Implosion! New Jersey's Fitting Trump Sendoff

New Jersey's largest newspaper, The Star Ledger, is reporting that Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, is set for implosion on February 17th. After that date, all four of Trump's AC casinos—Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza, Trump World's Fair and Trump Marina—will officially be no more. 

Trump Plaza one month before it closed.  So classy. (Photo | Dan McQuade)

ATLANTIC CITY

Casino implosion set for Feb. 17

Katie Kausch For The Star-Ledger

After one final delay, Trump Plaza has a new implosion date, Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small announced.

The implosion of the long-shuttered casino is now set for Feb. 17 at 9 a.m., Small said at a Thursday morning press conference. It was pushed back from a Jan. 29 implosion date earlier this month.

The delay was caused by a large concrete foundation that was originally unknown to demolition teams, licensing and inspection director Darryl Finch said at the press conference.

Pre-implosion demolition work remains underway, including drilling holes inside the structure to place dynamite, Finch said.

The implosion will impact a several- block area, and will include evacuation zones and areas where people are not allowed outside their buildings, Rick Bianchi with the Atlantic City Police Department said. Details on which blocks and buildings will be affected are not yet finalized.

An auction to push the button at the implosion fell apart after owner Carl Icahn objected, citing safety concerns, auctioneer Joseph Bodnar, owner of Bodnar’s Auction, told NJ Advance Media.

Meant to be a fundraiser to benefit the local Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City, Icahn has pledged to donate $174,000 to the organization to replace money lost in the cancellation.

Icahn Enterprises, run by conservative billionaire Icahn, took ownership of the building in 2016 after Donald Trump divested from the property.

Since the cancellation of the fundraiser, Hard Rock and Oceans casinos have each donated five rooms, to be auctioned off for overnight stays before winners can watch from a prime viewing slot at One Atlantic to benefit the organization, Small said. Donations for the Boys & Girls Club are also being collected.

For those who can’t bid on a room, Bader Field will be used as a viewing area, Small said. Watchers will be charged for parking and asked to watch from the safety of their cars.

“The city can’t be naive to think that no one will show up. It has nothing to do with the former president. If it was any building in the city being imploded, people will come,” Small said.

The casino has been an eyesore in Atlantic City for years, with discussions of an implosion dating to at least 2017. The casino shuttered in 2014 after about 30 years in business.

Contrary to what Trump may have led you to believe, he didn't sell his Atlantic City holdings; he lost them. Bigly. He filed for bankruptcy not once, not twice, not three times, but four times: in 1991, 2004, 2009 and 2014. Surprised? You shouldn't be. What is happening on February 17th is a fitting metaphor for how he left our country: broken, battered, bashed and deeply in debt.

I've written about Atlantic City before (here, here, here, here, here to name a few). And I've been there many times. Despite a poverty rate over 40%, it has a lot going for it: some of the best restaurants I've ever eaten in (The Knife and Fork, Docks Oyster House, Buddahkan, Los Amigos, Angelos Fairmount Tavern) a beautiful beach, a fabulous retail outlet center, and some very nice hotels. But for reasons beyond my bandwidth of fiscal understanding, 43 years of gambling revenue could never get it out from under its bad rap of a honky-tonk, low-life town where more dreams are lost than won, and that's devastatingly unfair to all the hard-working people who live and work there.

So, it's no surprise that the last vestiges of Donald Trump are a failed coup attempt on our nation's capitol and the implosion of one of his long-shuttered properties in the second poorest city in New Jersey.

If I didn't have to work that day, I'd be there in Atlantic City cheering on the implosion and the dream that will—hopefully—arise from its ashes.

Buh-bye, Donnie. Can't say we'll miss ya.

Note: All emphasis mine.

The @StarLedger, #FakeNews & the #PARCC Propaganda Machine

Years before 'fake news' became a household word, New Jersey's largest newspaper, The Star Ledger started its very own propaganda machine to bash teachers and prop up PARCC testing. 

With the flurry of PARCC testing bills posted in Trenton in the past couple of weeks, the state's largest newspaper and education 'reform' cheerleader has been shaking its pom-pons recently in favor of the deeply flawed test, tossing out wild claims with little evidence to back them up (all emphasis mine):

Phil Murphy has long strained to appease powerful critics of the PARCC, namely the teacher’s union, which prefers we let kids graduate without the kind of tests that hold teachers accountable. 

