Governor goes on a secret closed-door education tour. Invites only hand-picked participants for an “open dialogue” (snicker) about how to ram through the governor’s Common Core agenda — an agenda that stands to make some people very rich off our education tax dollars. The meetings are set up by an organization whose lobbyist is the same lobbyist for the very company who will get rich from what the governor is trying to force onto the public schools.
Amidst all the well-deserved controversy surround Gov. Haslam’s secret education meetings (which excludes just about anyone who might disagree with the administration) is a major factoid gone almost completely unnoticed by the MSM.
While it has been reported in a couple of outlets that the governor’s office asked and relied on the Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents (TOSS) to set up the secret meetings, the media missed an important connection:
TOSS is represented by lobbyist Chuck Cagle, who just happens to be the highly-paid lobbyist for — wait for it — Pearson!Yep. It seems the Cagle Cash Cow education scam (here, here and here) that shook up the legislature last session, is still going strong. Pearson stands to make millions if Haslam can shove Common Core down everyone’s throat. Pearson will make many millions from selling new textbooks that are “Common Core aligned” (and which are frequently selected by many of the school superintendents Cagle just happens to represent). And let’s not forget the obnoxious PARCC testing program which the legislature delayed (over Haslam’s and Huffman”s objections) last session. Pearson is expected to rake in even more millionsm from testing if Haslam succeeds in making the legislature his Common Core bitch for the coming session.
http://rockytoppolitics.com/2014/07/30/haslam-2-huffman-2-cagle-2-pearson/