The Wright Museum of African American History contracted the UIN network to broadcast the African World Festival. This will be done as a Pay Per View to raise funds for the Museum. UIN will stream 3 days of great programming all for $9.95.
Click on the link below to sign up.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=8WTZV4C8U7BPU
By NBC News and wire reports
August 16, 2012 Updated at 8:52 a.m. ET
LONDON — Ecuador granted asylum to Julian Assange on Thursday, expressing fury at a threat by Britain to seize the WikiLeaks founder at its London embassy.
Ricardo Patino, the Ecuadorean foreign minister, told a news conference in Quito it was upholding international law by granting asylum to Assange.
Britain earlier said it would it would revoke the diplomatic status of Quito’s embassy in west London — where the Australian has been holed up since June 19 — in order to seize Assange irrespective of the asylum decision.
Ecuadorean Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patino addresses the media during a news conference to announce the government’s decision over Julian Assange’s case at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Quito August 16, 2012. Ecuador has granted political asylum to WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said on Thursday, a day after the British government threatened to storm the Ecuadorean embassy in London to arrest the former hacker. REUTERS/Erick Ilaquize
Patino expressed fury at Britain’s earlier threat to arrest Assange, saying it was a direct threat to the Ecuador’s sovereignty.
Assange, who incensed American government officials by publishing thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables and Iraq and Afghan war dispatches in 2010, sought refuge in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over assault and rape claims, which he denies. He exhausted all appeals after a 17-month legal battle.
Ecuador’s Foreign Minister, Ricardo Patino, accused the UK of making an “open threat” to enter its embassy to arrest Mr Assange, an Australian national.
Sweden immediately summoned Ecuador’s ambassador in Stockholm, according to foreign ministry spokesman Anders Jorle. He said: “We want to tell them that it’s [unacceptable] that Ecuador is trying to stop the Swedish judicial process.”
In his statement, Patino said there was a risk Assange would be taken to the United States where he “would not have a fair trial, he could be judged by special or military courts, and it is not unlikely to believe he would be treated in a cruel and degrading way, that he would receive a life sentence or death penalty, with which his human rights would not be respected.
A version of Patino’s statement was posted online by Ecuador’s foreign ministry (in Spanish).
Assange’s recognition as a political refugee by Ecuador’s leftist government was a big symbolic victory for the ex-hacker, but it did little to answer the question: `How will he ever leave the embassy?’
“We’re at something of an impasse,” extradition lawyer Rebecca Niblock said shortly after the news broke. “The U.K. government will arrest Julian Assange as soon as he sets foot outside the embassy but it’s very hard as well to see the Ecuadorean government changing their position.”
She said there was practically no precedent for the situation, invoking the case of a Hungarian cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, who camped out at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest from 1956 to 1971. “One can’t see Mr. Assange doing the same thing,” she told BBC television. “One side will have to back down eventually.”
Outside the embassy on Thursday, protesters chanting slogans in support of Assange tussled with police.
Protester supporting Assange is arrested outside Ecuadorean embassy in London Aug. 16, 2012.
“There was a serious escalation in the police presence, including a helicopter overhead,” said NBC News’ Keith Miller at the scene. “This has turned from a legal situation into a major physical standoff in central London. The next move will be interesting because the only way for Assange to leave the embassy is through the front door, where he would be immediately arrested.”
A Reuters reporter saw at least three protesters being dragged away by police as the crowd shouted: “You are trying to start a war with Ecuador.” About 20 officers were outside the embassy trying to push away the crowd of about 15 supporters.
“It is too early to say when or if Britain will revoke the Ecuadorian embassy’s diplomatic status,” a Foreign Office spokesman earlier told Reuters by telephone.
“Giving asylum doesn’t fundamentally change anything,” the spokesman said, adding that Britain had a legal duty to extradite Assange to Sweden.
After the announcement, a spokesman said the UK foreign ministry “disappointed” but would still carry out its “binding obligation” to extradite Assange to Sweden.
“Throughout this process we have drawn the Ecuadoreans’ attention to relevant provisions of our law,” the British Foreign Office wrote on its Twitter account early Thursday.
Ecuador: UK threatened to break WikiLeaks’ Assange out of embassy
“We are still committed to reaching a mutually acceptable solution,” it tweeted.
‘Colonial times are over’
Quito bristled at the threat.
“We want to be very clear, we’re not a British colony. The colonial times are over,” Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said in an angry statement after a meeting with President Rafael Correa.
