College, University Leaders Testify on College Affordability

Senator Tom Harkins Senator Micheal Enzi    

July 19, 2012

Washington, DC

The Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pension Committee holds a hearing on strategies for controlling the cost of a college degree.

This hearing, chaired by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), is seeking to highlight strategies and current practices for keeping college costs down.

Panelists/Witness
Don Heller, dean of the College of Education at Michigan State University; Steven Leath, president of Iowa State University; Jim Murdaugh, president of Tallahassee Community College; Thomas J. Snyder, president of Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington, Ind.; and Carol Twigg, president and CEO of the National Center for Academic Transformation, a group that focuses on the use of technology in education, testified.

Witnesses included representatives from both large state schools and small community colleges.
Tuition at four-year universities have increased exponentially since 1980, and the average student graduates with around $20,000 in student loan debt. For students at private colleges, the total can often be several times that.

For public universities and community colleges, the budget crises in many states have led to lower state funding and higher tuition bills for students. In an address to the National Governors Association last weekend, Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged the governors to address the issue.
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We will provide Senator Harkins and his committee with observations and encouragements by July 26, 2012.  It is within the 10-Day window that the committee takes comments.

We WELCOME YOUR input at:  mpapublicpolicyreview@gmail.com. 
You can listen to this informative hearing by CLICK.

Urban Commerce Councils seeks People, History and data for Urban Health Care engine

DETROIT, MI (MPA) - On Friday, July 13, 2012, Milwaukee Professionals Association changed the name of MKE Commerce Council to Urban Commerce Councils to help promote infrastructurally the Affordable Health Care Act.

On Monday, July 16, 2012, Detroit, Michigan, the emphasis for unpacking the URBAN HEALTH CARE initiative is to focus on large urban areas where African American, People of Color and Work Challenged (un-, under-employed; un-, under-degreed and certificated; un-, under-financed neighborhood-level business; disabled; and re-entry - especially those returning from WAR, INCARCERATION, BOOMERANG EMPLOYMENT, BOOMERANG RETIREMENT and DEGREED students without employment) are densely populated.

"We know that the target populations have been by-design without health care and have created history with behaviors that are not attached to Wellness. The focus is on just the opposite of what has not been a mainstay. It includes: Education-Education-Education for Phase I", said Mary Glass, Chair/CEO, Milwaukee Professionals Association

UPDATE - Safety Matters Exploratory Team USA hits 201

MILWAUKEE (MPA) - July 17, 2012, Milwaukee Professionals Association recognizes its premier Facebook page and its increasingly growing number since removing the PAUSE from Safety Matters Exploratory Team USA on June 25, 2012.

On July 1, 2012 - 100 Facebook Friends.
Today, July 17, 2012 - 201Facebook Friends and growing as we type.

The recruitment of this Facebook page is for Academics (high school, technical, 4-year, graduate and certificated). We also seek balance with alums, professionals. businesses, candidates and legislators.

There are 10 elected, candidate and former supervisor. They are:

• WI Secretary of State Doug La Follett
• WI Representative Christine Sinicki - District 20
• WI JoCasta Zamarripa - District 8
• Supervisor Nikiya Harris - District 2
• Supervisor Russell Stamper II - District 5
• Supervisor Peggy Romo West - District 12
• Alderman Jim Bohls, District 5
• Alderman Anthony Zielinski - District 14
• Former Supervisor Eyon Biddle Sr. - District 10
• Candidate Delta Triplett - Senate District 6

There are 40 universities/colleges and 16 high schools represented so far.

The two websites for the premier Facebook page are:
www.mpapublicpolicyreview.blogspot.com
www.safetymattersexploratoryteam.blogspot.com

MPA REWIND - URBAN HEALTH CARE - Learn, Learn, Learn

CLICK for President Obama Tutorial

USA - July 13, 2012 is the day Milwaukee Professionals Association and Urban Health Care hit the road.

No one, no family, no neighborhood, no city, no state, no nation can be prosperous if the flock is NOT well.

We know from day-to-day reports, advertisements and monitoring our feelings that we have a "health disparity" in America. For Urban cities that have enduring concentrated poverty, it is equivalent to 3rd World countries.

Well, on March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama, 44th President, signed into the Affordable Health Care law. YAHOO!

He used a hefty amount of his political power to do it; but he did.
Now, the People must step up and "fine-tuned" the points that were prevented by those on the Republican side of the idle-aisle. We must take the ball and run with it to the goal.

The unrealistic "all-or-nothing" stalemate implemented by the Republicans, left parts of the Affordable Health Care "in need" of serious tinkering. Republicans have acted like disgruntle children on a ball field expecting privilege - calling for privilege and at the same time disrespecting the game, attendees and procedures of play. The referee/coach/parent or head person in charge have to take charge by removing the unnecessary barriers, bullying, mean-spiritedness and interject reasoning and reasonableness for ALL.

