Aramark's mess in Chicago schools pales in comparison to what they've done in Michigan prisons

Today's Detroit Free Press reports that a fired Aramark prison food worker filed a whistle-blower complaint Wednesday with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, alleging she lost her job for complaining about falsified records and kitchen practices that endangered health and food safety.

McVay alleges she was harassed and retaliated against for complaining about a lack of temperature monitoring in cooking; the serving of raw or undercooked meat; falsified records related to dishwater temperature and cleaning solution quality; the serving of meat that had been dropped on the floor; changing the dates on stored leftover food so it could be served after its throw-away date; suspected inflating of the count of meals served — part of the basis for which Aramark is paid by the state — among other issues.

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Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's privatization of school janitorial services, handing them over to Aramark and SodexoMagic,  has left schools in a filthy mess with principals and parents (not to mention hundreds of laid-off workers) howling for change. But Aramark's mess at CPS pales in comparison to what they're doing in Michigan's prisons.

Michigan's Tea Party Gov. Rick Snyder, has turned the state into the vanguard of privatization in an attempt to bust the state's unions and fire higher-paid, experienced public employees, including teachers, without due process.

Aramark Correctional Services has had an astonishing record of incompetence in state after state, says MoTown columnist, Jack Lessenberry  In Ohio, there have been several near-riots in prisons after they ran out of food. Florida fired Aramark long ago for contract violations and for boosting their profits by skimping on inmate meals.

Kentucky did the same, after lousy Aramark food service provoked an actual prison riot. Later, an audit discovered what the state said were food quality issues and overbilling.

Ohio editorial writers have been urging that state's governor, the right-wing ideologue John Kasich, to fire Aramark for issues that include maggots in the food, staffing shortages, and running out of food, presumably to maximize profits.

Last December, Aramark (ARMK) began running Michigan’s prison kitchens under a three-year, $145 million privatization deal which eliminated about 370 union jobs and was supposed to make food service more efficient while saving the cash-strapped state millions.

But according to a Bloomberg Businessweek report, privatization hasn’t quite worked out that way.

More than 100 Aramark employees have been fired for alleged misconduct that included sneaking cell phones into prisons, distributing drugs, and having sexual contact with inmates. On Sept. 23 an Aramark worker at an Ionia prison was fired on suspicion that he’d tried to pay one prisoner to beat up another. The next day a worker at a maximum-security prison, also in Ionia, lost her job after corrections officers found a 65-page love letter she wrote to an inmate with whom she was allegedly having an affair.

In August, before the latest revelations, Snyder announced he was appointing Edwin Buss, who has run prison systems in Florida and Indiana, to independently monitor the Aramark contract. Buss’s annual salary of $160,000 will be covered by a $200,000 fine levied on Aramark by the Michigan Department of Corrections following reports of meal shortages and maggots in food served to prisoners. An additional $98,000 fine for infractions that included a dozen instances of “overfamiliarity” between employees and inmates was waived in March.

Detroit News

According to the Detroit News,

When maggots were repeatedly discovered in Aramark prison kitchens over the summer, it was consistently reported that the company previously had paid a $98,000 fine to the state for previous contract infractions. We’ve now learned that was not true. While the fine was levied against Aramark, it was never paid after Corrections director Dan Heyns intervened and told Gov. Rick Snyder’s office he would “tone down [his] attack dogs, delay or cancel any fines.”

Aramark's next big move -- health care. Yikes!

So Mayor Emanuel, what is it you like so much about Aramark? Please tell us.

[Update: He's at it again] Gov. Snyder's privatization mess in Muskegon Hts.

Update: Snyder has declared a financial "State of Emergency" in Detroit. Whenever he does this, it give him the power to overthrow the elected government and appoint  a czar from the corporate world to run the city. 

What's left of Muskegon Heights Public Schools. 

Remember last year when Michigan's wing-nut Gov. Rick Snyder used his fascist powers to privatize the town and schools of Muskegon Heights?  First he replaced the elected city government with a hand-picked business czar, Don Weatherspoon. Then, Czar Weatherspoon decided to turn the entire public school system over to a for-profit charter management company.

Seven month later --- What a mess!

First Weatherspoon ordered the district to stop providing educational services at the end of the last school year and laid off most of its staff. Then he sold off all the surplus assets of the public school system from lockers to the flag polls and even text books.

When that didn't raise enough money Gov. Snyder stepped in with a $3.5 million “emergency” loan to help the pay off private companies like MESSA health insurance, Priority Health health insurance and Chartwells Food Service. The loan under the state’s Emergency Municipal Loan Act is the second one the district received. In August 2012, the state loaned the district $7.6 million. The school district also will use the $335,000 annual fee it receives for authorizing the Mosaica-run charter school system to pay off its debts.

Then they reopened as Mosaica and tried to staff the privately-operated schools with non-certified teachers and any principal they could dig up and get to stay for more than a few weeks. Then they spent millions on security cameras in each and every classroom to watch the teachers.

Last but not least came Mosaica's test-crazed approach to teaching, relying mainly on Scantron testing.

MLive reporter Lynn Moore writes:

Muskegon Heights High School has a new principal -- the third and some could argue fourth -- since the school was turned into a charter school at the beginning of this school year...The Muskegon Heights High School, as well as the middle school and two elementary schools, is now operated by Mosaica, a charter school management company. 

That's 4 principals (or should I say, "heads of school") since September.

Mosaica operates more than 90 schools across the country and in India. They have left a trail of mismanagement and corruption scandals in their wake since they ran into trouble for mismanaging a school near New Orleans. The Louisiana dispute led to arbitration. In the end, Mosaica was forced to pay $350,000 in damages. Then there was this cheating scandal in D.C. and that mess with the management of King High School in Philly.

