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Blog No. 29. The Politics of K-12: Common Core, Charter Schools, Vouchers and Teachers’ Tenure.

BLOG 29 0e1841151_reinventing-americas-schools One of the earliest offerings of RINOcracy.com was “Blog No 3. Common Core State Standards: A New Cause for the Tea Party.” Since then, controversy over the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has grown rather than diminished, and has become more complex. While the CCSS are the centerpiece of political debate, there are also disputes at federal, state and local levels over charter schools, vouchers and teacher tenure.

These are important issues that deserve the attention of RINOs and other Republicans. As we struggle with the challenges of income inequality and economic mobility, very few dispute that improving education is an essential ingredient of any successful approach to meeting those challenges. Moreover, it is increasingly apparent that first-rate education is vital to the ability of the United States to compete globally. But improvements are not easy to come-by. Different constituencies have differing perspectives, and attempts at reform that challenge the status quo inevitably generate resistance. Education reform is no exception.Read More »Blog No. 29. The Politics of K-12: Common Core, Charter Schools, Vouchers and Teachers’ Tenure.

Blog No. 28. RINO Heroes of the Month: Boehner and McConnell (and the Anti-Hero, Ted Cruz).

Blog 28 picRINOcracy.com has not always been an unalloyed admirer of Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Nevertheless, credit must be given where credit is due, although being named a RINO Hero is probably an honor that neither would relish. In any case, both gentlemen deserve credit for acting with skill and courage to avoid a “crisis” over the increase in the debt ceiling.  As RINOcracy.com had previously noted, the increase in the debt ceiling was inevitable, but it was not at all clear that it would be accomplished with a minimum of embarrassment to Congressional Republicans. Moreover, as events unfolded, the seemingly irrepressible Ted Cruz did his best to create that embarrassment.Read More »Blog No. 28. RINO Heroes of the Month: Boehner and McConnell (and the Anti-Hero, Ted Cruz).

Caught in the Net of a Triangular Prism (A Report From the Fourth Grade)

As regular followers of RINOcracy.com are aware, it is generally devoted to political commentary. But once in a while a change of pace may be in order, and this blog is one. As it happens, it is not entirely unrelated to previous concerns of RINOcracy.com, where we have already commented on issues involving K-12 education and plan to do so again soon. 

I recently began some tutoring at a nearby public school. Before embarking on this mission, I had warned the sponsoring organization that I would be of no use in attempting to help anyone with High School math homework. I have not solved an algebraic equation in well over half a century and the only thing I ever knew about calculus was that it gave frequent headaches to my freshman roommate at Cornell. “Not to worry,” they said, “we have a fourth grader for you.” “Sounds good,” I said. 

Read More »Caught in the Net of a Triangular Prism (A Report From the Fourth Grade)

Special Bulletin. The Debt Ceiling: Another Tea Party Tantrum

It is an overused cliché to say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Yet how better to describe the actions of the House Republicans in insisting that they must “get something” in order to vote for an increase in the debt ceiling? It is a demand that has the intellectual gravitas of a child refusing to eat her spinach unless she is given a cookie.spinachRead More »Special Bulletin. The Debt Ceiling: Another Tea Party Tantrum

Blog No. 27. Pre-K Education: Great Debate or Great Puzzle?

Letter puzzle - BLog 27 Pre-KRINOcracy.com believes strongly that early education is important, and that it is imperative in the case of children of lower socioeconomic status. Indeed, It appears that Head Start might have been more aptly named “Catching Up.”  An October 22 article in the New York Times reported a recent study showing that the educational handicaps of such children can be observed from almost the very start:

New research by Anne Fernald, a psychologist at Stanford University, which was published in Developmental Science this year, showed that at 18 months children from wealthier homes could identify pictures of simple words they knew — “dog” or “ball” — much faster than children from low-income families. By age 2, the study found, affluent children had learned 30 percent more words in the intervening months than the children from low-income homes.

If the Republican Party is to live up to its aspiration of being “the party of opportunity,” as the 2012 Platform proclaimed, it has no more important task than bringing opportunity to those children.  But, how to do that is not so clear.Read More »Blog No. 27. Pre-K Education: Great Debate or Great Puzzle?

