Closing public schools diminishes democracy, increases plutocracy

As the George W. Bush presidency showed, it's much easier to be a destroyer of things than a productive creator. Conversely there is some truth to the notion of "creative destruction" embodied in the theory of capitalism. But in order to have a true picture of the value of destruction it is imperative that we have an honest evaluation of what it is that is being destroyed. What other way would there be to judge whether the destruction of long-held assets is outweighed by the value of what replaces them?

In the case of public schools, education deformers are quick to call for the closing of so-called "underperforming" schools, which almost always happen to serve poor and minority students. When was the last time you heard that an affluent school, perhaps in Edina, Eden Prairie, or Hopkins was slated to be closed? Never that I can remember. Deformers such as the editorial writers at the Star Tribune are so anxious to destroy public education in the name of saving it that they don't even stop for one minute to consider what else might be destroyed in their rush to shutter public schools.

Only a blind ideologue or the ignorami at the Star Tribune would imagine that the only function of public schools is to help students pass standardized math and English tests. One thoughtful writer at Truth-out.org, Christopher Lawrence, has nicely summarized the democratic values embodied at local public schools that are being destroyed by the education deformers:

Public schools have benefits beyond individual student achievement. As state institutions, they function as a conduit for the flow of money into poor communities. Public schools serve as community centers. Often, they are important employers in neighborhoods ravaged by unemployment and poverty.

They employ local residents as aides, custodians, and other staff. In most cases, local communities enjoy a remarkable degree of influence over their neighborhood schools, even the "failing" ones. Of course, public schools are notoriously inefficient and prone to a certain degree of graft and nepotism, but even this, ultimately, benefits the local community. In any case, this level of graft is chickenfeed compared to what goes on in many privately run charters.

The move to charters has severed the economic ties between poor communities and their schools. Instead of redistributing state funds to the community, school reform directs the money to privately owned charters, outside educational entrepreneurs and overpaid directors.

For example, in her book "Making Failure Pay," Jill Koyama points out that under NCLB legislation, failing schools are required to divert already scarce funds to private tutoring companies. When "failing" schools are closed and replaced by charters, the organic relations with the local community are severed and poor communities lose yet another source of support. The new schools answer to corporations, not the community.

In short, each public school closed equals a victory for plutocracy and a diminishment of democracy.

Uriah Heep

That’s who I thought of when I read Kevin Diaz’s puff piece on Tim Pawlenty.

And I don’t mean Uriah Heep the cult rock band.

I was thinking of Charles Dickens’ Uriah Heep, the evil schemer in the novel David Copperfield. This is Heep describing himself:

"I am well aware that I am the umblest person going [...] My mother is likewise a very umble person." Everything, for Uriah Heep, is "umble" (a.k.a. humble).

But you see, Uriah Heep is really just a self-absorbed plotter who tries to steal the law business of his boss, Mr. Wickfield, and Wickfield’s daughter, too! And he would have succeeded, too, except for the intervention of Mr. Micawber. Heep cannot imagine that Mr. Micawber would betray him, since Heep hired him on; it is against Micawber’s financial interest to turn on Heep. But he does, because Micawber is an empathetic man.

But back to the Diaz piece for a moment; here’s the lede:

Coming in the midst of a nationwide call for civility in the aftermath of the Arizona shootings, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty's moderate tone and calm delivery may have given him a fresh purchase on his national ambitions.

Well, he’s umble, all right; anybody will tell you that. He’s always tried to project the nice guy persona. But what the Mr. Micawbers in the room will also tell you is that Pawlenty bears more than a passing resemblance to Uriah Heep. Personal ambition is always Pawlenty’s paramount concern. His stewardship of Minnesota echoes the efforts of Heep to ruin the business of Mr. Wickfield; Heep’s after power, money and the daughter. Pawlenty is after the presidency.

Accounting shifts, a couple of billion in IOUs to the state’s public schools, remaking the state’s budget without regard to the Legislature, making taxes more regressive and cutting higher education, a state trashed, these are all part of the Pawlenty legacy.

It seems a rather steep price to pay for the personal ambitions of one umble man.

The Stool went dark

Google reports today that there was “suspicious activity” on my gmail accounts and on the blogger account for the Cucking Stool. In fact, the blog was offline for a while late this afternoon. Order has been restored, at least for now.

If anyone has difficulty with the site, please send me an email at blogspotdog (at) gmail (dot) com.

