I just busted one of her precious, experimental data collection schools for homeless and age out foster youth schools in a Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare scheme.
The Director over there at Covenant House, who just happens to be from Malta, is using dirty data to promulgate her agenda of the foreign invasion.
Someone needs to ask Betsy about RDV and her other real estate fraud schemes where she and her co-conspirators acquired properties from fake ass foreclosures through the Kent County Land Bank, and Detroit Land Bank Authority, flipped them four or seven times in fake ass mortgages, wiped out in quiet titles, where the money is run out the country, probably through Spectrum Health.
Go ahead, I am waiting for the first reporter to actually do a real interview with her.
Here is the link to find everything you wanted to know about her pending situation with the falling of the heavens.
FUN FACT! BETHANY CHRISTIAN GOT THE BORDER BABY CONTRACTS
Yes, that is correct, Betsy forecasted that the U.S. would experience an increase of homeless and foster children.
Has anyone ever asked her how she was able to do that?
Has anyone ever asked her about the Michigan Children's Trust Fund?
Has anyone ever asked her how all that stolen child welfare money from the schools is ending up going through the RNC funding campaigns, like Trump's campaign?
Maine's new director of Special Education for the States Department of Education, Erin Frazier is a child abuser. I will gladly testify to this fact.
Erin Frazier, trafficker of tiny humans.
During the 2011/2012 school year, while she was the director at West School Day Treatment Program in Portland, my daughter who was 9 years old at the time was sent home with finger-shaped bruises on her arms regularly from being manhandled by Ms. Frazier and her staff. Ms. Frazier also once pushed my daughter into a seclusion room, causing her to fall over backward and hit her head off of a brick wall. The school nurse had to check her for a concussion after.
After I filed a formal written complaint to Portland Public Schools about the brick wall incident, Ms. Frazier retaliated by authorizing a false report to Child Protective Services against me. Then she went about butt-covering including falsifying school records, and changing incident reports, etc.
Now she is running the special education department in Maine. She, in my opinion, shouldn't be running anything but a cell block.
I only found out about Ms. Frazier's new position when another parent reached out to me after seeing a comment that I left about her a couple of years ago on a news article.
They got their Medicaid expansion plan implemented.
They increased their Special Needs population, which is an automatic default to the corporate parent who provides aid and shelter to the savages who must forfeit assets of their souls in foreign corporate legal guardianship.
Operation Reanimation of the Peculiar Institution is a roaring success.
Someone should interview Maura Corrigan to find out how proud she is of her passionate work to reanimate the Peculiar Institution of the Michigan Department of Human Services.
Years after reports surfaced of alarmingly high lead levels in the water system, the toll of the crisis is becoming clear: At least 1 in 5 students in Flint's public schools are eligible for special education—and the school system is buckling under the weight of federal requirements and costs for providing programs and services.
The percentage of special education students has increased by 56 percent, rising from 13.1 percent in 2012-13, the school year before the water crisis began, to 20.5 percent last school year.
Schools are understaffed. Teachers are overwhelmed. Parents are frustrated.
"It's been a fight," said Maxine Onstott, a leader of a citywide special education parent-advocate group. Her autistic 6-year-old son, Maximilliano, began kindergarten this month. "There [are] a lot of children right now that are not getting the services they need and that are not getting the support they deserve to get from the schools."
The fallout in Flint could foreshadow problems in other districts. Schools across the country have found elevated lead levels in drinking water.
In a suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, the Education Law Center, and the New York-based firm of White & Case, lawyers representing Flint families have sued the school system, the Michigan education department, and the Genesee County Intermediate school district, alleging systematic failure to meet the needs of special education students. The Genesee district helps oversee special education services in Flint and other county districts.
While the lawsuit does not pin the increased need for special education services solely on the prolonged lead exposure, research has linked lead toxicity to learning disabilities, poor classroom performance, and increased aggression.
"Any amount of lead is damaging to a child's brain development, and clearly a number of children in Flint were overexposed," said epidemiologist and pediatrician Philip Landrigan, whose research in the 1970s in El Paso, Texas, was among the first to show that lead can cause brain damage to children at levels too low to cause clinically evident signs and symptoms.
In Flint, families drank, bathed, and cooked in their homes with lead-laced water from the Flint River for 17 months before the problem was discovered and the water supply was shut off. The contamination occurred when the city switched its water supply from Lake Huron as a cost-cutting measure.
Still more children have suffered lead exposure because of lead-based paint in the city's older, deteriorated housing stock, said Landrigan, a professor of biology and the director of the Global Public Health Program and the Global Observatory on Pollution and Health at the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society at Boston College.
"The combination of lead in paint and lead in water is a double whammy," Landrigan said.
City officials say the water is safe to drink now, but the water fountains and faucets in the schools remain off-limits for students. Even so, the percentage of special education students in Flint could continue to rise as children born during the water crisis begin to enroll in the city's schools.
A System in Stress
In an interview with television station WJRT, Flint schools Superintendent Derrick Lopez said that 28 percent of the district's students have individualized education programs this school year. That's more than double the national average of 13 percent.
Lopez did not respond to interview requests from Education Week. But, in a prepared statement from the district's public relations firm, he responds by saying: "The Flint Community schools district is deeply committed to the well-being and success of all students."
