According to the website describing the documentary, 600 school teachers in Baltimore have come from the Philippines, representing 10 percent of the city’s total teacher corps.

The documentary, titled “The Learning,” follows the teachers, all females, as they stood in front of their largely under-performing classrooms and the pressures they felt from family members back home to send back remittances.

From the PBS website:

“When the United States took possession of the Philippines in 1898, American teachers set up the islands’ public school system. English was established as the language of instruction and remains so to this day. Today in the Philippines, there is a large pool of trained, motivated, English-speaking teachers, especially in high school math, science and special education. In their country, these teachers receive poverty-level salaries, making them prized recruitment targets for many U.S. school districts, especially those in cash-strapped inner cities. While a salary in one of these urban districts may be low by American standards, it can be as much as 25 times a teacher’s salary in the Philippines.”

Though trailing the limelight New Orleans receives for its attempt to turn around a moribund education system with charter schools and a teacher corps with low unionization rates, Baltimore has logged better student results on standardized tests.

Via the United Teachers of New Orleans, The American Independent obtained the following statistics:

From 2005 to 2010, fourth-grade math scores in New Orleans (all Orleans Parish and Recovery School District schools) increased by 18 percentage points in math and 11 percentage points in English.

However, fourth-grade students in Baltimore improved 30 points in math and 11 points in reading between 2005 and 2010. In Detroit, fourth-grade math scores improved 19 points and reading scores improved 8 percentage points between 2006 and 2010.

From 2005 to 2010 at the eighth-grade level, New Orleans’ students’ scores increased 15 points in math and 16 points in English. However, eighth-grade students in Baltimore improved 19 points in math and 22 points in reading between 2006 and 2009. In Detroit, eighth-grade math scores improved 16 points between 2006 and 2010.

Scary

Lamborn’s HR 68 would amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit federal funding for public broadcasting after fiscal year 2013. His H.R. 69 separately targets National Public Radio funding.

Lamborn introduced a bill to cut NPR funding last year but it was shot down by the Democratic-controlled House.

After Fox News launched a campaign to “defund” NPR in the fall, Lamborn appeared on the network several times and ratcheted up his rhetoric around the bill.

“You may have heard about the recent firing of NPR News Analyst Juan Williams and the $1.8 million donation by liberal activist George Soros to hire 100 NPR reporters,” Lamborn wrote to supporters in an October release. “These two actions make it clear that public broadcasting is a friend and protector of liberal issues and political correctness, at the expense of free speech and balanced news reporting.”

At a time when the news media industry outside of cable TV is struggling and when aggressive partisan punditry dominates that sector, cuts to PBS seem especially short-sighted, say some industry observers.

Media reform nonprofit Free Press put out a call in wake of the news of the proposals.

Political extremists in Congress have introduced six — yes, six — bills that would cut all funding for NPR, PBS and other public media. As early as next week, they could vote to pull the plug on the news, arts and educational programming on which more than a hundred million Americans rely…

For some communities, local NPR and PBS stations are the only source of serious reporting. They also employ thousands of journalists — at a time when commercial newsrooms are shedding jobs.

In addition to Lamborn’s bills, U.S. lawmakers have introduced HR 235, the “Cut Unsustainable and Top-Heavy Spending Act,” by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas); HR 408, “Spending Reduction Act,” by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio); S 178, the Senate version of the “Spending Reduction Act,” sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.); and S. 162, the “Cut Federal Spending Act,” by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

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Except for a previously filmed interview. On Oct. 13, next Tuesday, excerpts from a chat McChrystal had with PBS’s “Frontline” will be included in its (excellent) documentary about both the Afghanistan war and the debate surrounding it, “Obama’s War.” It will probably seem to the public that McChrystal is speaking after Jones and Gates’ mild admonishment. And if so, that might actually help McChrystal.

On camera, McChrystal doesn’t say anything politically charged. In four appearances — ‘Frontline’ sent me a screener today of the documentary — McChrystal makes an observation about holding the volatile southern province of Helmand (“Once you clear something and don’t hold it … I would argue that it’s worse. Because you create an expectation, and then you dash it”); another about the difficulties of the war (“There will be as many frustrations as there are times when you think you got it right. But, I think there’s no alternative”); another on Pakistan (“I think they’ve also found the resolve internally”); and finally on the value of the public debate — much as he said in London:

Any war or conflict you enter where you are likely to lose more Americans and expend more treasure is something worthy of very detailed debate. There ought to be a lot of skepticism. There ought to be a lot of discussion. Before an American soldier is put in harm’s way, I hope that not just that political leadership, but the American people give it a lot of thought. So I think it’s appropriate.

The full transcript of McChrystal’s interview is already posted on the documentary’s Website. In the interview, as in London, McChrystal declines to get drawn into saying that Obama should increase troops:

Do you have enough troops?

In the “oil-slick” technique, as you know, you go where you can — the highest value areas, typically population centers and whatnot — and then you go out from there. And we’re going to have to do that in accordance with our priorities. …

Are you requesting new troops to come in? … Do you know where you need more?

