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Democrats Kill Scholarship Bill for Special-Needs Students

The party of compassion (aka Democrats) shows one of its true weaknesses - more compassion for the established interest groups that run our education system than for kids with special needs and their families:Waving off pleas to give parents more educational options for children with special needs, majority Democrats on a Senate committee today thwarted a Republican bill offering tuition assistance so those kids can attend private schools. Senate Bill 142--authored by assistant Senate GOP leader Nancy Spence, and sponsored in the House by Republican Rep. Spencer Swalm--would have started a pilot program in Denver Public Schools granting $3,000 in public funding toward the private-schooling of any child who isn't being well served by a … [Read more...]

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Here’s Your Chance to Hear the Scoop on Unions in Colorado

If you missed my live online radio interview earlier today on Gov. Ritter and Colorado union issues, you can still listen to the show. The one-hour edition of RighTalk radio's "Leave Us Alone" program will replay every hour up to noon local time tomorrow (Thursday, February 21). So you can head over now to RighTalk and hear what you missed. I'm on from about 5 minutes past the hour to 42 minutes past the hour. Enjoy! … [Read more...]

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Teachers Union Getting Ready to Ask Permission to Run Its Own School

Following the Bruce Randolph and Manual HS episode in Denver, the teachers union now says it has a proposal coming to run its own school:Denver's teachers union plans to submit a proposal this spring to create its own school, hoping to launch a teacher-led demonstration site for how to improve student achievement. "Teachers are supportive of reform," Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, said Tuesday. "We have ideas how to improve student achievement and we want an opportunity to put our ideas forward." More power to them. Given an ideal public education system guided by parental/consumer choice where the money followed the child based on need and local schools had autonomy over employment, curriculum, … [Read more...]

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Gazette: Colorado Teachers Need to Know Their Choices

In order for me to live up to my "anti-public education" billing from the teachers union, I wanted to bring your attention to a stunningly clear and beautiful editorial today from the Colorado Springs Gazette. Key excerpts follow:Throughout the country, most teachers belong to a chapter of the National Education Association. The Colorado branch is known as the Colorado Education Association, which is broken down by local chapters. Dues exceed $600 a year, which can be tough for teachers supporting families on wages that average $40-some thousand a year. In some school districts, such as D-11 in Colorado Springs, the union assumes membership and takes dues from a teacher’s wages unless the educator jumps through hoops to opt out during … [Read more...]

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Global Cooling?

Remember, you (may have) read it here first. Where is this highly credible and significant news reported in American media outlets?:NEW evidence has cast doubt on claims that the world’s ice-caps are melting, it emerged last night. Satellite data shows that concerns over the levels of sea ice may have been premature. It was feared that the polar caps were vanishing because of the effects of global warming. But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the “lost” ice has come back. Ice levels which had shrunk from 13million sq km in January 2007 to just four million in October, are almost back to their original levels. Figures show that there is nearly a third more … [Read more...]

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Call in Wednesday to Discuss Gov. Ritter’s Colorado Union Payback

Update: Wednesday's show is also announced here with an invitation to "union thugs" Do you want to chime in about union issues in Colorado - like all the unwelcome fruits of Gov. Ritter's executive order granting union leaders access and power? Then please tune in this Wednesday, February 20, at Noon Mountain Time (2:00 Eastern), to RighTalk's "Leave Us Alone" radio as I join Brian Johnson from the Alliance for Worker Freedom in Washington, DC, to talk about these issues and more. We welcome you to call in live during the broadcast at 1-866-884-TALK (8255). Have an opinion about Ritter's union policies? Concerned about union harassment of Colorado state employees? Upset that government employee union leaders don't have to open … [Read more...]

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Horowitz’s Declaration Against Genocide Targets Colleges

From an email received this morning:The David Horowitz Freedom Center announced that it will distribute a Declaration Against Genocide and ask individuals and groups, particularly those on American college campuses, to sign it. The Declaration notes that the Sudanese and other Africans have been victims of a slow motion genocide, and that Islamo fascists in the Middle East are preparing a new genocide against the Jews and can be found here. In describing the objectives of this new initiative, David Horowitz, President of the Freedom Center, said: “We are asking all campus groups to repudiate the genocidal passage in the Islamic Hadith which reads: “The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: ‘The time [of judgment] will not … [Read more...]

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Presidents Day

Maybe some of you get a paid holiday from work to celebrate the likes of Martin Van Buren, Franklin Pierce, Benjamin Harrison, Warren G. Harding, and Gerald Ford, but not this think-tank scribbler. Yet even though it'll be like a normal day of work for me, that won't stop me from wishing you all a very low-key, lukewarm, and laid-back Presidents Day. Happy Monday to the rest of us. … [Read more...]

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Getting the Whole Story Behind Ritter’s Climate Action Plan

The story behind Gov. Ritter's Climate Action Plan? A Face the State report today says there's more than meets the eye. Here's the heart of it:[Climate Strategies Watch director Paul] Chesser said his research has shown that a CCS-created template ends up pushing the same costly policy agenda in most or all the different states in which it has operated. Its prescriptions regularly include carbon taxes, cap-and-trade regulations, and renewable energy mandates.“The whole stakeholder process has been granted a credibility that it does not deserve,” he said. “It’s a fixed process created, controlled, and run by CCS, and funded by global warming alarmist advocates, which calls everything it does into question.” In addition to … [Read more...]