“She’s a good girl. She helps me a lot. She has big, big dreams. I don’t have the money, but she has big dreams. I hope she’s going to get everything, but she works so hard. She works so hard in school.”
“Our family is needing to make some really big sacrifices because we believe this is important, and so, we’re basically going to do whatever it takes… Sometimes we look at each other and go ‘I don’t know if I can do it again another month…’”
“A lot of the families have to sacrifice and work multiple jobs… And just scraping together enough money to just make tuition, just the basics.”
“It is discriminatory, that parents who want to choose an alternative to public school for their children, would not in any way receive any compensation for that, whether it be tax credit, whether it be a voucher…”
In the 1840s, nativist movement leaders formed official political parties and local chapters of the national Native American Party (later the American Party), although they continued to be commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party. Politicians sought to insert provisions into state constitutions against Catholics who refused to renounce the pope. The Know-Nothing movement brought bigotry and hatred to a new level of violence and organization.
The party’s legacy endured in the post-Civil War era, with laws and constitutional amendments it supported, still today severely limiting parents’ educational choices. A federal constitutional amendment was proposed by Speaker of the House James Blaine prohibiting money raised by taxation in any State to be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations. These were then named the Blaine Amendments of 1875.
in recent decades, often in response to challenges to school choice programs, the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated great interest in examining the issues of educational alternatives and attempts limit parental options. Massachusetts plays a key role in this debate. The Bay State was a key center of the Know-Nothing movement and has the oldest version of Anti-Aid Amendments in the nation, as well as a second such amendment approved in 1917. Two-fifths of Massachusetts residents are Catholic, and its Catholic schools outperform the state’s public schools, which are the best in the nation.
Boston Cops and the Civil Service Commission
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byMichelle McPhee, late of the Herald and currently on WTKK, has a gripping piece on the efforts to root out corruption in the Boston Police Department. McPhee was on the crime beat before and her dramatic writing gives an important story even more life.
Halfway through the piece, McPhee fingers one of the key suspects:
Sigh, makes one wonder why no one has proposed any reforms in this area. Oh, that’s right — Pioneer proposed significant reforms in 2000. Still waiting….
Reaching
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /bySlate’s Tim Noah attempts to draw a parallel between Obama’s membership in Reverend Wright’s church and Hillary Clinton’s interview with reporters and editors at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, owned by Richard Mellon Scaife. The clear implication is that Clinton should be held accountable for some statements of the paper’s owner, as recounted by Noah.
He’s reaching.
Her appearance at the 3rd most widely circulated newspaper in a hotly contested primary state should hardly be newsworthy. Particularly if Noah’s chosen candidate has (gasp!) spoken with reporters at the very same paper.
School choice programs increase 84 percent in 5 years
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: School Choice, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byNo, not here, silly. In the rest of the United States! Do I have to explain everything to you?! Passing on bits of the press release from the Alliance for School Choice: