A new report from Innovation Ohio shows that the state regularly Shortchanges public schools to favor charters. Charter operators give generous campaign contributions to the governor and legislators.

“Proponents have long claimed that community or ‘charter’ schools are the cure for much of what ails Ohio’s education system. If only parents had more “choice” over where their children attend school, they say, competition and the magic of the market would surely improve all schools.

“Equally important, boosters claim that charter schools are cost neutral to the state. Unfortunately, a data set recently produced by the Ohio Department of Educationi explodes that particular myth. According to the data, the way charter schools are funded in this state has a profoundly negative impact on the resources that remain for the overwhelming majority of kids — 1.6 million — who stay in Ohio’s traditional public schools. Actually, it’s even worse than that. In…

On Saturday, May 10, folks are organizing a “Gates Foundation Truth Squad” outside the Gates Foundation Visitor Center to engage with young people attending their “Teen Action Fair”.  We hope to support young people in asking their own questions about the role of wealth and power in Philanthropy.

People are meeting at 9:30 am at  @ 440 5th Ave N.  The Facebook event for the action is here.

Here is the content of a flyer that some people may be handing out:

GATES FOUNDATION

Fun Facts

•   Much of the Gates Foundation funds are in Berkshire Hathaway stock, which owns Burlington Northern Sante Fe (BNSF) and Canadian Railway (CN).  BNSF and CN are now profiting from explosive tar sands oil trains.  This expanded rail capacity will bring tar sands oil to Asian markets, even without Keystone XL.

•    Gates Foundation has significant investments in the GEO…

On the Island of Hawai’i

Peace, Dohn

I was sat in Starbucks last night, thinking of tax, and people watching.

I had time to kill before meeting up with my wife outside the Apple shop to assist her in the attempted resurrection of her seemingly deceased phone.

Sat to my left were four Asian men, perhaps holding a business meeting or family conference. To my right was an amorous, touchy-feely couple, possibly Latin American. Surrounded by unfamiliar languages, in the safe knowledge that they would hold no distractions, I pulled out the cheap second hand book I had just picked up from Paramount.

I do love those second hand book shops, a lot more than Waterstones. The books smell dusty, show signs of being loved and caressed by strangers hands. Some have notes scribbled inside which you try to decipher and imagine probable cause.

When I’m out and about and see other people reading, I am filled…

KAREN LEWIS PUBLIC ADDRESS:
IT’S ABOUT THE MONEY
CITY CLUB CHICAGO
Monday, May 5, 2014

On behalf of the members and staff of the Chicago Teachers Union, I want to thank you for inviting me to the City Club again. I am always honored and pleased to stand before you.

One of my fondest memories of growing up in Chicago was when I was about seven years and my father would take me out on Saturdays for a ride around the city in his old Plymouth. I smiled as Lake Michigan whizzed by my window and I thought its waters flowed from the most striking ocean in the world. I marveled at the skyscrapers and imagined them as the real monsters of the midway; ones that came alive at night to play football in the middle of Soldier’s Field.

I remember one time, however, as we were blazing down 63rd…

It has perhaps slipped your mind, but beginning Sunday afternoon and ending this morning, a group of New York hedge fund managers and charter school supporters has been meeting at Camp Philos in a retreat center at Lake Placid, in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.  The honorary chair of this event was Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York.  Governor Cuomo is not only the man who went before an Albany rally this spring to proclaim, “We will save charter schools,” but also the man who, we discovered later, worked behind the scenes with supporters of a well connected New York City charter school network to stage the rally.

Billy Easton is the executive director of New York’s Alliance for Quality Education, a large statewide coalition of organizations that has been working hard for over a decade to help ensure that New York’s public schools are adequately funded.  AQE, as the…