Release: New Report On Charter Industry Exposes $100 Million in Taxpayer Funds Meant For Children Instead Lost To Fraud, Waste & Abuse - Integrity in Education

Blog - Integrity in Education:

Release: New Report On Charter Industry Exposes $100 Million in Taxpayer Funds Meant For Children Instead Lost To Fraud, Waste & Abuse

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 5, 2014
CONTACT:
Kyle Serrette: KSerrette@populardemocracy.org, 202-304-8027
Sabrina Stevens: media@integrityineducation.org, 720-295-0238

A new report released today reveals that fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are responsible for losing, misusing or wasting over $100 million in taxpayer money.

“Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud And Abuse,” authored by the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education, echoes a warning from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General. The report draws upon news reports, criminal complaints and more to detail how, in just 15 of the 42 states that have charter schools, charter operators have used school funds illegally to buy personal luxuries for themselves, support their other businesses, and more.

The report also includes recommendations for policymakers on how they can address the problem of rampant fraud, waste and abuse in the charter school industry. Both organizations recommend pausing charter expansion until these problems are addressed.

“We expected to find a fair amount of fraud when we began this project, but we did not expect to find over $100 million in taxpayer dollars lost. That’s just in 15 states. And that figure fails to capture the real harm to children. Clearly, we should hit the pause button on charter expansion until there is a better oversight system in place to protect our children and our communities,” said Kyle Serrette, the Director of Education Justice at the Center for Popular Democracy.”

“Our school system exists to serve students and enrich communities,” added Sabrina Stevens, Executive Director of Integrity in Education. “School funding is too scarce as it is; we can hardly afford to waste the resources we do have on people who would prioritize exotic vacations over school supplies or food for children. We also can’t continue to rely on the media or isolated whistleblowers to identify these problems. We need to have rules in place that can systematically weed out incompetent or unscrupulous charter operators before they pose a risk to students and taxpayers.”

The report can be found at www.populardemocracy.org and www.integrityineducation.org.

April 8, 2014

This Tax Day, tell the USDOE to #ShowTheDocs

This coming Tax Day, we’re re-submitting our request, with updated questions about how this administration’s signature education policies came to be. We believe it is unconscionable for the government officials, paid through our tax dollars, to create barriers between us and the information we need to make policies that work for our children and our communities. We will continue to fight to hold public officials accountable to all of us, not just a few powerful corporate interests.

March 26, 2014

Truthiness and Lies

We all make mistakes. When honest people make a mistake, they own up to it and make the needed corrections. So far, Jeb Bush’s foundation has done the exact opposite.

March 21, 2014

Take Action: Don’t let Jeb Bush deceive parents on TV!

Click here to ask Animal Planet, HGTV and The Family Channel to pull this misleading ad! Yesterday, we started looking into a new ad campaign, a website and TV campaign that promotes testing and the Common Core. Jeb Bush, his education foundation (FEE), and Chiefs for Change have a history of playing fast and loose with the facts while pushing

March 20, 2014

Pay Pearson, Go Further?

Bush’s group offers no links or citations to back up any of their claims about Florida’s education turnaround. But a quick glance at Florida’s most recent NAEP data reveals that their students’ score either statistically no different or worse than the national average on seven out of ten points of comparison.

Act 22 made the financial crisis facing the Philadelphia School District inevitable. Government actions, unintended outcomes with S&Ls, schools

Government actions, unintended outcomes with S&Ls, schools:




Government actions, unintended outcomes with S&Ls, schools

Fast-forward to 1997 and the passage of the Pennsylvania Charter School Law: Act 22. This effectively deregulated the public educational system. Act 22 made the financial crisis facing the Philadelphia School District inevitable.

If you want to see how seemingly logical government actions can create massive problems, all you have to do is look at two outwardly different crises: the collapse of the savings and loan industry and the Philadelphia School District financial mess.

Changes in regulations and laws that allowed interest rates to move freely eventually led to the bankruptcy of many S&Ls, while the passage of the charter-school law set in motion events that ultimately bankrupted the School District.



Actions have consequences, especially when they alter the fundamental manner in which business is conducted. Consider the S&L crisis. The root cause was the repeal of Regulation Q, which had set a ceiling on what banks could pay for deposits. That decision was inevitable given the rapid innovation in the finance sector.



