

In the fall of 2002, HALT - An Organization of Americans for Legal Reform released its Lawyer Discipline Report Card, the first comprehensive evaluation of the nation's attorney discipline system in ten years. The Report Card points to persistent problems that have gone largely unremedied for over a quarter of a century.

In 1970, a blue ribbon panel led by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark conducted a groundbreaking review of the attorney discipline system, and found a "scandalous situation" that required "the immediate attention of the profession."

The Clark Committee itemized 36 defects in the disciplinary system, in particular, criticizing the practices of most disciplinary agencies, which "deliberately discourage any publication of information concerning their activities, believing that the public image of the profession is damaged by a disclosure that attorney misconduct exists."

In addition, this review found that a panel of lawyers, rather than judges or lay persons, controlled the disciplinary system, creating an institutional bias that grossly undermines the effectiveness of the entire disciplinary system.

Twenty-two years later, an American Bar Association commission, chaired by Dean Robert McKay of the New York University Law School, found that the public has a "growing mistrust of secret, self-regulated lawyer discipline."

Like the Clark Committee before it, the McKay Commission concluded that the practice of allowing bar officials to control state disciplinary systems creates the appearance of a gross conflict of interest, "regardless of the actual fairness and impartiality of the system."

Summing up the situation in 1992, the Commission criticized the entire country's lawyer discipline system as "too slow, too secret, too soft and too self-regulated."

While there has been some modest progress since these scathing indictments, sadly it has not been nearly enough to fix a badly broken system.

Just last month, Stanford University Legal Ethics Professor Deborah L. Rhode stated, "Bar disciplinary procedures are anything but user-friendly to the consumer, and most are more responsive to the profession's interests than the public's."

Similarly, judges, legal scholars, practicing attorneys and bar officials, who convened the National Conference on Professionalism at the University of South Carolina School of Law, broadly agreed that the current system of lawyer discipline has lost the public's confidence, and urged the profession to lead the way in demanding meaningful reforms.

HALT's Report Card is our effort to bring the deficiencies of the attorney discipline system to the attention of the profession and the public. The Report Card assesses the performance of disciplinary systems in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on six key factors: (1) adequacy of discipline imposed; (2) publicity and responsiveness; (3) openness of the process; (4) fairness of disciplinary procedures; (5) public participation; and (6) promptness.

The results expose an appalling pattern of toothless sanctions, unnecessary secrecy, biased procedures and endless delays.

More than 114,000 complaints were filed against lawyers in 2000, the most recent year for which the American Bar Association provides data. In that same year, the rate of formal discipline was less than 3.5 percent, and the rate of disbarment was less than one percent.

In California, 93 percent of investigated cases led to absolutely no disciplinary action. And this is not surprising given that California bar rules provide that a lawyer will only be disciplined if misconduct is proven by "clear and convincing evidence," a far more demanding standard of proof than the "preponderance of the evidence" test that applies in other civil proceedings.

In state after state, we found that most complaints are not even investigated or are dismissed on technicalities, while only a handful lead to more than a slap on the wrist in the form of a private admonition or a closed-door reprimand. With this tiny trickle of discipline, is it any wonder that a recent Columbia Law School survey found less than one-third of Americans think lawyers are even "somewhat" honest?

In most states, attorney discipline proceedings are secret, non-public hearings where a panel of lawyers sits as both judge and jury. In many states, even the person who filed the complaint does not have a right to attend.

In California, there is not even token layperson representation in disciplinary decisions - instead, only lawyers decide if and when to impose sanctions upon their colleagues.

In every jurisdiction except Oregon and Arizona, disciplinary bodies refuse to release an attorney's full disciplinary history. Officials in California will only inform consumers of whether an attorney has been publicly disciplined; records of all complaints, formal charges and informal discipline are kept under seal.

Consumers in many jurisdictions are forced into silence by gag rules that threaten fines or jail for talking about the complaint or its outcome. Even those without gag rules frequently try to restrain speech, asking complainants to keep their grievances confidential.

Justice delayed may be justice denied, but it is par for the course in attorney discipline cases. Even the state that earned our highest grade (Massachusetts with a B minus) failed to act promptly on complaints - taking an average of 681 days to issue formal charges and well over two years to impose discipline.

In Washington State, it took one victim thirteen years to get an incompetent lawyer suspended. Many states, like California, do not even keep a record of how promptly they respond to grievances.

These are national problems; of the fifty-one jurisdictions we evaluated, thirty-nine earned a C- or lower; and twenty-one of these received Ds or lower (Pennsylvania and North Carolina flunked outright). California earned a mediocre C.

Part of the problem is that lawyer discipline bodies are asked to perform conflicting missions.

For example, the mission statement for the District of Columbia disciplinary body requires it to fulfill "a dual function: to protect the public and the courts from unethical conduct by members of the D.C. Bar and to protect members of the D.C. Bar" (emphasis supplied).

A lawyer discipline system serving two conflicting masters is bound to prove ineffective.

To correct the nationwide pattern of laxity, secrecy, bias and delay that characterize this broken system, we believe four fundamental reforms are needed.

* Lawyer discipline cases should be heard by publicly controlled disciplinary panels where non-lawyers have at least a majority voice. Independent medical boards in many states offer a superior model for ensuring accountability. These medical boards, which are appointed by governors and state legislatures, rely on physicians to help them understand technical issues, but the doctors stay out of the decision-making process. Lawyers should, too.

* The discipline system must come out into the open. Private reprimands should be replaced with meaningful public discipline. Hearings should be open to the public. And complaints against lawyers and sanctions should be a matter of public record, available to every citizen.

* Disciplinary policies should more closely approximate the rules governing the civil justice system. Gag rules should be abolished. If the preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that an attorney has violated the rules of professional conduct, the attorney should be sanctioned.

