Preface

HB 1 is a bill titled the “Georgia Uniform Civil Forfeiture Procedure Act.” It is due on the Georgia State House floor today (Tuesday, March 5th).

The bill is 92 pages long, has 3,211 lines of text, and contains approximately 40,000 words (line numbers excluded from that count).

If anyone wants to take the time to read the 92 pages, help yourself here.

Or, you can just read this issue of the Vine (which will be shorter than 40,000 words) and get the gist of why this bill is good legislation, and why it should pass with NO amendments that will likely be designed to only water it down to the detriment of the people of Georgia.

Background of the Civil Forfeiture Issue

The purpose of HB 1’s 92 pages and 40,000 words is to actually put into place the “due process of law” that the Georgia Constitution guarantees for people in its very first two paragraphs in Article 1, Section 1:

“Paragraph I: No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property except by due process of law.

Paragraph II: Protection to person and property is the paramount duty of government and shall be impartial and complete. No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws.”

Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. It is the power of law enforcement to confiscate cash, cars, home and other property on the mere suspicion that the property was involved in criminal activity.

The national group Institute for Justice (a public interest law firm that fights forfeiture abuse across the country) has done a national study on civil forfeiture laws in several states and produced a 7-minute video that lays-out the issue for you to understand (Click this link for video here).

On January 29, 2013, the Institute released a report on Georgia’s civil forfeiture laws titled “Rotten Reporting in The Peach State” that details the problems with several Georgia law enforcement agencies who do not provide the proper documentation and reporting of property they have seized.

In January of 2012, the Georgia Public Policy Foundation issued a statement about civil forfeiture, concluding that:
• Asset forfeiture should not be a civil process. Nobody should lose their property until they have been convicted of a crime.

• Law enforcement – police, sheriff’s departments or prosecutors – should not profit from the proceeds of criminal asset forfeiture, which should go into the state’s general fund.

• Expedite and facilitate the return of property to innocent victims of the asset forfeiture process.

During 2011 and 2012, a Forfeiture Rewrite Work Group met in Georgia to review current forfeiture law and determine whether there was a need to standardize the provisions and consolidate into one primary code section to help assure a “due process” was followed consistently. The group included representatives from each of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council, the Georgia Attorney’s General office and the Administrative Office of the Georgia Courts.

With the help of Legislative Counsel, the work group drafted a new Uniform Civil Forfeiture Procedure Act (UCFPA) which will be located in Chapter 16 of Title 9, Civil Practice.

UCFPA establishes comprehensive civil forfeiture proceedings taken from the drug forfeiture statute that has guided the vast majority of forfeitures in this state for the last 20 years.

Due Process – The Meat of HB 1

To put it as simply as possible, HB 1 codifies the intent of the Georgia Constitution’s due process and private property rights guaranteed under the state constitution. A Constitution that elected officials all swear an oath to uphold, and one that all law enforcement personnel also swear an oath to uphold.

But, the forfeiture laws, as they currently exist in Georgia, tilt the scales of justice heavily against the concept of property rights to strongly favor the “state” and law enforcement agencies more than they favor the people’s rights to due process before their owned property gets yanked from them.

And, we’re not talking about property used in the direct commission of a crime where the criminal has been found guilty. Civil forfeiture acts currently include the confiscation of property where a law enforcement officer can make a decision on the spot that the property is connected to a crime and confiscate it…without it ever being proven to be directly involved in the commission of a crime.

And, as the current law exists, law enforcement is only required to place a notice in the courthouse that the property has been confiscated. There is no direct notification of the owner(s) of the property required as the law currently exists. Before you conclude that might be “okay” as far as notification goes, consider this: how many times do you visit your courthouse to determine if your property has been confiscated?

The language in HB 1 spells it all out as to the procedures required to confiscate private property, procedures for law enforcement documenting their confiscations and submitting reports…as well as a new legal standard on what “burden of proof” standard to use to determine if it is legal to confiscate the property in question…which is actually important enough to go into a little more detail on…

Burden of Proof: Three Levels

There are actually three “levels” of evidence proof in the American legal system (assuming Georgia is still considered to be part of America, I assume these three levels also apply in this state).

Most everyone knows about the standard of proofs of “beyond a reasonable doubt” (which is used in criminal cases) and “preponderance of the evidence” which is usually used in civil cases.

Beyond a reasonable doubt is the highest level of proof required, while ‘preponderance of the evidence‘ is the lowest level of evidence judgment to use to make a legal decision.

There is a third level which is a middle-of-the-road level to these two extremes: Clear and convincing evidence.

From the Cornell University Legal Website, this is what the “clear and convincing” level of evidence means as a standard: “In order to meet the standard and prove something by clear and convincing evidence, a party must prove that it is substantially more likely than not that it is true. This standard is employed in both civil and criminal trials.”

HB 1 requires that law enforcement use the evidence of proof level of ‘clear and convincing evidence’ to determine whether property should be seized.

‘Clear and convincing evidence’ requires more proof than just someone’s random opinion. They must prove that it is more likely than not to be property that was used in the commission of a crime.

Rumors have it that a specific amendment will be offered from the floor to lower the standard to merely being “preponderance of the evidence,” which will essentially allow the confiscation to continue as it does now, with little proof of property being connected to a crime.

Any amendment like this will just mean someone does not truly believe in the concept of “due process of law” and that all private property is, essentially , lying in wait to be confiscated by some law enforcement person who, at the act of personal whim, could seize it and claim on the basis of a mere “preponderance” of the evidence, keep the property and force the actual owner to expend funds to get it back.

That concept (which is how current law is in Georgia) is anti-American because it assumes the property owner of being guilty of something, and having to prove innocence in order to reclaim his/her seized property.

HB 1 SUMMARY

HB 1 will create more transparency and accountability by strengthening the mandatory reporting requirement of all law enforcement agencies. It will ensure that those individuals proven guilty of a crime do not keep the fruits of their crime , and it strikes a much needed balance in forfeiture law by protecting individual property rights and public safety against those involved in criminal enterprises.

Georgia’s law will now be more in line with the federal requirement for how law enforcement can use forfeiture funds. HB 1 requires that parties provide a proper accounting of what they receive upon seizure, and it allows for equitable distribution among all law enforcement agencies involved with the forfeiture.

HB 1 clarifies some current provisions regarding reporting and eliminates confusion over what the funds may be used for by explicitly defining the specific use of money confiscated — the same as federal law.

HB 1 provides procedural safeguards by placing it within Title 9, as a civil law proceeding and providing court oversight, and simplifies the standard for initiating a claim to recover property wrongfully seized for forfeiture. Innocent people should not lose their property because they didn’t know the “letter of the law” in notice and procedure required to retrieve property they didn’t know was seized.

