Monday, November 16, 2015

No injuries in plane vs. van crash near Poplar Grove Airport - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

POPLAR GROVE — No one was injured, but a van was damaged Saturday afternoon when a plane was landing at the Poplar Grove Airport, 11619 Illinois Route 76.
The crash occurred at 12:37 p.m. on Orth Road just east of Illinois Route 76. A woman was driving a van westbound on Orth Road when a small Cessna-type airplane hit the roof of the van with one of its tires.
The plane was coming in for a landing, said Boone County Sheriff Sgt. Dan Reid. The tire damaged the top of the van and the windshield, Reid said. The plane carried the pilot and one passenger. The woman had child passengers in her van, Reid said.
The plane landed safely. The Boone County Sheriff's Department completed an accident report, Reid said, and turned it over to the Federal Aviation Administration.

No injuries in plane vs. van crash near Poplar Grove Airport - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

We kicked the Koch Brothers’ a**: How Denver parents beat back big money, charter schools, right-wing lies - Salon.com

This election cost over three quarters of a million, SEE:  http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2015/10/school-board-recall-vote-in-colorado.html

Although many Democrats are disappointed, even in a “panic,” with the results from last week’s off-year elections, they need to be aware of where progressives won and learn from communities that bucked the influences of big money, especially in contests where education was a top-tier issue.

Most notable of the wins was a school board race in Jefferson County, Colorado, just outside Denver, that many national media outlets had actually hyped but then mostly ignored once the results were in.

The vote, the New York Times reported before Election Day, was about “whether to oust a polarizing school board that has championed charter schools, performance-based teacher pay, and other education measures.”

“The skirmish has been tense,” the Washington Post explained, “with alleged death threats, social media clashes, and attacks on talk radio.”

Both news stories told of a national program bearing down on the school district, with “money pouring in from Americans for Prosperity, the national organization founded by the Koch brothers,” in an effort to impose an agenda from outside the community that included a new history curriculum, new restrictions on teachers’ job security, and more privately-operated charter schools.

Students, teachers and parents were openly revolting against the school board, staging school walkouts, holding boisterous protest rallies and waging a petition campaign to demand an election to recall the school board majority.

The national outlets consistently got the story of the election wrong, adopting a talking point from a libertarian think tank that the contest was a “proxy war” between the Koch Brothers and “teachers’ unions,” when, in fact, the recall effort was mostly led by parents.

Then, when the results came in last week, and voters recalled the board majority and voted in a new slate of progressive-minded candidates, national outlets generally ignored the story, and the news was relegated to local outlets and bloggers to report.

But what the national media have misreported and overlooked is an important story of how communities fighting to control their education destinies can win against big-moneyed interests and a charter school industry that want to dictate what schooling is like across the country.

A Major Battle to Preserve Public Schools

I went to Jeffco (what the locals call it) this summer and reported about the emerging national story for Alternet.

I found this outstanding school district – where real innovation is taking place in the public schools – is “under assault by right-wing groups, some with connections to evangelical Christianity” and “a powerful charter school industry, different from the ‘organic charters’ Jeffco parents already send their kids to.”

My firsthand investigations, which included more than a dozen interviews and visits to community events and school sites, revealed a fight over “who gets to call the shots in education systems strained by unending financial austerity and an unremitting ‘reform’ agenda whose intent is unclear to the people in its way.”

I met with local Jeffco citizens who engaged in scores of house parties, circulated flyers and repeated a message of dissent against the three board members who were intent on imposing a market-based philosophy of education conceived in libertarian think tanks and charter school corporate offices.

Why should you care about a school board election in suburban Denver?

As a reporter at Al Jazeera correctly understood in her pre-election report, the contest had “national implications.”

The race, Sandra Fish writes, “has ramifications far outside the school district … Because Jeffco is the ultimate swing county in the key swing state of Colorado,” Fish finds, “that means success – or defeat – there could be replicated across the U.S.”

She quotes a professor of education history at New York University saying, “Colorado has become a kind of test case for these issues. Others around the country will be watching to see if the money and the influence matters … It’s going to be a very close election is my guess.'”

