Heartland Article: Missouri Passes Law Restricting Policing for Profit

Posted on August 2, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

This is a repost of my most recent column at Heartland Institute’s Fiscal Times.

Missouri Passes Law Restricting Policing for Profit

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) signed a bill placing a cap on the proportion of revenue cities and counties can collect from traffic enforcement and capping the total amount of fines and penalties on traffic violations.

The new law, effective August 28, also includes provisions for the dissolution of local governments refusing to comply with the reform measures.

Revenue Enhancers
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Glendale), says towns in his district were using traffic enforcement to bolster flagging revenues.

“After [the unrest in] Ferguson, sometime last fall, there was an inventory taken that people took around the state, but particularly in St. Louis County, and [they] found that in St. Louis County alone there were 14 municipalities where traffic tickets and fines were the biggest source of revenue,” Schmitt said.

Schmitt says the problem of policing for profit seems to be concentrated in and around the St. Louis metropolitan area.

“There were 81 municipal courts in St. Louis County, which is 61 more than any other circuit, and some circuits include multiple counties,” Schmitt said. “We saw a real concentration of the problem. [As someone] who grew up in St. Louis County and represents a large chunk of St. Louis County, it’s important for the public to have the maximum amount of reform they could have.”

Speed Traps and Fine Caps
Schmitt says the bill removes cities’ ability to maximize fine revenue by capping the amount of fines a person can be charged.

“Speed traps were paying for most municipality budget holes, and we’ll have to compare them down the road,” Schmitt said. “The $300 cap is important when you consider that for a $100 fine, usually set with a night court date so people have trouble getting there or are forced to choose between paying a fine or paying for child care—since no kids are allowed at court—this situation often ended in a failure to appear charge being added on. Suddenly, you have a $100 fine turn into an $800 one.

“Basically, people were being used as ATMs,” said Schmitt. “Citizens and [people passing by became] revenue generators.”

Policing for Safety, Not Profit
Sarah Rossi, director of advocacy and policy with the Missouri chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, says the new law makes needed changes to the cities’ fiscal and judicial systems.

“Revenues should not be the goal of law enforcement under any circumstance,” Rossi said. “Law enforcement should be tasked with public safety, not paying their own salaries or providing general operating funds. That is what public safety levies and other levies are for.”

Rossi says people should be empowered to fight back against abusive governments.

“The government works for its people, not the other way around,” Rossi said. “If a municipality continues to take advantage of its populace to fill its coffers, then that populace should be allowed recourse.

“Generally, that manifests in voting for or against public officials,” Rossi said. “In this case, that recourse happens to be disincorporation.”

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Government | Comments Off on Heartland Article: Missouri Passes Law Restricting Policing for Profit

See What $69,157,850 In Education Contracts Buys For NC

Posted on August 1, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Next week is the NC State Board of Education’s monthly meeting.  It’s going to be an expensive one.

John Locke Foundation’s Lindalyn Kakadelis has noted that at this Board meeting, contracts totaling $69,157,850 are on the agenda.  Go read it and then come back here.

There are a total of 74 contracts. Let’s look at them a bit.

Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA)
First, as Kakadelis noted, there are a ton of Kindergarten Entry Assessment related contracts:

The new K-3 Formative Assessment, which begins as the Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA), involves 8 contracts – totaling $3,288,486. However, this is just a drop of what has been spent on this initiative since November 2013.

Interesting trivia: the ratings of 5 year olds from the KEA, creating a “Child Profile,” will eventually be placed into the P20W (Preschool – 20 grade/Higher Ed -Workforce) Data System which receives $2,053,552 this month.  This amount is divided among 5 contracts: UNC General Admissions, NC Community College System, NC Independent Colleges, NC Dept. of Commerce, and Solomons International, Inc. This company receives $80,500 to provide “project management services for the federal grant that funds the P20W Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS).” Solomons must “ensure that the project completes all grant deliverables” to the Federal Government. Wonder if the Federal Government gets access to the data? Follow imaginary NC student “Will” from 1 year old until he is 26 years old (slides 11-14). Does this feel creepy to you?

Contracts 16, 17 and 18 are contracts regarding the KEA and are with departments of education in Maine, Arizona and Iowa respectively.

Contract 19 is also KEA related, but tracks back to the UNC Franklin Porter Graham Child Development Institute. I would bet that contract 19 has something to do with FirstSchools.

Contract 60, with Manifest Productions, is the one I find really disturbing.  I personally don’t want my child videotaped as part of this grand experiment.

“Migrant Children Program”
Contracts 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 31 all deal with Migrant children.
The first one, contract 21 with Blue Jay LLC is “To serve as a Regional Recruiter for the Migrant Education Program, identifying and recruiting migrant children and youth into the Migrant Education Program.”
There is little to nothing out there about Luis Ciliselli or Blue Jay LLC other than they are located in Wilmington, NC.

