According to Rafael Reuveny, a professor at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Bloomington, the entire negotiation in Congress is “politics as usual” and meant to stall or defeat vital climate change legislation.

“We are trying to win this fight for our lives through consensus. Such compromise will never materialize — not in this country and not internationally,” said Reuveny, co-author of Complex Transformations: Democracy and Economic Openness in an Interconnected System (Cambridge University Press, 2009). “No matter how often President Obama pleads for it, bipartisanship has become a joke. So, while the two sides continue this ridiculous game, Rome — read: the planet — is burning.”

Reuveny said it’s imperative that President Obama bypass this unproductive haggling. “He must issue an Executive Order to the Environmental Protection Agency to immediately implement a system that will cut greenhouse emissions of the American economy by meeting the goals set by the Waxman-Markey bill passed by the House in 2009,” he said. “He should also order the EPA to design an all-inclusive command and control system of greenhouse emission quotas and monitoring to be backed by severe and immediate penalties on units that would emit more than their allotted amount.

“During his State of the Union address, President Obama made a bold move calling out Supreme Court judges, declaring their decision could enable U.S. and foreign corporations to determine our elections,” Reuveny said. “Surely, the president realizes that his opportunity to affect this crisis is coming to an end as energy-consuming corporations gain even more political power. An executive order is the only solution.”

Reuveny’s research focuses on political conflict and how it interacts with international trade, democracy, migration, and the environment. He is the co-author of “Climatic Natural Disasters, Political Risk, and International Trade” (Global Environmental Change, forthcoming) and the author of “Exploring the Link between Climate Change and Migration” (Human Ecology, 2008) and “Climate Change Induced Migration and Violent Conflict” (Political Geography, 2007).

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Miami, Houston and New York had higher scores than Chicago on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Boston, San Diego and Atlanta had bigger gains. Even fourth-graders in the much-maligned D.C. schools improved nearly twice as much since 2003.

The federal readout is just one measure of Duncan’s record as chief executive of the nation’s third-largest system. Others show advances on various fronts. But the new math scores signal that Chicago is nowhere near the head of the pack in urban school improvement, even though Duncan often cites the successes of his tenure as he crusades to fix public education.

“Chicago is not the story of an education miracle,” said Chester E. Finn Jr. of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank in Washington. “It is, however, the story of a large urban system that has made some gains and has made some promising structural changes.”

For more than seven years, starting in 2001, Duncan tried to rejuvenate his city’s struggling schools: jettisoning staff, hiring turnaround specialists, shutting down those deemed beyond hope. He pushed a back-to-basics curriculum, spawned dozens of charter schools and experimented with performance pay. State and federal test scores and graduation rates rose on his watch, and Chicago became a laboratory for innovation. As a result, the reputation of its schools has improved markedly since 1987, when an earlier education secretary, William Bennett, called them the worst in the country.

‘Focused on outcomes’

Yet questions have arisen this year about the magnitude of Duncan’s accomplishments. The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, which represents business, professional, education and cultural leaders, concluded in June that gains on state test scores were inflated when Illinois relaxed passing standards and that too many students still drop out of high school or graduate unprepared for college. The Consortium on Chicago School Research, a nonpartisan group at the University of Chicago, reported in October that Duncan’s closure of low-performing schools often shuffled students into comparable schools, yielding little or no academic benefit.

“Obviously, you always want to get better faster,” Duncan said in an interview when asked about the federal math scores. “I was focused on outcomes — improving graduation rates, making sure that students who graduated had a chance to pursue higher ed. You can have the best test scores in the world, but if kids aren’t going that next step, you’re not changing their lives.”

Duncan also said he had adjusted his school closure policy a few years ago to ensure better opportunities for students. He said that he was unhappy that the state had relaxed passing standards and that graduation rates remain unacceptable. About half of Chicago students fail to graduate on time with their peers.

In January, Duncan said at his Senate confirmation hearing: “We’re proud to have made significant progress . . . and to really be a model of national reform. But again, hard work is going to continue there and is far from done.”

