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IL: Chicago Toll Road Gets Go-Ahead From Regional Transportation Group. A regional transportation body voted Thursday to move forward on a $1.5 billion public-private toll road outside Chicago, a day after a different group of local officials tried to kill the project. . . .The Illiana Expressway has long been discussed here as a way to improve travel south of Chicago and help speed up interstate trucking. The toll road, opposed by some local officials and environmental groups, has the backing of the governors of Illinois and Indiana and is expected to receive final approval from federal officials in coming months. Wall Street Journal

IL: Red-Light Cameras, Fuzzy Math And Breadsticks. . .Take the case of the red-light cameras, which recently generated $8 million in city revenue on 77,000 tickets related to yellow lights shorter than Chicago’s autumn. The city said, in essence: “Our bad. We fired the first band of greedy corporate dullards who bribed their way into that contract. We are certain—well, let’s say hopeful—the new band greedy corporate dullards will do much better. “Oh, and even if there IS a problem, we can have one of the city’s two embattled and hamstrung inspectors general make sure everything is on the up and up.’’ The beauty of privatization, other than the financial windfall, luxury junkets, and general abdication—having more people to blame when things go completely tits up. How can you blame Mayor Rahm Emanuel for making Chicago the subject of the world’s largest outsourced traffic enforcement program, though? I mean, the privatization of our parking meters was such a rousing success. Chicagoist

TX: Toll road opponents plan ‘Super Tuesday’. . . The activist group Texans United for Reform and Freedom (TURF) plans to hold a press conference at 9:30 a.m. on Tue. Oct. 14 in front of the Hunt County Auxiliary Courtroom at 2700 Johnson St. in Greenville. TURF also plans to make its case during the Hunt County Commissioners Court meeting scheduled for 10 a.m. at that same location. The organization has announced intentions to have supporters present later that evening at city council meetings in Caddo Mills, Greenville, Royse City and Rowlett. Organizers are referring to the coordinated activities as “Super Tuesday.” Six cities along the proposed road’s possible pathway – Fate, Lavon, Nevada, Rockwall, Sachse and Wylie – have passed resolutions opposing the proposed toll road. 88.9 KETR

Private prisons face suits, federal probes. Conditions have become so terrible in some private prisons that some have been kicked out. Florida-based GEO got the boot in Mississippi after a federal judge in 2012 called the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility “a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions.” In Idaho, the FBI is investigating the Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America after allegations that records were falsified to cover up staff shortages at the Idaho Correctional Center, where gangs ruled and violence was so rampant it was called “Gladiator School.” Jackson Clarion Ledger

America’s Crusade Against Its Public School Children. A specter is haunting America – the privatization of its public schools, and Big Money has entered into an unholy alliance to aid and abet it. Multi-billionaire philanthropists, newspaper moguls, governors, legislators, private investors, hedge fund managers, testing and computer companies are making common cause to hasten the destruction of public schools. Huffington Post

How to spot a fake ‘grassroots’ education reform group. One problem with today’s education reform environment is that a number of groups exist that call themselves “grassroots” organizations, but which have expanded rapidly because of large infusions of cash from corporations and foundations invested in pushing charter schools, mass high stakes testing, data mining students and the Common Core standards. These groups do not exist to represent the organically derived priorities and shared interests of students, teachers and parents; they exist to put a more credible face on the priorities and shared interests of a very narrow but astonishingly influential set of repeating characters. Washington Post (blog)

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IL: Chicago Toll Road Gets Go-Ahead From Regional Transportation Group. A regional transportation body voted Thursday to move forward on a $1.5 billion public-private toll-road project outside Chicago, a day after a different group of local officials tried to kill it. The approval comes as private groups are wading back into highway projects with a new business model following a string of toll-road deals that ended in bankruptcy. The Illiana Expressway has long been discussed here as a way to improve travel south of Chicago and help speed up interstate trucking. The toll road, opposed by some local officials and environmental groups, has the backing of the governors of Illinois and Indiana and is expected to receive final approval from federal officials in the coming months. Wall Street Journal

DC: Really? DC charter school employees to get admissions preference for their kids.. . . Charter schools, it is worth remembering, are public schools, at least in the sense that they are funded with public dollars (though some get private donations). They are permitted to operate outside the traditional school system, and do not have to be as transparent about their operations as traditional schools. Families who want to send children to charter schools apply, and when there are more applications than seats, a lottery is instituted. Supposedly students are randomly drawn, except for those who have received preferences in the past. But giving a break to founding board members’ children isn’t enough for the D.C. Council. Now members voted to give a preference to the children of charter school employees who work full time and are D.C. residents. Charter school leaders and teachers lobbied the council earlier in the year for such a measure and were rewarded for their efforts in the 2015 Budget Support Act. Washington Post (blog)