* The glacial pace of attorney discipline must come to an end. Imposing real deadlines - requiring a preliminary disciplinary hearing within ninety days, for example - would be a giant step toward jettisoning bureaucratic red tape and creating a system that actually brings justice to victims of misconduct.

By adopting these simple reforms, we can replace a system that is an abject failure with one that actually protects consumers and begins to restore public confidence in the legal profession.

After thirty years of ignored calls for reform, responsible lawyers who have a real commitment to professional responsibility need to mobilize and demand action to fix the attorney discipline mess.

All who practice law have a shared interest in creating a system that investigates promptly, deliberates openly, and weeds-out unethical or incompetent attorneys who damage the profession's reputation.

By addressing long-recognized failures in the current disciplinary system, we have an opportunity to create a structure that engenders consumer trust and respect, rather than alienation and resentment. After three decades of marginal reform, can we do less?
-------------
* James C. Turner is Executive Director and Suzanne M. Mishkin is Associate Counsel of HALT, Inc. - An Organization of Americans for Legal Reform.

Labels: 

Does it Matter if Mitt Romney was a "Vicious" Bully in the Exclusive Private High School He Attended?

Originally Published in the  Washington Post
Thursday, Mar. 10, 2012

See other posts on bullying.

The important question is whether Mitt Romney's character has changed since his high school bullying days. Obviously, he has learned to restrain from vocalizing about or physical aggression in public (If they ever existed). But if so, does he still have the urge to force others to think like him? To make them suffer for being different? Is he telling the truth when he says he does not remember the incident(s), to which other participants have confessed? (See second story below.)


Does it matter if Mitt Romney was a bully in high school? 
When Mitt Romney was a senior at his exclusive suburban Detroit’s Cranbrook High School. Romney led his own 'posse' that among other things, forcibly pinned to the ground and cut the long blond hair of a non-conformist junior, according to a Washington Post report.


Christian Science Monitor 
By Peter Grier
May 10, 2012

Does it matter if Mitt Romney misbehaved in high school? That question arises due to a report in Thursday’s Washington Post that when he was a senior at suburban Detroit’s Cranbrook school, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee led a “posse” that held down and forcibly cut the long blond hair of a nonconformist junior.

In this video, Romney apologizes for any pranks he may have pulled in high school that hurt or offended his fellows. However, according to fellow student Matthew Friedemann, quoted in the Post, “He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Mitt proclaimed at the time of one of his alleged victims.

Mr. Romney himself said Thursday that he cannot remember the incident. The longhaired student in question, John Lauber, is now deceased. But Romney gave some legs to the story by apologizing repeatedly for any pranks he may have pulled in high school that hurt or offended his fellows.

“As to pranks that were played back then, I don’t remember them all. But again, high school days – if I did stupid things, I’m afraid I've got to say sorry for it,” said Romney in an interview on Fox News Radio. Why would he be "afraid" to do so? Wouldn't a leader - the caliber of a US President - step forward to except responsibility? Complete responsibility?

Romney’s opponents say they are torn by the relevance of an alleged incident that would have occurred some 50 years ago. But they forge ahead nonetheless, saying that if true, the forcible haircut could provide some insight into the character of a man who wants to sit in the Oval Office.

“Romney was 18 – old enough to vote, old enough to serve in the military, and old enough to know not to attack a vulnerable teenager unprovoked... "



Here's a quote from the Washington Post story:

"The 'John Lauber' incident was recalled similarly by five fellow students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be identified... “It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber...“It was a hack job,” recalled Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. “It was vicious. He was just easy pickin’s,” said Friedemann, then the student prefect, or student authority leader of Stevens Hall, expressing remorse about his failure to stop it. Friedemann, guilt ridden, made a point of not talking about it with his friend and waited to see what form of discipline would befall Romney at the famously strict institution. Nothing happened."

Mitt Romney forced to apologize after he 'mocked and assaulted high school classmate who was 'presumed gay' 

The Daily Mail
By DANIEL BATES
10 May 2012

Mitt Romney has been forced to apologize for forcibly shaving the head of a high school classmate who was regularly taunted for being gay.

The Republican presidential candidate grabbed tearful John Lauber and hacked away with a pair of scissors because he thought his bleached blond hair was "wrong".

Mr Romney also supposedly mocked another student who was a closeted gay by shouting "Atta girl!" when he tried to speak in class.

The damaging claims come a day after Barack Obama said he was in favour of gay marriage.

Mr Romney has made it clear he opposes it but issued an apology for fear of being seen as homophobic.

He said: "Back in high school, you know, I did some dumb things. If anyone was hurt by that or offended by that, obviously I apologize."

"But after all, high school years were a long time ago".

Interviews with Mr Romney’s former classmates at the $54,000 a year Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, reveal he was fond of jokes that were mostly good natured by sometimes had a hard edge.

After the shaving incident Mr Lauber ‘seemed to disappear’ from life in school and was later expelled for smoking and died in 2004 of liver cancer.

Torment: The republican presidential hopeful was said to have taunted students who were known to be gay and those from poor backgrounds at the exclusive Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Decades after it happened Romney ran into one of his friends who helped hold Lauber down and told him: 'It was horrible.'

"It’s something I have thought about a lot since then'" said Romney.

The incident supposedly happened in the Summer term in 1965 when Mr Lauber, who was a year younger than Mr Romney, came back from Spring Break with his hair dyed blond and styled so it was draped over one eye.

According to the Washington Post Mitt Romney would not let it go and told his friend Matthew Friedemann: "He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!"

A few days later Mitt Romney assembled a four man posse which found Lauber, tackled him to the floor, held him down while the future governor of Massachusetts clipped away.

When it was completed the crowd cheered Romney as he walked out of the room.

The incident was recalled by five former Cranbrook pupils including Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor, who helped hold Mr Lauber down.