For Onstott, though, trying to secure educational support for her son has been one big waiting game: waiting months for an updated individualized education program or IEP, waiting weeks for special education staff to return her calls, waiting hours in district offices to plead her case for help.
"I should be able to walk into my child's school and know and trust that everybody that has interaction with him is doing the best things for him," Onstott said. "You're supposed to be able to trust your child's school, and I don't."
The water crisis has further eroded trust in a city and school system already decimated by deindustrialization and urban decay.
Flint was a city once fueled by General Motors jobs. Many of those jobs are gone, poverty is pervasive, and few cities report more violence per capita.
At the peak of the city's manufacturing boom in the 1960s, Flint had 54 school buildings and close to 50,000 students. Four decades later, enrollment has dropped to less than 4,500, declining 35 percent since the water crisis began.
Many families with the resources to do so have left town. Those left behind are disproportionately poor and in need of extra support.
The lead poisoning has made "an absolutely terrible situation significantly worse," said Gregory Little, the chief trial counsel at the Education Law Center, a Newark, N.J.-based nonprofit that advocates for at-risk students.
The Flint schools "simply do not have the resources to provide these programs and services," Little said.
Ebony Dixon, a mother of two children identified for special education services—a son, 7-year-old Torea, diagnosed with autism, and a daughter, 6-year-old Alexus, deemed to be cognitively impaired—has struggled with that reality for years.
Dissatisfied with the services in Flint schools, Dixon faces a constant dilemma: Should she leave her home in the city behind and head to a more affluent school district?
Tracking the Growth of Special Education in Flint
The percentage of students who qualify for special education services in Flint has grown from 13.1 percent in the school year before the water became contaminated to 20.5 percent last school year.
2012-13: 13.1%
2013-14: 15.1%
2014-15: 15%
2015-16: 16.7%
2016-17: 17.4%
2017-18: 19.8%
2018-19: 20.5%
Source: Michigan Department of Education
Dixon has moved to neighboring school districts more than once, only to return because she was unable to make ends meet.
"It's been a struggle at times," she said.
Dixon said that she doesn't want to leave now that her children have started school, but even if she did, "I'm still stuck here."
Overwhelmed Teachers
Unable to recruit and retain qualified special education teachers, the school district has resorted to filling vacancies with long-term substitutes and hires from temp agencies. As many as 25 percent of special education teaching and support jobs in the Flint schools have been filled that way, the lawsuit against the district alleges.
William Therrien, a special education professor at the University of Virginia Curry School of Education and Human Development, has visited Flint twice since 2017 to interview parents and current and former teachers to evaluate the special education services in place after the water crisis. He provided a declaration of his findings in support of the lawsuit against the Flint schools.
Therrien documented a number of problems, including a glaring shortage of teachers qualified to work with special education students.
"If we don't have effective educators and enough of them, we're identifying [children in need of special education] for no reason," said Therrien, a former K-12 special education teacher.
Part of the challenge for Flint is that teaching candidates can earn tens of thousands of dollars more in neighboring school systems.
But the issues for teachers extend beyond the struggles to find and retain qualified staff members, teachers said.
Classroom sizes and caseloads for support-staff members, such as speech therapists, have swelled as a consequence of the staffing shortages.
And training to help teachers address student anxiety and aggression has missed the mark, making it more difficult to connect with students who are exhibiting problems in class, according to the local teachers' union affiliate.
The lawsuit also seeks to address the Flint schools' increased reliance on suspensions and related discipline measures to deal with student behavior. The district's suspension and expulsion rate for special education students is four times higher than the state average.
One family in the suit had a child suspended from school more than a dozen times in one school year—and even placed in restraints in an attempt to control him. The child, now a 4th grader diagnosed with ADHD, has since left the district and is enrolled in online classes.
Joanna Coselman, a special education teacher at Flint's Durant-Tuuri-Mott Elementary School, said: Learning has "to come later. You have to feel safe, you have to feel secure."
Union members have reported more student-on-teacher attacks and increased aggression from parents as well. In response, the district has added security in every building to help manage relationships with frustrated parents and to limit in-school confrontations.
"I've had parents come at me," Coselman said."[I say] 'We're not going to do this in front of the kids. Let's go the office. You can yell and scream at me all you want.' "
'Long-Sustaining Disaster'
Flint is not the only school district dealing with lead concerns.
From coast to coast, lead-contaminated water has emerged as a problem aggravated by aging school buildings and plumbing and tight repair budgets.
Hundreds of schools in dozens of districts have identified similar problems. School leaders in big-city districts such as Detroit; Newark, N.J.; and Portland, Ore., have shut off water in buildings for months or years at a time.
A study released earlier this year from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation suggests the problem may be even more widespread. It found that half of students in the United States attend schools in states that do not have programs for testing drinking water for lead.
Among the schools that do test, about 40 percent have yielded samples with elevated lead levels.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 98,000 public schools and a half-million child-care facilities are not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the federal law designed to ensure safe drinking water.
In fact, there is no federal policy that mandates lead testing in schools.
The Genesee Healthy System's Neurodevelopmental Center of Excellence, which provides universal health screening and neurological assessments for families, opened as a result of a $4 million settlement agreement by the lawyers representing Flint children in the ongoing lawsuit against the Flint schools and the state education department.
The current phase of the lawsuit is focused on ensuring that the lead-exposed children receive the special services and resources they are entitled to under federal and state law.
