Blog

NC charter operator profiting off of schools

We see some familiar names here. This article highlights our areas of concern. “In late February, the North Carolina chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation — a group co-founded by the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers — embarked on what it billed as a statewide tour of charter schools, a cornerstone of the group’s education agenda…Many of these companies are becoming political players in their states, working to shape the still-emerging set of rules charters must play by. A few, including Mitchell’s company, have aligned themselves with influential conservative groups, such as Americans for Prosperity and the Koch-supported...
Read more Leave a Comment

Milwaukee taxpayers pay $139 million for barred schools

Milwaukee has the nation’s longest-running voucher program. Kansas is following its lead with the passage of the corporate tax credit “scholarship” program to allow low income students to attend private schools. What’s the problem with that? It takes money from the state general fund and provides no measures of accountability for the schools receiving the “scholarships”. Milwaukee’s program has standards, but even so, “Over the past 10 years, Wisconsin taxpayers have paid about $139 million to private schools that were subsequently barred from the state’s voucher system for failing to meet requirements related to finances, accreditation, student safety...
Read more Leave a Comment

Retired KS economist warns of insufficient budgets for schools

Please take a moment to share this letter to the editor, which will be published in the Manhattan Mercury. It is written by Dr. Ed Olsen, retired economist from Kansas State University and former member of the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group: Dear Editor: Gubernatorial candidates Davis and Brownback have dueling claims about the current administration’s supports for K-12 education. I checked their arguments with budget data from the Kansas State Department of Education. In order to judge the budget for education, one must first convert total expenditures to a per pupil basis and also adjust for inflation. If...
Read more Leave a Comment