Progressive Group Sues Fed, Seeking Information on Presidential Selection
Progressive Group Sues Fed, Seeking Information on Presidential Selection
The left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Federal Reserve...
The left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Federal Reserve, seeking to shine light on the central bank’s president selection process.
The lawsuit, filed under the Freedom of Information Act, is a product of the “Fed Up” campaign to strip private bankers’ influence from the Fed’s top rungs and increase transparency in its leadership selection. The suit was filed after the Fed ignored a FOIA request filed in August seeking information on president selections in 2015 and 2016, the group said.
“The leaders of the twelve Reserve Banks are among the most powerful and influential actors in shaping the nation’s monetary policies, yet the process by which they are chosen is completely non-transparent,” the group wrote in the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
The lawsuit comes as Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, prepares to leave the bank in February.
“The public has a right to obtain records about how the Federal Reserve’s leaders are selected, and there is no justification for the Fed’s withholding of basic information about its governance,” said Connie Chan, an attorney representing Fed Up, in a statement. “The fact that Fed Up has to bring this FOIA lawsuit is itself further evidence of the Fed’s lack of transparency.”
By Tara Jeffries
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Texas Gives The Green Light To Racial Profiling
Today, a judge in San Antonio will be hearing opening arguments on a lawsuit against Senate Bill 4, a law passed in...
Today, a judge in San Antonio will be hearing opening arguments on a lawsuit against Senate Bill 4, a law passed in Texas last month that is the single biggest attack on immigrants this country has seen in decades. SB 4 commands police to search the papers of anyone who looks like an immigrant and levels hefty fines and even jail time for law enforcement officers who resist. Under SB 4, even campus police will have the power to do random searches, transforming college campuses, traditionally a site of sanctuary, into a source of terror.
Read the full article here.
Taking on the Private Prison Industry’s Corporate Backers
Activists are trying to combat both the accelerated tracking and detaining of immigrants and the use of for-profit...
Activists are trying to combat both the accelerated tracking and detaining of immigrants and the use of for-profit prisons to hold them by targeting the big banks that prop up for-profit prison companies.
Read the full article here.
Former Yellen Adviser Proposes Sweeping Reform of Fed System
A former aide to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has broken ranks with his former employer and issued a blueprint...
A former aide to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has broken ranks with his former employer and issued a blueprint for a sweeping reform of the U.S. central bank, including regular government audits and shorter term limits for policy makers.
Dartmouth College professor Andrew Levin targeted four areas of change for the Federal Reserve system: make the Fed a fully public institution; ensure the process of picking regional Fed presidents is transparent; set seven-year term limits for regional presidents and Board governors; and make the entire Fed subject to external review.
The proposals were taken up by the union-backed activist group Fed Up, which promoted them Monday in a conference call with journalists, and come during an election year where the central bank has been a campaign topic.
“There is one key principle in this document which is the Fed needs to become a public institution,” Levin said. “Pragmatic, reasonable Fed reform should be able to be passed by the Congress, by both parties. That is my hope.”
The Dartmouth professor worked two decades at the Fed, and was a special adviser from 2010 to 2012 to former chairman Ben S. Bernanke, and Yellen when she was vice chair, according to his biography page at the university.
Legislative Plans
Republicans in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives last year proposed legislation that included reforms of the central bank, though none has become law. Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith declined to comment.
As recently as February, Yellen said that while the Fed might be structured differently if it were created today, she believed it still worked well and wasn’t “broken.”
“Of course the structure could be something different and it’s up to Congress to decide that -- I certainly respect that,” she said at a Senate hearing. “I simply mean to say I don’t think it’s broken the way it is.”
The Fed system, which sets interest rates for the U.S. economy, is made up of a Board of Governors in Washington and 12 regional Fed banks. It was created by an act of Congress, yet private banks hold stock in the regional Fed institutions as a result of the way the capital structure was set up when the Fed was born more than a century ago.
