A Peek Behind The Curtain

The project is to tear down the traditions and institutions of democratic self-governance in order to replace it with a corporate plutocracy.

So the Radical Libertarians, described by Nancy MacLean in "Democracy In Chains", intend to kill off everything we pay for with tax dollars, and privatize everything possible, leaving the federal government with only three basic functions:

1. Defend commercial interests abroad
2. Keep the domestic rabble in line
3. Settle contract disputes

We’re Reporters, Not Teachers.

We Were Able to Start Private Schools Anyway.

Our reporting has shown how easily people — some with questionable backgrounds — have founded their own private schools in barns, strip malls and other places. That led us to an experiment: If the hurdles to open a school are so low, could we do it?

We have no business running a private school.

We’re reporters, not teachers. That doesn’t matter. Inexperience has hardly been a barrier for those who want to start their own schools, as we have reported this year. And it didn’t stop us, either.

Over the last few months, to test the process, reporters from ProPublica partnered with local journalists in three states to establish private schools. None required much effort.

In Arkansas, all it took was a few clicks on the Arkansas secretary of state website, $45 and an American flag to form a bona fide private school with the Arkansas Times.

We established a school with Mountain State Spotlight in West Virginia after filing our new school’s name and location with authorities on a piece of notebook paper, then exchanging a few emails.

And with The Assembly in North Carolina, we filed an online notice of intent to open a private school at Ponysaurus Brewing Co. in Durham, while perched on its metal bar stools, eyeing glasses of a crisp kolsch.

We used our names and news organization email addresses, following each state’s rules for starting private or microschools, a type of private school intended for just a few students. Experience running a school wasn’t needed. No one from any of the states asked us about our backgrounds or qualifications, though West Virginia did ask for proof of a high school diploma. No one questioned what we plan to teach or how we would measure whether students are learning.

And yet we could enroll students in two states right now, if we wanted to. Arkansas even suggested ways our school could accept public money through the state’s voucher-style program.

For the record, we are not enrolling students and have no intention of operating our new schools. We did, however, register a website for our new school ventures, ProPublicaAcademy.com, and even designed some fun pencils to show our school spirit.

This year, a team of ProPublica reporters has been documenting how the American education landscape is shifting dramatically as states use public money to help fund private schools. With few regulations, hundreds of new private and microschools have proliferated.

Our reporting has shown the relative ease with which people — some with questionable backgrounds — founded their own schools in unusual places. They’ve popped up in barns and on farms, in strip malls between an antique shop and an ax-throwing business and in churches, where lighting and sound for worship services is part of the curriculum.

All of this led to a clear reporting question: If the hurdles to open a private school are so low, could we do it? And what would we learn along the way?

Smith Richards, Cohen and Strain, in the Arkansas Times newsroom at Strain’s cubicle, apply online to found a private school.

The only requirement to open a private school in Arkansas is displaying a flag and flagpole, so the team visited the local flag shop in Little Rock.

After much deliberation, we chose small state and national flags.
Photography by Brian Chilson/Arkansas Times
Inside a flag shop in Little Rock, we surveyed our options. There were handheld American flags on skinny sticks, midsize ones to display on a wall and majestic formal flags adorned with silky gold fringe.

State law in Arkansas doesn’t require much to open a private school, nothing about teacher skills or what kids learn. But it does require that all schools display an American flag, and we wanted to follow the rules. So, at the Arkansas Flag and Banner store, we decided on a smallish one that could fit in a circular base atop a newsroom cubicle. We also bought an Arkansas flag — even though only public schools are required to have those. Total cost: $49.45.

Picking the flags for our new school was the hardest part of an astoundingly easy process.

Early in our reporting in Arkansas, we tried to figure out what steps we’d need to take to make a private school. We couldn’t find all the answers online, so we called the state.

“We don’t have rules for opening a private school,” Kaelin Clay, an Arkansas Department of Education spokesperson, told us earlier this year.

In fact, we didn’t even have to file anything with the Education Department. All it took was a few clicks on the Arkansas secretary of state’s website, where we registered the ProPublica-Arkansas Times Curiosity Academy LLC as a business, listed ourselves as agents and officers, and paid a fee.

“We picked a name. We paid 45 bucks,” a ProPublica reporter noted after we submitted the application. With that, we had created a private school.

The secretary of state’s office approved our new business the same day. We even got a certificate.

The Arkansas Department of Education does not regulate private schools once they’re open, and no one from the state inspected the Arkansas Times newsroom, the location we chose for our school. As far as we know, nobody checked our backgrounds, either.

A document that reads: “State of Arkansas. Secretary of State. Cole Jester. Arkansas Secretary of State. To All to Whom These Presents Shall Come, Greetings: I, Cole Jester, Arkansas Secretary of State of Arkansas, do hereby certify that the following and hereto attached instrument of writing is a true and perfect copy of Certificate of Organization of ProPublica-Arkansas Times Curiosity Academy LLC filed in this office June 16, 2026. In Testimony Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my official Seal. Done at my office in the City of Little Rock, this 16th day of June 2026.”

The official certificate acknowledging our school Secretary of State/State of Arkansas

Arkansas adopted a private school funding plan in 2023, and back then there were fewer than 100 private schools on record. With the state in the fourth year of its Education Freedom Accounts program, which provides vouchers that can be spent on private schools, there are now more than 220.

In addition, 143 microschools, which are a different category in Arkansas, were approved this year to accept tax dollars. That’s up from about 100 last school year.

