Dear Commons Community,

Teachers are seeing significant salary increases in a number of states. After teacher shortages that saw classrooms led by police officers, the National Guard and even a governor, a small but growing number of states are approving major pay raises for teachers.

In some states, especially those that rank low on the pay scale, the salary boost is the largest statewide salary increase for educators in decades.

On March 1, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico signed a bill that her office said would increase base salary levels by an average of 20 percent. Later that month, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced the state would funnel $800 million into the state’s budget to raise the starting salary for teachers to $47,000. And shortly afterward, Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi signed off on the largest pay raise for the state’s teachers in decades: an average increase of $5,100 that will raise salaries by more than 10 percent.

Georgia lawmakers have approved a spending plan that would give its teachers, and other education workers, a $2,000 bonus. And last week, Alabama lawmakers agreed to give its teachers pay raises ranging from 4 percent to nearly 21 percent, depending on experience.

It is the first time teachers in Alabama have seen a pay raise of this scale since 1983, according to the Alabama Education Association.  As reported by The New York Times.

“The No. 1 sentiment has been: It’s about time, and it’s very much appreciated,” Amy Marlowe, the association’s executive director, said. “They also were in disbelief, I think, for about a week. We heard from a large number of teachers who were just contacting us making sure that they heard it correctly, and it wasn’t some kind of joke.”

The pay raises are good news for teachers, and strategic moves for politicians. They may encourage teachers to stay put as school labor shortages persist in some school districts. The raises could assuage teachers over labor concerns, with teachers having gone on strike in cities such as Sacramento and Minneapolis. And just around the corner are midterm elections, where education is bound to be a major issue.

“There are various things a state can do to attract more people to the profession, and keep people in who are already there,” Thomas Bailey, an economist and the president of Teachers College at Columbia University, said. “Those changes are long overdue.”

But, Dr. Bailey said, the pay bumps are not large enough to significantly change the standard of living for any teacher.

“It may help, but I don’t know how much this will help,” he said. “I don’t think this will solve the problem.”

When adjusted for inflation, the national average salary for teachers has only somewhat increased over the past decade, according to the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union.

Other economists believe that these raises should be aimed toward certain hard-to-fill teaching positions.

For Suzanne Smith, a math and social studies teacher in Grenada, Miss., the $5,100 salary jump has not sunk in yet — it is the largest one she has seen in the more than three decades she has spent in this field. The average salary for a Mississippi schoolteacher is $46,843, the lowest in the nation, according to the National Education Association.

“We’re never going to think we’re paid enough because we always think we deserve more than we get,” she said.

Throughout Ms. Smith’s entire teaching tenure, she said, she and other teachers in her district have worked several jobs to supplement their income. She has worked at a day care center, hotels and a sporting goods store.

“Very few teachers in Mississippi can exist on just the salary itself,” she added.

For Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, another labor union, raising teacher salaries feels vindicating for organizations that have been asking for this for years.

“Let me just say this: It’s never too late,” she said, adding, “People don’t go into teaching to become rich, but they should be able to raise their kids on a decent salary.”

Teachers deserve decent salaries and as Weingarten says: “It’s never too late!”

Tony

https://twitter.com/EPOfficialYT/status/1515026957397901314?s=20&t=8MhFHRhXjXiQT7t-WPBYcA

Dear Commons Community,

As she gets set to leave the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki is looking back on her  adversarial relationship with Fox News reporter Peter Doocy.

At a live taping (see video above) of the “Pod Save America” podcast on Thursday, Psaki was quick to shift the blame for Doocy’s actions to his employer when she was asked if the journalist really was “a stupid son of a bitch.”

“He works for a network that provides people with questions that ― nothing personal to any individual, including Peter Doocy ― but might make anyone sound like a stupid son of a bitch,” she said, drawing laughter from the audience.

“In his role as White House correspondent, Peter Doocy’s job is to elicit truth from power for the American public,” a Fox News spokesperson said following Psaki’s remark. “His questions are his own, he is a terrific reporter and we are extremely proud of his work.”

Psaki’s comments were first reported by Politico White House correspondent Eugene Daniels, who attended the taping. They could also be found in a short video that circulated on social media Friday.

Both the initial question and Psaki’s response were a not-too-subtle allusion to a late January incident in which President Joe Biden was caught on a hot microphone referring to Doocy as a “stupid son of a bitch” under his breath.

The president’s seething comment came after Doocy had asked him if he thought inflation would be a “political liability ahead of the midterms.”

Biden later called Doocy to apologize for the remark. In her “Pod Save America” chat Thursday, Psaki said the journalist had been gracious following the president’s mea culpa.

Psaki, a former CNN political commentator, is stepping down from her role next month to join MSNBC. The Connecticut native will host a show on the network’s streaming platform, Peacock, and lend her perspective on live news programming.

She and Doocy traded barbs on numerous occasions during her roughly year-long tenure. Last month, she memorably shot down the journalist’s implication that the Biden administration was to blame for the mounting gasoline prices across the U.S.

“Peter, let me give you the facts here,” she said at the time. “I know that can be inconvenient, but I think they’re important in this moment.”

We will miss Jen!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks unveiled a plan yesterday to expand the city’s gifted and talented classes for elementary students and to permanently eliminate the contentious admissions test given to 4-year-olds in an effort to address concerns that the program has shortchanged low-income and Black and Latino students.

Under Mr. Adams’s plan, the city will add 100 seats to the current 2,400 for kindergarten students in the program and an additional 1,000 seats for third-graders.

The citywide admissions test, which has not been offered since fall 2020, will be replaced by a screening process in which pre-K teachers will nominate students to apply to be entered into a lottery. Applications for the program will open May 31 for the 2022-23 school year.  As reported by The New York Times.

“It’s time for all our students to have access to the classroom programs that develop their full personhood and their full potential,” the mayor said at a news conference Thursday.

By expanding the program and permanently eliminating the admissions tests, the mayor and his Mr. Banks, are hoping to address what city officials have acknowledged for years: The gifted and talented program has contributed to racially segregated classrooms.

Though 70 percent of the students in the city’s school system are Black and Latino, around 75 percent of the students enrolled in gifted classes are white or Asian American.

“Expanded access to the city’s gifted and talented programs is long overdue,” Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, said in a statement.

But there are concerns that the plan doesn’t go far enough to address the program’s flaws, such as the small number of seats for the city’s more than 70,000 kindergartners and the few entry points into the program.

There were about 1,900 kindergarten children and about 90 third graders accepted into this year’s gifted program, according to Nathaniel Steyer, a spokesman for the Department of Education, in a school system that serves more than a million students.

And some officials questioned the value of the gifted program itself. “Scaling up a program which separates students, often along lines of class and race, is a retrograde approach that does nothing to improve quality education for the overwhelming majority of our students,” said the New York City comptroller, Brad Lander, in a statement.

Defenders of gifted and talented programs also had some concerns.

“Overall, we’re keeping the program, we’re expanding it to where there are no programs, I think that is wonderful news,” said Yiatin Chu, the co-founder of Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, a group founded by white and Asian parents that supports gifted and talented schools.

But Ms. Chu, who has a fifth grader who is not in the gifted and talented program, said the plan had faults. Not nearly enough seats were added, she said. And immigrant families would still like to see a “more standardized and less subjective” way to evaluate children, she said.

While not perfect, this is a move in the right direction.

Tony

Dear  Commons Community,

New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating whether the oil industry has engaged in gas price gouging, a representative from her office said yesterday.

The New York state probe will focus on major companies that supply oil to the state, and refineries that turn crude into gasoline and independent operators of pipelines and terminals, the representative said, confirming a report on CNN.

The investigation will examine the state’s entire supply chain, the representative said.

Crude prices have hit 14-year highs in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent U.S. sanctions on Moscow, including a U.S. ban on Russian energy imports.  Gas prices have hit nearly $5 for regular and are now about $5.40 a gallon for supreme in Manhattan.

U.S. President Joe Biden last month accused U.S. oil companies of enjoying record profits while Americans pay high gasoline prices. He called for increased output and service to benefit consumers instead of investors, and announced a record release of crude oil from strategic reserves.

Oil executives defended themselves in the U.S. Congress last week from charges by lawmakers that they were gouging Americans with high fuel prices, saying they were boosting energy output and no one company sets the price of gasoline.

This type of probe is needed!

Tony

Police Escort Subway Shooting Suspect Frank James

Dear Commons Community,

New York City Police arrested 62-year-old Frank James yesterday for the Brooklyn subway shooting that wounded 10 people.

After a 30-hour manhunt, James was arrested without incident after a tipster — thought by police to be James himself — said he could be found near a McDonald’s on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Mayor Eric Adams triumphantly proclaimed “We got him!” Police said their top priority was getting the suspect, now charged with a federal terrorism offense, off the streets as they investigate their biggest unanswered question: Why?

