Hasta La Gadget!

by the Editors of Condé Nast Traveler

Charles Polidano / Touch The Skies / Alamy

Seasonal routes that take a hiatus in the colder months resume this month and next: These nonstop flights will take you to Dublin, Edinburgh, and beyond.

MAY 1: DELTA AIR LINES

New York (JFK) to Reykjavik (KEF) – Round Trip from May 1 to May 8 is $656 per person.

This summer is as good a time as any to visit the picturesque beauty of Iceland.

MAY 7: AMERICAN AIRLINES

New York (JFK) to Edinburgh (EDI) – Round Trip from May 8 to May 15 is $832 per person.

Wondering what to do in Edinburgh? We’ve got you covered.

Boston (BOS) to Paris (CDG) – Round Trip is from May 8 to May 15 is $1441 per person.

While you’re in Paris, you should dine at one of our 50 favorite restaurants.

JUNE 1: DELTA AIR LINES

Atlanta (ATL) to Barcelona (BCN) – Round Trip from June 5 to June 12 is $1760 per person.

Check out our nine favorite places to visit in Barcelona.

JUNE 4: UNITED AIRLINES

Newark (EWR) to Venice (VCE) – Round Trip from June 5 to June 12 is $1,470 per person.

Ever thought about exploring Venice by boat? We’ll show you how.

Chicago O’Hare (ORD) to Dublin (DUB) – Round Trip from June 5 to June 12 is $1,015 per person.

We’ve rounded up our favorite Dublin day trips for your perusal.

More from Condé Nast Traveler:

THESE Are The Best New Hotels in the World

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On April 26, 2015, education historian Diane Ravitch moderated an hour-long discussion between National Education Association (NEA) President Lily Eskelsen Garcia and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten at the second annual conference of the Network for Public Education (NPE). (View here: https://vimeo.com/126322770)

Only minutes prior to the conclusion of the session, Ravitch “Barbara Waltered” Garcia and Weingarten with the following question:

The Walton, Gates and Broad Foundations are at the forefront of the privatization movement. Will you commit not to accept funding from them and not to collaborate with them? [56:56]

She then asked for their “yes or no” answers:

Lily?

Garcia: Yes.

Randi?

Weingarten: Yes.

A beautiful moment. The audience stood and applauded first for Ravitch’s question and then for the Garcia-Weingarten response.

The session soon ended, and Garcia wasted no time backing out of that one.

In fact, in a blog post entitiled, “Gates Keepers” dated three days prior to her conference appearance (??) and categorized as , “I just had to say this,” Garcia defended her right to say “yes” and mean “no.”

In her oddly-dated post, Garcia attempts to set Gates apart from Walton and Broad. In reality, NEA has no problem with refusing money from Walton because the Waltons hate unions.

As for the Broad Foundation, Garcia criticizes it as “all charters all the time.”

But when it comes to taking cash from the Gates Foundation, Garcia states that Gates is “complicated.”

She might as well have noted that with “all charters all the time” Broad, it is also “complicated” since some NEA locals have accepted Broad funding in the past. But let’s just set that aside for now.

As supposed evidence that Gates can be trusted (and that accepting his money is fine), Garcia cites part of the Gates Foundation website that offers a brochured Gates sell:

We are focused on results. Those that can be measured. And those measured in ways beyond numbers. We see individuals, not issues. We are inspired by passion, and compassion for the wellbeing of people. Our methods are based on logic, driven by rigor, results, issues, and outcomes. Our innovation means trying new things, learning from our mistakes, and consistently refining our approach. Our strategies help us define our path to success, but our effectiveness is based in the aggregate power of our initiatives to impact holistic change.

That is enough for Garcia. She considers Gates trustworthiness as established.

She does not add that the Gates Foundation is clear about making grants “according to our funding priorities” and by directly contacting organizations to invite them to apply for grants under those Gates-determined priorities.

