Standup4LR goes door-to-door encouraging community involvement | THV11.com

Standup4LR goes door-to-door encouraging community involvement | THV11.com:

Standup4LR goes door-to-door encouraging community involvement 

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - The group that's been pushing for Little Rock schools to regain local control, taking to the street.           

This weekend, StandUP4LR will be drumming up support for the district ahead of the new school year.

Last spring, there was a fervor surrounding Little Rock Schools.

Hundreds of parents and teachers demanding they regain control of their schools, and also demanding their beloved superintendent get to stay.

That was then. Now, the group is hard at work, encouraging parents and the community to back the school system before school starts back on August 15th.

"We need you, we need you parents!"

That's the message Little Rock parents and teachers will be spreading this weekend, as they go door-to-door.

"We are a parent-group whose just come together to provide solutions and get parents more involved, so we can keep up with our district and what's going on”, explains Isis Pettway, a Central High Grad and mother of a second grader at Horrace Mann.

"Just being a parent, that parent-involvement is crucial. The relationship between parents and teachers is crucial. When you have that report with each other, it makes a stronger school”, Pettway goes on to say.

"As a parent and a teacher, I just want to let the parents, and teachers, community, and students know that we support them and we love them, and we are excited about school starting”, says Chandle Carpenter, a parent and teacher at LRSD. She adds, StandUP4LR wants the excitement that surrounded LRSD during some of its lowest points, to be there all-year-long.

"We don't have an elected school board right now, so we need to ensure that we have a voice, and we want to let public officials know we are still here and we care about our kids because they are our kids, and they're the future of our city”, Carpenter explains, adding as much as they miss former Superintendent, Baker Kurrus, the group has thrown its full support behind the district's new Super.

"LRSD is on the rise’, says that new Super, Michael Poore.

Across town, at Roberts Elementary, LRSD's new teachers spent the day meeting with Poore, preparing for the new year.

"There's an energy that's taking place in this district, that I think is going to really go serve kids well”, the Superintendent explains.

That energy, was obvious on the streets near Central High Friday afternoon, as residents excitedly accepted the groups yard signs, some even singing the Central High fight song.

For more information on how you can get involved with Little Rock Schools, visit the StandUP4LR page on Facebook. Arkansas Public Policy Panel - https://www.facebook.com/arpanel/ Standup4LR goes door-to-door encouraging community involvement | THV11.com:

 

Big Education Ape: Text of My Speech in Little Rock, AR (Decenter Yourself) | The Jose Vilson - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/text-of-my-speech-in-little-rock-ar.html

Report: Unequal Access | ACLU of Southern California

Report: Unequal Access | ACLU of Southern California:

Report: Unequal Access

Download the full report (.pdf).

Report: Unequal Access | ACLU of Southern California:

How Some California Charter Schools Illegally Restrict Enrollment

All across California, charter schools are implementing admissions policies that exclude students from enrolling. Like other public schools, charters must admit all students who wish to attend. By law, they may not discourage certain students from enrolling based on income, national origin, academic performance or other factors. These admission policies threaten to turn public schooling into a two-tier system where the students who need the most resources receive the fewest.

To realize charter schools’ promise of providing educational choice to all, the ACLU SoCal and Public Advocates released“Unequal Access: How Some California Charter Schools Illegal Restrict Enrollment,” a report that sheds light on exclusionary enrollment policies at 253 charter schools. See full list of charter schools cited.

These charter schools post enrollment policies or forms online that are clearly illegal or exclusionary. Other schools may also maintain similar prohibited policies that are hidden from the public view. The violations we found include:

• Exclusion Based on Academic Performance
• Discrimination against English Learners
• Pre-Enrollment Essays or Interviews
• Requirements that Discourage Undocumented Students
• Illegal Parent/Guardian Volunteer Requirements

Read the full report (.pdf)

Register-Pajaronian Charter schools accused of 'unequal access' - http://register-pajaronian.com/v2_news_articles.php

ACLU slams Fresno-area charter schools for being exclusionary | Fresno Bee - http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/education/article94039612.html 

Big Education Ape: Some California charter schools discriminate in admissions, ACLU report says - LA Times - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/some-california-charter-schools.html

Big Education Ape: Report Shows How California Charter Schools Break the Law by Choosing Their Students | janresseger - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/report-shows-how-california-charter.html

Big Education Ape: Breaking News: ACLU finds many illegal policies in Charter Schools – Cloaking Inequity - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/breaking-news-aclu-finds-many-illegal.html

   Learn more 

Charter Schools in Violation

See which California charter schools are in violation and how they implement exclusionary policies for enrollment.