“The move announced in the official British statement, if it happens, would be interpreted by Ecuador as an unfriendly, hostile and intolerable act, as well as an attack on our sovereignty, which would force us to respond in the strongest diplomatic way,” Patino told reporters. Continue reading
‘My child was never suicidal’
A grieving mother, family, friends and community are trying to get an answer about how a 21-year-old kills himself while handcuffed behind his back. Some are convinced Chavis Carter was killed by police in Arkansas and say his death is part of a longtime problem—the killing of Black males at the hands of law enforcement.
(VOD ed. note: this excellent article also describes the national epidemic of police brutality, which is currently being ignored here in Detroit in most media outlets. Instead, the daily media here attacked the City Council for refusing to place an extra “public safety” tax on the ballot for the police. In fact, the Law Department advised the Council it would mean a loss of state revenue-sharing funds for other services. Nothing was brought up about the continuing flood of police brutality lawsuit payouts in Detroit.)
By Charlene Muhammad -National Correspondent- | Last updated: Aug 15, 2012 – 8:59:51 AM
Theresa Carter doesn’t believe police claims that her son shot himself to death with his hands cuffed behind his back in a police cruiser.
She is hurting and wants to know what happened in the last moments of life for 21-year-old Chavis Carter, who died in the custody of Jonesboro, Ark., police after a traffic stop. A growing number of people also want the truth and others believe the young Black man was killed by police. The suicide story, they say, is ludicrous.
“I’m just heartbroken. I just want to know what really happened. … My child was never suicidal. He would never kill himself. My son was full of joy, full of life, full of ambition,” Ms. Carter somberly yet emphatically told The Final Call in an exclusive interview.
There is a growing movement to get the truth about the death of Chavis Carter with Facebook pages calling for justice, an online petition and a protest scheduled for August 20 at the National Civil Rights Museum to press demands for justice and the story of what happened. At Final Call presstime, the Department of Justice was scheduled to hold a community forum at Greater Dimension Church, Jonesboro, Ark., on August 14.
Some five hours after the shooting, police said Chavis, who is left-handed, shot himself in the right temple after being searched twice, Ms. Carter said.
Her son’s father and two brothers are also having difficulty coping, she added. “A day don’t go by I don’t cry. I’m just trying to be strong and hold up. I just want justice served,” she added. The mother was resolute after a Sunday evening vigil Aug. 12 for her son in Tunica, Miss.
“It’s a case that begs to be looked at and we’re going to look and see if we can tell exactly what really happened that night,” said family attorney Russell Marlin of the Cochran Firm. The lawyer called the case one of the oddest police custody incidents he has ever looked at.
As answers are awaited, police don’t know when forensics results will be ready but have requested priority on the case, Chief Michael Yates said in an Aug. 10 e-mail to The Final Call. Without the results, the chief said no further information could be released.
Authorities say Chavis Carter and two men were stopped by Jonesboro police July 29 for driving erratically. Police allegedly found marijuana, small plastic bags and drug paraphernalia in the vehicle and on Mr. Carter, in the back seat. He was searched twice, arrested for an outstanding warrant and placed in a police car. The other two people involved, both of whom were White, were let go, officers said
While officers were not looking, they say Mr. Carter shot himself with hands behind his back.
Two days after his burial, the Tunica NAACP hosted a prayer vigil Aug. 6 where friends of Chavis Carter waved posters that read, “Am I Next?” and “Justice for Chavis.” More rallies and vigils are planned, according to Kareem Ali, an activist and member of the Nation of Islam’s Study Group in South Haven, Mississippi.
The Carter family is asking the community to keep them in prayer, share what they know, and stay vigilant for the truth, according to Mr. Ali.
“I met the aunt of Chavis Carter and I consoled her as she was in tears. She said, ‘Ya’ll don’t stop fighting! Don’t stop fighting!’ It was the moment I knew that we had to help this family,” Mr. Ali said.
Chavis Carter (Facebook photo)
He is helping to organize the upcoming prayer vigil and rally at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Mr. Ali suggested the museum, the former Lorraine Hotel where Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered, as a good location for the mid-South. The staff is working to help make the event successful, he said.
Meanwhile a website to increase awareness about the case is in the works, a petition demanding justice has been launched on Change.org and a Justice for Chavis Carter Facebook page has been created.
Fear of a police cover-up
Shortly before the shooting, Mr. Carter called his cell phone, said Demetris Itson, his best friend. He regrets not picking up.
“I don’t know if he called to say, ‘Hey man, I’m in trouble,’ or ‘They’re fixing to do something to me.’ I don’t know what he wanted and that’s something that bothers me day in and day out,” Mr. Itson said. Continue reading
Media, You Tube censored video above
Man was stopped for smoking marijuana, police say
NYPD officers shot and killed a knife-wielding man near 37th and 7th in front of a large crowd of shocked bystanders. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital around 3pm where he later died Aug. 12. Police claimed the man was approached for smoking marijuana and ran away. They gave chase.