“The Federal Reserve is the only central bank that I know of that isn’t a fully public central bank,” Levin said in an interview.
Levin said the 12 regional banks should become fully public entities, meaning they have to somehow eliminate or repurchase the stock they have issued to private member banks. He also proposed banning anyone affiliated with financial institutions overseen by the Fed from serving as a regional Fed director.
Three Classes
Each regional Fed has a nine-member board of directors which includes three Class A directors who represent private member banks, three Class B directors picked by the private banks to represent the public -- typically local business people -- and three Class C directors chosen to represent the public by the Fed board in Washington.
The presence of financial interests on Fed boards has been a long-standing source of criticism. Currently, for example, James Gorman, chairman and chief executive of Morgan Stanley, sits on the New York Fed Board as a Class A director.
Prior the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act in 2010, Class A directors also helped pick the 12 regional Fed bank presidents, subject to the approval of the board in Washington. That potential conflict of interest, with bankers appointing their own supervisors, was limited by Dodd-Frank, which restricted the selection process to Class B and Class C directors.
Levin said the current system of picking Fed presidents, which is led by regional board directors, is too secretive. He recommended the reserve bank boards accept nominations from the public, publish a list of eligible nominees, and then engage in a “selection process that involves genuine public participation.”
The Dartmouth professor also said that the entire Fed system should be subject to “external reviews” and disclosure requirements “just like every other key public agency.”
“The Government Accountability Office should produce a regular annual review of all aspects of the Fed’s policies, procedures, management, and operations,” Levin wrote in his proposal. The Fed has strenuously objected to calls by Republican lawmakers that monetary policy decisions be subject to GAO audit. In the interview, Levin said the GAO should focus on the management and operations of the Fed system, “not so much on monetary policy.”
“Part of the financial crisis was due to mismanagement in the division of supervision at the Fed,” Levin said in an interview. GAO reviews would provide assurance to the public and Congress that the “Fed is a well-managed organization,” he said.
By Craig Torres
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Exposing the Charter School Lie: Michelle Rhee, Louis C.K. and the Year Phony Education Reform Revealed its True Colors
Salon - January 1, 2015, by Jeff Bryant - Since it’s the time of the year when newspapers, websites and television talk...
Salon - January 1, 2015, by Jeff Bryant - Since it’s the time of the year when newspapers, websites and television talk shows scan their archives to pick the person, place or thing that sums up the year in entertainment, business, sports or every other venue, why not do that for education too?
In 2014 education news, lots of personalities came and went.
Michelle Rhee gave way to Campbell Brown as a torchbearer for “reform.” The comedian Louis C. K. had a turn at becoming an education wonk with his commentary on the Common Core standards. Numerous “Chiefs for Change” toppled from the ranks of chiefdom. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett went down in defeat due in part to his gutting of public schools, as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker remained resilient while spreading the cancerous voucher program from Milwaukee to the rest of the state.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio rose to turn back the failed education reforms of ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, only to have his populist agenda blocked by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo who insisted on imposing policies favored by Wall Street. Progressives formed Democrats for Public Education to counter the neoliberal, big money clout of Democrats for Education Reform. And Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush emerged as rival voices in the ongoing debate about the Common Core among potential Republican presidential candidates.
But hogging the camera throughout the year was another notable character: charter school scandals.
In 2014, charter schools, which had always been marketed for a legendary ability to deliver promising new innovations for education, became known primarily for their ability to concoct innovative new scams.
From Local Stories to National Scandal
Troubling news stories about the financial workings of charter schools had been leaking slowly into the media stream for some years.
A story that appeared at Forbes in late 2013 foretold a lot of what would emerge in 2014. That post “Charter School Gravy Train Runs Express to Fat City” brought to light for the first time in a mainstream source the financial rewards that were being mined from charter schools. As author Addison Wiggin explained, a mixture of tax incentives, government programs and Wall Street investors eager to make money were coming together to deliver a charter school bonanza – especially if the charter operation could “escape scrutiny” behind the veil of being privately held or if the charter operation could mix its business in “with other ventures that have nothing to do with education.”
