Corbett Frees $45M Philly School Funds He Held Hostage

Another replay another city school closes because no schools helps children.

Truthout Interviews Featuring Candice Bernd

The chart for the Common Core.

Chicago School Board Member Benefits From District Budget Cut

Chicago School Board Member Benefits From District Budget Cut:

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Penny Pritzker (Hyatt Hotel and backer of Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel) part of the gold rush of education that is out there for real movers and shakers

School board member Penny Pritzker’s Hyatt Hotels Corp. is benefiting from a $5.2 million [tax increment financing] TIF subsidy on 53rd Street – while [Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS’s)] proposed 2013 budget cuts seven schools surrounding the hotel project by $3.4 million, which is roughly the portion CPS is losing from the TIF deal.

“This one example shows the fundamental corruption in the way things are done here,” said David Orlikoff of the Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign, a labor and community coalition growing out of Occupy Chicago’s labor committee and supporting the Chicago Teachers Union.

CTSC will hold a press conference and speakout and picket the project at 53rd and Harper on Wednesday, August 8, starting at 5:30 p.m.

“As a member of the Board of Education, it’s Penny Pritzker’s job to find money for our schools, not to take our money for her business,” Orlikoff said.

The $5.2 million subsidy is part of $20.4 million in TIF funds going to the University of Chicago-led redevelopment of Harper Court (see here for some background).  In addition to the hotel, the university is building a 12-story office building in the first phase of the project.

CTSC points out that Pritzker has a net worth of $1.8 billion, and the University of Chicago – now engaged in a huge campus expansion – has an endowment of $6.6 billion.

“They have plenty of money,” said Lorraine Chavez of CTSC.  “They don’t need a taxpayer subsidy to pay for it.  It’s outrageous.”

At Catalyst, Penny Pritzker clarifies that she’s not personally receiving the $5.2 million, and in a statement to Newstips, Hyatt points out that the Hyde Park Hyatt will not be owned by the corporation but, like many Hyatts, operated under a franchise agreement, thus “neither Hyatt Hotels Corporation nor Penny Pritzker…is receiving TIF funds as a result of this project.”

Conflict of interest

“The school board should be defending school funding when the mayor wants to take it for TIFs; it’s the only body in a position to do that,” Orlikoff said.  “But they’re appointed by the mayor, and they look the other way.

“Then they tell teachers they don’t have any money for anything, except the mayor’s pet projects.  It’s a conflict of interest – and it will be a conflict until the school board is elected.

“We need representation on the school board, and we need to end the chronic underfunding of our schools,” Orlikoff said.

CTSC, which exists “to support teachers and fight for equitable quality education,”calls for increasing school funding “by reclaiming TIFs and taxing the rich.”

TIF is “a failed program,” Orlikoff said.  “It’s not fighting economic blight, it’s a way of taking from everyone and giving to the One Percent.”

Questions on 53rd Street

There are lots of questions right now about the 53rd Street TIF, especially with a new TIF district now being carved out of it by a second developer.

Antheus Capital, planning an upscale residential and retail development at 51st and Lake Park, wants to break its parcel out of the 53rd Street TIF to form its own TIF district –  in order apply for $10 million or more in TIF funds.  The 53rd Street TIF advisory council has okayed the proposal.

But after ten years of operation, the 53rd Street TIF fund has a balance of just $3.7 million.

Now, with thirteen years to go, it’s on the hook for a $20-million subsidy, whilerevenues are slowing (due not just to a lousy economy but to the County Assessor’s new formula, which shifts the property tax burden from commercial to residential taxpayers) – and the TIF district is getting smaller.

“Many of us don’t expect to seek Phase 2″ ( a 26-story condo tower and four apartment buildings, estimated to cost $100 million), said longtime  community activist George Rumsey.  “It’s hard to see where the money’s going to come from . Everyone is wondering if there’s going to be enough to finish the first phase.”

“For two years I’ve been asking who is liable if the TIF funds come up short,” he said Rumsey.  “I have not gotten an answer.”

Fourth Ward Ald. Will Burns has backed Hyatt’s TIF subsidy, telling the Sun Times it’s “absolutely essential,” though the Ramada Lakeshore hotel is located a few blocks away.

Time to ‘revisit’ TIF?

The Hyde Park Herald called for “revisiting” the 53rd Street TIF in an editorial last week.  It points out that the TIF district was sold to residents in 2001 on the basis of promised community benefits, including a new addition for Canter Middle School and a parking lot, none of which have materialized.