Establishing the Curiosity Academy was so simple — and, frankly, a bit anticlimactic — that reporters then applied to become eligible to receive public funds. (Again, we applied with our names, work email addresses and a note that this was a journalistic exercise. We had no intention of actually ever taking any public money.)

Accessing public funds as a microschool in Arkansas is easier than it is for other types of private schools, even though there is no limit to the number of students one can enroll. Unlike private schools, we didn’t need to seek accreditation or show proof of financial solvency to accept state funding.

It took about 10 minutes to fill out the required information in early September. Other than our contact information, we had to upload just two documents — one detailing our proposed tuition and fees, and the other with our refund policy.

We said that — “should we open a school” — our tuition and fees per student would not exceed $7,208 per school year, the exact amount of Education Freedom Account money that each student in Arkansas is eligible for this year. We said tuition “would be collected only if education is delivered, and it would be the policy of the school to refund all tuition payments for educational services that are not provided.”

When more than two weeks passed and we hadn’t heard back, we reached out to the state Education Department. An employee called back that afternoon and explained that the department had decided not to accept any more because the school year was underway.

But he didn’t reject us outright. He looked up our application and invited us to keep pursuing the public money. He said we still could apply to receive public money this school year, but as a vendor providing educational services such as tutoring. He also said we could apply as a microschool next year and even suggested a tweak to the language in our tuition policy should we decide to do that.

After we hung up, he emailed us the vendor application (which we will not pursue) and let us know the microschool application for next school year will open in the spring.

We asked the state Education Department whether it would be OK with us operating a publicly funded microschool. Clay, the spokesperson, said the agency’s role is to decide if schools meet state requirements. Microschool families, she said, “have the freedom to choose the educators and learning environments that best meet their children’s needs.”

We decided to handwrite our application for a middle school after seeing other school applications submitted in casual ways.

Smith Richards and Culvyhouse go to the Capitol to hand-deliver their application.

Hunched over a desk in the Mountain State Spotlight newsroom in Charleston, West Virginia, pen in hand, we scrawled out official notice of our new school in a spiral-bound notebook. We wrote that we would serve middle school students and listed our first day as TBD.

Leaving the crunchy, ragged edges on the paper, we stuffed our notice of intent into an envelope. We’d seen other new operators file similarly casual ones as they sought to register private schools in West Virginia.

Then we drove over to the state Education Department to deliver the request. Our group — two reporters, a photographer and a video journalist — went through security and, camera rolling, wound our way through the maze of the midcentury building. We got lost once, and our entourage received several perplexed glances from workers, but otherwise it was smooth sailing. The person we needed to deliver the letter to was out, but a friendly employee agreed to place it on his desk.

Dozens of new private and microschools have set up shop in the state in recent years, fueled by the roughly $5,400 the Hope Scholarship offers each student to pay tuition. New private schools all go through Dustin Lambert, a manager in the Office of Student Enrichment and Support at the West Virginia Department of Education.

We heard back from Lambert the next day. Our notice was received. (Hooray!) He said now we needed a letter from the fire marshal that our school building was safe for children. (Oh no.)

This was a problem. Our school would be housed in the Mountain State Spotlight newsroom, which had not been inspected as a school site. We didn’t want to usurp public resources to undergo a new inspection. It felt like the end of our Mountain State school experiment.

But it wasn’t.

After we followed up to ask whether all schools, including virtual schools, need safety clearance to register with the state, Lambert told us that though all brick-and-mortar private schools do, we “may want to consider the microschool route.”

In that case, we later learned, the department wouldn’t be involved because state law doesn’t include any mechanism for oversight.

West Virginia defines microschools as schools that charge tuition and are started by one or more teachers. In practice, there’s no real difference between a microschool and private school — neither has a limit on enrollment. (Yes, a micro can be macro.) He forwarded us the rules for starting a microschool, which involve providing proof of a high school diploma, at least. We notified the local school district of our new microschool venture and sent a college transcript.

The Kanawha County school district, in turn, notified the state of the existence of a new microschool.

And with that — bypassing the building health and safety requirements — we established the ProPublica-Mountain State Spotlight Curiosity Academy. Officials at the Department of Education said they were aware that journalists were establishing a school. But they had to just watch us do so — they have no authority over the state’s microschools.

In an official statement, the department’s spokesperson said it “does not approve or deny the operation of microschools for any reason, including the qualifications of the owner/operator.”

By law, should we open our microschool — and we won’t — we could enroll an unlimited number of students.

The proposed school has outdoor space for students.

On Friday evenings, hundreds of people gather at Ponysaurus Brewing Co., a trendy spot in Durham, North Carolina, to savor its craft beers and cocktails, hardly the place you’d expect a school to open. But why not?

On a recent Tuesday morning, the brewery was quiet and closed to customers. Behind the bar, yeast busily converted sugars into alcohol inside giant stainless steel fermentation tanks. Two journalists settled onto barstools beneath signs for pilsners and cherry sours. Icy cold glasses of Tell the Truth, a light and lemony ale, sat before them on a high-top table beside a stenographer’s notebook and a laptop.

The brewery created the craft ale in partnership with The Assembly, which also is ProPublica’s journalistic partner in this private school endeavor, so it all felt very symbiotic. Ponysaurus’s owners had agreed to let us use their building and its fire and sanitation inspections, which are required to open a private school in the Tar Heel State.