They claimed he lunged at them, but he is seen continually backing away during the chase. Police cars surrounded the large crowd of police obscuring bystanders’ views as they shot the man to death. A man is heard at the end of this cell phone video saying, “That wasn’t a justified kill.”
The New York Times displayed the video above on their website, but cut it short after only a few seconds. You Tube flagged the video, forcing viewers to sign in with their user name and password and give their birthdate before viewing it.
One bystander commented in another video that the man appeared dazed and panicked, as if he didn’t know what to do.
Bystander’s photo of police aiming guns at man, who has not yet been identified.
By Diane Bukowski
August 13, 2012
DETROIT — Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, aided and abetted by the local daily media, are constantly insisting that Detroit’s Public Act 4 “Fiscal Stability (consent) Agreement” (FSA) is solidly in place despite the suspension of PA 4.
The State Board of Canvassers voted to place a measure that would repeal PA 4 on the ballot Aug.8, after the Michigan Supreme Court ordered them to do so. The Act is thus null and void until a popular vote in November, according to state law.
Bing told the Associated Press Aug. 12 that the suspension of PA 4 “shouldn’t change” what Detroit has already done under the FSA. That includes his shutdown of three federally funded departments, the unilateral imposition of a “City Employment Terms” edict on Detroit’s unionized workers, plans for thousands of lay-offs including 81 percent of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department work force, and plans to lease Belle Isle to the State.
Regarding changes in four other cities and three school districts since the suspension of PA4, he told the AP, “They had an emergency manager. We have a financial agreement. That’s the difference. That’s a big difference.”
The city’s Corporation Counsel, attorneys for Stand Up for Democracy, members of Free Detroit-No Consent, city workers, and even Wall Street’s Fitch Ratings Agency disagree strongly with the Snyder-Bing stance.
The City Council is set to hold a special closed session Tues. Aug. 14 at 9:45 a.m. on specific matters related to the consent agreement. They will consider two Law Department opinions issued on the administration’s transfer of funds and equipment in the Detroit Workforce and Health and Wellness Promotion departments to private entities. Public comment is scheduled prior to the closed session.
(Click on CC Special Session -08-14-12 to view Council agenda, and on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/08/11/did-city-directors-steal-fed-for-private-agencies/ for earlier VOD story.)
“Without an enabling statute, the State and City are not authorized to vitiate provisions in a home rule charter, which have been adopted through a vote of the people,” Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon told the Council in a formal opinion April 1.
“Although the city may enter into the proposed Agreement [FSA], the City Council should be cognizant of the possibility that the Agreement may be invalid if the petitions to repeal Public Act 4 are certified, or Public Act 4 is repealed. Further, although the City may enter into the proposed Agreement, the City Council should be cognizant of the potential legal challenges that may arise concerning the proposed Agreement.”
Crittendon cited numerous sections of the FSA which are enabled only through PA 4. She noted that even PA 4 does not authorize the establishment of the nine-member corporate-controlled Financial Advisory Board appointed under the FSA. Lawyers for the city’s unions have argued the city has no right to abrogate collective bargaining agreements, pursuant to state statutes not overturned by PA 4.
“Clearly, the financial stability agreement was negotiated within the Public Act 4 context,” Attorney Melvin “Butch” Hollowell, one of four lawyers who represented Stand Up for America, initiator of the PA 4 referendum, told the AP. “There is no court that wouldn’t understand that. You can’t put illegal provisions in a contract and expect them to hold up. . . . My sense is probably the actions going forward are under serious legal question. You can no longer impose your will by dictatorship.”
At a Council session Aug. 6, members of Free Detroit No Consent called on the Council to undo the harm they have already done by voting for the FSA. Many of the five Council members who voted for it have since expressed dismay at its consequences. Council President Charles Pugh has said he would not have voted for it if he had known it would mean union-busting.
“I urge you to pass not a resolution but an ordinance pursuant to the Michigan Supreme Court decision,” Valerie Glenn of Free Detroit-No Consent said. Meanwhile U-Haul trucks ready to evict the Financial Advisory Board and officials including Project Manager Kriss Andrews circled the building with huge signs declaring “MOVE OUT NOW.”
Dr. Gloria House read parts of the group’s letter to the Council.
“We in Free Detroit No Consent are confident that the people will vote to repeal Public Act 4 in November,” she said.
