Brookings: Education, Job Openings and Unemployment in Honolulu
Progressive Activists: Lingle has the possibility of being a very powerful Senator--Mazie One Dimensional, Undesirable
ILind Comments: Mazie has been our CD2 rep for – how long now? and I still don’t know what she’s done for Hawaii – or the USA.
Lingle has the possibility of being a very powerful Senator. For whatever reason, my gut says that won’t happen for Hirono…..
Mazie is not anyone I would enthusiastically support for any office…she was #10 on my list of ten candidates who ran for the Second Congressional District in 2006….She is one dimensional….we need strong positive prog-lib leaders in the Senate – and that simply is not Mazie…I am still deciding whether to vote NOTA….
Mazie “as problematical a candidate….”
I squirm about having to choose Mazie as a slightly less undesirable US Senator
read … The Comments
Aiona: Rail Will be Key to Outcome of CD6 Race
CB: In the contest to fill Gabbard's council seat, for example, candidate Sam Aiona thinks rail will be key to the outcome.
"Of all the major candidates running in the special election, none of them are speaking for the vast majority of voters who oppose the city's planned rail project," he said when announcing his run last week. "Voters are sending a clear message to city officials that they do not want the project and I believe the voters from Makiki to Kalihi deserve an opportunity to voice their opinion at the ballot box."
Though the council race, like the mayoral race, is nonpartisan, it's worth noting that Aiona is a Republican former lawmaker. We can expect to hear where his chief opponents, former Council member Jon Yoshimura and outgoing state Sen. Carol Fukunaga — both Democrats — stand on rail. (Catch Up: Yoshimura backs rail and Fukunaga co-sponsored the Rail tax.)
Rail is also likely to emerge in legislative races, with positions likely to be influenced by geography and party.
One way or another, the 2012 election is the rail election, the year we may look back on as having been decisive to its future.
read … Sam Aiona, The Anti-Rail Candidate
Judge tells UH to turn over correspondence with Inouye, Abercrombie
ILind: This case stems from the recent flap over allegations that Senator Dan Inouye’s staff, communicating directly or through the governor’s office, put inappropriate pressure on a hearing officer appointed by the Board of Land and Natural Resources to handle a contested case hearing on the University of Hawaii’s application for a permit to build the advanced technology solar telescope in a conservation district at the summit of Haleakala. The hearing officer later complained publicly about the external pressure. Two weeks later, he was fired.
Subsequently, a group challenging the university’s telescope project asked the university to disclose any correspondence or emails with Sen. Inouye or Gov. Abercrombie or their staff during the period the project was being pushed forward.
When university attorneys denied the request, attorney David Kimo Frankel of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation filed suit on behalf of the group, Kilakila ‘O Haleakala, seeking disclosure under the state’s open records law.
Circuit Court Judge Rhonda Nishimura has now issued a verbal ruling in favor of disclosure, according to Frankel. Attorneys are currently awaiting the judge’s written order, Frankel said.
read … Judge tells UH to turn over correspondence with Inouye, Abercrombie
Kim Committee Beginning of the End for Greenwood
SA: "We are getting calls and calls, people are saying there is no accountability, and there is no transparency," Kim says.
She cautions that her committee is not out to be the judge and jury of either the regents or M.R.C. Greenwood, the UH president.
"There is a misconception that we can fire the president, it is not us — that is the job of the regents. The purpose of this committee is not to get anyone's job back, the purpose is accountability," Kim says.
The publicly dysfunctional appearance of UH operations, however, now will get a through review, Kim promised, adding that she would like to know the history behind canceling the contracts of UH chancellors, the buyouts offered and the reasons for them.
"With autonomy comes accountability," Kim says.
If these hearings merit further investigation, the 2013 Legislature could order up an investigative committee complete with the powerful legal club of taking testimony under oath. An extensive examination could also lead to more questions about the leadership at the university and the future of Greenwood's presidency.
read … Targeting Everybody Except Freitas
DoE Massive System wide Cheating Brings AYP Gains
SA: The improvements come amid a big push at Hawaii schools to use data to reveal what happens in the classroom —and how students are identified for extra assistance.
All schools are now required to have "data teams," teachers and other personnel who pore over test scores to determine not only on which subjects, but also with which concepts, particular students are struggling.