The Price of Privatizing War. . . No matter what you think about “for-profit killing and the commodification of conflict,” McFate makes a strong case that demand for PMCs will expand in the decades and, perhaps, centuries ahead. The privatization of war is a growth business. . . . The Modern Mercenary is filled with fascinating stuff, and its bottom line is that there is no stopping the continuing development of the market for force. So, what—if anything—should be done? McFate says we have to regulate the industry while the free market for its services is still dominated by the demand from a few big customers, mainly the U.S. If we don’t, he warns, the profit motive could cause PMCs to perpetuate armed conflict. And then, we might really get a look at what the world was like in the Middle Ages. strategy+business (blog)

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This Is What Happens When Republicans Try to Destroy Public Education. A month out from the midterm elections, Republican candidates around the country are confronting a shared, and significant, vulnerability: education. The conservative wave of 2010 allowed Republicans to implement slash-and-burn governance in several states—what Kansas Governor Sam Brownback called a “real live experiment” in tax cuts for corporate interests and cuts to services for everyone else. One of the most devastating casualties was public schools and universities. Now, several Republicans could fall victim to their own experiment. . . . “I’ve never seen this level of anger about what policymakers have done in some places to our schools,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. Weingarten thinks it’s not only underfunding that’s made education a top-tier issue but also the effect of efforts to privatize public education. “The market-based reforms, the top-down reforms, the testing and sanctioning as opposed to supporting and improving has taken hold so much and has been so wrong-headed that you’re seeing this fight back,” she said. The Nation

IL: Move to kill Illiana toll road project falls short. An effort by members of the Chicago region’s main planning board to kill the controversial Illiana toll road fell short this morning. The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning board needed a 12-vote supermajority of its 15 members to remove the Illiana from its comprehensive plan, but opponents of the project could only muster 10 votes. The spotlight will now fall on members of a companion agency, the Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Committee, who will meet on the same issue Thursday. The Policy Committee gave its support to the Illiana last year, and some experts did not expect that outcome to change Thursday. . . . Opponents had hoped to halt the effort to build the 50-mile, four-lane highway across southern Will County that would link Interstate 55 with I-57 and I-65. Chicago Tribune

IL: Chicago Public Schools Under Fire Over Dirty Conditions, Rotten Food. . . Recent money-saving moves to privatize management of custodial and cafeteria services have drawn the ire of parents and faculty, who have alleged schools are dirtier — and school lunches are worse — than ever. A teacher at a high school on the city’s Southwest Side, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal from the district, described where he’s taught for the past eight years as “gross and disgusting.” “We’re running out of toilet paper,” he said. “I’m seeing more bugs than ever before. There’s overflowing trash that sits for days and weeks in some cases.”. . . “It’s gross and disgusting and my health is being affected,” he said. “I want to be outside the minute I’m in here. It smells. Everything smells and I can’t focus. If I can’t focus to teach, how can kids focus to learn?” The complaints follow the school district’s hiring of Philadelphia-based Aramark in February to supervise and train school custodians. Aramark in the spring pulled many custodians from their longtime schools and assigned them to a floating pool of janitors. This led to fewer permanent custodians in schools, and talk of layoffs. Huffington Post

IN: Going private keeps taking its toll. . . The money from the Indiana Toll Road lease is gone, and now the foreign consortium running it has declared bankruptcy, ominously struggling against low use combined with raised tolls and much-criticized service. The spectacular failure of IBM’s takeover of welfare eligibility determination, a fiasco that wrought untold suffering upon the poor, disabled and elderly, has the state before the Indiana Supreme Court trying to scratch back tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. Could you please tell us again, Mitch Daniels and Grover Norquist and the rest of you libertarian luminaries, how privatization of basic government functions beats letting the government handle the work and control the revenue stream? NUVO Newsweekly

NY: 17 New Charter Schools Approved for New York City. The state approved 17 new charter schools for New York City on Wednesday, substantially increasing the size of one of the city’s largest and most polarizing charter networks, Success Academy, and setting up a battle over where the schools will be located.. . . . While the state approves the creation of these institutions, it is up to New York City to decide where to put them. Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, an enthusiastic supporter of charters, eagerly offered free space to charter schools inside public school buildings, but Mayor Bill de Blasio has strongly indicated that his administration would take a different approach. A new state law championed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo forces the city to give new charter schools free space or to help pay their rent in private space, but if a deal cannot be reached, the issue could go to court. New York Times

KS: Critics of Kansas’ Medicaid Privatization Program Call for Investigation. Amid reports of possible corruption and complaints of long waits for benefits have come calls for an investigation into the Medicaid privatization program championed by Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R). KanCare was launched in January 2013, when the state’s traditional Medicaid program was phased out. In its place the Brownback administration contracted three for-profit health insurance companies to coordinate health care for more than 360,000 low-income residents.. . . However, over the past year and a half, all three companies lost money. In 2013 the three companies lost a total of $110 million, and in the first half of this year the companies lost another $72.6 million. Opponents of the program are now growing concerned that if any of the three companies were to withdraw from KanCare, it could cause a significant disruption in service. Delays in reimbursement payments to health-care providers have also been reported. RH Reality Check

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Why Are Teach for America and a California Billionaire Investing in a Minnesota School Board Race?. . . This kind of involvement in local elections is nothing new for either Cioth or Rock. In 2013, for example, Cioth’s group, SFER, was listed in a Progressive magazine article as one of the main funders of the pro-charter school group “A Better Connecticut,” which endorsed a slate of candidates for the Bridgeport Board of Education. Cioth is also on the board of the NewSchools Venture Fund, based in California and a leader in what has been termed the “venture philanthropist” approach to education: one that emphasizes on technology, data and charter school growth. In the video below, investigative journalist David Sirota zeroes in on the profit motive behind such technology-oriented groups, which, in Sirota’s words, often “try … to buy a big-city school board election” in order to more easily tap into what is estimated to be a $790 billion K-12 market. In These Times

IL: Progressives Try to Break Council Rules Committee Logjam. Two pieces of legislation in City Council are due to get a hearing this week, both of them sponsored by members of the Progressive Reform Caucus and both buried in the Rules Committee for more than a year. The first, an ordinance sponsored by Ald. Rod Sawyer (6) is known as the Privatization Transparency and Accountability ordinance, and is due to be heard in a Rules Committee hearing today. Originally introduced into Council in 2012, the ordinance is designed to create “greater oversight, disclosure and public discussion” before any efforts to privatize city services or assets is finalized. NBC Chicago

TX: Landowners Seeking Answers Over Proposed Toll Road. The study into building a toll road through Hunt, Collin, Dallas and Rockwall counties continues to draw controversy. On Monday, the Wylie city council unanimously voted to oppose the construction of a private toll road in a special session. The proposed project is a product of a study by the North Central Texas Council of Governments called The Blacklands Corridor Study, which is examining future population growth, travel patterns, existing roads and future needs in the area. NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

GA: Pilot program to privatize foster care in Athens put on hold. A pilot program to place foster care in the hands of an organization other than the state’s Division of Family and Children Services in Athens-Clarke County and surrounding areas has been placed on indefinite hold. The bidding process for the project, which has been labeled privatization but would likely use government-chartered nonprofits similar to charities that already provide mental health services under the state’s umbrella, will reopen after the agency consults with the Child Welfare Reform Council and other stakeholders, Graham said. Online Athens

PA: Postal clerks protest extending services to Staples stores. Post office clerks rallied outside a Staples office supply store in Center City Tuesday. They were complaining that the U.S. Postal Service’s plans to install in-store postal counters where lower-wage Staples employees sell stamps and accept packages hurts postal jobs and jeopardizes the safety of the mail. The post office “is not for sale,” protesters chanted at the rally organized by their union, the American Postal Workers Union. Calling for a boycott of school supplies at Staples, the workers say the Staples initiative is part of a postal management plan to privatize the Post Office. Philly.com

PA: Philadelphia’s school reform debacle. The Philadelphia school district has become the prime example of the problems with a corporate-style school “reform” agenda. Parents, teachers and students have resisted full privatization, New Orleans-style, and have found themselves punished for resistance as Gov. Tom Corbett, who controls the schools after a 2001 takeover by the state, slashes school budgets, wipes out thousands of jobs, and shutters dozens of schools. The latest move by Corbett and the Philadelphia School Reform Commission (SRC), which replaced an elected school board after the 2001 takeover, is to unilaterally cancel the city’s contract with the 15,000 members of the Philadelphia Federation of teachers. Salon

 

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Bob Herbert: The Plot Against Public Education . . . Charter schools were supposed to prove beyond a doubt that poverty didn’t matter, that all you had to do was free up schools from the rigidities of the traditional public system and the kids would flourish, no matter how poor they were or how chaotic their home environments. Corporate leaders, hedge fund managers and foundations with fabulous sums of money at their disposal lined up in support of charter schools, and politicians were quick to follow. They argued that charters would not only boost test scores and close achievement gaps but also make headway on the vexing problem of racial isolation in schools. None of it was true. Charters never came close to living up to the hype. After several years of experimentation and the expenditure of billions of dollars, charter schools and their teachers proved, on the whole, to be no more effective than traditional schools. In many cases, the charters produced worse outcomes. And the levels of racial segregation and isolation in charter schools were often scandalous. While originally conceived a way for teachers to seek new ways to reach the kids who were having the most difficult time, the charter school system instead ended up leaving behind the most disadvantaged youngsters. POLITICO Magazine

ALEC is coming to a city block near you. . . . “Local politics in America is the purest form of democracy,” Pittsburgh city council member Natalia Rudiak said to The Guardian about the ACCE. “There is no buffer between me and the public. So why would I want the involvement of a third party acting on behalf of a few corporate interests?” Rudiak’s comment cuts to the core of the matter: ALEC wants to take the same sort of highly ideological agenda that has stunted progress in Washington and state capitals and impose it at the metro level. If Americans let them succeed, we will lose the most promising frontier in democratic policymaking today — local government — along with our communities. Al Jazeera America

