Headlines
MI: Privatization may be in Detroit’s future
PA: Study shows Pa school bus privatization too costly
PA: Penn State trustees seek advice from Cornell on becoming private university
CA: Editorial: Trend toward privatization needs the cleansing rays of sunshine
UT: Enviro group says public will lose if public lands are privatized
Water activists refuse to debate privatization at controversial forum

MI: Privatization may be in Detroit’s future
Some services would be privatized in Detroit under a state plan aimed at rescuing the cash-strapped city’s finances, according to officials who reviewed language of a draft consent agreement on Tuesday. The plan also proposes the creation of an advisory committee that would remove some power from elected officials. Detroit’s elected officials didn’t appear to have been involved in the decision-making process, Tate said. Gov. Rick Snyder and Treasurer Andy Dillon approved the draft plan…If approved, the deal could keep the state from appointing an emergency financial manager in Detroit, which faces a $197 million budget deficit…The state-appointed review team is examining Detroit’s finances and has until March 27 to report to Snyder, who can appoint an emergency manager for the city. An emergency manager would have the power to rip up and restructure collective bargaining agreements and remove the mayor and other elected leaders from office. A consent agreement would allow Detroit to save face by preserving local authority, but it also would enable the state to take over if the city failed to comply with provisions on timely reporting of finances and following operations and recovery plans. Traverse City Record Eagle

PA: Study shows Pa school bus privatization too costly
According to a new study released Tuesday by the Keystone Research Center, Pennsylvania school districts end up spending more tax dollars on transportation than districts that manage their own bus fleets…..According to the report, using contractors for busing grade school students on average costs $223,900 more than if the district controlled its own busing. If every school district in Pennsylvania “in-sourced” transportation services, the study claims taxpayers would save an estimated $78 million. Study co-author Dr. Stephen Herzenberg believes school bus contracting to be a poor bargain. “At a time when deep cuts to schools are driving up class sizes and limiting student opportunities, should we pay more to private companies to transport kids to school?” Herzenberg asked..Contracting out to a private company does provide a district with a short-term infusion of money, said Herzenberg. This option is also alluring to many districts because the state provides higher reimbursement to districts that contract out bus services, essentially making in-house and contracted costs for districts the same, while transferring the cost to the state government. Herzenberg says this transference of cost doesn’t solve anything. “Pennsylvania should make every tax dollar count instead of giving school districts incentives to adopt inefficient transportation systems,” Herzenberg said. “We can change course now and use the savings to improve the quality of our children’s education.” Essential Public Radio

PA: Penn State trustees seek advice from Cornell on becoming private university
The new chairman of the Penn State board of trustees told members of the faculty senate today that the university has talked to officials at Cornell University about a smooth transition to becoming a private university…Karen Peetz, elected chairwoman after the Jerry Sanusky sex abuse scandal rocked Penn State in November, stressed that the conversation was only exploratory, and said “this can’t be rushed.”..Gov. Tom Corbett said the university will need to choose between continual state funding and its exemption from open records laws. The Patriot-News

CA: Editorial: Trend toward privatization needs the cleansing rays of sunshine
…In California and elsewhere, cost-cutting local governments are outsourcing work to the private sector. In those cases, as well, it should be a given that the public know the details of what private companies are paid and how they perform. But too often, the public and elected officials are left in the dark, warns In the Public Interest, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. In a new report coming out this week, the group cites horror stories from around the country. In Wisconsin, parents were unable to get information on school bus drivers who work for a contractor hired by the local school district. In Arizona, the media couldn’t get copies of recommendations that a consultant made to a police department. And in Chicago, lack of transparency helped lead to what is widely viewed as a debacle of a parking lease. The group calls for open records laws to be expanded to cover the dealings of private contractors with government agencies. It also says contracts should be required to contain provisions listing what information will be made public. Sacramento Bee

UT: Enviro group says public will lose if public lands are privatized
While Utah politicians like Sen. Orrin Hatch and Congressman Rob Bishop join the push for Utah to gain control of its public lands from the feds, critics say their arguments about private lands bringing more money towards education is a diversion. “What the state is interested in doing is turning them over to oil and gas industry, to private developers,” says the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance Assoc. Director Heidi McIntosh. McIntosh says that the argument that many lawmakers make saying that privatizing public lands would funnel more money into education is a “red herring.” “The losers are going to be people like you and me and everyone else in Utah who loves to go out and to fish and to hunt,” McIntosh says…The Utah Legislature passed a bill demanding the federal government give control of all federally controlled public land in Utah back to the state by 2014. Now, it’s up to the governor and whether he signs off on it.  Fox13

Water activists refuse to debate privatization at controversial forum
Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe executive director Wenonah Hauter declined an invitation to debate World Water Forum participants on the merits of public versus private involvement in the water sector, encouraging them to involve a Philippine water activist who could testify to the disaster that privatization brought to her community in the Philippines. Council of Canadians Chair Maude Barlow had also previously declined the invitation. “Since this debate is closed to the public and is only open to Forum participants, who must pay prohibitive fees in travel and registration to attend, I feel rather than participate in the debate myself, you should hear from a citizen directly impacted by water privatization schemes,” wrote Hauteur to Benedito Braga, President of the International Forum Committee.  “No company should profit from the endeavor to supply the world with clean water and sanitation,” wrote Hauter. “Anything less is unacceptable, and that is why I will not support the Forum with my participation in this debate.”..Food & Water Watch is joining activists in Marseille protesting the Forum as an inappropriate venue for forging water policy at the Alternative Water Forum, which will be held March 14-17. Nearly 3000 people are expected to attend to the alternative forum to counter the corporate-led Forum. Food and Water Watch

