Blog For Arizona

The Star's Self Satire

by David Safier

The Star indulged in self satire in today's paper, but I'm the only one who knows it, so I want to share the moment with you.

The Star printed my letter in today's paper. The point of the letter is, The Star has studiously avoided publishing information about McCain's questionable connections to land deals that helped his friends and supporters. First was a NY Times article about McCain and Don Diamond, then articles on a different land deal in the Washington Post and Reuters, and most recently another suspicious deal in USA Today. I'm sure it's part of a conscious campaign by the paper to protect McCain's reputation from the odor of scandal.

The fact that The Star published my letter, allowing me to call Debbie Kornmiller The Star Apologist rather than Reader Advocate (though it used small letters where I used capitals, which diminishes my point that the latter is her formal title at the paper, and the former is more appropriate) might make the paper appear to be open to criticism. But the interesting thing is, while I was allowed to blast the paper, my most damning sentence against McCain was left out.

I've had many letters in The Star over the years, and I can't remember being edited for content, ever. I'm obsessive about keeping my word count below the 150 cap so I don't give the paper an excuse to cut my favorite line. In this letter, the paper edited my style in a few places, which is fine. But when I put in a reference to The Keating Five Scandal, I guess that might have tarnished McCain's halo a bit, so they cut it out.

I'll try to be fair here. The paper added 14 words at the beginning of my letter to reference it back to a Kornmiller column, so that put it over the 150 word limit. But that was the paper's choice, not mine. And it doesn't lessen my certainty that the Keating Five reference was cut out for the same reason the articles on McCain's land deals weren't published. To quote my own letter, "The Star has decided to avert its eyes whenever a story might sully McCain's reputation."

Here's the letter. I'm reinserting my Keating Five reference where it belongs in the final paragraph, in brackets and in bold.

Re: the May 4 reader advocate column, "A look back at land-deal coverage."

When Debbie Kornmiller defended the Star's decision not to run a story on John McCain's ties to Don Diamond, she sounded more like the Star apologist than the reader advocate. She claimed the paper already covered the story, and besides, the article got it wrong.

Since then, another story has surfaced about a 2005 land swap McCain pushed through Congress which involved a top campaign fund-raiser. Again, the Star chose to ignore it.

Maybe Kornmiller will once again say the story was covered in the Star or the article got it wrong. But it looks to me like the Star has decided to avert its eyes whenever a story might sully McCain's reputation.

[The Keating Five scandal hangs over McCain’s head to this day.] If he is still peddling influence, the Star's readers need to know, and McCain, not the Star, has the obligation to defend himself.

Mule Train Mail: Mark Crispin Miller on Sproul and Associates

EDITOR'S NOTE: These Introductory Remarks were addressed by witness Mark Crispin Miller to the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law and the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on the Judiciary during the May 14, 2008 Joint Hearing on "Allegations of Selective Prosecution, Part II: The Erosion of Public Confidence in Our Federal Justice System."

I am Mark Crispin Miller, a professor at New York University and a longtime analyst of media and politics. Lately my work has focused on the growing dangers of election fraud and vote suppression in this country. My books include Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform (2005), and, more recently, Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008.

I am not a Democrat or a Republican, but an Independent dedicated to the promise of American democracy as envisioned by Tom Paine. I believe, with him, that the right to vote is the basis on which all our other rights depend. And so the issue here is ultimately not the victory or defeat of either party, but the people's right to choose their government, and thereby live, and rule, in freedom.

Such was once the view of the US Justice Department, whose Voting Rights Division strongly championed the individual right to vote, by prosecuting all forms of illegal disfranchisement. Since 2001, however, the Department has turned a blind eye toward illegal vote suppression.

Take the case of Sproul & Associates, an Arizona firm hired by the Republican National Committee to run stealth voter registration drives throughout the nation prior to the 2004 election. Starting in the summer, Sproul's troops haunted public areas, posing as non-partisan opinion pollsters or petitioners for liberal causes. Through such deception, the firm worked to inflate the number of registered Republicans, by any means necessary. Closely following a script, the operatives asked leading questions-a form of "push polling"-in order to identify Republican respondents, and then asked them to fill out registration forms. The teams were orderd not to register Democrats or Independents.

Nevertheless, many Democrats filled out the forms—and those forms were destroyed. One Sproul worker in Las Vegas said: "We caught [my supervisor] taking Democrats out of my pile, [and] hand[ing] them to her assistant, and he ripped them up right in front of us."

More frequently, however, Sproul's troops bamboozled thousands of Democrats and Independents into registering as Republicans, either by secretly altering the registration forms, or by misleading people into thus re-registering themselves. Such service was expensive. According to their filings with the Federal Election Commission, the Republican National Committee paid Sproul well over $8 million—the RNC's eighth-largest expenditure of the 2004 campaign.

And what did the party get for it? Aside from ripping up the registration forms of many Democrats, the company created thousands of unwitting faux-Republicans, in Ohio, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Minnesota, Michigan and Oregon. Thanks to those inflated numbers, there appeared to be more registered Republicans than there were in reality—a misimpression that would seemingly explain the party's upset wins in those states where the exit polls predicted otherwise.

In Ohio, for example, countless Democratic votes were stolen through the tactics documented in the full committee's excellent report on the election there: voter "caging," thwarted registration drives, broad refusal of provisional ballots, organized disinformation and intimidation, shortages of functioning machines in Democratic districts only, and numerous "machine irregularities" undoing only Democratic votes. Those tactics were used also in those other states where the exit polls predicted a Republican defeat—and where Sproul had also helped inflate the number of grassroots Republicans.

Thus Sproul not only broke the law, but may also have assisted in a larger plan to block the vote. (There are oddities, moreover, in the RNC's filings with the FEC, with nine expenditures, totaling well over $1 million, incurred somehow in 2005, suggesting an attempt to minimize the sum spent on Sproul's services.)

While the DoJ has winked at practices that disenfranchise tens of thousands of Americans, that now wholly partisan Department focuses obsessively on "voter fraud," which numbers in the tens.

