GET TO KNOW ANNUAL RENEWABLE TERM LIFE

            You will be assisted by a life insurance agent to get the perfect type of life insurance instead of getting life insurance quotes. The life insurance agent will introduce you with whole life insurance and term life insurance. Each kind of insurance has different policy, terms, and conditions. The decision to get a particular type of life insurance depends on your needs. Therefore, you may be interested to get an annual renewable term life insurance.

            An annual renewable term life insurance has one year term. If you think that other kinds of insurance policies are too complicated, you can just get this one since it is able to last for only one year. If the insured person dies within that one year, the beneficiary will receive the death benefit. Otherwise, there will be no benefit paid if the insured person dies more than one year such stated in the insurance policy. People usually get this annual renewable term life insurance from five to thirty years. A person must renew this term life insurance every year. You should know that the annual premium will increase each year. Hence, at the end of the term, the premium becomes higher. People should considerate this matter properly.

Three Innovations of Payday Loan Online

In case you haven’t familiar with it, the newest innovation in finance and technology is payday loan online. This service indeed relieves customers for it makes them easier in applying the loan. This means, the customers are able to apply for the loan anywhere they are, as long as there is internet connection around them.

However, online application is not enough. Payday loan is now even more beneficial for the customers who are away at that time for most money lender companies are not requiring their customers to submit their paperwork needed. The information of the paperwork is no longer needed to be faxed for it is the customers themselves should mention it in the form that they should fulfill. Therefore, the form will me more detail in terms of personal identity and the financial history such as banking account and credit card.

However, there are also some money lender companies that do not require the credit card checking as well. That is obviously pretty reliving news for those who have bad credit history.

Thus, payday loan online are now getting easier and easier. Now the customers do not need to visit the money lender office anymore to apply for the loan. Moreover, they do not need to compile their documents either. If they are lucky, they can even get the loan without credit checking. Wow!

Auto Insurance and Uninsured and Underinsured Coverage

            Car insurance coverage that deals with protection to you and others consists of five coverage which one of them is uninsured and underinsured driver coverage. This type of coverage is useful when you are in a car accident and you are the victim of that accident and the person who is in fault has not insurance or their insurance is insufficient. There is an illustration to use this type of coverage. You are in a car accident due to other person crash into your car. Everybody from both sides is safe but the problem is your car get the result of the accident.

            You do not need to worry if the incident aforementioned above happens to you. You just have to make sure that the person who crushes you does not have insurance or his insurance does not enough to pay the expenses resulted from his mistakes. There are two possibilities that might happen if the incident above happens to you. First, if the other driver has not auto insurance car, you will get advantage from uninsured car accident coverage. He will pay the expenses on your car reparation and injuries you are suffering.  The second possibility is the other driver has auto insurance but his coverage is not high enough to pay the damage. 

CMS morale: Good and bad news

North Carolina has released preliminary results from its biennial Teacher Working Conditions Survey.

A quick scan indicates Charlotte-Mecklenburg educators are slightly less satisfied than state averages on most items,  but happier than they were two years ago (although it's called a teacher survey,  it's open to all licensed school-based educators, including administrators).  About 80 percent of CMS teachers said their school is a good place to work and learn,  compared with almost 85 percent statewide. That result was up about one percentage point in CMS and virtually unchanged statewide.

I actually expected to see more dramatic gaps or changes,  given all the talk about dismal morale in the last couple of years. Because this poll happens every two years,  we don't have data from spring of 2011,  when frustrations with layoffs,  pay freezes, school closings,  performance pay and excessive testing may have peaked.  Teachers took the 2012 survey in March and April.

The biggest thing that jumps out is that about 3,100 of the 9,795 eligible educators in CMS didn't do the online survey.  The state participation rate was 86 percent.  In CMS it was 68 percent,  down from 77 percent two years ago.

I don't have time to dive deep or compare individual schools today.  But I expect a lot of you are interested and will have good insights  --  as always, please share.

Spin or service?

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools needs a bigger communications department to keep up with the times, Executive Director LaTarzja Henry told the school board during an update Wednesday.

