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Trump Pauses Presidental Campaign to Launch “Trump Sneakers,” Marks Death of Navalny Without Mentioning Putin

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2024 //
20

Donald Trump continued his March to the Republican Presidential nomination and found time to attend “SneakerCON” in Philadelphia. There he hawked his new line of sneakers, proudly showing off the top of the line: Golden Trump sneakers priced at $399. The 1,000 pairs on hand quickly sold out. A business triumph for Trump, who is in hock for nearly half a billion $$$ in New York.

Have we ever seen a former President monetizing his campaign?

And at last, Trump mentioned Navalny’s death, but he didn’t mention Putin. Instead, he compared himself to Navalny. Chutzpah!

He wrote on his Truth Social site:

“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Monday. “It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction. Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION! MAGA2024.”

Words fail me when I read that Trump can’t bring himself to condemn Putin, and even more astonishing that he sees himself as analogous to Navalny.

Categories Elections, For-Profit, Trump

New York State Wins $750,000 from College Board for Selling Student Data

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2024 //
10

For years, parent advocates for student privacy have been pushing the state to stop the College Board from selling student data to colleges. See Reuters story here. The state Attorney General Letitia James and Board of Regents Chair Betty Rosa sued the College Board and won.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    
February 13, 2024

Attorney General’s Press Office/212-416-8060nyag.pressoffice@ag.ny.gov

Attorney General James and NYSED Commissioner Rosa
Secure $750,000 from College Board for Violating Students’ Privacy

NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York State Education Department (NYSED) Commissioner Betty A. Rosa announced a $750,000 settlement with College Board for violating students’ privacy and unlawfully selling their personal data. For years, College Board collected students’ personal information when they took the PSAT, SAT, and AP exams in school, and then licensed this data to colleges, scholarship programs, and other customers who used it to solicit students to participate in their programs. In 2019 alone, College Board improperly licensed the information of more than 237,000 New York students who took their exams. In addition, College Board improperly sent promotional materials to students who signed up for College Board accounts in connection with exams or AP courses. As a result of today’s agreement, College Board must pay $750,000 in penalties and will be prohibited from monetizing New York students’ data that it acquires through its contracts with New York schools and school districts.

“Students have more than enough to be stressed about when they take college entrance exams, and shouldn’t have to worry about their personal information being bought and sold,” said Attorney General James. “New York law requires organizations like College Board to protect the data they collect from students when they take their exams in school, not sell it to customers for a profit. I want to thank Commissioner Rosa for her work on this investigation to ensure we hold College Board accountable and protect New York students’ privacy.”  

“When the organizations we trust to provide meaningful services to our students exploit student information for profit, it violates privacy laws as well as the public trust,” said Commissioner Betty A. Rosa. “We will continue to ensure that every student’s information is appropriately utilized and protected. We are grateful to the Attorney General for her collaboration in protecting the interests of the students and families of New York.”

College Board is a New York-based non-profit institution that develops and administers standardized tests, primarily to high school students who take them as part of the college admissions process. It also develops other college readiness programs, such as AP courses, and has a contract with NYSED to subsidize AP exam fees for low-income students. In addition, College Board operates the Student Search Service (Search), in which it licenses data it collects from students — including their names, contact information, ethnicity, GPAs, and test scores — to customers like colleges and scholarship programs to use for recruiting students. 

Beginning in 2010, College Board contracted with New York schools and school districts to allow schools to offer the PSAT and SAT exams during the school day and to pay for the students’ exam fees. In the past five years, approximately 20 New York schools or school districts, including the New York City Department of Education, which operates more than 500 high schools, have entered into such contracts. Schools across New York have also consistently signed agreements with College Board to offer AP courses and exams.

An investigation led by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) revealed that prior to June 2022, College Board solicited students to provide information, such as their GPA, anticipated course of study, interest in a religiously affiliated college and religious activities, and parents’ level of income, during the administration of PSAT, SAT, and AP exams, as well as when students signed up for a College Board online account. Although providing this data for participation in Search was optional, students were solicited to participate in the urgent context of an important exam and were encouraged to sign up because it would connect them with scholarship and college opportunities. From 2018-2022, College Board licensed New York student data to over 1,000 institutions through Search and received significant revenue from data related to New York students who took PSAT, SAT, or AP exams during the school day.    

The investigation further found that College Board improperly used student data for its own marketing. Until fall 2022, College Board used student data collected in connection with PSAT and SAT exams administered during the school day to send marketing communications. In addition, until 2023, when New York students registered for the AP program, they were solicited to opt in to receiving College Board marketing materials. 

