Headlines
TX: Austin studying whether to end outsourcing, despite higher costs
IL: Chicago faces $200 million claim over competing garage
NE: Neb turns to more traditional child welfare system
NJ: Cory Booker, more Stalin than superhero
NY: Leader of charter schools indicted for fraud
NY: Leaders of new group have an “interest” in education
LA: Teachers seek to oust Louisiana Gov
TX: Austin studying whether to end outsourcing, despite higher costs
Austin is taking a hard look at whether the city should curtail outsourcing of municipal jobs and appears poised to go the opposite way of communities elsewhere that have turned jobs over to contractors to cut costs…The catalyst for the review was a routine contract extension last month for a cleaning company working for Austin Energy, the city-owned electric utility. Austin Energy proposed extending the contract, but council members, after questioning why the city needs to employ an outside company, rejected the contract. Instead, a unanimous council directed the city staff to bring the 10 positions in-house, at greater expense to the city, mainly to provide health care…The council resolution states that public-sector jobs can raise the quality of life for the local workforce, particularly through retirement and health benefits, and it questions whether outsourcing guarantees a bottom-line savings for the community. Austin American-Statesman
IL: Chicago faces $200 million claim over competing garage
Under the $563 million, 99-year deal that privatized four city-owned parking garages in downtown Chicago, City Hall made a promise: It wouldn’t allow any parking facilities to open nearby. That was six years ago, under then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. Today, though, you can park just a block away in a new garage at the 82-story Aqua building — and it’s cheaper, too. That’s angered the consortium of investors who took control of the garages and thought they were safe from competition. Their group, known as Chicago Loop Parking LLC, has filed an arbitration claim against the city that could leave Chicago taxpayers on the hook for $200 million or more. The Emanuel administration also is fighting a separate, $13.5 million claim stemming from another privatization move spearheaded by Daley — the unpopular 75-year deal that turned over the city’s parking meters to private investors and led to higher parking-meter rates. That deal calls for the city to reimburse the private investors — operating as Chicago Parking Meters LLC — for lost revenue from drivers who use, and sometimes misuse, disability license plates and placards to park for free in metered spots. The meter company claims it doled out $13.5 million worth of free parking between February 2010 and February 2011, the Sun-Times has reported, and it’s demanding that City Hall pay up. Emanuel is fighting that. The bill for the past year hasn’t come in yet. Both parking claims are coming from companies controlled by the Morgan Stanley financial services firm. Partnerships assembled by the Wall Street giant hold a 99 percent stake in Chicago Loop Parking LLC and a 50.1 percent interest in Chicago Parking Meters LLC, city records show. Chicago Sun Times
NE: Neb turns to more traditional child welfare system
Three years after Nebraska turned its child welfare cases over to nonprofit agencies, top state officials admit that the privatization effort has wasted millions of dollars and failed to significantly reduce the number of children taken from their their homes. The Nebraska Legislature passed child welfare measures this year as lawmakers acknowledge the privatization efforts has been a debacle that failed because of a lack of funding, no clear goals, and little oversight that allowed costs to soar for reasons that still aren’t fully known. The newly approved legislation marks a return to government system in all but two Omaha-area counties. The state also will hire more social workers to reduce caseloads and create a new child welfare watchdog. WSLS
NY: Leaders of new group have an “interest” in education
..In a nutshell, the group [StudentsFirstNY] wants to preserve and extend the education policies of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and battle the teachers union, which has had an increasingly rancorous relationship with Bloomberg…The New York StudentsFirst group is an offshoot of the national organization StudentsFirst, created by former Washington, D.C. schools superintendent Michelle Rhee. It includes many who have backed the Bloomberg administration’s education policies over the years — people who even their foes have come to call reformers. The name persists after 10 years of “reformers” running the city’s schools and racking up a decidedly mixed record. Whatever they have or have not done for students in New York City and beyond, though, these policies have helped make some people rich and successful.Take board member and former city Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. After making about $250,000 a year in that job, Klein cashed in in 2010 when he became head of the education division at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Press accounts at the time said Klein received a $1 million signing bonus and salary of $2 million, along with stock options, and a $1,200-a-month car allowance. He also was reported to be eligible annual bonuses of up to $1.5 million a year. That bonus, one would expect, would hinge to some extent of the success of the education division, which sells technology to public schools…Also on the board of StudentsFirstNY is Geoffrey Canada, chief executive and founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone…Canada, though, is somewhat of a special interest himself — a big beneficiary of Bloomberg and his policies. Harlem Children’s Zone received at least 102 contracts, totaling more than $71 million from the city in the 10 years ending in 2009. The organization reportedly got more than $500,000 from Bloomberg himself between 2001 and 2008. It also operates three charter schools. Huffington Post
