Mario Cavolo

Here's a fabulous story from the Providence Journal written by by journal staff writers Jennifer D. Jordan and Linda Borg. According to the story, Central Fall's High School union teachers are paid $72-78,000 per year at this deeply troubled high school where 50% of the students are failing; the town's local economy is amongst the worst in the country with $22,000/year average wages. Oh well the teachers didn't want to work an extra hour per day without more pay....poor babies, don't you feel sorry for them?...let's wish them luck finding a new job replacing their $72,000 per year plus benefits...hey, does Walmart pay that much these days?...Cheers, Mario

Teacher salaries at the high school average $72-78k. Apparently 50% of the students at the school are failing all of their classes, and the graduation rate is also under 50%. In an effort to turn the school around, the superintendent requested some changes be made whereby the school day would be slightly extended, teachers would perform some extra tutoring, etc.Cheers, Mario

CENTRAL FALLS –– The teachers didn’t blink. Under threat of losing their jobs if they didn’t go along with extra work for not a lot of extra pay, the Central Falls Teachers’ Union refused Friday morning to accept a reform plan for one of the worst-performing high schools in the state.

The superintendent didn’t blink either. After learning of the union’s position, School Supt. Frances Gallo notified the state that she was switching to an alternative she was hoping to avoid: firing the entire staff at Central Falls High School. In total, about 100 teachers, administrators and assistants will lose their jobs.

Gallo blamed the union’s “callous disregard” for the situation, saying union leaders “knew full well what would happen” if they rejected the six conditions Gallo said were crucial to improving the school. The conditions are adding 25 minutes to the school day, providing tutoring on a rotating schedule before and after school, eating lunch with students once a week, submitting to more rigorous evaluations, attending weekly after-school planning sessions with other teachers and participating in two weeks of training in the summer.

The high school’s 74 teachers will receive letters during school vacation advising them to attend a Feb. 22 meeting where each will be handed a termination notice that takes effect for the 2010-’11 school year, Gallo said.

Gallo said she was devastated and that she had thought the union would agree to her conditions, even though she did not offer to pay the teachers more for most of the additional responsibilities.

A month ago, Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist mandated that the district adopt one of four models to fix the troubled school, which has some of the lowest graduation rates and test scores in the state.

Gallo’s first choice, the “transformation” model, was consistent with her conditions on how to improve the high school. But if the teachers would not agree, the superintendent said she would select her second choice, the “turnaround” model, which requires the removal of the entire staff of the school. The turnaround model allows the district to hire back no more than 50 percent of the old staff.

“I am saddened and shaken at the core by the enormous ramifications of my responsibilities,” Gallo said. “The only solace I have is that I know I provided every opportunity possible, in fully public and transparent ways, the means to avoid this.”

Union officials say they, too, want to improve the high school but are unwilling to sign off on the six conditions, especially without receiving additional pay. In a letter, union officials said they do not think Gallo has the authority to fire the teachers and she must negotiate the terms of the reforms.

In an interview, Jane M. Sessums, union president, said the union intends to fight the terminations, although she was not ready to say how. Students Friday expressed sadness, frustration and dismay at learning that their teachers would be fired en masse.

Sheila Lawless-Burke, an English-as-a-Second Language teacher, said teachers are not opposed to working harder — or longer; they simply want the opportunity to negotiate the details of their contract, not have it imposed from above. “It’s all about the politics,” she said, “about making Fran Gallo look good. The issue is having the right to negotiate. Once we allow the superintendent to get her foot in the door, where will it stop?”

Gist, who has 10 days to review Gallo’s proposal, said she expects to make a decision early next week.
“We know she is moving forward urgently and we want to support that,” Gist said. Gallo and Gist say they have the authority to make these changes, based on federal education regulations and on state law that allows the state to intervene in chronically failing schools and districts.

“We’re very confident we are following both state and federal laws very carefully,” Gist said, “and, in fact, it’s the expectation both in state and federal law that we take these steps.”

TIMELINE Showdown over Central Falls HS

March 17, 2007: Frances A. Gallo, veteran educator and former deputy superintendent of Providence schools, is chosen as Central Falls school superintendent.

2008-2009: Test scores remain a problem at Central Falls High School as only 3 percent of 11th graders are proficient in math in 2008 and 7 percent in 2009.

November 2009: Gallo begins talks with teachers on her plans to reform the high school.

Jan. 11, 2010: State Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist names the high school as one of the state’s worst schools and in need of closure or complete overhaul. Gallo says she already has a plan ready to implement in the fall. The plan would include a longer school day, more training, more tutoring.

Feb. 1-5, 2010: Gallo and union leaders are unable to reach an agreement on pay issues for the extra work. She says the failure is forcing her to switch to a reform model that calls for firing all teachers at the high school.

Feb. 9, 2010: During a packed meeting, Gallo gives the teachers’ union more time to agree on her original plan.

Feb. 12, 2010 Talks fail; Gallo proceeds with across-the-board firing plan.

It is winter. A third of the city is poor. And unworn, unsold clothing is being destroyed nightly by retail store H&M. A few doors down on 35th Street, hundreds of garments tagged for sale in Wal-Mart — hoodies and T-shirts and pants — were discovered in trash bags the week before Christmas, apparently dumped by a contractor for Wal-Mart that has space on the block...At the back entrance on 35th Street, awaiting trash haulers, were bags of garments that appear to have never been worn. And to make sure that they never would be worn or sold, someone had slashed most of them with box cutters or razors, a familiar sight outside H & M’s back door.

