2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney (Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential candidate who edged out an eight-vote victory over Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucuses, has a long track record on education that includes standardized testing and accountability, charter schools and school vouchers.

Education Week writes:

Romney has a long record and a lot of ideas on education redesign. He’s a fan of standardized testing, and has credited the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 with providing a much-needed boost to accountability. In fact, he was one of the NCLB law’s biggest champions when he ran for president back in 2008. But this year, he has also emphasized the need to step up the state role when it comes to K-12.

The No Child Left Behind Act — signed into law in January 2002 by George W. Bush and supported by the Obama administration — mandated standardized testing that evaluates teachers by score results. In late 2011, the Obama administration offered states “waivers from the most onerous requirements of No Child Left Behind.”

Public school advocates who oppose mandatory standardized testing to determine teacher salaries and state and federal funding for public schools have called for a National Opt Out Day on Jan. 7.

Romney, according to Education Week, “also complimented President Barack Obama’s signature education reform program—Race to the Top—saying the program “had done some good things.”

Race to the Top, “a competitive grant program,” was launched by the Obama administration in 2009 to “encourage and reward States that are creating the conditions for education innovation and reform.”

The program provides funds to states that reform education in four areas: adopting standards and assessments that prepare students for work and college; building data systems that measure student growth and success; recruiting, training, rewarding and retaining effective teachers and principals; and turning around the lowest achieving schools.

Education Week adds that Romney has “called for getting rid of teacher salary schedules, but said he’d like to pay beginning teachers more. He also waded into the culture wars, saying he thinks students should be taught about the advantages of marriage.”

Education News reported last September that Romney also supports charters schools, school vouchers and “currently supports the federal government’s involvement in education and would keep in place the No Child Left Behind act created under President Bush in 2001.”

Florida state Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando (Photo: flsenate.gov/Minority Office)

A school prayer bill introduced in Florida by state Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, has caught the attention of national groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The groups are calling foul and warn that the bill is “patently unconstitutional.” Siplin, however, maintains that his bill is constitutional in a new interview with The Florida Independent.

Senate Bill 98 would “authorize district school boards to adopt resolutions that allow prayers of invocation or benediction at secondary school events.”

Early last month, an education committee added an amendment that would remove a line that read: “All prayers of invocation or benediction will be nonsectarian and nonproselytizing in nature.”

The Anti-Defamation League, a group dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, says the amended bill is more problematic than the original version. The group said in a press release that the bill “divisive and unnecessary legislation … [that] will result in state sponsored religious endorsement or coercion.”

“[The bill] blatantly authorizes sectarian and proselytizing prayers – such as prayers to Allah, Adanoi, Buddha, or Jesus at all kinds of public secondary school events,” said David Barkey, the League’s religious freedom counsel, in a statement. “We are even more concerned that the bill will be used to impose majority religious beliefs on minority faiths in Florida’s public schools.”

The group also warns that, due to the bill’s “patent unconstitutionality, it will result in costly litigation expenses to the state, local school districts and the Florida taxpayer.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation echoed those sentiments and called the bill “patently unconstitutional.” The group said in letter addressed to Siplin, and others, that the bill goes against years of legal precedent.

Much like Anti-Defamation League, the group warned of costly litigation if the measure passes. In its letter, the group wrote: “This recklessness reaches astounding heights when the immediate future is considered.”

“Should the bill pass, school districts will use its provisions to authorize prayer,” the letter said. “Lawsuits will inevitably follow and the schools will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.”

Siplin, however, says the uproar merely involves “certain entities that don’t want our kids to pray.”

“I thought we had a strong bill,” he says, “and I still do.”

When asked if he is rethinking the direction of the bill, Siplin says he remains unfazed. ”I don’t think so,” he says. “It’s up to the students.”

Siplin says he is not worried that the bill is unconstitutional, either. ”We think we have very good legal grounds,” he says. “It is constitutional.”