The idea that an invalid, poorly designed and un-vetted test can hold teachers "accountable" is simply illogical. The Ledger offers no evidence to support this far-fetched claim. Even the Christie administration wasn't so sure it would work because they kept changing the test's percentage of our evaluations seemingly at random.

But we need the PARCC because an A in Millburn is not the same as an A in Camden. We have to ensure that all kids succeed, not just those in affluent districts.

If the Ledger's only measure of success is the number of prestigious colleges and universities a school's students attend, then why aren't they raising a ruckus about all those students in Camden who have been denied rich, deep curriculums in the arts, humanities, foreign languages and technology (like they have in Millburn) because the state decided the best way to 'fix' their schools is to cut their funding, deny public input, silence parents and test the kids to death? That would never, ever happen in Millburn, and no test will ever close that disparity gap.

The PARCC and SBAC (Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium) tests were rolled out to assess student mastery of the Common Core State Standards that, along with carrot-and-stick financial incentives from the Obama administration, were supposed to level the educational playing field across all 50 states. The concept was that a child from New Jersey could move to Oregon and get the same education. Except that education reformers overlooked the fact that the United States is so culturally and economically diverse that a one size fits all education system is not appropriate. Schools in rural Central Oregon serve a very different student population—and have very different state funding—than students in Millburn NJ. Poverty plays a huge role in a child's chances for educational success. But The Ledger doesn't like to talk about that.

The Boston Globe recently tracked 93 local valedictorians and found that one in four failed to earn a college diploma in six years. Their high schools left them woefully underprepared. Some lost their scholarships. Others dropped out in frustration. We have the same problem in New Jersey. At Essex County College in Newark, 85 percent of incoming freshmen need to take remedial math. In 2017, only 13 percent graduated. While social promotion also happens in wealthier districts, those kids have a deeper safety net.  

I am not an education researcher, but from what I read in the Boston Globe study above, grade inflation—not standardized tests—is the main reason those students struggled in college. No educator with a lick of professionalism supports that, but sadly, it does happen, and 'reformers' themselves have been caught in the thick of some of the most controversial as we saw in the Washington, DC and Atlanta testing scandals.

And as for the remedial math and graduation rates at Essex County College, The Ledger assumes the PARCC test will fix those too, despite no mention of how long it had been since those students actually took a high school math class. And the fact that the school has been embroiled in turmoil, turnover and fiscal mismanagement for a few years—which was actually mentioned in the very same link—was apparently overlooked.

But The Star Ledger forges ahead!

This is why we need an objective test. Yet because the PARCC is such a powerful diagnostic tool that can trace a student’s learning problem right down to a particular teacher’s lesson, it ran afoul of the union. 

As Joe Biden would say, "What a load of malarky!" Sometimes I ask myself why I bother to respond to these sophomoric tropes, but as an educator, I believe I have an obligation to facts. And here are a few facts from a post I wrote back in 2016:  

1. The PARCC test is not diagnostic. In order for any test to accomplish this, it must have at least 25 questions per assessed skill. The PARCC does not. Bari Ehrlichson, Special Assistant to the Commissioner of Education, admitted this last year in a panel discussion on the PARCC.

2. The PARCC does not consistently assess grade-level skills. Rider University Professor and reading expert Russ Walsh analyzed some of the sample language arts questions and found many of them to be several grade levels above the tested grade. This is not only unfair to both students and teachers; it is also demoralizing to students. How can anyone be expected to succeed at something when the odds are heavily stacked against them from the start?

3. Research has shown that student designed projects and research are far more effective and meaningful ways for both teachers and students to assess deep learning and understanding. Standardized tests in general are meant to show trends, and as such, PARCC falls far short on the assessment continuum.

4. The American Statistical Association has warned that standardized tests should not be used to assess educator effectiveness because the methods being used are simply not reliable. And with the enormous emphasis now put on data in teaching, teachers should not be evaluated based on a flawed test that provides flawed data.

5. Out of the 24 states originally in the PARCC consortium only seven plus the District of Columbia will be participating in the 2016-2017 testing. This should be a red flag warning to every parent and educator.*

6. PARCC is not a reliable predictor of 'college and career readiness'. Recent research shows that high school GPAs are the most reliable predictor of college success. Yet all across this state—and country—related arts classes that help build those GPAs are being scaled back or eliminated to make way for more Common Core study and PARCC prep.    

