Donna Clontz for State Board of Education

I have personally known Donna for a number of years. She is a person of high integrity, intelligence, and drive. She would be a stellar addition to the Nevada State Board of Education and a wonderful advocate for our state’s school children.

From her bio at the Nevada Appeal:

Explain your background and how this qualifies you for the position you are seeking.

I taught 5th and 6th grade, trained high school students in job-seeking and on-the-job skills, was a juvenile prosecutor, represented abused, neglected children, and was staff attorney for the National School Safety Center. I am an expert on prevention of school crime and a strategic planner in juvenile and criminal justice specializing in interagency cooperation and communication. I was a lobbyist at two state legislatures, drafted legislation which became law, and can build relationships with leaders at city, county, school district and state levels. These skills are essential to gaining support for education reforms that are still needed in Nevada.

I have served on many boards and currently chair the Northwest Reno Neighborhood Advisory Board and am vice-chair of the Reno Senior Citizens Advisory Committee. I know how effective board members can work together to build consensus to execute their plans and to reach their goals for their communities. I have facilitated many strategic planning processes and helped many communities create action plans. I believe that the State Board of Education must create and implement a new strategic plan if it is to reach its goals and objectives to reform Nevada schools.

What are the two most important issues to you and what should be done to resolve them?

Improving Nevada’s high school graduation rates is one of my highest priorities, both for individual students and the future well-being of our state. The second priority, and closely linked, is preparing all students to be career- or college-ready. An educated workforce draws new businesses and improves our economy. An educated community improves our democracy and the quality of life for everyone.

Let’s improve statewide graduation rates by:

• Using current data systems to create early warning and intervention systems that use the early predictors of potential dropouts (attendance, behavior, reading and math performance) to prevent students from dropping out in the first place. Contact all identified students and their parents and create individual plans to get them back on track.

• Identifying 3rd and 4th grade struggling readers and providing continuous remediation until skills are up to par. Do the same with struggling middle school math students.

• Reducing chronic absenteeism by engaging parents, assigning staff to follow-up, reporting statistics, and holding schools and districts accountable for improvement.

• Identifying and connecting with low-credit high school students and their parents to create individual plans for them to earn missing credits needed to graduate. Provide credit recovery programs that meet their needs.

Let’s better prepare students for college or careers by:

• Building strong partnerships between schools and the employment and business community to design classes to teach students the skills they need to get and keep a job in today’s economy.

Offer those clearly identified career programs in middle and high schools and continue support to magnet schools, technical and arts academies, schools-within-schools, and charter schools.

• Aligning high school courses with college courses to ensure that students master the foundation knowledge and skills while in high school that they will need in college. New Common Core State Standards will help us do that.

• Reducing costly remedial college courses by giving the math and English placement tests to college-bound high school students and providing remediation in high school until they can pass the placement tests.

• Eliminating Nevada’s high school proficiency exams and replacing them with nationally-known tests that are better predictors of knowledge, skills and abilities such as the ACT or National Career Readiness test, depending on whether the student is going to college or into the workforce.

Why should voters choose you over the other candidate?

Nevada schools have been struggling for years at the bottom of all the good lists and at the top of all the bad lists. The State Board of Education has long stood on the sidelines on most of the reforms that were needed and that were recently enacted by the Governor and the Legislature.

The newly restructured State Board of Education can become a strong voice and advocate for our K-12 schools. It is time to elect some dynamic new leaders to the State Board of Education to create an action plan to implement these reforms consistently and efficiently in every district.

I want to take on this challenge. I have the experience, leadership skills and vision to build proactive partnerships with teachers, administrators, parents, community, business and government leaders. With their ideas and commitment, we can create a workable plan that will improve our children’s education.

You can learn more about Donna at www.donnaclontz.com or at www.facebook.com/clontz4nvedu

The girl won today, but pretty soon the ‘fun’ will be over and it will be time for the boys to step in

And I don’t have much more than a passing interest in which one of these loons it will ultimately be, but . . .