Education reform in K through 12 public schools includes efforts to increase graduation rates, college readiness and accountability, and to conduct efficient testing and student evaluation and review teacher effectiveness.

The NEA report (PDF) highlights three areas where the union believes “steps can and should be taken to transform the teaching profession”: raising the bar to entry, ensuring “that those who are in the classroom maintain a high standard of practice” and providing “union leadership to transform the profession.”

Education Week reported Thursday that NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said the “NEA will support national standards for teacher preparation and licensing. All teacher candidates should have one full year of teaching residency, and pass a performance-based assessment before entering the classroom.”

“The NEA has supported teacher residency programs in the past, but has not specifically called for all teacher education programs to embrace them,” Education Week added.

The majority of K through 12 education reform efforts over the last decade have included plans to strengthen charter schools, expand the use of public funds for virtual/private schools and broaden the use of technology in the classroom. Florida has led the way through organizations like Foundation for Excellence in Education and Foundation for Florida’s Future, founded and co-chaired by former Gov. Jeb Bush.

Gov. Rick Scott said at a gathering for conservative politicians and organizations in August that his administration has done four things in education: eliminate more teacher tenure; pay teachers based on standardized test results; support and increase charter schools (which Scott defined as public schools run by a third party); and offer scholarships.

Sheldon Berman — superintendent of the Eugene, Ore., school district — and Arthur Camins —director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education — wrote in November that “the way to turn schools around and transform the education of at-risk students is to invest in the professional ability of the faculty, making its members a mission-driven, skilled force for change.”

They added: “Working from this premise, the Jefferson County, Ky., public school system, which includes the city of Louisville, designed and implemented” the Investment Model, that “invests in the creation of a professionalized teaching culture and represents a conceptual shift in what teaching and learning are all about.”

Berman and Camins wrote that this model works as an alternative to U.S. Department of Education’s four turnaround models that include replacing the principal, rehiring no more than 50 percent of the staff and reopening a school as a charter school (i.e., one that is publicly funded but privately managed).

Among the most staggering numbers highlighted during the program was “of all the families without shelter in America, one third are in Florida.”

The state’s foreclosure crisis, coupled with high unemployment and austere budget cuts, has resulted in countless homeless families in Florida living out of their cars — if they have them, 60 Minutes explains. Many families with small children are left hoping for a job or charity before food runs out. Caught in the crosshairs of this epidemic, the program showed, have been young schoolchildren.

According to this year’s KIDS COUNT data, Florida was “the state with the 2nd highest percent of children impacted by foreclosure since 2007.”

The account of a handful of young children had a persistent theme: Most homeless families in the state had run out of options. Many saw their unemployment benefits dry up, and public services were too scarce and maxed-out to provide any help.

Most of the families interviewed by 60 Minutes said they were relying solely on the generosity of donations from their community.

What was not mentioned, however, was the state’s missed opportunities to help.

One example was a line in the the state’s 2011/2012 budget that allocated $12 million dollars from the state’s general revenue fund to the National Veterans’ Homeless Support Group for “homeless housing assistance grants.” While this appropriation made it through the budget process, the item was one of the many vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott.

Scott spoke about the funds this weekend, the Naples Daily News reports:

“I care completely about all these programs,” said Scott, whose budget cuts earlier this year slashed funding to some veteran and farm surplus programs that helped the homeless.

“All the programs are very important, but nobody wants their taxes to go up,” Scott explained, noting that businesses also can help spur the economy. “They’ve got to grow. We’ve got to make this a place people can do well.”

The state also reduced unemployment benefits, even though the state has yet to get a handle on its unemployment rate. A bill signed by Scott this year reduced the maximum number of weeks someone can receive state unemployment benefits. The limit went from 26 weeks to 23 — and if the state’s unemployment rate continues to fall, benefits could be limited to as little as 12 weeks.

There are currently no assurances that legislators in the state are looking to beef up public assistance programs either. Already, there are warnings of deeper budget cuts as the state prepares for a $2 billion shortfall.

