Progressives' Last Chance to Save Medicaid: Upshot of Ominous New Politico Report


Who is ringing the alarm on Medicaid in a way that will make Congress pay attention?

 Outside of some blogging at ourfuture.org,  the fate of Medicaid in the current budget fight has been a  low profile priority among most broader liberal groups; health care advocacy groups haven't mobilized large-scale organizing or a high-profile ad campaign to rival the political concerns over Medicare,  and, as has become increasingly obvious,  Democratic leaders and the White House are "silent" on Medicaid.

Health advocacy groups could form alliances with rapid-fire response liberal organizations like Adam Greens' PCCC/Bold Progressives or learn from that organization's successes, but that's apparently not happening either. Where are there signs of mass mobilization, widespread email alerts across the liberal spectrum, and high-profile TV and web ads over Medicaid?

Here's the Politico story:

Democrats stay quiet on Medicaid cutback

By: Jason Millman
June 5, 2011 06:59 PM EDT

Since Rep. Paul Ryan introduced his budget blueprint in April, Democrats have held countless news conferences and issued even more press releases condemning the plan — as they say — to eliminate, end or kill Medicare as we know it.


Yet, for all the Democrats’ posturing and campaigning against Republican plans for Medicare, the GOP budget actually makes more immediate and deeper cuts to Medicaid. But Democrats haven’t been blasting the GOP Medicaid plan with nearly the same fervor, even though Republicans would cut about $750 billion from the program during the next decade and end the guaranteed federal match for states.

With intense budget negotiations on the debt limit under way, health care insiders think Democrats won’t budge much on Medicare now that they have a significant campaign chip in their pockets: Kathy Hochul’s upset win in New York’s 26th Congressional District is Exhibit A of the power of Medicare.

And that makes advocates worry that Medicaid cuts are more likely to come out of budget negotiations led by Vice President Biden.

Medicaid covers more than 50 million people, including low-income children and seniors in long-term care, but it doesn’t pack the same political punch as Medicare. Some observers say that’s due to the lingering perception that Medicaid is just a program for poor people that holds a much less broad-based appeal.

That perception is definitely part of the challenge in communicating Democratic opposition to the GOP’s Medicaid plans, Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) told POLITICO.

Medicaid “doesn’t quite have the same political dynamic” as Medicare, Andrews said.

Medicaid faces numerous GOP efforts to slash program spending as states grapple with massive deficits and leaders in Washington try to hammer out a budget deal. Republicans have pushed block grants and easing maintenance-of-effort requirements as their preferred methods of controlling Medicaid costs. Last year’s health care reform law raised the stakes for Medicaid even higher, because the program is expected to add 16 million to its rolls in 2014.

While advocates say Democrats have drawn a clear line against the GOP’s Medicare plan, they’re less certain of the party’s stance on Medicaid. At this point, they’re unsure what will come out of the Biden negotiations on the debt ceiling, but they believe cuts are on the way.

Some Democrats have voiced their dedication to preserving Medicaid. “We must protect Medicare; we must protect Medicaid,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer told reporters after a White House meeting Thursday.

But they’re not exactly blasting that message from the rooftops.

Aside from Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, very few Democrats have put Medicaid front and center, a health care advocate said.

“The message has been Medicare, Medicare, Medicare,” the advocate said.

Recent polling, however, shows the public may look more favorably upon Medicaid than previously thought. A Kaiser Health tracking poll released in late May found 60 percent of respondents support the current Medicaid structure, 35 percent support block grants and 53 percent favor no Medicaid reductions. Further, about half said they have a personal connection to Medicaid, either because they participate in the program or know someone who does.

An April poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner showed support for Medicaid was on par with that for Medicare.

As Democrats continue to hammer home the Medicare message — and promise to make it a central campaign issue in 2012 — staffers for leading House and Senate Democrats in a closed-door meeting last week urged Medicaid advocates to get their message out. The underlying message, according to advocates who attended the meeting, is that congressional Democrats would rather let outside groups do the heavy lifting on Medicaid.

“They know they need to protect Medicaid, but they don’t understand it,” said an advocate who is a former Hill staffer. Members “tend to be wealthier and older, so they just don’t have that interaction, and they don’t speak from any knowledge around it.”

Still, another Democratic health lobbyist said last week’s meeting showed commitment to fighting the GOP’s Medicaid proposals.

“It’s fantastic that such a meeting took place,” the lobbyist said.

Days after the meeting, Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee started to push back by releasing district-specific numbers on how the GOP’s Medicare and Medicaid plans would affect constituents.

Menendez, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, acknowledged in a conference call last week that Medicare has garnered much of the party’s attention. But he drew a hard line against the GOP’s Medicaid proposals.

“Medicaid [cuts], certainly in the context of block granting, [are] also not acceptable,” Menendez said.

Besides Menendez, Rockefeller has been the most outspoken on the issue. On the eve of President Barack Obama’s April speech on his long-term budget view, Rockefeller issued a stern warning not to cut Medicaid.

