More Graham questions.... from The City Paper -
http://www.washingt oncitypaper. com/blogs/ citydesk/ 2009/09/24/ ted-loza- on-paid-administ rative-leave- graham-says/
Posted by Mike DeBonis on Sep. 24, 2009, at 5:35 pm
Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham says he has placed his chief of staff, arrested today in a federal bribery probe, on paid administrative leave, saying he is entitled to a presumption of innocence.
He also reiterated that Ted Loza had not tried to sway him on taxicab legislation: "Nothing that happened that has been alleged whether it occurred or didn't occur, had any influence on any action I took in terms of the legislation on taxicabs….There' s absolutely no impact of anything relating to these allegations on that legislation. Going one step further, I had never had any conversation with Teddy Loza where he came to me and he said, `Will you do this or will you do that?'" He added that the legislation resulted from a task force that had engaged in a year's worth of deliberations.
Graham did say he had indeed met with one of the individuals alleged in the indictment to have bribed Loza, a day ahead of the legislative meeting where Graham introduced the bill. But he denied that the taxi matter even came up: "There were no changes to that legislation as a result of any meeting," he says.
Regarding the employment of Loza's wife at the Fiesta D.C. nonprofit, Graham "categorically" denied that was connected to his practice of sending earmarked funds to the group through his committee. And he also addressed why, from 2002 to 2007, he held a one-percent interest in Loza's condominium apartment: "When he first purchased the apartment, he wanted some assistance from me; I helped him a little bit." When Loza refinanced, he says, he got his money back.
Graham also went to great pains to say that Loza would not be in a position to influence a bill generally: "Teddy worked here in the personal staff. He had hardly any involvement in legislative matters…That was just not Teddy's set of responsibilities, having to do with legislation. "
So why would someone bribe Loza, his longtime right-hand man, to fix legislation? "I cannot explain it," he says.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Teddy Loza - Voice Of DC Latinos?
Loza Known as Voice of D.C.'s Latinos
By Nikita Stewart and Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 24, 2009 9:27 PM
Ted G. Loza, the chief of staff who was arrested on federal bribery charges Thursday, has spent the past decade building a reputation as the voice of the District's Latino community and as the right hand of Council member Jim Graham.
Now, he's known as "the $1,500 man," coined because he allegedly traded a promise to push legislation that would have favored the taxicab industry for $1,500 in payoffs.
In the John A. Wilson Building where he worked, there were snickers at the paltry amount of the alleged bribe. But fellow activists in Ward 1, which Graham represents and where a significant percentage of the city's Latino population resides, there was shock and disappointment.
Loza was known as a friendly community activist and director of the DC Latino PAC, but he also had public disagreements with some residents over Fiesta DC, the annual Latino festival. In recent years the event has drawn complaints from some residents in Mount Pleasant about the disruption it brings to the neighborhood. The festival is scheduled for this Sunday.
Loza's past money troubles, an assault charge and conflicts of interest with Fiesta DC have also dogged him. Fiesta DC, which is also the name of the organization that stages the festival, was named in the FBI search warrant.
The 44-year-old Ecuadoran immigrant, who earns $93,286 annually, began working for Graham as a multicultural and community relations director about nine years ago. He later became his chief of staff.
He is not a U.S. citizen, although Graham said he believed Loza was in process of applying for citizenship. In 1999, Loza pleaded guilty to simple assault in Fairfax County, according to court records. The details were not immediately available Thursday, and Graham said he was unaware of the charge.
Through the years, Graham has helped Loza financially. The council member and Loza's wife, Ligia X. Muñoz, jointly bought the couple's Columbia Road condominium in 2002. Loza and Munoz later bought Graham out. "When he first purchased the apartment, he needed my assistance," Graham said in an interview Thursday.
Graham also gave him a $1,140 loan from his constituent services fund, a pool of money council members raise through private donations to help residents in their communities.
In 2003, Loza was hit with an $8,123 federal tax lien. He paid off the government in 2007.
In all of cases in which he loaned Loza money, Graham said he was repaid.
"If there was anything in his closet, I didn't know," said Alton H. Poole, who works at the nonprofit Change Inc. in Columbia Heights. "He would greet you with a hug. It didn't matter who you were. . . . He did his job. He represented the council member. 'I'm here for Jim Graham.' He was Jim's [loyal] supporter."
Jim McKay, a Ward 1 advisory neighborhood commissioner who has worked with Loza on issues for at least seven years, was shocked at the allegations. "I always thought quite highly of him," he said.
Others were not as impressed.
Laurie Collins, former president of the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance, said Loza used race to divide the community, particularly with regard to Fiesta DC. "When Fiesta DC came to Mount Pleasant for the first time, he tried to disregard issues people had with parking and noise," she said. "There's nothing racist about parking and traffic."
At Columbia Heights Day last month, Loza, with three children in tow, passed out fliers promoting this weekend's Latino festival.
Muñoz is in charge of finance and administration at Fiesta DC. She did not return a call for comment.
Some residents said Thursday that Loza often used his influence as Graham's chief of staff to get permits and cut through other red tape on behalf of Fiesta DC, which also received a $200,000 earmark from the council in fiscal 2009.
Loza was removed from Fiesta's board in August after the FBI contacted some members of the organization as part of its investigation, said Elizabeth Shrader, Fiesta's secretary.
More Graham Questions
It will be interesting to see how this unfolds - there are many unanswered questions for Mr. Graham. He is a politician (although he has denied that to me), so he must have some Teflon element. This will test it.
Graham Aide's Arrest Rooted In Probe of Taxi Industry
Corruption Investigation Began 18 Months Ago
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/09/24/ST2009092403248.html
Graham Aide's Arrest Rooted In Probe of Taxi Industry
Corruption Investigation Began 18 Months Ago
By Del Quentin Wilber, Lena H. Sun and Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The arrest of a D.C. Council staffer Thursday on bribery charges has roots in a corruption investigation of the District's taxi industry that began more than a year ago, according to two law enforcement sources.
The sources said the probe included court-authorized wiretaps and the use of informants wearing recording devices. It is widespread and continuing and involves bribes in excess of $100,000, they said. The investigation became public Thursday when authorities arrested Ted G. Loza, 44, chief of staff to council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) on bribery charges.
Loza is accused of accepting $1,500 in bribes and free trips in exchange for helping to push legislation that would benefit some in the taxi industry. He is free on personal recognizance and declined to comment Friday.
The investigation, the sources said, began about 18 months ago when Abdulaziz Kamus, a well-known advocate for Ethiopian taxi drivers in the District, approached an official at the D.C. Taxicab Commission with a bribe. The sources requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss active cases.
The sources would not say why Kamus was trying to bribe the commission official. The commission closely regulates the taxi industry, and the official reported the bribe attempt to authorities.
Kamus most recently was executive director of the African Resource Center. Many of the city's 8,000 cabdrivers are of Ethiopian descent.
Reached on his cellphone yesterday, Kamus declined to comment. A spokesman for federal prosecutors in the District, who are overseeing the probe, also declined to comment.
At some point, the sources said, Kamus began working for federal agents. He has not been charged.
Authorities relied heavily on Kamus to build their case against Loza, according to court records and sources familiar with the investigation.
Kamus wore a recording device at two meetings with Loza in June and July at which he gave the staffer $1,500 in cash, according to the indictment. Kamus is not identified by name in court papers.
Prosecutors said Kamus had a "financial interest" in the taxicab industry and bribed Loza to push legislation limiting the number of taxi licenses issued by the District and to create an exception for hybrid vehicles. Loza helped him get Graham to introduce such legislation, the prosecutors alleged.
In court papers, prosecutors alleged that Kamus met with Graham on the night before the council member introduced the taxicab measure June 30.
Graham is not charged and has said he did nothing wrong. In a search warrant served on Loza's office Thursday, federal agents said they were looking for documents and correspondence and records of financial transactions involving the staffer, Graham and Kamus.
On Friday, Graham released a log of his recent meetings with Kamus. The council member said he met with Kamus twice for lunch and once in his office between December and June to discuss taxicab legislation and other issues. A fourth meeting was scheduled for July but was canceled, according to the log.
"I have nothing to hide," Graham said. "I am cooperating 100 percent."
In 2004, Kamus and other Ethiopian community leaders organized a month-long junket for Graham to Ethiopia. Ethiopian Airlines supplied him with free airfare, and Sheraton Hotels and Resorts provided free accommodations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, Kamus told The Washington Post at the time.
Loza, who then was Graham's multicultural and community relations director, accompanied his boss on the August trip. The law enforcement sources have said that Kamus paid for Loza's travel.
District law permits council members to accept trips as gifts. But all gifts valued at $100 or more must be reported if they come from a business or individual with business before the District government.
Graham never reported his Ethiopian trip on his 2005 financial disclosure form because, he said, neither Ethiopian Airlines nor Sheraton had business before the city at the time. The trip was not secret, however, and was the subject of a Post article.
"I was advised at the time I did not have to report it," Graham said.
The council member, whose ward includes the heart of Washington's Ethiopian community, said the trip was designed to increase his knowledge of his constituents' heritage.
"They were anxious to have me exposed to their homeland," Graham said. "If you know anything about the Ethiopian community, they are intensely proud of their history, their heritage. They wanted me to be aware of that."
In recent years, Graham has become a major booster of the Ethiopian community. Last year, he inserted a $100,000 earmark into the fiscal 2009 budget for the Ethiopia Community Services and Development Council after its headquarters was destroyed by a fire.