… What we do is we take those forces that we have, particularly mating them with the Afghan National Army [ANA] and Afghan National Police [ANP], and try to grow from there, with the troops that we have trying to maintain enough security in each area. We hope that over time the force requirements in the latter parts of hold-and-build will go down, and in fact will shift to just the police. But it takes a long time. Could be months, could be years in some areas before you could go all the way down to typical status quo security.

If anything, the starkest assessment in the documentary doesn’t come from McChrystal, but from Brig. Gen. William Mayville, his director of operations:

How does this end? And how long is it going to take?

We’re going to leave here under shades of gray. We’ll have stability — at least reasonable stability. We’ll have a firm understanding that more has to be done. But in the end, you’ll have an Afghan solution to an Afghan problem. And that’ll be good enough.

Tavis Smiley interviews Barack Obama in October 2007 (YouTube: BarackObamadotcom)

As the housing market began booming in the mid-2000s, Wells Fargo & Co. teamed up with prominent African American commentator and PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley and financial author Kelvin Boston, the host of “Moneywise,” a multicultural financial affairs show, to host something called “Wealth Building” seminars in black neighborhoods.

Smiley was the keynote speaker, and the big draw, according to Boston and Keith Corbett, executive vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending, who attended two of the seminars. Smiley would charge up the audience — and rattle the Wells Fargo executives in attendance — by launching into a story about how he hated banks, and how they used to refuse to lend him money for his real estate projects in Compton, Calif., and elsewhere. After Hurricane Katrina, Smiley also emphasized the importance of building assets and wealth, saying those who had done so were able to leave New Orleans, while people with nothing had to stay behind, Boston said.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

“My spiel was the financial planning process, how you want to be able to save and invest for the future, and to have a plan of action,” Boston said. “Then Tavis talked about his experiences with the banks, and how people should be thinking about some real estate.”

The seminars in some cities drew standing room only crowds, with numerous Wells Fargo representatives on hand, seated at carrels to meet one-on-one with potential borrowers who lined up after the speeches, which were usually held in hotels. The free, day-long events were heavily advertised in the black media, and launched in eight cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, Richmond, Va., and San Francisco.

But what appeared on the surface as a way to help black borrowers build wealth was actually just the opposite, according to a little-noticed explanation of the “Wealth Building” seminar strategy, contained in a lawsuit recently filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

Wells’ plan for the seminars all along was to target black borrowers for higher-cost subprime mortgages, not for wealth-building, the suit charged. And the seminars were a part of the bank’s overall illegal and discriminatory practice of steering black and Hispanic borrowers into riskier and more expensive loans, the suit said.

“According to a former Wells Fargo Home Mortgage employee, one of these ‘Wealth Building’ seminars held in Maryland was planned for an audience that would be virtually all African American,” the suit said. “The plan for the seminar was for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage employees to talk about subprime mortgages, although they were directed by Wells Fargo Home Mortgage to use the term ‘alternative lending’ when marketing these products.”

The former employee, who is white, was scheduled to speak at the seminar, but was told by a manager that she was “too white,” and that only black employees could make presentations, the suit said.

Wells Fargo, one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders and a recipient of $25 billion in government bailout money, has denied all the charges in the Illinois suit, as well as other allegations of unfair lending. The bank did not respond to requests for comment on the seminars. Smiley, an author and advocate who hosts the late night talk show, “Tavis Smiley,” and who organizes the State of the Black Union symposiums each year, also declined comment.

Corbett pointed out that Wells’ outreach to the minority community through the seminars wasn’t unusual. Lenders sponsoring financial literacy sessions, holding wealth building seminars, or contributing to local minority advocacy organizations, became a common marketing strategy as the subprime market grew. Some of the efforts were genuine, aimed at finding new customers in minority neighborhoods once deprived of credit. But sometimes they were used instead as a cover to push predatory loans, Corbett said.

“The wealth building seminars are certainly needed,” Corbett said. “But, if, in fact, Wells was selling bad products out of them, it was totally wrong.”

Boston, for his part, described himself as the small player in the seminars, giving an opening talk before Smiley went on. Boston said he spoke in general terms about the need to save money and to invest. Neither he nor Smiley ever mentioned or discussed subprime loans, he said.

“Basically we were just speakers for hire,” Boston said. “We didn’t have any role or any control over what else happened. The main point is that we were not involved in any of their discussions or in anything they sold.”

Corbett said that after the speakers finished, bank employees and other financial experts were offering credit checks, real estate counseling, and other kinds of assistance. Corbett said he also believes some employees were signing up people for loan pre-approvals, on the spot, though he couldn’t be sure of what kind of loans they were. He said attendees lined up to talk to the Wells employees in both events. “If they weren’t actually selling loans, they were setting up borrowers for the kill,”  Corbett said.

Once their speeches were over, however, Boston said he and Smiley  had nothing to do with the workshops and counseling. He said he and Smiley together did about 15 seminars over a period of about two years. He declined to comment on how much he or Smiley were paid.

In 2005, before the subprime crisis, Boston said, the main worry in the black community over mortgage lending was the banks were lagging behind in their lending to minority neighborhoods. He said expressed his concerns about this to Wells Fargo. Smiley, he said, also later raised questions about subprime lending tactics with the bank. “Tavis definitely had some dealings with them on this issue,” Boston said.