Under New York law, it is illegal to use student data obtained under a contract with a New York educational agency for commercial or marketing purposes. The investigation found College Board improperly used student data obtained in connection with PSAT and SAT exams administered during the school day and the AP program by licensing student data to Search clients and using student data to send its own marketing materials.  

Under the settlement announced today, College Board must pay $750,000 in penalties, disgorgement, and costs to the state. College Board is also prohibited from using New York student data it collects or receives in connection with a contract with a New York educational agency for any marketing or commercial purposes. This includes data obtained from administering PSAT, SAT, or AP exams during the school day. In addition, College Board cannot solicit students to participate in Search or similar programs during these exams.

This matter was handled for OAG by Assistant Attorneys General Laura Mumm, Jina John, and Hanna Baek of the Bureau of Internet and Technology, under the supervision of Bureau Chief Kim Berger and Deputy Bureau Chief Clark Russell, with special assistance from former Special Advisor and Senior Counsel for Economic Justice Zephyr Teachout. The Bureau of Internet and Technology is part of the Division for Economic Justice, which is overseen by Chief Deputy Attorney General Chris D’Angelo and First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy.

This matter was handled for NYSED by Chief Privacy Officer Louise De Candia and Counsel & Deputy Commissioner for Legal Affairs Daniel Morton-Bentley.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, For-Profit, New York, Privacy and Privacy Rights

Private Equity is Buying Up Hospitals, Squeezing Out Big Profits, Letting Them Die

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2024 //
21

I am more than a little touchy on the subject of for-profit takeovers of hospitals that serve the community. That happened in my neighborhood a few years back. The city sold a major hospital to a for-profit firm. The hospital eventually went bankrupt and was sold off and converted to other uses. This hospital saved my life in 1998, when I walked in to the emergency room, short of breath and limping. As it happened, I had an advanced pulmonary embolism. Had I not gone to the hospital, I would not have survived the night, said the pulmonary specialist the next morning.

Larry Edelman of The Boston Globe in his column called Trendlines tells the story of what happened to a small chain of hospitals that served high-needs communities:

The hound from hell

It was a match born of voracity and desperation, as many private equity buyouts are. Cerberus Capital Management hit a home run with Steward Health Care. But Steward may be about to go down swinging.

Rewind: In 2010, Cerberus agreed to bail out Caritas Christi Health Care, a struggling network of six Catholic hospitals serving mainly poorer communities in cities including Boston, Brockton, Fall River, and Methuen.

The New York firm paid $246 million in cash, assumed more than $200 million in pension liabilities, and promised to invest $400 million in the company, rechristened Steward Health Care.

When the deal was announced, a Cerberus executive told the Globe it was “a big win for the hard-working communities of Greater Boston.’’

Fast-forward: After a national expansion, Steward is on the ropes. Last week, the Globe’s Jessica Bartlett broke the news that the company — now owned by a group of physician-managers — is having trouble paying rent and may have to sell or close hospitals.

But the deal was a big win for Cerberus. It cashed out of Steward in early 2021, quadrupling its money with an $800 million gain, according to Bloomberg.

The backstory: Cerberus bought Caritas Christi four years after a blockbuster hospital deal: the 2006 leveraged buyout of HCA for $21 billion by Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts and Bain Capital of Boston.

The sheer size of the acquisition — and the involvement of two respected firms — supercharged a health care buyout binge that extended beyond hospitals to nursing homes, physician practices, and home health providers.

Cerberus jumps in: After taking a high-profile beating on its 2007 bet on Chrysler, Cerberus saw an opportunity to profit on a turnaround of the “St. Elsewhere”-esque Steward. The plan: buy up other hospitals around the country, deploy new technology, improve efficiency, control costs, and bill Medicare and Medicaid as aggressively as possible.

It was a vision adeptly articulated by Dr. Ralph de la Torre, Caritas’ chief executive officer who remained in charge under Cerberus.

But it was a tough slog for the cardiac surgeon. His expansion plans were thwarted, and Steward didn’t make any money until 2015, when a reduction in pension payments put it in the black.

The big breakthrough: The following year Steward sold its hospital properties for $1.2 billion to Medical Properties Trust, a real estate investment trust that also paid $50 million for a 5 percent stake in the company.

Steward, which leased the properties back from Alabama-based MPT, earmarked the proceeds to buy more hospitals and pay down debt. It also returned Cerberus’ initial investment, though the firm held on to a controlling stake in the company.

In effect, de la Torre had landed a new financial backer, letting Cerberus off the hook.