As evidence of Gates’ goodness, Garcia notes that Gates funds “the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (which the NEA helped found).”

Let’s talk about Gates money and National Board.

In March 2014, Gates shelled out $200,000 to help pay for National Board’s conference. Coincidentally, in March 2014, Bill Gates gave a keynote at that same National Board Teaching and Learning conference.

His speech focused on one of his pet investment priorities: the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Gates wants CCSS. He gives millions (billions?) to organizations to implement CCSS.

Gates wants it– he buys it.

That’s not so complicated. But it certainly does afford Gates some power-wielding influence. Indeed, the day before Gates’ speech to the National Board, he dined with 80 senators.

Think about that.

Billionaire Gates has the ear of scores of influential individuals. It’s a great exchange: You give us money; we give you an audience. Another example: in summer 2008, Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) President Gene Wilhoit asked Gates to fund CCSS. In November 2010, Gates offered a CCSSO keynote on CCSS. Gates was listed as a CCSSO “co-chair and trustee.”

By way of his wallet, Gates is allowed time and again to voice his ideas on test-score-driven, market-friendly education “reform.”

Since 2003, Gates has given the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) $2.3 million. In 2009, NCSL “co-chair” Gates gave a keynote in which he said, “Without measurement, there is no pressure for improvement.”

Forget learning for learning’s sake. External pressure is required, says expert Gates.

He also urged legislators to lift caps on charter schools.

And of course, Gates did not want to miss an opportunity to plug CCSS as a hub for “measurable” reform:

We need to take two enabling steps: we need longitudinal data systems that track student performance and are linked to the teacher; and we need fewer, clearer, higher standards that are common from state to state. The standards will tell the teachers what their students are supposed to learn, and the data will tell them whether they’re learning it. …

Fortunately, the state-led Common Core State Standards Initiative is developing clear, rigorous common standards that match the best in the world. …

This is encouraging–but identifying common standards is not enough. We’ll know we’ve succeeded when the curriculum and the tests are aligned to these standards.

It is no secret that NEA is all in for CCSS. So, the fact that Gates is all in is no problem for Garcia. As of May 2015, the Gates Foundation has paid the NGA Foundation $4.6 million for CCSS implementation.

Gates was asked to foot the bill for CCSS before there was a CCSS. Gates agreed. And in the following several years, NEA has raked in upwards $5 million for a CCSS that surely did not originate with NEA. Yet Garcia maintains, “Outside funders don’t drive our mission.We drive funders to our members and their ideas….”

Right.

Let’s do another keynote:

In February 2011, Gates gave a keynote to the National Governors Association. One of his suggestions was to lift caps on class sizes. He said that having the “more effective teacher” teach a larger class (from 20 to 26) would be better on the budget– and he said it would produce “better student outcomes.” (See video #2 on the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f7AI2q_WhE&index=2&list=PL59A85238C8B52C62 )

In addition, it is worth noting that in February 2011, the Gates Foundation gave NGA $1.3 million “to work with state policymakers on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, with special attention to effective resource reallocation to ensure complete execution, as well as rethinking state policies on teacher effectiveness.”

Gates is able to not only pay for his vision of American public education; his money provides him ample keynote addresses to speak his vision to influential individuals. This ability affords Gates a power over American education not to be underestimated.

But Lily Eskelsen Garcia is willing to defend NEA’s continued receiving of Gates funding on a technicality:

NEA doesn’t directly receive the Gates funding. The NEA Foundation does.

And she completely glosses over her verbal agreement at the NPE conference to no longer even collaborate with Gates.

Nothing doing.

Her version of Ravitch’s question is botched on her blog, but the point of her unswerving Gates allegiance is clear:

I was asked at the NPE conference to give a simple answer to a question that is not so simple: Would my union, the NEA, accept Gates grants? The fact is that, no, NEA does not directly take funds from the Gates Foundation. … Our union organized an independent foundation for the very purpose of connecting philanthropists with the creative work of our member practitioners in classrooms across the country. … And in service to those members and those students, we will continue to work with powerful partners, foundations and institutions dedicated to educational innovation, educator empowerment, student health, and parent engagement. Over the years, we’ve helped educators connect with many donors, including the Gates Foundation….