Reporters from The Assembly and ProPublica scanned a state of North Carolina website that details how to file a notice of intent to open a private school.

First, it explained the state’s statutory requirements for opening a private school, things like reporting the school’s name and address. We also would have to administer a standardized test in certain grades, if we were going to open an actual school, and maintain annual records about student attendance and immunizations.

Then, we watched a four-minute, 39-second video explaining how to file the required notice of intent.

From there it seemed simple. We created a login, then filled in the address of our school (Ponysaurus’s building), noted its owner and chief administrator (our reporters), and named it the ProPublica-Assembly Academy. We’d hoped to include the word Curiosity in the name, but the field in the form didn’t allow enough characters. In North Carolina, our curiosity would have to be implied.

We filled in a few more fields, including the grades we would serve (high schoolers), whether we would open a religious school (no) and the dates of our academic year.

Then we needed to upload fire and sanitation inspection reports. This step is what brought us here, to Ponysaurus, filling out the online notice to the tune of a hissing compressor that kept clean air moving through the brewing system.

“You will need to secure inspections for the building where the school will be housed. You will need a fire inspection from the local fire marshal and a health and sanitation inspection from the local health department,” the video said.

Just that morning, a City of Durham Fire Department inspector had visited the brewery and provided Ponysaurus with a fresh business occupancy inspection. We uploaded the new report, along with the brewery’s current food establishment inspection (on which it received a 99, an excellent score, we felt, for a school).

The screen flashed a confirmation. “Thank you. We have received your request to open a private school.” If approved, the page said, we should receive a school identification number in three to five business days.

We hoped to join the at least 169 other new private schools that have opened in North Carolina since the 2021-22 school year, which marked the start of a series of expansions to the state’s publicly funded vouchers for private school tuition.

If we wanted our school to tap the voucher money, we’d have to go through some additional steps such as getting criminal background checks. We weren’t doing that.

The following day, we hit a snag. It came in a brief and garbled email. It said only: “Good morning and thank you for submitting a Notice of Intent to operate a private school. To complete the process we need to fire and sanitation inspections to” and then ended abruptly like that, no explanation or period. We emailed back, asking for clarity and noting we had already uploaded the inspection reports.

An official from the state Division of Non-Public Education then called. The school’s name needs to be on the inspection reports, she said, something we had not seen in any of our research. We also had not found any state statutes or rules that would preclude us — or anyone else — from opening a private school wherever we saw fit, be that a church or a brewery, as long as it passed “reasonable fire, health and safety inspections.”

In a follow-up call, she clarified that her division checks only to be sure the building has passed inspections specifically for a school. A spokesperson for the agency later added that state statute does not allow them to deny a private school application, but they won’t process an incomplete application — notably one without the proper inspections.

We hadn’t expected we would need a school-specific inspection at this point. The video explainer referred to inspections only generally, and the state’s written guidance indicated only that this would need to happen before occupancy.

Given we had no intention of actually opening a school, we had decided ahead of time that we wouldn’t consume any additional public resources — such as fire or health inspectors’ time — in our journalistic pursuit.

Perhaps Ponysaurus could pass the school-specific inspections. But the ethical red line would be our stop sign. Our curiosity would have to end in North Carolina.

Continuing GOP Fuckery

They never let up.

"Conservatives" have been gunning for Social Security for close to 90 years now. And it's the classic ploy - they refuse to do anything that might fix it, and in fact do things like drive up the debt and deficit so they can use "fiscal responsibility" as an excuse to kill off anything the government's involved with that doesn't put money in their pockets.

They won't say it, but we're right back to where they want to turn trillions of our retirement dollars over to their buddies on Wall Street so they can take some nice fat commission checks to the bank, and issue "Medicare vouchers" in order to make their other buddies in the Healthcare Insurance business wealthy beyond the dreams of Croesus.

Remember, Republicans want the government limited to just 3 basic tasks:

1. Defend business interests overseas
2. Keep the rabble in line here in USAmerica Inc
3. Settle contract disputes

Everything else is to be "privatized". (ie: converted to a coin-operated system)

Senate Finance chief rips GOP's 'backroom scheme' to cut Social Security

The chair of the Senate Finance Committee said legislation advanced Thursday by the GOP-controlled House Budget Committee is a "backroom scheme" to cut Social Security and Medicare outside of the regular political process, a warning that came as Republicans signaled their intention to attach the bill to a must-pass government funding measure.

"Republicans in Congress know their plans to gut Americans' Social Security and Medicare benefits are deeply unpopular, so they are resorting to schemes that short-circuit the legislative process, rushing through cuts to Americans' earned benefits," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said of the Fiscal Commission Act, which passed out of the House Budget Committee in a largely party-line vote.

Wyden argued Thursday that "the term fiscal commission' is the ultimate Washington buzzword, and it translates to trading away Americans' earned benefits in a secretive, closed-door process."

"Instead of trying to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid," Wyden added, "Republicans should work with Democrats to ensure the wealthy pay their fair share, which would go a long way towards securing Social Security and Medicare long into the future."

If passed, the Fiscal Commission Act would establish a bipartisan, bicameral, 16-member panel consisting of both lawmakers and individuals from the private sector, all chosen by congressional leaders.

The commission would be tasked with crafting and voting on policy recommendations for Social Security, Medicare, and other trust fund programs. If approved by the commission, the recommendations would receive expedited consideration in both the House and Senate, with no amendments to the final document allowed.