Obama gave few hints of his Medicaid plans in the speech, but he said changes to entitlement programs are necessary.

“I guarantee that if we don’t make any changes at all, we won’t be able to keep our commitment to a retiring generation that will live longer and face higher health costs than those who came before,” Obama said.


How to Hear Online America's Greatest Live Story-Teller Ever: Jean Shepherd

Anyone who loves great humorous story-telling and wants to be inspired to do more of their own, should hear Jean Shepherd. He wasn't necessarily as edgy as today's comics, but he could make any scene or memory or family member come alive in humorous, unique ways. He was also the most prolific humorist in American history, crafting 45 minutes of mostly improvised material five nights a week on the radio, and a few hours more at weekend nightclub shows, for nearly three decades. As Jim Sadur writes:

Jean Shepherd was a writer, humorist, satirist, actor, radio raconteur, TV & film personality and an American original. He was a master story teller in the league of Mark Twain, S.J. Perlman and P.G. Wodehouse. Taking bits and pieces from his own life, he weaved tales of the joys, humor, intrigue and angst of growing up. His youth in Hammond, Indiana, his adventures in the Army Signal Corps and stories of the obscure and infamous were all fertile sources for his tales. For almost three decades, he told these stories to eager radio audiences. In Cincinnati between   1950 and 1954 Shep did a DJ show from Shuller's Wigwam on WSAI and a nightly comedy show on  WLW called "Rear Bumpers".  This led to a television version at KYW in Philadelphia.  In 1956 Shep moved to the Big Apple on WOR New York where for 21 years listeners all over the Northeast were treated  to a nightly dose of genius.  His shows were a menagerie of comments, silly songs, jokes and other digressions all orbiting around a central tale. For 45 minutes you laughed and wondered if he would remember to conclude the story at hand. He always made it! His other great radio enterprise was live broadcasts on Saturday night from The Limelight, a nightclub in Greenwich Village. Marshall McLuan once called Shep "the first radio novelist."

His radio shows usually opened with a few minutes of rambling comments about the latest news, banter with his studio engineer or what was on his mind that day before turning to the real story he had to tell. As a young journalist, I saw him deliver two back-to-back bravura performances in the studios at WOR without any notes, each perfectly timed to end precisely at the show's sign-out, stopping to do a few on-air commercials in-between. At a live show at a college, I saw him weave together nearly three hours of stories that he pulled together and played against each other, just talking to the gathered students on a make-shift stage made from a cafeteria table. He likely would have talked longer except that the clock on the wall was broken. His live shows were the story-telling equivalent of early Bruce Springsteen marathons lasting for hours. Flicklives is the leading Shepherd tribute site, but it's not as easy to find actual audio of his shows as it once was.
 
Taken from an email I sent some friends and perfomers, here's the best of Shep on the web:

A good starting point is a hard- to- find Shepherd website, with links to other websites, with hundreds of shows posted. Note: the "LL" or "Limelight" are live shows before audiences, the rest are live shows inside a radio booth, with Shepherd, a mike and an engineer on the other side of the glass....
>
http://www.jeanshepherdpodcast.blogspot.com/
>
> More info below. Also Note: his "LL" or "Limelight" shows before audience have several stories with framing intros....
> Here's a two-part documentary hosted by Harry Shearer on Shepherd, with generous excerpts of his work:
>
http://hearingvoices.com/news/2009/08/hv067-jean-shepherd-1/
http://hearingvoices.com/news/2009/08/hv068-jean-shepherd-2/
>
>
> and here's a link to a great story of his on covering the Beatles that I captured that should be hearable online via dropbox:
>    

>
> Here's a link to his limelight show about a riot  in his home town:
http://beemp3.com/download.php?file=2230775&song=1966+07+09+1+Ice+Cream+Riot:
>    On the right side of page there is a something called "LL" album-- those are tracks from his performances before a nightclub audience...
>
> Podcasts of rebroadcasts of his shows, mostly the studio shows, are found on WBAI's Mass Backwards:
> and , of varying length at the brass figalee:
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-brass-figlagee/id129951381
>
> Mass Backwards isn't on the air anymore, but I think the podcasts are still available
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mass-backwards/id160821934
>
> This site, when you click on individual files, will take you to online streaming or ability to download.
http://beemp3.com/index.php?q=%22Jean+Shepherd%22&st=artist
>  Any file with references to "LL" or "Limelight" also means it's before a live audience in a night club...
>
>
Listen, enjoy -- and if you're a performer, be inspired.

DC for Democracy Activist Jesse Lovell Stands Up for Home Rule on Bruce DePoyt show


DC for Democracy activist Jesse Lovell,  the progressive group's communications director, appeared on  News 8's Bruce DePoyt show after the protest against Congressional interference in home rule over city-paid abortions.

Art Levine sent an email alert to a few other DC4D members showing how the instant online posting system works:


This email after being sent should appears as a URL at two instant blogs http://www.artlevine.posterous.com and http://www.artnews.posterous.com.