The professor was mostly right, except about the margin of victory. It wasn’t close. Voters “overwhelmingly,” according to the Denver Post, voted for the recall, with the charter school-backed board members going down by an average of 64 percent to 36 percent.

A Jeffco classroom teacher involved in the resistance effort, Paula Reed, had this to say in an email to me about the importance of the recall win: “This was a major front in the battle to preserve public schools for kids and stop privatization for profit. I said to myself and everyone I pulled in that if we won, we would know for the rest of our lives that we had been part of something huge.”

Why Grassroots Matters Most

“The success of this recall has been a true testament to what grassroots can accomplish,” Jeffco parent activist Jonna Levine tells me in an email. “We sent a strong message that community can win over big corporate machines like the Koch Brothers.”

Levine co-founded and leads, with Jeffco parent Shawna Fritzler, the grassroots group “Support Jeffco Kids.” Organizing parents into these grassroots groups, including Jeffco United, that helped lead the petition effort proved to be a key to the successful campaign. Parents have an undeniable stake in anything related to public schools. And unlike teachers, they can’t be intimidated by school administration or be fired.

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Above is from:  We kicked the Koch Brothers’ a**: How Denver parents beat back big money, charter schools, right-wing lies - Salon.com

Illinois students of for-profit schools to get $3M in debt relief under settlement - Chicago Tribune

 

About 2,700 Illinois students of for-profit schools will receive about $3 million in debt relief under a national settlement with a Pittsburgh company running trade schools and colleges.

The Justice Department on Monday announced the settlement, which resolves a consumer fraud investigation by several attorneys general and separate whistleblower lawsuits.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says Education Management Corporation (EDMC) used "deceptive" recruitment and enrollment practices.

The agreement says loans offered through school programs won't be collected. It applies to certain students attending between 2006 and 2014. Students will be contacted. Madigan's office says there also will be a phone number.

The corporation operates five Illinois colleges with Argosy University and Illinois Institute of Art campuses in the Chicago area.

Under the agreement, EDMC must also make reforms that'll be independently monitored.

Education Management Corp., the second-largest for-profit college chain, agreed to pay $95.5 million to resolve allegations that it paid employees based on student enrollment in violation of federal law.

For-profit colleges are reeling from mounting government probes, tanking stock prices, regulatory scrutiny and depressed student enrollment. ITT Tech is being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud; University of Phoenix has been suspended from receiving military tuition assistance; and Career Education Corp. closed all 14 of its Sanford-Brown schools. As marquee names falter, the industry itself appears to be in trouble.

Federal court upholds rules aimed at for-profit college industry

In the case of Education Management, the Department of Justice claims the company violated a federal ban on incentive compensation at schools participating in federal financial aid programs. The rule is meant to prevent schools from steering students into loans to boost revenue.

Prosecutors say the company flouted the ban by paying recruiters based on the number of students enrolled, leading employees to use aggressive and deceptive tactics to get students in the doors. Top recruiters received Pittsburgh Pirates tickets, free lunches and all-expense-paid vacations to Las Vegas and Puerto Vallarta, according to the complaint.

All the while, Education Management swore to the Department of Education that it was complying with the rules. Between July 2003 and June 2011 about 90 percent of the tuition the company received, or $11 billion, came from federal grants and loans, according to the complaint.

"EDMC's actions were not only a betrayal of their students' trust; they were a violation of federal law," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Monday during a press conference. She called the settlement "a historic step forward in our collective and ongoing fight against fraudulent and abusive practices in the for-profit education industry."

Madigan sues five debt-relief firms over student loans

 

 

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed five lawsuits Monday against debt-relief companies she claims preyed on consumers struggling to repay student loans.

The companies charged upfront fees as high as $1,250 for bogus services or for help that the borrowers could have gotten themselves for...

Problems at the company came to light in 2007 when Lynntoya Washington, a former assistant director of admission at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division, sued the company under the so-called False Claims Act. The law encourages witnesses to come forward in cases where the government has been defrauded by providing them up to a third of the proceeds recovered by authorities.