Social Security defenders have long warned that the GOP-led push for a fiscal commission is a ploy to slash the New Deal program, which helps keep tens of millions of seniors and children above the poverty line every year.

During Thursday's budget committee hearing, Republican members did nothing to assuage concerns about their intentions, voting down a proposed amendment from Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) that said the fiscal commission "shall propose recommendations to strengthen and secure Social Security" by "protecting Social Security benefits" and requiring the wealthy to contribute more to the program.

Republican committee members also rejected Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee's (D-Texas) amendment stating that the fiscal commission "shall propose recommendations to strengthen and secure Medicare" by "protecting the traditional Medicare program" and extending its solvency by "requiring taxpayers with incomes above $400,000 to contribute more" and closing a loophole that allows rich business owners to avoid Medicare taxes.

"This bill should be opposed by any member of Congress who cares about Social Security, Medicare, and their constituents who depend on them."

At a press conference following Thursday's hearing, House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — a longtime supporter of deep Social Security and Medicare cuts — is "100% committed to this commission" and hopes to tie it to government funding legislation.

"Probably that's its best chance of success, but I also think it's most germane to attach it to our final funding bill."

The Fiscal Commission Act has some support in the Senate. In a joint statement on Thursday, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) — both of whom declined to run for reelection this year — applauded the budget committee for "advancing this commonsense legislation."

"We also appreciate Speaker Johnson's continued support for this effort," added the senators, who are leading a companion bill in the upper chamber. "Taking immediate, corrective action to reverse this catastrophic financial demise of our own making will help ensure that our children and grandchildren are not burdened by our poor fiscal choices."

But the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) stressed Thursday that "Social Security and Medicare Part A are fully self-funded and do not contribute to the debt."

"The biggest drivers of the debt are 'tax expenditures' — giveaways to the wealthy and large corporations like the Trump/GOP tax cuts of 2017 that Republicans insist be extended," the group noted. According to a recent analysis by the Center for American Progress, debt as a percentage of the U.S. economy would be on the decline if the Bush and Trump tax cuts were never passed.

Max Richtman, NCPSSM's president and CEO, said in a statement that the fiscal commission push is "designed to give individual members of Congress political cover for cutting Americans' earned benefits."

"Any changes to Social Security and Medicare should go through regular order and not be relegated to a commission unaccountable to the public and rushed through the Congress," he added. "This bill should be opposed by any member of Congress who cares about Social Security, Medicare, and their constituents who depend on them."

I Been Tellin' Ya, Dammit

This - like most other "conservative" projects - is all about privatization. 

• Fund the campaigns for wingnut school board candidates
• Cut School budgets
• Complain about "underperforming schools"
• Make sure you use negative terms like "government schools" and name your efforts to kill public schools things like "Kids First" or "Parents Matter" or something that sounds right, but is actually a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing kinda shit 
• In the meantime, steal wages and push down on the benefits so regular people have less opportunity - and far fewer resources available - to fight for their interests

REVEALED: Confidential documents describe secret effort to elect lawmakers for school privatization

Confidential documents reveal that a group of school privatization groups actually work together to use their resources to try to buy seats in the Tennessee legislature.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Confidential documents reveal that a group of school privatization groups, each claiming to be separate entities with separate agendas, actually work together to try to buy seats in the Tennessee legislature for candidates who are willing to vote against traditional public schools.

The documents, leaked to NewsChannel 5 Investigates, show how those groups — working as part of what they call the "Tennessee Coalition for Students" — sometimes try to convince voters that politicians who support traditional public schools are just bad people.

"You're creating an oligarchy of people who influence your policy," said J.C. Bowman, a self-described conservative who serves as executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee.

"We're getting the best government that money can buy, and they are buying it."

Case in point: a seat in the state House bought and paid for in 2022 by special interests.

Running for the House in 2022, Maryville realtor Bryan Richey had no fancy ads of his own, and he spent a measly $15,000 in the Republican primary.

But Richey had opinions that appealed to school privatization groups.

"In my personal opinion on school choice, we have taxpayer dollars that are there to educate students. I don't care what arena - whether it's private school, public school, home school," Richey told NewsChannel 5 Investigates.

As a result, a group of powerful forces who want to privatize Tennessee schools got together and decided Richey would be a good investment.

Tennesseans for Putting Students First mailer in support of Bryan Richey
"My understanding is that there was quite a bit of money came in from outside the state," said former Rep. Bob Ramsey, R-Maryville.

During the Republican primary, Ramsey found himself under a well-financed attack by the independent groups supporting Richey.

One Facebook ad from school privatization forces told voters, "Bob Ramsey voted to raise your gas tax 30 percent."

Online and by mail, those groups began to demonize the incumbent representative who had always supported traditional public schools.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Ramsey: "At some point did you realize that you might be in trouble?"

"Yes," Ramsey said.

"When the mailers just would not quit coming and they were so offensive and fictitious and cruel, really, just plain cruel, I knew it was going to be a rather blood bath on my end."

When the reports were in, Richey got $52,038 in help from Make Liberty Win, a dark money group with ties to billionaire Charles Koch.

The Tennessee Federation for Children spent $38,439 to help Richey, who got another $30,044 in ad spending from Team Kid PAC and $15,484 from Tennesseans for Putting Students First.

Altogether, that's $136,005 — nine times as much as Richey spent himself.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Richey: "I was trying to figure out how these seemingly independent groups decided that you were their guy."

