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Under Fire, Daley Floats Larger Olympics Taxpayer Insurance Policy Top
Mayor Daley said Saturday he wants a deal in which private insurance money would be tapped before public money if an Olympic Games in Chicago suffered any losses. More on Olympics
 
Bob Schillerstrom Enters Race For Governor (VIDEO) Top
NAPERVILLE, Ill. (AP) -- DuPage County Board chairman Bob Schillerstrom has announced he is running for the Republican Party's nomination for Illinois governor. Schillerstrom announced his run Sunday at a rally at a hotel ballroom in west suburban Naperville. He told the crowd he wants to make "substantial changes that are going to provide a better quality of life." The Republican formed a committee to explore the option in May. Schillerstrom is 57 and has led the DuPage board since 1998. He's the latest among several Republicans to see a chance to reclaim the governor's mansion. DuPage State's Attorney Joe Birkett and state senators Kirk Dillard, Matt Murphy, and Bill Brady have either declared or are considering runs. -ASSOCIATED PRESS Watch Schillerstrom interviewed on Fox Chicago Sunday :
 
Esther Wojcicki: Tipping Point for Education According to Malcolm Gladwell---Students Need to Learn Value of Hard Work Top
Success is not as easy as it appears to be on first glance, according to noted author Malcolm Gladwell who gave a thought provoking keynote Sunday evening at the National Education Computing Conference in Washington, D.C. before a capacity crowd. Gladwell , author of the NY Times best sellers the Tipping Point, Blink, and the Outliers, addressed several thousand teachers about what learning really looks like. "What you get [in education] is a simple function of what you put in. That is the beautiful and powerful idea behind learning... Sometimes the struggle to learn something is where the actual learning lies,"he said. Gladwell used the example of the well known rock band Fleetwood Mac saying that it took them ten years and sixteen album failures before they produced their masterpiece Rumours. In the years before their success, they had a rocky path that included losing their founder Peter Green for a few years before he rejoined the group. "When we look at people who tend to master something, we have a tendency to telescope how long that took place. We underestimate how much time or energy it takes," Gladwell said. When we examine the history of people who have mastered a field, we will see that on average it takes about four hours per day for ten years or what Gladwell calls the 10,000 mile rule. He gave an example of the Beatles who had played together 1200 times before they experienced success when they came to America. So how does this relate to learning and the classroom in the 21st century? It shows that success comes with hard work, according to Gladwell. Few people succeed without hardwork. He gave another example of the KIPP schools that has one of the highest student success rates in the country with low income students. "Those students go to school 60% more than their counterparts. Their motto is "Success is hard work," he said. Gladwell stressed that one of the things we need to change in the schools is the attitude that success comes easily. Students need to know that to succeed they need to work hard. He is right about that. In today's world, many students in the U.S. schools aren't taught to work hard. The complain about the homework load; or they complain that the teacher wasn't clear and they can't do the homework. They don't think to figure it out themselves. In fact, schools today are worried that the students are too stressed and make adjustments. There is a trend to dumb down the curriculum so that everyone can "succeed." Schools are looking to eliminate laning or tracking of students. Another of Gladwell's points was----that people who fail but don't give up are actually better able to build on their failures. They learn how to work hard in pursuit of a goal. In fact, he said, in compensating for a failure students are really just learning how to be better. They try harder and come up with new pathways because inherent in failure is feedback...the feedback of why you didn't succeed. He talked about the dyslexic student who has to work very hard to get to the same point as the average student. He learns that he can't do it the way everyone else does it, but if he really wants to learn, he figures out alternative methods and in doing so he learns many other useful skills. They learn leadership skills because they needed a group of peers around them to help them; they learn how to delegate; they learn how to problem solve and they usually perfect oral communication skills. "Their dyslexia turned out to be an an advantage, they learned how to compensate effectively." In fact, there are many f amous dyslexic s who are heads of companies now--- Richard Branson, Henry Ford, Charles Schwab, just to name a few. They never gave up trying. Gladwell gave another example of the paradox of small class sizes. Studies are inconclusive when it comes to the importance of small class size . In fact, the students who score best on international tests come from countries where class sizes are huge---China and Japan. He hypothesized that perhaps being in large class sizes encourages students to be more self-reliant. Perhaps they are helping each other "Perhaps here in America we don't give out kids an opportunity to flex their compensation muscle," he said. We are afraid of failure, but it is through failure that students learn. Perhaps we should change our assessment system to allow students to make mistakes without the stigma of failure. Failure allows for feedback and for modifications. In each instance of failure we learn, but if we refuse to try again, we are lost. Persistence and hard work are the keys, he said. He ended commenting on an upcoming panel discussion entitled "Bricks and Mortar Schools are Detrimental to the Future of Education." Gladwell said, "Whether it is bricks and mortar doesn't matter; what matters is how the learning takes place, not where the learning takes place." The applause he got indicated that most teachers thought he was right. More on Technology
 