"It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me. What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do."

Phillip Maxwell, who is now a lawyer, added: "It was a hack job. It was vicious."

Mr Friedemann, who is now a dentist, also felt bad for not stopping it happening and admitted Lauber was "easy pickins" meaning he was unlikely to put up much of a fight.

Mr Romney’s time at Cranbrook is credited with shaping Romney into the hard-working, driven man he is today. It was also the time in his life when sports and socializing governed his life more than at any other time. Friends recalled how he and his friends would be up all night f....ing around, the sound of his laughter filling the corridors at 2am.

In English class Romney showed a less easy going side - Mitt Romney had a ritual of interrupting fellow pupil Gary Hummel, a closet gay, by shouting "Atta girl!"

According to the Washington Post he also behaved in very unfriendly manner towards scholarship student Lou Vierling when Romney found Vierling came from a poor area of Detroit.

Mr Romney’s wife Ann has claimed that contrary to his public image as a "tin man", as one friend has claimed, he is actually a "wild and crazy man."

And details about his pranks have come to light before, notably in the biography, ‘The Real Romney’, by Boston Globe investigative reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman

The problem with the latest revelations however is that they suggest a cruelty which voters might find hard to stomach.

Romney’s most famous such incident is also his most controversial - when he strapped his dog to the top of his car during a 12-hour drive from Massachusetts to Canada in 1983...

California Court of Appeal Determines Supervisory or Management Employees (Administrators) May Be Held Liable for Retaliation under the Reporting by School Employees of Improper Governmental Activities Act

Originally published on the website of legal firm Dannis, Woliver and Kelly -DWK.

On April 26, 2012, the Fourth District California Court of Appeal reversed the trial court in part, holding that management employees may be liable for retaliation under the Education Code. The Court of Appeal issued its decision in Hartnett v. Crosier (D058914), a case in which a former employee of the San Diego County Office of Education (“SDCOE”) sued several SDCOE employees, alleging that they retaliated against him in violation of the Reporting by School Employees of Improper Governmental Activities Act (Ed. Code, § 44110 et seq.). 

 Background

The California Legislature enacted the Reporting by School Employees of Improper Governmental Activities Act (“Act”) in 2000, so that public school employees, particularly classified school employees and teachers, may “bring forward to their supervisors or management improper activities without having to fear they are endangering their jobs.” Education Code section 44113 prohibits employees from using or attempting to use official authority or influence to interfere with protected disclosures under the Act. A protected disclosure is a good faith communication that discloses or demonstrates an intention to disclose information that may evidence either an improper governmental activity or a condition threatening health or safety of public employees for purposes of remedying the condition. 

The Act’s prohibition on use of official authority or influence to interfere with a protected disclosure includes “promising to confer or conferring any benefit; affecting or threatening to affect any reprisal; or taking, directing others to take, recommending, processing, or approving any personnel action, including but not limited to appointment, promotion, transfer, assignment, performance evaluation, or other disciplinary action.” (Ed. Code, § 44113, subd. (b).) An employee who violates the prohibition may be liable in an action for civil damages brought against the employee by the offended party. Education Code section 44114, subdivisions (b) and (c) provide also that a person who intentionally engages in acts of reprisal, retaliation, threats, coercion, or similar acts against a public school employee or applicant for having made a protected disclosure is subject to a fine not to exceed $10,000 and imprisonment in jail for up to one year as well as liability for civil damages, including punitive damages for malicious acts. 

Rodger Hartnett’s complaint stated that he was a claims coordinator in SDCOE’s risk management department. He alleged that he was discharged in 2007 not for incompetency, insubordination, and dishonesty as the school district contended, but in retaliation by several SDCOE employees for reporting that some SDCOE employees referred legal business to friends and family members in exchange for gifts, gratuities, and discounted personal legal services. He claimed his discharge violated the Act and entitled him to punative damages and attorney fees among other relief.

The trial court granted summary judgment for the individual employee defendants, finding that Education Code section 44113, subdivision (a) did not impose liability because the defendants were management employees as defined in the Educational Employment Relations Act (“EERA”) and that Education Code section 44114, subdivision (d) did not provide punitive damages and attorney fees for Hartnett because he was also a management employee. Hartnett appealed, contending the trial court erred in these determinations

.

Decision

The Court of Appeal held that management employees who are also supervisory employees with authority over personnel actions are not exempt from liability under the Act. The Act references the EERA to define “employee,” which excludes management employees, but the EERA also separately defines supervisory employees.   The Court agreed with the Third District Court of Appeal’s conclusion in Conn v. Western Placer Unified School Dist. (2010) 186 Cal.App.4^th 1163, that Education Code section 44113 does not exempt management employees from liability for retaliation if the employees were acting as supervisory employees when they committed the allegedly offending acts. In Hartnett, the Court of Appeal reasoned that to exempt management employees exercising supervisory authority in personnel actions would exempt those most likely and able to retaliate against employees making protected disclosures and thwart the Act’s very purpose. The Court did uphold the trial court’s determination that Hartnett was not entitled to claim the additional remedies of punitive damages and attorney fees because he was a management employee.

Impact

Management employees may be held liable for claims of retaliation under the Reporting by School Employees of Improper Governmental Activities Act if such employees are acting as supervisory employees with authority over personnel actions when they commit the allegedly offending acts.

THE RICH CONTINUE TO GET RICHER IN GOOD OR BAD ECONOMIC TIMES

By STEVEN RATTNER
New York Times
March 25, 2012

NEW statistics show an ever-more-startling divergence between the fortunes of the wealthy and everybody else — and the desperate need to address this wrenching problem. Even in a country that sometimes seems inured to income inequality, these takeaways are truly stunning.