The specific URL for each separate post can also be auto-posted to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, as with this email turned into a blog post on the excellent, original comedian Maria Bamford: http://artnews.posterous.com/fw-comedy-alert-maria-bamford-from-comedians

As a result, any email alert can be turned into an instant URL web link that can be posted automatically to Twitter and Facebook, and linked to by journalists, activists and bloggers. You can learn more at https://posterous.com/.

It takes about 10 seconds to establish a new account and then post any emails to that website with its own domain name for your account. The subject header becomes the headline of the blog post, and you copy any emails you send to post@posterous.com and it appears instantly online.

This blog post is just a test and will be deleted shortly.

Comedy Alert: Maria Bamford Comes to NYC Forum on Mental Illness


 
The comic's comic Maria  Bafmord is appearing tomorrow night at the Arts in Mind series at the New School about the interplay between art and real life regarding her struggles with mental illness, in her case serious bipolar and OCD.  (She was hospitalized again last fall, an experience she discusses in an apparent true story series for a live Risk! podcast, about 53 minutes in here.)
She's made mental illness part, but not all, of her act.
Here's the  official description of the event:
On May 9, Arts in Mind returns for a program on the real lives of stand-up comics, featuring a performance by Maria Bamford, with commentary from journalist Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and psychiatrist Donald Rosen, medical director/CEO of the Austen Riggs Center.

Maria Bamford is a celebrated comic whose credits include appearances on The Tonight Show, Conan!, and Jimmy Kimmel Live, Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn, among many others. A subject of several Comedy Central specials, she is also the creator of The Maria Bamford Show, a web series that explores the many worlds and characters in her life and in her head in the wake of a classic crack-up. Maria’s albums include Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome and The Burning Bridges Tour. She also starred in the Comedy Central series, The Comedians of Comedy and Netflix’s Comedians of Comedy: The Movie.
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, a journalist renowned for her immersive reporting, has spent the last several years writing a book on the real lives of stand-up comics. Adrian’s 2003 book, Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx, was a New York Times bestseller and was chosen by over 20 publications as one of the top ten books of that year.

Bamford, now about 40,  broke out on the Web and in comedy and indie clubs  with her edgy,multiple-voice and character-driven but vulnerable comedy. She became best known through the 2005  Comedians of Comedy alt.comedy tour and TV series with Patton Oswald and Zach Galifanikis.  But there are three DVDs of that tour -- one documentary, drawn from the comedy central behind-the-scenes documentary series, and two performance DVDs.

Note:  the most recent star-studded one is Comedians of Comedy at the troubador, which also includes an appearance by Sarah Silverman.

What's striking is that Bamford keeps growing as an artist and becoming franker, more daring -- and funnier -- as she discusses her battles with OCD mental illness as part of her act but adding new levels of absurdity and imagination. She has a new one-person show on DVD called Plan B, named best of the year by Punchline Magazine,  about her supposed crack up and return home to Duluth, before returning to LA, (you'll have to research online whether it's a real incident or fabricated for comedic reasons), and also has done two half hour comedy central specials downloadable from ITunes or Amazon. She's the only women comic to have done two Comedy Central specials, apparently.  Although this link is repeated below, to cut to the video chase:
 
here's links to best of videos broadcast on bamford on comedy central:

***********************

Later in this post are some useful online comedy resources if you're looking to discover new comics, follow the comedy scene,  or enjoy some laughs by finding some of your favorites online. Plus www.youtube.com/leanback allows you to play through without clicking an auto-playlists of videos of  your favorite performers  -- you just start typing in the name of the performer you want to see in a box that appears when you start typing..

I consider myself a bit of a comedy maven, so I think Maria Bamford is worth checking out...Her natural voice is high-pitched and cutesy, which makes her mock Middle American saleswomen, California New Agers, entertainment industry pros and broadcaster voices even funnier. Yet it's her versions of her loving but befuddled mother, high-achieving sister and  somewhat dotty M.D. father that have allowed her to people her world with vivid but surreal characters.

*************************************

Yet one of her best recent bits is parodying a typical , generic conventional "female comic"....Here's a short excerpt of that routine, drawn from the John Oliver New York Stand UP show last year
http://comedians.jokes.com/maria-bamford/videos/maria-bamford---that-schtick  [with the requisite vulgarity of such a comedienne-- Bamford's real act barely includes any vulgarities or curse words at all.]