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Headlines
LA: House Democrats blast Jindal’s agenda as unconstitutional
‎MI: Detroit awaits proposed consent agreement
‎MI: In Michigan charter schools, results no better than other public schools
AL: Charter schools: Alabama’s political football
NE: National group takes aim at Nebraska child welfare

LA: House Democrats blast Jindal’s agenda as unconstitutional
‎House Democrats opened fire on nearly every aspect of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s agenda Monday, arguing his plans to overhaul the state’s education and pension systems and his focus on privatization would be disastrous for working families across the state. Though acknowledging they did not have the numbers to outright block most of the administration’s agenda, Democratic leaders said they expected to be able to blunt Jindal’s efforts during the legislative session and suggested lawsuits might overturn those bills that are passed. The Democrat’s rebuttal was a rare, formal response to Jindal’s speech to members of both houses on the opening day of the legislative session. “Never before in the history of Louisiana, as far as I know, has the minority party felt the need to formally address the people of the state after the governor has spoken to legislators,” said Rep. John Bel Edwards, chair of the House Democratic Caucus. “But never before in history have the plans been so destructive to the working people of this great state.” NOLA

MI: Detroit awaits proposed consent agreement
‎A draft of a consent agreement that Gov. Rick Snyder will formally propose today has displeased some City Council members, who say they want changes before they’ll approve the deal…The agreement is expected to include steep cuts, privatization of some city services and other benchmarks to hold the city accountable. But what worries council members, according to an unidentified city official who saw a draft of the proposal Monday, is that council members are removed from the daily operations of the city. The proposal would create a nine-member advisory board and did not include new cash for the city, the official said. The Detroit News

MI: In Michigan charter schools, results no better than other public schools
..The schools, which already educate almost 120,000 students at an average of 470 students per school, play a major role in Gov. Rick Snyder’s education philosophy. But since the charter experiment started in 1993, data collected on both the state and national level suggest they are doing no better at educating students than are traditional K-12 public schools. An analysis of test-score data done for Bridge Magazine by Public Sector Consultants shows charters falling along roughly the same achievement lines as traditional public schools, for both better-off and less-advantaged students…“There have been close to 80 different studies now, and (those results) have been pretty consistent,” said Gary Miron, a Western Michigan University professor..“While I looked favorably upon the original intent of charter schools, I am increasingly concerned that after two decades and substantial growth, the charter school idea has strayed considerably from its original vision. A growing body of research as well as state and federal evaluations conducted by independent researchers continue to find that charter schools are not achieving the goals that were once envisioned for them.”  Miron went on to lay out why he thinks the schools have fallen short of their lofty founding goals of driving educational improvement through innovation and competition: They lack effective oversight and accountability. They’re chained by the current emphasis on testing and specific performance standards. Privatization and profit-seeking drain dollars away from instruction. MLive

AL: Charter schools: Alabama’s political football
Some political leaders, including Governor Robert Bentley, are trying to champion the fight to create charter schools on the state…Bentley’s plan is to initially put charter schools, if approved, in poorer regions of the state….Opponents argue many charter schools perform poorly. They claim if trimming red tape works, it should be done for all schools, rather than for just a few non-profit corporations running charter schools. The AEA says to open charter schools it will cost more. For example the organization estimates charter schools in Anniston would cost $6,933 per pupil to run…Critics argue, although all students are eligible to attend charters, poor performing students are routinely “counseled out” of the system and sent back to attend a public school. For example, Hartford, Connecticut charter schools are accused of stacking the deck with better students. Examiner

NE: National group takes aim at Nebraska child welfare
The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform has long criticized Nebraska’s child welfare system for removing children from the home and placing them in foster care at a rate far above the national average. According to the group, Nebraska is an “extreme outlier” among states, removing children “at a rate more than triple the national average.”…Nebraska lawmakers are currently debating a series of bills to move forward in child welfare, after privatization largely collapsed. Four private agencies dropped out of their contracts with the state, leaving just one private company as a key player in the system. But Wexler said lawmakers are simply rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship. “Privatization, per se, is the great irrelevancy in Nebraska child welfare, or in child welfare everywhere,” Wexler said. “We compare and contrast systems all across the country. Some are heavily privatized, some aren’t. There are a few good and a lot of bad systems in both categories. So it simply doesn’t matter.”“Can you make privatization work for you along with other changes?” he said. “Sure.” Wexler used the state of Florida as an example where privatization has worked. But he said the reforms succeeded because the state provided incentives to those private agencies to keep more children at home.   KWNO

Headlines
States reject offer to buy prisons
Lawmakers pick fight with Feds over public lands
Higher education under attack
Public schools sell empty classroom seats abroad
FL: Parent trigger bill ends in defeat
LA: Jindal’s plans for Central La. prisons under fire
IL: Protesters take to streets over mental health clinic closures

States reject offer to buy prisons
…Despite a need for cash, several states immediately slammed the door on the offer, a sign that privatizing prisons might not be as popular as it once was. Corrections Corporation of America sent letters to the prison leaders in January, saying it had a pot of $250 million to buy facilities as part of an investment. The company is trying to capitalize on the landmark deal it made with Ohio in the fall by purchasing a facility, the first state prison in the nation to be sold to a private firm. Prison departments in California, Texas and Georgia all dismissed the idea. Florida’s prison system said it doesn’t have the authority to make that kind of decision and officials in CCA’s home state of Tennessee said they aren’t reviewing the proposal. The states refused to say exactly why they were rejecting the offer. “Knowing the state government, it has to have something to do with the potential political backlash,” said Jeanne Stinchcomb, a criminal justice professor at Florida Atlantic University who has written two books on the corrections industry. “Privatization has reaped some negative publicity, so I can only assume that despite the possible benefits, there would be a price to pay for supporting it.” Bruce Bayley, associate professor of criminal justice at Weber State University, said he hoped something other than politics drove the states’ decisions. “It’s always hard for politicians to turn down the money,” said Bayley. “On the flipside, though, it speaks well to the professionalism of corrections departments of these states who don’t want to sell out to companies just to add some money to their bank accounts.” The Associated Press