James had an erratic work history. Arrests for a string of mostly low-level crimes. A storage locker with more ammo. And hours of rambling, bigoted, profanity-laced videos on his YouTube channel that point to a deep, simmering anger.  As reported by the Associated Press.

“This nation was born in violence, it’s kept alive by violence or the threat thereof, and it’s going to die a violent death,” says James in a video where he takes on the moniker “Prophet of Doom.”

A prime trove of evidence, they said, is his YouTube videos. He seems to have opinions about nearly everything — racism in America, New York City’s new mayor, the state of mental health services, 9/11, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Black women.

A federal criminal complaint cited one in which James ranted about too many homeless people on the subway and put the blame on New York City’s mayor.

“What are you doing, brother?” he said in the video posted March 27. “Every car I went to was loaded with homeless people. It was so bad, I couldn’t even stand.”

James then railed about the treatment of Black people in an April 6 video cited in the complaint, saying, “And so the message to me is: I should have gotten a gun, and just started shooting.”

In a video posted a day before the attack, James criticizes crime against Black people and says things would only change if certain people were “stomped, kicked and tortured” out of their “comfort zone.”

Surveillance cameras spotted James entering the subway system turnstiles Tuesday morning, dressed as a maintenance or construction worker in a yellow hard hat and orange working jacket with reflective tape.

Police say fellow riders heard him say only “oops” as he set off one smoke grenade in a crowded subway car as it rolled into a station. He then set off a second smoke grenade and started firing, police said. In the smoke and chaos that ensued, police say James made his getaway by slipping into a train that pulled in across the platform and exited after the first stop.

Left behind at the scene was the gun, extended magazines, a hatchet, detonated and undetonated smoke grenades, a black garbage can, a rolling cart, gasoline and the key to a U-Haul van, police said.

That key led investigators to James, and clues to a life of setbacks and anger as he bounced among factory and maintenance jobs, got fired at least twice, moved among Milwaukee, Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York.

Investigators said James had 12 prior arrests in New York and New Jersey from 1990 to 2007, including for possession of burglary tools, criminal sex act, trespassing, larceny and disorderly conduct.

James had no felony convictions and was not prohibited from purchasing or owning a firearm. Police said the gun used in the attack was legally purchased at an Ohio pawn shop in 2011. A search of James’ Philadelphia storage unit and apartment turned up at least two types of ammunition, including the kind used with an AR-15 assault-style rifle, a taser and a blue smoke cannister.

Police said James was born and raised in New York City. In his videos, he said he finished a machine shop course in 1983 then worked as a gear machinist at Curtiss-Wright, an aerospace manufacturer in New Jersey, until 1991 when he was he was hit by a one-two punch of bad news: He was fired from his job and, soon after, his father whom he had lived with in New Jersey died.

Records show James filed a complaint against the aerospace company in federal court soon after he lost his job alleging racial discrimination, but it was dismissed a year later by a judge. He says in one video, without offering specifics, that he “couldn’t get any justice for what I went through.”

A spokesperson for Curtiss-Wright didn’t immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

James describes going in and out of several mental health facilities, including two in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s.

“Mr. Mayor, let me say to you I’m a victim of your mental health program in New York City,” James says in a video earlier this year, adding he is “full of hate, full anger and bitterness.”

James says he later was a patient at Bridgeway House, a mental health facility in New Jersey, although that could not be immediately confirmed. Messages left with the facility were not returned.

“My goal at Bridgeway in 1997 was to get off Social Security and go back to f—— work,” he says in a video, adding that he enrolled in a college and took a course in computer-aided design and manufacturing.

James says he eventually got a job at telecommunications giant Lucent Technologies in Parsippany, New Jersey, but says he ended up getting fired and returned to Bridgeway House, this time not as a patient but as an employee on the maintenance staff. A message seeking comment was sent to Lucent Technologies.

“I just want to work. I want to be a person that’s productive,” he said.

Tony

Laura Ingraham and her brother Curtis!

Dear Commons Community,

Laura Ingraham’s brother, Curtis Ingraham, on Tuesday called the Fox News host “a monster” over her support for anti-LGBTQ legislation and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Curtis Ingraham responded to a clip from “The Ingraham Angle” (see video below) in which his sister criticized schools for teaching students about sexuality and gender identity.

“It’s dubbed a queer-inclusive curriculum,” Laura Ingraham said in a segment titled “Doom & Groom.” “Gone are the days when they’re just teaching about human reproduction. Now, by fifth grade, they’re taught about sexual expression.”

