Here is a conundrum: Policymakers and pundits insist that public school students and teachers must be held accountable or they won’t make any progress. Students must regularly tested to make sure they are learning prescribed curriculum.
So-called “education reformers” are all in favor of standards, tests, and accountability. Such a strategy, they insist, drives higher test scores.
But when it comes to voucher students, the “reformers” fall silent. Voucher students don’t need accountability, don’t need testing, don’t need state standards.
Why the double standards? Why should voucher students get public money and be exempt from state testing?
New Hampshire just concluded that debate. Democrats proposed that voucher students take the same tests as public school students. Republicans opposed the bill.
CONCORD — The House defeated a proposal to require Education Freedom Account students evaluation results be reported to the Department of Education.
House Bill 1716 would require the results of national standardized and state assessment testing for EFA students to be reported to the department, along with an assessment of a student’s portfolio by a certified teacher.
The bill would also require the department to develop guidelines for assessing the portfolios and what information is needed in order to progress to the next grade level.
The department would review all the data to determine academic proficiency rates for EFA students based on graduation rate, grade level, gender, race, and differentiated aid categories.
The prime sponsor of the bill Rep. Tracy Bricchi, D-Concord, told the House as a former educator for 35 years she does not agree with those who say public education is bad for the country and communities.
“You hear public education is failing and throwing money at it will not improve the outcome,” she said, while the state has spent millions of dollars on the EFA program with no consistent data to support claims it is widely successful.
This bill would provide the data needed to support those claims, Bricchi said, using the three assessment paths in the statute.
It would also tighten the portfolio requirements to ensure clear documentation of student progress, she said.
“If you spend taxpayer funds,” Bricchi said, “you owe it to taxpayers and people to produce clear data to ensure the money is spent (effectively).”
But Rep. Margaret Drye, R-Plainfield, argued state assessment testing is done for students in grades three through eight and one year of high school, while the bill would require testing of every grade level, every year for EFA students.
And she said in public schools parents may opt their child out of assessment testing, but there is no such provision in the HB 1716 for EFA students.
She said a very successful evaluation process has been in place for 40 years for homeschooled students, but is not available in the bill.
The legislation places a burden on 10,000 EFA students that is not on 160,000 public school students, Drye maintained.
But Peggy Balboni, D-Rye, said the success of public schools is determined by the statewide assessment scores, but EFA students do not have to provide that information or other assessments to the Department of Education.
This bill would allow the same public reporting of the results for EFA students, she said.
“All students who are taxpayer funded should be held to the same evaluation reporting standards,” Balboni said. “This will allow the reporting of EFA students’ academic data to determine if indeed the EFA program is widely successful.” The bill was killed on a 194-166 vote.
A blogger who calls himself “This Will Hold” wrote a startling post about Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico. The sprawling ranch was bought by a Trump ally. Unlike Epstein’s other properties, Zorro Ranch was never searched by the FBI. Why not?
In 2023, four years after Jeffrey Epstein suspiciously died in federal custody, one of the most controversial properties in modern criminal history quietly changed hands.
Zorro Ranch, Epstein’s sprawling New Mexico estate in southern Santa Fe County, was sold to San Rafael Ranch LLC, a limited liability company created just one month before the purchase. The final sale price has not been publicly disclosed. The property was originally listed for $27.5 million before the price was reduced to $18 million.
Public records have revealed that San Rafael Ranch LLC is tied to the family of Don Huffines, a Trump-aligned former Texas state senator and current candidate for Texas Comptroller. Tax protest filings obtained through a public records request list Huffines’ wife as an owner of the ranch and son Colin Huffines, as manager.
According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, in those filings the family sought to reduce the property’s taxable valuation to approximately $13.4 million, citing the “notoriety” of the estate as a factor affecting its value.
What remains less clear is why Zorro Ranch—unlike Epstein’s other properties—was never subjected to a federal search.