Lawmakers pick fight with Feds over public lands
..Republican legislators in Utah and Arizona are leading a charge to try to force the federal government to hand over control of public territory that makes up much of the West, insisting local leaders could manage it better. “We’re putting them on notice for them to cede it to us. And if they don’t, we’ll start taxing it,” said Arizona state Sen. Al Melvin, who sponsored the legislation in that state. Skeptics say state officials are likely to do more harm than good, especially to the environment, and stand to ruin what makes the region unique. “How in the world do they think they could manage these federal public lands?” asked Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. Legal experts say the challenges are unconstitutional. But the fight is worth it for many who see the potential for millions of dollars in revenue from taxes, development rights or even the sale of lands. Governing

Higher education under attack
…Most universities before 1945, and even before 1970, were state institutions. The one significant exception was the United States, which had a large number of non-state institutions, most of which had evolved from religiously-based institutions. But even in these U.S. private institutions, the universities were run as non-profit structures. What privatization began to mean throughout the world was several things: One, there began to be institutions of higher education that were established as businesses for profit. Two, public institutions began to seek and obtain money from corporate donors, which began to intrude in the internal governance of the universities. And three, universities began to seek patents for work that researchers at the university had discovered or invented, and thereupon entered as operators in the economy, that is, as businesses. In a situation in which money was scarce, or at least seemed scarce, universities began to transform themselves into more business-like institutions. This could be seen in two major ways. The top administrative positions of universities and their faculties, which had traditionally been occupied by academics, now began to be occupied by persons whose background was in business and not university life. They raised the money, but they also began to set the criteria of allocation of the money. Binghampton University

Public schools sell empty classroom seats abroad
…In Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, and Lake Placid, New York, in Lavaca, Arkansas, and Millinocket, Maine, administrators are aggressively recruiting international students. They’re wooing well-off families in China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Russia and dozens of other countries, seeking teenagers who speak decent English, have a sense of adventure – and are willing to pay as much as $30,000 for a year in an American public school. The end goal for foreign students: Admission to a U.S. college. In an age of tenuous public funding, school districts “can’t expect to sit back and survive, because the money is not going to be there. The taxpayers are not going to provide it,” said Kenneth Smith, the superintendent in Millinocket, a remote town of 5,000 in central Maine. Reuters

FL: Parent trigger bill ends in defeat
A coalition of Democrats and Republicans late Friday afternoon mustered the 20 votes needed to defeat the bill, which would have enabled parents to demand sweeping changes at low-performing schools. Among the options: having the school converted to an independently run charter school. “This bill would have dismantled and defunded our public education system,” said Senate Minority Leader Nan Rich, D-Weston, who fought against the proposal. “It would have allowed private, for-profit [charter school] management companies to take advantage of our public assets.”..From the start of the 60-day session, the parent trigger was among the most hotly debated bills. Its earliest opponents: a coalition of parent groups that included the Florida Parent Teacher Association. Almost immediately after the bill was filed, the coalition distributed a stinging press release, claiming the proposal really sought to line the pockets of for-profit school management companies, which would have access to new contracts. Miami Herald

LA: Jindal’s plans for Central La. prisons under fire
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s plans to close a state prison in Pineville and privatize another in Cottonport will have ramifications beyond the job losses, local officials say, and some question whether the governor has thoroughly thought things out. And the governor can expect a fight in the legislative session that starts Monday, they said. Jindal announced earlier this year that he planned to close J. Levy Dabadie Correctional Center in Pineville, lay off the more than 100 prison workers there and ship the inmates to Avoyelles Correctional Center in Cottonport. Jindal also plans to sell Avoyelles Correctional to the highest bidder and have the prison run by a private company. Alexandria Town Talk

IL: Protesters take to streets over mental health clinic closures
…Chicagoans across the city took to the streets to rally against the proposed closures of six of the city’s twelve mental health clinics over the next month and a half, as well as bids to privatize of all seven of our Neighborhood Health Centers. Services such as counseling, physical therapy, and psychiatric evaluation will no longer be provided from these clinics to 5,000 people who are in need.  Huffington Post

Headlines
Private purchasing of prisons lock in occupancy rates
IN: Indy parking revenues fall short
IL: Chicago mayor seeks private infrastructure deals
WA: Washington to auction off state-run liquor stores
CA: Report suggests operation of state parks by for-profit firms

Private purchasing of prisons lock in occupancy rates
At a time when states are struggling to reduce bloated prison populations and tight budgets, a private prison management company is offering to buy prisons in exchange for various considerations, including a controversial guarantee that the governments maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years.  USA Today

IN: Indy parking revenues fall short
The first year of Indianapolis’ 50-year parking meter lease brought doubled rates in some areas as a tradeoff for a wholesale upgrade of equipment and the convenience of paying by credit card or smartphone. Was it worth it? New financial data provided by the city shows its share of revenue from the vendor in 2011 — nearly $1.4 million, or 30 percent — fell well short of the city’s own projection of $2.1 million. And the city didn’t end up seeing the full amount: After the vendor subtracted $286,000 in charges to compensate for the city closing metered spaces, often for RebuildIndy road construction work, the city pocketed $1.1 million.  The vendor, ParkIndy — a trio of local and national companies led by Dallas-based ACS, a Xerox company — kept more than $3.5 million. The Indianapolis Star

