I've been saying it for years

I hate to pull an Ambrose Bennett, but I've been saying this for years: School principals in the CNMI have too much power. Let me preface this by saying school principals are wildly underpaid here -- far more than teachers. Principal here is an awful job that barely pays more than teachers. These people don't get the summer break and they also get most of the abuse. Wild horses couldn't get me to take that job. I told my friend Betty Miller not to do it, but she forged ahead. My own administration is very fair and reasonable at SSHS, and they are about the only tandem to be in place for six years, which is one of the reasons that my school runs well. The administrative turnover at most schools is enormous. One of the reasons Hopwood is such a horror is the musical chairs taking place at the head of that place over the last few years.

People have been complaining about this woman in Tinian forever. Factoring in that it's Tinian, which let's face it, is a hard place to live and to recruit people to, makes the situation even stranger. I'm surprised this situation goes on.

Some of the people that become principals or vice principals in PSS are absolute dolts who shouldn't be running a children's mango stand on the side of the road -- and they're the ones empowered with hiring and firing responsiblity with little oversight. It's ridiculous, and it has been ridiculous for years. Of course, it wasn't until a pissing match occurred between a principal and a board member that this became an issue.

THE Board of Education will revisit the existing policy on the hiring and
firing discretion of school principals. During a special BOE meeting, Rota board
member Denise Tanya King questioned the existing procedures and policy of the
Public School System regarding the “authority” given to school principals.
“If the only person who will evaluate the teacher is her/his principal, I think
the system is giving our principals a tremendous power,” King told the board. It was earlier disclosed that 31 teachers have either resigned from their posts or their contracts were not renewed.

Twenty four new blogs out there

I finally thought my students were ready for it, so there are now twenty four new blogs out there by some of my students at Saipan Southern High School. Some of these young men and women have put together some very appealing blogs. Some are still a work very much in progress. At least half of these students do not speak English as their first language. Here is one of the blogs, and there are links to many others on that site. These are 14-year-olds finding their voice and finding out their voices matter. Feel free to leave them a comment, make suggestions, encourage them, even argue with them a bit to make them think.

Many of my students began the year thinking "Baby Ruth" was the first African-American in major league baseball, the governor determined the price of gas and World War II occurred in 1860 or 1960. Many expressed these thoughts in giant uni-paragraph essays with his and he's mixed up and subjects and verbs that agreed less often than Bruce Bateman and Lil Hammerhead. Those problems haven't been completely eradicated, but progress has been made. These students are also putting together a powerpoint presentation for the first public speaking engagement of their lives, and they will conclude the year by creating a podcast.

While I was on paternity leave I gave these students a giant research project. I asked them a series of questions, fifty to be exact, from all branches of world awareness. I had them find out for themselves everything from how to make chicken soup and better tasting coffee to details on the Kyoto Protocol to awareness of what mutual funds and equity derivatives are and what they can do, to the reasons for tensions between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I'm hoping they learned they can find things out on their own, and more importantly, I hope it lights a spark that ignites a raging intellectual curiosity. There are now many things they know something about that I didn't know at all until I was twice their age.

I have many faults as a teacher. I'm fairly impatient, I'm not as warm and fuzzy as I probably should be, I get frustrated and I'm from an area of the world where people talk quickly, so I have to remind myself to slow it down. I don't know whether this is a good or bad thing, but I don't talk to them like they are little kids or be any less honest and forthright with them than I am with anyone else. I think they appreciate that aspect, and the humor, which tempers the fact that I'm a demanding and sometimes tough SOB. I also brood about the state of education overall on this island too often, but in reviewing recently the progress these kids have made in these last ten months, I feel good about it today. A teacher needs those days.

A conversation with Lucy Blanco-Maratita, MV 29

By Jeffrey C. Turbitt

I opened my Monday morning paper this week and saw the headline: "BOE approves PSS furloughs, shutdown," and small vapors of steam started coming out of my ears. I decided to do a little of my own investigating before getting completely upset, and I found out that the school system does indeed have a severe financial problem on its hands. However, no concrete decisions have been made yet. A set of unpleasant choices exists should members of the central government continue their longtime policy of supporting education during the campaigns and then giving it short shrift upon being elected.

The fact that the most basic services of government such as energy, public health and education are left to flounder, while our elected officials remain defiant and refuse to give up or even reduce perks of office like government paid vehicles, government paid cell phones and a large discretionary budget, simply boggles my mind. I peppered CNMI Board of Education Chair Lucy Blanco-Maratita with several questions about PSS’ financial predicament, and she explained the choices the board has and their consequences, as well as ways to avoid those problems.

JCT: According to a conversation I had with your board colleague Galvin Deleon Guerrero, as things currently stand, PSS is looking at a projected deficit this fiscal year of $3.3 million largely due to greater utilities costs and $2 million that was "borrowed" from PSS in Fiscal Year 2006, which has not been returned to PSS. What are the options the board is considering to deal with this problem?

LBM: The first option, of course, is to secure a budget for FY'08 from the legislature that puts us over the current continuing resolution budget of $35.48 or at least get the $2M from the administration returned to PSS --- and that still will not be enough to meet our $50M budget to operate our schools. The second option will be to close our schools completely from mid-June and delay the opening until September 1st. This will reduce our utilities and we can then use the funds for operations. A third option that we may be forced to consider is furlough of employees for one month. This is not something that we want to do because we don't want the ill effects that would have on our student achievement gains and the livelihood of our staff. But, if we do not have the funds to last until the end of the fiscal year, we may be forced to consider it.

JCT: What impact will those options have on students and teachers if implemented?

LBM: If you are talking about furlough, we stand to lose our teachers and staff as they may decide to leave and we will definitely experience a slippage of the gains we have made with our student achievements.

JCT: My understanding is that these are just options right now and no course of action has been definitively decided upon by the board. Is that correct?

LBM: Yes, those are just considerations that were being discussed at the time the reporter was there. The reporter left before the end of the discussion in which the board decided to send a message to the legislature to pass a piecemeal budget because we may be forced to consider such drastic measures.

JCT: I also understand you will be sending a letter detailing these possibilities to the legislature. The underfunding of education in the CNMI can't be news to them. What have they communicated back to the board of late about these issues?

LBM: They have told us they are supportive of education, but we need to see more --- perhaps more funding. I think they (legislature, governor) have to just put their foot down and make a policy call that their focus is truly on education and fund it as the schools see as adequate.

JCT: It seems like the BOE has had a number of financial issues in the past, and some people will view this as "crying wolf" or gamesmanship with the legislature and the executive branch. How are things different this time?

