Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wants the authority to review hiring decisions at the agency, including the selection of the next postmaster general.
How can you not be reassured by that man? He exudes it.
He is one of the few in the Trump administration who is not covered with flecks of $hit.
"Administration considers leveraging emergency coronavirus loan to force Postal Service changes" by Jacob Bogage and Lisa Rein Washington Post, April 23, 2020
WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department is considering taking unprecedented control over key operations of the US Postal Service by imposing tough terms on an emergency coronavirus loan from Congress, which would fulfill President Trump’s longtime goal of changing how the service does business, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Officials working under Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who will consider the $10 billion loan, have told senior officials at the USPS in recent weeks that he could use the loan as leverage to give the administration influence over how much the agency charges for delivering packages and how it manages its finances, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks are preliminary.
Trump has railed for years against what he sees as mismanagement at the Postal Service, which he argues has been exploited by e-commerce sites such as Amazon, and has sought to change how much the agency charges for delivery packages. (Amazon’s founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Under the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus relief passed last month, the Treasury was authorized to loan $10 billion to the USPS, which says it may not be able to make payroll and continue mail service uninterrupted past September. Mnuchin rejected a bipartisan Senate proposal to give the Postal Service a bailout amid the negotiations over that legislation, a senior Trump administration official and a congressional official previously told The Washington Post.
The borrowing terms have only been discussed among both agencies’ leadership and have not been made public because the Postal Service hasn’t officially requested the loan, the two people familiar with the matter said. Mnuchin could still decide not to pursue tough terms as the September deadline nears. The Postal Service would not have to use the entire $10 billion loan at one time, but could borrow up to that amount at any given time.
In discussions with senior USPS personnel, Treasury officials have said they are interested in raising rates on the Postal Service’s lucrative package business, its sole area of profitability in recent years. The Treasury could also review all large postal contracts with package companies to push for greater margins on deliveries.
Treasury officials have said they may press the agency to demand tougher concessions from its powerful postal unions — among the public-sector unions that still retain significant leverage in negotiations with the government.
The officials have also said Mnuchin wants the authority to review hiring decisions at the agency’s senior levels, including the selection of the next postmaster general, a decision that until now has been left to the Postal Service’s five-member board of governors.
USPS spokesman David Partenheimer confirmed in an e-mail that the agency and the Treasury have begun ‘‘preliminary discussions’’ over the loan, but that the Treasury had not yet asked ‘‘to impose any of those conditions on that borrowing authority.’’ He declined to say whether these or any other terms were under discussion.
A Treasury spokesman said the department began preliminary discussions on the terms of the loan, but said it was too early to comment on those conversations.
Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
They lost the appeal.
The Postal Service has repeatedly drawn on an open $15 billion line of credit Congress authorized nearly 30 years ago, as the agency’s finances have been squeezed by the demise of the traditional mail business and rising pension costs. That loan comes without any terms and low interest rates. USPS has paid down the debt in recent years, but has never fully paid off the loan. On April 1, the Postal Service borrowed another $3 billion to help weather the pandemic, bringing the agency up to $14.4 billion from that line of credit.
Usually, the agency’s business decisions are made by its governors, who are appointed by the president, and an independent entity called the Postal Regulatory Commission, which ensures that the Postal Service charges rates for its services that cover its costs. If Mnuchin were to gain greater control through the new loan, a slew of Postal Service management decisions, including the terms of major contracts and collective bargaining strategy, could require Treasury approval. Hiring and firing of senior executives could be required to be run by the Treasury, the two people familiar with the matter said.
Trump has taken aim at the Postal Service since early in his tenure, initially urging the agency to double the rates it charges Amazon and other firms for delivery. The agency has been devastated by the decline in first-class mail over recent decades, but one bright spot has been package delivery. The Postal Service competes vigorously with UPS, FedEx and Amazon’s own delivery services, and it specializes in the ‘‘last mile’’ delivery to a customer’s home.
Trump frequently repeats the claim that higher package rates on Internet shipping companies - Amazon, in particular — could ease the Postal Service’s financial troubles. The Postal Service has repeatedly defended its arrangement with the e-commerce giant, saying it gets fair rates for the services it provides in a highly competitive environment. Higher Postal Service rates could hurt the USPS by artificially raising its price above those of UPS and FedEx, analysts say. It would also hit Amazon because the company contracts for ‘‘last mile’’ deliveries more frequently than its competitors.
