No Child Left Behind - Another Vew

“if it can be tested, it can be measured”

I believe that is what the former education secretary under the Bush administration had stated was the intrinsic success of standardized testing. It was a success in the great state of Texas, and former President Bush saw it as being standardized across the country. Texas is a big state and so is the United States.

However, just as most large corporations use the same logic, “if it works in one subsidiary, we can use it across the entire corporation.” A logic that is prone to fallacy, as in the example of the movie industry with its number of sequels, is there a Saw VII out yet.?

The larger issue that needs to be examined is in the classroom. The student is to be tested using a standard test, meaning the same, across the school district for that grade level. The results tabulated, and if improvement is being made excellent, if not remedial steps in the district with sanctions approaching withholding of federal funds etc. Of course that is not necessarily stated, but it is a simple fact that federal funds were increased for education and those funds would be distributed to the schools that did comply.

Granted there had been challenges to the rule, and the funds would be given from federal to the states. The major drive for change is simple money. In the most simplistic case the students would be taught to the standardized test. The test manufacturer would be responsible to make up a test. Of course what does that truly mean? Responsibility would go from the education district to the test company. The test company would be the responsible party to test the student, with the implication the federal government would set up the parameters for testing. Granted there are a number of testing companies, however, they need to make money and whatever appears the best for the testing companies will of course be the best for the school districts as well.

Money will be the prime motivation for the school districts. If a school district is considered a problem district of course children may be removed to the school to go to another school as well in the ultimate case closure of a school. With most school districts being supported by property taxes, the effect is negligible, except in the case with state grants, which may be supported by federal monies. The need to succeed in the No Child Left Behind Act is even more evident. Succeed, money flows in, do not succeed money flows out.

The larger intent was to educate children and measure their progress. What the lowest common denominator result would be is a system where proof of progress, through increasing test scores, guarantees funds coming into a school district. Test companies would set up the criteria of what to test for and comprehension.

Wall Street Shakes on Financial Black Hole.. NJ sees blue skies

Do you wonder why most politcos in New Jersey seem totally clueless about financial restraint? Do you wonder if the New Jersey Supreme Court seems as if they are out of touch and out of their minds when they add billions of dollars of cost to New Jersey?

It makes the common working person in New Jersey say why can't I have what they have? Why is it the cost of living adjustment will go to the teachers and of course state workers, but you and I get that a cost of living increase above the inflation rate? Won't happen in the real world but it will happen in New Jersey byzantine beauracracy.

Your world deals with a financial meltdown. Your world deals with a company that you own or work for that is facing this credit crunch, that if not alleviated, will may cause you to have a depression, as in layoff.

The statehouse? The various directors are just totally clueless about anything around them. Governor Corzine? Oh he is just gone on his own and wants to BOND away your life savings. Remember the budget that was all approved by those legislators? Remember they all voted for it two weeks before the closing date? Oh yes, they voted yes to get to their vacations. A few weeks later, they wanted to tax you by a $40 fee added onto tickets. The great departure of people who were going to take early retirement? Well it never happened. Oh and those that did leave? Are their positions being filled? Who were they?

A lot of questions can come out from the public, and if it gets to Trenton, or even you locally legisislative representatives, well now that will be a real special surprise. Afterall, are you really paying them or the lobbyists or the party big wigs. It seems the common sense in Trenton has left, and what remains are greedy self-serving politicians. Their goal? Take as much of your savings and wages they can get away with.

AOL and now no FTP

Okay so its a bit technical. Its the Geek in me coming out.
Seems like the free ride on AOL for FTP hosting is gone. Long gone are the communities we had at AOL Yes, AOL since it has made its service free sees no need to hog the bandwidth with blogs and of course web pages made by us crude users. Good bye dear Webpage of yore...

Now of course if you are paying for AOL, why ask about technical issues since not a single person can answer it. Even at the premium rate there is no need to keep it online since well they are only interested in the rather expensive insurance that is not worth a thing.

Did you know AOL 9 and above can easily corrupt your computer if you are not running Windows XP? Quite true.... happened to me with AOL 9.0. Of course they are always saying how great their service is.. that is if they can tell anyone who still wants to pay for a call center in India.

Three Do Nothing Senators Run for US Presidency

US Senators
It’s interesting to note that we have running for office, three sitting United States Senators. All supposedly active in the Senate and of course all being paid by your and my dollars to be United State Senators. Well so what are they doing for your and my hard-earned dollar? Well you can see it every day you open a newspaper, watch television news or a webcast, these three US Senators are all over the place scrambling for delgates for their presidential campaigns. Of course the obvious question I ask “why are they not working to help you?” Every state they arrive at, they make their campaign promises today so that you can bank on that promise in the future.