Are education deformers cruel, ignorant, or both?

While the plutocrats at the Minneapolis Foundation blame teachers for the poverty of their students, real teachers are on the front lines, and they are not happy. Here's a letter from a New Jersey teacher that appeared in the comments at the New York Times:

As a teacher in a low income, mostly white, school district, 'the poor' are not an abstract concept to me; they are my students. I see first hand what poverty does and it's not just - as the wealthy imagine - give you less money, My students are homeless, sleeping on benches. My students have arrest records, from blowing things up or burning things down. Their parents are in jail, or abandoned them, or they abuse them, or - on the other side of the spectrum - they work three shifts. The kids are poorly fed and poorly supervised. They don't sleep properly and are often up until 3:00 playing some video game. They should be on medication but their parents can't afford it; recently my student with Bipolar disorder came in off the wall, late, with no explanation why. Her mom had apparently abruptly taken her off of her medication because she 'didn't like the side effects' and now they're searching for another doctor to proscribe another medication (this is what she says) and 'that might take a few weeks.' For some reason, this is a common story in the school--parents taking their kids off medication abruptly with no transitional plan. I don't know why. But it's horrible for the kids. Of course many kids don't have health insurance and medication is expensive, so there are many kids who can't take ADHD medication when they need it badly, or have migraines (a very common occurence) but take ibuprofin, or have asthma. Many families (not all) don't value college and their goal is for their child to graduate high school; a D- is fine. This is stated point blank. And it's true, if your goal is either to just graduate or to go to community college, which after all, is all they can afford.

Our school, based on their very low property taxes, is literally falling apart. We have rat, mice and cockroach infestations, no supplies, no technology other than ten year old computers. The room is freezing right now (heat is very poor--cold air comes out of the vents!) and in May it'll be boiling hot--no air conditioner or fans, no circulation.

This is poverty.

The kids look around and say, "We suck."

This is the message they get, all the time, at home, at school.

Our wealthy politicians abandon them with their top down slogan-based attack on teachers, as though threatening and bullying us will somehow magically get the kids to perform better on corporate tests (as if the tests matter, but that's another story). As if we teachers are not already in the trenches and we need to be whipped to do our job--that's the wealthy approach: ignore the very existence of poverty, ignore the very serious effects of poverty, which are global, and pretend that all we need to do to solve the problem is threaten to fire teachers. Yes, that'll eradicate poverty and its impact. Their other solution is to pull out the cream of the crop, the ones without arrest records and without violence, with parents who feed them and are able to get them medication, and put them in a privately funded charter, spending far more per child than we can, and then, IF they do better (many don't) they tout this as some sort of solution. Um....what about the unlovely poor? What about them? What about the students I teach.

We cannot ignore poverty or pretend there are easy quick fixes such as threatening teachers (of all people). This is a very, very serious issue with enormous repercussions. Poverty is a host of problems, not merely 'no money.' It's difficult to read that Mr Obama has hired yet another Corporate/Wall Street insider to stand at the helm. Surely there are bright people who haven't worked in either Chicago politics and/or worked on Wall Street. The media - besides you, Bob- very often abdicates its responsibility. Yesterday it reported glowingly on what a hard worker this guy is. Wow. And there are no other hard workers out there? To illustrate how hard a worker he was, they said they could ask him a question at 4:00 am because he was awake and at work. Well, I'm awake and working at 4:00 am, and my poor students are awake all the time. And the ones with functional parents who work three shifts--well, they know the meaning of 'hard work.' I'm disgusted by our politicians of both stripes and their race to plutocracy and abandonment of their duty to most of the nation as civil servants.

What’s a little snow? Drinking Liberally tonight!

We’ll be at the 331 Club in Northeast Minneapolis from six to nine tonight (January 13th).

There’s an event tomorrow you’ll want to consider, too. At the Midtown Global Market tomorrow night, from five to seven P.M. Rep. Keith Ellison will be holding a special Congress on your Corner event. It will be not only a chance to greet Rep. Ellison, it will also be a chance to sign a book of condolences.

Congressman Walz is holding a similar event in Mankato, from eleven A.M. to one P.M. tomorrow.

Sketch by Avidor.

Just in time for the memorial service

Offered without comment, the first pro-gun children's book.