LBM: I don't believe in threats, "crying wolf", etc. I believe in laying it all out for everyone to see and make informed decisions. We also need to plan ahead and try to foresee anticipated consequences so that we can plan and deal with those consequences before they happen. This is why it's important for the legislature and governor to understand what we see facing us so they can help us avert those unwanted consequences.

JCT: What can parents, teachers and students do to help the board manage this crisis?

LBM: Students: Continue to focus on your studies; let the adults deal with these issues. The job of our students is to learn what they can so they can be prepared for the futureTeachers: Continue teaching our students effectively and do your part in helping our system conserve energy so those funds will be available for your classroom rather than for CUC, albeit we do need utilities. If you have the opportunity to share information with our elected leaders, by all means please take the opportunity to share our need for adequate funding every day, for repairs of our schools, etc., but the best thing you can do is to continue to teach our children well with the dedication and commitment that you all have. Let us know how we can further support you in doing your job well.Parents: Continue to be involved with your children's education, communicate often with your child's teacher so that a strong partnership is forged between home and school. We can work together to encourage our elected leaders to truly make education a priority for funding and support. But the best help you can give is to be involved in your children's education, to help us meet their needs.

School might start in September, more bad ideas abound

I got word yesterday that PSS is contemplating changing the school calendar to start school in September instead of the usual August date. This is, surprise, surprise, a fiscal scheme designed to skip a month of paying teacher salaries. They'll still have to pay the same amount and have the same number of school days, but doing this buys them a month to come up with the cash. I would expect a lot of teachers, many of whom through bad financial planning live paycheck to paycheck, will bail on this place and going this direction will merely create a staffing problem, but here is apparently the latest bad idea being kicked around. A three month summer vacation should at least help get people to paint the island, spray paint that is.

College should be rigorous and a priority, MV 23

By Jeffrey C. Turbitt

Against a backdrop of Northern Marianas College fighting to retain its accreditation, the distinction that determines a valuable college degree versus a worthless piece of paper, stories about classroom overcrowding and the high failure rate for NMC's admissions test appeared in the local media this week.

Let me preface my thoughts by saying that for all the educational problems on the islands, compared to all the systems in the area and most definitely Guam and rural Hawaii, we are the most successful system in the region. The problem with that line of thinking in that commonly made point is that we live in a globally competitive economy, so being better than the rest of Micronesia just isn't good enough, and we should not want our local college to lower its placement standards.

For all the noise about PSS, there are two issues that dominate all others that I see. The first is that several schools are falling apart from a simple construction and facilities standpoint. The second big issue is that many classes are wildly overcrowded. Kagman High School is listed as having an average of 29 students per teacher. For a core class like language arts those numbers are usually higher. An art, music or computer class is usually much smaller than 29, so when the average says 29, there are usually more than 29 students in math, science or language arts classes to make up for those smaller elective classes. At SSHS, the freshmen pre-honors language arts class has 35 students. Three of my four classes are above 29 students per class.

As for the entrance exams, the criticisms of NMC have been somewhat ridiculous. College is supposed to be rigorous. Every college has admission tests generally in math, language arts and a foreign language. I had to take two remedial math classes myself when I entered college for the simple reason that my math skills weren't at the college level, which made it harder to graduate in four years, but it was still done. The argument that NMC is using this as some kind of money raising tactic is hokum. It could simply raise its already very cheap tuition fees if money was the prime focus.

This comment from a letter to the editor from Ivan Propst defending the NMC admission tests was interesting: "And for those whom the placement system indicates a need to improve their English skill development prior to entry into English 101, a far greater percentage require writing skill development than require further work on their reading skills."

This isn't very surprising. The high schools have a four period block schedule. A real world average of about 33 students times four eighty minute classes means 132 students. A two page writing assignment turns into 264 pages for a teacher to review. A five page paper would be 660 pages. Perhaps that is why a Hopwood teacher recently wrote a letter to the editor requesting help on this from other language arts teachers in the same boat. The simple fact is no one can do those in depth writing reviews more than once or twice per quarter, especially considering the no preparation time and wildly disparate skill levels in the classroom that are a fact of life in the public schools. In each class there is probably a minimum of two students who should be in an ESL class because they have absolutely no understanding of basic English. PSS has no ability to implement these classes because they lack the classroom space and the staff. It also just doesn't seem to be a priority.

Beyond that, while the local government has not funded education properly, an even bigger problem is that many parents have not instilled enough focus, will and urgency on their children to get that bachelor's degree, which is the admissions ticket for any serious hope at a decent middle class lifestyle. During my four years teaching seniors, I was staggered by the frequency that some of my best students told me their parents flat out told them not to leave the island to go to college. As expensive as college is these days, and it's astronomical, not going or taking the slow route is far more expensive. Median U.S. weekly earnings for a college graduate age 25 and older are $962. For a high school graduate the number is $595. That means it costs $19,084 per year not to have finished college in median earnings differential. That number might be even more dramatic in the CNMI. Very few students here avail themselves of federal financial aid loans that are easy to get, have low interest rates and flexible repayment schedules and instead hold out hope for the scarce "free college money," try the slow way by working low wage jobs to finance the degree or worst of all, "take a year off." That year costs a lot, and the longer it takes the student to get that four year degree, the more it costs in foregone potential earnings. Many other parents encourage direct military enlistment instead of going immediately to a four year college, joining college ROTC, entering the military with a degree as an officer and having far greater career and earning possibilities in the military while still receiving the college financial benefits the military offers, not to mention all that is offered by the college experience.

The CNMI is in a well documented financial crisis. There seems to be little will among our leaders to make hard choices. The temptation is going to be to continue to give short shrift to education as educational benefits are far off and the need to keep voters employed is immediate. Going that route would be a mistake. To obtain a college degree and to achieve a high level of intellectual ability should be a paramount skill and value we instill in our children. We should not look to diminish college standards because we are too cheap to do what we should be doing for the schools.

Jeffrey C. Turbitt is the language arts department chairman at Saipan Southern High School, as well as an avid scuba diver and traveler. He offers more thoughts in his blog Hypercritical Thoughts at: www.turbittj.blogspot.com/ He welcomes feedback, tips and story ideas at turbittj@yahoo.com. His column appears regularly on Wednesdays.

On the next BOE Rep

Update: There was a meeting to debate, discuss and vote on this matter, and naturally less than six people showed up, and none of the people who made the fuss. I told Betty I had it with ACT months ago, but I went tonight for her. Another waste of time.

This post won't be of much concern to non-teachers, but in that group a debate is raging about the next teacher representative to the BOE.

The worst kept secret is that a lot of teachers don't like Ambrose Bennett and haven't liked him for a long time. I am actually not one of those people, though I think he hasn't even been trying as teacher rep for a while. Teachers were trying to get him out of office since he got into office. Last Spring that effort intensified again. ACT comes and mostly goes largely based on whether Ambrose has pissed off many teachers.