As 2014 began, more stories about charter schools scandals continued to drip out from local press outlets – a chain of charter schools teaching creationism, a charter school closing abruptly for mysterious reasons, a charter high school operating as a for-profit “basketball factory,” recruiting players from around the world while delivering a sub-par education.
Here and there, stories emerged: a charter school trying to open up inside the walls of a gated community while a closed one continued to get more than $2 million in taxpayer funds. Stories about charter operators being found guilty of embezzling thousands of taxpayer dollars turned into other stories about operators stealing even more thousands of dollars, which turned into even more stories about operators stealing over a million dollars.
While some charter schools schemed to steer huge percentages of their money away from instruction toward management salaries and property leases (to firms connected to the charter owners, of course), others worked the system to make sure fewer students with special needs were in their classrooms.
Then the steady drip-drip from local news sources turned into a fire hose in May when a blockbuster report released by Integrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy revealed, “Fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are responsible for losing, misusing, or wasting over $100 million in taxpayer money.”
The report, “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud And Abuse,” combed through news stories, criminal records and other documents to find hundreds of cases of charter school operators embezzling funds, using tax dollars to illegally support other, non-educational businesses, taking public dollars for services they didn’t provide, inflating their enrollment numbers to boost revenues, and putting children in potential danger by forgoing safety regulations or withholding services.
The report made charter school scandals a nationwide story and received in-depth coverage at Salon, “Bill Moyers and Company,” the Washington Post and the Nation.
A Summer of Scams
Charter schools scandals continued to break throughout the summer.
In Ohio, report after report continued to reveal how popular charter school chains like White Hat Management had sky-high dropout rates while they poured public money into advertising campaigns and executive pay.
In Pennsylvania, a report found exorbitant costs associated with charter school operations and lavish CEO salaries and bonuses for charter school operators despite vastly underperforming the state’s traditional public schools. Another report revealed how Pennsylvania charters had gamed the system for special education funding, resulting in annual profits of $200 million to the schools.
In Michigan, a series by the Detroit Free Press found charter schools with “wasteful spending and double-dipping. Board members, school founders and employees steering lucrative deals to themselves or insiders. Schools allowed to operate for years despite poor academic records.”
In Florida, an investigation by the Orlando Sun Sentinel found, “Unchecked charter-school operators are exploiting South Florida’s public school system, collecting taxpayer dollars for schools that quickly shut down.”
Another Florida local news outlet investigating charter school operations found millions of taxpayer dollars misdirected from classrooms and students to management companies. The report pointed to charter school chain Charter Schools USA that uses tax-exempt bonds to build schools that it then rents to UCSA-affiliated schools. Then the CUSA schools are saddled with rent payments back to CUSA and its management company at rates considerably higher than those charged to other non-CUSA schools in the area.
Still more news stories came out about charter schools related to the largest bricks-and-mortar charter-school chain in the United States run by the secretive Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile from Turkey in rural Pennsylvania. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Chicago-area Concept Schools, part of the Gulen charter chain, were subjects of an ongoing federal investigation. The enquiry is about nearly $1 million that has been paid to contractors all with ties to the Gülen network.
Articles from the Washington Post found District of Columbia charter school operators evading rules to pocket millions in taxpayer dollars and charter schools pumping public money into for-profit management companies.
A report in the Arizona Republic found board members and administrators from more than a dozen charter schools “profiting from their affiliations by doing business with schools they oversee.”
The rash of summer charter scandal stories resonated in news outlets across the country.
Then to cap off the summer of charter scandals, the Progressive reported an upsurge in FBI raids on charter schools all over the country. “From Pittsburgh to Baton Rouge, from Hartford to Cincinnati to Albuquerque, FBI agents have been busting into schools, carting off documents, and making arrests leading to high-profile indictments.”
