Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Tags: comics , politics , State of the Union , SOTU , Trump , Watergate , investigation , speech , Image
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
SB 1394, a bill intended to bring more oversight and regulation to charter schools, hasn't gone anywhere yet. Like lots of other bills, it's waiting to be considered, amended or ignored to death.
The bill has some good stuff in it, but it also has a loophole big enough to drive an eighteen wheeler through packed tight with all the state's Charter Management Organizations. That means lots of charter schools, including the entire BASIS chain, won't be bound by the new regulations.
There are charter schools, and then there are Charter Management Organizations.
Everyone knows about charter schools. They're buildings filled with teachers and students, just like other schools. (Online charters are the exception, where students work at home sitting in front of their computers [or that's the plan anyway. Whether they're actually sitting and working is another matter]). Like school districts, charters are supported by taxpayer dollars, but with fewer regulations and restrictions.
But not everyone knows about Charter Management Organizations. CMOs work with one or more charters. In some cases, they're outside management companies hired by the schools to take care of things like administrative and accounting duties. In other cases, the CMOs run the whole shebang. They're like school districts in charge of their schools, overseeing everything from curriculum to purchasing to the hiring and firing of administrators and teachers.
Not all charters use CMOs, but lots do, including well known Arizona-based charter chains like BASIS and Great Hearts. Arizona also has charters that belong to national chains, like Imagine Schools with 12 Arizona campuses and online schools like Arizona Virtual Academy, which is part of the publicly traded corporation, K12 Inc.
Charters with CMOs get money from the state based on how many students are enrolled just like everyone else, but they send a portion of their money upstairs to the CMO, where it disappears from sight. In the case of the charter chains I mentioned above, the schools send nearly everything upstairs.
Tags: SB 1394 , Charter schools , Charter Management Organizations , education , schools , K12 , legislation , Image
In what amounted to a kind of #MAGA field trip, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, former Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach, former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, baseball legend Curt Schilling, and former Sheriff David Clarke convened to discuss a new plan for building a wall along the southern U.S. border. Blackwater founder Erik Prince phoned in from South Africa.
With Congress refusing to pony up the $5.7 billion Trump has demanded for the project, his allies now are plotting to kick things off with private money and private land.
The idea, which began in December as a Florida man’s quixotic online crowdfunding campaign, is becoming something more, well, concrete. Big name Trump supporters like Bannon, a former Trump campaign and White House strategist, have flocked to the project. And they have initiated talks with the Israeli firm that constructed that country’s border fence with Gaza, the group told POLITICO. They expect to hold a town hall in Tucson, Arizona, as soon as Friday and to visit the border in Laredo, Texas, next week.
Tags: Trump , Politico , politics , visit , trip , border wall , Bannon , Tucson , Friday , Image
The release from Team Dorman:
Local businesswoman and Chairwoman of the Downtown Tucson Partnership, Randi Dorman will be holding an event for the public to announce and celebrate her campaign for Mayor of Tucson.
“I’m Randi Dorman, I’m a mom, I’m a businesswoman, I’m the Chairwoman of the Downtown Tucson Partnership and I am pleased to announce I am running to be the next Mayor of Tucson.
Nearly two decades ago I made the life-changing decision to leave a successful career in New York City to join my husband in downtown Tucson. I fell in love with the natural beauty, the culture and especially the people of Tucson and knew that this was the right place to settle and start a family.
In 2002 we and our partners found an old ice factory on the edge of downtown and converted it into Tucson’s first residential loft development. People told us we were crazy, that no one would live downtown. But we could see it so clearly.
And at the end, we saw our vision become reality - giving a piece of Tucson’s rich history new life for the next generation. That philosophy has guided me in everything I’ve done in business, downtown and the arts.
Just like our vision for the ice factory, we must work together to create a vision for Tucson. A vision that includes jobs that provide Tucsonans with the opportunities we all need; that encourages our children to stay and raise their families, that empowers small businesses to grow and new businesses to come here so that we can build the vibrant, thriving economy we deserve and a better quality of life.
It won’t be easy. Nothing worth doing ever is. But “good enough” is no longer good enough.
