Irondale police, fire departments get $2,000 grants from Norfolk Southern | AL.com

Irondale’s police and fire departments each received $2,000 grants from the Norfolk Southern Foundation, money that will help the police department train a new K-9 unit.

The departments applied for the grants a few months ago from the railroad company’s foundation. Each department received grants for $2,000, interim Police Chief Jason Wiggins said.

The money will help the police department get training tools and equipment for their new K-9 unit, Wiggins said.

The Science Council of the Education and Science Ministry and the Commission on Pseudoscience and Research Fraud of the Russian Academy of Sciences issued statements condemning the action.

Mikhail Gelfand is vice director for science of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences and professor at the Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics at the Moscow State University.

A top Crimean official declined a proposed duel over a land dispute with the head of Russia’s nationalist Night Wolves biker group Monday, according to a Russian media report. Turkmenistan unveiled the first monument to President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov on Monday a gilded 6-meter-high statue of the leader on horseback perched on a white cliff. Standing in front of a small Moscow church last September, President Vladimir Putin told journalists that he had lit candles inside for people who had been injured or given up their lives defending Novorossia. A court in Russia’s Far East said Monday that it had found signs of “violence and intolerance” in songs by two Russian metal bands and that it has asked the Justice Ministry to include the tracks on a federal list of extremist materials. Kadyrov has scored starring roles in two films: an epic action film featuring a camouflage-clad Kadyrov firing a machine gun into the sky, and a documentary depicting him as a cruel dictator. A high-ranking Chechen official’s call Tuesday to legalize polygamy has prompted soul searching among the Russian population. Russians’ trust in banks has fallen sharply over the past year, as a currency crisis and Western sanctions shook the country’s financial system, a poll by the National Agency of Financial Research (NACFIN) showed. Russia’s second-largest bank VTB made a loss of $370 million in the first quarter and reined in lending as high Central Bank interest rates choked the economy, posing risks for firms dependent on the bank for funds. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov warned on Wednesday the country would face no choice but to rein in public spending over the next few years, highlighting how Russia is still in deep economic trouble even if it has dodged an immediate meltdown. Russia’s Defense Ministry has identified two fighters captured in Ukraine as former servicemen in the Russian military.

The Oregon Community Foundation is celebrating a milestone of $1 billion in grants and scholarships awarded to nonprofits and communities across the state since its founding in 1974, including a new round of giving on the High Desert.

Helping OCF reach this important milestone are 36 Central Oregon agencies that received a total of $380,000 in awards this week.

“We’re proud that these exceptional Central Oregon agencies have helped push OCF to the $1 billion milestone,” said Cheryl Puddy, associate program officer for OCF in Central & Eastern Oregon, which serves the counties of Crook, Deschutes, Jefferson, Sherman, Wasco and Wheeler and the Warm Springs Reservation through the foundation’s Bend office.

A few highlights from the 2015 spring grant awards in Central Oregon include:

Campfire USA, Central Oregon Council (Bend) a first time grant of $20,000 for year one of three years’ potential support to expand the Teens in Action program designed to improve student success using the shared outcomes identified by program partner, Better Together.

Redemption House (Crook County) a $21,000 grant for year one of two years’ potential support to expand emergency and transition shelter services for women and children experiencing homelessness in Crook County.

Prineville Kiwanis Foundation Ready to Read (Crook County) a $10,000 grant for year one of three years’ potential support to provide summer school for K-3 students underperforming in reading and math.

Jefferson County LibraryDistrict (Madras) a $10,000 grant to purchase audiovisual equipment for the Jefferson County Library Film Center, to be used by the community for films, lectures and cultural events.

St. Vincent DePaul of Crook County (Crook County) an $11,000 grant for replacement of a refrigerated truck used for transportation of food for emergency programs.

“The true impact of the one billion dollar milestone can be measured by the nonprofits and individuals who have received these grants and scholarships,” said OCF Board Chair Tim Mabry.

“And OCF’s success in working with donors to create and sustain charitable funds that have the greatest possible impact in our communities has allowed the organization to reach this milestone. Over the past year, scholarships were awarded to 3,200 Oregon students studying everything from hi-tech to health care. One such scholarship that has changed hundreds of students’ lives in the past 41 years is the Howard Vollum Scholarship, a scholarship awarded to Native American high school graduates who are interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects. As of April 2015, the Howard Vollum Scholarship Fund has awarded 372 scholarships to Native American students, totaling more than $990,000.

“I am continuously grateful for the thousands of OCF donors and their engagement in the communities in which they live,” said Max Williams, president and CEO. “It’s this engagement and commitment to Oregon that has allowed us to make such significant impacts in communities of all sizes and in all areas of the state and what will continue to drive OCF for the next 40 years.”

For more information about OCF’s history, and current and future initiatives, please visit http://www.oregoncf.org/.

The mission of The Oregon Community Foundation is to improve life in Oregon and promote effective philanthropy. Through these funds, OCF has awarded a total of $1 billion in grants and scholarships, with $80 million awarded in 2014 alone.

