by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Disclosure: I work with the Yes on Prop 93 Campaign. This is also available in orange.

There's already a Howie Rich exposed website, so the Contra Costa Times will have to just stick with the site they have now.  In today's paper (reg req'd), Steven Harmon goes into a little bit more about the mysterious initiative funder:

Just a few days after Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner's widely heralded takeover of the No on Proposition 93 campaign, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization quietly chipped in $1.5 million to the cause.

The group, U.S. Term Limits, spends considerable effort and money across the country trying to fend off attempts to weaken term limits laws, such as Prop. 93 -- which will appear on the February ballot -- in California. And the group tries to do so while steering clear of the limelight, which is precisely how Howard "Howie" Rich prefers it. (CCTimes 11/19/07))

More over the flip.

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

(full disclosure CTA has hired me to do blog outreach on NCLB) (also in orange: Miller and NCLB)

One of the many problems with the current Miller/Pelosi draft of the re-authorization of NCLB is how it assesses schools.  The feds require schools get assessed with an Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) report.  It sets benchmarks.  If you do not meet them, you fail.  It is a very rigid system.  They mandated this program, yet never provided the money for states to actually track schools and students. Thus states have had to cough up the money on their own for data programs.

Here in California we already have a great assessment program called the Academic Performance Index (API).  (Get that AYP (feds) API (Cali)).  The API sets goals based on progress over time.  So if a school is way behind, but they show significant percentage improvement (say 20% or so gains), they don't get on the failing list and get punished.  Many schools who were really far behind under NCLB were classified as failing and punished, even though they were showing dramatic gains under API.  It was a vicious and disheartening cycle.

by Todd Beeton [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

(cross-posted from Courage Campaign also in orange)

"Mistakenly deported."

That's the phrase the LA Times uses to describe what happened to Pedro Guzman, a 29-year old developmentally disabled construction worker from Lancaster, CA (and American citizen) who was taken from his L.A. County jail cell on May 11 and dumped in Tijuana by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. According to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU this week:

the Sheriff's Department identified him as a non-citizen, obtained his signature for voluntary removal from the United States and turned him over to federal authorities for deportation.

To this day his family doesn't know where he is or if he is even still alive.

More...