The stated purpose of the 2001 TIF was to provide support for schools and parks and increase parking, Rumsey said.  
In fact a city parking lot at 53rd and Lake Park is being gobbled up by the Harper Court project
. The development now under construction includes two floors of parking.

“The one concrete advantage” for the community, a program which hired ex-offenders for street beautification, was cancelled, supposedly due to inadequate funds, the Herald points out.

“There is little evidence at this point that this TIF will do much more than TIFs have done in other parts of the city, namely grease the wheels of development,” according to the Herald.

And given reaction to the Antheus proposal, “it appears that the neighborhood is not any more enthusiastic about supporting private development with public money than it was when the TIF was first brought up in the ’90s.”

Hyatt under pressure

Meanwhile, Hyatt Hotel Corp. has problems of its own.  Major organizations including the AFL-CIO and the National Organization for Women have signed on to a global boycott of Hyatt hotels to protest the company’s outsourcing of union jobs to agencies that pay minimum wage and its refusal to adjust workloads – or even provide mops with long handles — to reduce injuries.

In Chicago, while other hotels have negotiated over limits on subcontracting and safer working conditions, Hyatt has refused to do so, according to press releases from UNITE-HERE, which represents hotel workers.

In May, OSHA issued an unprecedent letter to Hyatt calling on the company to take steps to reduce the risk of injury (h/t 1537 News).  OSHA has issued 21 citations against Hyatt and its subcontractors.

Staffing reductions and an “amenities race” has increased the risk of permanent, disabling injuries for housekeepers, according to a 2006 study by the union.  A 2010 study found Hyatt workers had the highest rate of injuries of hotel chains studied; Hyatt’s injury rate was twice as high as the best-performing chain in the study.

Hyatt housekeepers’ workload is double the industry standard, according to the union.

“Hyatt’s workplace environment is being characterized inaccurately by union leadership as part of tis ongoing campaign to pressure Hyatt associates to join their union in non-union locations,” said Katie Rackoff, Hyatt’s director of corporate communications, in an email which cited Hyatt’s “outstanding safety record.”

At the end of the month, Hyatt workers in Chicago will have been working for three years without a contract.

The Pritzker family took the Hyatt Cororation public in 2009 but retained control with a separate class of shares that have ten times the voting power of common stockholders.  Penny Pritzker sits on Hyatt’s board, which is chaired by her cousin, Thomas Pritzker.  The family’s total worth is estimated at $20 billion.

In the 1990s, Penny Pritzker chaired the board of Superior Bank as it plunged into the subprime market (the bank later collapsed); recently she established a private equity firm to invest in distressed properties.  (More here.)

She’s a major donor to Mayor Emanuel’s campaign fund and to Stand For Children, which pushed anti-union legislation in Springfield.

Originally Posted: http://truth-out.org/news/item/10851-chicago-school-board-member-benefits-from-district-budget-cut

80% of Michigan Charter Schools are For-Profits - Forbes

80% of Michigan Charter Schools are For-Profits - Forbes:

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Dr. Gary Miron of Western Michigan University recently testified before the Michigan State House that school reformers have “gone away from those original charter ideas to the point that they should probably be called ‘corporate’ schools or ‘franchise’ schools instead. I like charter schools. I like the notion of charter schools. But what we’re talking about now is something that is very different. We need to go back to the original intent and goals.”

Earlier this year, Dr. Miron testified [pdf] before the US House of Representatives, stating:

Charter schools have provided an easy route for privatization; many states allow private schools to convert to public charter schools, and increasing the use of private education management organizations is increasingly being seen as the mode for expanding charter schools.

Today, one-third of the nation’s charter schools are being operated by private education management organizations (EMOs) and this proportion is growing rapidly each year. In states such as Michigan, close to 80% of charter schools are operated by private for-profit EMOs.

Four out of five charter schools in Michigan are run by for-profit corporations. Let that sink in a minute. This should be deeply, deeply troubling for anyone thinking about their child’s future education, or the future of this country.

We’ve had years to examine for-profit education results at the higher education level. Companies like University of Phoenix and others cost taxpayers money, provide subpar education, serve as diploma mills, and prey on students who may never be able to pay back the tens of thousands of dollars in student loans they take on. They even prey on military veterans and active-duty service members.

