Abolish the Nuclear Rubberstamp Commission and shut down every nuclear power plant in the U.S. They provide just 20% of our electricity and this could be substituted for with electricity generated by safe, clean, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind without the loss of lives.

Meltdown at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

by Karl Grossman

The resignation last week of the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is another demonstration of the bankrupt basis of the NRC. Gregory Jaczko repeatedly called for the NRC to apply "lessons learned" from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster in Japan. And, for that, the nuclear industry quite successfully went after him fiercely.

The New York Times in an editorial over the weekend said that President Obama’s choice to replace Jaczko, Allison Macfarlane, “will need to be as independent and aggressive as Dr. Jaczko.”

That misses the institutional point.

The NRC was created in 1974 when Congress abolished the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission after deciding that the AEC’s dual missions of promoting and at the same time regulating nuclear power were deemed a conflict of interest. The AEC was replaced by the NRC which was to regulate nuclear power, and a Department of Energy was later formed to advocate for it.

However, the same extreme pro-nuclear culture of the AEC continued on at the NRC. It has partnered with the DOE in promoting nuclear power.

Indeed, neither the AEC, in its more than 25 years, nor the NRC, in its nearly 30 years, ever denied an application for a construction or operating license for a nuclear power plant anywhere, anytime in the United States.

The NRC is a rubberstamp for the nuclear industry. “NRC stands for Nuclear Rubberstamp Commission,” says Kevin Kamps of the organization Beyond Nuclear.

And it isn’t that Jaczko opposed nuclear power. “Greg is not anti-nuclear, but he’s pro-nuclear in a smart and considered way,” says Christopher Paine, director of the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Since the Fukushima accident began last March 11, Jaczko, who has a Ph.D. in physics, has called on the NRC to recognize and incorporate in its rules and actions, the gravity of that catastrophe. As he declared as his four fellow NRC members approved the construction of two nuclear plants in Georgia in February the first OK for new nuclear plants in the U.S. in years:

“I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima had never happened.”

“Greg has led a Sisyphean fight against some of the nuclear industry’s opponents of strong, lasting regulations, often serving as the lone vote,” commented Congressman Edward Markey of Massachusetts after the Jaczko resignation.

The nuclear industry and promoters of nuclear power in government would have us believe that Fukushima means nothing. As the American Nuclear Society asserts on its website: “No public ill effects are expected from the Fukushima incident.”

In reality, the consequences in Japan and all over the world are expected to be enormous. They’ll be worse than the impacts of the Chernobyl disaster, says Dr. Alexey Yablokov, a biologist and lead scientist of the book published by the New York Academy of Science in 2009, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for the People and the Environment. It reported that now available medical data shows that that 985,000 people died worldwide between 1986, the year of the Chernobyl accident, and 2004 from the radioactivity released.

“The Fukushima disaster will be worse than Chernobyl,” agrees Dr. Janette Sherman, a toxicologist and the book’s editor. That’s because Fukushima involves, she notes, not one but six nuclear plants along with spent fuel pools, in a “far more populated” area than the Chernobyl plant, and the radioactive discharges from Fukushima have continued for months.

Importantly, a new report by a noted European science institute has determined that Chernobyl and Fukushima were not isolated occurrences. “Severe Nuclear Reactor Accidents Likely Every 10 to 20 Years,” was the headline of the article last week on the report in Science Daily.

“Catastrophic nuclear accidents such as the core meltdowns in Chernobyl and Fukushima are more likely to happen than previously assumed,” said Science Daily, about the report by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. Based on “the number of nuclear meltdowns that have occurred,” they “calculated that such events may occur once every 10 to 20 years.”

And impacts would be global like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Their computer analyses, said Science Daily, found for the leading radioactive poison discharged in a nuclear plant accident, Cesium-137, some 8% can be expected to fall within 50 kilometers of the accident site, 50% beyond 1,000 kilometers and 25% beyond 2,000 kilometers. “These results underscore that reactor accidents are likely to cause radioactive contamination well beyond national borders,” said Science Daily.

Science Daily, like Jaczko, can’t be decried as “anti-nuclear.”