Avis Nanbu, principal of Solomon Elementary in Wahiawa, said analyzing data helps teachers figure out whether instructional approaches are working — or if new strategies are needed.
"The teachers were engaged in a lot more strategic discussion of practices," she said….
Red Hill Principal Mona Smoot said teachers really paid attention to data last school year. Weekly progress meetings were held. "Data walls" were created and struggling students identified.
"Everybody knew which children needed the extra help," Smoot said. And that meant that everybody was willing to pitch in, with tutoring before and after school and during lunch, she said.
"It was a lot of work and we still have a lot of work to do," Smoot said. "We look at it as, we're all in this together."
The Hawaii State Assessment was administered to 96,000 public school students in the 2011-12 school year. Children in grades 3 through 8 and grade 10 took the state exam in testing periods from October to May.
It was the second year the test was administered online, rather than with paper and pencil. Students can take the online test up to three times, and schools can use a child's highest score.
Results from multiple tests allow schools to gather more information about where students are academically, giving them a chance to target areas where students are falling behind.
At Molokai High, with an enrollment of 330, teachers and staff developed an "adopt-a-student" program to provide interventions to 10th-graders who were below proficiency in math or reading.
Even Principal Stanford Hao adopted a student, whom he tutored before and after school. (His student met proficiency in reading and math, Hao said proudly.)
As part of the program, participating staff members got a folder with data on how the student they were helping had performed so far, along with potential tutoring strategies.
Thanks to the intervention program, and with data teams analyzing test scores, 54 percent of 10th-graders at the school tested proficient in reading in 2012, up 15 percentage points from the year before. In math, 29 percent were proficient, from just 9 percent in 2011.
"It is about being targeted (with help), based on data," Hao said. "If we can get all students to improve, that's our No. 1 goal."
read … Hawaii students improve in annual testing
Pro-Rail Group spent another $200k on Mayoral Race
HNN: The biggest political spender in the Honolulu mayoral race is not a candidate but is a pro-rail group that's flooding the airwaves with negative ads.
Hawaii New Now has learned that the Pacific Resource Partnership has spent nearly $200,000 during the final two weeks leading to the August primary.
That's on top of a record $1 million that PRP has already spent on the race.
Nearly all of those ads were critical of mayoral candidate Ben Cayetano, who wants to dismantle the rail system. And some political experts believe that PRP will continue to spend big on the race given the stakes involved.
"We knew there was a lot of money is being spent on this so this is not a surprise," said John Hart, communications professor at Hawaii Pacific University.
According to state Campaign Spending Commission records, PRP has outspent both candidates in the Honolulu mayoral race.Cayetano has raised $995,000 for the entire race while candidate Kirk Caldwell has taken in about $942,000.
read … Pro-Rail Group spends another $200k on Mayoral Race
Donors Stop Wasting Money on UH
SA: Longtime donor Joyce Cassen already regrets the $5,000 she gave to the school this year for football, volleyball and basketball tickets.
"I'm burned up," said Cassen, an ophthalmologist from Hawaii Kai.
And Cassen has heard from several of her patients who are turning their outrage at UH's handling of the bogus concert by "voting with their checkbooks."
The FBI continues to hunt down $200,000 the school lost in the incident.
University officials further outraged donors such as Cassen by reassigning UH athletic director Jim Donovan to an unspecified job worth $211,200 per year while beginning a search for Donovan's successor.
UH's Hamilton Library has a "minimuseum" named in honor of William Kwai Fong Yap, but several of Yap's heirs vowed to cut off their UH donations during a family gathering last week, said Yap's grandson, Donald Yap.
"They said they're not going to give anything to the UH because of all this disappearing dollars, disappearing funds," Yap said. "Who knows where all their money goes?"
read … Fools no longer parted
Obamacare Threatens to Undermine Queens HMC Deal
SA: If Queen's can solve the problems HMC was unable to — particularly the high number of patients who can't afford their treatment they need — its new campus will be a lifesaver for West Oahu.
The agreement followed decades of financial problems at the Ewa and Liliha hospitals, caused by a decline in government reimbursements and rising medical costs. The burden of caring for a high population of uninsured and underinsured patients proved too much for HMC, and patient numbers dwindled last year to about 70 patients in the 102-bed facility. Queen's expects to provide $50 million annually in charity care.
