General Charles Lee of the Continental Army told Congress that Georgia’s value to the young nation required more forces to defend against the British on August 24, 1776.
The Kimball Opera House, serving as the Georgia State Capitol, was sold to the state on August 23, 1870.
The sale of Coca-Cola Company from the Candlers was announced in the Atlanta Constitution on August 22, 1919.
N/S Savannah, the first nuclear-powered merchant ship, visited the Port of Savannah on August 22, 1962. Savannah was named after S.S. Savannah, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. N/S Savannah is moored at the Port of Baltimore and designated a national historic landmark.
More than 3000 demonstrators disrupted the Democratic National Convention on August 22, 1968.
Nolan Ryan recorded his 5000th career strikeout against Rickey Henderson of the Oakland A’s on August 22, 1989.
Set your radios for 88.5 FM today at 3 PM
I’ll be back on Georgia Public Broadcasting’s “Political Rewind,” hosted by Bill Nigut. Click here for stations outside Metro Atlanta.
Judge found dead of apparent suicide
Judge James Cline of the Superior Court for the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit was found dead in his home from an apparent suicide. The Ocmulgee Circuit comprises Baldwin, Greene, Hancock, Jasper, Jones, Morgan, Putnam, and Wilkinson Counties.
Senate Debate
Republican David Perdue and Democrat Sam Nunn met yesterday in a debate forum organized by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Georgia News Network, and Georgia Association of Broadcasters. Walter Jones of Morris News brings us an account, via Savannah Morning News:
While Perdue’s opening listed the national debt, burdensome regulations and Washington stalemates as problems, Nunn zeroed right in on him personally. She listed the same problems but accused him of supporting partisan confrontations that create gridlock.
“That sounds to me like Washington as usual,” she said.
She hammered him for centering his campaign on attacking her rather than focusing on “the hopes, aspirations and dreams of the people of Georgia.” And she suggested he is a hothead who can’t work with others, mentioning his own description of walking out of a meeting with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce when he sought the organization’s endorsement.
Perdue was less aggressive Thursday, aiming most of his barbs at an unpopular Democratic president and at Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid for refusing to consider proposals from the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. It wasn’t until his closing that he lobbed even a single stone her way.
Here’s the real money quote from Walter
On transportation and defense, Nunn and Perdue weren’t far apart. The two agreed to do what they could to protect the state’s military bases from closure by working with local leaders. And they used the same dodge to a question about funding highway improvements by saying they oppose an increase in the gas tax and prefer to use savings from eliminating government waste instead. It was a copout because both surely know such massive spending reductions are less likely than a tax.
Politico.com described Nunn’s performance as “whacking” Perdue:
Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn debated like the underdog in Georgia Thursday.
After slipping behind in polls following last month’s runoff, she came out swinging at Republican David Perdue during a 45-minute forum at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s annual Congressional luncheon in Macon.
Nunn also tried to distance herself from Barack Obama. She said the president should not issue any executive orders on immigration, chided him for wanting to cut military spending and brought up — in her opening statement — that a picture appearing in Republican ads of her standing with Obama is cropped to remove former President George H.W. Bush.
Perdue largely ignored Nunn. He discussed losing his own health insurance plan because of Obamacare and focused on the federal debt in nearly every answer.
While [Perdue] mostly ignored Nunn in his answers to a moderator’s questions, he took a parting shot in his closing statement.
“If you like what’s going on in Washington, then vote for my opponent, because she knows she’ll be nothing more than a proxy for Harry Reid and Barack Obama,” he said. “Nothing will change.”
The debate also highlighted differences between the candidates on Obamacare. From the Associated Press by Christina Cassidy,
Both said there were problems with the federal health care law, but differed on what to do about them.
Perdue argued in favor of repeal, noting his own health plan was canceled under the law and his new one features higher rates and coverage he and his wife don’t need. He said he favors replacing the law with a Republican proposal he says would create more of a free-market system designed to reduce rates and increase access.
Nunn said she favored keeping the elements that work, including allowing children to stay on parents’ plans longer, and wants to work on helping small businesses struggling to provide health care to employees.
Nunn named several tweaks to Obamacare that she said she would support. From the Macon Telegraph:
Questioned on health care, Nunn said the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, needs to be amended — but basically left in place.
Another tier for low-income people needs to be added, along with a tax credit for small businesses and help for Georgia’s rural hospitals, but five years of partisan refusal to accept its existence doesn’t need to continue for years more, she said. Instead, all concerned need to make sure it works in providing insurance to more Americans, Nunn said.
“I do not think that we need to go backward,” she said.
Perdue said his personal insurance policy was canceled, and now coverage is more expensive, which he blamed on the ACA.
“I absolutely think it’s unfixable,” he said. The ACA should be repealed and replaced, Perdue said, touting a 2013 bill from U.S. Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., which is mired in a House committee.
Price’s bill would repeal the ACA, give tax credits and deductions for insurance purchases, and allow formation of individual and small-business associations to buy insurance. It includes neither a mandate for coverage nor a requirement for insurers to cover pre-existing conditions, according to the bill summary.