But for the nuclear industry and nuclear promoters within government, including the NRC, denial is the watchword.

At the NRC in recent months a move has begun to negate what has been its benchmark analysis on the impacts of nuclear plant accidents. “Calculation Reactor Accident Consequences 2,” referred to as the CRAC-2 report. Issued in 1982, it projects the impacts from a meltdown with a breach of containment at every nuclear plant in the U.S.

It divides the consequences into “Peak Early Fatalities,” “Peak Early Injuries,” “Peak Cancer Deaths” and “Scaled Costs” for property damage and the numbers are chilling. For the Indian Point 3 nuclear plant 28 miles north of New York City, for instance, it projects “Peak Early Fatalities” at 50,000, “Peak Early Injuries” at 167,000, “Peak Cancer Deaths” at 14,000 and “Scaled Costs” at $314 billion (in 1980 dollars).

The NRC in January issued a report it seeks to have replace CRAC-2, “State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequences Analyses” or SOARCA. SOARCA finds, according to the NRC, that the “risks of public health consequences from severe accidents” at a nuclear plant “are very small.” The “long-term risk” of a person dying from cancer from a nuclear plant accident is less than one-in-a billion. This is because “successful implementation of existing mitigation measures can prevent reactor core damage or delay or reduce offsite releases of radioactive material.”

Tell that to the people impacted by Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Meanwhile, the NRC has been busy extending the operating licenses of existing plants although nuclear plants were never seen as running for more than 40 years because of radioactivity embrittling the metal parts and otherwise causing problems affecting safety. Nevertheless, the NRC has now extended the licenses of 73 of the 104 nuclear plants in the U.S. to 60 years. And next Thursday, June 7, at its headquarters, the NRC is holding a meeting with DOE and the industry’s Electric Power Research Institute on extending licenses to 80 years. Consider the reliability of an 80-year old car.

A “Petition for Rulemaking to Improve Emergency Planning Regulations” was brought to the NRC in February by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and 37 safe-energy and environmental groups. It declared that “the real-world experience of the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters…were more severe and affected a much larger geographical area than provided for in NRC regulations” and asked, among other things, for the NRC to expand its current 10-mile evacuation planning zone around nuclear plants. “Waiting to see how bad an emergency gets before expanding evacuation…is not a plan of action, it is a recipe for disaster and an abdication of responsibility.” The likely NRC response? No.

On that issue, the nuclear industry was extremely upset that Jaczko, after the Fukushima accident began, advised U.S. citizens within 50 miles of the exploding nuclear complex to evacuate. It sought to continue the myth that 10 miles were fine.

As for the proposed new chair of the NRC, Allison Macfarlane, if she seeks to push safety, as the New York Times thinks she can, she would be crucified just like Jaczko.

The solution? Abolish the Nuclear Rubberstamp Commission and shut down every nuclear power plant in the U.S. They provide just 20% of our electricity and this could be substituted for with electricity generated by safe, clean, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind without the loss of lives.

Karl Grossman has been a professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury for 32 years. He is a specialist in investigative reporting. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program, Enviro Close-Up.

Universal coverage, Medicare for all, single payer — call it what you will. It's clear that conservative forces are determined to prevent such a system from ever being introduced at the national level. So it's up to the states.

Legislation may enable states 

to offer universal healthcare

To make universal coverage work at the state level, you'd need to channel federal healthcare funds into the system. A bill being drafted by Rep. Jim McDermott would allow that to happen.

David Lazarus

May 25, 2012:  LA TIMES

Universal coverage, Medicare for all, single payer — call it what you will. It's clear that conservative forces are determined to prevent such a system from ever being introduced at the national level. So it's up to the states.

The catch is that to make universal coverage work at the state level, you'd need some way to channel Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare funds into the system. At the moment, that's difficult if not impossible.

But legislation quietly being drafted by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) would change that. It would create a mechanism for states to request federal funds after establishing their own health insurance programs.

If passed into law — admittedly a long shot with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives — McDermott's State-Based Universal Healthcare Act would represent a game changer for medical coverage in the United States.

