Nebraska Keeps Killing School Choice Bills

Hundreds of parents rally for change.

Hundreds of restless parents and kids rallied outside Nebraska's state capitol last week to widen the options their state's public school system . Nebraska is one of seven states with no charter schools, no vouchers, nor any other publicly funded alternatives—and it's been this way for a while.

"For four years now I've had a bill that would give [Nebraskans] choice," said State Senator Bob Krist, "this year it's back up again."

Krist's bill, LB26, is waiting on the Revenue Committee's approval to move forward. If passed it would incentivize donors to create private school scholarships for low-income students by providing a tax credit. However, the legislature has killed previous school reform bills before, such as last year's LB616, that would have created a charter school program in Omaha.

Check out Reason TV's coverage of Thursday's National School Choice Week rally in Nebraska below.

Comments

[Ted S.]

Monopolies are evil until they're government-sector monopolies, at which point they suddenly, magically become virtuous.

[d3x / dt3]

Why do you and Reason hate the children? We must all be equally, poorly educated!

[Ted S.]

I like children so much I teach them good work habits in my monocle factory.

[AlmightyJB]

Do you really want to educate the poor? Isn't it better to indoctrinate them instead?

[DEG]

In a discussion on education on another board many years ago I said, "Education is too important to leave it up to the government." I was laughed at. I asked the folks that laughed where they got their food. They played dumb. I pointed out that they buy their food from grocery stores which are private institutions. They went back to laughing at me.

[AlmightyJB]

Not surprising. Sad but not surprising. Happily ignorant I suppose

[Jerryskids]

Maybe instead of a school choice movement to get the kids out of the Nebraska public school system they could start a school choice movement to get the kids the hell out of Nebraska. If it's a bunch of farmers running the place they're all commies anyway.

[DEG]

OT: Black German woman finds out her grandfather is Amon Goeth

Jennifer Teege thought she knew the hard truths of her life: that her German mother left her in the care of nuns when she was 4 weeks old, and that her biological father was Nigerian, making her the only black child in her Munich neighborhood.

But the hardest truth came to her years later on a warm August day in Hamburg when she walked into the central library and picked up a red book with a black-and-white picture of a woman on the cover. It was titled "I Have to Love My Father, Don't I?"

As Teege, then 38, flipped through the pages, she felt she'd been caught in a furious storm that had suddenly come from nowhere.

She had unearthed the ghastly family secret.

She looked at the names of people and places in the book and realized that the woman on the cover was her biological mother.

And the father in the title was none other than Amon Goeth, the sadistic Nazi who was commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp in Poland.

[OneOut]

Pretty interesting.

That shines a light on why germany and merkel feel it is necessary to punish themselves by importing so many Muslims as a way to inflict self punishment.

[DEG]

OT: Wal-Mart ordered to pay $31.22 million in gender discrimination case

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was ordered by a federal jury in New Hampshire to pay $31.22 million to a pharmacist who claimed she was fired because of her gender and in retaliation for complaining about safety conditions.

The Concord jury deliberated for 2-1/2 hours before ruling on Wednesday for the plaintiff, Maureen McPadden, after a five-day trial, her lawyers said.

McPadden claimed that Wal-Mart used her loss of a pharmacy key as a pretext for firing her in November 2012, when she was 47, after more than 13 years at the retailer.

McPadden said she was fired in retaliation for her raising concerns that customers at the Wal-Mart store in Seabrook, where she worked, were getting prescriptions filled improperly because of inadequate staff training.

McPadden also said her gender played a role, alleging that Wal-Mart later disciplined but stopped short of firing a male pharmacist in New Hampshire who also lost his pharmacy key.

[Cdr Lytton]

McPadden said she was fired in retaliation for her raising concerns that customers at the Wal-Mart store in Seabrook, where she worked, were getting prescriptions filled improperly because of inadequate staff training.

So why didn't she step up and arrange training? She was the pharmacist, has the terminal degree and state license. The pharmacy techs work under her professional supervision. Wah wah, I'm helpless.

loss of a pharmacy key

Why are physical keys still being used? Have a proximity badge or swipe card coupled with pinpad and individual pins.

[DEG]

Wah wah, I'm helpless.

Yes, she is.

The article states that Wal-Mart is appealing. I expect Wal-Mart will win on appeal.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Yes. Yes they will.

"a pharmacist who claimed she was fired because of her gender and in retaliation for complaining about safety conditions."

It's one, or the other. Pick one.

[Rhywun]

The gender one probably got 30M added to her award. Hard to turn down that kind of dough.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Yep. That, and Walmart as the defendant. I bet that the term "corporation" came up quite a few times in the closing arguments.

The award will get reduced, though.
A case like that is worth 250-500k at most in CA, and our employment laws are far more favorable to the plaintiff than New Hamshire's.

[Ted S.]

Walmart has a big pile of money, and dammit, that's just not fair!

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I'm sure they have a badge system for employee access.