“In the intervening weeks, we call for the suspension of all measures that have been initiated by the emergency manager of Detroit schools and by the City Council through the Consent Agreement and the Financial Advisory Board. These decisions, which have violated the rights of workers to collective bargaining, allowed the dismantling of city agencies which provide health and welfare support to thousands of citizens, and fostered total chaos and demoralization in our public education system, must be reversed.”
She asked the City Council to take action to “undo the mistake it made by entering into the Fiscal Stability Agreement.”
Detroit City Council took oath to uphold the City Charter during their swearing-in ceremony.
In addition to possible legal challenges from the Council, the City Charter gives it the power to put the decision back in the hands of the people, where many have said it should have been in the first place.
Sec. 3.105 of the Charter says, “The City Council may submit, by resolution adopted not less than seventy (70) days before any election or special election, any proposal to the voters of the city.”
Thus the Council still has time to submit a proposal to voters asking them to affirm or negate the FSA Nov. 6. Such a move would cut short the long-drawn out legal process that PA 4 advocates have counted on to dismantle Detroit.
Even Fitch Ratings recognized the impact of the suspension of PA 4 on the FSA.
“As Detroit’s fiscal stability agreement has several features that rely on the existence of PA 4, most notably the ability to suspend collective bargaining, the repeal of PA4 could weaken or nullify the agreement,” Fitch Ratings said in a statement after the state Supreme Court ruling.
During the Council session Aug. 7, Tyrone Travis of Free Detroit, and the Coalition to Stop Privatization and Save Our City, called on the people themselves to take action.
“They are treating Detroiters like N’s,” Travis said. “I call on Detroiters not to vote for any bonds, and on elected officials to put any taxes to the state in escrow. Then prepare to shut the city down. They have condemned us to slavery and our children to prison.”
Valerie Burris said, “We can take our power back. The Detroit Free Press and News websites are full of racist comments from suburbanites against our city. The city has been overtaken by corporate rulers putting public power in private hands.”
On Aug. 2, city water department workers and their supporters marched again in front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. Members of Local 207 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) are mobilizing for a city-wide strike against the city’s proposals in DWSD, by DWSD workers as well as the rest of the city. (See Local 207 newsletter below this story.)
Meanwhile, the Metro Times published an article Aug. 8 blaming global banks for the distress of cities like Detroit, but only advocating bankruptcy as a solution. Many activists are calling instead for a moratorium on Detroit’s $12.6 billion debt to the banks, which have already profited from trillions in taxpayer bail-out dollars.
Detroiters campaign for moratorium on city’s debt to the banks May 9, 2012 at CAYMC.
AFSCME Council 25 President Al Garrett is personally inviting you to join us in Lansing! He is requesting that every labor union, every church, every organization get a bus, car pool, or van and come to Lansing on Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. – MI State Capitol Building and let the Legislators know we mean business – Democracy is here to stay!
Please copy the attached document and pass it on! Thank you very much – together we can do this!
If you would like to ride to Lansing with AFSCME, we have reserved one bus–see information listed below!
To print copy of flier, click on LOBBY DAY JOIN US.
Detroit Board of Education meets for first time Aug. 9 after suspension of PA4.
By Diane Bukowski
August 12, 2012
DETROIT – Detroit’s Board of Education declared Aug. 9 that they are taking back their power as elected officials over the Detroit Public School (DPS) district. The day before, the state Board of Canvassers placed Public Act 4, the “emergency manager law,” on the ballot, suspending the it until the State’s November elections.
The Board’s first action was a vote to restore 15 schools to the district by terminating the DPS “Educational Achievement Authority” (EAA) contract with Eastern Michigan University. They also terminated a contract with “Teach for America,” which provides idealistic but barely-trained individuals to teach classes in the EAA.
“We are terminating the inter-local agreement with EMU and demanding the return of our schools,” declared Board President Lamar Lemmons II. “According to a lawsuit filed by AFSCME, EM Roy Roberts had no authority to take those schools.”
The “Educational Apartheid Authority,” as board member Elena Herrada termed it, is allegedly a state-wide district but includes only Detroit schools. It targets the “lowest-performing” five percent of schools in the state. In addition to removing the schools from DPS control, it also removes them from the supervision of the State Board of Education. (Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/07/29/teach-in-against-the-phony-educational-achievement-authority/ for a listing of the schools involved.)
Critics say that instead of improving students’ performance, it will subject them to isolation in computer-run classes provided by lucrative corporate contracts, untrained teachers, the elimination of services for special needs students, who are to be folded into regular classes, and possible further charterization.
Keith January, president of AFSCME Local 345, which represents 500 special education aides, gave an impassioned presentation against the EAA during the board meeting.