On June 28, 2012, the United States Supreme Court, 5-4 decision, upheld the Affordable Heath Care Law.

With the GO light on, it is up to those head persons in charge, the People-in mass taxpayers, to help ensure that the game is played fair with compliance, risk management, quality control and changes where needed to improve our National Healthcare law.

What Can WE do?
For starters, we can learn as much as possible about what is on the table - what is in the law.

No. 1 - View/Listen to the tutorial by President Obama more than twice for better understanding.
No. 2 - See that adult members of your family also review the tutorial more than twice for understanding.
No. 3 - Talk it over with the family for comparison of ideas, discussing facts and understanding your health care rights.
No. 4 - Talk it over with your health care providers and compare your notes.
No. 5 - Be sure information that is shared is accurate.
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CLICK - Get Started

MPA's Rewind - HYPOCRISY - Penn State Today - How long before UW Regents?

July 12, 2012

Today, we hear from the Board of Regents/Trustees and President of Penn State, in a "let's be honorable, trustworthy and transparency is the key mode".

This was not the regents/board and president (their) position when the NEWS first came out and even after it was out.

It appeared that "cover-up", silence and disregard of the errored leadership of those selected to monitor for the People.

The report shows incompetence, lack or Risk Management, and Compliance for starters.
The troubling details, Coach Joe Paterno - mascot/high paid deceased coach, Jerry Sandusky - the recently court-tried child molester, conflict of interest factors with others, greed and lack of Code of Conduct is layed out as a result of the investigation

How Long before the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN REGENTS & UW- MILWAUKEE CHANCELLOR are next?

When the powerful wrong are entrenched, they begin to crumble by the foolish though t that they are: "too big to fail and too big to jail. The arrogance and bad conduct is LOCKSTEP.

It is deadlock, until the moment of truth catches up with them all. Then, it is the complete unraveling of the scams, the greed, the misrepresentation of the truth, stealing from the People, the cronyism, the conflict of interest, the bullying the brutality, the fraud, abuse, the disregard - the DISCRIMINATION.

Milwaukee Professionals Association has asked the U. S. Office of Justice for a widespread wrong behavior investigation that starts with failure to fufill Wisconsin State Statute 36 and widespread "by-design" DISCRIMINATION against African American and People of Color in the city of Milwaukee.
An investigation that will look at massive $$millions of government funding through administration and state Bill 514 that has excluded African American recruitment of students-professors-advisors and dean.

Redlining the City of Milwaukee for real estate projects, developers and outsourcing employment-studies-projects through alumni and/or donor for hire groups by the Board of Regents, Chancellor Michael Lovell and decison makers has a CULTURE of deceit.

And just as the Penn State scandal, everyone is "lock step" in the wrongdoing.

THEREFORE, they should ALL be brought up on charges of "Derelection of Duty" and other violations surely to be found in a thorough investigation - cronyism in procurement, hiring practices, class placements, training practices, arbitrary and capricious committee decision making, failure to provide public information, conflict of interest and discrimination/bias/stacked deck hiring of Chancellor Michael Lovell.

We call for scrutiny at ALL levels and watch for the by-design disregard for customer care and moral right.
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Just as the Board of Trustees of Penn State turned their heads and enabled the wrongdoing, the same is true with Wisconsin's 18-member Board of Regents, Dr. Kevin Riley - University of WI System President, Chancellor Michael Lovell and Provost Johannes Britz-University of WI - Milwaukee, UW-Milwaukee cabinet, UW- Milwaukee governing staff and UW-Milwaukee Student Association leaders.

                                            Governor Scott Walker   AG JB Van Hollen
Since Milwaukee Professionals Association have gone to and shared wrongdoings of the appointed Board of Regents with two top offices of the state, Governor Scott Walker and the State Attorney Van Hollen, it also brings them up for scrutiny - charges.

Stay tuned - investigations and large suits.

Candidate Delta Triplett - 6th Senate District, Wisconsin

        CANDIDATE DELTA TRIPLETT - 6th District

                                                               About the Candidate
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Wisconsin 6th Senate District Candidate Delta Triplett is sensitive to the needs of his district.

One of those things is the high unemployment rate. Mario Dickens, a local minority business owner addresses his challenges as small urban businesses have a difficult time gaining creative financing to expand, and the need to get people trained, so he can hire them to expand his business. Mario also faces challenges to employ people locally from within Milwaukee’s communities; Instead, he is forced to find skilled talent from outside of the county, and as far as New York. Thus the need for Delta’s solution for these businesses to partner with Milwaukee Public Schools to train and educate a diverse, talented workforce in which companies’ like Mario’s can draw from. This will also increase the quality in education Milwaukee Public Schools delivers to our children.

