Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Charters raid money from tax payers

They said charters would offer needed competition to community schools, but they didn’t say the competition would be about public dollars.  Last week Albany Times Union reported on the city’s Albany Leadership Charter High School for Girls “asking for $15 million in tax-free public financing to buy the brand-new charter high school for girls built by the Brighter Choice Foundation.”
Here’s the cute part. The nonprofit Brighter Choice Foundation, which runs all 11 charter schools in Albany and  erected the building at a cost of some $10.1 million, is directing its Charter Facilities Finance Fund to ask the city to back its selling tax-exempt bonds to investors so it can  buy the school building and — are you ready for this? — lease it back to Brighter Choice.

Forget about whether the deal sounds dodgy, because it does. If the deal also sounds a bit familiar, it may be because Thomas Carroll, the prime mover behind the Brighter Choice charter schools, has been profiting from a similarly questionable real estate tax loophole for the past several years, a story exposed earlier this year by Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News.
Critics say Carroll’s latest charter real estate trick runs counter to the purpose of the city providing tax free bonds, which is to jump-start job creation and promote economic development. No jobs will be created here; the school is already up and running. Where’s the public benefit in financing a project that’s already completed?

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Congress of the People - San Francisco


Congress of the People West Coast Regional
Social and Economic Justice for All
Regardless of Race or Immigration Status
                Living Wage Jobs
                Universal Health Care
                Affordable Housing
                Quality Public Education
                Progressive Taxation of Corporations and the Wealthy
                Peace and Self-determination

Join us for discussion of the Democracy Charter (www.democracycharter.org) submitted by Civil Rights Movement veteran Jack O’Dell and development of a People’s Platform.
http://www.livingwage-sf.org/

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Multicultural Conference - Sacramento


17TH Annual Multicultural
Education Conference
Keynote Speaker: Eugene Garcia, Ph.D.
Arizona: Resisting the New
{Anti}-Social Movement
Sat. Nov. 6.  University Union.  CSU –Sacramento.
For more information
Duane Campbell presentation:  Stop the anti immigrant, anti public school movement.