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I grew up 30 miles from the birthplace of the Republican Party. And I was a public school teacher in that state, the son of two public school teachers in that state.Let me tell you what the Republican Party did to my first career as a public school teacher.First, a little background, because this is actually relevant.Teaching in Wisconsin up to 2010When I was young in the 90’s, the economy was doing pretty well, and the teachers’ union was hauling districts to arbitration over pay raises.See, the private sector was doing great. Folks were getting thousand-dollar bonuses just because the companies were doing awesome. Raises were common, often 4–5% a year.Districts didn’t want to pay that, so the unions took them to arbitration, and arbitrators consistently came back with awards consistent with the prevailing wage increases of the private sector.So Republicans passed a law called the Qualified Economic Offer, or QEO. Basically, as long as the districts and state offered a certain percentage increase, the unions were banned from taking it to arbitration. It was about 2.5–3%. At the time, all my folks’ private sector friends were laughing at my parents.After the dot-com bubble burst and took a sizable piece of the economy with it in the early 2000’s, that laughing turned to resentment after a couple of years when the teachers were still getting raises slightly over the cost of living while the private sector had seen serious contraction.Bush deregulated the health care industry, and premiums and deductibles started skyrocketing. When I was a child, a thousand dollar deductible was considered outrageous and only for catastrophic insurance at the fringes of the market. My uncle recalls that family health insurance when I was a child, whole family insurance with dental and vision, was $40 a month through his employer. By the time I was a teenager, that had more than tripled for the average family.So, suddenly, this QEO was looking no longer like a way to stick it to the teachers and keep them from these massive arbitration awards and resentment grew at the “sweet deal” giving teachers a raise above the private sector every year. So, it was repealed by those same Republicans.I graduated from college right about the Great Recession. I was student teaching while it happened. I watched the markets crash every day when I checked the Dow at the end of school.My mentor teacher had been on a wage freeze for five years. (To pre-empt the peanut gallery, yes, Democrats were in charge of the state during that period. The question asked about what Republicans have done, and it’s not a binary white-hat-black-hat situation.) What she was forced to pay into health insurance had gone up by 10% in that span; literally every year she was making less than the year before in take-home pay.It was pretty grim for teachers at that time in 2008–2009. We all thought it was the bottom.Then the Tea Party took over.Scott Walker and Act 10In 2010, Scott Walker got elected. The very first thing that he did upon taking office in 2011 was to gin up a financial “crisis” for the state by using some accounting tricks to come up with a three-billion-dollar budget shortfall and claiming the state was flat broke.[1] He used this justification to ram through, with as little public debate as possible, breaking multiple open meetings laws and open records laws, a bill called Act 10.[2]Act 10 was aimed at gutting public sector unions, particularly targeting teachers and municipal workers. The police and fire unions, in a naked display of political favoritism, were exempted because they supported Walker’s election bid.The Act kept unions alive in name, but puts draconian restrictions on them. The only thing that the unions can bargain collectively for now is over base wages, capped at inflation and based on the lowest rung of any pay scale used. A 30 year veteran teacher with a master’s degree would only see a raise capped at inflation and based on a first-year teacher’s salary, if any raise were issued at all.Unions now have to recertify every single year, not by a majority of votes cast, but a majority of possible votes. Anyone choosing not to vote is considered a no vote, in other words. Failure to recertify means that the union was dissolved and barred from re-forming for five years.Public sector unions are barred under Act 10 from collecting “fair share” payments. Under Federal laws, unions must represent all workers in a place of employment, whether they are part of the union or not. Fair share laws were designed to fix the “freeloader” problem; they provided a reduced payment collected from non-union employees to offset the cost of the fact that the union had to negotiate their contracts as well.Since the unions now had to cover the entire state’s public employment, but could essentially no longer collect any dues or fair share payments from anyone who didn’t want to pay up, and because they were relegated to essentially powerlessness over any working conditions, union enrollment dropped by more than half virtually overnight.Oh, it gets better.See, Walker made the assumption that teachers paid nothing towards their health care insurance and pensions.Some districts, as a fringe benefit to make up for low salaries, had been paying the employee’s share of the required pension payments. Additionally, unions had made the choice to push for continued benefits like health insurance rather than salary increases over the years. Other districts, especially rural districts with declining enrollment, had been already requiring their teachers to pay more significant costs towards health care for several years already.Walker’s assumption was that every school district had been giving their employees everything for free, and that’s how he sold it to the people of Wisconsin.So, that justified a $1.6 billion dollar cut to