Nonetheless, the financial picture should change (for the worse) as the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act takes full effect, greatly expanding the number of residents covered by Medicaid instead of private insurance (and forcing even greater reductions in reimbursements). Obamabots are so stupid.
read … West Oahu to get hospital it needs
More Retaliation: Scott Nago Claims Yagong Violates Ethics Rules
HNN: Yagong's daughter Chelsea is running for county council on the Big Island. Yagong is stepping down from the council at the end of the year because of term limits. He ran for Hawaii County mayor and was eliminated from the race in the Aug. 11 primary when he came in third behind incumbent Mayor Billy Kenoi and former Mayor Harry Kim.
Last Thursday someone reported Yagong was seen in the elections division of the Hawaii county clerk's office in Hilo in a sensitive area.
State elections rules bar candidates' relatives from working as precinct officials at polling places. State elections officials have forwarded a complaint to the Hawaii County Board of Ethics about the incident.
"The place where I'm assuming I was supposedly seen, that section does not have the voting machines, voting ballots," Yagong told Hawaii News Now.
Yagong said he was helping to inventory election supply boxes that do not contain ballots or other sensitive material.
He said he and county clerk's staffers were checking to see how many cell phones, rolls of masking tape, checklists and other supplies were in the boxes to prepare for Election Day on Nov. 6.
To read the full complaint, click here.
read … Tit for Tat
Election Volunteers Switch Jobs on Election Day
SA: I was a volunteer at a precinct during the primary election. I signed up to work in one area, but when I arrived, people were switching sections. They wanted to work in another section because of the difference in what they were paid.
read … Precinct is not the place for volunteers to swap jobs
Democrats Age into Smug Monopoly
CB: The once heroic Democrats have aged into a smug monopoly, recycling the usual suspects, manipulating voters and screening out dissent, much like the oligarchy they once replaced.
read … Smug Monopoly
UH Manoa Perfesser Starts With Assumption that Mormons are Racists
CB: Aikau began her journey with the assumption that the Mormon church was a racist institution that played a role in the exploitation and dispossession of Hawaiians. She ends it with the revelation that it is a far more complex matter.
Aikau concludes that, for the church to "move forward an alternative future that does not reproduce the same kinds of racial, gender, and sexual disparities it has promoted, members and nonmembers alike need to know how these racial ideologies came to be so that they can be disarticulated and rearticulated in new, liberating ways."
read … More Gay Atheist Propaganda
Hawaii Pedestrians, Especially Elderly, Die At High Rate
CB: The Honolulu City Council earlier this year initiated a new program to study why so many pedestrian accidents occur and to come up with solutions.
And the state Department of Transportation last week released a new plan for pedestrian safety throughout the state.
But “no one thing will turn the tide,” said Bruce Bottorff, a spokesman for Hawaii’s AARP, which campaigns for improvements to pedestrian safety. “We’ll never reach a completely satisfactory conclusion. With more cars on the road and an increasingly older population, you’ve got a potentially lethal combination.”
Hawaii has consistently ranked No. 1 in the nation for senior-age pedestrian fatalities, according to Department of Health statistician Dan Galanis. And Hawaii, he said, is 13th for pedestrian fatalities among all age groups.
Health department data from 2007 through 2011 shows 524 pedestrian accidents on Oahu during that time, 90 of them fatal. And 80 percent of those killed were 65 or older.
Most of the accidents were in the metropolitan Honolulu area, according to the department's report on injuries in Hawaii. The report reveals that the Ala Moana-Kakaako, Kalihi-Palama and downtown areas had the most pedestrian incidents. The Kalihi-Palama neighborhood also had 13 fatal accidents. Other areas with high rates of pedestrian fatalities included Waianae, Waipahu, Makakilo-Kapolei, McCully-Moiliili and Waikiki.
read … Hawaii Pedestrians, Especially Elderly, Die At High Rate
Organic food no healthier than non-organic: study
R: Organic produce and meat typically isn't any better for you than conventional varieties when it comes to vitamin and nutrient content, according to a new review of the evidence.
LINK: http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1355685
read … It costs more
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