7. A recently released study published in the School Superintendent Association's Journal of Scholarship and Practice concluded that a higher percentage of the 2009 New Jersey high school core curriculum content standards in English language arts and math prompted higher-order thinking than the 2010 Common Core State Standards for those same subjects and grade levels. We are dumbing down our students. 

8. The amount of testing students will be subjected to starting with the graduating class of 2020 is not only against current law, it’s just plain cruel. Starting with this class, in order to graduate high school, students will have to take and fail the PARCC not once, not twice, but three times before any real assessment of their academic progress can be used. What educator in their right mind thinks this is best practice?

9. There are big problems with scoring. Officials from PARCC have admitted there are discrepancies in scores between students who took paper and pencil tests vs. those who took the test online, with the former group scoring on average higher than the latter. And, despite PARCC's promise of leveling the playing field for all students in all states, the PARCC consortium states have the option to change their cut scores. This is nuts.

10. The fact that in its recently released report, the Study Commission On The Use Of Student Assessments in New Jersey failed to honor and recognize the hundreds of people who testified against this test, and instead recommended a marketing campaign* to crush the Opt-Out movement and brainwash parents and the general public into thinking it will solve all the world’s problems is proof that this test cannot stand on its own merit and should be thrown out.

* The PARCC consortium is now down to two states: New Jersey and New Mexico.

In a 2015 interview, Shani Robinson, one of the teachers caught up in the Atlanta cheating scandal had this to say about all that testing:

Who should really be held accountable for cheating the children? Our children have been cheated by those who have willfully torn apart black communities through displacement and gentrification, underfunded and privatized public schools, and then have criminalized black educators for a dysfunctional system that was designed to fail. ... I feel like this case is extremely important because public education is under attack, as we've seen in places where teachers are striking, and the cheating scandal was used to portray public education as a failure and justify privatizing schools.  

Privatizing public schools... that is the story The Star Ledger should be covering.

The Star Ledger's double standard on organized labor

Yesterday's Star Ledger editorial page is a case study in the double standards it applies to organized labor. On the one hand, they make an impassioned and completely justified plea in support of the unsustainable wages earned by SEIU 32BJ's 7,000 custodians and janitors who are fighting for a $15 minimum wage; while on the other, they excoriate Sen. Sweeney for pushing for a constitutional amendment to fund NJ's anemic pension system, and as usual, beat the war drums for public employees to pay more for less. 

But this is nothing new. The S-L editorial board, led by Tom Moran, has a long history of union bashing—especially teachers. Just search this blog or Jersey Jazzman's for a list of Moran's rants. Who knows why he hates us and loves others. And now that Sen. Sweeney has proposed the amendment that would require quarterly pension payments, Moran is at it again, spinning his ill-informed, teacher-hating rhetoric to unsuspecting readers:

But public workers continue to receive health benefits that are far more generous than those enjoyed by the typical taxpayers. The cost is about 50 percent more than the average plan in the private sector, according to Tom Byrne, a former Democratic state chairman and member of the governor's bipartisan reform commission.

First, I beg to differ on those generous benefits. The days of 'Cadillac' benefits are long gone thanks to Chr. 78 (more on this below). Second, does anyone else see the subtle fracturing here? The blaming and shaming of middle class workers? The pitting of public vs. private sector? The brainwashing of the general public that the financial crisis would go away if only we could get rid of those pesky, greedy unions? 

Those in power, including Moran, have done an admirable job of convincing private sector, middle class workers into thinking that labor is the problem, when instead, labor is the solution. If more middle and working class people belonged to unions, wages, benefits, workplace safety and morale would be up, and so would the economy (more on this below). The middle class was built on labor, and the glory days of the middle class in the mid 20th Century are a perfect example. 

But Gov. Christie and other anti-union leaders, corporate heads and the newspapers they control have done an admirable job of convincing the general public that labor is the problem. The message goes something like this:

How dare you want. How dare you expect anything more than what we elected officials and corporate heads feel you deserve. How dare you expect us to sacrifice when we are so important and—well—wealthy? 

We are the job creators. We can't sacrifice anything because we provide you with your ever increasing workloads and ever decreasing salaries and benefits job, and you should be grateful. After all, times are tough, and we all have to "share the sacrifice". (Notice how you never hear that phrase anymore. Could it be because the only people who were sacrificing realized they were also the ones getting screwed?)