Reporter Ruth Conniff found charter schools allegations range from “taking money that was meant for the classroom,” to spending taxpayer dollars on “luxuries such as fine-dining and retreats at exclusive resorts and spas,” to engaging in “bribes and kickbacks.”
Back to Schools for Scandal
As back-to-school season rolled out, charter schools scandals broke harder and heavier.
The Center for Popular Democracy, Integrity in Education and ACTION United published a continuation of their charter schools study with a new report that disclosed charter school officials in Pennsylvania had defrauded at least $30 million intended for schoolchildren since 1997.
Startling examples of charter school financial malfeasance revealed by the authors included an administrator who diverted $2.6 million in school funds to a church property he also operated. Another charter school chief was caught spending millions in school funds to bail out other nonprofits associated with the school. A pair of charter school operators stole more than $900,000 from the school by using fraudulent invoices, and a cyberschool entrepreneur diverted $8 million of school funds for houses, a Florida condominium and an airplane.
Then, in November, the Center for Popular Democracy, with the Alliance for Quality Education, submitted yet another continuation of its analysis of charter school financial fraud, this time finding as much as $54 million in suspected charter school fraud in New York state.
Specific examples from the report included a New York City charter that issued credit cards to its executives allowing them to charge more than $75,000 in less than two years, a Long Island charter that paid vendors over half a million dollars without competitive bids, an Albany charter that lost between $207,000 to $2.3 million by purchasing a site for its elementary school rather than leasing it, a Rochester charter that awarded contracts to board members, relatives and other related parties rather than get competitive bids, and a Buffalo charter with a leasing arrangement that paid more than $5 million to a building company at a 20 percent interest rate.
A write-up of the report in the New York Daily News noted CPD “investigators uncovered probable financial mismanagement in 95 percent of the [charter] schools they examined.”
More recently, a widely circulated report from progressive news outlet ProPublica revealed how charter schools increasingly use arrangements known as “sweeps” contracts to send nearly all of a school’s public dollars – anywhere from 95 to 100 percent — into for-profit charter-management companies.
Reporter Marian Wang wrote, “The contracts are an example of how the charter schools sometimes cede control of public dollars to private companies that have no legal obligation to act in the best interests of the schools or taxpayers … it can be hard for regulators and even schools themselves to follow the money when nearly all of it goes into the accounts of a private company.”
The New Face of Charter Schools
In their defense, charter school advocates object to the negative portrayals of their operations by claiming the reports cherry-pick bad actors from the broad population of charters. But this year’s avalanche of malfeasance should dispel any argument about cherry-picking.
For sure there are examples of charter schools that are doing an excellent job of educating students. But rapid growth in the industry continues to come from charter operators who are not willing to run their operations like these successful charters because it doesn’t suit their “business model.”
Further, would a public school advocate defend public schools by countering, “But look at this good one over here”? They would be mocked and derided by charter school proponents.
Advocates for charter schools also defend the explosion in charter schools scandals by pointing to scandals in a public school and contending, “Look, they do it too.” Indeed, there are instances of financial and other types of scandals in public schools. That’s why they are heavily regulated. Yet charter school backers continue to fight regulations, contribute big money to political candidates who promise a hands-off approach to their schools, and use powerful lobbying firms to coerce legislators to continue unregulated charter governance.
Charter school defenders also argue that these widespread scandals will be remedied by the “market” – that the inevitable “bad” charters will get closed while only the “good” ones remain. It’s true that charter school closures are becoming more commonplace, but charter operators often resist closures – even calling on parents to rally to their cause and appeal to local authorities. Charter schools that close abruptly leave schoolchildren and families in the lurch and severely interrupt the students’ learning. Operators of closed charters often flee the scene to practice their malfeasance elsewhere, taking with them the supplies and materials they obtained at taxpayer expense. Meanwhile, enormous sums of precious public money are wasted – with no apparent education benefit – all for the sake of this “market churn.”