“We have been informed that Wayne RESA is cutting funding for the DPS,” he said. “Forty-nine special ed classes are being disbanded and lay-off notices are going out. There are 195 children in the EAA along with 600 students with special needs. How do you you put students with special needs in failing schools? They just want the federal special ed money. Make sure our education process is not corrupted by corporate Gordon Gekko types. There are also 60,000 students in Detroit in charter schools, most of them for-profit.”
He said the board must begin the process to get not only the EAA students, but the students in charter schools back to fully-functioning Detroit public schools immediately.
“We have anarchy in the streets right now, video games are being played out in reality. This is nothing but the result of the hopelessness these young people feel. It is not going to get better until we build a road for them to come back.”
The board’s vote to disband the EAA was a direct challenge to Gov. Rick Snyder and DPS EM Roy Roberts, who also chairs the EAA board. The EAA board declared the same day that it will maintain control, voted on EAA contracts, and has continued recruiting students.
Edith Lee Payne shows state statute which prevents repealed laws from automatically being restored.
During the meeting, Edith Lee Payne, a litigant in a class action lawsuit against Public Act 4, and former Detroit school board member Marie Thornton challenged Gov. Rick Snyder and State Treasurer Andy Dillon’s assertions that PA 4 is currently replaced by PA 72. That act allowed appointed managers control only over the finances of municipalities and school districts and did not allow abrogation of union contracts.
Payne pointed out that state documents show PA 72 was repealed March 16, 2011, the day that PA 4 was declared effective. She noted that MCL 8.4 says clearly,
“Whenever a statute, or any part thereof shall be repealed by a subsequent statute, such statute, or any part thereof, so repealed, shall not be revived by the repeal of such subsequent repealing statute.”
Thornton, who was present during oral arguments before the State Supreme Court on putting PA 4 on the ballot, said Chief Justice Robert Young specifically noted at the close of the hearing that PA 72 could not replace PA 4.
However, Roberts filed suit to maintain his powers over both financial and academic aspects of DPS immediately after PA 4 was placed on the ballot.
“He’s trying to be declared king for life,” George Washington, who has been retained as the Board’s attorney, said sarcastically. A hearing on Roberts’ suit is set for Tues. Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. before Wayne County Circuit Court Judge John Murphy in the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center.
Board member Tawanna Simpson listens as board attorney George Washington addresses meeting..
“An entire generation of students has been damaged forever by the state’s Tuskegee-like experiment with Detroit schools,” Washington said. “Lansing’s attack has gone on for the last 13 years and must be stopped.”
He said the board plans to ask Judge Murphy to formally re-imstall them to prevent further confusion and damage.
DPS enrollment has dropped from 140,000 since the first state takeover in 1999, when district students were achieving high scores. The district had a surplus of $99 million in 1999, but has had repeated deficits during the two state takeovers, largely due to excessive borrowing by the state-appointed officials.
Over 80 percent of the district’s school aid is held apart by a state trustee to pay the district’s debt to the banks.
The board held a closed session with Washington on the Roberts lawsuit, as well one filed by State Attorney General Bill Schuette, challenging the seats of seven school board members. He claims claiming DPS is not entitled to “first-class” school district status because its enrollment has dropped below 60,000.
“The whole community will wrap its arms around you for de-certifying the EAA,” DPS teacher Steve Conn told the board.
Nicole Conaway teaches at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, where students sustained arrests last year for a sit-in to keep their school open. The sit-in received national coverage. The school, which welcomed young mothers with their babies as well as pregnant teens, remained open although DPS transformed it into a charter school.
“Act NOW,” Conaway told the board. “Re-open all closed schools, and order Roy Roberts and his staff to vacate their offices.”
Newly re-elected U.S. Reprentative John Conyers, with staff members Marion Brown and Isaac Robinson attended the meeting.
U.S. Rep. John Conyers addresses board.
“The work you are doing today is so important,” Conyers told the board. “People are very concerned about how our children are trained, culturized and education in the 21st century. More and more the House committee on Education is trying to concern itself with keeping our children in the public school system.”
Conyers said he planned to speak with President Barack Obama the next day about federal action against Public Act 4. A letter he sent to Attorney General Eric Holder Dec. 2 asking for an investigation of violations of the National Voting Rights Act under PA 4 has gone unanswered.
The Board additionally voted, with two abstentions, to install Dr. John Telford as interim superintendent pending the election in November. Board member Tawanna Simpson told VOD after the meeting that the Board’s intended to appoint Telford only temporarily and establish a search committee later.
He gave a lengthy generalized descriptions of his plans.