"I have no clue," the newly elected representative insisted.

But the confidential documents obtained by NewsChannel 5 Investigates show how those seemingly independent groups work together to elect lawmakers who will vote their way.

We showed our stash of documents, some from campaigns in 2016, to Tennessee Education Association lobbyist Jim Wrye.

"So this was the presentation they were using?" Wrye asked. "Phil, what I wouldn't have done to have this right then and there."

We asked Wrye: "Is it widely known that these groups are working together?"

"Well, it's kind of blatantly obvious," Wrye said.

Again, we pressed. "But they don't admit it?"

"No, certainly not," the TEA lobbyist agreed.

Among the documents were ones drafted for the 2016 legislative races and submitted to a foundation controlled by the billionaire Walton family of Walmart fame, asking for funding for their "Tennessee Coalition for Students."

That coalition included the groups Tennesseans for Student Success, StudentsFirst (now known as TennesseeCAN), Stand for Children and the American Federation for Children.

Among the coalition's goals: "the defeat of at least four anti-education reform incumbents" — with a total proposed budget of $3.7 million dollars.

"I knew they were working together, but I'm surprised at how much political money that they are spending in our campaigns," J.C. Bowman said.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates showed Bowman a strategy document where the groups describe plans to use their big money in "key races ... where the opportunity exists to shape the balance of power in the Legislature."

As a litmus test, the groups would only support politicians who support privately operated charter schools, state interventions to take over traditional public schools and private choice — in other words, school vouchers to send tax dollars to private schools.

We asked Bowman: "Should the public know if the Walton family is trying to pick legislators in Tennessee?"

"Absolutely," he insisted.

"Like NASCAR, we joke about it that NASCAR has the little signs of all the sponsors they have. Politicians are going to need to wear the same thing."

In the case of then Nashville state Sen. Steve Dickerson, R-Nashville, the document notes: "We must protect this seat."

It was an effort viewed to be worth an investment of $563,807.

In the case of then Senate Education Chair Delores Gresham, R-Somerville, "This is a seat that we must all protect."

The investment there: $307,097.

And while the groups cited then Rep. Eddie Smith, R-Knoxville, as a "reliable vote" on most issues, their main concern was keeping his Democratic opponent, Gloria Johnson, out of office.

Johnson read the document's summary of why she was viewed as a threat: "She would create almost incalculable problems because of her effectiveness."

"I've never been so proud in my life," the Knoxville Democrat said with a laugh.

Ironically, two years earlier, the same groups sent out a mailer branding her "one of the least effective legislators in the state House."

"Everything thing they do is built on, is a house of lies," Johnson said. "They win elections by lying about their opponents and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Republican Bob Ramsey said he believes he was targeted in 2022 because of his support for traditional public schools.

"I trust our education system implicitly. I am a product of it, my children were products of it," he said.

One of the groups attacked him for supporting a Republican plan to increase gas taxes to pay for roads.

Then after his defeat, they put out a news release touting the outcome as a sign that their education agenda was winning.

"They ran on everything other than education," Jim Wrye observed.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked the TEA lobbyist, "So why do they not run on those issues?"

"Simple, I mean, the candidates would lose every time," Wrye said.

With Bryan Richey, the money invested proved to be a good bet.

This year, he helped defeat a Republican-sponsored bill to protect successful school districts from having those privately operated charter schools forced on them by the state.

He also tried to expand school vouchers to fund private schools statewide — a platform he received thanks to those school privatization groups that wrote the checks to get him elected.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates reached out to the groups involved in the coalition.

None would go on camera, and they did not respond to a number of specific questions posed by email.

Still, in separate statements, they did not deny that they do have this arrangement nor that they are working together to try to flip even more seats to their side in next year's elections.

Ryan Cantrell, vice president of government relations for the American Federation for Children, said in a statement:

"As you may know, coalitions of all types regularly come together to support public policy issues on which they agree. We are proud to work on our shared cause alongside allies, all of whom may have various focuses and positions but agree that parents should be empowered with more choice in education. We comply with every applicable law in our work and will continue working to advance school choice, which polls consistently show is a top issue for voters in both parties."

Sky Arnold, communications director for Tennesseans for Student Success, said in a statement:

"Tennesseans for Student Success is dedicated to a vision of providing and ensuring access to a high-quality public education for all students and we support leaders who have demonstrated a commitment to that vision. Decisions about how to engage are made by TSS, and where appropriate, communicated to individuals or organizations with shared priorities following the guidelines and regulations established by state and/or federal campaign laws. We are strictly focused on ensuring that all students, regardless of income or zip code, have access to an effective, high-quality public education."

Arnold insisted that the group "has never advocated for any form of private school choice," although he did not deny that the group works with the coalition to elect lawmakers who are willing to back school vouchers.

TennesseeCAN did not respond to NewsChannel 5's inquiry.

On Banning Books

The Kennedy family reads controversial books while waiting
for a board meeting of the Hamilton East Public Library
Noblesville IN 08-24-2023

(these people are about to be labeled "outlaw" because

they refuse to let a buncha pinch-faced, blue-nosed, puritan biddies

tell them what the can and can't read in a public school)

And BTW, this move against books is another aspect of the "conservative" effort to kill public education. If I can make you believe the schools are so thoroughly fucked up that your kids are being damaged, then it's going to be easier for me to convince you to privatize the system, and let me sell the whole thing to my brother-in-law, who, by some odd coincidence, has recently developed a burning desire to teach children what I think they should know.