In the interview, Duncan said he is careful not to exaggerate his record. Critics, however, say his legacy is routinely overblown.

“There’s been this rhetoric about dramatic gains, dramatic success, that we have to replicate this model because of its dramatic success,” said Julie Woestehoff of the advocacy group Parents United for Responsible Education. “And here in Chicago, we’re looking at these schools and going, ‘Uh . . . ‘ ”

In 2003, President George W. Bush’s education secretary, Rod Paige, faced similar, perhaps stronger, criticism when his much-highlighted record as leader of Houston’s schools in the 1990s came under scrutiny. Questions were raised that year about the reliability of Houston’s reported dropout rates.

Duncan’s record is of more than historical interest. He wields considerable power through the combination of his Chicago connections, shared with President Obama, and his oversight of billions of dollars in reform funding. The Education Department is dangling an unprecedented $3.5 billion in grants for school systems to turn around weak schools and $4 billion for states to pursue innovation.

With 418,000 students in 675 schools, Chicago faces challenges on a scale exceeded only in Los Angeles and New York. Eighty-five percent of students come from poor families, and 12 percent have limited English skills.

Tours in a handful of Chicago schools this month found educators pushing against formidable obstacles to establish a climate of learning. For some, simply asserting control over a campus represents a big victory.

In the North Lawndale neighborhood west of downtown, dotted by decaying rowhouses and apartments, Johnson Elementary School was given a new staff this year and renamed the Johnson School of Excellence. Duncan, in one of his last actions before leaving Chicago, proposed the restart in January because of the school’s perennially low test scores. The nonprofit Academy for Urban School Leadership, which pairs master’s degree candidates with teaching mentors in a residency program, runs the school and 13 others under contract. Johnson serves 300 students from pre-K through grade 8.

In the last school year, officials said, police were called to the campus nearly every day to deal with angry parents or disruptive students.

“It was a war scene,” said Jennifer Earthley, mother of a fourth-grader and a fan of the new regime. “The administrators were afraid of the children. The children did what they wanted to do. We have been on the low end for a long time. All we have been looking for is a passionate group of people who care.”

Now, attendance is up and fights are down. Students are drilled on respect, manners and lining up in the halls. In one fourth-grade classroom, teacher Katelyn Funderburk counted “5-4-3-2-1″ after asking students to pull out their textbooks. “Steven Earthley got it opened fast and folded his hands,” she said. “Thank you.”

Hitting the reset button

At William R. Harper High School in West Englewood, loudspeakers blared the theme to “Beverly Hills Cop” one afternoon and students swirled in the hallways as the principal shooed stragglers to class. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” Kenyatta Stansberry called out. “Y’all are going to be late. Let’s go, baby! You need to run!”

The 700-student school, in an area blighted with crime and boarded-up houses, had fallen on hard times when Stansberry took over in 2007. She said she spent much of her first year dashing to altercations — the intercom alert “10-10 on 2,” for example, would mean a fight on the second floor — and extracting the campus from the Crash Town gang’s grip.

Then Duncan hit the reset button (another purge a decade earlier had failed to yield much improvement). Stansberry stayed, although most of the staff was let go. She was given extra resources, including three deans to help manage students, money for gifts and incentives, and a reading catch-up program. Misconduct fell, attendance rose and test scores edged up a bit. More ninth-graders were rated on track to receive a diploma.

Neighborhood troubles remain a deep concern. Stansberry said four of her students died violently off campus in the last school year. Such killings became a national issue this fall after a student, Derrion Albert, was beaten to death near Christian Fenger Academy High School on the city’s South Side. Duncan returned to Chicago in October with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to pledge a campaign against youth violence.

As if in solidarity with that goal, posters of Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. flank the whiteboard in English teacher Fadia Afaneh’s room at Harper. She high-fived her ninth-graders as they placed commas correctly in sentences, transforming street lingo into standard English. Much of what she teaches is remedial, Afaneh said, but she is determined to help students advance. First, she teaches them to write a complete sentence. Then, a paragraph.