HB 1 allows either side to make an application to the court for discovery if the party believes there is a need, and the court has discretion to grant. It creates a right of anyone who has a claim to property to appear before the court and defend that interest.

This legislation also lowers the ceiling from $25,000 to $5,000 for non-judicial forfeitures and provides greater due process for smaller claims and gives greater protection to the public.

It also deletes existing language that required a property owner to pay for the state’s legal fees if they lose their claim in court to the property claimed, and not only lose their property, but got a double-whammy of paying money to the agency who confiscated their property for “reasonable costs, including attorneys fees” for daring to challenge the property seizure.

Finally, it will also specify that it is the duty of every local law enforcement agency and multi-jurisdictional task force to send its report to the Carl Vinson Institute.

Vote Yes to pass HB 1 and send it to the State Senate (which will likely demonstrate for us all just how anti-property rights, anti-due process, anti-constitution, AND how pro-statist those state senators and Casey Cagle really are in that chamber…:-).

Unless, of course, anyone in the state house wants to be identified as being anti-due process, anti-property rights, anti-constitution, etc…? Anyone? Anyone?

Warning

The following Vine does contain subject matter quite unsuitable to anyone under the age of 18…or, anyone who just got into politics and thinks every elected official should be treated as a deity.

Two stories must be told before we get to the meat of this edition of the Political Vine. I’m not going to apologize for their subject matter because these are two factual stories that are quite relevant to the entire purpose of this PV. So, please be patient, and read the stories in the order in which they are presented.

Timeline: November 1985

On November 7, 1985, a decision was handed down by the Georgia Court of Appeals (“COA”) regarding the case of a man who was found guilty in the trial court of sodomizing his own 7-year-old son.

The attorney representing the sodomizer for the appeal argued to the COA that, essentially, because the 7-year old may not have been able to define what an “oath to tell the truth” meant, the 7-year-old was not a competent witness.

The COA decided to uphold the lower court’s ruling because the legal standard is not that someone specifically be able to “define” the meaning of an oath, nor that he/she be able to understand the process under which the oath was administered, but that the witness know and appreciate the concept of what it meant to tell the truth, and what it meant to lie, and what would happen to liars if they lie.

The COA cited the trial court’s evidence that the child testified that “…the [child molestor] placed his sex organ in the child’s mouth and anus. The evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find the appellant guilt of sodomy beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Timeline: September 1986 & April 1987

In September 1986, the Georgia Court of Appeals twice denied an appeal (an appeal and then a “reconsideration” of the appeal) by a convicted child molestor who was convicted of 5 counts of child molestation and aggravated sodomy of his own 11-year-old daughter.

In April of 1987, the Georgia Supreme Court (“GSC”) heard the appeal (and the reconsideration), and denied both as well.

When you read these two appeals, you will be able to construct what had to be going on in the mind of the criminal defense attorney arguing the case for appeal.

The attorney for both the COA and the GSC appeals argued that, essentially, because the daughter had slept in a bed with her uncle when she was 5 and when she was 7, then when the father had relations with her when she was 11, that she had already “consented” to have sex with the uncle, and therefore she could not accuse her father of molesting her.

AND…the criminal defense attorney was arguing to both higher courts that if he was allowed to cross-examine the 11-year old victim on her knowledge of what constituted “sex” that he would be able to show that his convicted client should not be found guilty if his daughter had no problem sleeping with her uncle. (Yeah. That was the logic of the appeal argued.)

Both courts determined that regardless of the times in which the victim may or may not have had relations with the uncle prior to the 5 acts of molestation the father was accused of performing on the victim, the victim could not “consent” to either act and prior sexual activities was not material to the defense’s claim. (Why didn’t the criminal defense attorney know that law about “consent” of a minor?)

Timeline – Interlude

Since you’re dying to know what the heck these two stories have to do with anything currently going on in Georgia, I’ll let you know, and then we’ll continue with the present day Timeline.

In the first case discussed dealing with the 7-year-old son molested by his father, the criminal defense attorney was David E. Ralston (whom you now know as “Speaker Ralston”). Here’s the case to read if you wish.

In the second case discussed, the criminal defense attorney for both appeals dealing with the argument that if a child has sex with her uncle and doesn’t accuse him of molestation then when her father does the same thing, she can’t accuse him of molestation, was also David E. Ralston. Click this link for those two cases to read.

NOW…we return to the Timeline…

Timeline – February 25, 2013

On Monday, February 25, 2013, the Georgia State House “debated” HB 142 (actually, they merely acquiesced to it because there was no “debate”).

HB 142 was solely written by Speaker David Ralston. And, there are some things in there that are good, and some that are not good. (At this moment, I don’t have the time to spend on the bill itself.)

What I have the time to do is present a few excerpts that I find especially indicative of just how freaking crazy some of these folks clearly become when they sit for so long in elected office. Two people in particular who spoke in favor of the bill: Representative Chuck Sims (R-Pharisee), and Speaker David Ralston (The Holiest One).

Currently, the video from yesterday’s house vote on HB 142 is online…and, after I discuss parts of this video, I suspect that either Ralston (or his Head Henchman Spiro Amburn) will direct Chip Rogers & Co. over at Georgia Public Broadcasting to rip the video off of the GPB website so that you won’t be able to witness their actual words. (Click this link for the GA House – Day 23 video if you wish to see the video at the Timemarks described)

Chuck Sims is recognized to speak at approximately the 1:08:28 timemark. Feel free to listen to Sims’s folksy journey as he takes you thru to someone’s childhood act of pushing over an outhouse, Washington’s axing of a cherry tree, and ending-up at the approximate time mark of 1:12:50 where Sims asks the question “Was Jesus Christ unethical? Everybody said he was.”

THEN…continue listening to Sims as he wends his way up to the timemark of 1:13:25 when he transitions to what can only be interpreted to mean that he truly equates Ralston’s dealings with discussions of legislative ethics to Ralston being Jesus Christ. (He does not say this, he implies it and he infers it because there was no other reason to bring-up some statement regarding whether Jesus was accused of being “unethical” before this point.)

And so, Sims apparently believes Ralston should receive extra-special “goodness” attention because he takes the barbs from people accusing the house members of being “unethical.” (However, I interpret this ‘crown of thorns’ that Ralston wears for all the other House members to actually be more indicative of the fact that some individual members of the House are TOO stupid to speak for themselves…and Sims is especially included in that characterization of an inability to speak for himself unless he’s in the House well…protected from talking to serfs and other non-Pharisees).

NOW…let’s look at one comment from Ralston in the well (because I could not take hearing him speak for long at all):

Timemark 1:32:00: Ralston claims that in no version of his bill was there ever an attempt to quash the free speech right of a citizen to express their views to a legislator…and that any other characterization in that realm would be a “Blatant misrepresentation of the truth.”