And there's also a one-person show derived from a Web series , the Maria Bamford Show.of a faux-return home to Duluth after a -- fictional or not?--  crack-up in which she plays all the characters in her family and hometown (see below)

. Some basic bio material here: http://comedians.jokes.com/maria-bamford/bio
   The rising regard in which she's held can be seen by all the cutting-edge comedians who cite her in their own interviews at punchline magazine: http://punchlinemagazine.com/index.php?s=Maria+Bamford
You can hear her talk frankly about her emotions, troubled relationships and views of performing in a striking interview in a car with fellow comedian Marc Maron, who does a weekly podcast (but those older shows are behind a paywall for the $9 a year unlimited access to all archives ): http://wtfpod.libsyn.com/episode_72_maria_bamford 
Here's the 50 most recent shows of the Marc Maron podcast, penetrating and revealing interviews with comedians, available for streaming for free online: http://wtfpod.libsyn.com/
The format is Maron talks for 10-15 minutes about the travails of his life, then his self-revelatory style of interviewing elicits remarkably honest and amusing interviews with some famous and up-and-coming comedians and writers.

Enjoy the links below:
***********
BAMFORD Videos/Links ONLINE:
here's links to best of videos broadcast on bamford on comedy central:
her semi-professional video of her one-woman show , Plan B, was punchline's top video of the year-- at bottom: http://punchlinemagazine.com/the-10-must-have-stand-up-comedy-dvds-from-2010/
here's an interview with her on her recent CD named after her actual mental illness she's managing: Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome:
http://punchlinemagazine.com/maria-bamford-obsessively-funny/  If you buy the physical CD at Amazon, it comes packaged with the complete video online series, the Maria Bamford Show.

here's her links to her seemingly home-made web video series that seemed to be done on the cheap with a friend  handling editing and filming (go online to learn more about how the series was done)....;they do quick cuts as she changes into costume for each character...It probably plays better on the stage in polished routines done as monologues rather than home-made-style videos but you can still catch the quality of her off-beat humor and mimicry:
This unofficial tribute site to Bamford has put together many of  the known YouTube videos of her TV and broadcast appearances, plus podcast interviews: http://www.youtube.com/user/MariaBamfordShow

I created my own playlist at ArtL7 at Youtube.com, mixing audio and video footage, and some interviews.. Try this link or go directly to YouTube.
 ONLINE COMEDY RESOURCES/VIDEOS/WEB LINKS:
here's links to web pages of women comics:  http://www.mariabamford.com/funnywomen.shtml

here's lnks to lots of info/videos/comedian pages, news:

here's main page with recent broadcast itnerviews or performances of various comics:
http://jumbodump.com/  scroll down to "older posts" for previous listings.

or type in any comic's name at jumbo dump, an excellent website for broadcast appearances of comedians and links to all of the Web's best comedy resources:
For instance, Here's Paula Poundstone, still funny at 50 even after drinking-related charges that led to her adopted kids being taken away from her for a while and side-tracked her career ;now she's sobered up.  Here's her talking about the financial impact on her : http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/investing/20030804a1.asp  and interview about her book: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6514227
 Then you can catch some video and radio interviews here:
Hip, rising stars can be found at the comic's comic: http://www.thecomicscomic.com/
This website, derived from Punchline magazine, is an authoritative look at the current scene, with interviews, videos, reviews: http://www.laughspin.com/about/

also at http://www.jokes.com/ type in any comic's name and probably some bits will pop up...

For those still reading this note, after you've seen Bamford's performances before an audience, including in Melbourne. here's her doing her material from her couch, in the same relatively low-keyed style she might use in previewing  her bits with  a TV producer before going on a show. It's livelier than a talk-through of her routines for a TV producer but doesn't necessarily have the same energy of a live concert appearance. But it allows you to enjoy the quality of the writing and the free play of her comedic imagination...
 ****************************

Diane Ravitch, education pathbreaker who switched sides on Ed Reform, now on Twitter/Ed Week: On Accountability

The great Diane Ravitch, a pioneer of education reform, is using Twitter to convey her views and blogging at Education Week.  Here's a note I wrote to defenders of teaching unions updating them on some of her recent views -- and her take on Waiting for Superman:

: Ravitch on waiting for superman
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/?pagination=false

FYI: She favors testing and accountability for teachers, in her book, but does not want evaluations of teachers limited  to standardized testing and feels that current standardized testing dumbs down curriculum:
http://educationfrontblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/05/diane-ravitch-on-testing-accou.html...

A middle ground that neither side of education reform debate seems to favor, but Ravitch leans towards, is holding teachers and schools accountable but not limited to standardized  testing....and evaluating a broader range of skills
AND using the mix of evaluation methods to promote better schools and teachers, not punish them -- although she clearly would like to see more expedited approaches than unions currently promote to getting rid of bad teachers when needed while favoring very strongly the value of teachers' unions.

Also, like other journalists who loosely follow education issues, for me Ravitch is the pre-eminenet public intellectual in this field for decades, and her views carry a lot of weight with me and others. I feel about her views on education almost like I felt about Izzy Stone on foreign policy, Israel and Vietnam: "I'll take what he's having," because whatever he says is generally right...