"Come join 13-year-old Brenna Strong along with her mom, Bea, and her dad, Richard, as they spend a typical Saturday running errands and having fun together. What's not so typical is that Brenna's parents lawfully open carry handguns for self-defense. The Strongs join a growing number of families that are standing up for their 2nd Amendment rights by open carrying and bringing gun ownership out of the closet and into the mainstream."

Advance purchases here, and don't forget that it makes a great gift for the home school kids:

Home School Teachers:
This book is an excellent text to use as a starting point on the discussion of the 2nd Amendment.

Singing Kum Bah Yah, off key

To all of the tea baggers, Palinites, Glenn Beck worshippers, Radio Rwanda listeners, Second Amendment remedy types, and all the other assorted apologists for gun violence everywhere: just save your goddam breath.

We don’t need you explanations and your inane blandishments, and frankly, they’re juvenile and offensive.

Prayers for the families of the tragedy? Closing the barn door after the horse is gone. Considering your behavior and your rhetoric earlier would have been a lot more helpful.

Jared Lee Loughner? You own that sucker: lock, stock and barrel.

If you follow the link, you’ll see that evidence is emerging that Loughner planned nothing less than a political assassination. John Wilkes Booth and Gavrilo Princip were undoubtedly crazy, too. But they got their ideas somewhere. Just like Jared Lee Loughner.

You cannot incite people, even the mental defectives, and then walk away guilt free.

We had no idea. Imagine that?

You people make me sick.

Gosh, imagine being a family member? How awful!

But Spencer Giffords, the father of the assassin’s target, doesn’t have much trouble fixing the blame.

Inexplicably, the lonely, alienated nut strikes again

It wasn’t this guy.

Nor was it this guy.

Not this woman, either.

Him? Nope.

Well, not this time, anyway.

But it is surprising that a lonely, alienated nut showed up at one of these places:

Except, of course, it isn’t.

The entire Tea Party apparatus is geared toward appealing to the lonely, alienated nut. Lonely, alienated nuts are its core. Everyone who harbors a grievance and resentment  because he thinks he hasn’t gotten a fair shake in life, or is unlucky in love, or whatever, is a candidate.

To bring this a little closer to home, there was a guy who looked very much like the patriot above who is pressed against the police tape, gun on his hip, who appeared at the foot of the Capitol lawn at the Tea Party rally in St. Paul last April.

Do we have politicians in Minnesota who support the Affordable Care Act, immigration reform, and oppose Arizona’s S.B. 1070-type legislation? Of course, but let’s not name them just now.

Most of the photos, which have appeared around the ‘net for a while, were cribbed for this post from Tbogg.

It's Personal

The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others is a personal affront to all people who believe that political work is an act of public service.

Speculation about what motivated the shooter will preoccupy the media, law enforcement and others. The narratives deployed to make sense of this senseless act are ready-made and were deployed within minutes of this tragedy. Was the shooter deranged, apolitically violent? Was he animated by violent political rhetoric? Is he a bad apple in a barrel of 308 million? Is he the inevitable product of the easy availability of guns?

But the causal chain that led Jared Loughner to that Tucson Safeway will unwind over time, and probably won't fit neatly into any of these stories. Not that this will stop the 24-hour news cycle from deploying them, or politicians from using them, or advocates from pushing the story that protects the interests of their clients.

There have been a number of recent reminders of the risks associated with public service and advocacy work. The death of Judge John Roll at the hand of Jared Loughner. The incendiary packages sent to Janet Napolitano and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley. The violent assault on a Florida school board by shooter Clay Dukes. The foiled assault on the offices of the Tides Foundation by Byron Williams. It's logically fallacious to tie these disparate acts of violence into one seamless story, but impossible to ignore one central message: people might try to kill you if you engage in political work.

For much of my life, I've been politically aware, but not involved. I still walk the line between observer and active participant. But as a student in the Masters of Advocacy and Political Leadership program at University of Minnesota-Duluth I've met, been influenced by, and become friends with many fine public servants. Some of these people have sought and achieved elected office. Most of them work behind the scenes, in campaigns, doing constituent service work, accompanying elected officials to events. Because of that, the news that Rep. Giffords' aide Gabriel Zimmerman was one of the killed really hurts this morning. So many of the people I've met through MAPL play similar roles. It could have been any of them.

These folks who choose public service work as a calling deserve respect for many reasons, but today we are reminded that one of these reasons is that public service is a courageous act.