IL: Chicago mayor seeks private infrastructure deals
Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to ask aldermen next week to consider giving him broad authority to try a new way to pay for big-ticket projects, even though details on how it would work remain fuzzy. Top administration officials dispatched Thursday to explain the Chicago Infrastructure Trust insisted they don’t know what public works improvements would be included and can’t guarantee that public disclosure laws would apply…The companies are interested in what amounts to a rent-to-own plan. Private firms would build new projects or replace, expand or upgrade existing ones that the city can’t afford to tackle. The city would then lease the new school, park facility or public health center, for example. “It’s similar to a long-term lease and at the end of the lease the city takes back control of the asset,” said Sonia Axter, managing director of infrastructure investments at Ullico, a union-funded financial firm that invests in urban development. “It’s different from the model of what the city of Chicago is familiar with.” Chicago Tribune

WA: Washington to auction off state-run liquor stores
Washington state begins the process of fully privatizing its alcoholic beverage business on Thursday when a public auction of state-run liquor stores opens online, marking a historic change for a state that has tightly controlled its booze since the end of Prohibition. Philadelphia Inquirer

CA: Report suggests operation of state parks by for-profit firms
…Yet some local lawmakers are wary of the idea. “Once you privatize a park, you change the essential mission of the park — it becomes about making a profit,” state Sen. Noreen Evans (D). “My own philosophy is that a state park should be owned and operated by the public. Any time you turn even a portion of a state park away from public control, you always have the problem that the park’s interest becomes inconsistent with serving the public.” Evans is one of a number of state legislators looking for other solutions that would allow parks to remain open. She has proposed two bills in recent weeks aimed at shoring up the state’s park system.  The first would require the Parks Department to analyze the economic impact of closing various state parks, something Evans asserts wasn’t studied in sufficient detail when the initial list of closures was compiled. The second would force the State Lands Commission to reassess its contracts with private firms leasing public land and start charging those companies rent at the market rate, instead of at the artificially low rates a recent audit uncovered. All additional money would fund keeping parks open.  Huffington Post

Headlines
Occupy education: Teachers, students resist school closings, privatizations
MI: Detroit mayor resist state takeover
MI: Senate approves prison privatization plan
LA: Bobby Jindal vs. Public Education
IA: Online education executives describe internet academies to House
SC: House committee advances private school choice
FL: Education bill with ties to pro-business goes before Senate
FL: Duval’s school bus woes show downside to privatization
NE: Lawmakers closer to ending child welfare privatization
NC: Editorial: GOP wisely backs off plan to privatize pre-K

Occupy education: Teachers, students resist school closings, privatizations
As students across the country stage a National Day of Action to Defend Public Education, we look at the nation’s largest school systems—Chicago and New York City—and the push to preserve quality public education amidst new efforts to privatize schools and rate teachers based on test scores. In Chicago, the city’s unelected school board voted last week to shut down seven schools and fire all of the teachers at 10 other schools. In New York City, many educators are criticizing Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration after the release of the names of 18,000 city teachers, along with a ranking system that claims to quantify each teacher’s impact on the reading and math scores of their pupils on statewide tests. “The danger is that if teachers and schools are held accountable just for these relatively narrow measures of what it is that students are doing in class, that will become what drives the education system,” says Columbia University’s Aaron Pallas, who studies the efficiency of teacher evaluation systems.
Democracy Now

MI: Detroit mayor resist state takeover
…Under legislation signed last year by Mr. Snyder, a Republican, emergency managers have been given wider powers, including the ability to override contracts with a city’s employees. Potentially complicating the issue, critics of the broadened emergency manager law filed signatures last month on petitions calling for a statewide vote on the issue. If 161,305 are judged valid, the matter will appear on ballots in November, and the stricter emergency manager law would be suspended until the vote.  New York Times

MI: Senate approves prison privatization plan
The Republican-led Michigan Senate has narrowly approved bills that would allow a now idle, privately owned prison in West Michigan to house inmates if the move will save the state money. Sentinel-Standard

LA: Bobby Jindal vs. Public Education
I went to Lafayette, La., last week to speak to the Louisiana School Boards Association. These men and women, representing their local schools from across the state, are trying to preserve public education in the face of an unprecedented onslaught by Gov. Bobby Jindal and the state’s Republican-dominated legislature. Jindal has the backing of the state’s corporate leaders, the nation’s biggest foundations, and some powerful out-of-state supporters of privatization for his sweeping attack on public education. Education Week

IA: Online education executives describe internet academies to House
Executives from two private education companies seeking to partner with Iowa school districts on internet-based academies described their operations to a panel of skeptical lawmakers on Wednesday..Lawmakers’ questions focused in on the quality of education provided by Connections and K12. How do student-teacher ratios at the online academies compare to traditional schools, they asked. How much are the teachers paid? How do they deal with behavior problems and ensure students are completing the work assigned? The Des Moines Register

SC: House committee advances private school choice
A measure offsetting parents’ cost of private school tuition and homeschool expenses moved Tuesday to the House floor.  Spartanburg Herald-Journal

FL: Education bill with ties to pro-business goes before Senate
..The bill, which opponents have said is merely a push to privatize public schools, has already passed the House of Representatives. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that promotes “free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty, through a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector, and the federal government,” wrote a model Parent Trigger bill, which includes language promoting parent empowerment, turnaround models or options for failing public schools.  Florida’s version of the “Parent Trigger bill,” filed by Sen. Lisbeth Benacquisto, R-Ft. Myers, is similar, and would introduce statewide statutes to regulate parent empowerment and turnaround options in Florida…Organizations led by Michelle Rhee and Jeb Bush, which support the school choice movement, have also pledged their support of the trigger bill.  Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education and Foundation for Florida’s Future, Rhee’s Students First, the Florida chapter of the Koch-affiliated tea party group Americans for Prosperity, ALEC and several hundred think tanks, charter school companies and businesses all supported the 2012 National School Choice Week, an event that advocates and promotes charter schools, private schools, virtual schools, homeschooling, school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs. The Florida Independent

