NC has some of the strictest marijuana laws in the country ...



NC will change how elementary and middle schools test students. See what’s coming.North Carolina has won federal approval to change the way it tests the reading and math skills of elementary and middle school students.North Carolina’s plan is to replace the single high-stakes test given at the end of the school year with shorter and more personalized but more frequent tests throughout the year. If the five-year pilot goes on schedule, the new testing system will go statewide in the 2023-24 school year.“This pilot program gives states that are willing to try a new approach an opportunity to assess student achievement without sacrificing rigor or skirting accountability,” U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said in a?news release last week announcing approval of North Carolina’s request. “I look forward to seeing the impact this study will have on student outcomes.”North Carolina needed DeVos’ approval because the federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires states to administer standardized tests to students.Currently, students in grades three through eight take state standardized tests in reading and math at the end of the school year. The tests have been criticized as useless for teachers who want to use results to guide lessons, too stressful for students and parents, and developmentally inappropriate for younger children who cannot sit and focus for hours at a time, the News & Observer previously reported.The new?North Carolina Personalized Assessment Tool?(NCPAT) will have students in grades 3-8 take three tests during the school year in reading and three tests in math. The first test will be on what was taught up to that point. The second test will cover what’s been taught since the first test.The final test will be given at the end of the school year and include questions on both what students have learned since the second test and what they were taught earlier in the year.State education officials say the new end-of-year test will be personalized, with different questions used based on how students did on the first two assessments. The final test will take up to two hours compared to the three-hour end-of-grade exams now used.“The goal is to provide more information to teachers and parents that can improve their student learning and do that by testing as little as possible but effectively,” Tammy Howard, director of accountability services at the state Department of Public Instruction, said in an interview.The new tests share some similarities with an existing program called?N.C. Check-Ins, in which students are tested three times in a subject to give teachers information they can use during he year. Howard said 60 percent of the state’s school districts use the Check-Ins to supplement the end-of-grade tests.But Howard said there are differences between the Check-Ins and the new tests.Howard said that the 2019-20 school year will be a planning year for the new tests. They’ll then look for schools to volunteer for the pilot starting in the 2020-21 school year.While many things still need to be worked out, Howard said the plan is for all elementary and middle schools to use the new tests in place of the end-of-grade exams starting in the 2023-24 school year.Tia Gilliam-Wilson, an elementary school teacher in the Alamance-Burlington School System, said the new program looks to be better than the current testing system. She said the similarities to the N.C. Check-Ins make it attractive to educators,“Teachers are able to use the data to drive their instruction,” said Gilliam-Wilson, who also works with N.C. Families For School Testing Reform.The new pilot comes at a time when state lawmakers are looking at changing the way students are tested.A testing reduction bill passed by the House?was rejected by the Senate. Lawmakers are trying to work out a compromise.One of the concerns raised by senators is how the House wants to replace the end-of-grade exams with the Check-Ins.The N.C. Chamber of Commerce?has also raised concerns about the House’s plan. They’ve questioned whether the Check-Ins would provide enough information for assessing student performance at the end of the school year.Howard says one of the differences with the Check-Ins is that the new tests will meet federal standards for assessing student achievement.Gary Salamido, chief operating officer and acting president of the NC Chamber, said that policymakers should closely monitor the new pilot to see if it produces results comparable across the state.“We support efforts to comprehensively study new types of tests before making major changes to our assessment program,” Salamido said in a statement. “We also urge legislators and the State Board of Education to use this pilot as an opportunity to engage parents, educators and the business community on how to create a testing program that is high quality and aligned with the standards.”NC has some of the strictest marijuana laws in the country, this proposal seeks to change thatBy?Michael PerchickThursday, April 18, 2019RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Lawmakers filed legislation this week that would decriminalize marijuana possession of four ounces or less, while simultaneously raising the amounts that would qualify for a felony charge."Lots of people of color and young people are getting busted with possession with intent to sell and deliver. And they're not selling and delivering. What they're doing is purchasing it for their private use," said Representative Allison Dahle, one of the primary sponsors of?House Bill 766.Currently, possession of 1.5 ounces or less is a misdemeanor, with anything above that a felony. If passed, anyone with possession of more than four ounces, but 16 ounces or less of marijuana, would receive a misdemeanor."There are tons of people in jail for a pound. And they're sitting in jail on sentences that are not doing anybody any good," Dahle said.Thirty-three states and Washington, D.C. have