More next page on this disgraceful story...

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I am going to be very, very careful writing about this topic because it is focuses on a very serious matter of life-changing importance and value; moving overseas to Asia for a fresh start. Most people move at least half a dozen times in their life but these days the idea is much more explosive and emotional than many people realize. Meanwhile, millions of people in Europe, the United States and other developed countries have made the move overseas to discover a whole new world, mostly discovering that you can live and work where the cost of living is 1/2 to 1/3 of the cost of living in the West. There are specific challenges and advantages to living in any particular country and this guide will place you well along the way to knowing the the challenges and advantages of living in China and Asia.

Why do I suggest this topic today is more explosive and emotional? Because when I share these thoughts with you, I am thinking of the 37 million devastated Americans whose lifestyles have been ruined by the events of the past year in that country and who face a future, literally, facing very little opportunity to do anything to change it. In our lifetimes, never has there been a time of greater change and challenge to meet. For millions of Americans who had good jobs paying them 40, 50, 60, 70, even 80 thousand and more dollars per year, they now literally can't even find a job at minimum wage, let alone feel grateful for having one at all. 37 million Americans are now on food-stamps with 20,000 more being added every day. America is a nation transformed to the great benefit of a few and the devastation of many more.

Of course the same can be said for citizens of other countries such as in Europe. Finally, before I continue, so as not to be too narrow-minded, we recognize together that in countries the world over there is grave injustice causing citizens to suffer and the majority of that injustice is in the hands of the government leaders who make the choices that create the situations. These are the facts of reality throughout human history.

Now let's get back to the point of this story much more focused on you and your situation. This story and guide to starting a new life in Asia will be of great interest to you if you feel yourself in agreement with any of the following statements included in our "Should You Start Your New Better Life in Asia Now" Assessment found on the next page:

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This NY Times article is scary because it's NOT scary; it is a picture of the new, normal socio-economic structure of America for the middle and lower middle class of the country who have had the foundation of their lifestyle ruined by the capitalist white-collar crooks up top running American business and government.

While the stock market price and corporate earnings somehow swoon speculatively higher and higher across the country and, in fact, the world too, the average American has paid the dear price; facing a present and future of dashed dreams, far from the American dreams available decades earlier in the land of the free when my grandparents arrived at Ellis Island.

I'm sorry, in fact very sorry to be negative, very sorry to see what has happened to the country I was born and raised in. I don't like it, but read this NY Times article and you will understand yourself how a two class world of haves and have-nots has been created in America by those in power pulling the strings of market capitalism. Read Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" and Nicholas Taleb's "Fooled By Randomness" for a glaring reminder that the random probability of good or bad circumstances far beyond your control play a much greater role in the success and happiness you will or won't have in your life. It hurts to be told that. Yet, let it inspire you to somehow rise above it if you can and if you dare. But first start by reading and sharing this article.

Check this out:

...with 15 million now enrolled, the program (Food Stamps) is expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.

...growth has come about equally from places where food stamp use was common and places where it was rare. Since 2007, the 600 counties with the highest percentage of people on the rolls added 1.3 million new recipients. So did the 600 counties where use was lowest.

...The richest counties are often where aid is growing fastest, although from a small base. In 2007, Forsyth County, outside Atlanta, had the highest household income in the South. (One author dubbed it “Whitopia.) Food stamp use there has more than doubled.

...This is the first recession in which a majority of the poor in metropolitan areas live in the suburbs, giving food stamps new prominence there.

...Use (of food stamps) has grown by half or more in dozens of suburban counties from Boston to Seattle, including such bulwarks of modern conservatism as California’s Orange County, where the rolls are up more than 50 percent.

What? This past Friday's famous Thanksgiving shopping day showed us an 18% increase over last year. But at the same time, 20,000 more people per day are applying for food stamps? This is happening today in AMERICA?

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Love for my work as a jazz pianist on the artistic side of my career is always hovering somewhere in the background of my life, and even in the foreground occasionally as with my recent three city Autumn Solo Piano Concert Tour here in China.

For us jazz lovers here's askmen.com's hot list of jazz albums every man should own...Enjoy, Mario

LIFE IS LIKE ROLLERBLADING

Ideas are especially cool and meaningful when they come along in a flash of inspiration. Mine often magically pop into my head when I’m engaged in sport or exercise. I run five to eight kilometers three or four times per week.

“Life is Like Rollerblading” came to me in a flash around 1998 while I was living, naturally, in ultra-cool Newport Beach, along the Pacific Coast Highway, between the Huntington Beach pier and the Newport Beach pier. I had taken up rollerblading, which was a blast and great exercise too. I became quite good at it. I would often rollerblade to the Huntington Beach or Newport Beach pier areas with my laptop in my backpack and work at a local café on the beach. Of course, nowadays that would be an even better proposition with Wi-Fi being available at so many public locations.

One day while getting myself mentally psyched for the coming evening’s speech, the words “life is like rollerblading” suddenly popped into my head. I loved it the second it came to me and my mind, but the weird part was I hadn’t yet come up with how life is like rollerblading. My mind raced with questions. Like other similar times, times of inspired thought, ideas were flowing out of the mind faster than the pen could keep up. I wrote furiously for 20 minutes to an hour before the stream of ideas and concepts was finally exhausted. Here’s what I came up with.

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