As a result of the flood of charter schools scandals, public attitudes about these schools are bound to change.
Surveys show the public generally doesn’t get what charter schools are and don’t understand whether they are private or public or whether they can charge fees or teach religion. Charter operators themselves have muddled their image by arguing successfully in numerous confrontations with legal authorities that “they are exempt from rules that govern traditional public schools, ranging from labor laws to constitutional protections for students.”
But a recent poll in Michigan, a state where rampant charter fraud has been well publicized, found that 73 percent of responders say they want a moratorium on the creation of new charter schools. In many communities, announcements about new charter operations opening up have been greeted with outspoken public protests as we’ve seen in in Nashville; York, Pennsylvania; and Camden, New Jersey.
Forecasts about what 2015 will bring to the education landscape frequently foresee more charter schools as charter-friendly lawmakers continue to act witlessly to proliferate these schools. But make no mistake, the charter school scandals of 2014 forever altered the narrative about what these institutions really bring to the populace.
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The Spy Who Fired Me
Harpers Magazine - March 2015, by Esther Kaplan - Last March, Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s Mad Money, devoted part of...
Harpers Magazine - March 2015, by Esther Kaplan - Last March, Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s Mad Money, devoted part of his show to a company called Cornerstone OnDemand. Cornerstone, Cramer shouted at the camera, is “a cloud-based-software-as-a-service play” in the “talent-management” field. Companies that use its platform can quickly assess an employee’s performance by analyzing his or her online interactions, including emails, instant messages, and Web use. “We’ve been managing people exactly the same way for the last hundred and fifty years,” Cornerstone’s CEO, Adam Miller, told Cramer. With the rise of the global workforce, the remote workforce, the smartphone and the tablet, it’s time to “manage people differently.” Clients include Virgin Media, Barclays, and Starwood Hotels.
Cornerstone, as Miller likes to tell investors, is positioning itself to be “on the vanguard of big data in the cloud” and a leader in the “gamification of performance management.” To be assessed by Cornerstone is to have your collaborative partnerships scored as assets and your brainstorms rewarded with electronic badges (genius idea!). It is to have scads of information swept up about what you do each day, whom you communicate with, and what you communicate about. Cornerstone converts that data into metrics to be factored in to your performance reviews and decisions about how much you’ll be paid.
Miller’s company is part of an $11 billion industry that also includes workforcemanagement systems such as Kronos and “enterprise social” platforms such as Microsoft’s Yammer, Salesforce’s Chatter, and, soon, Facebook at Work. Every aspect of an office worker’s life can now be measured, and an increasing number of corporations and institutions—from cosmetics companies to car-rental agencies—are using that informationto make hiring and firing decisions. Cramer, for one, is bullish on the idea: investing in companies like Cornerstone, he said, “can make you boatloads of money literally year after year!”
A survey from the American Management Association found that 66 percent of employers monitor the Internet use of their employees, 45 percent track employee keystrokes, and 43 percent monitor employee email. Only two states, Delaware and Connecticut, require companies to inform their employees that such monitoring is taking place. According to Marc Smith, a sociologist with the Social Media Research Foundation, “Anythingyou do with a piece of hardware that’s provided to you by the employer, every keystroke, is the property of the employer. Personal calls, private photos—if you put it on the company laptop, your company owns it. They may analyze any electronic record at any time for any purpose. It’s not your data.”
With the advent of wireless connectivity, along with a steep drop in the price of computer processors, electronic sensors, GPS devices, and radio-frequency identification tags, monitoring has become commonplace.Many retail workers now clock in with a thumb scan. Nurses wear badges that track how often they wash their hands. Warehouse workers carry devices that assign them their next task and give them a time by which they must complete it. Some may soon be outfitted with augmented-reality devices to more efficiently locate products.
