"Online exam that could replace MCAS gets trial run; Schools test out proposed successor of long-used system" by James Vaznis | Globe Staff April 07, 2014
REVERE —The 33 seventh-graders at the Susan B. Anthony Middle School were embarking on a grand experiment — taking a new state math assessment being conducted for the first time online. Then the dreaded “error message” swept across nearly all their computer screens.
“We’ll get it fixed,” their teacher Joe Amico assured them Thursday morning. “It’s just a glitch.”
Minutes later, the students logged in again and were ready to go.
Such minor hitches are to be expected for such a huge undertaking. After 16 years of the MCAS, state education leaders are exploring the once unthinkable: a new standardized testing system, this time done almost entirely online.
So which software firm is getting the contract?
The potential switch is so dramatic — rife with debate about whether a technological divide among schools could influence performance — that the state is spending the next two years trying out the new exams before deciding whether to ditch the MCAS.
More than 1,000 schools across the state have been participating in a trial run for the past two weeks, typically testing a couple of classrooms of students. Because of concerns about whether all schools have enough computers or broadband capacity, some are trying out a paper-and-pencil version of the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC.
The schools join thousands of others in more than a dozen states looking to adopt the same online testing system, part of a push by the Obama administration for national standards in teaching math and English.
So far, aside from a few glitches, the tryouts have been going smoothly, said Mitchell Chester, commissioner of elementary and secondary education in Massachusetts, who also is the national chairman of the PARCC governing board. More than 250,000 tests had been completed in the participating states by the end of last week.
“Most of the glitches are local,” Chester said. “But there have been some glitches with the test itself.”
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Was it a learning experience for you?
Better get peddling:
"Public-private funding for Hubway paying off; City in line for more profit in Year 4" by Martine Powers | Globe Staff April 07, 2014
For some bike-share programs in North America, it was a winter of discontent.
In January, Montreal’s bike-share program Bixi filed for bankruptcy. Then, last month, reports surfaced that the operators of New York’s Citi Bike had asked for tens of millions of dollars in aid from the City of New York.
See: Sunday Globe Special: Afternoon Bike Ride
Someone getting taken for a ride, taxpayers of New York City!
Hope you can find a parking space.
But in Boston last week, Hubway opened for its fourth season with a rosy financial prognosis, a fresh contract between the City of Boston and bike-share operators, an expectation that the system will continue turning a profit, and plans for 10 new stations.
“We’re in a very, very solid financial place,” said Nicole Freedman, director of the city’s Boston Bikes program. “We’re in a position to fund expansion.”
I remember a bike ride long ago when I could keep up. Must have been the anger.
Now I'm just falling behind and have stopped peddling.
Some have attributed Hubway’s success to its more conservative choices — closing for winter and launching with a compact system that spread cautiously — as well as its dependence on both public and private money.
Probably a good move, especially this year.
“Bike share systems in Boston, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C., all of which started relatively small and relied on public sector funds, were able to launch with success, iron out kinks, stabilize, and expand quickly,” said Mia Birk, Hubway Bike Share vice president.
Now, Boston will pay a lower rate for bike-share operations with a new contract that stands to allow the city to collect larger profits.
Previously Boston divided the costs of operating the system 50-50 with Alta Bicycle Share, the contractor that operates and maintains the system’s bikes, stations, software, and memberships. Boston uses public grant money, along with private sponsorships, to pay the city’s share without dipping into municipal coffers — and up until now, Alta and Boston have split the profits in half. It was a risk-sharing model favored by former mayor Thomas M. Menino, who was wary of placing the city on the hook if forays into bike share fell flat, Freedman said.
Now, Boston will pay Alta for the full operations cost, but in turn, the city will take all of the profits from membership fees and advertising — a sign that city officials are confident in the bike-share program’s continued profitability.
I thought it was about saving the environment and leaving a cleaner world. Now I find it's we who have been taken to the ₵leaners.
And the city is getting Alta’s services at a new, lower rate: Boston will pay the company about $70 per bike dock per month for maintenance and operations, about a 30 percent reduction from previous operation rates, and well below the average price for other bike-share systems, such as the $111 rate paid by Capital Bikeshare in Washington, D.C.
The cities of Cambridge, Somerville, and Brookline — some of which use municipal dollars to help pay their share — are considering whether to switch to Boston’s funding model.
Hubway’s diversified funding approach has been championed by some as the most stable option.
In January, Bixi, the company that operated bike shares in Montreal and Toronto and also manufactures bike-share equipment, filed for bankruptcy protection. The City of Montreal, which is owed about $30 million from Bixi, has seized the company’s Montreal assets. The City of Toronto has taken over its own bike-share operations.