State and federal authorities joined Washington's case in 2011, shortly after another whistleblower, Michael Mahoney, the director of the company's online higher education division, came forward with more evidence of misconduct.

The civil settlement is the largest involving false claims made to the Department of Education. It calls on Education Management to provide students with a single-page disclosure detailing job placement rates, free orientation and the ability to withdraw at no cost up to seven days after their first class on campus or 21 days online.

The company will also forgive the debts owed by former students who left within 45 days of their first term and whose final day of attendance was between Jan. 1, 2006, and Dec. 31, 2014.

"We are also pleased to have resolved the civil claims raised by the Department of Justice and state attorneys general," said Education Management president and chief executive Mark McEachen said in a statement. "Though we continue to believe the allegations in the cases were without merit, putting these matters behind us returns our focus to educating students."

Education Management, which enrolls more than 100,000 students, did not admit to any wrongdoing.

"This settlement should be a warning to other career colleges out there: We will not stand by while you profit illegally off of students and taxpayers," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said during the press conference. "The federal government will continue to work tirelessly with state attorneys general to ensure that all colleges follow the law."

The case against Education Management is the government's latest effort to crack down on for-profit colleges accused of defrauding taxpayers and students. The Department of Education's decision last year to cut off Corinthian Colleges' access to federal student loans and grants for falsifying job placement and graduation rates ultimately led the company to file bankruptcy. The department fined the company $30 million in April, a month before Corinthian shut its doors.

Associated Press, The Washington Post contributed

Illinois students of for-profit schools to get $3M in debt relief under settlement - Chicago Tribune

360's photo.

Above is from Mobile Downloads:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153263608725367.1073741825.21472335366&type=3

DePaul MAP recipients face uncertain future - The DePaulia

 

The reminder is on every computer monitor on both campuses. Blue and white posters with the #MAPMatters logo demanding the attention of the 23,799 students at DePaul. Try logging into Campus Connect and a yellow box reminds students that what is going on in Springfield will directly affect us. When Inoticed the #MAPMatters campaign started by SGA, which begins, “Over 5,000 students rely on the MAP grant at DePaul,” a slight chill ran down my back. I am one of the 5,000 students who will be directly affected if the Monetary Award Program (MAP) ceases to exist.

The average annual MAP grant at DePaul is $4,000 and distributed to the population of low- and middle-income students. Those 5,000 students who come from low- or middle-class families are first generation college students often minorities, who can only afford DePaul’s high tuition cost because of programs such as FAFSA’s pell grant and the state MAP grant. I am one of those 5,000.

In a mass email, President Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, C.M., said, “The MAP program has been a key piece of Illinois’ higher education policy for decades. It is important to know that MAP enjoys strong bi-partisan support. The political fight impacting the budget is not due to MAP. However, until the impasse over unrelated issues is resolved, MAP remains unfunded and its future uncertain.”

Some of us were probably aware of it, others maybe not so much. But since July 1, the state of Illinois has been operating without a state budget. This means that a large amount of state services have been halted until a budget is passed. Among those halted services are financial aid programs at many college campuses across Illinois. It has been more than five months since any negotiation has been made regarding the state funding for universities. DePaul junior and MAP grant recipient Hajirie Kolijma learned about the MAP funding issue when she saw SGA’s #MAPmatters campaign posted around the Lincoln Park Campus.

“My MAP (grant) amount is usually $4,700 per year,” Kolijima said. “If that is gone I will have to take out loans and that would put me in a (really) bad position. Even if it seems like a small amount considering the rest of my financial aid, it changes my long-term plans completely.”

The MAP grant and state aid university funding impasse, leaves me and other students like myself with great anxiety and many unanswered questions regarding how we will pay for the rest of our time at DePaul. The $2,700 extra in financial aid provided by the MAP grant went a really long way. It covered those last thousand dollars that determined whether or not I could afford attending DePaul.

Longtime residents of this state, my parents and I will be directly impacted if the MAP program is to be cut. I will need to take out loans for the extra $2,000 to $3,000.