In industry after industry, this data collection is part of an expensive, high-tech effort to squeeze every last drop of productivity from corporate workforces, an effort that pushes employees to their mental, emotional, and physical limits; claims control over their working and nonworking hours; and compensates them as little as possible, even at the risk of violating labor laws. In some cases, these new systems produce impressive results for the bottom line: after Unified Grocers, a large wholesaler, implemented an electronic tasking system for its warehouse workers, the firm was able to cut payroll expenses by 25 percent while increasing sales by 36 percent. A 2013 study of five chain restaurants found that electronic monitoring decreased employee theft and increased hourly sales. In other cases, however, the return on investment isn’t so clear. As one Cornerstonereport says of corporate social-networking tools.“ There is no generally accepted model for their implementation or standard set of metrics for measuring R.O.I.” Yet this has hardly slowed adoption.
Read the full article here.
Fed officials tell activists rate hikes won't derail economy
An unusually large group of Federal Reserve policymakers appeared before activists on Thursday and defended their plans...
An unusually large group of Federal Reserve policymakers appeared before activists on Thursday and defended their plans to raise interest rates to keep the U.S. economy from eventually overheating.
Several policymakers said raising interest rates gradually would allow them to stimulate the economy for longer, but that an overheating economy could end in a recession.
"It's not about trying to stop the economy from growing," San Francisco Fed President John Williams told about 100 labor activists from the Fed Up coalition who pressed policymakers not to raise interest rates. "We're going to keep this economy growing, we are going to run it hot."
"My objective is not to slow down the economy," said Kansas City Fed President Esther George, who organized the meeting ahead of the annual central banking conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Fed policymakers have yet to decide when to raise rates again after lifting them in December for the first time in nearly a decade. Policymakers are divided whether to hike soon or take a more cautious approach.
A core group of Fed policymakers, the Board governors, are currently debating what is going on in the U.S. economy and how to set policy, Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer told the meeting.
"Everything that's being argued here is being argued in the board as well," Fischer said.
Much of the public commentary of Fed officials in recent weeks suggests the central bank is moving closer to a hike.
But the activists, who met with 11 Fed policymakers, used catcalls and applause to signal they were not buying it.
Years of lackluster wage gains and underemployment have left many Americans feeling left out of the country's economic recovery despite a 4.9 percent jobless rate.
Raising rates at this point in the recovery, said Rod Adams of Minneapolis, means "You'll be leaving us behind, pulling up the ladder right after you've climbed it."
The meeting, billed by organizers as a polite "listening session" for exchanging ideas, turned out to be a tough grilling for the Fed policymakers, who rarely appear in public in such numbers.
Fed officials worry that leaving rates too low for too long could stoke inflation, forcing the Fed to raise rates aggressively.
"One of the key goals should be that we don't have another recession," said Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir and Jason Lange; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Andrew Hay)
By Ann Saphir and Jason Lange
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Democrats amass enough support for filibuster against Gorsuch nomination
Democrats amass enough support for filibuster against Gorsuch nomination
Democrats on April 3 amassed enough support to block a U.S. Senate confirmation vote on President Donald Trump’s...
Democrats on April 3 amassed enough support to block a U.S. Senate confirmation vote on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, but Republicans vowed to change the Senate rules to ensure the conservative judge gets the lifetime job.
As the Judiciary Committee moved to send Gorsuch’s nomination to the full Senate, Sen. Christopher Coons became the 41st Democrat to announce support for a procedural hurdle — a filibuster — requiring a super-majority of 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate to allow a confirmation vote...
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New Report Alleges $30 Million in Fraud and Abuse Connected to PA Charter Schools
NEA - October 1, 2014, by Brian Washington - A new...
NEA - October 1, 2014, by Brian Washington - A new report charges that Pennsylvania charter school operators have engaged in fraud and abuse amounting to about $30 million.
It was released today by several non-profit groups including the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), Integrity in Education, and ACTION United. The report is called, Fraud and Financial Mismanagement in Pennsylvania’s Charter Schools.