The Allegations That Should Have Triggered an Excavation
In November 2019, months after Epstein’s arrest and death, the U.S. Department of Justice documented an email that, if credible, should have required immediate forensic action.
The email, included in newly released DOJ files, was sent from an encrypted ProtonMail account by someone identifying themselves as “a former staff at the Zorro.” The sender attached six videos of sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and alleged that “two foreign girls were buried on orders of Jeffrey and Madam G” in the hills outside Zorro Ranch.
The email claimed the girls “died by strangulation during rough, fetish sex.”
“Madam G” is widely understood to refer to Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year federal sentence for sex trafficking. It’s noted that one of the videos is a suicide attempt confession from a girl in the Bay Area.
A note on another of the videos: 7 mins 31 secs underage girl (Matthew Mellon video).
Matthew Mellon, yet another billionaire in the Epstein class, dined with Donald Trump in March of 2018 before flying to Mexico in April to check into a rehabilitation clinic. But the 54-year-old banking heir never made it to the treatment facility—according to one report, Mellon was experimenting with ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drink, and died from a heart attack after taking it.
Matthew Mellon isn’t the first member of the Mellon family to appear in the Epstein files. As we previously reported, Paul Mellon showed up on Epstein’s flight logs—and Timothy Mellon, his son, donated $126 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign. Perhaps to protect the family name?
The allegations in the email—involving sex crimes against minors and claims that girls were buried on the property—remain unsubstantiated, which is not surprising given that the ranch was never subjected to a forensic search.
How Thoroughly the Other Properties Were Searched
The absence becomes more striking when compared to the aggressive and highly visible searches conducted elsewhere.
The contrast is stark.
Across nearly two decades—from the original Palm Beach investigation through the 2019 federal case—Epstein’s other properties were searched extensively.
Palm Beach Mansion
Epstein’s waterfront Palm Beach estate was the epicenter of the original criminal investigation that began in 2005.
Palm Beach Police conducted a months-long investigation that included:
Computers and records were seized as part of international cooperation efforts. The federal investigative net extended across state lines and international borders.
And stopped at the state lines of New Mexico.
The Property at the Center of the Silence
The estate spans nearly 8,000 acres of high desert terrain, plus an additional 1,200 acres leased from the State of New Mexico. It includes:
A private airstrip
Multiple residences and guest houses
Remote hills and open desert land
Secure entry structures
DOJ files include photographs labeled “Zorro Aug 2002,” showing unidentified young women with their faces redacted at the ranch. Flight logs show hundreds of trips to the ranch over two decades and survivor testimony places abuse there.
In August 2019, multiple survivors addressed the court during a hearing against Jeffrey Epstein before the case was dismissed following his death.
Chauntae Davies testified that she was flown to Zorro Ranch both on a commercial flight and on Epstein’s private plane on at least two occasions. She stated that she was raped both times.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre alleged in a lawsuit—later settled—that she was trafficked to the ranch as a minor. In her memoir, she recalled that Epstein brought in “foreign girls who couldn’t communicate in English,” and that “Epstein laughed about the fact they couldn’t really communicate, saying that they are the ‘easiest’ girls to get along with.”
As scrutiny of Epstein intensified, the ranch itself drew attention. In August 2018, Zorro Ranch was burglarized. A gun safe reportedly containing 30–40 firearms was removed.
According to reports at the time, the perimeter fence had been cut, and the intruders appeared to know the precise location of the safe. In addition to the weapons, a small number of antique lamps were also taken.
Several structures can be seen in aerial photo and video of the property, including what appears to be an industrial-grade landfill. In 2019 an FBI tip from a retired New Mexico State Police officer who lived near the ranch reported a newly constructed “suspicious barn” with what appeared to be a “sally port” (double-door entry system used in prisons) and a chimney.
He was “concerned the property could potentially have an incinerator concealed within the barn.”
A crematorium?
Individually, each detail might have explanation—but collectively, they form a series of investigative leads.
None resulted in a forensic search.