You can watch the 60 Minutes segment here:

But some SBOE members and Texas Education Agency staff have been less thrilled by some details of Deion Sanders’ charter school plans, and a review of the application by the Texas Independent revealed portions of the document are identical to plans developed by other schools.

The National Football League Hall of Famer’s proposal is for twin charter campuses in Dallas and Fort Worth, offering a mix of academics, sports and leadership training, which he has said is an extension of his TRUTH program for youth sports. A three-year-old nonprofit called Uplift Fort Worth was created to sponsor the school.

While the board gave its go-ahead in September, SBOE member Michael Soto (D-San Antonio) wasn’t impressed by what he saw in Sanders’ presentation. “I have no idea what the applicant plans to do in the classroom,” Soto said before the vote, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Since then, other questions have arisen about some of the school’s financial arrangements — deals that would help its top officials profit from the school’s fundraising and property rental.

As the SBOE meets again in Austin this week, Soto told the Texas Independent he still has concerns about the rigor of the school’s academic plans, and has more questions he plans to raise with TEA staff.

A review of Prime Prep’s charter application by the Texas Independent has also revealed striking similarities between language in its plans — its “vision statement” and its plan for gifted and talented education — and existing language from charters and traditional public schools across the country.

Officials at the TEA and a state charter school association told the Independent that while new charters often consult other schools’ applications, borrowing language wholesale from other schools is not typical.

Despite early concerns, board was enthusiastic

NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, in a KDAF-TV report on his new charter school.

Even in the SBOE’s September meeting, members looked past other possible causes for concern on the way to approving Prime Prep’s application. Beyond Soto’s concerns about vague academic plans, some members were worried by its plans to use the online curriculum CSCOPE — a product that has been dogged by complaints, though it’s used by three-quarters of Texas’ school districts.

SBOE member Pat Hardy (R-Weatherford) told the Star-Telegram after the meeting that “she shared the concerns [about CSCOPE] but felt comfortable enough with the academic plans to vote to approve the academy.”

Even before the board took its vote, SBOE member David Bradley (R-Beaumont) told the Houston Chronicle he was impressed by Sanders’ proposal. “He assembled a first class management team and their presentation was flawless,” Bradley said.

Sanders and one member of the school’s management team, D.L. Wallace, also offered assurances that a 2010 lawsuit over a separate venture of theirs shouldn’t be a factor in the board’s decision.

That complaint alleges that through a company called PrimeTimePlayer, Wallace, with Sanders’ help, sold parents space in a book promoting high school student-athletes to college recruiters — a book, the suit says, was never published.

It also says Wallace tried to sell investors on a $25,000 buy-in on a deal that would net them $174,600 from a “revenue sharing agreement” for property to be leased to a new charter school.

Though the case is still open, Wallace told the Star-Telegram in September that the suit is “frivolous and has no merit.”

An October report by KDAF TV in Dallas said Sanders and Wallace had already lined up 2,000 students on a waiting list for the school, which would operate on a $10 million annual budget — much of that in outside donations. “We expect to get crazy, and get really big, really fast,” Wallace told the station.

“We met with Van Heusen, we met with Procter & Gamble,” Sanders said. “We met with the NFL on assisting us with our endeavors, and they turned a cartwheel.”

More questions about ties to PrimeTimePlayer

Over one month later, though, the Austin American-Statesman reported that Texas Education Agency staff had more questions about PrimeTimePlayer — which, according to Prime Prep Academy’s application, would be contracted to handle sales and marketing for the school.

Prime Prep’s application describes the corporate enthusiasm for the school’s concept, recalling a meeting Sanders hosted before this year’s Super Bowl in Arlington, including representatives from the NFL, Major League Baseball, Campbell’s Soup, Pepsi and Under Armour, among others. “All in attendance agreed that such an initiative has the ability to enhance the educational landscape for families in the inner city with limited options,” the application says.