Last year was a non-related come. As a result of salary cuts related to Praxis at the beginning of last school year, some teachers wanted to be heard. Given that teachers never did anything for years, there was no organization to assist them. Some small momentum had ACT going again, and then kept alive later on almost entirely via the efforts of Betty Miller. Some members wanted Ambrose out right away, and there was an effort to that effect put forth that never went very far. This effort was not Betty's idea, but she was the person people wanted to replace him. Now Bennett's term is really ending and he is putting up a major fuss because Betty is also serving as acting Vice Principal, he blames Betty and he needs something to write three letters per week about. He related today how he is a well known constitutional scholar and the Constitution is in peril over this nonsense. You heard it John Marshall, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Ambrose Bennett. Here is Ambrose's statement: "Furthermore, I have been recognized by the U.S. Congress as a Constitutional Scholar and only people with "Law" degrees are considered to have a better understanding of our Constitution - meaning the "lay" interpretations that ACT is creating to address the Constitution don't carry any weigth nor will the be considered as a "qualified" opinion."

About six or seven people are out opposing Betty Miller on grounds that she is now serving as an administrator. Anyone interested in this debate can check the ACT blog. Here is my take on this fiasco.

James Yangetmai makes some good points in his email, and if this were a union and we were really doing collective bargaining, his argument would be even stronger. However, this isn't the U.S. mainland, ACT isn't a union, and regarding this statement: "The credibility of our organization and teaching profession are at stake, and I believe that’s what all of us would want to protect," we have no credibility because so many people have sat around and done nothing for years that all ACT is now is Betty Miller trying to herd a group of disinterested cats. No one even wants to run for crying out loud. How sad a statement is that? The last election there was no campaign, no one voted, and we've since had four years of many people being angry that Ambrose won, so they just sit it out. It's only nonsense like this that brings people out of the woodwork.

Remember how last year the salaries were cut over Praxis and people were now upset and they had nowhere to turn? That was because there was no ACT in reality, and even a few months after it was reformed with all that paycut mojo, it has officers that don't show up to help, a membership that doesn't show up at meetings and virtually no one, in ACT or not, that could be bothered to show up at a Board of Education debate and other educational debates that Betty spearheaded.

Betty Miller has gone to those board meetings, actually represented teachers in a fair and professional manner and tried to make something of ACT while 99 percent of you sat on your ass, and now because she got promoted a few people don't want her to be teacher rep and turned this into some Supreme Court procedural argument. It's sad.

And for Ambrose's edification, it was other parties, certainly not me and not Betty, who wanted him removed from office last Spring, so don't take it out on her now, which is obviously happening. And even if you cling to the argument that Betty can't be in that position, the lone alternative isn't retaining Ambrose. There are other choices. The issue is do you trust Betty to relate the views of teachers and watch and relate those interests on the board and back to teachers, and we all know she can. Can we please stop the dramatic Constitutional Convention and show some real world awareness of what we are (a fledgling organization at best) and are not (a union).

The schools need help, MV 13

By Jeffrey C. Turbitt

At the beginning of the school year, results are released detailing the performance of schools, principals, teachers and students via the SAT 10 scores. The infamous No Child Left Behind Act, and school rivalries, puts everyone under a lot of pressure to achieve higher scores. Apparently deficiencies in scores on this test are a result of "bad proctoring" by the teachers if comments from the associate commissioner and a tirade from my own vice principal at a recent, testy staff meeting are to be believed.

I've proctored these tests for four years, and there are many problems with education in these islands and these tests in particular. Proctoring is the least of the problems. First, the test is exceedingly long. It's a three day plus affair. It doesn't affect the students' grade or their ability to graduate. They know that.

Regular student attendance is always an issue in the best of times. I found it astonishing to see this quote in the paper from the associate commissioner. “Across all schools, we have a good attendance rate. Among the high schools, two recorded a 98 and 95 percent rate." There is that old saying about lies, damned lies and statistics. Here is the reality I've seen for five years now: Students disappear for weeks at a time in the high school for vague and I'm sure usually not very good reasons. To achieve that rate, these habitually absent students must be removed from the rosters to achieve that inflated attendance number. The students tend to come back later as if nothing happened with little or no explanation. One of the better reasons for absence, a death in the family, can mean twenty days of student absences. That's not something that can be easily overcome, and with large island families, there can be quite a few deaths in the family. The never ending war on betel nut on campuses leads to suspensions, as do other violations of school rules.

The SAT 10 tests are on grade level and the material more rigorous than students are used to, so they can be overwhelmed. Very few students take the even more difficult, and even more important SAT college admissions test, either. PSS classes, especially in the high school for the non-honors students, are not taught on grade level because so few students are actually on grade level. In four years I saw a staggering number of seniors, the near finished product, write essays lacking capital letters, punctuation, subject/verb agreement or using multiple paragraphs. That isn't something that can be glossed over, so I had to incorporate this largely grade two or three materials into grade twelve, which is not the type of thing that helps to prepare for SAT 10, but it does help in being educated on a basic level.

The SAT 10 test is also late in the school year when motivation decreases anyway. Beyond that, the SAT 10 test and the Standards Based Testing come within weeks of each other, and it leads to test fatigue. I’ve made this point to PSS leadership before. Some students simply just fill in answers at random or draw a picture of Bob Marley. I personally give stern admonitions on this issue. I've seen the scores for students who I knew were near grade level, yet their tests indicate they were six or seven grades behind, which makes for an inaccurate assessment. When I confronted the students, they admitted not taking it seriously, so I would agree student motivation on the test is an issue, but I don’t think teachers downplayed the test, as the scores reflect on the teachers. I once saw a student close the book within minutes. I reiterated to him the seriousness of the test. He went at it a few more minutes and quickly gave up and told me he just had no idea. I later had this student in class, got to know him, and understood why the test so overwhelmed him. He was about six grade levels behind.

There are two main victims to the fact that these islands have given short shrift to education since time immemorial. The student well behind grade level who can't get the academic intensive care he or she needs in classes of thirty plus, and the non-honors student at or slightly above grade level who gets a curriculum that isn't challenging enough and becomes bored.

There are real consequences to the fact that each year more and more students enter public schools that are less and less funded. Platitudes like "bear with us" or "be creative" are what get uttered to say something in this situation. I prefer those to verbal abuse -- especially since education is a partnership between teachers, parents, students and community leaders, but all the blame gets dumped on teachers. As a parent of two and soon to be three, I hold myself as the one primarily responsible for the education and development of my boys, not their teachers.