The report claims that within the past 17 years, charter school operators in Pennsylvania have abused the system of at least $30 million. It also asserts that state agencies, charged with overseeing charter schools, are not up to the job of weeding out fraud and abuse.
While the state has a complex, multi-layered system of oversight of the charter system, this history of financial fraud makes clear that the systems are clearly not up to the task of effectively detecting or preventing fraud. Indeed, the vast majority of fraud was uncovered by whistleblowers and media exposées, not by the state’s oversight agencies.
More than 2 million students attend approximately 6,000 charter schools nationwide. Charter schools were originally intended to serve as centers of innovation that spawn new and improved approaches to teaching and learning that could later be shared with traditional public schools. However, critics charge the rapid expansion of the charter school industry has led to problems concerning oversight, accountability, wasteful spending, and fraud.
Cllick here to view the report.
In May, CPD released a whistleblowing report called, “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse.” That report alleges that waste and abuse linked to charter schools nationwide has cost taxpayers an estimated $100 million.
In addition, the Annenberg Institute at Brown University released a report this month calling for higher standards for charter schools regarding accountability, transparency, and equity.
In a statement released today, Lily Eskelsen García, president of the NEA, representing more than 3 million educators nationwide, said it’s time for lawmakers to demand more oversight and accountability from charter operators.
“We’re referring to the same politicians who call for ‘public school accountability’ by piling toxic tests on our students, yet seem to look the other way when it’s time to hold all charter schools responsible for their use of public funds,” said Eskelsen García, a Utah educator.
Meanwhile, despite all the issues surrounding charter schools, in the city of York, an appointee of Governor Tom Corbett who is charged with overseeing the city’s finances, has been linked to a controversial plan to turn every public school into a for-profit charter school. The proposal has sparked public protests involving students, educators, parents, and community leaders, who are all urging York school board members not to do it.
Protesters charge David Meckley is lobbying city school board members to adopt the controversial plan before the November elections. They say it’s because Corbett, who supports the corporate takeover of public education, is way down in the polls and not expected to win re-election.
“Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and other politicians in the state continue to push for privatization, despite compelling evidence of fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds in the charter school industry,” said Eskelsen García. “The CPD report and a recent Annenberg study call for more oversight of the charter schools. Students deserve protection from those fly-by-night charter school operators who are more focused on making money than ensuring that our students receive a quality education.”
Click here to get the latest information on the issues that impact students, parents, educators, and our public schools.
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Faltan traductores en viviendas públicas de NYC
El Diario - March 6, 2014, by Joaquín Botero, Juan Matossian, and Gloria Medina - El reciente caso del triple asesinato...
El Diario - March 6, 2014, by Joaquín Botero, Juan Matossian, and Gloria Medina - El reciente caso del triple asesinato en Jamaica, Queens, pudo haberse evitado si la Policía hubiese traducido una denuncia que la víctima había escrito en español. El mismo ha puesto de relieve algunas de las lagunas de la legislación de la ciudad en esta materia.
A pesar de las reglamentaciones que obligan a todas las agencias públicas de Nueva York a brindar servicios gratuitos de traducción a personas con limitado o nulo conocimiento del inglés, todavía existen serias omisiones y dificultades de implementación que en algunos casos han llevado a resultados trágicos.
En 2008, el alcalde Michael Bloomberg firmó la orden ejecutiva 120, que exige a las oficinas municipales —incluida la Policía— proveer dichos servicios. En 2011, elgobernador Andrew Cuomo firmó la orden ejecutiva 26, que requiere traducir documentos públicos a varios idiomas. Estas normas cuentan con financiamiento local y federal.
"La ciudad ha hecho progresos, pero Bloomberg no se esforzó al cien por ciento. Esperamos que De Blasio presione más para la ejecución de estas leyes", dijo Andrew Friedman, codirector del Center for Popular Democracy y fundador de Make the Road, una de las organizaciones comunitarias que más ha luchado por este tema.