Graham tried to give the organization, which does not appear to be directly connected to Kamus, a $50,000 grant this year, but the council eliminated all earmarks to help balance the budget.
Staff writers Tom Jackman and Nikita Stewart contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/09/24/ST2009092403248.html
Bribery In My Councilmembers Office
The wheels keep turning......... really a tragedy anyway you stack it up - Ted Loza seemed nice enough the couple of times I had anything to do with him through Jim Graham's office. Always a tragedy when we stumble on our own feet.....
Graham Aide Charged With Taking Bribes On Taxi Issues
D.C. Council Staffer Heard on Wiretap
Graham Aide Charged With Taking Bribes On Taxi Issues
D.C. Council Staffer Heard on Wiretap
By Del Quentin Wilber and Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 25, 2009
The chief of staff to D.C. Council member Jim Graham was arrested on bribery charges Thursday, accused of taking trips and $1,500 in payoffs in exchange for pushing legislation that would reward some in the taxicab industry.
Ted G. Loza, 44, was taken into custody at his home on Columbia Road NW a little before 7 a.m., just hours before federal agents descended on his office at city hall to search records and computers.
Federal prosecutors allege that Loza accepted a "stream of things of value," including cash, the use of vehicles and trips, to help an unnamed informant with a financial interest in the taxicab industry. The trips included one to Ethiopia and free limo rides to airports and other destinations in the D.C. area, two law enforcement sources said.
Graham (D-Ward 1) introduced legislation that would have benefited the informant, authorities said. The council member is not charged in the indictment and denied any wrongdoing. "I have had no engagement whatsoever in any illegal or unethical behaviors," he said.
As part of the investigation, prosecutors said, the informant wore a hidden microphone. In July, after accepting a $500 bribe from the informant, Loza explained his motives for accepting the cash, prosecutors said. "You know I need it," Loza said, according to the transcript of the conversation in court papers. "That's why I take it, you know."
Loza pleaded not guilty to two counts of receiving a bribe by a public official during a brief appearance Thursday before U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman. Loza, a native of Ecuador who is not a U.S. citizen, was ordered to surrender his passport and was released on personal recognizance. He faces up to 30 years in prison for each count if convicted.
Loza's attorney, Pleasant S. Brodnax, said the Graham staffer did nothing wrong. "When all the facts come out and the entire context of this is understood, you will see that Mr. Loza is not guilty of bribery," Brodnax said.
Graham, first elected to the council in 1998 and known for his bow ties, said he was "deeply troubled" by the indictment and will cooperate fully with federal investigators. The council member said he has "never had a conversation with Teddy Loza where he came to me and said, Will 'you do this or will you do that?' "
And, Graham said, "nothing that has been alleged, whether it occurred or didn't occur, had any influence on any action I took in terms of the legislation on taxicabs, which I introduced."
Law enforcement sources said the probe is broad. Although the accusations against Loza are fairly recent, law enforcement sources said agents have been conducting a corruption investigation for at least a year. They also obtained wiretaps as part of the probe, said the sources, who, like other sources, spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.
On Thursday, federal agents spent most of the day searching Loza's office. But, according to the search warrant, they were not authorized to go through Graham's work space. They also seized files from the D.C. Council's mainframe computer in the basement of the John A. Wilson Building. Graham was leading a meeting of the Metro board when the raids began.
The warrant said agents were searching for documents tied to taxicab legislation, licenses, medallions, a taxi company called United Fleet Management and Fiesta D.C., a nonprofit organization that puts on an annual Hispanic festival in Mount Pleasant.
According to the organization's Web site, Graham is an honorary board member for the organization. Loza's wife, Ligia X. Mu?oz, works for the organization and is in charge of its finances and administration. Loza was on the board until recent weeks.
Yitbarek Syume, owner of United Fleet Management, declined to comment.
Agents also were looking for any correspondence and financial information connecting Graham, Loza, the informant and "other Washington D.C. area public officials," the search warrant says.
According to law enforcement sources and court documents made public Thursday, Loza is accused of taking bribes from an unidentified man with "financial interests in the taxi industry." In a 10-page indictment, authorities allege that Loza accepted separate $1,000 and $500 cash payments in June and July from a man, identified only as "Individual Number 1" in the indictment. In exchange for the cash, trips and free car rides, Loza agreed to promote legislation and policies that helped the unnamed individual, the indictment alleges.
The indictment says Individual Number 1 wanted to limit the number of taxicab licenses issued by the District and to create an exception for hybrid vehicles under D.C. law.
Three sources familiar with the investigation identified Individual Number 1 as Abdulaziz Kamus, the executive director of the African Resource Center, a nonprofit organization that assists African immigrants, according to press accounts. Kamus, who hails from Ethiopia, has also been quoted in the media as an advocate for Ethiopian taxi drivers.
Kamus could not be reached Thursday. The number at the African Resource Center was disconnected.
Graham is not identified by name in the indictment but is referred to as "Public Official No. 1." He is chairman of the council's Committee on Public Works and Transportation. The committee has oversight of the D.C. Taxicab Commission.
The indictment says federal agents tape-recorded a meeting between Loza and Individual Number 1 on June 19. In that meeting, the individual handed Loza a "Father's Day" present of an envelope containing $1,000 in cash, according to the indictment.
Individual Number 1 said the money was from him and another person, who apparently also works in the taxi industry.
"What do you want me to do?" Loza asked after receiving the cash, according to a transcript in the indictment. "What do you want me, I'll talk to [Graham]. And I can call you back later on."
Ten days later, the indictment alleges, Individual Number 1 met with Graham to discuss taxicab legislation with a hybrid car exemption. The council member "declared that he would introduce that legislation," the indictment says.
The next day, June 30, Graham introduced a bill that he has said was designed to limit the number of cab operators in the city because he feared the District was being overrun by taxis. The bill would create a medallion system, similar to those in New York and Boston, in which users would buy licenses to operate a taxi. Under the bill, which was co-sponsored by Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), operators of "low emissions," or hybrid, vehicles would get such medallions for free.
On July 10, Individual Number 1 and Loza met again. During the conversation, Loza handed the individual a copy of Graham's bill.
"Beautiful, wow, beautiful," the person said, according to a transcript in the indictment. "Really. I want to thank you very much."
The person then asked about hybrid vehicles.
"Yeah, that's the exception," Loza said. "But, but, read it, and uh, then let me know if there's something . . . that, that raises your eyebrows."
Individual Number 1 then said the other unidentified person also "wanted to really thank you as well for this."
"He does?" Loza asked. "What, didn't he thank me or didn't you guys thank me already?"
Individual Number 1 then handed Loza $500 in cash, the indictment says, and the council staffer pocketed the money.
Loza has known about the investigation for some time, said his attorney, Brodnax. Graham said Loza told him that he was under investigation several days ago.
"The fact of the matter is, in the course of a day of council activities, a great many people ask you to do a great number of things," Graham said. "I would want to see this more specifically, but I know I have engaged in no such activities."
Staff writers Yamiche Alcindor and Nikita Stewart and researchers Meg Smith and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/24/AR2009092402637.html
Statement from Jim Graham sent to neighborhood email list group:
Dear Friends,
I was deeply upset and deeply saddened to learn that Ted Loza was arrested yesterday by the FBI on charges of taking a bribe.
As my constituents, I want you to know --
I have not personally engaged in any illegal behavior or activity.
What Teddy allegedly did in no way influenced any action I took on legislation. Indeed, Teddy generally is not involved, nor is he consulted on legislative matters which are instead handled by myself and our committee staff.
As I said to FBI agents yesterday, I will fully cooperate with their investigation bringing forth all of the information relevant and needed.
I have placed Teddy on administrative leave effective yesterday, with pay, until there are further developments. Teddy--like all of us-is entitled to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
If you have concerns or questions, please let me know--as always--by using this direct email address for me.
Sincerely, Councilmember Jim Graham
DCPS Taking On Special Ed?
Why did DCPS wait over the summer to see if things "would improve" to then disrupt a school year? Best for the children as RheeFenty so often declare? More going on here than the Post reports......
City to Pull 170 Students From Private School
City to Pull 170 Students From Private School
By Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 25, 2009
A Springfield private school that is paid by the District of Columbia to provide education to students with special needs is in danger of closing after the District decided this week to pull its students, citing concerns about the quality of instruction.
Accotink Academy, which has worked with District students for more than 15 years, received an e-mail Wednesday from Richard Nyankori, the District's deputy chancellor for special education, who informed the school that 170 students were being pulled in the coming weeks.
Accotink Academy said it had not been told of any concerns before notices were sent to parents Tuesday. They also said the academy's teachers were highly qualified and that the school wasn't going down without a fight.
Most of the academy's students are from the District, and the school, which has been open since 1964, will be forced to close if they are pulled, said Elaine N. McConnell, the academy's founder.
"We've never had a blemish on our name," she said. "We weren't given one word, not one single word."
The District has nearly 9,300 special education students, including those in public charter schools, and about 30 percent of them are enrolled in private schools because the District can't meet their needs. The cost to taxpayers in tuition and transportation is about $200 million a year. Accotink Academy has been receiving about $10 million a year from the D.C. school system, according to District figures.
The e-mail from Nyankori said that Accotink staff members were "indifferent" to the students and that the quality of teaching was "quite low." It also said teachers didn't seem to be following individualized education plans, which guide instruction for special education students.
D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles said the school should have known from repeated monitoring visits that it was being evaluated. It was "not a close case," he said.
"If they couldn't see that what was going on was inappropriate," he said, "then they must have been blind."