COMMENTARY

Since Chuck Sims asked the question of “When did Ralston become unethical?”, based on the clear evidence of the type of law that Ralston practiced (i.e., criminal/child molestation defense), and the way he argued those cases, I’m going to answer that question for Mr. Sims: Ralston likely walked into the House with an immoral/unethical mind existing already.

Now, you can argue all you want that everyone deserves a criminal defense (I’m certain I’ll receive emails from criminal defense attorneys to that effect)…but, for someone to be able to…literally, warp their mind into arguing that an 11-year-old girl, because she apparently had sex with her uncle when she was 7, and she didn’t have a problem with relations then, then heck-yeah!…she should not have had a problem with her dad molesting her 5 times when she was 11…yeah, I think something has to be pretty twisted in Ralston’s mind to have been able to argue that as a legal basis for an appeal.

And, not just argue it once, but twice. He ignored the logic of the Court of Appeals’ decision, and continued to display a blatant disregard for the statutory rape and child molestation law to appeal again to the Ga Supreme Court.

One has to wonder what criminal defense attorney Ralston would have cross-examined the 11-year old victim about if he had been granted the appeal? Think about that for a moment.

Would Ralston’s cross-examination have been been worded like this: “Now, Little Girl, you were okay with your uncle messing with you in bed when you were 5 years old…why don’t you just go ahead and admit you liked it when your uncle did it, and you also liked it when your father did it, right?”

Can you imagine the psychological trauma that little girl would have had to experience in dealing with Ralston’s cross-examinination of her had he won his appeal in 1986/1987? To have the opportunity to tear her apart on the witness stand? That is one sick mind, Folks. (And, I doubt that mind ever got “well”.)

The fact that both of Georgia’s high courts denied his claim proves to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that his mind is not something that anyone should rely upon to know the difference between right and wrong when it comes to the “ethical behavior” of legislators.

You folks in the State House who worship this guy as your “Speaker” (or, Chuck Sims, who considers David Ralston to be the Son of God)…know this: When David Ralston looks at you, and seeks to “defend” you against the “evil media” and those “evil Tea Party People” that he…actually…may view you as a criminal needing to be “defended”….and/or…for all we know, some of you may actually be child molestors that David Ralston successfully defended, and that explains your “loyalty” to him.

So, when you shake his hand, and you walk around the Gold Dome thinking your Speaker “loves” you and will “protect” you, keep this in mind: One day, he may defend the person who molests your 7-year old boy/grand-child…or, your 11-year-old daughter/grand-daughter and claim to the court that your child somehow invited the molestation to occur.

There are some truly messed-up minds in this state’s Legislature. Now we know why. And, like a fish, it is all rotting from the head all the way down to the tail.

Rumors have it that Georgia Republican Party Secretary John Padgett is now seeking the position of state party chairman. In a letter announcing his decision, Padgett states the following:

“We need a bold Chair for our Party who has a proven track record of conservative grassroots leadership. We cannot afford to put at risk all that our Party has achieved by turning over the role of Chair to weak and ineffective leadership…Trust matters. Experience matters. Leadership matters…I have been waiting for a true grassroots leader to step forward and run for Chair, but none has emerged.”

PV Blinks in Amazement: “Trust matters.” Huh. Really, Mr. Padgett? How ‘trustworthy’ is someone who ignores the breaking of Roberts Rules of Order, and not only ignores the breaking of them, but actually promotes them to be broken?

Perhaps Mr. Padgett is not familiar with this new-fangled tek-nolo-gee called the “Internet” that…has a propensity to allow people who have captured many things on tape and post them on this “Internet:”

2012 Caucus Fraud at Athens-Clarke County GOP Convention

You will note the (cough! cough!) “leader” who calls himself ‘John Padgett’ running away and telling someone to stop recording him as he tries to defend the closing of a convention when a ‘division of the house’ was clearly called for.

Now, you might wonder why it is that Padgett is now running for State GOP Chair. Quite simply, it is because he is mad at BJ Van Gundy, who was in charge of the 2012 State GOP Convention Credentials Committee (which had something like 8-9 other people sitting on it as well), a committee charged with the responsibility of determining if rules were followed in the determination of delegates to the state convention…and a committee that determined that based on evidence like that video-link above, the Athens-Clarke County GOP did violate the State Call and/or the State GOP Rules in conducting a convention.

Therefore, the Athens-Clarke County delegation got their credentials disqualified and they were kicked-off the floor of the convention.

THAT act is why John Padgett is now running for state chair. Because, along with actually cheating, the Athens-Clarke County GOP got caught on tape cheating. And, the Athens-Clarke County GOP is angry at BJ because he and his credentials committee were presented with evidence (and testimony of witnesses) of the cheating.

Now, as a sidebar, PV knows there will be people in the Athens-Clarke County GOP who point out to PV that, yeah, PV was pissed at BJ in relation to several other things last year, the main thing being that his committee didn’t revoke other delegations’ credentials that PV felt deserved to be revoked.

Apparently, the credentials committee had overwhelming evidence presented to them about the Athens-Clarke County GOP convention, evidence that was not similarly presented to them about another county.

PV’s Non Sequitur Sidebar: It is fascinating to hear people, to this day, still rant about the “Ron Paul people” coming into the party to “take it over.”

Let’s see…what happened last year in spite of the various county and district GOPs working hard (all over the country, by the way) to violate rules to prevent liberty-minded, Ron Paul-supporters from participating? Here’s a hint: MITT ROMNEY STILL LOST!!!

You folks who THINK you deserve some sort of air of superiority of any significance because you succeeded in blocking those folks out of the process might as well be sniffing glue. Because YOUR candidates, your delegates, etc. didn’t accomplish sh*t for getting a Republican elected president, did they? In case you lost track, THAT was the only purpose of last year’s national election cycle.

All that money WASTED. All that time WASTED. All that effort spent devising ways to deliberately, and systematically, cheat people last year…WASTED.

And now, of course, all PV sees is a bunch of hand-wringing “establishment Republicans” whining about Obama’s lying and cheating and ignoring the Constitution, and blah-blah-blah. Gee, ever heard of this concept called “Karma?”

If you think you deserve a “blessed country” by just spending your time uttering patriotic phrases like “God Bless America,” but you fail to give Him a good reason why He should take the time to do that for you, especially when He witnesses how you treat your fellow Republicans by cheating (see Athens-Clarke County GOP video here), then, maybe it’s not “Obama and the Democrats’ fault” that this country is headed in the direction that it is headed, but it is all your fault.

* A “steroid-injected horse” is one that has been doped to be given an edge in a horse race. That is considered to be ‘cheating’ in the horse-racing circuit. If your definition of “a true grassroots leader” means someone who knowingly lies or cheats or steals and/or blatantly supports people who engage in those activities, whether it be in politics or anything else, then John Padgett may be your kind of “horse” for State GOP Chairman.