“We look forward to expanding our relationship with Steward in the years ahead,” MPT chief executive Edward K. Aldag Jr. said at the time.

And MPT did just that in 2017, writing a $1.4 billion check and buying an additional $100 million of Steward equity. De la Torre used the money to buy IASIS Healthcare, a $2 billion purchase that gave Steward 18 hospitals in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Texas, and Utah, making it the largest for-profit chain in the country.

The next year de la Torre moved the company’s headquarters to Dallas, where taxes are lower and regulations lighter.

Minimal disclosure: As a private company, Steward isn’t required to make its financial statements public. Moreover, it has largely ignored Massachusetts requirements that it file detailed financial information on an annual basis.

But publicly traded MPT discloses some Steward financials because the chain is its largest tenant, accounting for about 20 percent of revenue. That’s how we know that Steward booked operating losses of $322 million in 2017 and $270 million in 2018.

Steward’s leaseback deal with MPT significantly boosted its expenses, but as Jessica reported, the health system blames its dire financial straits on rising interest rates and labor costs, an increasing Medicaid population, and difficulty collecting bills.

MPT has been hit hard by Steward’s woes. Its stock tumbled nearly 40 percent after it announced earlier this month that Steward was having trouble paying rent.

Moreover, COVID clobbered all hospitals. Despite receiving government pandemic aid and hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from MPT, Steward is strapped.

Good timing: Cerberus was out before the bedpan hit the fan.

In May 2020, it swapped its stake with Steward doctors in exchange for a note paying interest. Then, in January 2021, Steward borrowed $335 million from MPT to pay off the debt.

Cerberus was free and clear.

Parting thought: It’s not the only time the firm — named after the three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades in Greek mythology — scored big on a company that went bust.

It did well on its buyout of Mervyn’s by selling off the department store chain’s real estate before it went bankrupt. And it recouped its investment and then some at arms maker Remington by paying itself a dividend before the company went broke. Such strategies are common in private equity.

You see, when firms like Cerberus do business, it’s often “heads I win, tails you lose.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Disruption, Economics, For-Profit, Funding, Health, Massachusetts

Sam Wineburg: The Lies That Advertisers Tell Students

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2024 //
20

Sam Wineburg is the Margaret Jacks Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University. This essay is based on his latest book, with co-author Mike Caulfield, Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online (University of Chicago Press, 2023). Here, he highlights the ways that corporations deceive students with advertising that looks like news.

Our Kids Are Being Sold to and They Don’t Know It–

And Neither Do We

A recent California bill mandating the teaching of media literacy cites a Stanford University study showing that “82 percent of middle school pupils struggled to distinguish advertisements from news stories.” Along with my Stanford colleagues, I was the author of that study.

Between 2015-2016 our research team collected nearly 8,000 student responses. In one exercise, we asked middle school students to examine the home page of Slate, the online news magazine. The site was organized as a series of tiles, each with a headline, the name of the author, and an illustration. However, some tiles were author-less, such as “The Real Reasons Women Don’t Go into Tech,” which was accompanied by the words sponsored content. This label notwithstanding, the vast majority of middle schoolers believed that “The Real Reasons Women Don’t Go into Tech” was news.

 

If only the solution to students’ confusion were as simple as teaching what “sponsored content” means.  In the past few years, a dizzying array of terms—“in association with,” “partner content,” “presented by,” “crafted with,” “hosted by,” “brought to you by,” or, simply—and enigmatically—“with”—have been concocted to satisfy the Federal Trade Commission requirement that ads be labeled. As we describe in our new book, Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Choices What to Believe Online, it’s not only middle school students who are getting hoodwinked by this farrago of terms. We all are. 

 

Researchers at Boston University and the University of Georgia surveyed people across age levels and backgrounds after they had read a 515-word article, “America’s Smartphone Obsession Extends to Online Banking.” The article came with a label saying that it was created for the Bank of America. But the disclosure was overshadowed by the masthead of The New York Times and the article’s headline. Only one in ten respondents identified the article as an ad. The marketing firm Contently found similar results: 80% of respondents mistook an ad in the Wall Street Journal for a news article. The study’s author, an advertising insider with reasons to downplay the obvious, admitted: “There’s little doubt that consumers are confused by native ads.” 

 

Native ads, so-called because they’re designed to fade into the surrounding “native” content, use the same fonts, color schemes, and style as regular news stories. An article may look like news, written by an independent and trustworthy journalist, but in reality, it’s tainted by the agenda of the company that paid for it. You think you’re being informed only to find out—if you do find out—that you’re being swindled. In 2018 native advertising raked in $32.9 billion, eclipsing all other forms of digital advertising and growing at astronomical rates.

 

 

At first, it was only scrappy upstarts like BuzzFeed (masters of clickbaity stories like “Ten Important Life Lessons You Can Learn from Cats”) that pioneered this new form of advertising. But as ad income plummeted in places like The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC, they, too, got in on the game. Initially, the price didn’t seem too steep: sacrifice a modicum of integrity to stay afloat. But the slope downward was slippery. If the long-standing commitment of journalism was to erect a wall of separation between the news side and the business, native advertising dissolved the mortar in the wall. The resulting seepage blurred the boundaries beyond recognition. Publishers tried to convince themselves they weren’t doing anything wrong. But in their heart of hearts, they knew they were engaging in journalistic hanky-panky. “When I explain what I do to friends outside the publishing industry,” wrote one publishing insider, “the first response is always ‘so you are basically tricking users into clicking on ads.’ ”

 

In 2019, after a stream of headlines bemoaning the confusion caused by misinformation, we undertook a second study. This time our sample matched the demographic make-up of high school students across the country. Over 3,000 students with access to a live internet connection participated. One exercise asked them to evaluate items appearing on the website of The Atlantic.  The first, entitled “Why Solving Climate Change Will Be Like Mobilizing for War,” was written by Venkatesh Rao; the second, “The Great Transition,” featured an infographic about energy usage along with the statement, “saving the world from climate change is all about altering the energy mix.” The logo of The Atlantic appeared in the upper left corner next to a hyperlink with the words “Sponsor Content What’s this?”, next a small yellow shell. Two-thirds of high school students failed to identify the infographic as an ad from Shell Oil.

 

Why should we be concerned?  To start, if students are to become informed citizens, they need to understand that multi-national companies are not in the business of helping humanity or adopting stray animals. Their goal is to please shareholders by increasing profits. Fossil fuel companies, especially, may want us to think they’re on the right side of history when it comes to climate change. But actions speak louder than ads. Clean energy investments by big oil companies (“renewable resources” as the Shell ad calls them) represent a mere sliver, one percent, of their yearly capital expenditures, a pittance compared to what they spend exploring and discovering new ways to dredge fossil fuels from the earth and sea. Shell might not be outright lying in its infographic but we can be sure of one thing: they’re not going to pay for something that casts them in a negative light. The whole point of native advertising is to burnish a company’s image. Instead of having us view Shell as the enemy of climate change, its ads are designed to soften us up, to plant a seed of doubt. “OK, they may be an oil company,” we’re supposed to think, “but maybe—just maybe—they’re really trying.” 

 

We can sum up why we should teach students to be skeptical of Shell’s infographic in three words: conflict of interest. It goes against the company’s interest to be forthright about the harmful effects of fossil fuels. Big oil, writes Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes and author of Why Trust Science, “may be a reliable source of information on oil and gas extraction,” but they are “unlikely to be a reliable source of information on climate change.” Why? For one simple reason: “The former is its business and the latter threatens it.”

 

It’s not just big oil who’ve gotten in on the native ad game. With China and Russia leading the pack, foreign governments spend millions of dollars to place “news” stories in leading digital publications like the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Chicago Tribune. In the twelve months from November 2019 to October 2020, the China Daily Distribution Corporation funneled over nine million dollars to influence American audiences. A favored venue was MSN, Microsoft’s web portal, which featured an upbeat story about how Tibet, the nation ravaged by China in a brutal 1950 takeover, had “broken free from the fetters of invading imperialism and embarked on a bright road of unity, progress and development.” Nowhere does the article say the story was paid. You only discern this if you recognize “Xinhua” as China’s state-run news agency.

 

Whether paid for by a multi-national corporation or a foreign government, the goal of native advertising is the same: to persuade us when our guard is down. Sponsors know that if their message were plastered with the word “ad” in big red letters, we’d ignore it. At the same time, it’s important to understand that just because something’s an ad doesn’t necessarily mean it’s false. Big companies are wary of ads backfiring. They fear the consequences of being outed as liars. Persuasion can assume many forms in addition to outright lying. An ad can tell only part of the story. It can leave out the broader context. It can ignore evidence that goes against the story a company or foreign nation wants to tell. It can emphasize some facts and de-emphasize others. It can use examples that tug at our heartstrings, even when those examples misrepresent general trends. In fact, a partial truth is often more dangerous and harder to detect than a pack of lies. 

 

The internet is one giant marketing experiment and today’s students are the guinea pigs. Richly compensated PhDs work diligently figuring out how to deceive them without their noticing.  This deception is not an aberration or bug in the system—it’s how the game is played. Our students are part of a treacherous game. If we don’t teach them how it’s played, who will? 

