Teacher, Thinker, Life long learner. Interested in effective & efficient learning & teaching for humans and machines. Live long and learn lots.
Joined July 2013
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Hart of Learning retweeted
Mortgage demand is now WORSE than the Great Financial Crisis.
Read that again.
Worse than 2008.
Yet sellers are still pricing homes like it’s 2021 with 3% rates.
The math stopped mathing.
Hart of Learning retweeted
If your mom dies with a 2.6% mortgage, her bank can tell you to refinance at 7.1% or lose the house
My friend heard that 3 weeks after the funeral. Loan officer said "sorry for her loss" and asked for 2 years of W-2s
She'd spent those 2 years out of work taking care of her sick mom
Her credit score had dropped to 590 by then. 2 other banks denied her, and she got 60 days
So she called me, because I'm known for buying inherited houses.
The house was worth $330,000, with $265,000 left on the loan. I offered $285,000. She'd have walked away with about $20,000 and no house, and I'd have made about $40,000
Then I asked her to read me what the bank said, and I took my offer back
Her mom's payment was $1,201. The new one would've been $1,781. That's $174,000 more over the next 25 years, for the same house
Since 1982, federal law has protected transfers of homes to relatives after the owner's death. The bank can't call the mortgage due just because the house was inherited
And since 2018, federal rules have required mortgage servicers to treat confirmed successors in interest like borrowers for servicing purposes
She didn't need to qualify for a new mortgage just to keep paying the existing one. No new loan, no new interest rate, no 2 years of W-2s
Same rate. Same payment.
We asked for the successor in interest department, not the refinance desk, and sent this certified mail with the death certificate and the deed:
"My mother, [name], died on [date]. I inherited her house at [address] and I live there. I am a successor in interest under 12 CFR 1024.31. Please tell me in writing what else you need to confirm me. I am not applying for a new loan"
5 weeks later her name was on the account at 2.6%
You have to prove you're a qualifying successor, and you have to keep making the mortgage payments while they process it. The bank can ask for proof of inheritance. It can't automatically force you to refinance just because your mom died
Send this to your siblings before one of you has to make that phone call
That loan officer is telling somebody else's kid the same thing today
Hart of Learning retweeted
8 weeks into the school year and every $ I spent on Jump Math is well worth it. I am having the best teaching year ever and it is mainly due to the curricula I'm using. I absolutely love everything. Next week my students learn from
Jump Math
Rocket Math Fluency program
Reading Reconsidered novel unit on Bud Not Buddy
Word Mapping Project word study curriculum
Core Knowledge Civics Unit
Sheppard Software US States & US Capitals online practice
Hart of Learning retweeted
In Washington State, where Jay was governor and now Bob Ferguson is at the helm, Puget Sound Energy wants to increase energy rates by over 30%.
Also, thanks to Jay's change-the-weather gas tax, Washington has some of the most expensive gas in the country. 85% of the tax revenues goes to fund the state bureaucracy and do nothing to change the weather. Ironically, the CCA change-the-weather tax is indirectly blamed for the 30% rate increase.
So, yes, Jay is correct. Governors have tremendous power to wreck a state's economy.
Nice work.
Hart of Learning retweeted
The Governor says 200,000 Washingtonians will lose Apple Health because of the federal bill.
Let's audit that.
What's the requirement?
80 hours a month of work, school, training, or volunteering.
Or about $580 a month in earnings.
Parents of kids under 14? Exempt.
Pregnant women? Exempt.
And for all of 2027, you can self-report.
No pay stubs. No proof. Just say it.
So why would 200,000 people lose coverage?
The state's own analysis says it: red tape.
Paperwork. Missed notices. Renewals that fall through the cracks.
Who runs the paperwork?
Olympia.
Now look at what Olympia chose to fund.
Apple Health for adults here illegally. 100% state dollars.
About $150 million, kept in the budget during a $16 billion deficit.