Economic Scene: Inequality Undermines Democracy (March 21, 2012)

In 2010, as the nation continued to recover from the recession, a dizzying 93 percent of the additional income created in the country that year, compared to 2009 — $288 billion — went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those with at least $352,000 in income. That delivered an average single-year pay increase of 11.6 percent to each of these households.

Still more astonishing was the extent to which the super rich got rich faster than the merely rich. In 2010, 37 percent of these additional earnings went to just the top 0.01 percent, a teaspoon-size collection of about 15,000 households with average incomes of $23.8 million. These fortunate few saw their incomes rise by 21.5 percent.

The bottom 99 percent received a microscopic $80 increase in pay per person in 2010, after adjusting for inflation. The top 1 percent, whose average income is $1,019,089, had an 11.6 percent increase in income.

This new data, derived by the French economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez from American tax returns, also suggests that those at the top were more likely to earn than inherit their riches. That’s not completely surprising: the rapid growth of new American industries — from technology to financial services — has increased the need for highly educated and skilled workers. At the same time, old industries like manufacturing are employing fewer blue-collar workers.

The result? Pay for college graduates has risen by 15.7 percent over the past 32 years (after adjustment for inflation) while the income of a worker without a high school diploma has plummeted by 25.7 percent over the same period.

Government has also played a role, particularly the George W. Bush tax cuts, which, among other things, gave the wealthy a 15 percent tax on capital gains and dividends. That’s the provision that caused Warren E. Buffett’s secretary to have a higher tax rate than he does.

As a result, the top 1 percent has done progressively better in each economic recovery of the past two decades. In the Clinton era expansion, 45 percent of the total income gains went to the top 1 percent; in the Bush recovery, the figure was 65 percent; now it is 93 percent...

Posted by Maura Larkins at 2:42 PM 0 comments 

Labels: income inequality, rich and poor, taxes, welfare for the rich

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Rush Limbaugh Calls Sandra Fluke a Slut - Response Video

When the woman is using birth control, her husband or boyfriend is obviously also protected by it. What is Rush Limbaugh's name for the man involved?

Rush Limbaugh Calls Sandra Fluke a Slut - Response Video

A musical comedy duo fronted by Marie Cecile Anderson and Katy Frame has been lassoing hearts throughout the New York City comedy scene. Here's a song about Rush Limbaugh and birth control:

Being a Woman is not a pre-existing condition

Health insurance companies charge women up to 50 percent more than men for the same coverage. Beginning in 2014, the Affordable Care Act will close the insurance gender gap once and for all: It will be illegal for health insurers to discriminate against women.

Right now, being a woman is considered a "pre-existing condition." In fact, insurance companies are charging women up to 50 percent more than men for the same coverage.

How many times have you heard Republicans say this is outrageous? Zero.

And how many times have you heard them vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act? We've lost track.

The Affordable Care Act will close the insurance gender gap once and for all. Beginning in 2014, it will be illegal for health insurers to charge women more than men for the same coverage.

So, by threatening to repeal this law, Mitt Romney and the GOP would essentially give insurance companies license to continue discriminating against women.

Posted by Maura Larkins at 2:22 PM 0 comments 

Labels: . Limbaugh (Rush Limbaugh), birth control, healthcare insurance, sluts

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Does Propranolol Reduce Racism? Probably Yes, Subconsciously

by Christian Nordqvist
Academic Journal
11 Mar 2012

A small study found that people's subconscious racial bias is considerably reduced if they are taking propranolol, a heart disease drug, researchers from Oxford University wrote in the journal Psychopharmacology. The study was carried out by a team of psychologists, ethicists and psychiatrists.

Lead author, Sylvia Terbeck and team carried out an experiment on 36 individuals. 18 were given propranolol, while the other 18 took a placebo that looked just like the propranolol. They found that those on the heart medication scored considerably lower on the Implicit Attitude Test which gauged their subconscious racial bias. The test measures people's levels of subconscious racism.

The authors stressed that propranolol made no difference in people's explicit attitudes to races.
What is propranolol (INN)

Propranolol (INN), molecular formula C16H21NO2, is a sympatholytic non-selective beta blocker. Sympatholytics are medications that are used for the treatment of anxiety, panic and high blood pressure (hypertension).

Propranolol was the first ever effective beta blocker. It is available in both brand name forms, such as Inderal, Deralin, Dociton, Sumial, and generic form as propranolol hydrochloride. It is a banned substance in the Olympics, because of its use in controlling stage fright (social anxiety) and tremors.

Propranolol is also used in treatment for cluster headaches prophylaxis, essential tremor, glaucoma, migraine prophylaxis, primary exertional headache, shaky hands, and tension headache (off label use).

Propranolol blocks activation in the peripheral autonomic nervous system, as well as in the brain area that impacts on emotional responses and fear.
How does propranolol reduce racism?

The authors suggest that racial bias is based on automatic, non-conscious-fear responses, which propranolol reduces.

Sylvia Terbeck said:

"Our results offer new evidence about the processes in the brain that shape implicit racial bias. Implicit racial bias can occur even in people with a sincere belief in equality. Given the key role that such implicit attitudes appear to play in discrimination against other ethnic groups, and the widespread use of propranolol for medical purposes, our findings are also of considerable ethical interest.

Many people with medical conditions are probably already on drugs which affect subconscious bias and more research is needed into how drugs which affect our nervous system affect our moral attitudes and practices.


Co-author,, Prof. Julian Savulescu, wrote:

"Such research raises the tantalising possibility that our unconscious racial attitudes could be modulated using drugs, a possibility that requires careful ethical analysis.

Biological research aiming to make people morally better has a dark history. And propranolol is not a pill to cure racism. But given that many people are already using drugs like propranolol which have 'moral' side effects, we at least need to better understand what these effects are.

Posted by Maura Larkins at 6:00 PM 0 comments 

Labels: propranolol, Race

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Rick Santorum (or perhaps his lookalike?) sees Satan controlling mainline Protestant churches

Rick Santorum lookalike?
See the Fiscal Times photo gallery.

