Note: this was originally produced for a class on paddle making. All prices are approximate and in Canadian dollars.
First of all, download the instructions: Making a West Greenland Paddle by Chuck Holst.
You'll find the link on the Qajaq USA Kayaks, Paddles, Gear web page.
Scroll down past the book references; and you'll see it at the top of the Paddles and Paddle Making section.
There's also a paddle making video at Matt Johnson's web site. It is 32 minutes long.
Every student is required to supply their own tools and materials.
Wet-dry sandpaper. Several sheets from 120 to 400 grit. Must be waterproof.
Pencil ; HB or softer.
Clean rags or good paper towels.
In addition, please bring a solid chair or bench to sit on while carving. You'll be working outside, so dress accordingly and hope it doesn't rain.
Read the following sections to decide; which optional items you may wish to purchase.
There are many types of wood that can be used to make a Greenland-style paddle. I am going to recommend only one ; Western Red Cedar (WRC).
You can use other woods. But WRC is suitably light, strong, easy to carve, resistant to rot and easy to acquire locally.
Don't even think about buying the wood the night before the paddle making session!
No one sells paddle-making blanks around here ; they sell lumber. You are going to have to find a piece of lumber that is suitable for use as a paddle-making blank. What you have to look for is good; straight grain end to end. The grain must be tight and free of knots.
I have had luck finding such wood at Home Depot. But not all of their stores sell the right type of WRC. When I find a Home Depot that stocks the right kind, I end up going through a dozen pieces to find perhaps one that is suitable. Often, I find that I have to go to several stores before I find a suitable piece.
Plan on spending some time looking for a good piece of Western Red Cedar.
The only cedar that's right is "Select grade" or "Architectural grade" wood. That is sold in the aisle where they sell premium grade oak, maple, poplar, and select pine wood that is finished on all sides. It is not fence grade or construction grade wood. I checked recently and the current price for an 8 foot piece of 2×4 WRC is $34.00. Remember that most of what you put into making a paddle is effort and time, so saving a few dollars on an inferior piece of wood is not a good idea.
By the way ; the shavings you create while making the paddle are good for mulch. Bring a garbage bag to take them with you.
The ideal piece of lumber will have long, clear grain that is straight from end to end. This is an example ; the grain does not significantly run out on the side and is straight, not wavey.
If the grain runs out, as in the following, the paddle will tend to break on an angle following the grain. A paddle made with a piece like this will not be as strong as one made from a piece like the above.
Flat sawn boards will sometimes show a Vee shaped grain pattern. You do not want wood like this.
The worst wood is construction or fence grade that is full of knots and has grain that wanders all over the board. Don't even consider a board like this.
This is what tight, straight grain looks like. You want to see grain lines on millimeter centers. I'm not certain. But I'm guessing that this kind of wood is from old growth, where slow growth creates fine grain. Newer forests result in faster growth and wider rings.
More open grain looks like the following. The grain lines are several millimeters apart. This kind of grain will not be a strong as the one above. You can get this kind of grain showing in wood that is flat sawn with the grain at a shallow angle to the face. This photo is the same scale as the one above.
When inspecting end grain, do not confuse the marks from the circular saw pattern with the grain itself. Since the end of most sawn lumber is quite rough and dirty, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference. Some lumberyards won't mind if you lightly shave down the end to see the pattern clearly ; a reason for buying your low angle block plane first.
This is the end grain pattern seen with quartersawn lumber. This is the ideal wood to get. You will not find this in many places, as quartersawn wood is more expensive than flatsawn and is considered a specialty item. You can find this at some lumber mills.
This is almost as good as quartersawn. The grain is at an angle to the side of the wood. But is fairly straight and parallel. You can usually find something like this even at Home Depot.
This is very good flatsawn lumber. The grain is relatively straight and parallel and runs mostly from one narrow side to the other with only a little grain running out to the long side.
This is a poor piece of wood. The grain lines are noticeably curved and the wood clearly has been cut close to the center of the tree.