The company already operates six Michigan charter schools, five of which fall below the 20th percentile on the state's ranking of schools. One school is at the 26th percentile.

New Michigan dictatorship privatizes entire school district

Now that Michigan's T-Party Gov. Rick Snyder has been given the power of a fascist dictator over the state's impoverished cities and towns, one of the first things he's going after is public education. First stop -- struggling Muskegon Heights, where Snyder has already replaced the elected city government with a hand picked business czar. The czar, Don Weatherspoon, has now decided to turn the entire public school system over to a for-profit company, Mosaica Education, Inc.

NPR reports:

So far, the details of the contract with Mosaica are still secret. Though the document was approved in an open meeting, it wasn't available to the public, and attorneys refused to share the information with reporters; basic information like how much money the district will pay Mosaica.

I have been following Mosaica, which operates more than 90 schools across the country and in India, since they ran into trouble for mismanaging a school near New Orleans. The Louisiana dispute led to arbitration. In the end, Mosaica was forced to pay $350,000 in damages. Then there was this cheating scandal in D.C. and that mess with the management of King High School in Philly.

The company already operates six Michigan charter schools, five of which fall below the 20th percentile on the state's ranking of schools. One school is at the 26th percentile.

Schools starve despite Michigan's billion-dollar surplus

T-Party Gov. Snyder says:"Let 'em eat cake."

Michigan is ending the year with an estimated $1.2 billion budget surplus. But T-Party Gov. Rick Snyder is sitting on the money rather than funding the state's cash-starved public schools and rehiring laid-off teachers.

Democrats and some Republicans want public schools to get a major share of any surplus. The State Board of Education has also called for a significant portion of any budget surplus to be invested in education. Public school funding was cut more than 2 percent in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. State aid to public universities was reduced by 15 percent. -- AP Wire

 Among the budget priorities set by the board: Financial relief to help districts cover pension costs; money to expand programs such as Advanced Placement and middle colleges, as well as more funding for professional development for educators, and a pool of funds to reward districts that are improving academically outcomes and/or their fiscal efficiency.

Michigan's 'nonpartisan' union busters caught in scandal

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan, calls itself a "nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to improving the quality of life." But recently this far-right, free-market think tank has been exposed for its shady, very partisan, and possibly illegal lobbying of state politicians, aimed at nothing less than breaking the back of the state's teachers union and outlawing collective-bargaining in the state of Michigan.

According to Dave Murray, writing in the Grand Rapids Free Press, the Mackinac Center's true purposes were revealed in secret email communications with state lawmakers, including one from Mackinac's Jack McHugh to stateRep. Thomas McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, the newly appointed head of the House Education Committee. In his June 1 email, letting McMillin know exactly what was expected of him, McHugh wrote: 

“Our goal is (to) outlaw government collective bargaining in Michigan, which in practical terms means no more MEA.”

McMillin, described as a "vocal school choice and reform advocate," was named head of the Education Committee after former chairman, Rep. Paul Scott, R-Grand Blanc, was recalled by angry voters earlier this month. Before being recalled Scott had become the darling of Michelle Rhee and Michigan's T-Party Gov. Rick Snyder, after leading the charge against teachers' collective bargaining rights and raids on their pension fund. Rhee's front group, Students First donated heavily to help Scott avoid a recall effort.

Doug Pratt, the MEA’s public affairs director, said the comment reveals the Mackinac Center’s conservative, anti-union leanings that he believes are often cloaked behind glossy publications.

“It’s right there in black and white, exposing the group for what it really is,” Pratt said. “That proves that the Mackinac Center is nothing but a front for corporate special interests intent on destroying the middle class.”

When Murray's story broke, McMillin, obviously trying to avoid Scott's fate, immediately tried to distance himself from Mackinac, claiming that McHugh's emails “don’t represent my views.”

For more on the Mackinac Center see Fred Klonsky's blog and the MEA's website.
Cross posted on my Small Talk blog. 

Rhee has become the darling of the far-right

Paul Scott, left, and Michelle Rhee.

Michelle Rhee rose to prominence during her days as D.C. school chancellor, with a big boost from the power philanthropists. Her tough accountability policies, mass firings of teachers and union bashing drew praise from the Democratic Party establishment, including Arne Duncan and Rhee's mentor, then N.Y. chancellor, Joel Klein. Once Rhee got run out of town by D.C. voters, her liberal Democratic facade was dropped. Like Klein, who went to work for the world's most notorious reactionary Rupert Murdoch, Rhee has become the face of right-wing education "reform" nationally.

Rhee has most recently been supporting a far-right Michigan politician, Rep. Paul Scott (R-Grand Blanc) in his struggle to avoid being recalled next month. Scott, an anti-gay crusader and opponent of legal abortion, is also a vocal support of Gov. Rick Snyder who is cutting badly needed funding for public education from his budget.

The Flint Journal reports that Rhee's group Student First, has already committed $73,000 to help Scott. Students First has already poured nearly $1 million into the campaign to take away teacher tenure and weaken teachers' collective-bargain rights. Scott was instrumental in shaping anti-union legislation.

Rhee's support for this Tea Party politician implies that her supposedly non-partisan group is also backing Snyder’s economic and education policies, which have lead to significant reductions in the state’s K-12 school aid. Included among the budget that Snyder signed earlier this year was a whopping $300 million aid reduction to schools statewide. Additionally, there was a $100 million cut to aid to cities, which also serves to negatively impact schools.