text:
THESE ARE NEO-CON AND NEO-LIBERAL POLICIES SO TO ESCAPE BAD POLICY---DO NOT SIMPLY VOTE THE OTHER PARTY-----CLEAN UP THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!
Maryland's Governor Martin O'Malley announced that shortfalls in the 2014 state budget due to a complete stagnation of Maryland's economy and high unemployment created by control of Maryland's economy by global corporations will focus on programs and services valuable to the citizens of Maryland but not affect the massive giveaway of revenue in the guise of corporate subsidy, tax breaks, or any effort to reign in billions of dollars in corporate fraud.
O'Malley as a neo-liberal calls this FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
So, $10 million will be taken from higher education and that includes grants, financial aid, and scholarships to Maryland citizens and employment to 4 public universities essential to middle-class/working class/poor families.
Below you see how a neo-liberals systematically eliminate all public sector employment by saying it is not firing anyone but eliminating positions not filled. Maryland has had its entire oversight and accountability sectors eliminated in this way. What I want to focus on today is higher education and the outsourcing of public university jobs to such an extent that the state spends money to support an education system that does not even operate in the US or benefit the citizens of Maryland. O'Malley spent his 8 years developing the structures for overseas education and made marketing and recruiting foreign students a priority. This is where our higher education money is spent and media states that never has there been fewer citizens of Maryland unable to attend Maryland universities. It is not only high tuition----it is the elimination of financial aid, grants, and scholarships. It hurts the economy in that people are not hired to these state positions to earn the money needed for consumption of goods and this creates a stagnant economy. O'Malley does this because he works for global corporations that want all state and local revenue spent expanding their businesses overseas, promoting exports, and bringing foreign students to Maryland to graduate and be sent back overseas to work for US global corporations in other nations. This entire process leaves out the families in Maryland and their children's ability to attend the best public universities in the state. Don't worry.....O'Malley and neo-liberals spent hundreds of millions building a separate system of higher education for the citizens of Maryland that cheapen and track all into vocational training programs. This also increases the number of foreign graduates that are not citizens ready to take high level jobs thanks to Obama's executive order to allow the high-skilled green card worker quotas to rise. So, Maryland citizens are not able to access the higher education venues that lead to the best jobs. When people who are not citizens are given these jobs they have no workplace rights and are not free to report abuse or illegal activity within the corporations for which they work. In these times of systemic corporate fraud and corruption----this is critical.
So, an election year budget that protected labor positions is followed by budget cuts eliminating jobs right after the primary for Governor of Maryland. Union leaders knew this would happen-----it happens all the time. Neo-cons would be worse. Neo-liberals only pretend to be progressive labor and justice!
Remember, I have for years been explaining that the state was giving a rosy economic picture that was not real and I stated why the economy was indeed stagnant and unemployment high. Below you see Franchot being the spoiler but the Comptroller's Office is ground zero for corporate tax fraud and the wrongful designation of corporations as non-profits and therefor losses in the hundreds of millions in state tax revenue each year which would happen with a republican in office as well.
State approves O'Malley's $84 million in budget cuts Poor economy prompts spending reductions
By Erin Cox, The Baltimore Sun 1:19 p.m. EDT, July 2, 2014
The lackluster economy prompted Gov. Martin O'Malley to propose erasing $84 million in planned spending for next year.
Just a day after the new state budget took effect, O'Malley persuaded the Board of Public Works unanimously to approve a modest set of cuts to Maryland's $16.1 billion general fund.
About $10 million in cuts come from the state's higher-education institutions, although O'Malley aides said it would not affect tuition rates.
The cuts would not cause any layoffs but would trim 61 vacant jobs from the state's workforce of about 80,000 people, aides said. More than half of those jobs will come from higher education, including 36 vacant posts in the University of Maryland system.
Even though the official estimate of how far revenue lags behind state spending will not be ready until September, the administration chose to begin budget cuts now — before agencies started spending this year's cash. Together, the cuts represent less than half a percent of the state's general fund.
O'Malley said that the cuts "build upon a tradition, a culture of fiscal responsibility." He pointed out the belt-tightening was much smaller than cuts the state took during the recession.
Comptroller Peter A. Franchot voted for the cuts, but said that state leaders need to drop the "political spin" about the state's improving economy and "stop pretending that we made it through the thicket."
"Our citizens don't want to hear the spin anymore, and they're not falling for it," Franchot said.
A federal economic report released last week showed that the U.S. economy contracted more during the first quarter of 2014 than in any quarter during the previous five years. That followed another U.S. Department of Commerce report showing that Maryland's economy had stagnated in 2013.
The sluggish growth means state revenues have fallen lower than officials estimated earlier this year.
O'Malley defended the state's financial health by citing its AAA bond rating and comparing Maryland's relatively small budget shortfall to larger looming problems in other states on the Eastern seaboard, some of which have shortfalls in the hundreds of millions.
"We are coming through this recession faster than a lot of other states," O'Malley said. He added, "there's a lot that is going right, and of course, still, a lot of work to do. In that spirit, I agree with the comptroller that we should have an honest conversation."
In January, O'Malley proposed a $39 billion state budget that increased spending by 4.9 percent and took effect Tuesday, the final state spending plan of his eight years in office.
T. Eloise Foster, O'Malley's budget secretary, said Wednesday's cuts are designed to resolve the shortfall for the entire year. "My plan is not having to do this again," she said.
While O'Malley's staff declined to offer a list of all the $84 million in specific cuts, they said they include $56 million to various government agencies, with some asked to eliminate vacant jobs, forgo software upgrades or pare back other expenses.
In addition to the $10 million cut from higher education, another $10 million will be shaved from the state budget by spending federal cash already in state coffers. And budget experts said they expect $7 million of anticipated expenses to not materialize.
The cuts would not affect the struggling Maryland Health Benefit Exchange insurance website or a series of new economic development programs to expand cybersecurity and biotechnology sectors in Maryland.
All cuts must be approved by at least two members on the state's three-person Board of Public Works, on which O'Malley, Franchot and State Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp sit.
The cuts pale in comparison to the big spending reductions the board approved during the recession. In 2010, O'Malley went to the board three times for a total of $614 million in spending cuts from the general fund. In 2009, he asked for a total of $429 million in cuts over three requests. And in 2008, O'Malley requested a single $213 million spending cut.
Below you see where all the money for higher education has gone during the neo-liberal O'Malley's terms in office-----building this network of global PhDs and it has nothing to do with the citizens of Maryland! This is what the US Senate based their immigration reform bill ------the bringing of foreign students and grads to America and then allowing them to take these US corporate positions often the best positions. We are not anti-immigrant nor do we want to exclude foreign students from our universities-----quite the opposite, this should be robust. We are against the simultaneous defunding of higher education for the bulk of Maryland citizens and it is deliberate.
WE CAN FUND HIGHER EDUCATION FOR ALL THAT WANT TO ATTEND OUR MARYLAND UNIVERSITIES BY ENDING CORPORATE SUBSIDIES AND TAX BREAKS AND FOR GOODNESS SAKE MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD.
All this is happening because of global corporate control of the Maryland economy. We do not need these global connections for a healthy economy------it does just the opposite----it stagnates the economy.
The Global Ph.D.
July 3, 2014 By Holly Else
for Times Higher Education
Internationalizing the doctoral training process could help to overcome negative perceptions about the employability of Ph.D. students outside academia, said participants at a recent conference.
Universities in several countries are beginning to think of new ways to cater for the rising number of overseas doctoral students, speakers at the European University Association's annual meeting on doctoral education told delegates in Liverpool.
International doctoral students offer a "cost-effective" way for institutions to build international links. But problems surrounding complex visa rules, falling domestic student numbers and the cost of running international joint doctoral programs remain.
The number of domestic doctoral candidates at Australia's University of Queensland started dwindling in 2008, according to the head of its graduate school, Alastair McEwan. To compensate, the university has enrolled international students, who now make up about 40 percent of the doctoral student body.
The shift is "most dramatic" in engineering, architecture and IT, where departments are "heavily reliant" on overseas students, he said. He added that the university is investing in this area because Ph.D. students "are absolutely critical" to research output and are "a very cost-effective way to promote international linkages."
McEwan said that the benefits international doctoral candidates bring to the institution "cannot be overestimated". Their presence offers students a "breadth of knowledge about other cultures."
"That is an important transferable skill that should be part of a student's employability development. Internationalization of the Ph.D., or international interactions, could help us overcome some of the negative perceptions about the employability of Ph.D. students outside academia," he added.
But he said that having overseas students enrolled on doctoral programs was a one-dimensional method of internationalization. "The next stage is to start thinking about other ways," he said, adding that the answer did not lie in Ph.D.s that are run jointly with overseas institutions.
"These come with a high overhead as they are very hard to manage.... I'm not convinced that this is the most efficient or effective way to manage things in the long run," he added.
American institutions are also seeing a rise in the number of overseas doctoral candidates in science, technology and engineering subjects. The vice provost and dean of Cornell University, Barbara Knuth, said: "We should be concerned in the U.S. in terms of [what] our doctoral pool will be for economic development purposes."
She said that the nation's immigration policies are "complex and quite limiting."
"Doctoral students are eager to come to the U.S. to study, but we are not very good at encouraging them to stay after their degrees," she added.
Cornell is now working to internationalize the doctoral experience for all students. Internationalizing the Ph.D. process would help to expand a graduate's professional networks and employability, she said.
At the institutional level, it will broaden intellectual discoveries, help academics to address complex global problems and increase the visibility and exposure of the institution globally, she said.
Jean Chambaz, president of the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in France, said that universities needed to move beyond memoranda of understanding when it comes to working together internationally.
"We need focused, balanced programs on questions of common interest that include multilateral doctoral candidates and staff circulation," he told delegates.
Below you see why more and more staff are being cut from our public universities-----all the jobs are being outsourced to global corporations that are doing the work overseas that people right here in Maryland should be doing and these citizens of Maryland would do a better job. It is done simply to reduce labor costs as pay is lower overseas and we wouldn't want all of those pesky public sector benefits providing the citizens of Maryland a first world quality of life say neo-liberals.
Is a global corporation needed to process college applications charging fees for doing so -----money which could hire a local person with a public university to do this job? We all know massive corporate fraud is infused in all these business arrangements so universities are losing far more money by outsourcing these jobs than saving. So, fighting fraud in court is worth eliminating staff at a university who could be held accountable to do the work right?
THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL FOR YOU---WORKING FOR
WEALTH AND PROFIT SENDING ALL PUBLIC ASSETS TO CORPORATIONS WHILE IMPOVERISHING THE CITIZENS OF AMERICA.
IT IS ABSOLUTELY ABSURD THAT AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION IS INVOLVED IN ALL THIS INTRIGUE------JUST EDUCATE THE US CITIZENS!
Troubles at Embark
July 3, 2014 By Ry Rivard Inside Higher Education
Embark, whose software helps colleges to process online applications, has owed graduate and professional schools millions of dollars and misled university officials about why it wasn't quickly paying up, a former executive of the company is alleging amid an ongoing legal dispute.
In June 2013, Embark owed its clients $4.7 million from student application fees it collected, according to a filing in New York state court by lawyers for Raza Khan, a former chief technology officer and board member at Embark.
Even though payments were supposed to be made in a matter of months, $1.2 million of that had been owed to colleges for more than a year, according to a spreadsheet filed last month that is said to reflect the company's bookkeeping as of late June 2013.
Khan, who left the company around the same time, alleges company officials improperly spent money owed to colleges in order to deal with Embark's "cash flow problems." The money was supposed to go to colleges directly and quickly, but, according to Khan, Embark officials intentionally delayed paying back colleges and "concocted" false stories to cover up the true reason for the delays.
Embark processes admissions applications for colleges across the world, including elite graduate programs. Colleges pay Embark for its services, but Embark is obligated to pay the institutions all or most of the application fees it collects. Khan's allegations center on Embark's failure to give colleges their share of those student application fees.
Embark got a judge to partially seal the documents, but they were available on the court's website for several days last month. The company's lawyer declined repeated requests for comment on the merits of Khan's claims.
Khan is engaged in a bitter legal fight with his former business partner and high school classmate, Vishal Garg.
In June 2013, Embark owed its clients $4.7 million, including student fees collected as far back as 2009, according to Khan's filing.
The largest single unpaid amount is over $1 million, which Embark is said to owe to Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Sid Dinsay, a spokesman for the medical school in New York City, declined to comment.
When colleges asked for their money, the company sometimes "concocted" reasons that its payments were delayed, according to Khan's filing.
In a September 2011 email also contained in Khan's filing, Blake Avalone, then director of client relations, told another Embark official to use a "canned response" to hold off a college that was asking for money dating to the beginning of that year. The response Avalone approved blamed a "credit card processor" for the delay. Khan said in his filing that this was among the "false explanations" Embark gave colleges for payment delays.
Another Embark employee in the same email thread suggests that the email "be sent from 'Accounting' if that helps." In an email chat included in the court filing, the same employee also said, "if we're going to lie, the vaguer the better no."
Avalone, now Embark's managing director, did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment. Emails and voicemails were not returned by anyone at Embark over the past two weeks.
Several universities, including the University of Michigan and at least one graduate program at Harvard University, have threatened legal action against Embark. Officials at both those institutions said they were paid by Embark after they made those threats.
At least one other university has recently complained to Embark. The University of California at Davis hired a lawyer to help it collect money it says Embark has owed since spring 2012, according to a letter released by the university. In mid-May of this year, the university's lawyer demanded that Embark pay $38,589 by June 15. That didn't happen.
"No money was received – only a promise from the [Embark] president to follow up," a UC Davis spokeswoman said in an email last month.
Other universities are being paid back, if only gradually.
A spokesman for Thunderbird School of Global Management said last month Embark still owes it $71,000. The school ended its relationship with Embark last fall for other reasons, the spokesman said. Khan's filings suggest the school was owed $215,000 at one point. Thunderbird could not confirm that figure.
As of last summer, Rutgers University's business school was owed $261,000 for fees dating as far back as April 2011, according to Khan's filing. Much of that has been paid, the university said last month.
"Since the beginning of 2014, Embark has paid $229,260 to the Rutgers Business School – Newark and New Brunswick," a Rutgers spokesman said in an email. "The school continues to work with Embark to collect the remaining balance."
It's not clear exactly how precise the spreadsheet is in Khan's filing: It says Georgia State University is owed $81,000 for fees it collecting in 2010 and 2011, though a Georgia State official said that Embark paid it $80,000 several years ago for work done in 2009 and no longer owes the university money. UC Davis, on the other hand, is asking for more money than the spreadsheet shows it is owed.