All Those Contracts to Corporations & “Non-Profits”
The lion’s share of the 74 contracts went to corporations, solutions providers and ‘non-profits. A lot of these contracts are sending dollars out of state.

#6 Heritage Consulting – The contract mentioned ‘Margaret Heritage’.  I found profiles for Margaret Heritage at Renaissance Learning, Dynamic Learning Progressions and the U.S. Dept. of Education’s go-to grant lapdog, WestEd.  It appears to be the same woman as cited by NC DPI’s Wikipage.

#36 – Craig Testing Inc. – Try Googling them. Nada. Zip.

#39 – 21st Century Solutions Inc. – I was unable to locate their website, but you can look them up at the NC Secretary of State.

#41 – New Teachers Center – They appreciate the over $10 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Hewlitt Foundation. The woman listed as the contact on the grant, Margaret Gayle, is a former NC DPI employee.

#42 – BloomBoard Inc. – “Formerly known as FormativeLearning, Inc., Palo Alto-based BloomBoard was founded in 2010 by Jason Lange, a former private equity associate, investment banker and NewSchools Venture Fund summer associate and Eric Dunn, formerly director of engineering at EdisonLearning.” – EdSurge

#43 TregoED –  Common Core love affair.
“Reading informational texts and developing good arguments are two important skills that students need to develop to reach the common core standards.” – About  TregoEd ‘SCAN”

#44 – BlackBoard Inc. – Partnered with more data driven, data collecting testing people than you can shake a stick at — Including Pearson.

#47 – Iron Data Solutions – Outsourcing reporting that DPI should be doing in-house? “Iron Data helps education regulatory agencies save time and money by automating critical business processes and reducing paper-based transactions.” – Iron Data, About

#48 – MCNC – Deals with Broadband and Communications infrastructure in NC. An outfit brought to you by the legislature in 1980.  I bet most North Carolinians didn’t know that this thing existed.

#49 – CORE Education Consulting – Another tech firm using buzzwords; boils down to an outfit offering apps to test, track and report about activities by students and teachers.
“CORE ECS was established based on the idea that customized, tailored content and “high touch” services  – combined with effective, useful reporting and technology  – have the power to transform education in the 21st century.” – CORE Education Consulting 

#50, 51 and 52 – NewSouth Technologies – More business functions and data ‘help’. At least they are located in North Carolina to get their $521,920.00 in federal dollars.
“NewSouth Technologies, Inc. is an information technology services consulting company founded in 1998 and located in Raleigh, North Carolina. NewSouth specializes in helping state and local government clients develop and maintain state-of-the art information systems and business processes.” – NewSouth Technologies

#53 – KMQ Enterprises – You won’t find them under that name, try Tailwind Associates, located in upstate New York. More infrastructure and business solutions?

#54 – SAS Institute – With $3,816,474.00 in state funds, this contract to “provide reports” for  Educational Value Added Assessment System (EVAAS) — which attempts to predict student performance by looking at test scores. Goodnight will have more dollars to spend silencing Common Core critics from that chunk of change.

#55 -TECHEAD – Yet another business functions and solutions provider.
“Staffing, Training and “Solutions“.  Let’s hope the money goes to the Charlotte location.

#56 – Trigyn Tech Inc. – Again, ANOTHER business solutions and IT related outfit.
No location in North Carolina.
“Trigyn provides IT Staffing, Solutions, Systems Integration, Software Development and Maintenance, Data-Driven Digital Marketing and other services to its clients.” – Trigyn

#57 – Solomon’s International – See their website. More tech/solutions from out of state. As Kakadelis noted in her article, “This company receives $80,500 to provide “project management services for the federal grant that funds the P20W Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS).” Solomons must “ensure that the project completes all grant deliverables” to the Federal Government.”

#72 – K12 Insight – This contract is apparently to supply an “online Software as a Service for a K12 Education Stakeholder Engagement Tool” to let NC DPI  “track, analyze and be responsive to NC K12 stakeholder concerns and recommendations for improved K12 education”.  – K12 Insight
Question: What stakeholders, exactly?
This is a company who helps steer the desired education narrative… or as K12 Insights call it, ‘overcoming obstacles‘ in that are in the way of administrators. Lately, those ‘obstacles’ have been parents and the public.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, NC Board Of Education, NC DPI | Tagged , | Comments Off on See What $69,157,850 In Education Contracts Buys For NC

REMINDER: Bush, Kasich and Huckabee Are Still Unicorn Lovers

Posted on August 1, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

This is just a friendly reminder, that Mike Huckabee along with Jeb Bush and his stalking horse, John Kasich are still fans of mocking parents and citizens who oppose Common Core.