Gluttons for punishment politics can watch the forum in its entirety on C-SPAN. For candidate answers to specific questions, WMAZ has posted excerpts from the forum.
Newsbites
The response says the party “den(ies) that they engaged in any conduct that would subject them to liability or which entitles Plaintiffs to any remedies or relief of any kind.”
The response also denies that the party “committed any unlawful or wrongful acts.”
The party admits to some of the facts set forth in the suit, such as the date Keith began work with the party and the name of her supervisor, but denies every allegation of discriminatory treatment or the use of racial slurs.
“Serving refugees will add a burden to local charitable and other public resources, including safety net services,” Denson wrote Monday to Michael Singleton, Georgia’s state refugee coordinator. “Refugee students may also place an inordinate service burden on the school district due to limited English proficiency by the students and their parents.”
Common Core
Two New York educators wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post arguing that Common Core standards do a disservice to students.
Why would policymakers create tests that are designed to mark as failures two out of every three children? For the second year in a row, that is the question that New York parents are asking. The 2014 New York State Common Core test scores were recently released, and there was minimal improvement in student performance. Proficiency or “passing” rates went up 0.1 in English Language Arts (ELA) and 4.6 percentage points in math, despite the rollout of the $28 million, taxpayer funded curriculum modules, and greater familiarity with the tests. Proficiency rates continued to be horrendous for students who are English Language Learners—only 11 percent “passed” math, and 3 percent “passed” the English Language Arts tests. Results were equally dismal for special education students, whose “passing” rates were 9 percent in math and 5 percent in ELA.
The release of 50 percent of the questions provides further insight into why the tests produce such poor results.
Let’s start with the third-grade passage, Science Friction. It includes phrases based on unfamiliar puns such as “Spore score and seven weeks ago…” and required knowledge of terms such as acidic, decomposition, and inhibition. It comes as no surprise that when it was published, this text was considered appropriate for Grades 4-7 by one reviewer, and for Grades 5-7 by another. Fourth graders were tested on a passage from Lawn Boy, by Gary Paulsen, a text generally read in Grade 6.
In addition to passage difficulty, the questions themselves required skills out of the reach for many young children. Consider this fourth-grade question on the test based on a passage from Pecos Bill Captures the Pacing White Mustang by Leigh Peck.
Why is Pecos Bill’s conversation with the cowboys important to the story?
A) It predicts the action in paragraph 4
B) It predicts the action in paragraph 5
C) It predicts the choice in paragraph 10
D) It predicts the choice in paragraph 11
Visualize the steps required to answer this question. First, 9-year-olds must flip back to the conversation and re-read it. Next, they must go back to the question and then flip back to paragraph 4. Complete this step 3 more times, each time remembering the original question. In addition to remembering the content of each paragraph, they must also be mindful that choices A and B refer to the action in the related paragraph, while choices C and D refer to a choice. Similar questions were on the third-grade test. Questions such as these are better suited to assess one’s ability to put together a chair from Ikea than they are to assess student’s understanding of what they read.
A recent poll shows that a majority of New Yorkers now opposes the Common Core. Three of the four New York candidates for governor have publicly stated that they would suspend it. Only Andrew Cuomo, the current governor who is seeking re-election, supports it.
Here’s some more information on that poll that shows waning support for Common Core.
The results of an annual poll by Gallup and the Phi Delta Kappa educators’ organization provide more evidence that support for the Common Core State Standards, originally adopted by 46 states and the District, has faded in recent years. The survey showed that those who opposed the standards thought that the Common Core will hurt teachers’ ability to craft lessons that they think will be best for students. The latest survey results echo findings from other polls on Common Core support.
“It’s pretty apparent that the Common Core has become a polarizing term,” said Terry Holliday, the education commissioner of Kentucky, which was among the first states to adopt the standards in 2010.
The wide-ranging survey also showed that trust in the nation’s public school system has evaporated, as a consistent majority of Americans approve of charter schools that operate independently of state regulations. Overall, more than 70 percent of Americans give President Obama a C, D or F grade in his support to public schools, the lowest rating he has received on the poll since he took office in 2009.
Last year, more than two-thirds of respondents in the poll had never heard of the Common Core. This year, more than 80 percent of Americans had heard of the standards, mostly from prominent coverage by newspapers, television and radio. A total of 60 percent of respondents said they opposed the Common Core.
It’s not just parents and conservatives who oppose Common Core – support among educators for the standards also is dropping.
Anybody watching the escalating battle across the country over the Common Core State Standards and aligned standardized testing will hardly be surprised by a new national poll which reveals a significant loss of support over the last year — especially among teachers, whose approval rating dropped from 76 percent in 2013 to only 46 percent in 2014. Overall support for the Core dropped from 65 percent last year to 53 percent in 2014, with most of the defection among Republicans.
Along with the 30-percentage point drop in approval by teachers, there was a huge jump in opposition, from 12 percent to 40 percent.
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