Another poor grain pattern. Similar to the previous, the grain is noticeably curved. This is the pattern that corresponds to a Vee grain pattern on the adjacent face.
You want to find something that resembles 1, 2 or 3. You are most likely to find something like 2 ; just avoid a piece with significantly curved grain; try for the straightest end grain.
There are many tools that folks use to carve a paddle. I find I prefer two for most work ; a low angle block plane and a small drawknife. I also use a spokeshave and Microplane at times. Sandpaper is used to finish the paddle.
The initial shaping of the paddle is done with a saw. You draw the shape of the paddle on the 2×4 and then cut away large chunks of wood to get the rough shape and size. After that, it's all carving.
In this session, I'll be using a bandsaw to cut the paddle blanks once you have drawn the size marks on the surface. That will speed up the work a lot. Using a hand saw to cut this wood is quite time consuming.
Most of the blade shaping uses a block plane. The plane must be razor sharp and well adjusted to shave off a paper-thin layer of wood on each stroke. This allows you to take the paddle down to its final shape with little effort. But a lot of strokes. It also allows you to approach the final shape slowly and cautiously, without making too deep a cut at any time. Since the paddle blades are long and have smooth faces, the block plane ensures a smooth even surface.
To get the most out of any cutting tool, it is important to keep it razor sharp. There are some excellent sharpening instructions on the web ; search for "scary sharp" for one technique. Leonard Lee of Lee Valley also wrote an excellent book on sharpening ; The Complete Guide to Sharpening.
The following are recommendations on tools available locally. We're lucky to have ready access to one of the finest woodworking tool makers in the world ; Lee Valley Tools & Veritas. I have no connection to the company other than being a pleased customer. I have no hesitation in recommending their products ; they are good to superb quality and fairly priced.
There are a number of choices for a low angle block plane. Forget about the under $40 versions at the hardware store ; they are junk. One of the best places to find and compare low angle block planes is at Lee Valley Tools. There are three stores in the GTA ; in Scarborough at Sheppard and Morningside, in Weston on Steeles west of Weston Rd and in Burlington east of Guelph Line just north of the QEW (behind the Home Depot).
There is also a store in Ottawa on Greenbank Rd just south of the Queensway if you're up that way. The following list is in decreasing order of preference. The Veritas models are only available at Lee Valley (well, they are available at other suppliers. But those are hard to find). The links will take you to the Lee Valley web site.
Fine Woodworking magazine selected this plane as the best overall value in low angle models. You can get better. But you'll pay about four times the price. Definitely worth the money if you plan on making more than one paddle or are interested in woodworking.
This is a simple little low-angle plane that is affordable and suitable for smaller hands. The only thing that is missing on this model compared to the above is an adjustable mouth. The prices reflect two different blade options.
A decent plane if sharp and set up well. Compare this one to the Veritas ones and you'll see what quality the extra money buys.
Not quite as good as the Stanley, though very similar (the Stanley supports the blade edge a bit better). May be hard to find and for an extra $10, the Veritas Apron plane is a much better deal.
I'm sure this is a fabulous plane. But I'm just kidding here. I just thought some of you would like to see how much you could pay if you got carried away.
One of the best places to find and compare these tools is at Lee Valley Tools as well.
Nice tool. But pricy unless you plan on using one a lot.
A sweet spokeshave according to those that have one. If I was to buy one today, this is the one I'd get.
I haven't used these. But they look like a decent deal for the occasional user. You'd have to keep them sharp.
Most drawknives are too large for comfortable use on paddles. This one is a good size. But pricy unless you plan on using one a lot. I have this one and use it a lot.
I've looked at this one and it looks like a reasonable tool. It can be used as a drawknife and is a decent price.
Sloyd is the Swedish word for craft. These are good, inexpensive knives that hold an edge. To quote Greg Stamer: "Builders Svend Ulstrup, Mark Rogers and Bob Boucher use them extensively for SOF kayak building." Choose the one where the blade length is compatible with the size of your hand and your strength.