FL: Duval’s school bus woes show downside to privatization
,,But there was another busing problem last month that also enraged taxpayers. This one involved Student Transportation America, the company that left at least 100 Jacksonville elementary school kids stranded in the rain because they were too busy running shuttles to the Daytona 500. STA spokesman Keith Engelbert told the Times-Union his company “had a bad day” and that it would willingly pay a fine levied by Duval County Public Schools…But the larger point is that privatization is not necessarily a panacea. Yes, it saves money. But there can be hidden costs. And the school bus snafu is a classic example of the potential pitfalls of outsourcing a vital public service — the transport of our kids to school. Jacksonville.com

NE: Lawmakers closer to ending child welfare privatization
…The centerpiece proposal would end the state’s experiment with privatizing child welfare services except in Douglas and Sarpy Counties, where the state’s last private contractor could continue to manage child welfare cases as a pilot project. That contractor is the Omaha-based Nebraska Families Collaborative, whose major partner is Boys Town. The pilot would be subject to review by the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, which would recommend whether to continue with the contract after April 1, 2013. The legislative package also would set statutory limits on workloads for case managers…Caseload reduction was among the changes announced after the loss of the state’s largest private contractor dealt a major blow to the privatization initiative….Gov. Dave Heineman’s child welfare privatization initiative has been rocked by one blow after another since being launched two years ago. Four of the five original contractors have dropped or lost their contracts, and repeated infusions of money into the contracts pushed up state spending on child welfare by 27 percent last year. KearneyHub

NC: Editorial: GOP wisely backs off plan to privatize pre-K
‎The Republicans wanted to privatize all pre-K classrooms by summer 2013. Such an edict would essentially “fix something that ain’t broke” and hamstring the program in parts of the state. As currently constituted, the pre-K program uses both public and private day-care centers…Yet all in all, the current program works well. In some areas, public schools use their facilities to provide the service to what are known as “at-risk” children. Sometimes they do so because their leaders feel they can do a better job than the private sector, other times because there are no private-sector centers nearby. Proponents of the plan said the public schools are crunched for space, and their idea would alleviate that. But that is not true everywhere. In some places, school buildings have open rooms that are wisely and efficiently being used on pre-K. Forcing the pre-K program out of the public schools would lead to less-efficient use of existing facilities…Although the committee backed off its proposal last week, there is still support for the rigid, all-private rule in the full House, where it could be revived in May. The current system works well. The legislature should leave well enough alone. Winston-Salem Journal

Headlines
CA: State government contracting debate back at California’s Capitol
CA: L.A. controller advises against quick fixes
OH: ACLU of Ohio protests privatizing state prisons
LA: Senator — Jindal’s plan not reform
NY: Privatization proposed for nursing home

CA: State government contracting debate back at California’s Capitol
The debate over whether government runs best with civil service workers or privately contracted help is re-igniting in the Capitol over legislation that, among other things, would give state workers first dibs whenever the state has work to do. Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, contends the civil service-first provision in his “Public Employees Bill of Rights” would produce better and cheaper government. Unions backing the measure agree. Critics say the bill reads like a union wish list and could make government more expensive. The Sacramento Bee

CA: L.A. controller advises against quick fixes
Los Angeles Controller Wendy Greuel has released an economic forecast projecting a $200 million deficit next year and recommending that the city focus on structural budgetary changes instead of relying on one-time revenues and expenditure deferrals…Officials have been meeting with the unions to try to strike agreements that deal with salary and pension issues without unduly impacting core city services, Brill said. An ongoing issue is in defining what core services the city should be providing and what services can be privatized. Officials have sought request for proposals on privatizing parking garages, the city zoo and parking meters, but they have yet to move forward on them. The public unions have fought most privatization efforts. Bond Buyer ($)

OH: ACLU of Ohio protests privatizing state prisons
The idea to privatize Ohio prisons was concocted by Gov. John Kasich in an attempt to fill an $8 billion hole in Ohio’s budget. The sale brought in an extra $50 million to use in balancing Ohio’s prison budget. Kasich’s budget strategy included an overhaul of Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, which means that private prison facility owners would actually benefit from more incarcerations. Now, CCA has made an offerto  48 U.S. states to buy and privatize state prisons. The offer, the Corrections Investment Initiative, outlines CCA’s plan to spend up to $250 million on state, local and federal entities and then manage the facilities. According to the CCA’s statement from Harley Lappin, Chief Corrections Officer at CCA, they’re only interested in buying facilities that are willing to sign over rights of ownership to the CCA for a minimum of 20 years, and states must agree to keep the facilities at least 90 percent full. Cincinnati City Beat

LA: Senator — Jindal’s plan not reform
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s plan to expand state aid for low-income students to attend private and parochial schools is unworkable, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said Monday. Landrieu said Jindal’s proposal would apply to about 378,000 public school students — more than half the state’s enrollment — and that private schools could not handle such a massive influx of new pupils.  The Advocate

NY: Privatization proposed for nursing home
The Albany County Nursing Home could be privatized under two options that County Executive Dan McCoy offered for consideration Monday night. “It’s about what’s best for everyone in Albany County,” McCoy said in his first State of the County address. Those decisions include privatizing the management of the facility or privatizing the entire operation, McCoy said. Requests for proposals will go out in the next several weeks, the county executive said. Times Union

Headlines
ID: Does private prison save Idaho money? No one knows
FL: Jeb Bush’s foundation has shaped education policy in Florida
WI: Wisconsin education reform only ALEC could love
CA: On privatization and brutalizing campuses
NM: State gets tougher on private prisons
Should corporations bankroll national parks?