NEA and the NEA Foundation are two peas, same pod. The NEA Foundation is supported in part via NEA membership dues, and Garcia sits on the NEA Foundation board of directors.

Gates money to the NEA Foundation is Gates money to NEA. For example, consider these two July 2013 NEA Foundation grants:

Date: July 2013
Purpose: to support a cohort of National Education Association Master Teachers in the development of Common Core-aligned lessons in K-5 mathematics and K-12 English Language Arts
Amount: $3,882,600

Date: July 2013
Purpose: to support the capacity of state NEA affiliates to advance teaching and learning issues and student success in collaboration with local affiliates
Amount: $2,446,500

This $6.3 million was paid to the NEA Foundation but directed toward NEA members/affiliates.

And, to be clear, Garcia was not asked by Ravitch if her union, the NEA, would accept Gates grants. She was asked to “commit not to accept funding from” Gates “and not to collaborate with” Gates.

To this, she said yes.

But she meant no.

Originally posted 05-18-15 at deutsch29.wordpress.com

Schneider is a southern Louisiana native, career teacher, trained researcher, and author of the ed reform whistle blower, A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who In the Implosion of American Public Education.

She also has her second book available on pre-order, Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?, due for publication June 12, 2015.

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This article originally appeared in The Washington Spectator.

By Robert E. Scott

Recently, the president claimed that critics who say that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “is bad for working families … don’t know what they are talking about.”

Skeptics would respond, “Show me the money. Show me the jobs and wages you’re going to generate for working Americans. Explain how the TPP is going to be different from the lousy trade deals we’ve had since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law in 1993.”

The White House Council of Economic Advisors released a report touting the benefits of the TPP in pulling down barriers to U.S. exports abroad, but the report fails to mention the most important barrier to U.S. export success: several major trade partners (including TPP partners) managing the value of their own currencies for competitive gain vis-à-vis the U.S. Yet the Obama administration has refused to even discuss the currency issue in the TPP negotiations.

Without currency protection, the TPP is likely to lead to growing trade deficits and job losses.

One problem with trade and investment deals, especially with lower-wage countries like Korea and China, is that they often result in growing trade deficits and job losses. In 2011, President Obama claimed that the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS) would “support 70,000 American jobs” because the agreement would “increase exports of American goods by $10 billion to $11 billion.”

He failed to say anything about rising imports, which will put Americans out of work. Looking only at exports is like counting only the runs by the home team. It might make you feel good, but it doesn’t tell you the outcome of the game–it doesn’t tell you whether your team won or lost.

Since KORUS took effect in 2012, exports to Korea have increased by less than $1 billion. Meanwhile, U.S. imports have surged more than $12 billion, resulting in a net loss of 75,000 U.S. jobs.

Similarly, Bill Clinton claimed that NAFTA would create 200,000 jobs in its first two years and a million jobs in five years. Instead, between 1993 (before NAFTA) and 2013, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Canada increased from $17 billion to $177.2 billion, displacing more than 850,000 U.S. jobs.

And then there’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and China’s admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which led to an explosion of imports and the loss of more than 3 million jobs, mostly in manufacturing and mostly in occupations that paid more than the jobs created in exports industries, and much more than jobs in non-traded industries.

While trade and investment deals have eliminated millions of good jobs, that’s only the most visible part of their corrosive effect on working Americans. Growing trade with low-wage countries has also driven down the wages of most American workers, especially those without college degrees.

My colleague Josh Bivens has shown that expanded trade with low-wage countries has reduced the annual wages of a typical worker by $1,800 per year. Given that there are roughly 100 million non-college-educated workers in the U.S. economy (about 70 percent of the labor force), the scale of wage losses suffered by this group translates to roughly $180 billion.