How did a needed market-based action lead to massive bank failures? Simple. Before deregulation, bankers operated under what was amusingly called the 3-6-3 Rule: Pay 3 percent for deposits, lend at 6 percent, and be golfing by 3 p.m.



Largely mortgage lenders, savings and loan associations used short-term, Regulation Q-limited cost deposits and lent them out long term at fixed rates to households who wanted to buy homes. Then the market for short-term deposits changed.

Repealing the limits on interest rates created what economists



Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20140504_Government_actions__unintended_outcomes_with_S_Ls__schools.html#IbuDF5hrGPpyE5mV.99

School officials heading back to Council with aid plea

PHILADELPHIA The leaders of the School District of Philadelphia plan to go to City Council on Monday and, for the fourth year in a row, ask for tens of millions of dollars to keep the system afloat.

1 8h hide  //  save

Yearning for knowledge

Homeless and out of work, Quaris Carter feared he'd never escape the poverty that engulfed him as a child and young man - not without an education.

8h 

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Week in Class Week 31: Is WYSWIG?

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Week in Class Week 31: Is WYSWIG?:

Week in Class Week 31: Is WYSWIG?

This was the second week back from Spring Break. I didn’t write after the first week (Week 30) because as things were “sub-optimal” that week, and I really wasn’t in the mood to voluntarily call up memories of what had happened, let alone reflect on it. This week started off much better. How much better? Like my class had a personality transplant. Based on that, I’m chalking it up to a rough transition back to classroom routines after a week off.

Some that went right the week before last, and didn’t work so well this week…

While Week 30 would try the nerves of teachers of lesser experience, the kids did a heck of a job on their end of week assessment. I have the students write those. In this case, due to SBAC testing, we did not have computers available to work on, so they had to hand-write their Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » Week in Class Week 31: Is WYSWIG?:

NYC Educator: How Much Does This Contract Cost?

NYC Educator: How Much Does This Contract Cost?:

How Much Does This Contract Cost?

There were no givebacks in the 2008-2010 round of contract bargaining for FDNY, NYPD, or DSNY. They got 4% one year, and 4% the next. That was pretty much it.

UFT, on the other hand, went to Albany to help write a draconian junk science law that makes every teacher in the state subject to VAM, which AFT President Randi Weingarten now refers to as a sham. Would that we had known that before agreeing to it. In any case, we were told, the system would have to be negotiated, and we would get a say, and that's why the system was so incredibly wonderful.

Of course we got the evaluation system without the contract, nothing was negotiated, and fanatical ideologue John King unilaterally decided on our system. Though neither the DOE nor the UFT wanted 4-6 annual evaluations, King did, so that was it. Now supervisors had to spend as much time observing teachers doing a great job as those who needed help, so less help was available for teachers in need. Yet another stroke of brilliance from the man who deems Common Core a panacea for our children (but not his own).

A UFT rep came to my school and told my members that the UFT was very smart, and that we would get our contract. After all, he said, there could be no evaluation system without a modification to contract. Alas, we did, in fact, get the evaluation system without the contract. Members routinely ask me to invite this rep back so they can scream at him. I've thus far declined.

Did FDNY, NYPD, or DSNY get a new junk-science based evaluation system for their relatively great increases? I think not. Yet our leadership not only enabled it, but placed it in the hands of a three-year charter school teacher who sees fit to fail 70% of our children. I suppose you could NYC Educator: How Much Does This Contract Cost?:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Louis C.K.

"Well, the way I understand it, if a school’s kids don’t test well, they burn the school down. It’s pretty high-pressure." -- Actually, Louis C.K. was right about Common Core — Ravitch

Washington school board member tells Arne Duncan...

"You can keep the waiver. And regarding your failure letter – I have little interest in using our Lake Stevens letterhead to tell our students and educators they’re failures, because they are not." --Answer Sheet

Baraka

Ras Baraka

“Some people believe we have to eradicate crime altogether and then do economic development. I tend to believe that economic development is a lever to help us reduce crime, as are art and literacy and all kinds of other things.” -- New Jersey Jewish News

James Mason, PARCC state leader

...the contract with Pearson [is] one of "unprecedented Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

Geaux Teacher!: John a White Misrepresents Eureka Math?