He said the school wasn't closed over the summer because "there may have been some hope" that it would improve. "They haven't gotten the message," he said.
Several parents said that they had not seen any problems and that they were worried that switching schools a month into the school year would disrupt students far more than any changes that might have been made over the summer.
"I have never had problems with getting any educational need that I wanted for him," said Barbara Jones-Dixon, whose 18-year-old son is in his final year at the school. When her son arrived there eight years ago, Jones-Dixon said, "he was a child that did not trust anyone. . . . He has made tremendous progress."
The students and families will meet with placement teams in the coming weeks to determine where they will be going to school. They will be allowed to go to private schools, according to letters they received from the school system. Nickles said he did not think the change would save the District any money.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/24/AR2009092404842.html
RheeFenty Ax @ Work
School Cuts Appear to Be Well Underway
By Bill Turque and Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 24, 2009
When Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee announced in front of D.C. school headquarters Sept. 16 that the District will lay off teachers as part of up to $40 million in budget reductions, they said the public would have a voice in deciding where and how to cut.
"Principals will spend the remainder of the month working with instructional superintendents and their school communities to determine the budget adjustments that best meet their needs," Rhee said in her formal statement.
It would appear, however, that the process is more than well underway. On Friday, two days after the Fenty-Rhee announcement, Director of School Operations Jesus Aguirre told principals in a memo that they had until 10 a.m. Saturday to hand in their budget reduction worksheets identifying the positions they planned to eliminate to meet financial targets.
The expectation was that principals would consult Local School Restructuring Teams, advisory bodies of parents, teachers and administrators that offer input on budget issues. Perhaps some teams were consulted, but if they were, it was on the fly.
"Train has left," one veteran principal e-mailed Monday. "Cursory attention paid to school communities. There really wasn't time."
Starting Monday, principals began trekking to a sixth-floor conference room in the human resources department to discuss their choices with senior administrators. If, for example, a principal thinks the school can get by with one fewer math teacher, he or she must "rate and provide a supporting narrative" for every math educator in that job classification. The rating and writing are to be done in the conference room.
The rating criteria are heavily weighted toward "office or school needs," which count for 75 percent of the 1-to-10 score. That includes just about everything Rhee preaches, such as commitment to student achievement, positive classroom environments and using data to make decisions about instruction. Ten percent will come from contributions to the school community, such as after-school tutoring, or an exceptional prior-year performance. Using special skills or life experiences to enrich student life count for another 10.
Human resources calculates the final 5 percent: length of service, veterans preference and past outstanding performance ratings.
Before the end of the month, the District will deliver termination notices to principals, who must hand them out the next day after school. If they think the news might be met with hard feelings, or worse, principals should be in touch with Aguirre.
"Please feel free to contact the Director of School Operations if there are unique security issues that you believe need to be addressed," he wrote.
D.C. Teachers Rally Against Rhee, Union Head
D.C. Teachers Rally Against Rhee, Union Head
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 24, 2009 7:41 PM
A small but vocal band of District teachers, angry about impending layoffs, rallied against Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and their own union president in front of the school system's central offices early Thursday evening.
"Our teachers are running scared right now, because they're not sure they'll have a job," said Malvery Smith, a second grade teacher at Turner Elementary School@Green in Southeast.
Smith, who has taught in the city for 14 years, was one of about 60 District educators in the plaza in front of school headquarters on North Capitol Street. They were joined by supporters and community activists.
Teachers protested Rhee's Sept. 16 announcement of a still-unspecified number of layoffs. It came more than three weeks into the school year and nearly seven weeks after the D.C. Council sliced $20.7 million from the 2010 DCPS budget. The cuts, which also hit other city agencies, were triggered by a continued decline in tax revenue.
Teachers who will lose their jobs are expected to be notified by Sept. 30.
Word of the layoffs followed a spring and summer when the school system filled 900 teaching vacancies. Rhee said she did not expect the council's cuts, which were approved July 31. She waited until mid-September, she said, so that the staff reductions could be done in tandem with the annual "equalization" process, which shifts teachers at under-enrolled schools to others in need of more educators.
But teachers scoffed at that explanation Thursday, contending that Rhee is seeking another way to oust veteran instructors. "That doesn't hold water," said Willie Brewer, an instrumental music teacher at Marshall Elementary in Northeast who has worked in District public schools for 26 years.
Jerome Brocks, a veteran special education teacher said there was only one reason Rhee is pursuing the cuts. "It's to get rid of veteran teachers of color," said Brocks, who is black.
Rhee has denied targeting teachers because of age or race.
Washington Teachers Union President George Parker did not attend the rally, which was organized in part by two of his most outspoken critics, union board of trustees member Candi Peterson and its general vice president, Nathan Saunders.
They have denounced Parker for weak leadership and aligning himself too closely with Rhee in contract talks that have lasted nearly two years. The District's 4,000 union members have been without a contract for three years.
"Our union leadership has led us to this point," said Tom O'Rourke, a social studies teacher at Roosevelt High School. "Management knows they can wait us out and pick us off one by one."
Parker said the union didn't endorse the rally because it was "hastily and loosely organized.
"It did very little to serve the interests of our members, although it may do a lot to serve the political interests of Candi Peterson and Nathan Saunders," he said.
Parker said the teachers union will hold a rally Oct. 8.
It has been a turbulent first few weeks of the new school year for D.C. teachers, who have been trying to adjust to a series of changes made by Rhee.
In addition to the impending layoffs, the District has unveiled a new, rigorous evaluation system that will include improvement in standardized test scores as part of the criteria for assessing some instructors. It is linked to a deeply detailed new set of teaching guidelines and strategies that cover everything from classroom presentation to checking for student understanding to instilling the belief that hard work leads to success.
School officials have also introduced a revised version of the student disciplinary code that is intended to de-emphasize suspensions and push teachers to work harder at keeping misbehaving students in the classroom.
More Hanky Panky for the Test Scores
RheeFenty Fantasy Land
RheeReinoso says that things might look strange but they are not really but we are putting in place methods to make sure it doesn't happen again. The names have been omitted to protect the guilty and the evidence has disappeared.
Erasures on D.C. Tests Apparently Concentrated in Six Schools
Some 'Flagged' Classes See Scores Fall in '09
RheeReinoso says that things might look strange but they are not really but we are putting in place methods to make sure it doesn't happen again. The names have been omitted to protect the guilty and the evidence has disappeared.
Correction to This Article
The article incorrectly said that Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee decided against further investigation of the erasures. D.C. State Superintendent of Education Kerri L. Briggs made that decision.
The article incorrectly said that Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee decided against further investigation of the erasures. D.C. State Superintendent of Education Kerri L. Briggs made that decision.
Some 'Flagged' Classes See Scores Fall in '09
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Bowen Elementary was part of what District officials hailed as the success story of their 2008 standardized test results.
The reading proficiency rate at the small school near the District's Southwest waterfront jumped 27 points, to 63 percent of the student population. The math score surged 17 points, to 41 percent. Public elementary school scores citywide rose an average of 11 points in math and eight points in reading, a hopeful sign of improvement in Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's first year on the job.
But Bowen also had four classrooms where children erased wrong answers and replaced them with correct ones at abnormally high rates. Although fifth-graders across the District averaged slightly fewer than two wrong-to-right erasures on the math exam, one class at Bowen averaged just over 11, according to an analysis by CTB McGraw-Hill, publisher of the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS).
Forty-five of Washington's 150 public schools had at least one classroom with an elevated erasure level in 2008, according to the analysis, disclosed by District officials this month. A closer examination of the data shows that suspicious erasures were most heavily concentrated in third-, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms at a half-dozen schools: Aiton Elementary (seven classrooms); Marie Reed Elementary (six); Takoma Education Campus (five); Langdon Education Campus (four); J.O. Wilson Elementary (four); and Bowen. Five of the schools made gains that exceeded citywide averages. Langdon's scores held relatively steady.
In some cases, the "flagged" classrooms represent the vast majority of students who took the exams in April 2008 in those schools. At Aiton, where reading proficiency doubled to 60 percent and math proficiency more than tripled, the seven classrooms included 136 of the 154 students who took the DC-CAS. At Marie Reed, 121 of the 158 test-taking students were in high-erasure classrooms. At Takoma, it was 92 of 168.
In all, elevated numbers of erasures at the six schools involved classrooms with 573 students. More than 44,300 students attend District public schools, but only students in grades three through eight and 10 take the test.
CTB McGraw-Hill declared the data "inconclusive," and no teachers or administrators have been accused of wrongdoing.
Former D.C. state superintendent of education Deborah A. Gist, who ordered the analysis last year after seeing huge jumps in proficiency rates at some schools, asked Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee to investigate further. Citing the CTB McGraw-Hill's characterization of the findings, Rhee decided against a closer look.
The stakes surrounding standardized tests have never been higher. Schools that consistently fail to meet federal targets for reading and math scores are subject to sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. They can include the wholesale replacement of the teaching staff, hiring of an outside organization to run the school, or closure. Officials also have created incentives for schools to post big numbers, including cash awards. Last year, teachers and administrators at seven District public schools, including Aiton, collected $1.5 million in prize money, funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education, for test score gains.
Most of the 30 teachers and principals who worked at the schools with large numbers of erasures in 2008 and who could be located declined to comment or did not respond to phone and e-mail messages. Those willing to speak said they could not account for the numerous erasures. Some attributed them to constant reminders to students to review their answers carefully before handing in the untimed test.
