Utah House Bill 234

House Bill 234:  Public Educator Curriculum Transparency Requirements

This bill is a bad idea.  Unfortunately, some bad ideas gain traction and make it into our lawbooks.  If you are convinced below, please write your Utah legislators and ask them to reject this bill.

Please also sign the Utah Educator Association's petition against this bill.

House Bill 234 would require public school teachers to post a syllabus and learning materials for each day (180 days) of instruction before the school year begins, and in the case of middle, junior, and high schools, to be approved by school administration.  An accurate, up-to-date syllabus shall be enforced with the threat of litigation.

The most common reasons for suing a school or school district relate with negligence, abuse, failure to accommodate special needs and disabilities, and other mistreatment of children.  This Bill would open Utah schools to lawsuits over a syllabus.  This unnecessary red tape is contrary to a dynamic learning environment, disrespects teachers in their profession, opens up teacher lesson plans for public scrutiny without context, and ultimately adds just another layer of stress for our educators.

If we want to retain high-quality teachers in Utah, the solution is not to micromanage, but to respect our teachers, leaving them the discretion to teach how they want, without adding more checklists to their plate.  They already have enough to-do items with their 25-29 students (multiplied by five for middle and high school teachers).

We not only want students to thrive - WE NEED OUR TEACHERS TO THRIVE.  They need the freedom from demanding administration and government regulations to teach in their own teaching style.

This Bill makes private classroom discussions public domain, open to anyone, regardless of whether his/her child attends school in that classroom or school district.  It opens the door to unaffiliated extremists regulating what is taught to school children, without context to the classroom discussion.  The level of mistrust in Utah school teachers is demeaning.  House Bill 234 reads:

391          (3) (a) To the extent practicable, each school shall:
392          (i) make available for public inspection all learning materials used for student
393     instruction, including original materials; and
394          (ii) allow the public to copy, scan, duplicate, or photograph portions of original
395     materials within the limits of fair use under copyright law.

The reality that some of these teachers' instruction methods, or summary of their instruction, will be misinterpreted by self-appointed public watchdogs is inevitable.  The classroom should remain sacred, and teaching should remain uncomplicated.  A teacher should not fear being thrust into the center of a political uproar thanks to extremists creating something out of nothing.

Teachers are already expected to communicate with parents.  What they may teach is already regulated by the state and school district.  They already receive plenty of oversight from school administrators and parents.  What they don't need is more stress, more work, less trust, less respect, and no pay raise.

In summary, this Bill is just a bad idea.

Please sign this petition and write your legislators to reject this bill.  Thank you.

Billionaires

Since I like to reference it sometimes, I'll post a compelling comment from this Reddit post below.  I will temper the below words with my own philosophy of avoiding personal judgments, though I consider judging actions to be pertinent to our own morality.  In other words, I may consider the actions of a rapist, a murderer, or someone who hoards money and ignores the poor to be wrong, but I believe in people and the power of change, and that people are inherently good; and that I can't compare the missteps of others to my own, because they were not given the same experiences and teachers that I was given.  I also believe that life is a journey, and that we all arrive at a charitable and loving worldview at our own pace.  Despite withholding personal judgement, I believe that discussing what is right and wrong is important for our own growth.

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Billionaries aren't just a policy failure, they are the embodiment of immorality. You can't be a billionaire and a good person, despite what their astroturfing PR teams on reddit may try to tell you for some of the 'good ones'.

It's literally impossible to accumulate that much wealth without the mass exploitation of others and the profits their labor generated. Not to mention the exploitation of the earth until it's uninhabitable for human life.

George Washington was the richest man in the country when the US was founded, and he "only" had today's equivalent of 500 million. That wouldn't even get him in the room with some of these ghouls today.