"The key" usually refers to a key that opens the safe containing the controlled substances. Only the actual licensed pharmacists have the key to it; they can't just send a tech to go get oxycontin off the shelf. And yes, losing that key is a big fucking deal.

[Ted S.]

Reason #8474364883927269584 why the War on Drugs is evil.

[See Double You]

There's no way the gender discrimination verdict would be upheld if the only evidence McPadden introduced was that a male pharmacist wasn't fired for losing his key. McPadden argued Walmart fired her for losing her key as a pretext to retaliate against her for raising safety claims. Unless the male pharmacist did the same thing, how can there be gender discrimination?

[Ted S.]

Shouldn't pharmacists learn to fill prescriptions properly in pharmacy school?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

It's really hard to count pills.

[sarcasmic]

Krist's bill, LB26, is waiting on the Revenue Committee's approval to move forward.

The point of committees like that is to kill good bills while giving individual legislators the ability to tell their constituents that it wasn't their fault.

[Jerryskids]

The point of committees like that is to kill good bills while giving individual legislators the ability to tell their constituents that it wasn't their fault.

I thought the point was to allow each committee member to add an amendment to the bill demonstrating their support for hog farmers, or at least their enthusiasm for pork production.

[sarcasmic]

That too, but mostly it is to keep good bills from seeing the light of day. The people in power, the ones who play the game and get on the committees, they don't give a shit about good legislation. Keeping and expanding their power is their only mission. They do this by killing good legislation in secret, and by, as you said, making bad bills worse.

[Pope Jimbo]

^This

Every legislative session, someone introduces a bill to sell alcohol on Sunday here in Minnesoda. Every year it is quashed in committee. After it is killed, the sponsors and everyone else shrugs and asks what are you gonna do?

And nothing else happens.

[jonnysage]

And then they drink the alcohol they bought on saturday?

[cavalier973]

Some guys in Sweden went around beating up children.

[cavalier973]

They were assaulting refugee children in revenge for a woman's murder by a 15 year old refugee.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

"The mob, wearing all-black balaclavas and armbands"

Ruh roh

[Heroic Mulatto]

The irony being that said woman, Alexandra Mezher, was the daughter of Ay-rab refugees whom the mob rallying in her "defense" would happily tar and feather in other circumstances.

Oh Loki, you are the one true God!

[Hamster of Doom]

+1 Casa Erotica

[Heroic Mulatto]

+1 This.

[Crusty Juggler]

The all-male migrant teen gangs are spreading terror in the centre of the Swedish capital, stealing, groping girls and assaulting security guards, according to Stockholm police.

Members of the gangs, some as young as nine, roam central Stockholm day and night, refusing help provided by the Swedish authorities.

I blame Fagin.

[Ted S.]

Let the youths freeze in the Nordic winter.

[Warty]

BORK BORK BORK WHYCOME BORK

[GILMORE?]

You leave King Tut out of this

[Suthenboy]

Linked from the article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....aders.html

The EU leadership are preparing their own demise, not that of Europe. In the end the Europeans won't stand for it.

I see dark days ahead.

[DEG]

I don't know what the point of the second video on that page is. It's titled "A walk around Cologne after dark: A dangerous city for women." I see some cops gang up on a guy at one of the entrances to the Hauptbahnhof. Cologne, in the area around the Hauptbahnhof and the Dom, is lousy with pickpockets and asshole beggars. You can hear sirens and the video shows an ambulance, but Cologne is a big city. Sure, I can't understand the few bits of German that folks the woman passes said because there's too much background noise, but I don't see how that woman is in any danger.

[Cytotoxic]

You'll find a lot of these 'scary' videos people link to in an attempt to scare-monger about doom by immigrants are a lot of nothing.

[Mudhen]

If Nebraska educated the locals to think for themselves they might decide to up and leave and then where would the farmers get subsidized from? Gotta keep the locals in state to pay the 6.69% state Income tax and outrageous Personal Property taxes on motor vehicles (a new car will easily set you back over a $1000 year on that alone.) Seriously, 105 counties and most don't have the tax revenue base to even cover the road maintenance let alone afford decent schools. If they enacted educational reform I'm sure the locals are afraid those rural school districts might collapse.
The Unicameral is Farmer controlled in order to suck the tax revenue from Omaha & Lincoln to the rest of the state and most of the locals have no clue or interest in understanding where the tax money goes.

As I tell my Nebraska relatives, at least in Illinois we know the states corrupt and the politicians will screw us over for their cronies. In Nebraska they just don't realize its the same scam, just different group of people getting raking it in on a different pretext.

[Heedless]

I'd make a joke about "hundreds", but in Nebraska, that's a pretty decent turn out.

[Heedless]

Ack, pin the comma on the sentence.

[Libertarian]

The wife and I spent a couple weeks in Nebraska in September. The locals told us that the football stadium in Lincoln (home of the Huskers) was the "3rd largest city in the state" on game day.

