la liberté avant tout
By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org A billion-dollar welfare program to help laid-off workers displaced by foreign competition has been saved from extinction, even though it’s been judged ineffective and wasteful according to the federal government’s own commissioned studies. Flexing his bipartisan muscle, President Obama signed the bill Monday renewing the Trade Adjustment Assistance program until…
By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org If your governor had a secret travel slush fund worth tens of millions of dollars used to jet set to Japan, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, wouldn’t you want to know about it? That’s the question put to Massachusetts residents this week after revelations former Gov. Deval Patrick used…
By Yaël Ossowski / June 1, 2015 / Watchdog.org He once promised to balance Connecticut’s books through spending cuts alone. Now Gov. Dannel Malloy says he’s ready to OK a nearly $2 billion tax increase no later than June 3, when the legislative session ends. A new budget, passed by the Democratic supermajority on Monday,…
By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org Charter schools in New Orleans have enjoyed growing popular support over the years, but at least one group is hoping to quell the praise for reforms. The Dignity in Schools Campaign, a nonprofit group against zero-tolerance behavior policies in schools, brought their protest signs to the American Federation for Children…
By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org Anywhere the wind blows in politics, the money is sure to follow. As for DISH Network CEO Charles Ergen, a top political financier in the U.S. wireless broadcast game and regulation, it hasn’t just been a one-sided venture. Reported by Watchdog.org on Monday, Ergen’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of…
By Yaël Ossowski / May 11, 2015 / Watchdog.org Dish Network founder and CEO Charles Ergen’s political giving reveals support for politicians who lobbied the Federal Communications Commission to reserve spectrum space for small companies — spectrum that Ergen then won in the FCC’s controversial January auction. In a May 2014 letter to FCC chairman…
By Yaël Ossowski / April 28, 2015 / Watchdog.org At the recent Education Writers Association national seminar in Chicago, a small breakout session asked the following question: Is school choice a tool for opportunity and equity, or further segregation? Following the latest negative spin on charter schools around the country, it seems most education journalists…
By Yaël Ossowski / April 21, 2015 / Watchdog.org The charter school community in North Carolina is rising up against a study put together by Duke University scholars that argues charter school segregation is giving white students an advantage over black students. “I find the claims that public charter schools perpetuate segregation across our state…
By Yaël Ossowski / April 21, 2015 / Watchdog.org There’s a puzzling charge being lobbed at charter schools in North Carolina by academic researchers: they’re reintroducing segregation. That’s the racially tinged analysis provided by researchers from Duke University, who last week released a study focused on the “growing segmentation” of the charter school sector in…
By Yaël Ossowski / April 16, 2015 / Watchdog.org After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans charter schools are giving students more hope for academic success than their peers, the latest studies reveal. A study brief released last week by Tulane University’s Cowen Institute details the rise and promise of Charter Management Organizations in…