Hmmm

SK Bubba has the goods on a public/private financing deal going on with their local school district. He's done a great job in covering it, better than the local media, I would say.

The funny biz here is that this foundation will end up controlling local school money, both public and private. It looks really strange to me. I can't tell but I wonder if this is another pernicious permutation involving education and the religious right. Couple of thoughts:

1) Who will oversee the board of directors on that foundation? If they pull a Westminster on them, meaning change a few laws here and there to suit their own moral needs, who cares if it's not legal, because no one can touch them. Hell, Westminster here in CA is having a hard enough time trying to get rid of their recalcitrant school board members.

2) Okay, almost everyone's got school funding problems. Why can't a foundation be set up to provide money to the school rather than trying to control it? We've got a couple non-profit foundations here in Santa Monica; their sole purpose is to provide money to the school district. It'll be kinda weird if one of these foundations ended up getting most of the federal, state and local funds to divvy it back up to the school. That extra layer only guarantees less money goes to the kids.

3) The local (Christian) Cornerstone Foundation has been heavily involved in this whole venture, to the point that I'm afraid they may have some major boundary problems. Albeit the Cornerstone Foundation has done great philanthropic work in the area, there's no guarantee it won't interject a few of its moral values onto this new school foundation.

4) Who funds Cornerstone anyway?