This news report also noted that elementary schools have better participation in the tests. This is hardly surprising. Parental involvement is much higher at the elementary school level. Kids tend to succumb to more negative influences as they get older. It doesn't help that the middle schools are wildly overcrowded, and Hopwood in particular is in a shocking state of disrepair. There is a large administrative and teacher turnover all around related to all kinds of reasons as the islands' economy continues to implode. My personal opinion is that many of our elementary schools are on par with decent schools in the states. Things fall apart at the middle school level, and the first two years of high school are more like middle school. Educational research shows this isn’t just a CNMI problem, either. Research shows there are problems at the middle schools as a whole, as this is the place where learning slows down. Staffing research also shows that teachers tend to prefer to work in elementary schools or high schools, and not middle schools. The New York Times had a large feature on this issue recently.

I have a child in San Vicente Elementary School, and I've always been happy with that school, and I've heard good things about other elementary schools. However, my sons would never go to public middle school on this island, and that isn't a knock on the good people who work at those schools, but a comment on the area that I believe is most harmed by the CNMI's longstanding unwillingness to fund its schools. The impact of poor facilities, overcrowded classrooms and demoralized staff doing their best with students at a precocious and vulnerable age is most evident in our middle schools, and the situation there and system wide needs attention, not excuses.

Jeffrey C. Turbitt is the language arts department chairman at Saipan Southern High School, as well as an avid scuba diver and traveler. He offers more thoughts in his blog “Hypercritical Thoughts” at: www.turbittj.blogspot.com/ He welcomes feedback, tips and story ideas at turbittj@yahoo.com. His column appears regularly on Wednesdays.

Another teacher salary cut out there

The election is over, and all the candidates claimed to be "pro" education, so the day after the election, here is what I see. The government borrowed money from PSS, won't pay it back, so now PSS leadership wants to cut teacher salaries rather than put up a fight. On top of that, the choice of words is both wrong and misleading. Let's see if our new BOE members will have something to say about this. "Guidance" is being sought.

EDUCATION Commissioner David M. Borja on Friday said that without “clear guidance” from the Board of Education regarding the Public School System’s budget shortfall, PSS management will have no choice but to enforce a “salary
reclassification” to cope with their limited personnel funding. Borja said the
move to suspend this pay increase is in line with the PSS budgetary shortfall
this fiscal year as a result of their budget of only $35 million and the
administration’s failure to return the $2 million it “borrowed” from the school
system.

This phrase "pay hikes" is extremely misleading, and from a PSS public relations standpoint is a disaster. PSS has a basic salary guide that some people were not participating in largely because they didn't meet the original Praxis deadline. For a while, they were getting $100 a day as substitutes, and some were upgraded to still much less than their peers. Now they've completed the tests and wanted to be on the normal salary scale when they passed, as PSS once promised when these people were ticked. PSS didn't comply in many cases. These also aren't bonuses or increases, this is the basic salary guide that's been in existence for a year and a half with Praxis as a qualifications requirement.

There are many things teachers put up with, but reclassifying their salaries lower and then not paying them for holidays midyear is not one of them. A lot of peple will walk mid-year, and it will be extremely justifiable. I am so tired of having my basic paycheck threatened every other week there isn't words. It's bad for morale. I'm so tired of this BS. Scores of people come to this blog to find out about teaching in Saipan. Here is my new answer: Don't do it.

Now I understand -- not really

To reiterate, here is Gov. Fitial's statement of 9/13:

"We are proposing that all 14 holidays for FY 2008 be unpaid holidays. Only those government employees who work on a holiday will be paid. We expect savings of $6.5 million as a result of unpaid holidays. The participation of all government employees — including NMC, MVA, PSS — is a must. No exemptions,” said the governor.

Here is what the bill's sponsor said on 10/18, note the word all:

According to Senate President Joseph M. Mendiola, Covenant-Tinian and sponsor of the bill, by suspending salary payments to all civil servants for 14 holidays, the government will save $7 million.

Here is House Speaker Oscar Babauta on 10/18 via the Saipan Tribune:

"House Speaker Oscar M. Babauta allayed Borja's fears, saying that teachers and teacher-aides would not be affected at all since the unpaid holiday bill would cover only legal holidays.“I believe there are no schools during legal holidays,” he said, adding that the teachers and teacher-aides are not required to come to school during these holidays."

Here is the follow up question that was never asked that should have been:

"Speaker Babauta, the goal of this proposal is to not pay government workers for holidays. Of course there is no school during holidays. That's the point of this bill, not to pay on holidays. The governor said there are "no exceptions including PSS." Did you discuss this bill with him? Are you unwilling to do what the governor, the leader of your party, wants on this austerity bill?"

Both papers do not ask the obvious follow up questions, and in fact, I might start a regular feature in this blog called "where is the follow up question."

What does Babauta's statement even mean? Is there anyone on the same page up on the hill?

***
During last night's Board of Education round table discussion, I asked the candidates about the payless payday threat. In fact, I asked all the candidates about this issue in the three forums I moderated. Ray Dela Cruz, the only candidate in all the forums to turn me off and to specifically ensure I wouldn't vote for him and would discourage others from voting for him, acted like it wasn't a big deal. He termed it "speculation," which happens to be the nature of all threats. Dela Cruz is clearly the Administration's candidate and supports their hair brained Austerity Bill, the only Senate Candidate to do so.

Current Board of Education chairman Roman Benavente told me that PSS planned to close down school that Monday after the payless threat, and he said the governor didn't want PSS to say anything about a payless payday unless the governor specifically said there would be one, even though the governor's spokesman gave "no assurances" they would make payroll that day.

Again, I'm convinced there is just no communication and no planning on Capitol Hill.

Jason, Freddy Kruger, Michael Myers and the Austerity Holiday, MV 7

I wrote about this original ten percent cut/austerity holiday back before my column and before this blog took off -- when it was just a second home for my letters to the editor to the Variety. While austerity is dead for now, the Fitial Administration is trying to resucitate it and make it worse than ever. Teachers somehow think they are immune - if they're awake or aware at all. Maybe this quote was unclear: "We are proposing that all 14 holidays for FY 2008 be unpaid holidays. Only those government employees who work on a holiday will be paid. We expect savings of $6.5 million as a result of unpaid holidays. The participation of all government employees — including NMC, MVA, PSS — is a must. No exemptions,” said the governor. 9/13 Marianas Variety

Bold is Beautiful

By Jeffrey C. Turbitt

Lots of things are going on in the CNMI of late, many of them with little scrutiny, as the casino issue seems to be taking up everyone's energy on both sides of that debate, which is becoming overblown and tiring with the exaggerated rhetoric on both sides. The issue with the most scant debate is the Fitial Administration's latest "austerity holiday," which seems designed to avoid difficult decisions about the bloated bureaucracy and to keep political cronies fully employed at the expense of docking the pay of teachers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, police officers and other essential services that have employees who do more meaningful, necessary, harder to staff work.