NJ: Cory Booker, more Stalin than superhero
After the internet erupted in response to the heroic exploits of Newark‘s mayor, Corey Robin decided to puncture everyone’s bubble. He culls up a passage from Slavoj Žižek on the “Supreme Genius” leader that is comically hyperbolic.* But his main point sticks: The whole story speaks to a quintessentially American love of amateurism and cowboy theatrics, but it also speaks to our neoliberal age: like the superhero of comic-book lore, Booker is a stand-in, a compensation in this case for a public sector that doesn’t work. And the reason it doesn’t work—the reason we put more stock in the antics of a Batman Mayor than a well paid and well trained city employee—is that we’ve made it not work: through tax cuts, privatization, and outsourcing, policies that Booker himself often supports. Lefty admiration for Booker has always struck me as odd since, in most of his policies, he’s the prototype for a fiercely moderate Democrat. He’s repeatedly sliced the city budget significantly. His sizable police cutbacks have become a national story, as the Newark crime rates creep up…And, as Robin points out, Booker has not been shy about privatizing city services. Critics in Newark are calling his proposal for an independent water agency a repeat of his failed 2010 privatization bid. They might not be far off. Plans to put water services in private hands are floating around in Pittsburgh and Detroit, and whispers of the p-word surround major water infrastructure changes in Philadelphia and Chicago..In his latest budget, the number of charter schools are slated to expand 21 percent over the next five years. Forbes
NY: Leader of charter schools indicted for fraud
When state investigators demanded last year to see personal tax returns filed by Eddie Calderon-Melendez, the founder and chief executive of a troubled network of charter high schools in Brooklyn, he produced them. One problem, according to the investigators, was that those state tax returns were falsified and had never been filed. Then, when the investigators studied the books of one of the schools, Williamsburg Charter High School, they found that Mr. Calderon-Melendez had used a school credit card to pay for parts of a European vacation, including accommodations at a Paris hotel and some expenses in England, they said. On Thursday, a grand jury in Brooklyn indicted Mr. Calderon-Melendez on 11 felony counts, including tax fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records. “While earning a six-figure salary funded largely by taxpayer dollars, the defendant robbed the State of New York of much-needed revenue when he failed to pay his taxes for six years in a row,” Eric T. Schneiderman, the state attorney general, said in a statement…Almost all of the money to operate the three schools came from public financing, according to investigators. Mr. Calderon-Melendez failed to pay at least $70,000 in state and city taxes on his income during those years, the authorities said. He also spent about $1,800 on personal expenses in Europe, which he charged to a school credit card, then had employees falsify school records to cover up that spending, according to the indictment. No other employees of the schools or the Believe network have been charged. The New York Times
LA: Teachers seek to oust Louisiana Gov
Two teachers have launched a recall drive to oust Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and state House Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles) from office. Angie Bonvillain and Brenda Romero, teachers in Calcasieu Parish, have launched recalls for both over the education reform policies recently passed by the legislature. The policies include relaxing teacher tenure rules, increased power for school administrators to fire teachers, tying test scores to teacher performance and the promotion of school vouchers, along with the creation of new charter schools…The two said the policies pushed by Jindal will be destructive to public schools, moving money toward private schools and relying on test scores to gauge teacher performance. Romero noted that the group also is looking at Jindal’s plans for the state’s retirement system and his efforts to privatize state prisons to galvanize support. “He waited until he was elected for a second term and then unleashed this entire change of the education system. Now he is going after the retirement system,” Romero told HuffPost. “This is all very fascist to me.” Romero suggested that Jindal is not working alone, saying that she believes the American Legislative Exchange Council is behind Jindal’s efforts. Huffington Post