Action Point with Cynthia Black 05-25-2008: The Reference Shelf

SPECIAL NOTICE
ENJOY A GREAT MEMORIAL DAY "BEST OF" SHOW and these CURRENT ITEM LINKS!!!

• POLITICS: ELECTION INTEGRITY: No matter how many ways the insiders in election integrity explain that Gore won over Bush n 2000, and retell it, and include charts, graphs and diagrams, it never seems to stick. Even the cable documentaries manage to avoid admitting the fact. So I have to hand it to Brad Friedman of Bradblog,com (please somebody put this guy on broadcast radio) to still be telling this story and making it funny as well (if that's possible): Recounting the Recount and Counting the Uncounted. AND as populist politics gains ground, why not populist publishing?! Check out this offer from Alternet to participate in publishing a compendium of election laws nationally to help any reader get a head start in ensuring his or her vote WILL be counted this November!

• MUST READ: A Different Kind of Democracy: There are quite a few more bits of evidence that good developments are coming our way in the news-stream these days. For example, this from David Sirota:

  ...this week ...ExxonMobil's annual meeting in Dallas....may be...about something that can be more critical than even presidential elections -- something called shareholder democracy...citing their desire to "safeguard long-term shareholder value," a group of shareholders with $5 billion in ExxonMobil stock excoriated company management in 2006 for "not sufficiently preparing for tomorrow's energy" and running "the risk of lagging significantly behind" competitors...are expected to back this year's alternative energy resolution, especially considering the boost from none other than the Rockefellers -- the family that originally founded what would become ExxonMobil.

• PERSONAL SECURITY: THE ANDREW MYERS FILE: New York 8th-Graders Boycott Practice Exam But Teacher May Get Ax: Its been a while since a story I noted seemed to fit the criteria of this file, meaning it cover over-the-top threats to personal liberty and freedom of expression. After you read the article about 8th graders protesting taking (yet another) proficiency test, which for me is much more about the hell the teacher is catching for his role in the boycott advocation. ask yourself this question; what was the last time you heard of a teacher being reprimanded for advocating critical thinking skills and admonished for '...giving them (students) messages that were inappropriate.' Challenging authority = inappropriate?

• MINORITY ISSUES: UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS; Media Matters has a new report and congressional attention for its program Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News.
  

Action Point with Cynthia Black 02-17-2008 The Reference Shelf

Today's article and item links:

• PERSONAL SECURITY: Christian Right's Emerging Deadly Worldview: Kill Muslims to Purify the Earth: You know, I was once skeptical of claims that the religious right posed a threat to average Americans. I grew up in the age of “Jesus Freaks” who were more irritating than troublesome. Once online access gave me “eyes-on” access to their thinking, I knew I was wrong. Today's “Jesus Freaks” want to kill, and they have the government to do it. So here is yet another chilling but sad update on how the “least of these” is trying to actually obliterate “the rest of them”:

  Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani are the three stooges of the Christian right. These self-described former Muslim terrorists are regularly trotted out -- a few days ago they were at the Air Force Academy -- to spew racist filth about Islam on behalf of groups such as Focus on the Family. It is a clever tactic. Curly, Larry and Mo, who all say they are born-again Christians, engage in hate speech and assure us it comes from personal experience.

• RESOURCE (FRAMING): Students Are Like Plants, Not Widgets: Rockridge Institute's excellent advice for presenting Democratic policy on education issues.

• POLITICS: NATIONAL: CAMPAIGN 2008: Less Jobs More Wars: is an interesting new video and campaign from Brave New Films that you can use to frame the McCain war rhetoric in the context of it's likely losses-- American economic security.
  

AND Democracy For America has taken on an interesting wrinkle in elections for Democrats this year: super-delegates. As you know by now, super-delegates were designed by the Democratic party to alter the popular vote would it not turn out the candidate the party elite had intended may not get elected, as happened at the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention. DFA has some suggestions with Let The Voters Decide on what to do about that:

Thirty-seven states and U.S. territories have already voted and we don't have a clear nominee. Senators Clinton and Obama are in a delegate race to the nomination. There are a lot of ways that delegates get assigned to a specific candidate, but almost all of the allocated delegates are directly tied and bound by the actual votes in each primary or caucus - all of them that is, except super-delegates.

• DIRTY TRICKS: Americans United Urges IRS To Investigate Two Religious Right Groups For Biased Voter Guides:

  The Internal Revenue Service should investigate two prominent tax-exempt Religious Right groups that produced biased voter guides for the presidential election, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

  In complaints filed today with the IRS, Americans United charged that voter guides produced by the American Family Association and WallBuilders are clearly designed to promote Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

  The guides, posted on the groups’ Web sites, list the Republican candidates and their alleged stands on a range of issues, such as support for a human life amendment, “traditional marriage,” “business freedom” and “moral education” and opposition to “gay pride.” Only Huckabee is assigned a “yes” stance on all of the issues.

  AND: 3 US workers face investigation over Obama e-mail:

  Three federal employees are being investigated for unlawful political activities after they allegedly sent an e-mail falsely accusing Barack Obama of being a "radical Muslim," the Globe has learned.

• ENVIRONMENT: Does carbon trading really work?: Larry Lohmann, editor of Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, critiques cap-and-trade.

• NATIONAL SECURITY (IRAN): In 2007 I committed to preventing an unnecessary strike on Iran and formed a small ad-hoc group, Strike Prevention Task Force, through which to do my part. This video “The Folly of Attacking Iran” also found on one of my favorite resources, Iran Nuclear Watch, is a must-see!

