Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts

Monday, October 06, 2008

Financial Bailout and How a Bill Becomes a Law

From a fellow homeschooler on the Homeschool Diner Conversations List:
I read this this morning and noted a few things. Off the wall things are buried throughout this. (see below)

This is LOADED with info for a Civics class!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Beware! It's 451 pages, double spaced and line numbered, it's in PDF form:

http://senateconservatives.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/ayo08c32_xml.pdf

You may want to scroll to the following pages:

1. Definition of Senior Executive Officer and the term golden parachute - page 32-33 start with line 12 on.

2. de minimis - I had to look that up. It means so small or minimal in difference that it does not matter or the law does not take it into consideration. That's on page 39 starting on line 4. Interesting.

4. Page 40 starts with the $$ talk, specifically how much, who and how often.

5. Treatment of Homeowners' Rights - page 60 starting line 22

6. Increase in Statutory limit on the public debt - page 68 line 9..........WOW what a number!!!!!!

7. A study on finding out how this happened - page 89 line 10

8. Golden Parachute Rule - page 109 line 3

9. Energy Improvement and Extension Act - page 113 line 11

10. Credit for residential energy efficient property - page 133 line 10 (in the 190 they start talking about new electric cars)

11. Bike commuters - page 205 line 1

12. Energy Efficient Home Credit - page 218 line 5

13. 7 year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility page 290 line 1

14. Perm. authority disclosure of info relating to terrorist activities page 297 line 1

15. Child Tax Credit - page 297 line 14

16. Provisions related to film and tv productions - page 298 line 6

17. Wooden Arrows - page 300 line 20

18. Farming business machinery & equipment treated as 5 yr. property -page 307 line 4

19. Mental health and substance abuse - Begins on page 310 line 8 ........this ends at the top of page 344

20. Rural schools and community self-determination program - page 344 line 5

There are other earmarks such as; mine rescue, Indian employment credit, RR track maintenance, tax incentives for investments in D.C., wool, Exxon Valdez litigation, states and counties with federal land, disaster properties from Katrina and Ike.

Please remember this still has to pass in the House.

Feel free to share with others.

Bev
mazurowski@yahoo. com

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Why Isn't Gifted Considered Special Education?

An email from my friend, Wanda:

"I'd like to chime in about special education. When PL 94-142 or the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) was first passed back in 1975, the discussion included the entire spectrum of exceptionalities from the profoundly disabled to the profoundly gifted. As disability advocates and Congressional members discussed the bill, they had to compromise in order to get it passed. This type of give and take occurs even today from the local level up through the federal level. You know the saying...you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

The key Congressional players back in 1975 knew that if they included programming and funding for gifted students, the bill would have likely failed because it was too comprehensive. Opponents didn't think schools could appropriately serve both ends of the spectrum with IEPs and all the requirements, plus everyone in between.

Disability advocates were very persuasive. Vietnam had been winding down and veterans were returning home with physical disabilities like multiple amputations and were going out in public. People had to look at them. This gave the disability community, especially parents, the courage to pursue public school education for their children, since vets with disabilities were beginning to be out in public. The children didn't have to remain at home any longer.

So, Congress passed the EHA without including the gifted at the high end of the spectrum. The original intent was to go back the following year, at the least, or when the bill was up for reauthorization and include the high end of the exceptionality spectrum. As we know now, this never happened. When I worked on Capitol Hill, I was involved with writing language for the reauthorization of IDEA in 1994 (EHA is now called IDEA-Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). I worked with the offices of Senator Kennedy, Senator Harkin, and many others. We worked for years on the reauthorization language. Not once was there any request to add language which extended the range of exceptionalities to the gifted. I was not working with gifted kids back then, so I didn't bring it up either. There was not much noise made to include the high end of the exceptionality spectrum, when compared to the advocacy the disabled community was involved with.

Some states have, by choice, included GT kids in their exceptionality continuum and provide IEPs, and other individualized plans to ensure that gifted kids get their needs met. Unfortunately Wisconsin is not one of them. Adding the high end of the exceptionality spectrum to IDEA is not likely because of tight budgets at this point in time.

It is not difficult to educate all students at their level. It is not difficult to find materials or teaching strategies that work for our gifted kids. I have found that there is either ignorance that these kids even need anything more (the myths about gifted kids), or teachers simply don't want to bother. There is no excuse to not meet the needs of gifted kids. There is so much high end free materials on the internet that teachers should be able to find appropriate materials. Or, better yet, give the kids some guidance and let them find their own materials. You'd be amazed at what they find, and I don't mean inappropriate stuff.

We do have a stake in educating our most able students. We need to keep working in order to achieve it."