We should be terrified of this happening to our public schools. Yet here it is happening nonetheless, all across the country. The corporate takeover of public education is underway, though its origins may be in the good intentions of people like Dr. Miron and the well-meaning efforts of school reformers to improve the education prospects of our children.

full article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/29/80-of-michigan-charter-schools-are-for-profits/

cheating chancellor Michelle Rhee talks how to fix education, the economy and anything else they care to ask on Meet the GE Press

Despite public outcry, Chicago approves closure of 17 schools

Just shocking they have to ignore the community to help their children. What a laugh.

The sorry state of education. Start by blaming the people in charge the politicians

New York City Teacher Ratings: Teacher Data Reports Publicly Released Amid Controversy

New York City Teacher Ratings: Teacher Data Reports Publicly Released Amid Controversy

The New York City Department of Education released today a list of individual ratings of thousands of the city's schoolteachers, a move that concludes a lengthy legal battle waged by the local teachers' union and media.

The Teacher Data Reports rate more than 12,000 teachers who taught fourth through eighth grade English or math between 2007 and 2010 based on value-added analysis. Value-added analysis calculates a teacher's effectiveness in improving student performance on standardized tests -- based on past test scores. The forecasted figure is compared to the student's actual scores, and the difference is considered the "value added," or subtracted, by the teachers.

LP - There should also be a listening of the politician and what the grades are like in their districts. Then for Bloomberg how New York compares against other cities. Why do the politicians get free rides?

Chicago parents, students and teachers take a stand on ed reform

Santorum bashes public schools, says they're stuck in factory era - wtvr

Santorum bashes public schools, says they're stuck in factory era - wtvr

In his remarks to the Ohio Christian Alliance, however, Santorum went further, seeming to attack the very idea of public education.

In the nation’s past, he said, “Most presidents homeschooled their children in the White House.… Parents educated their children because it was their responsibility.”

“Yes, the government can help,” he continued, “but the idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly much less that the state government should be running schools, is anachronistic.”

He said it is an artifact of the Industrial Revolution, “when people came off the farms where they did homeschool or had a little neighborhood school, and into these big factories … called public schools.”

Activists, parents 'occupy' school slated for turnaround | WBEZ

Activists, parents 'occupy' school slated for turnaround WBEZ

A group of parents and activists have taken over a West Side Chicago public school, marking a new level of opposition to district plans to close or turn around schools.

Tents were set up Friday evening outside Piccolo Elementary, and parents, students and activists were occupying classrooms on the first floor, with plans to stay there.

The school district wants to completely re-staff the school—firing the principal, teachers and ancillary staff like the lunch ladies.

All the students would continue at Piccolo, which would be run by the nonprofit Academy for Urban School Leadership, a teacher training academy with close ties to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration. AUSL specializes in turning around failing schools. In all, the district is proposing to completely re-staff a record 10 schools by fall

LP - This is the level of opposition we need to keep control of our school and out of the hands of our politicians.

Corporate Education Reformers Plot Next Steps at Secretive Meeting | Common Dreams

Corporate Education Reformers Plot Next Steps at Secretive Meeting Common Dreams

Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an "island" resort on the coast of Florida to a unique "education academy" sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise.What is ALEC Scoring on Its Education "Report Card?"

Little is known about the agenda of the ALEC education meeting taking place at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island. The meeting is not open to the public and recently even the press has been kicked out of meetings and barred from attendance. So to understand the ALEC agenda with regard to education, it is important to examine ALEC's education "scorecard."

Imagine getting a report card from your teacher and finding out that you were graded not on how well you understood the course material or scored on the tests and assignments, but rather on to what extent you agreed with your teacher's strange public policy positions. That is the best way to understand the American Legislative Exchange Council's 17th Report Card on American Education released last week.

The Modern American Education System educational fascism

Teaching the next generation that lying, an stealing and cheating are ok

This is so stunning and so shocking I could predicted it about five years ago and in fact I did. It appears that both Washington DC and Atlanta has made tremendous strides toward ed reform. I don't think ed reform will have worked until all the major urban areas are cheating.

 My favorite quote “APS (Atlanta Public Schools) is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.

I guess that makes the former superintendant the godmother and she knows all the big players in ed reform and they all think she is a "good fella". Excuse me that "good maddam."


http://www.ajc.com/news/investigation-into-aps-cheating-1001375.html