Gender transition care. If federal money stops, state money covers it.
Abortion. Covered with state dollars.
So when they say they can't protect working families' coverage, remember what they paid for first.
Not just a spending problem.
A priorities problem.
Audit before ask.
Source: WA Health Care Authority; WA State Standard
#VoicesUp #VoteTonya44 #RestoreWashington
You should know that 200,000 more Washingtonians are expected to lose Medicaid/Apple Health coverage due to the Big Bad Betrayal Bill.
Starting on January 1st, more than 600,000 Washingtonians will be subject to work requirements for the first time in order to keep their Apple Health coverage. These individuals will also be required to reapply twice as frequently.
We're leading the nation with our work on an automated verification hub. That will help 400,000 Washingtonians stay covered.
If you have Apple Health:
• Make sure all your information is current
• Look out for communications, including mail, from Apple Health
• Help spread the word with friends, family and co-workers and help them verify their information
Hart of Learning retweeted
Washington's spending grew twice as fast as inflation and population combined, and now takes a larger share of the economy than it did ten years ago.
Keeping up with both inflation and population growth would have meant about +64%. Spending rose +127%, roughly double that, so even the tougher baseline leaves spending well ahead. (FEED THE BEAST)
A CEO and CFO would gt fired for running a business like this.
Have we really received the commensurate value of government services that paces with the spending? 😅😂🤣
Hart of Learning retweeted
When you’re not the one responsible for teaching 28 students in a classroom every day, it’s easy to romanticize theories about inclusion, allowing students with ADHD to learn in their own way, and the supposed tyranny of classroom management.
But when bottles are flying, students are screaming, and chaos erupts every two minutes--it is rules, discipline, and consequences that save the day, not beautiful theories.
Hart of Learning retweeted
The anti-memorization movement has left millions of students unable to think. Every little operation consumes their working memory. Higher-order thinking becomes impossible.
Here’s an example:
Solving an equation is like moving puzzle pieces around. When basic arithmetic is automatic, the pieces are easy to move. You can focus on figuring out how they fit together.
But If you have to recalculate every basic fact, then every puzzle piece becomes a heavy weight. All your effort goes into lifting it. You have little brainpower left to figure out where it belongs. You can’t see the forest for the trees.
The same thing happens all the way up math, from arithmetic to algebra to calculus and beyond.
Each level builds on the skills below it. If those skills aren’t automatic, they’ll consume your brainpower. None will be left for higher-order thinking.
Hart of Learning retweeted
When lawmakers created the Paid Family Medical Leave program in 2019, it was only supposed to tax .4% of workers' paychecks. At the start of next year, it's set to triple that.
Research shows that paid leave isn’t primarily helping people in need. Rather, it’s being used by those with middle and upper incomes. In fact, people earning $61 per hour or more use the PFML program more than twice as much as people in the lowest-earning quintile.
Make your voice known and tell lawmakers that we can't afford to pay for programs with an ever growing price tag.
washingtonpolicy.org/takeact…
Hart of Learning retweeted
We’re learning more about the 16-year-old who opened fire at a school in Bend, Oregon earlier this month, killing three children and a teacher before an armed Good Samaritan intervened and stopped the attack.
Now, as more of the shooter’s history comes to light, one of the newest details is absolutely staggering:
Between March 2020 and October 2026, 911 dispatch received 52 calls for service associated with his family’s home.
52 calls in just over six years.
According to Deschutes County 911 dispatch records obtained by local news, those calls included a runaway juvenile, suicidal subject, domestic dispute, welfare checks, among others. The records don’t establish that the shooter himself was involved in every one of those calls.
But 52 calls associated with one household is an extraordinary amount of contact with the system.
Local news also found that his mother had 37 documented encounters with Bend Police dating back to 2013.
And that adds to what we already knew about the years leading up to the shooting.