In the wake of this tragedy, public servants must call upon that courage to persevere in the mission of serving the people. The "Congress on Your Corner" event that turned tragic is a model for the direct constituent contact that citizens want. Governor Mark Dayton's spontaneous decision to turn the podium over to his opponents at the Medicaid opt-in signing is another model of respect for opposing political views. It will take fortitude to remain committed to open access and constituent contact in the wake of the Giffords shooting.

There will be policy and procedural changes to improve security, I'm sure. But the message I want to send today to those who do the work of serving the people is that you are appreciated and your everyday courage is valued.

The founder and co-director of the MAPL program, Wy Spano, defines politics as "how we care for each other." On this day, reflecting on this definition gives me comfort and hope.

Follow me on Twitter @aaronklemz

Star Tribune editorial pines for mass public school closings

Newspapers have a storied history in the US. Once they were openly partisan, but today they must feign an attitude of "objectivity." The new norms caused many papers, if they hadn't already, to assume a beneficial attitude towards the communities they served and that made them profitable. Certainly the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, at least for the years when it was owned by the Cowles family, considered itself a positive civic actor. No more. Now the paper, in a deceitful, mean-spirited and ignorant editorial, is essentially calling for the mass closing of so-called "poor performing" schools in Minnesota.

So onerous and cavalier is the editorial that it can't even quite bring itself to tell the truth about what it is advocating. But make no mistake: The paper is calling for mass public school closings. The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act will be the lever that "forces" the closings. I say "forces" in quotes because school districts can refuse to comply with NCLB rules, but the consequence is losing federal Title 1 money that serves poor students.

To understand how many schools might be ripe for closure consider that a report from the Center on Education Policy shows the number of schools not making adequate yearly progress (AYP) - the metric used for the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) - soaring to 54 percent of Minnesota's schools in 2008-2009. And that number has been growing - in 2005-2006 it was 31 percent.

NCLB policy states that after six years of not meeting AYP a school must one way or another be destroyed. Yes - they call it "restructuring" but it really means destruction. In a year or so Minnesota will have a long list of schools that have not met AYP for six years. Will we have the stomach to destroy schools that have served as community hubs for decades? Despite there being no evidence that closing traditional schools does anything positive for academic achievement or for narrowing achievement gaps, the Star Tribune sure hopes so.

If nothing else reading the Star Tribune editorial illustrates the main reason the newspaper's own opinions are unsigned: it saves the authors from embarrassment. Not only does the editorial misinterpret its main source, it makes leaps of logic that would shame a third grader. If the paper were arguing for something trivial, like a new stop sign somewhere, the incoherence might still not be acceptable but it wouldn't be so pernicious. But when you are making an argument to destroy neighborhood assets that have been built up over decades it is unforgivable. The editorial states that educators

"...need to use proven educational models and throw out methods that don't yield results, while getting tougher about closing schools and starting over when necessary."

The level of ignorance is breathtaking. Who would argue against using "proven educational models"?? But after more than a hundred years of public education in the US, and two decades of charter school experimentation, can anyone really say we haven't done the research into finding out "what works" ??

Unfortunately for the editorial writer, what we've actually learned is that high-stakes testing, competition, and market-driven reforms do NOT work. And we know why: Collaboration is key to successful education, not competition.  In competition there are winners, but more importantly, there are losers. Which students do we allow to "lose" in education?

Might there be other reasons why students fail at particular schools? The editorial refuses to even consider the idea that student or family socio-economic status (SES) might have something to do with educational outcomes, even though the most credible research shows those factors control about 70 percent of measured attainment. Closing a school might make editorial writers at the Star Tribune feel better, but it does nothing to improve the SES of student and parent populations. 

Admittedly using evidence and reason to argue have long since gone out of style in the opinion pages of the Star Tribune, so this editorial's special awfulness is only one of scale, not substance.

Grownup succeeds Gutshot

Dayton succeeds Pawlenty as governor, that is.

Phoenix Woman had a nice post this morning at Fire Dog Lake about the matriculation of the governor’s office to adulthood.

If Bradley Dean Smith votes in Minnesota, is it voter fraud?

From Pastor Bradlee’s Embassy of Heaven Identification Card:

“On file is a signed statement by Bradley Smith renouncing allegiance to the world and declaring citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.