Iowa Straw Poll Top Three: Bachmann (4,823), Ron Paul (4,671),  Tim Pawlenty (2,293).   Followed by: Santorum (1,567), Herman Cain (1,456), Rick Perry (718), Mitt Romney (567), Newt Gingrich (385), Jon Huntsman (69) and Thad McCotter (35). Out of almost 17,000 votes. (Via the Washington Post)

I found this little throw-away from the Los Angeles Times interesting:

One of those wearing one of the dozens of purple “Rick Perry for America” t shirts was Craig Schoenfeld a Des Moines attorney who had previously worked in other campaigns, most recently leading Newt Gingrich’s Iowa operation.

He predicted that Iowans would warm to Perry as the true conservative “who can win… It becomes an issue of pragmatism.”

Pragmatism? Say what?  

I think either one of them would be catastrophic, but there isn’t a sliver of daylight between Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry when Tea Party comes to Christianist Fundie shove, so what Schoenfeld really means is that it’s an issue of penis-ism. 

Have they started calling her “divisive” yet?

Why I’ll be working my ass off to get Kate Marshall elected

Because the guy who approved this jaw-droppingly asinine ad should not be let any where near the halls of power. Ever.

H/T Las Vegas Gleaner who writes:

No massive defense contractor nor any other large corporation in America is ever going to have to pay their fair share of taxes, no matter what — certainly not if Mark Amodei has anything to say about it — and that’s the important thing. If it’s a choice between the Chinese Red Army and Islamic Jihadists partitioning America up post-war Germany style, on the one hand, or reducing the federal debt by making people and corporations who can most afford it start paying their fair share of taxes for a change, Amodei and the people in control of his party have sworn an oath — no, not the oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies. The real oath: No new taxes.

And so it begins. Or does it?

Nope, there was no doubt in my mind she would run. So when Rachel announced the “breaking” news last night my first thought was, Oh joy, another stupid tea partier who doesn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground, thinks she is capable of being POTUS.

My second thought was, Crap, when will the sexism start? Please don’t make me have to defend her from misogyny, please, please, PLEASE!

I assumed it would not be a matter of if, but a matter of when. I didn’t have to wait long. Less than 12 hours, it appears. Peter Daou’s tweet showed up on my Facebook page at 5:10 a.m.:

So I clicked through the tiny url to find this to the WaPo RSS feed. And yep, that was the title of Milbank’s column. Or so it appeared.

I popped over to the Washington Post Opinion page and there it was again on the front page.

But when I clicked through to the actual Milbank column, this is what I saw:

Huh. So, either Dana Milbank changed his original headline, or some other doofus at the Washington Post just had to sex it up a bit.

When I read Milbank’s actual column, it is free of sexism. Basically, the circus that was the Republican debate last night had plenty of inanity to go around. And Milbank does an excellent job pointing it out.

King treated viewers to a peculiar game, asking each candidate a “this or that” question. Does Bachmann favor Elvis or Johnny Cash? (Answer: both.) Does Santorum prefer Leno or Conan? (Neither.) Further questioning revealed that Pawlenty prefers Coke to Pepsi, Romney likes his wings spicy, Cain enjoys deep-dish pizza, and Paul prefers his BlackBerry to the iPhone.

You know, when that young person asked Bill Clinton, “Boxers or briefs?” I didn’t think that “professional” debate moderators would adopt him as their journalistic role-model.

Milbank continues:

She served Tea Partyers all their favorites: “I want to announce tonight President Obama is a one-term president. . . . I will not rest until I repeal Obamacare. . . . There is no other agency like the EPA. It should really be renamed the job-killing organization of America. . . . I fought behind closed doors against my own party on TARP.”

Actually, Bachmann didn’t have much of a role in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, but nobody was keeping score. They were too busy counting kids. “I have five sons. . . 16 grandkids,” Romney reported.

“Karen and I are the parents of seven,” Santorum boasted.

“I’m the father of two,” said Pawlenty.