Months after the school district shut off its own water fountains in 2015, the district sent a letter to parents about the water crisis warning that: "It is impossible, at this point, to forecast how it will impact us, our schools, and our children."
Almost four years have passed, and the school district, the state, and the families they serve still don't know the full impact of the lead contamination on the children bearing the brunt of it.
"It's a long-sustaining disaster that society has turned their head away from," said Therrien, the special education professor. "Time really is of the essence here. Years and years are going to go by, and the children that need help the most are going to suffer."
Would you like to know a plausible explanation as to why Michigan was dropped form its "needs intervention" list for special education?
Have you ever tried to get an IEP in a charter school?
Feel free to share your horror stories on accessing special education in public schools of Detroit, Grand Rapids, Benton Harbor, Flint, and any one of those communities up in the central and nothern parts of Michigan, too.
I wonder what they do with all the old identities of children after they are adopted out from foster care?
Always remember, if you do not report it, it does not get tallied, just like they do with votes.
Last year, Michigan was the only state in the nation that failed to meet federal special education requirements and required intervention.
Michigan no longer needs "intervention" to meet federal special education requirements but still needs "assistance," according to state education officials.
The Michigan Department of Education said on Thursday the state's performance on key special education factors improved over last year, which prompted the U.S. Department of Education to lift the state from its “needs intervention” determination to “needs assistance."
Michigan is rated for its annual performance on meeting a section of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
The types of data used to make a determination include the participation of children with disabilities on regular statewide assessments and the percentage of children with disabilities who graduated with a regular high school diploma and who dropped out.
Michigan’s score increased from 59.17% to 65.28% from 2018 to 2019, an increase of 6.1%, according to the 2019 report.
The state boosted its numbers for the percentage of fourth-grade and eighth-grade students with disabilities participating in statewide reading assessments. This year, the numbers were 83% and 81% respectively, compared to 80% and 79% last year.
It also increased the number of students with disabilities in the same grades taking regular statewide math assessments, from 81% and 79% in 2018 to 84% and 81% in 2019.
The state saw a decrease in the percentage of students with disabilities who drop out of school — from 29% to 28% — but the graduation rate remained the same both years at 63%.
Deputy state superintendent Scott Koenigsknecht said this is the highest score Michigan has received since 2014.
“We are pleased with the trajectory of the growth and will continue to work to improve outcomes for every Michigan student," Koenigsknecht said. "There still is much work to do around the areas of graduation rate, dropout rate, research-based best practices, and inclusion/”
Federal officials use both compliance and results data for a “letter of determination” on whether a state "meets requirements," "needs assistance" or "needs intervention."
Koenigsknecht said work is being done in the school districts across the state and at the state education department to improve compliance.
A steering committee and four workgroups have been working since December to generate recommendations that would lead to continued improvements for graduation rates, dropout rates, M-STEP participation, and NAEP results and participation, Koenigsknecht said.
Marcie Lipsitt, a Michigan-based special education advocate and civil rights activist, said the change in determination is nothing to celebrate because special education conditions continue to erode in Michigan due to a lack of transparency at the state education department and insufficient funding for special education services.
"Conditions have worsened this year," Lipsitt said. "There is nothing to celebrate here. Outcomes for children with disabilities are not improving."
It is about time we brought music and the arts back into the schools.
Music and art have always been the means to tell a story when no one else would listen.
It is time to listen to the original sources, the children.
Marco Iaconis has an amazing story to tell and so do the students and school administrators.
If you just so happen to have a few musical instruments lying around the house collecting dust, like guitars, saxaphones or whatever else, feel free to let Marco Polo know that you would like the students to have them, considering that they have very little, in some instances, students do not even have a place to live.
As we begin to close out the celebration for Child Abuse Propaganda Month, let us pay tribute to Massachusetts and its history in trafficking tiny humans.
Yes, there is more to Child Abuse Propaganda Month than just blue pinwheels money hustle because May is Foster Care Propaganda Month.
In order to acquire goods for the child welfare industry, one must have pretty, shiny reports showing that a state's foster care system need more money.
At the time I pulled the pretty colored fact sheet of the report, the report has yet to be uploaded to the state databases, so you can keep checking back for it.
The Department's Educational Stability team works to ensure the enrollment, attendance and opportunity to succeed in school for children and youth in foster care. We collaborate with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) and local school districts to implement the provisions for providing educational stability for students in foster care, as outlined in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
Foster children often bounce from school to school, suffer chronic absenteeism, experience disciplinary problems, and drop out more frequently than their peers.
Bouncing from school to school is a modern term for trafficking tiny humans. When one is legally kidnapped from their family, you have a tendency of disciplinary problems that are remedied with lots and lots of second generation antipsychotropics for testing.
Yet poor communication between state child welfare administrators and local schools and conflicting regulations create significant hurdles and educational delays for abused and neglected children as they are moved from foster home to foster home, according to a new state auditor’s report.
Poor communication is called privacy. Child welfare is all compartmentalized because each department has its own private contractor fraud scheme they know nothing about because the child placing agencies are all outsourced to self-report and no one is going to dry snitch on themselves.
Amid the communication and coordination roadblocks, low-income communities often end up shouldering the financial burden for educating these children, the report said.