The latest act by the liar known as Brian Laurens is a mailpiece that he sent out late last week that presents an “endorsement” of his candidacy for HD 21 by an organization in Georgia that expressly never gave any such endorsement, nor do they ever engage in such methods in political races, AND who are demanding a retraction from Laurens. You can read all about that issue here on Jim Galloway’s AJC blog.

I say “latest act” because I’ve known Brian Laurens to be a liar dating back to 2011 when I described his encounter with a candidate named Geraldine Wade in the HD 43 race ( See PV story here and follow-up story to that one here).

Since then, Laurens has racked-up an impressive quantity of other stories that reflect his character (or, lack thereof) in these publications:

Ga Pundit Story 1-Traffic Stop

Ga Pundit Story 2-Laurens lying

Ga Pundit Story 3 -False Endorsement

Cherokee Tribune-Laurens gets tossed from meeting

AND…the best summary of why Laurens should not be elected (ever, by the way, to any office) can be found in the succinct summary assembled by The Perspicacious Conservative blog available here.

With regard to my first comment above, along with a reference Miss Perspicacious makes to “Chip Rogers,” let me explain to you the proof of just how pervasive a liar that Chip Rogers is, and then perhaps you will all get a better understanding of how bad an influence Chip Rogers is/can be on any organization (OR person, in the case of Brian Laurens) for which he is a member of (whether in the state senate, or in Georgia Public Broadcasting, or anywhere else he might end-up in the future):

In 2004, when Chip Rogers was first running for state senate, he was in a primary against Craig Dowdy. Very close to the primary date, Dowdy’s signs were getting systematically destroyed, and Dowdy got fed-up with it, and started monitoring his signs late in the evening.

At one point, he actually caught two “kids” (seniors in high school) who were working for Chip Rogers’ campaign in the act of destroying his signs. He called the police, filed an incident report, and the kids got hauled-off to spend the night in jail.

The kids told the police that they were told by Rogers to destroy as many of Dowdy’s signs as they could find.

Then when the police called Rogers that evening and asked if that was true, what was Chip Rogers response to this? A flat-out denial that he EVER instructed anyone to destroy Dowdy’s signs. So, the kids spent the night in jail, and Chip Rogers went on to win that primary.

Funny thing, though…after that primary, for whatever reason, Rogers’ decided to come “somewhat clean” and admit that it was he who ordered that Dowdy’s signs be destroyed, but even that “clean” is tinged with his bullshit crappola double-talk of “I unfortunately had somebody working for me who told somebody else to do something stupid and somebody else did something stupid and now we’re in this situation.”

Since then, in which every time Chip Rogers had an opponent, there was a sign-destruction war to which Chip always denied that his campaign was engaged in, the most recent one being the Rogers v. Beach campaign in July 2012.

Were this just one incident, perhaps people could see fit to overlook the lies of Chip Rogers. But, when you bother to read the researched story of Rogers’ involvement in gambling and sports betting activities in the 1990s, anyone who has ANY sense of what is right and what is wrong, would be able to come to the conclusion that he is one majorly bad apple.

A bad apple who now sits in a $150,000 per year salaried job in public broadcasting, put there by Governor Nathan Deal (a man who clearly does not care about having moral or ethical people associated with his governorship).

Now that Chip Rogers is gone from electoral office, he’s apparently trying to leave his legacy of dirty campaign tactics to his protege, Brian Laurens. Man, I just hope the people in this Cherokee County house district have better sense than Laurens himself and do not vote him into the state house.

Rumors abound today that U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss has decided to retire at the end of his term in 2014, and not seek reelection.

This Press release was sent out by the Office of Governor Deal:

Office of Communications
(404) 651-7774
Jan. 25, 2013

Deal: “Chambliss a statesman who has led on nation’s priorities.”

Upon the announcement today that U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss will not seek a third term, Gov. Nathan Deal praised his service to Georgia.

“Saxby Chambliss’s tenure in the Senate saw tumultuous times for our nation, from wars against terrorists to the fiscal crisis that threatens us today. Representing us, Saxby became an expert and a leader on these most important issues. Having served with Saxby in Washington for many years, I understand the gravitational pull of Georgia soil because I too felt the call of home. Saxby didn’t wake up every morning and stick his finger in the wind; he started each day asking what he can do to ensure his grandchildren inherit a country every bit as great as the one enjoyed by our generation. History will remember Sen. Saxby Chambliss as a great Georgia leader and an American statesman; I will remember him as a friend.”

Who should replace Chambliss?

I could take the time to list all the potential prospects who should run for Saxby’s seat. But, that would be a lengthy process, involving a lot of writing and analysis, and who really needs to read all that to get to the same conclusion I have reached (inside of thirty minutes, no less, but involving approximately 1 million of my active neurons)?

Governor Deal would actually be the best replacement for Senator Chambliss if he would run for it.

While I understand there will be some people whose spitfire response to me will be “What??? What about THIS guy, and what about THAT guy, and what about so-and-so Congressman, and…blah…blah…blah…”

This is my logic: Deal has a VERY unique background in politics that no one else actually has who is a potential candidate: He served in the Georgia State Legislature, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he will have served as the state’s highest executive-level officer for 4 years by the end of 2014.

That is a powerful, political experience-based resume. Most people in the U.S. Senate have ZERO executive-level experience. It is a different brain-skill capability to think as an “executive” as opposed to a “legislator.” That’s just a fact of what happens in the job.

Any U.S. Representative who runs for Saxby’s replacement does NOT have the executive-level experience and knowledge that Nathan Deal has…which would enable Deal to personally be able to consider the impact of federal legislation on a state’s finances and operations.

He has true “hands-on” knowledge in that realm that no one else that I can think of who would be eligible to run for the position has.

There is a big article on the AJC website today that details what appears to be some potentially dishonest dealings by DeKalb County’s CEO Burell Ellis and some vendors who have scored some sweet contract deals. You can get informed here: Vendors in DeKalb government probe earned millions

Mentioned in this article are 6 private entities who are under specific focus by the DeKalb DA’s office in connection with their receiving contracts from DeKalb:

The Ferguson Group (a lobbying company)
Massey, Watson, Bowers & Hembree (a lobbying company)
Inland Waters Pollution Control (an underground pipe repair company)
MWH Global (an engineering and construction services firm)
Rural/Metro Corp. (an ambulance company)
Sentinel Offender Services (a probation services company)

Also revealed in that article is this tidbit of information:

“In separate instances that involved Sentinel’s and Rural/Metro’s competitors, county officials either terminated or tried to terminate contracts with those competitors. The effort involving Sentinel’s competitor failed after a judge pointed out that the county didn’t have the legal authority to terminate probation services contracts.