Here's Ravitch on using broader accountability measures:
http://www.learningfirst.org/diane-ravitch-broader-bolder-approach-accountability

But teachers unions , especially NEA, seem to favor using subjective portfolio measurements primarily and evaluation of teachers'performance by other teachers only, and scrapping all other forms of yardsticks and measuring that could possibly be quantified by outside authorities and policy-makers. If that's wrong, what quantifiable, independent measuring tools does NEA favor? I welcome answers on that score....

 Ravitch wants to blend various measurements and use it to promote better performance, and not punish schools. Ravitch is offering a common sense approach that also is harshly critical of current testing and its abuses as essentially fraudulent -- but she doesn't want to abandon quantifiable measuring yardsticks altogether, but doesn't want it limited to that:

Here's what she favors-- recommendations of a coalition favoring a "broader, bolder approach" (BBA) to accountability:
http://www.boldapproach.org/report_20090625.html
NOTE: The signatories to this approach include Education Secretary Arne Duncan, before he took office (?)who is embracing the far more limited NCLB approach now...

Can the teachers' unions get behind this above approach? It's not clear that they will do so voluntarily- but public outrage over holding teachers, in part, accountable for performance -- no matter how unfairly applied now -- stoked by the outright union-bashing of Waiting for Superman,  might force them to lean towards this more flexible approach, rather than just saying "NO" to all forms of standardized testing and quantification, which seems to be their position now.

here's her view on standards and accountability:
A long-time supporter of standards-based reform, she has become one of the nation’s most vocal critics of No Child Left Behind. Here are her thoughts on the BBA recommendations:

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: You have argued that "a few tweaks here and a little tinkering there cannot fix" No Child Left Behind. How do BBA's accountability recommendations depart from the NCLB model?

RAVITCH: NCLB is a punitive approach to school improvement. It mandates that test scores must increase or else! If they don't go higher, schools will be sanctioned, and the sanctions will get more onerous with each year that the schools fail to meet their targets. Each year, the targets get higher, and the number of schools that slip over the precipice increases. As schools fail, they are threatened with closure, restructuring, staff firings, or other consequences that may or may not improve the school.

In contrast, BBA suggests accountability that goes far beyond test scores. Test scores matter, but so does student engagement in a broad range of academic subjects, as well as students' health, well-being and civic behavior. Where NCLB is punitive, BBA seeks constructive ways to measure the condition and progress of schools and students.

NCLB says that test scores are the only metric that matters; BBA says that there are many ways to measure schools and students, not just test scores. As a parent and grandparent, I appreciate the spirit of BBA, which is far better attuned to children and schools than is the narrow metric of NCLB.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: How does BBA propose to alter the federal role in education? Why is it important to change the federal role?

RAVITCH: Unlike NCLB, which uses federal policy to shame schools and educators, BBA proposes to restore the spirit of federalism to education policy. This was the original vision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, on which NCLB was built.

In the BBA vision, the federal government would collect data from NAEP and the states on a wide variety of academic measures, as well as on a variety of other measures, including student participation in the arts, their civic activities, and their health and fitness. [in her book, she also mentions graduation rates.] NAEP would remain an important and low-stakes (I would say "no-stakes") assessment, not used for individual assessment. NAEP would serve, as it does now, as a monitor of state academic reports.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: As you know, critics of BBA have characterized the initiative as an attempt by "educrats" to escape accountability for student success. Does BBA let schools off the hook?

RAVITCH: I think that when critics make such a charge, what they really mean is that BBA has enlisted large numbers of people who have worked in schools and have direct experience as teachers, principals, and school leaders. My guess is that critics of the BBA approach are edu-pundits who have little direct experience with schools or children; they seem to think that they can whip schools into shape through tactics of measurement and humiliation. This approach has upped the pressure on teachers and principals to produce higher test scores, but all too often such gains are meaningless, the result of test-prepping and coaching that does not persist and does not prepare students for college or the modern workplace. If a good education could be gauged solely by test scores, the critics might be right. But a good education requires far more than the ability to pass a standardized, multiple-choice test of basic skills. It requires that we educate children in a broad range of knowledge and skills and encourage them to develop as good people of strong character and good habits. The tests measure only a small slice of what really matters for success as a person. As for "letting schools off the hook," I think that such an assumption would flow from a punitive cast of mind. The question is not whether we are "letting schools off the hook," but whether the federal government and states are meeting their responsibility to help schools do a better job.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: What role, if any, should state assessments play in an improved accountability system?

RAVITCH: What we have seen to date is vastly inflated results on state tests, so that some states are rapidly approaching the NCLB goal of 100% proficiency by 2014. Of course, none of these claims have been verified or validated by NAEP. In effect, federal policy has encouraged the states to engage in score inflation and to invest heavily in test preparation that actually invalidates their state tests even as it bolsters proficiency rates.

I would hope that the states and Congress would take seriously the BBA proposal to have:
1) better state assessments
2) inspection systems that assure that schools are providing a sound and rich academic curriculum, excellent instruction, and adequate attention to the non-academic needs of their students.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: The BBA document proposes a system of "inspections of districts and schools to ensure their contributions to satisfactory student performance." What do you say to concerns that inspections might be too subjective to provide reliable data on school or district performance?