And so Sproul & Associates clearly merited a full investigation; and yet the DoJ did nothing. If there has been a federal probe of Sproul's activities, I've never heard of it. Far from coming under federal suspicion, Nathan Sproul, the firm's director, was invited to the Christmas party at the White House two months after the election. And while the DoJ has winked at practices that disenfranchise tens of thousands of Americans, that now wholly partisan Department focuses obsessively on "voter fraud," which numbers in the tens.

Between 2002 and 2005, 24 people were convicted of illegal voting, with another 62 convicted since. Those low numbers reconfirm the scholarly consensus that "voter fraud" is actually quite rare. It is, in fact, a highly serviceable myth, and/or delusion, that helps to justify the actual vote suppression, and election fraud, that Sproul and others carry out to benefit their party. Today the fantasy of "voter fraud" preoccupies the managers at Justice, and the Supreme Court. It is therefore up to Congress to return us to reality, and redirect this nation toward democracy.

The Straw Man and McBush Hypocrisy

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI), is credited with the bipartisan entreaty that "politics stops at the water's edge" in American foreign policy.

Of course, members of Congress and even former presidents of both political parties in recent decades have departed from Vandenberg's entreaty.

Never before has a sitting president, the titular head of the United States government, while on an official state visit, before a session of the elected government of a sovereign state, inserted into a formal state speech a partisan political campaign attack meant for domestic political consumption. 

Patrick Buchanan, the uber conservative political commentator for MSNBC (and frequent author on the presidency) commented that for a sitting president to make this kind of statement while abroad about the other party's presumptive nominee, is unprecedented.  I will take Pat at his word for historical context.

For President Bush to draw an historically false analogy by comparing the appeasement of Adolph Hitler by European governments in the Munich Agreement of 1938 (permitting German annexation of Chekoslovakia's Sudetenland) with diplomacy and negotiation with Iran before the Israeli Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence was beyond the pale.  Bush embarrassed Americans with his petty politicking.

Following is the offensive passage from the official White House transcript of Bush's speech President Bush Addresses Members of the Knesset:

"There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

"Some seem to believe..."  "Some people say..."  Anytime you hear President Bush begin a sentence with this phrase, you can be certain that what follows is a Straw Man fallacy.

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself.  Fallacy: Straw Man

President Bush has utilized this dishonest and misleading rhetorical technique repeatedly throughout his administration, often to great effect when it is repeated by a servile media.

President Bush does not tell you, of course, that "some people" who want to engage in diplomacy and negotiation with Iran and other "state sponsors of terrorism" are none other than members of Bush's own administration.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a speech to the American Academy of Diplomacy just the day before Gates: U.S. Should Engage Iran With Incentives, Pressure - washingtonpost.com said that:

"We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us.

* * *

"[M]y personal view would be we ought to look for ways outside of government to open up the channels and get more of a flow of people back and forth." Noting that "a fair number" of Iranians regularly visit the United States, he said, "We ought to increase the flow the other way . . . of Americans" visiting Iran."

Secretary Gates publicly favored engagement with Iran before taking his current job in late 2006. In 2004, he co-authored a Council on Foreign Relations report titled "Iran: Time for a New Approach."  Gates was also a member of the bipartisan 2006 Iraq Study Group, which advocated reaching out to Iran.

The Bush administration also considers Syria a state sponsor of terrorism.  But Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice met with Syria's foreign minister Walid al-Moallem in face-to-face talks at Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt on May 3, 2007.  Rice Meets Syrian Foreign Minister - New York Times

Secretary Rice also has said “I am prepared to meet my counterpart or an Iranian representative at any time if Iran will suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities."  Secretary Rice said the U.S. would hold direct talks with Iran if Tehran suspended its nuclear program.  Rice: Direct Iran talks, with conditions - Iran- msnbc.com

The Bush administration previously negotiated an agreement with "state sponsor of terrorism" Libya, and is presently engaged in negotiations with the repressive regime of North Korea.  The repressive regimes of Pakistan (home to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda) and Saudi Arabia (home to 15 of the 19 hijackers who attacked the U.S. on 9/11) are considered "allies" by the Bush administration.

It is rank hypocrisy to suggest that diplomacy and negotiation with these governments is tantamount to Nazi appeasement - it doesn't even make sense - when the Bush administration itself is currently engaged in ongoing diplomacy and negotiation with these governments.

Nearly $2 Million Worth of TUSD Fixed Assets Missing in One Year

by David Safier

(TASL) It's amazing what you can learn when you attend an open meeting of a TUSD committee. Thursday I was the sole observer at the Tucson School Board's Audit Committee meeting. Here's what I found out:

• About $2 million in Fixed Assets -- items whose value is somewhere between $500-1000 or higher -- went missing from various sites -- read, schools -- around the district last year.

• The number of items missing varied wildly from school to school. One high school reported something like 500 of these high value items were missing. Another high school reported 6.

• For the past 17 years, this issue has not been looked at carefully by the District. The losses have been reported, then basically filed away.

• It's unclear where the buck stopped, so to speak. The inventory lists came in to Asset Management, but whether A.M. sat on them, or whether they were reported to higher authorities and nothing was done, cannot be known unless the District looks into the matter.

The losses were discussed in the outside District Management Audit which was finished earlier this year and got a lot of press for getting the figures on the savings for school closures completely wrong. The Fixed Asset Management section begins on page 3-59. The missing items were mainly electronics stuff -- computers, cameras, camcorders, projectors, etc. -- though one Gator Tractor, 4x2, valued at $5,228, was listed.

According to the Audit Committee, the total value of the District's fixed assets items is about $74 million, which means we're talking about something in the order of a 2.5% loss. I don't know how that ranks, whether it is high or low for school districts in general. But I do know if there are huge discrepancies between the number of items lost at different schools, that should immediately send up a red flag, and someone should figure out what's going on. Maybe there's a good reason why some schools appear to lose more items than others, but ignoring the problem won't answer the troubling questions.