Traditional canoe maker's carving knife. If you know where to get a good one at a decent price, buy one. Check Lee Valley's stock ; they usually have a carving knive with a crooked knife blade. Note that a crooked knife is sold as left-handed or right handed.
There are other knives you can use for carving ; even a good X-acto knife can be used. However, really good knives specific to carving are expensive and the preferences are personal. For your first paddle, a smaller knife will be used mostly around the shoulder of the paddle.
Almost anything will do for now ; even a sharp Swiss Army Knife. Only the long cuts on the loom need something more robust like a drawknife or spokeshave. On a budget, the Pushknife above may be a good choice. Both a pushknife and a contour plane would be redundant for a beginner.
One of the best places to find and compare these tools is at Lee Valley Tools as well. You can get the sandpaper at any good hardware store.
These are excellent shaping tools. They can be used to shape the loom. The round ones are good for shaping the inside of the loom shoulder and the flat one for the loom itself. They are definitely optional, as you can do the same with other tools.
I know the latter may sound crazy. But everyone I know who's seen one of these in the kitchen has gone out and bought one. You could use it for your paddle and then clean it for use in the kitchen.
These tools are similar to the Microplanes; but make a much rougher cut. I did have an older model that was quite nice. But they no longer make that model and the blades for it are history. They are not much cheaper than the Microplanes, so I'd not recommend them ; get the Microplane instead.
These look like files with rough cutting surfaces. I wouldn't bother.
You will need at least two, better three, 8.5 x 11 inch sheets. One at 120 grit will take down the high points and remove a lot of wood quickly to fine tune the shape. Another at about 240 grit will smooth out the wood well and one at 360-400 grit will make the finish very smooth. Make sure that the sandpaper iswet-dry, as you will use these to wet sand the wood for a fine finish. If it is not waterproof paper, it will disintegrate when wet.
With cedar, finishing is optional. Cedar will stand up well to water. However, I prefer to finish the paddle with tung oil.
Hard finishes like varnish or epoxy, are not great. They don't give a nice finish for grip. Some folks use techniques to give a less glossy finish so that the surface isn't slippery, however, I don't think it's worth the trouble. As well, if the hard finish is damaged, it traps water beneath it and that will result in spots on the paddle.
Oil finishes will penetrate the wood and form a polymerized finish in the wood fiber. The finish is very thin and doesn't penetrate deeply. But it seals the wood reasonably well. If the finish is damaged, it is easy to fix by just re-oiling. There are many oil finishes that can be used; tung oil seems to be the most waterproof.
Not all tung oils are equal and some actually contain no tung oil at all!!! You want a fairly pure tung oil with dryers added so that it would polymerize quickly. Tung oil without polymerizing dryers will take a long time to cure. Most will contain some petroleum distillates, mineral spirits or turpentine to thin them. The finest tung oils are very expensive and may be overkill. I find that Circa 1850 brand is a good choice as it is reasonably priced and works well (available in the paint and wood finishing section of a good hardware store or Home Depot. It's in a pale yellow can.) You'll only need a bit ; a half-liter is a lot. But that's the size that's common.
Applying tung oil requires a small paint brush (one-half to one inch wide is fine) or some lint free rags or good paper towels. You paint on the tung oil, wait about ten minutes and then wipe off the excess. Wait several hours and then apply another coat. Repeat for about 4-6 coats. I heat the oil carefully before painting it on to keep it very fluid and thin for penetration. You'll want to do this outside, since tung oil has a strong oil-paint smell.
Note that the rags will be susceptible to spontaneous combustion! The tung oil polymerizes in an exothermic reaction and the heat can cause the rags to ignite. I lay the rags out flat and not balled up so that the heat is dissipated. As well, I keep them outside until the oil has cured. Once cured, the stuff is safe. You can also store them in a covered metal can with water in it.
For the most part, making special tip or edge protection for the paddle is outside the scope of this paddle making session. If you check through the into on paddle making on the web or on Qajaq USA'a web site, you will find that there are some interesting approaches using bone, plastics, hardwood lamination and other techniques. Feel free to experiment with these on future paddles.