RAVITCH: Other nations have established successful inspection systems; so could we. I would tend to give credence to an assessment system that combined qualitative reviews and quantitative measures. The objective measures we now have are far too limited to be useful as they measure only a small portion of what really matters in the education of children.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Some will likely point to the cost of the BBA accountability recommendations as a barrier to implementation. How can we justify the higher costs?

RAVITCH: Our current system of accountability is so narrow-minded and so counterproductive to good education that it is money down the drain. Improving accountability by adopting the BBA model would be a good investment in a solid education for our students, and it would help to improve teaching and encourage teachers to remain in the profession by focusing attention on the ingredients that really matter, rather than pretending that children can be measured like widgets.


 ************************
HERE is the very smart and entertaining critique of current education system that aims to treat children like widgets, by British scholar Sir Ken Robinson (also see his lectures at the TED symposium):
http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/10/14/rsa-animate-changing-education-paradigms/


Keith Ivey's Live Reports from Cheh election hearings: Does Hacking Menace Web Voting?

D.C. election issues and hacking of potential web voting are now national issues, and causing mounting concerns.

Brad Blog has been following the hacking issue closely here:

D.C. Internet Vote Scheme Hacker: 'Within 36 Hours We Had Total Control of Server, Ability to Change Votes, Reveal Secret Ballots'

As we posited in our coverage yesterday of D.C.'s Internet Voting scheme which was hacked with the University of Michigan fight song just days after experts had warned against the entire scheme, J. Alex Halderman, asst. professor of electronic engineering and computer science at the university, was, indeed, at the heart of the hack.

He details tonight that he and a small team of students were happy to participate in the test that D.C. election officials had announced, with just three days notice, inviting hackers to try and penetrate the system they planned to use this November, as developed with the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation.

Halderman writes in his explanation of how they did it:

Within 36 hours of the system going live, our team had found and exploited a vulnerability that gave us almost total control of the server software, including the ability to change votes and reveal voters’ secret ballots.

And if you think that's chilling, Halderman goes on to note that all cast ballots on the system were modified and overwritten with write-in votes, all passwords taken --- including the encryption key, which e-voting supporters constantly suggest will keep such systems safe --- before they went on to install a back door to let them view any votes cast later, after their attack, along with the names of voters and whom they voted for...

My friend Keith Ivey writes:

I listened to a lot of Cheh's elections hearing today,
with a break for listening to the Kojo Show.  I'm not going to write up
a report, but here are my tweets:


Dorothy Brizill: Sep 14 primary "by far the worst election I have ever
witnessed, in the District of Columbia or any other city." #dccouncil

Brizill says BOEE employees forced to work 16-18hr days for weeks w/no
overtime pay under threat of losing jobs. #dccouncil

Tom Smith of Ward 3 Dems concerned about "potential for fraud &
mischief", wants early voting in each ward, opposes same-day registration.

Tom Smith complaining that AU students are registering to vote in ANC
election, doesn't mention he's the one they're targeting. #dccouncil

Tom Smith: A bank statement alone should not be sufficient to register
in DC. #dccouncil

Moten complaining about Ward 8 straw poll excluding unregistered voters.
W8 D's can make own rules. What does this have to do w/ #dccouncil?

Moten complains about Brizill (at table w/him) reporting that young
people were paid to vote in straw poll. #dccouncil

Moten still harping on his ridiculous gift card "sting" video. #dccouncil

Brizill going through detailed explanation of (mis)handling of data
cartridges from precincts. She was denied access for 2.5hr. #dccouncil

Brizill says seals were broken at loading dock, w/o observers, "chain of
custody broken". "Someone made a decision to change the process."

Brizill: "There was no transparency" in counting process. #dccouncil

Brizill knows what Rokey Suleman will say, since he had "his dog & pony
show" before #dccouncil yesterday, but she knows the truth.

Tom Smith: "If there is not an early voting center in each ward, then
there should be no early voting centers anywhere." #dccouncil

Tom Smith: Campaigns that don't have resources of major mayoral
candidates
are at disadvantage in early voting. #dccouncil

Tom Smith: Spreading out voting over 2 weeks stretches resources and
"damages checks and balances". #dccouncil

Tom Smith says training of poll workers and precinct captains was
seriously inadequate. #dccouncil

Tom Smith: "Most folks wanted to vote on electronic machines [why?], but
no precinct had more than one." #dccouncil

Brizill: Alysoun McLaughlin was in charge of poll worker training but
has no background in it. #dccouncil

Tom Smith: Campaigns were forced to bring attorneys in to ensure that
people were able to challenge in polling place. #dccouncil

Moten says he had people counting voters at Ballou polling place & there
were more votes cast there than people who went in. #dccouncil

Moten still whining about gift cards, somehow distinguishing between
giving them to voters & giving concert tickets, which is OK. #dccouncil

