TUESDAY TATTLER : WHO ARE THESE "Hoosiers for Quality Education"?

Formerly known as Hoosiers for Economic Growth, this Fred Klipsch group appears to be a false front for Quality Education in favor of stripping true PUBLIC schools of much needed funding in support of vouchers and private corporation profits through their "false advertisement" of being supportive of Indiana's school children.  Hoosiers for Quaility Education sits in the front line of attacks against State Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz.  They endorse most all of the attempts of the House and Senate leaders, and Governor Pence, to strip Superintendent Ritz of her powers as an elected official and to siphon more financial support from Indiana's PUBLIC schools into the pockets of private and charter school leaders.  

The Institute for Quality Education, a partner with Hoosiers for Quality Education, has gone so far as to "steal" the Hoosier-Voices title for a section of their website. Both of these groups list Fred Klipsch as their CEO/Chairperson and Founder.  This move blatantly confuses true supporters of Indiana's traditional PUBLIC schools, by leading them to believe Hoosier Voices agrees with these bills and the support of the GOP agenda to further destroy our educational system by over testing, under funding, and stripping the ELECTED Superintendent of the duties and powers 1.3 million plus voters put her in office to see through.

Looking further into this group you find that none other than Tony Bennett, the man who lost to Glenda Ritz, acting as a "consultant" to them on matters of quality education.  Hoosier voters, both Republican and Democrat, saw through his inabilities and together voted him out.  Why would any group claiming to support quality education and the children of Indiana choose this man as a consultant in any manner.

Onto other matters with this group, their name and economic status, there are major questions and issues bordering on legality.  Public School supporter Justin Kuhnle points out...

"Hoosiers for Quality Education was formally known as a 501(c) group, Hoosiers for Economic Growth, who as of 2013, has contributed over $2.3 million dollars in 7 years to 99.4% of Republican candidates.  In that time frame, one lobbyist of interest emerges -- Lindsey Brown.  While your group claims in one point to have only spent $274k in the 2014 election, what's troubling, that according to filing, expenditures totaled $338k.  What's equally troubling that according to the filings with the Secretary of State's page in Indiana, your group is past due in it's Business Entity Reports.  Now, according to some filings, your chairman is Fred Klipsch, who entertains interesting ties to certain groups (Koch Bros. to name one specific.) Wait, isn't he also Pence's treasurer?  One particular agenda item of this group is "projects that explore how the principles of free enterprise and classical liberalism promote a more peaceful and prosperous society" and are issued for education grants.  What's lost on these groups, is free market, as an economic idea, is lost due to risk mitigation to be used at the expense of the taxpayers, with a potential ultimate goal of increasing standardized testing (with projections of 14 hours 30 minutes this year alone for 3rd graders -- thank you GOP mandated at the state level to let CTN/McGraw do their will unabridged) and when standardized tests don't completely destroy public education, privatization will.  So in the end, without releasing all your little secrets, Hoosiers for Quality Education, you are promoting this agenda under the guise of a new, "cheerier" name. "

This is the beginning of a series of posts to call out those who claim one thing and then act contradictory to their statements and goals.  This is part one of our mission to point out the discrepancies of this particular group and who they truly are.  There is so much more information to point out there needed to be a starting point.  Now we must continue to alert true "friends" and "supporters" of Indiana's PUBLIC schools as to who these characters are and what their ultimate purposes include.  We must stand up to, not only our legislators and Governor, but also to these "false support" groups and make sure our PUBLIC schools and our children are no longer harmed by their desire to make money for their friends and cronies across the country.


WE ARE HOOSIER VOICES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION. THERE IS NO OTHER!!

#WeAreHoosierVoices

Just IN: Pence takes aim at liberating Hoosiers from oppressive and cumbersome freedoms

And Its About Time Already

By: Candace Shaw

Presidential hopeful #MikePence 'winning'
this week as he liberates Hoosiers from their
First Amendment rights.

In a strong arm maneuver with the goal of further emancipating Hoosier voters of their thoughts, choices, and time, Governor Pence and his education reform minions in the State House Education Committee passed legislation that would remove Glenda Ritz as the duly elected Chairman of the State Board of Education in favor of granting control of the Board to one of his political appointees.

And thank goodness, because I was beginning to think that Governor Pence just wasn’t getting all of those letters I wrote about how un-American it is to be bothered with voting, that most of us backwoods rednecks just aren’t educated enough to choose leaders at the State level. After all, I did attend and matriculate from the Indiana public school system, the great failure that it is: what could I ever know about freedom, representative government, and education? 

From a strategic standpoint, it is a heck of a lot easier to move indiscriminately forward with the Koch, Bush, and Walton family’s education reform agenda without having even one person in power that might actually know a little bit about public education. Really – who wants to get in the way of egregious political pandering to well-moneyed interests of such contemporary geniuses as those that brought us all-day pay one price passes on a flying luge, Texas oil-men accents for New Englanders, and lead-based toys imported from China? America would be stuck in a cultural abyss if it weren’t for the likes of these elephantine children that were born with a silver-spoon in their mouth.

At the end of the day, we all know that those wily Founding Fathers must have been wearing their powdered wigs a little too tightly when they ascribed to archaic and misguided philosophies from the Age of Reason that advocate robust debate, freedom of speech, and an elected representative government. Now if we could just convince Pence to solve this liberal media problem, we all would be able to breath a little easier knowing that we don't have to worry our pretty little heads about the First Amendment anymore.