It would, for the first time, create a system under which a Medicare-for-all program could be rolled out on a state-by-state basis. In California's case, it would make coverage available to the roughly 7 million people now lacking health insurance.

"This is a huge deal," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica advocacy group. "This is a lifeline for people who want to create a Medicare system at the state level."

I learned of McDermott's bill after getting my hands on documents he had sent to other members of Congress seeking support for the legislation.

McDermott's office confirmed that the documents and legislation are real but declined to make the congressman available for comment until the bill is formally introduced, which could happen as soon as next week.

Kinsey Kiriakos, a spokesman for McDermott, said by email that the bill is intended to advance the goals of President Obama's healthcare reform law, which would extend coverage to about 30 million of the 50 million people nationwide without insurance.

The reform law is now under scrutiny by the U.S. Supreme Court, primarily because of its requirement that most people buy health insurance or face a modest tax penalty.

McDermott's bill "is based on the congressman's belief that the Affordable Care Act will be upheld and the congressman's new bill is meant to achieve the overall goals of the Affordable Care Act while giving states the option to build an alternative single-payer system," Kiriakos said.

California came close to building such a system in 2006 and again in 2008 when the Legislature passed bills laying the groundwork for statewide universal coverage. Then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both bills.

Another attempt at healthcare reform collapsed this year when a bill written by Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) stalled in the state Senate.

The legislation would have created a Medicare-for-all system but was vague on how the projected $250-billion annual cost of the program would be funded. That figure reflects a reallocation of current healthcare spending to include both state and federal dollars.

McDermott's bill would go a long way toward addressing this ambiguity. It would allow federal funds for California's 4.5 million Medicare beneficiaries and 8 million Medi-Cal recipients to be pooled with state tax money for universal coverage.

Highlighting the sensitivity of McDermott's bill, Leno declined to comment until the legislation is formally introduced.

But this much is already clear: People in a statewide Medicare-for-all program would no longer pay annual premiums, deductibles or co-payments for private health insurance. Instead, they would pay a percentage of their income into the system, just as wages are taxed for Social Security and Medicare.

A number of studies have concluded that state-run insurance systems would be cheaper for most people on an out-of-pocket basis than existing private insurance plans.

Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, estimated in a recent paper that a national Medicare-for-all system would cost Americans about $570 billion less annually than the amount spent on private plans.

Moreover, gone would be the problem of private insurers charging higher rates or denying coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions. If you pay taxes in the state, you'd be eligible for coverage.

Also gone would be healthcare as an issue between workers and employers. Businesses would no longer be the primary conduit for health insurance, relieving companies of what has become an increasingly costly obligation.

A draft of McDermott's bill says that to receive federal funds, states would have to offer a healthcare plan with the same benefits as the most popular plan available to federal government employees.

It also says the state plan would have to cover any out-of-state treatment received by residents.

"If you believe that quality healthcare is a human right, as I do, a publicly financed single-payer system with universal entitlement remains the ultimate goal," McDermott wrote in a letter to congressional colleagues.

His bill could make this a reality. Want to show your support? Email McDermott from his website and let him know that you think such legislation is long overdue.

He'll still face a battle with conservatives once the bill is introduced. But a big stack of "yes" votes from the public could only help.

David Lazarus' column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

My first thought “thank God I’m insured.” My second thought was for all those who are not

How single payer can improve the access to cancer care

By Aldebra Schroll, M.D.

KevinMD blog, May 4, 2012

The call came in the middle of a busy office day; the radiologist had found a suspicious area on the mammogram. I had received similar calls many times in my primary care practice. This time was different; the patient was me.

My first thought “thank God I’m insured.” My second thought was for all those who are not. It was hard enough waiting the week, until further testing could be performed; I can’t imagine the stress of not knowing how or if I would be able to get treatment should I learn I had cancer. For many of our patients that is a real concern. An estimated fifty million Americans do not have health insurance; another twenty five million are underinsured. In the event of a serious diagnosis such as cancer, they face the high cost of out of pocket expenses. For women with breast cancer, the uninsured are more than twice as likely to have their cancer diagnosed in an advanced stage than those with coverage. An estimated fifty thousand deaths a year are attributed to the lack of health insurance.