And as the Statesman reported, a contract included with Prime Prep’s application said that as PrimeTimePlayer wrangled donations to augment state funding for Prime Prep Academy, it would get a 10 percent cut of the money for its troubles.

The fact that Wallace and another woman, Chazma Jones, are officers with both Prime Prep Academy and PrimeTimePlayer, was a red flag for the TEA and for Eric Dexheimer, the reporter who broke that story.

An attachment to Prime Prep’s application details the corporate donations already pledged to Sanders’ school, which total over $185,000, including large donations from Walmart and Bank of America.

Prime Prep Academy, according to its plans filed with the state, would also pay its rent to a company called Pinnacle Commercial Property Group — $5,000 a month in its first year, increasing to $9,500 a month in its third year. The Statesman uncovered another conflict there: “Secretary of State records show the company’s directors as of May 2011 to be Damien Wallace and Chazma Jones,” it reported.

“They didn’t initially reveal all the connections there,” TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe told the Statesman. She and Wallace told the paper that both PrimeTimePlayer and Pinnacle’s contracts had been removed; the property for the school will be given as a gift to Prime Prep.

But the application apparently still includes another PrimeTimePlayer project, an online student portal called PTP Study Hall, “fully integrated online software that has been tested and proven to increase proficiency on standardized tests, improve study habits and enhance the learning process,” the application says. “Designed especially to suit the diverse learning needs of 21st century youth,” the software includes practice SAT, ACT and TAKS tests.

(The URL given on the application, “ptpstudyhall.com,” directs to a blank default page.)

PrimeTimePlayer apparently sells monthly subscriptions to its online study hall for $19.95, but Prime Prep’s application doesn’t address whether students, or the school, will pay to use the service.

Repeated requests by the Texas Independent for Wallace and Jones to comment went unreturned. Ayana Young, a spokeswoman for Sanders and the school, did not reply to questions sent Friday. A TEA spokeswoman was unsure whether staff had requested details about access to the online portal.

Application includes language identical to other schools

The conflicts of interest were uncovered by TEA only after the SBOE approved Prime Prep’s charter, but Soto is concerned by the school’s “incredibly vague” academic plans, and told the Texas Independent he’s been getting concerned calls about the school.

Soto said he was unfamiliar, though, with another possible concern: that where Prime Prep’s plans do get specific about academics, the language is nearly identical to wording developed by some other schools.

For instance, Prime Prep’s “Vision Statement” given in its application begins (with emphasis added):

The vision of Prime Prep Academy is to provide exceptional opportunities for academic achievement, intellectual growth, artistic fulfillment, physical development, moral awareness, and community responsibility; resulting in well-educated, respectful leaders.

Greenhill School, a 61-year-old private school in a North Dallas suburb, includes the following in its mission statement:

As the region’s first co-educational independent school, Greenhill School provides exceptional opportunities for academic achievement, intellectual growth, artistic fulfillment, physical development, moral awareness, and community responsibility.

Prime Prep’s vision statement goes on:

Leaders are identified by their moral character and intellectual qualities. Prime Prep Academy will nurture the intellectual capacity of students with a foundation in reading, writing, science, technology and mathematics. Problem-solving and cognitive development will be heightened through the teaching of mathematics and scientific methods.

Here, again, the language is already being used, this time by Vision Charter School, an Idaho school that opened in 2007, which includes the following on the “About” page of its website:

Leaders are identified by their moral character and intellectual qualities. The Vision Charter School will nurture the intellectual capacity of our students with a foundation in reading and writing. Problem-solving and cognitive development will be heightened through the teaching of mathematics and the scientific method.

On page 21 of its application, Prime Prep outlines plans for its gifted and talented program:

Prime Prep Academy will offer a talented and gifted program designed to elicit higher level thinking. The talent and gifted program will be used to identify and nurture gifted potential among young learners. The problem-solving skills, thinking processes, and student products resulting from this program will provide observable evidence of a student’s ability to think and reason on advanced levels.

