Tag Archives: House Speaker

What a crazy world we’re living in these days! Last week I pointed out how a voucher group is working closely with the union on a private school teacher training project… Hatfields hugging the McCoys? Well, here’s another example of strange bedfellows — Education Week blogger Alyson Klein notes that an odd trio is running around together promoting school reform: In case you missed it, it basically involves Rev. Al Sharpton and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich high-fiving and fist-bumping and telling everyone about how their similarities on education policy transcend their differences on… just about everything else. They’re pro-charter, pro-merit pay, pro-accountability, and they play well with all sorts of audiences. At the convention, a room full of conservative Republican delegates gave Sharpton a standing ovation, while, during the inauguration festivities, a crowd at an inner-city high school in majority black and Democratic D.C. took cell phone pictures of Gingrich (although he kinda got upstaged by another Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona). Well, now U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is hopping on the tour. Now you know how important the cause of education reform is: Newt Gingrich, Al Sharpton, and Arne Duncan are on the same […]

Mostly dead wasn’t good enough for some Colorado lawmakers when it comes to school spending transparency I’m young, and still learning about many different things. Like I’ve learned a lot about the word “transparency” this year – especially as it relates to taxpayer-funded schools making it easy for citizens to see how they spend their money. But I guess I’m still pretty naive, too. It’s hard to believe the lengths the chairman of Colorado’s House Education Committee was willing to go to make sure that Senate Bill 57 was not only mostly dead but double-super-killed, all-the-way dead. You have to read what the investigators at Face The State found out to believe it: Also known as Senate Bill 57, the bill was postponed indefinitely after four hours of committee debate that lasted late into the evening. Speaker Terrance Carroll and House Minority Leader Mike May arrived to work the next morning ready to revive it. But they were too late. When legislation is postponed indefinitely it is technically not dead until the committee report is officially filed with the House clerk. This process usually takes about a day, or at least 24 hours. If the bill is intercepted before it […]