Oy

Everything You Need to Know About the Right-Wing War on Books

Here’s your guide to the heroes and villains—plus a list of the 50 most banned books.

Citizens have led fiery campaigns against books they deem objectionable since before America’s founding. As early as the 1650s, Massachusetts Bay colonists banned and burned William Pynchon’s pamphlet “The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption” because it allegedly failed to adhere to Calvinist beliefs. Book bans were common in the South in the run-up to the Civil War, and nationwide during the McCarthy era.

But in the last few years, something changed. More people began writing complaints and demonstrating at meetings. They grew far more vocal. And they started to rally around the same texts, slamming them as “pornographic” or for supposedly preaching “critical race theory.” Since 2021, book banning—specifically, blocking access to books in schools and libraries—has become an organized movement, one backed by a powerful network of politicians, advocacy groups, and conservative donors.

More books are being challenged—for possible restriction or removal from libraries and curricula—than have been in decades. In the first half of the 2022–23 school year, PEN America, the free speech organization, tracked nearly 1,500 book bans nationwide, affecting 874 unique titles. Books centering on people of color and LGBTQ+ characters have been disproportionately targeted. In some GOP-controlled states, legislation has led to the widespread removal from schools of books with references to sex and sexuality, as well as race and racism.

The first week of October is the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, and to mark the occasion, The New Republic will launch a Bookmobile Tour to distribute texts conservatives have decided children simply should not read.

CENSORSHIP CHIEFS

Ron DeSantis

Under Governor DeSantis, Florida became the first of many red states to enact laws making it easier for parents to challenge books in school libraries that they believe are pornographic, deal improperly with race, or can otherwise be considered inappropriate. DeSantis was applauded by a Moms for Liberty (see below) founder for “blazing a trail” on school book bans.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Governor Huckabee Sanders signed a law imposing criminal penalties on Arkansas librarians who knowingly provide “harmful” materials to minors—though a federal judge has temporarily blocked sections of the law, calling them too vague. In January, Sanders also signed an executive order to prohibit “indoctrination” and “critical race theory” in schools.

Greg Abbott

The Texas governor signed a law banning sexually explicit books from schools. The law requires vendors to rate books as “sexually relevant” or “sexually explicit” to determine if they require parental approval or full removal. During the 2021–22 school year, Texas districts banned more books than those in any other state.

Moms for Liberty

Founded in 2021, Moms for Liberty has rapidly expanded into a national organization with almost 300 chapters. Its strategy is to take over school boards and label dissenting teachers, librarians, and parents “groomers.” The organization has also endorsed legislation in line with its goals like “Don’t Say Gay,” the notorious Florida law hamstringing discussions of sexuality in many classrooms. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Moms for Liberty an extremist group.

READING REBELS

Suzette Baker

In March 2022, Baker was fired as head librarian of the Kingsland Branch Library in Llano County, Texas, for “insubordination” and “failure to follow instructions,” which she said included her refusal to take down a display of banned books. Among the titles that have attracted the ire of local officials: Between the World and Me, the Ta-Nehisi Coates book that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

Debbie Chavez

Chavez quit her school librarian job in Round Rock, Texas, after a parent met with her to discuss Lawn Boy—a novel that includes a romance between two boys—and secretly recorded the conversation, sharing excerpts on Facebook. Critics claimed she was “grooming” kids and called for her firing. “It was so horrific to see that my words were being used as a rallying cry for the book censors,” she told The New York Times.

Summer Boismier

Boismier, an English teacher at Norman High School in Oklahoma, shared with her students a Q.R. code to Books UnBanned, a program of New York’s Brooklyn Public Library that offers access to books that have been banned or challenged. She received a torrent of abuse and later resigned, claiming there was no way for her to do her job amid passage of a new law limiting instruction related to race and gender.

Anonymous Utah parent

In a protest of legislation making it easier to remove “pornographic or indecent” content, a Utah parent filed a complaint with an eight-page list of objectionable passages from the Bible—successfully forcing a district to remove the text from elementary and middle schools. The decision was quickly reversed.

50 MOST BANNED BOOKS

(Books are listed in descending order by frequency of bans in schools nationwide.)

Gender Queer: A Memoir
by Maia Kobabe

All Boys Aren’t Blue
by George M. Johnson

Out of Darkness
by Ashley Hope Pérez

A Lake Travis, Texas, parent got a book purged from her school’s library after googling “cornhole,” a word that appears in Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez, explaining at a school board meeting what she’d learned: “Cornhole is a sexual slang vulgarism” and “means to have anal sex.”

The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison

Lawn Boy
by Jonathan Evison

The Hate U Give
by Angie Thomas

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
by Jesse Andrews

Thirteen Reasons Why
by Jay Asher

Crank
by Ellen Hopkins

The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini

l8r, g8r
by Lauren Myracle

This Book Is Gay
by Juno Dawson

Melissa
by Alex Gino

Looking for Alaska
by John Green

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out
by Susan Kuklin

Beloved
by Toni Morrison

A Fairfax County, Virginia, parent tried and failed to get Toni Morrison’s Beloved banned for allegedly being rife with explicit material. Still, the aggrieved citizen went on to star in a Glenn Youngkin campaign ad as he successfully ran for governor in 2021.