I find that just coating the tip of the paddle with good quality epoxy provides all the protection I need. It is important to use a high quality marine epoxy and not a cheap 5-minute epoxy. Make sure that the epoxy soaks into the end grain at the tip. This makes the tip fairly tough and resistant to splitting. If you want to use epoxy on the tip apply it before oiling the wood.
I have also used a thin layer of fiberglass over the tip; however, I think this is more than is necessary. My most used paddle only has epoxy and it handles a lot of abuse. Another approach to toughening the tip is to add cabosil (fumed silica) to the epoxy.
The biggest problem is that the best epoxies are hard to find in small quantities. However, the shelf life is a few years and you can use it for many kayak repairs and projects. Look for West Systems, East Systems, MAS, Industrial Formulators or similar brands at a marine supply shop or Lee Valley.
Gloves, Masks and Eye protection.
You need to use a mask when dry sanding and sawing wood. Cedar dust is toxic; so you don't want to breathe it in. Standard dust masks are made for those without beards. Make sure the ones you buy are rated for wood dusts ; masks have different ratings; the higher the rating, the better. Avoid the masks sold at drug stores and such ; they are not designed for stopping noxious dust. You can also consider pleated dust masks. If you wear glasses (including safety glasses); the anti-fog dust masks are an option.
If you have a beard, dust masks don't work ; they will not seal on your face. In fact, even a bit of stubble will make a dust mask useless. You need a positive-pressure system and they get expensive ; upwards of $300.
Gloves can protect your hands from cuts when carving. But they also reduce your control of the tools. When carving with a knife, you may consider using High-Friction Guard Tape instead of gloves.
I don't use eye protection except when sawing. However, I do have break-resistant glasses, so I always have at least some protection.
Click here to check out the next topic about Technical Stuff and Information on Kayaks.


The Unified Contact Center Enterprise Authorized Technology Provider (ATP) Program is an invitation-only program. Participation in this program allows partners to provide intelligent call routing, network-to-desktop computer telephony integration, and contact management solutions to enterprise agents over an IP-based network.
Partners must hold a valid Advanced Collaboration Architecture Specialization to participate in the Unified Contact Center Enterprise ATP.
The Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise ATP Program has established five roles.


2 1. Whip the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until they are creamy and fluffy.
3 2. Add the eggs one at a time mixing on a medium speed.
4 3. Add the flour slowly until a dough just forms. Do not over work.
5 4. Rest the pastry for 15 minutes.
6 5. Line the pastry in greased and floured 9cm diameter tart tins and bake at 180°C for 10-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool.
7 6. Heat the cream in a sauce pan until just about to boil. Remove from the heat and combine the Nestlé® Chokella® and chocolate.
8 7. Pour the Nestlé® Chokella® mixture into the cooled tart bases and refrigerate.
10 1. Over a double boiler combined the cream, chocolate and Nestlé® Chokella® until the chocolate is melted and the ingredients are well combined.
11 2. Remove this mixture from the heat and whisk in the vanilla extract.
13 4. Shape the truffles into balls of the desired size and place them onto a tray lined with parchment paper.
14 5. Roll the truffles in a crushed biscuit coating and refrigerate until service.
16 1. In an electric mixer combine the cream, coffee and Nestlé Docello Crème Brulee Dessert Mix and whip until firm.
18 1. To assemble place three truffles on the tart, a large chocolate disk, cream, a medium chocolate disk, cream and then a small chocolate disk with cream. The shape should resemble a pear.


text:
High-Stakes Culture
Any attempt to divine the cultural consequences of choice must recognize that the movement for educational choice has not been limited to vouchers.
Any attempt to divine the cultural consequences of choice must recognize that the movement for educational choice has not been limited to vouchers. Steady reform on a number of fronts has given parents in the United States an extensive array of options. These include home schooling, charter schools, magnet schools, private religious or secular schools (with or without the help of public or private vouchers or state tax credits), public "exam" schools like New York City's Stuyvesant High, a variety of "regular" public schools in nearby school districts, a variety of schools in students' own districts, or, most frequently, the specific public school into which children are zoned by their place of residence. The extent of these choices is determined not simply by wealth, but by the academic ability of the child, by family history, race, religion, and the educational regulations of each state and school district–and by sheer luck.
