DOW has its best close in four years!

I don't understand why Wall Street is abandoning the Obama administration.  The bailouts seem to have improved profitability... The Inquirer reports that the DOW had its best October in four years!  Here's the story:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/homepage/20101030_Dow_has_its_best_October_in_4_yrs_.html

HB101 needs to be revisited!

Thankfully, elections will be over in a few days.  Legislators will return to work, if only for their lame duck sessions.  Given the budget crisis in Pennsylvania, I understand Governor Rendell's decision to veto the open-ended unintended tax break to profit-making ventures that lease or lend space to charter schools in Pennsylvania.  But, must the whole education budget be held hostage?  There are wonderful provisions in HB101... I hope you will read this and contact your legislator to invite them to return to the drawing board to get these items passed:

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billinfo/billinfo.cfmsyear=2009&sind=0&body=H&type=B&BN=0101

Is it Safe to Elect Politicians Who Don't Believe in Good Government Regulations?

A question we must ask ourselves every day since the BP Deepwater Oil Rig Disaster off the coast of Louisiana: 

Should private industry be left alone to extract energy from our land and seas in the cheapest, dirtiest, riskiest, most life-threatening ways in order to save a few bucks here and there to maximize profits for investors? 

The Philadelphia Inquirer just published an amazing series on the deliberate dismantling of the Environmental Protection Agency by the Bush Administration. 

In good faith, they probably thought they would prove the economic superiority of deregulation by giving free rein to energy producers.  Instead, we have a string of disasters and environmental catastrophes in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and the whole Gulf Coast.  

Click here for very compelling reading - especially since we've had a string of accidents and contaminated water sources in Pennsylvania: 
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/special/36110664.html

Women of Faith Deserve Full Equality in Every Church!

This morning, I was delighted to see the editorial on the Vatican's treatment of women who seek ordination in the Roman Catholic Church.  I am amazed that American Catholic women are so tolerant of the Vatican's mistreatment of women.  Catholic sisters raised generations of immigrants out of poverty by running schools, hospitals, universities - and their self-sacrifices were only matched by the sacrifices of military personnel.

One of my priest friends has often noted that the Vatican would only change its ways if Americans voted their conscience by withholding their dollars.   Maybe now is the time to consider that strategy.  Here's the article that made me proud to write for the Delaware County Daily Times:

http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2010/07/21/opinion/doc4c465cbc85c19993955169.txt

Specter Should Decline $2 Million for Personal Library

The Delaware County Daily Times printed my commentary on possible responses by Senator Arlen Specter to the ill-advised decision to allocate $2 million of state funds to his personal library at a time when state cutbacks are forcing libraries to close across the state.  Click here to read my suggestions to the Senator:  Senator Arlen Spector's Library Legacy

Maybe Senator Arlen Specter Could Convince his Campaign Donors....

Open Secrets reports that Senator Arlen Specter raised $2.7 million from his top 101 corporate sponsors this year.  Maybe he could invite his donors to fund the Arlen Specter Library and Professional Offices.  I would hope that he will inspire his donors to prevent the closing of libraries in our low income communities, too.  Here is a list of Specter's top corporate donors:
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00001604&type=I

Twelve Days To Get It Right!

The Pennsylvania legislature has twelve days to pass an appropriate budget – one that respects revenue shortfalls of about two billion dollars.

It would be tempting to say that our national fiscal crisis is the cause of the Pennsylvania legislature’s last-minute approach to fiscal responsibility. But, Pennsylvania has not passed a budget on time for the past seven years. And, no one knows how to hold the legislature or the governor accountable for failing year after year in this fundamental legislative duty.

Activists who have been tracking the budgetary process tell me that fiscal conservatives are holding out to embarrass the governor – by failing to pass his budget on time for eight years in a row.

What folly! How can legislators who use “constituent services” as state-paid perpetual campaign operations possibly think they can embarrass a governor who takes limitless but perfectly legal campaign contributions from all sides of every legislative policy issue before him?

