Norquist Protege's push for charter school privatization plan in So Cal

[FogerRox]

Norquist Protege's push for charter school privatization plan in Southern California worries educators

Ron Nehring, protege of conservative strategist Grover Norquist, Vice-Chairman of the California Republican Party and former colleague of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has introduced a proposal to convert all east San Diego County schools in the Grossmont Union High School District into charter schools, RAW STORY has learned.

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Some educators believe Grossmont is being used as a petri dish to test privatization of public eduation as part of a national GOP strategy.

"Ron Nehring...is an important piece on Norquist's chessboard," states a report titled Target San Diego: The Right Wing Assault on Urban Democracy and Smart Government. Prepared by the Center on Policy Initiatives, a progressive think tank, the report reveals how the National GOP has targeted San Diego as a "battleground" and model for an alleged agenda of radically cutting government funding, permanently weakening organized labor, and aggressively moving to privatize public services.

<snip>

Nehring, Chairman of the San Diego County GOP, is said to be eyeing the state chairmanship. His relationships with Washington conservative heavyweights date back to his time in D.C. working for the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR). A conservative thinktank where fallen super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff was a board member NCPPR is alleged to have raised money through questionable means and funneled money from Abramoff clients to pay for former GOP House Majority Leader Tom Delay's (R-TX) posh junkets abroad...

Full story:

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/K_Street_pushes_charter_school_plan_0125.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Didn't they read the NYT article?

"Public-School Students Score Well in Math in Large-Scale Government Study "

"The study also found that charter schools, privately operated and publicly financed, did significantly worse than public schools in the fourth grade, once student populations were taken into account. In the eighth grade, it found, students in charters did slightly better than those in public schools, though the sample size was small and the difference was not statistically significant."


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/28/education/28tests.html?th&emc=th