The TUSD Board meets today, Friday, to review the outside audit at 3:30pm in the Badger Room, Tucson Magnet High School, 400 S. Second Ave. The Audit Committee said it plans to submit a report about these fixed assets issues to the Board, but I don't know if the report will be in the Board's hands or if that item is on the agenda.

(Conflicted Emotions Disclosure below the fold.)

TUSD Teacher's Op Ed on Social Promotion

by David Safier

This falls into the "Damn, I wish I wrote that!" category. Nancy McCallion, a third grade teacher in Tucson, published a terrific op ed in today's Star: Fight social promotion with aides in classroom.

Here's the passage that's worth the price of admission:

Teachers promote students because they don't think retention will help them succeed.

Retained students are returned to the same course of study in the same traditional classroom environment that was unable to meet their needs in the first place.

Failing students are failing for a reason. Be it because of learning disabilities or emotional or behavioral problems, they are unable to succeed in the crowded, traditional classroom.

What we need here is not legislation to force teachers to retain students, nor more high paid accountability experts to conduct lengthy and expensive studies.

What we need are warm bodies in the classrooms: aides to monitor one group of students while teachers work with struggling students; tutors to provide one-on-one help for students who are too distracted to focus in a large group setting; high school students in need of community service to listen to a struggling reader.

I was talking about the op ed with a friend this morning, a recently retired art and math teacher. He said he had a math class with two adult volunteers and a special ed aide to help with some special needs kids. "We may not have gotten everyone up to speed," he said, "but everyone who needed help got it."

Here is the final sentence of the op ed, for those people who wonder where we can possibly find the money for all those teacher's aides.

Perhaps the Star could do some research on how many $10-an-hour teachers' aides could be hired with what we pay out to accountability departments and standardized testing companies.

Amen.

Horne Answers Post: "News Flash: Horne Says OK to More Dropouts"

by David Safier

Yesterday I wrote a question to Tom Horne during a live chat on the Star website. His answer, I wrote in a post, gave me the impression that he is OK with the idea that more students will drop out if we end social promotion.

Horne disagrees with my conclusion. He put a comment on the post saying I should have added another question-and-answer to clarify his position.

I'm delighted Horne chose to respond, and I will quote his response in its entirety. But first, let me put up the Q&A that led to my conclusion:

David S (daves): Aren't you concerned about the potential for raising the dropout rate if we hold students back on a regular basis? The Star article mentioned that as a probable outcome.

Tom H (tomhorneaz): No. It doesn't do any good to keep students in school if they aren't learning. Fear of dropouts is sometimes used as an excuse for mediocrity. I categorically reject that.

Here is Horne's comment:

To put the answer you quote in context, you should include the following additional question and answer:

Georgia B (gcb1): What are your proposals for the motivation of those students who for whatever reason refuse to improve in performance and become dropouts of no economic worth to our state?

Tom H (tomhorneaz): We have been studying ways to motivate these students. Please look at our website under dropout prevention. We have a list of Arizona programs that have shown success

Saying that fear of dropouts is not a reason to dumb down everyone’s curriculum is not to say I haven’t worked hard to reduce the dropout rate. I created a position for a dropout prevention specialist that didn’t exist when I took office, and she visited schools and prepared a study of best practices in dropout prevention that all schools can imitate. It is on our website http://www.ade.az.gov/asd/dropout/AZModelsofEffectiveStrategiesApp.pdf.

(Note: the URL Horne gave didn't work for me. I believe you can find the material he's referring to here, on the Department of Ed's Dropout Prevention web page.)

Saying the Dept of Ed has studied ways to prevent dropouts is a pretty passive response. To say he has put the results on his website so schools can imitate the "best practices" takes passivity right to the edge of inertia.

I read this to mean, Horne's first response is "Throw the bums out if they can't cut it!" Then he says, "Oh, by the way, I have a little pamphlet here with some 'best practices' to stop these kids from dropping out." I'm not convinced he's as serious about dropout prevention as he is about his beloved high stakes standardized testing program.

I went through the text of the chat again, and the only mention of dropouts is in the two quotations above. But here are a number of other statements by Horne which add to my impression that he thinks we should stop social promotion first and worry about the consequences later.

"I have been strongly opposed to social promotion for 30 years, going back to my first years on a school board."

"Once the public is used to the High School test that students need to pass to graduate, I support extending this to earlier grades. For example, in Louisianna, they must pass in 3rd and 8tgh grade, to go on to the next grade, and that works well. I believe we need that, or something like it, in Arizona."

"I favor holding back children who have not learned enough to go on to the next grade. It is also a good idea to let the student and the parents know (not necessarily in the first couple of months, but, say, by midyear) that if the learning does not improve, being held back may result."

"Donya M (justasiam): Why do we have social promotion at all?
Tom H (tomhorneaz): It was taught in schools of education because studies showed that students held back did worse in the long run. In my opinion, that misses the point. If you allow social promotion, you lower the motivation and standards of learning for the entire school. This is one of four theories taught in schools of education which I believe have done a lot of damage. The other three are bilingual education, whole language reading, and heterogenious grouping."

The last quote is my favorite. Horne links the "bad idea" of social promotion with other "bad ideas," two of which are whole language reading and bilingual education. As I wrote in earlier posts, the U.S. Dept. of Ed's recent study concluded that students in the $6 billion dollar phonics-based Reading First classrooms performed the same on tests as those who were in other classrooms. And the most recent research on bilingual vs. English Immersion strategies for ELL students also showed no difference in achievement -- except in Arizona, where, for some reason, achievement curved downward. So if we judge the value of Horne's view on social promotion by the company it keeps, it doesn't look very promising.

Congratulations to RumRomanismRebellion.net, Arizona's DNC Convention Blogger

Just want to give a shout out to Tedski at R3 for his selection as Arizona's floor blogger at the DNC convention! I'm disappointed that my peeps didn't get the nod (I won't be able to attend the convention myself), but I'm glad that Ted's prose stylings and witty insights will be on the job.

BlogForArizona.com will also be in Denver as elected Arizona delegates post their impressions during the convention. I'm also hoping that BlogForArizona will still be chosen for additional press pool passes for non-delegate correspondents from this blog. Keep your fingers crossed.

