tagged w/ Public Education
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Romney has proved once again that he has little grasp on reality or sound educational policy. While funds are being cut from education programs across the nation, Mr. 1% called for expanding charter schools (privately run but paid for by taxpayers), and creating a voucher system so that poor and disabled students can attend private schools, also using public money.
Aside from getting a government handout for wealthy people to send little Skip or Bitzy to a better school, it's hard to understand the logic of abandoning the public school system in favor of creating a new school system funded by taxpayers. While people love the myth that Charter Schools outperform their public school counterparts, research shows otherwise.
http://veracitystew.com/?p=36602Romney has proved once again that he has little grasp on reality or sound educational... more
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Making lots of news lately is the House Republican’s overriding of a new law pertaining to the nutritional content of lunches served at public schools.
In a nutshell (and this isn’t a joke), they’ll have the frozen pizza served in public schools to be classified as a vegetable, thus categorizing it as "healthy," in a way. And under this new category, pizza would remain qualified for frequent servings, with most paid for by the federal government, under new nutritional guidelines, too.
And not only does this concept stink, but its odor is reminiscent.
Think back to 1981, when the USDA attempted to reclassify as a vegetable the ketchup served in public schools.
But even though the circumstances are remarkably similar (each consisting of the GOP trying to magically modify the nutritional class of processed tomato-based products), they still have notable differences.
Last time, it was just a scheme to cut funding from the school lunch program for budgetary reasons.
This time, though, it’s a scam, and to directly benefit companies whose lobbyists have littered the capitol in efforts to promote their own profits.
http://www.examiner.com/charleston-democrat-in-charleston-sc/the-politics-of-pizza-and-ketchup-tooMaking lots of news lately is the House Republican’s overriding of a new law... more
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Uploaded by bravenewfoundation on Aug 14, 2011
This film and investigation connects the dots and reveals why the Koch brothers are trying to end public education and how their wealth winds up in the hands of Jim Crow. Watch the video, then call David Koch and tell him to stop funding school resegregation now. His number is 212-319-1100.Uploaded by bravenewfoundation on Aug 14, 2011
This film and investigation... more
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In a letter issued yesterday, state Supt. of Education Mick Zais formally refused $149 million in funds allotted specifically for South Carolina, which will now be added to the funds distributed to the remaining 49 states, as well as Dist. of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
And why is that? Because the federal government has no role in our state’s schools, Zais says in this latest of funding refusals.
http://www.rob-servations.com/1/post/2011/08/education-supt-zais-rejects-federal-funding.htmlIn a letter issued yesterday, state Supt. of Education Mick Zais formally refused $149... more
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Thank Sandy Berman for directing us to this link at The Nation, pointing out how the Kochs and the extreme right, through their alter persona "ALEC", have disempowered the EPA and legitimized their right to poison you and me without even having to pay a fine !
http://current.com/1kb7ukc
"Take environmental protections. The Kochs have a penchant for paying their way out of serious violations and coming out ahead. Helped by Koch Industries’ lobbying efforts, one of the first measures George W. Bush signed into law as governor of Texas was an ALEC model bill giving corporations immunity from penalties if they tell regulators about their own violation of environmental rules. Dozens of other ALEC bills would limit environmental regulations or litigation in ways that would benefit Koch."Thank Sandy Berman for directing us to this link at The Nation, pointing out how the... more
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The Nation points out how The Kochs father paved the way to his son's attacks on education for all. Keep the public ignorant, barefoot, hungry, all the women pregnant and they can control them like serfs and slaves. As Sandy Berman says, you should begin reading this series:
http://current.com/1kb7ukc
"ALEC’s model legislation reflects parts of the Kochs’ agenda that have little to do with oil profits. Long before ALEC started pushing taxpayer-subsidized school vouchers, for example, the Koch fortune was already underwriting attacks on public education. David Koch helped inject the idea of privatizing public schools into the national debate as a candidate for vice president in 1980. A cornerstone of the Libertarian Party platform, which he bankrolled, was the call for “educational tax credits to encourage alternatives to public education,” a plan to the right of Ronald Reagan. Several pieces of ALEC’s model legislation echo this plan."The Nation points out how The Kochs father paved the way to his son's attacks on... more
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AlterNet / By Rachel Tabachnick
By now you've surely heard of the Kochs. Meanwhile, the powerful, wealthy DeVos family has remained largely under the radar, while leading a stealth assault on America's schools.