ID: Does private prison save Idaho money? No one knows
For more than a decade, Idaho leaders have promoted private prisons by telling taxpayers it’s cheaper for the state to outsource prison management. But an examination of comparative costs by The Associated Press shows that the state has never actually done the math, and there may be no cost savings at all. In fact, privatization could be costing the state more money than if the Idaho Department of Correction ran the lockups. Idaho officials will tell you that the state’s largest private prison, the Idaho Correctional Center, saves $12 per inmate, per day compared to a similar state prison. But adjusting for known system-wide expenses and the cost of overseeing the contract for the private lockup bring the per diems to just $5 apart. The comparable state prison also houses all of the sick and geriatric inmates, is the oldest facility in the state and spans multiple buildings on a 65-acre campus, requiring a high guard-to-inmate ratio to patrol. The private prison, meanwhile, is relatively new and compact and only accepts inmates without chronic medical or mental health needs, factors that allow it to operate with a lower staff-to-inmate ratio. Those factors make it likely that the state could operate the facility for no more than it pays the private company.  NECN

FL: Jeb Bush’s foundation has shaped education policy in Florida
..This session, Bush and his nonprofit organization, the Foundation for Florida’s Future, have helped to fast-track a stream of legislation that could reset the education equation in Florida. The bills, moving steadily through both the House and Senate, could gradually shift the financial and competitive advantage away from traditional public schools to private schools and charter schools, which are often managed by for-profit companies. Other proposals push virtual-learning initiatives….Critics, on the other hand, see targeted strikes meant to chip away at Florida’s traditional public schools by diverting more tax dollars to private corporations through voucher programs and charter schools.  “There is an attack on public education as we know it,” said Rep. Dwight Bullard, of Miami, the ranking House Democrat on education issues. “Corporations are looking at it as an opportunity to siphon off dollars.” There is little debate over the influence Bush and the foundation have had in driving the agenda. “They have huge sway in the Legislature, in part because of Jeb Bush and in part because they are almost the only game in town,” said former state Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach. Miami Herald

WI: Wisconsin education reform only ALEC could love
After months of talking about “reforming” Wisconsin’s public schools, Republican state legislators are starting to move on a number of proposals. The greatly anticipated bills bear the marks of having been poured through the filter of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s agenda for school reform before they were exposed to the light of day. This week, for instance, there is a hearing on a voucher bill for special needs children that appears to be modeled on the ALEC Special Needs Scholarship Program Act. Other measures are in the works to hold teachers “accountable” for the performance of their students, but not at voucher schools of the type supported by ALEC.  PR Watch

CA: On privatization and brutalizing campuses
Last November, a few days after videos of riot police beating Berkeley student protestors were blowing up on youtube, an article in the New York Times announced that UC-Berkeley’s Chancellor Robert Birgeneau had been travelling to establish a satellite campus within the intimate confines of Shanghai’s Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park. Because Birgeneau had been in Asia during the entirety of the week leading up to and following the events of that day, he had had very little to say about what was happening on his campus, with the exception of two extremely tin-eared and downright offensive emails. We knew he was out of town while campus police were brutalizing their campus, but that’s all we knew. In retrospect, though, the chancellor’s junket is the perfect coincidence: he couldn’t have had anything to do with police violence against anti-privatization protesters because he was quite literally too busy advancing plans to privatize the university. But of course, police brutality and privatization are structurally interwoven: as anti-privatization protesters are fond of saying, behind every fee hike, a line of riot cops. “Privatization” describes the inexorable move away from any sort of education whose value can’t be immediately monetized, and so police violence reminds us that visions of public education which conflict with that of the administration will just as inexorably be suppressed by armed force, as surely as customers trying to break into a store after business hours.  The New Inquiry 

NM: State gets tougher on private prisons
New Mexico’s corrections agency has slapped Florida-based GEO Group Inc. with nearly $300,000 in penalties on top of $1.1 million in fines assessed last year for the company’s continued failure to adequately staff a prison in Hobbs. In addition, $11,800 in fines were assessed this week against New Mexico’s second-private prison operator, Corrections Corporation of America….for inadequate staffing there and for its failure to release 15 female inmates on time. Some of the inmates were released more than 30 days past their release date, state documents show. The penalties against the companies point to a more aggressive tone that Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration has struck with the for-profit companies than her predecessor, Gov. Bill Richardson.  Santa Fe New Mexican

Should corporations bankroll national parks?
‎The question has been debated over the years, with flare-ups around the time the Bush administration attempted to privatize parts of the park service back in 2003 and last fall when there was concern that Coca-Cola had interfered in a plan to stop selling disposable plastic water bottles in the parks….Most recently, the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility called attention to plans to fundraise for an endowment for the Park Service’s centennial anniversary from corporate and philanthropic partners. “Our national parks do not need a super PAC to flourish in the 21st century,” said Jeff Ruch, the group’s executive director. Ruch says it’s “not so much the corporate money, it’s the corporate influence” that he’s worried about. His group noted that agreement Coca-Cola had with the Park Foundation offered “special visitation opportunities, e.g., for executives and key customer hospitality, in the Parks,” “marketing support” and “promotional media.”…The National Park Foundation lists a variety of corporate partners, including Bank of America, Benadryl, J. Crew, and Macy’s. Weideman says the service insists on strict standards for what corporate partners are allowed to do, to ensure that there won’t be a giant “Brought to you buy Coke” sign draped over Mount Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty any time soon…PEER says it isn’t out to end all corporate donations for parks—it just wants assurance that there aren’t any strings attached, and that the donors aren’t granted special privileges in parks that other Americans don’t get. PEER is advocating for greater transparency from the National Park Foundation, including the public disclosure of any agreements reached with a corporate partner.  Mother Jones