Edith Blackwood, whose 22 fifth-graders at Bowen averaged 11 wrong-to-right erasures on the math exams, said she did not offer inappropriate help to students. She worked with them for months, as many teachers did to prepare for the high-stakes exams, she said. But nothing more.
"I have a clear conscience," she said. "I have no idea how this could be."
Langdon Principal Barbara Campbell recalled being told by teachers that erasers used by students that year were leaving unusually heavy "greasy red" marks that they thought might skew the results. She said she quickly replaced the students' pencils.
"I don't feel that any improprieties took place," Campbell said.
Blackwood, a seven-year veteran of the system who moved to nearby Amidon Elementary when Bowen closed after the 2008 school year, said security measures would have made it impossible for teachers to tamper with student answer sheets, during or after the exam. In the classroom, it would have required the cooperation of the exam proctor, who typically was another teacher, administrator or parent volunteer.
"People are there supervising," she said, adding that the answer sheets were returned to the school's test coordinator immediately after the exam.
Blackwood said that while there were high expectations surrounding Bowen's test scores, there was never the kind of environment that would have compelled teachers to cut corners. "Nobody at the school was pressured," she said.
Although new to the District, erasure studies have been used by numerous school systems to investigate security breaches on standardized tests. In July, the Georgia State Board of Education threw out the results of a fifth-grade math exam at four schools after an audit found evidence of abnormally numerous erasures.
Some District officials said they are disappointed that Rhee did not pursue the evidence uncovered by the erasure study. D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) said he would probably hold a hearing on test security issues.
"I think they are a shadow on the results," said D.C. State Board of Education member Mary Lord. " 'Inconclusive' doesn't mean 'cleared' to me."
Board President Lisa Raymond said the episode reflects "a lack of checks and balances" in the 2007 legislation that gave Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) control of the school system. Former state superintendent Gist, who oversaw administration of the DC-CAS, lacked real authority to compel the District to investigate possible cheating. Her office reports to the deputy mayor for education.
"Here was a state trying to get a local district to act," Raymond said. "But the state reports to the same person [who runs] the local school district." It leaves "no real incentive" to enforce the state's directives, she said.
The five high-erasure schools that remain open showed mixed results on this year's DC-CAS, which officials said was administered with stronger security measures, including increased outside monitoring. Aiton's scores in reading and math dropped sharply; Takoma lost ground in math. Langdon's math and reading scores both declined slightly, while Reed and J.O. Wilson posted solid gains.
Victor Reinoso, deputy mayor for education, said the District plans to perform an erasure analysis on all 2009 results.
familynet wrote:
Let's see,
High ca$h reward$ for high $crores, and
likely dismissal for low scores?
Gee, why would anyone think that anything could go wrong with that combo?!
High ca$h reward$ for high $crores, and
likely dismissal for low scores?
Gee, why would anyone think that anything could go wrong with that combo?!
9/23/2009 4:41:31 AM
JulioAugustine wrote:
So um... why is Rhee hiring 900 new teachers and systematically RIF'n older teachers? WaPo is missing the boat on this. In this Animal Farm, Boxer (not Babs of CA) is off to the glue factory a little early
9/23/2009 5:31:18 AM
RheeFenty Shenanigans - Council Posturing
More RheeFenty/FentyRhee shenanigans at the expense of DCPS students. RheeFenty claims of what is best for students is has no basis in reality. And the city council postures.
Gray Claims Fenty Just Wants to Fire Unionized Teachers
Mayor Accused of Deflecting Responsibility
Gray Claims Fenty Just Wants to Fire Unionized Teachers
Mayor Accused of Deflecting Responsibility
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 18, 2009
D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray angrily accused the Fenty administration Thursday of seeking to "scapegoat" the council for impending public school budget cuts announced this week and called the reductions a pretext for firing unionized teachers.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee announced late Wednesday that the District would be forced to lay off teachers as part of an estimated $30 million to $40 million cut in the $770 million public school budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. They said the reductions are needed to close a spending gap created when the council approved a round of cuts to the city budget July 31.
Gray (D), who has left open the possibility of an election challenge to Fenty next year, said the mayor and chancellor were attempting to deflect responsibility for cuts in a budget that the mayor signed last month without any mention of possible teacher layoffs.
"What galls me is that this is being put at the council's doorstep," Gray said. "If they want to do this, they ought to take responsibility for it."
Rhee and Fenty declined to comment. The council's cuts last spring and summer totaled $20.7 million, which included cancellation of a 2 percent adjustment for inflation ($8.1 million); fewer slots for 2010 summer school ($9.1 million); and setting aside -- with Rhee's consent -- $3.5 million after a disagreement over enrollment projections.
Council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) accused Rhee of misleading parents into thinking the council did not adequately fund the school system. "We gave them more money than they ever had before, and now they are saying they are $40 million short?" Brown said. "That just doesn't go together."
Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), chairman of the Finance and Revenue Committee, also said that the council "didn't cut anything," but that he had "full confidence" in Rhee's management skills.
Gray and George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers' Union, questioned Rhee's decision to allow principals to hire about 900 teachers over the summer, even after widespread forecasts that the District's economy would continue to deteriorate. At the same time, about 75 veteran teachers who were let go last spring from schools where enrollment had declined or academic programs changed have yet to be placed in appropriate jobs, they said.
Staff writer Tim Craig contributed to this report.
Peppered wrote:
How can we put heaters in the recreation pools that are only supposed to be open in the summers, astro turf on our school fields but not support teachers in our schools?
I can not fathom this line of thinking.
I can not fathom this line of thinking.
9/18/2009 8:44:29 AM
efavorite wrote:
Chancellor Rhee is a one-trick pony. Her only school reform technique is firing veteran teachers and replacing them with young, inexperienced teachers from elite colleges.
Here she is talking about her views in the October ’08 Atlantic* interview:
“Nobody makes a thirty-year or ten-year commitment to a single profession. Name one profession where the assumption is that when you go in, right out of graduating college, that the majority of people are going to stay in that profession. It’s not the reality anymore, maybe with the exception of medicine. But short of that, people don’t go into jobs and stay there forever anymore.”
and
“…I’d rather have a really effective teacher for two years than a mediocre or ineffective one for twenty years.”
But wait – here she is in her reassuring March ’09 “Letter to Teachers”
“High-performing veterans are the people I most want to RETAIN. [in italics and bold in the original] They’re invaluable. I need them to serve our children as classroom teachers, mentors, and professional developers. They’re the BACKBONE of our system.”
“Teach For America and the DC Teaching Fellows are important programs that help us bring new teachers into DCPS. But I have absolutely no plans to use them to replace our great veteran educators and I NEVER will.”
Who you gonna believe? Michelle Rhee or Michelle Rhee?
*references in the order mentioned above:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200810u/michelle-rhee
http://www.k12.dc.us/chancellor/documents/Letter-from-Chancellor-Rhee-March-13-2009.pdf
Here she is talking about her views in the October ’08 Atlantic* interview:
“Nobody makes a thirty-year or ten-year commitment to a single profession. Name one profession where the assumption is that when you go in, right out of graduating college, that the majority of people are going to stay in that profession. It’s not the reality anymore, maybe with the exception of medicine. But short of that, people don’t go into jobs and stay there forever anymore.”
and
“…I’d rather have a really effective teacher for two years than a mediocre or ineffective one for twenty years.”
But wait – here she is in her reassuring March ’09 “Letter to Teachers”
“High-performing veterans are the people I most want to RETAIN. [in italics and bold in the original] They’re invaluable. I need them to serve our children as classroom teachers, mentors, and professional developers. They’re the BACKBONE of our system.”
“Teach For America and the DC Teaching Fellows are important programs that help us bring new teachers into DCPS. But I have absolutely no plans to use them to replace our great veteran educators and I NEVER will.”
Who you gonna believe? Michelle Rhee or Michelle Rhee?
*references in the order mentioned above:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200810u/michelle-rhee
http://www.k12.dc.us/chancellor/documents/Letter-from-Chancellor-Rhee-March-13-2009.pdf
9/18/2009 9:47:15 AM
citizenw wrote:
"DCWatcher3 wrote:
Chancellor Rhee has been disre[s]pectful to teachers, parents and students since she started her job."
Agreed, but you forgot citizens in general.
Chancellor Rhee has been disre[s]pectful to teachers, parents and students since she started her job."
Agreed, but you forgot citizens in general.
9/18/2009 3:54:50 PM
citizenw wrote:
"DCWatcher3 wrote:
Chancellor Rhee has been disre[s]pectful to teachers, parents and students since she started her job."
Agreed, but you forgot citizens in general.
Chancellor Rhee has been disre[s]pectful to teachers, parents and students since she started her job."
Agreed, but you forgot citizens in general.
9/18/2009 3:54:50 PM
whomp1 wrote:
A little history to give some perspective.
Candycane you are exactly right. Fenty is taking the ideas of Anthony Williams, but let’s not forget he’s taking Dr. Janey’s ideas and running with them too. I won’t go on a tangent on how Fenty references “best practices” like he is actually investing time and effort to improve his management practices, but Fenty penchant for copying is quite evident.
Folks need to understand that back under Janey, Janey had a plan to rid the system of several 100s of teachers too. Janey planned on using the guise of NCLB standards to rid the system of uncertified teachers. Janey did ax a few hundred that did not have certification, but could not cut the rest because they had a contractual agreement that allowed them 2-3 years to get certification. This was circa 2004.