Khan first made allegations about Embark's repayments to colleges in July 2013, when he sued his business partner Garg. But Khan provided more details about Embark's business last month in a separate case in which Embark is suing him.
Garg and Khan founded MyRichUncle, an upstart student loan company that made its name lending directly to students before its parent company, MRU Holdings, went bankrupt in 2009. MyRichUncle was well-known in higher ed circles in the mid-2000s for its aggressive marketing that accused college financial aid officers of engaging in "kickbacks."
Before the bankruptcy, MRU quietly bought Embark from the Princeton Review in 2007, vowing to invigorate a company that had seen its value and reach tumble during the six years Princeton Review owned it.
Khan's filing suggests he and Garg were unable to do so. Now, Garg's wife, Sarita James, is president of Embark. James did not respond to multiple emails over the past two weeks seeking comment.
Khan claims Garg and others at Embark "circulated false financials" to the company's clients and delayed payments to them because of cash flow problems.
Sometimes, even after threatening legal action, a client would stick with Embark.
In February 2013, a graduate program within Harvard Law School asked Embark for $120,000 owed to it since November and December 2012.
"Despite the promise of wire transfers by Embark (supposedly made on Feb. 1 initially and then again on Feb. 20), and despite our request for actual confirmation of the transfers, we have not received anything, not even evidence that any of the wire transfers were actually made," Harvard assistant dean Jeanne Tai wrote in a February 2013 email, which appeared in the court filing. Harvard is not a party to the litigation.
Reached last month by phone, Tai said everything had since been squared away.
"They have since made good on everything they owed and since that period of time, we haven't had any trouble getting what they owed us," she said.
The Harvard graduate program remains a client.
Khan's filing said even though Embark knew that it owed money to colleges, Garg, the former head of the company, "did not intend to cause Embark to pay such amounts owed unless and until the schools complained."
Officials at several other institutions said to be owed money declined to comment in detail or did not return calls seeking comment about their relationship with Embark.
After the MRU bankruptcy filing, Khan and Garg quickly started another company, Education Investment and Finance Corporation, or EIFC, which manages and services private student loans and mortgage-backed securities.
Bill and Hillary Clinton are the face of these global corporations and neo-liberalism. They plan to win the White House in 2016 and are getting Hillary into all venues they had a hand in destroying. High tuition and devastating student loan debt happened because the Clintons started the corporatization of US universities with the goal of creating US global corporate universities. Bill and Hillary are the face of the 2008 economic crash that has left millions of US college grads without employment----they created these Wall Street banks by deregulating the financial industry and breaking Glass Steagall so these banks could grow to the global corporations knowing they would control the US government and economy.
PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW HILLARY AND NEO-LIBERALS TO TAKE CONTROL OF DEMOCRATIC PARTY CAMPAIGNING----RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES AGAINST ALL NEO-LIBERALS IN DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES. You can see why, here in Maryland it was critical for Anthony Brown to win-----heaven forbid the candidate wanting to dismantle all of this corporate structure win!
The Clinton's funded Anthony Brown's campaign because he will embrace this global corporate structure as O'Malley did and the marginalization of the citizens of America. The Clinton Foundation is a global corporate development institution so all that money she is making will be tax-free.
Scrutiny for Hillary Clinton Speaking Fees at Colleges
At least eight universities have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton to speak on their campuses, The Washington Post reported. Students at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, where she is due to be paid $225,000 to speak in the fall, have protested, and that is drawing attention to the likely presidential candidate's high fees, not all of which have been previously disclosed. Some of the payments ($200,000 is believed to be standard) have gone not to Clinton personally, but the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
Here in Maryland, Baltimore is ground zero for the dismantling of public education from K-college. Johns Hopkins is the driver of this policy. They have a corporation that works to recruit overseas education labor and bring them to America to work in K-12 and in universities and colleges. Why bring immigrant labor to teach in US schools when we have huge unemployment and plenty of teachers? Well, Race to the Top and all of the teacher accountability that has nothing to do with quality education but everything to do with chasing current teachers out of a hostile system----- will need people to replace the US teachers that leave out of frustration and the fact that no one will want to be exposed to these kinds of working conditions. There comes the need for foreign workers taking jobs in public schools.
Remember, the goal with K-12 is to have online classes that only need a person like an education tech in the classroom to facilitate an online presentation of material. That education tech does not need to be a real teacher-----they only need to know how to start the online lessons and administer the tests. So, neo-liberals have as a goal of completely dismantling our entire public education system and quality democratic education. Think the absolutely botched rollout of Race to the Top is an accident? This policy has been in the making since the beginning of the Bush Administration----it is a republican policy written by US corporations a decade ago----it is no accident that teachers are being subjected to the worst of conditions in this education reform rollout----neo-liberals hate labor and unions and want to get rid of public sector unions through privatization with national charter chains and global corporations specializing in education temps.
I cannot tell you how revolting it is that America is behind all of this labor abuse and it is neo-liberals controlling the people's Democratic Party leading this.
Neo-cons write the policy and neo-liberals run as Democrats to implement these policies that kill the labor that votes for them.
Monday, May 26, 2014, 1:00 pm
Trafficked Teachers: Neoliberalism's Latest Labor Source
BY George Joseph Working In These Times
Recruiting companies in the U.S. are attracting some of Philippines' best teachers with one-year guest worker visas to teach in American public schools, saddling the teachers with hidden fees and furthering the Philippines' growing teacher shortage. (SuSanA Secretariat/ Flickr / Creative Commons)
Between 2007 and 2009, 350 Filipino teachers arrived in Louisiana, excited for the opportunity to teach math and science in public schools throughout the state. They'd been recruited through a company called Universal Placement International Inc., which professes on its website to "successfully place teachers in different schools thru out [sic] the United States." As a lawsuit later revealed, however, their journey through the American public school system was fraught with abuse.
According to court documents, Lourdes Navarro, chief recruiter and head of Universal Placement, made applicants pay a whopping $12,550 in interview and "processing fees" before they'd even left the Philippines. But the exploitation didn't stop there. After the teachers landed in LAX, they were required to sign contracts paying back 10 percent of their first and second years'' salaries; those who refused were threatened with instant deportation.
"We were herded into a path, a slowly constricting path," said Ingrid Cruz, one of the teachers, during the trial, "where the moment you feel the suspicion that something is not right, you're already way past the point of no return." Eventually, a Los Angeles jury awarded the teachers $4.5 million.
Similar horror stories have abounded across the country for years. Starting in 2001, the private contractor Omni Consortium promised 273 Filipino teachers jobs within the Houston, Texas school district—in reality, there were only 100 spots open. Once they arrived, the teachers were crammed into groups of 10 to 15 in unfinished housing properties. Omni Consortium kept all their documents, did not allow them their own transportation, and threatened them with deportation if they complained about their unemployment status or looked for another job.
And it's not always recruiting agencies that are at fault. According to an American Federation Teachers report, in 2009, Florida Atlantic University imported 16 Indian math and science teachers for the St. Lucie County School District. Labeling the immigrant teachers as "interns," the district only spent $18,000 for each of their yearly salaries—well below a regular teacher's rate. But because the district paid the wages to Florida Atlantic University, rather than the teachers themselves, the university pocketed most of the money, giving the teachers a mere $5,000 each.
Researchers estimate that anywhere from 14,000 to 20,000 teachers, imported on temporary guest worker visas, teach in American public schools nationwide. Such hiring practices are often framed as cultural exchange programs, but as Timothy Noah of the New Republic points out—in this case about Maryland's Prince George County—"When 10 percent of a school district's teachers are foreign migrants, that isn't cultural exchange. It's sweatshop labor—and a depressing indicator of how low a priority public education has become."
A manufactured problem School districts frequently justify hiring lower-paid immigrants by pointing to teacher shortages in chronically underfunded rural and urban school districts. And it's true: In poorer areas, classrooms are often overcrowded and understaffed. But this dearth of instructors did not come out of nowhere. Rather, it is an inevitable result of the austerity measures pushed through on a federal, state, and local level after the panic of the 2007 financial crisis.
As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes, between 2008 and 2011, school districts nationwide slashed 278,000 jobs. This bleeding has not stopped: According to the Center on Education Policy, almost 84 percent of school districts in the 2011-2012 school year expected budget shortfalls, and 60 percent planned to cut staff to make up deficits.
Thus, we see a familiar pattern of neoliberal "restructuring" in American school systems: Cut public institutions to the bone, leave them to fail without adequate resources, then claim the mantle of "reform" while rebuilding the institutions with an eye towards privatization.
In many cities, newly laid-off instructors are left to languish while their former employers employ underpaid replacements to fill the gaps. For example, the Baltimore City Public Schools district has imported more than 600 Filipino teachers; meanwhile, 100 certified local teachers make up the "surplus" workforce, serving as substitutes and co-teachers when they can.
The manufactured labor scarcity narrative, used to justify the importation of guest worker teachers, provides districts with the opportunity to employ less costly, at-will employees, whose precarious legal status is often exploited. Such moves to pump up the workforce with workers—not here long enough to invest themselves in organizing or bargaining struggles—also serve to weaken shop-site solidarity and unions' ability to mobilize on a larger scale.
The recruiting contactors' advertisements to districts are particularly instructive in this regard, noting their recruits' inability to qualify for benefits and pension contributions. In an extensive study, education professors Sue Books and Rian de Villiers found that recruiting firms tend to appeal to districts on the basis of cost-saving, rather than classroom quality. As one Georgia contractor, Global Teachers Research and Resources, advertises, "school systems pay an administrative fee [to GTRR] that is generally less than the cost of [teacher] benefits. Collaborating with GTRR means quality teachers with savings to the school systems." Even more egregiously, a Houston based recruiting firm called Professional and Intellectual Resources exclaims that their "bargain-priced" Filipino teachers can "make the most out of the most minimal resources.
Memorizing isn't learning This criterion for hiring makes sense in the context of what philosopher Paulo Freire calls "the banking concept of education." In his 1968 classic, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire critiques the pedagogical tradition of rote memorization, in which the teacher-as-narrator "leads the students to memorize … the narrated content." Freire argues, "It turns [students] into 'containers,' into 'receptacles' to be 'filled' by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is."
However, Freire's "narrative" is no longer even in the hands of teachers, who might at least have some understanding of content relevant to students. Instead with the rise of test-based approach to education, forced through with No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Common Core, and numerous ramped-up state tests, nameless corporate and federal employees now tie teachers and students' success to the production of higher test scores. Thus, today's cutting-edge education reform movement has brought this "banking concept of education" back into vogue, demanding "objective measures" and "accountability" through constant standardized testing.
The idea that new teachers should be imported from halfway around the world for yearlong stints, knowing no background about the communities they are entering and the content relevant to them, is only justified if the teacher is reduced to an instrument of standardized information transmission. And if teachers are just such instruments, why not search the global market for the cheapest, most malleable ones possible?
As Books and de Villiers point out, many recruiters' advertisements reflect this logic: "Only two [recruiters'] websites apprise teachers of the socio-economic, racial, ethnic, and religious diversity in many U.S. schools. Only five include useful educational links, and only three provide information about school-based mentoring." So for corporate recruiters and their district clients, finding the right match for a school is not about teacher quality or experience, but rather cost and expendability.
The phenomenon of teacher trafficking, then, doesn't rest entirely on recruiters' mercenary tendencies or districts' drive to cheapen their labor. It also rests on the larger neoliberal conception of workers. In this case, teachers become moveable parts, switched out in accordance with the iron laws of supply and demand in order to more efficiently output successful test scores, whose value comes to represent students themselves.
Colonialism in the classroom The American importation of Filipino teachers, as well as educators from other countries, has consequences beyond the United States, too. According to Books and de Villiers, several recruiting agencies only seek out teachers in the Philippines because its high poverty rates and supply of quality teachers make it, as one journalist from the Baltimore Sun put it, "fertile ground for recruits." Meanwhile, the nation has an estimated shortage of 16,000 educators and the highest student-teacher ratio in Asia at 45:1.
As one Filipino union leader told the American Federation of Teachers, "To accommodate the students, most public schools schedule two, three and sometimes even four shifts within the entire day, with 70 to 80 students packed in a room. Usually, the first class starts as early as 6:00 a.m. to accommodate the other sessions." And as American corporate forces have exploited the Philippines for its best teachers, pushed across the world by the beck and call of the market, agents of the nonprofit world have taken it upon themselves to send American substitutes in their place.
Launched last year, Teach for the Philippines presents itself as "the solution" to this lack of quality teachers in the country—a claim similar to those of its U.S. parent organization, Teach for America, a behemoth nonprofit that each year recruits thousands of idealistic college graduates to become (and often replace) teachers in low-income communities after a five-week training camp.
The Teach for Philippines promo video begins with black and white shots of multitudes of young Filipino schoolchildren packed into crowded classrooms, bored and on the verge of tears. A cover version of a Killers song proclaims, "When there's nowhere else to run … If you can hold on, hold on" as the video shifts to the students' inevitable fates: scenes of tattooed gang kids smoking, an isolated girl and even a desperate man behind bars. In the midst of this grotesquely Orientalizing imagery, text declares, "Our Country Needs Guidance," "Our Country Needs Inspiration," and finally "Our Country Needs Teachers."
Teach for the Philippines recruits young Filipinos both domestically and internationally, with special outreach to Filipino Americans. Though still in its start-up phase, with only 53 teachers in 10 schools, the program presents a disturbing vision for the future of teaching in the context of a global workforce. While the Filipino teachers imported to America are not necessarily ideal fits, given their inability to remain as long-term contributors to a school community, at least they are for the most part trained, experienced instructors. Within the Teach for the Philippines paradigm, however, Filipino students, robbed of their best instructors, are forced to study under recruits, who may lack a strong understanding of the communities they are joining and have often have never even had any actual classroom experience.
But Teach For the Philippines is just one growing arm of Teach for America's global empire, now spanning the world sites in 33 countries and enjoying millions in support from neoliberal power players like Visa and even the World Bank. So while austerity-mode Western nations may seek to cut costs by employing no-benefits guest workers, countries such as the Philippines will be forced by the unbending logic of the market to plead for international charity—summer camp volunteers looking to "give" two years of their lives to really make a difference.
In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire argues, "It is to the reality that mediates men, and to the perception of that reality held by educators and people, that we must go to find the program content of education." But for such a reality to be approached, teachers and communities must have the opportunity to grow together, to listen to each other, and to understand the reality that they seek to transform. By pushing teachers into a globalized pool of low-wage temp workers, teacher trafficking precludes this possibility.
