Corporate takeover of social services rips off states, starves families

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.seiu668.org/files/2013/02/STOP-Privatization.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.seiu668.org/files/2013/02/STOP-Privatization.gif" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">We need to have a serious conversation about government spending. No, not the kind that John Boehner and right-wing extremists want to talk about. Rather, the money government is spending to outsource essential social services, paying inflated costs for inefficient corporate management. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our friends at the <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/" rel="nofollow">Center for Media and Democracy</a> have a <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/10/12264/profiting-poor-outsourcing-social-services-puts-most-vulnerable-risk">new report</a> on the corporate frenzy to defraud state and local governments and deny services to vulnerable communities -- all to collect huge profits:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">As private corporations like ACS and Maximus rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in massive contracts, and their executives rake in colossal compensation packages, shareholder profits and warped incentives detract from the standards of care provided by these corporations. </blockquote>The CMD report looks at a <a href="http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-news/2013/04/mississippi_lawmakers_give_fin.html" rel="nofollow">recent bill passed in Mississippi</a> allowing the state's Department of Health Services to privatize government functions such as child protective services and food programs for senior citizens.<br /><br />Mississippi tried this before: it previously hired outside firm <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Maximus" rel="nofollow">Maximus, Inc.</a> to collect overdue child support payments. Maximus charged higher costs while collecting less than the state did in child support payments, according to CMD.<br /><br />So maybe it's just a problem in Mississippi? Definitely not:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The <em><a href="http://extras.denverpost.com/news/foster0521a.htm" target="_blank">Denver Post</a></em> found a shocking pattern of abuse when it conducted an in-depth investigation of the privatization of Colorado’s foster care system a decade ago. The Post reported that numerous children were molested, abused, and even died in foster homes after the state started contracting with businesses that failed to ensure they were placed in safe homes. The state also paid three times as much to place a child in private foster care as it did in homes that were supervised by the counties.  </blockquote><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ACS" rel="nofollow">Affiliated Computer Services (ACS)</a>, another private firm, won a $1.16 billion contract from the state of Indiana in 2006. By 2008 there was a huge jump in the number of families and senior citizens incorrectly denied food stamps and Medicaid. <br /><br />But these errors, as devastating as they are, weren't simply the result of computer glitches. Instead, they are built into the for-profit framework of corporate-run social services:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Many question whether these services -- aimed at helping the elderly, single parents, and foster children -- should ever be delivered with a profit motive. As Bob Jacobson of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families put it, "If you’re a corporation whose very mission is to increase shareholder value, that is automatically in conflict with a social service agency whose sole purpose is to meet the needs of people in the program."</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Jacobson noted that in the early days of privatizing social services in Wisconsin, contracts with Maximus and others were set up in such a way that "the profit motive was built in to deny benefits." That is, whatever money Maximus saved the government by not enrolling eligible individuals, it got to keep. "There was all sorts of money being siphoned off to build big houses for CEOs and it was perfectly legal."  </blockquote>Despite its reputation of billing the state of Wisconsin for questionable expenses related to its privatized welfare-to-work program, <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110519005027/en/MAXIMUS-Awarded-21-Million-Child-Welfare-Contract" rel="nofollow">Maximus won another $21 million bid</a> in 2011 to management the state's foster care services for the next five years.<br /><br />Earlier this year, the state of California's $69 million contract with ACS failed <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/taxdollars/strong-479003-href-http.html" rel="nofollow">37,000 people whose food stamp benefits disappeared</a>. <br /><br />And it isn't just state governments being swindled by private companies to prey on vulnerable families. CMD reports that Maximus just won a contract with the Department of Education to process federal student loan payments -- and it could run taxpayers as much as $848.4 million!<br /><br />It's no surprise then that Maximus's CEO took home $4 million last year and his company made over a billion in revenue. ACS's parent company, Xerox, made $22.3 billion last year and has awarded top executives over $120 million since 2008. <br /><br />Maybe that wouldn't be so bad if either company actually provided reliable services in exchange for the contracts they get from taxpayers. But that's the point: public services and private profits just don't mix.<br /><br />So the next time tea party radicals tell you we have a spending problem, tell them to blame privatization and corporate greed. <br /><br />It's not just robbing taxpayers -- it's killing the poor.

