Best and fastest way a straight line, right?
Better get some directions first:
"Ind. GOP pushes bigger school voucher program; Choice is goal; critics fear harm to public schools" April 03, 2011|By Deanna Martin, Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana’s Republican leadership is pushing ahead with a proposal that would be the nation’s broadest use of school vouchers, allowing even middle-class families to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools....
Indiana’s Republican-controlled Legislature hopes to deliver soon on its long-sought overhaul of public education now that Democrats who fled the state have returned.
Democrats in the House stayed in Illinois for five weeks to deprive the chamber of a quorum because they did not have enough votes to stop the voucher proposal and others they oppose.
The vouchers are government-issued certificates that can be applied to private tuition, essentially allowing parents to use some of the tax dollars that would normally be sent to public schools at other institutions.
The vouchers do not carry any additional expense for the state because they mainly transfer money between schools. But public-school advocates and many Democrats have long opposed large-scale voucher programs, saying they could siphon tax money from local districts....
Until now, most voucher programs in the rest of the country have been limited to poor students, those in chronically failing schools, or those with special needs.
Indiana’s system would be significantly larger, offering money to students from middle-class homes and solid school districts. Though Republicans have agreed to some restrictions — to appease both Democrats and skeptics in their own ranks — the program would still be the most expansive in the United States....
Because the GOP controls both chambers and the governor’s office, some form of the legislation is likely to pass.
Voucher critics have watched the debate with alarm, fearing potential harm to public schools and perceived threats to the separation of church and state.
“It’s a blitzkrieg,’’ said Annie Laurie Gaylor, copresident of Freedom From Religion Foundation based in Madison, Wis. “They’re just like drunk with power. This is what we’re seeing everywhere. They need to be stopped. Nobody campaigned on ‘Let’s rob the public schools and give all the money to parochial schools.’ ’’
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Time to get going: Four Ind. teens die in Ala. car crash
:-(
Quickly through Kentucky and on to Tennessee, then we're home:
School bus crash kills girl, injures 10
Veered off a bit there.
Alabama leaders apologize for ‘unkind’ handling of rape case in 1944
Nearly 70 years after Recy Taylor was raped by a gang of white men, leaders of the rural southeast Alabama community where it happened apologized yesterday, acknowledging that her attackers escaped prosecution because of racism and an investigation bungled by police....
Her 74-year-old brother Robert Corbitt, who still lives in town, said he would relay the apology to his sister. “What happened to my sister way back then … couldn’t happen today,’’ he said. “Boy, what a mess they made out of it. They tried to make her look like a whore and she was a Christian lady.’’
Related:
"Alabama still has a supply of sodium thiopental that it used Thursday to execute inmate William Glenn Boyd."
This post and my enthusiasm for the Boston Globe are about dead.