Those $2,000 may not seem like a big deal, but for me, Kolijima and the other 5,000 students relying on the grants to attend DePaul, MAP funding is necessary to continue our education.

I have grown up and lived in Illinois my entire life. I was born in Humboldt Park, Chicago and lived in Albany Park for a few years. Due to the high crime in the neighborhood, my family and I moved out of the city. I have lived in numerous suburbs ranging in varying economic statuses and my parents’ financial situation going up and down with each of the four moves we made.

mapgrants

(Graphics by Michelle Krichevskaya | The DePaulia, Photos courtesy of ILLINOIS.GOV)

I am a young, first generation, Latino minority with a low- to middle-class income immigrant parents who have done everything they could so I could afford DePaul’s expensive tuition. They did all of this so I can one day be a university graduate and a professional, active and informed citizen.

Currently, my tuition as an undergraduate communication major is $11,637 per quarter. With my financial aid package containing the DePaul Community Service Scholarship, the DePaul grant and both federal subsidized and unsubsidized loans, I have a remaining amount of $4,637 to still pay and it is almost the end of the Fall quarter. With a hold on my account and my inability to pay the university nearly $5,000, I am unable to register for classes next quarter, leaving me with the option to go part-time in order to pay only $2000, which I used to pay for a fulltime course load when the MAP grant was included.

SGA President Vanessa Cadavillo explained how the direct impact of the MAP program being eliminated would be a change in the dynamic of students attending DePaul.

“Low- to middle-income and first-generation students are not the only type of demographic who receive the extra help, but (if MAP is eliminated) it takes away the opportunity for them,” Cadavillo said. “Those 5,000 students have to find another way to pay that amount. They are stuck with answering that question or if they are going to be able to come back to DePaul at all.”

Those 5,000 students are your friends, your crush, your roommates, tutors, RA’s — and I could go on. I am one of those students who need to figure out my future after facing this unexpected cut in funding.

“Be assured that DePaul will continue to monitor this situation until it is resolved. The state’s political leaders have heard my voice many times. Now it is time they hear from more citizens who support this important financial aid program.” Holtschneider said to finish off the email.

What we are expected to do right now is plan ahead. We need a plan of action and come up with our own ways to fund the rest of our tuitions that the MAP grant used to cover. It’s not ideal, but this is an example of the benefits of being an informed individual.

For now, students should act as though next quarter the MAP grant will, in fact, disappear. We will then realize the enormity of those few thousand dollars that are missing from our financial aid package. Then —and this is just a prediction —we might turn to DePaul if there is any other alternate aid they can offer. Then, DePaul Central offers the special circumstances appeal form, which depending on the student’s specific financial situation can be offered aid. If it is not applicable to the student, a DePaul will not be able to offer any other type of support because they do not have the funds necessary themselves to do so.

But for now, there is no safe bet. We already know we should be calling our state representatives and Rauner himself to make our voices heard.

DePaul MAP recipients face uncertain future - The DePaulia

U.S. Republicans seek to shut door on Syrian refugees after Paris - Yahoo News###

 

By Scott Malone

 

(Reuters) - More than a dozen state governors refused on Monday to accept Syrian refugees after the Paris attacks, part of a mounting Republican backlash against the Obama administration's plan to accept thousands more immigrants from the war-torn country.

Leading Republican presidential candidates called on President Barack Obama to suspend the plan to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees in the coming year and some Republican lawmakers began moves in Congress to try to defund the policy.

The State Department said the administration would stand by its plan, reiterating that the refugees would be subject to stringent security checks, and Obama said that the terrorism problem should not be equated with the refugee crisis.

But Republican leaders said it was too risky to allow a further influx of refugees after Friday's attacks by the Syria-based Islamic State group that killed 129 people.

The Republican governors of Maine, Nebraska, Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Massachusetts, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia and Illinois joined their counterparts in Alabama and Michigan in saying they would no longer help settle Syrian refugees. One Democratic governor, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, joined them in rejecting Syrian refugees.