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Related:
"Under the rescue package legislation, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin must approve the loan before the Postal Service can receive the money. Looking at Mnuchin, who was with him in the Oval Office, President Trump said, “If they don’t raise the price of the service they give... I’m not signing anything and I’m not authorizing you to do anything.” Mnuchin told reporters that he had Treasury officials working with the Postal Service on the terms of the loan if postal officials decide they need more money. “We are going to post certain criteria for [a] postal reform program as part of the loan,” Mnuchin said. He said the Postal Service board is already conducting a search for a new postmaster general to run the agency and undertaking reforms of operations. The Washington Post, which first reported the administration’s push for changes at the Postal Service, quoted unnamed officials as saying that senior Postal Service officials have been told the administration wants to use the $10 billion loan as leverage to influence how much the agency charges for delivering packages and how it manages its finances....."
Do you want the bankrupt U.S. Trea$ury in charge of the Po$t Office?
How about Social Security and Medicare?
"Social Security and Medicare funds at risk even before virus" by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Martin Crutsinger Associated Press, April 22, 2020
WASHINGTON — The financial condition of the government’s two biggest benefit programs remains shaky, with Medicare expected to become insolvent in just six years, while Social Security will be unable to pay full benefits starting in 2035, the government said Wednesday, and that’s before factoring what officials acknowledge will be a substantial hit to both programs from the coronavirus pandemic, which has shut down large parts of the US economy and put millions of people out of work.
The depletion dates, which remained unchanged from last year’s estimates, were revealed Wednesday with release of the annual trustees reports of both programs.
Even if employment rebounds by the end of this year and payroll taxes return to near-normal levels, the shock from the pandemic shutdown could accelerate the depletion of the Social Security trust fund by about six months, officials told reporters.
Even if!
We all know that isn't happening, and the Social Security loot is already gone. Just a bunch of government IOUs in there. Too bad Mnuchin and the Congre$$ gave trillions to Wall Street rather than shoring up the shredded social safety net.
This whole thing can only be described as a calculated and planned effort that is abominably evil.
If a recession extends into next year, it could mean that a depletion would come a full year earlier. The consequences may be worse for the Medicare program, which in this report is estimated to deplete its reserves in 2026.
If, could mean, may be!
If I had wheels I'd be a bicycle!
The expected recession, projected by economists to be the deepest since the 1930s, will mean fewer people paying into Social Security and Medicare. Compounding the problem, the pandemic will impose heavier caseloads on the health program, which provides care for those 65 and older.
That's why a great cull is being carried out now under COVID-19 cover, and why 2020-21 looks to be an era of extermination. It's being set up as I type.
In a statement, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who chairs the trustees’ group, said that the Trump administration was “working around the clock to mitigate any potential long-term negative economic effects of the pandemic and position the economy once again for strong growth.”
How about that, huh?
Not only is he in charge of doling out the trillions, he is the chair of the board of trustees of two of the most successful U.S. social programs ever and a pillar of middle class society. The foreclosure king will also soon be in charge of the mail service as well. Wow!
William Arnone, CEO of the nonpartisan National Academy of Social Insurance, which works on education and policy, said that next year’s report will be much more important because it will take into account the impact of pandemic.
More than 20 million workers have been laid off so far. As a consequence, they and their employers are no longer sending in payroll taxes to support Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare’s giant trust fund for inpatient care.
What they will advise next year is to PRIVATIZE the programs and LET WALL $TREET INVE$T the TRU$T FUNDS!
People forced to retire because of job loss could see their lifetime Social Security checks reduced because the earnings they expected to receive from work won’t be factored into the calculation of their benefits. A year is no small sacrifice for older workers who are at or near their peak earning capacity.
“That will be reflected in next year’s report,” Arnone said.
If we even have a NEXT YEAR!
Medicare’s Part B premium for outpatient care is projected to go up by about $9 next year, to $153.30 a month.
The impact on Medicare spending may be harder to sort out, said Fred Riccardi, president of the Medicare Rights Center advocacy group. That’s because of a push-pull effect on spending.
“The demographics of this are that people on Medicare are the most severely impacted,” Riccardi said, noting that older people suffer the worst consequences of COVID-19. Hospitalizations will raise Medicare spending, “but we also know that the stay-at-home order has put elective surgery and treatment on hold,” Riccardi continued. Older people are also the most likely to need hip and knee replacements and other procedures now paused, and that would tend to lower projected Medicare spending.
What was the name of that song, killing us $oftly?
The dates are the years that both programs will exhaust their trust funds. When that happens, Social Security will have to cut benefits which many recipients depend on, or lawmakers will have to raise the payroll tax. Medicare would have to cut its payments to hospitals, nursing homes and other medical providers unless taxes are increased.
The whole program will be insolvent by the time anyone under the age of 60 needs it, if any of you even see it to 60.