Susannah Goodman of Common Cause testifying on DC test of online voting
for overseas voters, introducing Alex Halderman of UMich. #dccouncil

Halderman: This sort of test cannot show that system is secure, though
it can uncover problems, as in this case. #dccouncil

Halderman: Within 36hr of system going live, team had found "shell
injection vulnerability" that gained full control of server. #dccouncil

Halderman: "A real attack might be completely invisible & might have
gone on much, much longer" without being noticed. #dccouncil

Halderman: Security cameras in data center were publicly accessible, so
could watch BOEE staff as they configured system. #dccouncil

Halderman: While observing system, saw & blocked other attacks coming
from Iran & China (probably not specifically targeted). #dccouncil

Halderman: "An attacker who compromises a digital voting system could
disenfranchise all of the voters in one fell swoop." #dccouncil

Halderman: It will be "decades, if ever" before voting can be done
safely over the Internet. #dccouncil

Halderman: System accidentally kept copy of uploaded files around
unencrypted. #dccouncil

Halderman: One file apparently left over from testing seemed to be list
of all online voters & PINs to allow voting. #dccouncil

Halderman: That file should never have been on system at all, indicates
BOEE does not take security seriously. #dccouncil

Halderman: Sending blank ballots to voters over Internet & having them
email or fax back would be less risky. #dccouncil

Another witness points out that digital return of ballots does not meet
legislative requirement for voter-verifiable hard copy. #dccouncil

Goodman: MD & VA, even w/large military population, do not allow online
voting. #dccouncil

Witnesses talking about online voting in Estonia, in which ballot is not
secret. #dccouncil

@FKlopott Have you asked Hlinko what % of Facebook group live in DC? He
should have that from group demographics FB provides.

Cheh: Should #dccouncil by legislation shut down this online voting?
Panel: Yes, yes, yes.

Goodman: Thanks to #dccouncil for requiring voter-verified paper ballot.
Internet voting can't have that.

Witness says online (& mail) voting increase risk of coercion & vote
buying, prefers social voting at polls. #dccouncil

Is today's @kojoshow going to be devoted to Marion Barry scolding Kojo?

Marion Barry: "I'm less popular in the white community, but that's not
*my* fault." @kojoshow

Tom Sherwood to Barry: "What do you know about Vince Gray that those
nervous white voters should hear?" @kojoshow

Barry: Washington Post has perpetuated myth that Vince Gray is monster
like Marion Barry. No reason to be fearful. @kojoshow

Barry: "Problem with Adrian Fenty is that he never stopped running for
office." ??? Doesn't fit w/usual criticism. @kojoshow

Barry: "Tell Kojo to stop perpetuating these myths that I was an awful
mayor." Sherwood jumps in to point out Barry's failings. @kojoshow

@anc7c04 Let's hope it's pre-retirement tour & not prelude to running in
next year's special election.

Kojo: "The perception of Marion Barry is that he stokes racial fires."
Barry: "You ought to stop that, 'cause I don't." @kojoshow

Caller asks Barry to apologize for being a racist & using power to
accumulate personal wealth. @kojoshow

Sherwood: "If Marion Barry has personal wealth, neither I nor the IRS
has been able to find it." @kojoshow

DC Democratic State Committee has openings for 12 ex officio members to
be chosen Nov 4. http://bit.ly/aB0GSw (PDF)

Barry: We fought for freedom of press, but press must be responsible,
shouldn't perpetuate myths. @kojoshow

Kojo to Barry: "Your apology will come privately.... I don't think I did
anything for which I need to apologize."

RT @dc4d: DC for Democracy member Malcolm Kenton reports on Vince Gray's
#ward5 town hall for @ggwash: http://bit.ly/ciUxzl

@tweetelissa I've noted before both have supporters who just become more
supportive when scandals arise. Media criticism strengthens them.

@AlanSuderman Yes, they pulled Moten into 1st panel when others hadn't
shown up.

David Meadows of @DCDemocrats testifying about lack of voter education
about referendum on elected AG on Nov ballot. #dccouncil

Cheh: Impetus for elected AG charter amdt was feeling that AG Nickles
(though not mentioning name) was responsive to mayor more than public.

@anc7c04 Sounded like he thinks @DCBOEE should, except they don't have
funding. There's nothing on BOEE site even mentioning it yet.

Lawrence Guyot calling for #dccouncil to pass resolution supporting DOJ
against ridiculous Black Panthers case.

Guyot says council has captured mayoralty, and it frightens him.

Guyot: "I have not seen personification of hatred of a candidate since I
left Mississippi." New verb: to fenty.

Guyot very grateful the election didn't result in violence, now bringing
up Fenty write-in campaign.

Guyot wants to "stop foolishness of trying to bring city together" by
having black meetings & white meetings separately. ???

Cheh tells Guyot he's way out of time and way off message.