In the other case, the county did cancel a contract with Rural/Metro’s competitor in 2010. A month later, Rural/Metro was awarded an “emergency” yearlong contract that has been extended and remains in place.”

NOW…what PV finds especially intriguing is this concept of an “emergency” contract. An “emergency” contract is awarded to a vendor by the governing agency that has issued an “emergency RFP/RFB” that short-circuits the normal route (and, normal legal processes required by the governing agency) of bidding for services.

You may or may not recall a couple of stories covered by FOX 5’s Dale Russell just a short while ago concerning the Fulton County Development Authority and their award of an “emergency contract” that continued to be renewed without any normal bid process. Here are links to the two stories:

Lavish spending by Fulton County Development Authority

Fulton Co. Development Authority’s spending on outside contracts questioned

It is this second story that exposes the fact that a lobbying contract was awarded based on an “emergency” bid process. In an emergency bid process, the premise is that there is an urgent need for something, so it is legal for a government agency to ignore the normal rules to seek bids, review bids, and award bids.

However…what is suspicious in the Fulton County Development Authority (“FCDA”) case is that the chairman of the FCDA is in a business relationship with the lobbyist who won the “emergency” lobbying contract. And, it is a contract that has been re-issued for two years following the first year’s “emergency” instance to the same lobbyist. (One would think that once a government entity got past the “emergency” event that they would be able to re-set the process to have a normal bidding process be opened-up.)

Circling back now to current-day in DeKalb County, there are a few interesting factoids PV has discovered as a result of this story:

1) Bruce Bowers was a registered lobbyist for Rural Metro Ambulance from January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2011. Recall the paragraph cited previously from the AJC story regarding Rural Metro Ambulance being “awarded” an emergency contract in 2010 after the previous vendor had their contract terminated early with no apparently truly valid reason given (PV suspects it was this terminated vendor who followed the money and tipped-off the DeKalb DA to suspected shenanigans within the county)

2) Brandon Hembree is still connected to Rural Metro Ambulance as a registered lobbyist, having started on January 1, 2006 when Bruce Bowers started that contract as well.

3) Lewis Massey is also still a currently registered State and Local lobbyist for Rural Metro Ambulance

To the reader who may not understand this situation, lobbyists, in addition to lobbying the state legislature, are also sometimes employed by private companies to act as, essentially, “business development lobbyists” to secure contracts with local governments. When you look at the registration for Bruce Bowers, Lewis Massey and Brandon Hembree, you will note two levels of lobbyist registration for Rural Metro Ambulance: State and Local. “Local-level” lobbying means the ability to lobby local government officials to create new business opportunities for the clients who hire them. Nothing illegal about that…as long as the activities are all above board.

However, if the AJC story is accurate that the previous vendor for the county’s ambulance service was terminated and then an “emergency contract” had to be let because they terminated the previous contract and had no ambulance service coverage for the county…then that points to 1) a minimum that the county is pretty freaking INCOMPETENT, and 2) that it looks like backroom deals were made to push Rural Metro Ambulance forward into getting a sweetheart, easy deal with the county via a fabricated “emergency vendor service bid” that was created by insiders to benefit cronies of the insiders.

Finally…in that AJC story, Bruce Bowers is quoted in reaction to the AJC’s question about Massey Bowers, et al. name appearing on the search warrants as stating: “My partner and I were both surprised to see our firm name involved in this inquiry…Unfortunately, we have no idea or knowledge, beyond what we have read in the media, of what is being looked at in this situation and, to date, we have made no inquiries.”

PV Note to Bruce Bowers: No inquiries, huh? No idea at all as to why your lobbying firm might be mentioned in an investigation with vendor contracts in DeKalb County? No knowledge, eh?

Just how did your client Rural Metro Ambulance happen to find out about this “emergency need” for services by DeKalb County? Were you guys just sauntering past the water cooler of the DeKalb County Purchasing Department and overhear something like “Well, dang! Now that we fired that other ambulance company, we need a NEW ambulance company. Wherever will we find someone to qualify? And, quickly?”

So, according to today’s Political Insider over at the AJC, Jim Galloway reports on what the agenda will be for the Senate Democrats.

The most striking one to PV is Senator Jason Carter’s proposal to reduce the GPA eligibility requirement from a 3.0 GPA down to a 2.0 GPA in order to be granted a HOPE Scholarship.

So, let’s see if we get this straight: Georgia already experiences grade-inflation in high schools whereby the teachers and/or principals are pressured by parents to “fix” the grades so that Little Johnny/Little Jill receives a higher grade from a class than what they truly deserved, and is able to graduate.

Proof of PV’s assertion can be found in articles like this one in the AJC from 2010: Remedial classes cost Ga. colleges millions.

Why are there so many students requiring remedial classes? Because they did not learn the basics in high school. Why did they still graduate high school without knowing these basics? Because of grade inflation granted by the high schools in which they ‘graduated’ from.

So, assuming that some percentage of high school graduates are already getting grades inflated to hit that 3.0 required to obtain a HOPE Scholarship (i.e., receipt of money from a challenging source of steady, reliable funds: the Georgia Lottery) now, approximately how many more kids would clearly be unqualified to attend and learn college-level classes if the GPA threshold was reduced to 2.0?

Here’s a guess: Tens of thousands more people who are simply not educated enough in the basics to be able to learn what needs to be learned in college to obtain a college diploma.

Senator Jason Carter’s motives for this type of proposal are as clear as the blue sky: He wishes to bankrupt the HOPE Scholarship program, and to depress the quality of college education by throwing more unqualified students into the college public money bucket who will drain the bucket of quality education resources.

While this type of activity may earn him the Order of Obama (or whatever medal the Democratic Party awards people like Carter who seek to generate more ways to suck MORE tax dollars out of people…sort of like the Order of Lenin), this type of proposal should be D.O.A. in the Georgia State Senate.

Of course, with the array of UGA grads who are elected to the State Senate, both on the GOP and Dem side, they may actually like this proposal…because, when it comes to acts of sheer dumb-ass-ness, especially in Georgia government, UGA grads are very well-versed in that arena.

Georgia State Senate Passes Resolution to Limit Lobbyist Gifts

ATLANTA (January 14, 2013) – The Georgia State Senate boldly passed a resolution on the first day of the 2013 legislative session that will amend the Senate Rules and cap gifts from any registered lobbyist or group of registered lobbyists at $100 per item, event or meal. The new rule originates from proactive efforts by the Georgia State Senate to solicit input from both Senators and citizens on how to effectively address lobbyist expenditure concerns.

“Today, on day one of the legislative session, the Senate took decisive action on this critically important issue,” said Lt. Governor Casey Cagle. “I appreciate our Senators who came together and spoke with one voice to strengthen the State Senate’s ethics laws. We are now prepared to tackle the challenges of encouraging private sector job growth, strengthening education, and improving patient centered, free market healthcare.”