One in four families impacted by cancer finds themselves in financial straits. A Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard Public Health study found half of cancer patients use up most or all of their life savings. Studies have found that over half of bankruptcies in the United States resulted from medical bills.

These troubling trends have led the American Cancer Society (ACS) to launch a campaign Access to Care to raise awareness to how the lack of health insurance leads to delays in detection and survival for cancer. John Seffrin, chief executive of ACS, has noted that lack of access could hinder our ability to move forward in the fight against cancer. ACS is calling for a health policy that is adequate, affordable, available and administratively simple.

A single payer system would meet these criteria. Physicians for a National Health Health Program has been working on behalf of a universal health plan that would cover all Americans. A single-payer system would simplify and streamline the process of getting health care.

Under the single-payer model, patients would no longer need to fear the egregious practice of rescission in which insurers drop a patient from their plan when they are diagnosed with a serious condition, such as cancer. The insurers defend the practice as a way to guard against fraud; however for patients it means that failing to mention even a trivial bit of history on the application could mean they are facing cancer with no health insurance. Indeed, a Reuter’s investigation revealed that WellPoint used a computer algorithm to initiate fraud investigation for women newly diagnosed with breast cancer; many of whom last their insurance, just when they needed it most.

A study from the journal Health Affairs found that those enrolled in Medicare, the national single-payer plan, had fewer problems obtaining needed medical care, less financial hardship and higher satisfaction scores than those in private plans. They were less likely to file bankruptcy due to medical expenses. There are also less socioeconomic disparities in health for the population on Medicare. Overall, Medicare patients report greater satisfaction and security than those enrolled in private plans. A single-payer plan could guarantee these benefits to all.

I was lucky to have a quick evaluation and reassuring results. My experience only increased my resolve to work harder on behalf of a single-payer plan so that everyone can receive comprehensive and universal coverage.

Aldebra Schroll is a family physician 

who resides in Chico, California.

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/05/single-payer-improve-access-cancer-care.html

Physicians for a National Health Program
29 E Madison Suite 602, Chicago, IL 60602 ¤ 
Find us on a map
Phone (312) 782-6006 | Fax: (312) 782-6007 
| email: info@pnhp.org

© PNHP 2012

The enemy faced in cancer treatment is not the cancer itself.

May 28, 2012 by Common Dreams

Fighting the Real Enemy: Cancer in America

by Donna Smith

For the second time in my life, I find myself in need of cancer care.  Somehow it seems the universe conspires to put me in settings where I observe and can report on the on-going insanity of the dysfunctional U.S. healthcare system.  Such was the case this week as I sat in the oncology infusion center near a prestigious medical center.

The need for a progressively financed, single standard of high quality care for all under a social insurance model – like Medicare for all for life – has never been clearer to me than it was this week.  The enemy faced in cancer treatment is not the cancer itself. 

Every patient is different in terms of how he or she handles cancer diagnosis and treatment.  While we have built such a culture of terror around the word and the disease, having cancer does not necessarily mean one will die from cancer.  It is a serious thing, but in many cases early detection and treatment means being a cancer survivor is a more likely outcome than being a cancer casualty.  I like to face most of my tests and appointments alone.  So for this week’s visit to the infusion center, I was on my own while my husband went to his usual Friday golf play.  That seems so good and normal to me in the face of something sort of lousy overall.  And I like the feeling of that illusion of normalcy.  Other patients bring friends or family along for support. 

Inside the oncology center, there are banks of recliners with large arms that can accommodate I.V. lines and set-ups for drug infusions.  There are four areas with four chairs each, and each section is staffed by one oncology nurse.  Emily was my nurse.  She asked me which chair I wanted since I was her first patient of the day, and I chose the chair where I could see everywhere else in the center.  I told her I like to watch all the activity and she said that was different since most of her patients chose to sit nearest the windows.  She brought my medicine, had me verify it was mine, and then hooked up my I.V., drew blood samples, and got the infusion rolling.  I kicked back in the chair.  Another patient in another section wore her Pittsburgh Steelers “Snuggie.”  That made me feel better somehow, even though I’m a Bronco’s fan.