Headlines
NC: Legislation to privatize state pre-K dropped
IL: Private money may fund Chicago’s public works
WI: Milwaukee supervisors rip plans to privatize court security
AZ: New law expands tuition tax credits for private schools
K12 manifesting its corporate destiny
Students unite for the National Day of Action to Defend Education

NC: Legislation to privatize state pre-K dropped
A legislative committee on Thursday backed away from a controversial proposal to fully privatize state-funded preschool after a public outcry and protests from local school officials…A little more than half the students in prekindergarten are in public school programs. The effort to restrict prekindergarten to private settings was launched after private providers told legislators that school districts that run the program favor their own classrooms over child care centers. Children’s advocacy groups were pleased with the changes. Charlotte Observer

IL: Private money may fund Chicago’s public works
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday pitched an innovative private-public partnership to rebuild Chicago and create jobs, but left more questions than answers about how it would be paid for and who would profit. The idea is to tackle big-ticket projects the administration said could include “roads, rails and runways,” using mostly private money to get them done. …In the audience Thursday were executives from investment companies that specialize in taking over public assets in return for providing cash windfalls to struggling governments, ranging from parking decks to airports to the controversial 99-year lease of the Chicago Skyway. Emanuel and the firms provided few details about how the Chicago Infrastructure Trust would work, although both city officials and investment company representatives said it would be a far cry from the auctioning off of city assets such as the parking meter deal that dogged former Mayor Richard Daley…Traditionally, the city has paid for public works projects one of two ways: going out to Wall Street to borrow money and receiving bids, or leasing a city asset for upfront cash but in return giving up the revenue for decades to a private operator.  It would appear Emanuel wants to try a third way. The mayor identified five major investment firms that would work with the trust to raise money for public works projects: Citibank N.A.; Citi Infrastructure Investors; Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets Inc.; J.P. Morgan Asset Management Infrastructure Investment Group and Ullico…Emanuel wants to establish a nonprofit to oversee the trust. Chicago Tribune

WI: Milwaukee supervisors rip plans to privatize court security
Milwaukee County supervisors Thursday angrily threatened to withhold funding for private security guards that Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. wants to hire as courtroom bailiffs, saying the four dozen deputies laid off last month should be rehired. Clarke is proposing an emergency contract worth up to $1.4 million with G4S Wackenhut, an international private security firm, to handle a small portion of courtroom security work. The one-year deal would mean hiring the equivalent of 12.5 full-time guards to help with the county’s 78 courts, with regular full-time deputies handling the bulk of the work…Supervisors on a County Board panel hearing about the plan questioned Clarke’s motives in privatizing courtroom security…Supervisor Gerry Broderick accused Clarke of political gamesmanship in the bailiff privatization and warned top aides to the sheriff of a bare-knuckled fight if the sheriff persisted. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

AZ: New law expands tuition tax credits for private schools
Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation Wednesday to allow individuals to divert more money they would otherwise owe the state to instead help children attend private and parochial schools. East Valley Tribune

K12 manifesting its corporate destiny
An April 23, 2010 e-mail from Kevin Corcoran to a host of his colleagues is likely the sort that, in one form or another, millions of Americans deal with regularly during the work day. Bluntly noting “We have not made the progress we need to in this area,” Corcoran adds, “More than $1[million] in funding” is in the balance.” “Anyone who has not fulfilled their obligation in this area should not be surprised….when it’s time to discuss performance evaluations, bonuses and raises.” The $1 million in question isn’t from a customer but represents tuition and fees from Pennsylvania’s various school districts to an online public charter school called Agora. In turn Agora pays Corcoran’s employer, K12 Inc. (LRN) many millions of dollars annually to provide the curriculum and administer the school. There is a lot at stake in collecting this money since Agora and a sister school in Ohio, the Ohio Virtual Academy, represent about 26% of K12′s annual revenues. Seeking Alpha

Students unite for the National Day of Action to Defend Education
Today, students around the country will march, rally, teach-in, and walk-out in honor of the National Day of Action to Defend Education. Born out of the Occupy movement and the rise in student activism that came with it, the day is meant to draw attention to the corporatization and privatization of education, from pre-K through higher education, in both private and public institutions. As Wall Street continues to gain unprecedented influence in our schools, we’re standing up and demanding that our disapproval be heard and our interests be acknowledged. The Nation

Headlines
IN: State, IBM blame each other as trial begins
The state had agreed to pay IBM $1.37 billion over 10 years to modernize Indiana’s welfare system, but it canceled the contract in 2009, after only three years, because of widespread complaints. The state sued IBM in May 2010 to take back the $437 million it paid the company. IBM countersued, saying the state still owed the company about $100 million. Marion Superior Court Judge David Dreyer ruled in January that the state would have to pay IBM $40 million in subcontractor assignment fees. He also capped the damages the state could seek at $125 million. The trial began Monday and is scheduled to last up to six weeks…Attorneys for the state showed clips of videotaped interviews with a young mother, a nun and an elderly man who all had trouble with the automated system. They presented a chart that showed FSSA’s application backlog jumped from about 10,000 applications in early 2007 to nearly 50,000 in late 2008 while IBM was rolling out the automated system. They also pointed to an IBM assessment from 2009 that documented problems and more than 200 recommendations for improvements. Indianapolis Star