May 6, 2011 |
Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks
Since the 2010 elections, voucher bills have popped up in legislatures around the nation. From Pennsylvania to Indiana to Florida, state governments across the country have introduced bills that would take money from public schools and use it to send students to private and religious institutions.
Vouchers have always been a staple of the right-wing agenda. Like previous efforts, this most recent push for vouchers is led by a network of conservative think tanks, PACs, Religious Right groups and wealthy conservative donors. But "school choice," as they euphemistically paint vouchers, is merely a means to an end. Their ultimate goal is the total elimination of our public education system.
The decades-long campaign to end public education is propelled by the super-wealthy, right-wing DeVos family. Betsy Prince DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwater USA (now Xe), and wife of Dick DeVos, son of the co-founder of Amway, the multi-tiered home products business.
By now, you've surely heard of the Koch brothers, whose behind-the-scenes financing of right-wing causes has been widely documented in the past year. The DeVoses have remained largely under the radar, despite the fact that their stealth assault on America's schools has the potential to do away with public education as we know it.
Right-Wing Privatization Forces
The conservative policy institutes founded beginning in the 1970s get hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy families and foundations to develop and promote free market fundamentalism. More specifically, their goals include privatizing social security, reducing government regulations, thwarting environmental policy, dismantling unions -- and eliminating public schools.
Whatever they may say about giving poor students a leg up, their real priority is nothing short of the total dismantling of our public educational institutions, and they've admitted as much. Cato Institute founder Ed Crane and other conservative think tank leaders have signed the Public Proclamation to Separate School and State, which reads in part that signing on, "Announces to the world your commitment to end involvement by local, state, and federal government from education."
But Americans don't want their schools dismantled. So privatization advocates have recognized that it's not politically viable to openly push for full privatization and have resigned themselves to incrementally dismantling public school systems. The think tanks’ weapon of choice is school vouchers.
Vouchers are funded with public school dollars but are used to pay for students to attend private and parochial (religious-affiliated) schools. The idea was introduced in the 1950s by the high priest of free-market fundamentalism, Milton Friedman, who also made the real goal of the voucher movement clear: “Vouchers are not an end in themselves; they are a means to make a transition from a government to a free-market system." The quote is in a 1995 Cato Institute briefing paper titled “Public Schools: Make Them Private.”
(more at link)AlterNet / By Rachel Tabachnick
By now you've surely heard of the Kochs.... more
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NOTE FROM EthicalVegan: Neither the headline nor the article is mine -- I simply copied and pasted ALL of it.
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Mon Apr 04, 2011 at 04:07 PM EDT
Breaking: Supreme Court Overturns Brown v. Board (not kidding)
by sdelear
Today America's experiment in integrated education came to an end. Today the Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s Tax voucher system in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn. The statute allowed Arizona taxpayers to make donations to school tuition organization while filing their taxes. Any amount, up to $1000 (for a married couple) given, would then provide a dollar for dollar reduction in the State income tax due. These STO’s would then decide how much money to give to applying students for enrollment in private school. Expressly upheld are religious based STOs that restrict scholarships to members of the sponsoring church.
It’s clear the Supreme Court has never lived in the Deep South. The court has never seen towns where all the White children go to a private school while minority students attend a drastically underfunded public school. Nor has the court, apparently, seen churches that are all Black or all White (an arrangement which describes most protestant assemblies in the Deep South).
The Court’s ruling today will allow the wholesale defunding of public schools and the channeling of funds into separate schools based on loosely disguised racial factors. To be completely clear, this ruling allows state to cut funds to public schools while channeling that money to private intermediate organization which will then decide on which student the funds are spent. This differs from vouchers in which all students are entitled to the same amount of funding.
The private character of these STOs makes enforcement of civil rights laws difficult if not impossible. The result of this will be a game of racial whack-a-mole. If one STO is found to act in a racial discriminatory way, a new organization with vaguely change guidelines can quickly be established. The private character of these organizations further vests their leadership with extreme power in deciding who will receive an education.
Under Brown v. Board the State has, until today, had an obligation to educate all students equally and together. The State cannot assign individual dollar amounts to each student and ask parents to pay the difference. Under Arizona Christian this is no longer the case. A STO can assign whatever scholarship value it wants to each student. Is some member of the community an outspoken liberal? No education money of their kid. In effect this decision commoditize education and allows local power brokers to dole it out as they see fit.
Congress must act immediately to overturn this decision. American education is already in a sorry state, if this is not stopped it will eventually destroy the country.