Methodology

See the report methodology.

Charter Enrollment Complaint Form

Use this form to file a complaint regarding an exclusionary enrollment policy at a California charter school.

AB 1575 Complaint Form

Use this form to file a complaint regarding an illegal pupil fee. Learn more about AB

Lt. Gov. Patrick’s camp dismisses forum speaker’s school voucher claims

Lt. Gov. Patrick’s camp dismisses forum speaker’s school voucher claims:
Lt. Gov. Patrick’s camp dismisses forum speaker’s school voucher claims

Representatives for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick refuted the claims of a Texas public education advocate who accused Patrick of pushing for a school voucher program that would allow lobbyists and special interest groups to profit from educating children.

Charles "Charlie" Johnson, founder and executive director of Pastors for Texas Children, said Patrick puts his own political gain over the best interests of schoolchildren. Johnson made his comments Thursday during a community forum, "The Truth About Education Vouchers" held Thursday at Stephens Central Library.

Patrick's press secretary Alejandro Garcia said Patrick was not interested in responding to Johnson's comments.

"The lieutenant governor usually doesn't respond to personal attacks," Garcia said.

Patrick, who has been championing a voucher system since being elected to the Texas Senate in 2007, recently vowed to continue to make private-school voucher legislation a major priority when the next regular legislative sessions convenes next year.

He backs giving parents state funding to remove their children from struggling public schools and send them to private and religious alternatives.

Last session, Senate plans offering tax breaks to corporations that funded "school-choice scholarships" for low-income Texans fizzled.

Patrick had defended the measure, saying that "no parent or student should ever feel trapped in a failing school" and adding, "We have an epidemic of failing schools in the state."

House Democrats and rural Republicans generally oppose vouchers, fearing they'll bleed more funding from already cash-strapped public schools.

Johnson, a Democrat, defended his comments Friday. He said Patrick, a Republican, has long been associated with several lobbyist organizations that have a monetary interest in developing more charter schools in Texas.

None of those connections has been proven, and Patrick has previously denied the claims.

"Could I have said what I did more politely?" Johnson said, referring to his comments during the forum. "Probably. But I stand behind everything I said."

Johnson added: "We look forward to working with the lieutenant governor and finding a more excellent way to educate our 5.4 million Texas schoolchildren."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Lt. Gov. Patrick’s camp dismisses forum speaker’s school voucher claims:

New York State Test Scores Inspire Conflicting Interpretations - The New York Times

New York State Test Scores Inspire Conflicting Interpretations - The New York Times:

New York State Test Scores Inspire Conflicting Interpretations

When the New York State Education Department announced scores last week from this year’s standardized tests, it led with the good news — nearly 38 percent of students statewide were proficient in English and about 39 percent were proficient in math, up from the previous year’s results. But it also warned that the scores could not be compared with previous results “apples to apples,” because of changes in the way the tests were written and given.

Almost immediately, in what has become an annual ritual, politicians, educators and advocates of every educational stripe popped up to interpret the results in myriad contradictory ways. And they did not let any asterisks get in the way.

In a news conference on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio, with the New York City schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, beaming by his side, celebrated the fact that the city’s proficiency rate on the English test, given to third through eighth graders, matched the state’s for the first time, at 38 percent of test-takers. (The city’s proficiency rate in math lagged behind the state’s by about three percentage points.) Mr. de Blasio also happily noted the increase in English scores in “every single one of our 32 local districts.”

Although the tests were shorter and given without a time limit — which the state education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, repeatedly pointed out while presenting the results — Mr. de Blasio said that the changes actually made the exams a more accurate measure of what students had learned.

“We think the previous test focused on endurance, if you will,” he said. “This test, because they changed the structure of the test, allowed a cleaner, better look at how the child is actually doing.”