Now @DCBOEE panel is testifying, including @alysoun. #dccouncil

RT @VerifiedVoting: Video of Alex Halderman's DC Council Testimony
http://is.gd/fRDed

@anc7c04 Agreed, but @DCBOEE site should have text of charter amdt &
ballot language. @DCDemocrats

Rokey Suleman: I don't know how media could've done better job covering
issue that voters couldn't switch to D on election day. #dccouncil

BOEE head Suleman uses Emily Litella comparison in discussing those
claiming non-D's were allowed to vote in D primary. #dccouncil

Suleman says some non-D's were allowed to submit special ballots because
of dispute, but the ballots were excluded during count. #dccouncil

Suleman: "Rambunctious" poll observers from campaigns were disruptive &
didn't understand rules. #dccouncil

Suleman: Had to chase ghosts. Rumor principal was preventing polling
place
at Cesar Chavez School from opening completely false. #dccouncil

Suleman: "If I were to part the Red Sea, they'd be complaining about
dead fish." Cheh: "I'll have to think that one through." #dccouncil

@IMGoph @dcist_martin Would there really have been less confusion with a
middle initial? Who knew MA Brown's initial?

Suleman: Confusion in handling of memory cards. Not handled according to
procol. Some left locked in polling places overnight. #dccouncil

@DCDemocrats Do you have the ballot language for it?

Suleman: Early voting is great. Current format & timing is perfect. 2
weeks is adequate. #dccouncil

Cheh asking Suleman about possibility & cost of having an early voting
center
in each ward. He doesn't have figures. #dccouncil

Suleman says budget is lacking, esp w/HAVA funds going away. #dccouncil

Suleman: Eastern Market would've been great place for early voting, but
they wanted $4000/day. #dccouncil

Suleman: Public facilities charging BOEE for cleaning & maintenance of
sites used for voting is govt charging itself. #dccouncil

Suleman suggests eliminating precinct-level voting on election day;
instead just have same centers used for early voting. #dccouncil

Suleman: 57.5% of same-day reg forms were accepted as valid. 1 woman
who'd become citizen that day was able to register & vote. #dccouncil

Suleman: Looking at some people who might have voted in MD/VA as well as
DC: "low single digits". #dccouncil

Cheh suggesting that #dccouncil should not continue to spend $ on
Internet voting. Suleman agrees digital return needs to be shut down.

Suleman says we need to do pilot projects to progress toward Internet
voting. Cheh says maybe WE don't need to do them. #dccouncil

Cheh says we could use $ on other BOEE needs, not further Internet
voting work. Suleman disagrees. #dccouncil

Suleman, speaking as individual, says BOEE has no responsibility to deal
w/public confusing candidate w/anyone not on ballot. #dccouncil

Suleman: "Putting pictures on the ballot is not a realistic idea." "We
could put photos in the voter guide." #dccouncil

Suleman: On referendum, BOEE is notifying voters about it in voter
guide. BOEE has to be careful not to take position. #dccouncil

Suleman: Usually those who get issue on ballot are responsible for
publicizing. In this case, no one cares enough. #dccouncil

Suleman: Primary should be held no later than 1st week in Jun [much
longer lame duck], though could be possible 1st week in Aug. #dccouncil

Suleman: We were focused on so many things, but neglected how to upload
results to website. (How could that happen?) #dccouncil

Suleman says next year's special election has no federal office on
ballot, so federal law against vote buying won't apply. #dccouncil

BOEE counsel: Unclear who would be responsible for investigating
vote-buying allegations. #dccouncil

Suleman: For petitions, wants BOEE to verify sigs rather than leave it
up to citizen challenge; also set maximum # of sigs. #dccouncil

BOEE counsel agrees w/Cheh that expanding board would require amending
DC charter. #dccouncil

Chairman Togo West listing benefits & disadvantages of expanding BOEE
from 3 to 5 members. #dccouncil

Alysoun McLaughlin says Brizill made her testimony "a little bit
personal, as is her wont". #dccouncil

McLaughlin: Special ballot clerks & precinct captains received
insufficient training, but that's being corrected for next time. #dccouncil

Suleman: Poll workers are unhappy that tokens of appreciation for them
were cut out of budget. #dccouncil

"More Perfect Union" guy is rambling about song he has to promote
voting, & wants compensation for lost CD of song? #dccouncil

Yeah, that's what we need: trucks w/bullhorns playing his song to
encourage voting. #dccouncil

@amorrissey The stuff about the lost CD was just bizarre. He wants
compensation, & accuses them of "corruption" for losing it?

Guy says he's being denied access to the American Dream because they're
not using his song. #dccouncil

How can @DaveforWard3 suggest that @marycheh is disagreeable when she
shows inhuman patience w/this guy w/the song?

Seconded. RT @amorrissey: Mary Cheh seriously deserves a beer after this
hearing, yo. #dccouncil

@dcist_martin How do they manage to always put the loons on last?

@FKlopott Thanks. Not sure what possessed me to listen to the whole
thing (except for a Kojo break).