“Basically, all kids deserve an excellent education,” she said, “and that doesn’t always happen in this country. I know.”

Read Answer Sheet blogger Valerie Strauss on why Arne Duncan’s record from Chicago matters.

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“She has written critically about legal opinions under Bush that addressed the war in Iraq, interrogation methods, a military tribunal system denying certain rights to detainees captured in the war on terrorism and Bush’s use of presidential signing statements to ignore provisions of new law.”

(Indystar.com) The nomination of the Indiana University professor tapped by President Barack Obama to become a top legal adviser has effectively been tabled by Congress.

The Bloomington Herald-Times reported that Dawn Johnsen is one of six nominees who failed to receive a vote before the Senate recessed this month. Without a vote or action to carry over the nomination to the next session, it is up to the White House to decide whether to renominate the candidates or consider some other action.

The president has made no statement about his intentions on the issue.
The IU law professor was an ardent critic of the Department of Justice during the two terms of President George W. Bush. She joined IU in 1998 after spending five years at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, including two years as its acting assistant attorney general.

Obama had nominated her to head that office.

Her husband, John Hamilton, served on the board of Monroe County Community Schools and is president of City First Enterprises, which invests in neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. Hamilton headed the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the Family and Social Services Administration under then-Gov. Frank O’Bannon.
Reached by the Herald-Tribune on Tuesday afternoon as he shepherded nieces and nephews around the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., he said he couldn’t speculate on what the administration’s decision might be regarding renominating his wife, but he chose to remain hopeful.

“We’re enjoying our vacation,” he said, “looking forward to health care being done, and looking forward to the conformation process continuing.”
Johnsen and her family have moved to Washington, and she has commuted between there and Bloomington in recent months.

Johnsen was nominated last January and approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a vote along party lines in March, but she never received a vote by the full Senate.

The Senate approved 30 Obama appointees before the session ended, but failed to act on six, according to the Washington Post. The other five are Christopher Schroeder and Mary Smith as assistant attorney generals, Louis Butler and Edward Chen for the U.S. District Courts and Craig Becker for the National Labor Relations Board.

The native New Yorker’s politics lean to the left — Johnsen once was the legal director of NARAL Pro-Choice America — and in recent years, she has devoted her advocacy to concerns about terrorism policies under Bush.

Johnsen challenged attempts to regulate abortion in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and her stance on the issue may have drawn opposition from social conservatives in the Senate.

Saying “no,” Johnsen told her students, is the most important role for a lawyer advising the White House on the boundaries of presidential power.

She has written critically about legal opinions under Bush that addressed the war in Iraq, interrogation methods, a military tribunal system denying certain rights to detainees captured in the war on terrorism and Bush’s use of presidential signing statements to ignore provisions of new laws.

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According to Pollster.com, a Web site containing information related to various polls across the nation, the most recent Gallup poll places Obama’s approval rating at 53 percent nationally. This is a 14 percent slide from their first post-inauguration poll, which showed a 67 percent approval rating. Pre-inauguration polls showed approval ratings as high as 83 percent two weeks before taking office.

David Jackson, an associate political science professor at the University, said sliding approval ratings of presidents upon taking office is typical, and to be expected.

“It’s really easy for people to support the president right after getting elected,” he said. “As the president takes office and begins sending proposals to Congress and actually passing legislation, every time [the president] takes a specific position, no matter even if it is really popular, there is a percentage who don’t agree with it.”

While specific reasons for increased national disapproval will likely remain scattered, senior political science major Nathan MacGregor believes that in general, it is due to frustrations over the time and difficulties that arise in enacting promised legislations.

“Everybody wanted change, that’s why we voted for him, and I think most people expected it to be a dramatic change that was going to happen over-night,” he said. “It hasn’t even been quite a year yet since Obama took office and with all the turmoil left to him by the previous administration, it’s been kind of hard for him to turn things around all of a sudden … I’m not expecting immediate change, I’m expecting progressive change.”