Families for Excellent Schools, a charter school advocacy group that makes a habit of vigorously criticizing Mr. de Blasio, also ignored Ms. Elia’s caveat and went a step further, crediting gains at charter schools with lifting the city’s scores.

Not quite. While the city’s charter schools as a group did outperform traditional public schools, the charter school scores were not used to calculate the city’s proficiency levels; they were broken out separately.

Asked about that discrepancy, Jeremiah Kittredge, chief executive ofFamilies for Excellent Schools, said in an email on Friday, “Any way you look at the data, charter schools outpaced district schools in nearly all categories of achievement and are leading the way in public education in this city.”

Others weighed in from different corners of the educational world. The gains were a victory for the Common Core, said a group supporting those New York State Test Scores Inspire Conflicting Interpretations - The New York Times:

CURMUDGUCATION: Bellwether's Learning Landscape

CURMUDGUCATION: Bellwether's Learning Landscape:

CURMUDGUCATION: Bellwether's Learning Landscape

Bellwether Partners, one of the nation's leading reform right-tilted thinky tanks, have created a new report big enough to deserve its own website. The Learning Landscape is an attempt to create a broad overview of the education biz right now, and while there is much to disagree with, it's a bold attempt and an impressive collection of data and stuff. 

I've read this so that you don't have to, but be warned-- there are six big honking sections to this, so our journey will not be a brief one. It may not be a bridge too far, but it's definitely long enough to stretch over some Florida swampland.

Before We Start

Content aside, I will say this about the report-- somebody deserves a big bonus and a pat on the back for the layout and structure of this report. It is easily navigated, enormously readable, and actually takes advantage of some of the technological possibilities of a report on the internet instead of just taking a paper report and essentially scanning it into digital form. So kudos to whoever managed that. Now let's look at what the report actually says.

Chapter 1: Student Achievement

The fundamental problem with this chapter is the same old, same old-- we are saying "student achievement" when what we actually mean is "student scores on a narrow standardized test." The report hides the bad assumption behind this kind of language:

In recent decades, national focus has been on the performance of all students against state and federal standards as well as the relative performance of sub-groups of students based on race, CURMUDGUCATION: Bellwether's Learning Landscape:

The Charterization of Teacher Ed: Relay Moves into Connecticut - Living in Dialogue

The Charterization of Teacher Ed: Relay Moves into Connecticut - Living in Dialogue:

The Charterization of Teacher Ed: Relay Moves into Connecticut

By Lauren Anderson.

Just last week in Cincinnati, the NAACP voted in favor of a moratorium on the creation of new charter schools and a ramping up of regulation on existing charter schools.

A few days later in Philadelphia, the Relay Graduate School of Education proudly co-hosted its “Grit + Imagination” summer institute, right around the same time that sessions kicked off at some of its newest campuses nationwide.

On their surface these events might seem disconnected, and yet they couldn’t be more intertwined in ways the public should understand. How so?

First, civil rights groups are increasingly opposed to charter schools, given their uneven and troubling record and disproportionately negative impact on low income youth and youth of color. And yet, at the same moment that one of the nation’s leading civil rights advocacy organizations is making an historic statement cautioning against privately-managed charter schools, the same kind of privatization–what we might call “charterization”–of teacher education is rolling forward on seemingly greased rails.

In fact, while requirements placed on traditional teacher education programs have intensified over recent years, alternative non-university providers have benefitted from fewer constraints. Federal initiatives such as Race to the Top and now the Every Student Succeeds Act include incentives that to effectively increase The Charterization of Teacher Ed: Relay Moves into Connecticut - Living in Dialogue:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: School 'reform' Chicago-style. 1,000 teachers/staff laid-off.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: School 'reform' Chicago-style. 1,000 teachers/staff laid-off.:

School 'reform' Chicago-style. 1,000 teachers/staff laid-off.

CEO Forrest Claypool, left, with CPS general counsel and former Jenner & Block pal Ronald Marmer 

Last week, we learned that CPS chief Forrest Claypool was funneling big contracts to his Jenner & Block law firm pals.