“We are fellow citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Government of God, which was handed to the Apostles by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper (Luke 22:29), We fulfill the Great Commission by traveling from place to place using old and modern conveyances. Our government is not of this world, and we expect to be held accountable to the laws from which we come. Our conduct is not an offense if it not an offense in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Here’s the ID:

If you follow the link above, it will take you to a post by Karl Bremer describing the Embassy of Heaven and its connection to both Pastor Bradlee and Scott Roeder, the abortion doctor killer. Roeder raised, as you may recall, “the God made me do it; therefore it’s not against the law” defense.

Here’s a bit more about the Embassy of Heaven from a Justice Department funded study:

“A religious/antigovernment group in Oregon headed by “Paul Revere,” the alias of a former computer analyst named Craig Douglas Fleshman. Fleshman started the Embassy of Heaven Church in 1987; it preaches a total separation from “earthly” government. Embassy members continue to make and sell the bogus license plates and other paraphernalia-18. Committed Embassy of Heaven adherents rarely ever show up for court dates and frequently go on hunger strikes when jailed.”

Karl has a lot more on the fetid pond in which Roeder and Smith both swim.

Will Mark Dayton sell out the teachers and schools?

Lots going on in the education deform movement today, plus a few links that aren't so new.

1) Republicans in the Minnesota legislature are already laying plans for "alternative teacher licensure," i.e. the Teach For America Enabling Act. A report over at Politics in Minnesota quotes the local Teach For America director as saying a bill could appear before a state committee as early as next week. Of course the bill will pass. The only question, according to the article, is "...whether Gov. Mark Dayton will be open to the proposal." Author Briana Bierschbach avers that [emphasis added]:

"...many say he [Dayton] is open to some kind of alternative licensure and is not in the pocket of the teacher’s union. Sellers said he is also encouraged by Dayton’s choice of Minneapolis Public Schools Deputy Superintendent Brenda Cassellius for education commissioner. He said she has allies in the education world that are advocates for programs like Teach for America."

While I appreciate Bierschbach's reporting, there are other, more important reasons to oppose this legislation besides being "in the pocket of the teacher's union."  Here's a basic one: Most Teach for America teachers only stay in the profession for two years. Research on teachers has shown unequivocally that the first two years are the most difficult and least effective, so we'll be getting the worst two years of a teacher's career, with no benefit going forward. Alternative-licensure = worse education.

Over at MinnPost author James Nord has House Education Finance Committee Chair Pat Garofalo openly dismissing the state's teachers, stating  "Whether the union will be in favor or against it, I don’t know and I don’t care." Ominously, Nord states that "...improving methods to measure teacher performance dominated discussions for future action," but he didn't say what those "discussions" were. Unfortunately teacher union press secretary Lonnie Hartley had no comments for the article? Why not?

2) Another Look at PISA, by Diane Ravitch, over at Education Week's Bridging Differences blog. She makes two points about the hulaballoo over the international test score comparisons that were in the news last week:

First, the two top-scoring participants—Shanghai and Finland—both have strong public school systems. Neither is deregulating their schools and handing control over to private organizations. Different as they are, they achieved academic success by strengthening the public sector, not by deregulation and privatization.

The other salient factor about U.S. performance on international tests is that we have an exceptional and shameful rate of child poverty...Most of the nations (and cities) that compete on PISA have far lower child-poverty rates. 

Researchers for the National Association for Secondary School Principals disaggregated the PISA results by income and made some stunning discoveries...It shows that American students in schools with low poverty rates were first in the world when they were compared with students in nations with comparably low poverty levels..We have many outstanding schools and students, but our overall performance is dragged down by the persistence of poverty...

3) National Council of Churches issues letter (in May) against education deform.

4) Yet another charter school scandal in Ohio.

5) Campbell's Law: High Stake Testing's Kryptonite. Campbell's Law stipulates:

"The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."

Drinking Liberally tonight!

January 6th. Six to nine P.M. 331 Club in Northeast Minneapolis.

We’ll see you there.

Where’d Jake go?

As Aaron writes in the earlier post, at the Medicaid opt-in signing, Governor Dayton – I am going to write that again, because it is pleasant to do so, Governor Dayton – allowed some detractors of the program to speak. My favorite was Jake McMillan (real name Jake MacAuley) who, according to Andy Birkey writing in the Minnesota Independent, managed to cram not only his foot in his mouth, but his entire body as well, leaving just pair of bilious lips flopping on the floor when he was finished:

And Jake McMillian, sidekick of Dean at You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, took to the podium to say that health care should be left up to churches.

