I am very impressed with CNN’s decision to hire degenerate gambler, William Bennett, to be their brand new political analyst. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe they can use Jack Abramoff as a political analyst, too. You know, just back a satellite truck up to his prison walls, and see what wisdom Jack has to drop on the scandal du jour.
I wonder how often Big Bill will remember to disclose the fact that he gets preferential contracts for his Arkansas home-schooling initiative from the administration:
Newspaper staffers David J. Hoff and Michelle R. Davis report that a for-profit firm called K12, Inc., run by former Education Secretary and “drug czar” Bennett, has received $4.1 million from the U.S. Department of Education. Bennett’s outfit received the tax funding under a provision in the “No Child Left Behind” education bill that is designed to expand options in public school choice.
There’s just one problem: The provision in the education bill is supposed to offer options to students enrolled in failing public schools. But Bennett’s business is aimed at helping parents who engage in home schooling and does nothing to benefit students in public schools.
So how did Bennett, a harsh critic of public education, get the cash? Through a paperwork shuffle and bureaucratic sleight of hand, education officials in Arkansas declared the home-schooled students public school attendees – even though they are not required to spend one day receiving instruction in a public school. The only requirement imposed on the home-schooled kids so far is that they must take a statewide test at their local public school.
What’s even more troubling is that Bennett’s firm apparently ended up with the tax-funded windfall despite contrary recommendations from peer reviewers at the U.S. Department of Education. Department employees who oversee the public school choice program initially suggested funding for 10 programs, basing their decision on recommendations from peer reviewers. Bennett’s K12 Arkansas project was not among them. Education Week reported that K12’s proposal did not score high enough among the peer reviewers to win a funding recommendation.
But the Department of Education bypassed the peer reviewers and added Bennett’s program to the list. In doing so, the department dropped one program entirely and slashed funding for others.
One department employee involved in the process, who wished to remain anonymous, told Education Week, “Anything with Bill Bennett’s name on it was going to get funded.”
He never bothered to to disclose his conflict of interests when he blabbered on Fox News.
Thanks to Crooks and Liars for the heads up.
From Novak to Bennett… at least they are moving up in class. Perhaps they can move on to Duke Cunningham next.
Perhaps we could e-mail CNN and ask them if ole Billy will reveal his conflict.
In the fall of 1989, in an address to a joint session of the Wisconsin legislature, you asserted that “smoking marijuana, even once, causes permanent damage to the intelligence.”
Having been a heavy, steady consumer of cannabis since 1969, I responded with a challenge to a $10,000 chess match, offering odds that if you could pull 1 win or 2 draws in a 4 game match, you’d win the bet. Did you believe your assertion, or were you flapping your gums? I’ve not received a reply.
The challenge is still open, and considering inflation, I’ll propose to double the stakes.
Cash on the table, chickenshit.
This does not surprise me in the least.
Certainly this is another great example of how a once highly respected part of the mainstream media is also showing its lack of concern for public ethics.
My primary concern, however, is for Bennett’s grant. It is one of the worst examples of how the operation of the U.S. Department of Education has been perverted by this administration, in the usual fashion: A promised change that was much needed, e.g. relying on science and scientific findings to fund and evaluate federally funded programs, has become the thin veneer covering a large redirection of funds out of regular education into voucher programs, political sweetheart deals, outright shilling for the Administration, and deliberate fomenting of regulations that insure failure of public education as presented to the citizenry.
Who loses in this? Our schools, and our kids.
This is also the same guy with the racist remarks about lowering the crime rate, correct?? If so, CNN’s behavior is beyond shameless!
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Bill Bennett vs. Noam Chomsky
Great initiative by sbj :: copy of the letter I sent to CNN earlier today.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY ▼
-just another hypocrit for our entertainment-
I guess the main theme for the Right is be bad, lie and hypocritical and great things will come to you..
Not very: CNN should hire yet another GOP hack-for-pay commentator! If I remember correctly there are four hacks-for-pay who should be looking for work about now. Next we’ll get Armstrong Williams? I guess what we have here is just one more example of the GOP’s capacity to keep electioneering instead of governing. Their idea of goverance is nothing but the old patronage pay for play of the 19th century when school teachers in Philadelphia and cops in New York had to pay someone in order to get hired. Whatta’ happy new year–we have a governing party with its head stuck securely in the late 19th century?