FOLKS, WHEN THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY ----FEMA-----GETS DEFUNDED AND PRIVATIZED AND CITIZENS ARE WATCHING AS MONEY GIVEN TO FEMA ENDS IN CORPORATION'S POCKETS AND NOT TO HELP CITIZENS....WHAT DO YOU THINK A FEMA CORP-----FOR YOUTH WILL REALLY BE ABOUT????
IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES DISASTERS AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LOOKS THE SAME. TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT MAKES THE US A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY AND THESE CHILDREN WILL BE INVOLVED IN MORE THAN RECOVERY FROM HURRICANES.
We are watching a system that has our youth and unemployed sent to work with agencies that used to be public but are now being privatized. The corporations tied to FEMA CORP are the same corporations that defrauded the American people of tens of trillions, shipping it to off to off-shore accounts, crashing the economy and leaving it stagnant just to create high unemployment.
THEY CREATED HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT TO CREATE THIS SYSTEM OF INTERNSHIPS THAT HAVE YOUTH CAPTURED IN EFFORTS TO WORK AND/OR PAY STUDENT LOANS.
As you see below the privatization of FEMA is leading to the same conditions as all other public private partnerships----corporations are funneling huge amounts of public money towards profiteering and not providing the goods and services these funds are meant to provide.
At a time when disasters are going to intensify and increase-----neo-liberals and neo-cons are privatizing and breaking apart our public disaster defense. Bush placed this on steroids and now Obama is as well. Meanwhile neo-conservatives are pretending all of these public private partnerships are SOCIALISM GONE MAD----WHEN IT IS NAKED CAPITALISM GONE MAD---ALLOWING OUR GOVERNMENT RUN BY CORPORATIONS IS NOT SOCIALIST FOLKS!
Below you see that insurance agencies were allowed to use taxpayer money to pay for rebuilding that should have been covered by insurance corporations while the public went without help. The designation of Hurricane Sandy damage as flood and not storm was a deliberate attempt to deny insurance policy holders coverage for this disaster. These are things corporate neo-liberals do and not democrats!
Insurance companies getting FEMA to pay their post-Sandy bills
by: John Wojcik People's World
BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- Anger is growing here as thousands in the New York area are told by their insurance companies that they're not covered for damages resulting from Hurricane Sandy.
Adding insult to injury, the insurance companies are apparently benefitting from the quick response to the crisis by the Obama administration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency inadvertently footing the bill for claims denied by the insurers.
Bobby McCann's brother Mike, who lives in the devastated Breezy Point neighborhood, was told by his insurance company that his storm insurance was no good because the damage to his house was caused by flooding, not by a hurricane or a tropical storm.
"My brother should be covered," said McCann last Friday night as he put down his quart container of beer at Farrell's Bar in Brooklyn's Park Slope. "The company says that because he don't have flood insurance he's s-t out of luck," McCann said, "but he had storm insurance and that should be all there is to it."
As many as a quarter million homeowners in flood-prone areas of the city of New York and Long Island may be in the same situation.
While the insurance companies have been denying claims since the storm hit, that's how many homeowners have applied for the emergency housing money that the Obama administration made quickly available. Unlike in the Bush administration response to Hurricane Katrina, where such aid was often delayed for months or didn't reach some areas at all, FEMA's emergency housing funds were available here just days after Sandy crashed on shore.
The purpose of FEMA's emergency housing money is to allow people whose homes are uninhabitable to temporarily rent new living quarters but because insurance companies are failing to pay damage claims, homeowners say they are using some of that FEMA money to pay for repairs.
The result is more and more people here expressing outrage at insurance companies they once saw as guarantors of their security in the event of a catastrophe and now see as greedy profiteers shirking their responsibilities.
When Mike McCann had returned to his Breezy Point home after the storm he said he was glad that he was, at least, better off than many of his neighbors. He was not among the hundred-plus families whose homes had either burned down completely or among those whose homes were otherwise totaled by Sandy. All Mike had to contend with was half of an entire wall that was missing and huge pieces of wood and other debris from outside that were now sitting inside his home.
McCann's policy covered wind damage and objects falling on the house but the insurer told him that the damage incurred at his place was not from wind, but from water and that the wood and other debris sitting in his house had not fallen on top of the house but had, instead, been forced through the wall by water. The adjuster said the determination was made based on how the wall had collapsed. The debris from outside, the adjuster said, could only have ended up inside the house as the result of having been pushed through the wall by floodwater.
Homeowner insurance policies, according to storm victims who have lost property, often cover damage caused by "falling objects." It is apparently up to insurance company investigators to decide whether an "object" that has damaged a house actually fell on top of the house or ended up inside the house as the result of some other process.
Allstate, the company famous for the refrain, "You're in good hands," is one of numerous companies that insured Sandy victims, including victims who say their claims have been denied. No one at Allstate would respond officially when asked to comment.
Chet Held, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 130, in New Orleans and a life-long fisherman on the Louisiana Bayou, said that the experience people in the Northeast are having with insurance companies is similar to what people experienced on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.
"My home was under water up to the roof after the Hurricane," he said. "The adjuster told us that they would cover only the top 12 inches of the attic because the damage to the rest of the house was not from the hurricane or the wind, but from flood water."
"It was a shame, what happened," Held added. "Some people who had no insurance whatsoever actually did better when the government-funded Louisiana Recovery Authority came on the scene. They got more help from the state agency than people got from their insurance companies."
"I would never have thought they would do this to my brother," said Bobby McCann at Farrell's Bar as he picked up his container of Budweiser. "For 15 years Mikey paid his premiums every month thinking he was covered and his family was safe. There's not much you can do about the weather but how could a country allow an insurance company to get away with something like this?"
How else can we subsidize the costs of corporations doing business? We find yet more ways for youth to 'volunteer' while working for private corporations. FEMA is being outsourced to private corporations built from disaster relief and now our students and newly graduated are to go to work for these private corporations doing the work employees would have done for greatly reduced wages or none at all. Remember, our economy crashed because of massive corporate fraud and off-shoring of tens of trillions of dollars. Unemployment is high because of this and because US global corporations do not need to work in the US as they expand overseas to earn profit. So, using the people who are left unemployed to maximize profits for these same economy -crushers.....THIS IS VERY, VERY,. VERY, VERY BAD CORPORATE POLICY. We already have AMERICORP doing the same with unemployed students. It was Arizona's Napoliano that built this program and she was appointed by Obama and runs as a democrat while serving to maximize corporate profits at public expense. NONE OF THESE PEOPLE ARE DEMOCRATS!
This FEMA CORP has more for concern than using our unemployed youth for free labor....neo-liberals have changed the definition of natural disaster to mean any domestic emergency. So, if you get crowds demonstrating en masse creating civil disobedience as will happen if things are left to become too oppressive----these youth are the next line of defense after national guard and swat police. We have large sectors of our youth being sent into these CORP groups rather than graduating and simply starting a career and gaining wealth. It is all happening because of policies THAT ARE SIMPLY STEPS TOWARDS TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT (TPP).....GIVING GLOBAL CORPORATIONS COMPLETE CONTROL OF OUR SOCIETY.
Deliberately creating massive unemployment and then forcing people into these CORP categories is autocratic/totalitarian!!!!
Announcing the Creation of FEMA Corps
Michael Widomski FEMA
Washington, D.C., March 13, 2012 -- Cecilia Muñoz, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, discusses the new partnership between AmeriCorps' Corporation for National and Community Service and FEMA. The new partnership is designed to strengthen the nation's ability to respond to and recover from disasters while expanding career opportunities for young people.
Along with our partners at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), we announced the creation of FEMA Corps, which sets the foundation for a new generation of emergency managers. FEMA Corps leverages a newly-created unit of 1,600 service corps members from AmeriCorps' National Civilian Community Corps who are solely devoted to FEMA disaster response and recovery.
The full-time residential service program is for individuals ages 18-24, and members will serve a one-year term including a minimum of 1,700 hours, providing support working directly with disaster survivors. The first members will begin serving in this August and the program will reach its full capacity within 18 months.
The program will enhance the federal government's disaster capabilities, increase the reliability and diversity of the disaster workforce, promote an ethos of service, and expand education and economic opportunity for young people.
At today's event, Cecilia Muñoz, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, remarked:
...[FEMA Corps], helps communities recover, it trains young people, helps them pay for college, and it doesn't cost taxpayers an additional dime. Whether you're a young person looking for work, a member of the community that's been hit by a flood or a tornado or just a citizen who wants your tax dollars to be spent as wisely as possible, this is a program you can be proud of. This is really government at its best.
And it's part of the president's larger vision for an America built to last. Today, so many of our young people have shown that they're willing to do their part to work hard, act responsibly and contribute to their communities. But in tough economic times, it's up to all of us to make sure that their hard work and responsibility still pays off.
We have to preserve what President Obama has called the basic promise of America, that no matter who you are, where you come from, you can make it if you try, if you fulfill your responsibilities and you make a contribution.
During the event, Secretary Napolitano described the program:
First and most important, it will help communities prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters by supporting disaster recovery centers, assisting in logistics, community relations and outreach, and performing other critical functions.
We know from experience that quick deployment of trained personnel is critical during a crisis. The FEMA Corps will provide a pool of trained personnel, and it will also pay long-term dividends by adding depth to our reserves -- individuals trained in every aspect of disaster response who augment our full-time FEMA staff.
Second, the Corps will help us make the best use of taxpayer funds as we bring in FEMA Corps members at a significantly lower cost.
Third, FEMA Corps will provide participants with critical job skills and training. Emergency management is a growing field, much larger than FEMA alone. The recent high school and college graduates entering this program will emerge with the training and the on-the-ground experience that provides a clear pathway into this critical profession.
And finally, this Corps -- it encourages and supports the ethic of public service tapping the energy and dedication to helping their communities that we see among so many young adults today. Many here today, myself included, know that a career in public service presents opportunities and rewards far beyond paychecks.
The new initiative will promote an ethos of national service and civic engagement by mobilizing corps members and community volunteers to provide critical disaster services. Once trained by FEMA and CNCS, members will provide support in areas ranging from working directly with disaster survivors, to supporting disaster recovering centers, and sharing valuable disaster information with the public.
Robert Velasco, Acting CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, spoke about this new chapter in national service:
By opening up new pathways in emergency management, this partnership will give thousands of young people the opportunity to serve their country and gain the skills and training they need to fill the jobs of today and tomorrow. This is a historic new chapter in the history of national service that will enhance our nation's disaster capabilities and promote an ethic of national service while achieving significant cost savings for the taxpayer.
Deputy Administrator Serino discussed the importance of FEMA Corps:
People have asked, why is this important? Looking into the eyes of survivors, looking at communities that are devastated, having young people that can step up and help out in the time of a disaster who are trained will make a difference in people's lives. That's why we're doing this.
As we continue to move forward and we look for opportunities to be more efficient, to look for opportunities to get young people involved in government, to get young people involved in service to their country, [we] will make a difference. We've had the opportunity to work with CNCS in AmeriCorps in the past, and this is broadening that -- expanding it, so we have the opportunity to bring this talented, young, will-be-trained workforce to help our staff.
They are augmenting our reservists, augmenting our full-time employees. This will be an opportunity for us to strengthen our nation's disaster response capabilities, create pathways for young people and really help the ethos of national service.
Mayor Walter Maddox, Tuscaloosa, Ala. also attended today's announcement, and from the perspective a mayor of a town still recovering from a major disaster last year, the mayor expressed his excitement about the new agreement:
This new partnership between FEMA and the Corporation for National and Community Service will be crucial in supporting cities, counties and states in their time of need. I commend FEMA and CNCS for understanding that to effectively respond during a crisis, we have to extend beyond political, geographical and even bureaucratic boundaries to ensure all resources are made available to the citizens we serve.
To recap, the purpose of the program is:
Strengthening the Nation's Disaster Response Capacity: The partnership will provide a trained and reliable resource dedicated to support disaster operations, while enhancing the entire emergency management workforce.
Creating Pathways to Work for Young People: By providing training, experience, and educational opportunity, the partnership will prepare thousands of young people for careers in emergency management and related fields.
Promoting an Ethos of National Service: The partnership will strengthen our nation's culture of service and civic engagement by mobilizing corps members and community volunteers to provide critical disaster services.
Modernizing Government Operations to Improve Performance: By working together, CNCS and FEMA will advance the President's management goals of working across government, managing across sectors, and promoting efficiency.
Think about what is happening with the FARM BILL just passed. It basically gave the mid-West global agri-businesses billions of dollars more in agriculture subsidy at a time when global warming will turn the mid-west into a dust bowl. We all know this is the future coming for our bread basket. Rather than use all those farm subsidies building small farms in areas of the country where food can be supported-----along the northern borders of the US----neo-liberals doubled-down on subsidy for what will be food disaster for America. Remember, all those US global agri-businesses are now overseas buying all the world's fertile soil with the intent of having Americans import the food from overseas. Fracking is destroying our water sources and now our food sources are being deliberately undermined. Think this is any different than nations with continuous famine having US FOOD AID delivered in exchange for control of that nation's public policy?
IT IS THE SAME POLICY----THEY ARE SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE US TO BE A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.
If you think the article below is hyperbole you do not understand where neo-liberals are taking the US. As we move to small farming----a good thing----Federal laws are being passed that allow for confiscation during emergencies. Because the mid-west will be a dust bowl----our farms will sequestered----we will have no control of our own resources. Think of the middle-ages when the royals rolled through the countryside taking all they needed from the people as they went.
THE FARM BILL SHOULD HAVE SUBSIDIZED THE MOVEMENT OF US FARMING AND FOOD TO NORTHERN CLIMES TO ALLOW FOR CONTINUED NATIONAL FOOD SYSTEM. INSTEAD, THEY ARE SUBSIDIZING EXISTING MID-WEST FOOD KNOWING IT WILL DISAPPEAR.
FEMA to confiscate food from local farms in emergencies?
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: FEMA, food confiscation, health news
(NaturalNews) - Since our nation's founding the federal government has, in times of emergency, claimed extra-constitutional powers and authority. Under the guise of acting in the public's best interests, Washington has taken away privacy rights, free speech, and habeas corpus, among others. There's no reason to think it wouldn't happen again.
With that in mind, would it surprise you to find out that if disaster strikes in your part of the country, the federal government is prepared to take over local food supplies, in part by confiscating farms?
It shouldn't, says "Farmer Brad," a Texas-based farmer who said in an interview about food security with Mike Adams for Natural News TV that during Hurricane Katrina, an inventory of local farms and what they produced was conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"FEMA was doing an inventory of all the farms around ... metroplexes," he said, which included nearby Houston and other large cities. "They started calling up farms and wanted to know where farms were, and they were being prepared to maybe take food if they need to, from farms, you know, for a crisis like that."