corporate greed government contracting privatization privatized foster care public services Corporate takeover of social services rips off states, starves families

We need to have a serious conversation about government spending. No, not the kind that John Boehner and right-wing extremists want to talk about. Rather, the money government is spending to outsource essential social services, paying inflated costs …

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ALEC link to official who cheated on charter school grade

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisqbBvOSjWyjb8EovjG4xMi2cYSqbWLEpgNJdfwfWxgXoT2P1fAht8UrnSOvGijhszYW4rUhFQcXUFFvacYCorY1_l8XLm4Z6hyX0xpROYBXY9slOUBW_cOZWT1R-xiqBE092AFGTKVc4j/s1600/alec-exposed-600x400.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisqbBvOSjWyjb8EovjG4xMi2cYSqbWLEpgNJdfwfWxgXoT2P1fAht8UrnSOvGijhszYW4rUhFQcXUFFvacYCorY1_l8XLm4Z6hyX0xpROYBXY9slOUBW_cOZWT1R-xiqBE092AFGTKVc4j/s320/alec-exposed-600x400.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>There's an <a href="http://alecexposed.org/">ALEC</a> link (what a shock) to the Indiana school superintendent who inflated the grade of an outsourced school run by a wealthy political donor. <br /><br />Our friends at the <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/07/12198/former-indiana-superintendent-lauded-alec-and-education-privatizers-cheats-school">Center for Media and Democracy</a> found the ALEC link. We're cross-posting their story below: <br /><br />New documents show that former Indiana Schools Superintendent Tony Bennett -- who now heads Florida's schools -- overhauled Indiana's much-heralded school grading system to guarantee that a charter run by a major campaign donor would receive top marks. These revelations shine a light on the big bucks behind the education privatization agenda, its continued failure to meet the need of students, and provides another instance of cheating to cover up poor educational outcomes.<br /><br />Bennett had been applauded by education privatizers like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for enacting reforms like school grading, vouchers, and anti-union measures. He was a <a href="http://www.alec.org/nearly-1000-state-legislators-business-leaders-and-public-policy-experts-discuss-free-market-solutions-to-creating-jobs-at-alecs-states-nation-policy-summit/">keynote</a> <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/04/at_arizona_gathering_alec_teac.html">speaker </a>at ALEC’s December 2011 States and Nation Policy Summit, and the education reforms he pushed <a href="http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/indiana-education-reform-package/">were adopted by ALEC</a> <a href="http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/education_35-day_mailing%20-%20new%20orleans.pdf">in August 2011</a> as a stand-alone bill called the "Indiana Education Reform Package" -- in no small part because they reflected ALEC model legislation.<br /><br /><b>"This will be a HUGE problem for us"</b><br /><br />Christel DeHaan, a big Republican donor in Indiana and school privatization supporter, gave Bennett an astounding $130,000 in campaign contributions for his 2008 and 2012 elections. But when DeHaan's Christel House charter school received a "C" last September under Bennett's grading system, he and his staff scrambled to fix it, according to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/tony-bennett-indiana_n_3672196.html?utm_hp_ref=tw">emails obtained by the Associated Press</a>.<br /><br />"They need to understand that anything less than an A for Christel House compromises all of our accountability work," Bennett wrote in a Sept. 12 email to then-chief of staff Heather Neal, who is now Gov. Mike Pence's chief lobbyist.<br /><br />Bennett had made the A to F grading system a signature item of his 2011 radical education reforms, which he spearheaded with the support of then-Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2011/12/16/meet-the-influencers-the-american-legislative-exchange-council/">ALEC legislators in the state</a>. Bennett often cited Christel House as a model charter school as he secured support for his education overhaul, and <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed2.pdf">according to the emails</a> had assured the Chamber of Commerce and legislative leaders that Christel was an "A" school.