“Where is the church to help these people? Because that’s the church’s job and duty: it’s social causes,” he said. “I don’t see where it is in the Constitution. It isn’t the government’s job is to do that, it’s for nonprofits organizations. It’s for the church to do what it rightfully does.”

Dayton’s executive order, he added, “has a ripple effect of destroying societies.”

“I feel that this is a usurpation of authority here, because that’s what it is. It’s uncalled for and it’s unnecessary. If somebody can show me where I’m wrong constitutionally… but you probably won’t find somebody doing that today.”

You may be unaware that Governor Dayton – there I go again! – had so unceremoniously deprived churches of a job they’ve done so well and comprehensively since the founding of the Republic. I know that I was.

I mean, I knew about the You Can Run But You Cannot Hide Hospice for patients dying of AIDS, and the Bradlee Dean and Jake McMillan Muslim Outreach Center – and let’s not forget the string of YCRBYCH soup kitchens located throughout the city – but I have to say that I was completely oblivious to how well the churches have taken care of all the “social causes” of the nation.

All right, let’s be a little more serious now. The fact is that most of the money contributed by the people in the pews is spent on the people in the pews, for the salaries of church staff, physical plant, and the like.

But wait! There’s more!

McAuley is not only a pious fraud; he’s a constitutional fraud, too. Conservatives have made much of the lack of constitutional authority for the individual mandates in the Affordable Care Act; neither I nor my pals at Balkinization buy that for a moment, but there is no even unserious claim that Medicaid is unconstitutional.

Want to see Dayton in action?

In his first acts as Governor, Mark Dayton issued two executive orders related to health care. The first was to opt-in to a Medicaid expansion that will provide health care access to tens of thousands of Minnesotans. The second overturns an order from former Governor Tim Pawlenty that prohibits state agencies from pursuing federal grants to implement the Affordable Care Act. These needed actions will improve health care for all Minnesotans by reducing the amount of uncompensated care that hospitals provide.

But the best part is how Dayton defused the protesters who showed up intent on disrupting the signing of these orders. By inviting opponents on stage to present their position against the bill, Dayton demonstrated his fairness and commitment to free speech. His co-option of the "noise of democracy" also demonstrated the fringe positions of the opponents.



One speaker prefaced his remarks by stating that he had received VA health benefits for 41 years. Another declared that it is the church that is responsible for providing health care to poor people. All insisted that there is no constitutional authority for any government action on health care.

By providing the stage to opponents, Dayton demonstrated skill in managing in a divided room. What they said on stage demonstrated the inconsistency and irrationality of their arguments against his action.

Added: The third opposing speaker is Jake McMillian, sidekick of Bradlee Dean on the Sons of Liberty radio show and member of the You Can Run But You Cannot Hide (YCR) ministry. Since YCR is a church (for tax purposes, at the very least), and the church is responsible for health care for the poor, when can we expect YCR's first free clinic to open? (h/t Avidor)

Follow me on Twitter @aaronklemz

The [tax] sheltering arms of God

Other than touting his Christmas album, there hasn’t been much written here lately about Bradley Dean Smith, or Bradlee Dean (if he intended that as an alias, it wasn’t a very good choice, was it, boys and girls?). But Karl Bremer has done a couple of posts recently about Pastor Bradlee and how he revved up his pastoring business in 2005 by putting his trust (so to speak) not so much in God as in the tax cheat and charlatan Glen Stoll. Here’s a little from Karl’s post about Stoll and a federal court injunction against him shortly after Pastor Bradlee signed up:

According to the permanent federal injunction ordered against Stoll in 2005, Stoll falsely told his customers that “church ministries are not required to notify the IRS of even their existence, much less their exemption from taxation and return filing requirements.”

The federal injunction states that Stoll also falsely advised his customers to take such illegal tax-avoidance steps as classifying employees as independent contractors, not report compensation to the IRS and to make payments to their ministerial trusts rather than individuals so income can be more easily hidden from the IRS.

And, court documents state, Stoll advised and assisted his customers in transferring their pre-tax income to offshore bank accounts in the Caribbean and advised customers on how to circumvent U.S. banking laws.

Karl reports that in 2008 Pastor Bradlee and the You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International “ministry” began legal action to sever their relationship with Stoll, perhaps understandable, since another customer of Stoll’s who ran a theme park where the dinosaurs romped with humans is spending some time at a Club Fed.