In teachers' case at least, the PSS contract pays teachers for 190 work days. In order to give the government more time to come up with the money for salaries, the paychecks are spread out over the full year. No big deal. But now the cash strapped government, apparently not strapped enough over the last year to avoid taking junkets to Hawaii, hiring a new lobbyist, funding MVA with millions even though it can't put up a respectable CNMI website, hiring a public relations firm and paying off Dr. Jesus Camacho to the tune of $4,000 per month for all the letters to the editor he wrote during the campaign, wants to not pay everyone for 14 holidays unless those employees actually work that day -- something possible for nurses, doctors and police officers, but not for teachers. So teachers and others are a house vote away from having their contracts violated and losing 13 days pay, not to mention being treated like convenience store clerks instead of the college educated professionals they are.

Teachers and others are putting up as much fight as a sea slug after electroshock therapy on this issue, which is perhaps a normal reaction given the daily barrage of bad news everyone is accustomed to hearing. With limited funds, I'd probably stick it to the teachers too given what zombies they are and how little political price there is in robbing them, but that is what is happening with little awareness or concern about what is close to happening. PSS doesn't want to take a position on this bill, I asked them, and neither did several teachers I asked. It’s sad how little will there is to enforce the tax code via collections, an issue brought up by candidates in the Wednesday Roundtable discussions at San Vicente Elementary School each Wednesday at 7:00 pm including the Board of Education candidates tonight, consider a new tax on those that can most afford it such as those property taxless mansions on the hill, or just cut out more waste rather than rubber stamp this lousy new version of the ill named “austerity holiday.”

In other recent matters, the legislative override to lower the residential power rates wasn't much of a shock, and the power has been suspiciously unstable more than usual since the override. The governor was being honest and prudent, not expedient, in vetoing the bill. I’ll give him credit there. CUC, like most things on this island, is run ineptly.

It seemed like there were at least fewer power outages with the higher rates as people conserved. I would expect more outages now, and that will drive businesses away and further our economic collapse. Driving to the Red Cross 200 on Saturday, I noticed Garapan started the big night in darkness.

There was no business reduction in the power rates, so the businesses still have the high rates and can expect more outages as well. This is an election year gambit. There is no plan in place to fund the financial shortfall this will cause, and this override is another signal to any possible firms who would run a privatized power company that the politicians will do whatever is politically expedient. CUC needs close oversight for waste, abuse and corruption, not candy thrown to voters a month before an election.

Half the problem is our Jurassic and economy of scale requirement to have a diesel engine power plant, which no one thought wise to maintain. It is interesting to see this debate over nuclear power, which will require elected officials to spend a lot of time doing their homework and making a wise decision on the viability of a nuclear plant – a prospect that is hard to imagine.

On a positive note, people who went on this past Saturday night saw a rare thing for at least one night -- a booming CNMI economy. The Red Cross Club 200 brought out lots of Saipan celebrities and raised money for a good cause. I booed heartily as the word Joeten went out for the Grand Prize winner, who did then generously donate the money back to the Red Cross, who chose a new winner. I haven’t received any thanks from Margaret Muna for the subtle pressure that helped get her the $15,000 grand prize on the second chance. Everyone was in a festive mood at this well organized event, and people were out having fun and boosting the economy in various locations after the event. For one night there was a palpable sense of optimism on island, and it was nice to see.

Jeffrey C. Turbitt is the language arts department chairman at Saipan Southern High School, as well as an avid scuba diver and traveler. He offers more thoughts in his blog “Hypercritical Thoughts” at: www.turbittj.blogspot.com/ He welcomes feedback, tips and story ideas at turbittj@yahoo.com.

Where's the outrage, MV 2

My second installation of Bold is Beautiful is out.

A story appeared in this paper last week putting the pay of 1,080 PSS employees up in the air, and no one much flinched. Another appeared about a woman who was basically used as a slave locked in her barracks lacking the freedom to even go to her church -- maybe a shrug was offered. Another story appeared about a rotting canine corpse on the road heading toward our most scenic area in Marpi -- a mere ripple at best. These things may seem unrelated, but what they tell me is that we have lost our outrage, and when horrible things happen, we half expect them and aren't surprised anymore, and that's not a good way to live. There are two approaches to these events, to surrender or to fight.

I can't say I was shocked at the casual approach the vast majority of my peers took to the statement from the chief financial officer of PSS that the money was not there to pay teachers. Most teachers have long been a bunch of comatose lumps in terms of standing up for themselves --even while being threatened with a crime called theft of services, which most every teacher I talked to blew off and dismissed as a ploy. It probably was a ploy, but it is bad for morale and we have come to the point where the government can basically threaten a crime on its citizens and it doesn't matter -- it's barely news. By the end of the week there still were no assurances that teachers would not be cheated, and the Saipan Tribune didn't even think this event newsworthy. I did eventually get an email from ACT President Betty Miller quoting Commissioner David Borja saying PSS found a way to make payroll, but a $36.7 million budget is needed to avert a crisis during the school year. I presume the details on that are forthcoming from the commissioner.

Secondly, this government talks about our problems about human trafficking being in the past, but then we read another story about a woman being locked in her barracks and forced into prostitution. I don't think the Stardust allegations, soon to go to trial, were very different. This event doesn't mean Saipan is an evil place any more than the U.S. mainland is an evil place because of all the horrible violent incidents there from Virginia Tech to Abu Gharib, but it does say there is a problem. This event shouldn't be used as an excuse for federalization -- there are better reasons than this alleged act. Federalization should happen because it is immoral to exploit the third world on American territory to create an inflated labor supply that leaves an unsustainable, bloated, inefficient government as the sole provider of living wages. Those indigenous citizens not in the bureaucracy are left in the cold as few private sector jobs pay a living wage and too many politicians wield power over a vile patronage system run amok.

Jane Mack, an attorney for Micronesian Legal Services, a non-profit law office that represents the poor in civil litigation, is part of a group playing a role in trying to fix this trafficking problem. She noted that the first step in fixing this problem is acknowledging the problem exists given all the emotion about the federalization debate. "It's not just old news. The women from Karidat who testified in Washington D.C. weren't making up numbers. And the girls and women who are trafficked into the CNMI are, in fact, victims. It is important that politics not get in the way of referrals of victims to Karidat. We shouldn't sweep any current situations under the rug to hide them in the hopes that we'll somehow look better while we argue about federalization."