If people only understood just how obscenely rich these monsters were, they wouldn't be able to show their face in society while millions suffer. I like to use the analogy of a staircase, with each step on the staircase representing $100,000 of net worth. That's several years of working wages saved up for tens of millions of Americans:

• HALF of people in the united states are on the base or the very 1st step. Almost 200 million people who can't even get one step up in this system.
• Those households at the 80th percentile, richer than 4/5 Americans, are on the 5th step. That's about five seconds of walking to get up there.
• Those with more money than 90% of fellow Americans, millionaires who we consider our upper-middle class professional class and live more than comfortably, are on the 11th step. A few more seconds of walking up from that previous middle-class step. Most Americans won't even come close to accumulating this much over an entire lifetime of working.
• A billionaire is ten thousand steps up the staircase. That's enough to walk up five Empire State buildings. That's almost three hours of walking non-stop. You think they care about the petty squabbles of anyone on those first few steps or so? From these heights they couldn't tell the difference even if they wanted to. And yet those who've maybe ascended or were born on the first few dozen steps think they identify with this group as a class.
• And Jeff Bezos? He's so high up it only makes sense to describe his staircase in distance. His stairs take him up 133 miles. That's more than halfway to the space station. That's more than 24 consecutive Mt. Everest's stacked on top of each other. It would take walking, non-stop, no sleep, over two weeks to ascend that high, each single step worth more than five poverty-level families in America combined.

Bernie Sanders for President 2016

Voting Information

Voter registration and state primary info:
voteforbernie.org

Primary election schedule HERE.

Register to vote in Utah, verify registration, or change address:
vote.utah.gov

Volunteer Information

Volunteer Organizing Toolkit directly from Bernie Sanders' website HERE.

Guide to hosting a grassroots meeting HERE.

Fliers and handouts HERE and HERE.

General information for Bernie Sanders supporters HERE.

Education on Bernie Sanders' Platform

Bernie Sanders on the issues
https://berniesanders.com/issues/

Bernie Sanders 12 Point Plan to Strengthen American Economy
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/agenda/

An Attitude of Gratitude

President Obama said something recently which I believe had an excellent message:

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

"The point is, when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires."

If you're confused about what he said about businesses, think about it this way: Did you lay the brick to build your business, or did you hire others to help you? Did you create the roads and bridges to your business, or the internet on which to sell your product, or did someone else make that happen?

What Obama is fighting against here is the extremely prevalent entitled attitude, perpetuated by the leaders and owners of the Republican party, that “I worked HARD, so I DESERVE my wealth, it's rightfully MINE, it should NOT receive a higher tax, and poor people are just lazy.” Obama is saying, you're wrong. While you did work hard, others helped you along the way, and as one of our success stories, you OWE something extra back to your country. The interactions and opportunities granted you by being a citizen of this country are what enabled your success. That is why it is okay for our nation to have a progressive income tax policy, and it's okay to increase taxes on the portion of millionaires' earnings that are over $1 million. In a unified country, the success of the most wealthy should be the fuel for the less fortunate to have opportunity.

Obama is encouraging an attitude of gratitude. A LOT of people these days discount the opportunities and advantages they have had over other people. He's explaining that, rather than begrudge the poor—who oftentimes have a below average IQ; endured childhood physical and sexual abuse; have been degraded and looked down upon their whole lives; have mental and physical illness; have no family support system; have never earned above minimum wage, etc.—we should help them through programs such as food stamps, vocational rehab, Head Start, Social Security Disability, and equal education opportunities. In contrast, many of us have no need for these types of programs to be well-adjusted, as we were raised in a loving two-parent home; have above average IQ; had attentive school teachers and class resources; received private lessons; built confidence through community or school sports; received college scholarships; have a physically and mentally able body; landed a great job with a generous employer. NO ONE does it on his own, and neither should we expect the disadvantaged to be able to.

Obama is trying to preserve the “American Dream.” In a country where government regulation fails to keep up with the magnitude of corporate corruption; where morals in business have faded to the point where “whatever is legal” must be moral; where the wealthy are esteemed and the poor despised; where politicians are bought by the most wealthy; where voters are manipulated by massive advertising campaigns to have an irrational anger toward the poor, and to vote in favor of politicians who are more concerned for the top 1% than for the good of the entire nation, oligarchy threatens equal opportunity (I prefer to call it reasonably fair opportunity, because it has NEVER been and never CAN be equal—and that's part of life: taking care of people who had less opportunity than you). As we've seen with the growing income gap, the problem will only continue to magnify unless we make certain changes that will allow us to continue to fund and improve programs that preserve reasonably fair opportunity, like implementing the Buffett rule.