Soon, other patients arrived one by one to fill the stations.  Then I noticed a couple of terrible realities.  There was a woman circulating and visiting each patient as they were being infused.  She identified herself as being from the financial office of the oncology practice, and on her clipboard she carried the printouts of each person’s insurance and personal payment situation.  She would ask quietly, “Do you have concerns about how you will cover your portion of the bills?”  I felt sicker.  Imagine that. 

Another patient was told she’d need to pick up from her pharmacy on the way home a medication delivered in patch form that was highly recommended for use with her particular kind of chemo.  She asked the nurse how expensive the patch is, and the nurse said, “It’s pricey.”  When no one else was there, the woman used her cell phone to call the pharmacy to check on the cost of that patch.  I watched her face as she heard, and though I couldn’t hear the amount, I knew.  She gazed out the window.  When she looked back my way, I just nodded to her and smiled a bit, as I didn’t want to embarrass her any more than the sick situation already had.

In yet another chair, a male patient asked how much longer his infusion would take.  “I have to get to work soon.  I missed too much time lately,” he told Emily.  She looked at the I.V. bag and told him he’d be done by noon, and he seemed comforted about that.  His wife gave him a brownie and a bottle of water.  I shared his worry about getting my infusion done.  I was fighting feeling a bit “icky,” but I didn’t want anyone to notice that lest they keep me longer and delay my arrival at work.

I felt like I was watching the most horrific drama unfolding, and none of that drama was because of the cancer each of us face.  The problems all related to the broken, profit-first, U.S. healthcare system controlled almost entirely by corporate interests.  Cancer patients worried about money, jobs, and insurance coverage.  And nurses handling four patients at a time – all of whom needed a different sort of human understanding and care – try to provide so much compassion, but it really is not possible for them to fix what is so broken.   Emily told me she looked over at me a couple times and that I looked so sad.  She was right, but I hadn’t realized it showed.

I read a good piece recently about single-payer reform and how it would improve access to cancer care.  “A study from the journal Health Affairs found that those enrolled in Medicare, the national single-payer plan, had fewer problems obtaining needed medical care, less financial hardship and higher satisfaction scores than those in private plans.”  Read the whole piece.

But in the infusion center, I couldn’t help but think how different this scene would be for us all if we had that system we deserve to give one another – Medicare for all for life.  There would have been worries and fear.  But those worries would surround getting better and stronger and fighting the cancer, not worrying about the insurance company, the costs of medications, and employers who might just not want cancer patients as employees.    The Los Angeles Times reported this week that a bill to allow states to move toward such a plan is pending.  “In California's case, it would make coverage available to the roughly 7 million people now lacking health insurance.”  But that’s still a long way from reality in the cancer center where I was, and for millions of us all over this nation.

Donna Smith is a community organizer for National Nurses United (the new national arm of the California Nurses Association) and National Co-Chair for the Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.

So You'd Like Me to Contribute to the Democratic Campaign? Then Make Them Wear Diapers

May 28, 2012 by Common Dreams

So You'd Like Me to Contribute to the Democratic Campaign?  Then Make Them Wear Diapers

by John Atcheson

You get them.  The letters from Obama or Debbie Wasserman Schultz.  The calls from state Democratic candidates telling you what’s at stake.  

They show up around election time with increasing frequency – sort of like Obama’s speeches about “change,” and his embrace of progressive principles. 

In 2007, I gave what was for me, a lot.  And I ended up feeling like Charlie Brown after Lucy snatches the football away – fooled again. 

No more.

Mr. Obama, Ms. Wasserman Shultz, Mr. Reid and the rest of you, here’s what you have to do to get my money this time.  And you’d better start now.

Stand for something besides compromise

You may not have noticed it, but Republicans aren’t interested in governing.  They don’t believe in government.  What they want is power and the reason they want it is to protect their plutocratic funders from a viable government.  Trying to compromise with them is like trying to leap the Grand Canyon in ten-foot increments. 

What should you stand for?