expansive medical marijuana programs, and 10 states and Washington, D.C. allow for recreational marijuana use."Yes it's illegal, but they don't need to be in our jails. It sets them up for the rest of their life struggling. It sets them up for not being able to get a job, having to check that box that says 'I have a criminal history,'" Dahle argued.North Carolina has an?exception?for "hemp extract" to treat intractable epilepsy, but strict medical marijuana use laws outside that.The legislation has the support of the North Carolina branch of NORML, which stands for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws."We have a lot of sponsors this year. More than any previous year," said Keith Caughran, who is part of the NORML Charlotte chapter, referencing the 12 additional sponsors signing on to the proposal.Dahle acknowledged they have not found any Republicans to support the proposal."What's going to get the Republicans to change their mind on this - I would say it would be a fiscal conservative argument that around North Carolina, a lot of the municipalities and counties, the police are spending tens of thousands of hours either on arresting people or issuing citations to them after they're caught during a traffic stop. So every hour that they spend on this, they can't spend rolling up the Opioid trafficking networks," Caughran said.Last month, a group of lawmakers filed?HB 401, specifically addressing medical marijuana.Health care is on the ballot in state electionsBy?Matthew Yglesias@mattyglesiasmatt@??Nov 5, 2019, 9:00am ESTThe fate of Medicaid expansion is on the line in three Southern states.The races for governor Tuesday, November 5, in Kentucky and Mississippi haven’t attracted nearly as much attention as next spring’s presidential primaries, but they are hugely important to hundreds of thousands of voters without access to health care.Leaders in those states have rejected or put tough restrictions on extremely generous federal matching funds allocated under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to extend their Medicaid programs to cover families earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Depending on who becomes governor in these states, that could change or solidify. State legislative elections in Virginia, meanwhile, have their own set of implications for that state’s health care programs.The stakes are very real. A recent study from four researchers — University of Michigan economist Sarah Miller; University of California, Los Angeles public health scholar Laura Wherry; National Institutes of Health’s Sean Altekruse; and Norman Johnson with the US Census Bureau — estimates that failure to expand Medicaid leads to about 15,600 extra deaths per year just among people ages 55-64.After the passage of the ACA, Democratic states mostly took the expansion money, adding over 7 million more Americans to insurance rolls in recent years. GOP-run states mostly didn’t, though a handful of GOP governors have accepted expansion funding but done so under waiver systems that let them impose heavy work requirements and other administrative burdens on recipients.Originally, the ACA stipulated that states that failed to expand Medicaid would lose their existing federal funding, which would have made expansion all but inevitable. But a 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in which four conservative justices were?joined by liberals Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan?struck down that punitive aspect of ACA expansion as unconstitutional.The decision set off a years-long series of state-by-state battles with very real stakes. Next week several of those fights are coming to a head.Work requirements on the line in KentuckyIn Kentucky, Republicans want to keep new work requirements for Medicaid recipients and Democrats want to lift them.The state expanded Medicaid at the first possible opportunity?back under then-Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat. His successor, Matt Bevin, got a waiver from the Trump administration to impose?stringent work requirements?that are currently being held up in court. A comprehensive study in the?New England Journal of Medicine?of a similar program in Arkansas found that?work requirements reduce enrollment and raise the uninsured rate?without doing anything to increase employment.It seems likely that if Bevin is reelected he will prevail in what’s an increasingly conservative-dominated federal judiciary.Bevin’s opponent is Beshear’s son, Andy, who is also the state’s attorney general.?Andy Beshear opposes Bevin’s changes to Medicaid?and could recapitulate his father’s success in?driving the Kentucky uninsurance rate down to record lows.Mississippi: A Democrat could expand MedicaidA Democrat winning a statewide race in Mississippi sounds unlikely, but the party has a strong candidate in longtime Attorney General Jim Hood, and the (scant)?polling has shown a tight race?between him and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves.Mississippi has one of the lowest health insurance rates in the country (45th out of 50) and the lowest median household income.Consequently, the upside to Medicaid expansion — which would both cover many people and provide a large injection of federal money into the state economy — is large, and?Hood is pushing strongly for it.Beyond the specific consequences for Mississippi, the mere fact that it’s such a long-shot race would send a clear signal about the potency of the Medicaid expansion as an issue.Virginia: Control over the state legislatureVirginia has acted as mostly a blue state in recent years, voting for Barack Obama twice and then Hillary Clinton, sending two Democratic senators to DC, and electing two Democratic governors in a row. But in part because of aggressive gerrymandering, the state legislature has remained in GOP hands for years.Former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe tried repeatedly to expand Medicaid but was blocked by the legislature. His successor, Ralph Northam, got it