 

Certainly not Shell Oil. 

————    

Sam Wineburg is the Margaret Jacks Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University. This essay is based on his latest book, with co-author Mike Caulfield, Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online (University of Chicago Press, 2023)

Categories Curriculum, Fake News, For-Profit, Hoax, Ignorance, Media

Biden Wants to Lower Prices on Drugs Developed with Public Funding

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2023 //
45

David Sirota’s blog “The Lever” is a source of excellent investigative reporting. It recently revealed that President Biden is taking on Big Pharma. Some advocates said he needed to go further, but this is a huge opening move to establish the principle that the federal government may cap the prices of drugs developed with public money. The following was written by Katy’s Schwenk.

White House Takes On Pharma Patents

The White House plans to exercise its authority to lower the price of costly medications that were developed with public funding — a potentially powerful new tool in the battle against sky-high medication prices.

The Biden administration announced last week that it had concluded, after a months long review, that it had the authority to break the patents of drugs developed with public funding if their cost was too high. This authority — dubbed “march-in rights” — has never been used, and is likely to encounter major pushback from Big Pharma.

Take, for instance, the case of the drug Xtandi, which is used to treat prostate cancer. The drug was developed at the public University of California, Los Angeles, using federal funding from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Army. The university then licensed the drug to a pharmaceutical company called Medivation, which is now owned by Pfizer, and the Japanese pharmaceutical behemoth Astellas. Pfizer and Astellas have made billions selling the drug worldwide. In the U.S., Xtandi costs on average $190,000 a year, more than five times higher than in Canada and Japan.

The Bayh-Dole Act, which was passed more than 30 years ago, allows the federal government to use march-in rights to intervene if drugs developed with public money are not being made accessible to the public. Despite Xtandi being more or less a perfect case for the use of this authority — a cancer drug developed with public money being sold at an egregious premium — the Biden administration declined to use march-in rights in March to seize the patent and allow a generic competitor to enter the market, forcing down the drug’s cost.

Since then, though, federal officials have been reviewing march-in authority. And now, the White House’s announcement signals that they may begin using it to fight drug profiteering.

While the announcement is a critical step forward, the White House’s framework has still drawn some blowback from some advocacy groups for being less aggressive than it could be. In this week’s announcement, the Biden administration implied it would exercise march-in rights only in the most extreme cases of price gouging by Big Pharma. “Where most drug prices already are egregious and force rationing, few drugs will seem ‘extremely’ priced by comparison,” argued the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

But even the prospect of limited use of march-in rights has stoked fear in the pharmaceutical industry, which is spending more than ever to oppose drug pricing reforms. Industry groups have already declared their opposition to the measure. It’s a sign of how much is at stake for Big Pharma — and for those paying a premium for life-saving medication.

Categories Biden, For-Profit, Health, Science

Arthur Goldstein: Beware of “Medicare Advantage”!

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2023 //
89

Arthur Goldstein retired recently after a long career as a high school teacher in New York City. Now that he is registered on Medicare, he is outraged that his union (the United Federatuon of Teachers) is pressuring retirees to join a Medicare Advantage plan. Should that happen, the city government would save $600 million a year but the 250,000 retirees would be pushed into a plan that (unlike Medicare) may deny service and may not be accepted by all doctors. In this post, he points out that some hospitals no longer accept Medicare Advantage.

Full disclosure: I too am affected by what happens to the city’s retirees. I am covered by my spouse’s secondary. The retirees have sued the city and won repeatedly, because they were promised Medicare when they started their careers, not a for-profit health plan that could deny services that their doctors recommend. The city and its unions intend to appeal the judgments they lost in court. If the city prevails, we will stay on Medicare and buy our own secondary, a decision that many retired municipal workers cannot afford.

He writes:

Most developed countries have some form of national health care. That’s important, because frankly, there is nothing more important than health. It really makes me sad when I see fund-raisers for musicians or artists who have health issues. In Canada, for example, these artists wouldn’t need to resort to GoFundMe, or whatever.

In the United States, there are very few forms of public health care. We have Medicaid for those with low income, and Medicare for those with high ages. I’ve been on Medicare since July, and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to see doctors and not pay co-pays. Of course, that entails having a Medigap program that covers the 20% Medicare does not.

As a teacher, I’ve heard a lot about value-added. Bill Gates sent his people to our school and tried to initiate a program to place cameras in rooms to find out just what those teachers who got higher test scores did differently. I can tell you, though, that I can teach the very same lesson to two groups of kids and get wildly different results. (It’s odd that education experts like Gates don’t know those things.)