Santorum, under fire for Satan comments, recalls Reagan's 'courage'
By Mitchell Landsberg
February 22, 2012

...In 2008, speaking to students at a Catholic school, Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla., Santorum spoke of a satanic assault on the United States.

“The Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country -- the United States of America,” he said, according to a tape of the remarks on the university website. “If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age? There is no one else to go after other than the United States.”

In the same speech, Santorum seemed to suggest that mainline Protestant churches have been influenced by Satan and are no longer Christian. He said the devil had exerted control over academia and then began attacking Christianity. “And of course,” he said, “we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is a shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.”...

Posted by Maura Larkins at 4:04 PM 0 comments 

Labels: . Santorum (Rick Santorum), Christianity, Republicans, Satan

Friday, February 17, 2012

A Clinician’s View of the Laptop-Shooting Dad

Tommy Jordan shows our willingness to excoriate teens for bad behavior while absolving ourselves of parental responsibility for it
By CHRISTOPHER J. FERGUSON
February 17, 2012

By shooting his daughter’s laptop and posting the event on YouTube, Tommy Jordan has become a minor celebrity. His actions give catharsis to perennial adult frustration with teenagers. But watching the video I was struck not only by his own words but also those of his daughter (read aloud by Jordan) which, to me, reflected not moral high ground by either party but a cycle of mutual anger, frustration and failure to communicate. Given that, to my knowledge, his daughter has been given no platform to explain her grievances toward her father, it’s easy to view things through Jordan’s lenses when we hear only one side of the story. I am sure he has legitimate grievances against her (and probably she against him). However, was destroying her property and humiliating her publicly the best way to resolve this conflict?

In my own work as a clinical psychologist, I have worked with many teens and their families. Although certainly some teens are fully responsible for their problems despite having model parents, and at other times the kids would be better off being raised by a pack of raccoons, in most cases both parties fueled rather than dealt responsibly with emerging problems. Rarely did I find either parents or teens who were entirely right, although each often thought they were. Teens ranting over chores and whatnot can often reflect deeper feelings of alienation or perceived uncaring on the part of parents. In many cases the bad behavior of teens, whether disrespect, apathy or conflict, often could be traced back to failures by parents to show respect or caring toward their children in earlier years. To be clear, this is not to absolve teens of responsibility for their actions, merely to point out that family conflicts are rarely so clear as to identify one party as good, the other bad.

A study by Brian Barber in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that both negative parenting and adolescent personality problems contributed to conflicts within the family. Similar research by Bruce Simons-Morton and colleagues in the Journal of School Violence and Soh-Leong Lim and colleagues in Marriage & Family Review suggest that parental warmth and decreased overbearingness are related to less conflict and more positive teen outcomes across cultures.

This is not to say that teens should never be disciplined, but that fostering bonding and trust between the parent and teen is a crucial element that shouldn’t be but often is neglected.

To put this in perspective, let us imagine that my wife and I were having difficulties in our marriage (we are not). One day I discover she has posted ranting complaints about my boorish behavior to her friends on Facebook, believing I will not see them. Do I have a right to feel hurt? Of course. Would shooting her laptop and releasing a publicly humiliating rant of my own against her on YouTube be likely to improve our marriage? No, I don’t think so. But perhaps Hannah Jordan will have a good sense of humor and take this all in stride.

I’m less disappointed in Tommy Jordan, though, than the widespread endorsement of his actions, which probably stems from the habit of disparaging teens, a perennial sport of older adults who enjoy the sanctimonious feel of being able to say, “When we were kids we behaved much better,” even when this is patently untrue. Modern youth, by almost any behavioral measure available, are the best behaved since the 1960s, far better behaved than their parents currently complaining about them. All the Internet backslapping and support for Jordan points to our general willingness to excoriate teens for their bad behavior while absolving ourselves of parental responsibility for it.

I have little doubt Jordan cares about his daughter; that much comes through in his video despite all else. But if this video is reflective of the general way he interacts with her, I see why she might be angry with him. Was her rant on Facebook immature? Sure, but she’s 15. What’s our excuse as parents?


Ferguson is associate professor of psychology and criminal justice at Texas A&M International University. The views expressed are solely his own.

Posted by Maura Larkins at 8:59 AM 0 comments 

Labels: disciplining kids, parent anger, parenting

Friday, February 10, 2012

Eric Cantor protects political intelligence consultants from STOCK Act. Eric Cantor under fire for STOCK Act tweaks

Cantor's version strips a provision requiring consultants to disclose their activities.

By SEUNG MIN KIM
2/8/12
Politico

A feel-good bill has suddenly turned nasty.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has released his version of a congressional insider-trading ban, and it strips a provision that would require so-called political intelligence consultants to disclose their activities, like lobbyists already do. It also scraps a proposal that empowers federal prosecutors going after corruption by public officials.

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That’s stoked backlash from Democrats and even some Republicans, who are furious at Cantor and are accusing the Virginia Republican of watering down the popular legislation that easily passed Senate last week.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) slammed the House for deleting his amendment targeting the political intelligence industry, which tracks action on Capitol Hill and then sells the information to investors. Instead, the House bill requires just a study of the industry’s activities within 12 months.

“It’s astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House would fulfill Wall Street’s wishes by killing this provision,” Grassley said in a statement. “If Congress delays action, the political intelligence industry will stay in the shadows, just the way Wall Street likes it.”

Cantor spokeswoman Laena Fallon said the provision was deleted because it was “extremely broad” and added that the “unintended consequences on the provision could have affected the first amendment rights of everyone participating in local rotaries to national media conglomerates.”

Democrats weren’t comforted by that explanation.