The website, “Unicorns Are Not Real” is still active, these three candidates are still on the list of supporters .

The site is still “Paid for by the Alliance for Better Classrooms”, which is a Political PAC formed to drown out the public voice and take Ed Reform in the direction their rich donors want it to go.

Very presidential.

Update: Huckabee has had his name removed from the list.

Related:

More:

Posted in Common Core, EDUCATION, ELECTIONS | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

The Dynamic Political Duo of TFA and LEE

Posted on July 28, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Try as they might to bend reality, Teach for America (TFA) is not a teacher training outfit. They are a well-funded political operative recruitment outfit hiding behind 501(c)3 status. TFA capitol meme

Mercedes Schneider delves into TFA’s Capitol Hill aspirations in her  blog post, Teach for America Seeks Help Promoting Itself on Capitol Hill.

Schneider’s article is a good read and gives a nice example, or rather a warning tale, of TFA in action in Louisiana.

I hope North Carolina legislators read her article and grasp the lesson to be learned and then re-examine if they like their job as legislator, because there is a TFA recruit out there who would likely love to take it from them.

The NC legislature has given TFA increasing amounts in the millions in the budget each year. The legislature isn’t the only one giving money to TFA in North Carolina though.

NC Dept. of Public instruction used Race to the Top grant money to fund an expansion of TFA in the state despite the high turn over rate of TFA teachers. Oddly enough, no one in NC media picked up on the TFA turnover rates when bemoaning the teacher resignation rates a few years ago.

While TFA itself is a politically minded outfit, so is the TFA offshoot, ‘Leadership for Educational Equity’ (LEE). The thing about LEE is they don’t have to hide behind false pretenses of being about ‘education’, they’re a 501(c)4.

Fun stuff ahead here, folks — Guess who just departed to become a Vice President at LEE?
Governor McCrory’s education aide, Eric Guckian.

In a press release on July 14th, Guckian’s departure was announced. Here’s the key bit on heading to LEE:

Guckian will become Vice President of Alliances for Leadership for Educational Equity, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering Teach For America (TFA) corps members and alumni to grow as leaders and help build the movement for educational equity. Guckian is a TFA alum having served as Executive Director for Teach For America, North Carolina. Guckian began his teaching career in New York City as a Teach For America elementary school science teacher.

Rest assured, an article focusing on LEE is coming.

Reminders about TFA before you go:
Do not forget about TFA’s professional agitators orchestrating and coordinating Black Lives Matter protests and riots.

Do not forget that one of them, Brittney Packnett of Missouri, was appointed to President Obama’s Taskforce on 21st Century Policing.

 

 

 

 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, Pat McCrory | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Why Does The NC NAACP Hate Monuments and History? #BlueprintNC #NCGA

Posted on July 27, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Given the statement below, I do not believe that anyone at the NC NAACP, or anyone from their ‘Forward Together Moral Movement’  has actually really read SB 22 – Historic Artifact Management and Patriotism Act.

If they had, they they’d know this protects the flag, historical artifacts, ALL places of remembrance and puts into place a process for future preservation. It was also filed in February, well before the Charleston shooting and the subsequent mass outrage over the Confederate Flag.

The very last paragraph in the statement below…wow.  Who do they think they’re kidding? This is completely about partisan politics, has zero to do with ‘white supremacy’ and is yet another obvious example of the BlueprintNC attack strategy: Cripple, Eviscerate, Pressure, Slam.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 26, 2015

Contact: Tom Wolf, NC NAACP – tom@naacpnc.org or 504-940-4441

NC NAACP and Forward Together Moral Movement Outline Reasons for Holding “Protect the People” Moral Monday

RALEIGH, NC – At 5 p.m. on Monday, July 27, the NC NAACP and Forward Together Moral Movement will hold a “Protect the People” Moral Monday at the North Carolina Capitol.

In light of the Governor and General Assembly’s recent passage of the “Historic Artifact Management and Patriotism Act” and their refusal to ban license plates bearing the Confederate flag, the NC NAACP and Forward Together Moral Movement are holding a “Protect the People” Moral Monday because:

The Governor and legislature’s priorities concern not only the NAACP. They concern the entire Forward Together Moral Movement, made up of justice-loving North Carolinians of all races, creeds, classes, citizenship statuses, political affiliations, genders, and sexualities.

The recent passage of this law is not just about monuments. It underscores the cynical posturing of protecting monuments that represent a racist legacy before protecting voting rights, healthcare, public education, criminal justice reform, living wages, women’s rights, the environment, and all citizens of this state.

There must be real truth-telling about the legacy of the Confederacy. These monuments need markers explaining when and why they were erected and what the Confederacy stood for.