It’s time we create a vision for what Tucson can be for the next 20 years and beyond. Let’s do it together.”
Tags: news , politics , Mayoral race , Randi Dorman , Tucson Mayor , elections , announcement , Image
Tags: comics , cartoons , politics , Claytoonz , Roger Stone , arrest , dirty trickster , Image
Monday, February 4, 2019
Tags: comics , politics , cartoons , Claytoonz , Super Bowl , Snoozer Bowl , football , Trump , Image
Friday, February 1, 2019
Tags: comics , cartoons , Claytoonz , politics , groundhog day , Trump , golf course , workers , Image
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Will Arizona be among the [un]lucky five states to be part of the new Koch Network education initiative? The states have yet to be named, but I suspect Arizona is on the radar, given the Koch Network and Governor Ducey's mutual admiration society. We know KN loves Ducey's vociferous support of vouchers, and Ducey loves KN's money in equal measure.
The Koch Network announced its decision to put money into education — until recently, it has deferred to other right wing, privatization/"education reform" groups — during its latest summit at Indian Wells, California (about 5 hours down the road from here), where all it takes to get in the door is a commitment to pledge at least $100,000 to the cause.
The announcement came a day after one of the Koch folks' rare kumbaya moments, a celebration of the bipartisan support for the First Step Act, signed into law by President Trump in December to reform the criminal justice system. Friend-of-Obama Van Jones was on board, and he praised the Koch Network's support of the legislation. So was First Son-in-law Jared Kushner (whose interest in the subject was probably spurred by his father's stay in prison [put there by Chris Christie, but that's a whole 'nuther story]).
Don't make the mistake of thinking this is a signal KN is planning to make nice with progressives in the future. Lower incarceration rates, along with fewer laws restricting drug use, have long been part of the libertarian platform. On a number of social issues, libertarians' "less regulation, more freedom" agenda coincides with the progressive viewpoint.
However, the Koch Network is trying to sell its new education initiative as another attempt to join hands with people on the other side of the aisle. Some of its spokespeople went out of their way to praise teachers, who they usually lump together with evil unions and failing schools. The elevator pitch for their new initiative sounds kinda not bad, until you get into the details.
Tags: Koch network. Education initiative. Arizona. Doug Ducey , Image
This week U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, along with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) introduced the Threat Assessment, Prevention, and Safety Act of 2019 (S. 265).
The bill intends to streamline law enforcement efforts on local, state and national levels to better prevent violent acts of mass casualties.
Through the implementation of a Joint Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management Task Force (comprised of federal threat assessment experts, state and local law enforcement officials and mental health service professionals) a national strategy would be created to “prevent targeted violence through threat assessment and management, and evidence-based processes to identify individuals that exhibit patterns of dangerous behavior that may precede an act of targeted violence,” according to a press release.
Since perpetrators of these crimes can act anywhere at any time, the task force is supposed to help state and local law enforcement agencies access the same resources for combating these threats as the FBI and Secret Service.
The task force would be able to make recommendations on how to implement protocols for local law enforcement agencies to effectively preempt dangerous attacks. The bill requires these recommendations to reflect the different needs and resources of communities across the country, in order to prevent the enforcement of a national standard.
These recommendations would be funded through grants awarded by the Department of Homeland Security. Grant money would also be available to community stakeholders such as local governments, tribal organizations, educational institutions and nongovernmental organizations who create “community-based behavioral threat assessment and management units.”
The bill specifically requires recommendations for a Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management School Violence Prevention Program for educational institutions across the country.
A one-page briefing of the bill created by the office of Sen. Rubio states: “We have the expertise to combat the targeted violence plaguing our schools, places of worship, and public spaces, but we have yet to fully implement it to prevent attacks.”
“We must provide law enforcement with the tools they need to keep Arizona families safe and secure,” Sen. Sinema said in a press release. “I will work every day to protect Arizonans from senseless, tragic acts of violence.”
U.S. Representatives Brian Babin (R-Texas) and Val Demings (D-Florida) introduced a companion bill in the House.
Tags: Safety , Violence , Prevention , Threat , Sinema , Rubio , Tillis , Congress , House of Representatives , 116 , Bill , Legislation , Image
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