We're sorry we have to screw you cut your compensation, ship jobs overseas and lay off employees, but those greedy unions have negotiated contracts just want more and more, and we would have to take less in salaries and bonuses can't afford that. So, we're hoping that if we cut your compensation enough you will speak out against their greed and selfishness so no one notices that new yacht we just purchased because they are destroying NJ. 

Now, about those benefits: if they are so 'generous', then why did NJ Spotlight report this last year?

Today, however, while the cost of New Jersey public employee health insurance coverage remains the third-highest in the nation, most New Jersey public employees are paying more than the national average for state government workers toward their health insurance costs, an NJ Spotlight analysis shows. 

In fact, the average New Jersey government employee is paying more for individual health insurance coverage than government workers in any other state and the 10th-highest average premium for family coverage in the country.Further, state and local government workers are paying a much higher percentage of the cost of their individual health insurance policies than private-sector employees in New Jersey have been paying, and not much less than the percentage paid by the state’s private-sector workers for family coverage. 

The health benefit payment schedule set by Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) as part of the controversial 2011 pension and health benefits overhaul established a complex premium-sharing formula based on “ability to pay” that is the most progressive in the nation — one that ranges from a low of 3 percent of premium cost for those earning under $25,000 to a high of 35 percent of premium for those making over $110,000 for family coverage. 

“Public employees are paying more for their health insurance in New Jersey than in most other states, but we made sure that the premium schedule is based on ability to pay. That’s important going forward,” Sweeney said in a comment aimed squarely at Christie’s pension and health benefits panel. (all emphasis mine)

And don't think for one minute that we're paying more because we're getting more. Far from it. Labor has had to give back a lot over the past 5 years. Co-pays, premiums and deductibles are up, and services are down. I can put you in touch with many public employees who are in the same boat as private sector workers—paying more and getting less. Sinking all ships instead of raising all boats makes everyone drown. 
 

Moran continues...

The problem with Sweeney's amendment is that he answers the key demand of the unions – to fully fund the pensions – without asking for cuts in health spending in return. 

Why should public employees—and all middle and working class families for that matter—have to sacrifice to the point of unsustainable living while America's 1% is making more now than at any other time since the Great Depression? Why isn't anyone questioning the near loan shark tactics of health insurance companies that jack up premiums by double digits seemingly overnight? Why has this country not yet moved to a true universal healthcare system so that everyone has access to quality, affordable healthcare? (Yea, I know... I know... that's a convo for another day) How much more can public employees—and all workers for that matter—sacrifice and still pay our bills? How much more can we be forced to give back while Gov. Christie gives billions in tax cuts to corporations? How much more can we do without before it becomes impossible for us to do our jobs? Why should public employees, the majority of whom have seen a net decrease in take home pay, give back one more penny while Christie refuses to keep his end of the deal, opting instead to give his Wall St. buddies/GOP donors huge bonuses for their lackluster returns on our deferred compensation? 

None of this is the fault of public employees, who built the middle class, yet we are blamed by people like Moran who have a hidden agenda and either don't know or are in denial about all the facts. 

But this hypocrisy is nothing new. In Jersey Jazzman's latest he reminds us of the S-Ls bizarre-o endorsement—and later retraction— of Christie for governor in 2013, and eviscerates Moran for criticizing The New Hampshire Union Leader for its recent endorsement of Christie:

Tom Moran ignored Chris Christie's many, many failings and endorsed him for reelection as governor for one reason: Christie was willing to go to war with the New Jersey Education Association. In Moran's bizarre world, Christie's jihad against the teachers union was more important than solving the pension problem, or adequately managing Sandy relief, or keeping the state's credit rating up.

...  

Tom Moran is the most shameless type of hypocrite imaginable. He looks down his nose at another newspaper for ignoring the facts about Chris Christie — the same facts Moran ignored just so he could stick it to teachers and their union. 

Look, as a registered Democrat and proud union member, I was incensed when Sweeney and other Trenton Democrats sold us down the river on the Pen-Ben deal. They turned their backs on the core values of our party and those for whom they are supposed to fight. But, I'm not going to sit here and rehash that, especially when the clock is ticking on the pension fund time bomb (see my countdown clock at the top of this page). The fact is that Sweeney is taking steps today to fix this mess by ensuring that the state finally does what it promised. Are there political aspirations tied to it? Probably. But, it's a helluva lot more than Christie ever had any intentions of doing.