Geaux Teacher!: John a White Misrepresents Eureka Math?:

John a White Misrepresents Eureka Math?

How can we believe anything John White says when he has misrepresented so much.  

John White is NOT telling the truth about Eureka Math -the Common Core aligned math curriculum he has chosen for Louisiana.  Why has he said publicly on several occasions that Eureka Math was developed by LSU?  Is it because he wants the public to believe that the Common Core Standards, its curriculum and its standardized test are products of Louisiana teachers?  White connects the Cain Center in this story but there is no mention of the Cain Center in development of Eureka Math.  

The last slide of this PowerPt presentation by John White says that Eureka Math was developed by LSU.  White continues to say that.  

http://www.louisianabelieves.com/docs/webinars/transition-plan-summary-2013.pdf?sfvrsn=4

The non-profit, Common Core (CommonCore.org),  announced on June 24, 2013, that John White has recommended Eureka Math as its state math curriculum. 

http://commoncore.org/louisiana-state-superintendent-of-education-recommends-common-core-math-cur

" WASHINGTON, DC (June 24, 2013) — The State of Louisiana and its Office of the State Superintendent of Education recently announced that the P-12 mathematics curriculum developed by the nonprofit Common Core is a recommended resource for Louisiana math teachers. The state praised the curriculum for its rigor and alignment with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

The CCSS-based math curriculum was developed by Common Core, a Washington, D.C. based organization that creates curriculum tools and promotes programs, policies, and initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels. Common Core developed the math Geaux Teacher!: John a White Misrepresents Eureka Math?:

Roaring in the rain at Lake Placid: "Public education is not for sale!" | NYSUT.org

Roaring in the rain at Lake Placid: "Public education is not for sale!" | NYSUT.org:

Roaring in the rain at Lake Placid: 'Public education is not for sale!'

Author: Liza Frenette

Source: NYSUT Communications

Caption: "Picket in the Pines felt more like Maid of the Mist," said one activist in a tweet, "but everyone left today with big smiles!" Photos on this page by Karen Miemis and Steve Jacobs.

• STORIFY: There was so much Twitter activity for Sunday's Picket in the Pines that the hashtag #picketinthepines was trending by late afternoon (running just behind #StarWarsDay!). It was hard to keep up with, but we managed to curate the best of your tweets and photos over the course of the day. Relieve it all at storify.com. SEE THE TWEETS AND PHOTOS.

---

Umbrellas didn't matter much. Ponchos helped, but the water ran off the edges, soaking the bottom of everyone's pants. Wind gusts blew sheets of rain into the faces of the more than 500 people who stood strong and steadfast on a hilltop overlooking Lake Placid, rallying there in response to NYSUT's call to protect public education.

As a Wall Street anti-union crowd met inside to plot top-down education "reform," teachers and parents chanted outside: "Public education is not for sale!" NYSUT members and parents came from Cobleskill, Yonkers, Long Lake, Binghamton, New Paltz, Saranac Lake, Kingston, Western New York, the Capital Region and beyond.

 

The crowd roared its support of NYSUT President Karen Magee (pictured above), who marked her first month on the job by leading the NYSUT-organized statewide protest in the North Country. Social media was abuzz with comments about the closed door Wall Street privatization agenda, vs. the defenders of public education who picketed outside.

"I have three children and I always told them: who you hang around with is how you are judged," Magee told the crowd. "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, odds are you're a duck!"

The crowd started chanting: "Don't be a duck! Don't be a duck!"

• Capital New York: 'Honorary chair' Cuomo won't attend pro-charter retreat

"The true education reformers are teachers," said Magee. The size and determination of the crowd - including some who traveled seven hours to picket in the 39-degree weather - shows "how teachers feel," said Magee. "It shows our anger and frustration."

NYSUT organized the "Picket in the Pines" to "put the public back in public education." NYSUT officers Andy Pallotta, Paul Pecorale and Martin Messner were on the picket line along with AFT President Randi Weingarten, who came from Washington to show her support.