Poverty is abuse and neglect, which is why the Medicaid billable term is called Targeted Case Management, where they target poor communities, which means the communities lose appropriations due to forced migration. These kids are typically lumped into school districts that are stressed for resources, for loss of funding, and throw their hands in the air when it comes to providing these kids any form of help in knowing they will be "bounced" in a few days.
“Too often, the educational success of these students is hindered by a complex bureaucracy and a lack of resources and expertise, and this burden is particularly acute in low-income communities,” state Auditor Suzanne M. Bump said in a statement.
Last year, about 6,800 public school students in Massachusetts were in foster care and state education data indicate that about 45 percent of students in foster care require special education services.
FUN FACT! INVOLUNTARY PLACEMENT OF A CHILD IN FOSTER CARE IS THE ONLY WAY TO ACCESS SPECIAL EDUCATION SERVICES FOR MOST CHILDREN See how the pretty shiny report fails to mention this, below.
School districts devote “considerable time and effort to ensuring that children in foster care are receiving the right educational services,” the report said.
School districts, not the child placing agencies or the state, devotes services. Please take note of this burden for lack of replenished resources.
But it said some school districts report they receive inconsistent information from the Department of Children and Families, the state’s child welfare agency, while others say they receive no notice from DCF when a student in foster care arrives or leaves their district.
The school districts called the information they receive form DCF "inconsistent". How cute. I prefer the term fraudulent. Alot of times DCF will have multiple identities for the kids to bill. When a kid is adopted, the name changes, along with everything else, meaning there is no record.
“Several districts reported that they have informed DCF that a foster student has been absent from school (sometimes for periods in excess of 40 days), only to find that DCF has not acted on that report, or has not acted promptly to work with the district on the absenteeism issue,” it said.
No one acts on the reports of missing children because SACWIS, the human asset management system is a joke.
The report noted that these communication gaps can mean students endure duplicative testing and assessments that delay placement in an appropriate educational setting, while increasing the cost of providing the services.
And duplicate billing, double billing, phantom billing.....
“These children tend to bounce around from one community to another and there is no good way to track their educational history, let alone their personal history, so when they arrive at a local school district, the district is starting from scratch,” said Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents.
Ooooo...what a great argument to advocate for tagging and tracking tiny human assets with chip!
Baker administration officials said in response to Bump’s report that the state education department provides training to schools, districts, and DCF staff, aimed at minimizing transitions in education for students in foster care.
The schools and districts are not the problem. It is the entire child welfare system. It needs to be dismantled and purged of all the nefarious actors who exist in the private spear, monetizing our children for the best interests of their foreign corporate investments in Social Impact Bonds. I would place a heavily weighted responsibility upon Mitt Romney for this.
Administration officials added that Governor Charlie Baker’s education funding proposal filed in January includes an expansion of counseling and psychological services for schools, which would benefit children in foster care.
But what does that do for a kid who is being bounced?
“While our offices will carefully review the full report, many of the auditor’s recommendations are already implemented or underway,” said a statement from the Executive Offices of Education and Health and Human Services. “The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Children and Families have strengthened collaboration and communication between the two agencies and local school districts, including issuing joint guidance in 2018 and all stakeholders continue to strengthen communication and coordination to better support school districts.”
Bump’s report suggests that DCF and the state education department, known as DESE, collaborate on creating and maintaining an electronic “dynamic list” of students in foster care to improve tracking, but also for analysis of trends and for future financial planning. She also recommends the state create an “electronic backpack,” a database that would allow school districts to quickly access education information on foster children.
Someone is going to make a whole bunch of money. I wonder which tax exempt foreign corporation will be the lucky ones to get the first contract? Backpacks are a popular idea when it comes to trafficking tiny humans, and other humans around them, and hacking computer systems in the schools you know.
The report does not indicate which state agencies should pay for these initiatives.
Have no fear! Someone will have a child welfare NGO pitch some more pretty shiny brochures, with a really cool website, to pitch the Medicaid contract to implement human assent management systems. You know they like to start tracking humans at pre-birth, now-a-days.
Happy Child Abuse Propaganda Month
The report notes that providing educational services to foster children poses a “financial strain” on local schools that is not offset by local tax revenue or state funding. The state pays some money toward educating these students, but the report said it’s not clear whether this reflects “the true cost” for local districts.
We still function on the arcane system of administrative operations in chattels.
Bump’s warning about the lack of adequate education funding for foster children comes as the state Legislature is engaged in a broader debate about how to boost state aid to school districts across Massachusetts.
Bump also suggests DCF and DESE should jointly provide training to DCF social workers and local school district staff on how to collaborate to make the best decisions for foster children’s educational placements, and for sharing information.
I have a much more economical response. STOP STEALIN' TINY HUMANS!
Local school districts also are struggling to transport foster children to and from school, and to pay those costs, as foster children often are enrolled in one school district but live in another, the report said. Federal law requires that changes in school placements for students in foster care be minimized to lessen their trauma, and that unless it’s determined to be in their best interest, children should remain in the school district they were in prior to foster care.
Minimization and lessening of trauma for children in foster care is called "drugging children". It is far more profitable and compassionate to chemically constrain a kid.
To meet those transportation needs, schools reported spending a total of $3.2 million just last year, the report said.
Yet DCF officials told Bump’s office that the department’s social workers are also dedicating a significant chunk of their time, sometimes as much as 40 percent of their time, transporting children to school or family visits.