AZ: Tired Tucson teacher: A promise to education and other lies
…What Arizona wants is to get out of the business of educating the public. And they are not that keen on higher education either. At least that is the conclusion you must draw if you look at the intent behind many of the proposals of our “Less” – gislature. In Arizona we believe that education is for those who can afford it and the rest don’t need it. While “readin’, ritin’ an’ ‘rithmetic” might be alright for some, if they can pay for it, in Arizona we see such nonsense for most of our citizens as fluff and waste. Tucson Citizen

NC: Limited time to comment on Pre-K privatization
Want to weigh in on a legislative proposal to privatize Pre-K? You’ll have to act fast. The House Select Committee on Early Childhood Education Improvement is accepting public comments through the close of business this afternoon. Children’s advocates are troubled by the fact the draft report would narrow the financial eligibility for NC Pre-K. Action for Children NC notes several other flaws in the Republican push to privatize the early childhood program. Specifically they object to the: Loss of local decision-making authority;  Fewer slots as a result of higher reimbursement rates for private providers; Lack of capacity in rural areas; Loss of connection between NC Pre-K and school system. The Progressive Pulse

Headlines
LA: Using public money to pay for private school vouchers approved
FL: Dirty tactics in fight for prison privatization
PA: Key senator opposes college funding cuts
NE: Lawmakers debate ending child welfare privatization
The private prison industry: Resistance isn’t futile

LA: Using public money to pay for private school vouchers approved
Louisiana’s new superintendent of education, John White, took a first step Monday toward opening the spigot of state and local tax dollars to expand the use of private school vouchers statewide…”I believe it’s unconstitutional that you’re doing this,” state Rep. Patricia Smith told members of the state school board before Monday’s vote. “That’s a very deep concern.” Smith and others who attended the board’s special meeting in Baton Rouge also criticized the board for calling the meeting so suddenly and without more public notice. When board member Lottie Beebe, perhaps the only outright opponent of Jindal’s school reform proposals on the board, put forward a motion to delay a vote on the matter until next month, she got three other members to vote with her, including Kira Orange Jones, who represents most of New Orleans. Indeed, even as the 11-member panel ultimately went ahead with the funding change, the debate put on view for the first time a wide range of opinions on the voucher idea. The Times-Picayune

FL: Dirty tactics in fight for prison privatization
The debate over privatizing much of Florida’s prison system last week probably marks one of the few times a couple of senators provided an escort for one of their colleagues — from the opposing political party, no less. It attracted little attention…Turns out, members on both sides of the aisle took turns sitting with Bullard to protect her from strong-arming tactics. Some colleagues worried Bullard could wind up in the hospital, unable to vote on the measure. One senator described it as “straight out of a gangster movie. Ultimately Bullard hung on and voted against the bill. The American Prospect

PA: Key senator opposes college funding cuts
A key state senator whose district includes Penn State University said Monday he opposes the deep funding cuts that Gov. Tom Corbett plans to make to Pennsylvania’s public universities and community colleges…Corman, whose committee plays a major role in the annual budget derby, said he’s looking for full restoration of cuts Corbett has proposed for the 14 state-owned universities…Corbett’s $27.14 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 calls for a $330 million appropriation for the state-owned schools, a reduction of 20 percent from current funding of $412.7 million. It would shave $146.4 million, or 30 percent, in taxpayer support for the state-related schools and reduce funding for community colleges by 4 percent…The second attempt at cuts for the state-related schools — which Corman dryly described Monday as “barely state-related” — comes amid the Jerry Sandusky alleged sexual abuse scandal at Penn State and what some believe is a deliberate attempt by the Corbett administration to wean those institutions off public support and to usher them down the road to privatization. The Morning Call

NE: Lawmakers debate ending child welfare privatization
Nebraska lawmakers launched into debate Tuesday about whether to put the brakes on the state’s experiment in child welfare privatization. At issue is whether the state should take back responsibility for managing child welfare cases from the last remaining private contractor…The bill was introduced before state officials announced that Kansas-based KVC was dropping out of the picture as one of the last two child welfare contractors.. Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln said a months-long study by the Health and Human Services Committee has concluded that managing child welfare cases is a core duty of the state. “The state can never contract away its responsibility for these children,” she said. “We always have that responsibility.” The committee’s study of the privatization troubles led to five major proposals aimed at fixing the state’s troubled child welfare system….Several lawmakers decried the lack of planning and oversight by HHS officials that led to problems with the privatization effort. Money problems led to four of the five original contractors dropping out or losing their contracts. Efforts to keep contractors increased state spending by 27 percent last year. “This house of cards called child welfare reform has fallen down around our heads, and it’s the children and the foster parents that have been buried,” said Sen. Annette Dubas of Fullerton. Omaha World-Herald

The private prison industry: Resistance isn’t futile
The private prison industry is on the march. In recent months the industry moved to take over 24 state prisons in southern Florida and buy five prisons in Ohio. Now it’s making moves in Michigan. But the industry doesn’t always win. Resistance isn’t futile. The industry wanted to buy five prisons in Ohio but had to settle for one. Community members pushed back and corrections professionals raised doubts about cost savings and program effectiveness. Policy Matters Ohio demonstrated that selling the prison will likely cost more money than it produces. Yes, the state gets $73 million immediately for the sale — but the lease commits the state to pay $4 million annually for 20 years. So depending how cost estimates are done, the sale will end up costing the state anywhere from $8 million to $15 million more than traditional corrections. Florida shows that the prison industry can’t make an honest case for the product it sells. OpEdNews