A survey administered to 100 University students, meant to measure their attitudes on Obama’s performance and directions, showed a higher propensity to mark his performance as “Average”, receiving 50 percent of responses. Of the outliers to this response, 30 percent graded his performance more positively as either having performed “Very Well” or “Excellent,” compared with 20 percent judging the president more negatively, describing his performance as either “Not Well” or “Poor”.

This higher percentage of positive responses as opposed to negative in the fringe population, suggest a general trend of approval at the University. The majority of students also responded positively with respect to the president’s attunement to issues important to college students as a whole, with 60 percent answering either “Fairly Well” or “Very Well.”

The survey additionally showed more students believed Obama’s greatest accomplishment relevant to them is passing the economic stimulus/recovery act, receiving 40 percent of the vote. Second was his leading the charge for health care reform with 24 percent, and increased federal government tuition assistance was the most commonly reported issue students would like to see the president address while in office to assist them, again followed closely by healthcare reform.

“The economy needs to go up,” MacGregor said. “Students need more money for education and schools need to stop taking so much money from the students because they are not getting enough help from the government.”

However, not all students feel Obama has truly accomplished anything – 8 percent responded the President has accomplished “Nothing” and the economic stimulus/recovery act, according to sophomore Tom Cunningham, has not benefited all students.

“[The stimulus] hasn’t really affected me,” he said, “and if it has, I haven’t seen it.”
Cunningham said he is opposed to most of Obama’s economic policies, believing his spending to be too liberal.
“I find it ironic that he did an interview and he said that we can’t keep spending because it will ruin our economy and our confidence,” he said, “People have been saying that for a year and a half. Get with the program.”

The opinions of the college student demographic could carry significant weight in presidential affairs and future campaign strategies, research suggests.

According to estimates posted on Civicyouth.org by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), the 2008 election rendered the highest participation rate of the 18-29-year-old demographic since 1972. Participation among young voters that year increased for the third consecutive election, narrowly surpassing a fluke spike of participation in 1992 when levels for this demographic reached 52 percent. The rate in 2008 was somewhere between 52 percent and 53 percent compared to 55.4 percent in 1972. Young voters tended to favor Obama 2:1 in that election, making them a significant player in the president’s electing force.

Jackson, MacGregor and Cunningham all cited increased political intertwinement with pop-culture as a likely culprit for increased voting numbers among the nation’s youth.

“I would say it’s probably due to more advertising about campaigns and elections,” MacGregor said, “Even things like MTV, to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are getting the youth more involved in politics through making it more entertaining.”

Whether youth’s current political enthusiasm will continue is hard to say. Jackson said that while presidential elections are effectively drawing in young voters, mid-term elections have not been so fortunate. This is curious, he said, because the smaller midterm elections are those in which an individual’s vote has a more significant impact due to a reduced total voter population.

MacGregor expressed hope for his group’s continued involvement, but admitted this is likely to be largely dependent on which issues are at the forefront at the time and the degree to which they pertain to said demographic.

Survey Stated:
1. How well has Obama performed his duties as President of the United States?
Excellent – 4 %
Very Good – 26 %
Average – 50 %
Not Well – 14 %
Poor – 6 %

2. What has been the biggest accomplishment President Obama has achieved that will affect students the most?
Passing the stimulus/economic recovery bill – 40 %
Leading the charge for universal health care – 24 %
Pulling troops out of Iraq/Initiative to end war in Iraq – 16 %
Other – 24 % (Isolated mentions, insults toward president, other fruitless responses)

3. How in touch do you feel Obama is with issues important to college students?
Very Well – 20 %
Fairly Well – 50 %
Not Well – 32 %
Very Poor – 8 %

4. How much have you kept up with news coverage on the president/politics since last year’s elections?
More than last year – 28 %
About the same – 52 %
Less than last year – 20 %

5. What piece of legislation/law would you like to see passed under Obama to specifically help students?
Increased gov tuition assistance – 36%
Health care reform – 28%
Education reform (generally) – 12%
Other (wide range of single or double mention) -24%

*Total students surveyed: 100. Question five surveyed 50 students. Only half of the students surveyed provided responses.