But, back to our main worry: given Pennsylvania’s history, sometime during the Fourth of July weekend, when voters and environmentalists are preoccupied with family gatherings, both the governor and legislators will pass another midnight oinker.

Remember the illegal pay raise of 2005? In 2005, elected officials voted for an illegal pay raise for themselves – in the middle of the night, during Independence Day celebrations. Never mind this august body already bought the love of state and municipal employees by voting outrageous pension increases for themselves and government workers (shadow campaign staff) in earlier years.

My fear: Instead of serious, deliberative across-the-board budget cuts and elimination of outdated state boards and agencies to close the $2 billion budget gap, they will yield to the temptation of liquid and black gold. The legislature and the governor will take the easy way out and close the budget gap by expanding gas and oil drilling. This would be a huge mistake – although in the short term, coal, gas and oil drilling will prove to be a cash cow for both local and state budgets.

I’ll cede one point to my friends who are part of the League of Conservation Voters: given the horrendous catastrophe along the Gulf Coast, that there is NO WAY the legislature or the governor could pass a bill that would expand drilling of the Marcellus Shale on a normal business day, when their words, their motives, their decisions could easily be scrutinized by voters and community leaders.

Of course, the legislature won’t dare to expand drilling in the Marcellus Shale while we are watching -- especially now that our eyes and ears are glued to media reports of the damage -- the evidence of recklessness by drilling operators and government inspectors who allowed the Gulf Coast catastrophe to happen.

But, studies have proven time and again that the Pennsylvania legislature is the least accountable state government in the United States. And, they make their most harmful decisions when they know Pennsylvanians aren’t watching.

If we stop watching, anything could happen.

So please, before you go on vacation, set your RSS news feeds to track the progress of the Pennsylvania budget process. Please be in touch with your state representative, your state senator, and the governor. And, tell all of these players you are taking your i-phones to the beach and to your mountain cottages.

Please ask the Governor, and all our elected officials to exercise a common sense budget: one that cuts across the board – including the salaries and perks of elected officials.

If voters don’t demand a fair, honest budget that reflects declining revenues, but still protects our forests, our water supplies, and our natural habitat, how can we expect our elected officials to do the right thing?

Marcellus Shale Drilling Accident Near Union Township Municipal Reservoir

I chatted with an environmentalist who lives in the heart of Pennsylvania's new boom economy: the Marcellus Shale.  She said that farmers are not running a farmer's market this year, because they make more money by leasing their land to gas drillers.  Hotels are packed with out-of-state contractors who are drilling with little accountability or oversight.  Will the BP disaster inspire Pennsylvania state senators to vote for HB 2235, a bill that will require strict oversight of drilling operations in the Marcellus Shale? 
Maybe stories about gas drilling accidents that are polluting our local water supply make a difference.  In Union Township,  municipal reservoirs are in danger of contamination because of gas leaks such as the gas drilling accident that recently occurred in Clearfield County:  http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10164/1065304-455.stm

Marcellus Shale: Pennsylvania Must Prevent a Repeat of the BP Drilling Disaster

In hard economic times, state legislatures are prone to take the path of least resistance. You can't raise taxes on people who lost their jobs. You can’t collect taxes from businesses that are going bankrupt. You can’t collect property taxes from homes that are in foreclosure.

Too often, rather than face necessary cuts to luxurious benefits and bureaucratic programs, we let our state legislatures give energy corporations unrestricted access to our natural resources in exchange for handsome revenue streams in the form of royalties and other taxes.

The Louisiana legislature did this - allowing unregulated offshore drilling in exchange for free-flowing revenues to pay for school reforms and community development. When the sweet crude behaved itself, the state treasury overflowed.

Sadly, as Gov. Bobby Jindal advocated -- these revenues would have paid for post-Katrina coastal restoration if the BP catastrophe had not occurred.