The annual trustees reports contain the same general warnings they’ve carried for years. Both benefit programs need to make adjustments to become financially sound, but the choices of cutting benefits or raising taxes to bring that about remain politically unpalatable to most lawmakers.
Okay, that is where the print copy ended and where the web version began; however, the FIRST THING that came to kind was NEVER LET a GOOD CRI$I$ go to WA$TE!
Without the COVID-19 $camdemic, they would never be allowed to get away with this. Without a lockdown and a limit on gatherings, the American people would be flooding state capitals and Wa$hington over this dismantling of vital services for the American people.
It's not a great $y$tem, but it's better than nothing!
Instead, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has called for expanding both programs. On Social Security Biden would increase benefits, especially for people of modest incomes, while raising more revenue from upper-income earners.
He really is demented, i$n't he?
President Trump pledged during the 2016 campaign not to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. Before the pandemic, he said in an interview that his administration would be taking a look at benefit programs, but the White House press office pushed back on suggestions he was opening the door to cuts. Various proposals have been put forward. They include reducing the annual cost of living benefit increases for Social Security, raising payroll taxes or raising the retirement age for Medicare, yet there is little political appetite for such changes.
The $ilver lining is the coronavirus makes them ravenous.
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Here is where he stayed overnight:
"Luxury hotel company benefits from $40 million in small business funds" by Jeanna Smialek and Jim Tankersley New York Times, April 22, 2020
NEW YORK — Hotels and luxury resorts that funnel money back to a single company have secured about $40 million in small-business program funding, the latest evidence that large sums of money flowing from the government’s relief program are in some cases helping big businesses.
It makes one $ad that in addition to be sickened by a hoax, the American people have been looted beyond belief. This is the end, folks.
Ashford Inc., an asset management firm based in Dallas, makes money partly by advising two real estate investment trusts: Ashford Hospitality Trust and Braemar Hotels & Resorts, which together own more than 100 properties. Those companies reported in public filings that their hotel properties had received millions in forgivable loans through a government program meant to help small businesses. The so-called Paycheck Protection Program ran out of its initial $349 billion April 16, leaving many small companies with no assistance.
Congress is expected to add another $310 billion to the program, but there are growing concerns that the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration have not done enough to prevent big companies from getting funds ahead of smaller, often independent businesses with no other financing options.
Several other big, publicly traded companies have received forgivable loans, including J. Alexander’s, whose restaurants received $15 million; Ruth’s Hospitality Group, parent to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse; and Shake Shack, which has since returned the loan. That has prompted an outcry from lawmakers and small-business owners, who say this goes against the intent of the program.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said his department would be issuing new guidelines Wednesday that would tighten the rules for which types of companies could get forgivable loans, potentially restricting publicly traded companies from accessing the relief funds.
Yeah, clo$e that barn door now that the hor$e is loo$e.
Mnuchin, who said this week that the program was not intended to aid big companies that have access to capital, urged firms that received loans to return the money if they did not meet the eligibility requirements. If they did not, he said, the loan would not be forgiven and those firms could face “severe consequences.”
“If they pay the money back quickly, there will be no liability to Treasury and the SBA,” he said. “If they don’t, they could be subject to investigation.”
Mnuchin the Mob Bo$$.
Who in the world wants the U.S. Treasury digging into an investigation on themselves?
Why did they grant it in the fir$t place?
Ashford Hospitality’s affiliated hotels received $29 million of the $31.1 million they had requested as of mid-April, according to its financial filing. The biggest chunk of money went to the Ritz Carlton Atlanta and a Sheraton in Anchorage, Alaska. In all, 42 properties from Manhattan Beach, Calif., to Plano, Texas, were listed as recipients of aid.
Puttin' on the Ritz, huh?
Braemar Hotels & Resorts had already secured $10.6 million across its subsidiary properties as of its April 15 financial filing and was hoping for $15.8 million in total. Both of the trusts received their loans through Key Bank.
“We are grateful for the crisis assistance made available by Congress for our industry, and will use every dollar possible to bring our employees back to work,” Montgomery Bennett, founder and chairman of Ashford Inc., said in an emailed comment.
Yeah, I gue$$ the luxury end of the economy will be bouncing back big.
Too bad those millions couldn't have been used to save your small, independent entrepreneurial endeavor, average American.
Bennett has been publicly bemoaning the government’s coronavirus response in recent weeks, telling CBS News that he had cut 95 percent of his staff and worried the aid would be insufficient.
The two trusts are especially poorly placed for the upheaval caused by coronavirus because both are heavily indebted compared to their peers, based on metrics compiled by Bloomberg.
OMG, they wanted SBA loot so they could pay lenders like banks!
Yeah, the loot always flows to one place.
Pay no mind to that; he works there.