May the Force (of Mediocrity) Be With Me

by David Safier

A few more quotes from Horne's live chat on The Star's website.

No W (shanafan): What is the status of AIMS tests for other subjects like science and social studies? Will students also be required to pass these subjects?

Tom H (tomhorneaz): Science is tested in 4th grade and 8th grade, and for high school we test biology. There is a need for a test in chemistry, physics and earth science as well, and I have been advocating for that. We also need a history test in grades 3,6,7, and in high school for american history, world history, government, and economics. These added tests are my highest legislative priority, along with higher salaries for teachers. It is difficult for the next two years because of budget problems, but that is what I am working hardest for.

Standardized, AIMS-style tests in science, history, government and economics? That has to mean a standardized curriculum in all of those subjects. Reading and writing are skills. Math tends to be logically sequential. Even if I don't like the idea of high stakes tests, I have to admit that, of all subjects, reading, writing and math lend themselves to that kind of thing. But what should be emphasized in courses like history or government is open to a great deal of interpretation, and I would rather have teachers choosing what facts and concepts to stress than have that driven by a state test. (By the way, I would love to see how an AIMS biology test treats evolution and how a science test covers the age of the earth. Questions on those topics could cause a few problems with with Horne's constituency.)

No W (shanafan): Why do you think there has been so much resistance to AIMS testing? Most other states have had high stakes testing for years.

Tom H (tomhorneaz): Some other states have, but most have not. If we are going to fight for excellence, we have to expect that the forces of mediocity (sp) will oppose us, and there is joy in the battle.

Coincidentally, it seems I chose another question from the same person.

I'm proud to be called part of "the forces of mediocrity" (and no, I'm not going to make a "He can't even spell mediocrity" joke. This was fast typing. Spelling doesn't count.), if it's Horne who's doing the calling, and especially if it's because I'm not a fan of AIMS. If he wants to declare that testing is the front line in the "fight for excellence" and "there is joy in the battle," well, what can I say? Maybe if we elect a few more Democrats to the state legislature, Tommy will lose a few of his playmates, and things won't be as much fun any more. That's one more reason to work hard for Democratic candidates this election season.

News Flash: Horne Says OK to More Dropouts

by David Safier

You be the judge.

As I write this, Tom Horne is conducting a live chat on the Star's website about social promotion. As you know if you read my earlier post on the topic, he's against social promotion. So I decided to ask a question, and Horne decided to answer.

See if you read this the same way I do:

David S (daves): Aren't you concerned about the potential for raising the dropout rate if we hold students back on a regular basis? The Star article mentioned that as a probable outcome.

Tom H (tomhorneaz): No. It doesn't do any good to keep students in school if they aren't learning. Fear of dropouts is sometimes used as an excuse for mediocrity. I categorically reject that.

"It doesn't do any good to keep students in school if they aren't learning." To me, that means, if they can't cut it, get rid of them! If ending social promotion increases the dropout rate, that's OK with Horne. Zero tolerance for failure!

Towards a Sane Energy Policy - Update

Posted by: AZBlueMeanie

Nissan is the first auto manufacturer to say it will sell mass market, all-electric vehicles worldwide.  “Nissan is upping the ante tremendously. They are the first to put it on the line and say we’re going to have an all-electric vehicle for a certain market by a certain date,” said John O’Dell, senior editor at the auto Web site GreenCarAdvisor.com. 

As reported in the New York Times on Tuesday  Nissan Plans Electric Car in U.S. by ’10 - New York Times:

By BILL VLASIC

DETROIT — The Nissan Motor Company plans to sell an electric car in the United States and Japan by 2010, raising the stakes in the race to develop environmentally friendly vehicles.

The commitment — expected to be announced Tuesday by Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn — will be the first by a major automaker to bring a zero-emission vehicle to the American market. Nissan also expects to sell a lineup of electric vehicles globally by 2012.

In an interview Monday, Mr. Ghosn said Nissan decided to accelerate development of battery-powered vehicles because of high gasoline prices and environmental concerns, not just because of the need to meet stricter fuel-economy standards.

“What we are seeing is that the shifts coming from the markets are more powerful than what regulators are doing,” he said.

Mr. Ghosn said Nissan envisioned a broad range of electric vehicles, starting with small cars, and adding: “It’s not only about a small city car or a small minivan. It can also be about a small commercial vehicle and a small crossover.”

Mr. Ghosn was not always enthusiastic about alternative-fuel technology. In a 2005 speech to the National Automobile Dealers Association, he called gas-electric hybrids “niche products” useful only to meet strict fuel-economy and emission standards in states like California.

“It wasn’t long ago that Carlos Ghosn was a big naysayer about the role of electric vehicles,” said John O’Dell, senior editor at the auto Web site GreenCarAdvisor.com. “Obviously, something has opened his eyes.”

Other automakers like Mitsubishi Motors and Fuji Heavy Industries are testing versions of electric cars, and General Motors and Toyota are working on battery-powered vehicles that have small gasoline engines for recharging. G.M. plans to start producing the Chevrolet Volt in 2010, while Toyota expects to offer a similar, so-called “plug-in” hybrid around the same time.

But Nissan, which a decade ago was on the brink of bankruptcy, is the first manufacturer to say it will sell mass market, all-electric vehicles worldwide. The zero emissions refers to those from the car’s tailpipe and not those from the production of electricity used to power the car.

Still, Mr. O’Dell said: “Nissan is upping the ante tremendously. They are the first to put it on the line and say we’re going to have an all-electric vehicle for a certain market by a certain date.”

(Article continues below the fold)

Private Orgs Take 10% From Private School Tax Credits

by David Safier

Thanks to Slade Mead for catching this item on his blog, The Dry Heat. As an ex-State Senator and a 2006 candidate for State Ed Sup, he knows more about this kind of insider baseball than I ever will.