public education, which would be “made up” by forcing all teachers to pay more for health insurance and pension costs. It barred districts from making up any of that cut by increasing property taxes. The average district cut was in the millions of dollars.In the first district I taught in, this resulted in every teacher taking between a ten to twenty percent pay cut.Act 10 gutted tenure protections and civil service protections, to “give districts tools” to manage these draconian cuts. It was supposed to make it easier to fire bad teachers. In the hands of honest administrators, it did.In the hands of dishonest administrators, we ended up with what Hustisford School District chose to do: fire every single teacher in the district and offer them their jobs back… at first-year salary. A 30-year veteran teacher with a master’s degree would have to return to work with an effective 50% pay cut, and be paid the same as a teacher fresh out of college with a bachelor’s degree.The UW SystemMore cuts were leveled at the University of Wisconsin System, one of the oldest completely public higher education systems in the nation, and the most extensive system of technical colleges, 2-year colleges, and 4-year institutions in the country. My alma mater was saddled with enough cuts that it is now facing a five-million-dollar-per-year structural deficit. As with the public school districts, those cuts came with specific bars against raising tuition to make up any difference.Walker’s justification was that all of these cushy professors were only teaching one or two classes and worked less than ten hours a week. This was rated “pants on fire,” but that didn’t stop Republicans from reciting the party line.Wisconsin is now absolutely desperate for public teachersAfter eight years of this, Wisconsin’s enrollment in teacher training programs is at record lows. Ten percent of the profession quit within the first year after Act 10 passed.[3] The attrition rate still remains above the national average.Rural districts with low tax bases are especially hard hit. High-tax-base communities like Mequon can afford to pay substantially higher salaries and benefits, and so they poach more qualified or highly-respected teachers from rural or lower-base areas.My brother-in-law, an orchestra teacher, was offered a five-figure signing bonus and a 10% salary increase to switch districts across the state to a wealthier community. Great for him; can’t blame him for taking it. The more rural community he left is now considering cutting the orchestra program because they can’t find a teacher willing to take the job. They’ve been making do with a band director who doesn’t really know strings for two years.It’s gotten so bad that legislators have considered multiple proposals to offer provisional licensure to people who have literally no educational or pedagogy training whatsoever if they have any experience tangentially related to the field they want to teach in.Technology education has been especially hard-hit, because those teachers realized five years ago that they could make twice as much in the private sector as engineers and welders.Morale is at an all time lowMy friends who are sticking it out in education right now are reporting that morale has never picked up even a little bit in the last six years.Communities in general continue to believe that teachers are getting a sweet ride at the public trough, even though more and more of them are needing to take up second jobs to make ends meet. One of my best friends works at Olive Garden three nights a week and on weekends to pay her bills. Another works the security gate for Fleet Farm so he can grade papers while at his second job.In my last year of teaching, I was called a glorified babysitter by a parent at a conference. I did the math on the board right in front of them, just for their kid, for the amount of time I spent with that kid, at $5/hour. It was more than their property taxes. (That parent got pissy and left my room in a huff when I figured the final numbers.)Why did I leave?I was doing nothing but fighting battles for my students. I was putting in, on average, a 75–80 hour work week, and 90 hours a week was not uncommon. I’d get to school at 6:30 am to beat the copier rush, and typically stayed until 5–6 pm working with students, to go home and down a bite of whatever I had in my constantly-running crock pot, and grade and lesson plan until 10 PM to midnight. Lather, rinse, repeat. 12–14 hours on Saturday, often another 6–10 on Sunday; more if the end of a quarter approached.And I made $35,500 for that.The school board came out with a new wage schedule for us that it expected would cover the next thirty years.If I got every raise, every pay scale step increase, got a master’s degree and National Board certification, never got married, had a child, or incurred any serious debts, and assuming the long-term average in the stock markets and that Walker didn’t screw up the pension system (something he’d been considering,) I calculated that I’d likely be able to retire at 76.Seventy-six.If I lived frugally and saved wisely and was very, very lucky.I asked some of my friends what they thought. They all pointed out that I’d considered law school in the past, and that I had a passion for much of what I could do there.I made the decision to apply to law schools, resigned my teaching position, and never looked back. And I have never regretted that decision for a moment.The attitude towards education in the Republican Party has gotten worse, not betterI’ve attended various Republican Party meetings, trying to change things from the inside. I despair that nothing will change their minds, and if anything, anti-intellectualism has gotten more entrenched.From fears over Common Core standards to the pervasive belief that public education is simply a waste of money and we should all go back to private schools