In its recent annual filing, Ashford Hospitality Trust noted that it had more debt on one portfolio of its hotels than the businesses were worth. Those properties include several that received paycheck protection loans, including the Hampton Inn Pittsburgh Waterfront and the Courtyard Wichita in Kansas.
They could have kept people in their homes at a fraction of the cost by paying off mortgages!
“High leverage in this kind of environment — that’s the kind of situation that can bring companies down,” Jeffrey Langbaum, senior REIT analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said about the industry. “The entire lodging space is just getting hammered, as you’d expect.”
Maybe they should have been allowed to fail.
Oh, right, it's part of the richer's $ector.
Even amid its 2019 troubles, Ashford Trust paid an Ashford Inc. subsidiary tens of millions in advisory fees, based on its annual filing.
Other publicly traded REITs managed to tap the Payroll Protection Program. Lodging Fund REIT III acquired $286,100 in loans for its subsidiaries through Western State Bank.
So the PPP ended up protecting Real E$tate Tru$ts?
That's when the web version added some fine print:
REITs, as an industry, have been looking for more help. Thomas Barrack, a prominent investor and ally of President Trump’s, has warned of a catastrophic collapse as loans suddenly decline in value.
Are those e$$ential properties?
The optics of giving money to a big company may be bad, economists say, but doing so will help more workers keep their jobs.
It's the trickle-down effect as they pi$$ all over us.
“The biggest problem with the PPP is not that it was generous; it’s that Congress gave it too little money,” said Ernie Tedeschi, an economist at Evercore ISI who has tracked the program’s spending. “That made the rivalry for those scarce funds intense, and so in the end, it’s little surprise that large, well-connected companies were able to beat out small businesses in many cases.”
The wide expan$es of greed!
That is particularly true for the hospitality industry, which has been among the hardest hit by the virus. “To have their loans waived under the program, businesses need to maintain their staffing levels,” said Steven Hamilton, an economist at George Washington University who was an early supporter of congressional assistance to small business amid the crisis. “So if these businesses are in financial distress, which is surely the case for the hotel industry, the upside is that their workers will keep their jobs.”
So when can they get back to work?
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Related: Kura Sushi and Sweetgreen latest to return small business loans
Ashford not giving the money back like Harvard?
"After Trump’s rebuke, Harvard won’t take federal relief money" by Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff, April 22, 2020
After being publicly scolded by President Trump and facing a growing backlash over its access to federal stimulus funds, Harvard University on Wednesday announced it would not apply for the emergency relief.
Harvard joined at least two other elite universities, Stanford and Princeton, in opting out of the stimulus money.
In a statement, Harvard said it was concerned “that the intense focus by politicians and others on Harvard in connection with this program may undermine participation in a relief effort that Congress created and the President signed into law for the purpose of helping students and institutions whose financial challenges in the coming months may be most severe.
"As a result of this, and the evolving guidance being issued around use of the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, Harvard has decided not to seek or accept the funds allocated to it by statute.”
Harvard, with a $41 billion endowment, has borne the brunt of criticism over the use of taxpayer money to help wealthy schools cope with the financial toll of the coronavirus.
The pandemic has exacerbated financial problems at many colleges and universities and served to further divide the haves and have-nots in higher education.
It's the future of higher edu¢ation.
On Wednesday, Harvard said it hoped the federal funds allocated for its campus would go to needier institutions in Massachusetts, yet it was unclear whether the decisions by these elite schools to forgo federal stimulus funds would mean a fairer distribution of the relief money.
The proper term is $timuloot.
The funds will simply be redistributed to other wealthy private colleges that decided to apply for them, said Ben Miller, of the left-leaning Center for American Progress, who has been studying the formula used to divide the money.
That's a Clinton outfit!
“Instead of giving into presidential demagoguery, wealthy colleges should accept the money and then make an equivalent donation of the same amount to a poorer institution in their area,” Miller said. "This will almost certainly be a more equitable investment than using the federal formula."
When Congress approved the $14 billion fund to help colleges offset the financial toll of the pandemic, it developed a formula for distributing the money based on the number of full-time equivalent students and the number of low-income students an institution serves. The money is meant to help low-income students, in particular.
Then Trump isn't to blame for this one! He just signed the damn thing.
The formula benefits large universities, and among higher education experts there has been a growing concern that community colleges and institutions with more part-time, working students wouldn’t get enough help.
Arizona State University is set to receive the most money, $63.5 million.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst will get $18 million, and the public university system’s Boston campus will get $12 million. Bridgewater State University has been allocated $8.8 million, and Bunker Hill Community College received $8.3 million, about as much as Harvard.
Barber academies and beauty schools also qualified for stimulus funds.