<br /><br />"This will be a HUGE problem for us," Bennett wrote to Neal about the school's "C" grade. <br /><br />Neal emailed back a few minutes later: "Oh, crap. We cannot release until this is resolved."<br /><br />"Legislative leadership as well as critics of A-F are going to use this against us to undo our accountability metrics through legislation," Bennett wrote in another email. "I hope we come to the meeting today with solutions and not excuses and/or explanations for me to wiggle myself out of the repeated lies I have told over the past six months."<br /><br />According to the Associated Press, Bennett's staff scrambled to alter the grading system over the next week, and Christel House's grade jumped twice, eventually reaching an "A." <br /><br /><b>Indiana Has No Campaign Contribution Limits</b><br /><br />In most states, a donor like DeHaan would be prohibited from directly giving a candidate tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Indiana has no campaign contribution limits for superintendent.<br /><br />Bennett, first elected in 2008, <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2012/08/02/interactive-map-whos-giving-money-in-the-campaign-for-state-superintendent/">raised an astounding amount of money</a> for his 2012 reelection campaign: DeHaan gave $75,000, and was one of Bennett's top donors, behind Wal-Mart heir Alice Walton, another major school privatization funder, who gave him $200,000. <a href="http://inschoolmatters.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/indiana-superintendent-campaign-finance-the-rich-vs-the-many/">Other donors</a> included voucher proponent Eli Broad ($50,000) and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($40,000).<br /><br />He also got <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2012/08/02/interactive-map-whos-giving-money-in-the-campaign-for-state-superintendent/">$45,000</a> from Hoosiers for Education Reform, a group bankrolled by the DeVos family's American Federation for Children, which itself has run into some campaign finance problems. <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/05/12101/issue-ad-charade-american-federation-children-uncovered-wisconsin">As CMD has documented</a>, AFC boasted to funders in 2012 that it spent $2.4 million in Wisconsin helping elect nine Wisconsin state legislators, but told the state's Government Accountability Board that it spent only $345,000 that year. <br /><br />But despite significantly outraising his opponent, voters rejected Bennett and his education reform agenda, in what the head of the teacher's union called the biggest upset in Indiana history. <br /><br />Money may not have bought that election, but given these latest email revelations, it sure did seem to buy some special treatment.<br /><br /><b>How Common is Cheating?</b><br /><br />For years, educational reformers have promoted the notion that schools need to be run more like a business, with "competition" from for-profit entities and increased "accountability" through testing regimes. But the promised improvements in educational outcomes have not followed, apparently leading some to cook the books.<br /><br />Perhaps the best-known cheating scandal came from former Washington, D.C., school Chancellor Michelle Rhee, whose controversial reforms had been credited with improving test scores in the District's schools -- an accomplishment that has been cast into doubt by evidence of widespread cheating, where teachers or school officials appeared to change students' incorrect test answers to improve results. Investigations have found extremely high erasure rates that were statistically anomalous, and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/surprise-dc-admits-school-test-tampering-at-meridian-public-charter/2013/04/25/818ccb2e-ad66-11e2-a8b9-2a63d75b5459_blog.html">some charter schools have been cited</a>. <br /><br />Despite these scandals, both Rhee and Bennett have moved on to greener pastures. After resigning from her position in 2010, Rhee went on to found the 501(c)(4) StudentsFirst, and after Bennett's election loss in Indiana, he was appointed by Florida Governor Rick Scott to head that state's school system.

ALEC Indiana privatization ALEC link to official who cheated on charter school grade

There's an ALEC link (what a shock) to the Indiana school superintendent who inflated the grade of an outsourced school run by a wealthy political donor. Our friends at the Center for Media and Democracy found the ALEC link. We're cross-posting their…

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