Teacher ratings can strain New Jersey school districts
Saturday November 30, 2013, 11:46 PM
BY LESLIE BRODY
STAFF WRITER
The Record
New Jersey’s law requiring districts to start new teacher evaluations this year has become a bonanza for the firms that are helping schools comply.
Many districts have spent tens of thousands of dollars on new online tools for collecting data on teachers’ goals and techniques in the classroom, and training staff members how to use them. Many superintendents are grumbling that on top of the enormous investment of time required to conduct more frequent and in-depth evaluations, these bills are an unfair financial burden imposed by the state.
Ridgewood, for example, has spent $40,000 for a new data system and extensive training on how to use it. Fair Lawn has spent $33,000 so far. And Glen Rock and Hawthorne have paid $25,000.
BOOKENDS: Hey Kids, Comics! – Authors Autographing this Saturday
Forget Black Friday – Small Business Saturday is coming! Come meet Robert J. Kelly, Paul Castiglia and Ed Catto as they discuss and autograph copies of the best holiday gift you can give the comics fan in your life – a copy of Hey Kids, Comics! published by Crazy 8 Press. This discussion and autographing is scheduled at the independent bookstore, Bookends, this Saturday, November 30th at 2PM.
Ridgewood’s Bookends Bookstore is known for having top authors such as Nelson DeMille, James Patterson and Harlan Coben as well as celebrity authors, ranging from Gene Simmons to Billy Crystal. This independently owned and operated shop is located at 211 East Ridgewood Avenue in Ridgewood, NJ (phone : 201.445.0726). And this event is in conjunction with Amex’s Small Business Saturday, so there are savings for American Express Card Holders.
More information is available at www.book-ends.com
Black Friday less crazy in North Jersey as holiday openings soften the crush
Friday, November 29, 2013 Last updated: Friday November 29, 2013, 11:13 PM
BY JOAN VERDON, KATHLEEN LYNN AND AND REW WYRICH
STAFF WRITERS
The Record
It was a North Jersey Black Friday with a new twist — shoppers saying they went to malls and stores Friday because they wanted to avoid the craziness.
While Black Friday still is expected to draw the most sales and shoppers of the four-day weekend, the madness — the frenzied rush for door-buster deals — largely was pushed forward into Thanksgiving night, when more than a dozen major retailers opened their doors or began offering deals in the early evening.
As a result, the stores that opened on Thanksgiving were quieter and calmer on Friday, although stores and malls in Paramus — which delayed their openings until 7 a.m. Friday because of a borough ordinance restricting all-night shopping — still had lines of shoppers waiting for the doors to open.
Black Friday Spending Spree (in Washington)
11/29/2013
American shoppers aren’t the only ones getting ready to spend big this holiday season.
In Washington, members of the budget conference committee are considering several options that could increase spending by up to an additional $100 billion.
What’s standing in their way is sequestration: the automatic spending cut mechanism President Obama signed into law with the Budget Control Act (BCA). Sequestration enforces spending caps on the discretionary budget, which includes those domestic programs that brought you the infamous IRS Star Trek parody video and the $325,000 RoboSquirrel. The reductions disproportionately fall on defense, and lawmakers should do a better job of prioritizing this core constitutional function while staying within the agreed-upon spending levels.
According to news sources, some budget conference members are considering a compromise deal to bust the sequestration spending caps by up to $100 billion. In an attempt to find offsetting mandatory spending cuts and revenues to entice both sides into such a deal, lawmakers are reportedly considering an increase in “user fees.” This is simply a disguised tax increase.
Raising these fees to cover the cost of providing services is one thing. Increasing them to pay for more spending is just another Washington gimmick. Using gimmicks like this one to get around necessary spending reductions is a destructive habit that has helped fuel the now $17.2 trillion national debt.
What adds even more fuel to the fire is that Congress is not currently restrained by a debt limit.
Lawmakers suspended the debt limit through February 7 in the deal that ended the government shutdown. With no dollar amount to limit their spending, there is little to stop Washington from piling even more spending and debt on taxpayers. Imagine hitting the Black Friday deals with an unlimited credit card at your disposal.