There was also a letter from PAWS President Katie Busenkell about seeing a charred dog on the road up to Marpi, followed by another suffering dog with a chain collar imbedded in its neck ridden with flies. No tourist is going to enjoy the canine Sunni Triangle for vacation, and what can be a bigger turn off than a charred animal corpse? Busenkell said she sees the same tolerance for the awful, but doesn't think it is an acceptable reaction. "I think people are numbed, but rather than do something, they revert to a convenient blindness. PAWS wanted to do a slogan that says open your eyes, open your heart, save a life. Don't just pass by and do nothing. See that suffering and do something about it. When you take action, you have a positive impact on the community. Stop just driving by."

PAWS is doing something by rescuing as many of these dogs as it can and raising awareness by educating the public. Beautify CNMI is also doing something. Just this weekend a group of volunteers fought back against hoodlums who disrespected the lighthouse and began painting what was a vile, graffiti laden monument. All of these groups are private organizations, yet all get a tremendous amount done without a huge government apparatus. Perhaps there is a lesson there. We should keep up the fight and keep our outrage.


Editor's note: This time I butchered a few transitions. This column thing is harder than I thought it would be, as I'm not making the sweet music I expect of myself just yet. This one is liberal enough to piss off a few people I suppose.

Not feeling assured

My first Marianas Variety column is online. I'll post it here later. There are two small mistakes. One I caught and requested to be fixed -- to no avail -- another I didn't. Both were late changes, which I guess teaches me something about doing this column. In other news, Gov. Fitial's PIO Charles P. Reyes, Jr., thanks Boni, never a fan of PSS, has no assurances the government and PSS won't be involved in a criminal act of theft of services from its teachers and staff. I have no assurances I will be showing up past Friday, and anyone who does is basically a fool until there are some assurances.

PSS payless payroll -- attention bureaucrats -- expect me to be on your ass relentlessly

Here we go again with the latest round of government by crisis. Here I am caught in the middle. The latest is PSS hasn't gotten the money it was promised from the central government, it's always last minute with them, so PSS is saying they don't know if they can make payroll this month. I've seen this type of thing government wide a couple times before, but I think this is a first for PSS in particular.

I know a couple things. The minute my check is late, I will be be on speed dial, around the clock, to Rep. George Miller's office and the Department of Education encouraging a federal takeover of PSS, and a lot of people will be getting a lot of scrutiny they don't want if that happens. I'm pretty sure No Child Left Behind doesn't allow school to be closed because you spent all your money fighting federalization. A state takeover of a school system is what happens in a failing system. It has happened a lot in the most troubled districts. I'm not sure how common federal takeovers are, but in this case "local government" can't handle local government, a stick in the eye for all the people ready to secede to defend their right to a local government that may not be able to make teacher payroll and will have to close the schools, unless slavery is now legal. Basic service one, power, is already a fiasco. Ambrose has been saying for months a federal takeover is needed-- I don't think years in this case. The next thing will be to consult with a lawyer, as sending people to work when you know you can't pay them is the definition of fraud. Maybe I can own land here after all. Note to all parties involved here. I am not a contract worker you can abuse so easily. I speak English very well, I have a blue passport, I'm not option less and I may have a lot of time on my hands to make a lot of peoples' lives more difficult, and that will be my singular focus 24/7 if that happens. I suspect the prospect of no paycheck and fraud will even get the comatose lumps that make up 80 percent of my teacher peers to chip in and help.

PSS needs to close all the schools if this is the case -- now. I don't want to hear nonsense like, "it's for the children, work for free." When my rent is free, and the Nuggets at Java Joes are free, and Shell gasoline is free, I'll consider working for free. Until then, forget it. Don't I have enough of a stressful job without worrying about being cheated? I already have basically the job of two teachers. Do you think teachers who don't know if they will be getting paid are going the extra mile? It will be hilarious, and slightly sad really, to see the looks on the faces of the new recruits unaccustomed to the fly by night nature of how the CNMI government operates when they read this news. There simply is no excuse for even reading this in the paper -- none -- especially when the government is cutting absurd checks to lobbyists, public relations firms and Jesus Camacho.

EMPLOYEES of Public School System may get no paychecks until the end of the
fiscal year on Sept. 30 following the administration’s failure to return the
amount it cut from the previous budget of PSS and to release federal
Compact-Impact money that was to cover the PSS payroll until Oct. 15.PSS acting
finance director Lori A. Grizzard, acting Education Commissioner Charlie Kenty
and PSS federal programs officer Tim Thornburgh said the school system is
running out of money to cover the three remaining pay periods for its 797
locally funded employees, who include teachers and support staff.The
administration cut the PSS FY 2006 budget by $2 million but promised to return
it in the FY 2007 fourth quarter allocation. “PSS is still waiting for that $2
million that was borrowed in FY 2006 which was to cover expenditures for the
prior year,” Grizzard said. “The promised restoration will cover our
shortfall.”

Get back to basics already

I suppose this is another post that might get me in trouble, but oh well, I'm honest and I'm calling it like it is, and I don't give a damn who it upsets. I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that this school system as it exists now is an abysmal failure. I'm not exempting myself from this criticism. Yes we're worlds better than other mini Pacific Islands in the region, if we look at them as the competition and I don't, but we're still not even in the vicinity of up to par in a globally competitive way. I dealt with the finished product, seniors, for four years, so I know exactly what students look like leaving the system, and it isn't pretty. I tried to fill in all the gaping holes as best I could while I was there with seniors. Now I'm with freshmen and trying to establish good habits, which is harder and much more exhausting, as there is so much more immaturity.

What is clear to me is that teachers system wide simply do not emphasize the basics enough. I would say a full half of the seniors could not write two sentences clearly differentiating plurals and possessives. I mean given instructions, and examples, and days of instruction, a student could not write two sentences such as "There are ten cats outside my house" followed by "The cat's tail is long and white" consistently if asked to do so. Forget about the wrinkle of plural possessive, that blows the situation up even worse. I suspect they were doing it the wrong way for so long it became ingrained. I wonder if the teachers in the past were correcting these things or providing any focus on basic grammar.

The English departments are decidedly from the mainland, and I believe many think they are still teaching there, as these teachers focus on traditional English areas like Shakespeare and various other pieces of classical literature. This to me is absurd given what I just described. I know for a fact many seniors can't grasp the local newspapers properly, let alone Hamlet. I talked to a long term veteran English teacher in New Jersey, one of my own teachers back in the day, and he related that grammar is hardly emphasized in the high schools there, even though instruction is needed. I've seen academic studies that diminish the importance of grammar, even though in the real world nothing screams I'm uneducated more than a lousy show of grammar. Many readers can probably recall that one board of education tried to make slang, aka Ebonics, its own language and therefore acceptable. I've got a higher degree in education, and if there is any discipline full of more absurd liberal bullshit than education, I haven't heard of it. This will be an entire post in the not so distant future. That's where things like Ebonics is a language come from.