Will Baker let them open?
The formula was developed in a rush and designed so that schools and students could get money quickly instead of having to apply for grants, said Terry Hartle, a senior vice president at the American Council on Education, a lobbying group. “We think this is a good formula; we think this is a reasonable way to distribute the funds,” Hartle said.
(Blog editor shakes head)
Lawmakers should not have been surprised that Harvard or any of the other elite universities qualified for emergency relief, since they also educate low-income students, Hartle said. “This is another aspect of the culture wars that Harvard got caught up in,” Hartle said.
More like the cla$$ war!
The battle reached a fevered pitch on Tuesday when President Trump lashed out at Harvard, the world’s wealthiest higher-education institution, for tapping into the emergency money, but by Wednesday morning, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he had spoken with Harvard president Lawrence Bacow, and the university said it was reconsidering applying for the relief funds.
There he goes again, acting like a mob boss (he was an executive producer)!
Stanford University, meanwhile, rescinded its application. The university was set to receive $7.4 million. In a statement, Stanford said it was facing “significant financial pressures” but the money could be better used to help smaller institutions. Stanford has an endowment of $28 billion.
“We realize that this crisis represents an existential threat for many of the smaller colleges and universities that are such a critical fabric of higher learning in the United States,” Stanford said. “We believe strongly in the importance of keeping these institutions viable in order to provide access to higher education for as many students as possible, and we had concluded that this should be a priority.”
The pandemic has put tuition-reliant institutions that serve low-income, first-generation students at particular risk. They’ve already lost money, and the fall semester is uncertain. These colleges and universities generally don’t have large endowments that can help cushion a financial blow.
For example, Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill announced earlier this month that it may not have enough money to reopen in the fall. The college, which enrolls 360 students, three-quarters of whom are considered low-income, received $519,000 in stimulus funds.
They were felled by the fever.
In Vermont, the chancellor of the state college system had proposed closing three of the five residential campuses before withdrawing the proposal on Wednesday after a backlash from students, faculty, and lawmakers. Still, the system anticipates losing $10 million this fiscal year because of the pandemic and needs another $25 million to stay afloat next year. The system is slated to receive about $6.2 million in higher education stimulus funds.
Did you see the protest?
Jeb Spaulding, chancellor of the Vermont system, said in a statement that he will work with the public and state legislators to come up with alternatives, but he cautioned that the system would not continue to operate as is for much longer.....
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It's the tough love approach like in Rhode Island:
"The Great Divide: When it comes to online learning, Mass., Rhode Island take wildly divergent paths; Rhode Island stresses academic business as usual, Massachusetts opts for local control" by Bianca Vázquez Toness and Dan McGowan Globe Staff, April 22, 2020
The two states epitomize the starkly different approaches states are taking to learning in the era of COVID-19. Tiny Rhode Island, with just 142,000 public school students, laid out a clear mandate that teachers and students would continue with business as usual — except now online. Massachusetts, by contrast, has left the extent and depth of online learning largely up to individual school districts and teachers while encouraging them to avoid introducing any new content for the time being.
So Ma$$achu$etts kids are already falling behind.
There are no statewide numbers for student participation in Massachusetts, but individual districts report widely varying numbers, from about 95 percent in Andover and other suburban towns, to 30 percent in Chelsea, where the virtual classrooms are much emptier.
Some of my students “need more structure,” said Shanae Paulino, who teaches English as a second language at Boston’s Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. She’s tweaked her approach every week, settling recently on offering one “live lesson” each week over Zoom, for which attendance is usually about 20 percent.
She isn't worried about the safety of the kids?
Paulino applauds the Boston district for securing laptops and Internet connections for all students but wishes that officials had then followed up with clearer guidance on what “school” should look like these days. If the state had provided clearer expectations, Paulino said, many teachers and students would have risen to the occasion.
They held you back?
“Massachusetts is not using the bully pulpit in the way that you’d want to see,” said Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based education policy think tank. By contrast, he described Rhode Island’s “tough love approach” as ultimately more “loving ... because I think what we’re learning is what kids are desperate for right now is some sense of normalcy.”
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is an ideologically conservative American nonprofit education policy think tank.
I suggest we get tough with the looting bank$ters and the ruling cla$$ as well as their $lavi$h political minions.
Massachusetts’ leaders counter that their approach is more practical and realistic for the circumstances of this state, with over 400 school districts in starkly different circumstances when it comes to Internet access and much more.
In Massachusetts and Rhode Island, competing philosophies about what children and families need in a crisis also seem to be driving these decisions. Massachusetts officials have said focusing too much on academics could exacerbate inequality if some students can’t — or don’t choose to — access the courses and material; safety and emotional health should take priority, they say. Meanwhile Rhode Island officials believe the best way to ensure equity is to focus on academics.