A budget conference “compromise” may sound like progress in this era of congressional gridlock, but when it means higher spending and continuing on the current fiscal collision course, it will do more harm than good. Washington is already on track to spend nearly $150 billion more in 2014 than it did in 2013, largely due to growth in entitlement spending—the key driver of spending and debt.
Instead of spending even more of taxpayers’ money, lawmakers should address future debt by controlling the growth in entitlement spending, sticking to the Budget Control Act, and enforcing lower levels of spending. If the committee fails to begin solving America’s entitlement problem, this means spending and debt will continue to go up and harm the opportunities of all Americans.
The credit card has been maxed out too many times already. This is the season to curb Washington’s spending spree.
The Knockout Game — NYT/NPR Say No Big Deal
By Larry Elder – November 28, 2013
The “knockout game” — and the media underreporting of it — combines the breakdown of the family with the media’s condescending determination to serve as a public relations bureau for blacks. The “game” is a dare in which a young man — all the perps appear to be male people of color, mostly blacks — tries to literally knock out an innocent bystander with one blow. Both National Public Radio and The New York Times say these reports of the “knockout game” being widespread are overblown and do not represent a trend. Really?
According to Colin Flaherty, author of “White Girl Bleed A Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It,” the knockout game has gone national. He describes “knockouts” in Philadelphia, Atlantic City, St. Louis, Birmingham, Chicago, Charlotte, Milwaukee, Denver, Minneapolis, Georgetown, New York City, Greensboro, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Miami, Cleveland, Nashville, Peoria, Seattle, Saratoga Springs, Atlanta and a host of others towns and cities.
From a distance, the media can spot some lone idiot holding up an offensive sign at a tea party rally. But when it comes to black perp/white victim crime, there is a very different attitude. Consider the media reaction to the assault of three white girls on Halloween night, 2006, in Long Beach, Calif., just outside Los Angeles. Without provocation, a mostly black mob of 30 to 40 teens and adults brutally kicked, punched and pummeled three young white women, slamming them to the ground, ripping earrings from their lobes and beating them with a skateboard. One of the victims had 12 fractures in her face that required multiple surgeries, and had damage to her teeth and her eyesight. The women also suffered internal injuries and concussions. But for the efforts of a black good Samaritan, who waded into the crowd to help the girls, they might well have died.
The Los Angeles Times, the major metropolitan hometown paper, for one whole week did not write a single word about the Long Beach incident, which took place only twenty-some miles from the paper’s headquarters. Eyewitnesses to the brutal attack reported many in the mob yelling, “We hate white people, f*** whites!” during the rampage.
Ridgewood Police Answers : Why do New Jersey Police Departments refer to the person who is accused of committing a crime the “actor”?
Here is a quote from Title 2C, NJ Criminal law:
2C:1-14. Definitions.
2C:1-14. In this code, unless a different meaning plainly is required:
a. “Statute” includes the Constitution and a local law or ordinance of a political subdivision of the State;
b. “Act” or “action” means a bodily movement whether voluntary or involuntary;
c. “Omission” means a failure to act;
d. “Conduct” means an action or omission and its accompanying state of mind, or, where relevant, a series of acts and omissions;
e. “Actor” includes, where relevant, a person guilty of an omission;
f. “Acted” includes, where relevant, “omitted to act”;
g. “Person,” “he,” and “actor” include any natural person and, where relevant, a corporation or an unincorporated association;
As you see, the “perpetrator” or “do-er” or “defendant” fits in with that legal definition of “actor” and that term is used in lots of the individual statutes use that term, like this excerpt from 2c:2-3:
“e. When causing a particular result is a material element of an offense for which absolute liability is imposed by law, the element is not established unless the actual result is a probable consequence of the actor’s conduct.”
Because the term is used in NJ criminal law, police just tend to use it on complaints, in their reports and news releases. Lots of states that use the “model; penal code” as the basis for their criminal law use the word “actor” when reffering to the accused
Citing ‘complexity’ of case, judge grants ex-Bergen Democratic chief delay in corruption trial
Thursday, November 28, 2013 Last updated: Thursday November 28, 2013, 4:48 PM
BY PETER J. SAMPSON
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Joseph A. Ferriero will have a year to prepare for his next federal corruption trial on charges of orchestrating a series of bribery, kickback and shakedown schemes during his reign as chairman of the Bergen County Democratic organization.