Enough to Live On

The government needs to make sure that people who work 40 hours/week can be assured that they will earn enough income to live off of.  For example, we don't want our citizens to have the problems these garment workers in India have:

No living wage. All interviewed workers stated that it is almost impossible to make ends meet with the salary they earn. Many garment workers have taken loans to supplement their income and are now struggling to repay them. (http://somo.nl/news-en/indian-garment-workers-face-harsh-working-conditions/ )

Here's what I think needs to be done to fix the economy:

Full-Time Workers Must Earn Enough to Live On

One reason for the near economic collapse a few years ago was because there was too much debt that couldn't be repaid.  The government can't force everyone to make wise financial decisions, but it can ensure that people can reasonably live and stay out of debt if they put in a reasonable amount of work.  People who work full-time should be able to earn enough to support themselves.  And one step further:  since our nation can't persist if people don't raise children, full-time workers should expect to earn enough to support a small family.  Is that so much to ask?

Minimum wage needs to be increased, and the median income needs to be raised.  People complain that half of US citizens pay no income taxes.  Want to change that?  Raise minimum wage.  The reason that half of US citizens don't pay income taxes is because half of US citizens don't earn enough to live on.

But no, when Congress was proposing an increased minimum wage a few years ago, people spouted the problems this would cause.  Grocery prices would go up.  Small businesses would fail.  I have to say I see their point.  Some businesses can't afford to pay their workers a reasonable amount if they want to stay in business.  In order to have a stable economy, we just have to screw over the working class.

Okay, there's another solution.  It's called, "the government supplements the incomes of people who don't earn enough to live on."  It's also known as "government redistribution of wealth," or "taking money from where it is needed least and putting it where it is needed most."  AKA taxes.

Take your pick.  Raise the minimum wage or increase taxes on the highest earnings and redistribute the wealth.  People in our country have to be able to live.

American Jobs Act

Dear visitor,

So many people have been affected by unemployment.  Our economy and local businesses suffer from tightened wallets due to the low employment rate, and the long-term unemployed search tirelessly for jobs with no prospects or relief.  It's time we let our governmental leaders know what we want from them.  Let Congress hear your voice in regards to the newly proposed Jobs Bill!  Visit https://writerep.house. gov/writerep/welcome.shtml to email your regional Representative.  You may copy and paste the letter below, edit it to more closely reflect your opinions about the bill, or you may write your own:

Dear Congressperson,

Taxes on the highest earnings are significantly lower now than they have been in the past 80 years. Just as taxes increased drastically during the recovery years of the Great Depression—when the United States entered WWII—now is the time to raise taxes on the highest earnings brackets. We cannot afford to sit idly by, starving the government of funding—not when so many people are in need. Although we exist in this nation as individuals, we are also one. We are America. We cannot ignore the millions of interactions that weave throughout this country, tying us together. We are dependent upon each other for success. Just as wealthy corporations rely on the working and middle classes to invigor their businesses, the working and middle classes need succor from the affluent during hard times. Together we thrive. And together, we can fail.

Don't let our economy crumble. Raise taxes on the highest earnings and support the American Jobs Act.

While I don't think our nation is ready to restructure unemployment benefits, and I don't think unemployed workers should become a protected category with regards to discrimination laws, there are several measures in the bill that are necessary to boost our economy. Specifically, I strongly support the measures in the jobs bill which provide funding to renovate schools, prevent up to 280,000 teacher layoffs, lower payroll taxes for businesses and individuals, and offer tax credits for businesses that hire the long-term unemployed.

By channeling funding into education, our country prevents further job loss while, at the same time, investing in our future. With nearly 1 in 6 Americans currently living in poverty, a quality education is the only hope many children have to become an asset to society.

Direct focus on encouraging employment is another essential feature of the jobs bill. Lower payroll taxes will enable businesses to hire and keep more workers. Tax credits for hiring the long-term unemployed will bolster businesses while, at the same time, providing overdue relief for the downtrodden unemployed.

It's time we take an aggressive approach to job creation.  Not only is the 9.1% unemployment rate a drag on our entire economy, it is also an indication that millions of people are suffering.  We are a nation of brothers and sisters.  We cannot allow greed and ignorance to the poor to cripple our economy.  I implore you to take the muted pleas of the impoverished and unemployed seriously.  Please express your support for the American Jobs Act.

Sincerely,

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