Texas: Charter Industry Goes for the Gold: Power | Diane Ravitch's blog

Texas: Charter Industry Goes for the Gold: Power | Diane Ravitch's blog

Texas: Charter Industry Goes for the Gold: Power

Texas has five million public school students. It has 356,000 charter school students. The latter matter far more to the Governor, the Legislature and the State Education Commissioner than the former.

This report came to me from Austin, where officials are trying to remove any “barriers” to charter. The local school board has no say in whether a new charter should open in their district. Local folks may be strong supporters of their public schools but they are not allowed to veto new charter schools.

To show how nutty this embrace of charters is, one legislator tried to slip in a proviso giving charters the power of eminent domain. Imagine the Jones family sitting down for their evening meal, and someone knocks at their door to inform them that a KIPP or IDEA charter needs their lot for a playground; they are given a few days or weeks to vacate their beloved home.

On the third reading of the bill—-SB 28– the eminent CONTINUE READING: Texas: Charter Industry Goes for the Gold: Power | Diane Ravitch's blog

Getting Ahead on Easter | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Getting Ahead on Easter | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Getting Ahead on Easter

Evangelical Christianity in the political sphere is not pretty sight.

The world has watched the hardness, harshness, and hypocrisy of self-righteousness on display in the name of some desired political end (not the least of which has been gaining and remaining in power), all of which bespeaks a lack of understanding about Jesus Himself.

I won’t pretend to address the entire off-putting issue here, but I will offer just a smidge– and a critical one, at that– of how the Jesus handled ultimate power over others– including over one of His own who He knew would within hours betray Him.

The setting is the Passover feast, which happened to be the night before Jesus would die (by His own choice; see Matthew 26: 53-54).

Here’s how John records the situation in John:13:3-5:

Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.

Knowing He had untlimited power, Jesus chose to serve. To serve. Not to make sure others knew how powerful He was, or to use His power to serve Himself or to unleash wrath upon His enemies. No self-gratulation; no putting an agenda CONTINUE READING: Getting Ahead on Easter | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Parents & school administrators agree: Michigan Republicans are holding children hostage for political power | Eclectablog

Parents & school administrators agree: Michigan Republicans are holding children hostage for political power | Eclectablog

Parents & school administrators agree: Michigan Republicans are holding children hostage for political power

Nearly two months ago, the federal government made billions of dollars in COVID-19 relief funds available to the states. Michigan is in line for over $5 billion in relief funding, including $2.1 billion to re-open schools in our state. However, so far, none of that money has been allocated and, if its not used by the end of March, we will forfeit it. The only reason the money has not been accepted is because Republicans will not agree to accept it until Governor Gretchen Whitmer cedes her authority to keep our state safe and allows local school districts to decide for themselves when and how to reopen schools. The condition they are putting on the acceptance of over two billion dollars is nothing short of a power play to maintain their gerrymandered control over our state.

This morning, a group of parents from around the state held a press conference demanding that Republican legislators stop using the lives of their children as a bargaining chip in the quest to diminish Governor Whitmer. Tinu Roland, a parent in the Detroit Charter School District, was blunt: “People like [State Representative] Thomas Albert think it’s okay to play games with our children,” she said. “It feels like our kids are in a different pandemic than he is.” Rep. Albert, a Republican from Lowell, is the Chair of the House Appropriations Committee. In addition to his demand that Gov. Whitmer relinquish her authority to protect all Michiganders, he refuses to release all of the funding from the federal government at once, instead making the funds available only on a quarterly basis. “If the governor performs in that time period, then we’ll continue on with the next installment,” he told The Detroit News.

Dallas Flippen, a parent and pastor with a child in the Jackson Public School system, pointed out CONTINUE READING: Parents & school administrators agree: Michigan Republicans are holding children hostage for political power | Eclectablog