“The thing we greatly feared has come upon us,” Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Wednesday. “It has been weakened, totally, as far as I’m concerned.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who co-authored with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) an amendment to crack down on public corruption using a number of measures, said he was “deeply disappointed” his provision had disappeared from the House bill. Leahy noted that a similar measure cleared the House Judiciary Committee in December.

“If we are serious about restoring faith in government and addressing the kinds of egregious misconduct that we have witnessed in recent years in high-profile public corruption cases, Congress must act now to enact serious anti-corruption legislation,” Leahy said in a statement. “The House Republicans’ version of the STOCK Act misses that opportunity.”

For Cantor’s part, the House’s No. 2 Republican has added provisions that he says strengthens the STOCK Act, which explicitly bars lawmakers and their aides from using nonpublic information gained through their jobs to profit themselves.

The new version of the House’s STOCK Act ensures that the bill’s insider-trading ban and its disclosure requirements apply to the executive branch, and it also bans lawmakers convicted of a crime from collecting pensions.

In a shot at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Republicans also added a so-called “Pelosi provision” that imposes stricter rules on public officials who participate in initial public offerings. The California Democrat was targeted in a “60 Minutes” probe that reported Pelosi and her husband participated in Visa’s IPO while a bill governing credit-card legislation was pending before Congress.

Pelosi has denied any conflict of interest or special access related to the Visa IPO.

Slaughter was peeved at the “Pelosi Provision” when asked about it on Wednesday.

“I think the fact that they put this in was strictly to cause grief to [Pelosi],” Slaughter said, “and I resent it.”

Cantor said in a statement late Tuesday that he consulted “dozens of members” as he reworked the bill. But neither Slaughter nor Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), the primary sponsors of the STOCK Act, worked with Cantor on the new bill, the Democrats said.

Despite the partisan bickering, the legislation is expected to pass when it comes up for a vote Thursday.

Posted by Maura Larkins at 5:24 PM 0 comments 

Labels: . Cantor (Eric Cantor), political intelligence consultants, STOCK Act

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Strom Thurmond is gone but not forgotten; Juan Williams takes a step to the left

Juan Williams stands in for Obama at Fox debate
The GOP celebrates MLK day by booing the black pundit as Gingrich belittles him for asking tough questions on race
BY JOAN WALSH
Salon.com
JAN 17, 2012

The Fox News debate began auspiciously, with moderator Bret Baier noting that it was our national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Then his actual question had nothing to do with Dr. King. But those of us who feared the debate would duck racial issues worried for naught. The night climaxed with the South Carolina crowd giving Newt Gingrich a standing ovation for smacking down Fox’s leading black contributor, Juan Williams, for his impertinent questions about race.

Williams asked for it, of course. What was he thinking making tough racial queries at a GOP debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C.? First, he asked Romney how he squared his harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric with his own family’s story of moving to and then from Mexico seeking religious freedom. He asked Rick Santorum, who purports to care about poverty, what he would do about high African-American poverty rates. He asked Ron Paul whether he thought the nation’s harsh drug laws were bad for black people. Then he made the mistake of asking Newt Gingrich about his comments that poor urban children came from communities that lacked a “work ethic,” and his calling Barack Obama “the food stamp president.”

Gingrich couldn’t believe his luck. With a gleam in his eye, he thrashed Williams, and Steve Kornacki believes he may have given his candidacy one last shot with his savvy thumping of Fox’s leading black commentator. It hurt to watch. If Newt gets the nomination – he won’t, but a Democrat can dream – he’ll have to thank Williams at the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla., even before he thanks Callista.

Sure, Santorum took his chance to demagogue on race, telling Williams that it only took three things to stay out of poverty in America: “Work, graduate from high school, and get married before you have children.” He didn’t allow that any residue of racism or discrimination might make it harder for African-Americans to work, graduate from high school or marry. Santorum also made unfounded allegations, again, about the Obama administration forbidding certain federal programs from talking about marriage. But at least he answered Williams with some personal respect.

Gingrich looked as happy about Williams’ questions as he looked deflated at the last New Hampshire debate. The former NPR analyst referenced Gingrich’s belittling comments about poor kids lacking role models with a work ethic, and the NAACP “demanding” food stamps not jobs, and asked, “Can’t you see that this is viewed at a minimum as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to African-Americans?”

“No,” Gingrich said petulantly, with a slight pause, “I don’t see that.” The crowd screamed with glee. Gingrich went on to bash unionized janitors in public schools, and I realized that his student-janitor comments represent a right-wing political trifecta, bashing anti-business regulations like child labor laws, public sector unions and lazy “urban” kids. Oh, and he also got to attack elites this time around, insisting his janitor plans drew liberal disapproval because “only the elites despise earning money.”

But Williams didn’t back away. “The suggestion you made was about a lack of work ethic,” he told Gingrich. “It sounds as if you are seeking to belittle people.” The crowd booed Williams lustily, and Gingrich got a special twinkle in his eye. He looked at Williams like he was a soon-to-be ex-wife.

“First of all, Juan” – and there was a slight cheer when the former speaker called the Pulitzer Prize winner “Juan” – “the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history. I know among the politically correct you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.

“Second, you’re the one who earlier raised a key point,” he continued. “The area that ought to be I-73 was called by Barack Obama a corridor of shame because of unemployment. Has it improved in three years? No — they haven’t built the road, they haven’t helped the people, they haven’t done anything. I’m going to continue to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and someday learn how to own the job.” The crowd jumped to its feet screaming “Newt! Newt! Newt!” Fox cut to a commercial.

Where to start? Of course Obama hasn’t “put” anyone on food stamps. The Bush economy nearly doubled the poverty rate...