Nonetheless, in hindsight and with the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, Boston said he has second thoughts about participating in the seminars.

“Were we probably used? We probably were,” he said. “If I had the chance to do it over again, would I do it in a different manner? Probably.”

“You look back now and you feel for the homeowner who could have qualified for a better mortgage and got the costly type of mortgage. That concerns me a lot, not just for Wells Fargo, but for everybody out there, Citigroup, Countrywide … they were all doing the same events.”

But at the time, Boston said, having a major bank doing outreach in the black community was considered an encouraging development, after so many years of redlining and restricted access to credit. “We all thought at the time that we were doing a positive thing,” he said.

Boston said he quit doing the seminars after his contract ended two years ago. Smiley, he said, continued to work with Wells Fargo, particularly on his annual State of the Black Union symposiums. On his Website, Smiley recently posted a statement regarding Wells Fargo that said, “in this economic climate, we continue to be reminded every day that there is no perfect company.”

Smiley said in the statement that his relationship with Wells began in 2005, as part of the bank’s  “commitment to increase financial literacy in the African American community.” He said that “the partnership with Wells Fargo focused on building personal wealth, which for most Americans begins with buying a house.”

According to the statement, Smiley also has had partnerships with other companies, but has never served as a spokesperson or representative for any of them, including Wells Fargo. The statement also said Wells Fargo will no longer be one of the sponsors of his Black State of the Union event in 2010, although the bank sponsored the event as recently as last spring.

“Given the fact that Wells Fargo has been an industry leader, they have partnered with many African American and Latino national civil rights organizations on various community initiatives,” the statement said.

The Illinois lawsuit against Wells is one of many such actions winding their way through the court system around the country, offering more details of alleged discriminatory tactics by lenders during the height of the subprime boom. As TWI reported last week, housing advocates call these lawsuits the “smoking guns” of the housing crisis, providing what they see as proof that lenders deliberately targeted minorities for high-rate and risky subprime mortgages, while white borrowers with similar incomes and credit scores received lower-cost loans.

In a city of Baltimore lawsuit against Wells, former employees charged that Wells Fargo loan officers referred to minority borrowers as “mud people” and called subprime mortgages “ghetto loans.” But some prominent black bloggers find the “wealth building” seminars just as egregious, and question why Smiley, Boston, and anyone else who participated in them hasn’t been called on further to account for their actions.

“If Tavis Smiley was white, Wells Fargo and ‘Ghetto Loans’ would be front page news,” wrote Genma Stringer Holmes, a Nashville, Tenn., business owner and blogger who has blasted out several posts on the seminars.

Holmes said Smiley should speak out more against discriminatory subprime lending practices – but he hasn’t been forced to, because the black media has been silent on the issue, she said. The scandal that remains is that the ads and seminars targeted the most vulnerable members of black community, according to Holmes. “People who follow Tavis will follow him off a cliff,” Holmes said.

Boston said he still does seminars and presentations pushing wealth building, but he focuses on avoiding foreclosures and helping with loan modifications. He recently wrapped up work on an upcoming show on helping homeowners facing foreclosures, he said.

This story has been updated for clarity.

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Newsweek reports this quote from Barack Obama while he was preparing for a debate — a quote which, as an environment reporter, I absolutely love.

“I don’t consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that's green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f***ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective.’”

From an environmental perspective, what I like about this quote is that it highlights the needs to address the root problems of climate change and to come up with large-scale solutions.

From an observer’s standpoint, the quote confirms my longtime feeling that the basic format of these debates produces an outcome that’s contrived, rehearsed and insincere. The funny thing is, Jim Lehrer, who moderated the first presidential debates, feels the same way.

According to Lawrence O’Donnell, a writer for “The West Wing,” Lehrer told him that he has wanted to break with the format for a long time. O’Donnell tried to get Lehrer to appear on “The West Wing” to host a fictional presidential debate in which the candidates, played by Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits, would completely break with the usual format and engage with each other — ie., have a real debate.

While Lehrer couldn’t appear on the show because of a PBS rule that he wrote, he reportedly wanted to emulate the fictional debate, asking debate commissioners to watch tapes of the show to get some pointers. That’s why Lehrer tried to get Obama and Sen. John McCain to actually talk to each other.

O’Donnell talked about all this in commentary on MSNBC here.

Jim Lehrer backstage at this year's Democratic National Convention. (Credit: PBS)

The New York Times reports that Lehrer sent an email making this point in advance of tonight’s debate, if there is one: “I am not restrained from asking questions about the financial crisis.” He even added a happy sign-off: “Stay tuned!”

That message carries some weight, because Lehrer and the Debate Commission have assiduously tried to avoid “taking sides” between the candidates’ diverging views on the debate. Yet the organizers are obviously invested in pulling the debate off as planned, with both nominees in attendance.

However, by proactively announcing a shift towards economic topics, which was not in the original plan, Lehrer may be slightly advancing Obama’s argument that the debate is part of working toward national consensus on addressing the financial crisis — not a distraction from it, as McCain has asserted.