It’s very, very hard to measure the value an individual teacher adds, and I’d argue that test scores are a very small portion of that value. In fact, given the quality of standardized tests, I might argue their results show nothing, or even less than nothing. 

Health care is another thing entirely. UFT President Michael Mulgrew, NYC Mayor Eric Adams, and their BFFs on the Municipal Labor Committee want to take Medicare away from not only me, but also every New York City retiree. They want to place us in a plan administered by Aetna. I can tell you precisely what value Aetna adds to Medicare—none whatsoever. 

Aetna, along with every so-called Medicare Advantage plan, takes a cut of what the government contributes to Medicare. How do they make money? They make money by paying doctors less, and by denying care they deem unnecessary. Mulgrew says Aetna will pay doctors the same Medicare does, and that may be true. But it may not be permanent. Mulgrew is always “improving” our health care by having us pay more. Which experienced city employee doesn’t believe he’d improve it further by paying doctors less? 

Mulgrew originally tried selling Advantage by saying every doctor who took Medicare would take this plan. But when members asked their doctors if that were true, they learned it was not. Is Mulgrew a liar? Well, if he isn’t, he’s woefully uninformed. Either way, it renders him unfit to lead a group which, to a very large function, regulates the health care of its members.

Mulgrew can tell retirees that this hospital, or that group of hospitals will take this plan or that. But that may not last. Hospitals are dumping Advantage plans in large numbers. 

Enticed by incessant TV ads blaring every night with those fictional characters Martha and Karen and that old shill Joe Namath pushing plans, especially those with zero premiums, more converts have signed up for potentially less health care coverage and more out-of-pocket expense when illness strikes. In return, they are told they may have no monthly premium and receive a grab bag of goodies like grocery cards and a handful of toiletries. Those goodies may be less attractive, however, when that health plan makes you wait weeks for a diagnostic test to see if you have cancer or will only pay a small portion of the bill if you do.

Do you really believe that health care companies would spend millions of dollars on advertising out of the goodness of their hearts? Do you think that their offers of this or that really mean you and yours will receive better care? I think that, if I sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan, millions of dollars that should be spent toward my health care will go to pay Joe Namath. Many, many more millions will go to Aetna, or whatever parasitical entity is withholding health care and medical compensation to profit off of me and my fellow Americans.

Aetna is not interested in your health. Aetna is interested in profiting from your health, or lack thereof.

Please open the link to finish the article.

Categories For-Profit, Health, New York City, Unions

You Gotta See This!

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2023 //
8

This is a 2-minute video by Trae Crowder.

Or here on Facebook.

Please watch it and enjoy!

Categories Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Vouchers

Florida: DeSantis Cronies Win Lucrative Disney Contracts

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2023 //
8

A quick recap: Governor Ron DeSantis declared war on “woke” in Florida, and the Legislature obligingly passed laws criminalizing the teaching of certain topics, like anything to do with gays, Black history, or attention to diversity, equity and inclusion. The Disney Corporation, the biggest employer in the state, spoke out against the law known popularly as “Don’t Say Gay,” because some of its employees at Disney World in Orlando were gay. DeSantis was outraged that Disney defied his will, so he persuaded the Legislature to dissolve the Reedy Creek District, which was controlled by Disney and provided services to DisneyWorld and contiguous communities. In the future, Disney World would be controlled by a special board appointed by DeSantis. The members of the new board were friends and allies of DeSantis. Disney is suing to regain control of its district, but in the meanwhile DeSantis’s board is dispensing contracts to loyal friends of the Governor.

Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel reported:

Some winners have emerged in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ongoing battle with Disney: political insiders who scored lucrative six-figure jobs and contracts as the culture war fight unfolded.

DeSantis vowed to bring a new era of accountability, but more than eight months into a state takeover, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District’s new administration is facing mounting scrutiny and scathing employee exit surveys.

“You do see a pattern here that people who are politically connected are getting work,” said Richard Foglesong, a Rollins College professor and author of the book “Married to the Mouse” on Disney World’s origins. “Maybe that shouldn’t be shocking. Is that insiderism? I guess you could call it that.”

Glen Gilzean, a close DeSantis ally, landed a $400,000-a-year job leading the district, which provides government services to Disney World. His candidacy was helped by Michael Sasso, a DeSantis-appointed board member who also was the best man in Gilzean’s wedding over the summer.