“Father of two, grandfather of three,” contributed Cain.

But none could compete with Bachmann: “I’ve had five children, and we are the proud foster parents of 23 great children.” She mentioned that last statistic twice more during the debate.

Nope, not a drop of sexism in Milbank’s column. So why the sexist teaser? Did he choose those words, or some nameless editor at the WaPo?  The other OpEd teasers seem pretty straightforward.

Robinson’s OpEd reflects his teaser.

Normally, we’d expect the rest of the field to make an issue of every crazy, intemperate thing the leading candidate has ever said or done. This year, however, the pack is assailing Romney with documented examples of chronic, blatant, incorrigible moderation. Even — shudder — pragmatism.

Oh, the humanity.

At Monday night’s debate in New Hampshire, none of the other candidates would say to Romney’s face what they’ve been saying behind his back. But the offstage Mitt-bashing surely will continue. The truth is that Romney is basically an ideological conservative who believes in tax cuts as a panacea and is content to watch the American middle class continue its long, sad decline. But in today’s Republican Party, merely positioning oneself to the right of Ronald Reagan isn’t enough. Apparently, it’s also necessary to eschew all reason.

E.J. Dionne’s  column does as well.

I didn’t expect to think that Michele Bachmann would be the big winner of tonight’s Republican debate in New Hampshire, but that seemed the obvious conclusion. She was at ease and forceful without looking at all crazy or out-of-control. It’s a sign of how far to the right the Republican Party has moved that she didn’t stand out for her extreme views.

Rubin’s tease matches the content of her column as well.

So, I’m puzzled by the Milbank teaser. His idea? Or someone else’s?

Sex, Lies, and Harry Reid

Did Harry Reid vote to give sex offenders Viagra at taxpayers expense? No.

In fact, Reid didn’t do that. The bill in question was not a bill at all. It was an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in an effort to trip up health care reform. The Oklahoma Republican introduced the most politically palatable, non-objectionable piece of legislation in hopes that Democrats would relent, pass it, and change the content of the health care law they were hoping to pass through reconciliation. If Democrats didn’t bite, the GOP would have ammo for the type of attack ad that Angle has now aired. Only the Nevada Republican got the details wrong. Coburn’s amendment didn’t provide taxpayer funds for Viagra; it prevented sexual predators from being able to use government subsidies or money to buy the drug (and other ED pills).

So, when Sharron Angle says Harry Reid voted to give taxpayer funds to sexual predators she is deliberately misrepresenting his vote. Her assertion is a flat out lie.  Voting against a bill that contains a language that prohibits such a thing is not the same as voting for a bill that endorses it. 

In fact, lying about Harry Reid is about all that Sharron Angle can do. As I wrote the other day, “She’s quite adept at flinging lies, much like a gorilla flings poo (her commercials are merely video versions of the wildest-eyed conspiracy-laden emails that I’ve received from rightwing nutcases over the last several years). . .”

Every single Sharron Angle ad bashes Harry Reid. Not a single one of her ads talks about her record or what she would do when she gets to the Senate.* Perhaps that is because she has no plan and because her record is exactly what Bill Raggio (R), Minority Leader of the Nevada Senate says it is.

“What is difficult to overlook is her record of being totally ineffective as a four-term assemblywomen, her inability or unwillingness to work with others, even within her own party, and her extreme positions on issues such as Medicare, social security, education, veterans affairs and many others . . . ”

There is absolutely nothing in Sharron Angle’s record or stance on issues that I find appealing or redeeming. Sharron Angle is the antithesis of everything I stand for and believe in.

Ya know, Sweetie is husband number two. When I was married to husband number one, I was not a happy camper. My answer was to try to make things better and when  it became clear that I couldn’t, I ended the marriage and made a life for myself and my daughter. What I didn’t do was dump him for someone far more abusive and irresponsible.  Unlike a divorce, when it comes to the U.S. Senate, rejecting Reid at the polls doesn’t give us a breather. Rejecting Harry Reid automatically gets us Sharron Angle. Choosing None Of These Candidates doesn’t give us a do-over, nor does it leave the seat vacant until we can find a more palatable choice. So, no. I’m not going to jump from the frying pan into the fire. And the race is too close to sit this one out. As much as he has disappointed me in the past, Harry will get my tepid support when I go to cast my ballot. 