done after Democrats picked up a few seats in 2017, but he had to make some?compromises limiting eligibility.Republicans currently hold narrow two-seat advantages in both the state Senate and the House of Delegates, but Northam carried strong majorities in districts for both houses during his 2017 election. That, plus strong fundraising and polling that seems to show Trump has become even less popular in Virginia over time, makes Democrats very optimistic about the ability to flip both chambers despite the?cloud of scandal?hanging over their statewide elected officials.The implications of a possible flip in control are wide-ranging. Having power over the redistricting process after the 2020 census would be especially significant, but so is health care. A Democratic state legislature would likely lift those restrictions on eligibility and could even?join other Democratic-run states in experimenting?with larger expansions of government-provided health insurance.Six Ways Social Security Will Be Changing In 2020David RaeContributor?Every day, 10,000 or so baby boomers are turning 65.?Some of you have probably already retired. Many are likely counting the days until they can leave the full-time workforce.??For many of you, Social Security will be a major part of your retirement income. ?With that in mind, it is important to know how Social Security will be changing for 2020.Here are six ways that Social Security will be changing in 2020.1)?????Dipping into the Social Security Trust FundWithout some major action from Congress, the current excess trust fund revenue will be depleted by the year 2034.??If this occurs, it is estimated that Social Security would only be able to pay less than 80% of the promised benefits from ongoing payroll taxes.Donald Trump has thrown out lowering the payroll tax in an attempt to spur the economy. If the government takes this action, the Social Security trust fund would likely be depleted faster.2)?????Full Retirement Age Has IncreasedFor those still a few years away from retirement, those born in 1960 or later, the full retirement age has increased to 67.?You will still be able to start taking Social Security Retirement Benefits at age 62, but with reduced monthly payments.3)?????Cost of Living AdjustmentLow inflation is a good thing for consumers, as it means pricing isn’t going up that quickly.?On the other hand, lower inflation numbers mean small cost of living increases for your Social Security benefits.?In case you didn’t know, your Social Security benefits may be increased each year, partially depending on inflation numbers.For 2020, the Social Security cost of living adjustment is expected to be around 1.8%. Not life-changing, but if you are living off of Social Security alone, every penny counts. For the average retiree, this would likely amount to around $25 more per month.?For the highest earners, this could come closer to $50 more per month in Social Security retirement benefits.4)?Maximum Social Security Benefits Will IncreaseFor workers near the top of the Social Security income scale, $132,900 or more for 2019, your maximum Social Security payout will likely increase slightly in 2020.?No individual at full retirement age can take home more than $2,861 per month, regardless of their pre-retirement income.?This number can be increased by delaying Social Security until the age of 70.?Oprah won’t get more than this at full retirement age, neither will you.Could you live off of $34,332 per year??I would not find that a pleasant standard of living here in Los Angeles.?You can take home more than this amount in Social Security benefits if you delay your benefits until you reach the age of 70, but still, it would be rough to get by in most big cities. ?In case you were wondering, waiting till 70 could increase your Social Security benefit by 32% compared with the starting benefit at 66. This takes the maximum monthly benefit up to about $3,776 per month.5)?????More of Your Social Security Will be TaxedYes, your Social Security benefits are taxable. The amount that is hit with taxes will depend on household income levels.?Just fifty percent of your benefits will be taxed if your income is between $25,000 and $34,000 as an individual.?That goes up to $32,000 to $44,000 for a married couple, still another example of the marriage penalty.Hopefully, everyone reading this will have more income than that to live off in retirement.?If so, 85% of your Social Security benefits will be taxable. That is assuming you have an income in retirement above $34,000 (individual) or $44,000 as a married couple.GETTY6)?????End of Two Great Social Security Maximization StrategiesFile and suspend was a great social security maximization strategy that is no longer available to younger Americans.?The last few baby boomers who were grandfathered into eligibility will turn 70 in 2020.?Seventy is the latest you can wait to start your Social Security benefits. ?I may joke that congress doesn’t do anything, but they did manage to take action to prevent people who reach full retirement age in 2020 (or later) from filing for a restricted claim of spousal benefits. Like file and suspend, this was a strategy to help?smart couples maximize their Social Security benefits.?Thanks a lot.Whatever your age, take a moment and register for access to your Social Security Benefit estimates.??Visit?, just take a few minutes and you will be able to find more information about Social Security, and more importantly, what it will mean for your retirement.Think about your Social Security benefits when you vote in 2020 as well. With record deficits and the skyrocketing national debt, there are rumblings of draconian cuts from Trump and the Republicans to programs like Social Security and Medicare.Make today the day you find out if you are on track for the type of retirement you want. What do you have to lose? Peace of mind today,?hopefully a happier, healthier and wealthier retirement in the future. ................
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