Political Proximity
Epstein purchased Zorro Ranch in 1993 from former New Mexico Governor Bruce King. His son, Gary King, later served as New Mexico’s Attorney General.
The late Governor Bill Richardson appears on Epstein flight logs, in victim depositions, and in DOJ communications referencing the ranch. And internal DOJ emails show Epstein’s continued communication with Richardson following his 2008 Florida conviction.
Virginia Giuffre, who sued Maxwell for defamation, provided photos of herself at the ranch in a 2015 court document. Giuffre said that Epstein trafficked her to powerful men at the ranch, including the late Bill Richardson, who served as New Mexico governor from 2003 to 2011.
After his 2008 conviction, Epstein was not required to register as a sex offender in New Mexico and the state continued leasing him public land attached to the ranch.
These are documented facts.
Does Epstein’s proximity to political elites explain the absence of a federal search?
When federal authorities brought excavation equipment to Little St. James and catalogued evidence floor by floor in Manhattan, why was nearly 8,000 acres of New Mexico desert left untouched?
If nothing is there, a search would settle it.
If something is there, the land holds the answer.
For now, Zorro Ranch remains the only major Epstein property tied to survivor testimony that has never been publicly examined with the same rigor.
And that distinction continues to raise questions.
Trump is determined to punish states and cities that didn’t vote for him. So he sent large numbers of masked ICE agents to bully, beat, harass, and intimidate people in blue places, while recklessly killing two protestors.
He unleashed his fury on Minneapolis, sending in 3,000 ICE agents. They must have been trained to act like Brown Shirts because they do. They don’t just arrest people. They grab them, throw them to the ground, punch them, kick them, ziptie them, toss them into a van, picking up people who “look like” immigrants, and disappear them.
The people of Minneapolis resisted. They resisted with such determination that they forced Trump to back down. DHS announced that it will pull its occupying force out of Minneapolis. Everyone is waiting to see if ICE is really leaving. They will believe it when they see it.
Other cities and communities can learn from Minneapolis. The ICE bullies may soon be sent to your city, your community.
The resistance began immediately. People set up an alarm system, letting others know where ICE was operating. People protected their neighborhoods and communities. They turned out to blow whistles, to film ICE actions on their cell phones, and peacefully protest by their presence
Wherever ICE went, volunteers documented what they did. These videos proved to be powerful evidence of ICE brutality and lies.
Renee Good was murdered at one such protest. The White House and Department of Homeland Security called her a domestic terrorist and said she tried to run over an ICE agent, but multiple videos proved that they were lying.
Alex Pretti was murdered when he tried to help a fellow protestor who had been knocked on her back by ICE goons. He was filming with his cellphone. They called him a terrorist and an assassin, but again they were lying.
The people of Minneapolis treated each other as friends and neighbors and organized a powerful resistance. Volunteers organized to deliver food to people afraid to leave home. They drove people who were afraid to take public transit.
Schools protected their students as best they could. Many children from immigrant families were afraid to leave home. The schools went online to keep them learning. Schools stockpiled food for students and their families; volunteers delivered it. Teachers made home visits to check on students.
Columbia Academy, a middle school in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, became “a food bank, a counseling hotline, a missing persons task force, an immigration resource center and a refuge.”
Leslee Sheri, the principal of the school in Columbia Heights, a five-school district, said:
“We are the first call,” said Sherk, a first-year principal who has worked in the district for two decades. “They don’t call the police. They don’t even sometimes call their neighbors or different organizations. They call the school.”
Neighbors helped neighbors. Neighbors helped strangers. The people of Minneapolis reacted with surprising solidarity in opposition to the aggressive militarization of their city.
They stood up, often in bitter cold, spoke out, protected the vulnerable, and demonstrated what democracy, courage l, and compassion looks like.