The Story of Juan
Juan Williams was a sometimes-controversial star at NPR until an inflammatory comment about Muslims sent him further into the arms of Fox News. A look at his career through the eyes of several old and skeptical colleagues.
By David Margolick
Vanity Fair
Jan. 18, 2012

A graduate of Haverford College, Williams launched his journalistic career at The Washington Post, which he joined as an intern in 1976. He was clearly talented and ambitious, but many thought his life there additionally charmed because of his friendship with Donald Graham, son of the publisher, who, having once been a cop in D.C., took a liking to Williams. (Asked whether he’d ever paved Williams’s way or, later, gotten him out of scrapes, Graham replied, “The answer is no—N.O.”)

Williams won praise for his willingness to cover rough parts of town and take on liberal black icons like Mayor Marion Barry long before scandals brought him down, thereby incurring charges of disloyalty from Barry and betrayal from the black mainstream. In 1980, he began writing for the Post editorial page. That December, at a convention for black conservatives in San Francisco, he met 32-year-old Clarence Thomas, then an assistant to Senator John Danforth of Missouri. An op-ed column Williams wrote praising Thomas—whose conservatism was, Williams wrote, “born of the same personal anger at racism that fired the militants of the 1960s”—called him to the attention of the Reagan administration, which led to his first presidential appointment, which effectively led to the Supreme Court. (In 1987, by which point Thomas headed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Williams profiled him in The Atlantic. The notoriously wary, reclusive Thomas opened up to him: what resulted was by far the most probing and insightful piece about him ever written. Williams and Thomas have remained friends and still lunch together occasionally; Thomas attended Williams’s 50th-birthday party.)

Continuing his expedited march up, in the early 1980s Williams became the paper’s junior reporter at the Reagan White House. Colleagues recall he was eager to get into print—sometimes too eager, jumping to conclusions, seasoning stories with his own opinions, failing to make that crucial last phone call. “Juan had talent and drive,” said Lou Cannon, the Reagan biographer who was then the Post’s top man at the White House. “If he’d been more interested in journalism than in being in the limelight he could have been a great reporter. That’s more essential to understanding him than putting him on the liberal/conservative spectrum.”

Civil-rights groups often complained that their side of things went especially unrepresented or misrepresented in Williams’s stories. In September 1985, a dispute emerged when Ralph Neas, then head of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, accused Williams of distorting his words in a news story. Neas was promptly summoned to the Post, where he found a tribunal—consisting of Ben Bradlee, Robert Kaiser, and Boisfeuillet Jones Jr.—then the Post’s executive editor, assistant managing editor for national news, and general counsel, respectively—convened, it appeared to Neas to, find out more about Williams’s work. What emerged, Neas recalled, was a “gentlemen’s agreement”: Williams would stop writing about civil rights. (Bradlee did not return messages; Kaiser declined to comment; Jones says he does not recall such a meeting.)

Williams disputes Neas’s story, and says that his contemporaneous notes proved Neas’s charge unfounded. Nonetheless, within a year he was moved to the Post’s less illustrious magazine.

EYES ON THE PRIZE

Williams turned out plenty of high-profile pieces at the magazine. One story, about a family devastated when one of its members was murdered, was made into a prime-time special by Oprah Winfrey. He went to South Africa to interview Nelson Mandela. And he scored a rare interview with Justice Thurgood Marshall that would later grow into a biography. (Considering Williams untrustworthy, Marshall’s wife, Cecilia, urged her husband and their friends not to speak to Williams for the book. For years, the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Education Fund, which Marshall long led, denied Williams access to key Marshall papers.) Williams’s editors at the magazine recall that whatever appeared under his byline usually had to be re-written from the ground up. Fame, not craft, was key.

In 1986, the producer of Eyes on the Prize, Henry Hampton, asked Williams to write the companion volume to what would become the legendary series of civil-rights documentaries. Some of Hampton’s co-workers, noting Williams’s lack of sympathy or any discernable ties to the movement, vehemently opposed Hampton’s choice. But Hampton was in a hurry—the films were nearly complete—and Williams was a name brand from a prestigious paper. And, unlike others who’d begged off, he was ambitious and self-confident enough to think he could do the job quickly.

Here, too, according to people who worked with him, Williams’s work was slipshod, even though he was supplied with all of the research materials. It was also slanted—skeptical or hostile to the people being portrayed sympathetically on the screen—and skewed: inordinately focused, for instance, on the sexual peccadilloes of some participants. Many felt that the project’s editorial director, Robert Lavelle, should have gotten co-writer credit for the companion book. Instead, the byline originally read “Juan Williams with the Eyes on the Prize Production Team.” But in interviews Williams always takes sole credit for the writing; indeed, in later printings, any reference at all to his co-authors has mysteriously disappeared. Some press accounts have even cited the book as the basis of the documentary, rather than the other way around—a misimpression which, his former colleagues complain, infuriated Hampton (who died in 1998), and which Williams has done little or nothing to correct.

Williams calls charges that he has taken excessive credit for the book “ridiculous.” “There are a lot of people who are jealous in the world, and crazy,” he said. Here as elsewhere, even Williams’s critics marvel at his sheer brazenness. “The one thing people could learn from him is the ‘parlay,’” said Callie Crossley, one of the producers of the original batch of Eyes documentaries, who now hosts a public radio show on WGBH in Boston. “Honestly, he was doing branding and inventing himself long before people were talking about it.”

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

In 1991 Williams got attention of a different, less welcome variety, for making sexually suggestive comments to women. They were more jerky than menacing—Williams wasn’t their boss, nor did he press himself on anyone—and seemed designed to grab attention more than anything else. But they were chronic and tasteless, some extremely so. (“With your fingernails painted like that, they look like cherries, and I’d just like to eat them up,” he told one Post employee. On another occasion, he told her that he wanted to put his face where she’d just sat and inhale.)
Grumbling about Williams’s catcalls persisted for several years without ever percolating up to management. But a complaint had just reached Williams’s superiors when, during Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings in October 1991, Williams wrote a column defending Thomas and calling Anita Hill a mere tool of Democratic activists. Women at the Post grew outraged, demanding that the paper disclose Williams’s own predilections. The paper resisted, but when other news outlets reported on the dispute, the Post had to, too. The charges were “absolutely false,” Williams told Howard Kurtz, who covered the story for the paper, then went on to describe it in his book, Media Circus; the women had taken “a passing word” in the wrong way.