All these choices have cultural consequences, especially when parents use any of them as a way of ensuring that their children are educated in particular religious traditions or social environments. Addressing the cultural consequences of choice by reference only to the choices themselves is shortsighted, however. In the end, at least culturally speaking, all these choices may not matter much. Depending on how policymakers choose to regulate these choices, the standards-and-testing movement may have far more impact on the cultural consequences of choice than choice itself. Content-based state testing (increasingly linked to graduation requirements) may create greater curriculum uniformity in American education than the system has known in half a century. These new state tests, and the curricular frameworks that are being designed to prepare students for them, represent the most sustained effort in American history to introduce a mandated common core of learning.
Testing intersects with educational choice because children attending a particular school as a result of certain choice mechanisms will inevitably be required to take the tests. Today almost all children in private school are exempt from them; Ohio is a partial exception. Will children who are using vouchers to attend these schools remain exempt from mandated state testing, or will public testing follow the public dollar? Will a school accepting vouchers have to accept public testing of all its children? On the one hand, regulating the teaching at voucher schools without stifling the autonomy that is their raison d'être is not going to be easy. On the other hand, requiring voucher schools to administer well-designed, commonly accepted standardized tests may be the best way of ensuring that choice does not undermine our teaching of a common culture.
Since charter schools are public schools, students there, whose numbers are steadily increasing, are already required to take state-mandated tests. Will American courts allow religious schools to become charter schools, as is the case in Australia, whose constitutional provisions are almost identical to ours? If so, then the new testing regime will expand to cover all children whose parents choose such schools. Finally, while it currently seems unlikely that states will ever require home-schooled children to take state tests, the rapid growth in the number of such children may force a rethinking of this policy.
Why, however, would one use the word culture to describe the consequences of a content-based testing system? In America today, we frequently speak of the "culture" of a certain school to refer to its milieu or particular ethos. In this sense, charter, magnet, and private schools can seem instantly vested with "cultural capital," at least in contrast to the public schools, constrained as they are by bureaucratic procedures and legalese. Nevertheless, perceiving culture this way is a mistake; it confuses issues of style and institutional ethos with matters of intellectual substance. Not for a moment do I underestimate the importance of ethos in creating the incentives for effective learning. Context and content, however, are two different things.
To illustrate the point, consider the schooling system in England, where many religious schools are public schools in the American sense that they are government funded. Thus there is no shortage of variety among "public," or state-supported, schools. What nevertheless brands the education of an English child as particularly English are the GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) and "A" (advanced level) essay-based public examinations. These high-stakes exams, together with the curriculum that prepares students to take them, ensure that the next generation has a fundamental national vocabulary.
This vocabulary is a necessary part of what I take to be a culturally rich education, an education that lends a deep exposure to the most enduring, exacting, exciting, and inexhaustible concepts and works in the human experience. This does not mean an American child must read Shakespeare, Racine, Goethe, and Dante to be cultured. My "A"-level texts (works we knew we would be asked to write about) included the poetry of e.e. cummings–perhaps not inexhaustible, but certainly exciting. A cultural education blends the classic with the provocatively novel and asks the student to engage in sustained reflections about both.
Serious Multiculturalism
If America's public schools were teaching a thorough knowledge of the nation's history and literatures, then enabling more parents to choose private schooling for their children would presumably dilute our common culture. Some private schools of choice might teach much the same curriculum as public schools, but others would opt instead for a curriculum that emphasizes particularist religious, ethnic, or cultural stories.
