I have not watched this meeting yet and may or may not get around to it, so if you are interested in what happens at the school board, don't wait for me to watch it for you. This meeting is 2 hours and 21 minutes long. I usually watch meetings in 1.5 time or 2 times the speed and lose little content. If you are not offered the option to watch it in a faster speed, see this link for instructions.
Last week when reporting on what happened on at the November 18th Council meeting, I reported that RESOLUTION NO. RS2014-1269 which would extend
the term of the Study and Formulating Committee to March 31st, 2015 failed by a vote of 16 in favor and 17 opposed. That immediately ended the work of the committee because without the extension the Committee had to have their work completed by November 19, 2014. I reported that the work of the committee was not finished and that the Council staff analysis said the extension was needed. Every five years the mayor has to appoint such a committee to study and
make recommendations on employee benefits. I did not know why the term of the Study and Formulating Committee was not extended; now I know.
At the time I opined:
I wish the employee retirement plan would be changed to a Metro defined contribution plan rather than a defined benefit plan, but I don't think that will happen anytime soon. Most private sector plans, if there is any retirement plan, is a defined contribution plan rather than defined benefit. A defined contribution plan is less risky to the employer. A defined contribution plan specifies the employer make contributions on a regular basis and within a set range of options, the employee decides how his contributions will be invested.Well unbeknownst to me at the time, the Study Committee was considering such a move and to stop them from making a recommendation to move away from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan, the Service International Employees Union Local 205 urged council members to defeat the extension. If you are still confused by what is the difference between the two retirement plans, a "defined benefit plan" says that after x number of years of service you can retire and draw x number of dollars per month, usually based on a percentage of your salary at the time you retire.
“Ayes” Barry, Garrett, Tygard, Matthews, Banks, Scott Davis, Westerholm, Bennett, Claiborne, Allen, Langster, Weiner, Evans, Blalock, Dominy, Todd (16)
“Noes” Harrison, Hunt, Hagar, Glover, Stites, Stanley, Tenpenny, Gilmore, Baker, Holleman, Harmon, Johnson, Potts, Bedne, Dowell, Duvall, Mitchell (17).
A first-year female teacher at Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet High School is being accused of having sex with a male students. Details are not yet available.
Is this an epidemic or what? It seems like this is a fairly common occurrence. One thing I have noticed is that most of the teachers who abuse these poor children are damn hot. When I was in school it seems like I never had any hot teachers. Also, some of the predators are multiple rapist and had more than one student as a lover. Several of these incidents happened here in Tennessee.
Here is a sampling of some of the incidents and pictures of the predators. Also, keep in mind that these are not clamor shots; some of these pictures may be photos taken after they were confronted about their crime and they may not have looked their best.
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| Pamela Rogers Turner |
Sandra Binkley, 35: The Portland, Tenn., High School teacher was charged Sept. 25, 2008, with
statutory rape by an authority figure as the result of sexual contact
with a 17-year-old boy during school hours. A week later, two more
students came forward claiming they had had a sexual encounter, also, on
and off campus. |
| Amy McElhenney |
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| Angela Comer |
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| Cynthia Horvath |
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| Melissa Dawn McCord |
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| Stacy L. Hopkins |
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| Summer M. Hansen |
In his campaign for Speaker of the House, Representative Rick Womick has come out very critical of current speaker Beth Harwell. In a letter to fellow members of the House of Representatives he says she has shown "a lack of accountability to the members of the Caucus," that she has "compromised our trust," and has been "insincere" and "unethical." Below is the letter. The underlining is mine.
From Tim Skow:
1ST TUESDAY Members and friends,
Let me apologize for being tardy getting to you this late, but a scheduling conflict has brought about a need for a change of Guest Speaker for our DEC 2nd meeting....
Given the most timely issue of the day.... and with what is dominating the news across the county... I feel proud [and VERY thankful ] to announce that our Guest Speaker on Tuesday will be none other than Metro Nashville Police Chief STEVE ANDERSON !