I realize that by my vote I am contributing to the problem of Ignore-The-Base Democrats, and that these same Democrats will  likely misread the results of this election, but Angle is a bridge too far. I just can’t do anything that would contribute to her victory.

*Brian Sandoval has basically adopted this same tactic in his race against Rory Reid. What’s your plan, Brian? In the debate last Thursday night, Brian Sandoval consistently bashed Rory’s budget plan but to date has not yet put out one of his own, leaving every single Nevada voter guessing a week before early vote starts. I’ll be voting for Rory Reid for a variety of reasons and while I do still have misgivings/questions about portions of his education plan,  I cannot ignore his attention to the issues, nor his courage in putting forth detailed plans for getting our state’s economy back on track, tackling our rock-bottom education system, harnessing our state’s plethora of natural energy sources, and fixing our budget woes.

So, it’s not her job to create jobs, but shouldn’t she at least know what legislation has passed and what hasn’t?

And if you can figure out this word fog you’re better than me.  The question was straightfoward: “What do you think about campaign finance regulations?”

Angle: Well I think that the Supreme Court has really made their decision on this, they found that we have a First Amendment right across the board that was violated by the McCain-Feingold Act. And that’s what they threw out, was those violations. The McCain-Feingold Act is still in place. The DISCLOSE Act is still in place. It’s just that certain provisions within that they found to be definitely violating the First Amendment. If we didn’t have the DISCLOSE Act there would be a lot of different things that people wouldn’t be able to find out. And certainly you can go to FEC.gov and see where Harry Reid is getting most of his money from special interests.

 So is she for campaign finance regulations or not?

And no, the DISCLOSE Act isn’t law. Senate Republicans “filibustered” it.

Note to Sharron Angle: Correlation does not equal causation

Hey Sharron, while I’m not always one of Harry Reid’s biggest fans, I really, really have a serious problem with you and your faulty logic in your latest campaign ad. I’m all about logic and facts, and you don’t seem to have a handle on either. Your ad states that since Harry Reid has become Majority Leader unemployment in Nevada has skyrocketed, implies that our dismal unemployment numbers are related to or caused by Harry being Majority Leader,  and that you’re here to save the day for all those unemployed Nevadans.

Alrighty then. Maven notes that the video is “Filled with red herrings, but gut wrenching all the same. Reaches right into the hearts of the true believer – out of work and doesn’t have a clue why other than what Rush tells him/her . . .”

I have to disagree with Maven a bit, even though I do worship at her feet. The logical fallacy employed here isn’t a Red Herring:

A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to “win” an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic.

I can see why she thinks this because much of our problems today can be laid directly at the feet of failed Republican policies. However, I’m thinking the error in logic lies more along the lines of Post Hoc (Also Known as: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, False Cause, Questionable Cause, Confusing Coincidental Relationships With Causes)

The Post Hoc fallacy derives its name from the Latin phrase “Post hoc, ergo prop ter hoc.” This has been traditionally interpreted as “After this, therefore because of this.” This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that one event causes another simply because the proposed cause occurred before the proposed effect. More formally, the fallacy involves concluding that A causes or caused B because A occurs before B and there is not sufficient evidence to actually warrant such a claim.

When Harry Reid became Majority Leader Nevada’s unemployment was only 4.4%

Harry Reid became Majority Leader in January 2007.  According to this chart, in January 2007 the unemployment rate was 5.1%. By April it had dropped to 4.2%. And in between January 2007 and April 2008, Nevada’s unemployment rate danced between 5.1% and 4.2%, ending at 5.3% in December. That 4.4% Angle refers to happened in April and in May the rate dropped even more to 4.2%. In January 2008, unemployment jumped to 6% then dropped off again to 5.2% by April 2008.  And it’s right about May 2008 you see Nevada’s unemployment rate begin its inexorable climb, just like the rest of the country. While you’re looking at the chart, be sure to check the boxes to the left, specifically All of U.S. and Michigan, since Angle makes a point of comparing Nevada to Michigan in her ad.