While he gave a special welcome to Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) president Keith Johnson, Free Detroit No Consent members Valerie Glenn and Edith Lee Payne confronted Johnson during a break, asking why he has not taken a more militant stance since Roberts’ abrogation of the DFT contract.
Johnson said he has no plans for the DFT to take a strike vote, and is depending instead on the union-sponsored ballot proposal to amend the Michigan constitution to make collective bargaining a right for all workers.
A mother holding her child who is Vice-President of the LSCO for Maybury Elementary school called on Telford to propose specific plans for the future instead of generalized statements.
“Because we organized to save Maybury, it was the only school that survived the last round of closures,” she said. “We want to make sure that we are not dragging our kids through the mud again this time.” Click on http://save-maybury.org/2012/03/26/dps_22marzo/.
Block Club President Wayne Bernard told the board, “Stay away from Luther Keith and that ARISE Detroit crap. They are doing nothing but thriving off our money. Get rid of the Detroit Parent Network (DPN) and evict them from their DPS building.”
The DPN, which has ties to the Skillman Foundation and other privatizers, was formed in an effort to replace the elected LSCO’s.
At the conclusion of the meeting, board member Elena Herrada said the struggle to restore DPS to properly educate the city’s children will depend not on court or electoral action, but on the will of the people to take direct action.
For more on the Educational Achievement Authority, click on http://critical-moment.org/2012/06/25/the-educational-achievement-authority-detroits-top-secret-school-district/. VOD covered the teach-in against the EAA Aug. 2 and will also be reporting on that. For more information contact Herrada at 313-303-3809.
By Stephanie Simon, Reuters | Aug. 2, 2012
(reprinted from the Business Insider)
The investors gathered in a tony private club in Manhattan were eager to hear about the next big thing, and education consultant Rob Lytle was happy to oblige.
Think about the upcoming rollout of new national academic standards for public schools, he urged the crowd. If they’re as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math.
They’ll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it.
“You start to see entire ecosystems of investment opportunity lining up,” said Lytle, a partner at The Parthenon Group, a Boston consulting firm. “It could get really, really big.”
Indeed, investors of all stripes are beginning to sense big profit potential in public education.
The K-12 market is tantalizingly huge: The U.S. spends more than $500 billion a year to educate kids from ages five through 18. The entire education sector, including college and mid-career training, represents nearly 9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, more than the energy or technology sectors.
Traditionally, public education has been a tough market for private firms to break into — fraught with politics, tangled in bureaucracy and fragmented into tens of thousands of individual schools and school districts from coast to coast.
Now investors are signaling optimism that a golden moment has arrived. They’re pouring private equity and venture capital into scores of companies that aim to profit by taking over broad swaths of public education.
The conference last week at the University Club, billed as a how-to on “private equity investing in for-profit education companies,” drew a full house of about 100.
OUTSOURCING BASICS
In the venture capital world, transactions in the K-12 education sector soared to a record $389 million last year, up from $13 million in 2005. That includes major investments from some of the most respected venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, according to GSV Advisors, an investment firm in Chicago that specializes in education.
The goal: an education revolution in which public schools outsource to private vendors such critical tasks as teaching math, educating disabled students, even writing report cards, said Michael Moe, the founder of GSV.
“It’s time,” Moe said. “Everybody’s excited about it.”
Not quite everyone.
The push to privatize has alarmed some parents and teachers, as well as union leaders who fear their members will lose their jobs or their autonomy in the classroom.
Many of these protesters have rallied behind education historian Diane Ravitch, a professor at New York University, who blogs and tweets a steady stream of alarms about corporate profiteers invading public schools.
Ravitch argues that schools have, in effect, been set up by a bipartisan education reform movement that places an enormous emphasis on standardized test scores, labels poor performers as “failing” schools and relentlessly pushes local districts to transform low-ranked schools by firing the staff and turning the building over to private management.
President Barack Obama and both Democratic and Republican policymakers in the states have embraced those principles. Local school districts from Memphis to Philadelphia to Dallas, meanwhile, have hired private consultants to advise them on improving education; the strategists typically call for a broader role for private companies in public schools.
“This is a new frontier,” Ravitch said. “The private equity guys and the hedge fund guys are circling public education.”
Some of the products and services offered by private vendors may well be good for kids and schools, Ravitch said. But she has no confidence in their overall quality because “the bottom line is that they’re seeking profit first.” Continue reading
During session on possible theft of federal funds, city and state officials are grilled by Council members. They are (l to r) MDCH executive Jean Chabut, city finance director Cheryl Johnson, city COO Chris Brown, and (far right) Health Department director/IPH CEO Loretta Davis.