Minimum Wage Laws – Moral Imperative or Political Gambit?

The following guest blog is by John Swindell, retired Vice President and Managing Director of RR Donnelley Financial.

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Our current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour went into effect in July, 2009, and is not indexed to any measure of inflation.  President Obama and fellow Democrats are now proposing to increase the federal minimum wage to approximately $10 per hour in a couple of stages.  Early battle lines are being drawn along traditional ideology, with Democrats supporting the raise by citing the moral imperative to fight poverty and reduce income inequality and Republicans opposing the raise by repeating the long-held belief that the laws of economics negate the impact of minimum wage increases, repeating the old adage that you get less of what costs more – higher wages equals reduced employment.  Democrats counter that a plethora of studies have shown no ‘employment effect’ of increasing minimum wage.  A recent Glenn Hubbard Op Ed in The Washington Post disagrees, citing a book by David Neumark and William Wascher:  “a higher wage almost surely reduces employment.”  A recent editorial in Investor’s Business Daily argues that the studies frequently cited by minimum wage supporters did not include wage increases of the magnitude now being contemplated and, further, that the periods studied were relatively short and failed to account for longer-term impacts.Swindell Blog Minimum Wage

Read More »Minimum Wage Laws – Moral Imperative or Political Gambit?

Special Bulletin. Obama’s Speech on the NSA: The Mountain Brings Forth a Mouse.

A Mountain Brings Forth a Mouse. Political cartoon showing 1872 Liberal Republicans gathered around a mountain witnessing the birth of its candidate, a mouse labeled “H. G.” (Horace Greeley.) Appeared in Harper’s Weekly, May 18, 1872.

As illustrated by the 1872 cartoon from Harper’s Weekly, the Aesopian fable of a mountain laboring to bring forth a mouse has long history in political commentary. It may never have seemed more appropriate than after President Obama’s speech on NSA surveillance. The speech was long on rhetoric and short on substance, addressing only a few of the 46 specific recommendations of his advisory panel. That panel and its recommendations, it appears, may have an even shorter shelf life in Presidential consideration than the Simpson-Bowles commission he created to solve the problem of the federal deficit.Read More »Special Bulletin. Obama’s Speech on the NSA: The Mountain Brings Forth a Mouse.

Blog No. 26. Poverty and Marriage.

SPECIAL-marriage-and-child-poverty-WEB-GFX-2The Fiftieth Anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of a War on Poverty spurred considerable discussion of whether that war was a success or failure. In the view of RINOcracy.com, William Galston, writing in the Wall Street Journal had it about right:

Every serious analysis concludes that poverty in the U.S. would be far worse without the programs launched during the Great Society. So conservatives should stop repeating Ronald Reagan’s canard that we fought a war on poverty and poverty won. It is more accurate to say that we fought poverty to a draw in circumstances that became increasingly unfavorable for lower-wage workers and their families.Read More »Blog No. 26. Poverty and Marriage.

Blog No. 25. Abortion, Guns and Evolution.

On January 3 and 4, The New York Times printed a trilogy of pieces – two articles and an op-ed column – that many RINOs would find acutely depressing. The first article was titled “Access to Abortion Falling as States Pass Restrictions ” and the second was “Banished for Questioning the Gospel of Guns.” The op-ed, by Charles M. Blow, was titled “Indoctrinating Religious Warriors.” The pieces were unrelated in that each addressed a separate subject, but they shared a common thread: the influence of the far right in the Republican Party.Read More »Blog No. 25. Abortion, Guns and Evolution.

Blog No. 24 Whither NSA Metadata: The Judges and the Report to the President (Part II).

Part I of the Blog focused principally on the decisions of Judges Richard J. Leon and William H. Pauley III. This Part will discuss the Report of the advisory panel appointed by President Obama and its recommendations with respect to both the NSA metadata program and the protection of all classified data held by the NSA.Read More »Blog No. 24 Whither NSA Metadata: The Judges and the Report to the President (Part II).