Last night Rep. Jamie Raskin posted a comment on Twitter about his visit to a nearby ICE facility:
I just exercised my right as a Member of Congress to conduct an unannounced oversight visit of the ICE field facility in Baltimore. The staff I met with respected my right to visit, but what I saw was disgraceful. Kristi Noem has a budget of $75 billion she could use to ensure humane conditions, but we saw 60 men packed into a room shoulder-to-shoulder, 24-hours-a-day, with a single toilet in the room and no shower facilities. They sleep like sardines with aluminum foil blankets. Whether it’s for three days or seven days, nobody would want a member of their family warehoused there. The room set aside for dangerous criminals and violent offenders was empty. We’re demanding immediate answers and action.
What kind of a person treats other human beings this way?
John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, reviews the big concerns that will preoccupy the Republican Governor and Legislature in 2026.
A proposed deregulation bill that would result in alligators taking over our wetlands; the bill to ban Sharia Law; the “doubly criminalizing the stealing of shopping carts,” and the bill which claims “condensation trails left in our atmosphere by airplanes are actually chemical agents designed to interfere with the sun, [and] weather or are a nefarious way to psychologically manipulate us.”
Then came Governor Kevin Stitt’s address to the legislature.
Seven years ago, Stitt promised to make us a “Top Ten” state,” by creating a business-friendly environment by cutting “red tape,” reducing regulations, as well as pushing school choice, and other free-market policies.
But, according to CNBC, Oklahoma is now ranked 41th for business, 48th in education, and 49th in life, health and inclusion.
According to the U.S. News and World Report, we’re ranked 46th in economic opportunity, and 42th overall.
We’ve proven to the world that Oklahoma is second to none – it’s a state that promotes innovation, champions freedom, and creates opportunity for its people.
Oklahoma wasn’t built by government planners or bureaucrats. …
Oklahoma was built by entrepreneurs, risk-takers and innovators who believe in free markets and the American Dream – that if you work hard, take risks and create value, you should be rewarded.
Actually, Oklahoma was founded on populist principles, such as empowering voters to pass initiative petitions and amendments to the constitution. After the voters legalized medical marijuana, and voted for the expansion of Medicaid, Republicans have attempted to undermine those rights. And, now, Stitt is calling for the repeal of those two laws, and passing two other petitions that are the opposite of what voters supported.
Stitt’s most destructive attack could be on Medicaid expansion, known as SoonerCare, which reduced the state’s uninsured rate from 17.6% in 2019 to 13.9 % in 2024. But, now it needs almost $500 million to maintain the federally mandated level of service and to administer new mandates and to more efficiently manage the system.
And Oklahoma’s recent privatization of Medicaid campaign “moved thousands of patients to other insurance providers.” And, it has “resulted in lower reimbursement rates and increased denials for services.”
Medicaid provides coverage for one in four Oklahomans. It provided coverage for more than ½ of the state’s child births. While half of its recipients are children, it helps out many low-income seniors and persons with disabilities.
But, Stitt told the legislature, “Nobody feels sorry for an able-bodied male that should be working between the ages of 25 to 65, and we should not be giving them free healthcare.”
Stitt bragged about his cuts in income taxes, which were “the Path to Zero income tax;” He called them a step towards “one of our greatest budget reform wins in history.”
Due to spending cuts, Oklahoma saved over $5.5 billion dollars. Those funds could be used to address $692 million shortfall for this year, as well as $1.5 billion in increased funding that state agencies have requested.
Instead, he wants to amend the constitution to place a 3% annual cap on recurring spending growth.
The third state question Stitt suggested to lawmakers would be to freeze property taxes for “all levels.” Property taxes are a major funding source for public schools, CareerTech, and county level programs.
And he would like to expand the $249 million per year tax credits for private schools.
And Stitt repeated his calls to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling and limit tribal sovereignty in Oklahoma.
Of course, Stitt praised Trump and Ronald Reagan. He challenged the legislators to read Reagan’s speech, “A Time for Choosing.” He then said Reagan was “the last best hope of man on earth;” without him we would have taken “the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
He then bragged about freeing Oklahomans from Covid lockdowns, protecting them from vaccine mandates, and, in the name of protecting individual liberties and religious freedom, preventing boys from playing in girls’ sports.