The program is structured around a five-stage model which provides students opportunities to connect content to prior knowledge, engage in new ideas, use thinking skills to consider possibilities, reflect on new learning, and connect the lesson to future learning.

This time, the language appears to originate with a public school district, Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools, where the gifted and talented program is described like this:

In kindergarten through grade six, the critical and creative thinking lessons are designed to elicit a higher level thinking response. These lessons can also be used to identify and nurture gifted potential among young learners. The problem-solving skills, thinking processes, and student products that result from these lessons provide observable evidence of a student’s ability to think and reason on advanced levels.

Each lesson is structured around a five-stage model which provides students opportunities to connect content to prior knowledge, engage in new ideas, use thinking skills to consider possibilities, reflect on new learning, and connect the lesson to future learning.

In both cases, the sections go on to detail the same step-by-step process for instruction. Fairfax County Public Schools spokesman declined to comment on the similarities, but did confirm the language was developed by district staff.

‘Never a good idea to cut and paste’

Debbie Ratcliffe, the TEA spokeswoman, said she wasn’t aware of the language similarities in Prime Prep’s application, but that borrowing some inspiration wasn’t unheard of. “It wouldn’t surprise me if a charter did some things similar to public schools,” she said.

“Unlike journalism or legal writing, the education industry is very collaborative,” said Denise Pierce, the Texas Charter School Association’s vice president for member services. “They’re always out there trying to say, ‘Do this in your classrooms, this is what gets results for our kids.’”

“By and large, most of the charter applicants do write their own original applications,” added Josie Duckett, TCSA’s vice president for public and government affairs. She said her group does pass around sample charter applications that have been approved in the past, though Prime Prep isn’t a member of their group and didn’t attend their training sessions.

“It’s never a good idea to cut and paste, but it is a good idea to have an idea of what is the correct tone, and what did the last group of recipients write in their approved applications,” Duckett said.

Soto said the charter school system should be about systematic innovation, but the approval process has opened the door to a patchwork of operators across Texas. “There’s no real logic that I can identify for how individual campuses fit into a local or a state education landscape,” Soto said.

“Charters are by statute supposed to be innovative, and they’re supposed to be models for what’s new and interesting in education,” he said, “and for mission statements to repeat what can be found elsewhere, that seems not to jive with the very purpose of charters.”

Prime Prep Academy charter application

The study averaged the net worth of each member. When members file their financial disclosure statements, they list assets and liabilities as part of minimum and maximum bet worth and CRP averaged those. For example, Sen. Amy Klobuchar reported a minimum net worth of $345,029 and a maximum of $1,104,000 for an average net worth of $724,512.

In Minnesota politics, the Republican members are much wealthier than the DFLers.

The wealthiest member of Minnesota’s delegation was Sen. Al Franken with an average net worth of $8,747,525 followed by Rep. Michele Bachmann at $1,783,508 and Rep. Chip Cravaack in 217th place with an average net worth of $1,391,551.

Those three plus were in the top half of Congress’ 535 members.

After Klobuchar’s $724,512 comes Rep. Erik Paulsen with an average net worth of $487,017, Rep. John Kline had $471,006, Rep. Collin Peterson had $263,005, Rep. Tim Walz with $247,502, and Rep. Betty McCollum with an average net worth of $88,005.

Rep. Keith Ellison had the lowest net worth, with negative $14,497.

The generally accepted cutoff for the top 1 percent of Americans in terms of net worth is about $9 million on 2010, a threshold that none of the Minnesota delegation report.

Eleven percent of Congress is in the top 1 percent in terms of net worth.

The program has already come under fire for being booked and presented in probable violation of Michigan laws related to sex-education programming. A Michigan Messenger investigation found that two districts — Homer and Olivet — failed to get the program approved by the sex-education advisory board and the school board, while Marshall schools failed to get approval of the state board of education. All three district failed to provide parents the opportunity to opt their youth from the school assembly, as required by Michigan law.