Working the religious angle has some great tax benefits. No income tax for the “church,” of course, but also exemption from property taxes for the “church” property, and nontaxable housing allowances for the “ministers.”

If you are a tax exempt religious organization under section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code, however, one of the big no-nos is partisan political activity and the advocacy of candidates. And yet, you’ve all seen this photo, either here or elsewhere on the ‘net:

 

The same combination of political advocacy and juvenile evangelism can be found – or apparently could until recently – on the Sons of Liberty radio show on the Salem Communication radio station, AM 1280, the Patriot. I have heard that the Sons have recently gone full time to the paleo-Christian stuff.

Please read both of Karl’s posts; I think this is one you’ll want to be up to speed on in coming months.

Update: Here’s a Minnesota Independent article by Andy Birkey on this same subject; it’s from a couple of days ago; I just saw it. A couple of grafs from the article:

The Minnesota Independent examined some of Smith’s financial dealings in 2009 when new IRS 990 forms showed that he and his band mates were taking a ministerial housing allowance despite his organization being a religious non-profit as opposed to a church. Those housing allowances are meant only for “duly ordained” members of the clergy. Smith has refused to answer questions related to his ordination or which church his organization belongs to.

In 2008, Smith and his sidekick MacAuley, greatly increased their compensation and housing allowance. According to the group’s most recent 990 filing, Smith was paid $51,303 salary and $45,887 for the housing allowance, raking in $97,190. MacAuley’s compensation was a bit less coming in at $66,897 in 2008.

Andy goes on to write:

Dean and his ministry have close ties to the Republican Party and GOP officials and candidates including gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Secretary of State and current state Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer, and state Rep. Dan Severson. Rep. Michele Bachmann has fundraised for the group extensively in recent years as well.

New and improved: the DFL message

The straightforward message of Governor Mark Dayton and the new DFL legislative leadership is vastly superior to the convoluted DFL message of 2010. The contorted message of the new Republican legislative leadership shows how much they will miss outgoing Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Gov. Dayton outlined three priorities for his administration during his inaugural address:

1. To bring more jobs to Minnesota.
2. To balance the State Budget fairly.
3. To improve government services.

Compare this to the three priorities introduced by the Republican legislative leadership at their press conference last week:

1. Create a business friendly climate and stimulate private sector jobs in the state of Minnesota.
2. Make the government live within its means.
3. Make government more efficient and cost effective.

These priorities are parallel: jobs, budget, government. But the differences are apparent. The use of the word "stimulate" is one glaring mistake. After spending two years demonizing the idea of stimulus, to hear the GOP using it in this context is silly. "Live within its means" is a vague phrase. Dayton's message is clean and concise, and clearly demonstrates that he's running the government. In contrast, the Republican priorities are muddy, resort to sloganeering, and shirk the responsibility of governing.

Republicans talk of government as a foreign entity, a thing to be acted upon. They cast themselves as outsiders who "make government" do things. As an opposition party, this framing works. As a governing party, it will not last very long.

Incoming House Speaker Kurt Zellers and incoming Minority Leader Paul Thissen also provide excellent examples of this contrast in dueling commentaries in Sunday's Star Tribune. Both Zellers and Thissen acknowledge that balancing the budget will create pain. In Zeller's framing of the issue, the sacrifice needs to be made by government.

Incentives for economic recovery will require sacrifice. With a $6 billion budget deficit, some tough decisions will need to be made. Minnesota families have made changes in their spending habits to live within limited means. It is time for state government to do the same.

Thissen focuses on the impact of cuts will have on people, particularly the middle class:

In the Republican imagination, we can balance a $6.2 billion deficit -- a 16 percent hole in our budget -- with something they call "streamlining." It's painless, doesn't touch our children's educations and has no impact on where our aging parents will live out their golden years. Streamlining is the Republicans' magic wand that will simply wipe away the largest deficit our state has ever faced.

Thissen's framing exemplifies Democratic framing at its best. Expect the DFL message to follow the title of Thissen's commentary, "what next for the middle class?" He doesn't refer to "government" as a lumpen mass, but rather as services that middle class people depend on. One statistic summarizes the framing difference; Thissen used the words "government" or "govern" once in his opinion piece, Zellers used these words seventeen times.

Added: I liked the Star Tribune's use of a word cloud for Dayton's address. Here are the word clouds for Thissen and Zellers' commentaries.