This One Summer
by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

Drama: A Graphic Novel
by Raina Telgemeier

Flamer
by Mike Curato

Jack of Hearts (and other parts)
by L.C. Rosen

The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
by Alison Bechdel

The Breakaways
by Cathy G. Johnson

Nineteen Minutes
by Jodi Picoult

All American Boys
by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky

Tricks
by Ellen Hopkins

More Happy Than Not
by Adam Silvera

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer

It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health
by Robie Harris

Monday’s Not Coming
by Tiffany D. Jackson

A Court of Mist and Fury
by Sarah J. Maas

Sold
by Patricia McCormick

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives
by Dashka Slater

Dear Martin
by Nic Stone

Speak
by Laurie Halse Anderson

Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen
by Jazz Jennings

Almost Perfect
by Brian Katcher

Real Live Boyfriends: yes. boyfriends, plural. if my life weren’t complicated, I wouldn’t be Ruby Oliver
by E. Lockhart

The Truth About Alice
by Jennifer Mathieu

Lucky
by Alice Sebold

Killing Mr. Griffin
by Lois Duncan

We Are the Ants
by Shaun David Hutchinson

I Am Jazz
by Jazz Jennings and Jessica Herthel

How to Be an Antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi

Two Boys Kissing
by David Levithan

The Infinite Moment of Us
by Lauren Myracle

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds

Seven white school board members voted unanimously in Pickens County, South Carolina, to remove Stamped from libraries and classrooms. It traces the history of racism in the United States, but parents complained that it “promote[s] socialism” and “demonstrates radical Marxism infecting our schools and our culture.”

And Tango Makes Three
by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

Source: PEN America data from 2021–22 school year

MORE RIDICULOUS STORIES

Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation

An illustrated adaptation of The Diary of a Young Girl was banned from a high school library in Florida because, critics bizarrely claimed, it minimized the Holocaust and—perhaps more important—captured a young girl’s thoughts about other female bodies. A county chapter chair of the far-right group Moms for Liberty led the charge for removal over its “sexually explicit” material.

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes

The director of a Florida police union targeted this book about a Black boy killed by police. “Our members feel that this book is propaganda that pushes an inaccurate and absurd stereotype of police officers in America,” he wrote. Further use of the book was paused in a classroom in Broward County.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

A Leander, Texas, parent went after Machado’s surreal memoir about domestic abuse, brandishing a sex toy at a school board meeting while decrying portions of the book detailing a lesbian relationship. “This is what we’re asking our children to read,” the parent said, taking out a pink dildo. The book was ultimately removed from school libraries in the district.

Maus by Art Spiegelman

In January 2022, a Tennessee school board voted unanimously to ban this Pulitzer-winning graphic novel from its eighth grade curriculum. The book depicts Holocaust victims as mice and Nazis as cats. One board member took offense at illustrations of naked mice in the book. “All the way through this literature we expose these kids to nakedness, we expose them to vulgarity.… If I was trying to indoctrinate somebody’s kids, this is how I would do it,” he said.

Today's Brian

Stupid GOP policies are about to create a metric fuck ton of "welfare babies", and we're supposed to believe that Republicans are having a Scrooge-On-Christmas-Morning moment, so now they'll open up the government coffers and fund the necessary infrastructure to provide support for all the newly minted poor and brown people they love so much.

Fat fucking chance.

It's another lie. When I listen closely, I hear the coded "cha-ching" language of privatization and the move to funnel public funds into sectarian enterprises.

We didn't raise enough of a stink about GW Bush's "Faith-Based Initiatives" bullshit, and this year, SCOTUS has further paved the way by allowing tax dollars to be paid out to religious schools.

Carson v. Makin

Brian Tyler Cohen

Oops

On that whole commercial spaceflight thing: 

First, yes, it's just cool as fuck, and I love me some nerds no matter what, but let's just say we've got a ways to go yet - and I don't think I'll be scrambling for a ticket.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but notice how the government nerds are flying helicopters on Mars, and the privateers keep blowing their shit up.

Cold AF

The plains states - a full dozen of them - the middle third of this country has been stomped on by a storm and near-polar temperatures, and funnily enough, Texas is the only one reporting the kind of monumental problems that catch the fancy of the news cycle for a solid 72 hours.

Partly because they're just not used to that level of horrendous weather down there, and partly - mostly IMO - because the radical right decided to go all "fuck it, I can do what I want", and ignored the warnings from the Climate Science folks, and the warnings from the designers and engineers that the gear they were counting on for all that grandiose energy independence would crap out if it wasn't "winterized" properly - and gee, guess what happened.

The people in charge - ie: Republicans - decided low price was more important than the safety and wellbeing of the people paying the bills.

Of course, "low price" is coded political language which translates to serve two basic purposes

1. profit for the big shareholders
2. rationale for continuing the shitty anti-people policies that Republicans have been peddling for decades

Anyway, not even my enjoyment of watching Ted Cruz take it in the shorts because of his little jaunt down Mexico way can make this massive failure anything but bitter when we see the real cost being tallied.

And of course, it's not just Texas, and it's not just dumbass Republicans.

WaPo:

A boy who fell through ice, a woman who lost power: 47 deaths tied to winter storms — and counting

The cold has killed the young and the old. It has claimed lives from southern Texas to northern Ohio. And authorities expect the toll to rise in the coming days, with frigid weather lingering, hundreds of thousands without electricity and millions without clean water.

The two major winter storms that have plunged most of the United States into an Arctic chill have killed at least 47 people since Sunday, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. More than half of them — 30 — lived in Texas, where persistent power outages have exposed residents to bitter temperatures.