Some observers of the educational scene argue that something like the opposite has happened–namely, that the public schools have embraced particularism. Therefore, they suggest, opening avenues of escape to private schools could hardly be damaging to a common culture that the public schools have already abandoned. What the majority of public schools profess to teach, however, is not a particularist or idiosyncratic vision of culture but multiculturalism–an education designed to introduce a heterogeneous American school population to the rich diversity of its cultural heritages. Some scholars see little cultural value in an education that incorporates a bewildering array of racial, ethnic, and national perspectives.
But is multiculturalism, for all its faults, so dire a model of cultural instruction that we should turn our backs on public schools? It would be useful to more firmly understand what the argument is. Is the criticism that multiculturalist teaching is done poorly? Or that it diminishes the American story? Or that it is done at all?
My litmus test of any high-school "multicultural" program is that it should meet at least two conditions. First, that the school requires the sustained study of at least one language in the culture(s) being investigated. Second, such investigations must augment rather than replace the teaching of American literatures and history. Almost all of the evidence, however, indicates that these two educational standards are rarely met. Too much that passes under the banner of multiculturalism is devoid of intellectual depth or scholarly integrity. Such programs, often deliberately, confuse political with educational commitments. A serious consideration of multiculturalism should be part of any high-school curriculum. Children would then discover that we have much to learn from and much to question in other cultures. If American schools instead offer an anodyne affirmation of diversity, and do so instead of rigorously teaching literature and history, so much the worse for our children.
It is one thing to claim that public schools are no longer teaching an America-centered culture, quite another to argue that private schools are doing a better job. Promoters of school choice offer solid research evidence that children attending inner-city Catholic schools achieve better academic results, score higher on various measures of political tolerance, and are more likely to vote than their public-school peers. However, I'm not sure that these facts should be read as evidence of Catholic schools' teaching culture. Such a demonstration would have to rest on a detailed examination of the curriculum that such students are taught.
Even if urban Catholic schools are culturally superior to many inner-city public schools, it is not safe to assume that expanding parental choice would lead most parents to choose such schools. They might be directed to more troubling alternatives. Recent survey data from Harvard University researcher David Campbell (See "Bowling Together"), while confirming the positive findings about Catholic schools, raises questions about the political attitudes of students from other religiously affiliated schools. A national voucher program allowing parents to spend public money in the school of their choice may confront us with difficult problems of how to regulate these schools of choice.
Politics over Aesthetics
Will our new American state tests restore, or even establish for the first time, a shared cultural education? I think not. While tests at the primary- and middle-school levels have addressed E. D. Hirsch's concern that all children need access to a basic cultural vocabulary, the high-school tests are mostly bereft of serious cultural content. Such tests ask for a higher level of technical knowledge, but not for deep analysis or comparative understanding. Note, for example, that state exit-level tests, such as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), are built neither on a curriculum that requires the reading of any specific text nor on in-depth research into a particular historical period. Indeed, passages offered for analysis are chosen precisely to ensure that they are not drawn from the inflated list of recommended books on the state's English language arts curricular framework. Students rapidly get the message that educators are more interested in technical facility than in literature.
Likewise, the Maryland State Performance Standards tell us that "Literary works for study should reflect many classic and contemporary traditions, and should be drawn from diverse writing styles and points of view that reflect the concerns of both genders and a wide range of ethnicity and cultures." The triumph of politics over aesthetic considerations is fully visible here–one looks in vain for the words "fine" or "excellent." But this is not the worst offense. Under the subsection "Comprehension, Interpretation and Analysis of Text" are the rubrics:
• Explain the concept that the theme of a selection represents a view or comment on life and analyze its function and effects in literature, using textual evidence to support the claims.
• Analyze and evaluate how such literary elements as point of view, tone, voice, characterization, and irony are used for specific rhetorical and aesthetic purposes.
These are no doubt important skills–but they are divorced from any immersion in a work of literature. To write intelligently and passionately about a book, a play, or a poem, one needs to have read it before seeing it on an exam. Education is in part about learning to be discerning in one's taste and sensibility. We are in the hands today of educators who are too frightened, confused, or educated to remember this. As a result, our state and national examinations in the humanities and social sciences continue to undermine rather than to sustain any passion for culture.