Council grills Workforce and Health Dept. officials re: auditor’s reports
By Diane Bukowski
August 9, 2012
DETROIT – The Detroit City Council unanimously called on the Law Department and the city’s incoming Inspector General to investigate the transfer of federal funds from the city’s Departments of Workforce Development (DWDD) and Health and Wellness Promotion (DHWP) to private accounts. During a special session Aug. 7, they asked for all actions necessary, civil and criminal, to be taken after the investigation concludes.
The status of the two departments, which the Bing administration had planned to turn over to private agencies, is unclear now that Public Act 4 is on the ballot. Bing used the city’s PA 4 consent agreement in his unilateral transfer.
Council members grilled DWDD director Pamela Moore, DHWP Director Loretta Davis, the city’s chief operating officer Chris Brown, Finance Director Cheryl Johnson, and other officials about fund transfers to Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation (DESC) and the Institute for Population Health (IPH), private companies not yet certified as non-profits by the IRS.
Moore now holds the title of CEO of DESC, while Davis occupies two positions as DHWP Director and as CEO of IPH. DWDD workers and contractors have been laid-off, while DHWP workers are to be laid off Sept. 28.
Moore, Davis, Brown and state officials all claimed no conflict of interest exists in the situation.
Council legal consultants have said the Charter requires the Mayor to submit an Executive Re-Organization Plan for approval by Council before any shutdowns and/or transfers of departments. Council members said Aug. 7 that they had received no such plan.
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
“I want the Auditor General, Fiscal Analyst, Law Department and Budget to place a hold on these City of Detroit accounts,” Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said. “It is not lawful for one individual to go down to First Independence Bank and withdraw funds from a city account using one signature, and then place them in another account at Comerica Bank for private use.”
“The grant recipient is the City of Detroit,” Councilwoman Brenda Jones said. “That means the City of Detroit is financially responsible and accountable for the management of those funds. The Council had to approve these grants. Nobody can say this body is going to be responsible for $48 million transferred under the same board by the same director who worked at DWDD. There are going to be fireworks!”
City Council Fiscal Analyst Irvin Corley concurred with Jones’ allegations.
Brown said some of the funds have since been returned to city accounts. He, DWDD Board Director David Baker Lewis, and state officials contended that the DWDD is being dismantled and its workers laid off due to irregularities discovered in audits beginning in 2002, including $5.5 million in funding disallowed by the federal government.
They did not produce supporting documentation.
Moore changed the name of the private organization to DESC on June 29, 2012 according to state documents. Those documents trace the organization back to 1984, when it was founded by Lewis as “The Detroit Private Industry Council’’ (DPIC). He has now come full circle to chair the board of the DESC.
The DPIC was to receive grants from the state and other public and private sources “to prepare youth and unskilled adults for entry into the labor force” under the federal Job Training Partnership Act. Its history was subsequently intertwined with that of the City of Detroit Employment and Training Department, which paid fees for later filings with the state.
Through the 1990’s, Employment and Training was privatized piecemeal. Directors replaced city workers with various non-profit providers, according to documents from the Coalition to Stop Privatization and Save Our City. Click on CSPSOC to read whole flier. Excerpt is below.
In 1997, the DPIC became “The Detroit Workforce Development Board.” In 1998, Willie Walker, then director of E&TD, became the resident agent and sole officer of the board. In 2005, Cylenthia LaToye Obayan, a subsequent department E&TD director, joined the board.
On Dec. 9, 2011, the name was changed to the “Detroit Workforce Development Board Corporation.” On June 29, 2012, Moore as resident agent changed its name to Detroit Employment Solutions Inc.”
(Click on DESC DWDD state docs to view state documents.)
Guidestar, to which the IRS provides annual 990 tax filings for non-profits, says the Detroit Workforce Development Board is not currently registered with the IRS, which was confirmed by an IRS database search.
Its last tax filing for 2009 showed it had a fund balance of $23,050, but sections for revenues and expenses were filled in with zeroes. Calvin Sharpe of the Penske Corporation was president of the board. (Click on DWDB 990 2009 to view 2009 filing.)
Moore described her purpose in establishing the DESC .
“As President and CEO, I can be nimble and effective,” she told the Council. “Expenses will be lower. I can go out and seek public and private funding more easily.”
She also said they would no longer have to pay city wages and benefits to employees. Councilwoman Saunteel Jenkins pointed out the loss of city workers will jeopardize the stability of the city’s pension fund, and Councilwoman Watson called it “union-busting.”
Institute for Population Health, Inc.
After finishing with the DWDD group Aug. 7, City Council turned to Loretta Davis, her legal counsel, COO Chris Brown, Detroit Finance Department Director Cheryl Johnson, and Jean Chabut, Deputy Director of the Michigan Department of Human Services (seen in photo at top).