? - [Anyone wonder where the teacher certification debate has gone? Remember when there was a big push for folks to take the additional credit hours for certification? The need to be highly certified in the area they teach? Oddly there’s no longer talk about documented teacher quality. Now the school system is touting people with a 5-week training course. So teacher quality by any reasonable measure must be a joke.]
Janey wanted additional funds to implement more educational programs. Mayor Williams and Chavous were playing their own games trying to gain control over DCPS or functions of DCPS. Remember Fenty was Chavous’s legislative aide prior to running for the Council. Chavous advocated taking facilites out of DCPS control. Anyone heard of Allen Lew and his office?
So how was Janey going to replace the 100s of teacher positions? No other than Teach for America and the New Teacher Project with Michelle Rhee. Folks think this was just some ingenious idea dreamed up over the summer, wake up folks. Rhee had been party to this plan for over 5 years. She is just the direct operative now. When Rhee was presented as Chancellor her firm had $2-5 million in contracts with DCPS.
Looking at the proposed DCPS budget for 2010, total labor costs are estimated at $572M or 75% of the budget. (see www.cfo.dc.gov) DCPS is proposing 3,837 teaching/General education positions for a total cost of $340Million, which is 45% of the budget. (Central Administration is 30% of the salaries.) With this current news I don’t know if these numbers hold up, but that was the plan on paper.
So why is it a big push for cost savings with teacher salaries?
If DCPS has 75% of it’s existing budget tied up in existing labor, how does DCPS pay for all the private operators they plan to bring in and run the system. Call me cynical but no matter what side you are on this debate YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF ANY GOVERNMENT SEEK TO SAVE COSTS AS SIMPLY GOOD GOVERNMENT OR TO IMPROVE GOVERNMENT SERVICES ELSEWHERE. No matter what side you take, you’ve never heard of a government trying to reduce costs because it’s the sensible thing to do. Rhee-Fenty want this money to pay the private operators they plan to bring in to run DCPS.
Ladies and gentlemen, it seems like I’m going off on the deep end but companies sit back and identify government functions they can provide to make money. where do you think these red light cameras and speeding cameras came from? What we see here with public schools and private operators is on par with the alleged competition in the utility industry. This is Enron wanting access to essential services money. This is like Wall Street wanting to manage Social security. I might be cynical, but I’ve worked as a consultant most of my career. People in private industry sit back and think of ways they can make money off government funds all day everyday. They have been planning and cracking the education egg for years. now the gates are opening.
Just like with Enron, 10-years from now we will look back and see how we were duped.
Candycane you are exactly right. Fenty is taking the ideas of Anthony Williams, but let’s not forget he’s taking Dr. Janey’s ideas and running with them too. I won’t go on a tangent on how Fenty references “best practices” like he is actually investing time and effort to improve his management practices, but Fenty penchant for copying is quite evident.
Folks need to understand that back under Janey, Janey had a plan to rid the system of several 100s of teachers too. Janey planned on using the guise of NCLB standards to rid the system of uncertified teachers. Janey did ax a few hundred that did not have certification, but could not cut the rest because they had a contractual agreement that allowed them 2-3 years to get certification. This was circa 2004.
? - [Anyone wonder where the teacher certification debate has gone? Remember when there was a big push for folks to take the additional credit hours for certification? The need to be highly certified in the area they teach? Oddly there’s no longer talk about documented teacher quality. Now the school system is touting people with a 5-week training course. So teacher quality by any reasonable measure must be a joke.]
Janey wanted additional funds to implement more educational programs. Mayor Williams and Chavous were playing their own games trying to gain control over DCPS or functions of DCPS. Remember Fenty was Chavous’s legislative aide prior to running for the Council. Chavous advocated taking facilites out of DCPS control. Anyone heard of Allen Lew and his office?
So how was Janey going to replace the 100s of teacher positions? No other than Teach for America and the New Teacher Project with Michelle Rhee. Folks think this was just some ingenious idea dreamed up over the summer, wake up folks. Rhee had been party to this plan for over 5 years. She is just the direct operative now. When Rhee was presented as Chancellor her firm had $2-5 million in contracts with DCPS.
Looking at the proposed DCPS budget for 2010, total labor costs are estimated at $572M or 75% of the budget. (see www.cfo.dc.gov) DCPS is proposing 3,837 teaching/General education positions for a total cost of $340Million, which is 45% of the budget. (Central Administration is 30% of the salaries.) With this current news I don’t know if these numbers hold up, but that was the plan on paper.
So why is it a big push for cost savings with teacher salaries?
If DCPS has 75% of it’s existing budget tied up in existing labor, how does DCPS pay for all the private operators they plan to bring in and run the system. Call me cynical but no matter what side you are on this debate YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF ANY GOVERNMENT SEEK TO SAVE COSTS AS SIMPLY GOOD GOVERNMENT OR TO IMPROVE GOVERNMENT SERVICES ELSEWHERE. No matter what side you take, you’ve never heard of a government trying to reduce costs because it’s the sensible thing to do. Rhee-Fenty want this money to pay the private operators they plan to bring in to run DCPS.
Ladies and gentlemen, it seems like I’m going off on the deep end but companies sit back and identify government functions they can provide to make money. where do you think these red light cameras and speeding cameras came from? What we see here with public schools and private operators is on par with the alleged competition in the utility industry. This is Enron wanting access to essential services money. This is like Wall Street wanting to manage Social security. I might be cynical, but I’ve worked as a consultant most of my career. People in private industry sit back and think of ways they can make money off government funds all day everyday. They have been planning and cracking the education egg for years. now the gates are opening.
Just like with Enron, 10-years from now we will look back and see how we were duped.
9/18/2009 5:37:12 PM
DCWatcher3 wrote:
Rhee and Fenty are quite a pair. They believe that rules are for everyone but them!I hope Gray nails both of them. Come on Fenty, show up at a Council Meeting and answer some questions,be a man! Rhee is just plain disrespectful to everyone and anyone since being appointed as Chancellor.
I wish both of them would fly out of The District on Rhee's broomstick! ConcernedAboutDC as usual you are right on target with your comment.
I wish both of them would fly out of The District on Rhee's broomstick! ConcernedAboutDC as usual you are right on target with your comment.
9/18/2009 7:46:28 PM
Thursday, September 24, 2009
eco toilet paper
The Unkindest Flush
Soft Toilet Paper's Hard on the Earth, But Will We Sit for the Alternative?
Soft Toilet Paper's Hard on the Earth, But Will We Sit for the Alternative?
By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 24, 2009
ELMWOOD PARK, N.J. -- There is a battle for America's behinds.
It is a fight over toilet paper: the kind that is blanket-fluffy and getting fluffier so fast that manufacturers are running out of synonyms for "soft" (Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is the first big brand to go three-ply and three-adjective).
It's a menace, environmental groups say -- and a dark-comedy example of American excess.
The reason, they say, is that plush U.S. toilet paper is usually made by chopping down and grinding up trees that were decades or even a century old. They want Americans, like Europeans, to wipe with tissue made from recycled paper goods.
It has been slow going. Big toilet-paper makers say that they've taken steps to become more Earth-friendly but that their customers still want the soft stuff, so they're still selling it.
This summer, two of the best-known combatants in this fight signed a surprising truce, with a big tissue maker promising to do better. But the larger battle goes on -- the ultimate test of how green Americans will be when nobody's watching.
"At what price softness?" said Tim Spring, chief executive of Marcal Manufacturing, a New Jersey paper maker that is trying to persuade customers to try 100 percent recycled paper. "Should I contribute to clear-cutting and deforestation because the big [marketing] machine has told me that softness is important?"
He added: "You're not giving up the world here."
Toilet paper is far from being the biggest threat to the world's forests: together with facial tissue, it accounts for 5 percent of the U.S. forest-products industry, according to industry figures. Paper and cardboard packaging makes up 26 percent of the industry, although more than half is made from recycled products. Newspapers account for 3 percent.
But environmentalists say 5 percent is still too much.
Felling these trees removes a valuable scrubber of carbon dioxide, they say. If the trees come from "farms" in places such as Brazil, Indonesia or the southeastern United States, natural forests are being displaced. If they come from Canada's forested north -- a major source of imported wood pulp -- ecosystems valuable to bears, caribou and migratory birds are being damaged.
And, activists say, there's just the foolish idea of the thing: old trees cut down for the briefest and most undignified of ends.
"It's like the Hummer product for the paper industry," said Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We don't need old-growth forests . . . to wipe our behinds."
The reason for this fight lies in toilet-paper engineering. Each sheet is a web of wood fibers, and fibers from old trees are longer, which produces a smoother and more supple web. Fibers made from recycled paper -- in this case magazines, newspapers or computer printouts -- are shorter. The web often is rougher.
So, when toilet paper is made for the "away from home" market, the no-choice bathrooms in restaurants, offices and schools, manufacturers use recycled fiber about 75 percent of the time.
But for the "at home" market, the paper customers buy for themselves, 5 percent at most is fully recycled. The rest is mostly or totally "virgin" fiber, taken from newly cut trees, according to the market analysis firm RISI Inc.
Big tissue makers say they've tried to make their products as green as possible, including by buying more wood pulp from forest operations certified as sustainable.
But despite environmentalists' concerns, they say customers are unwavering in their desire for the softest paper possible.
"That's a segment [of consumers] that is quite demanding of products that are soft," said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia-Pacific. Sales figures seem to make that clear: Quilted Northern Ultra Plush, the three-ply stuff, sold 24 million packages in the past year, bringing in more than $144 million, according to the market research firm Information Resources Inc.