I'm sure you know you can get an Arizona Tax Credit for giving scholarship money to private schools. But did you know that private organizations get a 10% cut from the tax credits? I didn't. And did you know a legislator, Steve Yarbrough (R LD-21), runs one of the School Tuition Organizations that skims 10% off the top? According to Slade:

Here is the issue… the state has organizations called School Tuition Organizations that collect tax credit money for private schools. Rather than the schools getting 100% of the money (as do the public schools) these STO’s take a 10% cut. This arrangement runs until June of 2011. Yarbrough runs an STO and is literally making hundreds of thousands of dollars off this cozy arrangement.

Rather than recuse himself from all matters pertaining to STOs, Yarbrough runs the legislation! His bill, HB 2108 has a sunset provision. In conference Yarbrough will attempt to take the sunset provision off.

The 10% rip off is scheduled to end in 2011, but Public Servant Yarbrough wants the gravy train to run on and on and on.

Tucson Schools Raise Fees, Plan Tax Override

by David Safier

(TASL) For the first time in awhile, I once again don my tax-and-spend mantle tassel to praise TUSD for planning a $27 million tax override for the November ballot. Half the money is to be spent on lowering class sizes.

The Star estimated it would cost an owner of a $150,000 home about $10 a month -- 33 cents a day, or $120 a year, depending on how you want to look at it.

The question is whether this is a fair way to tax people to increase school funds. There are probably better ways. But to paraphrase the sage, Donald Rumsfeld, "You go for funding with the taxes you have, not the taxes you want." Or something like that.

TUSD is also increasing some costs to students. Lunch will go up 25 cents. Students will be charged $20 more for high school extracurricular activities -- sports and others -- and middle schools will charge $20 for the first time. A family has a $200 a year cap, and families who can't afford it will be forgiven the fee.

I'm not sure charging fees for extracurricular activities is a terrific idea, but it's not a bad thing. If low funding forces schools to prioritize spending, extracurricular activities are a good place to cut back by increasing fees.

I've contracted a bad case of hope...

Recently, MoveOn.com had an Obama in 30 Seconds ad contest.  One of the honorable mention winners featured a bunch of people concerned that they'd caught something, looking worried and saying "it could happen to anyone...."  You think at first it's going to be an ad for STD awareness or something.  But, then you find out that what they've really come down with is a bad case of hope.

The ads not just funny, it's true.  It seems that everyone I know, including myself, have contracted a bad case of it and it appears to be spreading.

So, last night when I was sitting around a table at Zona 78s with my group of Obama women, planning our trip to the Denver Convention, I wondered why.  What is it about Obama?

After kicking it around for awhile, I've concluded that, for me at least, it boils down to his use of pronouns.

Yes, pronouns.

You dont' here him talk about what he can do.  He never says I am the one, "I can make change happen." Instead, he calls to us, by reminding people that "We can make a difference."  It's up to us to work and serve, and help make change happen.  By doing so, Obama is inviting us to reclaim our lives, neighborhoods, communities and country.  He's inviting us back to the table.

Log onto www.barackobama.com and you'll see at the top of the page the following words: "Together We Can Help the Disaster Victims...Donate/Help the Victims.  The link takes you directly to the American Red Cross donation page. I know because I did it last night.

It's not just the words, it's the actions they're inspring.

Supporters across the country are organizing Obama Works Community Service Projects.  Inspired by Obama's call to make a difference, these folks are cleaning streets, parks and neighborhoods.  They've sponsored the Missoula River Clean-up effort, organized book drives, food and clothing drives.

On Friday, May 2, Obama supporters right here in Tucson collected over 350 pounds of food for the Tucson Community Food Bank.  Their next Obama Works Project is going to target the homeless population.  They'll be delivering brown bag lunches, lots of water, and a little hope to those folks in need right here in our backyard.

So if you're feeling a little light headed, dizzy, maybe even a little giddy, don't rush off to the doctors yet.  You may just be coming down with a little hope yourself.

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More on Social Promotion

by David Safier

Part 3 of the Star series on social promotion offers up some possible remedies, but as always when it comes to education, they are thin gruel. Not that they're not good ideas and they won't work. Not that they shouldn't be done. But all of them have been done before. Sometimes they get results, other times they don't. It depends on a thousand random and independent factors.

Among the many variables, one of the most important, I've found, is the buy-in by the teachers working in the new programs. If they're passionate and talented, they'll get results, while a school down the road with average, decent, unexcited teachers may use the same approach and show little or no progress.

Schools are not McDonalds franchises, where you simply duplicate what everyone else is doing and get consistent results. Education has a thousand variables. You can't control the nature of students, parents, economic and social situations, facilities, teachers, or administrators. It's a bit of a crap shoot.

I don't mean this to be pessimistic, by the way, just realistic. Honestly, no one really knows what we mean by "education," what we should stress in schools or when we should stress it, or the best way to get results. If anyone pretends to know the answers, be wary and suspicious.

My suggestion is, make peace with uncertainty. Do everything you can to increase the odds that students will be successful, but don't expect miracles. Or, if you expect miracles, also expect to be disappointed on a regular basis.

The Star story agreed with my concern that ending social promotion would raise the dropout rate:

Students who must repeat a grade are 20 percent to 30 percent more likely than their peers to drop out, said Lorrie Shepard, dean of the school of education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. There also may be psychological aspects to retention, she said.

"There is typically a stigma associated with being retained," said Shane Jimerson, a professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical & School Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"Students, by the way, refer to it as being flunked or they're stupid. They don't use technical terms. They failed. They flunked. They're not as smart."

Jimerson, who is nationally recognized for his research on grade retention, has found that being held back can result in emotional distress, low self-esteem, poor peer relations and even alcohol and drug abuse.

The article noted positive steps taken by districts to give students the skills they lacked. Generally, they took extra time and money. One paid teachers a $5,000 stipend to become mentors and advocates for 12 to 18 students each. Another created a summer school program. Another broke the school into four smaller "academies" (It's not clear whether that was more expensive than the one-school organization).

That's pretty much it for the series. Everything else is detail, which you can read yourself if you're interested. Let me end by listing three things that annoyed me in the article, followed by a moment of comic relief.