I would say make a special division to assist the workers to transport the children and the parents to all the services they need to keep the child out the system.
To address the financial concerns, Bump called on the state to cover the full cost of transportation for foster children.
The toll on children from this instability is considerable. Bump’s report said studies have found foster students lost from three months to one year of academic achievement each time they are moved to another school.
Children's Rights, a group I really have no respect for their work, as it is nothing but a attorney fees grifter scam, did nothing but get a federal monitoring contract for which you can clearly see, in this state, pretty shiny brochure, that not a damn thing has been done for the children, except for more money to be demanded.
Just another example of another child welfare fraud scheme.
These charter schools are foreign corporations.
Disabled children are being legislatively placed under corporate parental authority, through these Public Private Partnerships for the purposes of guardianship, to access the children's trusts through asset forfeiture for more stealin' of the children, the land and the votes.
They want the children's trusts, really, really badly, and no one is stopping it from happening...unless there is more going on behind the legal scenes, but hey, what do I know?
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks to students during an education tour in Grand Rapids.WZZM13
WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday defended deep cuts to programs meant to help students and others, including eliminating $18 million to support Special Olympics, while urging Congress to spend millions more on charter schools.
"We are not doing our children any favors when we borrow from their future in order to invest in systems and policies that are not yielding better results," DeVos said in prepared testimony before a House subcommittee considering the Department of Education's budget request for the next fiscal year.
It was the first time that DeVos, a wealthy former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman and school choice advocate, had been called before a Democratic-led panel in the U.S. House to explain President Donald Trump's spending priorities.
While proposing to add $60 million more to charter school funding and create a tax credit for individual and companies that donate to scholarships for private schools, DeVos' budget proposal would still cut more than $7 billion from the Education Department, about 10 percent of its current budget. Trump proposed a $4.7 trillion overall budget this month with an annual deficit expected to run about $1 trillion.
It calls for eliminating billions in grants to improve student achievement by reducing class sizes and funding professional development for teachers as well as cutting funds dedicated to increasing the use of technology in schools and improving school conditions. In many cases, DeVos said the purpose of the grants has been found to be redundant or ineffective.
In the case of the $17.6 million cut to help fund the Special Olympics, a program designed to help children and adults with disabilities, DeVos suggested it is better supported by philanthropy and added, "We had to make some difficult decisions with this budget."
"Do you know how many kids are going to be affected by that cut?" asked U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, while also pointing out arecent report by a nonprofit groupthat concluded the U.S. government has spent as much as $1 billion on charter schools that never opened or they closed because of mismanagement or other reasons.
DeVos has been a longtime supporter of charter schools — independently run, publicly funded schools that typically aren't as closely regulated as traditional schools — and school choice for public school students, arguing that parents should be able to put their children into the schools of their choice and that funding should follow them.
Many public school supporters have argued that government support of charter schools and private schools can undermine traditional schools, which educate most students.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who is chairwoman of the subcommittee that held the hearing, called the budget proposal "cruel and reckless," saying it "will hurt the middle class and low-income families that most need our help."
"How can you support this budget? I mean that genuinely," she said. "As secretary of the Department of Education, how can you support, even boast, about taking 10 percent ... away from our teachers and students?"
It's unlikely that any of the major reductions, or any major proposals to boost school choice, are headed towards passage, however. Even with the Republicans in the majority in the U.S. House the last two years, most of DeVos' strongest proposals for cuts or spending were turned back. Now with Democrats in the majority, they are far less likely to gain traction.
Whoever said the christian slave trade ended never met the Tebows!
I believe one of my precious pearls of wisdom divers has found these treasures from the deep, dark net which features some of the activities of those who like to traffic tiny humans, in that very, very, very, special kind of way, in the name of god, which triggers law enforcement to launch investigations.
In this spirit of absolute repulsion, I am just going to pass this one off to my #Superfans, because it would be inappropriate for me to make any further assertions that the Tebow family is trafficking tiny humans without affording the individuals involved to due process.
"Praise the Lord for overseas special needs orphan lab rats!"
Mission Statement: "Healing the sick and proclaiming the kingdom of God
TRANSLATION: USING FOREIGN CHILDREN AS HUMAN SUBJECT BIOMEDICAL & GENETIC RESEARCH IS PART OF THE TAX EXEMPT PROSPERITY PROPHECIES It seems there areother things children are good for, when proclaiming the kingdom of god.
UNCLE DICK’S HOME
Home for orphans in the Philippines
"This is pure and undefiled religion, in the sight of our God and Father, to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." James 1:27
In 1991, a woman died in childbirth. The husband left the baby with the poor grandfather, who said three days later, “If someone doesn’t take this baby, I will throw her into the river!” With that, our BTEA staff members Bert and Ray Gauran took the baby and named her “Queenie.” Queenie was our first orphan!
As a result, an orphanage was founded by the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association to provide a Christian home for orphaned Filipino children. The orphanage was later named “Uncle Dick’s Home” after Richard Fowler, a neighbor of the Tebows, who became like a member of their family. They led him to Christ, and he supported the ministry in many ways through the years. Upon his death, he left BTEA a sum of money to be used to establish the orphanage.
Uncle Dick’s Home is located in Lamsugod, Surallah, South Cotabato, Mindanao, Philippines, and is home to 49 orphans and 13 staff.