OMG!
Being lenient and spoiling them is going to turn them all into snowflakes, and they won't be learning like their peers next door!
Students and teachers should be “spending as much time and effort as you would if you were in school,” said Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, speaking at a press conference not long after schools in the state shut down. “This is only going to work if it’s all hands on deck.”
Is the Guard still going door to door down there, and how are the T-$hirt $ales going?
***
Rhode Island was the first New England state to decide to close schools, and immediately thereafter state officials made a series of swift and resolute decisions about what teaching and learning should look like.
On Friday, March 13, a student at a high school in Cranston tested positive for COVID-19, bringing total cases in the state to 16. By that afternoon, Raimondo ordered all the state’s schools to close and start their one-week April vacations the next Monday. That would give teachers a week with students off to plan.
Raimondo required districts to submit distance learning plans to state Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green for approval, who was upfront with districts that she did not intend to set a lower bar. “Our kids need ... the normalcy of learning,” she said. Districts had to submit proposals that mapped out between four and six hours of instructional time each day, a plan to ensure students had access to computers and the Internet, and daily communication between teachers and students.
That is probably the last thing they need!
Not every class is required to run for the same amount of time that students would be in a traditional classroom, but a similar workload is expected. Rather than assign grades to students, the state has encouraged districts to adopt a pass/fail model.
Rhode Island’s firm approach was made possible by quick buy-in from its teachers unions, which received assurances from the state that the virtual days would count toward the 180-day school year and that teachers and other staffers would continue getting paid. State officials plan to announce Thursday that they are extending closures through the end of the school year.
“Everything was thought out early on, and we made adjustments as we went along,” said Larry Purtill, president of National Education Association Rhode Island, the state’s largest teachers union. “It’s not perfect. It’s not as good as it was, but there’s still education happening.”
***
Most states have not been as dogmatic as Rhode Island — with only a few, including Texas and Alabama, requiring districts to teach new material.
In Massachusetts, guidance to schools has come out more gradually. The Globe obtained an earlier, written draft of the state’s recommendations — and an e-mail thread responding to it — that show how the guidance changed with the input of teachers unions, superintendents, and others. The initial draft circulated by the state on March 24 suggested a few hours of instruction each day from teachers and, “ideally,” daily contact.
In the end, Merrie Najimy, the association’s president, in a recent interview, contends that requiring more formal academic instruction right now could actually widen achievement gaps between students of different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. That’s because wealthier districts and families have more Internet access, parents with flexible schedules, and more physical space and resources to accommodate children’s learning.
“If we try to meet the needs of the affluent communities” in forging ahead full speed, Najimy said. “We deepen the divide,” but Massachusetts’ approach has led to vastly different experiences across the state, depending partly on local leadership and the kinds of deals teachers unions have struck.
Justin Reich, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Teaching Systems Lab, believes that Massachusetts’ approach might ultimately be more realistic. “The vast majority of American schools are not set up to rapidly switch to remote, online learning,” he wrote in a recent report.
What is with the MIT sourcing all the time?
He predicts the barriers to online learning will only grow during the pandemic as more people get sick or lose jobs and have to focus all their energies on daily survival. “Keep it simple,” he wrote. “Schools that do a few simple things well ... will likely be in the best position on the other side of this crisis.”
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Outside where kids can't go:
The mother bear known as Mink, along with her cubs born this year, in a West Lebanon, N.H., backyard on April 7. (Bryan Marquard/Globe Staff)
Once upon a time I would have eagerly devoured such a story, but no longer :-(
Alex Cora led the Red Sox to a World Series in his first season as manager, but was out after his second season. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)
There will be no buzzing of the batters this summer.
Related:
"The prolonged school closures pose a challenge not just for parents, but for the growing push to “reopen the economy.” Any move towards getting people back into the office will have to reckon with the fact that many working parents will be caring for their children at home for months to come....."
That is the lesson of communal responsibility that the coronavirus pandemic is teaching as arts programs face the challenge of online learning:
"Within two days of its March 16 posting, the family’s GoFundMe page had raised more than $10,000. Three weeks later, donations had jumped to nearly $34,000 –– nearly $9,000 more than the original goal. Donations have ranged from $5 to $10,000, a testament to how much the theater means to its community. “What’s happened with the GoFundMe and the notes that have come in, it’s eye-opening,” said owner David Bramante....."
Extra, Extra, read all about it:
"While juggling classes and reporting on coronavirus, college journalists from across the country join forces" by Matt Berg Globe Correspondent, April 9, 2020
When Kristina Chen arrived at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in September, she had no idea her freshman year would be uprooted by a pandemic. Once it was, there wasn’t a road map for transitioning to a radically different, virtual college environment.