As they marched, behind them tucked discreetly behind some trees, was the elite Whiteface Lodge, where limousines were bringing wealthy corporate stakeholders to the private retreat - "Camp Philos"- for Wall Street "reformers." Sponsored by the anti-union group Education Reform Now and its PAC, Democrats for Education Reform, the retreat's agenda includes for-profit charter schools, vouchers, merit pay, student data collection, testing by for-profit companies and removing classroom educators from shaping curriculum.

 

"Every time DFER (Democrats for Education Reform) says something about education, they say they're representing the people," said Weingarten (pictured above). "If they represent the people wouldn't they want us inside if they really wanted to have a conversation about public education?"

These groups want to "privatize, de-professionalize and starve our schools," she said.

"Can they hear us in there?" Weingarten shouted. "Use your teacher voices. Can they hear us in there?" The crowd yelled back and passing cars honked in support.

 

As speaker Sabrina Stevens of Integrity in Education explained before the pickets began, the corporate reformers use their relationships to consolidate power, while true reformers use relationships to energize people and distribute power.

"We can figure out what's best for education better than the folks behind closed doors," said Don Carlisto, Saranac Lake TA, one of the NYSUT local leaders who helped organize the rally.

 

And closed doors they were. Gail Richmond, retired music teacher from Kingston, worked extra jobs and saved $1,000 to attend Camp Philos.

"I pretty much devote 24/7 to public education," she said. "I felt it was really important. I wanted to understand what we were up against."

She sent in her application and payment and received two confirmation e-mails. But someone must have noticed she put "retired teacher" under occupation. Suddenly her reservation was cancelled. She made phone calls and they weren't returned. Alas, an email finally informed her it was overbooked.

She came anyway. She stood out proudly in the rain.

The signs on the wet hillside said it all: "Public education is not for sale!"Roaring in the rain at Lake Placid: "Public education is not for sale!" | NYSUT.org:

Teacher Alert: The Case of the Missing Corruption-Tip Hotline | Reclaim Reform

Teacher Alert: The Case of the Missing Corruption-Tip Hotline | Reclaim Reform:

Teacher Alert: The Case of the Missing Corruption-Tip Hotline

Posted on May 4, 2014by Ken Previti

There seems to be a state-by-state Race to the Top for corruption, theft and fraud against teachers.
The grossest form of theft is wage theft from active and retired teachers.

Steal a percentage of every teacher’s paycheck by mandating that money be paid into a pension system promised to not-be-there when the teacher retires.

After teachers retire, blame them for the legislative theft (underfunding), steal from the pension funds they paid for, violate contractual and constitutional laws, and diminish their pension checks.

The “Corrupt State of the Week” award goes to ILLINOIS.

Gov. Pat “Pension Killer” Quinn (D), who is under federal investigation for defrauding money from other state departments, was faced with a tough political ploy by his opposing gubernatorial candidate. A Corruption-Tip Hotline.

Billionaire Tea Party candidate Bruce “Pension Killer” Rauner (R), and his wife, created and praised this hotline repeatedly. Since he himself has publicly vowed to support and increase pension cuts for active and retired teachers, his Corruption-Tip Hotline was greeted with eager cheers by these same teachers.

What better way to seek justice than to call this Hotline and report the grossest form of Teacher Alert: The Case of the Missing Corruption-Tip Hotline | Reclaim Reform:

Teachers Under Attack The Walton Family: Welfare Frauds and Destroyers of Public Education 2014 Medley #11 | Live Long and Prosper

2014 Medley #11 | Live Long and Prosper:

Teachers Under Attack
The Walton Family: Welfare Frauds and Destroyers of Public Education

TEACHERS UNDER ATTACK

Better preparing our nation’s educators

Arne Duncan spoke with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell last month. The interview was proof that the privatization of public education and the destruction of the teaching profession is a bipartisan effort. The liberal leaning MSNBC interviewer jumped right on the privatization bandwagon by blaming bad teachers for the nation’s low scores on international tests. The four minute interview focused on how to make better teachers (defined as those who will raise student test scores) with not one word about how poverty affects education, what the administration is doing to improve the lives of the nearly 25% of American children who live in poverty, or how out-of-school factors account for a much larger effect on student achievement than do teachers.