The DeSantis-appointed board chose Gilzean overseveral other candidates, including William Sturgeon, a former city manager of St. Cloud, a city with a population of more than 60,000.
“It was political,” Sturgeon said. “The place is falling apart. My professional opinion is they have too many state-orientated people in there, and state and municipal government are two different things.”

Sturgeon said he likes Gilzean, but the district needs a leader with a background in local government. Before landing the job at the district, Gilzean served as CEO of the Central Florida Urban League, a civil rights and advocacy organization.
Another applicant, Winter Park City Manager Randy Knight, said he had a brief conversation with the tourism oversight district’s board chair before submitting his resume, but he never heard back.

As administrator, Gilzean selected Paula Hoisington, chairwoman of the Central Florida Urban League’s board, to serve as his chief of staff at the tourism oversight district. Public records show she started at an annual salary of $195,000 and was recently promoted to deputy district administrator, getting a $55,000-a-year raise.
Ronald Haag, a legislative aide to former state GOP Rep. Fred Hawkins, was brought in to serve as Gilzean’s executive assistant.

Hawkins, R-St. Cloud, sponsored the legislation overhauling Disney’s special district. He’s since left the Legislature, landing a job to lead South Florida State College despite having no experience in higher education.

The district also hired Brandy Brown, who worked as director of strategic initiatives in DeSantis’ office. Public records show, though, that she only worked briefly as the tourism oversight district’s director of external affairs before leaving. The district did not respond to questions about her departure.

The governor’s office defended the new administration and dismissed the characterization that political favoritism has permeated the district, which since 1967 was effectively controlled by Disney.

DeSantis has said the arrangement allowed Disney to enjoy a “special privilege” that no other theme park operator enjoyed in Florida.

The Governor pushed to seize state control of what had been called the Reedy Creek Improvement District after Disney criticized what critics call the “don’t say gay” law that bans discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools.

“CFTOD [Central Florida Tourism Oversight District] appointing those they believe are qualified for certain positions isn’t cronyism,” Jeremy Redfern, a DeSantis spokesman, said in an email. “Cronyism is a local government that served as a Corporate Kingdom for over 50 years. The ‘criticism’ from the cronies indicates that the District is doing the right thing.”

No-bid contract under fire

The district’s purchasing decisions have also raised questions.

Most recently, the district backpedaled on a $242,500 no-bid contract awarded to a DeSantis’ appointee to help upgrade the 911 network. That work went to Freddie Figgers, who served alongside Gilzean on the Florida Commission on Ethics.

Facing scrutiny after media reports, the district canceled that contract at Figgers’ request. District officials, though, say the deal met exceptions for competitive bidding outlined in their purchasing policy.

The district also agreed to pay conservative George Mason University law professor Donald J. Kochan $110,000 to help produce a report and make recommendations to the Florida Legislature.
The district’s purchasing rules include competitive bidding exceptions for consultants and experts hired to prepare reports for the legislature.

Conservative all-star legal team

Two politically connected law firms stand to make millions in legal fees from the district as part of the state’s court battle with Disney. One is a boutique Washington, D.C., firm favored by DeSantis in his culture war legal battles, and another is an upstart firm launched by a retired Supreme Court justice.

The DeSantis-aligned board hired Washington-based Cooper & Kirk, agreeing to pay its lawyers $795 an hour. One of the partners in that law firm is Adam Laxalt, a longtime friend of DeSantis who was hired to lead the Never Back Down super PAC supporting the governor’s presidential campaign.

Lawson Huck Gonzalez, which was founded by three legal heavyweights earlier this year, bills $495 an hour. The firm’s founders include Alan Lawson, a retired Florida Supreme Court justice; Paul Huck Jr., once called the “godfather of the Federalist Society in Miami”; and Jason Gonzalez, who’s advised DeSantis on judicial picks.

In another column following the one just posted, Maxwell wrote about new revelations of no-bid contracts at the new DeSantis entity.

He wrote:

Two weeks ago, we learned members of the governor’s new Disney district awarded a $240,000 contract to a a political insider without letting other companies even bid on the job.

The fact that this no-bid contract went to one of the state’s top ethics officials was vintage Florida.

But it turns out that was the tip of the insider-dealing iceberg at the former Reedy Creek district.

As the Sentinel revealed Sunday, another political pal scored a no-bid deal under even more suspect conditions when the district’s board chairman helped award a $495-an-hour legal contract to a lawyer who helped the chairman get his powerful post overseeing Disney in the first place.

Yes, back when Martin Garcia wanted to impress the state Senate, which confirms all of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ appointments to the Disney board, Garcia listed plugged-in GOP attorney Jason Gonzalez as a reference. Then, after Garcia got the job, he voted to give Gonzalez’s law firm a $495-an-hour contract without letting other firms even apply.