OH: Ohio prison employees stage protest for more guards, less privatization. Dozens of prison workers and union members picketed Ohio’s prison agency Monday, demanding that more guards be hired and that the state’s food-service contract be scrapped. The demands by the Ohio Civil Service Employee Association are not new. But as hundreds of guard positions have been cut while Ohio’s inmate population nears record levels, the union says changes are now needed more than ever to prevent incidents like last month’s escape of Chardon school shooter T. J. Lane. The Plain Dealer

TX: The trouble with toll roads in Texas. Texans aren’t so fond of toll roads. A Texas Transportation Institute study released last month found that from a list of 15 potential ways to improve transportation in the state, building more toll roads was by far the least popular option. Over 1,000 citizens reportedly filled a public meeting last month in Rockwall to show opposition to a private tollway. TribTalk

 

 

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Was the ‘original bargain’ with charter schools a raw deal?. Charter school advocates didn’t like it recently when Brown University’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform issued a report calling for the strengthening of charter oversight and authorization. While noting that many charters work hard to “meet the needs of their students,” the report said that “the lack of effective oversight means too many cases of fraud and abuse, too little attention to equity, and no guarantee of academic innovation or excellence.” It provided some common-sense recommendations, including an innocuous call for the establishment of minimum qualifications for charter school treasurers. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, not surprisingly, bashed the report. . . . Yes, there are many fine charter schools. But seriously bad news about many others keeps coming, and concerns are rising as the number of charters overall is increasing. Washington Post (blog)           

Oped: A Perilous Dependence on Contractors. THE director of the Secret Service has resigned after, among other problems, the revelation that, in a visit to Atlanta on Sept. 16, President Obama rode in an elevator with a private security contractor who was carrying a gun and had an arrest record. The episode raises a crucial question: How thoroughly does the government vet the private security contractors that an increasing number of agencies employ? We live in an era in which our government has become dependent on contractors for our defense and security. But the speed of that industry’s development and our consumption of its services far surpass the agencies’ ability to hold contractors accountable for the vetting and training of their employees. New York Times

IN: The Indiana Toll Road: How Did a Good Deal Go Bad?. . . For one, the Indiana Toll Road, as well as many others, experienced dramatic drops in traffic due partly to the Great Recession. In 2010 it was estimated that the road needed nearly 11 million toll-paying trucks each year just to break even, but only half as many traveled the highway. While the revenue situation improved in 2012, the road’s financing structure may have had an even bigger impact. Using a common project finance tool called anaccreting swap, the consortium hoped to exchange low debt service costs early on with higher costs later, and then eventually refinance. But the consortium’s inability to meet these increasing debt costs that ultimately prompted the filing. The road’s total debt obligations now stand at nearly $6 billion, up from $3.4 billion at the time of acquisition. Forbes

IL: Crucial vote looms on controversial toll road. Nearly a year after backers of the proposed billion-dollar Illiana toll road won a crucial battle to drive the controversial project forward, another showdown looms this week.Opponents hope to halt the effort to build the 50-mile, four-lane highway across southern Will County that would link Interstate 55 with I-57 and I-65. Supporters tout the Illiana as a job-generating economic boon for the state’s fastest-growing county and its burgeoning intermodal freight facilities. Foes predict it will be the biggest boondoggle in state history, saddling taxpayers with $1 billion in costs while defiling farmland and the environment. The Illiana clash ranks as perhaps the most contentious transportation tiff since the 1970s, when former Mayor Richard J. Daley failed to ram through the $1.2 billion Crosstown Expressway that would have bisected the city. Chicago Tribune

MI: New Bills Could Make It Harder To Privatize State Jobs. Under the title “transparency” Michigan House Democrats introduced a package of bills targeting private contractors with the State. The bills (at least on the surface) say that before privatizing, the state should look at all the numbers in the budget, and the impact on communities. Hard to argue with that sentiment – if that was all it did. The bills also prohibit private companies from bidding if they are in violation of any law. Again that makes sense on the surface, but we don’t even hold our own state employees to that standard. wfxd.com

NY: Charter School Backers Rally, Hoping to Influence de Blasio’s Policies. The rally at Foley Square, which included speeches by politicians and a performance by the musician Questlove, was part of a coordinated campaign, organized primarily by charter school advocates, to put pressure on Mayor Bill de Blasio as he and legislators in Albany develop their education agendas in the coming months….While Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was an enthusiastic promoter of charter schools, Mr. de Blasio’s support is far more muted and conditional. This year, the campaign for charter schools has included a website, a social media campaign and a rally that drew thousands. But beyond drawing attention to the city’s struggling schools, it has not included specific, stated goals, like more charter schools, for example. New York Times