The Post’s data includes deaths confirmed or suspected to be linked to the weather and its attendant hardships, and the true number is undoubtedly higher than what is known so far. Some first responders worry about what they’ll find in their next week’s worth of wellness checks.

In Taylor County, Tex., Sheriff Ricky Bishop said his officers have been checking on residents for days, delivering food and water and following up with them later to make sure they’re all right. Already, they’ve found three people dead.

“There’s definitely that possibility that over the next week or two we could find some more that we don’t know about right now,” Bishop said.

The identities of most victims still aren’t known. Authorities have confirmed the ages of fewer than half, but of those, 18 were 50 or older and five were 85 and older. Seven states have at least one confirmed death.

Where the weather is coldest, some have resorted to risky, last-ditch attempts to keep warm, using gas grills indoors or running cars inside closed garages. At least five people have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a news conference this week, tallying hundreds of 911 calls about gas poisoning. “This carbon monoxide poisoning is a disaster within a disaster.”

Others seem to have frozen to death. At least 17 people died of hypothermia or “exposure to the cold.” Some of them were among society’s most vulnerable.

Early Thursday, a man was found lifeless in a parking lot north of Houston. He was wearing a jacket with no shirt beneath, authorities said. He had no shoes and no socks.

About 350 miles northwest, in Abilene, another person was found dead whom the local fire chief described as “a transient” who had been sleeping outside.

Even those with shelter succumbed.

In rural eastern Kentucky, two elderly women from Ashland — a city of 20,000 on the banks of the Ohio River — died in 48 hours, both of hypothermia. One woman, age 77, lost power in her home, Boyd County Coroner Mark Hammond said. Her family, blocked by ice and felled trees, couldn’t reach her and couldn’t contact her. She was found on Wednesday.

Still others have died in cold weather accidents — in cars and on foot.

In Louisiana, a 77-year-old man in Calcasieu Parish, where Lake Charles is located, slipped, fell into a pool and drowned. And in Lafayette Parish, a 50-year-old man died after slipping on ice and slamming his head on the ground.

A 10-year-old boy died in Shelby County, Tenn., after falling through ice into a pond with his 6-year-old sister, who is in critical condition. When authorities arrived at the scene, it was just 14 degrees.

That boy is one of three known victims under the age of 12. Another, identified by Univision as Cristian Piñeda, was 11. His mother had just managed to get Cristian from Honduras to Texas so the two could live together, she told the outlet. With no electricity, she tried to cover him with blankets as best she could.

It was 12 degrees when Cristian’s mother put him to bed Monday night. He never woke up.

We'll always have bad weather, and we'll always see people die because of that weather. The point here is that we have to be better at assessing the risk, and being as prepared as possible, so we can mitigate that risk.

But mostly, we have to be better at holding politicians and their benefactors accountable when they fuck up like this.

Private profit and socialized risk and externalized cost. That shit has to stop.

Today's Tweet

Small privatized government at its finest.

They are just letting houses burn. No water,...Houston, tx. pic.twitter.com/fGXW6QmU5g

— ♥Kathy♥Lucky Charms 🇺🇸🇵🇷🇩🇪🇮🇪❤❤❤ (@LuckieKathy) February 18, 2021

Privatizers Gone Wild

The best political maneuvers are the ones that stand a fair chance of accomplishing something positive for your agenda no matter the outcome.

So here we go - 45*'s attempts to manufacture a little dust-up with Amazon and USPS are intended (I think) to further dismantle good government while bashing Unions, and lining the pockets of Congress Critters and their Cronies.

WaPo:

Trump issued an executive order forming an administration task force, to be chaired by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and directed it to evaluate the Postal Service’s finances and operations. The order also directs the task force to issue a report outlining proposed changes within 120 days.

The order states that the Postal Service has incurred $65 billion of cumulative losses since the Great Recession ended in 2009 and that it must make changes so that it operates under “a sustainable business model.”

Trump’s order stipulates that “the steep decline in First-Class Mail volume, coupled with legal mandates that compel the USPS to incur substantial and inflexible costs, have resulted in a structural deficit where revenues are no longer sufficient to fund the pension liabilities and retiree health obligations owed to current employees.”
The libertarians in Congress can't stand thinking anything the government does might actually succeed or do something good for people without turning a profit for some Rent-Seeking Crony. And since a lot of them believe it's all good and proper for them to behave like Coin-Operated Politicians, they'll do what UPS or FedX tell them to do.

So 45* gets to bash WaPo (he thinks) by voicing his deep concern for the solvency of USPS, in order to fuck over Jeff Bezos, while ordering an audit of USPS, partly to punish them for being all Government-y and shit, and to make sure they're not involved in any dirty dealing because, well, you know how those union people are, and besides that, we need to make sure that the tax money that USPS doesn't get  is being spent wisely and blah blah blah, and what the fuck is anybody even talking about!?!

45* throws all the shit up in the air, which is intended to keep everybody busy while he does whatever he wants us not to be able to see because of all the shit in the air.

The Union Busters and Privatizers go right along with him because in confusion there is opportunity.

And the kicker is that USPS is not really part of the federal government. They own a monopoly on the use of your mailbox, and that's really about it.

But "conservatives" like to build it into a very useful Straw Man and score big political points at the expense of people just trying to do job for us - which of course has become what the GOP is pretty much all about.