Brad, of HomeSweetFarm.com, said that while the agency didn't come right out and say they would confiscate crops and cattle, "they were making food assessments, you know, what is in the local food shed in a metroplex."
He said the agency's assessment took into account a number of potential emergencies and disasters, including spikes in fuel prices or even sudden disruptions - anything that might hinder or prevent the delivery of food to stores. Such scenarios would also lead to dramatic increases in food prices as well, Brad said.
"The distribution system for food is so fragile, you know, and there's only enough food in these grocery stores to last, literally, for just a couple of days," he said, noting that store shelves during Katrina were stripped bare "within hours."
Worse, Brad said, because of mass evacuations from the big cities, traffic choked local roads, making even short-distance travel impossible. He said he and his family couldn't even get into town to go to the store.
"We heard all kinds of stories from our local residents about what it was like - people camping out in the Walmart parking lot; grocery stores were empty; food wasn't coming in," he said. "We had people from 90 miles away from Houston and some other metroplexes coming into our town because we were one of the few that still had gas."
Brad said that FEMA didn't send agents to farms but made phone calls instead asking, "what are you producing, how much land do you have, wanting to get the details of the local food sheds in the area." He said he and local farms were voluntarily providing the information but that the food security aspect of the questions made them all "a little suspicious."
As people flee the large cities, Brad says most of them will be unprepared and that his farm - through theft or through confiscation - will likely be "wiped out."
The amount of money lost to fraud of FEMA is far more than is given below. Billions of dollars are lost because there is no oversight and accountability. This is a reflection of what happens overseas with defense and foreign development aid. THEY ARE BRINGING TO THE US THE SAME LEVEL OF FRAUD OVERSEAS BY DISMANTLING ALL OF OUR PUBLIC PROTECTIONS.
Maryland is #1 in doing this and all of Maryland pols are neo-liberals!
THIS IS WHAT TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT LOOKS LIKE AND OBAMA IS SIMPLY CONTINUING WHAT CLINTON AND BUSH STARTED! DO YOU HEAR YOUR INCUMBENT SHOUTING AGAINST ALL OF THIS? IF NOT---THEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS.
Most of the business done with FEMA these days are national corporations with made to-look-like regional offices. So, where ragtag groups of fly-by-night contractors no doubt defraud people----it is the disaster corporations fleecing billions of dollars. This is why we now hear there just isn't enough money for the people's needs in disasters.
Inspector: Millions in improper Katrina, Rita aid not yet recovered
By Mike M. Ahlers, CNN
January 3, 2011 10:33 p.m. EST
FEMA disbursed more than $7 billion in aid after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit in 2005
Later, FEMA estimated that about $643 million were improper payments
FEMA cited human error and fraud as the causes of improper payments
An inspector says FEMA "has not given final approval" on a process to recoup the money
Washington (CNN) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency has not attempted to recoup some $643 million in payments that were improperly given to 160,000 individuals for housing and other aid following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, an independent government investigator says.
In a letter to FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, Inspector General Richard Skinner wrote that a federal court in 2008 ordered FEMA to change its process for recovering the money. But Monday, three years after that court ruling, "These payments remain uncollected because your office has not given final approval of a new recoupment process," Skinner wrote.
Following the back-to-back storms in 2005, FEMA disbursed more than $7 billion in assistance to survivors. At the time, the government placed a premium on distributing the money quickly because of the dire needs of residents of the Gulf Coast. The money was intended for rental assistance, home repairs, housing replacement, moving costs, medical costs and other individual assistance.
But in the storm's wake, FEMA estimated that approximately $643 million of the payments were improper due to human error and fraud.
Early efforts to recover the money were themselves flawed, and in June of 2007, a federal judge ordered FEMA to discontinue its debt collection until changes were made to the process. FEMA immediately complied, Skinner wrote, and in 2008 the agency announced that it was stopping its recoupment of improper disaster payments until it could establish new procedures. FEMA also announced it would review each case of suspected fraud to confirm the validity of the debt.
But, Skinner wrote, FEMA's new recovery process has been awaiting approval by the administrator since late 2008. While FEMA has established a strategy, identified the necessary staff and initiated a review of the 160,000 cases, "your office has not instructed the responsible parties to restart the recoupment process," Skinner wrote to Fugate. "Further delay only makes aging debts more difficult to collect," Skinner wrote.
In a statement to CNN, FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Racusen said FEMA is "committed to being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars."
"Not only do we agree with the Inspector General's recommendation to recoup disaster assistance payments that were improperly disbursed... but we are and have been actively working with state and local leadership and other stakeholders to finalize plans to recoup misspent funds, while continuing to support Gulf Coast communities as they recover," she said.
"Under our current leadership, we have worked diligently to put protections in place that will safeguard against fraud and abuse, significantly reduce the percentage of improper payments, and develop a fair, open and transparent process for recovering these payments," Racusen said.
Racusen said she did not have a date for when Fugate would authorize collection of debts, but said, "We are well underway in taking the steps we need to begin this new process."
In Skinner's letter to Fugate, Skinner wrote Fugate should "promptly take action" to recover the money. Noting that President Barack Obama signed a presidential memorandum in March of 2010 asking departments to identify and reclaim misspent funds, Skinner said Fugate should "promptly authorize the collection of this debt," he wrote.
As an environmentalist I do not want developments in flood plains----these are wetlands that never should have been developed. You remember me---I'm the one with the sign that shouts STOP THIS DEVELOPMENT! Development was allowed on floodplains because of the amount of money that could be made on waterfront property. Middle-class families saw it a ticket to quality of life. To allow developers a wide income bracket to sell waterfront property the policy of Federally subsidized flood insurance started and sent the middle-class moving into the floodplains. Now, I am definitely for ending Federal subsidy for flood insurance to keep people out of flood plains, but millions of middle-class families bought these homes needing these subsidies and are now losing homes with their life wealth equity----it is just as bad as the subprime mortgage fraud. Either give these families a fair value for these homes or grandfather those homes into coverage. Neo-liberqals say----GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE WHILE CORPORATE SUBSIDY SKYROCKETS.
Steep Flood Insurance Rate Increases Are Result of Federal Government's Mistakes
Posted: 03/27/2014 3:36 pm EDT Updated: 03/27/2014 3:59 pm EDT Huffington Post
New Orleans Katrina Floods Flood Zone Maps Levees Army Corps of Engineers
The steep premium increases in flood insurance being seen by policyholders all across the nation are the direct result of the federal government's failed levees in New Orleans in 2005.
While the worst rate spikes will occur gradually over a period of years -- thanks to a bill that President Obama signed into law last Friday -- a reported 1.1 million homeowners in flood-prone areas will still face sharp premium increases.
These overnight increases, some as high as 15-fold, have their roots in the failure of American civil engineering know-how almost nine years ago.
Before Katrina arrived in New Orleans, even the most insistent calls to evacuate did not warn that the levees could breach and fail. Such a scenario was unheard of and undreamed of.
But levees and floodwalls built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, catastrophically collapsed -- many at water loads well below their design heights-killing more than 1,600 and causing in excess of $100 billion in economic damages.
The subsequent discovery of egregious levee design errors were the catalyst for many national changes in policy including revisions to levee-building, better and more uniform levee inspections, and the creation of a National Levee Safety Program.
But the levee breaches also revealed that flood zone maps were severely outdated and needed to be modernized.
In a May 2006 keynote speech, David Maurstad, Federal Insurance Administrator and Director of FEMA's Mitigation Division, stated at the 2006 National Flood Conference held in Philadelphia, PA:
"...In the aftermath of the 2005 hurricane season, we're pushing forward with our five-year, $1 billion initiative to modernize our Flood Insurance Rate Maps..."
In 2010, when the new maps were completed, they in turn were used to overhaul the federal government's flood insurance program, the NFIP, a rigged actuarial system that apparently did not even try to balance its books or calibrate premiums in ways that would encourage safer housing practices in areas that flood repeatedly.
And now, like a shock wave, the new rates are being rolled out, and they affect a lot of us.
Fifty-five percent of the American population lives in counties protected by levees. Thirty-nine of the nation's fifty largest cities lie, at least in part, on a flood plain. This can be explained by the historic tendency for the population to settle next to water for navigation, irrigation, recreation and aesthetics. This is not madness, this is life.
The failure of the Army Corps' levees during Katrina was not an admirable event in American history, but the event must remembered, at the very least, for its value as a pivotal moment. The payouts after the 2005 floods came from the U.S. treasury, and this was proper since the U.S. Army Corps failed the people of New Orleans and was responsible for the flooding. Now, all NFIP policy holders in the U.S. are paying more because the failure was a catalyst to national policy changes.
Baltimore has a systematic privatization plan for public schools that have teachers, administrators, school principals and even schools buildings under attack. THESE NEO-CONS AND NEO-LIBERALS WANT ALL THAT IS PUBLIC! It is the long-serving City Hall and Maryland Assembly that are pushing these policies that will tie to the Trans Pacific Trade Pact giving all public policy-making to corporations. You can see that clearly with Race to the Top and education privatization.
YOUR INCUMBENT IS NOT WARM AND FUZZY FOLKS!
Regarding Mary Pat Clarke coming to the aid of Baltimore principals:
Did you know that Mary Pat Clarke heads the education committee in a city that is privatizing public education and getting rid of seasoned teachers and educators just to replace them with Teach for America and VISTA employees and principals trained in making schools a business? Now you see why these principals are being targeted with an impossible task of getting students to come to school when Baltimore public policy works to make this almost impossible.
THAT'S MARY PAT CLARKE FOR YOU.....PRETENDING TO WORK FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE WHEN SHE IS WORKING TO INSTALL THE WORST OF GLOBAL CORPORATE POLICY! MARY PAT ONCE LOOKED AT ME WHEN IN CITY HALL A JUSTICE ACTIVIST YELLED ABOUT THE MOST RECENT INJUSTICE AND SAID ------'SHUT UP AND TELL HER, SHE'LL WRITE ABOUT IT'.
You won't hear Mary Pat Clarke use her position of head of labor and education to shout out what I do! That's because she is not a democrat. Feeling people's pain while being silent as totalitarian policy is put into place just isn't the same. So, if you do not like labor and education policies in Baltimore-------Mary Pat Clarke is the face of it. But it is Rawlings-Blake that gives O'Malley the power to appoint the privatization Baltimore School Board and Superintendent not Clarke you say.........
HER JOB AS THE ELECTED OFFICIAL HEADING LABOR AND EDUCATION IS TO SHOUT OUT AGAINST ALL OF THESE POLICIES FOR WHICH I WRITE. MARY PAT IS NOT WARM AND FUZZY......SHE IS A CORPORATE POL.
The first thing Alonzo did when Wall Street sent him to Baltimore was to shake out many of Baltimore's teachers and administrators who labored for decades in school environments underfunded and resourced. There was fraud and corruption in education administration just as it is systemic throughout Baltimore government so much of the funding for Baltimore schools was lost to fraud and corruption from the state to local people in power. THIS IS NOT A REFLECTION ON TEACHERS AND MANY FRONT-LINE ADMINISTRATORS YET THEY ARE THE ONES BEING AXED. Baltimore City has one of the worst environments for its schools in the nation and the WYPR report on student attendance problems is reflected in bad public policy these school principals have no ability to control MARY PAT CLARKE IS THE VOICE FOR THIS. So, simply standing up against retaliation on principals not able to keep students in schools, we should hear City Hall shouting that Baltimore Development Corporation which runs City Hall has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to buying and running COLLEGE TOWN VEOLA bus systems with the only bus system with enough buses that they can actually run on time while sending these elementary and middle-school children to attend schools outside of their neighborhoods often having to change city buses to get there each morning. This policy is meant to push families to relocate near the schools these children are being forced to attend because schools in their communities have closed and because schools that are funded and doing a good job are on the other side of town. KIPP is a private chain charter that is allowed to operate outside of all public school parameters in order to look successful and the Maryland Assembly has even targeted this private charter chain with exclusive student college grants to make going to a private charter chain attractive. THESE ARE THE POLICIES THAT MAKE IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANY CHILD TO WANT TO COME TO SCHOOL. Can you imagine having to catch a city bus to and from and get to school built as a business abandoning all quality education principals? WELCOME TO BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOLS. IT IS A MESS.
Since the Baltimore Development Corporation has as an objective of having maybe 8 healthy Baltimore districts and allowing all surrounding districts to deteriorate, this is what drives what schools stay open and where children are tracked. Remember, the City of Baltimore has hundreds of millions of dollars from the subprime mortgage fraud much of which needs to come to Baltimore and what better way to provide justice for communities targeted by fraud to have their schools rebuilt. Also, the Algebra Project won a $700 million dollar award from the State of Maryland for black schools in Baltimore but O'Malley/Brown has refused to pay.
WHAT ANTHONY BROWN NOT SHOUTING TO GET ALL THIS MONEY TO BALTIMORE CITY TO REBUILD SCHOOLS? RATHER, ALL THESE NEO-LIBERALS ARE SHOUTING FOR MORE WALL STREET LEVERAGE FOR SCHOOL BUILDING BUT JUST ENOUGH FOR THOSE 8 DISTRICTS. Remember, this is money simply recovered from fraud.....it does not have to come from our government coffers.
No matter the development plans, all communities are required to offer its residence the opportunity and access to good public schools. Gentrification does not have to have such a high level of injustice just because people at the top want to steal all the public's money by fraud and corruption. Working class and poor communities are being hit hardest with these horrible education policies but the middle-class need to know these are people with no conscience and they will take all public schools just to maximize profit!
"TFA Truth Tour" to Expose Dark Side of Corporate Education Reform
TFATT-logo
By Robert Ascherman and Karen Li
Starting tomorrow, USAS is launching the next stage in our campaign to fight back against corporate robber barons of education reform on our campuses: the Teach for America Truth Tour. The tour will visit 15 campuses to expose the truth about TFA: not only does it fail to prepare teachers for the classroom, but it is systematically pushing to replace our system of community public education and replace it with an alternative largely controlled by profit-seeking corporations.
Imagine your favorite professor. Now imagine that this professor will be replaced by someone who has only been trained for 5 weeks and will only be at your university for two years. They don't know anything about you, they don't know anything about the community at your university, and they don't know anything about your life and how it relates to your capacity to learn. Now imagine that this isn't happening just to your favorite professor, but to every professor at your university. As you can tell, this is a situation that would devastate and destabilize your university.
That's what's happening in K-12 public education. For example, in Chicago the Board of Education slashed the budget for schools and fired teachers, yet increased its financing of TFA from $600,000 to $1.6 million and brought in over 300 TFA corps members. In Newark, the superintendent, an TFA alumnus, is likely to fire 700 teachers and replace most of them with TFA corps members. But as one study noted, TFA "is best understood as a weak Band-Aid that sometimes provides some benefits but that is recurrently and systematically ripped away and replaced."