Duncan, in his usual speed-talking style, rattled on about how we have to elevate the profession…and indicated just how deep is his ignorance about how teachers are educated by implying that teachers need clinical experience before they start teaching…like the medical model. Perhaps he doesn’t know about teaching interns and student teaching.

This is the same person, btw, who touts Teach for America with its five weeks 2014 Medley #11 | Live Long and Prosper:

NYC Public School Parents: How DFER and the charter lobby hijacked our politicians, who are allowing them to hijack our public schools in an "inside job"

NYC Public School Parents: How DFER and the charter lobby hijacked our politicians, who are allowing them to hijack our public schools in an "inside job":

How DFER and the charter lobby hijacked our politicians, who are allowing them to hijack our public schools in an "inside job"

Today, hundreds of parents and teachers stood in the rain, protesting the first day of Camp Philos conclave, at the aptly named Whiteface Lodge.  This shindig was organized by Democrats for Education Reform, with Governor Cuomo the honorary “host” for a meeting of deep-pocketed hedge funders and other financiers who support charter expansion, test based accountability, and other privatization schemes. 

Though at the last minute Cuomo cancelled his plans to attend, presumably because of the protests, several bloggers have written about how ridiculous and insulting is DFER’s spiel, comparing this meeting to the “philosopher’s retreat” that took place in the 19th century between Ralph Waldo Emerson, Russell Lowell, and Horatio Woodman.  While the website says that the nation’s“thought leaders in education reform” will be there, instead they cite M. Night Shmayalan, movie director, and others of a less luminary stature.  Check out the inspired critiques of Prof. Daniel Katz and teacher Patrick Walsh.

The schedule for the gathering features panels with absurd names like  “Rocketships, Klingons and Tribbles: Charters' Course to Where No Schools Have Gone Before” and “Adequacy, Fairness and Equity: School Finance in the Age of Austerity” – a fitting discussion since Gov. Cuomo has made sure that NY public school funding is neither adequate nor equitable, and is instead steering more funds into the charter schools backed by his hedge fund contributors.  

In the latest state budget, Cuomo engineered one of the biggest corporate giveaways in history – to require NYC provide free public space to all new or expanded charters going forward or pay for their private space.   This is despite the fact that NYC already has the most overcrowded schools in the state – and the most expensive real estate.  No doubt NYC Public School Parents: How DFER and the charter lobby hijacked our politicians, who are allowing them to hijack our public schools in an "inside job":

Coop’s Childhood Part 6 – Childhood’s End | Lefty Parent

Coop’s Childhood Part 6 – Childhood’s End | Lefty Parent:

Coop’s Childhood Part 6 – Childhood’s End

May 4th, 2014 at 16:48

My mom rose to the occasion after the divorce with my dad. Though she continued to have a great deal of unresolved anger towards him, and ongoing worries about paying the bills, plus other disruptions in her life, it seems it was perhaps the first real opportunity in that life to be truly on her own, and not pulled and tugged by parents, fiancée or spouse. She was beginning to learn to navigate as a completely autonomous person, including as a single parent, and I was just beginning to become sophisticated enough about this sort of stuff to notice, now that I had started to move her down from the former pedestal I had previously elevated her to.

She was getting enough in child support each month from my dad so she could barely, just barely, pay the bills if we lived frugally. And though some of the couples that had befriended her based on her status as a professor’s wife now distanced themselves from her as a divorcee, her irresistible extroversion and heart on her sleeve emotional honesty was beginning to win her a new community of friends and comrades. Our little household, now three instead of four, was definitely becoming the “Jane Roberts Zale Show”, for better or for worse.

It was now the summer of 1966. In May Martin Luther King had made his first public speech against the Vietnam War, a conflict that was mobilizing the activist segment of my Baby-boom generation and was roiling the progressive intellectual elite that my mom was angling to connect with as well. In June, the Supreme Court’s decision in Miranda v. Arizona now required police to inform suspects of their rights before questioning or arresting them. Later that month the National Organization for Women was founded in Washington DC by Betty Friedan and a handful of other women. In August The Beatles held a press conference and John Lennon apologized for saying he was “more popular than Jesus”.