It’s almost like a fishing story. Each US Senator tells you how great of a fisherman they are and how they are going to catch the biggest fish you ever saw, and this time around it will be different; the line won’t break, they will not fall off the boat etc. They pull you in close and say this can only work, if you, the American public buy them a boat. They will be the best fishermen ever, if you buy them a boat. Of course, they are working a fishing boat right now, and have never caught a big fish. Mostly what they have caught can be considered small to well maybe medium size. Nothing of any distinction compared to the other fishing people on the boat. But they insist once you buy them a boat, and let them be captain of their boat, only and that is ONLY then can they catch the big fish.

Good story US Senators, and we all heard it all before. There are a few more pressing things for us than listening to a good fishing story. The recession is now. Gas prices are increasing now. Our food prices are increasing now. So get off the campaign trail now, and play a part in fixing the country now. Unless of course, your contribution in the senate does not matter much now, this leads me to believe better for all, if you resign today.

As an update.. has gasoline prices still gone up? Has there been any new plans to get us out of this fiscal mess?

Camden Diocese Consolidation - Another thought

I have read quite a few of the letters regarding the parish consolidation in the Camden Diocese. This same effort of consolidation is occurring across the country, Massachusetts to New Orleans. The usual reasons priests, parishioners and payouts due to lawsuits. Though this time, in our diocese, it is because the current make up of our parishioners is changing.

I know many of my fellow parishioners are very depressed and feel a sense of loss, that their parish will no longer be open. Some of these same parishioners Of course there are many who have said how beneficent Bishop Galante has been to allow a democratic process to proceed under his auspices.

What I find amazing, is that my fellow parishioners are not looking ahead, what will be the process after the parishes are closed. Let’s be real, parishes were going to be closed to make it more manageable for the Bishop. Removing all these parishes means priests, which we do have a shortage of, will now be requested to resign from their present churches. Under the new re-organization, the new pastor or the current pastor would decide, along with the consent of the Bishop, if the displaced priests would be hired or perhaps retire.

Paid professionals would be hired by each parish, and again how many paid professionals are we talking about? In turn, these paid professionals would be supervised by the new parish council and, of course, the Bishop. Note, I am sure the closed parishes real estate would be sold, and the promise would be the professionals would be paid by the sale of the real estate or some financial device funded by the sold real estate. The parish council would be forced to do this, because of the mandate by Bishop Galante.

The other matter would be if the new parishes would be able to handle the new congregations? Could they handle the number of people now going to these new parishes? On one hand, the argument would be simply yes, since there is such a low attendance to start, the newly formed parishes would now be filled.

Perhaps my projections are a bit bleak perhaps even unfair to Bishop Galante, however, I have gone through enough mergers and consolidations to know one thing is true. Reductions in manpower and assets are made for tighter control. The question is, do you as a parishioner think you will be part of the new view of how your parish is to operate?

Colin Powell... Do you really know the tech industry

Well Colin Powell along with his wife are now the spokespersons for literacy in America, especially the innner cities.

How nice, to say the least that we have two responsible individuals who have come up to tell us what is wrong with inner city children who do not want to graduate from school and may impact our national security. Same droaning I had heard before. However this is what really ticks me off...

Colin Powell stated that "the best software engineers are in India". What planet is Colin Powell on. I can see he has been hooked by major software companies to beleive this sort of drivel. He has been stuffed with the fine pablum from these very fine and respected software industries to believe what they would like to push through our very well paid and bribed for Congress in hiring more H1-B visa people.

Well Mr. Powell, wake up and smell the coffee. Its not that we have a talent shortage here, its because you and others who have been paid for by my tax dollars can now pontificate on the fact that these fine software companies cannot find native talent. Hah!!!! The reality these fine software companies have no need to pay software engineers and coders 20 to 30 USD an hour. Rather they would pay 5 to 10 USD for coders who have no problem receieving those amounts and do not have to pay 30 to 40% of their wages to a bloated government.

Yes, Mr. Powell a bloated government that keeps taking my tax dollars for little or no performance. The same government that made a trillion dollar mistake by going to Iraq. The same government that pays pork barrell politics with my hard dollars. But of course Mr. Powell you fail to see that, since you do believe these software companies are trying to find workers in the US, really now? I think you should check out your own contemporaries in the military and see if they are serving the government os sub-contractors.

A T & T - A good company gone bad

Its funny how a very successful company like AT & T seems to have gone bad.