Consider foreign languages and the arts as well. Once more, Massachusetts provides a useful touchstone. Originally, there were to be assessments in both disciplines, but these plans were never implemented. Many school systems are systematically shifting resources from the teaching of foreign languages, music, and art because of the pressure to have students pass the high-stakes tests in English and math. (Even science, in which there is an examination, suffers from the fact that passing the MCAS in science is not required for graduation.) At the risk of generalizing, it seems fair to say that only in a few schools, some public, some private, is deep exposure to the adventure of human thought–American or otherwise–really taking place.
Allowing parents to choose from a wider variety of schools could, in a regime of rich content-based assessment, do much to enrich our children's culture. If only we had state curricula and tests of real quality, we could insist that all schools receiving public tuition subject their pupils to such content and assessment. If the curricula and tests were outstanding, our worries about giving parents the freedom to choose a school based on its ethos might be balanced by an assurance that serious learning of cultural substance was at least being publicly encouraged.
However, given the current state of our textbooks, curricula, and assessments, an insistence that public testing follow public money would be premature. Unless the second generation of public testing changes substantially, it would be wrong to demand, for example, that children attending Milwaukee's Catholic schools with the help of a voucher be treated differently from their full-fee-paying peers.
Thus raising the question: Will schools of choice, freed from the constraints of the new state-testing regimes, be more or less likely to introduce students to sustained reflection on profound works of literature and history, to the rigorous study of math and the sciences, to the learning of a foreign language, and to an immersion in the arts?
We do not really know. Public opinion polls indicate that parents tend to be in favor of a "back-to-basics" style of teaching and are broadly supportive of state assessments. Would parents likewise be supportive of a school that picks a few fine works of literature, portions of which were to be memorized? Will their children hear of the light from Achilles's helmet "screaming across three thousand years"? Would parents choose a school where children read great historians and historical documents and study math in such a way that they experience the beauty of a theorem? Will such schools be more popular than those that reap the cheap glory that comes from cramming their pupils in preparation for their state tests? Finally, would such a school find teachers?
Since there is no national culture being taught in our public schools, some scholars suggest that there can't be any harm in allowing parents to pursue their own notions of culture. Surely such lukewarm faith in the cultural consequences of choice should encourage us to get back to the thankless but critical task of reforming our recent education reforms. Only then can we make the argument that our new curricula and tests are worth imposing on all children supported by public money. Not because such materials would then be almost as fine as what is being taught in private schools, but because, as in many other countries, public schooling would become the rightfully preferred cultural choice.
–David Steiner is an associate professor of education at Boston University.
Accountability Gains
The Private Can Be Public
by Education Next
Deindustrialization
Why teachers must come to regard-and organize-themselves as mind workers
by Charles Taylor Kerchner
Reform or Be Reformed
A new agenda for the teacher unions
by Adam Urbanski

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


With the passage of the $1.3 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill on Friday, March 23, 2018, a shutdown of the federal government that could have happened that day was averted. However, the bill did not offer any assurance against excessive health insurance premium rate hikes in the future and that threat remains prevalent.
The spending bill contained no provisions to stabilize the health insurance markets. Legislation to restore the Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments to insurers, which were eliminated by the Trump administration last October, would have brought stability to the market and offered some assurance to consumers against high percentage premium hikes in the near future. These payments help low-income Americans afford their co-payments and deductibles. The Omnibus also left out language directing the establishment of re-insurance funds for states. These funds would help cover the cost of people with complex and expensive healthcare needs. Economists widely agree that these two mechanisms are needed to ensure stability in the health insurance exchange markets. Text of the legislation is available online.
Although the insurance stabilizer provisions did not make it into the final legislation, healthcare advocates from the Long Island and Hudson Valley regions are grateful to the members of New York's delegation who supported the Omnibus Bill because it did include other favorable healthcare provisions such as nearly $4 billion to address the opioid epidemic and $37 billion for the National Institutes of Health. Legislators supporting the Omnibus bill include Senator Charles Schumer and Representatives Peter King, Kathleen Rice, Gregory Meeks, Nita Lowey, and John Faso.
