Dance for Life Suicide Prevention & Good Mental Health was founded in 2018 to bring awareness and find solutions to the growing rate of suicides in Utah through the performing arts. As part of these efforts, Dance for Life has partnered with Dream Pointe Ballet Company to provide free ballet training to schools in Weber and Box Elder Counties to give children without the financial means the opportunity to participate in the art of ballet. Why? Because exercise creates endorphins which reduces pain and makes us feel more joy. The arts are a wonderful way for children to build confidence and self-esteem, discover hidden talents and build friendships to help combat depression and other mental illness challenges.
North Ogden Elementary, Canyon View Elementary, Discovery Elementary and Weber High School are participating in this first launch of the Community Ballet of Swan Lake scheduled for Saturday, May 18th 2:00 & 7:00 p.m. at Ogden High School with over 100 plus cast members! Ticket proceeds help us to further these mental health programs.
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A weekly report on education news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else — from the nation’s leading voice on education innovation and opportunity.
This week we bring you a quick round robin of what we think are the most interesting - even if frustrating - happenings around the world of education opportunity and innovation.
KIDS SHELTER TO OPEN CHARTER. What a great example of using the leverage of the charter school idea to help kids where they are. This is what can happen when people are free to innovate.
NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED. New Mexico continues its war on educational excellence instituted under Governor Michelle Grisham. Given the MAS Charter School’s stellar performance, the state action is vindictive, mean spirited, and comes close to child abuse for the New Mexico kids who will be deprived of quality education.
HOPE BEHIND BARS. We previously reported on a great effort to help kids currently confined in correctional institutions. Happily the idea is gaining more traction as the DeVos team looks to help those who want to to increase education for kids behind bars.
Photo: Education Week
WHO’S KILLING CHARTER SCHOOLS? We don’t know if Jeanne Allen was wearing her deerstalker cap and had a meerschaum pipe handy, but she solves the mystery with logic that would make the famous resident of 221-B Baker Street proud.
EDUCATION SOMETIMES NEEDS A K.I.S.S. Besides not teaching the “three Rs”, too many schools also fail to impart basic life skills. An insightful analysis showing a common sense solution - as simple as K.I.S.S.
ANTI-CHARTER BLOC BEGINS TO CRACK. A courageous group of leaders in 3 NAACP affiliates has had enough of inner-city kids being trapped in substandard schools - aka the soft bigotry of low expectations. Here’s hoping that these three California NAACP chapters are just the tip of the iceberg.
CHARTERS AT TOP OF NATIONAL RANKINGS. Perhaps one reason the three California NAACP chapters support charter schools are the indisputable facts, contained in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, that show many charters at the very top of the ranking of 26,000 public schools.
THE BONFIRE OF THE INSANITIES. As lawmakers talk of (and some advocates concede to) slowing charter growth, the public might consider performance of CA schools in spite of $60 billion in additional funding since 2011.
If you want to read more daily, check out CER’s Media Bullpen daily!
For more information or to give suggestions on news that should be covered, please go to edreform.com
Founded in 1993, the Center for Education Reform aims to expand educational opportunities that lead to improved economic outcomes for all Americans — particularly our youth — ensuring that conditions are ripe for innovation, freedom and flexibility throughout U.S. education.
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ime to end the war on coal
By Dr. Jay Lehr & Tom Harris
Several energy producers across America are taking advantage of the climate scare to try to force their customers to pay for unnecessary conversions away from dependable, inexpensive coal-fired electricity generation to unreliable and costly wind and solar power. The Wisconsin-based utility, Alliant Energy, which provides electricity to about 960,000 customers in Wisconsin and Iowa, is a case in point.
Alliant plans an 80% reduction of its carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 by closing all of its coal-fired power plants. Coal currently produces 33% of the utility’s electricity. On April 11, an Iowa Utilities Board public meeting was held to address Alliant’s short-term plan to close some of its coal power plants and replace them primarily with wind power. Alliant has petitioned the Board for a 25% hike in its base electricity rate to pay for the switch to wind power.
Approximately 60 people attended the meeting, about a dozen of whom spoke, all of them in opposition to the rate hike (primarily senior citizens saying that they could not afford higher power costs).
Alliant Energy executive Terry Kouba claimed at the meeting that fuel-cost savings achieved by switching from coal to wind power will mean customers will pay ‘merely’ 17% more in electricity costs rather than 25%. Alliant also claimed customers will eventually save money from the proposal, as year-after-year fuel-cost savings will eventually cover the upfront cost of building and emplacing new wind power equipment.
In his public comments at the meeting, James Taylor, Senior Fellow, Environment and Energy Policy at The Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based free-market think tank, pointed out that in the 18 states where coal provides the lion’s share of electricity, 15 of those 18 states have electricity prices below the national average. Kansas, Michigan, and Wisconsin are only three states where prices are above the national average. Wind power is the reason why these three states have electricity prices above the national average. Kansas has the second highest percentage of wind power in the country, while Michigan and Wisconsin are two of the five fastest-growing states for wind power.
Taylor told the meeting that Iowa wind power generation has grown five-fold during the past decade, much faster than the national average. As a result, while national electricity prices were essentially flat during the past decade (rising less than 1% per year), Iowa electricity prices rose 31% during the past decade.
Taylor also explained that, although Iowa still enjoys electricity prices below the national average – because coal still provides most electricity in the state – Alliant’s proposal would push Iowa electricity prices above the national average. Moreover, the new rate hike – on top of the 31% rate hikes already imposed by wind power – would result in a greater-than-50% increase in electricity prices due to wind power in the past decade.
Taylor challenged Kouba to sign a contractual guarantee that Alliant would reduce its rates at least 25% within the next 15 years to back up his claim that customers would eventually save money under the Alliant proposal. Kouba declined to do so. The Board will issue a decision on Alliant’s proposal later this year.
A similar situation has developed in other states where electric utilities are planning to try to replace coal plants with wind and solar largely as a result of climate change concerns.
This must stop. Coal has huge advantages as a fuel—it is abundant, inexpensive, easy to burn, easy to store and transport, packs a great deal of energy, and power plants can be built in a variety of sizes. And America is blessed with 22.1% of the world’s proven coal reserves, the greatest of any country and enough to last for about 380 years at current consumption rates. Mined and burned with the latest pollution control technology, coal is both clean and safe. Its time to end the war on coal.
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Dr. Jay Lehr is Senior Policy Analyst with of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). Tom Harris is Executive Director of ICSC and a policy advisor to Heartland.