And New York’s Citi Bike — widely touted for being funded entirely through private sponsorships and membership fees — is now seeking tens of millions of dollars from the City of New York to maintain and expand operations, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. Citi Bike, also operated by Alta, has proven popular with residents, but a faulty software system and sparse winter ridership incited financial concerns.
So let me get this straight: you can't get an unemployment website, a health website, and educational website, a biking website, or an election machine from the alleged corporate profe$$ionals at Deibold, Deloitte or CGI, but bank ATMs never loose a cent.
Now we have to pay who how much to have it fixed?
“As with any new industry, there are challenges,” Alta officials said in a statement, adding that the challenges are fixable “and we are working diligently to fix them.”
I know, I know, but I'm tired of being peddling lame-dick excuses.
But some, such as Caroline Samponaro, senior director for campaigns and organizing at Transportation Alternatives, a New York City transit advocacy group, think that Citi Bike should adopt Hubway’s model, incorporating corporate sponsorships and public money.
Starting the system without public funding was necessary in a city where naysayers threatened to prevent the bike share from getting off the ground, she said. But, she continued, government funding is now necessary to ensure stations spread evenly across the city’s neighborhoods.
Now you know why I am against all the good idea$ of government.
“It’s a new thing to think about bike share as a public transit system, but now that’s where we are, and it’s important to bring some amount of subsidy so our program can grow to a scale that’s equitable,” Samponaro said.
Encouraging an equitable distribution of bikes and stations is also a problem in Boston, where large swaths — East Boston, Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, and Hyde Park — have few or no stations.
Once again, wealth interests. Carlin.
NEXT DAY UPDATE: My glitch for I wrote those notes to remind me to note the place$ where there are bike paths.
This year, Cambridge embarked on a pilot to test how the system would fare during the winter. Emily Stapleton, Hubway general manager, said ridership in Cambridge was 15 to 20 percent of regular season averages. And there were no Hubway crashes through the winter — a sign of success, said Cara Seiderman, Cambridge’s transportation program manager.
“It was a very tough winter, and counter to what you might expect, we were very happy about it,” Seiderman said. “It gave us the opportunity to do exactly what we wanted to do with this pilot, figuring out what happens when you have cold and difficult winter.”
I'll remember that during the next climate change $hriek once -- or if -- spring arrives.
Still, Cambridge officials have not decided whether year-round service will be permanent. Likewise, Freedman said a decision has not been made on whether Boston will experiment with an all-seasons operation. With fewer winter riders, she said, each ride becomes more expensive, and that is money that could also be used to expand the system into other neighborhoods. Instead of going year-round, she conjectured, the off-season could be shortened to just January and February.
Let's hope the snow doesn't come in October and stay through April next year.
“It really comes down to cost and benefit,” Freedman said. “And if we have a limited amount of money, how do we use that money?”
They "found" $20 million in heating aid for late-night T service so why bother biking?
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Just watch the right turns, okay?
Not mentioning that in the article must have been a glitch.
Speaking of glitches:
"GOP quietly expands coverage choices in health law; Change secured at urging of business groups" by David Espo | Associated Press April 07, 2014
WASHINGTON — No member of the House GOP leadership has publicly hailed the fix, which was tucked, at Republicans’ request, into legislation preventing a cut in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients.
OH!
See: Public Bumming About Obamacare
That why Repuglicans tucked you in?
It is unclear how many members of the House rank and file knew of it because the legislation was passed by a highly unusual voice vote without debate....
What that means is it didn't really pass. Leadership just said it did. There was no recorded vote, just a yea-nay.
That's AmeriKan democracy in the 21$t-century!!
The provision itself was relatively minor....
Then why did they need to tuck it to you?
The health law contains no deductible caps for individual plans or those offered by large employers, and the Department of Health and Human Services already had waived them for small businesses through 2015. The legislation means they will never go into effect.
As yet, there is no indication that the change in course heralds any sort of significant preelection change in attitude by Republicans, who last week engineered their 52d vote in the House to repeal or dismember the law. They have said they intend to make its elimination a key element in the November election.
Back to the $hit-$how political fooleys!
At the same time, though, administration officials announced last week that more than 7 million people have signed up for coverage. Democrats hope to counter demands for repeal by challenging critics to explain why they want to eliminate some politically popular provisions such as guaranteed coverage for preexisting condition or plans without a lifetime cap in coverage costs.
It's just not funny anymore.
Fittingly in an era of divided government, now that the change has been made, officials in both parties are once more at odds, each describing it as a victory for their side in a ceaseless political struggle....
That narrative makes me sick.
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These statements must be glitches; otherwise, the propaganda pre$$ really is $hit.
