The CEA Blog

The Southfield Board of Education in East Lansing, Michigan voted recently to place pink slips in the mailboxes of all of the district’s bus drivers, aides, maintenance workers and custodians– over 350 union jobs in total.

The district isn’t leaving those positions unfilled, however. In the same vote, they decided to privatize those jobs, outsourcing them to two for-profit school service companies.

The Michigan Education Association’s affiliate that represented the employees (SMESPA) presented a package to the board that would have cut costs to the district by approximately $18 million over the three years of the pact and created cost-sharing between the union and the district. Despite this extremely generous offer, the school board still voted 5-2 against the proposal. 

For more information, click here.

Welcome to the Carnival of Education! This is the 167th carnival, and the second time The CEA Blog has hosted this wonderful collection of rantings, musings, quotations, ideas, thoughts, inspirations, realizations and the like. The 168th edition will be hosted by the Education Wonks; email them at owlshome {at} earthlink {dot} net, or use this handy submission form. Yes, for those of you wondering, the picture is a snapshot of our fair city. Without further ado, click on the jump below and…. let’s Carnival!

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Talking about working for economic and social justice is one thing, but the AFL-CIO has a proven track record. They have brought about substantive change that benefits working families. The AFL-CIO has been able to effect change at the local and the state level through grassroots activism and supporting progressive candidates.

Click on the jump below to read more.

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The Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) sent the IRS a letter asking it to investigate whether charter schools managed by White Hat Management, Inc. and its affiliates can properly claim 503(c) tax-exempt status.

White Hat Management and its affiliates operate the “Life Skills” and “Hope Academy” charter schools in Ohio, Florida and Arizona. OFT states that the schools are merely a tax-exempt “pass through” to funnel money to the management company– $84 million tax dollars per year.

The Ohio Department of Education database recorded information for 12 Hope Academy locations throughout the state; when examined, the data paints a disturbing picture of what results Ohioans are receiving for their $84 million dollars in tax money diverted from public school districts.

The CEA Blog took a look at the numbers regarding White Hat’s “Life Skills” Centers in an earlier post; now the ODE data on Hope Academies is under scrutiny.

Click on the jump below to take a closer look at ODE data on Hope Academies in the state of Ohio.

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The CEA Blog wrote a post about the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) who wrote a letter to the IRS, asking for an investigation of Akron-based White Hat Management’s 503 (c) tax-exempt status. The management firm operates numerous “Life Skills Centers” and “Hope Academies” in three states, pulling in an estimated $85 million annually in tax dollar revenue in Ohio alone.

News outlets and bloggers have begun to write as well discuss recent developments. Highlights are below, after the jump.

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The Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) sent the IRS a letter asking it to investigate whether charter schools managed by White Hat Management, Inc. and its affiliates can properly claim 503(c) tax-exempt status.

White Hat Management and its affiliates operate the “Life Skills” and “Hope Academy” charter schools in Ohio, Florida and Arizona. OFT states that the schools, are merely a tax-exempt “pass through” to funnel money to the management company– $84 million tax dollars per year.

The Ohio Department of Education database recorded information for 18 Life Skills centers throughout the state; when examined, the data paints a disturbing picture of what results Ohioans are receiving for their $84 million dollars in tax money diverted from public school districts.

Click on the jump below to take a closer look at Life Skills Centers in the state of Ohio.

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The CEA Blog would like to wish everyone a happy, safe and restful spring break. Some recent highlights from around the edu-blogosphere: merit pay for wardens at prisons, students engaging in civil disobedience, using mixed numbers in real life, and the achievement gap between college basketball teams participating in March Madness.

Click on the jump below to read more.

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Read the full story here.

The recent campaign launched by the Center For Union Facts (CUF) has wrongly placed the highly qualified and hard-working teachers of the Columbus Education Association in its crosshairs with the release of its anti-teacher smear campaign.

Click on the jump below to read more.

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