NO question.... our city has been experiencing a great of growth....and great Press lately... But with so much good news also coming some serious GROWING PAINS.... Chief Anderson and the rest of "Nashville's Finest" face that side of our city every day..... and every night.
THEN.... with what's on TV [seemingly endlessly ...].... is Nashville prepared for something like this?
2015 RACES for Mayor, Vice Mayor and 40 Metro Council members are a mere 9 months away.... Here's a chance for you to a get a 1ST-HAND look behind the curtains and learn what you will want to ask candidates about !!
As usual...join us at WALLER LAW... 511 Union Street -- 27th floor for this highly informative event!
Doors open at 11AM for Coffee and Social time. Several candidates for Metro Council in 2015 will be join us. Lunch is at 11:30 and the program will start promptly at Noon. Chief Anderson is testifying that morning, but will be staying after our Q&A ends at 1PM to meet more of us and answer questions that you may not have had a chance to ask.
Lunch is $20 for Members and $25 for Guests. Visit our 1ST TUESDAY website, click on the Shopping Cart - and secure seats for you and your guests !!
REMEMBER.... the Nashville Republican Women...and the TOY DRIVE !!! Those who bring a check for $50 or more will have their 2015 DUES waived !!!
See you on TUESDAY !
Tim Skow
Host of 1ST TUESDAY
PS --- some GREAT NEWS for 1ST TUESDAY will be announced ! YOU are gonna love it !
Press Release, NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Mayor Karl Dean today released this statement
following President Barack Obama's executive order on immigration.
"I am proud that Nashville is a welcoming place that recognizes the
many contributions of the New Americans who have chosen to make our city
their home. Immigrants and refugees make Nashville stronger and more
vibrant. Congress needs to pass comprehensive immigration reform, but until
they do, the President's action will allow some families in Nashville
to participate more fully in our community.
From a local perspective,
our Mayor's Office of New Americans will work with our nonprofit
partners to help immigrants access the information they need. In the
coming months, we will have resources available at New Americans
Corners that are located at Metro branch libraries and community
centers throughout Davidson County."
I knew about Tennessee's Race to the Top education reform effort before I knew it was part of the implementation of Common Core. As a close observer of current events I have known that education has being reformed as long as I can remember. I remember Governor Alexander's reform effort called "Teacher's Career latter" or something like that, that encouraged teachers to go back to school and get more education. I remember when phonics was dropped and the prevailing wisdom was that students should learn to read before they learned the alphabet. I remember an experiment with open class rooms where students from different grades and classrooms were in one very big room without walls dividing the class rooms. I thought that was one of the dumbest ideas of which I ever heard. And, of course, we all know about George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind."
Despite constant education reform, American education has continued to decline. While at one time America was near the top as one of the countries with the most educated population, our educational ranking in the world has continued to drop.
When Common Core came alone I was all on board early. Maybe it is because of my own experience as a child. In my first five years of school, I was in five different schools. On my first day of school in the fourth grade, the teacher handed out a math work sheet. This is easy, I thought. I completed it but did not know that it was multiplication instead of addition. In this south Knoxville school, they had learned multiplication in the third grade; in the school I had attended in the third grade we had not been exposed to multiplication. It was a humiliating and a scary experience for a nine year old boy.
We are a very mobile society. It seems to make sense to me that their should be some standard that says, in this grade you should learn this. Also, the standard should be high so that America's place in the world does not continue to slip. We need an educated work force. Our standards are too low and many do not graduate ready for a career or college. Common Core seem to me to beef up the standards and requires a uniform minimum standard so that a student in Alabama is learning pretty much the same thing that a child in Massachusetts is leaning in a specific grade. The standards also require critical thinking. I also liked that the standard was voluntary and that it originated with the states and not the federal government.