Based on a review of the presentation, called Wise Choices and presented by Barb and Rick Wise, Michigan Messenger was able to identify a series of pieces of misinformation about HIV as well as a statement mis-characterizing a University of Chicago study on sex and relationships. A video of the presentation is available at Access Vision, the Battle Creek cable access station. It is listed as Wise Choices and was uploaded to the site on Oct. 17 at 4:47 p.m.

The program reported that all forms of sexual behavior transmit HIV, that only four body fluids transmit the virus, that HIV can survive in general human environments outside of the body and that saliva only can be infectious.

In addition, Barb told students that the University of Chicago study (PDF) found that married couples had more gratifying sex lives than couples in dating relationships or those co-habitating. But the study says the exact opposite:

“An unexpected finding, contrary to prior research, was that non-marital relationships, such as cohabitation and dating, were associated with higher levels of subjective sexual well-being than marriages, particularly for men.”

The Wises did not return an email seeking comment about the alleged misinformation.

The training of Barb Wise in abstinence-only education is also under scrutiny. She is certified by a program called W.A.I.T. Training in Colorado. That program was blasted by a 2004 report (PDF) from U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman of California for providing false information about HIV.

But experts who Michigan Messenger shared the video of the presentation with generally condemned the presentation.

“Distorting scientific data is, unfortunately, the way of all cynical politicians,” said Gloria Brame, a certified clinical sexologist who holds a doctorate in human sexuality. “However, in this case, it could simply be the blind leading the blind, as one must assume that the very people who are lobbying for abstinence ed are themselves ignorant on the science of sex, and thus the most likely people to misunderstand or misuse scientific data. I realize there may well be physicians and psychologists on board with the abstinence issue in Michigan but, again, I’ll say that this is about religious belief dictating opinion, and not the facts.

“Again, abstinence ed programs omit the scientific data and replace it with religion-based beliefs about how God expects people to behave. That should not be taught in public schools, but in churches.”

Jeff Montgomery, a spokesperson for the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance, also condemned the presentation.

“I agree that if her audience are high school students, this is awful. Especially those who are coming to terms with their sexual identity. They are left feeling, perhaps, like freaks. Not to mention the misinterpretation of the HIV information,” the Detroit based activist said, noting that the program excluded messages for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth, focusing only on no sex before marriage messaging. “The implied (if not overt) demonizing of unmarried sexual activity and the promotion of strict monogamy does nothing to promote healthy, informed sexual choices. This woman’s presentation is not helpful or healthy. Sexual discussion is far too important to be left to inexperienced, subjective hands. We know more today about sexual development and sexual diversity than at any time in history. We should encourage serious, comprehensive and intelligent sex education. The health and safety of generations are on the line.”

Marshall Public Schools issued a statement saying the concerns raised were something they would take into account in future considerations of the program.

But Olivet School officials did not take well to the concerns and criticisms raised. In a letter to Messenger, Olivet Interim Assistant Superintendent Brooke Judd wrote:

For the most part, everyone I spoke to felt as if the decision to bring in the Wise presentation was in line with our community values. I acknowledge that we did not follow proper procedures in bringing them to present to our students, and if the opportunity ever arises again, we will be sure to meet all legal obligations prior to their presentation.

Olivet High School Health Instructor Gabe Priddy went further. In an email to Michigan Messenger, he alleged the questions about the misinformation — which were documented with links to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the University of Chicago study itself — were “loaded.”

“The questions you raise have more to do with your political agenda against Mr. and Mrs. Wise than they are based on facts,” Priddy said. “In my professional opinion the information given was accurate according the training I have received from the State of Michigan. It was also a very powerful and responsible message for teenagers to hear.”

Priddy also claimed the information presented by the Wises was in line with the health education text book used in Olivet Schools.

Michigan Department of Education officials did not return multiple emails seeking clarification of what information should be taught in Michigan schools.