“This resolution is the result of open dialogues not just within the Senate, but also with the people of Georgia,” said Sen. Majority Leader Ronnie Chance (R-Tyrone). “This measure is an effective, common sense approach supported by both parties in the Georgia Senate.”

“I have long supported limitations on lobbyist giving, and I applaud the Senate for the common sense rules passed today,” said Sen. President Pro Tem David Shafer (R-Duluth). “I appreciate the bipartisan work of the Senate Ethics Reform Study Committee.”

Any violations of the $100 gift cap will be subject to review by the Senate Ethics Committee.

PV Note: Full text of new Senate Rules can be read here. New senate rules do NOT apply to the State House, the Governor’s Office, or any other elected official in Georgia.

Kudos to State Senator Pro Tempore David Shafer.

The Georgia State House still allows unlimited gifts to be given by lobbyists to their membership. In short, The House Fat Cats get fatter.

[Editor’s Note: the article below is a reprint extracted from a larger article published on this blog on September 8, 2011. The original, full story is available here]

The Laurens Effect

In this HD 43 race, there were originally 5 candidates who qualified: In alphabetical order, they are:

Roy C. Barnes (not the former Governor)
John Carson
Don Hill
Robert Lamutt
Geraldine Wade

Before we tackle the Laurens’ Effect in full, let us describe for you in step-by-step detail of what Candidate Geraldine Wade, and one of her volunteers, experienced a couple of weeks ago as she was working the district via her car:

Wade received a phone call to her campaign cell phone. On the other end of the phone was a man’s voice. The man told her (not in these precise words, but close to it) the following: “I’m a developer in this district and your signs are on properties I control. Those properties are reserved only for Robert Lamutt’s signs. Don’t put your signs there.”

Wade responded with “Which properties specifically?” The man dodged that question and just ordered her, again, to keep her signs off of the “properties.” When Wade asked the man for his name, he refused to give it…and soon thereafter, the call concluded.

Wade drove-on for a little while and pulled onto one of the vacant lots in the district that had a Lamutt sign on it and a Don Hill sign on it. She saw a realtor’s sign on the property with a contact phone number on it. She dialed the realtor’s number and got him and asked him for permission to place her own sign on the property.

The realtor told her “Yes, you can. Thank you for calling to ask permission. The only other candidate who has asked if they could put a sign on the property is Don Hill.”

That struck a nerve with Geraldine who, after placing her sign on the property for which she was just granted permission to do so, hit the call-back key on her cellphone to the number that called her…and, the man picked-up.

Geraldine asked him who he was because she just got permission to put her sign up on a property in which Lamutt had a sign that he hadn’t, evidently, asked permission to put up. The man evaded telling Wade his name and told her “Look, we’re going to do a sweep of all my properties and anyone’s sign except for Robert Lamutt’s signs are going to be removed. I was just giving you a warning to save you some money.” And then he hung-up.

When Wade got back home that afternoon, she Googled the phone number of the man who had called her. The Google results came-up as “Signs Unlimited – Brian Laurens.”

Thus, Dear Reader, you are now properly segued into the Laurens’ Effect. In every single race (whether a Republican party office or a public office) that Brian Laurens is involved in, there is always mischief of one or all of the following activities:

– Lying and dirty, sneaky tricks

– General & Frequent Bullshit of Unknown Origin (e.g., the altering of Karen Handel’s Wikipedia biography in the summer of 2009. Yup! PV has received information recently that it was Brian Laurens’ who altered those records.)

Brian Laurens is very pro-Robert Lamutt in this HD 43 race. Laurens has been pals with Lamutt since Lamutt’s congressional race in 2004 (in which he lost in the run-off to Congressman Tom Price)

PV has received information as late as this afternoon that Laurens has been observed taking John Carson’s signs down, as well as Geraldine Wade’s signs.

To those of you who scoff and shrug and say “Hey, that goes on in all the races I’ve ever been involved in…” OR …”Everyone does it. Who cares?”…actually, there are people who are decent in this world who do care about this kind of bullshit and do not like it, nor do they engage in it.

ANY candidate that knows about this and allows this bullshit to happen over and over and over with Brian Laurens has even less class than Brian Laurens has. Brian Laurens is a sneaky and duplicitous sociopath…but, what’s the candidate’s excuse for not being able to recognize this and disengage himself from Laurens?

By Jim Arnold

Drug abuse education, alcohol abuse education, parenting, character ed, special ed, gender equity, environmental ed, women’s studies, African-American education, school breakfast, school lunch, daily attendance, computer education, multi-cultural ed, ESL (ELL, ESOL), teen pregnancy, Jump Start, Even Start, Head Start, Prime Start, Bright from the Start, Kindergarten, Pre-K, alternative ed, stranger/danger, anti-smoking ed, mandated reporting, CPR training, defibrillator training, anaphylactic shock recognition training, inclusion, internet ed, distance learning, Tech Prep, School to Work, Gifted and Talented, at-risk programs, keyboarding, dropout prevention, gang education, homeless ed, service learning, gun safety, bus safety, bicycle safety, drivers ed, bullying ed, obesity monitoring, BMI (body mass index) monitoring, financial literacy, diabetes monitoring, media literacy, hearing and vision screening, on-line education, CRCT, EOCT, GHSWT, GHSGT phase out, SAT prep, ACT prep, dual enrollment options, post -secondary options, AP, honors, IB, STEM, STEAM, adult ed, career ed, after-school programs, psychological services, RTTT, CCGPS, CCRPI and oh yes – classes……………..shall I go on?

Wonderful ideas all, and each deserving attention – and all have come to be the responsibilities of our schools and teachers. On top of these (and other duties) we add furlough days, tight budgets, longer school days, larger classes, higher expectations, a political agenda that actively encourages blaming teachers for societal issues, the denigration of public education, market based solutions, teacher evaluations tied to student test scores despite all evidence to the contrary and a continued reliance upon standardized test scores as an accurate depiction of student learning and achievement with no substantive research to support such a position. No wonder teachers are discouraged. No wonder teacher morale is at an all- time low. So in the face of all that and more, is there a silver lining somewhere in that big black thundercloud?

Not really.

Add to that burden the daily diatribes blaming teachers for their failure to successfully raise and, almost as an in loco parentis afterthought, educate our country’s children and we begin to see the need for something to replace our outdated, shopworn, hideously corrupt, inefficient and failing system of public education. Hold on just a second…can that be right?

Is this a new phenomenon? Has public education deteriorated over the past 30 years or so to its current level, where the Mariana Trench seems a high point by comparison? Not by any stretch of a politician’s fertile imagination. In 1996 E. D. Hirsch called for a return to a traditional approach to public education in “The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them.”