If I had a nickel for every "his my friend" I've seen in a paper, I'd be buying Google tonight. Tense, subject/verb agreement and other mildly confusing subtle word differences like your/you're, its/it's are a train wreck. I've been working on these issues since school started this year, and a considerable number of students still can't do it consistently. Perhaps I suck as a teacher, I don't know anymore, but I'm growing weary and demoralized by this state of affairs -- already. The parents need to get involved. I've never really seen any involved, at least among the students that most need help. They seem to think that parental involvement is strictly an elementary school function. It isn't.

I told this plural/possessive story to an elementary school teacher, and she was incredulous -- probably because her fourth graders could do these tasks. I tested it on my own fourth grader and he sailed through it without any preparation. Somewhere along the line, students here lose the skill. My guess is middle school, which is wildly overcrowded and has had high turnover in teachers and administrators, not to mention an incredibly dilapidated facility full of students in the throes of puberty.

With seniors, I routinely received sentences without punctuation or capital letters -- far too many times I simply received giant uni-paragraph essays. I emphasize the correct fashion pointing out the most common problems almost daily, but it doesn't seem to matter much. I look over 120 of these displays a day, and it wears me down saying the same thing 50 times a day. Of all the classes, language arts needs a class size reduction, but it is the largest class across the board -- exactly the worst thing possible. PSS' solution a few years back was to dramatically increase instruction time in language arts, a full year 80 minutes as opposed to the required 50 or so, but that situation just taxes these understaffed departments more. A better solution would be a smaller class size going half a year and getting more individualized attention.

Grammar is hardly the only problem. World awareness is even worse. I've had students tell me that Toronto was a city in the country of "Europe," and that "Baby Ruth" was the first African-American in Major League Baseball. Students think the governor is in charge of every last detail of a civilization including the price of gas, and many can't give a ballpark time period for World War II. Others said Saipan was 60 miles long for closer to home cluelessness.

Teachers have a near impossible task here, I know this all too well, but I can say for sure they aren't ensuring mastery of the basics. It has to stop. A student at the very least upon graduation should be able to read and understand literature as simple as the Saipan Tribune and write in at least a reasonably grammatical fashion. They aren't right now, and it has to stop. Teachers need to focus on the basics first and parents need to help us.

A scam on the CNMI taxpayer

Editor's Note: This is already being misread. This is not directed at Koreans here legally operating businesses, paying taxes and contributing to this island. I appreciate these people. This is directed at families in Korea sending their kids alone to this island on tourist visas to flood CNMI schools for "free" English lessons.

I'm happy to be a liberal in the sense that I distrust and despise all the scams and influence of corporate America. I'm certainly no fan of the religious right, either. I find that title of liberal a lot more appealing than that of conservative, despite the demonization of that word over the years. I do, however, loath the politically correct, watch what you say, be hypersensitive to all, branch of liberalism. By definition, conservative means against change, and the world I live in is way too fucked up not to want change.

Well, here is one thing I suppose I'm not so liberal about, and it probably will cost me money for saying so. There is a scam going on in this island right now. Yeah, yeah, one of the many. This one is kind of new.

South Korea has long been under the spell of English mania. There are English tutor schools, called hagwons, about every ten feet in Seoul -- along with coffee shops, karaoke rooms and computer rooms. I mean this pretty literally. Rick Vaughn is there right now and can attest to that fact. I worked at two well known hagwons before moving to Saipan and enjoyed my fun, yet going nowhere, jobs there. These hagwons are English conversation schools that all age groups attend, usually early in the morning or in the evening after work, and they are more businesses than schools. Some of the teachers at these schools are good, but most have no qualifications at all, are clueless about teaching and are there for cheap beer, Asian girls, to pay down college debt or simply just to travel. In order to practice real world conversation with, in their usual preference, "white Americans," preferably young and female, but definitely young, Koreans flock to these schools, and pay $100 to $200 per month for this talking privilege. I had a British friend/co-worker who was once instructed to teach English with an American accent.

Right now, the CNMI public schools are being flooded with Korean students. I don't believe they have family or businesses here. They are here to graduate an American high school, which gives them a better chance to get into an American college. I talked to someone who works at immigration and they said immigration is aware of this and they are looking into it.

Two years ago, given my Korean experience, I attempted to start a Korean Club at SSHS. The mere 20 Korean kids in the entire school had some kind of rift in their community, so it never happened. That community has grown enormously since then, and it seems to have exploded this year. Right now I have 20 Korean students in my class alone. You will hear more Korean spoken than Chamorro or Carolinian on our campus. Koreans are obsessed with getting an American education. Many pregnant Korean women fly to the states, or here or Guam to get American citizenship and get their male child out of required Korean military service, which is a cruel joke. The South Korean government pulls these young men out of college after their sophomore year in college to mostly stand around some military base and do little as soldiers. They give them free cigarettes, which leads to an unhealthy addiction that is hard to break. These young men don't get to start their real adult lives with their chosen career until age 26 or later, and women shy away from men in their early 20s because they'll hardly get to see them for years. I always felt bad for these men about this scenario.

I found out today that the school system here is not allowed to ask the registering student about their immigration status. The student could be here illegally, or on a tourist visa, and PSS can't ask or find out. This is according to a counselor I talked with about this issue today. I think it is likely young school aged Koreans are coming in on tourist visas and just enrolling in the schools since these students usually make a trip to Seoul after a few months and start the CNMI Visa process again. The parents are seldom, if ever, actually living here. They are paying for a home stay program. Many of these students have little to no English ability. The high school language arts classes are wildly packed, and frankly, Korean families on this island are running a home stay program for a great profit, and they are shifting the education burden on the already overburdened and underfunded Public School System. I consider it a scam.

This English education as I see it is hardly in the interest of the Korean student. The English classes aren't ESL classes. I don't teach the class like I'm teaching a bunch of Koreans who hardly know the language, and to do so is unfair to the other 25 local kids who need me to bring them up to speed on skills they are already lacking. I have more than one student who doesn't know word one of English, has no idea what I'm saying and just looks at the sky for 80 minutes. He was ushered in like cattle by some Korean guy who announced that he's a junior, but he's really bad at English, so he's in freshmen English, as if I'm teaching at a hagwon again. There really isn't that much I could do for this person even if he was the only student I had, which he decidedly is not. In Korea, this type of student would work with a Korean bilingual teacher to bring them up to a level to be ready for a foreign teacher and more advanced English. PSS isn't about to do this.

What's happening is a scam that rips off the CNMI taxpayers. It's not good for the Korean students. It's not good for the local students. It's not good for the teachers. It's only good for Korean families getting paid a lot of money to look out for some Korean kid shipped off to a strange place for "free" English lessons on the backs of the CNMI taxpayer.