In order to operate, TFA depends on its partnerships with universities to get corps members certified to teach in each state. While teaching, corps members must attend classes at a university, which in some programs can lead to a master's degree. In effect, TFA uses our universities' names to make up for its own weak training programs and convince state boards of education that its members are "highly qualified" to teach.
But students are refusing to allow this to happen any longer. We are joining together with parents, teachers, and TFA alumni to expose the truth about TFA.
The TFA Truth Tour is just part of a larger campaign by USAS, our allies at Students United for Public Education, and the many TFA alumni who are beginning to organize and speak out against the organization, and is only the beginning of a growing groundswell of opposition to TFA's destructive effect on our public schools.
TFA Truth Tour Itinerary
3/24/2014 George Mason University
3/24/2014 American University
3/25/2014 University of Pennsylvania
3/25/2014 Temple University
3/26/2014 New York University
3/26/2014 Hunter College
3/26/2014 Seton Hall University
3/27/2014 Boston University
3/28/2014 Harvard University
3/31/2014 University of Minnesota
3/31/2014 Macalester College
3/31/2014 Hamline University
4/2/2014 University of Wisconsin
4/3/2014 University of Illinois at Chicago
4/3/2014 University of Chicago
Below you see the sad state of affairs in Baltimore's public transportation system. It all centers on privatization of public bus service to private contractors who then place employees working under the worst of conditions. Wages, work schedules, and route schedules that are not realistic all contribute to employee misconduct and bring danger to all citizens. We watched as a
VEOLA CIRCULATOR DRIVER CHOSE TO DRAG AN WOMAN IN DISTRESS OFF A BUS A LEAVE HER. HE WAS A PRIVATE CONTRACTOR NOT MEETING THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THIS JOB BECAUSE THE PAY IS SO LOW.
I was riding on a COLLEGE TOWN VEOLA BUS that had the driver under pressure to stay on schedule that clearing could not be met because of traffic and road closures speed up and drive dangerously because a dispatcher phoned to tell him to get on schedule. THE PROBLEM IS WITH BAD ROUTE SCHEDULES FROM INCOMPETENT OR NO INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS. Now, all drivers are not innocent but this is what drives poor quality and labor abuse on the job. At the same time, our children are being made to use these kinds of services every day. CHRONIC ABSENTEEISM ------WE KNOW THE REAL PROBLEMS!
IT ALL HAS TO DO WITH PRIVATIZING ALL THAT IS PUBLIC.
The answer to cost is to have schools in each community that offer quality education opportunities for all and fund it with the billions of dollar stolen each year in fraud and corruption.
'Approximately 300 drivers are contracted to transport students in Baltimore County and Baltimore City, but the companies holding these contracts are not required to tell the districts when their drivers receive citations, WMAR reported'.
Baltimore Area Bus Drivers Cited for Over 800 Dangerous Traffic Violations
By KEVIN DOLAK WMAR
Baltimore School Bus Caught Running Red Light
Next Video School Buses Over the Limit
School bus drivers in the Baltimore area have been caught on camera committing dangerous traffic violations, including speeding and running red lights, which have potentially put the lives of thousands of school children at risk and led to hundreds of citations.
Traffic citations obtained by ABC affiliate WMAR that were issued to Baltimore City and County bus drivers in the past two years show drivers breaking the law, often with children on-board. Speed and red light cameras have caught drivers in the area barreling up to 40 miles per hour over the speed limit and blowing through lights across the city and county.
"They're a driver like everybody else. If they're speeding or going through a red light, cameras are going to take them as well," said Kristy Knuppel, a concerned parent.
Of at least 99 camera citations that were issued to public school bus drivers in Baltimore County, 19 citations were issued for red light violations, 80 were for speeding, with 37 of the tickets issued specifically to drivers operating within a school zone, which is by law a half-mile radius of a schools.
Many citations for drivers who had repeated violations have been found. In an investigation launched by WMAR in Baltimore, at least 17 repeat offenders were found in the Baltimore County records, including a single bus that was cited five times in three months.
Baltimore City school records show at least 74 camera citations were issued in the same time frame. Eighteen of those tickets were issued for red light camera violations while 56 buses were cited for speeding.
The $40 tickets are issued only to vehicles recorded driving at least 12 mph over the speed limit, according to the Baltimore Sun, which reported that privately owned buses have received at least 800 automated speed citations in Baltimore City. The Sun reported that one bus was clocked at 74 mph.
Approximately 300 drivers are contracted to transport students in Baltimore County and Baltimore City, but the companies holding these contracts are not required to tell the districts when their drivers receive citations, WMAR reported.
Charles Herndon, a spokesman for Baltimore County Public Schools told ABCNews.com that the county has a progressive course of discipline for drivers that receive citations, which begins with a letters of reprimand and with repeated offenses can lead to dismissal. He said that in the county the drivers cover over 1,400 miles and 900 routes.
"When you take the mileage into consideration, it's a small number. But even one [citation] is too many," he said.
Herndon said that the county is now nearing the end of a five-year contract with its vendors, which he describes as "longstanding, reputable companies." Since the speed and red light cameras were installed in the county in the past few years, this was not a factor in the original contracts. As new contracts are negotiated with the three vendors Baltimore county uses, Herndon says they will find a way or "verifying who and how many" drivers received citations.
Herndon also noted that in instances where drivers received multiple citations, at the time of their offenses they were unaware the cameras were filming them. He said that though it's no excuse for speeding or running lights, it will influence future behavior.
"It's something that would help to moderate behave of drivers that are violation," he said. "And we'd hope drivers would not get into that position."
THE PROBLEMS ARE NOT ONLY WITH THE SAFETY OF OUR CITIZENS AND CHILDREN, BALTIMORE CITY HAS SUCH A HOSTILE LABOR ENVIRONMENT AS TO MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR EMPLOYEES TO DO THEIR JOBS SAFELY AND WITH REASONABLE WORK CONDITIONS. SEE WHY PARENTS MAY NOT WANT THEIR CHILDREN ON THESE BUSES?
This is what creates a bad public policy cycle that comes back to schools and achievement.
'The Maryland School Bus Contractors Association strongly supports the locally-owned school bus owner/operator and values greatly their contribution and commitment to their respective local communities. These hardworking men and women not only frequently service the school bus routes they rode as children, they are often second and third generation contractors, continuing the legacy of their parents and grandparents. They employ fellow local residents, support local charitable causes and pay local taxes. It is MSBCA's belief that local school systems should seek to protect these small business owners as best they can'.
School bus drivers threaten to strike over deal with city
Joce Sterman 4:38 PM, Mar 8, 2013 12:42 PM, Mar 11, 2013 WMAR
Baltimore school bus drivers threaten strike
WMAR BALTIMORE - A group of nine local school bus contractors is threatening to strike in Baltimore city over a contract given to an out-of-state company. ABC2 News Investigators broke the story Friday afternoon on Twitter, letting you know thousands of kids could be without a ride to school, all over an agreement they say will put hundreds of local drivers out of work.
Roots and Branches is a chain charter school that does well in Mt Washington. It gets lots of private donations, school choice lotteries have fixed the demographics that attend this school, and it gets public education funding because it is classified as a public school. It does just what this article states----creams off the most engaged parents making the existing public school to struggle with less funding for the most challenging students. Flash forward a decade of doing this and you have the model where these private 'public' charters are privatized and profit-driven and are no longer receiving all that private donation.
IT'S GOAL IS TO WIN APPROVAL IN THE SHORT TERM SO AS TO END PUBLIC EDUCATION AND PRIVATIZE TO NATIONAL CHARTER CHAINS IN THE FUTURE. THESE ARE VERY BAD POLICIES FOR 90% OF AMERICAN CITIZENS.
It is not choice when communities are left with only these charters.
Why do you think church leaders are not shouting against casino neo-liberalism taking all public money through fraud so that public schools can be supported with funding and resources?
THE IDEA THAT THERE IS SCHOOL CHOICE IN BALTIMORE IS RIDICULOUS. HAVING A NATIONAL CHARTER CHAIN MOVE INTO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD AS PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE BEING CLOSED IS CHOICE?
A Hampden parent on Roots & Branches charter school: 'not in my backyard'
Brew Editors May 5, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Hampden has sweet potato fries, banh mi, organic haircuts "and the deftest waxing north (or south) of the equator," but it won't have the Roots & Branches charter school, which — after recently floating the idea of moving into Hampden's Florence Crittenden Center — is now moving into another neighborhood.
So writes Hampden parent Edit Barry, in this strongly-worded blog post that argues that a charter would "cream off the most engaged parents" and hurt the local public school, Hampden Elementary/Middle School.
It's "a disappointing" reaction, responds Jen Shaud, founder and executive director of Roots & Branches, which will announce its new location on Wednesday.
"I believe in choice," said Shaud, who hadn't seen Barry's piece. "When charter schools and parochial schools and community schools work together then all schools, all of Baltimore, all Baltimore students, benefit."
Whichever side of the charter debate you take, you'll find Barry's Hampden-flavored version of the "anti" position interesting.
Everyone understands that creating a system where only 10% of students of color have a strong education is not good. People involved in these schools are making money on this charter chain that seeks to dismantle equal opportunity and access for most children of color. It is very, very, very bad.
Why should middle-class America care what is happening to schools in underserved communities? As with the article about Hampden above------IT WILL COME TO ALL COMMUNITIES.
The problems for the citizens of Baltimore regarding education and funding is that a crony system of politicians are allowing massive fraud and corruption to take money away from public schools-----
STOP VOTING FOR THESE CRONY POLITICIANS.
KIPP - Knowledge is Power Program (student attrition)
STUDY FINDS HIGH DROPOUT RATES FOR BLACK MALES IN KIPP SCHOOLS; March 31, 2011; Education Week
KIPP charter middle schools enroll a significantly higher proportion of African-American students than the local school districts they draw from, but 40 percent of the black males they enroll leave between grades 6 and 8, says a new nationwide study by researchers at Western Michigan University.
"The dropout rate for African-American males is really shocking," said Gary J. Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, and the lead researcher for the study. "KIPP is doing a great job of educating students who persist, but not all who come."…
This is what we call policy deliberately designed to create winners and losers and it happens because schools in Baltimore are so underfunded that parents are made to go to extremes to get a child into any school that provides funding.
THAT IS NOT PUBLIC EDUCATION. KIPP IS DESIGNED TO SELL THE IDEA OF CHARTERS AS WORKING WHEN ALL THEY DO IS SKEW ALL EDUCATION DATA AND UNDERMINE A PUBLIC SYSTEM THAT WORKS JUST FINE WHEN FUNDED.
People who say----we don't want our tax money going to underserved schools need to think this way....your tax money is being stolen through massive corporate fraud. Do you really think it better to allow a few people all the money rather than allowing all people equal opportunity quality to education? KIPP has a goal of becoming a national private charter chain that will not be providing good education as profits trump public service.
STOP SUPPORTING THE DISMANTLING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION AND FIGHT FOR WELL-FUNDED PUBLIC SCHOOLS!
NATIONAL REPORT SAYS CHARTER SCHOOL HAS HIGH STUDENT ATTRITION;
March 31, 2011; Baltimore Sun (MD)
A charter network that has two schools in Baltimore has a high level of student attrition and of private and public funding that have positioned it to be successful, according to a national report published Thursday.
The report on Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), which opened its first school in Baltimore about a decade ago and recently reached a long-term deal to remain in the city for another 10 years, suggests that the national charter school network's high performance is a result of having advantages over its public school counterparts.
The study, which was published by Western Michigan University and jointly released with Columbia University, "What Makes KIPP Work: A study of student characteristics, attrition and school finance," based its conclusions on publicly available KIPP data measured against districtwide data…
Nationally, the report found, on average about 15 percent of students leave KIPP every year, compared with 3 percent in public schools. Moreover, between grades six and eight, about 30 percent of students drop off KIPP's rolls.
The majority of students who leave are African-American males, the report found, and the schools primarily serve African-American students.
The lead researcher, Gary Miron, called KIPP's attrition a "tremendous drop-off," concluding that he believes "their outcomes would change" without the attrition.
The study also concluded that KIPP's high performance, when compared to public schools, could be a result of serving significantly fewer special-education students and English language learners — two populations that are often less competitive academically and more expensive to educate…
The report's researchers found that in addition to receiving more public funding per pupil than its public school counterparts, KIPP also received $5,760 per pupil from private funding…
"Kids who persist at KIPP do well," Miron said. "But the question is, is KIPP lifting the public schools, or are they lifting the kids who have the support to persist?"
This policy of catholic schools closing and reopening as 'public' charters is indeed another step towards privatization of public schools. So, we can see why so many public schools are having to close as large numbers of private schools are now receiving public money to run religious schools. We do not care if religious schools exist------
BUT THERE IS SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE THAT FORBIDS THIS. WE WANT PUBLIC MONEY FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
When I see catholic justice people out in the streets shouting for justice for the poor I ask does the Catholic Church really think ending the public structures of democracy really help the poor? Remember, we fought revolutions to end the Medieval church's capture of public knowledge----we do not want to go back there do we? No one believes charters paying money to churches for space is nothing but privatized church schools.
Remember, when Obama and Congressional neo-liberals pushed Race to the Top with all the charters as public schools.....this is exactly what they were moving towards....good-bye public schools and public education!
CHURCH LEADERS NEED TO SHOUT OUT FOR STRONG DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION AND NOT DRIVE THE PRIVATIZATION!
Catholic schools see new life as public charter schools
Education Top News — 01 February 2012
By Tim Ebner
Capital News Service
BALTIMORE – At first glance, visitors to Tunbridge Public Charter School in Baltimore might confuse it with a Catholic school.
The outside of the building is adorned with stained glass windows, stone archways and a cornerstone inlaid with a cross.
But on the inside, the school looks like many other public schools.
"All of the religious materials and figures have been removed from the classroom," said Lydia Lemon, the school's principal. "When we brought students into the school, we made sure to explain that this was a public school even though it's next to a Catholic Church," she said.
Tunbridge is located on the parish grounds of St. Mary's of the Assumption Catholic Church, one of a number of public schools that have taken over space that once housed a Catholic school in Baltimore.
As the Archdiocese of Baltimore confronts tough decisions on school consolidations and closures — tied to declines in student enrollment — 20 charter schools, early childhood development programs, nonprofits and private schools have moved into the once-sacred buildings.
The transformations represent a sizable share of the 70 Catholic schools currently in operation in the Baltimore archdiocese.