Last month, Greenpeace announced an agreement that it said would change this industry from the inside.
The environmental group had spent 4 1/2 years attacking Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Kleenex and Cottonelle toilet paper, for getting wood from old-growth forests in Canada. But the group said it is calling off the "Kleercut" campaign: Kimberly-Clark had agreed to make its practices greener.
By 2011, the company said, 40 percent of the fiber in all its tissue products will come from recycled paper or sustainable forests.
"We could have campaigned forever," said Lindsey Allen, a senior forest campaigner with Greenpeace. But this was enough, she said, because Kimberly-Clark's changes could alter the entire wood-pulp supply chain: "They have a policy that . . . will shift the entire way that tissue companies work."
Still, some environmental activists said that Greenpeace should have pushed for more.
"The problem is not yet getting better," said Chris Henschel, of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, talking about logging in Canada's boreal forests. He said real change will come only when consumers change their habits: "It's unbelievable that this global treasure of Canadian boreal forests is being turned into toilet paper. . . . I think every reasonable person would have trouble understanding how that would be okay."
That part could be difficult, because -- in the U.S. market, at least -- soft is to toilet paper what fat is to bacon, the essence of the appeal.
Earlier this year, Consumer Reports tested toilet paper brands and found that recycled-tissue brands such as Seventh Generation and Marcal's Small Steps weren't unpleasant. But they gave their highest rating to the three-ply Quilted Northern.
"We do believe that you're going to feel a difference," said Bob Markovich, an editor at Consumer Reports.
Marcal, the maker of recycled toilet paper here in New Jersey, is trying to change that with a two-pronged sales pitch. The first is that soft is overrated.
"Strength of toilet paper is more important, for obvious reasons," said Spring, the chief executive, guiding a golf cart among the machinery that whizzes up vast stacks of old paper, whips it into a slurry, and dries it into rolls of toilet paper big enough for King Kong. He said his final product is as strong as any of the big-name brands. "If the paper breaks during your use of toilet paper, obviously, that's very, very important."
The second half of the pitch is that Marcal's toilet paper is almost as soft as the other guy's anyway.
"Handle it like you're going to take care of business," company manager Michael Bonin said, putting this reporter through a blind test of virgin vs. recycled toilet paper. Two rolls were hidden in a cardboard box: the test was to reach in without looking and wad them up, considering the "three aspects of softness," which are surface smoothness, bulky feel and "drapability," or lack of rigidity.
The reporter wadded. The officials waited. The one on the right felt slightly softer.
That was not the answer they wanted: The recycled paper was on the left.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/23/AR2009092304711.html?hpid=topnews
Not So Eco California
I grew up in Palo Alto and know these trees well. So much for eco oriented California and liberal Palo Alto....... maybe they should move to Vermont for foliage season.....
http://www.PaloAltoOnline.com/news/story.php?story_id=13827
California Avenue trees get the axe |
 |
Jon Gibbons (center) and fellow crew members of Atlas Tree and Landscape Service work on removing the oak trees lining California Avenue between El Camino Real and the Caltrain station on Tuesday, Sept. 15. Photo by Veronica Weber/Palo Alto Online. |
Crews working on California Avenue in Palo Alto remove oak trees Tuesday in preparation for planting red maples in their place. The north side of the street, at left, has already been stripped. Photo by Veronica Weber/Palo Alto Online.
California Avenue trees get the axe
Holly oaks are out, red maples are in as part of plan to renovate California Avenue's streetscape
The removal of 50 mature street trees lining the California Avenue business district has some residents, shoppers and merchants upset.
The tree removal began on Monday, after the City of Palo Alto sent out notices to area businesses about the project, which is part of an overall beautification plan to help revitalize the city's "second downtown."
The plan includes replacing the mature holly oaks with red maples; resurfacing the street and adding additional parking spaces and striping; reducing the lanes from four to two with bike lanes; and adding new trash cans, new benches and bike racks, according to Mike Sartor, Palo Alto assistant public works director.
Workers said the new trees will be at least 10 feet tall, have 2.5-inch diameters and be planted after the stumps and roots of the old oaks are removed. Some pavement will also be replaced.
As chainsaws buzzed Tuesday afternoon and large pieces of tree trunks were loaded into trucks, some merchants and area residents expressed shock at the change.
"It looks like any other street in the Valley," said Joe Villareal, surveying the now-treeless northern side of the street. He added that he hoped the new trees would make up for the loss.
Hector Sol, owner of Palo Alto Sol restaurant, said the removal of a large tree in front of his place was already affecting his business.
"A huge, nice tree gave shade to the customers. They like to sit at the tables outside. Now they don't want to sit there; the sun hits the tables," he said.
Sol said he can understand pruning the trees, but he doesn't see a need to cut them all down.
"I feel so guilty that I wasn't here this morning. I would do anything not to let them cut my tree," he said.
The new maples won't be able to replicate the old, mature trees, he said.
"It will grow out in 20 years. By the time they will be nice and good I will be dead," he said.
Sol said he and other business owners were not consulted about the tree removals. He reasoned that if he wanted to remove a tree from in front of his place, he would have to get permission from the city; that arrangement should be reciprocal, with the city consulting with merchants who pay taxes, he said.
But Sartor said city planners had worked a long time with the California Avenue community and with the California Avenue Area Development Association (CAADA) to come up with the beautification plan. A city arborist had determined the oak trees were largely diseased. Those not needing immediate removal would have to be taken out in a few years.
"Rather than replace them over the next few years, it was decided to do it all at once," he said.
Acorns dropped by the oaks also cause a tripping hazard for pedestrians, arborists wrote in a notice to businesses.
The street "looks dead. It's going to take a long time until the trees will grow. We didn't expect them to cut everything down," Jit Lakngam of Lotus Thai Bistro said.
But some merchants said they are happy their storefronts can now be seen from the street, according to Ronna Devincenzi, president of the business-district association.
"Others said it will be fun to see the fall colors change on the newly installed red-maple leaves," she said.
At the California Avenue plaza, near the Caltrain station, some trees will remain while others will be uprooted, Devincenzi said.
The plaza's Chinese pistachio trees are doing well and will stay, but the pine trees behind the flagpoles and those parallel to the train tracks were removed due to poor health.
They "were so dense they were growing around the streetlights, impeding light from shining down, causing safety concerns, especially in that area, so close to where there were robberies of women last year," she said.
At least one merchant said he approved of the change. Sami Lama, owner of Mediterranean Wrapps, said if the oaks were a hazard, then he's happy the new maples will be put in.
The tree removal will continue on Wednesday and part of Thursday if necessary, workers said.
Find this article at:
http://www.PaloAltoOnline.com/news/story.php?story_id=13827
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Streetcars Begin Slow Return To DC
 (D.C. Department Of Transportation) Anacostia Streetcar Track Installation Begins By James Hohmann
Crews are finally laying the tracks for the Anacostia streetcar line in Southeast Washington, causing delays through the end of the year on South Capitol Street but exciting boosters of the $55 million project. Track installation on Firth Sterling Avenue has begun, but the more visible installation of tracks at the South Capitol Street intersection is expected to start next week, the District's Department of Transportation said. Through the end of this month, the track work will reduce traffic flow at the intersection to one lane in each direction, causing delays of five to 10 minutes. Other work will continue in that area through the end of the year. The locations of several proposed stops along Howard Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE are not set in stone. But officials overseeing the project hail the work as a significant step toward the first segment of what they hope will become a citywide system a decade from now. "The tracks are actually going in," said Gabe Klein, the District's director of transportation. "As people see that, they'll realize we're getting closer than we've ever been." The District had hoped to have streetcars running through Anacostia by the end of this year, but the project was beset by delays. The city purchased three red-and-gray trolleys almost three years ago for $10 million. Those sit in a warehouse in the Czech Republic, where they were manufactured. Streetcars, a form of light rail powered by overhead wires, share lanes with automobiles. Similar projects in Seattle and Portland are considered successes. The initial 1 1/2 -mile segment includes a platform near the Navy Annex at South Capitol Street and Firth Sterling Avenue. Another platform is by Barry Farms on Firth Sterling Avenue. A maintenance facility is being built near the end of the line on South Capitol Street to service and store the trolleys. Klein said the District might have some part of the Anacostia line running before fall 2012. Late last month, the District closed two intersections to cross-traffic along H Street NE to install tracks for a separate streetcar line. Klein said his department decided to lay that track because other work was going on in the area. Engineers still need to find a way to power the cars on H Street and find places for the streetcars to turn around, said transportation spokesman John Lisle. They also need to find a place to store and maintain the cars on that line. The transportation director has a grand vision for streetcar lines across the District that fills in the gaps where Metrorail doesn't run and resurrects an elaborate system that existed a century ago. Klein acknowledges that in the current fiscal climate, with massive shortfalls and short-term demands for money, it's hard to get it moving. "I know we're in a downturn right now, but these are decade-long projects," Klein said. "If we never thought ahead when we were in a downturn, we'd never get anywhere. We're building upon a lot of the work that's already been done." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/19/AR2009091902291.html
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Hazardous Waste and History Mix On D.C. Tour
Hazardous Waste and History Mix On D.C. Tour By Yamiche Alcindor