As a child, the shooter had been placed in a specialized program for students with significant behavioral and social challenges. Investigators are also looking into his possible connections to violent online extremist groups.
Then, just two months before the shooting, his mother bought a shotgun and gave it to him for his 16th birthday. That was the gun he ultimately used in the attack.
At some point, we have to ask where the accountability lands.
Because after something horrific like this happens, the conversation almost immediately turns to another gun law. Another restriction. Another tool the government supposedly needs to prevent the next one.
But what about the tools and systems already in place?
How do you get to 52 calls to one home in six years and still end up here? No gun law fixes that. Especially in Oregon, where they have so many gun laws that even the armed Good Samaritan who stopped the shooter had to break the law to end the attack.
This is a systemic failure and an accountability problem.
We see these failures again and again, but rarely any accountability for how they happened or what needs to change to prevent the next one.
Before we start talking about what new laws millions of gun owners need to follow, I want to know where the existing system failed.
Hart of Learning retweeted
"during the last school year, a council of educators at both Palo Alto high schools rejected the [advanced math] course, arguing it would serve few students and set back equity and students’ well-being"
Right, math is harmful. Come on! What are we doing?
“If teaching math can harm students, then we have a lot bigger issues to talk about than whether to offer this course,” Nguyen told the Chronicle.
Indeed.
Brian Conrad, a Stanford mathematician, told the Chronicle that he felt math was treated as a “punching bag” for equity and mental health concerns.
“The school doesn’t cut sports teams simply because some kids are far more talented at sports,” he said.
“Why is it that the teaching of math generates much more controversy than other subjects?”
sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti…
Hart of Learning retweeted
When I was placed in special education, the teacher was an amazingly kind woman whom I loved like a mother.
Problem was, I already had a mother. I didn't need another one who excused me from class whenever I wanted, who talked teachers into giving me more chances, who "advocated" for me even when I wasn't deserving of it.
What I needed was someone to draw a clear line and tell me what would happen if I crossed it and then to carry through with the consequence if I did.
I had a childhood which, in a lot of ways, was the stuff of sob stories that get kids excused from their entire education, lest their problems be exacerbated by the normal expectations of a classroom.
But what I didn't need, and what kids today don't need, is the permission to be their worst selves. The only way to make it out of a bad situation, and to make up for past bad decisions, is to begin making better choices. There is no cheat code into a good education.
The adults who are meant to help students with "special needs," like I had, need to understand that they can't make the decisions for these kids. They can help them to make good decisions themselves, but they can't do it for them, and the worst thing they can do is continue making excuses for the bad decisions and behaviors that kids like I was persist in all in the name of compassion.
It wasn't until I got out into the world and got my ass absolutely kicked by the vicissitudes of a world which was much less kind to me than my beloved teacher ever was that I began to find my way to normative and prosocial behaviors. But this took the better part of a decade, a decade that may have been avoided if I had learned the right lessons earlier in life, taught by the people who are supposed to care the most.
Hart of Learning retweeted
I'm not sure if everyone realizes that this "Millionaires Tax" will require EVERYONE to file their income with the state and you get an exemption on all income under 1 million.
It only takes one session to lower the exemption amount to $500k
It also doesn't just hit W2 high earners.
It covers married couples, out of state residents, LLC, S-Corp, and pensions.
If you think this doesn't effect you think agian.
Vote YES on I-645
Hart of Learning retweeted
Mathematical rot starts early.
“Kids don’t really need to memorize multiplication tables.”
“They can just use a calculator.”
That’s where the decay begins.
But then…
-- Multiplication never becomes effortless.
-- Every calculation eats up working memory.
-- Factoring becomes a struggle.
-- Algebra becomes a slog.
Instead of fixing the foundations, people water down the classes.
Students become reliant on calculators to do what they can’t do by hand: Graph. Solve equations. Manipulate expressions.
But moving students ahead without skills doesn’t work. It doesn’t fix the rot. It just allows the rot to keep spreading.
