Oprah Donates $1 Million to California Charter Schools
House
Ethics Panel Says Rep. Charles Rangel Violated Rules;
Recommends Censure
Oprah has donated $1 million to help California charter schools as part of a $6 million public education gift, in a season of giving that has also included a plan to take her viewers to Australia. In this latest act of Winfrey generosity, the media mogul is keeping her giving closer to home. The Associated Press reports (via Newser):
An Oakland nonprofit that operates 30 charter schools in California is being recognized with a $1 million donation from Oprah Winfrey’s Angel Foundation. Aspire Public Schools was one of six public school reform groups honored with grants from the talk show host Monday
.The charter school network serves nearly 10,000 students in East Palo Alto, Modesto, Oakland, Stockton, Sacramento and Los Angeles. The gift came during a show Winfrey devoted to a new documentary about public education called
during a show Winfrey devoted to a new documentary about public education called
Seeing children, particularly urban children, in the clutches of the juvenile justice system has become so passe that it’s become acceptable to call in city law enforcement to respond to mischief. Case in point: Kids at Perspectives Charter, “Waiting for Superman.”
I commend Winfrey for all of her charitable acts of giving, and definitely applaud her giving a gift to the American people. While she has the right to give away her money where she sees fit, it’s always wonderful when a wealthy person rewards the very people who helped to make her rich -- in this case, us. When Winfrey opened her school in South Africa, the only complaint many had was over the fact that the American education system is in shambles. Why not spend the money here?
Food Fight Arrests for
Chicago Charter School Students
A school in Chicago, were arrested and are now facing charges for engaging in a cafeteria food fight:
More than two dozen students were slapped with criminal charges in connection with a food fight in the Cafeteria at a Chicago charter school. Police arrested 25 students, ranging in age from 11 to 15, after a food fight broke out in the cafeteria Thursday.
“The next thing you know I saw a tray fly up in the air, and then I saw an orange fly,” student Jordan Grevious said. ‘Then, I heard the words, ‘food fight.’” Source: ‘Food
Fight at Perspectives Charter School Results in Several Kids’ Arrests,’ cbs2chicago.com
It must have been a chaotic, unsafe scene. In my day, though, students involved would have only been suspended or even expelled. Parents would have been contacted and consequences would have ensued. However, in this case, all 25 kids, even one who says she was just helping another student get up, were rounded up and hauled off to the police station. Perspectives Charter didn’t even bother to contact the parents first.
The incident injured about three students.
Student Porche Carter says she tried to help one of them but was arrested and handcuffed. “That felt like embarrassing,” she said.
Some students say a staff member belittled them, calling them “animals,” then police hauled them off. They stayed at the 6th District Chicago police station for hours before parents say they were notified. “He’s been sitting here from 12 until 5,” parent Keith Holmes said. “They wouldn’t let him call -- obvious they wouldn’t.” Source: ‘Food Fight at Perspectives Charter School Results in Several Kids’ Arrests,’ cbs2chicago.com
Now, these kids are in
“the system.” Whenever they fill out a job or college application they’ll have to state that they were arrested. It’s this stain on their records that has Perspective Charter school parents mad and poised to take action.
Even the innocent students will face lasting consequences. If the charges are dropped, juvenile records can’t be expunged until the accused becomes 17. Parents are worried this could affect future jobs and college applications
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House ethics committee has recommended censure for longtime Rep. Charles Rangel, suggesting that the New York Democrat suffer the embarrassment of standing before his colleagues while receiving an oral rebuke by the speaker for financial and fundraising misconduct.
Censure is the most serious congressional discipline short of expulsion. The House, which could change the recommended discipline by making it more serious or less serious, probably will consider Rangel’s case after Thanksgiving.
The ethics committee voted 9-1 to recommend censure and that Rangel pay any taxes.
he owes on income from a vacation villa in the Dominican Republic. The five Democrats and five Republicans on the panel deliberated for about three hours behind closed doors.
In a report, the committee said that censure had been recommended in the past in cases of lawmakers enriching themselves. In Rangel’s case, the committee said, its decision was based on “the cumulative nature of the violations and not any direct personal financial gain.Earlier, at a sanctions hearing, the 20-term congressman apologized for his misconduct but said he was not a crooked politician out for personal gain. He was in the House hearing room when the ethics committee chairman, Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, announced the recommendation.
Rangel faced Lofgren after the verdict and said, “I hope you can see your way clear to indicate any action taken by me was not with the intention of bringing any disgrace on the House or enriching myself personally.”
The vote against censure probably came from Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., a former member of his state’s Supreme Court. He said before deliberations that he believed the facts merited a reprimand. A less serious punishment, a reprimand requires a House vote but no oral rebuke.
It’s unclear how much Rangel owes in taxes. An ethics committee document indicated he owed $16,775 as of 1990, but Rangel has paid some of his back taxes.
The ethics committee’s chief counsel, Blake Chisam, had recomHouse mended censure for Rangel. The ethics committee could have opted for a lighter punishment, such as a reprimand, a fine or a report deploring the congressman’s behavior. Chisam, responding to questions from committee members, said he personally believed that Rangel’s conduct did not amount
to corruption.Rangel, 80, ended the sanctions hearing with an emotional plea to ,to salvage his reputation. Before speaking, he sat for several minutes trying to compose himself. He placed his hands over his eyes and then his chin before he slowly stood up and said in a gravelly voice that was barely audible, “I don’t know how much longer I have to live.”
Facing the committee members, he asked them to “see your way clear to say, ‘This member was not corrupt.’”
He continued: “There’s no excuse for my behavior and no intent to go beyond what has been given to me as a salary. I apologize for any embarrassment I’ve caused you individually and collectively as a member of the greatest institution in the world.”
In the most dramatic clash of the proceeding, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, questioned the assertion of Rangel - the former chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee -
that he wasn’t corrupt.
“Failure to pay taxes for 17 years. What is that?” McCaul asked, referring to Rangel’s shortchanging the Internal Revenue Service on rental income from his villa in the Dominican Republic.
McCaul also noted the committee’s finding that Rangel solicited donors for the Charles B. Rangel Center at City College of New York from donors who had business before the Ways and Means Committee.
After an investigation that began in summer 2008, Rangel was convicted Tuesday by a jury of his House peers on 11 of 13 charges of rules violations.
He was found to have improperly used official resources - congressional letterheads and staff - to raise funds from businesses and foundations for the Rangel Center. A brochure with some of Rangel’s solicitation letters asked for $30 million, or $6 million a year for five years.He also was found guilty of filing a decade’s worth of misleading annual financial disclosure forms that failed to list hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets, and failure to pay taxes on his Dominican unit.
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