"Obama plans executive order for labor inequities; Targets wage, gender issues in federal contracts" by Jim Kuhnhenn | Associated Press April 07, 2014
WASHINGTON — Lacking congressional support to raise wages or end gender pay disparities, President Obama is again imposing his policies on federal contractors, in keeping with presidents’ tradition of exerting their powers on a fraction of the economy they directly control.
Obama will sign an executive order Tuesday barring federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their pay with one another.
A fancy word for a directive from the dictator.
The order is similar to language in a Senate bill aimed at closing a pay gap between men and women. That measure is scheduled for a vote this week, but is unlikely to pass.
More election-framing wastes of time.
***************
The president plans to sign the two executive orders during an event at the White House where he will be joined by Lilly Ledbetter, whose name appears on a pay discrimination law Obama signed in 2009.
You will still be discriminated against in health care, but that just must be another glitch.
On a separate labor front, the Senate is expected Monday to easily approve legislation restoring unemployment benefits to nearly 3 million people, sending the bill to a divided House where Republicans favor starkly different approaches to the issue.
I'm shocked to see they did something, and I will be more shocked if it doesn't die.
Six Senate Republicans joined all 55 Democrats last week to end debate on legislation that retroactively restores benefits that were cut off Dec. 28 and extends them through June 1, clearing the way for passage Monday.
Seven House Republicans from high-unemployment regions or swing districts plan to send the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, a letter urging him to take up the Senate bill or a similar measure.
In taking action on labor issues without congressional approval, Obama is seeking to demonstrate that he can still drive economic policy.
The sign of a failed president is what it is.
At the same time, his orders show the limits presidents face when they don’t have the support of Congress for their initiatives.
Pffft! He should be getting impeached right now if the Constitution were being followed.
Republicans say Obama is pushing his executive powers too far and should do more to work with Congress. His new executive orders are sure to lead to criticism that he is placing an undue burden on companies and increasing their costs.
We heard the same thing during Bush and nothing was done. Congre$$ not going to upset the apple cart.
Federal contracting covers about one-quarter of the US workforce and includes companies ranging from Boeing to small parts suppliers and service providers. As a result, presidential directives can have a wide and direct impact. Such actions also can be largely symbolic, designed to spur action in the broader economy.
A wide and direct impact, but largely symbolic.
Paging George Orwell!
Related:
"Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United Nations said Monday he is ‘‘certain’’ the government will soon sign an agreement with the United States that would allow some US troops to remain behind after the final withdrawal of American soldiers."
Well then it isn't really a withdrawal, never mind a "final" one.
"O’Doul’s is advertised as nonalcoholic beer, but it contains a small amount of alcohol."
Any wonder why I am so sick of this $hit?
‘‘This really is about giving people access to more information both to help them make decisions at the policy level but also for individuals,’’ said Heather Boushey, executive director and chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. She has been working with the administration to get compensation information about the nation’s workforce.
‘‘This is definitely an encouraging first step,’’ she said.
Federal contractors, however, worry that additional compensation data could be used to fuel wage-related lawsuits, said James Plunkett, director of labor policy at the US Chamber of Commerce.
What’s more, he said, such orders create a two-tiered system where rules apply to federal contractors but not to other employers. Those contractors, knowing that their business relies on the government, are less likely to put up a fight, he said.
‘‘Federal contractors ultimately know that they have to play nicely to a certain extent with the federal government,’’ he said.
In a separate action Monday, Obama intends to announce 24 schools that will share more than $100 million in grants to redesign themselves to better prepare high school students for college or for careers. The awards are part of an order Obama signed last year. Money for the program comes from fees that companies pay for visas to hire foreign workers for specialized jobs.
The money to prepare the kids is coming from the cheap foreign labor taking the jobs they are being trained for?
Are you learning anything from this revolving door of bull$hit, kids?
At least you gotta student debt to pay.
The moves represent a return to economic issues for the president after two weeks devoted almost exclusively to diplomacy and the final deadline for health insurance coverage. A trip to Asia in two weeks is sure to change the focus once again.
I think I'm going to stop following the propaganda pre$$ focus, sorry.
Still, Obama has declared this a year of action, whether Congress supports him or not.
He sure is ACTING like a DICTATOR.
In February, Obama signed an executive order increasing the hourly minimum wage for federal contractors from $7.25 per to $10.10. While White House officials estimated such an increase would affect only a small percentage of federal contract workers, they said the move could encourage states or individual businesses to act on their own to increase workers’ wages.
Jeffrey Hirsch, a former lawyer with the National Labor Relations Board, said presidential executive orders that affect federal contracting workforces can over time demonstrate that those practices are less onerous than initially imagined....
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Not reading certain sections no longer a glitch.