Take Action: Volunteer and Vote for Delta on Aug. 14th., 2012 for Jobs, Educational Excellence, and Community Growth.

 

Schacknow - Today's Brief, July 5, 2012

July 5, 2012
TODAYS PRIMER
Peter Schacknow, Senior Producer, CNBC Breaking News Desk

Wall Street resumes its holiday-shortened trading week this morning with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq coming off gains in three straight sessions and five of six. The recent rise in the major averages has the Dow, the S&P, and the Nasdaq all at their highest levels since early May.

It’s a busy day for economic numbers as investors go back to work, with no less than three reports on the state of the nation’s labor market. At 7:30am ET, we’ll see the Challenger report on planned job cuts for June, followed by the ADP report on private sector employment at 8:15am ET, and the Labor Department’s weekly look at initial jobless claims at 8:30am ET. Economists think the ADP report will show 108,000 new private sector jobs in June, compared to 133,000 in May, while jobless claims are expected to come in at 385,000 for the week ending June 30, down from 386,000 the prior week.

At 10am ET, the Institute For Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index should come in at 53.0 for June, according to consensus forecasts. That would follow a reading of 53.7 for May.

Also out today: the Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly look at mortgage applications at 7am ET, the Energy Department’s assessment of natural gas inventories at 10:30am ET, and its report on oil and gasoline inventories at 11am ET. The reports on mortgage applications and oil and gasoline inventories were postponed from their usual Wednesday release by the July 4th holiday.

Investors will be paying closer attention than usual to interest rate announcements from the Bank of England (7am ET) and the European Central Bank (7:45am ET) this morning. The BOE is expected to announce a third round of economic stimulus measures, while the ECB is widely forecast to cut its benchmark interest rate 25 basis points to 0.75 percent.

Barclays (BCS) is once again a stock to watch, as Moody’s cuts its outlook for the bank because of the disruption caused by the Libor-fixing scandal. Barclays’ standalone financial strength has been lowered to “negative” from “stable”.

Apple (AAPL) has suffered a court defeat in a case involving Taiwan’s HTC, with a London court ruling that HTC’s devices do not infringe Apple patents.

Best Buy (BBY) is said to be testing a new design strategy for smaller stores that borrow heavily from the look of Apple’s retail outlets, according to the Journal.

Ad agency stocks like WPP Group (WPPGY), Interpublic Group (IPG), Omnicom (OMC) and Monster Worldwide (MWW) might draw some interest, after French agency Publicis Groupe announced a deal to buy rival BBH and its partly owned Brazilian affiliate for an undisclosed price.

4th of July - Independence Day, 19th of June - Independence Day, Why?

July 4, 1776 and June 19, 1865The United States of America celebrates their independence on the fourth of July each year to commemorate its separation from England. Most people know that, but why we celebrate the  Declaration of Independence and why its so important they may not know. Here is a closer look at why we celebrate the Declaration of Independence.
Imagine if you will, for a moment what it might be like to always have someone else telling you what to do, where and how to live, and especially what to wear? How would that make you feel? Somewhat childish and a bit rebellious I presume. You may even find yourself doing absurd things to make your point well known that you were not going to be ruled by someone else; after all, it is a free country.

Well, before the Declaration of Independence it wasn’t a free country, and colonists felt angry toward Great Britain for always imposing taxes on them and basically telling them how they should live. They no longer wanted to be under British rule and so began starting to make their own government and rules.

The Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and appointed a committee of five men to work on a draft of the declaration.

The committee is known today as The Committee Of Five. The committee consisted of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.

Thomas Jefferson was delegated by the committee to singly write the Declaration although Adams and Benjamin Franklin made many revisions before it was finally submitted to Congress on June 28, 1776.

The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776 and signed by the President of the Continental Congress, John Hancock.

So the main reason why we celebrate the Declaration of Independence on the fourth of July is because that was the day it was adopted by the colonies and essentially the day that the United States of America was born.

That was the day in history that the United States became a free and independent state from England.

For More
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                       January 1, 1863 AND June 19, 1865
Now, imagine if you will, how African Americans must have felt being SLAVES - being told what, when, where and how much from July 4, 1776 - June 19, 1865. Being treated as less than Caucasian.

Being enslaved for 87 years after the Declaration of Independence (1776 - 1863).

Being enslaved for an additional 2 1/2 years(1865) until Texas was notified that the war had ended.

For African Americans, Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States.

Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19^th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free.

Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863.

The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order.

However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

For More

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If Americans became FREE on July 4, 1776.
Then, why on June 19, 1865, Juneteenth Day, were African American said to be FREE?

Why on July 4, 2012, African American are yet seeking to be FREE?