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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops went behind closed doors at their fall meeting Wednesday to discuss, among other issues, what action they should take to increase oversight of the nation’s more than 200 Roman Catholic colleges and universities.

Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the bishops’ conference, revealed this week that he had formed a task force charged with reviewing the issue. Its research included a look at what church law says about bishops’ authority over the schools.

The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities has planned a similar discussion of canon law and bishops’ authority at the group’s annual meeting, set to begin Jan. 30 in Washington.

“Can bishops just pull the plug on us? It’s not that simple,” said Richard Yanikoski, president of the Catholic college association. He attended a meeting of the bishops’ education committee last Sunday that briefly touched on higher education. He expected the bishops would more fully examine the issue in their executive session.

The decision by Notre Dame, the nation’s flagship Catholic university, to honor Obama at its May commencement caused an uproar within the church and drew protests from around the country and on the school campus by anti-abortion groups.

More than 70 U.S. bishops spoke out against the university’s decision, a remarkable reaction given that it is customary for only a local bishop to comment.

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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been the biggest player by far in the school reform movement, spending around $200 million a year on grants to elementary and secondary education.

Now the foundation is taking unprecedented steps to influence education policy, spending millions to influence how the federal government distributes $5 billion in grants to overhaul public schools.

The federal dollars are unprecedented, too.

President Barack Obama persuaded Congress to give him the money as part of the economic stimulus so he could try new ideas to fix an education system that most agree is failing. The foundation is offering $250,000 apiece to help states apply, so long as they agree with the foundation’s approach.

Obama and the Gates Foundation share some goals that not everyone embraces: paying teachers based on student test scores, among other measures of achievement; charter schools that operate independently of local school boards; and a set of common academic standards adopted by every state.

Some argue that a private foundation like Gates shouldn’t partner with the government.

“When you team up with the government, you compromise your ability to be critical of the government, and sometimes you compromise your ability to do controversial and maybe unpopular things with your money,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of

the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank. The institute, is among the many that have received money from the Gates Foundation.

Another concern is that as a private foundation, Gates doesn’t have to disclose the details of its spending like the government does.

The big teachers’ unions dispute some of the goals shared by Obama and the foundation. They say student achievement is much more than a score on a standardized test and that it’s a mistake to rely so heavily on charter schools.

“Despite growing evidence to the contrary, it appears the administration has decided that charter schools are the only answer to what ails America’s public schools,” the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union, said in comments about the grant competition submitted to the Education Department.

The NEA added: “We should not continue the unhealthy focus on standardized tests as the primary evidence of student success.”

The American Federation of Teachers submitted similar comments. Together the unions have 4.6 million members.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan welcomes the foundation’s involvement.

“The more all of us are in the game of reform, the more all of us are pushing for dramatic improvement, the better,” Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Bill Gates said his foundation is not the government’s partner in the new grant program, which the government has called the “Race to the Top.”

“It’s no secret the U.S. education system is failing,” Gates said. “We’re doing all kinds of experiments that are different. The Race To The Top is going to do many different ones. There’s no group-think.”

By:Libby Quaid

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A “yes” vote was a vote to pass the bill.

Voting yes were 247 Democrats and 6 Republicans.

Voting no were 4 Democrats and 167 Republicans.

X denotes those not voting.

ALABAMA

Democrats — Bright, Y; Davis, Y; Griffith, Y.

Republicans — Aderholt, N; Bachus, N; Bonner, N; Rogers, N.

ALASKA

Republicans — Young, N.

ARIZONA

Democrats — Giffords, Y; Grijalva, Y; Kirkpatrick, Y; Mitchell, Y; Pastor, Y.

Republicans — Flake, N; Franks, N; Shadegg, N.

ARKANSAS

Democrats — Berry, Y; Ross, Y; Snyder, Y.

Republicans — Boozman, N.