“If he was educated in reproductive health, then he knows the number one method of prevention of HIV is condoms. If they don’t educate about condoms, they are not educating about how to prevent HIV. It’s that simple,” says sexologist Brame. “It has no basis in science or fact as an effective approach to adolescent sexuality. Of all the things that those speakers addressed, actually almost none of it addressed core issues in sexual health. Rather, it was a personal narrative, telling the stories of their lives as a way of proving to gullible teenagers that sex leads to disease and death. It is a negative and hateful message to send young people who are struggling to control and deal with new feelings and desires.”

Image via {link url="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonypeters/5401906036/"}Flickr/Tony Peters{/link}

Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed, shared the new page on Facebook this morning with the comment: “I’ve spoken a number of times this year on the Fed’s Dual Mandate — a congressional requirement to promote both maximum employment and price stability. We’ve just launched a Dual Mandate site with background information and links to my speeches on the topic.”

The page features graphs of the unemployment rate and changes in consumer inflation since 1999, together with the current projection from the FOMC, the Fed’s policy committee, of what the unemployment rate and inflation rate will be in the next five years. The Fed’s most recent projections, from the start of November, say that the unemployment rate will remain above 7.5 percent through 2013, and the inflation rate will remain below 2 percent during that same time period.

That’s an unacceptably high level of unemployment for Evans, who has said that it’s worth tolerating a higher rate of inflation, up to 3 percent, in order to accelerate a return to full employment.

Evans has been the loudest voice on the FOMC in favor of using monetary policy to stimulate the economy further. In the FOMC’s most recent policy statement, which announced that it would continue to maintain its current level of monetary stimulus, Evans was the lone dissenting vote. He voted against the majority because he favored “additional policy accommodation.”

In a conversation with reporters at the Council on Foreign Relations today, Evans reaffirmed that he is calling for “increasing amounts of policy accommodation” in order to reduce the unemployment rate, which is currently 9 percent. “We ought to be behaving as if there’s a very big problem out there.”

Evans’s vote was the first dissent for further stimulus since December 2007. Since then, all dissenting votes have come from inflation hawks who have opposed the FOMC’s efforts to further stimulate the economy in the wake of the recession. That the vote for further stimulus comes from Evans is particularly noteworthy because all of the dissenting votes against stimulus in the past three years have come from his fellow Federal Reserve Bank presidents on the FOMC.

Seven seats on the FOMC are appointed by the president and confirmed by Congress, but five seats are reserved for presidents of the regional Federal Reserve Banks. As the American Independent has previously reported, these presidents aren’t selected by democratic representatives but rather by the Federal Reserve Banks’ boards of directors, which are predominantly made up of senior business and financial executives.

Some of Evans’s fellow Federal Reserve Bank presidents have made statements indicating they don’t believe that unemployment should be reduced by government at all. In a speech on the same day as the most recent Fed statement, Dallas Federal Reserve Bank president Richard Fisher criticized government efforts at reducing unemployment. ”Pliant fiscal authorities,” Fisher said, “have run out of enabling money.”

Fisher added that were the Federal Reserve to support Congress’ spending by “monetizing their debts”, it would end “in the most ruinous of scenarios, the onset of hyperinflation.” The government must not, Fisher said, “hide under the skirts of the Federal Reserve.”

This is not only a rejection of Evans’ belief that the Federal Reserve should directly undertake more stimulus, it is also a rejection of Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke’s statements at his most recent official press conference that Congress should engage in short-term fiscal stimulus in order to reduce unemployment.

But as the Chicago Fed’s new dual mandate page explains, the Federal Reserve does have a legal obligation to reach maximum employment. The Chicago Fed page quotes exactly where in the Federal Reserve Act the mandate is written:

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregrates commensurate with the economy’s long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. [emphasis added]

The most recent FOMC statement is at odds with this mandate, as it currently states in its own projections that unemployment remains unacceptably high, but is simultaneously committed to maintaining policy constant. Moreover, under current policy, inflation is projected to remain under 2 percent, below what it has been in past decades, and talk of “hyperinflation”, or extremely rapid or out of control inflation, is considered by most economists to be a red herring in the debate over whether to stimulate the present day American economy.