Almost half of the sites – nine schools – are being used as public charter schools or for head start programs for early childhood development. Charters are the single largest occupant of former Catholic schools, making up a quarter of all leases and sales.
Charter schools, like Tunbridge, offer parents and students greater school choice and free tuition, a benefit for families facing tough economic decisions, said J. Keith Scroggins, chief operating officer of Baltimore City Public Schools.
Tunbridge expects a competitive pool of 300 applicants for approximately 40 spots in next year's class. To make room, the school is expanding by renovating the former church convent.
"By bringing charters in and by creating transformed city schools, we are trying to put identical educational opportunities in every segment of Baltimore," Scroggins said.
But church leaders worry that charters compete directly with Catholic schools for student enrollment, especially for non-religious families attending the schools as an alternative to public education.
Last year, student enrollment dropped by 4.3 percent in the archdiocese, which followed a 9 percent drop the year before, said archdiocese spokesman Sean Caine.
"Schools stay open because parents want their children to receive an excellent education. We see families overcome difficulties to send their children to our schools because they believe it's important," Cardinal-designate Edwin O'Brien said.
During a visit to St. Michael's the Archangel School Tuesday, located just outside the city in Overlea, O'Brien stressed the importance of Catholic education in forming student character.
In Baltimore, Catholic schools play a historic role. The city was the first archdiocese in the United States, and a number of schools have been rooted in Baltimore neighborhoods for more than 100 years.
But at St. Michael's, where student enrollment is down and nuns no longer serve as teachers, the school will consolidate from two buildings to one for the first time in its history.
"It's an issue of economic climate, but people are also having fewer children, and there are more schools to compete with," said the school principal Patricia Kelly.
Because remaining Catholic schools face competition from charters, the archdiocese has delayed allowing charter schools to move into some of their buildings.
In March 2011, church leaders delayed an application request by a local charter school, Baltimore International Academy, to move to St. Anthony's of Padua because of concerns that the charter would affect enrollment at other nearby Catholic schools.
"We look at the population that the school will be serving, the proximity to other schools and considerations that may interfere with our schools' viability," said Barbara McGraw Edmondson, superintendent of the archdiocese's Catholic schools.
Edmondson said she did not know when the archdiocese would make a final decision on St. Anthony's.
"We think about both the long-term and temporary needs. We consider all the factors and decide on how to use the property when it's the right time," she said.
The archdiocese does not track the total revenue made by facility sales and leases within the archdiocese because a majority of funds go directly to local parishes.
Charters are not the only organizations moving into buildings that once housed Catholic schools.
When Mount Washington Elementary School in Baltimore, which is not a charter school, made an offer for space at Shrine of the Sacred Heart, the community made a hard sell for the archdiocese to accept the public school's application even though the school was not the highest paying bidder, Caine said.
The archdiocese accepted the offer.
In other instances, the archdiocese has leased or sold buildings to programs funded by the federal government's Head Start program and to private schools and nonprofits.
While charters may be seen as a threat, Lemon said she does not think that's the case at Tunbridge. Charter school leaders worked with parishioners to host meetings while the school was being renovated in 2009 and they still continue to interact with the parish.
"We've had a very positive experience with the parish," Lemon said. "I think we work together and both serve the community."
'The social media meme for Veterans Day------22 veterans commit suicide every day because they cannot get help'
BELOW YOU SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING ACROSS THE US-----VETERAN'S ADMINISTRATION IS BEING DISMANTLED AND MADE INTO PRIVATE NON-PROFITS JUST AS WITH ALL PUBLIC HEALTH. ALL FEDERAL AND STATE FUNDING FOR VETERANS ARE DIVERTED FROM THE VA MEDICAL CENTERS TO THESE UNACCOUNTABLE PRIVATE NON-PROFITS.
THE VA REPRESENTS ONE OF THE LARGEST OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND THEY ARE PRIVATIZING IT----do you really think neo-liberals plan to keep ENTITLEMENTS?
In Maryland we have no oversight and 1/2 of social service funding is stolen through fraud so when you build a system that takes public to private as is happening with the VA------all this fraud and corruption becomes harder to follow-----THINK COMPLEX FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT BY WALL STREET.
You see an endless list of charities and non-profits helping veterans. These people are not necessarily bad-----but they should recognize the value of a centralized care system and understand that statistics are showing veterans are not getting the health care these institutions claim is happening. I refer to the Medieval Ages often because what is happening is a rise of Catholic Charities for example as where people go to get help with the wealthy patrons----sending charity as they feel free. They did not pay taxes to support public systems----they did just as is happening in Maryland now.
People cannot be citizens if they are tied to charity for public service. Paying taxes just to get charity when you need help is Medieval.
STOP ALLOWING NEO-LIBERALS TO CONTROL THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY-----LABOR AND JUSTICE IS 80% OF THE DEMOCRATIC BASE----RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE TO TURN THIS AROUND!
Too many veterans charities fail to support ex-army staff ...
Baltimore VA office worst in nation for processing disability claimsOffice that handles claims for Maryland is slowest and makes most mistakes
Robert Fearing, who served in the Air Force for 20 years, with… (Barbara Haddock Taylor,…)January 26, 2013|By Yvonne Wenger, The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is the slowest in the country in processing disability claims for servicemen and servicewomen — averaging about a year — and makes more mistakes than any other office.
The failures locally are a symptom of a national breakdown: Across the country, more than 900,000 veterans wait an average of nine months for the agency to determine whether they qualify for disability benefits, according to the VA.
Even as the VA says it is working to fix problems in Baltimore and nationwide, Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, calls the situation "shameful."
"You have to think about that young veteran in Baltimore who has just come back from his third or fourth tour," he said. "They are stuck in limbo, and our veterans deserve better than that."
Officials with the VA acknowledge as much. A spokeswoman for the agency called the delays "unacceptable" and said the VA is focused on clearing its backlog and getting veterans the benefits that they have earned and deserve.
Yet meanwhile, the delays continue.
Robert Fearing, a combat veteran of the Iraq war and a Bronze Star recipient, has been hospitalized three times for paranoia and anxiety caused by post-traumatic stress disorder since he filed his disability claim with the Baltimore office 21/2 years ago. He's still waiting for his benefits.
"I have gone through war fighting the enemy and now I need to fight my own government for the benefits I deserve," said Fearing, who was an Aberdeen resident when he filed his claim but now lives in Stafford, Va. "It is absolutely frustrating and despicable."
Fearing said the base where he was stationed, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, was attacked by mortar rounds more than 150 times in the six months he served there from 2004 to 2005.
The trauma left him with paranoia, a belief that he's being investigated and followed, a feeling "you can't shake out of your head," said Fearing, 44, who is married and has two daughters at home. Fearing, who retired from the Air Force in 2007 after serving for 20 years, earned a master's degree while he was in the military to further his career in counterintelligence. But he said the work now triggers debilitating anxiety and he is seeking an early retirement from his government job.
"The real issue with it is, I want someone to acknowledge the fact that I've got it. I've had to acknowledge it and I have to live with it. What more do they need? Me to be hospitalized again?" he said.
The backlog, lag time and error rates at the VA have been the focus of congressional hearings, a cause for outrage by military advocacy groups and the subject of repeated media investigations. Yet the situation has grown significantly worse.
The VA has acknowledged that the problems at the Baltimore office, which serves all of Maryland, are severe enough to warrant additional training and quality checks.
Leaked Memo: Afghan 'Burn Pit' Could Wreck Troops' Hearts, Lungs
By Spencer Ackerman
For years, U.S. government agencies have told the public, veterans and Congress that they couldn't draw any connections between the so-called "burn pits" disposing of trash at the military's biggest bases and veterans' respiratory or cardiopulmonary problems. But a 2011 Army memo obtained by Danger Room flat-out stated that the burn pit at one of Afghanistan's largest bases poses "long-term adverse health conditions" to troops breathing the air there.
The unclassified memo (.jpg), dated April 15, 2011, stated that high concentrations of dust and burned waste present at Bagram Airfield for most of the war are likely to impact veterans' health for the rest of their lives. "The long term health risk" from breathing in Bagram's particulate-rich air include "reduced lung function or exacerbated chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, atherosclerosis, or other cardiopulmonary diseases." Service members may not necessarily "acquire adverse long term pulmonary or heart conditions," but "the risk for such is increased."
The cause of the health hazards are given the anodyne names Particulate Matter 10 and Particulate Matter 2.5, a reference to the size in micrometers of the particles' diameter. Service personnel deployed to Bagram know them by more colloquial names: dust, trash and even feces — all of which are incinerated in "a burn pit" on the base, the memo says, as has been standard practice in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade.
Accordingly, the health risks were not limited to troops serving at Bagram in 2011, the memo states. The health hazards are an assessment of "air samples taken over approximately the last eight years" at the base.
The memo's findings contradict years of U.S. military assurances that the burn pits are no big deal. An Army memo from 2008 about the burn pit at Iraq's giant Balad air base, titled, "Just The Facts," found "no significant short- or long-term health risks and no elevated cancer risks are likely among personnel" (.pdf). A 2004 fact sheet from the Pentagon's deployment health library — and still available on its website — informed troops that the high particulate matter in the air at Bagram "should not cause any long-term health effects." More recently, in October 2010, a Pentagon epidemiological study found "for nearly all health outcomes measured, the incidence for those health outcomes studied among personnel assigned to locations with documented burn pits and who had returned from deployment, was either lower than, or about the same as, those who had never deployed" (.pdf).
Over the years, thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have experienced respiratory and cardiopulmonary problems that they associate with their service. Some have sued military contractors for exposing them to unsafe conditions. For months, Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) has urged the military to create a database of vets suffering neurological or respiratory afflictions, a move that's winding through the legislative process. But the military has argued it doesn't have sufficient evidence to associate environmental conditions on the battlefield with long-term health risks — and it argued that months after this memo is dated.
"As recently as April, in correspondence with the Defense Department and in discussions with my staff, the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs both continued to maintain that research has not shown any long-term health consequences due to burn pits," Akin tells Danger Room. "They also maintained that remaining burn pits in Afghanistan were away from military populations to reduce exposure. It is disturbing to discover that at least at Bagram the military concluded that burn pits posed a serious health risk."
The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) has collected "hundreds" of anecdotes from vets complaining of health problems connected to serving near burn pits. "It's good to see someone in the military is acknowledging there are going to be long-term problems with burn pits, but it's disturbing that this memo is more than a year old and it doesn't seem like the military has done anything about it," says Tom Tarantino, IAVA's deputy policy director, who deployed to Iraq in 2005 as an Army captain. "I lived next to a burn pit for six months at Abu Ghraib. You can't tell me that was OK. That was pretty nasty. While I was there everyone was hacking up weird shit."
Any visitor to the sprawling Bagram airfield knows the burn pit — if not by sight, then by smell. It's an acrid, smoldering barbecue of trash, from busted furniture to human waste, usually manned by Afghan employees who cover their noses and mouths with medical breathing masks. Plumes of aerosolized refuse emerge from what troops refer to as "The Shit Pit," mingle with Parwan Province's already dust-heavy air, and sweep over the base. In February, that was where soldiers at the nearby Parwan detention facility accidentally incinerated the Koran.
At the time of the memo's issuance, it noted that the affected population on the base contemporaneously was "40,000 Service Members and contractors." Hundreds of thousands have cycled through the giant base since the U.S. seized it in 2001. Bagram is a major transit and logistics hub for the Afghanistan war, and one of the first bases the U.S. took and continuously operated during the war. Millions more have served in Iraq and Afghanistan near similar burn pits.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, studies conducted on the effects of breathing in Particulate Matter 10 and 2.5 have determined "a significant association between exposure to fine particles and premature mortality." The Army memo reports that Bagram's air had twice the amount of Particulate Matter 10 than the federal National Ambient Air Quality Standard, and more than three times the amount of Particulate Matter 2.5 as the standard.
Burn pits remain in use across Afghanistan. And although a study by the Institute of Medicine and sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs found last October that there is insufficient data to correlate those pits with health risks, troops' cardiovascular problems are clearly on the rise: There were 91,013 cases reported in 2010, up sharply from 65,520 in 2001. A 2010 study found half of a small sample of soldiers who struggled to run two miles had undiagnosed bronchiolitis. Hundreds of troops have sued the pits' contractor operators after experiencing chest pains, asthma and migraines. For years, the U.S. government has pled ignorance about the causes of those veterans' ailments. And unless the military formally acknowledges that the burn pits pose a long-term health risk, it will be difficult for veterans to receive long-term health care for associated respiratory and cardiopulminary ailments from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
"The acknowledgement that air-sampling data is now indicating that burn pits may pose a risk of chronic illness to our servicemen and women validates the need for the national burn pit registry that I have proposed," Akin says. Tarantino backs him up: "We don't want another Agent Orange scenario, where it takes 40 years for the military to admit the stuff was bad and then has to spend all this effort tracking down affected servicemembers."
The U.S. Army and the NATO military command in charge of the Afghanistan war did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Even casual visitors to Bagram know that the air is a menace. Within days of my most recent reporting trip there, in August 2010, I developed a disgusting, productive cough that kept me from sleeping comfortably. Airmen and soldiers joked with me about catching "Bagram Lung."
But for at least a year, the U.S. military has known that "Bagram Lung" won't stay at Bagram. There's a significant chance that it will plague a generation of Afghanistan veterans for the rest of their lives.
Do you know that Maryland/Baltimore requested that a lead paint poison lawsuit won by Baltimore residents be paid for with HUD funding for section 8 housing and low-income housing vouchers? These funds would of course be where you go to push for safety in housing for lead paint for example. It is also where money for homeless vets goes.
WHEN I SPEAK WITH THE HOMELESS MEN ON THE STREETS IN BALTIMORE MANY TELL ME THEY ARE VETERANS AND HAVE BEEN DENIED ACCESS TO HOUSING FROM BALTIMORE HUD.
There is a concerted effort to divert funds from HUD away from low-income housing and it is all illegal. When neo-liberals like Cardin and Mikulski pretend to be sending money or help-----they are not telling the truth.
THERE ARE TOO MANY VETERANS ON THE STREETS IN BALTIMORE BEING HARASSED BY POLICE AND DENIED SUPPORT.
RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU KNOW THAT MUCH OF THIS MONEY IS LOST TO FRAUD AND CORRUPTION? EVERYONE!!!
Housing Grants for Veterans in Maryland
By Serena Cassidy
Housing Grants for Veterans in Maryland thumbnail
Maryland housing grants help veterans find or adapt housing.