In 1983, “A Nation at Risk” told us of the apparent failure of our system of public education. The Educational Testing Service discovered in 1976 that college freshmen could correctly answer only half of 40 or so multiple choice questions. In 1969, the chancellor of New York schools, Harvey Scribner, said that for every student schools educated there was another that was “scarred as a result of his school experience.”

Admiral Rickover published “American Education, a National Failure” in 1963, and, in 1959. LIFE magazine published “Crisis in Education” that noted the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik because “the standards of education are shockingly low.”

In 1955, “Why Johnny Can’t Read” became a bestseller, and, in 1942 ,the New York Times noted only 6 percent of college freshmen could name the 13 original colonies and 75 percent did not know who was president during the Civil War.

The U.S. Navy in 1940 tested new pilots on their mastery of 4th grade math and found that 60 percent of the high school graduates failed. In 1889, the top 3 percent of U.S .high school students went to college, and 84 percent of all American colleges reported remedial courses in core subjects were required for incoming freshmen. The list continues.

You see the harrowing cry “public education is failing” is not new. Sixty years ago, for the majority of the population in the United States, it was true. The reiteration of that cry in temporal terms does not, however, make it so. “To fall short; to be unsuccessful,” says Webster.

If 100 percent success is the only acceptable goal, mea culpa. If progress toward that goal is to be a consideration, then perhaps this data from the U.S. Census Bureau casts a new light upon that supposed “failure:”

While there most certainly are individual schools or systems with serious issues, to proclaim the entire system of public education as failing would seem to make as much sense as trading in your car because a tire went flat. Perhap,s it would be more accurate to say that a significant portion of our Legislature wants us to believe public education is a massive failure because they have something to gain from doing so.

I find it more than a little interesting that many of the same group of Georgia legislators who attempt to add significantly to the burden of public school teachers through legislative micromanagement, unfunded mandates and financial underfunding are also among the most vociferous supporters of the Constitutional amendment on charter schools. It would be easier for me to believe their efforts were altruistically based and less motivated by selfish considerations were their children enrolled in public schools.

Politicians have never let the truth stand in the way of getting what they want. The Legislature’s insistence on accountability for everyone except themselves would be laughable if the consequences were not so severe for students, teachers and schools working diligently every day to overcome the effects of poverty. They have proposed, through the constitutional amendment, a process that would dismantle the system that offers hope for many in the name of using public money to pay for the education of the privileged few as if public schools and students were only there to allow someone the opportunity to make a gigantic profit. The abandonment of public education will only serve to keep those dependent upon public education as a traditional lifeline as uneducated as possible for as long as possible.

See how well “market based” strategies have worked for schools in Florida. (Here is one example. Here is a list of many more.)

Once again, teachers and public education are not the problem, they are the solution. Sooner or later even legislators must see it’s not about race, it’s about poverty; it’s not about a test score, it’s about student achievement; it’s not about a standardized curriculum, it’s about good teaching; it’s not about the business model, it’s about personalization; it’s not about competition, it’s about cooperation. Vote smart – vote “NO “on Nov. 6.

Jim Arnold
Private Citizen

INTRODUCTION

All over Facebook there are people employed and paid under the table to offer arguments to rebut anything anyone says in opposition to their point of view. They put on masks and costumes of just being “regular parents” or long time “conservatives” when, in fact, they are either receiving direct renumeration for their efforts, OR, they work for some legislator who got paid with campaign contribution dollars to sponsor and support the amendment, OR, in the case of many others, their spouses and family members are getting paid for their work to help get the amendment passed.

In fact, the efforts to pass the charter school amendment are eerily similar to the tactics and strategies employed to pass T-SPLOST: Put a misleading Preamble on the ballot, and use the premise of that misleading Preamble to misdirect and mislead people into voting for something that they haven’t actually been told all the relevant facts about.

My job is to tell you the relevant facts about the charter school amendment, as well as other facts about charter schools that no one (especially ALEC and its die-hard worshippers) is going to tell you.

Now, to be open and honest here, I will tell you this: _I_ am not receiving any money (or benefit), directly or indirectly, nor is any member of my family, by anyone on the Anti-Charter School Amendment side.

I don’t have kids in public or private schools. All I am is a voter, a taxpayer, and…when I put my time and mind to it, a pretty good researcher and writer. Which is why you should pay attention to the facts I will present, as opposed to listening to some political prostitute who does not disclose to you that they might just have a financial interest in the outcome of this constitutional amendment.

Who is “ALEC?”

​I mentioned the acronym ALEC by reference in the Introduction. Perhaps 5 to 10% of the 5000 or so readers of the Political Vine will actually know who ALEC is, so, let me inform the other 95% of who ALEC is so everyone will understand what’s what in the subject of this charter schools issue.

ALEC stands for the American Legislative Exchange Council. From their own “About” section on the ALEC.org website, they are: “A nonpartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers who shared a common belief in limited government, free markets, federalism, and individual liberty. Their vision and initiative resulted in the creation of a voluntary membership association for people who believed that government closest to the people was fundamentally more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C.”

So, let’s agree to the premise that ALEC is an organization whose sole focus is all about promoting conservative ideas, conservative philosophies, and conservative policies for government at all different levels in this country.

Since 2006, on a frequency of every two years, ALEC has compiled and issued a document titled “Report Card on American Education.”

In this Report (which totals an average of 140 pages per report) is a blizzard of mind-numbing tables and rankings of different elements of each state’s (and the District of Columbia’s) education policies and actual data on each state’s scholastic performance in relation to the other state jurisdictions.

Now, whatever methodology ALEC uses to “grade” or “score” or “rank” their results, I do not care (nor should you) as long as they stay consistent in what and how they rank states. Based on the results I saw in these reports, it appears they stuck with the same methodology of data collection and data scoring.

Which, while that may be unusual for a lot of organizations who have a tendency to “adjust” their methodology to change the outcome of their research to fit a certain result they wanted, the ALEC researchers (at least through this 2012 Report I will shortly present to you) did not employ that approach, which is a very good thing when we examine education performance in relation to education policy.

So, keep this in mind: All results are based on ALEC’s own data collection and own scoring methods. If you are currently an ALEC-worshipper (e.g., State Rep Jan Jones, State Rep Edward Lindsey, Governor Nathan Deal, State Senator Chip Rogers, et al.), the results are rather eye-opening.

The ALEC Education Report Cards

There are two key rankings in the ALEC reports that are the most important to examine: Education Performance Rank, and Education Policy Rank.

The Performance Rank is a state-by-state ranking of how well the each state’s primary and secondary public schools perform on national reading comprehension and math tests at Grades 4 and Grades 8, compared to other states (and the District of Columbia). The state ranked #1 is the state with the highest scores in reading comprehension and mathematics.