Us.  The 99% of Americans who are getting shut out of the American Dream.

Start with the Budget4All introduced by the Progressive Caucus.  It’s fair; it lays the groundwork for a broadly shared prosperity; and it balances the budget years before the for-the-1%-only budget Paul Ryan and the Republicans advocate.

Making this the defining issue of the next election is not only ethically right, it’s politically smart.  Who wouldn’t want to highlight the fact that the Republicans are proposing to increase the deficit by advocating million dollar tax cuts for millionaires while raising taxes on the poor even while they whine about the deficit?

Talk about a winning issue.  A defining issue.  Trickle down “take ten” vs. shared responsibility and shared prosperity.

However, it can only be a defining issue if you are, in fact, different.  But your desire to feed at the same corporate trough as the Republicans makes you indistinguishable from them.  Do you really think being a pale doppelganger to crazed ideologues and plutocratic prisoners is good politics? 

Run on Values, not Policies

Split-the-difference policies are what crushed the Democratic Party in 2010.   Obama’s health care bill, his approach to budget reform, his strategy for regulating banks and Wall Street, hisenergy policy  -- all are examples of tactics over values. 

This sends a message to voters that -- to Democrats -- nothing is sacred.  While Democrats play Monty Hall on “Let’s Make a Deal,” Republicans talk about the sanctity of the free market, our Founder’s belief in a Christian nation; the “right to life”, the need for small (actually weak) government.  Ironically, their values rhetoric is an empty facade, while the progressive policies you run from are substantive, and supported by the majority of Americans. 

Tell people that government has been and can be a force for good.  That it is usually more efficient than the private sector, that it has been a critical partner in achieving national prosperity, that it protects against corporate tyranny and secures the rights of citizens in a world in which moneyed interests are the new totalitarians and the real threat to our freedom. 

Confront? But We Might Lose

Maybe, at least initially.  The Republicans have run essentially unopposed for 30 years now, so restoring sanity to our national debate might take a while. 

But hell, is gutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment compensation, student loans and similar programs really winning?  Never mind the politics.  The fact of the matter is that these programs keep medical costs down, stimulate the economy, assure for our common welfare, create a world class workforce and do it at a much lower cost than the private sector does or could.

And is dismantling the New Deal programs that brought some 40 years of unprecedented and shared prosperity to the vast majority of Americans really winning? 

Is allowing the steady and inexorable take-over of our country by corporate interests to continue unopposed a success? 

Can pre-emptive capitulation ever be a victory?

Make them Wear Diapers

In an era of he-said-she-said reporting in which the media acts as a mute, blind stenographer, mindlessly repeating what either side says, it might seem difficult to envision a meaningful debate.

But assuring one is really quite simple.  Republicans have abused the filibuster, using it to shut down votes more often than at any time in modern history. 

In times past, if a Party wanted to filibuster, they had to take the floor and hold it.  In fact, it was known as taking to the diaper, because bathroom breaks often weren’t an option. 

It’s time to make them wear Depends – it’s time to make them debate issues like defending the right of the rich to get more tax breaks; protecting corporate interests over those of the citizens; to expose the whole drown the beast strategy for what it is – the evisceration of government for the sake of the rich and powerful.

It’s time to make them stand amidst the stench of their own immoral argument as it mingles with the similar stench from their stale diaper.

Oh, and don’t try snapping that football away this time.  Even Charlie Brown wises up after he’s been screwed enough times.

John Atcheson is author of the novel, A Being Darkly Wise, an eco-thriller and Book One of a Trilogy centered on global warming. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the San Jose Mercury News and other major newspapers. Atcheson’s book reviews are featured on Climateprogess.org.

Democracy is not just an ideal, it is an act of the individual fully committed to the community.

Monday, May 28, 2012 by Schools Matter blog

The States: More Bully Politics of Education Reform

by P. L. Thomas

From South Carolina to New Jersey to Wisconsin—and all across the U.S.—universal public education is under assault by the bully politics of education reform.