After boasting about his success in limiting the freedom of transgender students, he called for the elimination of the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA) for not promoting the open transfer of student athletes.
And Stitt concluded:
Oklahoma is not just part of this American Dream. We are its purest expression. And this spirit is what has always defined Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is where bold dreams are possible.
I believe these last seven years have been the greatest in state history
Of course, Stitt’s “commitment to limited government and protecting the Oklahoma way of life,” also required cooperation with rightwing legislators; together, they share credit for making “our state … the best in the country.”
Children and teenagers’ access at public libraries could be significantly restricted if a bill at the Arizona Legislature were to become law.
Every year for the past four years, Republican lawmakers in Arizona have tried to build upon a 2022 law banning school employees from sharing material they defined as “sexually explicit” with anyone under 18.
The definition goes beyond the colloquial use of “sexually explicit” to include material that textually describes sexual intercourse or even touching someone’s “clothed … buttocks.”
The latest proposal would expand the ban to encompass every public library in Arizona, making it a Class 5 felony, punishable by up to 2.5 years in prison, for a librarian or library contractor to “refer” or “facilitate … access” to so-called sexually explicit material to minors. That penalty also would apply to public school employees.
A similar law in Idaho has resulted in adult-only libraries in some cities.
Legal experts have said the bill would apply to classics like “Romeo and Juliet,” the Bible or even the encyclopedia, likely in violation of the First Amendment. Plus, criminal penalties that wade into the speech of government employees, such as librarians, are likely unconstitutional, said First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh.
Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman of Queen Creek, the architect of the efforts, has described the effort as a common sense way to protect children’s innocence and claimed the bill’s criminal penalties are needed to force resistant government employees into compliance.
The Republican-majority House and Senate have multiple times advanced Hoffman’s bills to the governor’s desk. Democrat Katie Hobbs has vetoed them, calling them an “attack on public schools” and “little more than a thinly veiled effort to ban books.”
But the future of Hoffman’s library bill could change with a different governor. Hobbs faces re-election in 2026, and at least one of the Republican candidates for governor, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, already has told The Arizona Republic he would support the legislation, which he called “common sense” and “a smart way to protect our kids.”
If the Republican legislators think they are “protecting the innocence of children,” they are looking in the wrong places. They should turn their attention to the easily accessible content on television and the Internet, which may be far more salacious and far more graphic than the language in books. At least with books, kids are learning to read.
We have long known that Donald Trump despises science. We also know that he refuses to accept the science concerning climate change. Yesterday, Trump accepted an award as the “Champion of Coal.” He wants to turn the clock back a century. He will go down in history for his willful ignorance and for the harm he has unleashed on the public.
*The Trump administration has repealed the 2009 endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, eliminating the foundation of much of U.S. climate policy.
*The decision reverses decades of environmental progress despite overwhelming scientific evidence and opposition from health experts, environmental groups, 50 cities and 17 states.
*Experts warn the repeal will increase pollution, respiratory disease and planet-warming emissions over the coming decades.
The Trump administration on Thursday reversed the U.S. government’s longstanding scientific assertion that planet-heating pollution seriously threatens Americans, erasing a foundational piece of the country’s efforts to address climate change.
The repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding — a conclusion based on decades of science that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare — represents one of the biggest environmental rollbacks in U.S. history, and the latest in a series of actions by President Trump to scrap policies and regulations designed to curb the use of fossil fuels and accelerate the transition to clean energy.
The administration on Thursday also repealed all federal regulations governing vehicle emissions.
Experts and scientists condemned the action. The Environmental Protection Network — a bipartisan group of more than 700 former staff and appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency — described it as “unprecedented and dangerous.”
“This move is a fundamental betrayal of EPA’s responsibility to protect human health,” said Joseph Goffman, former assistant administrator of the EPA Office of Air and Radiation. “It is legally indefensible, morally bankrupt and completely untethered from the scientific record.”