When the political campaign against Common Core started, at first it seemed that it was being led by the populist conspiracy-theory-prone right wing fringe and I did not take the criticism seriously. After the Heritage Foundation and other more mainstream conservative groups began campaigning against Common Core however, I took a second look. I have read the criticisms bit still do not find a legitimate reason to oppose common core. So much of the criticism of Common Core appears misplaced. An inappropriate reading selection or a teaching method is discovered and opponents of Common Core point to that and offer it as an example of what is wrong with Common Core. Often it has nothing to do with Common Core.
The populist right united with teachers unions appear to be gaining ground in defeating Common Core and Tennessee seems to be on the verge of abandoning Common Core as have several other states. While most on the populist right are waging the war on Common Core, the mainstream conservatives are, for the most part, acquiescing, and not defending it.
I was pleased to find this article by Andrew Ferguson who is a senior editor at the Weakly Standard that defends Common Core and explains the battle against it. The Weekly Standard is a major conservative publication. Below are excerpts. I encourage you to follow the link and read the full article.
The Common Core Commotion
Most of the criticism of the Standards has come from the populist right, and the revolt of conservative parents against the pet project of a national educationist elite is genuine, spontaneous, and probably inevitable. But if you move beyond the clouds of jargon, and the compulsory gestures toward “critical thinking” and “metacognitive skills,” you will begin to spy something more interesting. There’s much in the Standards to reassure an educational traditionalist—a vein of subversion. At several points, Common Core is clearly intended as a stay against the runaway enthusiasms of educationist dogma.
The Standards insist schools’ (unspecified) curriculums be “content-rich”—meaning that they should teach something rather than nothing. They even go so far as to require students to read Shakespeare, the Preamble and First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and works of Greek mythology. Phonics is the chief means of teaching reading in Common Core, rejecting the notorious “whole language” method first taken up in the 1970s and—research shows!—a likely culprit in the decline in reading scores. The Standards discourage the use of calculators, particularly in early grades where it has become a popular substitute for acquiring basic math. The Standards require memorization of multiplication tables as an important step in learning arithmetic, striking a blow against “fuzzy math.” Faddish notions like “visual literacy” are nowhere to be found.
Perhaps most impressively, at least in language arts, the Standards require students to read and write ever larger amounts of nonfiction as they move toward their high school diploma. Anyone familiar with the soupy “young adult” novels fed to middle- and high-school students should be delighted. Writing assignments, in tandem with more rigorous reading, move away from mere self-expression—commonly the focus of writing all the way through high school—to the accumulation of evidence and detail in the service of arguments. The architect of the Language Arts Standards, an educationist called David Coleman, explained this shift in a speech in 2011. He lamented that the most common form of writing in high school these days is “personal writing.”
......The populist campaign against the Standards has been scattershot: Sometimes they are criticized for being unrealistically demanding, at other times for being too soft. Even Common Core’s insistence on making the Constitution part of any sound curriculum has been attacked as insidious. Recall that students will be required to read only the Preamble and the First Amendment. That is, they will stop reading before they reach the Second Amendment and the guarantee of gun rights.
Coincidence? Many activists think not.
The conservative case, as seen in videos and blogs posted on countless websites, relies heavily on misinformation—tall tales and urban legends advanced by people who should know better. Revulsion at the educationist project predates Common Core by many decades. It is grounded in countless genuine examples of faddish textbooks and politicized curriculums. For the last few years, however, Common Core has been blamed for all of them. Textbook marketers and lesson-plan designers are happy to help. Their market, after all, isn’t parents but fellow educationists on state and local school boards that control purchasing budgets. Once Common Core was established as the future (for now) of education, the marketers knew the phrase was catnip. Every educational product imaginable now bears the label “common core,” whether it’s inspired by the Standards or not. A search of books for sale on Amazon.com shows more than 12,000 bearing the words “common core” in their titles. Many were produced long before the Standards were even a twinkle in an educationist’s eye.
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