Jimmy Scroggins
"The children were so beautiful, and we had a great time laughing, playing, and singing. The orphanage is an amazing place with a play area, fruit trees, a garden, a modern kitchen, and gorgeous landscaping. The staff at the orphanage does a tremendous job, and the children are bright, well groomed, and obviously well cared for. Most of all, I was thrilled to listen to the kids as they sang songs about Jesus and recited Scripture verses. Each one of these children has a great opportunity to learn about God and to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus. Praise the Lord for BTEA and its work with these orphans. Uncle Dick’s Home is the instrument of God in the lives of these children, as He proves that He is a ‘father to the fatherless,’ and as He makes a way for the little children to come to Him."
One day, Carlos’ parents were driving down the treacherous mountain road with a load of corn. The brakes on their old truck failed. As they flew off the mountain, the mother threw three-year-old Carlos out the window. Although Carlos broke his ankle and slashed his forehead, he survived! Instead of becoming beggars on the street, Carlos and his five year-old brother now live at Uncle Dick’s Home.
Maureen Albers:
"What I encountered at Uncle Dick’s Home caught me totally off guard. I sat surrounded by children, who were singing a chorus entitled ‘The Love of God,’ and I experienced God’s pure love in a way I never have before. Instead of coming away feeling sorry for these children and wanting to bring them back to America, I left knowing that they already have everything they need. They are wonderfully loved and cared for, and they have a real, vibrant relationship with a living God who is manifesting Himself through them."
The Need:
The monthly cost for each orphan at Uncle Dick’s Home is $125. (This $125 includes school, transportation, clothes, food, housing, medical needs, and orphanage staff payroll.)
The current monthly budget for Uncle Dick’s Home is currently running $8,000.
100% of the money given to Uncle Dick’s Home goes to help the orphans.
A Canadian server, registered in Florida, operating in the Philippines, dealing with tiny humans, in the name of god.
A mix of variables that typically does not produce a very good outcome when it comes to children.
Raw WHOIS Record
Domain Name: BTEA.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D1541580-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.tucows.com
Registrar URL: http://www.tucows.com
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For a minute there I thought this was another Detroit Public Schools case, but at least we know the model started in Detroit.
Schools Employee Helped Steer Nearly $300,000 Contract to Her Friend
WASHINGTON – A former employee of the District of Columbia Public Schools and a business owner, her longtime friend, pled guilty today to a federal mail fraud charge stemming from a bid-rigging scheme involving a government contract valued at nearly $300,000.
The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu, Nancy McNamara, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and District of Columbia Inspector General Daniel W. Lucas.
Amber R. Crowder, 39, of Washington, D.C., also known as Amber Hines, and Shauna Marie Brumfield, 40, of Sacramento, Calif., also known as Shauna Snell, each pled guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The charge carries a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison and potential financial penalties. The Honorable Senior Judge John D. Bates scheduled Brumfield’s sentencing for Feb. 5, 2019, and Crowder’s sentencing for Feb. 11, 2019.
According to a Statement of Facts agreed to by both defendants as part of their plea, Crowder worked as a program manager in the Office of Special Education (OSE) of the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). In the summer of 2012, Crowder was tasked with identifying and recommending a company to aid in the scheduling of meetings related to individual education plans for special education students. Brumfield and Crowder agreed to work together to obtain the contract.
On Aug. 7, 2012, Brumfield created a company called A Simple Solution to bid on the contract. Brumfield and Crowder were partners in A Simple Solution. Crowder was not identified in any company filings or listed on any communications to DCPS in order to conceal her ownership interest in A Simple Solution. At the time, Brumfield and Crowder were also partners in another company called Education Connection, which provided tutoring services to special education students. Crowder was not identified in any Education Connection company filings or listed on any Education Connection communications to DCPS.
OSE chose A Simple Solution for the administrative assistant contract over several local qualified companies based on written documentation prepared by Crowder and her personal recommendation. In that documentation, Crowder falsely stated that A Simple Solution was an experienced company. Crowder falsely claimed that her contact person for A Simple Solution was “Marie Matthews,” which was an alias used by Brumfield. Crowder did not disclose that she was on the payroll of Education Connection. A Simple Solution bid $298,800 for the contract because Crowder disclosed to Brumfield that the expected budget for the contract was $300,000. Two separate contracts were signed to cover the entire school year. Crowder’s boyfriend signed the first contract as the purported A Simple Solution Chief Financial Officer, while Brumfield’s boyfriend signed the second contract as the purported A Simple Solution branch manager in order to make it appear that A Simple Solution was an established company with multiple employees.
As a result of the fraud, from October 2012 through March 2014, the District of Columbia Public Schools paid approximately $222,000 to A Simple Solution. Brumfield transferred approximately $19,164 of those funds from A Simple Solution’s bank account to Crowder’s personal bank account.
In announcing the pleas, U.S. Attorney Liu, Assistant Director in Charge McNamara, and Inspector General Lucas commended the work of those who investigated the case from the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the District of Columbia Office of the Inspector General. They also acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Lucas, Paralegal Specialists Joshua Fein and Aisha Keys, and former Paralegal Specialists Jessica Mundi and Kristy Penny. Finally, they commended the work of Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony Saler and Kondi Kleinman, who investigated and prosecuted the case.
This privatized fraud scheme of child welfare was brought to you by D.C. FBI and the D.C. Inspector General.