Robert Kuttner: Pecora Whirling Top
Reuters is out with an authoritative story on finalists being considered for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the investigative body created by Congress to launch a full-scale investigation of the financial crisis in the spirit of the famous early 1930s hearings led by Ferdinand Pecora. Those famous investigative hearings produced the facts and momentum for the major New Deal financial reforms. If the Reuters story is accurate, progressives have a lot of work to do in a few short days while nominees are being finalized, before the moment is lost. Under the law creating the commission, which was signed by President Obama in late May, it is to have ten members, six Democrats and four Republicans. They are to be appointed by the House and Senate majority and minority leadership, respectively. Among the names leaked is just one person with the stature, expertise, and resolve to run a tough investigation (if she were chair)--Brooksley Born. As chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the late 1990s, Born proposed regulating over-the-counter derivatives, of the sort that helped crash the economy. For this attempt to spoil the party, she was excoriated and isolated by an old-boys' mob that included Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Gary Gensler. Incredibly enough, Gensler, an Obama appointee, now holds Born's old job as chair of the CFTC. More than a decade and several meltdowns later, the Obama administration's 88-page white paper is ambiguous on the subject of whether and how to regulate customized derivatives. Born is just the sort of person the commission needs. On the Republican side, with one exception, the leaked names could be an alumni society of the people whose policies helped cause the collapse. The absolute howler in the list is former senator Jake Garn of Utah, a tireless proponent of financial deregulation. Among other travesties, Garn sponsored the Garn-St. Germain Act of 1982, the law that allowed savings and loan associations to become speculators' playgrounds, and led directly to the S&L collapse. Another proposed Republican is Bill Thomas, former chair of the House Ways and Means, a legislator who never met a financial special interest he didn't like; and former Republican Senator and presidential candidate Fred Thompson. The one commendable Republican on the list--and I hope my support doesn't spoil it for him--is Alex Pollock of the American Enterprise Institute. Pollock has been an honest critic of the financial bailout program and the weak measures undertaken by both the Bush and Obama administrations to stem the epidemic of mortgage foreclosures. In his testimony and speeches, Pollock regularly calls for New Deal-style remedies, such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation or Roosevelt's Home Owners Loan Corporation, which refinanced one mortgage in five, and spared a million families foreclosure. The only other Democrat on Reuters' leaked list is former Florida senator and governor Bob Graham, a self-identified New Democrat who served on both the Senate Banking and Finance Committees. Missing, except for Born, are people with deep knowledge and informed criticism of the abuses that led to the crisis. Some good nominees would be former SEC Commissioner Harvey Goldschmid, now a law professor at Columbia; Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel; Damon Silvers, the AFL-CIO's top expert on financial markets and Deputy Chair of the oversight panel; economists Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia or Nouriel Roubini of NYU or James Galbraith of the University of Texas or Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research; one-time Wall Streeters and now astute financial critics Nomi Prins, Rob Johnson, Ron Bloom or Richard Bookstaber; former financial regulators Bill Black or Ellen Seidman; or law professors and deregulation critics Frank Partnoy of the University of San Diego or James D. Cox of Duke. Perhaps it was too much to hope that this commission would be a chance to investigate root causes and mobilize public sentiment behind the sweeping reforms that are needed and not yet forthcoming. Obviously, Republican House Leader John Boehner and his Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell, are not about to put serious critics of deregulation on this panel. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, however, were astute enough to put Elizabeth Warren and Damon Silvers in charge of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) that was created as a condition for giving the Treasury $700 billion in bailout funds last fall. Ever since then, the COP has been the best source of independent thinking and investigation in town. For the new Pecora Commission, Pelosi and Reid need to do better than finding a predictable list of retired and safe Democratic politicians. This is a rare chance to light a real fire on behalf of deep reform. Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect , and a senior fellow at Demos . His recent book is Obama's Challenge . More on Barack Obama
 