1. The article referred to "experts," as if these "experts" have definitive answers. They don't. If they're conservative "experts," they come to one set of conclusions based on the evidence. If they're liberal "experts," they come to a different set of conclusions, often based on the same evidence.
2. The article claimed, "Research shows . . ." No, educational research doesn't "show" anything. It might indicate something. It might allow us to infer something. But there is no definitive research in education -- never has been, never will be.
3. The article used that hated term, "throwing money" at education, as in, "they say that simply throwing more money at the problem won't necessarily fix it." Obviously "throwing money" won't fix anything! Idiots!

Now for the comic relief. Some wacko by the name of Tom Horne (whoever that is) suggested that we can deal with this problem by holding back any eighth grader who hasn't passed the AIMS test, then expand the program to all levels, so any students who don't pass their grade level AIMS tests will be held back.

Where did they dig this guy up?

What? What did you say? He's the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction? Oh my God! Please tell me you're kidding!

Demcratic National Convention 2008, Thinks Green

by Pat Canady

The Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee, along with representatives from Humana (NYSE: HUM) and Bikes Belong have joined to bring 1,000 bikes to Denver for people to use during the week of the Democratic National Convention.

Freewheelin is a national bike-sharing program developed by Humana and and bike industry groups like Bikes Belong. The purpose is to encourage people to enjoy healthy living and environmental sustainability. The 1,000 bikes can be used free of charge while the convention is in town. It gives people alternatives to automobile usage.

While some of us will be seeking a Light Rail Pass (since we are 12 miles away from the Convention Center), others now have a choice. Not only will this cut down on emissions pollution, but it will take solve the Parking Space problems as well.

The committee members responsible for this plan are: Elbra Wedgeworth, President/Chair Democratic

National Convention 2008; Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, Jr.; Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper; Dan Oftedahl, President CO Region Human, Inc.; and Tim Blumenthal, Executive Director of Bikes Belong.

It is encouraging when cities implement "GREEN" choices in their transportation plans!

Social Promotion: Not as New, or as Simple, as The Star Makes it Sound

by David Safier

There's so much to be written about the Star's series that began with Social Promotion in Tucson area schools Sunday and continued with Grade Inflation today. I'm going to limit myself to one small aspect of the social promotion question. Maybe I'll write more later.

When I was taking education classes in 1968, one of the two non-instructional topics my profs dwelt on was social promotion. Back then, the concern was the dropout rate. Social promotion would lower the dropout rate, the thinking went, so it should be encouraged. Now, decades later, the consequences of social promotion are seen as the problem.

This is typical in education circles -- or, maybe I should say, it's the typical educational circle. You see a problem, so you create a fix. A few decades later, the fix becomes the problem, so you "fix" it by returning to a variation of the problem you encountered decades earlier.

Around and around we go.

Right now, for the sake of this post, let's create a scenario where we end social promotion completely. When students fail classes, especially core classes like reading and math, they're held back until they pass. No exceptions. Zero tolerance for failure.

Now, let's look at the educational world we'll create, focusing on the eighth grade, just to simplify this tremendously complicated issue.

In this world of ours, eighth graders who fail classes have to repeat the eighth grade. If they fail a second time -- as many will -- they have to repeat it again, and so on. Pretty soon, we have 15, 16 and 17 year olds sitting in cramped middle school desks next to their 13 and 14 year old classmates. The older students are more physically mature, and many are likely to be behavior problems. Do you want eighth grade classes attended by 15, 16 and 17 year olds who might be some of the most difficult students to educate and keep in line? For me, this creates some very uncomfortable scenarios.

But maybe the schools will take care of that problem by putting these repeat eighth graders in separate classrooms, or alternative programs. Still, they won't be promoted to the ninth grade until they have ninth grade skills, which means many of them will stay eighth graders for years. How long will these students tolerate being held back? Not long, I imagine. After one, or at the most two years, many of them will give up and drop out.

We're in the midst of a social and educational experiment the likes of which has never been attempted in the history of the world. We want to keep all our children in school for twelve years, and at the same time, we want all of them to reach a high level of proficiency in reading, writing and math. Those conflicting aspirations put us in a bind. If some of our students aren't proficient, do we adopt a zero tolerance policy on their performance and risk increasing the number of drop outs, or do we do everything in our power to keep them in school, hoping that some of them will kick in later and develop the skills we want them to have, or at the very least will reach a higher level of proficiency by remaining in school than by leaving?

Much of our educational conversation is driven by the dynamic conflict between keeping students in school and increasing their levels of academic proficiency, but we rarely phrase it in those terms.

John McCain For Sale (Censored News)

Posted by: AzBlueMeanie

(Thanks to tw3k for this photoshop of the On The Take Express)

The press poodles for McCain over at the Arizona Daily Star continue to censor any critical reporting about the senator being on the take to his campaign contributors.

You may recall that the Star recently did not publish any mention of the New York Times front page investigative report  A Developer, His Deals and His Ties to McCain - New York Times by David Kirkpatrick and Jim Rutenberg.  The report involved our legendary local land speculator and developer, Donald Diamond.  You would think that this merited a mention in the Star.

The Star asserted in an editor's note, however, that it had previously reported on the relationship between Sen. McCain and Donald Diamond.

Umm, apparently not.  The Star's Reader Advocate had to admit in a column on May 4, 2008 that a search of Star articles did not reveal any such reporting.  Star political editor Joe Burchell explained that he dismissed the reporting as "flawed" because he is the local fountain of knowledge of all things political in Pima County and he knew the reporters got their facts wrong on the details of the land swaps.  But Mr. Burchell did not address the central point of the story, i.e., that Donald Diamond views the senator as being on his personal retainer for special favors:

"I think that is what Congress people are supposed to do for constituents. When you have a big, significant businessman like myself, why wouldn't you want to help move things along? What else would they do? They waste so much time with legislation."

Professional disagreement over details in a story is one thing.  Censorship of a story is quite another.

Now the Washington Post has published it's own front-page investigative report McCain Pushed Land Swap That Benefits Backer - washingtonpost.com by Matthew Mosk.  Does anyone see a pattern emerging here?

