According to a research document obtained by the Guardian, the contributions are not limited to federal elections but extend to state-level campaigns and aim to influence policy at the state level. Priorities include dismantling government, targeting "culture war" issues – particularly abortion – and advancing school privatisation...
Mike Hixenbaugh is a Pulitzer finalist, Peabody award winner, and the author of They Came for the Schools: One Town’s Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America’s Classrooms. In the book, Hixenbaugh delivers an immersive and eye-opening story of Southlake, Texas, a district that seemed to offer everything parents would want for their children—small classes, dedicated teachers, financial resources, a track record of academic success, and school spirit in abundance. All this, until a series of racist incidents became public, a plan to promote inclusiveness was proposed in response—and a coordinated, well-funded conservative backlash erupted, lighting the fire of a national movement on the verge of changing the face of public schools across the country.
They Came for the Schools pulls back the curtain on the powerful forces driving this crusade to ban books, rewrite curricula, limit rights for minority and LGBTQ students—and, most importantly, to win what Hixenbaugh’s deeply informed reporting convinces is the holy grail among those seeking to impose biblical values on American society: school privatization, one school board and one legal battle at a time. Interview:
The end goal of all this is no secret: Defund and decimate public schools so much that the only remaining forms of education are private schools (or privately managed charters), where the price of learning basic literacy is a truckload of religious indoctrination and falsified American history. The leaders of the movement aren't coy about this. Christopher Rufo, who was the front man for instigating national panics over "critical race theory" and "grooming" in public schools, often gives speeches crowing about how much damage he's doing to the public education system...
… "First of all, we're talking about fake news," Stauber said in the interview, years before the term would become a household slogan popularized by Trump. "And what this is, actually, is propaganda, because these are not news stories. They look like news stories, but they have a bias in favor of a political program or an ideology or a product. And the networks and stations that air these, and we're talking about thousands of these produced a year, are engaging simply in plagiarism and fraud, fraud perpetrated on their viewers."…
Last summer, the Supreme Court ruled in the Trinity Lutheran case that Missouri must provide funds to an otherwise qualified church-sponsored preschool under a program designed to improve playground safety. At the time, NPQ warned that “the repercussions will send ripples through public and parochial school programs across the country.” Now, two new suits have been filed, one in the state of Washington and one in Maine, seeking further easing of the separation between church and state when it comes to school funding.....
In 2015, concerned parents, teachers and former students filed a complaint to New York City’s Department of Education charging that 39 ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools in the city failed to give children a basic education, violating state law that requires instruction to be “substantially equivalent” to that in public schools.
New York City education officials were denied entry into half of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools under investigation over allegations of not providing state-mandated secular education, according to a letter the city schools chancellor sent to state authorities.....
Donations to private school voucher programs (67% of private schools are religious) are eligible for a charitable deductible from the federal government.
At the same time, many states offers an in-state voucher program that gives taxpayers a *full credit* for donations to private school voucher programs.
Now, as a result, people in these states may actually *make a profit* from donating to private school voucher programs.
They receive a full tax credit from their state, and they pay lower taxes to the federal government because they’re able to deduct the donation from their reportable income.
Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, in a speech last year, gave a strong hint at his views on taxpayer support for religious schools when he praised his “first judicial hero,” Justice William Rehnquist, for determining that the strict wall between church and state “was wrong as a matter of law and history.”....
The Koch Brothers may have criticized Trump, but they still use their oil money to support billionaire tax cuts, roll back environmental regulations and promote their racist ideology. Here’s a look back at their effort to re-segregate schools in North Carolina from our feature film, Koch Brothers Exposed.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0q0aT1xkpo
At the ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools Pesach Eisen attended in Brooklyn, most of the day was spent studying religious texts with classes taught in Yiddish. One class at the end of the day was spent on secular subjects, including English and math, enough to be “able to go to the food stamps office and apply.”....
ECOT stands for the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow. It is a charter school founded in Ohio in 2000 by businessman William Lager and is a story that hasn't received nearly enough media attention. Probably because it highlights everything that's wrong with for-profit charter school entities delivering public services. .... https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1777984
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos toured two New York City schools on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the city’s public schools, with their 1.1 million students, were not among them....
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos had one of the most contentious confirmation hearings of the Trump administration, with two Republicans voting against her nomination. On Sunday night, she told Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes" that she's "more misunderstood than anything." ... https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/besty-devos-60-minutes_us_5aa5df73e4b086698a9f1117
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday night and stumbled in answering questions that journalist Lesley Stahl asked during a pointed interview.....