and homeschooling, it is clear to me that the beliefs in the Republican Party right now are decidedly against public education.I’ve heard nothing but praise for Betsy DeVos as she attempts to dismantle the Department of Education. (If only it weren’t for that “deep state” that stymies her! Actual thing heard at one of these meetings with knowing nods all around.)A significant majority of the people at these meetings either homeschool their kids or send them to private religious schools. Those who do not are mysteriously quiet and will not meet my eye when I try to get their views on the topic.When I ask about the local schools, most reply that their local public school is pretty good. However, they will invariably tell me that they are absolutely certain that public education itself is failing and that schools elsewhere are terrible because something something PARCC and international tests. Do they know how standardized tests work? No. Would they like me to explain it to them? Eyes glaze over.I’m one of them, you see. Those edumacated folks. Those people who think they know more because they got a piece of paper hanging in their office. (I’ve been told this to my face and heard it plenty of times behind my back.)The Republican Party doesn’t want to see public education. They want to see publicly funded education, and that as limited as possible. They want their children to go to schools that teach an ideology that they want, and to keep their kids away from certain other kids.And so public schools will simply continue to become a dumping ground for high-poverty students and kids with special needs.Elsewhere around the countryRepublican stronghold Kansas has been forced to go to a four-day week amidst teacher shortages because they can’t even fund schools enough to keep the lights on that long. Teachers have to have the four-day week to get second or third jobs to afford to make it work.[4]Teachers are fleeing South Carolina[5] and other typically red states to work in states that are adequately funding education and fostering public respect towards teachers.Why is the Republican Party often portrayed as being against public school teachers?Because my experience, the experience of my colleagues, and the evidence all suggest that they are.Footnotes[1] Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says Wisconsin is broke[2] Wis. Assembly Cuts Union Rights[3] Here's what happened to teachers after Wisconsin gutted its unions[4] Amid teacher shortage, four-day school districts can't afford to go back, superintendents say[5] Classrooms in Crisis: Why SC teachers are quitting in record numbers

Jaya prakash narayanCivil service:Narayana joined public administration after making it to I.A.S. in 1980 standing All India Rank 4. He worked on agriculture, irrigation, technology and youth rehabilitation projects in various capacities and in various districts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Some of his achievements during his 16-year-long career in government include:As Joint Collector, he created full and permanent employment for 8,000 youth from displaced families of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.As Collector of East Godavari District, he spearheaded the reconstruction of drainage and irrigation network in Krishna, Prakasamand Godavari deltas.As Collector of Prakasam district, he successfully mobilized farmers on a large scale to take up irrigation schemes to bring a record two lakh acres under irrigation.He strengthened the credit cooperatives by making them independent of government control.Served as a Secretary to both the Governor Krishna Kant and the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N.T. Rama Rao.He also has several major policy initiatives to his credit.Empowerment of parents in schools.Speedy justice through rural courts.Economic reforms and restructuring of AP.Development of the Infocity HITEC City(Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy City) in Hyderabad to facilitate the growth of the software industry.Empowerment of local governments and stakeholders.The much acclaimed law for self-reliant cooperatives (1995).Political career:Narayana started the Lok Satta party on 2 October 2006 with clean politics, good governance and improvement of India as the main goals. When he launched the party, he stated that this party aimed to enrich the political scenario in India with its true spirit. He felt that it could be considered as an alternative to any other political party, since it aimed to create a true and faithful political picture in India without involving illegitimate money, liquor and caste in elections.2008 By-electionsIn 2008, the Lok Satta Party ran in the Assembly by-elections for the first time, and was able to secure second place in two of the four places (Khiratabad, Terlam) it contested seats.Andhra Pradesh 13th AssemblyNarayana is one of the vocal leaders in assembly proceedings. Some of the major contributions to Andhra Pradesh 13th assembly are:proposed the Anti Corruption Bill to amend the State's Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, to curb corruption in the state by including elected members under civil servants.advanced all party resolution to elect deputy speaker from opposition;opposed amendment to Andhra Pradesh Societies Act claiming that it is against the right to form unions as per the Constitution;opposed populist schemes in 2009, 2010 and 2011 Andhra Pradesh Budgets.pressed the need for gas grid and industrial development;condemned the demolition of statues on Tankbund;demanded investigation into land and natural resource allocation scams and provided evidences.Whatever, at final true leader didnt have a support,encouragement, either from public or government. A real hearted person never wins externally but he wins a thousands of hearts that who was able to understand him.Thank you,Jai hindh.