[Libertarian]

I'm a little surprised at this. I think Nebraska was the state covered by the NY Times a few months ago in a snarky article about taxes and "austerity."

[Crusty Juggler]

Seen on the Daily Mail: Former Nyack College softball coach who was hit with nearly 200 counts of sexual abuse and admitted to licking players' ears and grabbing their breasts gets plea deal

Three years probation is nothing.

The best part of a terrible article:

Ludwigsen invited porn star Allie Haze to practice and told his players to get 'life counseling sessions with her'.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Softball??? ewwwww

[Libertarian]

Ludwigsen wrote in a statement: 'These things did occur. I exercised terrible judgment and went far beyond the parameters of my job description.'

'There is no excuse worthy of these actions ... I am so so horney,' he did not say.

[Rich]

'went far beyond the parameters of my job description'

Whatever *that* means.

[Libertarian]

That was rich, wasn't it? (no offense)

[GILMORE?]

i feel like there should have been more pictures.

[Suthenboy]

Yeah, I am skeptical of the whole thing. How do we know he actually grabbed breasts if we don't have pictures of those breasts? I demand to see them.

[richardkwilson]

I've made $64,000 so far this year working online and I'm a full time student. Im using an online business opportunity I heard about and I've made such great money. It's really user friendly and I'm just so happy that I found out about it. Heres what I do,

========== http://www.richi8.com

[Libertarian]

Full time student you say? Would you be interested in a softball scholarship in New York?

[Libertarian]

Something tells me that the headline writers for the NY Times aren't the same headline writers used by the Daily Mail.

"Israeli socialite Hofit Golan exhibits her pert bust and defined abs in THREE bikinis as she continues to enjoy Maldives escape"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....scape.html

[Rich]

"Pert" bust? Why, it's downright *pouting*!

[C. Anacreon]

"Pert"? Them's implants, and not particularly well-installed ones, either.

[DEG]

Yes, they're pretty obvious.

Just say no to implants.

[Ted S.]

I thought the Maldives was an Islamist country.

[F. Insufficiently Urbane, Jr.]

Ted, I hope you caught my apology last week. My original comment was a joke post, but for some reason I left the funny out.

[DEG]

I hear they really, really like tourist dollars.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Like in Bali, Indonesia, they are more than happy to take infidels' money.

[F. Insufficiently Urbane, Jr.]

Israeli socialite Hofit Golan exhibits her pert bust

Anyone else gonna do this? Hello?...All right, I'll do it:

Golan Heights? I'll say! /makes eyebrows dance suggestively

[jonnysage]

So low income kids would get to go to private schools, while middle income kids are stuck in public.

[GILMORE?]

Why do you hate social justice?

[Libertarian]

I have to admit that, as a boring, middle class youngster who was really interested in sailing ships and lore, I was always a bit jealous of the juvenile delinquents who were able to participate in programs where they sailed on the open ocean in Tall Ships.

[GILMORE?]

I read the WaPo this morning. there are 2 stories about Hillary's Uh Oh situation on the cover

the first (linked) has nearly 12,000 comments. its some kind of last-minute furious spit-and-kicking by many supporters who see this as the ultimate-betrayal (*the actual acknowledgement that there's something very-wrong w/ Hillary's claims).

Meanwhile, the NYT chose to endorse her on the very same day. Remarkably, the comments there (last i checked) are far far fewer (less than 1000) and the majority that i see (particularly the 'recommended') are all spiteful bernie supporters.

If there's any sociological take-away there, its that readers of the respective papers probably need to switch places.

i.e. the NYT crowd is actually more-liberal than the paper itself... while WaPo's 'acceptance of basic facts' is seen as utter betrayal by establishment democrats

[Suthenboy]

My god, the excuses being made for her.

A. (In defiance of the clear letter of the law) What she did was not illegal.

B. The republicans did it too.

C. It is just a witch-hunt.

The Dems truly are a cult.

[GILMORE?]

I think the interesting point is that its mostly democrats screaming at each other... or different democrats frothing across different mediums.

the pro-hillary NYT is getting slammed by all the bernie-bots
and the "accepting reality" WaPo is getting slammed by the TEAM BLUE-or-death types

what you don't see is even one person saying "good things" about their choices, really. i suppose the bernie people are genuinely motivated by the prospect of a proper Ben&Jerry;'s-commie. But the point is that there's a noticeable amount of dissonance running through the entire team-blue echo-chamber. No one seems entirely pleased with the cards they are holding. and this is one week out from primaries.

[Frankjasper1]

The bernie bots are truly a cult. I dont get the appeal. I mean i understand wanting free chit but they make him out to be some sort of god

[Rhywun]

No one seems entirely pleased with the cards they are holding.

So now the country knows what it's like to be a NYC voter. Record low turnout, here we come.

[Cytotoxic]

That commie-farmer state is a good example of where a federal government should step in and tell the state government 'no'. No subsidies. No state education monopoly.

[JoWaDat889]

Dude that makes no sense at all man.

http://www.Full-VPN.tk