The Policy Rank is based on how “conservative” each state’s “education policy” is, with a heavy weight on the score being how “excellent” any state’s education policy is with regards to how much they embrace the charter school concept. The Policy Ranks are letter grades that are based on how ALEC numerically scored each state’s policies. An “A-” score is a high score (i.e., “good” when it comes to ALEC’s agenda) and “D+” is a very bad score for a state in ALEC’s construct.

In 2006, ALEC came out with their very first Report Card, covering the period 1983-1984 through 2004-2005. In that Report, the Top 10 states in the country for education performance were:

State Education Performance
1) Massachusetts
2) Minnesota
3) New Hampshire
4) Montana
5) Vermont
6) Wisconsin
7) South Dakota
8) Washington
9) Iowa
10) Nebraska

In 2006, ALEC did not appear to have Policy Ranks yet developed, but they do appear in the 2012 Report (which has the most interesting results).

The 2012 Report was issued in January 2012. On their main page, you can scroll down to the bottom section where they show “Performance Rank” on the left column and “Education Policy Grade” on the right column.

Now, these columns are not synchronized so that the “Education Policy” of, say, Massachusetts (which again achieves the #1 ranking in Performance) is the first value in the Policy column.

No, the first grade in the Policy column is Missouri with an impressive “A-” in Policy. They are #1 according to ALEC’s standards of “conservative education policy.” (Coke party and cupcakes for the State of Missouri for scoring the highest in “policy!!”)

But, in reality, who cares what the “policy” is unless it produces greater than average results in performance? Ah…that’s the kicker with the 2012 ALEC Report Card…that little kicker is covered-up by ALEC’s display on their website.

If you take the state performance rankings and match them up to each state’s education policy rankings, you come-up with an entirely different picture of how little (if any at all) a state’s degree of conservative education “policy” translates into actual education performance.

I did this (PDF copy available here) and this is what the 2012 Top 10 states in Performance looks like, and their corresponding Policy ranks:

2012 Performance/Policy Rank
1) Massachusetts / B-
2) Vermont / D+
3) New Jersey / B-
4) Colorado / B
5) Pennsylvania / C+
6) Rhode Island / C
7) North Carolina / C
8) Kansas / C-
9) New Hampshire / C+
10) New York / C-

Wow. Look at that. Massachusetts has a B- and is at #1…Vermont has a D+ at #2 on Education Performance. The rest of the Top 10 states have mostly C-averages in conservative education policy. Yet, their kids are smarter in reading comprehension and math than 41 other education jurisdictions in the United States.

And…how about Missouri? The state that scored the highest in education policy? Look down the page of this PDF to the light blue highlight near the bottom: 47th in Performance. Near dead last in 2012.

Another interesting observation is Minnesota, which was #2 in Performance in the 2006 ALEC Report Card, but has dropped out of the Top 10 states in 2012, and sunk to 18th in Performance…but, they have a B+ in Education Policy.

One final focus is Vermont. In 2010, Vermont proactively declined to participate in the Race to The Top federal program, and specified the reason to be that they did not want to adhere to the federal criteria for investing in charter schools in their state. They have no charter schools in Vermont.

They were so adamant against participating that they issued this press release that spells out their reasoning and, furthermore, what they intended to do to improve their public school education.

In coming to this decision to not participate in the federal Race to The Top program, the key thoughts in the minds of the Vermont education leaders were: “Our schools will improve, not by simply throwing money at the problem, not by blaming and shaming school leaders and their communities, but by a concerted and deliberate effort by school personnel to work together to systematically address areas of need. The 21st century demands that we have a curriculum that is wider than just math and reading: our students must be highly skilled, highly motivated and well-rounded in all curricular areas. The Race to the Top competition is a distraction from the real work that must be done by Vermont’s fine teachers and leaders.”

At the bottom of that press release from 2010, it adds this tiny little statement: “Vermont education officials noted that other states are also considering passing on the opportunity of applying for these particular funds. The Kansas State Board of Education voted last week 9-0 not to apply for the funds.”

AND…where is the State of Kansas in the 2012 Performance Rankings? At #8 in Performance and C- in Policy…kicking the crap out of Georgia (#27 in Performance and “B” in Policy) and Florida (#12 in Performance and B+ in Policy), who are both working on getting more charter schools stuffed into their state’s respective school system apparatus.

CONCLUSION

A reminder: The data is ALL straight from ALEC’s own research data. This is not a “liberal-organization”…this is not information from the AJC…or the New York Times…or the Pew Research Center.

This information comes directly from the conservative organization called ALEC.

SO…it is clear that ALEC is more concerned about continuing to promote charter schools in spite of their own research that shows NO better performance in reading and in math in the states that have charter schools when compared to the states that don’t have charter schools.

You might ask “Golly, why doesn’t ALEC point out these facts about charter-school states vs. non-charter school states?” Because ALEC is funded by private, for-profit companies that make a living in the charter school industry.

So, in effect, ALEC acts as a marketing arm of all the pro-charter school companies and organizations (i.e., the Gates Foundation and Walmart’s various entities who support charter school legislation)…and ALEC’s job is to fool voters, legislators, policy decision makers, educators, and everyone else involved in public school education.

NOW…IF, by chance, anyone at ALEC (or, anyone with any education policy think tank…or, heck, a graduate student looking for a good thesis subject) would really like to improve the USA’s education, they might consider a research project to find out answers to these questions:

What does Massachusetts do in their education “policy” that allows them to continue to be at the TOP of all states in education? Is it because their kids are just naturally smarter than all other states’ kids?

Does a state that is run by liberals mean their education is better? (Kinda looks like that with Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York, etc., all being in the Top 10)

How does a state like Vermont, which has no charter schools, continue to appear in the Top 5 of all states’ education performance in the ALEC rankings?

New Hampshire was #3 in performance in 2006, and now they are #9 in 2012’s performance. Did they slump on their own, or did 8 other states just do something vastly different?

If you are a “policy analyst” who sits around and reads 20 policy papers written by other analysts, all of whom have drunk from the Well of ALEC, maybe it’s time you actually went into the field to discover why these states that have low education policy grades via the “conservative policy prism”, but kick the living crap in actual performance results when compared to the states with the high marks in conservative education policy.

You know…If you actually want to demonstrate you have a mind of your own. If not…continue to slurp-up garbage from ALEC and have an education system no better in 20 years than it is today in Georgia.

As long as we have state legislative and policy leaders who refuse to think on their own (as opposed to thinking that whoever gives them campaign contributions must know what they’re talking about), this state’s education performance will continue to be lackluster…and no charter schools, state-controlled or local controlled, will ever result in anything but more failed policies that, while enriching the pockets of self-dealing politicians (e.g., State Rep. Alicia Thomas Morgan, and others in this state), will do nothing to improve public school education performance.

“American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential.”

Read the story here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/revealed-inside-story-of-us-envoys-assassination-8135797.html