“Edward Siedle [pronounced Seidel]… used to be an attorney at the SEC’s investment management division. In many of the 401K plans that he’s audited, he says that investors were paying 3 to 5 percent: Siedle: "There are some 401Ks that I call lethal, ‘cause they will kill you. They will absolutely kill your retirement nest egg." “Not far from Jerry Schneider’s house, in another small town on Puget Sound, School Psychologist Jeri Daniels-Hall has kept money in a plan called Valuebuilder, offered by her union, the National Education Association. Jerre has a 403B, which operates like a 401K, but applies to public school employees like Jerre, as well as workers in government, universities and non-profits. “When Jerre opened her 2007 year-end statement, she got a shock: Jerre: "I have less money now than I had maybe four months ago, earlier in the year. So it’s not doing very well." “Daniels-Hall and her attorney say she’s got less money in her account, in part because of hidden fees. Derek Loeser: "Lawyers talk about the slippery slope. This case is the pile-up at the bottom of the slope." “Derek Loeser is a partner in the Seattle-based firm, Keller Rohrback. He represents Jerre and another union member in a class-action lawsuit that accused the NEA of “conflicting interests,” resulting in fees that could be characterized as ‘truly absurd.’ Loeser and his partners say they have never seen fees as high as NEA’s worst case: 12.17 percent. Loeser: "A fee load of that degree would make it impossible for anyone to generate any additional savings out of this plan. Some people may well end up with less money in the plan than they originally put in." “In a statement to Bloomberg News, NEA General Counsel Lisa Sotir wrote: 'It’s hard to deliver a program like this with a low fee … because there are commissions paid to agents.' “Hearing that doesn’t make Jerre feel better. She says she feels betrayed. Jerre: "It makes me sick. It’s scary." “When we come back, what Jerre Daniels-Hall and other investors have learned the hard way about what many consider the single most common hidden fee in employer-based retirement plans. You could be paying it, too. [commercials] “Jerre Daniels-Hall may have never learned about the fees that were eating into her retirement account had it not been for the loss of someone she wouldn’t trade all the money in the world for: Her husband, Dick Hall. [Video of man on beach with two children] “This was Dick in 1995, the year his doctors discovered his cancer. Jerre: "He had just had his 50th birthday in July, and he was dead in six weeks. My son was nine, and my little girl was five. We all cried." “Jerre started an investment portfolio, with the money she received from Dick’s life insurance policy. Ten years later, she realized that the returns from her $13-thousand NEA account were much lower than her other portfolio. That’s when it hit her: Dick was a school psychologist like Jerre. Had he survived, they would both be in a tight spot right now. Jerre: "We would still be contributing to the NEA ValueBuilder. [Shaking head.] At the end, we wouldn’t have had enough money to retire." “Now, Jerre was worried. When she asked her local union officials to disclose the fees for the NEA’s 403B plan with more than a billion dollars in assets, Jerre says they stonewalled. That’s when she sued. “Her class-action lawsuit drew attention to one of the more controversial fees in retirement plans today, called ‘revenue sharing.’ “There are now almost 9,000 mutual funds in existence, but often fewer than 20 in a 401K plan, making the cut cost money. “Dr. Greg Kasten, Unified Trust Company, serves as the advisor for more than $2 billion in retirement assets. He says, to be in your plan, most funds pay a fee, which he believes is a legitimate cost as long as it’s disclosed and used to pay for necessary services. Kasten: "The mutual fund is making a payment — sort of a ‘pay to play’ type of arrangement …. The mutual fund has to make a payment to the insurance company or the insurance company won’t recommend the mutual fund." “In Jerre’s case, here’s how that works. Jerre participates in a retirement plan offered by her union, the NEA. Through the plan, she invests in funds. To be one of the funds offered to Jerre, the funds pay the insurance company that run the plan, Nationwide and Security Benefit, a ‘revenue sharing fee.’ Jerre’s attorneys say the insurance companies then pay the NEA fees in order to endorse the ‘Valuebuilder’ plan. And you know who pays all those fees? Her attorneys say Jerre does. Jerre: "Honestly, I didn’t realize there were fees at all that anybody was taking out of my little chunk of money. I had no idea." Loeser: "The individuals who have contacted us, the clients that we have, were outraged to learn that this plan was not brought to them by their union because of its merits, but was brought to them because of kickback payments that the union received. That was simply, in their minds, an outrageous breach of trust." “In May of 2008, a judge in the western district of Washington dealt Jerre another blow: He dismissed the case, ruling that the NEA plan is not covered by the same laws protecting pensions and 401Ks. ‘No authority squarely addresses this issue,’ he wrote. Jerre’s attorneys and co-plaintiff David Hamblen are now reviewing their options, including an appeal."