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How Privatizing Medical Records Will Harm You
Imagine you’re a doctor at a clinic in New York City. You have a patient come in who’s in New York City on business. Their normal doctor is hundreds of miles away in California. In order to treat the patient, you need access to their medical files from their doctor in California. But, you learn that those files are stored in a digital program that your clinic doesn’t use, making it next to impossible to get access to them, and to treat your patient. This isn’t just some hypothetical situation. It’s a scenario that’s playing out all across America today thanks to the conservative ideology that says our public spaces, our commons, which should include our healthcare system, should instead be in the hands of for-profit companies. All across the country, doctors and healthcare workers are finding it increasingly hard to treat patients, because of electronic health record systems that don’t share information with competing systems. The systems, which were installed to help reduce costs and improve patient care, have, in many cases, made patient care a nightmare. thomhartmann.com

A New Argument for Vouchers
Now, the new siren song is that they save money! Politico reports “the fiscal case for vouchers:” “The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice touts vouchers as an ideal way to shake up the “government monopoly” on public education. Now the foundation aims to prove that vouchers make good financial sense, too. A report out today calculates that voucher programs in six states plus D.C. saved taxpayers $1.7 billion between 1990 and 2011. (States typically spend less on a voucher for private school tuition than educating a student in public school.) “Parents are already demanding school choice. Taxpayers should be, too,” said Robert Enlow, the foundation’s president and CEO. The report does not look at the quality of education in voucher schools, under fire in many states. Nor does it look at tax-credit scholarships, which allow individuals and corporations to cut state tax bills by donating to private school scholarship funds. Just think: abolish public education and save hundreds of billions! I thought the point was better education, not cheaper and worse education. DianeRavitch’s Blog

Kansas Is a Portent of Republican Medicare Privatization Disaster. . . In January 2013, Brownback promised that transferring the care of 380,000 Medicaid recipients to three private companies would not sacrifice their level of care, and the number of people on Medicaid’s waiting list would be reduced. He also promised the wholesale privatization of Medicaid under KanCare would save $1 billion, and yet a year-and-a-half later Kansas is so starved of revenue bankruptcy is in sight, schools are in crisis, courts face closure, children’s’ homeless shelters close for lack of $100,000, and ratings agencies are downgrading the state’s credit at regular intervals. What Brownback has not campaigned on, and Democrats across the nation are obviously unaware of, is that the only possible way three private managed-care organizations could realize cost savings is by cutting Medicaid services. PoliticusUSA

IN: INDOT Concerned About Toll Road Plaza Conditions
The Indiana Department of Transportation says it’s concerned about the deteriorating condition of the state’s Toll Road plazas. Last week, South Bend Representative David Niezgodski of South Bend wrote a letter to INDOT, calling the dirty bathrooms he encountered while traveling along the Toll Road embarrassing and unacceptable. INDOT responded this week, saying it agrees with Niezgodski’s assessment. In June, the Indiana Finance Authority sent a letter to the Indiana Toll Road Concession Company, saying they’d received several complaints about dirty and unsanitary bathrooms. Indiana Public Media

IN: Commentary: Going private keeps taking its toll
The money from the Indianapolis water-sewer utility sale is gone, and rates are going up, as the city told us would happen, sale or no sale. The money from the Indianapolis parking meter sale is gone, and rates have risen and billable hours have lengthened, with the collections flowing past city coffers to an outfit in Texas. The money from the Indiana Toll Road lease is gone, and now the foreign consortium running it has declared bankruptcy, ominously struggling against low use combined with raised tolls and much-criticized service.The spectacular failure of IBM’s takeover of welfare eligibility determination, a fiasco that wrought untold suffering upon the poor, disabled and elderly, has the state before the Indiana Supreme Court trying to scratch back tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. Could you please tell us again, Mitch Daniels and Grover Norquist and the rest of you libertarian luminaries, how privatization of basic government functions beats letting the government handle the work and control the revenue stream? The Statehouse File

TX: Private Wylie-to-Greenville Toll Road Will Displace Disabled Children on Horses
. . . “The property is just absolutely gorgeous, with rolling hills and running water,” Bricker says. No longer will the disabled children and veterans who compose Equest’s clientele be relegated to riding in tight circles, as space constraints in Wylie dictate. In Rowlett, they will have the space to explore a network of trailsEverything seemed perfect, save for one minor detail. Equest’s pristine 238 acres lies directly in the path of a planned Wylie-to-Greenville toll road. You’ve probably already heard about this road. It’s the one being built by the Texas Turnpike Corp., a private company that for some poorly conceived reason has the power of eminent domain. The one that thousands of otherwise mild-mannered suburbanites are angrily shouting down by the thousands.. The one the toll-enamored North Texas Council of Governments is desperately making up numbers to justify. Dallas Observer (blog)