Here are the Chicago Federal Reserve’s charts showing unemployment and inflation over the next five years:

Avery Building at the Round Rock Higher Education Center (Macuser1112/Wikimedia)

The Texas State University’s student newspaper The Star reports that the Round Rock Higher Education campus has outsourced its facilities and custodial services. Outside companies’ employees, The Star reported, do not have to go through the process of becoming state employees, and the employers can “hire and fire employees without dealing with state paperwork.”

In addition to outsourcing custodial staff, university officials are considering outsourcing parking facilities operations, too.

Texas State has contracted with Chartwells for its foodservice, which also handles staffing for university’s partnerships with companies like Starbucks, Chick-fil-A and Panda Express.

According to its website, Chartwells offers “an exciting range of educational tools that help your students make wise, informed decisions.” The company’s clients inclue several universities across the nation, including Texas’ Angelo State University, Lamar University, and the University of Texas at Dallas.

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported in July that Del Mar College had joined Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi in outsourcing its custodial staff and groundskeepers, replacing 17 full-time custodians, five full-time groundskeepers and 66 part-time employees. The school reportedly expected the change to save $720,000 annually.

TAMU-CC replaced its 57-member cleaning crew and expects to save $200,000 annually. The university contracted with Service Solutions of Knoxville, Tenn., which describes itself as “the premium provider of cleaning and facilities services”

Kilgore College, a community college in East Texas, outsourced some of its custodial staff to Marcis & Associates earlier this year. The school’s student newspaper reported that its board of trustees made the decision as a cost-cutting measure.

While online education has been a part of several colleges’ model for decreasing cost and increasing revenue, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board records, show outsourcing has been another popular cost-cutting measure across the state, covering everything from campus bookstores and computer services to student housing and administrative services.

Year-to-year data show the number of services provided by IWD has increased by about 10,000 per month due to the new “virtual access points.” Those workstations, about 1,100 of them, are now available in 370 locations across the state.

The stand-alone computers allow services to be available 12 to 15 hours a day – including on Saturdays – through phone calls and Internet chat. They’re located primarily at libraries, places that provide veteran services, community colleges and state government buildings.

“Iowa Workforce Development has succeeded in developing a delivery system that serves Iowans locally and more efficiently while still providing professional workforce staff connections through the use of technology,” Branstad said.

Teresa Wahlert, head of IWD, said the goal is 500 computers by the end of the year. The remaining 19 physical offices – down from 55 at the beginning of the year – will remain open for the time being.

“I think that will be a constant for many months and then we’ll see what new technology happens or what happens on the federal side,” Wahlert said. “Because the federal side really dictates a lot of the offices and their locations.”

In August, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack explained that a cooperative agreement between the U.S. departments of agriculture and labor will provide some opportunities for rural workers, but the effort wouldn’t serve as a replacement for shuttered IWD offices.

Wahlert said she’s not concerned about less face-to-face interaction between IWD employees and job searchers, and the success of the program will be judged on usage and how much it costs IWD to get a person to a job.

Plans are for 75 people to be laid off from the state agency as the move from physical offices to virtual access points is completed.

“We’re going into a generation of folks who are a lot more comfortable either on the phone or texting or using technology, and I think that’s pretty evident with the results we’ve had so far,” Wahlert said.

A lawsuit challenging Branstad’s veto of funding for the workforce offices is working its way through the court system, but Branstad is confident he’ll beat that.

“In the meantime, instead of fighting the battles of the past, we want to look to the future and make sure we’ve got a delivery system that meets the needs of Iowans in the best and most efficient and economical way possible,” he said.

Democratic lawmakers have pledged to fight for the now closed offices in the 2012 General Assembly.