How do I know this? Shortly after Governor Jindal was elected in 2008, he spoke to community leaders on the West Bank and in Plaquemines Parish. In his talk, he argued passionately that part of the state’s oil tax revenues had to be “invested” in coastal restoration, because this was desperately needed to protect the way of life in the southern part of the state. He worked to convince the legislature to earmark oil and gas tax revenues for coastal restoration.

But now, because of the disaster, the coastal marshes can’t be restored. They are being destroyed by the very liquid gold that was supposed to bring Louisiana’s coastal communities to prosperous times. Louisiana's fishing, farming, energy, tourist and other industries are now threatened with extinction.

Tragically, in Pennsylvania, the governor and state legislators have not been able to sit down at the table to make prudent expenditure cuts to bring the state budget in alignment with declining tax revenues and a shrinking working population.

The governor and state senators are vulnerable to the same temptation that is destroying the Louisiana coast: they want to strike it rich by turning the Marcellus Shale over to unregulated drillers and frackers.

Sure, as long as there are no accidents, the state will be flush with cash. But, can we afford to repeat the BP catastrophe, and allow our beautiful forests, farming communities, rivers and habitat to be destroyed?

Fortunately, there is legislation on the table that will prevent reckless drilling in the Marcellus Shale.  HB 2235, championed by Rep. Greg Vitale, requires that rigorous safety and environmental standards be enforced whenever explorations or drilling is conducted in the Marcellus Shale. 

If you want to do something to save Pennsylvania from the fate of the Gulf Coast, then, you can contact Governor Ed Rendell and tell him to live up to the endorsement he has enjoyed from the League of Conservation Voters.   He has to turn down the easy cash, and do everything in his power to preserve the forests and habitat that are part of the Marcellus Shale.

You can reach Governor Rendell’s office by following this link:   http://www.governor.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/contact/2998

Now is the critical time to tell Pennsylvania state senators that safety comes before profits and easy tax revenues. Every state senator in Pennsylvania needs to be told to vote for HB 2235. You can help with this by contacting your state senator through this link: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/email_list.cfm?body=S

My Birthday Wishes

So yesterday, I celebrated my 56th birthday. My sister Lucille greeted me with “may all your wishes come true!”


Here’s my wish list:

1. That our elected representatives in Harrisburg and in Washington set aside their fears and put the needs of our people and our environment first. If they imagined their children, their grandchildren on the receiving end of tar balls, oil-slick bayous, contaminated fisheries, birdless wildlife preserves, and ruined coastal communities, I believe they would reject the path of expedient profits and unregulated extraction of our precious resources AND they would vote to protect our communities, our habitat and wildlife.

2. That we abandon the politics of extreme ideology – whether on the left or on the right – and center our efforts on pragmatic strategies to solve the gravest problems of our time. When I talk to people, I am amazed that so many folks think that our poisonous political culture makes it impossible for us to solve our human-created problems. As a child of the 60's, I was raised to believe in the power of the dream, the art of the possible, the vision of Camelot -- John F. Kennedy’s metaphor for inspirational governance that stressed:

-Service over personal gain,

-The common good over private privilege,

-Eradication of human poverty over the hording and financial chicanery that is devastating our economy,

-Physical fitness and wellness over self-indulgent lifestyles that contribute to our very expensive health care system.

3. That we relearn the arts of collegiality, cooperation, and compromise in our public dialogues. We don’t have time for all of the self-righteous posturing that passes as “political discourse” in the media. Between the suffering of our soldiers and the human communities who are still embroiled in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the devastation of the Gulf Coast wrought by the BP Deepwater Oil Rig Disaster, and the ongoing economic downturn that is hurting most states – we need leaders and media commentators who can model problem-solving, mutual respect, and compassion for all who have been hurt by these tragedies.

4. That we challenge our elected representatives and favorite media commentators to take a pledge to pull themselves out of the fray, to rise to the occasion and lead us out of these very dark times. We need leaders who can vision, strategize, and implement real human and technological fixes to the ecological and economic crises we created for ourselves.