And people wonder why children are not learning.
Defendant’s Crimes Cost Government More Than $300,000
WASHINGTON – Vashawn Strader, 40, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for bribing an employee of the District of Columbia Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) to get favorable action on government contracts.
The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu, Nancy McNamara, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and District of Columbia Inspector General Daniel W. Lucas.
Strader pled guilty in July 2017, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. Following his prison term, he will be placed on three years of supervised release. During that time, he must perform 100 hours of community service. He also will be required to pay $308,311 in restitution to OSSE and an identical amount in a forfeiture money judgment.
Strader’s co-conspirator, government employee Shauntell Harley, was sentenced in July 2018 to 56 months in prison. She pled guilty to carrying out two schemes, one with Strader and one with someone else, that caused the D.C. government to pay more than $480,000 on fraudulent invoices. Harley, 48, of Washington, D.C., must pay $488,311 in restitution to OSSE and a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of $100,400.
OSSE is an agency of the District of Columbia government. Harley was a management analyst for fiscal policy and grant management in OSSE’s Division of Special Education. From 2009 through 2014, her responsibilities included issuing requests for services through the government’s procurement process and then reviewing invoices from those who supposedly provided the services.
Strader was the sole owner of a company that provided tutoring and mentoring services to public school students in the District of Columbia and elsewhere. In addition, he co-owned a company that owned and managed real estate in the District of Columbia.
According to the government’s evidence, beginning in or about June of 2012, Strader and Harley agreed that Harley would receive money and other things of value in exchange for favorable official action for Strader’s companies. They agreed that Strader would create fraudulent invoices purporting to reflect work that his companies did not actually perform. This work purportedly included early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities and developmental delays and professional development training.
Harley used her official position at OSSE to provide Strader with non-public information about OSSE contracts, assist him in creating fraudulent invoices, and submit these fraudulent invoices and other documents as necessary in order to cause OSSE to make the payments for services the companies never performed. In total, this led to $308,311 in payments in 2012 and 2013 to the two companies for services that never were provided. In return for her actions, Harley personally obtained a total of $43,900 in proceeds traceable to the scheme.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Liu, Assistant Director in Charge McNamara, and Inspector General Lucas commended the work of those who investigated the case from the FBI’s Washington Field Office and Office of the Inspector General of the District of Columbia. They acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Swanton, who assisted with forfeiture issues, and Paralegal Specialists Joshua Fein and Kristy Penny. Finally, they expressed appreciation for the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter C. Lallas, who is investigating and prosecuting the matter.
If Laurie Kondek could fix what ails Michigan's special education system, it would be this: She would ensure that children like her Samuel — who is severely autistic and has several other ailments — would have the same shot at success as kids with no special needs.
"You have these special ed kids who have so much potential. Maybe they're not going to fly as high academically ... but my kid is just as valuable," said Kondek, who lives in Northville and has one son who attends the local district there and another who attends a nearby charter school.
To Kondek and many others, Michigan is falling short. And the U.S. Department of Education agrees, identifying Michigan in a recent report as the only state in the nation "needing intervention" this year because of the poor academic performance, high dropout rates and low graduation rates of its special education students.
Michigan shared the distinction with the District of Columbia, plus the U.S. territories of Palau and the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands. If Michigan remains in that designation for three straight years, it could lose some federal funding.
How bad are Michigan's results? The education department gave Michigan a 59 percent for its outcomes for special education students — much of it based on student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a rigorous national exam given to a representative sample of students in each state. The state with the highest percentage: Massachusetts with 88.75.
Here's a look at the data that earned Michigan the designation, one of four given by the education department (meets expectations, needs assistance, needs intervention and needs substantial intervention):
Only 22 percent of fourth-graders and 34 percent of eighth-graders scored at or above the basic level in reading on the NAEP, which breaks down scores in four levels (below basic, basic, proficient and advanced).
Only 39 percent of fourth-graders and 19 percent of eighth-graders scored at or above the basic level in math on the NAEP.
29 percent dropped out of school during the 2016-17 school year.
Only 63 percent earned a traditional high school diploma.
Michigan had been designated previously as needing assistance.
The data isn't surprising to Marcie Lipsitt, the organizer of a Wednesday rally in Lansing on special education issues and a vocal critic of how the state and local school districts address the needs of such students.
Lipsitt said Michigan, for instance, sets too high a bar for identifying a child as having a learning disability. And she believes it often ignores what she describes as "glaring violations" of the law.
"There's no accountability, no transparency. ... There is no concern for the outcomes for children," Lipsitt said.
The rally will include speeches from a bipartisan set of speakers — including Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic candidate for governor, and Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Calley. Lipsitt said Whitmer's opponent in November's election, Republican Bill Schuette, was invited but no one from his campaign responded.
Calley, a longtime special education advocate and the father of a child with autism who attends public schools, said there is too much focus on compliance at the state level and not enough on improving programs.
"If we were more concerned about identifying what kids need and providing it ... and helping school districts to develop the resources and knowledge and know-how to be effective, we'd be way better off," Calley said. "It can't just be about compliance."
Michigan's focus on compliance is clear in the federal report: It earned just 8 out of 24 points for results, and 17 out of 20 points for compliance. Massachusetts, on the other hand, earned 21 points for results and 18 for compliance.