“In just three years, Nevada’s economy has fallen from one of the strongest performing to possibly the weakest” Bill Anderson, Chief Economist, Nevada Employment Agency.

This is true. But again, correlation does not equal causation.  I wonder what happened that might have had such a drastic impact on Nevada’s unemployment rate? Was it Harry Reid?

Nevada had, up to that point, been growing faster than any other state in the union; requiring houses and schools for its ever-expanding population.  Housing prices sky-rocketed, jobs were plentiful, and home ownership was going through the roof thanks to sub-prime mortgages. But by 2007, the boom was starting to fade.

And then the recession, which “officially”  began in December 2007, stopped everything dead in its tracks. As people across the country began to tighten their collective belts, visitors stopped vacationing out of town, companies cut back everything: travel, conventions, off-site meetings, etc, and Nevada, long dependent on tourism dollars took another hit. Add the financial crisis of late 2008, and damn, Nevada (and the rest of the country) was in for a miserable time. Housing prices plummeted and people were laid off. My company alone had three lay-offs in 2009. And now we’re looking at huge budget cuts in this state because not one of our politicians has the guts to do what needs to be done (and I don’t mean slash and burn), but I digress.

Sharron leaves this part out of Anderson’s statement:

Anderson said this recession affects three key areas: residential construction, commercial development and commercial spending — sectors critical to Nevada’s economy.

When all you’ve got is tourism (spending) and construction (residential and commercial) …

 And for the first time ever, Nevada showed negative domestic migration into the state.

Clearly a poster child for the foreclosure crises, Florida was not the only state that shed its mid decade growth image. Stunningly Nevada also showed a net domestic migration loss in 2008-9 while Arizona gained only 15,000 migrants compared with 132,000 in 2004-5.

Since Harry Reid has become Majority Leader, 135,000 more Nevadans are unemployed. – U.S. Deparment of Labor

The U.S. Department of Labor is blaming that on Harry?

The fact that  the subprime mortgage crisis, the recession, and the financial crisis all happened at the same time that Harry Reid was Majority Leader, and therefore he is solely to blame (which is what your ad implies)  is as ridiculous as saying roosters crowing causes the sun to rise.

Help is on the way.

From who? YOU?  But I thought you said it isn’t a U.S. Senator’s job to create jobs.

As a U.S. Senator I’m not in the business of creating jobs.  … That’s not my job to bring industry to this state. That’s the Lieutenant Governor’s job. That’s your state senators’ and assemblymen’s job. That’s your Secretary of State’s job to make a climate here in the state that says, y’all come.

If creating jobs would not be your job (should we have the misfortune of electing you), why does your tortured logic lay our unemployment numbers at Harry’s feet? You yourself said we should be expecting our state government to grow jobs, and I’ve got no problem doing that.  I am more than happy to hold our state and local leaders responsible for much of our economic woes. Putting all our economic eggs in construction, tourism and gaming has been a disaster.

That being said, you don’t get to give yourself a Get Out Of Jail Free card, and then turn around and say Harry should have done what you so clearly believe is “not a U.S. Senator’s job.”

Sauce for the goose, and all that.

“Dead last”

I got this press release from the Rory Reid campaign yesterday. Snippet:

In a shocking new report, Education Week shows Nevada has fallen to the absolute rock bottom of national education rankings, sitting in 51st place out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

According to the report, Nevada graduates less than 42 percent of its students, compared to 69 percent nationwide.

Nevada’s 41.8 percent graduation rate was so bad that it was more than 12 percentage points worse than second-to-last-ranked New Mexico’s 54.9 percent graduation rate. In short, Nevada isn’t only last in education. It is dead last and by a huge margin.