5. That our national and local leaders model selflessness, generosity, and compassion for our young people today who want to serve, but who don’t want to get caught in the quaggy mire of sludge politics. Our young leaders have the same idealism, the same capacity for greatness and inventiveness that was galvanized by John F. Kennedy and other great leaders of the 20th Century. Will we encourage them to achieve their potential, or will  we undermine the talents and imagination of those who could do so much to heal our world?

Haverford Class Sizes to Increase – Where are the Special Education Supports?

In Thursday’s paper, Times correspondent Lois Puglionese reported that the Haverford School District may have to increase fifth grade class sizes “from 25.75 to 28.67 students” next year.

Never mind Haverford’s practice of enrolling fractional students.

But in this story, grandparents of students with learning exceptionalities left the impression that at the present time, Haverford fifth grade teachers do not have classroom aides to assist with their children’s special needs.

By the end of the day, online readers were asking why children with special learning needs are not placed in separate special education classrooms. Yet, no one asked why special education aides were not assigned to the fifth grade classrooms when students needed extra help.

To answer the first question, Federal law requires that children with exceptionalities be mainstreamed, to the extent that a child benefits from the broader inclusive classroom. The acronym for this requirement is FAPE: free and appropriate public education in a “least restrictive environment.”

FAPE takes some getting used to. Having cut my teachers teeth in two schools that mainstreamed all but the most behaviorally challenged children with autism, I can say that everyone benefits from inclusion – when it is implemented responsibly.

But, therein lies the rub. When children with special learning needs or emotional disturbances are mainstreamed, teachers need to have properly trained support staff right in the classroom or strategically available to provide coaching and tutoring as needed.

Too often, that support never makes it into the classroom.

I know there are thousands of parents out there struggling to obtain the right kind of support for their children. So, I ask these questions: Are the schools in your area providing enough classroom support to children with special needs? How do you track to make sure that our special education tax dollars are well spent?

Standing on the Side of Love: Immigrant Students

Yesterday, UU minister Revs. Peter Friedrichs, Nate Walker, Ken Beldon, Kent Matthies and I marched for immigrant justice. Rev. Kent spoke eloquently about the waste of our tax dollars being spent on failed immigration policies. Rev. Nate blessed Danni West, a UU who will witness for justice this Saturday in Phoenix, Arizona.

I spoke with many young immigrants - all who have already received their BAs and advanced degrees from American institutions because their families immigrated to our country when they were young. All of them are struggling with the maze of inconsistent rules. This one can work. That one can't. This one can drive. That one can't. This one can stay because she's getting married. That one has to leave the country, because her parents do not have documents.

As a teacher and as a student, I have benefited from the presence of immigrants in my classes. And I have cringed when my classmates or my students have been treated unfairly because of their status.

In my first year of teaching, a 16 year-old Filipino exchange student asked me to coach her for state vocal competitions. She won first place all the way to the Missouri state championship.

In addition to my choir class and vocal coaching, she studied calculus, science, language arts, American History -- and she achieved by far the highest grade point average in the graduating class. But, as graduation approached, this 16-year old was denied valedictorian standing by the school board -"because she was not a resident in our town."

Which reminds me of growing up in North Philadelphia. Our neighborhood was filled with opera singers, scientists, doctors - many of whom were working mundane jobs because their credentials were not validated by authorities in Pennsylvania.

What a loss to the vitality of our economy back in the 1960's! What a loss to the future of Pennsylvania's economy that forty years later, we still educate and deport our talent!

If I Had a Bell: Immigration Justice

If I had a bell, I'd ring it in the morning. All over this land. I'd ring it for justice, for freedom, for the love between my brothers and my sisters -- all over this land.

Unless you are exclusively Native American, somebody in your family immigrated to the United States. And if you know anything about your family’s history, you probably learned from one of your relatives that they came to this country to create a better life for their families.