MI: Aramark Workers Run Amok in Michigan Prisons
Last December, Aramark (ARMK) began running Michigan’s prison kitchens under a three-year, $145 million contract. The deal, which eliminated about 370 union jobs, was supposed to make food service more efficient while saving the cash-strapped state millions. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. More than 100 Aramark employees have been fired for alleged misconduct that included sneaking cell phones into prisons, distributing drugs, and having sexual contact with inmates. On Sept. 23 an Aramark worker at an Ionia prison was fired on suspicion that he’d tried to pay one prisoner to beat up another. The next day a worker at a maximum-security prison, also in Ionia, lost her job after corrections officers found a 65-page love letter she wrote to an inmate with whom she was allegedly having an affair. Two days later the Detroit Free Press reported that a former Aramark worker at a prison in the Upper Peninsula was suspected of asking an inmate to help have a prisoner at another facility killed. Businessweek

NY: Bid to privatize auditing may pit county against CSEA
The Erie County comptroller’s plan to privatize some of its internal audit functions could pit the county against its largest collective bargaining unit. In a letter to the Legislature this week, Interim Labor Relations Director Mary Thomas Scott expressed concern over Comptroller Stefan I. Mychajliw’s proposal. Without the consent of the Civil Service Employees Association, Scott said the plan would violate the state’s Public Employee’s Fair Employment Act and could prompt the union to file an improper labor charge. “Replacing the bargaining unit positions with an outsourced provider is ill-advised and not in the county’s best interest,” Scott advised lawmakers in her letter.  Buffalo News           

OH: Bankrupt Traffic Camera Company Sends Ohio Town To Collections
Cities that sign up for speed cameras and red light cameras sometimes wind up with greater expenses than they bargained for. American Traffic Solutions (ATS) sued the city of Houston, Texas and won a $4.8 million settlement two years ago, an amount the 4th largest city in America could readily pay. The $638,093 judgment defunct traffic camera company Nestor Traffic Systems won on Wednesday against East Cleveland, Ohio, on the other hand, represents about three-quarters of the cash-strapped town’s entire property tax revenue for the year. Nestor Traffic Systems went bankrupt in 2009, and its contracts were acquired by ATS. A bankruptcy judge appointed Jonathan N. Savage to manage the assets of the failed entity. After reviewing the books, Savage realized East Cleveland failed to pay Nestor’s bills between October 2007 and 2009. He decided to file a lawsuit to collect. TheNewspaper.com

CA: Privatization of Public Resources Confronted with Sit-In at UC Berkeley
Uniting students, workers, community members, and veterans of the Free Speech Movement, CPC led a surprise sit-in at Capital Projects following the rally for the 50th Anniversary of the birth of the Free Speech Movement. Capital Projects is the real estate arm of the University of California Berkeley that is actively privatizing public resources, such as in their proposed commercial development of the historic Gill Tract Farm. . . The sit-in lasted through 6 hours of negotiation amidst speeches and chants that could be heard across central campus. The Bay Area Indymedia

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IN: County wants state to take back Toll Road
Dirty and outmoded rest stops. Long lines at automated toll centers. About $6 billion worth of debt. And a loss of money to roads in La Porte County. Those were among the reasons why the La Porte County Commissioners passed a resolution Wednesday asking the state to explore options for retaking full control and ownership of the Indiana Toll Road after the private consortium running it under a 75 year lease filed for bankruptcy. On Wednesday, members approved the resolution unanimously, citing a promise from former Governor Mitch Daniels that the Toll Road would revert back to the state’s control if anything like this were to happen. The Herald Argus

IN: Officials decry lack of information on Illiana plans
State Rep. Rick Niemeyer said he is tired of getting the runaround from state officials on some key facts concerning the proposed Illiana toll road and now he wants answers. . . The legislator said before the project moves any further local officials must have answers to several questions including what the cost of the tolls will be, how local emergency service providers will cope financially with the increased call volume and what will taxpayers end up paying if the toll road runs short. . . . The bankruptcy filing last week for the Indiana Toll Road calls into question the validity of the project, he said. Unlike the contract for the Indiana Toll Road, which protected the state from any financial responsibility in the event of a failure, the Illiana Toll Road does not have that same agreement. Post-Tribune

MI: Michigan Lawmaker Makes A Second Run At Imposing Speed Cameras
Automated ticketing machines are not legal in Michigan, home state of the domestic automobile industry. That could change under legislation introduced last month in the state Senate that would create the ideal environment for private companies such as Xerox, American Traffic Solutions (ATS) and Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia to take over traffic enforcement for cash-strapped municipalities and operate without any risk of being challenged. TheNewspaper.com

LA: LSU approves new hospital privatization agreements
The LSU Board of Supervisors approved Wednesday new agreements between its hospitals and private partners in hopes that these agreements will keep federal money flowing to the private managers. The new cooperative endeavor agreements were designed to satisfy concerns the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid over Gov. Bobby Jindal’s public/private hospital partnerships. CMS rejected the old agreements last spring. . . . But some board members questioned whether language in the new agreements leaves LSU and low-income patients vulnerable should a partner withdraw from the partnership. The Times-Picayune