Every new topic sits atop a weaker foundation. A Jenga tower that one day will all come crumbling down.
You don’t fix that in college.
You have to fix it where it started.
You have to fix the foundation.
Further reading: justinmath.com/if-you-want-t…
Hart of Learning retweeted
🚨OH. MY. GOSH!!!!!
A LIBERAL JUDGE JUST LET THE ALLEGED 15-YEAR-OLD “BITE OF SEATTLE” MASS SH00TER OUT OF JAIL!!!!!
He was arrested ON THE SPOT, ADMITTED he pulled the trigger, and less than 3 months later he’s sleeping in his OWN BED… and he’s the ONLY PERSON ARRESTED FOR IT!!!!!
On July 26th, the Bite of Seattle was packed at Seattle Center, 500 feet from the Space Needle, the the gunfire started.
Two festival goers were K*LLED, and 4 more were wounded, including a 2-YEAR-OLD BOY.
Ashley Whitehead was 56.
Carlos Israel Sanchez Villalba was 44.
They came for the food.
They never went home.
Police didn’t have to hunt for this kid, they arrested him RIGHT THERE, with a gun in his jacket.
Prosecutors say it was a Polymer 80 GHOST GUN.
He even TOLD POLICE he fired it.
Court filings say that before the festival, his group met at a house where video showed at least 11 GUNS lined up on the FREAKING FLOOR!!!!
One of them matched the gun he was caught with.
Even his OWN LAWYER told the judge his actions were “dangerous and inappropriate.”
He was charged with FIRST-DEGREE ASSAULT with a firearm and unlawful possession of a firearm.
The state wants him tried as an ADULT.
On September 1st, Judge Veronica Galván kept him locked up and called him “a threat to community safety" but then when the hype went away... yesterday she let him go.
Electronic home monitoring. At his dad’s house. Online school.
Her reason?
SELF-DEFENSE.
Prosecutors told the court he’s a danger to the community. She sent him home anyway.
IT GETS WORSE
This isn’t the first time.
In December 2024, Judge Galván released a 17-year-old robbery suspect WITHOUT BAIL, over prosecutors’ objections.
FIFTEEN DAYS later, prosecutors say he and another teen lured a 14-year-old to a park in Everett, tied him to a tree, and ST*BBED him EIGHT TIMES.
WE DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS!!!!!!!
Hart of Learning retweeted
Teaching in the inner city made me more conservative
I watched as weak-on-discipline policy made schools ungovernable
I witnessed soft-on-crime policies tear apart communities
I sat through condescending lectures about how urban kids can't get the right answer in math or read Shakespeare
I saw torrents of money pouring into schools get wasted on useless admin and consultant speakers instead of actual classroom needs and teacher paychecks
Most frustratingly, I watched white progressives advocate all of the above policies, free from having to deal with their actual consequences, lecturing me about how little I cared about poor students WHILE I ACTUALLY WORKED TO TEACH THEM
Hart of Learning retweeted
@researchEDCan Guess what we are going to livestream our keynote sessions from #rEDTO2026
Tune in Saturday Oct. 24, 2026 using this link.
Share widely!
@rastokke @NickGibbUK @KJWinEducation @Ready4rigor @Educhatter @researchED1
@tombennett71
vimeo.com/event/6289476
Hart of Learning retweeted
Effective Immediately, all organizations using PHP for their systems are advised to be prepared for an update addressing two critical vulnerabilities. PHP is widely used for web applications. These vulnerabilities often provide a direct path to the server's file system or database. If an immediate update is not feasible, it is recommend that organizations take the system offline until it can be fully mitigated. NSA will follow up shortly with more specific guidance.
Hart of Learning retweeted
If you feel the same, check out our mathematical foundations sequence.
Especially designed to propel adult students to the upper echelons of math as efficiently as possible.
mathacademy.com/courses#math…