Independent researchers around the world have long concluded that greenhouse gases released by the burning of gasoline, diesel and other fossil fuels are warming the planet and worsening weather disasters.
Pam Bondi, Trump’s Attorney General, testified before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, and she was rude and insulting when responding to Democrats’ questions. She refused to answer questions, instead praising Trump and citing the booming stock market.
They, in turn, gave her a hard time for destroying the integrity of the Department of Justice and turning it into Trump’s instrument of revenge.
Last week, the state senate in Mississippi considered a bill to authorize vouchers. Governor Tate Reeves was enthusiastic about the bill, and Republicans control both houses in the Legislature. It appeared to be a slam-dunk.
But while the state’s House of Represntatives passed the bill, 17 Republicans defected to oppose it. The voucher bill passed by a narrow margin in the House, 61-59.
The Senate gave the bill short shrift.
It was defeated in committee without a single vote in favor.
Mississippi Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, entered a motion to vote on advancing the bill to the Mississippi Senate floor. The Republican-led committee held a voice vote on the motion, and none of its members spoke in favor of the bill, including Wiggins.
“The nos have it. The bill dies today,” DeBar declared.
Governor Tate was furious.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, harshly criticized DeBar and Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the Senate president, for the bill’s defeat in a Facebook post Wednesday morning, saying that after 23 years in office, he had “never been more disappointed in elected officials” than he is now with the Senate Education Committee chairman and the lieutenant governor.
“They killed a Republican legislative priority shared by conservatives all across this country and they worked closely with the Democrats to do it,” Reeves wrote. “Even worse—they tried to do it in the dark and hide it from MS conservatives on a deadline day.”
The Mississippi Democratic Party celebrated the legislation’s failure.
“Today’s vote shows what we can accomplish when we stand together for Mississippi’s children against well-funded special interests,” Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville, said in a Tuesday press release. “Our public schools are the cornerstone of every community in this state, and this unanimous rejection sends a clear message: Mississippi will not abandon the students and families who depend on quality public education—no matter how much out-of-state money tries to buy our legislators.”
Public school educators were happy to see the bill die.
“Our concern with HB 2 is that it moves Mississippi away from a shared public commitment to education and toward a model that fragments funding and responsibility,” Union Public School District Superintendent Tyler Hansford said in a Jan. 29 Newton County Appeal opinion article. “Public dollars should be used to sustain public systems that serve all students and communities, not to convert a public good into a marketplace transaction.”
Other parts of the education legislation passed:
On Tuesday afternoon, the House Education Committee passed a $5,000 teacher pay raise that includes an $8,000 pay raise for licensed special education teachers in special education classrooms. That bill, House Bill 1126, also includes a structured cap on school superintendents’ salaries, changes to PERS’ years of service requirements, an increase to the Mississippi Student Funding Formula base student cost and a pay raise for school attendance officers’ starting salaries.
The Senate passed three education bills on Jan. 7: a $2,000 teacher pay raise bill, legislation to bring Mississippi Public Employees’ Retirement System retirees to the classroom and a bill making it easier to transfer from one public school district to another. DeBar said at the time that he would like to expand the Senate’s proposed pay raise to $5,000. All three bills await action in the House.
The House’s education bill that includes wide expansion of school choice policies is dead, its fate decided after 84 seconds of deliberation by a Senate panel.
But as the House leadership and proponents of school choice have continued their press, reaching a fever-pitch in recent weeks, Senate leaders have made clear they are opposed to voucher programs that siphon money away from public schools — so opposed that there was no discussion when the committee considered the bill.
“I’m not going to discuss it much other than to say we’ve looked at it in depth and … this committee has passed most everything (else in House Bill 2),” Senate Education Committee Chairman Dennis DeBar said.
After DeBar, a Republican from Leakesville, received no questions, Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, made a motion to vote on the bill.
After a chorus of “nay” from committee members, DeBar said, “The bill dies today.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 