Morning Fizz
In More Good News for Banks
1. This year's education reform bill
(the one that upgrades accountability standards so Washington state can compete for U.S. Dept. of Education money) is scheduled to come up for a vote in the state Senate today.
Reform advocates are urging senators to support amendments by Eastside suburban Seattle Sen. Rodney Tom (D-48) and Yakima-area Sen. Curtis King (R-14) that would create common teacher evaluation standards— including data about their students' development—rather than leaving the evaluation standards up to each local district.
Without these amendments, reformers believe Washington state will not be eligible for $250 million in federal "Race to the Top" money.
"Without the proposed amendments, the current legislation is not strong enough to make Washington competitive for Race to the Top," Shannon Campion, Director of Stand for Children, a reform group that helped pass last year's basic education update, wrote in an email to supporters late yesterday afternoon. "These sensible amendments direct the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to develop a common statewide model for teacher and principal evaluations—so we don’t end up with 295 districts with different models."
2. Yesterday, we reported that a bill to stop banks from foreclosing on unemployed people was gutted by the state House. (Now it's a study bill).
In more good news for banks (and bad news for people reeling from the recession),
another foreclosure reform bill —one that would have put the brakes on the foreclosure process by giving people more options for loans and mediation—failed to make it out of the Ways and Means Committee this week when the Democrats, after signing off in a voice vote, didn't literally sign off on the bill to send it to the floor.
3. Seattle Times reporter Jim Brunner reports from yesterday's press availability with House Speaker Rep. Frank Chopp (D-43) that Chopp supports this year's top priority bill for environmentalists : Increasing the hazardous substances tax.
4. Congratulations to PubliCola's GameNerd, Sam Machkovech. Machkovech, whose expertise apparently also includes pop music, is going to be the music columnist for The Altantic magazine's web site.
Reform advocates are urging senators to support amendments by Eastside suburban Seattle Sen. Rodney Tom (D-48) and Yakima-area Sen. Curtis King (R-14) that would create common teacher evaluation standards— including data about their students' development—rather than leaving the evaluation standards up to each local district.
Without these amendments, reformers believe Washington state will not be eligible for $250 million in federal "Race to the Top" money.
"Without the proposed amendments, the current legislation is not strong enough to make Washington competitive for Race to the Top," Shannon Campion, Director of Stand for Children, a reform group that helped pass last year's basic education update, wrote in an email to supporters late yesterday afternoon. "These sensible amendments direct the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to develop a common statewide model for teacher and principal evaluations—so we don’t end up with 295 districts with different models."
2. Yesterday, we reported that a bill to stop banks from foreclosing on unemployed people was gutted by the state House. (Now it's a study bill).
In more good news for banks (and bad news for people reeling from the recession),
another foreclosure reform bill —one that would have put the brakes on the foreclosure process by giving people more options for loans and mediation—failed to make it out of the Ways and Means Committee this week when the Democrats, after signing off in a voice vote, didn't literally sign off on the bill to send it to the floor.
3. Seattle Times reporter Jim Brunner reports from yesterday's press availability with House Speaker Rep. Frank Chopp (D-43) that Chopp supports this year's top priority bill for environmentalists : Increasing the hazardous substances tax.
4. Congratulations to PubliCola's GameNerd, Sam Machkovech. Machkovech, whose expertise apparently also includes pop music, is going to be the music columnist for The Altantic magazine's web site.
Today's Morning Fizz is brought to you by the League of Education Voters:
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