On Wednesday, CPS announced it was maintaining and expanding it's network of high-paid, mid-level regional managers called network chiefs. They're the enforcers who give school principals marching orders and ride herd over clusters of neighborhood schools.

On Thursday, we learned that more privately run charter schools will be opening, including a new $27 million charter that's part of the development around the newly-planned Obama Library in Kenwood. The goal is to give a boost to the real estate market and promote gentrification on the city's south side.

Today, Rahm/Claypool pulled the trigger on nearly 1,000 CPS teachers and staff. That includes 494 teachers — including 256 tenured teachers. The layoffs broke down this way: 302 high school teachers and 192 elementary school teachers for a total of 494; and 352 high school Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: School 'reform' Chicago-style. 1,000 teachers/staff laid-off.:

Fethullah Gulen’s Race to the Top Is Over | Foreign Policy

Fethullah Gulen’s Race to the Top Is Over | Foreign Policy:

Fethullah Gulen’s Race to the Top Is Over

The Turkish cleric's decades-long plan to use schools to acquire political power and cultural influence has ended in shambles.

Like a cancer, this virus has metastasized,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech days after Turkey’s attempted coup. The virus to which he referred was the followers of the Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom he blames for orchestrating the attempt to topple him from power.

Turkey’s newly declared state of emergency has armed the government with the powers to purge Gulenists across all state institutions: More than 10,000 military personnel, including 151 generals and admirals, as well as about 3,000 police have been arrested or are now in custody, pending investigation.

But the chemotherapy appears to be focusing on education. Of the 67,000 people suspended in the first 10 days of the state of emergency, at least 42,700 are from the Ministry of National Education. By decree, 1,043 private schools have been closed and expropriated, and 15 universities and 109 student dormitories have been closed. All of the country’s 1,577 university deans have been asked to resign, though many presumably will be allowed back once their records are cleared. Meanwhile, Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz has announced that the government will hire more than 20,000 new teachers this year to make up for the loss.

Education features so prominently in the government’s response to the failed coup attempt because the Gulenists have a decades-long commitment to building a network of schools in Turkey and around the world, which has been crucial for their efforts to expand their influence. Turkey’s political class may not have created the Gulen movement, but it allowed it to move into the state apparatus relatively unhindered. It is now determined to cut it out and is starting with the part that feeds the rest: education.

Like many of Turkey’s religious movements, the Gulenist network represents a reaction to the formation of modern Turkey as a secular republic in 1923. It traces its origins to Said Nursi, a polymath known for his prodigious memory and Gandhi-like resolve who built a movement that engaged in civil disobedience against the secular government.

After Nursi’s death, several religious communities based on his teachings took form. Only one grew beyond its provincial origins — the community nurtured by Fethullah Gulen, who was 25 years old when he first went to the coastal city of Izmir and established himself as an imam known for his emotional style. “He would always cry during his sermons,” an octogenarian who attended a few during the 1960s told one of the authors.

But Gulen also had a unique charisma, and his sermons quickly became popular throughout the region. Nearly all were recorded in audio and later video format and made the rounds among the faithful. Gulen was a state-sanctioned imam at the time and did not come out openly against the Kemalist order — but, being part of the Nursi tradition, he did not condone it either.

Starting in the late 1960s, his followers set themselves apart from other religious communities by emphasizing secondary and higher education. Unlike other religious communities, the Gulenists’ educational system reached into all aspects of life. Each boy would be assigned an abi, or “older brother,” who would mentor him in his studies and also endeavor to shape his character. When girls were incorporated, they were each assigned an abla, meaning “older sister.” They would be typically only a few years older than their pupil, such as a university student mentoring a high school student. This gave members of the movement a strong sense of belonging throughout their lives and established a clear hierarchy and ideological unity.

On Turkey’s political spectrum, the Gulenists were clearly political Islamists. It was their secrecy that made them stand out: Whereas most of Turkey’s Islamists openly resisted secularism through grassroots organization and participation in the democratic system, the Gulen movement sought tosubvert secularism. Move “within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence,” Gulen advised his followers during a now-infamoussermon.

This process should continue, Gulen went on, until his followers had amassed extraordinary influence. “You must wait until such time as you have all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey,” he counseled in the same sermon.

