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KASB launches community engagement programs

KASB has a new way to get in the game. “Most good ideas about education are out there, rising from the bottom up; from people who are familiar with what is happening in the classroom and from students and parents who have learned what works and know what is needed. “But sometimes those good ideas don’t get heard in Topeka or Washington. That is a major reason why KASB is offering special programs, free of charge, to get people on the front lines of our education system, discussing and doing what it will take to produce successful students,...
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KPI celebrates Milton Friedman who calls for abolishing public schools

    This photo is from Kansas Policy Institute’s Facebook, celebrating Milton Friedman’s legacy. On the Bill Moyers ALEC episode we posted earlier http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-united-states-of-alec-a-follow-up/, you can go to 27:43 when he says it would be ideal to abolish public schools and the taxes that pay for them. KPI is part of the ALEC State Policy Network and actively feeds Kansas legislators talking points and policy advice on education. Dave Trabert, president of KPI is on the ALEC tax and fiscal policy task force, Speaker Ray Merrick and Senate President Susan Wagle are on the ALEC board of directors,...
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List of ALEC bills appearing in Kansas and nationwide in 2013

Here’s a chart showing multiple ALEC education bills were introduced in Kansas and other states in 2013. These bills are not organic solutions for issues in Kansas but are part of a national agenda to de-fund public education and divert precious resources to schools that don’t serve all children and the private and corporate interests behind them, while at the same time weakening teachers’ unions. We note this list is under-inclusive as Kansas’ Innovative School District legislation is missing as well as the mis-named Payroll Protection Act which appears on a different chart but applies to teachers as...
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ALEC promotes neo-vouchers

Last spring ALEC met in Kansas City. From a report on that meeting (recall that Kansas passed a corporate tax credit scholarship provision as part of HB 2506 in the final hours of the 2014 legislative session despite failing to pass out of committee): “Why is a tax task force led by a cigarette lobbyist forming an education subcommittee? Perhaps to advance tuition ‘tax credit’ policies to subsidize charter and religious schools, a scheme dubbed ‘neo-vouchers’ by critics. “‘With conventional vouchers, the state effectively bundles tax revenue and distributes it as vouchers. With neo-vouchers the taxpayer and the...
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