With summertime came my annual liberation from school and the return to my more natural state of running my own life including planning my own day. Since Coop’s Childhood Part 6 – Childhood’s End | Lefty Parent:

5-4-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Seattle Schools This Week

Monday, May 5th Community meeting with Director McLaren from 6-7:30 pm at the High Point Community Center.Tuesday, May 6thSpecial Education Advisory and Advocacy Council (SEEAC) Meeting starting at 6:30 pm at JSCEE in room 2700.Wednesday, May 7thSchool Board meeting starting at 4:15 pm.  Agenda- I see from the Personnel report that there is a new Director of Capital Projects and Planning, Richard

by Melissa Westbrook / 17min hide  //  save

Seattle Schools Updates

The district recognized some Nutrition Services staff as part of School Lunch Super Hero Day.  This week is School Nutrition Week so thank a kitchen staff member for watching out for students at your school. It is also PTA Teacher Appreciation week so please do thank your child's teacher for their hard work.  May 6th is National Teacher Day.  It is also Choose Privacy Week as observed by the Ameri

by Melissa Westbrook / 44min 

5-3-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:Seattle Schools Community ForumDirector Blanford's Community Meeting TomorrowJust a heads up on Director Blanford's community meeting tomorrow at the Douglass-Truth Library from 10 am to noon. I was told that at the Work Session on Capital Projects (which I am sorry to have missed because it sounds like there were not enough hard questions and more than enough funny

by mike simpson / 8h 

5-4-14 Jersey Jazzman NJ Jammin' All Week

Jersey Jazzman:

The One Thing You Must Remember During NJ's Testing Season

Tomorrow, the 2014 NJASK testing season continues as Grades 5 and 6 give up a week of instruction -- all so politicians can moan and charter schools can brag and teachers can be fired and tablets can be sold.It's all about the kids, dontcha know...Let me make my little contribution to the chaos: here are three graphs to keep in mind as our students and teachers slog through the bubbles. These are

74 by Duke / 52min 

5-3-14 Jersey Jazzman NJ Ed News Round-up Jammin' All Week

Jersey Jazzman:Jersey Jazzman Jammin' All WeekDerrell Bradford Takes Manhattan!Hey, New York! Yeah, I'm talking to you! You and me, we got a beef:See, you guys are always shipping your reformy types across the Hudson to us here in New Jersey and, frankly, we're all sick of it. We're up to our necks in these corporate education reformers, with their "no excuses" and "think-tanky rese

by mike simpson / 7h 

Louisiana’s Texbook Selection Shenanigans | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Louisiana’s Texbook Selection Shenanigans | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Zesty Louisiana Education Politics

Louisiana’s Texbook Selection Shenanigans

Posted on May 4, 2014

0

I was recently contacted to investigate some the selection process used by LDOE to select their textbook vendors for the upcoming school year. I was informed that LDOE had chosen only a single vendor for Tier 1 status for ELA and Math, and that districts were being told if they did not choose one of these two vendors they would face sanctions and punitive actions from the Department. The vendors selected were Eureka, for Math, and Core Knowledge for ELA (English Language Arts).

Eureka Math

Eureka is the bastard love child of Engage New York, (sometimes referred to as EnRage New York) and the Common Core creators themselves and sometimes referred to as merely an Engage NY that you pay for. Engage NY is a “free” Common Core aligned curriculum resource created with funding from a multi-million dollar grant (around 12 or 13 million if I recall) provided by the New York department of Education. (Theoretically LSU had a hand in the development of this curriculum as well. I met with Dr. James Madden from LSU about a few months ago and he confirmed he was personally involved.) Several districts in Louisiana, including EBR where my kids attend, had the misfortune of adopting Engage NY this past year. Engage NY was widely acknowledged in much of the media as confusing and plagued with errors on most of their instructional materials. I created a post this year on my first graders homework that went viral and still gets a lot of attention (including just yesterday when comic Louis C.K. went on a Twitter rant against his third grader’s Common Core homework and someone posted my article as an example of the absurdity of Common Core Math.) Despite numerous available products, Louisiana is the only state to define Eureka as their sole Math aligned provider solution.

Could this really be the only aligned product on the market, or is there more going on here?

Why is Louisiana the only State in the nation that figured this out?

Amazing.Louisiana’s Texbook Selection Shenanigans | Crazy Crawfish's Blog: