UNO charter hustlers have Wall Streeters' undies in a twist

The scandal involving the UNO charter school hustlers has Wall Street investors worrying. Today's Sun-Times reports: 

Now under investigation by two state agencies, the United Neighborhood Organization is also facing tough questions on Wall Street from investors who lent tens of millions of dollars to help pay for the rapid expansion of UNO’s charter-school network. The questions were prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports on $8.5 million in state grant funds paid to companies owned by two brothers of Miguel d’Escoto, a top UNO executive.

As the largest charter-school operator in Illinois, the United Neighborhood Organization depends largely on City Hall and Springfield. It also borrows money — from banks and on Wall Street — to pay its bills.


Steven Levy, an executive with Prudential Financial in Newark, N.J., has been all over UNO boss Juan Rangel about the d’Escoto brothers’ deals. Levy says he's worried about the teachers union being able to exploit UNO corruption to kill millions in state grant money to pay for the group's real estate deals. Investors are losing confidence in the group's ability to pay back millions in loans.

“From what I understand, they are able to pay debt service — certainly in the near term, in the next year or two,” says Carlotta Mills of Standard & Poors. “Right now, I want to see if they are able to get the money from the state.”

Machine pols like Ald. Eddie Burke and Mayor Emanuel are putting the screws on Gov. Quinn in order to get him to turn the money spigot back on again to keep the Wall Streeters happy.

I'm pretty sure he will. When Wall St. speaks, Chicago politicians listen.

Wall St. is bullish on school closings

Moody's in no mood for public schools. 

Philly.com reports that Wall St. likes the mass closing of public schools.

The Philadelphia School District's plan to shut almost 1/10 of the district's 250 schools, as competing, taxpayer-funded charter schools draw off one-third of the district's student body and Gov. Corbett cuts state aid, is "positive from a credit perspective" because it shows school officials "are intent on reducing expenditures" even if it makes them "unpopular," writes Moody's analyst.

There's no mention of the Dept of Justice's pending actions against Moody's for defrauding investors.

Media Matters nails WSJ and ALEC on "Parent Trigger"

According to Media Matters:

The Wall Street Journal this morning failed to report ties between the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and controversial "parent-trigger" legislation that would allow parents to take over and convert public schools to charter schools. They also failed to report that the Journal's parent company, News Corp, is a member of ALEC. The Journal's treatment of the legislation also cited no criticism of the proposal, which has been described as an effort "to manipulate parents into letting [the charter school lobby] privatize more public schools."

WSJ's parent company, New Corp. is owned by international publishing criminal Rupert Murdoch whose chief henchman is Joel Klein. Klein, the former New York City schools chancellor, is recognized as one of the godfathers of corporate school reform and school privatization.

The MM piece quotes Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, who calls the parent trigger "an underhanded trick by the charter lobby to manipulate parents into letting them privatize more public schools."

Easy money without govt. regs for ed start-up companies

Congress has passed a bill making it easier for ed start-up companies to raise capital while at the same time, easing government regulation. The Jump-Start Our Business Start-Ups, or JOBS Act  would allow companies to raise up to $1 million,  The bill establishes a new form of company financing called “crowd funding” and allows school entrepreneurs to raise money by selling shares over the internet.

"In K-12, it's a hard place to raise capital, and a lot of the entrepreneurs are raising less than $1 million anyways," said Adam J. Newman, a founding and managing partner of Education Growth Advisors, an education business advisory firm in Stamford, Conn. "It certainly creates a way for more dollars to come in." -- Edweek

Easy money without regulation? No wonder both parties could find common ground on this bill. Pres. Obama is expected to sign it shortly. And how misleading to call this the JOBS ACT!

Views from right field

Reuters:

Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher surprised a business group in Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday when he said: "I am somewhat sympathetic [to the Occupy movement] -- that will shock you.

The Fed played a key role in one of the protest targets, the 2008 Wall Street bailout that critics say let banks enjoy huge profits while average Americans suffered high unemployment and job insecurity.

"We have too many people out of work," Fisher said. "We have a very uneven distribution of income. ... We have a very frustrated people, and I can understand their frustration."

View from Right Field

Republicans claim that Obama is "inciting the mobs" by sympathizing with the Occupy Wall Street protesters. 

Republican Sen. Rand Paul joined in the attack on the White House, calling Obama’s comments “inflammatory,” and saying the protesters reminded him of the Paris mob during the French Revolution.

Obama: Wall Street protests show a "broad-based frustration"

President Obama speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images/ 10/6/2011

President Obama said Thursday that the Occupy Wall Street protests show a "broad-based frustration" among Americans about how the U.S. financial system works.

"I think it expresses the frustrations the American people feel, that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country ... and yet you're still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on the abusive practices that got us into this in the first place."

Teachers join Wall Street occupation

On Sunday, a group of New York public school teachers sat in the plaza, including Denise Martinez of Brooklyn. Most students at her school live at or below the poverty level, and her classes are jammed with up to about 50 students.

“These are America’s future workers, and what’s trickling down to them are the problems — the unemployment, the crime,” she said. She blamed Wall Street for causing the country’s financial problems and said it needed to do more to solve them. --Washington Post