Here's how Roll Call described the bill to spend more on charter schools.
CHARTER SCHOOLS FUNDING: The House on Friday passed a bill (HR 10) to authorize $300 million annually through fiscal 2020 for charter schools in U.S. communities. The bill would provide grants to states for developing and expanding charter schools and for leveraging private loans for capital improvements. The nation’s 5,000-plus charter schools, which educate about 5 percent of the nation’s K-12 students, receive public funding but are freed of many of the rules that bind traditional public schools. In return, they are expected to produce superior academic results and show traditional schools a model for improvement. A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate.
Believe it or not, voting yes with the Republicans: Mark Pocan,
Ryan, Kind, Sensenbrenner, Petri, Ribble. Someone needs to explain themselves.
Big Ed talked with The Progressive Magazine's Ruth Conniff, who highlight what Scott Walker was up to and just how big a failure charters and voucher schools are:
Did he have an understanding this was not going to get through the Senate, or was Pocan thinking it would be hilarious to watch Walker have to hold to prior policy and REJECT Federal money that could have gone to his cronies.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I'm no more surprised than listening to Sen Baldwin side-step and refuse to commit to denying POTUS fast track authority and fighting the TPP, which can be heard near the end of her last interview with Sly.
I didn't hear that interview, but that is disappointing coming from Baldwin. I feel even worse now.
ReplyDeleteI was disappointed to hear of Pocan's vote but it does not surprise me at all. Walker needing to turn down voucher school money on the same grounds he turned down rail and Medicaid and high-speed internet money would be hilarious.
ReplyDeleteBaldwin is here at about 04:15 for approximately four minutes after a chatty lead into trade/jobs referring to legal use of trade names for cheese and sausage made in WI being challenged by folks in the EU.
http://www.slypodcasts.com/apps/blog/us-senator-tammy-baldwin-2
What is scarey and potentially more neoliberal pandering to corporate power for favors, to me, is that the Senator never even came close to mentioning the TPPA in terms of what she BETTER know about exactly what it is. Never a, "trade," deal, but a complete relinquishing of US national sovereignty to multi-national corporations.
Her seeming willingness to consider the possibility of using this thing as a bargaining chip to get a little trickle down for allowing ObombaLLC to have any of it, at our certain further and permanent economic peril is paramount in listening to her here. Oh, she'll be cautious about where she sells us out is NO reassurance.
If Sen Baldwin has yet to hear Lori Wallach on the topic, somebody with more pull than me, better send her the interviews and links.
Sorry I couldn't respond sooner.