The Tokyo subway and a CNMI classroom

The education commissioner takes a lot of heat. I don't know enough about how he does things to offer my thoughts on him personally, I'm not a principal, but he has always been cordial with me and open to my thoughts. I think he's doing his best and what he thinks is right. It's public record that two of the board members don't like him and didn't vote for him to be in that position. The Variety editorial page has been harsh with him -- too harsh in my opinion -- and repeatedly. He has instituted some policies that not all principals like -- so I've been told. He is also in an impossibly difficult situation with the state of the island's economy, and more so, the island's cultural aversion to accountability. The implementation of Praxis could have been handled better, but ultimately, don't you want your teachers to pass a basic skills test like doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants and other professionals? Doreen Tudela admitted stealing thousands of dollars as a school principal and hasn't been fired yet. That is what I mean by accountability.

Right now some fairly radical plans are being implemented by the PSS administration. Principals will be teaching classes. There are 86 fewer teachers than there were two years ago. That is a staggering reduction, especially since there are more students as many have transferred from the private schools. Coordinators and specialists are teaching classes as well. Naturally, I suspect principals and coordinators will be getting the best students in the best classes with the least disciplinary problems. Principals are overworked and essentially exploited here, this isn't a knock on them. However, it is wrong to push veteran, entrenched teachers aside and out of their classes to make room for this plan, as I know and suspect is and will be happening. A coordinator is being brought in to teach AP History and AP Government at my school. I know him, I like him, he's a good man. I'm sure he is a good teacher, but he shouldn't be taking all the AP classes. After four years with seniors, I'm being forced to teach freshman -- something I find appalling. A new teacher was brought in to teach my seniors. This lack of respect for seniority is vulgar. If conditions allowed, like if I found out about this last year, I'd quit -- or at least transfer. Another veteran teacher at my school is being pushed out of his chemistry class for a newcomer. These things send a terrible message. They destroy already low morale and they are simply unfair.

A news story indicates the student/teacher ratio is 24:1. That number is no doubt technically accurate. It is also misleading. The typical CNMI classroom is more crowded than the Tokyo subway at rush hour during an Ichiro Suzuki autograph session. I doubt most of us have as few as 24 in our class. I had 32, 32 and 27 last year in language arts classes. It has been like that most every year. That 24:1 ratio is skewed by special education, which has a very low ratio, and perhaps things like computer classes. In addition, some schools, like GTC, are significantly less crowded, while some schools are significantly more crowded-- notably the middle schools. My experiences as a teacher and parent with a child in the schools tell me that the massive overcrowding in the middle schools at a difficult age causes immense problems. There are inequities between schools. My colleague Angie Wheat wrote about this issue in the new teacher's blog at http://www.actnowcnmi.blogspot.com/.

Education isn't valued here at all. I routinely see parents try to stop their kids from going to college, which boggles the mind. Parents and students all over seem more concerned with "passing" than learning, which is why college degrees -- even graduate degrees -- have been demeaned and diminished. In fact all education is grade focused, not learning focused. People will find out eventually if you're competent. Your diploma won't convince them otherwise.

The economy is in shambles with our flawed model, so none of this is surprising. In today's world in a first world economy, being educated isn't a luxury, it is a necessity for any type of quality of life. There simply is no excuse for cramming your children like sardines into dilapidated facilities, while we have an obscene abundance of elected officials with too much discretionary money, other wasteful bureaucracies that don't need to exist like the municipal councils, and a ridiculous public relations firm and lobbyist being paid thousands of dollars for things we could do ourselves or shouldn't be trying to do at all. We are all to blame for this depressing mess. We are failing our children as a community and we should be embarrassed about that.

Others noticed Juan Pan's contradictions, too

Sen. Pangelinan said the same thing I said about Juan Guerrero's testimony. Saipan Glen did as well. Today, Zaldy Dandan emphasized the contradictions as well in his column. His comments on Fitial's testimony were hilarious.

But like the chamber president’s testimony, the governor’s was bewildered
and bewildering. He said without local control over immigration “there is no
more reason for me to exist.” Akaka should have replied, “But governor, federal
immigration law applies to the 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and
Guam — and the governors there still ‘exist’ and their local governments still
run their jurisdictions. So what the hey are you talking about?”At this point,
here’s what the governor should have said to make himself clear: “Senator,
without local control over immigration, investors would stop wining and dining
CNMI officials. Local politicians will lose a bottomless and reliable source of
campaign donations and, you know, other forms of ‘assistance.’ I myself can no
longer promise anything to fly-by-night investors — you know, the sort of
‘businessmen’ that feds would not even allow to step on the tarmac of Guam’s
airport. But with local control over immigration, investors have to be very
kind, very very kind, to the governor and key lawmakers. All we want is to have
our cake and eat it, too. Never mind the alien workers. They breed like rabbits.
When their kids are 21 years old they can ‘petition’ their parents anyway. Soon,
you’ll see local politicians speaking Tagalog with a ridiculous American accent,
like Guam’s Gov. Carl Gutierrez, in an election year, on MCV. So right now, let
me have immigration control because I still have a lot of Chinese and Korean
investors to talk to.”Hey batter batter.

It's amazing to me that the Chamber couldn't come up with logical testimony. For that matter, someone should ask whose dime Juan Pan flew and stayed in D.C. on -- was it the Chamber itself or the government. I hope it wasn't the latter? Ron Hodges , who is in the Chamber of Commerce, apparently is being hassled for his criticism of the Chamber's position. He noted there was never even a vote on federalization. Someone is apparently investigating whether he went to a meeting on government time. How about an investigation into how much government money has been spent on the Chamber. Something tells me the Chamber didn't pay for all these trips to D.C., but perhaps they can clear that up.
***
This guy's "Unnamed Diatribe" was hilarious. I'm not the angriest person anymore on this island, I'm convinced. I might not even be close.
***
Best line of last night's blogger meet up: E.J. discussing Bruce Bateman's blog. "One time he scared me." Only one time Bruce, can you raise the level a bit. Cmon. You have a reputation to protect. E.J. was referring to a pic of a scantily clad woman on Bruce's most sexist blogger post.
***
PSS has apparently handed out a last minute directive to purge more payroll. Great thing to do a week before class starts. The principals don't seem too happy. There is apparently a big pow wow on this topic on Saturday at PIC. I don't know all the mechanics on this one, but I have wratched up my expectations for how ugly this year will be. People who were hired may find themselves not hired all of a sudden. Students will be packed into classrooms like sardines, demoralizing both them and the teachers. All the chickens are coming home to roost for years of mismanagement.