Experts in immigration law said the governors likely had no legal standing to block the federal government from settling refugees admitted into the country, but noted that they could obstruct the plans by cutting funding to programs and creating an atmosphere of hostility.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, for instance, said he had instructed law enforcement officials to monitor one Syrian refugee recently resettled into his state.

A Syrian passport found near the body of one of the attackers showed that its holder passed through Greece in October, raising concern that the attackers had entered Europe amid the wave of refugees fleeing that country's four-year civil war.

"Texas cannot participate in any program that will result in Syrian refugees - any one of whom could be connected to terrorism - being resettled in Texas," Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in an open letter to Obama on Monday. "Neither you nor any federal official can guarantee that Syrian refugees will not be part of any terroristic activity."

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Refugees and migrants rest inside a tent at a camp, …

Refugees and migrants rest inside a tent at a camp, as they wait to cross Greece's border with M …

Refugee advocates argued that the governors and other Republicans are targeting those who are overwhelmingly victims rather than perpetrators of extremist violence.

"These are victims of the same terror that we're so horrified by," said Melanie Nezer, vice president of policy and advocacy at Jewish nonprofit refugee service HIAS. "The impact on people is going to be tragic and the impact on our reputation as a global humanitarian leader is also going to be tragic."

LEGAL AUTHORITY UNCLEAR

The United States admitted 1,682 Syrian refugees in the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, a sharp jump from the 105 admitted a year earlier, while Europe is struggling with an influx of hundreds of thousands. Texas, California and Michigan accepted the largest number of people fleeing the war.

Secretary of State John Kerry in September said the United States would increase the number of refugees it takes in from all nations by 15,000 per year over the next two years, bringing the total to 100,000 a year by 2017.

"The federal government has the power over immigration. If they admit Syrian refugees, they're here," said Deborah Anker, a professor of law at Harvard Law School who specializes in immigration issues. "People aren't going to the (state) border. The federal government is going to bring them in."

Florida Governor Rick Scott said it was unclear if a governor had the right to block refugees from entering a state. Instead, he sent a letter to Congressional Republicans asking for their help in blocking Syrian refugees from being resettled in his state.

"We are asking the U.S. Congress to take immediate and aggressive action to prevent President Obama and his administration from using any federal tax dollars to fund the relocation ... without an extensive evaluation of the risk these individuals may pose to our national security," Scott wrote.

Republican lawmaker Brian Babin, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, circulated a letter to the Republican House leadership requesting that Obama's plan be defunded as part of an upcoming spending bill.

Republican presidential candidates vowed on Monday to take a tougher approach toward Islamic State, with Donald Trump saying he would consider closing some mosques and Ben Carson saying that Congress should cut funding for all programs that bring people fleeing violence in Syria

On the Democratic side, the governors of Pennsylvania and Washington State said they will continue working with the federal government to admit Syrian refugees.

"Washington will continue to be a state that welcomes those seeking refuge from persecution, regardless of where they come from or the religion they practice," said Washington Governor Jay Inslee, in a statement.

Alabama and Michigan said they would no longer accept Syrian refugees on Sunday.

Michigan's Republican governor, Rick Snyder, described his state, which has a large Arab-American population, as "welcoming" but said the risk associated with admitting Syrian refugees was too high.

The State Department denied that admitted refugees, who are all extensively screened before being allowed into the country, present any threat and said it would seek to alleviate the governors' concerns.

"We take their concerns seriously," spokesman Mark Toner said of the governors' statements. "We disagree that these people, individuals frankly many of them the most vulnerable (in the region), represent any kind of real threat."

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Jon Herskovitz, Letitia Stein, Eric Johnson, Ben Klayman and Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Stuart Grudgings)

U.S. Republicans seek to shut door on Syrian refugees after Paris - Yahoo News###

America's Worst Charities

 

The worst charities, ranked by money blown on soliciting costs

Totals from the latest 10 years of available federal tax filings.
Data updated in December 2014.