Think about it - really think about it.

the Gao Kao, or college entrance examination of china gets Examination

BEIJING, CHINA - The test that can determine the rest of a high school student graduate's life is called the Gao Koa.  It is the  prerequisite for entrance to almost all higher education in China.  The test is given in early June of the year.
Recently, the highly revered exam has received criticism.

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Students arrived for the first day of the college entrance test in June in Wuhan, Hubei Province.

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Global Competitiveness
There are fewer slots than there are available graduates.  This year there were over 9 million HS graduates for 7 million higher ED slots.

There is a quota bias system that favor students who live in the larger cities vs rural areas.
The tests are given for 2-3 days.
Students take the test very seriously.  In fact, in the video you will see a young man named Yang who has been studying 13 hours for 7 days a week for 365 days.

You will also see a young man named Gao who has options outside of China due to his family's wealth - they are accountants.  They have allotted $40K a year for their son to study aboard - Therefore, he will not take the Gao Koa test. 

Both Yang and Gao have parents that have given much for their son to advance.
It appears that both of the families are a family that is single-male child.

Yang's parents are not able to send him abroad for study.  They have already invested in an apartment cost for him in high school so he would not have to take much time in travel from studying.

Back to America
Either one of these young men would run rings around any and all of the students here in America.  It speaks to the location of America's school achievement, but more to the priorities and efficiencies we have in place for the population to serve. 

Because America yet has a hype from its legacy, student yet come here for higher education.
for those who can pay big bucks, they are advanced to the front of the line.  It allows well-off students from China to buy a spot in America's higher education universities for the right price.

University of WI - Milwaukee
The University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Chancellor and Provost visited China last of 2011 and signed an agreement to create a "special" training component for some of the Chinese students that can afford to come - no doubt similar to Gao.

The  problem with the revenue streaming, Chancellor Michael Lovell and Provost Johannes Blitz went 6506 miles to Beijing, China and have refused to created a pipeline (2.1 miles) to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to ensure that Milwaukeeans, who pay taxes and entitled to a public education, state statute 36, get a competitive education.

Do they think the Chinese students are coming and not going to return home to empower their family and country values.

This is another version of those in places of TRUST, failing to provide principled-centered leadership while " walking and chewing gum".  UW Regents, Chancellor Lovell and Provost Blitz are moving Wisconsin, especially Milwaukeeans to the fiscal, education and technology cliff.

Yes.  We know about the economy.  That's the point.
Yes.  We know about what Governor Scott Walker has proposed and done.
Yes.  We know revenue is a concern.  But, UW-Milwaukee was put in place to "grow-our-own" as a way of sustaining our state.   The last time I checked, we owe a debt that is in the "trillions".  Training others and failing to train your own is "derelection  of duty", "abandonment" and "greed" - we see this with the banks.

View video
 Full Article

Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 - postponed until March, 2013

U.S. Rep. Hansen Clarke (D-Michigan) stands with over 1 million signatures in support of the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, which he introduced to the House in March.

USA CONGRESS - Both houses of Congress decided to extend a cap on student loans Friday, June 29, 2012, but Congressman Hansen Clarke (D-Detroit) said the move is little more than a band-aid -- one that doesn't change anything for Americans dealing with debilitating student debt.

The measure, which passed as part of a larger transportation bill, fixes federally subsidized student loans interest rates at 3.4 percent for another year.

The can is now kicked down the road until March, 2013.
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Rep. Clarke introduced/attached this amendment to the Higher Education Act of 1965.
His amendment is called H.R. 4170- The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 201.
For summary of Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, CLICK.

Full article

Milwaukee Professionals Association Premier Facebook page reaches 100 Friends

Today, at 4:30pm, JULY 1, 2012, Safety Matters Exploratory Team USA Facebook Friends reached 100. We added a list of 17 individuals and 1 organization for the 100 mark. YAHOO! 
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We are excited to reach this milestone after REMOVING the over 3-month PAUSE on June 25, 2012. 

Safety Matters Exploratory Team USA Facebook is:
Milwaukee Professionals Association Premier Facebook page.  It's direct website link is:  Safety Matters Exploratory Team (www.safetymattersexploratoryteam.blogspot.com).

Safety Matters Exploratory Team USA Facebook has an interesting list of individuals and organizations that have befriended the Facebook site.  They include high school students, college level students, advocates, union members, elected officials, university faculty, progressives, entrepreneurs, leaders and friends.

The site recruits:

•  high school, 2-year, 4-year, graduate and certified individuals that supports academic, technology and practicum attainment. 
• young adults that represent hidden talent at the neighborhood level in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to plug into Innovative events, programs and projects for CASE LEARNING.
• individuals that seek inclusiveness and fairness in the public square.
• not so young individuals that are professionals at their vocation and avocation.