Calley believes one way for schools to improve outcomes for students with disabilities is through behavior management programs — such as positive behavior interventions and support. More commonly known as PBIS, it's a more proactive approach to behavior management that focuses on teaching good behavior and expectations rather than addressing behavior after the fact.
Calley said he doesn't have data showing behavior is more of an issue with special education students, but "I just know ... a child with autism, for example, you need to much more directly and proactively teach and reinforce desired behavior."
Such behavior approaches keeps kids in school learning, Calley said.
"A student that’s not in school is not learning."
Fight to get services
For much of Samuel's education, Kondek has fought to get services he needs —beginning with trying to get her son identified as special needs so he could begin receiving preschool services. It took her from the time he was 2 until he turned 4.
The fight has continued. Now, she works to ensure that her son has assistance such as a full-time aide in the classroom. It's crucial not just for him, she said, but also for his teachers. That's important, she said, given that there's currently a shortage of special education teachers.
"If there’s not enough adult support in the classroom for these teachers, they aren’t set up to succeed," Kondek said.
Just as important, others said, is properly funding special education programs. Students with special needs are often more difficult to educate because they need additional resources. Federal law requires they receive a free and appropriate education.
Calley chairs a special education task force that last year released a report showing the state is underfunding special education by $700 million. That dollar amount is the difference between what it costs to educate special education students in Michigan and what the state spends to educate them.
That report noted that under the current system, the state funds special education students either through the per-pupil grant schools receive — which varies by school district — or 28.61 percent of the expenses associated with educating the child. Schools get whichever of the two is the greatest amount.
But that often creates inequities, Calley said. The lowest per-pupil amount a district can receive is a little under $8,000, but some districts receive well over $12,000 per pupil.
Calley says it would be better to have a system that would — for each special education student — pay schools a per-pupil amount as well as a percentage of the costs to educate that student.
Michelle Fecteau, a Democrat on the State Board of Education, is also among Wednesday's speakers. And like Calley, she has experience as a parent — she has had one biological child and three children she fostered who required special education services. As one of eight elected board members, Fecteau says she gets a couple of phone calls a week from people with concerns about special education.
"I've talked to plenty of parents who struggle to get the services they need," Fecteau said. At the same time, she said, "I've talked to principals that want to provide those services, but they don't have the resources to do it."
The people who work in special education programs — at the local level and the state level — "are not the villains," Fecteau said.
"We need to come together to fight for better financing and better models for supporting kids and their families," she said. "I don't think our state invests enough in these kids."
"I think these kids are worth that investment."
Rally seeks to spark discussions
Lipsitt is hoping the rally will spark a conversation about special education, and that it will become a key issue in the race for November elections. She's hopeful that whoever the next governor is will rescind an executive order issued in the 1990s by then-Gov. John Engler that stripped much of the state board's power and put it in the hands of the state superintendent. She believes the special education system has deteriorated since then.
Lipsitt also believes that parents of children who don't have disabilities need to become more cognizant of what she calls a crisis in special education.
"People have to use their voices, their pens. They have to use their presence on social media and talk about the state of education in Michigan," Lipsitt said. "Public education is not serving children in Michigan, and that includes children with disabilities."
State working to improve outcomes
Teri Chapman, director of the office of special education at the Michigan Department of Education, was not available for comment last week, said Bill DiSessa, an MDE spokesman.
He provided a statement that acknowledged outcomes for students with disabilities — graduation rates, dropout rates and NAEP results — "are the underperforming factors identified in the U.S. Department of Education's report."
The statement said the MDE is "in the process of moving in a new direction to improve educational outcomes for students with disabilities." It is part of the department's efforts to transform Michigan from a state that is struggling with academic outcomes to a state that is a Top 10 performer.
That effort includes an "evolving partnership" between MDE and intermediate school districts in the state that "further ensures the alignment and coordination that evidence-based practices are implemented and supported in local districts."
Fecteau said the board briefly discussed the federal report in August.
"I would like to have a discussion at the state board that looks into this more deeply, and understand why this is the way it is," she said of Michigan's status as needing intervention. "What are the root causes ... and where do we really need to make some changes and address it."
Contact Lori Higgins: 313-222-6551, lhiggins@freepress.com or @LoriAHiggins
If you want to go
Each one of these speakers are system sucks and have not done a damn thing about the child poverty or the fact that charter schools do not provide IEP testing or services.
You cannot even get your kids' school records if the charter school does not want to release it because you have to hire a private attorney.
That is what Bill Schuette, the Attorney General said to me, because he is too busy defending the state in these fraudulent educational operations.
The Michigan Kids with IEPs Count Day Rally — which seeks to draw attention to the need to fix the special education system in Michigan — is set for 12:30-2:30 p.m. Wednesday on the steps of the Michigan Capitol.
Among the speakers:
Lt. Gov. Brian Calley
Gretchen Whitmer, Democratic candidate for governor
Andy Levin, Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress
Michelle Fecteau, Democratic member of the State Board of Education
Tom McMillin, Republican member of the State Board of Education
Mark McWilliams, Michigan Protection and Advocacy
Colleen Allen, president and CEO, Autism Alliance of Michigan
Kristin Totten, education attorney, ACLU of Michigan
For more information, contact organizer Marcie Lipsitt at 248-514-2101 or at marcielipsitt@outlook.com
