Obama

Now that health care reform has passed in Washington, despite opposition from the National Restaurant Association (NRA) and other business interests, quick-service operators across the country are trying to figure out how the bill will impact them.

But after a year of hyper-partisan legislative combat, many are confused about what is in the 1,990-page bill President Obama signed on March 23, and anxiety is running high.

“There’s an underlying fear about the unknown in the bill and how it’s going to affect us,” says Mike Stimola, CEO of Sandella’s Flatbread Café.

Stimola joins a throng of operators with lingering questions about the business ramifications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

“What exactly is the burden to the business owners out there?” says Paul Mangiamele, CEO of Salsarita’s Fresh Cantina. “Will they be able to survive through the continued pressures on margins, sales, and retaining employees?”

Until these questions are answered, Mangiamele says, expect restaurants to buckle down, particularly in their hiring.

“People that would have been hired to start impacting the unemployment number now won’t be hired,” he says. “So they won’t get health care anyway because they won’t have a job.”

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The last two weeks or so have given us some interesting education news. First came the NYT's March 2nd piece chronicling influential education historian Diane Ravitch's about-face on conservative education policies she once championed.

"Once outspoken about the power of standardized testing, charter schools and free markets to improve schools, Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical. She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education. She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups."

The piece goes on to say that Ravitch now opposes No Child Left Behind, which she once endorsed, because "its requirements for testing in math and reading have squeezed vital subjects like history and art out of classrooms."

Having worked three years in a North Miami public elementary school as an FCAT tutor, I know first-hand the extent to which NCLB, in its attempt to increase school accountability, has crowded out other subjects, especially the arts. Worse yet, it doesn't accomplish its own goals. In my experience, all standardized tests like the FCAT are good for is squashing creativity in schools, frazzling teachers and terrifying students.Read more