CALIFORNIA

Democrats — Baca, Y; Becerra, Y; Berman, Y; Capps, Y; Cardoza, Y; Chu, Y; Costa, X; Davis, Y; Eshoo, Y; Farr, Y; Filner, Y; Harman, Y; Honda, Y; Lee, Y; Lofgren, Zoe, Y; Matsui, Y; McNerney, Y; Miller, George, Y; Napolitano, Y; Pelosi, Y; Pelosi, X (the speaker by tradition often does not vote); Richardson, Y; Roybal-Allard, Y; Sanchez, Linda T., Y; Sanchez, Loretta, Y; Schiff, Y; Sherman, Y; Speier, Y; Stark, Y; Thompson, Y; Waters, Y; Watson, Y; Waxman, Y; Woolsey, Y.

Republicans — Bilbray, N; Bono Mack, N; Calvert, N; Campbell, N; Dreier, N; Gallegly, N; Herger, N; Hunter, N; Issa, N; Lewis, N; Lungren, Daniel E., N; McCarthy, N; McClintock, N; McKeon, N; Miller, Gary, N; Nunes, X; Radanovich, X; Rohrabacher, N; Royce, N.

COLORADO

Democrats — DeGette, Y; Markey, Y; Perlmutter, Y; Polis, Y; Salazar, Y.

Republicans — Coffman, N; Lamborn, N.

CONNECTICUT

Democrats — Courtney, Y; DeLauro, Y; Himes, Y; Larson, Y; Murphy, Y.

DELAWARE

Republicans — Castle, N.

FLORIDA

Democrats — Boyd, N; Brown, Corrine, Y; Castor, Y; Grayson, Y; Hastings, Y; Klein, Y; Kosmas, Y; Meek, Y; Wasserman Schultz, Y; Wexler, Y.

Republicans — Bilirakis, N; Brown-Waite, Ginny, N; Buchanan, Y; Crenshaw, N; Diaz-Balart, L., N; Diaz-Balart, M., N; Mack, N; Mica, N; Miller, N; Posey, N; Putnam, N; Rooney, N; Ros-Lehtinen, Y; Stearns, N; Young, N.

GEORGIA

Democrats — Barrow, Y; Bishop, Y; Johnson, Y; Lewis, Y; Marshall, Y; Scott, Y.

Republicans — Broun, N; Deal, N; Gingrey, N; Kingston, N; Linder, N; Price, N; Westmoreland, N.

HAWAII

Democrats — Abercrombie, X; Hirono, Y.

IDAHO

Democrats — Minnick, Y.

Republicans — Simpson, N.

ILLINOIS

Democrats — Bean, Y; Costello, Y; Davis, Y; Foster, Y; Gutierrez, Y; Halvorson, Y; Hare, Y; Jackson, Y; Lipinski, Y; Quigley, Y; Rush, Y; Schakowsky, Y.

Republicans — Biggert, N; Johnson, Y; Kirk, N; Manzullo, N; Roskam, N; Schock, N; Shimkus, N.

INDIANA

Democrats — Carson, Y; Donnelly, Y; Ellsworth, Y; Hill, Y; Visclosky, Y.

Republicans — Burton, N; Buyer, N; Pence, N; Souder, N.

IOWA

Democrats — Boswell, Y; Braley, Y; Loebsack, Y.

Republicans — King, N; Latham, N.

KANSAS

Democrats — Moore, Y.

Republicans — Jenkins, N; Moran, N; Tiahrt, N.

KENTUCKY

Democrats — Chandler, Y; Yarmuth, Y.

Republicans — Davis, N; Guthrie, N; Rogers, N; Whitfield, N.

LOUISIANA

Democrats — Melancon, Y.

Republicans — Alexander, N; Boustany, N; Cao, Y; Cassidy, N; Fleming, N; Scalise, N.

MAINE

Democrats — Michaud, Y; Pingree, Y.

MARYLAND

Democrats — Cummings, Y; Edwards, Y; Hoyer, Y; Kratovil, Y; Ruppersberger, Y; Sarbanes, Y; Van Hollen, Y.