Reinstatement of the CSRs and establishment of a re-insurance fund remain priorities. Healthcare advocates will keep fighting for these so that excessive premium hikes are avoided and patients can continue to afford their health insurance. In a little more than four weeks, May, insurers must submit their proposed 2019 rates to New York State for review. The uncertainty insurers faced all last year about CSR funding prompted most to increase premiums as a way to guard against the loss of CSR funding.
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, approved on February 9, 2018, offers a two-year budget deal, and most importantly, added an additional four years, for a total of 10 years, of funding to the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), delayed the Medicaid Disproportionate Share (DSH) cuts to hospitals for two years, and continued funding for the nation's community health centers. The budget legislation also directs a reinstatement and five-year extension of both the Medicare Dependent Hospital (MDH) program and Medicare Low-Volume (MLV) payment adjustment. It did not, however, address Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments or a re-insurance program that would help cover the cost of people with complex and expensive healthcare needs. There will be more about these efforts in the next Dahill Dose post.
Nonetheless, the healthcare and hospital industry achieved progress, but funding threats still linger. We are thankful to members of New York's delegation who represent constituents in the nine suburban counties east and north of New York City for supporting the health priorities contained in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. The members who committed to support patients and communities served by Suburban Hospital Alliance hospitals include Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Representatives Peter King, Kathleen Rice, and John Faso. A special shout out to Senator Charles Schumer for his efforts in negotiating this budget deal.
The delay of the DSH cuts is not all good news for hospitals, because adding more years to these scheduled cuts means deeper cuts for hospitals on the back end. DSH cuts are supplementary payments to hospitals that care for high numbers of uninsured and indigent patients. The DSH cuts were agreed upon by the hospital industry back in 2010 as one way to help fund provisions of the Affordable Care Act, specifically insurance expansion. The cuts are based on the belief that as insurance coverage expands, the ranks of the uninsured contract. However, with the continual threat of the ACA's demise and instability of the insurance exchanges, insurance expansion remains at risk and unpredictable.
The Trump administration canceled CSR payments to insurers in October 2017. This one move has shaken the viability of the exchanges. These payments help low income Americans afford their co-payments and deductibles. For New York, loss of the CSR payments means a loss of about $900 million in funding for the state's Essential Health Plan. This is a plan available to low-income New Yorkers who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford commercial insurance sold on the exchange.
The elimination of the individual insurance mandate, which was part of the tax reform legislation passed earlier this year, may also increase the number of uninsured. The Congressional Budget Office (CB) estimates that this provision will swell the ranks of the uninsured by 13 million by 2027.
But back to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. A total of 99,119 children located in the nine counties throughout the Suburban Hospital Alliance regions no longer have to worry that their insurance coverage would stop. The CHIP program has been a popular bi-partisan program in place for 20 plus years, guaranteeing children from low and moderate-income families' access to affordable health insurance. The Medicare Dependent Hospital payment adjustment assists small hospitals for which Medicare patients comprise a significant percentage of patients, and therefore, the hospital's revenue. Medicare Low Volume hospitals are essential to their rural communities, have a modest volume of patients, and are located at least 15 miles from the next nearest hospitals. Both these Medicare payment programs help such vital hospitals remain solvent and available to their communities.
The next step in the federal budget process is for legislators to write appropriations bills to spend the money allocated by the budget bill. Appropriations bills are due March 23, 2018. Check the Dahill Dose then for the outcome of this legislative process.


Explore your heritage. Discover your leadership potential. Leave a legacy.
The Dual Identity Leadership Program (DILP) focuses on self discovery so you can define your own pathway to achieve leadership success.
Andrew Do is the 2019 DILP Advisory Board Chair. A notable alumnus, Andrew started his DILP journey in 2014 and became Chair of the DILP Steering Committee in 2015.
Get ready to build your leadership skills and embrace your dual heritage!
Find out our story and mission to support young Vietnamese-Australian leaders.