In my home state of South Carolina, Governor Haley and Superintendent Zais, neither of whom have experience or expertise in education, are seeking to attack unions (although SC is a non-union, right-to-work state), increase education testing through adopting Common Core State Standards, deprofessionalize teachers through new accountability and merit-pay schemes, and cripple public schools by endorsing expanded choice initiatives.

Tractenberg details a similar pattern in New Jersey:

"Gov. Chris Christie wastes no opportunity to trash Newark’s public schools. His assaults continued recently at a national school choice conference, where he and odd-couple partner Mayor Cory Booker were featured speakers. "Aside from Christie’s well-known penchant for confrontation, there are two big problems with his attacks. "First, he insists on citing “facts” that are either flat-out wrong or cherry-picked to emphasize the worst in Newark’s schools. An education expert recently questioned why those promoting school choice often use the best charter schools to characterize all charter schools and the worst regular public schools to characterize all those schools."

The situation is even more grim in Wisconsin, home of the relentless Governor Walker:

"Walker is the archetypical bully. He has plenty of insecurities as a possible suspect in a John Doe case and as a college dropout--which necessitates his attacks on the 'liberal' academics. Self-esteem issues explain his need to repeatedly remind us how 'courageous' he has been and how he is like Ronald Reagan. Walker, like most bullies, yearns for status—which explains his national speaking tour. Most blatantly bullying is Walker’s 'divide and conquer' management style (openly advertised to one of his billionaire campaign donors)." "No group is better skilled at handling bullies, like Walker, than public educators. Teachers have much experience managing bullies in schools. We are trained in anti-bullying tactics. We have intervened in bullying situations and we advise our students on how to counter bullying. It is now time for Wisconsin’s teachers to embrace what we teach our students."

Steve Strieker, then, calls for a response in Wisconsin that every educator should heed: "Public educators must not be bystanders to Walker’s bullying." Part of the action educators must take is to identify the hypocrisy and lack of credibility coming from the current leaders in the call to reform schools along "no excuses" and corporate ideologies.

Bully Bravado Masks Inexperience, No Expertise, and Hypocrisy

Presidents, Secretaries of Education, Governors, and State Superintendents of Education historically and currently have used their bully pulpits to speak to and directly influence public education in the U.S. and in each state. In the twenty-first century, billionaires, millionaires, athletes, and celebrities have increasingly joined those political leaders by adopting education as their hobby. Among all of these elites, several patterns expose their combined failure to understand the problems facing and solutions needed for education—despite their elitist status that allows them power and prestige in the education debate. Those patterns expose these leaders' hypocrisy and lack of credibility and include the following:

• Most of these leaders experienced educational advantages unlike the schools they hope to create by dismantling public schools. Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, and Mitt Romney, for example, enjoyed the luxury of low student-teacher ratios, but claim class size doesn't matter (although class size does matter). The hypocrisy of the "no excuses" reformers reveals that these people living in privilege have a different standard for other people's children.

• Most of these leaders have never taught a day in their lives, and have no background in education other than their appointments and self-proclamations as educators. Sal Khan—like Duncan, Gates, and the governors across the nation—for example, has been anointed "educator" and "innovator" without having ever taught, without holding any degrees in education.

• Most of these leaders have either a weak or nonexistent grasp on the current knowledge and research-base for teaching and learning. Further, like Christie, when these reformers call on evidence, they either cherry-pick, distort, or misrepresent the data. Recently, Superintendent Zais (SC) discounted paying teachers for years of experience or advanced degrees since, as he claimed, those two characteristic do not correlate positively with higher student test scores. But Zais does endorse merit pay, value-added methods of teacher evaluation, charter schools, and vouchers/tuition tax credits—all of which have the same correlation with higher student test scores as his claim about experience and advanced degrees.

With these patterns in mind, educators must consider directly the situation in Wisconsin, where a recall highlights the power of action, and possibly highlights yet again the negative influence of passive educators.

Wisconsin, along with SC and New Jersey, is not just one state in the union, but a very real crucible of democracy. Educators and citizens across the U.S. must not ignore that an attack on public schools, public school teachers, and public school students is an attack on democracy.

Democracy is not just an ideal, it is an act of the individual fully committed to the community.