I almost feel bad about raising the topic in this forum,  which tends to be heavy on taxpayer watchdogs who consider her department a $2 million-a-year spin factory (read about the costs and results here).  I'm not trying to hang Henry up as a virtual piñata.  In fact,  I thought the presentation gave an interesting overview of all the balls her crew is keeping in the air,  from delving into social media to handling "reputational crises" (think performance pay and bad data) to helping school staff cope with tragedy.

This has been an especially tough school year on that last front,  Henry said,  with 30 student deaths and 17 "staff tragedies."  Many of those didn't make headlines,  but still had to be dealt with among the school communities.

While working with the media is the most visible task,  the department reported on some items that played out below the public radar.  CMS increased its volunteers from 45,700 last year to 67,233 this year.  And the communication folks helped get Ident-A-Kid sign-in systems into 81 schools. That means visitors and volunteers are matched against the sex offender registry and other databases;  people who might pose problems are flagged before they enter.

Of course,  there was a bit of spin on display,  too.  I had to grin when Henry described February news about a driver who got her kids off a smoldering school bus as "exactly the kind of story we love to do."  Personally,  I'm not sure school buses bursting into flames qualify as good news, even when kids escape unharmed.

I don't know if incoming Superintendent Heath Morrison will agree that the communication staff needs more people to handle multimedia and revive CMS-TV.  I do know that communication staff can play a vital role in getting information to the public,  whether it's through reporters, CMS outlets or direct citizen requests.  And ultimately,  it's the person at the top who determines how well that system works.  A bad PR staff might discourage the release of clear,  accurate information,  but I think it's more common for a good one to be forced to run interference for recalcitrant officials.

Balancing communication needs with the push to channel money into classrooms is just one of the tough decisions waiting for Morrison. And it's just one more thing for the rest of us to keep an eye on in the coming months.

Sexy emails abort Omaha superintendency

Explicit emails between newly hired Omaha Superintendent Nancy Sebring and a man she was having an affair with have led her to resign before she started work, the Omaha World-Herald reported this weekend.

The emails became public after requests by that newspaper and the Des Moines Register, which covers the job she was leaving. The Register reports that Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, the search firm that handled Sebring's hiring in Des Moines and Omaha, does not request candidates' work emails but may do so in the future.

The public records request turned up 40 emails between Sebring and her lover (both married), discussing their sexual relationship and referring to photos of the man's penis (read an edited and photo-free version here). They were sent to and from her district email account, some on a laptop and iPad belonging to the district, the Des Moines paper reports.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I linked to an Omaha World-Herald series that looked at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools as a reform model that Sebring might learn from. Now it appears that Omaha is offering an unsettling example of how difficult it can be to vet a new leader.

According to published accounts,  Des Moines school district staff who were filling the newspapers' public records requests came across the explicit emails. They notified the Des Moines board, which confronted Sebring.  In a closed meeting with the board,  Sebring abruptly changed her resignation date from June 30 to May 10.  Both Sebring and the board president cited the demands of getting ready for her new job,  and apparently did not disclose the revelations to the Omaha board.

Meanwhile, the Des Moines paper reports that Sebring tried to get rid of the emails, while staff  talked the Omaha reporters into modifying their records request so the personal emails wouldn't turn up. When the emails went public Friday,  Sebring tendered her resignation to the Omaha board at a hastily-called Saturday meeting.

I have no reason to think Heath Morrison,  who starts as CMS superintendent on July 1,  has been engaged in anything like this.  But it does provide a great illustration of why reporters and the public should be wary when public bodies try to block access to officials' correspondence.

Here in Charlotte, I filed a request on May 21 for school board emails related to travel spending and the Chamber of Commerce's trip to London. I modified the time frame of the request when I was told emails more than a month old would require time and expense,  only to be told eight days later that it would cost $855 to get the recent emails. CMS appeared to back away from that pricing, but more than two weeks after the initial request,  I have yet to hear a timetable for when those emails might be provided.

Tahira Stalberte in the public information office says she's just starting to review them: "There are nearly 900 emails in Ericka's inbox,  so it will take time.  After Ericka's,  I will need to review the inboxes for the other board members as well."