Federal and private organizations provide housing grant funding to military veterans who live in Maryland. The grants cover closing costs, adaptations or modification to housing for veterans with a disability, housing vouchers for homeless veterans and funding to support organizations that provide services for veterans.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development`s Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program provides grant funding to Maryland's public housing authority in the form of housing vouchers. The funding supports the transition of up to 50 homeless Maryland veterans to permanent housing units. To receive funding, veterans must have a referral to a Maryland public housing authority that has HUD VASH vouchers available. The vouchers cover up to 70 percent of a veteran's rent.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs provides grant funding via home modification programs designed to support veterans. The Specially Adapted Housing grant provides up to $50,000 in funding to veterans who have disabilities related to service to modify or adapt an existing home to increase wheelchair accessibility and enable their independence. The Special Home Adaptation grant supports veterans in modifying or adapting their home for increased mobility. The maximum grant amount is $10,000. The Home Improvements and Structural Adaptations grant provides assistance to veteran`s with disabilities, service-related or otherwise, for home improvements. Eligible improvements include modifications that allow a veteran to continue to receive treatment in his home, and adaptations to bathrooms to make them accessible. To apply, a veteran must have a medical statement from his physician stating that adaptations or modifications are necessary to remain in the home.
Do you know that the Baltimore VA is the worse run in the nation because funding cuts make it unable to operate as it should? Do you know that substance abuse treatment is part of the VA? So, why do we have cuts in funding for the VA but we have funding for private non-profits for VA? Do you know that there is a lack of public transparency with non-profits, so why would we do this?
THIS IS THE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH -----WE DO NOT WANT THIS!!
Nonprofit to Open $2.3M Facility for Homeless Veterans
Tuesday, March 22, 2011 Related
A nonprofit is building a center to treat homeless veterans with drug or alcohol addictions in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of West Baltimore.
The center at 1611 Baker St. will cost the Baltimore Station $2.3 million to build and acquire the property, executive director Michael Seipp says.
The west Baltimore site currently houses a former Catholic Rectory and two rowhomes. The 16,800-square-foot Baker Street Station will be the nonprofit's second treatment center.
Funding for the center comes from four sources: the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Abell Foundation, and the France-Merrick Foundation.
The Baltimore Station is also hosting a fundraiser April 14 in Federal Hill's Cross Street Market to raise money for the new center.
Many military troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are being asked to serve multiple tours of duty, which puts them at a higher risk of getting post-traumatic stress disorder, Seipp says. And many of these men turn to alcohol or drugs, which, in turn, can lead to homelessness.
Veterans represent about one-quarter of all homeless people, twice that of the civilian population, according to the center's statistics.
The Baltimore Station employs 28 and has a $2 million annual operating budget.
Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Michael Seipp, Baltimore Station
Do you really think every time Obama or neo-liberals in Congress and the Maryland Assembly say they are sending funding to help veterans that it actually gets to the veteran???? Not with these private non-profits all working with no oversight and no history of performance. We need professionals working in this field and not only good will and charity!!
THE ONLY TIME YOU HEAR THESE NEO-LIBERALS TALK ABOUT CARING FOR THE VETS IS WHEN MEDIA BREAKS ON HOW BAD IT IS FOR VETS!!!!!
Suicides Highlight Failures in Veterans' Support System
Are local vets getting the help they need? by Aaron Glantz — March 24, 2012, 10:55 a.m.0
Francis Guilfoyle, a 55-year-old homeless veteran, drove his 1985 Toyota Camry to the Department of Veterans Affairs campus in Menlo Park early in the morning of Dec. 3, took a stepladder and a rope out of the car, threw the rope over a tree limb and hanged himself.
It was an hour before his body was cut down, according to the county coroner's report.
"When I saw him, my heart just sank," said Dennis Robinson, 51, a formerly homeless Army veteran who discovered Guilfoyle's body. "This is supposed to be a safe place where a vet can get help. Something failed him."
Guilfoyle's death is one of a series of recent suicides by veterans who live in the jurisdiction of the Department of Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. The Palo Alto V.A. is one of the agency's elite campuses, home to the Congressionally chartered National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The poor record of the Department of Veterans Affairs in decreasing the high suicide rate of veterans has already emerged as a major issue for policy makers and the judiciary.
On Wednesday, the V.A. Inspector General in Washington released the results of a nine-month investigation into the May 2010 death of another veteran, William Hamilton. The report said social workers at the department in Palo Alto made "no attempt" to ensure that Hamilton, a mentally ill 26-year-old who served in Iraq, was hospitalized at a department facility in the days before he killed himself by stepping in front of a train in Modesto.
The Bay Area was also shocked by the March 14 death of Abel Gutierrez, a 27-year-old Iraq war veteran, who the police said killed his mother and his 11-year-old sister before shooting himself. Two weeks earlier the Gilroy Police Department intervened to ask the V.A. to help Gutierrez.
An examination of each case reveals faulty communication inside the V.A. system, which missed opportunities to help the veterans.
"I know people at the V.A. care a lot and work hard, but it's a pattern that's disturbing," said Representative Jerry McNerney, a Democrat from Pleasanton who serves on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. "It doesn't look good."
Last May, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit accused the department of "unchecked incompetence" and ordered it to overhaul the way it provides mental health care and disability benefits.
Noting that an average of 18 veterans commit suicide every day, Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote, "No more veterans should be compelled to agonize and perish while the government fails to perform its obligations." The department appealed, and Judge Reinhardt's opinion has been temporarily vacated, pending a ruling from a an 11-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit.
Gordon Erspamer, a San Francisco lawyer representing the two groups that brought the suit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, said it was "incredible that this sorry record of ineptitude and lack of procedures for emergency cases continues even under the watchful eye of the Ninth Circuit."
Two weeks before Gutierrez's death, his family called the Gilroy Police Department and asked for officers to come to their home "to get him some help," according to Sgt. Chad Gallacinao, a spokesman for the police department. Sergeant Gallacinao said a police officer who was also a military veteran was dispatched to the house and took notes.
Two days later, Sergeant Gallacinao said, the officer returned to the Gutierrez home with a representative of the Community Veterans Project, a nonprofit organization that trains law enforcement officials in interaction with psychologically wounded veterans.
"They made contact with the V.A. specifically to obtain services for Gutierrez," Sergeant Gallacinao said.
Dave Bayard, a V.A. spokesman in Los Angeles, confirmed that a call had been placed to the Vet Center in Santa Cruz, but said the request was mild. "It wasn't like 'This guy is really in need of mental health,'" Bayard said.
The V.A. said Gutierrez had briefly received care at a department facility in Washington State, where he was a National Guardsman, but never visited a department campus in California.
In an e-mail, Kerri Childress, spokeswoman for the V.A. Palo Alto Health Care System, said that despite the intervention of the Gilroy Police Department in Gutierrez's case, "We had no way of knowing he was even in the area."
Shad Meshad, a Vietnam War veteran and former combat medic who heads the National Veterans Foundation, was unpersuaded. "It's about time that they don't make excuses," Meshad said. "Why would you say it's not serious when the police called?"
Meshad said the responses of Bayard and Childress were typical of the "finger-pointing" exhibited by the department when tragedy strikes.
Before Hamilton killed himself, he said he saw demon women and regularly talked to a man he had killed in Iraq. He had been admitted to the Palo Alto V.A.'s psychiatric ward before on nine separate occasions. Three days before he died, Hamilton's father brought him to a community hospital in Calaveras County, which, according to hospital records obtained by The Bay Citizen, tried to transfer him to three V.A. hospitals, including the one in Palo Alto. But at 4:39 p.m., a department social worker wrote that day in his notes, the Palo Alto facilities "would not accept a transfer of a veteran for admittance this late in the day."
Later that night, Hamilton was admitted to David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force base in Fairfield. That Sunday, the medical center discharged Hamilton. Within hours, he was dead.
V.A. officials have said they have no record of Hamilton being denied care and that their records do not show any telephone calls between the Calaveras County hospital and the Palo Alto V.A. But the inspector general's report revealed that the Palo Alto hospital had no method of tracking incoming calls and that "no outgoing calls were recorded" from any Veterans Affairs Medical Center extension.
During the investigation into Hamilton's death, the inspector general learned of yet another incident, in May 2011, when the doctor on duty refused to accept a veteran for treatment. According to the report, the psychiatrist said, "We don't accept patients for transfer at night."
In an e-mailed response to questions, Dr. Stephen Ezeji-Okoye, deputy chief of staff of the Palo Alto V.A., said that since Hamilton's death his network had "revised our tracking mechanism so we are better able to analyze the disposition of any cases referred to the V.A. Palo Alto Health Care System." Dr. Ezeji-Okoye said the Palo Alto V.A. had always accepted psychiatric patients 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Childress, the agency spokeswoman, said the Palo Alto V.A. was committed to improving the quality and availability of mental health care. The hospital is building a new 80-bed inpatient mental health center, she said, which is scheduled to open in June. It will have "patient access to enclosed, landscaped gardens" and "ample use of natural light to all internal patients," she said, with a color scheme "specifically selected to support the healing process."
This article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.
Most of the private non-profits below are Baltimore's reason the VA is defunded-----they all have INC after the names and many are national private non-profits receiving billions of Federal and State funding all over America with no results given.
WHY WOULDN'T ALL THESE SERVICES SIMPLY COME FROM A CENTRAL VA ADMINISTRATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND?
I heard a Maryland pol say that selling the VA building was next-----getting rid of public assets!
Neo-liberals really hate public wealth!!
AID OUR VETERANS INC - Baltimore, MD
Welcome to Homeless Persons Representation
Boot Camp for Homeless Veterans--- Baltimore's Veterans Center (MCVET)
MD Homeless Military Veterans Salem Veteran Unemployment
Maryland - National Coalition for Homeless Veterans
Project PLASE Support Our Homeless Vets
Maryland Center For Veterans Education And Training - Day ...
Veterans Programs - Maryland WorkFORCE Promise
USDOL / VETS Programs for Maryland Veterans
National Coalition for Homeless Veterans Program gives homeless veterans shelter, food, health care, job
"These grants are reducing the number of homeless veterans in Maryland, and one day we will see this travesty end," said HUD Regional Administrator Jane C.W. Vincent. "These vouchers put us one step closer to reaching that goal."
'The grants announced today are part of $75 million appropriated for Fiscal Year 2012 to support the housing needs of approximately 10,500 homeless veterans. VA Medical Centers (VAMC) provide supportive services and case management to eligible homeless veterans. This is the first of two rounds of the 2012 HUD-VASH funding. HUD expects to announce the remaining funding by the end of this summer'.
Maryland Receives Resources to House Homeless Veterans, People Living with AIDS
Posted on April 16, 2012	by mdhousing Washington –
Homeless shelters in six different jurisdictions will receive more than $1.6 million to supply permanent housing for more than 180 veterans across Maryland, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced. Learn more.
The resources come through HUD's Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program as the nation works to significantly reduce the number of veterans living on the streets.
HUD also awarded $1.4 million in grants to provide permanent housing for extremely low-income Marylanders living with HIV/AIDS through the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program. Read the release.
Governor O'Malley has pledged to make homelessness a rare and brief occurrence by 2015. In January 2011, there were an estimated 7,747 individuals in Maryland – a two percent decline, according to HUD's most recent point-in-time survey. That count included more than 1,033 homeless families and 592 veterans, HUD reported.
______________________________-
Below you see the kinds of opportunities citizens of Baltimore have------students, veterans, volunteers do the work of public sector employees. As with students volunteering, there is little sign that all this volunteering gets people jobs.
Oliver is slated for affluent development and as such it is typical of the Enterprise Zone -----lots of fraud and corruption in who gets what real estate. The bottom line is that this community next to Hopkins was starved of funding and resources.....it is blighted because people were not employed to keep these communities up. At the same time billions of dollars went to East Baltimore and Hopkins over a few decades.....residents here could not get a job or if they worked at Hopkins, they were not paid enough to support themselves. THE MONEY WAS THERE TO EMPLOY PUBLIC EMPLOYEES TO KEEP THESE COMMUNITIES FUNCTIONING----BUT THE GOAL WAS TO GENTRIFY TO AFFLUENT SO HIGH-UNEMPLOYMENT AND BLIGHT DOES THAT.
Now, as you see the same groups needing jobs are doing the work of public sector employees as volunteers and VISTAs.
If you look at the Board of the Oliver Community Assoc you will see all O'Malley/Rawlings-Blake connected friends who no doubt benefit from this association. They are as well the Baltimore Democratic Party people-----THE SOURCE OF CRONY IN BALTIMORE!!!
So, what I see for veterans in Baltimore is a lot of money flowing to private non-profits and lots of veterans telling me they are not getting helped. The statistics from national research show this is true----
Oliver, Baltimore
Oliver is a neighborhood in the Eastern district of Baltimore, Maryland. Its boundaries are the south side of North Avenue, the east side of Ensor Street, the west side of Broadway, and the north side of Biddle Street. This neighborhood, adjacent to Johns Hopkins Medical Campus and minutes from the Inner Harbor, lies east of the historic Greenmount Cemetery.
More than 1400 volunteers have been mobilized in Oliver from various student, veteran, and nonprofit groups. More than 54 tons of garbage has been removed from streets and alleyways. Two large murals have been painted. More than 50 trees and shrubs have been planted. Forests of weeds have been knocked back. One resident has been enrolled in a job retraining program and dozens have been given day labor opportunities. Boys were given the opportunity to participate in service learning and to attend special events. Weekly community walk-arounds have been conducted making more than 100 reports to the city.
Paving the way
for a better future.
About Maryland Center for Veterans Education & Training
Although relatively new as an agency, MCVET has already received a great deal of attention from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. On May 7, 1997, HUD declared that MCVET was the "National Model" for seamless services to homeless veterans.
Incorporated on February 25, 1993, the Maryland Center for Veterans Education and Training is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) Corporation designed to provide homeless veterans and other veterans in need with comprehensive services that will enable them to rejoin their communities as productive citizens.
LYING, CHEATING, AND STEALING YOUR WAY TO THE TOP. WE ARE BEING FLOODED WITH FALSE INFORMATION AS POLICIES NO ONE WANTS ARE MADE TO LOOK GOOD!
Today at the Baltimore Board of Estimates meeting we had to listen yet again to Mayor Rawlings-Blake give a HIGH FIVE to the banks that ravaged the city's communities with subprime mortgage fraud for a simple donation they will write off their taxes. Wells Fargo and BOA were the leading subprime loan fraudsters who still owe billions of dollars to Maryland alone for fraud and yet, the politicians of those communities embrace these banks as they pretend to be supporting those families fleeced.