Much less running a newspaper at the same time.
As editor-in-chief of The Tech, MIT’s student newspaper, Chen had to scramble when students learned they would be forced to leave campus in a matter of days because of the coronavirus epidemic. From curating a live update page for coronavirus coverage, to pumping out one final print edition, to overseeing a virtual newsroom, her responsibilities mounted as she packed up her dorm.
“It was a little bit scary to think what was going to happen to the newspaper because basically a lot of things were going to change,” Chen said. “I never would have expected that this was something I’d run into while serving for the first time in this position.”
What is scary is the $elf-$erving agenda-pu$hing by the Bo$ton Globe.
From her home in Illinois, Chen, 18, is now doing her best to manage a newsroom of dozens of writers while she juggles online classwork. She’s not alone — student journalists from across the country are grappling with the reality of producing a newspaper remotely, a stark contrast to a centralized newsroom where ideas are pitched, templates are laid out for print, and camaraderie is in full supply.
No more inve$tigative reporting!
In a Slack channel simply titled “Editors” that Chen created, a group of more than 100 editors at student newspapers across the country — 43 papers from 24 states, to be exact — bounce ideas off each other as they sort through the chaotic nature of coronavirus coverage, all while taking a full slate of classes.
“One of the things that digital media has provided us, and a platform like Slack has provided us, is the ability to reach out across distance in real time,” said Nancy Baym, a senior principal researcher at Microsoft who lives in Cambridge. Such platforms "are really important in helping to mobilize large, distributed groups in a crisis.”
You just can't touch.
Weekly Zoom sessions, led by a Middlebury Campus editor, encourage collaboration across a range of perspectives — the first video conference included 65 journalists. A book chronicling how college journalists are covering the pandemic is in the works, with Duke Chronicle editors compiling articles from campus newspapers and reflections from student journalists about covering higher education during the pandemic.
Not worried about all the data collection, huh?
What sparked the interest of Tys Sweeney, the associate editor of the Tufts Daily and an original organizer of the campus journalism group, was the idea of a group editorial from all participating student newspapers.
“My initial vision was to put forth a central, unified voice from college students and college papers, which are the spokespeople for campuses across the country, and push administrations broadly to adopt similar progressive policies that would benefit students,” said Sweeney, a former opinion editor at the paper.
Several publications represented in the Slack channel, including the Cornell Daily Sun, The Villanovan, and The Daily Princetonian, published editorials urging their administrations to enact a pass/fail grading option for the spring term. Sweeney hopes a unified effort could bring about broader change.
When Sweeney and other Daily editors first learned that the university was going to close campus and cancel regular classes, they immediately thought of ways to keep the newspaper in operation. Within days, a radical transformation was underway. Print editions were canceled, meetings moved online, but the paper continued to publish daily, producing consistent coverage across all sections, complemented by an uptick in news articles.
How?
At the University of Oregon’s Daily Emerald, students are grappling with a harsh reality: As the journalism industry continues to contract, college newspapers have a greater responsibility to provide coverage.
Nobody likes a liar.
While defending the rights of campus journalists, the Student Press Law Center has “highlighted the fact that as local news organizations face more and more trouble, student media often becomes the primary, or at least complementary, local news media in many places,” said Joshua Braun, an associate journalism professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst.
So that is why our local news sucks.
Michael Tobin, the Emerald’s editor-in-chief, spends about 40 hours a week running the paper, pushing his classes to the back burner. “Well I don’t have coronavirus, but I have senior-itis," he acknowledged. "I’m really putting all my efforts into keeping our coverage on track.”
The Emerald, Daily, and Tech rely heavily on advertisements, which have all but vanished in recent weeks as print editions were eliminated.
Still, at a time of unprecedented crisis, students are making sure their classmates get the latest news.....
People are “relying on them for information, and they have to be there to cover it.”
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Then you will be on your own:
"They chose to live alone, but in the grip of coronavirus, what started as freedom has sometimes turned to isolation; Eating off the floor. Craving brief interactions with cashiers. Losing social skills. Sheltering in place is getting tough for some solo quarantiners" by Beth Teitell Globe Staff, April 24, 2020
A month into the state’s stay-at-home advisory, as parents and couples complain about homeschooling and spouses with annoying work and dishwasher habits, many who live alone by choice are finding they’ve got the opposite problem: They are too alone.
“It is clearly starting to affect me,” said Trenni Kusnierek, a sports anchor and reporter for NBC Sports Boston.
I have heard her on the radio. I was not impressed. Seemed like a drunken skank.