With corporate money now controlling virtually every aspect of American life, it's only natural for the news media to spin tales of union greed as the downfall of civilization, when in fact, that downfall is being caused by corporate greed. Robert Reich's documentary film, Inequality for All lays it all out in devastatingly simple language and stresses the importance of organized labor as a key to building a strong middle class. Here's the trailer:



Everyone should watch this film. 

Public employees are not the cause of this financial crisis. Instead of sinking all ships, Trenton should be trying to lift all boats—both public and private. If unions die, so does the middle class. We are the last vestiges of a workforce that can stand up to corporate greed, and fight for fair wages, benefits and working conditions—for everyone—because as go the unions, so goes the middle class. But private sector workers have been turned against us by the likes of Moran and the S-L editorial board who spew hateful and derisive rhetoric. 

Millionaires are not fleeing NJ in droves. On the contrary, they are the only ones who can really afford to live here comfortably. NJ is home to over 600,000 public employees who contribute to local, county and state economies every day. But, unless the pension system is fixed—without any more public employee sacrifice—many middle class people will be forced to leave because we are the ones who can't afford it. But that's an inconvenient truth Moran is all too happy to avoid.

.@GovChristie He-Man Woman Haters Club

Greetings from Orlando! Home of the NEA RA 2015! 

While many of us were down here preparing for the Representative Assembly, on Tuesday, the Essex Co. Education Association organized a protest rally outside Gov. Christie's POTUS campaign kickoff at Livingston High School. Since then, the 'other' #TellingItLikeItIs campaign has been flooding Twitter and Facebook with memes and stories of life under Emperor Gov. Christie. This one caught my attention:






















While his record on the economy, jobs and the environment is atrocious, Gov. Christie has forged his reputation on verbally abusing voters—especially women. 

"Something may be going down tonight, but it ain't jobs, sweetheart."

Here's the video: 



Straight out of central casting: 

Rude, crude, sexist, dumb oaf, in a bar, beer in hand, surrounded by back-slapping good 'ole boys. Half-time's over, now back to the game. So he grabs a frazzled waitress and pulls her onto his lap. 

"More wings, sweetie. Make 'em hot, like you."

Laughs, guffaws and cat calls from his buddies as the waitress pries herself out of his grip and scurries away, clearly embarrassed.

In some way, shape or form, this happens every day in every city in America. It's one thing when some random jerk does it; it's quite another when the sitting governor of your state does it. But what's more disturbing is when this behavior gets a favorable reaction from the crowd. Writing for The Washington Post, Matt Katz reported:

The comment shocked some pundits who thought it was sexist. But I was in the crowd, and that line got more applause than any other. 

Welcome to the age of pro wrestling politics.

I'm sure it had something to do with Mormon Mitt Romney taking a pass on him for his VPOTUS candidate. But I don't understand why any woman in NJ could vote for Christie for a second term and endorse this behavior.  

But Gov. Christie is an equal opportunity offender. Just look at what he's said about some NJ female elected officials (additional reporting at Blue Jersey):

• Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg deserves to be beaten with a baseball bat.
• (Then) Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver lies.
• Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (then Assemblywoman) is responsible for someone's murder.
• Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle is a jerk.

Something tells me that more than a few therapists around the Garden State would love to get him on their couch for a few sessions. 

If you're a Baby Boomer like me, you no doubt know this classic Little Rascals episode:




Like Spanky, Gov. Christie has issues with women and leads with an iron fist. Like Alfalfa, the GOP does his bidding even though they don't always agree with him, lest the sergeant at arms (Christie's wrath) rain down on them. While Spanky fills Darla's sandwiches with soap, Christie fills women's lives with more struggles. Whether it's vetoing Planned Parenthood funding or equal pay for women or slashing school funding or launching a full-out assault on teachers—the majority of whom are women—Christie has made it clear that if you're a woman without deep pockets and a big checkbook, he really has no use for you.  

As I sit in a convention center with approximately 9,000 other education professionals from all across the country, the majority of whom are women, as we listen to a moving tribute to the victims of the terrorist shooting at the AME Church, as we debate and discuss issues of institutional racism, marriage equality, voting rights and others concerning social justice, as our leaders—all minorities, all women: President Lily Eskelsen (Latina), Vice President Becky Pringle and Secretary Treasurer Princess Moss (African Americans)—give impassioned speeches about personal empowerment, standing up for our students and our profession, I wonder what the 2017 RA would look like should Christie be elected president. And I shudder.

Elections have consequences. Women should never have to suffer the consequences of Gov. Christie's policies again. 

Register to vote and do it!