“This is a educational crisis, an economic crisis, and a moral crisis,” Rory Reid said. “The system, the state, and the governors who got us here have utterly failed our children. The time has come to totally transform our system.”

Since 1997 – a 10 year period overseen by Republican governors – the graduation rate in Nevada has fallen 36 percent, from 65.7 percent to an all-time low of less than 42 percent.

I searched for and found the original report.   Each link provides state by state data within each category.

In the print edition of Quality Counts 2010, readers will find separate state grades for each of the four policy and performance categories updated for this year’s report: the Chance-for-Success Index; the teaching profession; standards, assessments, and accountability; and school finance.

Check out the Chance-for-Success Index. It will make you weep.

Here’s a shocker, Nevada has no course or subject-specific standards for our high schools. None. Not English, Math, Science or Social Studies. Perhaps we could start addressing the drop out rate there?  Worse, Nevada has no course-specific standards for Science at all, at any grade level.

Rory, does your plan address this? It doesn’t appear so, not when I read this part of his plan.

Research shows one key to a successful school is an effective principal. That’s why, in EDGE schools, principals will have: 

• Control over grade-level staffing, and the ability to hire and release teachers in order to best meet their students’ needs.
• A per-student budget with discretion to spend it on the best programs and services for students.
• The freedom to structure curriculum to best meet students’ needs
• Ability to change the schedules for both students and faculty, and adjust work rules to help staff meet the school mission.

This part of the plan has always concerned me. Right now we have 17 school districts within the state (one in each county), and now Rory appears to want to remove even school district control over curriculum? Shouldn’t he be going in the other direction? Unfortunately, I’ve never gotten to directly question him, and today won’t be any better. He’s holding a Round Table today in Reno at 10:30 a.m. at Swope Middle School. Since I will actually be at work, if any of you decide to attend (and if they actually take questions this time – they didn’t at the last “Town Hall” I attended), please ask for me and let me know what he says.

I want to like the plan, but for me, it’s still too “tests results” oriented and not enough actually learning.

Anyone from the campaign, feel free to stop by and answer. But I’d really like to hear from Rory himself.

A tale of two Democrats

Rory Reid - A man with a plan.

Ken McKenna - A man with a lot of words, but no plan. In fact, his website is a joke and his billboards embarass me. His billboards consist of a picture of McKenna and his wife with the nonsensical statement: “Say NO to taxes.” What the … ? He is supposedly running as a Democrat for NV-02, a formidable task, most assuredly. But dude, the idea is to differentiate yourself from the Republican, not sound just like him.

And yeah, I’ll be re-registering as a Democrat in time for the primary.

Amodei vs Reid?

Hmm. It looks like my state senator, Mark Amodei, may just be jumping into the race against Harry Reid. Mark Amodei will have to get through the Republican Primary, but if he does, Harry will have a tough campaign ahead of him because Mark seems more down to earth than Harry. In any encounter that I’ve had with Amodei, he came across as knowledgeable, sensible and accessible.  (Legislative Bio) And he stands a very, very good chance in northern Nevada.

My story: During the 2006 election, Mark Amodei had signs up all over his district, even in humble Silver Springs. Unlike everyone else who used rebar in the rock hard ground, Amodei’s signs were firmly planted using 4x4s! Holey cow. Anyway, to make a long story short, after the election I went out to gather up Cathylee James’ candidate signs and where Ramsey Weeks Cutoff meets Hwy 50 I ran into Mark Amodei taking down his own signs. By himself. Believe me, it’s not like he didn’t have supporters to do that for him, so I was quite impressed to see the incumbent senator doing this.  I gave him a bit of a ribbing and he joked back, and I headed on my way, but that day has stuck in my mind and I’ve often thought (and said it to others) that he would be a formidable candidate for U.S. Senate. We shall see. I may just have to register as a Republican to take part in this primary (though I’ll need a long, hot shower afterward). Because if we are going to get a Republican senator, we could do a lot worse.