El alcalde Bill de Blasio empezó su mandato con el grave incidente del asesinato deDeisy García y sus dos pequeñas hijas, apuñaladas por Miguel Mejía, esposo y padre de las víctimas. La mujer había reportado amenazas de muerte y abusos físicos de su pareja, pero los oficiales del precinto 103 de registraron incorrectamente sus denuncias como "acoso" en lugar de "violencia doméstica". En consecuencia, Mejía no fue arrestado —ni siquiera se le contactó.
El abogado Roger Asman, quien representa a la madre y abuela de las víctimas, prepara una demanda contra la Policía. Asman posee dos reportes escritos en español por García, en mayo y noviembre del año pasado, en donde la desesperada mujer cuenta que sufrió jalones de pelo, empujones y amenazas de muerte contra ella y las niñas. EL DIARIO/LA PRENSA pudo leer uno de estos reportes en los que la mujer transcribe un intercambio con su excompañero que confirma lo anterior.
"No tradujeron el reporte, ni miraron los aspectos más importantes, ni le dieron la protección constitucional que le correspondía", dice Asmar.
El NYPD enfrenta además una demanda colectiva por siete casos similares.
La abogada Amy Taylor indicó que "el NYPD no tiene un sistema para asegurar que sus agentes hagan lo que deben. Y si tienen un reglamento, no lo están siguiendo".
El caso más reciente fue el de la dominicana Elena Jiménez (34), que llamó al 911, el 30 de enero, después de regresar del hospital con su hijo. Encontró que su esposo había cambiado la cerradura de la vivienda en Norwood, El Bronx. Aunque Jiménez tenía en la mano la orden de protección en contra de su esposo cuando los agentes del precinto 52 llegaron, fue a ella a la que le ordenaron sacar sus pertenencias en bolsas de basura.
"No sé qué les dijo mi esposo, pero me dieron cinco minutos para que sacara mis cosas", relató Jiménez quien llegó a la ciudad hace un año y no habla inglés.
En respuesta a estos casos, el Departamento de Policía se comprometió a corregir las falencias en el sistema, mientras que el comisionado William Bratton admitió que se había cometido un error. El NYPD cuenta con 1,200 intérpretes calificados que hablan más de 70 idiomas.
Casos en la vivienda
La Autoridad de Vivienda Pública (NYCHA) tiene la obligación de proveer personal y servicios de traducción para personas con inglés limitado. Residentes de tres grandes "projects" de El Bronx (Twin Parks West, Twin Parks East y Monterey), donde viven alrededor de mil hispanos, denuncian que dependen de la asistencia de personal que sólo habla inglés en la oficina de administración y reciben todas las notificaciones sin traducir.
La dominicana Gisela Concepción (62), una de ellas, recibió recientemente un importante aviso para actualizar su contrato de alquiler, pero no pudo acudir porque no estaba traducido y no entendía lo que le pedían.
"Necesito ayuda de mis vecinos para traducir todos los avisos que me mandan. Lo peor es que no puedo reportar cuando tengo un problema en mi apartamento porque en la oficina no me entienden", explicó.
NYCHA alega que su política es ofrecer siempre servicios lingüísticos gratis para los residentes que lo necesitan, y se asegurará de que los empleados de los "projects" mencionados se familiaricen con la misma.
“Tomamos todas las quejas de nuestros residentes muy seriamente, y nos aseguraremos de que nuestros empleados implementen nuestras directrices de acceso lingüístico adecuadamente”, declaró la agencia a través de un comunicado.
Por su parte, el concejal Ritchie Torres, que preside el Comité de Vivienda Pública, dice estar “muy preocupado” por las informaciones sobre la falta de personal para atender a inquilinos que no hablan inglés y promete tomar cartas en el asunto.
“Esto es una falta inexcusable de servicio a residentes de vivienda pública y me aseguraré de que NYCHA acometa el problema”, dijo Torres, quien ya ha ayudado a Concepción para que NYCHA le de una nueva cita.
Source
12 hours ago
12 hours ago