Seems the most magical thing about this new Disney board is how it made any premise of ethical government disappear.

And there’s more. As the Sentinel’s Skyler Swisher reported, a former board member who helped district director Glen Gilzean score his $400,000-a-year job was also the best man at Gilzean’s wedding.

This looks less like a public agency and more like a fraternity of political profiteers — the Florida chapter of Tappa Tappa Trough, where the only thing being chugged is tax dollars.

The editorial board of The Orlando Sentinel called on members of the Legislature to stand up to DeSantis and limit his power to damage DisneyWorld. The editorialists fear that DeSantis might return from his failed presidential campaign and impose his rage on DisneyWorld. To prevent this, the Legislature must act.

It’s time for lawmakers to break the spell DeSantis has cast, and rewrite the law to curb his power and restore some semblance of ethics, accountability and trust to the district’s operations. After this editorial was published, we learned that Sen. Linda Stewart is working on legislation to undo the attack on local control. Other lawmakers should stand with her. If they don’t, Central Florida’s economy could be so devastated that not even wishing on a star will save it.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, DeSantis, Ethics, Extremism, Florida, For-Profit

Sweden: Education Minister Declares For-Profit Schools a Failure

By dianeravitch
November 16, 2023 //
14

Is it possible that we might learn from other countries’ experience of “school reform”? Why not start with Sweden?

The Swedish education minister just called for a major overhaul of Sweden’s all-choice system. Critics of the Education Minister believe that her reforms will have no effect “because it proposes that only when new, privatized schools have proved good effects/results for some years they would be able to take out a profit for owners/shareholders. But no one gets the money back the first years. So what?” (Sara Hjelm)

The consequences of widespread “marketization”have been bad for education and bad for Swedish society.

The Guardian reports:

Sweden has declared a “system failure” in the country’s free schools, pledging the biggest shake-up in 30 years and calling into question a model in which profit-making companies run state education.

Sweden’s friskolor – privately run schools funded by public money – have attracted international acclaim, including from Britain, with the former education secretary Michael Gove using them as a model for hundreds of new British free schools opened under David Cameron’s government.

But in recent years, a drop in Swedish educational standards, rising inequality and growing discontent among teachers and parents has helped fuel political momentum for change.

A report by Sweden’s biggest teachers’ union, Sveriges Lärare, warned in June of the negative consequences of having become one of the world’s most marketised school systems, including the viewing of pupils and students as customers and a lack of resources resulting in increased dissatisfaction.

Now Lotta Edholm, a Liberal who was appointed schools minister last year during the formation of Sweden’s Moderate party-run minority coalition, has launched an investigation into the issue which, she said, would oversee her plans for reform.

“It will not be possible [in the reformed system] to take out profits at the expense of a good education,” she told the Guardian at the ministry of education and research in Stockholm.

Edholm said she planned to “severely limit” schools’ ability to withdraw profits and to introduce fines for free schools that did not comply.

“It can’t be that the state pumps in lots of money so that you can improve your business and at the same time a portion of that money goes out to you as profits. That we will put a stop to,” she said.

The largest profits were made by upper secondary schools, known in Sweden as gymnasieskola, she said. “There it has been easier to make profits through having bad quality.”

There are thousands of friskolor – directly translated as “independent schools” but known as “free schools” – across Sweden, with a higher proportion in cities. About 15% of all primary schoolchildren (six- to 16-year-olds) and 30% of all upper secondary school pupils (16- 19-year-olds) go to a free school.

Edholm said she could not put a number on how many schools were experiencing these issues but said the problem lay in the system itself. “It’s not just a problem that it is a number of schools, but it becomes a system failure of everything.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, For-Profit, International, Vouchers

Watch This! Gloria Ladson-Billings Speaks at NPE Conference about Attacks on Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 15, 2023 //
6

If you missed the 10th annual conference of the Network for Public Education, you missed some of the best presentations in our ten years of holding conferences.

You missed the brilliant Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor Emerita and formerly the Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ladson-Billings gave an outstanding speech that brought an enthusiastic audience to its feet. She spoke about controversial topics with wit, charm, wisdom, and insight.

Fortunately, her presentation was videotaped. If you were there, you will enjoy watching it again. If you were not there, you have a treat in store.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Curriculum, Dark Money, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Equity, Extremism, For-Profit, Fraud, Freedom, Freedom to Read, Funding, Inequity, Injustice, Network for Public Education, Parents, Privatization, Racism, Supporting public schools, Teachers and Teaching
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