The questionable dealings first came to light when city Deputy Auditor General Mark Lockridge began routine final audits of the departments Bing planned to close.
He told Council July 31 that Davis had transferred federal funding for the Department to a private account for the newly-created “Institute for Population Health, Inc.” (IPH). COO Brown said he authorized the IPH deposit.
Davis incorporated the private IPH, which has not yet been certified by the IRS as a non-profit, in May, 2012. She filed restated Articles of Incorporation on June 20, 2012. She met with Health Department workers May 31 to tell them they would be laid off and could re-apply for their jobs with the IPH, but that fewer jobs would be available.
Councilwoman Brenda Jones told Davis Aug. 7, “I specifically asked you where the seed money for the IPH was coming from, and you told me it was the state. “
Davis countered that she thought Jones was only referring to state grants, during a previous Council meeting May 16.
Outraged, Jones said, “Everybody keeps telling us, ‘oh well, it was a mistake.’ I’m sick of that. The citizens of Detroit are continuing to pay for your mistakes.”
(Links to earlier VOD articles on the DHWP and the IPH which detail the IPH’s origin are at end of story.)
At the hearing Aug. 7, Lockridge said Davis had deposited at least $50,080 into the IPH account with Fifth Third Bank. He reported that the funds were restored to the DHWP account after the OAG’s discovery. But he said a petty cash fund containing $1800, plus an additional $1,000 from Vital Records receipts as of July 30, has not been accounted for (click on AG DDHWP to read Lockridge’s written report which was given to Council. It also details which federally-funded divisions Davis plans to keep under the DHWP designation).
Plans for the total transfer of the department have also changed since Lockridge’s discovery.
Davis told Council May 16 that she planned to strip the department of $54.3 million in federal and state grant funding and $10.2 million in fee revenues, all of it to go to the IPH, lay off 400 workers, and bust the union.
On Aug. 7, Davis said, “There are four grants from the federal government to the City of Detroit that we are not asking to be moved to the IPH. DHWP will still administer those. The state has agreed to contract with the IPH for state grants.”
Davis claimed no conflict of interest is involved because she will be getting only one paycheck for working as DHWP director and IPH CEO. Lockridge’s written report shows that the DHWP plans to pay her salary and that of three other DHWP/IPH employees, using revenues from sources including Vital Records fees.
Meanwhile, the IPH website at http://ipophealth.org/ still lists openings for numerous jobs that previously were occupied by City of Detroit workers, including those in federally-funded divisions such as WIC and Lead Poisoning.
Workers are to be hired through T.J. Adams Staffing Services, with a website at http://www.tj-adams.com/index_page.htm. That site says T.J. Adams is associated with a national health care-related private entity, RBJ Enterprises, LLC, with a site at http://rbjenterprises.com/company.htm.
T J. Adams says on the IPH site, “All employment is strictly on at ‘at-will’ basis. If an offer of employment is tendered, and accepted, either the employer or the employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice. This at-will employment relationship exists regardless of any other written statements, policies, or any other documents or verbal statements to the contrary.”
Jean Chabut, who is the Michigan Department of Community Health’s Deputy Director of Public Health Administration, and chairs the non-profit Michigan Institute for Public Health, supported Davis at the meeting.
“We have needed to work with the Detroit Health and Wellness Department on a number of organizational difficulties, including fraud in the WIC [federally funded Women, Infants, and Children] program,” Chabut said. “There have been many performance issues and we believe the IPH will permit greater efficiency.”
Again, she produced no documentation of her allegations.
“So the baby has been split up but still has the same mother,” Council member Kwame Kenyatta said sarcastically. “You could not resolve the problem without splitting the child and leaving the mother with the child? Nothing here is fraudulent or a conflict of interest, right?”
Chabut began her career with the Detroit Health Department, where she worked for 17 years and became director of its nursing division.
She, Cynthia Taueg, and Vernice Davis Anthony, who also began their careers at the city health department, all sit on the board of the IPH, with Taueg as chair.
Chabut and Davis claimed the Health Department has always had private workers, employed by the Southeastern Michigan Health Authority (SEMHA). However, according to AFSCME Local 457 officials, when Chabut began work there, there was no SEMHA. They said they have fought the intr0duction of SEMHA and privately-contracted workers from the 1980’s to the present date.
Cynthia Taueg
The day before he died of a massive heart attack on April 16, 1994, Local 457 President Al Phillips met with Taueg to discuss the removal of SEMHA, after also raising the matter with Labor Relations and City Council earlier in the week.