Trade deals such as KORUS (completed by President Obama), and the agreement to bring China into the WTO (negotiated by President Clinton), have contributed to these losses. It’s not surprising that one commentator concluded that “the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal is an abomination,” because of its impacts on “low-skilled manufacturing workers and income inequality.”

The leading cause of growing U.S. trade deficits is currency manipulation, which distorts trade flows by artificially lowering the cost of U.S. imports and raising the cost of U.S. exports. More than 20 countries, led by China, have been spending about $1 trillion per year buying foreign assets to artificially suppress the value of their currencies. Ending currency manipulation can create between 2.3 million and 5.8 million jobs for working Americans.

Several well-known currency manipulators–including Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore–are members of the proposed TPP, and others–including Korea, Taiwan and China–have expressed interest in joining the agreement.

Unless there is a strong currency provision in the TPP, reductions in the U.S. trade deficit–the most promising route back to sustainable full employment–will be harder to obtain following its passage. Without a currency provision, the TPP is likely to lead to growing trade deficits and job losses. If Obama is concerned with working families, he should focus on stopping currency manipulation.

Robert E. Scott is the director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

This article will appear in the June 2015 print edition of The Washington Spectator.

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by Sheela Prakash, Epicurious

PHOTO: CHARLES MASTERS, FOOD STYLING BY SUZANNE LENZER

I’ve broken every unwritten cutting board rule there is: I don’t wipe my wood board with mineral oil. I let my boards soak in the sink. I don’t use a separate board for prepping raw meat.

So when I recently decided to replace the board I had used and abused, I vowed to start paying attention to the rules. But a quick Google search about general DOs and DON’Ts left me ridiculously confused. In a state of panic, I reached out to couple experts: author and cleaning advice columnist Jolie Kerr, and Epicurious Food Editor Rhoda Boone.

HOW MANY CUTTING BOARDS DO I REALLY NEED?
Boone and Kerr agree that two boards is enough: “One plastic, one wood,” says Boone. “One big, one small.”

DO I NEED A SEPARATE CUTTING BOARD FOR MEAT?
Kerr doesn’t think it’s something to sweat over. “Ideally, if you’re washing them properly, it shouldn’t matter much if you have dedicated meat and vegetable boards,” she says. That said, “if you have the space and the financial resources to have multiple boards, by all means designate one for meat and poultry, another for fish, and one for vegetables.”

OKAY, SO HOW SHOULD I CLEAN MY CUTTING BOARD?
“Plastic boards can go right in the dishwasher, that will be the best bet for getting them clean,” says Kerr. “Wooden and bamboo boards should be hand washed in hot, soapy water and dried immediately after washing to prevent water from causing warping. If the board is retaining a smell even after washing, try scrubbing it with half a lemon to eliminate odors.”

PLASTIC, WOOD, OR BAMBOO?
“I usually use plastic for raw meat, but for any other cutting, my favorite board material is wood,” says Epicurious Food Editor Rhoda Boone. “I love my Boos Block, which has grooves to catch any unruly juice” What about bamboo? Rhoda sticks with wood and Kerr concurs: “I prefer wood to bamboo–bamboo boards are more likely than wood to split or warp, and can be harder on knives.”

WHAT ABOUT THOSE FANCY GLASS CUTTING BOARDS?
Avoid them. They may look nice, and they’re definitely easy to clean, but because their surface is completely hard, “they can dull your knives,” says Boone. Not to mention the fact that, even though they’re made from tempered glass, there’s still the chance that they could break and shatter.

More from Epicurious:
20 Must-Try Ways to Pair Items You Already Have In Your Pantry

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To those who wonder why Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, was in distant Mongolia this week trying his hand at archery, playing a traditional fiddle and receiving the gift of a racehorse called Kanthaka (after Buddha’s mount), the short answer is: China.

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