Arizona: Az 5

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Remember how Roger Ailes and Lee Atwater used this fearmongering ad to destroy the Michael Dukakis presidential campaign in 1988? (This was one version of the ad) George H. W. Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, predicted that...

by David Safier

The good news: good charter schools can be very good. For certain parts of the student population, they can be better than public schools.

The bad news: bad charter schools can be just awful. They're run by either incompetents or profiteers -- or incompetent profiteers -- and the students are the victims.

A review of a recent study of New York charter schools points this out. The study maintains that students at New York charters perform significantly better on standardized tests than equivalent students in district schools. Some of the methodology is being questioned -- the study hasn't been peer reviewed yet -- but here is something which struck me as being very telling, and which I'm sure will stand up.

Greetings to AZNetroots! As a newbie here, I want to introduce myself.

My name is Osha Gray Davidson. I'm a freelance investigative reporter and author focusing on solar power and environmental issues, mostly in the Southwest, but also reporting on related national and international issues.

My primary website is The Phoenix Sun, an online magazine using multimedia to cover issues in depth (although I'll be adding a blog soon). My current story on parodies of Big Coal's PR/propaganda campaign is a good example of what I'm trying to do on the site.

I'm a contributing blogger for Mother Jones and Grist and have written for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Utne Reader, WaPo, etc. This isn't meant to be a resume, so I'll leave it at that.

Please check out www.thephoenixsun.com or @thephoenixsun on twitter.

Looking forward to contributing to and learning from this community!

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Sarah Palin had some nice things to say about America's "Fearmonger-In-Chief", Glenn Beck of Faux News. In an interview with right-wing Newsmax.com, Palin was asked, "Is a "dream ticket" of Palin-Beck ticket completely out of the question? " Palin-Beck Ticket? Sarah Doesn't Rule it Out:

Palin initially chuckled when Newsmax broached the idea. But then she had some serious words of praise for the popular Fox personality.

"I can envision a couple of different combinations, if ever I were to be in a position to really even seriously consider running for anything in the future, and I'm not there yet," Palin tells Newsmax.