Predation
The Trojan Horse amendment

Union bosses would get new power to sell workers out if the minimum wage ballot measure passes this fall

By Steven Miller
BusinessNevada

Unwitting Nevada voters appear all set to send out an engraved invitation this November — to the Mob.

“C’mon back,” the invitation would say. “Because we fell asleep at the switch, we’ve passed a scheme that rolls out the red carpet for you!”

The scheme in question is buried in the “minimum-wage” constitutional amendment pushed by the state’s union bosses. Passed with little discussion in 2004, the ballot measure goes before voters again this fall. If approved, its language becomes a permanent part of the Nevada Constitution.

[continued]

State waste
National expert to testify on ‘ed funding adequacy’ studies

NPRI news release

A controversial state-financed study that last week recommended a $$438 million per-year increase in Nevada government education spending already has become the object of severe academic criticisms.

Scheduled to appear before state lawmakers on Thursday is Richard P. Phelps, Ph.D., of Massachusetts, author of Thoroughly Inadequate: The 'School Funding Adequacy' Evasion, a white paper released Monday by the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

The paper levels detailed criticisms against both the methodology and premises used by the Colorado firm of Augenblick, Palaich and Associates (APA), in its Nevada study, issued last week. The Phelps paper also addresses the more fundamental question, “If money is not the answer [to Nevada’s education woes], what is?”

[continued]

School wars
L.A. mayor's school plan passes Senate, but legal battles loom

By Aaron C. Davis
Associated Press Writer

California’s state Senate Monday voted to grant Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa unprecedented powers over the city's troubled schools, even as critics blasted the plan as unconstitutional and the mayor acknowledged that legal battles might prevent him from taking control any time soon.

[continued]

Real estate
Vegas growth faces
more BLM resistance

By Brian Wargo
InBusiness Las Vegas

The Bureau of Land Management has launched an environmental study that will determine whether Las Vegas would lose thousands of acres that could be developed because of the need to preserve prehistoric animal fossils.

[continued]

Subsidies
Welfare-to-work
rules tighten up

Receiving drug counseling
to no longer count as ‘work’

By Ian Mylchreest
LV Business Press

Last week, many officials celebrated the success of ending welfare as we knew it 10 years ago. Writing in The New York Times, President Bill Clinton congratulated himself on bridging the gap between Democrats and Republicans: “While we compromised to reach an agreement, we never betrayed our principles and we passed a bill that worked and stood the test of time.”

[continued]

Entry-level workers
Scores drop on
revamped SAT

Education Week

Average SAT scores for this year’s high school graduates—the first class to have undergone the revamped test that was introduced in March 2005—dipped 7 points below last year’s composite scores for both the mathematics and critical-reading sections, according to a report released today by the College Board, the New York City-based nonprofit organization that sponsors the test.

[continued]

Powermongers
eBay bounces the
homeschoolers

If you’re a homeschooling parent looking for good textbooks, don’t bother with eBay

Edspresso.com

A new policy by Internet trading behemoth eBay that bans homeschool teachers’ texts from its auctions is prompting an avalanche of complaints from the company’s faithful customers.

“Really the homeschooling community is a huge participant in eBay when you get to thinking about it,” said one customer who was identified as “angels*wings” on an eBay blog. “We buy textbooks naturally but we also purchase items like microscopes, slides, globes, maps, manipulatives, educational games, reading books, supplies for our classrooms … stickers, idea books, folders, sheet protectors, school supplies, software, educational movies, models, post cards … the list is enormous.”

The policy, which is inclusive of all teachers’ texts, was made known recently as those who were auctioning various books watched as their postings were deleted.

[continued]

Entrepreneurship
MySpace cowboys

They run the fastest-growing Web site on the planet. They have 100 million friends. Not bad for two guys who just wanted a place to hang out.

By Patricia Sellers
Fortune editor-at-large

One night this past April, Tom Anderson was surfing MySpace.com, as he does for hours every night, when he spotted a link to something called kSolo on another member’s profile page. The service, Anderson learned, lets you record karaoke online and e-mail songs to friends. A karaoke man himself (he used to be the lead singer in a band called Swank), he immediately tried kSolo - playing a scorching anthem called “Cowboys From Hell” by the thrash-metal band Pantera.

“It was cheesy but great,” Anderson says. The next day, he told his business partner, Chris DeWolfe, to check out the site.

[continued]