Ray Holman is the Legislative Liaison for UAW Local 6000 and, for those of you not familiar with this Local, they represent over 22,000 state of Michigan workers that cut a wide path. Their membership, according to their website, “represents workers in every Department in State of Michigan government. We are the nurses, teachers, doctors, probation officers, social workers and […]

This whole “privatize government services to a for-profit corporation” thing is just going so well isn’t it? Prison food vendor Aramark has stubbed its toe a few times, but, hey, we have to “work with them”, as Governor Snyder put it. And by stubbing their toe, I mean: Running out of food Making unauthorized food substitutions in violation of their […]

Gov. Rick Snyder may have thought the drumbeat of scandals with for-profit prison food vendor Aramark was behind him in the last two weeks of the election. But he was wrong. A former Aramark employee has come forward to talk about serving raw meat and undercooked meat and meat-based food to inmates. Even after she brought the situation to the […]

Maggots!!! Progress Michigan announced this week that they would be running a television ad called “Maggots” highlighting the Snyder administration Aramark scandal. Their press release indicated that their press conference featured “small tanks filled with live maggots.” Aramark isn’t very happy about this and sent them a “cease and desist” letter the same day of the press conference: October 9, […]

Ed Buss, the corrections official hired to oversee the scandal-ridden for-profit prison food vendor Aramark has figured out what caused Aramark employees to engage in sex acts with inmates, smuggle heroin, cocaine, and other drugs to prisoners, allow maggots in food service areas in the prisons, and attempt to hire a prisoner to kill another prisoner. You might think it […]

This isn’t GETTING ridiculous, this IS ridiculous Seems not a week goes by that an employee for the for-profit prison food vendor Aramark isn’t busted for some illicit activity or another. In all, nearly 100 Aramark employees are now banned from Michigan prisons for having sex with inmates, delivering cigarettes and drugs like cocaine and heroin to inmates, and for […]

This guest post was written by Donald Cohen, the Executive Director of In The Public Interest, a “comprehensive resource center on privatization and responsible contracting”. They are committed to equipping citizens, public officials, advocacy groups, and researchers with the information, ideas, and other resources they need to ensure that public contracts with private entities are transparent, fair, well-managed, and effectively […]

When Michigan Department of Corrections Director Dan Heyns told Rick Snyder’s Chief of Staff Dennis Muchmore that he was “concerned about [Aramark] losing control of a joint” in FOIAed emails released by Progress Michigan, he was predicting the future, it appears. This morning, the Detroit Free Press is reporting that an Aramark employee has been arrested for bringing drugs into […]

Ooo-ooo, that smell… Last month, after the Detroit News tore back the curtains on the secretive “skunk works” group, staffed by some of Gov. Snyder’s aides and aimed at destroying our public school system while funneling the proceeds to for-profit charter schools, the group was quickly reconfigured to be one that was more, shall we say, public? The Governor’s staffer […]

Coming soon to an Education Achievement Authority school near you?

Alternet has a frightening piece up this week about the experience of a small, impoverished California town that utilized a “parent trigger” to give its school system over to a private group. The piece, “Exposed: The Billionaire-Backed Group Strong-Arming Parents into Destroying Their Kids’ Public Schools” is worth your time to read.

The story is one of a corporate-funded drive to privatize schools in poor areas. What’s frightening is that there is legislation for doing the same here in Michigan and there is nothing in the bill that would prevent making these schools profit centers for for-profit corporate education companies. Funded by groups like the Walton Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation and the Broad foundation, a group called “Parent Revolution” used strong arm tactics and bullying to convince poor residents of Adelanto, California to privatize their school system.

Click through for more.

Okay, this stinks

Here’s the thing about the idea of giving Michigan parents vouchers to use at any school, public or private, to educate their kids: it’s unconstitutional. Twice in the past 35 years Michigan voters have shot down ballot proposals to allow the funneling of tax dollars into private, non-public schools. This, of course, doesn’t stop corporatist groups and individuals like the Mackinac Center or the DeVos family for pushing endlessly for a school voucher system and the shifting of tax money earmarked for education into for-profit corporations.

This past week the Detroit News did some fantastic investigative journalism and reported that a group of school reformers, a self-dubbed “skunk works”, has been meeting in secret with the Governor’s blessing to form a new sort of private school where kids will be educated on the cheap using a for-profit model and it will be paid for with vouchers. The best part? No educators are part of the group.

Details after the jump.