A local source of public radio programming may soon leave the airwaves due to economic realities

San Benito County may soon lose access to National Public Radio and other public radio networks through KUSP radio, which broadcasts their signal from a translator on Fremont Peak at 89.1 FM.

The Pataphysical Broadcasting Foundation (KUSP), is holding public meetings around the Monterey Bay Area to inform the public of the dire situation the station is in, and to solicit suggestions for ways it might be able to continue.

The next meeting will be held at the Monterey County Board of Education, 901 Blanco Circle in Salinas, Wednesday, May 27 at 7 p.m.. There will be another community meeting in Aptos on June 2 at the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz, 7807 Soquel Drive at 7 p.m..

People may also communicate ideas and concerns to the KUSP board at www.kusp.org/boards/shtm.

KUSP offers programming from Pacifica, Public Radio Exchange, the BBC, and other public radio networks, in additon to broadcasts of the Monterey Jazz Festival, and Carmel Bach Festivals, and other arts and news programming.

Bob was appointed and serves on the San Juan Strategic Plan Committee and the San Juan Bautista General Plan Committee.

Tammany Times: Festivities set for July 4th | StTammany | The New Orleans Advocate New Orleans, Louisiana

Other Ligonier participants and the amounts they raised include:

a Ligonier Valley Historical Society a $1,850

a Ligonier Valley Fire Companies a $1,635

a Ligonier Valley Rail Road a $1,400

a Ligonier Valley Library Association a $1,280

a Valley Players of Ligonier a $1,085

a Fort Ligonier Association a $600

a Ligonier Valley Writers a $225

a Ligonier Valley Learning Center a $30

In March 2012 and September 2010, Gates gave CCSA $1 million for general operating support each time.

Two of the largest Gates grants toward charter schools were for $3 million each, one in June 2014 and one, in June 2012, to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (total $6 million).

The largest single grant was for $5.5 million, to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), in November 2007.

In October 2009, NAPCS received $500,000 that was more to the point: “to provide general operating support for continued growth of the charter industry.” Also in Washington state and receiving Gates money for operations was the Cesar Chavez Public Policy Charter High School ($9,700 in October 2008).

Other charter school entities receiving Gates money for operating support include the Texas Charter Schools Association ($250,000 in May 2009 and $650,000 in May 2010); the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools ($450,000 in April 2011 and $200,000 in November 2012); the Georgia Charter Schools Association ($250,000 in October 2012); the Illinois Network of Charter Schools ($600,000 in September 2011), and the New York City Charter School Center ($950,000 in September 2010). Gates paid Children Now $700,000 toward operating support in March 2015.

Pro-CCSS-test-score-focused Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (TNSCORE) has also received its share of Gates operating support: $2.3 million in January 2015; CCSS-lesson conduit, the Teaching Channel: $2.5 million in November 2014 to follow a healthy $7 million in June 2013; and Teach Plus, a fine slice of general operating support pie, $7.5 million in October 2014.

In seven states and DC, Teach Plus actively promotes both CCSS implementation and the message to “opt in” with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test. Just noticing, is all: Education Post is trying hard to push the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and it might not look too good if the billionaire who agreed in 2008 to bankroll CCSS is also financially supporting a pro-CCSS blog that offers supposed “honest, straight talk” absent any “playing politics.”

If my thoughts are off base, Education Post CEO Peter Cunningham should feel free to set me straight with some of that “honest, straight talk” regarding the specifics on that mystery funder.

Next on the list of hefty Gates operating support money to education organizations is Lumina Foundation-founded, Maryland-based Achieving the Dream, a “national reform network” specializing in “institutional change,” “policy reform,” “sharing knowledge,” and “engaging the community” in order to “close achievement gaps and accelerate student success nationwide” for community college students.

In December 2012, Gates paid Achieving the Dream $646,000 toward general operating support, and in May 2014, Gates increased that amount by another $2.4 million.

That takes care of 2014-15 Gates operating support to education and “education-ish” organizations.

Here are some notable organizations that have received Gates operating support in 2013. (I wrote about NTC founder Ellen Noir in February 2013 as part of my National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) series.)

–Innosight Institute (now the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation), $650,000 in October 2013.

–Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), $1.5 million in August 2013.

–Michelle Rhee’s The New Teacher Project (TNTP), $7 million in August 2013.

Those interested in systematically investigating Gates grants for operating support paid out up through 2012 can start their investigation here.

For now, I am done.

However, allow me to offer this observation in closing:

In her defense of choosing to continue accepting Gates funding, National Education Association (NEA) President Lily Eskelsen Garcia insinuates that accepting Gates money “is complicated” since Gates appears to fund “a spectrum” of education (or education-styled) organizations.

In my post dated May 18, 2015, I take issue with Garcia’s unabated plan to accept Gates funding for NEA despite her April 25, 2015, Network for Public Education (NPE) public statement indicating otherwise.

And in this current post, I close with an observation regarding Gates’ doling out millions to favored “education” organizations for general operating support:

On the Gates grants search engine, the keywords, “general operating support school” yielded 80 results.

Three times, Gates supported traditional public schools.

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