I listened to MLK's speech read in the City Hall entrance with Jack Young of all people standing with the reader....'I was touched'! says Jack Young as he spent the last decade working as hard as he could dismantling all of the gains by people of color and poor. Black contractors should not apply says this Board of Estimates and City Council. Using the poor to gain profits for the rich.....YEAH! THAT WAS FOR WHAT MLK WAS GOING!
The second scam for the citizens of Baltimore is the Youth Works program that was devised by ALEC as a way to maximize corporate profits by getting subsidized employees to do work that needed to be done anyway. Why hire someone when you can get the city to give you half the wages in this Youth Works program. Rawlings-Blake likes to say Baltimore leads in this 'innovation' but the truth is this program is in all cities in one form or another. Look at the other youth program.....VISTA or Ameri-corp. It too has youth working for very low wages being subsidized by the public to usually do work that used to be public employees making decent money.
In both cases we see a manufactured system of handing workers over to labor for almost no money paid by the business. Remember when students were sent to work for the public sector to gain lessons in civics and add to the public sector? THAT IS WHAT THESE PROGRAMS ARE REPLACING....MOVING BENEFITS FROM THE PUBLIC SECTOR TO THE PRIVATE. Are these youth from both programs getting hired after these internships? The numbers of those finding permanent work is very low!
Below you see NY with the same 'innovative' youth program as Baltimore.
Are we glad kids are working? YES. Do we want yet another way businesses take our public revenue? NO.
Governor Cuomo Launches NY Youth Works Program to Address Inner City Jobs Crisis
NY Youth Works Program Provides $62 Million for Job Training and $25 Million in Tax Credits to Combat High Unemployment among Inner City Youth
Albany, NY (January 23, 2012)
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the launch of "NY Youth Works," a statewide program to combat the unacceptably high unemployment rates among inner city youth in communities across New York. The new program, passed last month in an extraordinary session of the state legislature, includes $25 million in tax credits for businesses that hire unemployed and disadvantaged youth and $62 million to support job training programs.
"With unemployment at over 40 percent among youth in our inner cities, New York must stand up and make sure our young people are a central part of our state's economic recovery," Governor Cuomo said. "To rebuild New York, we must invest in the next generation of New Yorkers and give our young people opportunities to grow and succeed. This program will bring together government and the private sector to join forces and make a lasting impact on families, communities, and our state's economy."
The Governor and legislative leaders designed the NY Youth Works program to provide permanent, unsubsidized employment for youth across New York State. Under the program, thousands of young people can receive work readiness, occupational training and digital literacy training to build a foundation for future success. Businesses will also be offered up to a $3,000 wage subsidy in the form of tax credits to immediately put inner-city youth to work for six months. An additional tax credit of up to $1,000 will be available to employers who retain the participating youths for an additional six months. The program is a central part of Governor Cuomo's urban agenda which is designed to revitalize underserved communities across the state and address the chronic needs of those living in poverty.
Businesses interested in participating in the NY Youth Works program should visit http://www.jobs.ny.gov/youthworks. Youth interested in participating in the program can visit their local One-Stop Career Center, a listing of which can be found at http://labor.ny.gov/workforcenypartners/osview.asp, or call the New York State Department of Labor at (877) 226-5724. Eligible participants for "NY Youth Works" include unemployed, low-income youth aged 16 through 24 who are located in one of the following areas: Albany, Brookhaven, Buffalo, Hempstead, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, New York City, Rochester, Schenectady, Syracuse, Utica, and Yonkers.
Senate Minority Leader John Sampson said, "We can no longer ignore the unemployment crisis among high-risk youth in inner city communities. By putting in place the NY Youth Works program, Governor Cuomo is leading the way at confronting this major issue and providing a real solution to create jobs and incentivize businesses to give opportunities to our young people. Our first priority must be getting our state's economy back on track, and I commend the Governor for his leadership in ensuring the youth in our cities have the tools they need to put their careers in the right direction."
Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson said, "There is an unemployment crisis in our urban communities that must be addressed, and I commend Governor Cuomo for his leadership in launching the NY Youth Works program to incentivize businesses to hire inner city youth. For these young people to contribute to our state and economy throughout their careers, we must make investments in their future now, and this program does just that. I thank the Governor for his efforts to make sure urban youth are not left out of the state's economic recovery."
Senator José Peralta said, "I am proud to stand with Governor Cuomo today at the launch of the important NY Youth Works program. It is high time that government step up to address the need for jobs in inner city areas, and this program will help businesses hire at-risk youth and jumpstart their careers and future. I thank the Governor for making sure creating opportunities for our inner city youth is a major part of our state's economic recovery."
Deputy Speaker Earlene Hooper said, "I thank Governor Cuomo for taking the lead on this important issue of youth unemployment in our communities. We cannot stand by as our communities suffer, and creating jobs for our young people must be a top priority to rebuilding our neighborhoods. Governor Cuomo has been a strong voice in advocating for the need for new jobs and opportunities in our communities, and I praise him for launching the NY Youth Works program that will be a major step toward revitalizing our cities and neighborhoods."
Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes said, "This program launched by Governor Cuomo will be a big step toward putting young people in our urban communities to work. For too long, unemployment has been too high among our youth, and the NY Youth Works program will bring together businesses and government to invest in these young New Yorkers. I thank the Governor for his leadership and work to put in place this program that will be a big support for our communities."
Assemblyman David Gantt said, "We cannot afford to stand by idly as young people in our cities are unable to find work. Governor Cuomo has taken the lead in making sure our youth have employment opportunities so they can begin their careers on the right foot. The NY Youth Works program is an innovative and resourceful way of bringing together the public and private sector to create jobs and support businesses and young people. I commend the Governor for his leadership."
Assemblyman Sam Roberts said, "Governor Cuomo is right for emphasizing the importance of putting young people in urban communities to work. Creating jobs must be the centerpiece of any plan to get the economy running again. And nowhere is unemployment worse than in our cities and among inner city youth. I praise the Governor for launching this important program that will help to rebuild our neighborhoods and give our young people new hope and opportunities."
Assemblyman Phil Ramos said, "To get our state's economy running again, we must create jobs in every corner of the state. Nowhere is the jobs crisis worse than among inner city youth, and that is why the NY Youth Works program is such a critically needed program to address this need. I support and thank Governor Cuomo for leading the way on this initiative and for his efforts to create opportunities for young people in urban communities."
Assemblyman Felix Ortiz said, "I praise Governor Cuomo for putting the NY Youth Works program front and center of his agenda to revitalize inner city communities. The first step to rebuilding our communities starts with addressing the unacceptably high unemployment rates among our young people. This program will give local employers incentives to put at risk youth to work- giving them new opportunities and hope for the future. I thank the Governor for leading this effort."
Assemblyman Carl Heastie said, "After years of ever increasing unemployment rates and abysmal job growth, finally something is being done to combat the jobs crisis in inner city communities across New York State. Governor Cuomo should be commended for launching the NY Youth Works program which holds the potential to launch an economic recovery in the hardest hit parts of our cities and give our young people much needed jobs. I look forward to continuing to work together with the Governor to create jobs and make sure our inner cities are not forgotten as we get our state's economy back on track."
This is a concerted effort to capture labor for as cheaply as possible and neo-liberals are leading the way in instituting these programs!
Intern Abuse?
Posted by: Michelle Conlin on May 5, 2009
Meet the newest class of labor-market slogger: the perma intern.
The perma interns are those scarily young types moving into those cubicles vacated by layoff victims. They may even be your digital sherpa, guidling the clueless you through the dizzying terrain of social networking. It is not your imagination. They are indeed staying in the internships longer than you—or they—ever expected.
Flung into the worst labor market since the 1940s, these college-educated strivers are stuck on the lowest rung of the labor market. Making matters worse: the shriveling—and in some cases disappearing—pay. Free labor, anyone?
This has some fretting over intern abuse. "I believe that employers are taking much more advantage of interns, actually giving us work like if we were full time employees," says an intern at a international shipping company in Miami.
No doubt many companies are keeping interns on board for longer stints to cover up for the fact that they've had so many layoffs. Says perma intern, Ruben Sanchez: "I believe that I have been taking on projects not normally given to interns. I have handled highly classified information from "secret" clients due to the lack of employees."
I asked Lauren Berger, The Intern Queen, about what was going on.
Here's what she had to say:
"With an increased amount of layoffs and the inability to hire full-time employees, companies are turning to interns to get the work done. Companies that used to use only one or two interns are now asking me for five or six at a time.
Large employers who used to pay their interns have cut their paid internship programs and turned them into either no program or unpaid programs.
Many companies have interns running their entire social media campaigns. Students have already integrated social networking tools like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter into their everyday lives so it's much easier to have a student run these areas than hiring a new employee that might have to first learn about them."
Berger also mentioned another development: the rise of the "adult intern."
Says Berger, "Adults that have been recently laid off or are trying to transition into second careers, are starting to look for internships. These types of internships have been termed "alternative internships."
Adult interns? Scary.
I want to say that I am not suggesting that these are not good people who are in these programs....I am saying they are being used to supplant community leadership and because they are transitory this never leaves a leader in the community these programs are trying to help. This VISTA programs fills Baltimore at a time of historical unemployment for citizens.
The students are funded by in this case......a private non-profit and taxpayers. What about employment for residents? In Baltimore most of these VISTAS are students from out of town.
AmeriCorps* VISTA AmeriCorps*VISTAs, or Volunteers
in Service to America, commit a year of their lives to build capacity for a nonprofit, government agency, or community organization to fight poverty in America. The VISTA program is different from other volunteer programs because VISTAs are committed 24/7 to creating sustainable change.
The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) has selected Greater Homewood Community Corporation (GHCC) to provide a substantial professional development program to our VISTA members. With more than three decades of experience in recruiting, training, and managing AmeriCorps members, GHCC is uniquely qualified for this role and is proud to support the development of future nonprofit leaders.
2013-14 GHCC-Sponsored AmeriCorps*VISTA Program
GHCC is excited to welcome 17 full time 2013-14 AmeriCorps*VISTA members in July, and an additional 8 members beginning in November 2013, to serve for a period of one year on projects designed to build organizational capacity and create sustainable solutions to eradicate poverty in Baltimore City and other Maryland communities.
THE ENTIRE PUBLIC SYSTEM IS BUILT ON FALSE DATA AND CORRUPTION. THIS IS WHY FRAUD AND CORRUPTION IS RAMPANT.
We saw how Youth Works takes students out of the public sector and civics learning......we see the education system being filled with temporary people as well. EDUCATION AND CIVICS MAKES A DEMOCRACY WITH CITIZENS!
SEE HOW RIDICULOUS ALL THESE HEADLINES ARE IN MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE LEADS THE WAY!
Remember when O'Malley declared crime down in Baltimore and then we found that not only were police not responding to crime calls but when they did they were altering the events to make themselves look better?
Remember when we heard that under O'Malley access to health care was never better and then we found out that people's life spans were 20-30 years shorter in the communities he was supposedly helping....social services being just a ponzi scheme?
Remember when Baltimore was called a leader in innovation and environmental policy and then we found out that none of the policies that were said to be implemented did what they were supposed to? Corporations built on water's edge and super tankers coming up the Chesapeake (there won't be any invasive species!)
Remember when O'Malley initiated Open Government/Meetings and we found out it was all window-dressing?
Well, this is the same thing. O'Malley received years of education ratings that were predicated on soft rigor and skewed data. While throwing copious amounts of money into building a corporate education system public education K-college was ignored. You'll see other states with rigor and funding are not having the same fall in scores.
What is important is that Race to the Top isn't about achievement....it is about restructuring the public schools into for-profit private education and O'Malley is ranked first in that area!
Number of Md. schools getting top rating falls Under state's new ranking system, schools must note academic progress
Maryland saw a dramatic decrease in the number of its elementary schools that received the highest rating for academic progress under a tough new school ranking system, according to results the state released Tuesday.
Only 47 of the state's 892 elementary schools made it into "strand 1," the rung for schools that have made the most progress under the system, called the School Progress Index. That was down from 255 schools that met the criteria the year before, when the system was put into place. Schools are ranked on a scale of 1, the highest, to 5, the lowest.
Even schools from neighborhoods that promote them as the best in the state didn't make their way into the top ranking.
Schools such as Roland Park in Baltimore City, Rodgers Forge and Fifth District in Baltimore County, Clarksville and Centennial Lane in Howard County, Severna Park in Anne Arundel and North Harford in Harford County were labeled "strand 2" schools. Schools that might not always be considered top fliers — including New Town and Cromwell Valley in Baltimore County — earned "strand 1" status.
Only three of 230 middle schools met all the standards under the ranking system, far fewer than the year before.
The state also saw a nearly tenfold increase in the number of elementary schools ranked in the worst category.
State officials said parents shouldn't worry.
"The sky is not falling on Maryland education," said Jack Smith, chief academic officer for the Maryland Department of Education.
The decrease in performance across the state from last year is the result, in part, in the drop in statewide test scores. The drop has been attributed to a change in curriculum, which began last year and is fully in place this academic year.
The new rating system, which is required under a waiver the state received from the No Child Left Behind law, is likely to confuse parents. Schools are graded against their past performance rather than solely on the percentage of students who pass state tests, as they were in the past.
Every school is expected to improve its achievement on state tests, as well as close the gaps between its lowest- and highest-performing students. Unlike in previous years, the federal government does not require sanctions or other punitive changes at schools that don't meet the standards.
In many elementary schools in the state, 95 percent of children are passing state tests, so it is difficult for the schools to improve further. Therefore, a school that has a lower percentage of students passing but made good progress from last year might be rated higher than the perennial top performers.
In some cases, Smith said, the highest-performing schools might have trouble raising achievement of special education students or those learning English as a second language. The new system shines a light, he said, on those kinds of differences.
"We have worked hard to come up with a new way of looking at it that reflects the complexity of the children we serve," Smith said.
The current system was created in a rush, after the U.S. Department of Education gave states the opportunity to apply for a waiver from No Child Left Behind. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the nation could not meet the requirement of the law that every child be proficient in reading and math by 2014.
If the old standard had remained in place, Smith said, nearly every school in the state would have been considered a failing school.
"That is not a reasonable statement," Smith said.
The federal waiver was for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years, and the state will have to reapply this year.
Smith said the state will try to create a simpler and more stable approach that parents can understand.
Some schools, he said, have gone from the bottom to the top in a year, an indication that the rating system is too sensitive a tool.
New this year, the state also factored in scores on the state science tests, given in grades five and eight. The results were flat this year, although a much lower percentage of students are passing science tests than reading and math. In fifth grade, 67 percent passed; in eighth grade, 71.4 percent did.
While the state did not release a list of "strand 1" schools. Baltimore County said four of its schools had earned strand 1 status, while the number of strand 1 and 2 schools went from 83 last year to 31.