After joking about having the freedom to do as she pleases — six workouts daily — she relayed a dream in which she and a friend watched as a plane started barreling toward them.
“At least we’re not going to die alone,” her dream self said, grabbing her friend’s hand.
Then, back in a wakeful state, talking to a reporter: “It’s happening,” she said. “I’m getting lonely.”
What a pathetic creature.
Time to give Meredith a call!
Yeah, there’s Zoom and FaceTime and the warm bosom of Walgreens, and the joy of not having to fend off children, or deal with relationship stress, but there’s no physical contact, no loving gaze that’s not brokered by a camera lens, not even anyone else’s “Tiger King” obsession to cope with.
There are several ways to measure the longing for companionship.
You can listen to the mental health experts.
That's crazy!
“What was wonderful about living alone for the people who like to do it was the sense of freedom,” said Richard S. Schwartz, a Cambridge psychiatrist and co-author, with his wife, of “The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-First Century.” “Suddenly it’s no longer freedom; it’s a kind of imprisonment.”
“The people who live alone didn’t quite bargain on having so much aloneness,” said co-author Jacqueline Olds, also a Cambridge psychiatrist. “They have more practice than the rest of us, but it’s a lot to take.”
You can look at the increase in pet adoption by singles at the MSPCA. “People are eager for companionship,” said director of communications Rob Halpin, but perhaps nothing is more telling than this: More than one person told the Globe that they are starting to miss the T.
The buses and trains may be near empty, but what’s left unsaid is the suspicion that the next rider over is a threat carrying an unseen adversary.
“I know the MBTA has its issues,” said Lisa Pardini, an assistant facilities manager in Cambridge, but after five years of taking the commuter rail and Red Line daily, she has friends on the rails.
“Humans are not meant to be totally isolated,” she said. “It is used as a form of extreme punishment in prisons, after all.”
Like TORTURE!
Researchers have told us that COVID-19 is mutating, and some solo quarantiners fear they are, too. They worry that house arrest is changing their personalities.
Then that may render the search for a vaccine futile!
It's over for Bill Gates then!
“I’ve never in my entire life had months where I’ve had this kind of isolation,” said Adair Gregory a lobbyist and an outgoing guy who lives on Beacon Hill. “Will my social skills be as good as they were?”
Mine are about the same.
In Brookline, a middle-aged woman began to worry about herself when a few flakes of cereal fell on her kitchen floor and, with no one around to judge, she popped them into her mouth. “I’m keeping my floor fairly clean,” she said, “but still.”
“I have become — and I don’t like to use these words — a little bit of a loner,” said Martin Lieberman, director of content marketing at The RepTrak Company, a Boston-based reputation management firm. “No one is motivating me to go outside,” he said. “I’m not taking good enough care of myself.” Like others who still have jobs and their health, Lieberman emphasized that he feels fortunate.
OMFG!
Indeed, many who live alone are the envy of those who are overrun by family members, and feel guilty for struggling. “I should be managing this better because I don’t have anyone to take care of,” said Annaliza Nieve, a brand strategist who is living solo. About three years ago, eager to be closer to nature, and farther from the stresses of Boston, she moved to Newbury, where she knew no one, “but now,” she said, "I’m so far from people I know that I worry if something did go wrong ....”
The notion of getting sick and being physically distant from friends had never before concerned her, but after having chills and a fever in late February into March, with no thermometer at home, she began to question her move. "You did this to yourself,” she thought. (She doesn’t know if what she had was a mild case of COVID-19.)
Meanwhile, some singles are tired of being by themselves, but also don’t want to talk to anyone, or — or have a witness to their behavior. “I’m a little grouchy and short-tempered," said the MSPCA’s Halpin. "I’m not at my best.”"
Try reading in$ultingly eliti$t $hit like that for 14 years.
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I think it's clear that you need the right connection to get into your comfort zone even as your condo or apartment has turned into a tower of fear while searching for a bottle of Purell, and "is it petty to gossip about your husband during a pandemic?"
The answer, technically, is yes, but with the whole family home all day, every day, for every meal, and with some people talking very loudly on conference calls, and every day both a weekend and a workday, and restaurants closed, and the sudden mandate to home-school, many moms are so burdened they can’t help themselves. A mere few days into the great shut-in, the whispered gripes were flooding in like grandparents not listening to their kids’ coronavirus lectures and lying about going to the grocery store and pretending they weren’t playing bridge because the original helicopter parents won’t be grounded because they are now Boomer Teenagers or Disobedient Parents or Senior Delinquents proving ungovernable (She is the same one who slung such sh!t as the mask is on and don't happy, be worry, telling you to be afraid of your own children, folks, and rush them off to school as fast as you can).