U.S. District Judge Ester Salas, sitting in Newark, signed an order Nov. 18 setting a new trial date of Oct. 14, 2014 for Ferriero’s racketeering case. The trial, estimated to take six weeks, had previously been tentatively scheduled for December.
Ferriero, 56, once among the state’s most powerful political leaders, was indicted on Sept. 11 on charges of running the affairs of the county’s Democratic organization through a pattern of racketeering activity. He also was charged with conspiring to promote bribery and distribute bribe proceeds and to commit mail and wire fraud; as well as with one count each of violating the Travel Act and the mail and wire fraud statutes.
The judge acted on a joint application by the office of U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman and Ferriero’s counsel, Michael Baldassare and Jennifer Mara, for an order declaring the matter to be a complex case.
1863 President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November
In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe, sober and happy Hanukkah and Thanksgiving. During these holidays, families and friends will come together to celebrate. To ensure that everyone can enjoy their holidays safely we will be increasing DWI patrols commencing tonight. Please, if you must drink during the holidays, do so responsibly and don’t get behind the wheel if you have been drinking.
“Heavy Drop” slows down Village Leaf Pick Up
November 23,2013
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, According to the Village Hall website ,”Due to the heavy drop of leaves we are currently running about 4 days behind schedule. Right now we are in Area D and will finish by Monday. We will begin Area A on Tuesday, November 26th and continue until after Thanksgiving. We will not get to Area B before Thanksgiving.”
So we decided to take a ride around the Village and see for our self’s . And yes no surprise but the leaves piles towered over our car and work crews were hard at working playing catch up .
Almost 80 million with employer health care plans could have coverage canceled, experts predict
By Jim Angle ,Published November 26, 2013 ,FoxNews.com
Almost 80 million people with employer health plans could find their coverage canceled because they are not compliant with ObamaCare, several experts predicted.
Their losses would be in addition to the millions who found their individual coverage cancelled for the same reason.
Stan Veuger of the American Enterprise Institute said that in addition to the individual cancellations, “at least half the people on employer plans would by 2014 start losing plans as well.” There are approximately 157 million employer health care policy holders.
Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute added, “the administration estimated that approximately 78 million Americans with employer sponsored insurance would lose their existing coverage due to the Affordable Care Act.”
Last week, an analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, showed the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predicted up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year.
According to projections the administration itself issued back in July 2010, it was clear officials knew the impact of ObamaCare three years ago.
In fact, according to the Federal Register, its mid-range estimate was that by the end of 2014, 76 percent of small group plans would be cancelled, along with 55 percent of large employer plans.
All eyes on N.J. as online casino gambling rolls out
Online gambling in the U.S. today takes what industry experts say is the most significant step yet — the rollout of online casino gambling in New Jersey.
Nevada residents and visitors have been able to play state-sanctioned online poker since April, and those in Delaware have had that option since last month. (Brennan/The Record)
Commissioner Faces Difficult Choice on Coverage Option Offered by Obama
Experts say Kobylowski must balance wishes of NJ consumers with what works best for insurance marketplace
New Jersey Commissioner of Banking and Insurance Kenneth Kobylowski is weighing whether to allow thousands of state residents to keep their recently cancelled health insurance plans.
The decision will have major policy and political implications over the next year. (Kitchenman/NJSpotlight)
‘Modified’ tailgating at MetLife for Super Bowl
Monday, November 25, 2013 Last updated: Monday November 25, 2013, 6:24 PM
Associated Press
EAST RUTHERFORD — Tailgating will be allowed in the parking lot at MetLife Stadium for February’s Super Bowl, in a modified capacity.
In other words, don’t expect to bring your deluxe grill to the festivities. In fact, don’t bring any kind of grill unless you want to be turned away at the entrance.
The National Football League won’t allow grills in the parking areas at the Meadowlands sports complex on game day. League spokesman Brian McCarthy said Monday that’s a standard rule that’s been employed at previous Super Bowls.
Published reports last week suggested tailgating might not be allowed. But McCarthy said fans can bring their own food and beverages as long as they don’t bring a grill or spread out taking up empty parking spots as many fans do at New York Giants and New York Jets games.
The complex has more than 25,000 parking spots available for a typical Giants or Jets game, but more than half of those will be taken up by security and television equipment, organizers have said.