Rank
Charity name
Total raised by solicitors
Paid to solicitors
% spent on direct cash aid

1
Kids Wish Network
$137.9 million
$115.9 million
2.5%

2
Cancer Fund of America
$86.8 million
$75.4 million
1.0%

3
Children's Wish Foundation International
$92.7 million
$61.2 million
10.6%

4
Firefighters Charitable Foundation
$62.8 million
$53.8 million
7.4%

5
International Union of Police Associations, AFL-CIO
$66.6 million
$50.4 million
0.5%

6
Breast Cancer Relief Foundation
$63.9 million
$44.8 million
2.2%

7
American Association of State Troopers
$48.1 million
$38.6 million
8.9%

8
National Veterans Service Fund
$70.2 million
$36.9 million
7.8%

9
Children's Cancer Fund of America
$43.7 million
$34.4 million
4.6%

10
Children's Cancer Recovery Foundation
$38.5 million
$28.9 million
0.7%

11
Project Cure (Bradenton, FL)
$53.8 million
$25.5 million
0.0%

12
Committee For Missing Children
$26.6 million
$23.5 million
0.8%

13
Youth Development Fund
$27.5 million
$22.6 million
1.0%

14
Association for Firefighters and Paramedics
$24.0 million
$21.4 million
3.1%

15
Woman To Woman Breast Cancer Foundation
$19.4 million
$18.2 million
0.3%

16
United States Deputy Sheriffs' Association
$25.6 million
$17.9 million
0.8%

17
National Caregiving Foundation
$21.0 million
$17.4 million
3.2%

18
Vietnow National Headquarters
$19.1 million
$16.7 million
2.8%

19
National Cancer Coalition
$42.1 million
$16.4 million
1.3%

20
Operation Lookout National Center for Missing Youth
$18.2 million
$14.7 million
0.0%

21
American Foundation For Disabled Children
$15.8 million
$13.4 million
0.6%

22
Heart Support of America
$31.4 million
$12.9 million
3.1%

23
Police Protective Fund
$37.7 million
$12.2 million
0.7%

24
Veterans Assistance Foundation
$12.4 million
$11.1 million
10.4%

25
Children's Charity Fund
$14.0 million
$10.3 million
2.4%

26
The Veterans Fund
$12.6 million
$10.2 million
2.5%

27
Wishing Well Foundation USA
$12.6 million
$10.1 million
4.3%

28
Disabled Police Officers of America Inc.
$11.4 million
$9.5 million
2.3%

29
Disabled Police and Sheriffs Foundation
$10.4 million
$8.9 million
1.0%

30
National Police Defense Foundation
$10.6 million
$8.4 million
5.1%

31
Defeat Diabetes Foundation
$12.7 million
$7.8 million
0.0%

32
American Association of the Deaf & Blind
$10.3 million
$7.8 million
0.1%

33
Optimal Medical Foundation
$7.8 million
$7.6 million
1.0%

34
Circle of Friends For American Veterans
$9.3 million
$7.2 million
4.4%

35
United Breast Cancer Foundation
$12.7 million
$7.2 million
6.3%

36
Reserve Police Officers Association
$7.8 million
$6.9 million
1.2%

37
Children's Leukemia Research Association
$9.8 million
$6.8 million
11.1%

38
Disabled Police Officers Counseling Center
$7.6 million
$6.4 million
0.1%

39
Shiloh International Ministries
$7.7 million
$6.0 million
1.1%

40
Find the Children
$7.4 million
$4.8 million
4.6%

41
Survivors and Victims Empowered
$7.7 million
$4.8 million
0.0%

42
Firefighters Assistance Fund
$5.7 million
$4.7 million
3.1%

43
Caring for Our Children Foundation
$5.1 million
$4.4 million
1.6%

44
National Narcotic Officers Associations Coalition
$5.0 million
$4.2 million
0.0%

45
Our American Veterans
$2.6 million
$2.3 million
2.3%

46
Roger Wyburn-Mason & Jack M Blount Foundation For Eradication of Rheumatoid Disease
$9.0 million
$1.9 million
0.0%

47
Hope Cancer Fund
$2.1 million
$1.7 million
0.5%

48
Firefighters Burn Fund
$2.0 million
$1.7 million
1.5%

Above is from:  America's Worst Charities

 

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