In Gulenist literature, those who will take the reins of the state when this time comes are among the “Golden Generation.” These people have the resolve to “cross over seas of filth,” meaning secular sin, while remaining pure in their intentions and thus bring about a kind of utopia.

But to play the long game, the movement needed a broader base in society, and the key to that was institutional education. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Gulen movement focused on training world-class teachers who could recruit children into their cause.

“I scored high enough in my university entrance exam to get into medical school, but the jamaat [a common phrase for the Gulenist movement] asked me to become a teacher, so that’s what I did,” a teacher who used to work in a Gulenist school said in an interview. As is typical for Gulenists, these teachers were willing to make huge material sacrifices over long periods of time, motivated by the status they attained in the movement and the Fethullah Gulen’s Race to the Top Is Over | Foreign Policy:

Big Education Ape: How U.S. Charter Schools May Be Tied to Turkey's Political Unrest - WNYC - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/how-us-charter-schools-may-be-tied-to.html



Big Education Ape: He’s 77, frail and lives in Pennsylvania. Turkey says he’s a coup mastermind. - The Washington Post - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/hes-77-frail-and-lives-in-pennsylvania.html



Big Education Ape: Turks Can Agree on One Thing: U.S. Was Behind Failed Coup - The New York Times - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/turks-can-agree-on-one-thing-us-was.html

Big Education Ape: KILLING ED: 120 American Charter Schools and One Secretive Turkish Cleric -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/01/killing-ed-120-american-charter-schools.html

Big Education Ape: Reading, writing and religion? Dallas-area charter schools come under fire (again). | Dallas Morning News - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/reading-writing-and-religion-dallas.html

Big Education Ape: United States must extradite Fethullah Gulen to Turkey: Ankara mayor | The Indian Express - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/united-states-must-extradite-fethullah.html

Big Education Ape: Texas Opens Probe Into Gulen Connection to Charter Schools - WSJ -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/texas-opens-probe-into-gulen-connection.html

Big Education Ape: TBF: Charter Schools Tied to Turkey’s Gulen Movement Grow in Texas - The New York Times - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/tbf-charter-schools-tied-to-turkeys.html

Big Education Ape: Fethullah Gulen: Moderniser or Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? « CSS Blog Network - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/fethullah-gulen-moderniser-or-wolf-in.html

Big Education Ape: Coup-attempting Gülenist group operates near 140 charter schools in US - Daily Sabah - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/coup-attempting-gulenist-group-operates.html

Big Education Ape: The Gulen Movement’s Collision Course With The Turkish State -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-gulen-movements-collision-course.html

Big Education Ape: US Commander Campbell: The man behind the failed coup in Turkey -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/us-commander-campbell-man-behind-failed.html

Big Education Ape: Turkey’s Failed Coup Puts Spotlight on a Rural Pennsylvanian Town - WSJ - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/turkeys-failed-coup-puts-spotlight-on.html

Big Education Ape: TBFURMAN: Who's Running These Schools? Part 3 -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/tbfurman-whos-running-these-schools_24.html

Big Education Ape: Turkish rivalry comes to San Jose amid allegations about Magnolia charter schools - Mercury News - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/turkish-rivalry-comes-to-san-jose-amid.html

Big Education Ape: Apple Education Services Posts Its Privacy Policy… in Latin | deutsch29 -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/apple-education-services-posts-its.html

Big Education Ape: What Would it Take for US to Extradite Muslim Cleric to Turkey? -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/what-would-it-take-for-us-to-extradite.html

Big Education Ape: Yo Campbell Brown Cat got your tongue? I Guess There is NO Talking Turkey w/ YOU! -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/yo-campbell-brown-cat-got-your-tongue-i.html

Big Education Ape: TBFURMAN: Who's Running These Schools? -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/tbfurman-whos-running-these-schools.html

Big Education Ape: Video shows Gülen urging followers to secretly infiltrate Turkish state institutions - Daily Sabah - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/video-shows-gulen-urging-followers-to.html

Snuffing out Democracy—the Struggle over Mayoral Control of Seattle’s School Board | The Progressive

Snuffing out Democracy—the Struggle over Mayoral Control of Seattle’s School Board | The Progressive:

Snuffing out Democracy—the Struggle over Mayoral Control of Seattle’s School Board

Seattle and the state of Washington have determinedly resisted the expanding privatization of our nation’s schools. Citizens protested standardized testing and voted three times to oppose charter schools in the state. The issue went to the state's Supreme Court when a fourth charter school initiative passed with a push from big donors. The Washington State Supreme Court ruled that charter schools were unconstitutional. We watched as cities likeChicago and Detroit folded to privatization interests. We saw charter school operators take over entire districts as in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the mostly minority communities of Michigan.