Curtis Ingraham called out his sister’s supposed concern for children’s well-being in a tweet.

“This is rich coming from my Putin-loving sister who seems okay with children being killed in Ukraine,” he wrote. “Looks like she has a new trope in hand to further rile and anger her followers. What a monster!”

Laura Ingraham said earlier this month that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plea for peace during Russia’s invasion of his country was “a really pathetic display.” She also poked fun at liberal Americans for supporting Ukraine by featuring its flag on their social media profiles, calling the support “false-flag patriotism.”

“I think she’s a monster,” Curtis added. “She’s very smart, she’s well-spoken, but her emotional heart is just kind of dead. And you see it in her face when you see her on TV. She’s ready to destroy. She does not listen to understand — she listens to respond. And her response is always an attack.”

Curtis knows his sister well!

Tony

The Left is trying to destroy children’s innocence in the name of 'tolerance.' pic.twitter.com/3lX0PVDg2p

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) April 7, 2022

Alyssa Nakken made history tonight by becoming the first woman to coach on the field in an MLB game.

(via @NBCSGiants)pic.twitter.com/J0weMxGlmn

— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) April 13, 2022

Dear Commons Community,

Alyssa  Nakken made major league history Tuesday night as the first woman to coach on the field in a regular-season game. Nakken came in to coach first base for the Giants in the third inning in a game against the San Diego Padres after coach Antoan Richardson was ejected.

“I think we’re all inspirations doing everything that we do on a day-to-day basis and I think, yes, this carries a little bit more weight because of the visibility, obviously there’s a historical nature to it,” Nakken said. “But again, this is my job.”

When she was announced as Richardson’s replacement, she received a warm ovation from the crowd at Oracle Park and a congratulatory handshake from Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer.  As reported by ESPN.

“Right now in this moment as I reflect back, I reflect back to somebody needed to go out, we needed a coach to coach first base, our first-base coach got thrown out. I’ve been in training as a first-base coach for the last few years and work alongside Antoan, so I stepped in to what I’ve been hired to do, is support this staff and this team,” Nakken said.

The Baseball Hall of Fame was ready, too. Her helmet is already on its way to the shrine in Cooperstown, New York.

San Francisco manager Gabe Kapler said Nakken had “prepared for this moment” while working with Richardson and others.

“So it’s not a foreign spot on the field for her. She does so many other things well that aren’t seen,” he said. “So it’s nice to see her kind of be right there in the spotlight and do it on the field.”

Richardson, who is Black, told reporters his ejection stemmed from an exchange with Padres third-base coach Mike Shildt, whom he accused of yelling an expletive that “reeked undertones of racism.”

Despite feeling his ejection was unwarranted, Richardson praised Nakken and said he is “very proud” of her.

“I’m really excited that Alyssa got her opportunity to make her major league debut and I’m very proud of her,” Richardson said. “I think she did a really wonderful job and we got a win, so that’s the most important thing.”

Nakken is an assistant coach who works heavily with baserunning and outfield defense. She watches games from an indoor batting cage near the steps to the dugout — and keeps a Giants jersey nearby, just in case she needs it.

And in an instant Tuesday night, she needed it.

Nakken, 31, jogged onto the field four days after Rachel Balkovec became the first woman to manage a minor league affiliate of a Major League Baseball team. She guided the New York Yankees‘ Class A Tampa club to a win in her first game.

Nakken had previously coached the position in spring training and during part of a July 2020 exhibition game at Oakland against now-Padres manager Bob Melvin when he was skipper of the Athletics. She started at first again a night later against the A’s in San Francisco as the teams prepared for the pandemic-delayed season.

“You feel a sense of pride to be out there,” Nakken said at the time. “Me personally, it’s the best place to watch a game, that’s for sure.”

The former Sacramento State softball star became the first woman to coach in the big leagues when she was hired for Kapler’s staff in January 2020.

At Sacramento State from 2009 to 2012, Nakken was a three-time all-conference player at first base and four-time Academic All-American. She went on to earn a master’s degree in sport management from the University of San Francisco in 2015 after interning with the Giants’ baseball operations department a year earlier.

From day one with the Giants, Nakken embraced her role as an example for girls and women.

“It’s a big deal,” she said. “I feel a great sense of responsibility and I feel it’s my job to honor those who have helped me to where I am.”

Congratulations Alyssa!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday morning an individual set off smoke bombs and shot at people on a subway in New York City (see video above).  Fortunately, no one was killed but at the time of this writing the gunman was still at large.  As reported by The New York Times.