According to the Post, "the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain's 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks."  Once the legislation was passed, Fred Ruskin turned over the development of the land to Steven Betts of SunCor Developments, a McCain Trailblazer.

Once again, not even a mention in the Star.  Just another coincidence in a long line of coincidences establishing a pattern of conduct by McCain to benefit the campaign contributors who finance his campaigns.  McCain's assertion that "I have carefully avoided situations that might even tangentially be construed as a less than proper use of my office," is laughable and not supported by the record (going back to Charles Keating).

The Arizona Daily Star gives the appearance that it is censoring investigative reporting by the nation's leading newspapers that is critical of John McCain.  The Star's editorial judgment is seriously flawed, or worse, biased.

Shortly after McCain announced his candidacy last year, Star Opinion Editor Ann Brown was invited to join McCain on his bus in Iowa.  She dedicated the March 18, 2007 edition of the Star to a candidate profile of McCain.  About his roots | www.azstarnet.com ® ; Immigration, growth on McCain agenda | www.azstarnet.com ® Nothing wrong with this.  But Ms. Brown contributed her own "love notes from the bus" styled campaign report.  Iowa field work | www.azstarnet.com ®  It was enough to make Elisabeth Bummiller blush.

Censorship of news is unacceptable in a democracy.  Bias in news coverage is to be avoided.

This is my suggestion to the editors of the Arizona Daily Star.  Publish these major investigative reports by the nation's leading newspapers and publish your own "Local Angle" companion piece, for which you have carved out a niche, stating your own analysis.  Then invite the reporters who wrote the original investigative report to respond to your Local Angle analysis to give the reporting a full and fair airing.  This would give the voters of Arizona the information they need to make an informed decision in November.

In fairness to the Arizona Daily Star, its competitor newspapers in this state have been only slightly more objective in their coverage of John McCain. There is substantial room for improvement by all.

Clinton Skewered on SNL

This is brilliant political humor. Just enough truth to sting.

In Praise of High School Students

by David Safier

I spend a lot of pixels criticizing School Boards and Superintendents and the Arizona Legislature. (Have you ever thought how many pixels had to die, how many ones and zeros were cut down in their prime, to create this post? It's horrifying!) But I can't remember bad mouthing any students in my writing, because I am not one of those who complains about "these rotten kids who have no respect for their elders, have no morals and spend the whole day with their Ipods stuck in their ears."

Why, back in my day . . . Oh wait, my generation's motto was "Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll." Never mind.

Today I want to join the NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in singing the praises of some students -- many students -- who reach out well beyond their comfort zones to make the world a little better.

In keeping with thousands of years of tradition, I should be wringing my hands about adolescents these days, so lazy and degenerate compared with my own upstanding generation. But when I see high school students working energetically to save the lives of people half a world away, before they are even allowed to buy a beer, I’m reduced to mumbling admiration. These kids are truly inspiring.

Kristof writes about students whose efforts built an elementary school in Cambodia, raised nearly half a million dollars for Darfur, helped buy mosquito netting to prevent malaria in Africa, and on and on.

He recognizes that many of these students are bulking up their resumes to get into college. True enough in many cases. But my feeling is, once they've been part of one of these efforts, it resides forever in their socially-responsible DNA, possibly lying dormant for years, but ready to be pressed back into action at some point in their lives. And I know efforts like these happen in schools where the students aren't thinking about college. It may be at a more local level, like neighborhood cleanups, helping at a senior citizen home or something like that, but it's the same thing. It does somebody good in the world beyond the students' immediate circle of friends and family, and at the same time, it stimulates that altruism gene, which helps it grow stronger.

I was never good at this stuff as a teacher, but another teacher at my high school was a marvel. He got a Key Club group going that developed a national and even worldwide reputation in the organization. One summer the students built a playground in a park. They also planned and created a series of raised planting beds in a senior citizen home where the residents, who wouldn't have been able to work the soil at the ground level, could sit in chairs and spend many enjoyable and purposeful hours planting and tending gardens. Both projects involved a great deal of interaction with the local business communities, and they involved a phenomenal amount of research (What's the best soil to use, how do we create an irrigation system that is efficient and good for the environment?) The guy taught math, so most of this was new to him as well as his students. He had to count on the club members for research and information. Students often turned their research into projects in their science classes.

I sat in on the Key Club meetings a few times. They were held 45 minutes before school began (many of these kids were too busy to meet any other time), in the school's Little Theater. The room was packed. The students conducted the meetings. The teacher occasionally offered comments from the sidelines, but just as often, he stood with his arms folded and watched.

Because this was a middle to upper-middle class high school, most of these kids were college bound, and some of them probably got into the colleges of their choice in part because of their Key Club involvement. But lots of them were going to Community College or the University of Oregon, where either a high school diploma or a reasonable GPA was all they needed to get in. They had no resumes that needed building. They were there because that was the place to be.

Activities like these get an occasional spotlight in the paper, but more often they don't. We hear about the drug busts and fights and dropouts and, in today's Star, students who fail their classes and still get promoted. Yes, that's part of the picture. But it's only part of the picture. With today's youth, as with youth in every generation all over the world, we can find much worthy of praise.

Note: I don't have to tell this to the regular commenters, but anyone who has a positive story about students to share (if you have a negative story, please save it for another time), the Comment lines are always open. Just click on "Comments" at the end of this post, put in a name (you can make up a handle if you want to remain anonymous) and an email address (it will not appear on your comment -- no one will know how to contact you) and type away. Write five words or a few hundred words. Press Preview to see what you've written. When you're satisfied, press Post. That's all there is to it.

New ELL Research Trumps Horne's Old ELL "Research"

by David Safier

I'm no expert on ELL education, and I won't play "Expert" here. I honestly don't know the best way to teach students who aren't proficient in English. But I do know the controversy that raged in Arizona over bilingual vs. English Immersion instruction. EI won. According to Tom Horne, his decision to replace bilingual ed with EI was "Research based."

Anybody remember my post a few days ago about Bush's Reading First program, based on "scientifically based reading research"? Turns out a Dept of Ed study concluded that the $6 billion program had no effect.