Chances are,  those emails will only provide a few more details on the story I've already reported about Chairman Ericka Ellis-Stewart's attempt to pay for the London trip.  But if I needed a nudge not to let the request slide, the Sebring episode surely provides it.

Charlotte hosting business/education summit

Next week Charlotte will host the first of four national summits on how businesses can partner with public schools,  with the public-private Project LIFT partnership showcased.

The main sponsor is America's Promise Alliance, a coalition focused on improving graduation rates,  youth engagement,  early childhood programs and data analysis.  The Alliance has more than 400 partners,  including children's advocacy groups,  major foundations and a long list of professional, educational, business and governmental associations.

The agenda for the June 11-12 event includes speakers from around the country, as well as those from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and its business partners.  Business people and educators are invited to register for the free event.

The Charlotte event is co-hosted by the Foundation for the Carolinas,  a key player in the philanthropic coalition that's trying to raise $55 million to improve the nine Project LIFT schools.  Later sessions are planned for Boston, Denver and Los Angeles.

New blogger: Rhonda Lennon

Welcome to a new member of the blogosphere:  Rhonda Lennon, the District 1 representative to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board, has launched her own site.  To my knowledge, she's the first board member blogging.

Lennon

I suspect she'll make a good blogger.  She voices strong opinions and inspires strong feelings,  pro and con.  One of the best-read posts I've ever done on this blog was about her heated exchange of words with a parent over middle school sports.  With more than 11,000 page views and 143 comments,  it's been topped only by a live blog about the superintendent announcing layoffs.

Lennon has already been posting her views on Facebook,  and she says she created a blog because it gives her more space to elaborate.  Her first post is on a dinner she hosted with incoming Superintendent Heath Morrison,  and she says she's working on items on per-pupil spending and the board's travel budget.  She says she plans to post twice a week.

I hope it goes without saying,  but I'll say it anyway:  I'm simply pointing readers to another avenue for information and discussion,  not allying myself with Lennon or endorsing anything she posts.  If other board members dive in,  I'll be sure to let you all know.

Weigh in on fast-track N.C. ed reform

N.C. Sen. Bob Rucho, a Mecklenburg Republican, has sent out an electronic newsletter urging constituents to read up and weigh in on the Excellent Public Schools Act that's moving through the legislature this summer.

This bill's a bit of a puzzler.  I understand frustration with snail-paced change.  But I'm also skeptical of the notion that a bunch of lawmakers can whip out the answers during a "short session" that's generally designed for minor touch-ups to the budget,  rather than deliberation on changes that will reshape education in North Carolina.

For instance,  Rucho offers this explanation for the benefit of grading schools A to F:  "To ensure improvement in schools that receive failing grades, we're creating a new North Carolina Teacher Corps program  --  modeled on Teach for America  --  that will give the best and brightest recent college graduates and mid-career professionals training and a direct path to teach in low-performing schools where students need the most help."

Even the folks who love Teach For America don't claim it's the solution for failing schools,  and those who don't like it are going to be doubly wary of a reform plan that relies on pumping in a new flow of inexperienced teachers.

There's also a performance-pay mandate with no money attached.  Ask Peter Gorman how that worked out for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools last year.  The idea of intensive reading instruction before children reach third grade is also straight from Gorman's playbook.  It makes so much sense,  but for CMS,  it fell into the "easier said than done" category  (read this study on the results, which found little benefit).

All of those questions and quibbles make Rucho's basic message well worth sharing:  "Our children deserve better than the status quo. They deserve bold solutions, outside-the-box thinking and robust public debate about which policies will make a better North Carolina for our students. Our plan is not partisan, and we welcome suggestions on ways to improve it. We may need to scale back some aspects, or press harder on others. Regardless, creating better classrooms requires constructive cooperation from both sides of the aisle, not inflammatory rhetoric and wild accusations about who really cares for our children. I hope you'll read our bill, SB 795, at www.ncleg.net and weigh in with letters and calls."

The link in the first paragraph will take you directly to the bill, and the ncleg.net link gives you easy access to your representatives. Have at it!