A former leader in telecommunications its more like a fat old man who once was the quarterback for his old almer mater. Now only a call center, riding on the back of the local telephone companies with little or no interest in its founding country.

Yes, AT & T has lost a lot of its luster. Recently, it came to light how bad its gotten. AT & T call center is in India with people like "Jim" and "Jane" manning the phones. They one thing they know how to do is push to get sales. Regardless of what misrepresentation they have to tell a potential client. In my case, I simply wanted to go back to using their long distance service. Well as it turned out, long distance was not a go. They also signed me up for the toll calling package. The same package I get from Verizon. How did they do that when I said NO to toll JUST LONG DISTANCE. Well now they blame it on my responses to the third party questioner. Now mind you, they had told me that I could not question the third party questioner, no I could not, and say YES to all questions. If they understood that I did not want toll service, then why the question? Why even was it asked? Did they not wonder, he said yes to one and no to the other? Nope never crossed these nimrods.

Long story short, I have a bill for $170 that is wrong wrong wrong. Sure, I called the numbers now I have to pay. Even their billing department is antiquated and makes the state of New Jersey Tax Office like a modern day super office. These guys told me if I pay it before the eighth of September, to call them for the additional amount. Of course if I do not pay in full them my long distance service will be cut? Really now? Its a good thing I have T-Mobile a service provider I would say run to pick up as soon as possible , since these people have a clue on what is going on. Infact they can add previous billing amounts to current bills. Will rocket science ever cease? But lo, AT & T for them I have to call after the due date and talk to them on how I plan to pay off the rest of the balance less I have no long distance service? Geez what a shame, oh well bye AT & T.

Oh on a special note, if you have AT & T, leave the plan as soon as you can. The company is clueless on anything. They are not even clear in what they are saying. I even had the AT & T supervisor tell me he could adjust my bill if I was not calling my internet provider. Then when I said if I was not, he then changed his tune to say well no he could not do that as well. Oh so this is the clear communication I am expecting from this internet/wireless/phone company, where all of the call center people are simply hello my name is Jim nimrods?

So if you have Cingular... leave when you can, AT & T owns it. Soon all your wireless calls willl go to India, where no one will know the product, services, or let alone care about your concern. Just to protect their skinny butts.

SEE YA AT & T...

Oh as a follow up I want to see my high paid enforcement officials handle my complaint as well.

Dateline - Axalto- Owens Mills No more..

Well according to the press, the Owens Mills Axalto State of the Art Card facility, formerly known as MALCO, will be closing its doors soon. 100 employees will be losing their jobs, and its a shame. A shame that the investment made by Axalto for the best and new facility that would lead Axalto to the higher plane of Smart Card Preminence.

Yeah right. MALCO fell under the wheels of incompetent merger mania. The same thing it felt when taken over by Schlumberger and as the names changed to protect the incompetent innocents Axalto. Even Axalto was combined with the real Smart Card company, called Gemplus.

Many would say MALCO was working hard to continue under the adverse evoomy. Well, half truth in my opinion. In the last decade, MALCO was actually surviving because of Lou Bisasky. Through his leadership, the company had done well, even though he sold out to an oil compnay called Schlumberger.

Bisasky had been able to shine his star constantly as an indespensible part of the Schlumberger MALCO family of high tech companies. Around 1999 or so, with the Y2K threat looming, her "resigned" and was transferred from his part time duties as GM for DANYL-Schlumberger to full time duties as GM for MALCO. However, the tale does not end there.

Around 2001 or so, Bisasky returns back to his digs in DANYL-Schlumberger to mainstream this bastion of unahppy folks to Schlumberger High Tech Color Office colors. With a massive paint job throught the interior of the offices this bastion of never do wells, according to Bisasky, has now been mainstreamed. Of course in classic Schlumberger Bisasky standard of doing things, they never check to make sure the walls are fully painted. Rather, most of the walls are painted around, moveable bookcases are not moved, just painted around.

The purpose of the entire paint job, and snow job to the employees at DANYL-Schlumberger, is mainstream them to be part of Schlumberger. The reality is to SELL DANYL-Schlumberger as welll as the Schlumberger-Sema empire in a few short months. What is interesting, the manufacturing parts servers were moved to Owens-Mills for the DANYL-Schlumberger group and the parts lists junked because of "too much" disk space. This at a time when 10 GB would have cost $60.

So I am glad Lou Bisasky's shinning star has been set. He may have really believed he would continue to go forward in the Axalto world. The reality is, he was too far away from his masters. Or perhaps his masters finally realized they had a white elephant that was not really their own.