Well, chalk up another one for the conservative version of scientific research. It sounds like Horne's "Research based" English Immersion is coming out about the same -- no measurable effect.

See, Horne's "Research" came down to one study, and that study wasn't very thorough and didn't do such a good job controlling for length of time in the U.S., poverty or other factors that are critical to any decent study.

Preliminary findings from a recent, more thorough study indicate that, at best, the three states using the English Immersion model had, um, mixed results, to put it nicely. And of the three, Arizona, which is the most thoroughly English Immersed, seemed to show the poorest results.

Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been a fan of educational research. For any number of reasons, it's ridiculously hard to get verifiable results in these studies. But people like Horne, who proclaim that they legislate by the study, deserve to be hung by the study as well.

Here's how the director of Linguistic Minority Research Institute summed up the results: "“There’s no visual evidence that these three states [using English Immersion] are doing better than the national average or other states."

Here's my favorite part. Our own Tom Horne was asked what he thought of the results of the new study. He said, the test results the study is based on aren't fair. The states using bilingual education test their students in Spanish, while we test ours in English. Of course their scores are higher.

OK, that makes sense. Except for one little problem. IT'S WRONG! (Sorry for shouting.) The reading test used in the study is always administered in English. Sometimes the math test is given in Spanish, but those all important reading tests that, um, test how well a student reads -- they're always in English.

So the next time you hear Horne give a simple, facile reason why he's right and others are wrong, he may be absolutely right. Then again, he may be lying through his teeth stretching the truth a bit.

The Double Talk Express: McCain is a Fraud on Campaign Finance Reform

Posted by: AzBlueMeanie

This past Tuesday, John McCain pandered to the GOP conservative base by vowing to appoint conservative activist judges like John Roberts, Jr. and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.  McCain praised the justices as role models for the judges he would appoint to the court.

Apparently everyone has kissed and made up over the Roberts’ Court striking down a big chunk of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA).

Or maybe McCain never really cared all that much about campaign finance reform in the first place.  McCain's commitment to public financing questioned - The Boston Globe  His reputation as a campaign finance reformer is largely a media myth created by what McCain affectionately calls “his base.” 

Last year McCain carved out a loophole in the law to exempt aircraft owned by a candidate or his family or by privately held company they control.  This loophole allowed McCain to use his millionaire heiress wife’s private corporate jet at a substantial savings to his campaign.  McCain Frequently Used Wife’s Jet for Little Cost - New York Times  “Last summer, just before starting to use his wife’s plane, Mr. McCain was quoted in a newspaper report as saying that he did not plan to tap her substantial wealth to keep his bid for the Republican presidential nomination going.”  But boss, what about “Zee plane!  Zee plane!”

Last November when the McCain campaign had been declared dead by his media base (where’s the love?), McCain managed to negotiate a sweetheart deal with the Fidelity & Trust Bank in Maryland for a life saving loan to his campaign.  The $3 million line of credit was secured by his fundraising list and the highly unusual requirement that he take out a life insurance policy in case he did not survive the campaign.  With Crucial Loan, McCain Put His Bid Back in the Black - washingtonpost.com

Cleta Mitchell, a Republican campaign finance lawyer, said she believes the arrangement raises serious questions. "Did they base this loan on the fact that, even if he lost, he would still be a sitting senator and able to raise money?" she asked. "In my mind, that raises questions about whether he complied with Senate ethics rules," which bar members from using their position to negotiate financial terms that an average citizen could not.

Fitz Nails the Arizona Anti-Education Crowd

by David Safier

Today's Daily Fitz in the Star.

(Noteworthy: Great party/event last night, linking Drinking Liberally and Smoking Conservatively. About 70 people there (a "conservative estimate," in honor of the right wing attendees), a mixture of Ds, Rs, Is (Independents) and Ls (Libertarians). Lots of candidates of various stripes as well. A love fest, generally, mixed in with spirited, disputatious discussion. The first, I hope, of many.)

Random Educational Stuff

by David Safier

Florida Sub Fired for Classroom Wizardry: Land O' Lakes, Florida, has moved from the Stone Age all the way up to the Middle Ages. A substitute teacher entertained his class with a magic trick. He made a match disappear and reappear. A parent called the school accusing him of wizardry. The district told him they would no longer call him to sub. The district swears it had other reasons to get rid of him. Trust me. Subs are rarely fired. It was the magic trick. (The story has already been picked up all over the world, by the way. The only way it can get more legs is if Bush and the Republican legislators push a bill forbidding witches and sorcerers from teaching in public schools. Those who persist will be burned at the stake.)

They're laughing at us in Long Beach: Cal State Long Beach's independent student newspaper is making fun of the Arizona bill to make it illegal to denigrate American values in schools. "Doesn't sound like the America we know now, does it? Well it's not. It's Arizona. Our neighbor. The Grand Canyon State." I'd be insulted if I didn't agree.

How to deal with a nursing shortage: don't let students into Nursing School: No wonder people make fun of Arizona education. The stories practically write themselves. "The College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation can afford to admit only 60 percent of the Arizona State University students who apply each year, even as the state struggles with a nursing shortage." To be fair (I try, really), the article goes on to say, "The nursing college doubled in size the past six years" and has been successful at increasing the number of nurses in the state. But if we cut higher education spending, and it's hard to see how we can avoid it (without increasing revenues, which means increasing taxes, which means people will have to admit that us tax-and-spend liberals sometimes know what we're talking about), nurses, teachers and other needed professionals will be in even shorter supply.

Will Cyber Schools knock out brick-and-mortar schools? A Harvard business prof just published a book, "Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns." According to the article, "disrupting" our education system is a good thing, akin to the disruptive force of computerized businesses on more traditional businesses. He thinks distance learning will simply overwhelm traditional learning, and it will not be done by today's schools changing. It will be new schools replacing the old. Remember, though, business models rarely work in education, which is now and has always been a very labor intensive process. Whether the internet will change that picture, only time will tell. He very well may be wrong, like other business types who said they were going to make education more economical and successful, and failed. Twenty years from now, we can reconvene and see if he got it right.