Republicans — Bartlett, N.

MASSACHUSETTS

Democrats — Capuano, Y; Delahunt, Y; Frank, X; Lynch, Y; Markey, Y; McGovern, Y; Neal, Y; Olver, Y; Tierney, Y; Tsongas, Y.

MICHIGAN

Democrats — Conyers, X; Dingell, Y; Kildee, Y; Kilpatrick, Y; Levin, Y; Peters, Y; Schauer, Y; Stupak, Y.

Republicans — Camp, N; Ehlers, N; Hoekstra, N; McCotter, N; Miller, N; Rogers, N; Upton, N.

MINNESOTA

Democrats — Ellison, Y; McCollum, Y; Oberstar, Y; Peterson, Y; Walz, Y.

Republicans — Bachmann, N; Kline, N; Paulsen, N.

MISSISSIPPI

Democrats — Childers, Y; Taylor, Y; Thompson, Y.

Republicans — Harper, N.

MISSOURI

Democrats — Carnahan, Y; Clay, Y; Cleaver, Y; Skelton, Y.

Republicans — Akin, N; Blunt, N; Emerson, N; Graves, N; Luetkemeyer, N.

MONTANA

Republicans — Rehberg, N.

NEBRASKA

Republicans — Fortenberry, N; Smith, N; Terry, N.

NEVADA

Democrats — Berkley, Y; Titus, Y.

Republicans — Heller, N.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Democrats — Hodes, Y; Shea-Porter, Y.

NEW JERSEY

Democrats — Adler, Y; Andrews, Y; Holt, Y; Pallone, Y; Pascrell, Y; Payne, Y; Rothman, Y; Sires, Y.

Republicans — Frelinghuysen, N; Garrett, N; Lance, N; LoBiondo, N; Smith, N.

NEW MEXICO

Democrats — Heinrich, Y; Lujan, Y; Teague, Y.

NEW YORK

Democrats — Ackerman, Y; Arcuri, Y; Bishop, Y; Clarke, Y; Crowley, Y; Engel, Y; Hall, Y; Higgins, Y; Hinchey, Y; Israel, Y; Lowey, Y; Maffei, Y; Maloney, Y; Massa, Y; McCarthy, Y; McMahon, N; Meeks, Y; Murphy, Y; Nadler, Y; Rangel, Y; Serrano, Y; Slaughter, Y; Tonko, Y; Towns, Y; Velazquez, Y; Weiner, Y.

Republicans — King, N; Lee, N; McHugh, X.

NORTH CAROLINA

Democrats — Butterfield, Y; Etheridge, Y; Kissell, Y; McIntyre, Y; Miller, Y; Price, Y; Shuler, Y; Watt, Y.

Republicans — Coble, N; Foxx, N; Jones, N; McHenry, N; Myrick, N.

NORTH DAKOTA

Democrats — Pomeroy, Y.

OHIO

Democrats — Boccieri, Y; Driehaus, Y; Fudge, Y; Kaptur, Y; Kilroy, Y; Kucinich, Y; Ryan, Y; Space, Y; Sutton, Y; Wilson, Y.

Republicans — Austria, N; Boehner, N; Jordan, N; LaTourette, N; Latta, N; Schmidt, N; Tiberi, N; Turner, N.

OKLAHOMA

Democrats — Boren, Y.

Republicans — Cole, N; Fallin, N; Lucas, N; Sullivan, N.

OREGON

Democrats — Blumenauer, Y; DeFazio, Y; Schrader, Y; Wu, Y.

Republicans — Walden, N.

PENNSYLVANIA

Democrats — Altmire, Y; Brady, Y; Carney, Y; Dahlkemper, Y; Doyle, Y; Fattah, Y; Holden, Y; Kanjorski, N; Murphy, Patrick, Y; Murtha, Y; Schwartz, Y; Sestak, Y.

Republicans — Dent, N; Gerlach, N; Murphy, Tim, N; Pitts, N; Platts, Y; Shuster, N; Thompson, N.

