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Florida charter explosion: follow the money

Is Florida a model for Kansas? Does this help explain why the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, AFP and KPI, all organizations primarily focused on tax and business policy, are big advocates of expanded charter schools? The following article posted by Diane Ravitch is by Patricia W. Hall, chair of the League of Women Voters Education team in Hillsborough County, Florida. It was originally published by La Gaceta in Tampa, Florida. The state League of Women Voters recently published a one-year study of charters across Florida. Charter School Explosion: Follow the Money Patricia W. Hall Although charter schools must,...
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Legislators show disdain for teachers and public education

Many of us in Game On have reluctantly come to the conclusion that too many of our current legislators actually don’t support public schools or teachers. The first step is to identify the problem. The second step is to do something about it. Get informed and vote in August and November. “Merrick and company should just admit their disdain for K-12 teachers. They certainly demonstrated as much with school finance legislation laced with anti-public school changes. Hit with negative fallout over the ‘red shirts’ remark, Merrick did express regret. But the House speaker’s pettiness spoke volumes, and gave...
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Education groups energized for primaries

Help us get more moms, dads, grandparents and friends to the polls in August and November and help them understand that AFP/ALEC/Kansas Chamber “reforms” aren’t about students as much as they are about privatizing and spending less on public education. http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article643175.html...
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NYT sees charlatans and cranks dictating Kansas policy

“So how did the charlatans and cranks end up dictating policy in Kansas, and to a more limited extent in other states? Follow the money. For the Brownback tax cuts didn’t emerge out of thin air. They closely followed a blueprint laid out by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which has also supported a series of economic studies purporting to show that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy will promote rapid economic growth. The studies are embarrassingly bad, and the council’s Board of Scholars — which includes both Mr. Laffer and Stephen Moore of the...
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