Williams was exiled from the Post newsroom for a couple of weeks, and the matter died down. But when he returned, and told other publications the Post had effectively apologized for treating him so harshly, things reignited. Post editor Leonard Downie then had to meet with 50 women in the paper’s cafeteria; later more than a hundred employees signed a letter complaining about Williams and the paper’s handling of him.

Downie concluded that the allegations were “serious”; Williams acknowledged he’d misbehaved and promised to “change [his] ways.” But his contrition quickly faded. What he told Kurtz shortly thereafter remains his position today: the imbroglio had everything to do with the Thomas-Hill dispute, and little to do with him. In fact, he sees himself as the real victim of the fracas.

The next year Williams went on leave to work on his Marshall book. He continued to work part-time for the Post’s Outlook section, where an editor routinely checked, and corrected, his facts. Williams was more trouble than he was worth, the Post’s top editors concluded; they longed for some politically palatable way to get rid of him. “We hoped for some Act of God that would solve the problem,” one said. “God” then came in two guises. The first was Roger Ailes, head of the then-fledgling Fox News, who in 1997 signed up Williams for part-time punditry. The second was NPR.

Posted by I, Praetorian at 10:38 AM 0 comments 

Labels: . Gingrich (Newt Gingrich), . Williams (Juan Williams), civil rights, poverty, Race, South Carolina

Vocabulary for-Students-and-Parents

Vocabulary For Students

Derek Bok, the president of Harvard University from 1971 to 1990, is quoted as saying, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” Fortunately, at YourDictionary, we have plenty of tools to educate students of all ages--and we won’t even make you pay tuition to read them. Get started by learning someStudy Habits for Spelling Tests and then practice spelling all the great words on the First Grade Word Lists or the list of the 100 Most Common SAT Words. Once you’ve got your Vocabulary perfected, use all those new words to write great essays on the SAT Test Practice Writing Exercises. Of course, you’ll also want to perfect your grammar knowledge to go with all those new words, so read about Effective Grammar Instruction and then move up to Advanced University English Grammar. By the time you’re done reading all of the great student resources at YourDictionary University, you’ll be ready to graduate (but don’t worry, if you want to go on to Grad School, we have some GMAT Sample Questions for you too!)

AFTER TRUSTEE'S ABRUPT RESIGNATION, SCHOOL BOARD SEEKS APPLICANTS

Chula Vista Elementary School District Seeks Applicants for Vacated School Board Spot

By TAWNY MAYA McCRAY

March 20, 2012

The Chula Vista Elementary School District is looking desperately to appoint a new board member.

It was announced Monday that board member Russell Coronado is resigning from his post effective March 31, nine months before his term is up in December. Board President Pamela Smith said Coronado, who was elected in 2008, was leaving due to “personal reasons.”

“(Coronado) has been very dedicated and it’s been a pleasure to serve with him,” Smith said at Monday’s meeting. “He’s brought a lot of expertise to the board and always focused. I have never been in a conversation publicly or in closed session with this board that isn’t always about kids, kids first, and Russell has been very true to that. We’re going to miss him.”

The remaining trustees, minus Douglas Luffborough who was absent, voted Monday to begin accepting applications to fill the position on the five-member board. Coronado was also absent from Monday’s meeting.

Applications are due at the district office by noon April 11.

Applicants must be at least 18, a U.S. citizen, a resident of the school district, a registered voter and not legally disqualified from holding public office by state law (for bribery or perjury convictions, for example).

The board decided not to fill the vacancy through a special election because of its estimated cost of $770,000 to $800,000. Trustees plan to interview the applicants and appoint the new member at a special board meeting April 23. The chosen candidate will serve the remainder of Coronado’s term.

This will be the third time since 2007 that the board has decided to appoint a new member. Trustee David Bejarano was chosen out of a pool of 39 candidates in 2007 after Cheryl Cox stepped down following her election as mayor of Chula Vista. Luffborough was selected out of 23 applicants in 2009 after Bertha Lopez resigned to serve on the Sweetwater Union High School District board.

“We have been through this process before and it’s been a good one and has resulted in some outstanding board members,” Smith said at Monday’s meeting. “I think it is a very inclusive process and we take the process very seriously. We look forward to hearing from our community and seeing who’s interested in this.”

Applications are available at the superintendent’s office, 84 E. J St. or on the district’s website at cvesd.org. Eligible community members must submit a letter of intent, the completed application, and two letters of recommendation to Soreli Norton, assistant to the superintendent and the board of education.

BACKGROUND

Head of CV school board to move temporarily

Russell Coronado, president since last year, is tending to a family member, officials say...

Ashly McGlone

Aug. 30, 2010

The board president of Chula Vista Elementary School District has temporarily moved to the North County to care for an ill family member, officials said Monday.

“I have a commitment to the students and people of Chula Vista, but at this time I also need to provide care and support to my family members,” Russell Coronado said. “At an appropriate time, we will make a decision about my position on the board.”

Further details were not disclosed.

Coronado was named school board president in December 2009 after being elected the previous year.

When asked whether there is a threshold for how long a board member may live outside of the school system's boundaries, district spokesman Anthony Millican said officials were looking into it.

Millican said the district’s day-to-day operations will be unaffected.

Originally Posted by Maura Larkins at 2:39 PM 
CVESD Reporter

Labels: . Coronado, Chula Vista Elementary School District, CVESD,  board members