-edit: Just to be clear this is a 1:1 tax break available to all AZ taxpayers. Say for example you don't have a kid and owe the state $1000 in taxes, you can send that $1000 to a STO and will then owe the state $0 in taxes.
-edit: Some of the comments have indicated that they believe this case only rules on standing. While the direct holding relates to standing the court also comments on the constitutionality of this system.
Resisting this conclusion, respondents suggest that Arizonans who benefit from §43–1089 tax credits in effect are paying their state income tax to STOs. In respondents’ view, tax credits give rise to standing even if tax deductions do not, since only the former yield a dollar-for dollar reduction in final tax liability. See Brief for Respondent Winn et al. 5–6; Tr. of Oral Arg. 35–36. But what matters under Flast is whether sectarian STOs receive government funds drawn from general tax revenues, so that moneys have been extracted from a citizen and handed to a religious institution in violation of the citizen’s conscience. Under that inquiry, respondents’ argument fails. Like contributions that lead to charitable tax deductions, contributions yielding STO tax credits are not owed to the State and, in fact, pass directly from taxpayers to private organizations. Respondents’ contrary position assumes that income should be treated as if it were government property even if it has not come into the tax collector’s hands. That premise finds no basis in standing jurisprudence. Private bank accounts cannot be equated with the Arizona State Treasury.NOTE FROM EthicalVegan: Neither the headline nor the article is mine -- I simply... more
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Some United States inner city teachers who work with Black students must use unorthodox methods to improve their education.Some United States inner city teachers who work with Black students must use... more
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1. Colombian attack on the indigenous
2. Blocking the flows of carbon
3. Mending the Niger Delta
4. RCMP can’t find Bin Laden
5. The Olympigs are here!
6. The resistance responds
7. KRS1
8. Occupy Everything1. Colombian attack on the indigenous
2. Blocking the flows of carbon
3. Mending the... more
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In a much heated and debated move, KCMO School Superintendent John Covington made a $50 million move to close schools and save the failing district.In a much heated and debated move, KCMO School Superintendent John Covington made a... more
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A new study by a Stanford University research center determined that Arizona charter schools as a whole don't perform as well as their traditional K-8 counterparts.
In an effort to evaluate whether charter school students would have done better if they'd stayed in a more mainstream setting, The Center for Research on Education Outcomes followed more than 65,000 grade-school students in charter schools over four years, and compared them with peers in conventional public schools.A new study by a Stanford University research center determined that Arizona charter... more
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A profile of Utah artist Jason Quinn
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puente
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An interview with Mica Talbot about the North Sanpete School District Foundation
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This week! Search for a restaurant by zip code...
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During World Water Week, March 22-28, 2009, the Tap Project will once again raise vital donations and awareness for UNICEF’s water and sanitation programs. For every dollar raised, a child will have clean drinking water for 40 days. All funds raised support UNICEF’s efforts to bring clean and accessible water to millions of children around the world.
In 2007, the Tap Project was born in New York City based on a simple concept: restaurants would ask their patrons to donate $1 or more for the tap water they usually enjoy for free, and all funds raised would support UNICEF’s efforts to bring clean and accessible water to millions of children around the world.
Growing from just 300 New York City restaurants in 2007 to over 2,300 across the country in 2008, the Tap Project has quickly grown into a national movement. Restaurants, corporations, volunteers, advertising agencies, community groups, local governments and everyday diners participated to save millions of children’s lives.
http://www.tapproject.org/tap-in-your-city/This week! Search for a restaurant by zip code...
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During World Water Week,... more
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Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution
"The failure of the drug war has led a few of its braver generals, especially from Europe and Latin America, to suggest shifting the focus from locking up people to public health and “harm reduction” (such as encouraging addicts to use clean needles). This approach would put more emphasis on public education and the treatment of addicts, and less on the harassment of peasants who grow coca and the punishment of consumers of “soft” drugs for personal use. That would be a step in the right direction. But it is unlikely to be adequately funded, and it does nothing to take organised crime out of the picture."Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution
"The failure of... more
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Trying to bridge the grade divide in L.A. schools: Lincoln High students have candid ideas. With about 2,500 students, Lincoln High draws from parts of Boyle Heights, El Sereno and Chinatown.
Both the neighborhood and student body are about 15% Asian. And yet Asians make up 50% of students taking Advanced Placement classes. Staffers can't remember the last time a Latino was valedictorian.Trying to bridge the grade divide in L.A. schools: Lincoln High students have candid... more
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