{"id":12468,"date":"2014-04-01T00:44:52","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T07:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12468"},"modified":"2014-04-01T00:44:52","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T07:44:52","slug":"open-thread412014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/01\/open-thread412014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–4\/1\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow and getting ready for a hellacious week.  Tomorrow I will be collecting the data for and writing the Monthly Report for March.  Wednesday I have to pack and run errands.  Thursday I leave to get my volunteer training.  Friday I return and unpack.  Saturday I have a meeting that cannot be postponed.  On a scale of one to ten, ARGH!<\/font><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s took me 3:11 (average 5:34).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>A few months ago, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, and Marlene Seltzer, the chief executive of Jobs for the Future, published an article in Politico<\/a> titled \u201cClosing the Skills Gap.\u201d They began portentously: \u201cToday, nearly 11 million Americans are unemployed. Yet, at the same time, 4 million jobs sit unfilled\u201d \u2014 supposedly demonstrating \u201cthe gulf between the skills job seekers currently have and the skills employers need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, in an ever-changing economy there are always some positions unfilled even while some workers are unemployed, and the current ratio of vacancies to unemployed<\/a> workers is far below normal. Meanwhile, multiple careful studies have found no support for claims that inadequate worker skills explain high unemployment.<\/p>\n

But the belief that America suffers from a severe \u201cskills gap\u201d is one of those things that everyone important knows must be true, because everyone they know says it\u2019s true. It\u2019s a prime example of a zombie idea \u2014 an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die. <\/p>\n

And it does a lot of harm. Before we get there, however, what do we actually know about skills and jobs?<\/p>\n

Click through to see how Paul Krugman debunks this Republican lie. What we have is a Republican gap: the separation Republicans cause between where we are and a more healthy economy.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Equal Opportunity is an American Mandate<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 1954 Supreme Court decision  Brown vs. the Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren said that education "is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms." Equally eminent future Justice Thurgood Marshall insisted on "the right of every American to an equal start in life." <\/p>\n

But now, as  The Economist<\/a> points out, "Whereas most OECD countries spend more on the education of poor children than rich ones, in America the opposite is true." Poverty, of course, is of all colors, but it’s disproportionately black. The  Civil Rights Project<\/a> at UCLA shows that "segregated schools are systematically linked to unequal educational opportunities," while the Economic Policy Institute<\/a> tells us that "African American students are more isolated than they were 40 years ago."  New York City<\/a> is the best example of that. <\/p>\n

Charters and vouchers are the ‘choice’ of the free market. But the  National Education Policy Center<\/a> notes that "Charter schools…can shape their student enrollment in surprising ways," through practices that often exclude "students with special needs, those with low test scores, English learners, or students in poverty." Stanford’s updated  CREDO study<\/a> found that  fewer special education students<\/a> and fewer English language learners are served in charters than in traditional public schools. <\/p>\n

This is one of four Arguments on why we must save public education from the Republican onslaught. Click through for the other three. <\/font><\/p>\n

From Crooks and Liars<\/a>: <\/font>I\u2019ve had a lot of good teachers in my life, but there have been a few really great ones who will always stand out. They were the teachers who took the extra steps and showed just how much they cared about their students. At Red Bank High School in Tennessee, Jennifer Mitts was that kind of teacher.<\/p>\n

When one of her students got sick, she drove the student to the ER. When that student couldn\u2019t pay her bill, Mitts took care of it herself. Instead of a pat on the back, however, she was forced to resign.<\/p>\n

According to the [Republican<\/em>] school board, Mitts had done similar things in the past and was asked to stop. She had also received several other infractions, though the school wasn\u2019t clear on what those were.<\/p>\n

The school board also says that Mitts was only suspended but willingly resigned. Mitts says she was forced to resign.<\/p>\n

Leave it to Republicans to fire a grade A teacher for doing right. What vile TEAbuggery!!<\/font><\/p>\n

Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"0401Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow and getting ready for a hellacious week.  Tomorrow I will be collecting the data for and writing the Monthly Report for March.  Wednesday I have to pack and run errands.  Thursday I leave to get my volunteer training.  Friday I return and unpack.  Saturday I have a meeting that cannot be […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}