1) Our Latest Map on School Choice Shows Progress in Red States
As regular readers know, CTUP has partnered with our friends at ALEC to promote educational freedom and allowing education dollars to follow kids. We’re winning in red states. Here’s the latest map of states that have school choice and states that we think we can make the case for adopting these educational alternatives – especially for kids that the government has placed in failing public schools.
This week ALEC CEO Lisa Nelson and CTUP’s Steve Moore traveled to Austin, TX to make the case for historic legislation moving through the legislature as we speak. One of the driving forces behind this school reform measure is Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (see photo below).
2) Speaking of Republican Governors – Most Say “No ESG Investing in Our States”
Biden put politics over pensions by vetoing a bill that would have prevented fund managers from using woke ESG criteria in deciding where to invest Americans’ pension savings. This is like a tax on pensions.
Fortunately, most red state governors are saying hell no to ESG.
This week 19 governors signed a statement committing to:
I. Protecting taxpayers from ESG influences across state systems: Among other actions, this may include blocking the use of ESG in all investment decisions at the state and local level, ensuring that only financial factors are considered to maximize the return on investment, protecting retirees and taxpayers alike.
II. Protecting citizens from ESG influences in the financial sector: Among other actions, this may include banning the financial sector from considering so called “Social Credit Scores” in banking and lending practices aimed to prevent citizens from obtaining financial services like loans, lines of credit, and bank accounts.
Here is the full list of the champion governors who made this commitment.
3) Teacher Unions Are the Darth Vader of Public School Systems
We called your attention last week to the fact that Mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson, one of the Chicago Teacher Union’s lead lobbyists, has raised more than 90% of his campaign money from the union and its members. He’s also completely against reforming Chicago’s worst in the nation schools.
In Los Angeles, more than half a million students will see their schools locked shut this week as the union representing school support staff conducts a walkout. Cecily Myart-Cruz, the head of the LA teachers union, says her members will join the strike in solidarity. She is best known for boasting about her power during the pandemic: “You can recall the governor. You can recall the school board. But how are you going to recall me?”
Meanwhile, teacher unions in Massachusetts are demanding the legislature give them the right to strike and end the use of standardized tests as a graduation requirement. Maura Healey, the state’s New Democratic governor is pushing back: “Every day when I see kids out of school because of a strike, my heart just breaks because kids have been through enough in terms of learning loss and the like.”
You would think the unions – who were the ones who shut down schools during Covid – would get that.
Can we PLEASE stop pretending that teacher unions care about kids??? The late Al Shanker, the head of the United Federation of Teachers, once admitted “When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.”
The Dollar Store, with 34,000 U.S. outlets, used to sell a half dozen eggs for 99 cents. But with prices up as much as 60 percent since last year they now cost $4.25 a dozen or more. The Dollar Store has decided to no longer sell eggs because they can’t make money at a price point that fits with the chain's thrifty image. Bidenflation is ruining Easter.
And here’s another iconic discount food item that is a victim of rising prices.
For decades, New York City residents and tourists alike have raved about the city’s cheap and filling $1 pizza slices. But Biden inflation is ending an era.
The iconic Two Brothers Pizza chain is raising the price of a slice to $1.50. “Inflation is affecting every single ingredient, every single item we use. Flour, cheese, tomatoes, gloves, paper goods, paper plates, and napkins. Everything. Labor is definitely up, as well,” co-owner Oren Halali told the New York Post.
This one will give you deja vu all over again: the New York Times (Breaking News!!) reports the UN says we'll all be dead of global warming in a decade or so - unless we give the UN vast new powers and billions of dollars.
But wait. That’s what they said five years ago. And five years ago before that…