The manicured lawns and beautiful brick homes that line the streets of Spring Valley look like those in most affluent District neighborhoods. But the area looked much different during World War I, when the Army was using it as a testing ground for chemical weapons. On Sunday, visitors on a tour of the neighborhood heard how, 90 years after scientists ended their experiments, the remnants of toxic munitions remain. "The purpose of the tour is to encourage more historical research, investigation and cleanup here," said Kent Slowinski, who led more than a dozen people on the walk. "We want to raise awareness in both Spring Valley and nationwide." He and Allen Hengst co-founded "Environmental Health Group: Spring Valley," a group that advocates for more research into the locations and health effects of the chemicals. The one-mile walk was part of more than 120 free WalkingTownDC tours, presented by Cultural Tourism DC, that took place across the District over the weekend. During World War I, 661 acres of forested land around the American University campus were used for Army tests. The range became known as the American University Experiment Station. In 1993, a construction crew's discovery of an artillery round triggered an evacuation and cleanup of the area. Experts have since been scouring the neighborhood for buried munitions and chemicals. Workers have found several toxins, such as arsine, a vomiting agent called DA or Clark 1 and liquid mustard, a type of blistering agent. Slowinski, a landscape architect who grew up in Spring Valley, became interested in 1996 when a stonemason with whom he was working found munitions at a home in Spring Valley. For two hours Sunday, Slowinski, who has given several tours of the area, pointed to various campus buildings and houses where hundreds of chemical munitions might be buried. He began at the university's Ohio McKinley Hall, the birthplace of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service. He pointed to trees, football fields and green patches around the university and neighborhood where he believes munitions still lie. Slowinski also talked about homeowners whose health problems might be linked to the neighborhood's past. "It's terrifying," said Chris Cottrell, 22, a senior at American University who took the tour. "There are dangerous munitions buried on campus, and I don't think most students even know about it. This is like the first thing the university should tell students about." Aaron Lloyd, 38, grew up in Spring Valley. Less than a decade ago, his stepfather found munitions buried in the back yard of the home where Lloyd grew up and where his mother had kept a garden. "It's very disturbing," he said. "Someone had to have known about these chemical weapons before 1993." Nan Wells, an advisory neighborhood commissioner from Spring Valley, said she hopes that the tour will help engage the public. "We need follow-up studies to know the health effects," she said during the tour. She also hopes that the Army Corps of Engineers, which along with the D.C. Department of the Environment is overseeing the cleanup and destruction of the munitions, will continue to fund the project. For fiscal 2010, the corps has allotted $11 million to the cleanup effort. The number drops to $3 million in fiscal 2011 and $500,000 the following fiscal year. Nazzarena Labo, 36, a epidemiologist, said more research needs to be done before health effects from the munitions can be determined. "It's very hard to go from anecdotal evidence to causation," she said. "People shouldn't be scared or anxious. But they should be concerned." Slowinski ended the tour at 4825 Glenbrook Rd., a vacant house where cleanup workers found a laboratory vial last month that tested positive for the World War I blistering agent mustard. The home's owner had a brain tumor and eventually moved away, Slowinski said. American University has since bought the house, where cleanup continues. |
Solar Co-ops -Together We Can Do It Ourselves
To Go Solar, Start Local Co-Ops Can Help You Jump Through Hoops and Start Saving Energy By Elizabeth D. Festa
One March day in 2008, Ketch Ryan, a long-time environmentalist, sent a message to her neighborhood group e-mail list in the town of Chevy Chase, inviting neighbors to see the modest two-kilowatt solar-panel array she had just installed on her south-facing roof to convert sunlight into household electricity. "Loads of people came," Ryan said. They asked questions about the process and how to do it themselves. The Common Cents Solar Co-op was born then and there, founded by Ryan and neighbor Kirk Renaud, who runs BioBrite, a light-therapy business in Bethesda. "People said: 'I don't know if I could do this. I don't have the time.' I said we could all do it together; we could all go solar," said Ryan, a former policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency who now teaches art at Sidwell Friends School. Common Cents negotiates discounts from installers, fills out paperwork, applies for rebates, bundles solar credits, helps with scheduling and even arranges to get house keys to let in contractors. Homeowners sign contracts with and make payments to Common Cents, which then pays the contractors. The co-op helped Helen Price, a resident of the town of Chevy Chase, install an array of Sunslates, which resemble regular slate shingles but actually function like solar panels. "I am not sure how all the finances work," she said. "All I know is I saved money and they really facilitated things, and it is a community thing." Solar energy co-ops like Common Cents are forming across the region as neighbors band together to save money, take a stand on greener living and chaperone one another through the installation process, from roof assessments to a final hookup to the local utility's power grid. Each co-op has its own approach, finance arrangements and challenges. Although there are a cornucopia of financial incentives, rebates, tax credits, renewable energy credits and, lately, falling prices, homeowners are often flummoxed by the pages of paperwork involved, vendor selection, regulatory approvals, permitting, inspections, utility hookups and historic preservation issues. "At the end of last summer, I said, 'it's time; I want to do this.' " said Lisa Heaton of Bethesda. "So I Googled 'Maryland solar' and contacted a couple of those companies. But it was just Greek. I had some phone conversations. It was still too big and scary. It was intimidating. And I am not easily intimidated. My background is science," she said. Heaton's 1940s center-hall colonial ended up with a 4.6-kilowatt system consisting of two solar arrays -- one set facing south, the other facing west, to make the most of the sun's rays. Renaud said, "Members get substantial solar-system discounts and access to related discounted services like solar renewable-energy credit sale proceeds, energy audits, solar attic fans, solar computer systems, maintenance plans." There are no membership fees to join the co-op; one joins by signing a contract for a solar system. In the District, the idea for the Mount Pleasant Solar Cooperative was sparked three years ago after the 12-year-old sons of neighbors Anya Schoolman and Jefferson Morley watched Al Gore's global-warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," and wanted to take action, their parents said. Fliers were distributed, neighbors talked, and Schoolman, now the co-op president, began researching every aspect of providing solar electricity for homes in her historic neighborhood. In July, Schoolman, a consultant to foundations and nonprofit groups on environmental strategy and program design, became the first member of the co-op to install a special thin-film solar technology that adheres to flat roofs. About 10 more solar installations were completed earlier this month. Schoolman and Morley expect nearly 50 homeowners to install rooftop solar pieces this fall. The co-op claims that its 50 solar-powered homes will cut carbon emissions by 6.7 million pounds over the panels' expected 25-year life span. Unlike with Common Cents, the Mount Pleasant co-op doesn't handle the process from top to bottom. Instead, there is a lot of discussion, and informed homeowners are proactive in finding what's right for them, Schoolman said. "We do try to get discounts for our members. We do a lot of the work of educating our members, and present to contractors a group of people that have adequate sunny roof space and have a good sense of the costs," Schoolman said. "We have four main partners working with us. What we did was give our members a choice," Schoolman notes. "Even in a neighborhood as homogeneous architecturally as Mount Pleasant, there is not one single solution that fits all homes," Schoolman said. The Mount Pleasant co-op did negotiate with an aggregator of solar renewable energy credits [SRECs] to pay homeowners who choose to install solar photovoltaic systems. These systems generate revenue streams for homeowners where a SREC is equivalent to 1,000 kilowatt-hours, said Josh Goldberg, co-founder of solar photovoltaic installer and SREC broker Astrum Solar in Annapolis Junction. A 3-kilowatt solar array will produce an estimated 3,600 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, as Maryland and D.C. software calculate it, so you would get 3.6 renewable-energy credits, Goldberg explained. The amount per credit get is 70 to 75 percent of the penalty Pepco has to pay for not using renewable energy, or about $250 to $300 per credit annually, he said. The amount will decline over time because the penalty rate for Pepco will, also. Goldberg estimates that a 3-kilowatt system would pay a homeowner almost $9,000 in SRECs over 15 years. The Capitol Hill neighborhood will also be facing historic-preservation, as well as flat-roof or aged-roof issues when members of the Capitol Hill Energy Co-Op's solar roof project undertake their installations next spring. The group is schooling itself on financial, regulatory and structural issues and is reviewing the lessons of other co-ops, especially Mount Pleasant, which has acted as a mentor. Mike Barrette, who leads the project, estimated that "between 20 and 30 households will come through in the first wave of installations in the spring." The co-op is leaning toward the Mount Pleasant model of screening installers and having members decide which ones to go with, said Barrette, who works in the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement division. "Because of falling prices, we want to have our estimates as close to the install as possible rather than pre-negotiating a rate six to eight months before the installation happens," he said. "You need about 10 households in order to get enough interest from installers where you might be able to get a price advantage," said Fred Ugast, who heads the SREC broker U.S. Photovoltaics in Frederick. "There is not a lot of room now for discounts. A glut of panels has reduced hardware pricing." Lisa Heaton and her family were looking at a $45,000 install job for their total 4.6-kilowatt systems, but they got a $40,000 quote and signed a contract for it through Common Cents in November 2008. "Then because of the power of the co-op," the price dipped to the $35,000 she paid in April, Heaton said. Fliers from a solar installation company now promise that system for less than $32,000. The total cost of solar photovoltaic for a residence is also slashed by a 30 percent federal tax rebate for any photovoltaic system; hefty state grants -- Heaton got a check for more than $10,000 from Maryland -- and rebates tied to the size of the system, property tax credits and future value of SRECs. The credits are tied to the public utility's requirement to buy renewable energy, and they have declining value over time. Chesapeake Solar estimated a $16,710 future value of SRECs for a 4.86-kilowatt system. A $31,600 system in the District would cost $10,300 after rebates, not counting the SRECs, according to one company's pitch. A smaller array, under 3 kilowatts, which is more suitable for the city's rowhouses, would cost less than $7,000. A Virginia co-op that never really got off the ground, Solar Mount Vernon, said it was serious about bringing solar power to its Northern Virginia community, but president Eleanor Whitaker said that the logistics proved daunting. "Making it happen can very nearly be a full-time job," she said. Goldberg said Virginia is a tough sell for financial incentives for solar power. Virginia offers only the federal incentives, not the substantial state rebates offered by other states like New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania and the District. Also, there is no market for SRECs in Virginia, Goldberg said, because Dominion Power is not required to buy them. |