RHODE ISLAND

Democrats — Kennedy, Y; Langevin, Y.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Democrats — Clyburn, Y; Spratt, Y.

Republicans — Barrett, X; Brown, N; Inglis, N; Wilson, N.

SOUTH DAKOTA

Democrats — Herseth Sandlin, N.

TENNESSEE

Democrats — Cohen, Y; Cooper, Y; Davis, Y; Gordon, Y; Tanner, X.

Republicans — Blackburn, N; Duncan, N; Roe, N; Wamp, N.

TEXAS

Democrats — Cuellar, Y; Doggett, Y; Edwards, Y; Gonzalez, Y; Green, Al, Y; Green, Gene, Y; Hinojosa, Y; Jackson-Lee, Y; Johnson, E. B., Y; Ortiz, Y; Reyes, Y; Rodriguez, Y.

Republicans — Barton, N; Brady, N; Burgess, N; Carter, N; Conaway, N; Culberson, N; Gohmert, N; Granger, N; Hall, N; Hensarling, N; Johnson, Sam, N; Marchant, N; McCaul, N; Neugebauer, N; Olson, N; Paul, X; Poe, N; Sessions, N; Smith, N; Thornberry, N.

UTAH

Democrats — Matheson, Y.

Republicans — Bishop, N; Chaffetz, N.

VERMONT

Democrats — Welch, Y.

VIRGINIA

Democrats — Boucher, Y; Connolly, Y; Moran, Y; Nye, Y; Perriello, Y; Scott, Y.

Republicans — Cantor, N; Forbes, N; Goodlatte, N; Wittman, N; Wolf, N.

WASHINGTON

Democrats — Baird, Y; Dicks, Y; Inslee, Y; Larsen, Y; McDermott, Y; Smith, Y.

Republicans — Hastings, N; McMorris Rodgers, N; Reichert, N.

WEST VIRGINIA

Democrats — Mollohan, Y; Rahall, Y.

Republicans — Capito, N.

WISCONSIN

Democrats — Baldwin, Y; Kagen, Y; Kind, Y; Moore, Y; Obey, Y.

Republicans — Petri, Y; Ryan, N; Sensenbrenner, N.

WYOMING

Republicans — Lummis, N.

Is it starting to seem like the Obama administration is taking over your education? Check out the liberal professor list, and be sure to rate your professor at liberal-education.com.

The vote was 253-171 in favor of a bill that fulfills nearly all of President Barack Obama’s campaign promises for higher education: The measure ends subsidies for private lenders, boosts Pell Grants for needy students and creates grant programs to improve community colleges and college graduation rates, among other things.

“These are reforms that have been talked about for years, but they’re always blocked by special interests and their lobbyists,” Obama said Thursday during a rally at the University of Maryland.

“Well, because you voted for change in November, we’re going to bring change in the House of Representatives today,” the president said.

Ending loan subsidies and turning control over to the government would save taxpayers an estimated $87 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Lawmakers would use that money to help make college more affordable, increasing the maximum Pell Grant by $1,400 to $6,900 over the next decade.

“The choice before us is clear. We can either keep sending these subsidies to banks or we can start sending them directly to students,” said the bill’s sponsor, California Democratic Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

Yet the money also would be spent on things that don’t help pay for college, such as construction at K-12 schools and new preschool programs.

And while the measure would increase Pell Grants, it would do nothing to curb college costs, which rise much faster than Pell Grants do.

In addition, the CBO says that when administrative costs and market conditions are considered, the savings from switching to direct government lending could be much lower, $47 billion instead of $87 billion.”

Doesn’t the Government already control enough of your schooling?  Check out the liberal professor list, and be sure to rate your professor at liberal-education.com.

“Within our country, the Obamajority is needed to take to the streets in support of health care with a public option paid for by reversing the obscene tax giveaways to the super rich during the Bush years. If health care reform fails, it will be a giant step backwards for the Obama administration and for working people, the labor movement, African American, Latino, Asian-Pacific Island communities, women and youth on every issue including the economy, peace and democracy.”

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