Blending learning models combine the power of teachers with the power of technology to create a new learning dynamic that helps students reach their potential and achieve their academic goals. There are a variety of blended learning models that schools can choose from—or combine—to implement a blended learning program.1) Face-to-Face Driver ModelOf all the blended learning models, face-to-face driver is the closest to a typical school structure. With this approach, the introduction of online instruction is decided on a case-by-case basis, meaning only certain students in a given class will participate in any form of blended learning. The face-to-face driver approach allows students who are struggling or working above their grade level to progress at their own pace using technology in the classroom.2) Rotation ModelIn this form of blended learning, students rotate between different stations on a fixed schedule – either working online or spending face-to-face time with the teacher.3) Flex ModelSchools who are supporting a large number of non-traditional or at-risk students often choose the flex model of blended learning. With this approach, material is primarily delivered online. Although teachers are in the room to provide on-site support as needed, learning is primarily self-guided, as students independently learn and practice new concepts in a digital environment.FacebookTwitterLinkedInGoogle+PinterestShareBlended LearningOCTOBER 23, 20136 Models of Blended Learningby @DreamBox_LearnAs school districts look for ways to give their students a personalized learning experience without expanding their budgets, blended learning can be an effective option. This approach to schooling combines face-to-face instruction with online learning and has yielded strong results since officially being researched as an education strategy. In fact, according to a 2010 study from the U.S. Department of Education, blended learning classes produce statistically better results than their face-to-face, non-hybrid equivalents. This may be partly due to the fact that this rapidly growing model not only increases the flexibility and individualization of student learning experiences, but also allows teachers to expand the time they spend as facilitators of learning. Schools make the switch to blended learning for a variety of reasons. In addition to considering the age of the students, the reasons for choosing a blended model generally dictate which of the six models they choose to implement:1) Face-to-Face Driver ModelOf all the blended learning models, face-to-face driver is the closest to a typical school structure. With this approach, the introduction of online instruction is decided on a case-by-case basis, meaning only certain students in a given class will participate in any form of blended learning. The face-to-face driver approach allows students who are struggling or working above their grade level to progress at their own pace using technology in the classroom.Some schools have also found this model to be a helpful way to engage English language learners (ELL), who sometimes fall behind not because they are incapable of understanding a concept, but because they’re not native speakers. A 2009 study of the Round Rock Independent School District in Texas found that the math and reading test scores of third and fifth grade ELLs increased following the implementation of blended learning and the use of interactive whiteboards.2) Rotation ModelIn this form of blended learning, students rotate between different stations on a fixed schedule – either working online or spending face-to-face time with the teacher. The rotational model is more widely used in elementary schools – 80 percent of elementary schools in California that use blended learning follow the rotational model – because many are already set up to have students rotate between stations.In a case study of IDEA Public Schools in Texas published by DreamBox Learning, the rotational model of blended learning was determined to be an effective means of increasing the achievement of students in this Title 1 School. IDEA students rotated between learning labs, where they used intelligent adaptive learning software to learn math concepts, and a traditional classroom. The result? Students became more active learners and often challenged themselves to work harder and learn material that had not yet been introduced in their math classroom.3) Flex ModelSchools who are supporting a large number of non-traditional or at-risk students often choose the flex model of blended learning. With this approach, material is primarily delivered online. Although teachers are in the room to provide on-site support as needed, learning is primarily self-guided, as students independently learn and practice new concepts in a digital environment. The flex model is an approach used by the AdvancePath Academy, a blended learning school, which works with school district partners to address the needs of students with behavioral, academic and/or socio-economic challenges.Students at AdvancePath spend most of their time in a computer lab learning online. However, certified teachers are also on-site to work with students on reading and writing, lead small-group work, and provide help as needed. More than 90 percent of students enrolled at AdvancePath either graduate from high school, transfer to other schools to complete their studies, or are on track for graduation. These are promising results, considering that only three out of 10 students who drop out of high school manage to earn a degree by age 25.4) Online Lab ModelAs schools face increasingly tighter resource constraints, the online lab model of blended learning is a viable option for helping students complete courses, including those not offered at the specific school site. In this scenario, students learn entirely online but travel to a dedicated computer lab to complete their coursework.5) Self-Blend ModelPopular in high schools, the self-blend model of blended learning gives students the opportunity to take classes beyond what is already offered at their school. While these individuals will attend a traditional school environment, they also opt to supplement their learning through online courses offered remotely.6) Online Driver ModelThis model of blended learning is ideal for students who need more flexibility and independence in their daily schedules.Pic Courtesy : Google ImagesSource : internetKeep Reading :)