Generations ago, my family came to America during the Irish Potato Famine – and settled in Pennsylvania’s coal mining regions. I was married to an immigrant for many years, and my siblings have had partners who were immigrants.

Unfortunately, in hard economic times, it is too easy for legislatures to avoid their fiscal job –managing scarce resources – by creating animosity towards the weakest members of society. In tomorrow’s blog, I will talk about two odious bills that were introduced to the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

But today, beginning at 11:30, immigrants, religious leaders, and concerned people will gather at Constitution Center in Philadelphia to stand up for fair and just immigration policies in the United States. Rev. Peter Friedrichs (UU Church of Delaware County) and I will be part of the group of religious leaders in attendance.

We will ring the bells, sing, pray, and walk for immigration justice.

Please join us! Click here for more details about our campaign for fair and just immigration policies in the United States of America:
http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=9de8df64587021c3db855bbfe&id=4ffe599e5d

Why Do We Bash Teachers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey?

I’m sure we can all agree that American schools need to be modernized in order for the next generation of workers to compete in the global economy.
And by modernizing, I don’t mean holding class discussions on FaceBook, or twittering responses to pop quizzes.
No, what I’m talking about, is a reworking of our public school curriculum to teach our children, from their first days in preschool how to think mathematically, how to reason like a scientist or engineer, and how to create things that are beautiful, useful, and of lasting value to our communities.
Granted, in our wealthier school districts, this is probably happening already. But, we recently heard that the current economic crisis may cause school districts around the state to cut back programs that foster scientific and creative thinking. A school in Montgomery County, for example, is planning to close a planetarium that is housed in an elementary school.
But, in our large urban and inner ring school districts, teachers often don’t have the luxury of classroom science equipment, let alone a planetarium that costs $90,000 per year to operate. Too many teachers in our less-wealthy school districts are still hampered with out-of- date textbooks, dilapidated buildings inadequate classroom equipment, and too often, they are burdened with bloated administrations.
To make matters worse, they teach in communities where property tax burdens have become unaffordable.
All of our elected officials who are running for office at the state level are the ones who have the power to correct both the education policies and the funding streams that would make home ownership affordable, and make our public schools attractive to young families who want the very best schools for their children.
Our politicians and elected officials should focus on the power that they have to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in school budgets, and to develop and align state curricula that will prepare students for the world of work and higher education.
But instead, too many of our politicians just point fingers, laying blame elsewhere for their indecisiveness in Harrisburg.
Who is the easy target to blame? Why, teachers. Of course.
You’ve heard the accusations: Teachers only work ten months. They have extra vacation time for Christmas, spring break. They work bankers’ hours.
God save me, if I had never been a teacher, I might have used these false impressions to get elected myself when I ran for office back in 2006. But, I have been a teacher. And, I have always taught in high poverty schools -- in Philadelphia, in Missouri, in New Orleans and in rural Louisiana. So I know firsthand, that it is a myth that “teachers have summers off, and they keep bankers’ hours.”
As this blog unfolds, I hope to explore many best education practices and best governance practices that I have uncovered as I’ve traveled the world as a teacher, a military chaplain, and a U.S. military contractor.
For now, I share this one experience, from my three years of teaching in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. Since 2008, in every teacher workroom, there is a sign stating the teacher’s bill of rights, as guaranteed by Governor Bobby Jindal and crafted into legislation by the Louisiana State Legislature.
Legislators in Louisiana recognize that teachers deserve respect and safety if they are to be successful educators.
The Teachers’ Bill of Rights has had the effect of improving the necessary relationship between students, parents and teachers. But, it also has improved the relationship between politicians and teachers. After all, politicians and teachers share the responsibility of educating the citizenry. A good working relationship is necessary for learning communities to flourish.
I don’t know if the politicians in Pennsylvania or New Jersey need to pass such a law requiring that teachers be treated respectfully.
But I do know from my own experience, that when teachers are valued as important contributors to the life of their community, that children, adolescents, and young adults become successful learners.
Isn’t that what the education debate should be all about?