LA: Opinion: Rape victims shouldn’t be billed
It’s hard to imagine anything more traumatic than being raped. Sexual assault often leaves victims scarred for life. Many are too traumatized, too scared, to call the cops. Those who do often spend hours undergoing forensic exams. That’s why it’s so infuriating that in Louisiana, many sexual assault victims are billed by public hospitals for portions of their rape exams. It wasn’t always that way, at least not in New Orleans. Making rape victims pay for the crimes of their attackers is an outrage. Many victims say they feel violated all over again. Gov. Bobby Jindal and state lawmakers created this mess when they privatized Louisiana’s public hospitals. Now it’s up to them to fix it.  WWL

PA: Advocacy groups call for closer scrutiny of charter schools
Three groups with union affiliations on Wednesday pointed to the case against ousted PA Cyber Charter School founder Nick Trombetta as a good example for why the state’s nearly 180 charter schools need better oversight and stronger accountability. The Center for Popular Democracy, Integrity in Education, and Action United of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh issued a report that alleges Pennsylvania charter schools defrauded taxpayers out of more than $30 million. That figure is an aggregate of cases brought by whistleblowers and media exposés, according to the authors. Tribune-Review

Online, For-Profit Charter Schools Hit Another Snag
The latest sign that the nation’s 14-year romance with the for-profit cyber charter industry might be cooling came this summer when the Board of Trustees for Pennsylvania’s scandal-plagued Agora Cyber Charter School discussed completely severing its relationship with K12 Inc., the nation’s largest for-profit cyber charter management and curriculum supplier. The action came nearly three weeks after an August 5 vote by Agora’s board to not renew its management contract with the online learning giant beginning with the 2015-16 school year. . . . Investors had already been skittish following an avalanche of recent setbacks for the company. Huffington Post           

News
IL: Public Interest Group Urges Against ‘Wasteful Spending’ On Illiana Expressway
An Illinois public interest organization is raising concerns about the proposed Illiana Expressway, saying the privatized toll road that would serve mainly as a trucking corridor “may charge tolls too high to attract trucks, and will likely require hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.” The Illiana Expressway, a public-private partnership endeavor, is cited as one of 11 highway “boondoggles” across the country a new report by the Illinois PIRG Education Fund, which is calling on “decision makers to reprioritize scarce transportation dollars to other projects.” Progress Illinois

NJ: Turnpike, Parkway toll privatization put off again
he deadline for proposals to privatize New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway cash toll collections has been pushed off for a fifth time, this time until November. The new due date is Nov. 12 for contractors to submit proposals to run the E-ZPass system and to tentatively replace authority toll collectors with private collectors April 25. The latest extension comes after a tentative settlement with two unions representing toll plaza supervisors and interchange managers that contained salary concessions. The Star-Ledger

LA: LSU to consider changes to hospital privatization agreements
The LSU Board of Supervisors will consider changes to hospital privatization agreements aimed at keeping federal Medicaid money flowing to the private partners… The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid rejected the state’s reimbursement plan in the spring, threatening deals that had already turned over management of the hospitals to private operators. . . The hospital privatization plan has been a controversial issue in Louisiana. Critics argued Gov. Bobby Jindal implemented the privatization too quickly because he did so without federal approval.If the plans are not approved by the federal government, the contracts might be ineffective because there won’t be enough money to support them, and the state would have to repay what has already been spent.The deals will cost an estimated $1 billion in the current budget year, most of which is federal money. The Times-Picayune

Professor: Why I tell students to become teachers — even though the profession is under assault
. . . . Here is the brutal truth: There is no occupation in this country where you can avoid the brutal management practices current invading teachers! There is no “dream job” I can tell my students about, here or in any other country, where you will find security, loyalty, autonomy, and caring respectful management. Work conditions in teaching, as bad as they are, may actually be better than they are in some other jobs. But there is an additional reason that I would urge my students to become teachers: I refuse to give up the profession to the privatizers and to those people who are destroying childhood and undermining what should be one of the best jobs in the society.  Washington Post

Harvard Students Ask University to Cut Ties with Teach for America
A dozen Harvard University students, members of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), assembled outside a university building on Friday, September 26th, calling on President Drew G. Faust to cut ties with Teach for America unless the AmeriCorps program makes major changes to its organization. The group’s demonstration comes as part of a larger movement initiated by United Students Against Sweatshops, which holds that holds that Teach For America is working to privatize education through its relationships with big-name corporations that are threatening the sanctity of public education. The group had a TFA Truth Tour during March and April earlier this year, wherein protests were scheduled and executed on college campuses, including Harvard University. The Nonprofit Quarterly