The Governor and legislature are stirring, with this issue and others, race-baiting politics similar to Jesse Helms’ politics of the 20th century.

The Governor and legislature passed this law approximately one month after the Charleston massacre, knowing the kinds of sentiments it would elicit among people who hold white supremacist views.

This is not about partisan politics, but about the pain of old wounds that have still not been healed and the government at the highest levels explicitly and implicitly giving license to honor the symbols and attitudes of white supremacy.

WHO: NC NAACP and Forward Together Moral Movement

WHAT: “Protect the People” Moral Monday

WHEN: 5 p.m. on Monday, July 27, 2015

WHERE: NC Capitol 1 E. Edenton St., Raleigh

 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), BlueprintNC, Moral Monday, NC NAACP, NCGA, Reverend Barber | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

#DM7 Article: Big Brother For Social Justice

Posted on July 26, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

This is a repost of my weekly Da Tech guy column: Big Brother For Social Justice

By A.P. Dillon

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the new HUD rule, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH):

This rule is basically forced economic integration. It’s making sure everyone gets their ‘fair share’ — or in this case, their fair house as determined by HUD.

This is the federal government engaged in social engineering, the consequences of which will ripple through politics, voting, taxes and education, and that’s just for starters.

This week, the NY Post reported on the Obama administration’s ‘secret race database‘:

A key part of President Obama’s legacy will be the fed’s unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race. The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of “racial and economic justice.”

Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.

The NY Post notes multiple sources of data and touches on the collection of disciplinary data collected by school districts and states.  The NY Post’s article cites the Civil Rights Data Collection survey (CRDC), but misses key information about it.

Missouri Education Watchdog notes that the CRDC goes back to 1968, but in recent years has expanded what is collected and how often. Also in the Missouri Education Watchdog piece is mention of the AFFH as a vehicle for ‘solving’ disproportionate education spending.

I want to look a bit closer at the student data so that the public can see just how rich a source of information it will be in the wrong hands.

Some student data history
By Law, the U.S. Department of Education is prohibited from creating a national database or system. However, in 2009, states were incentivized with Stimulus funds to build Statewide Longitudinal Database Systems (SLDS).

The U.S. Department of Education is also prohibited from dictating standards or curriculum, but with the advent of Common Core, the Race To The Top grant money was used again to fiscally rope states into using the standards.

In 2013 testimony before a Missouri legislature Education committee, American Principles Fellow Jane Robbins laid bare the path of the data collected by these systems:

Here is an example of what the U.S. Department wants to do with student data. It is now in a joint venture with the U.S. Department of Labor to use education data for workforce-training programs. The Department of Labor makes no bones about its intention to access “individual-level data” from education records. With access to students’ personal information from the SMARTER Balanced tests and elsewhere, and with the new regulations that gut the protections of federal privacy law, there are very few obstacles in the path of the federal bureaucrats’ knowing — and sharing — everything there is to know about our children.

I encourage the public to read Robbins’ whole testimony. In addition Home School Defense League has a 2013 article on this topic well worth your time.

The Race To The Top  grant also required states to construct an enhanced Statewide Longitudinal Database System (SLDS) or P-20 database. P-20 tracks the child from Pre-K through entry into the workforce. No child’s data will go unmined.

Some of the data sets going into the SLDS include items that have been collected on children for a number of years and many of which are benign.

However, some of the data being collected on our kids isn’t so benign, as evidenced by the type of information being collected by an invasive and arguably illegal ‘health assessment form‘ in North Carolina.

Invasive Mining Of Our Children
The North Carolina ‘health assessment form‘ was created by the Dept. of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in conjunction with the Department of Public Instruction (DPI).  The form includes querying whether or not the child’s genitals are ‘normal or abnormal’ and various emotional and social development questions.

What’s worse is the signature panel on it, whereby parents are being asked to sign over their child’s medical and developmental history to DPI and DHHS.  These two agencies can then contact and discuss your child’s medical history without the parents.

This North Carolina health assessment form also asks for the child’s date of birth, health insurance information and race.

It is unclear if this data is in any one or multiple North Carolina databases, including the SLDS. However, some database has it, since this form is already directly being used to ‘track the fat kids‘.

Since we can ‘track the fat kids’,  this data can definitely be used to track the white kids, the black kids, the latino kids… You get the picture —  Big Brother for Social Justice.

DM7 small LL1885A.P. Dillon resides in the Triangle area of North Carolina and is the founder of LadyLiberty1885.com.
Her current and past writing can also be found at IJ Review, StopCommonCoreNC.org, Heartland.org and Watchdog Wire NC.
Catch her on Twitter: @LadyLiberty1885

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION | Tagged | Comments Off on #DM7 Article: Big Brother For Social Justice