Headlines
Two states, two different paths on charter schools
Food inspectors, consumer groups to protest poultry proposal
WI: Are private voucher schools failing to deliver as promised?
IL: $7B public-private plan in Chicago for aims to fix transit, schools and parks
IL: East Chicago council rejects call to privatize EMS
MI: State takeover of Michigan cities slowed by courts
AZ: Records reveal charter school spent public money on home
OK: Editorial: Judge made right choice on school vouchers
Two states, two different paths on charter schools
Legislators in Georgia want to the state to be able to create new charter schools without local approval, while legislators in New Jersey would like to slow down the process by requiring local consent. Stateline
Food inspectors, consumer groups to protest poultry proposal
Federal food inspectors represented by the American Federation of Government Employees will join with consumer watchdogs and concerned citizens to protest proposed changes to the poultry inspections process that they fear could put the American public at risk. A rally outside the Agriculture Department headquarters in Washington is planned for 11:30 a.m. Monday, April 2…Participants hope to raise awareness of a regulation proposed by Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service that will partially privatize the poultry inspections process and drastically increase the number of birds federal inspectors must examine. Marketwatch
WI: Are private voucher schools failing to deliver as promised?
Wisconsin kids enrolled in private school choice programs aren’t performing as well as their public school counterparts on standardized exams, according to data released Tuesday by the state’s Department of Public Instruction, sparking another round of partisan debate about whether taxpayers should be funding voucher programs. “The report confirms what many of us have been saying, which is that the voucher program is a poor investment for Wisconsin taxpayers,” says state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, who sits on the Senate’s Committee on Education and is a candidate for governor. “We see unprecedented cuts to education and higher education in this state, yet we’ve seen the expansion of the voucher program. While I think it’s wise to invest our tax dollars in programs that we know can improve academic performance, we don’t see that in the data released (Tuesday).”..According to the results of these 2011 Wisconsin Student Assessment System exams, 48.6 percent of Milwaukee Public School students scored proficient or advanced in mathematics, compared to 39.9 percent attending Milwaukee choice schools. In reading, 58.2 percent of Milwaukee students attending public schools were proficient or advanced compared to 56.3 percent of those attending Milwaukee choice schools. The Cap Times
IL: $7B public-private plan in Chicago for aims to fix transit, schools and parks
..Some of it will come from the newly created Chicago Infrastructure Trust, an initiative announced this month by Mayor Emanuel and former President Bill Clinton, who has long had an interest in infrastructure and energy efficiency. The fund, a nonprofit corporation, pools outside investment and applies it to a wide range of possible projects. Other funds will come from cost cutting, some from the savings in energy and water use from retrofitting buildings, and some from user fees, but “none of these funds will come from an increase in property or sales taxes,” according to the speech…Still, economic development efforts in the past have tended to disappoint, Mr. Puentes noted, because they tended to pay businesses to relocate or threw money into projects like stadiums. Some public-private partnership projects have been criticized as giveaways to the private businesses that take them over — including two prominent cases in Chicago itself, the privatized Chicago Skyway and the city’s parking meter system, which obligate the city to leases that span generations. Mr. Emanuel says that the city has learned an important lesson, and that “I am not leasing anything,” or selling off the city’s assets, he said in an interview. “I’m using private capital to improve a public entity that stays public.” The New York Times
IL: East Chicago council rejects call to privatize EMS
An ordinance sponsored by East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland to terminate the city’s Emergency Medical Services Department failed Monday night when no council member would bring the controversial measure to the floor…Ambulance service vendors seeking a contract with the city submitted their proposals last week, and the bids for the work will be opened at the Wednesday meeting of the Board of Public Safety, Morgan said. Paramedics and their supporters have packed council meetings since the privatization proposal was first floated last month, but Monday was the first time anything related to the plan was part of the council’s agenda. An ordinance to charge inmates of the city jail for medical services and transportation, bringing in an addition $51,000 per year in EMS revenues, received unanimous preliminary approval Monday. “We came up with this as a step in the right direction,” said Adrian Santos, D-1st, co-sponsor of the measure with Myrna Maldonado, D-at large. NW Times
MI: State takeover of Michigan cities slowed by courts
It’s not clear who is in charge of Flint, Mich these days. Earlier this month, a state circuit court judge unseated the city’s emergency manager, Michael Brown, and voided all decisions he’s made since being appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder four months ago. The ruling found the state violated the Open Meetings Act when appointing Brown in December and is just the latest in a series of legal challenges that could freeze Michigan’s controversial emergency manager law…Under the law, the governor can appoint one person to run city affairs with expansive powers to fire elected city officials, privatize services, break union contracts, sell public assets and violate city charters. While court challenges proceed, state elections officials are reviewing 227,000 signatures that opponents to the law delivered to Lansing on Feb. 29. If the state approves 162,000 of them in early May, the law would be frozen until voters decide its fate in a referendum next year. iWatchNews
AZ: Records reveal charter school spent public money on home
A Valley charter high school used public funds to pay for and fully furnish a residential home in a neighborhood less than a half a mile from the school. According to financial documents supplied to the ABC15 Investigators by the Vicki A Romero High School , a Phoenix charter school, the school paid more than $48,681 for upgrades, repairs, and amenities before a salaried school employee moved into the home for several months..State Department of Education documents show the school, which enrolls between three and four hundred high school students each year, received more than two and a half million dollars in state aid (not including government grants) during fiscal year 2011. According to Arizona’s new accountability letter-grade standards, the school currently has a “D” rating, demonstrating a below average level of performance. ABC15
OK: Editorial: Judge made right choice on school vouchers
Tulsa County District Judge Rebecca Nightingale took the absolutely correct course of action this week when she struck down a law that permitted state funds to be applied toward private-school tuition for special-needs students. The stage now is set for the lawsuit to be appealed to a higher court…The state Constitution clearly prohibits sending public dollars to private, sectarian institutions. A key point in the judge’s ruling was that school districts had standing to sue and that they were able to show that the districts would be harmed by the law…Reductions in state funding over the past few years have imperiled districts’ ability to educate Oklahoma children. If allowed to stand, the law would further erode that ability. As noted by state Rep. Ed Cannaday, D-Porum, “privatization of education benefits the select few, and not all our citizens.” The decision by Nightingale wasn’t easy. She obviously is keenly aware of parents’ desire to see that their children have their educational needs met. In the end she did not display any of the judicial activism so often criticized by conservatives. Instead she did exactly what judges are mandated to do – follow the law. Tulsa World