News
Review: Why Privatization Fails
In the early 1980s, New York City’s and London’s subway systems were both on the brink of collapse. . . . To bring them back from the brink, the powers that be in both cities realized massive investment was needed. But where was the money to come from? They rejected the idea that national, state, or local taxes should provide it. Borrowing was one alternative. New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the mid-1980s began issuing bonds worth billions of dollars; funds from the fare box were committed to repay them. Thirty years later, the MTA projects 41 percent of fares next year will go to debt service. That’s money that is not available to expand service or settle fair contracts. London went a different route, choosing in the 1990s to privatize parts of the London Underground in what was known as the Public-Private Partnership (PPP). . . .The PPP was supposed to continue for 30 years; it lasted just seven. A new book by Janine Booth, Plundering London Underground, tells its story in great detail. It is a story that anyone concerned about attacks on the public sector, or efforts to privatize public services, should know. Labor Notes (blog)

LA: Teachers union sues Louisiana to de-fund some charter schools
The Louisiana Association of Educators has sued the state of Louisiana to block it from using its main school budget to fund certain types of charter schools, saying such funding is unconstitutional. A decision in the association’s favor could pull $60 million from about 25 schools, including Belle Chasse Academy, the International School of New Orleans and Jefferson Chamber Foundation–East, requiring the state to find another way to fund them. The move was spurred by last year’s Louisiana Supreme Court decision on voucher schools and by anger among local school board members over state-approved charters in their parishes. The Times-Picayune

LA: A Jindalcare unhealthy privatization horror story
On Tuesday, September 23, our school-aged son was given a commonly prescribed medication by his physician. My wife attempted to get the pharmacy to fill it. We were shocked and horrified to find that it was rejected by our health insurance: Office of Group Benefits HMO Plan through BlueCross, a health insurance plan for Louisiana public employees. . . . You will recall that OGB was privatized under Gov. Bobby Jindal, and nearly all of the $500,000,000 trust fund has been stolen. Soon, all money dedicated to funding state workers’ insurance will be gone. The money was pilfered by Jindal in an effort to fill holes in his economically disastrous state budget. But this will mean 230,000 Louisiana citizens are about to lose all semblances of health coverage on January 1. Bayou buzz

KS: Kansas Democrats call for ethics probe of KanCare contracts
Democrats in the Kansas Legislature called Monday for establishing a special committee to investigate allegations of “pay-to-play” schemes involving contracts awarded by Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration to manage the state’s privatized Medicaid system known as KanCare. . . . Both Ward and Kelly serve on the Legislature’s KanCare Oversight Committee, which is charged with monitoring the performance of the privatization program. The Topeka Capital-Journal first reported in April that the FBI was investigating whether laws were broken when the KanCare contracts were awarded to companies that had hired former Brownback aides as their lobbyists. Lawrence Journal World

MI: Schuette to investigate Aramark employee suspected in murder plot against Michigan inmate
. . . . An Aramark worker at Kinross Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula is accused of approaching an inmate to have another killed. . . . The allegations are the latest in a string of troubles for Aramark, a private food service vendor that won a three-year, $145 million contract with the state late last year. Company workers have also been accused of smuggling drugs into prisons and having sex with inmates. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder announced a $200,000 fine against Aramark earlier this year, but critics have called on him to terminate the contract and end all privatization inside prisons. MLive.com

MI: Detroit bankruptcy judge says he can’t stop water shutoffs
Detroit’s bankruptcy judge says he can’t prevent homes from having their water shut off, if they can’t pay their bills. Critics call the shutoffs a public-health crisis that disproportionately affects children, the poor, and the elderly.. . . . Rhodes’ decision comes days after the Detroit city council voted unanimously to remove Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr, an option under state law after an emergency manager has served 18 months. . . Leadership will be returned to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan (D) and the city council. Orr will stay in an advisory capacity, as the city completes its bankruptcy proceedings.  Christian Science Monitor

IL: Could Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel lose his re-election race?
. . .A Chicago Tribune poll released in August, for example, shows that 35 percent of likely voters approve of the job he has been doing, down from 50 percent about a year ago. The results are similar regardless of voters’ race, income, age or gender. . . The polling results reflect a growing tension over leadership in Chicago. . . .Critics say Emanuel, who once earned more than $18 million over a two-year period as a Wall Street investment banker, professes concern for struggling households, but has done little on their behalf. They say his many unpopular measures — a rollout of traffic cameras, privatizing public transit and expanding charter schools amid mass teacher and custodian layoffs — contradict the mayor’s narrative that he is fighting for all of Chicago. “The Emanuel tenure has been a huge wake-up call for a lot of people,” says Tim Meegan, a high school social-studies teacher who is running for city-council alderman in the city’s 33rd Ward, an ethnically diverse area on the city’s northwest side. “He’s not a working-class guy from the streets of Chicago, and he’s refused to compromise except to the 1 percent. He’s so insulated that he doesn’t really understand the city he has been charged with governing.” Al Jazeera America