Thursday, September 17, 2009
D.C. Rec Centers To Host Play Days
Interesting comments below....... D.C. Rec Centers To Host Play Days Students Welcomed as Teachers Train By Nikita Stewart
More than two dozen District recreation centers will open their doors Friday to D.C. public school students when school is out for a teacher training day, to provide relief for parents faced with the mad scramble for child care. Consider the officially dubbed "play day" to be the ultimate citywide drop-in service. And it's free. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, who has pushed for more teacher training in her quest to improve the troubled school district, put five professional development days on this year's school calendar. Parents will have to find care for their children on those five days, in addition to those not-so-holiday holidays such as Veterans and Presidents' days. "For some families, that's a hardship," said Jacquie Jones, co-president of the Home and School Association at Eaton Elementary School in Northwest Washington. Like many parents, Jones had no idea play day was available. Although play day was advertised on e-mail lists and through a news release, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) did not hold his usual news conference to unveil it. Friday is being treated as a soft opening for the program. Mafara Hobson, a Fenty spokeswoman, said play day is open to everyone at 27 recreation centers in every ward. Enrollment forms are available at recreation centers and at the Department of Parks and Recreation Web site. Students can be signed up on the spot if space is available. From 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., students in pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade will be entertained with Wii, tennis and even fishing, depending on the recreation center. The program will also be held on the subsequent four professional development days; the next is Oct. 30. About 3,000 children from the 45,000-student school system are expected to participate, Hobson said. She said the city will not incur additional costs because workers at the centers will already be on duty and they will be joined by employees who staff after-school programs at some schools. Rhee was inundated with complaints this year when she initially proposed six professional development days on Wednesdays. Parents pooh-poohed the idea, worried about finding child care midweek. Around the country, education budgets are being cut, affecting school bus routes and the length of the school day, said James Martinez, a spokesman for the National PTA. "That throws parents for a loop," he said. Play day sounds pleasantly parent-friendly, Martinez said. Jones, a 44-year-old mother of a kindergartner, said her job gives her the flexibility to just take the day off. Amanda Bassow, a mother of two, is placing her children in a private mini-camp where they will learn African dance. She, too, was unaware of play day, though she is president of the PTA at the Capitol Hill Cluster School, which has three campuses and five educational programs. Mini-camps can be competitive, said Bassow, 40. "They fill up very quickly, and they are not cheap," she said. Bassow said she will be monitoring play day. "If it looks like they run a good program, sign me up," Bassow said. D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), chairman of the Committee on Libraries, Parks and Recreation, said the city should have advertised the program more. "Nobody really knows how this play day is going to work," he said, adding that he supports the program as a service for working parents. Thomas said he was disappointed that Fenty is not applying the same philosophy to the recreation department's child-care centers, which the mayor is privatizing. The Fenty administration says privatization will save the city money. Thomas says that the cost savings has not been proved as required by law and that longtime workers are losing their jobs. hotezzy wrote: Fenty must support existing city workers especially when considering "privitizing" any city services. The poblen is that the city will still be paying foir those city workers who have no jobs in higher unemployment, healthcare, food stamps and other costs to support unemployed city workers many of whom were taxpayers -- so where would any savings be founds???? Contracting out city services only create sa sub-class of underpaid workers with few if any healthcare or insurance benefits and much lower wage jobs, essentially leading to wholesale exploitation if workers in this city. It is not the solution and does NOT CUT ANY COSTS IF THE NUMBERS ARE CLOSELY EXAMINED, as Thomas has already said. The city should support its existing day-care centers as wells making these rec. center play days wholesome activities for our children tion to participate in on a regular basis. 9/17/2009 11:55:54 AM Bitter_Bill wrote: That's going to be chaos. What is the child/adult ratio going to be? 50 to 1? Also, I see some strange people hanging out in the rec centers. Just sayin'. 9/17/2009 3:31:04 AM bbcrock wrote: Ok, nice idea, but how many DC Recreation centers are drug gang recruiting centers and the scene of frequent late night shootings? The answer is, every single one near where I live. So... I wouldn't dream of letting my kid near one. 9/17/2009 1:00:01 AM pentagon40 wrote: How can you hire teachers in the summer and terminate some soon???? you can't say you didn't have any idea when the budget shortfall had to be obvious to many...bad management all the way around by the DC Govt...This will make it extremely difficult come recruiting time next year..... 9/16/2009 11:25:50 PM candycane1 wrote: I wonder what that Friday will be like since it has been announced in mid September that teaching positions will be cut by October. WOW! BTW, if the council confirms the actng director of DPR, they are crazy. She's been on the job for seveal months and already in a major law suit! The September 9th hearing should have convinced them not to do another Reinoso. 9/16/2009 10:29:48 PM |
Rhee, Union May Be Close to Deal
| Rhee, Union May Be Close to Deal Chancellor Might Drop New Pay Idea To Get Other Teacher-Removal Powers By Bill Turque
D.C. Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and the Washington Teachers' Union are close to an agreement that would give the District more power to remove ineffective teachers, but both sides say the negotiations could still collapse, and the union's president places the chances of actually closing a deal at no better than 50-50. Neither Rhee nor Washington Teachers' Union President George Parker would elaborate on the unresolved issues, citing a confidentiality agreement. Interviews in recent weeks with sources on both sides of the bargaining table emphasize that nothing is final and that any agreement would require the approval of teachers. But they also say that the deal taking shape has evolved substantially over the past year, with both Rhee and the union poised to yield ground on key issues. Gone, for example, is the two-tiered, "red-and-green" salary plan that garnered Rhee national attention when she unveiled it last summer. It would have paid some teachers as much as $130,000 annually -- with help from private foundations -- but required them to relinquish tenure protections for a year to qualify for the top pay scale, exposing them to dismissal without possibility of appeal. Gone also, city and union sources say, is Rhee's attempt to weaken tenure provisions as they are currently written, which grant teachers with at least two years' experience due-process rights in the event they are fired. The nearly two-year negotiations are widely viewed as a potentially precedent-setting showdown between an aggressive new generation of urban education leaders, led by Rhee, and the American Federation of Teachers, WTU's politically potent parent organization. Although the major players decline to disclose details, they agree that their bargaining has reached the endgame. "There are a few very critical issues that both sides have very strong opinions about," Parker said in an interview Wednesday. "The question is whether we can craft language that both sides can live with. We're at 50-50." Rhee said the two sides are "very close" and characterized the talks as "down to a couple of smaller issues." "Would either side say it is definitely going to happen? No," she said in an e-mail Wednesday. "However, we're further than we've been." The pay package under discussion calls for a 20 percent increase over five years, including 3 percent retroactively for each year teachers have worked without a contract since it expired in September 2007. Under the terms being discussed, teachers with good records would be eligible to earn extra money under a pay-for-performance program that would begin in 2010. Tenure protections are likely to remain in place despite Rhee's outspoken criticism of the provisions as a major obstacle to reform. As recently as July 5, she told an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival: "Right now, the culture within education and within the teaching ranks is once you have tenure, you have a job for life. I believe that mind-set has to be completely flipped on its head and that we have to move out of the idea that a teaching job is a right. . . . And unless you can show you are doing positive things for kids, you cannot have the privilege of teaching." But Rhee is close to securing other new powers that would allow her to eventually remove ineffective teachers from classrooms. The proposal, first reported by teacher and WTU trustee Candi Peterson in her "Washington Teacher" blog, would allow the District to remove teachers from schools -- because of closure, consolidation, declining enrollment, budget cuts or takeover by an outside organization -- with minimal regard for seniority. Under current rules, teachers with the least amount of service are "excessed" first. Under the proposal, teachers would be cut according to a formula that gives greatest weight to the previous year's performance evaluation, "unique skills and qualifications" and other contributions to the school community. Length of service would be weighted the least. The proposal would also give principals more latitude to select staff from the pool of cut teachers. Currently, teachers in that group who don't find spots are assigned to schools by the school district's human resources department. If there are more excessed teachers than open slots, teachers at other schools can be bumped from their jobs on the basis of seniority. Under a proposed "mutual consent" provision, principals would have more power to pick and choose teachers. Teachers who failed to find new assignments would have three options. They could remain on the payroll for a year, accepting at least two spot assignments as substitutes or tutors or in some other support role. If they can't find a permanent job after a year, they would be fired. Teachers could also choose to take a $25,000 buyout or, if they have at least 20 years' service to the city school system, retire with full benefits. The proposals have triggered new tensions within the union's leadership. Executive Vice President Nathan Saunders, a longtime critic of Parker's, said the proposals all but eliminate job security for teachers. "This contract looks to be another approach to diminishing teachers' employment rights," Saunders said. Peterson's decision to publish draft documents from the contract negotiations drew an unusual public rebuke from Parker, who sent a letter and a voice mail message to members denouncing her for having "maliciously undermined" the confidentiality of the talks. Peterson, who said she is not bound by any confidentiality agreement, said teachers have grown frustrated with the lack of information available about the protracted negotiations. "He's promised to tell members about the contract, but he never follows through," she said. |
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