Crossover Dreams: Iraqi refugees in the U.S.: strangers in paradise Top
By Peter Costantini ~ Seattle, Washington Wars often drive people from their homes. But in Iraq, a discretionary war, launched through deception by a rogue administration in search of good targets for "shock and awe", produced refugees with industrial efficiency. Hajer, an Iraqi refugee, and her children. Photo credit: International Rescue Committee According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , 4.5 million Iraqis were refugees at the beginning of 2008: 2.3 million internally in Iraq and 2.2 million abroad, including those displaced before the U.S. invasion in 2003. In a country of about 28.8 million, more than one out of every seven citizens has been forced into internal or external exile. Syria hosts the most Iraqi refugees of any foreign country, with 1,200,000; Jordan follows with 500,000. U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, in a neighborly gesture, was reportedly building a 560-mile fence along its border with Iraq to keep out illegal immigrants and insurgents. The United States resettled only 202 Iraqi refugees here in 2006, according to the International Rescue Committee . In fiscal year 2009, that number grew to roughly 17,000. The IRC, however, called the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program "outdated and under-funded" and said it is "resettling Iraqi refugees into poverty rather than helping rebuild their lives in the country that offered them sanctuary." According to an IRC report released this month, "The resettlement program in the United States fails individuals with high levels of vulnerability, especially during difficult economic times." The report called for increased emergency funding and an overhaul of the program. In an example cited by the organization, Hajer, a 38-year-old Iraqi refugee, arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, with her three kids last year speaking very little English. She could afford only one semester of English classes at a local college. Last December, she fell ill and lost her job at a daycare center. The public assistance she receives, $335 dollars a month, leaves her short $481 after paying rent of $816. With the economic crash, only 51 percent of refugees are becoming self-sufficient after 120 days in 2008, down from 74 percent in 2007. Twelve percent of the refugees newly resettled by the IRC are at risk of homelessness. "Few imagined that they would receive such short-term and limited assistance upon arrival or that they could become homeless in the country that offered them shelter," said IRC President George Rupp in a public statement. "They deserve better." If the Bush administration had suffered a sudden seizure of honesty, here is how it would have greeted the tempest-tossed: "Welcome to the home of the brave, huddled Iraqi masses, especially those of you who risked your lives working with us. Breathing may be free here, but everything else is expensive. Please accept a temporary monthly check far too small to live on as a token of our appreciation, and a valuable lesson in how your new government treats vulnerable poor people." President Barack Obama has promised better. On February 27, he said: "Diplomacy and assistance is also required to help the millions of displaced Iraqis. These men, women and children are a living consequence of this war and a challenge to stability in the region, and they must become a part of Iraq's reconciliation and recovery. America has a strategic interest - and a moral responsibility - to act. In the coming months, my administration will provide more assistance and take steps to increase international support for countries already hosting refugees; we'll cooperate with others to resettle Iraqis facing great personal risk; and we will work with the Iraqi government over time to resettle refugees and displaced Iraqis within Iraq - because there are few more powerful indicators of lasting peace than displaced citizens returning home." Let's hope he'll be able to transmute worthy sentiments into appropriations. For the moment, this failure of basic decency really pegs the injustice meter. A more variegated but still sobering portrait of Iraqi refugees in the Los Angeles area is painted by Hanna Ingber Win, Huffington Post World Editor (and friend to this blog), in a story in the L.A. Weekly . In El Cajon, a corner of the southern California megalopolis a couple of hours south of L.A., Win found a thriving community of Chaldean Christians, a persecuted religious minority in Iraq. Their Catholic church there, St. Peter Chaldean Cathedral, counts 37,000 members. Chaldeans are legitimate refugees if anyone is, targeted in Iraq by religious extremists and militias of various stripes. But Win found numerous stories as harrowing as those collected by the IRC. One man highlighted in the story, Kamil Silewa, left Iraq under threat of death, walked for days across Mexico, and then was detained for eight months by U.S. authorities when he asked for asylum. Finally granted refugee status and living in El Cajon, he is separated from his wife and two sons, whom he last saw three years ago and who ended up in Germany. They face years of waiting for the family reunification process to bring them here. Meanwhile, Silewa has no car and has found only a few days of temporary work. He told Win: "I want to work. I need to work. I need the job. But nobody calls me. What can I do?" As the government that started the war that tore his country apart confronts a deep recession and other more pressing crises, no one can offer an easy answer to his question. Related Web Sites Hanna Ingber Win. "Between Iraq And A Hard Place" (blog post). May 21, 2009. International Rescue Committee. "Flawed US Refugee Admissions Program is Failing Iraqi Refugees". June 16, 2009. Related IPS Stories Katie Mattern. "POPULATION: The Worst Places to Be a Refugee". June 17, 2009. More on Iraq
 
GroundReport: Top
More on Iranian Election
 
Krugman Debates Stimulus, Health Care With Conservative Economist John Taylor (VIDEO) Top
Today on CNN's "GPS with Fareed Zakaria," economists Paul Krugman and John B. Taylor debated the origins of the financial crisis and President Obama's proposed health care plan. It was a lengthy, substantive debate, and well worth viewing: Embedded video from CNN Video More on Paul Krugman
 

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