Sitting in the lunch lounge and wolfing down the Clark County School District’s daily gruel, while listening to teachers complain about their sorry plights, can be a daunting experience. Dishing out more bile than is sprinkled into their goat gut soup, teachers lament all things school district — most notably, about their rural Mississippi-sized paychecks; about the cruel and unusual punishment used by a sadistic administrative system; and, finally, about the blatant ineptitude of their faux union. Moan. Groan. A roomful of whiny teachers is a terrible thing to behold. The collective sound is like a million lemmings drowning in a big vat of battery acid. All so desperate. All so convincing. All so profound. Until it comes time to actually do something about their situation. Then universal silence and apathy prevail, big time.

Mrs. White complained that her husband severely restricted her social activities, so that she had never learned to dance. Due to changes in her attitude brought about psychiatric treatment, her husband became less sure of himself and more indulgent. Mrs. White was then free to enlarge the scope of her activities. She signed up for dancing classes, and then discovered to her despair that she had a morbid fear of dance floors and had to abandon this project. This unfortunate adventure, along with similar ones, laid out some important aspects of her marriage. Out of her many suitors, she had picked a domineering man for a husband. She was then in a position to complain that she could do all sorts of things “it if weren’t for you.” Many of her woman friends had domineering husbands, and when they met for their morning coffee, they spent a good deal of time playing “If It Weren’t For Him.” As it turned out, however, contrary to her complaints, her husband was performing a very real service for her by forbidding her to do something she was deeply afraid of, and by preventing her, in fact, from even becoming aware of her fears. This was one reason... [she] had chosen such a husband.

Policy Analysis End It, Don’t Mend It: What to Do with No Child Left Behind CATO Institute EXCERPT from Executive Summary, September 5, 2007 by Neal McCluskey and Andrew J. Coulson "Virtually all of those analyses have assumed that the law [No Child Left Behind] should and will be reauthorized, disagreeing only over how it should be revised. They have accepted the law's premises without argument: that government-imposed standards and bureaucratic "accountability" are effective mechanisms for improving American education and that Congress should be involved in their implementation... "We find that No Child Left Behind has been ineffective in achieving its intended goals, has had negative unintended consequences, is incompatible with policies that do work, is at the mercy of a political process that can only worsen its prospects, and is based on premises that are fundamentally flawed. We further conclude that NCLB oversteps the federal government's constitutional limits treading on a responsibility that, by law and tradition, is reserved to the states and the people. We therefore recommend that NCLB not be reauthorized and that the federal government return to its constitutional bounds by ending its involvement in elementary and secondary education." ********************************************** Get Congress Out of the Classroom The New York Times By DIANE RAVITCH October 3, 2007 EXCERPT: The main goal of the law ¬ that all children in the United States will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 ¬ is simply unattainable. The primary strategy ¬ to test all children in those subjects in grades three through eight every year ¬ has unleashed an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing that has reduced the time available for teaching other important subjects. Furthermore, the law completely fractures the traditional limits on federal interference in the operation of local schools. Unfortunately, the Congressional leaders in both parties seem determined to renew the law, probably after next year’s presidential election, with only minor changes. But No Child Left Behind should be radically overhauled, not just tweaked. ******************************************** Proficiency Illusion National Review By Liam Julian October 4, 2007 EXCERPT: "One of the biggest flaws with NCLB, for example, is its insistence that all students - 100 percent - be proficient in reading and math by 2014. That won’t happen, of course. But no politician has the stomach to amend this irrational goal to a more manageable 70 or 80 percent, fearing that inevitable question: “Which 20 percent children don’t you care about?” ******************************************** Making No Child Left Behind Worse The Heritage Foundation By Dan Lips EXCERPT: An early draft of the new NCLB bill suggests that congressional leaders are working to make the already flawed program worse. As is well known, No Child Left Behind's problems are myriad. The law dramatically increased federal authority in education, eroding state and local control and imposing a heavy bureaucratic burden on school systems across the country. Its high-stakes testing requirements created a strong incentive for states to engage in a "race to the bottom" by weakening standards and making tests easier to pass. And few children have benefited from NCLB's very weak school choice options. These lackluster reforms were purchased with dramatic increases in federal spending. But even the current version of No Child Left Behind is significantly better than what Congress is now discussing.