Articles and More!: Watchdog Wire Weekly Wrap!

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Watchdog Wire Weekly Wrap!

Watchdog Wire Weekly Wrap!
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Check out our top ten stories from the past week! Just click on the headline to bring up the story.

Our first stories are about education in preparation for School Choice Week!

The Chicago City Council’s Progressive Caucus effort to delay a vote on the approval of 21 charter schools failed this week after the bill was sent to the Rules Committee to die a quiet death.

The mainstream media is failing to adequately report that the left wants to trap students in failing public schools.

New York City’s new progressive Mayor Bill de Blasio has chosen an anti-charter school chancellor for the city’s school system.

If you value freedom in education, de Blasio’s policy proposals will alarm you.

A new college semester kicks off this week for students across Texas. Many students may not realize it, but some of their tuition isn’t going to their education because of something called “tuition set asides.”

The law allows universities to “set aside” a portion of tuition payments for needs-based financial assistance programs.

At the Wake County Taxpayers Association meeting on January 9 in Raleigh, a discussion about awarding building contracts for new schools centered in on the delivery method of construction management at risk (CMAR).

Though this can be a dense issue, we’ve got a breakdown of what this means for school construction.

When talking about school choice, its easy to focus on charter schools and forget about homeschooling. We forget that in many countries, homeschooling is illegal.

Some see homeschooling as the solution to government-run school indoctrination.

Our Kansas Citizen Watchdog Bob Weeks put together a nice rundown of the resources available to citizens in his state to monitor the legislature.

Consider finding resources like this for your state and publishing the information on Watchdog Wire! Sign up here.

Cover Oregon is the failing Obamacare exchange in the Beaver State. When it launched, the website was completely inoperable.

Now the exchange may completely dump the website. But wasn’t a big selling point of Obamacare that you could shop for insurance online?

Oregon is far from the only state having problems with its exchange. In Nevada, the exchange has been plagued by low enrollment and customer dissatisfaction.

One Nevadan told Watchdog Wire he spent “40 frustrating hours” trying to enroll! Warning: Reading about his problems might enrage you.

The annual Turning the Tides conference was held in Maryland last weekend, and Watchdog Wire was there to spread the word about citizen journalism.

Maryland editor Mark Newgent moderated the panel, “The Walking Dead – Zombie Apocalypse, or Election Day in Maryland?” Check out the details of the panel for the real story on voter fraud.

The Wichita City Council will consider adding a 2.75 percent tax to hotel bills, calling it a “City Tourism Fee.” Welcome to Wichita!

The story doesn’t stop there, because the money goes to an agency that can operate in relative secrecy.