Zellers:


Thissen:


It will take some time to adapt to the partisan reversal of Minnesota's divided government, but the structural features remain the same. The Governor has several advantages over the Legislature. He speaks first (proposes the budget, proposes other initiatives), speaks last (signs or vetoes legislation), and commands greater media attention than legislative leaders. The majority leadership of the Legislature controls the legislation sent to the Governor, but cannot overcome his veto unless there are significant defections from the Governor's party. The legislative minority opposes the majority and assists the Governor in framing the issues through amendments, alternatives, public statements, and upholding his vetoes.

The early indications are the DFL has chosen well for each role. Gov. Dayton's early message is clear, Rep. Thissen is a skilled foil as House Minority Leader, and the relatively inexperienced GOP leadership team isn't yet comfortable in their new positions.

For eight years, DFL'ers have been frustrated by Gov. Pawlenty's negotiating acumen, skillful use of the media, and deployment of the inherent advantages of the executive branch. As Gov. Pawlenty demonstrated, a skilled executive should be able to dominate a legislature of the opposite party. While it's only Mark Dayton's first day as Minnesota's 40th Governor, he's off to a good start.

Follow me on Twitter @aaronklemz

(Image Credit: State of Minnesota, Office of the Governor)

The Stink Eye of God

Or: Observations from the Minister of Troubling Trends

You get one guess who that is.

To ring in the new year, Katherine Kersten dutifully reports on the death of religion:

What should we laud or lament in the year just ended? Where should we turn our attention in 2011? One troubling trend, I suggest, dwarfs all others in importance. It's the shrinking influence and declining prestige of religion [she means a particular brand of the Christian religion, of course] in our nation today.

The idea that Katie would “suggest” anything – rather than beat you over the head with it – is, naturally, funny.

Katie has apparently been rummaging around in her basement again, or maybe just reading Bradlee Dean‘s entrails! Anyway, here’s the newest Old Testament prophetess’ evidence of the demise:

Increasingly, Americans see religion as a private matter with little to contribute to public debate -- even on issues with moral dimensions, such as marriage and family, abortion and euthanasia. In the crusade to banish faith from public life, judges order county courthouses to be stripped of plaques listing the Ten Commandments, and activists attack Christian hospitals that decline to perform abortions.

(Did you notice the use of the action verbs banish, stripped and attack? That correspondence school writing course is really paying off for Katie!)

Repent before it is too late.

The real revelation in the column is what Kersten believes about the true purpose of religion: that it should function as an instrument of social control. For if you think that Katie is really interested in a debate, you are as deluded as she is. By her own reckoning, anybody who disagrees with Katie is immoral; anybody who refuses to sign on as a culture warrior on her side is, too. You’re either with us or against us. She takes that loin girding and whole armor stuff very – shall we say deadly? – seriously.

Never mind that there are thoughtful ethical and moral, and yes, religious, positions that take the opposite view or another perspective to the ones that Katie espouses above. When you’re a charming mixture of bug-eyed control freak and religious fanatic like Katie, it doesn’t matter.

Kersten would cheerfully throw (or should I say heave, Katie?) democratic principles over the transom in favor of her religious ones. It has perhaps escaped Kersten’s attention that neither the pope nor the arch-bishop are referred to, much less granted any authority, in either the U.S. or the state’s constitution. But if it hasn’t, that wouldn’t matter to her either.

Education deform roundup

1) Gates' Measures of Effective Teaching Study: More Value-Added Madness. From a principal and doctoral candidate in Seattle, commenting on a $45 million Gates study on ""Measures of effective teaching," who writes that despite the philanthropy's sophistry, using so-called "value-added" measures for determining teachers' salaries will always be problematic because "...it will continue to remain impossible to isolate teacher effects from [other] influences."

2) Democratic ed deformer Whitney Tilson describes how financial-types brought Democrats into the movement.

3) Five Educational Myths (used to fuel ed deform) This blog post contains an excerpt from a Jonathan Kozol article in Harpers in 2007 that quotes Wall Street plutocrats describing how they would "force" the privatization of education:

"The education industry", according to these analysts, "represents, in our opinion, the final frontier of a number of sectors once under public control" that "have either voluntarily opened" or, they note in pointed terms, have "been forced" to open up to private enterprise.

4) Waiting for SuperFraud.

UPDATE: Missed this one: What to do when the victims of education deform complain? Censor them.