• SPEAKING OF TORTURE: Lieberman Endorses Waterboarding Since 'It's Not Like Using Hot Coals' on People:

  Yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) "reluctantly acknowledged" that he doesn't believe waterboarding is torture. According to the Connecticut Post, Lieberman downplayed the severity of the waterboarding because it doesn't inflict permanent physical damage...

• THE ANDREW MYERS FILE (or How I Learned to Stop Caring About Overt Government Insecurity Interfering With My Right to Privacy): Bush orders Clampdown on Flights to US:

  The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines. The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush regime that officials in Brussels described as "blackmail" and "troublesome", and could see west Europeans and Britons required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington's requirements. According to a US document being circulated for signature in European capitals, EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain visa-free travel to America, senior EU officials said.

  (Hat-tip -- Citizens For Legitimate Government)

• No Comment: I have a personal commitment to aiding those with environmentally induced toxic responses, sometimes called Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, et al. This You Tube link came to me from an online resource seeking support via email to British government authorities to help the victim in this case receive protection. Please, do what you can.

Now Why Would the Bush WH Want to Meddle with College Accreditation?

By BURTON BOLLAG
Arlington, Va.

The face-off between the Education Department and accrediting organizations entered a sharper phase on Monday as the two sides began a new round of negotiations on changes the government wants to make in accreditation rules.

Unsurprisingly, the friction centered on two controversial areas in which the Bush administration wants to influence higher education by changing how the accreditors operate.

The first involves proposed changes that would require accreditors to establish standards on what students should learn and then measure the extent to which individual colleges meet those standards.

The second rule change would tell colleges they could no longer refuse to accept credits earned at another institution solely because the sending institution did not have regional accreditation.

The proposed changes, if adopted, would "constitute a massive expansion of the federal role" in overseeing higher education, said Judith S. Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, an umbrella group representing accreditors. The changes "would replace the professional judgment of accreditors with federal regulations," she said.

The three-day meeting, at a hotel just outside Washington, is the second of three gatherings in a process known as "negotiated rule-making." The third gathering will be in April. Taking part in the negotiations are 12 nongovernment negotiators -- accreditors and senior officials of state and for-profit college systems -- and officials of the Education Department.

The department called the meetings as part of its efforts to use accreditation to put in place some of the key proposals of last fall's report of the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education. The department says it intends to take the opinions of the group into account in any rule changes it makes. But the government alone has the final word.

During their first meeting, in February, the panel members discussed the department's proposed changes in more general terms. On the table at this week's meeting is a 36-page document with new language the government would like to insert into rules governing 12 areas of the accreditors' work.

The Education Department e-mailed the document to negotiators only on Thursday evening, and some of the nongovernment negotiators said that had left them with little time to analyze the text. The meetings' protocols state that "to the extent practicable, the department will provide members with documents ... at least seven days in advance."

Vickie L. Schray, a senior department official who is leading the talks, promised to try to provide future texts in a more timely fashion.

At the first gathering, the nongovernment negotiators pushed through softer language in place of a department proposal to have accreditors set minimum standards for "student achievement" at the colleges they oversee. The idea of minimum standards is opposed by many traditional colleges, which believe it would undermine the great diversity of American higher education.

But the department hardly seemed to have taken notice of that in the proposals it sent back to the group.

Some of the proposals "seem to suggest a significant change in the function and role of accreditation," said Ralph A. Wolff, president of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges' Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities. "We're trying to figure out the implications."

Under an item titled "Institutional success with respect to student achievement," the document says accreditors could select one of three approaches for measuring success. Those options are as follows:


* An accreditor establishes "specific quantitative and qualitative measures of student achievement and an expected level of performance."
* An accreditor "develops a set of evaluative rubrics for groups of institutions with similar missions, which includes quantitative and qualitative measures. The agency then weighs the components of the rubric for each institution and specifies an expected level of performance for each component."
* "The institution establishes quantitative and qualitative measures for each of the programs it offers, and an expected level of performance, that is satisfactory to the agency."


Betty Horton, an official of the Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, questioned the validity of that proposal. "Is there any scientific way to determine which measures
of student learning are effective?" she asked.

In fact one of the two occasions on which the nongovernment negotiators stopped the meeting to caucus among themselves on Monday was related to that issue. The interruption was to stop discussion of the third agenda item, "monitoring of institutions," and agree to take it up only on the last day of this week's talks, after the issue of assessing student achievement and the department's proposals to make more accreditation findings public have been made clearer.

On the other highly controversial issue, credit transfer, the accreditors themselves are divided. The six regional accrediting organizations, which oversee most comprehensive institutions, may like the approach proposed by the Education Department: that the lack of regional accreditation of the sending institution should not be a reason to reject credits out of hand. But they, and many college groups, don't want federal regulations interfering with colleges' decisions on the matter.

Some believe the department has no authority to make rules in this area.

But career-oriented institutions -- and especially the for-profit networks of such colleges -- complain that their students are often unable to bring with them credits they have earned when they transfer to traditional institutions. Elise Scanlon, executive director of the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, said she was "encouraged" by the department's proposed changes on this issue.

At Monday's meeting, negotiators also discussed proposed changes intended to strengthen the "due process" obligations of accreditors when they take disciplinary actions against institutions, and accrediting rules governing "substantive change," such as when institutions open multiple sites, or are bought by a new owner.

Although the meeting remained cordial and even friendly under the leadership of the department's Ms. Schray, the far-reaching impact of the proposed changes created a certain tension in the room.
The nongovernment group's first call to interrupt the gathering for a caucus came shortly after the meeting began. The reason was a complaint by a number of the accreditors and college leaders that the summary of the previous month's meeting prepared by the department was incomplete and slanted.

When members of that group came back from their hourlong caucus, they presented a statement saying the department's summary "could lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation." The department agreed to withdraw the summary.

HT: Mark Crispin Miller