We wanted no part of it.

Seattle has taken back control of its local school board from individuals who supported a former Broad-trained Superintendent’s plans to close schools and convert public schools into charters, and who pushed discredited education reforms including an increase in high-stakes testing, use of under-qualified, short-term Teach for America, Inc. trainees, and tying teacher evaluations to student test scores.

Some other examples of the Seattle School Board’s progressive actions include: initiating later school start times to better match students’ biological needs; passing a resolution to replace the Common Core SBAC test with more fair and valid assessments; establishing a $2 million “student stability” fund to mitigate upheaval at the start of the school year; demanding that special education students be served in the city’s preschool program; moving public testimony to a time when more working parents can participate; placing a moratorium on suspensions of elementary students for non-violent offenses; cutting ties with the Gates Foundation funded Alliance for Education; reaffirming board support of public schools and its opposition to charter schools and taking a stand with the superintendent opposing law-skirting efforts by the Office of the State Superintendent to channel public funding to illegal charter schools via the tiny Mary Walker School District In Eastern Washington.

At the same time, Seattle’s Mayor Ed Murray has been working behind the scenes to take mayoral control of Seattle’s School Board.

Back when he was a Washington state senator, Murray sponsored a failed bill proposing that any town or city in the state could hand over its school district to mayoral control. In the last few years Murray has assembled his own Department of Education and worked on privatizing preschool, using tax levy dollars to threaten established city- and county-subsidized preschools with a percentage of money taken away based on the number of children who do not perform well on tests.

Seattleites are aware of what has happened around the country with mayoral control and Snuffing out Democracy—the Struggle over Mayoral Control of Seattle’s School Board | The Progressive:

 Big Education Ape: Mayoral control of schools worked for New York City, but other poor districts haven’t been so lucky - City & Region - The Buffalo News - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/04/mayoral-control-of-schools-worked-for.html

Jersey Jazzman: Steve Sweeney's Weak Case Against New Jersey Teachers & Police Unions

Jersey Jazzman: Steve Sweeney's Weak Case Against New Jersey Teachers & Police Unions:

Steve Sweeney's Weak Case Against New Jersey Teachers & Police Unions

As usual, Tom Moran -- editorial page editor of the Star-Ledger -- leaves all logic behind if it means he can get in a good whack at New Jersey's teachers unions:

Did Senate President Steve Sweeney just commit political suicide?

Sweeney (D-Gloucester) is the highest-ranking Democrat in Trenton, and wants to be governor.

But he just called for a criminal investigation of the state's largest teachers' union, the New Jersey Education Association, which is by far the richest and most powerful special interest group in the state.

"I'm not going to be bullied and I'm not going to be pushed around," Sweeney says. "Whatever it means to my future."

His charge is that leaders of the teachers' union, and the police union, may have crossed the line into bribery and extortion by explicitly linking campaign donations to a vote by the Legislature.

He may have a point. You can wink and nod about this stuff, but you can't promise money for a specific official action. [emphasis mine]

First of all, as I said before: Sweeney is claiming the unions threatened to withhold money if he didn't put a constitutional amendment on pension funding on the ballot. How can it possibly be a bribe if you don't give someone something? The NJEA hasn't promised money for a specific action; what they've said, quite rationally, is that they're not going to Jersey Jazzman: Steve Sweeney's Weak Case Against New Jersey Teachers & Police Unions:



 Big Education Ape: Jersey Jazzman: Sweeney Goes Full Trump on NJ Public Employee Unions - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/jersey-jazzman-sweeney-goes-full-trump.html