WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST (April 8-15, 2013)

April 16th, 2013

LAW & PUBLIC POLICY

“White House Budget Curbs Some Deductions for the Wealthy.” By Graham Bowley. New York Times. April 10, 2013. President Obama is no longer pressing to raise income tax rates on the rich. But that doesn’t mean he thinks the wealthy are paying enough in taxes. Outlining his budget proposals to Congress on Wednesday, Mr. Obama pushed to raise more than $600 billion in new revenue, mainly by curbing deductions for the most affluent taxpayers and forcing millionaires to pay a minimum rate of 30 percent. Under the White House plan, deductions for tax breaks like mortgage interest and contributions to charities would be capped at a maximum rate of 28 percent. The caps would limit the value of the breaks to the top 3 percent of taxpayers who face higher marginal tax rates and generate about $529 billion in additional revenue over 10 years. Many of the budget proposals, including the limit on deductions, have been made before by the Obama administration. Analysts said Congress was unlikely to adopt them in isolation, but that some Republicans might be open to a broader deal that included measures to close various loopholes in the tax code.

“Buying Your Vote; Dark Money and Big Data; Senator Pushes for Investigation of ‘False Statements’ by Dark Money Groups.” By Lois Beckett. ProPublica, April 10, 2013. A Democratic senator is pushing for an investigation of nonprofit groups that told the Internal Revenue Service they would not engage in political activity — and then spent millions attacking or praising candidates in 2012 elections. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, said at a campaign finance hearing yesterday that there were “numerous instances” in which nonprofit groups may have made false statements to the IRS about whether they planned to be involved in federal or local elections. Applications for tax-exempt status are submitted to the IRS under penalty of perjury. If the IRS is not well-suited to investigate these “plain vanilla criminal cases,” the U.S. Department of Justice should, Whitehouse said. ProPublica has reported extensively on the gap between what these groups told the IRS they would do in their applications for tax-exempt status and what they actually did. Part of the benefit of being recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit is that these “social welfare” groups do not have to disclose their donors publicly. But in order to quality as a 501(c)(4), groups cannot make influencing elections their primary activity.

“California lawmakers threaten to strip Scouts of tax exemption; The goal of their proposed legislation is to force the Boy Scouts to abandon its ban on openly gay members. The bill clears a state Senate committee.” By Patrick McGreevy. Los Angeles Times. April 11, 2013. Some California lawmakers seeking to pressure the Boy Scouts of America to abandon its ban on openly gay members are taking a novel approach: They are threatening to strip the organization of its state tax exemption. The proposal, which cleared a legislative hurdle Wednesday, once again puts California at the center of a national debate on gay rights, and it could put the state on a collision course with the IRS if passed. The legislation would revoke the exemption from state taxes for any nonprofit that excludes members by sexual orientation, gender identity or religious affiliation. Supporters acknowledge that the bill is directed at the Boy Scouts. “Unfortunately in California, some organizations are out of step with state law and regularly discriminate,” state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), the bill’s author, testified before the Senate Governance and Finance Committee on Wednesday. “The most egregious violator is the Boy Scouts of America.” The measure passed the committee with only Democrats in favor. It requires two-thirds support in the full Legislature to pass. The Boy Scouts of America has been under pressure for years from advocates for lesbians, gays and bisexual and transgender Americans to change its policy, but leaders of the nonprofit group have voted twice since 2010 to maintain it despite boycotts by corporate donors and condemnation by politicians and celebrities. Gay rights groups such as Equality California see the threat to tax benefits as a way to gain leverage over the organization.

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WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST (April 8-15, 2013)

April 16th, 2013

MUTUAL BENEFIT ORGANIZATION

“Manhattan Club Plans a Financial Rebirth.” Wall Street Journal. April 8, 2013. The curtain isn’t coming down on the Players Club anytime soon, club president Johnnie Planco said at a news briefing on Monday. The financial stability of this theater-centric club, founded in 1888 and located on Gramercy Park, had been called into question by members, some of whom formed a committee in October 2011 to investigate the club’s affairs. The committee reported its findings at a club meeting on March 14, alleging that the institution was having trouble paying its bills, raising revenue and maintaining a consistent membership base, which is said to be about 550. Last Thursday, the club’s executive director of nearly 20 years, John Martello, resigned, and the club announced his departure in a statement the following day. Mr. Martello didn’t return a call requesting comment. “We are beginning a process this week of forming a search committee to find a new general manager and to re-staff and reorganize the office,” said Mr. Planco, who said he expects the search to take about a month. “We are open for business.” Priorities for the future include increasing patronage of the club’s rental spaces and bars, as well as increasing membership to 1,000. The club also faces a facade renovation that has stalled due to financial pressure, Mr. Planco said. “The club has had financial issues for a few years,” he said, though did not specify how many years. The club is currently facing a $26,000 penalty for temporary failure to pay its workers’ compensation insurance, a spokeswoman for the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board said Friday.

“Tap Night tradition continues.” By Cynthia Hua. Yale Daily News. April 12, 2013. A junior in a leprechaun costume, complete with shoes and top-hat, hid behind a tree outside Jonathan Edwards College Thursday night waiting to be inducted into one of Yale’s senior societies. Throughout the evening, cloaked figures descended on campus, rushing to initiation events, dropping off mysterious packages and generally drawing attention for their antics. In an email to the campus Sunday evening, Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry told students to follow undergraduate regulations — which prohibit “activities that involve indecent exposure, extreme mental stress, blindfolding, confinement, assault” and several other activities — during society Tap Night on April 11. “If you’re tapping new members, I’m counting on you to provide leadership to them, by showing them how to plan a big event and play by the rules,” Gentry said in his email. “If you are being tapped, I’m counting on you to speak up and refuse to participate if anyone asks you to break rules or laws, violate your conscience, or risk your safety.” Gentry also said he knew “how exciting Tap Night [could] be” and hoped students would enjoy the event.

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WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST (April 8-15, 2013)

April 16th, 2013

PHILANTHROPY

“Donor of the Day: Cooking Up a Better Future.” By Melanie Grayce West. Wall Street Journal. April 7, 2013. To Jeffrey Koslowsky, board members can roughly be divided into three types. There are the fundraisers, the “causers” and the roll-up-your-sleeves types. During his more than 10 years of board service with the Yonkers, N.Y.-based Greyston Foundation, Mr. Koslowsky, 45 years old, has rolled up his sleeves and become passionate about the charity. This month, he’s working on his fundraising. Next month, Mr. Koslowsky will be honored by Greyston’s at the annual benefit of the 30-year-old organization. He’s recently made a $125,000 gift to the foundation and now, for the first time, he’s making fundraising calls. It’s easier to write the check than to make phone calls, he admits. But he’s got a pitch for would-be donors and it goes something like this: “You know all about it because I’ve been talking about it for years,” he says with a laugh. “So now it’s time to write the check.” Mr. Koslowsky, an attorney, is managing member of Indigo Asset Management and chief financial officer of Advocate Brokerage in Scarsdale, N.Y., where he resides. What he does professionally is generally known as “vulture” investing, working to provide capital to distressed businesses. “It’s got a terribly negative connotation to it,” says Mr. Koslowsky. “But like I say to my borrowers when I finally speak to them, ‘Think of me as the good vulture…I’m trying to save your business and save your capital.’” And preserving Greyston was exactly what the organization needed when Mr. Koslowsky began his service on the board of directors. The organization provides employment to low-income people at an industrial bakery located in Yonkers. Profits from the bakery—which makes brownies, bars, cookies and whoopie pies, among other gourmet sweets—support an affordable-housing program and services like low-cost child care, HIV health services and job training and placement. The goal of the organization, which is rooted in Buddhist concepts, is to help individuals and families become self-sufficient. Greyston serves about 2,400 people annually.

“Donor of the Day: Ensuring a ‘Basic Education of a Certain Standard’.” By Mike Vilensjky. Wall Street Journal. April 8, 2013. Lise Evans has concerns about the American education system. “We should all do something to even the gap,” said Ms. Evans. “Society is not happy and healthy unless the bottom is raised.” Ms. Evans, who lives in an art-filled apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York City, has donated $100,000 to Turnaround for Children, a nonprofit that helps improve low-performing, high-poverty public schools. With her husband, Goldman Sachs vice chairman Michael Evans, Ms. Evans will accept an award on behalf of Goldman Sachs Gives at Turnaround’s fourth annual Impact Awards Dinner at the end of the month. (Goldman Sachs Gives is a donor-advised fund from which Goldman partners give money to nonprofits.) Ms. Evans, a fashion-model-turned-philanthropist, became concerned when she was a volunteer at a New York City public high school, a role she took on while working toward her undergraduate degree in journalism at New York University. “I was in complete disbelief that this was what kids were being offered,” she recalled. “There were metal detectors at the door…and few opportunities to go elsewhere and succeed. If you don’t have a basic education, it’s hard to be really successful.”

“Foundation Releasing Aid to Families in Newtown.” By Peter Applebome. New York Times. April 10, 2013. Facing complaints that money raised in the wake of the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was not being distributed promptly to the families it was intended for, the foundation charged with distributing the largest pool of aid said this week that it would distribute $4 million to 40 families directly affected by the massacre. The Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation said the $4 million would be divided between the families of the 20 children and 6 educators killed on Dec. 14, as well as families of 12 first graders who survived and the two teachers who were injured. A committee set up by the foundation, which was formed to distribute the funds, will also consider contributions to address the needs of first responders and school personnel. The money is part of the $11 million that was donated to a charity jointly established by the United Way of Western Connecticut and the Newtown Savings Bank. The committee hopes to distribute it by April 24. On Tuesday, the foundation also announced a schedule of meetings to solicit advice and feedback from families, first responders, teachers and others affected by the tragedy, with the likelihood that others beyond the 40 families will receive aid.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130407/NONPROFITS/304079967

“Reviving a trailblazer; CEO tries to make Ms. Foundation relevant to a new generation of women.” By Theresa Agovino. Crain’s New York Business. April 7, 2013. As the head of the Ms. Foundation for Women, Anika Rahman was understandably interested in attending a private meeting where Sheryl Sandberg would be discussing her controversial book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead. In a postsession interview, Ms. Rahman echoed the critics who chastised Ms. Sandberg for suggesting that women’s failure to take more responsibility at work is why they haven’t conquered the C-suite. “She lets government and employers off the hook,” said Ms. Rahman, the foundation’s president and chief executive. But, the 47-year-old added, “she is getting 20-year-old women to think about how our culture shapes the workplace. She started a conversation.” It’s a dialogue the Ms. Foundation might have started back in the 1970s when it was co-founded by Gloria Steinem, a mother of the feminist movement. But over the years the foundation’s importance has waned amid a wave of new groups and changing politics. Ms. Rahman is striving to bring the Ms. Foundation back to the forefront by launching a major rebranding campaign and fundraising initiative. To increase its influence, she has pared its focus to three main issues: prevention of child sexual abuse; reproductive rights; and access to safe, affordable child care. In the past year, the foundation has started a social-media campaign, revamped its website, replaced its logo and hired an executive to lead a state-level lobbying effort. At its May fundraising gala celebrating its 40th anniversary, the foundation will give awards to young feminists for the first time as it kicks off a campaign to raise $40 million in five years. “We need to raise our national profile,” said Ms. Rahman, who took the helm of the advocacy group, which also provides funding to smaller organizations, in 2011. That’s crucial because donations are falling, especially from other foundations, its traditional base of support. Fundraising fell 42%, to $5.5 million, for the four years ended June 30, 2012. Meanwhile, support from foundations dropped to 52% of its total fundraising in fiscal 2012, from 79% in fiscal 2009.

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WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST (April 8-15, 2013)

April 16th, 2013

RECREATION & LEISURE

“Couple donates $2 million for Chinese Garden work at Huntington; The donation by former San Marino residents Judy Yin Shih and Joel Axelrod will fund the Clear and Transcendent Pavilion, a traditional Chinese structure.” By Mercedes Aguilar. Los Angeles Times. April 8, 2013. A former San Marino couple has donated $2 million for the second-phase construction of the Chinese Garden at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. The donation by Judy Yin Shih and Joel Axelrod, who now live in Oregon, will fund the Clear and Transcendent Pavilion, a traditional Chinese structure, which will be at the edge of the lake on the garden’s undeveloped north side, Huntington officials announced. In a statement, Shih cited her experience as a Huntington docent in 2008 as helping to inspire the gift. “My experience as a docent not only raised my awareness of the varieties of Chinese gardens, but helped me develop a deeper appreciation for the understated grace and subtle meanings within a scholar’s garden,” she said. “I found a place where I can let my own garden grow.” The 1,129-square-foot pavilion will serve as an outdoor performance space for presentations of Chinese music and dance, according to Huntington officials. Work on the pavilion is expected to begin this fall and will feature elaborate woodcarving, roof tiles and stonework from the Suzhou Institute of Landscape Architectural Design in China. The construction for the performance space has also received more than $3.5 million from donors in China and the United States. Funding is still being sought for structures, such as a boat-shaped pavilion, a hillside-viewing pavilion and a terraced courtyard. The first phase of the project cost $18.3 million and was funded by more than 350 local and international donors, according to the Huntington.

“In a League of Their Own; Judge Landis loved baseball and hated trusts. He believed organized baseball was a monopoly. The Supreme Court disagreed.” Wall Street Journal. April 11, 2013. Review of Stuart Banner, The Baseball Trust. Over the years, various questions have vexed the smooth operation of professional baseball: whether a player has a right to bid his talents out to other clubs, whether a team in one city can move to another at will, whether the number of teams in a league can expand or contract. In each case, and in others, the answer has been guided by a long-ago ruling by the Supreme Court that declared baseball to be, in effect, a game and not a business. In “The Baseball Trust,” Stuart Banner traces the origins of that ruling and the legal logic behind professional baseball’s special status. In 1922, the Supreme Court decided that what was simply termed “organized baseball”—the forerunner of Major League Baseball—wasn’t involved in interstate commerce; hence, federal antitrust laws didn’t apply to it. A lot was at stake in the decision, not least the fates of players who felt tethered to one team for their playing careers. Baseball’s strangely feudal labor relations, Mr. Banner shows, go back to the game’s early days in America.

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WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST (April 8-15, 2013)

April 16th, 2013

SCANDAL

“Soaring Charges by a Contractor With Special Education.” By David M. Halbfinger. New York Times. April 11, 2013. Cheon H. Park ran a company that had begun to prosper on government contracts, but he had bigger ambitions. So he tore down his shabby headquarters on a quiet street in Flushing, Queens, and replaced it with a lavish three-story building that had marble floors, granite countertops, red carpets and a soaring chandelier. Then he brought in the clients: 3- and 4-year-olds with developmental disabilities. Scores of them came each weekday, their parents lured by the attractive surroundings and the promises of state-of-the-art therapy. New York City and New York State paid for it all, from the expensive renovations to the services themselves, at a rate of as much as $98 an hour. But many of the children entrusted to Mr. Park’s company did not get the care they needed, according to numerous interviews with workers and parents and an extensive analysis of government records. Some children whose first language was Chinese languished in classes taught in Spanish or Korean. Others who were supposed to receive individual tutoring were thrown into groups of four or more children, all with different types of disabilities. Some children did not have disabilities at all and were simply being used to generate billings, the interviews show. “We had kids who were little rocket scientists being put in there — who could read and write at a third-grade level,” said Angel Tirado, a former aide to Mr. Park. Mr. Park’s contracts were canceled by the city at the beginning of this school year after The New York Times questioned officials about his company. But his success until then underscores how private contractors have taken advantage of this generously financed but poorly regulated segment of the special-education system, often called special ed pre-K, according to an investigation by The Times.

“Dirt Flies at the Garden Club (Even Before Spring Planting).” By Vivian Yee. New York Times. April 12, 2013. It started with the accusations of sex behind the back pond. Of late-night parties that begot stitches and adultery. Favoritism. Misspending. Bullying. Since then, the police have been called, e-mail access has been revoked and Robert’s Rules of Order repeatedly cited. Expletives have been tossed around. Herb lovers have nearly come to blows. A toolshed burned to the ground; the word arson was uttered. So goes life these days at the Roosevelt Island Garden Club, where palace intrigue surrounding the garden presidency has grown as abundant as the daffodils, organic vegetables and lazy cats that populate this speck of earth in the middle of the New York City map. This is no garden-variety garden dispute. After all, in a neighborhood where most people are renters, a patch of flowers and shrubbery to call one’s own is no insignificant thing — especially when the waiting list for such a plot can outstrip the lines for the most coveted kindergartens.

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WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST (April 8-15, 2013)

April 16th, 2013

YOUTH SERVING ORGANIZATIONS

“Struggling W.Va. Town Hopes Boy Scout Camp Brings New Life.” All Thiings Considered/National Public Radio. April 8, 2013. Picture a tiny town set along a creek in West Virginia. A mountain rises from the town’s eastern edge, overlooking the 1,400 people living below. Then, July comes — and 50,000 people arrive on that mountain for the National Scout Jamboree. The town is called Mount Hope. I’ve heard some call it “Mount Hopeless.” The town went through the long, downward slump from the boom days of deep-mine coal, when it was a grand, small-town capital of coal mining. Now it’s crumbling, struggling, but recently hopeful, because there’s a veritable pot of gold on top of that nearby mountain. The Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve, an adventure camp, sits there, right on the Mount Hope town line. The Boy Scouts of America says it’s already spent $300 million there. This summer, the camp on the mountaintop opens with the big jamboree. A mannequin in the window of an odds-and-ends store in downtown Mount Hope sports an assortment of Boy Scout-related paraphernalia. So how do you get some of those gold coins to roll down the mountain?

“California lawmakers threaten to strip Scouts of tax exemption; The goal of their proposed legislation is to force the Boy Scouts to abandon its ban on openly gay members. The bill clears a state Senate committee.” Los Angeles Times. April 11, 2013. [For story, go to Law & Public Policy].

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WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST (April 1-6, 2013)

April 7th, 2013

ABOUT NONPROFIT NEWS & COMMENT
The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University

The nonprofit sector — the universe of associations, civil society, philanthropy, and voluntary action — is the most rapidly growing and changing organizational domain in the world.

Once considered an adjunct of government, over the past half century nonprofits have taken on many of the tasks of government and play key roles in the process of public governance, not only as sources of policy and vehicles for advocacy and political mobilization, but also as providers of a wide range of public services.

Because nonprofits operate in virtually every industry and in many jurisdictions — global, national, state, and local –, it is extraordinarily difficult to track significant the emerging issues and trends that affect them. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that press coverage of nonprofits is fragmentary and often shallow and because scholarship is highly specialized and balkanized.

Through weekly global surveys of major newspapers, periodicals, broadcast media, and on-line news sources, this blog brings to readers’ attention important stories and will, through commentaries, link those news accounts to pertinent scholarship in order to offer in-depth understanding of important emerging issues and trends. The blog will also take note of scholarly books and articles of potential significance to practitioners, policy makers, and other thoughtful readers.

Using Nonprofit News & Comment

Blog entries appear as “Weekly News Summaries” — compilations of precises of news items. Each item includes a link to the original source and the full text of the story. Because of the on-going monetization of on-line newspapers and other media, full texts may not be available for all stories.

Stories relating to the United States are organized topically by type of organization or activity. International stories are organized by country and, in certain instances, by topic (such as “Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal” and “Sustainable Development”). All stories are archived by topic and date.

Contact Us

Comments or questions about Nonprofit News & Comment should be directed to Peter Dobkin Hall, Senior Research Fellow, Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard University.

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WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST (April 1-6, 2013)

April 7th, 2013

ARTS & CULTURE

“San Francisco Symphony Strike Ends.” By Daniel J. Wakin. New York Times. April 1, 2013. The musicians of the San Francisco Symphony and its management have settled a strike and performances will resume on Tuesday, the orchestra said. The agreement, for a 26-month contract, ends the strike called on March 13 that forced the cancellation of orchestra appearances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. As if to emphasize an orchestra’s broad reach in the community, in a news release the San Francisco Symphony described the concerts that can now go forward this week: free performances for schoolchildren, a Music for Families concert, a regular performance of Handel and Mozart works conducted by the maestro Bernard Labadie, a chamber music performance and a workshop for amateur musicians. The musicians and the orchestra’s board must still ratify the agreement, which the orchestra called tentative. The terms were not released. The labor dispute centered on salaries.

“Chastened, Folk Art Museum Puts Down Healthier Roots.” By Robin Pogrebin. New York Times. April 2, 2013. The American Folk Art Museum’s attendance is projected to be 80,000 this fiscal year, up from 66,000. Important donors are giving again. And for the first time in its history, this summer the museum will send a work from its collection to the Venice Biennale. Not the stuff of headlines for an institution like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or even the Frick Collection. But not bad for a museum that was a few steps from extinction in 2011. In fact, the folk art museum’s greatest success, its supporters say, may be its decision to shed, for now at least, the outsize ambitions that steered it toward trouble in the first place. “We’re all cautious now about taking too big steps before we’re ready for it,” said Audrey Heckler, a folk art collector who is one of the newer members of the museum’s 13-member board. “I really think we got our act together.” The museum almost went out of business two years ago because of financial problems resulting largely from its decision to build a flagship building on West 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan, alongside the Museum of Modern Art. It borrowed $32 million to construct the building, which was designed by the architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams and opened in 2001; it then struggled to pay off the construction bonds that had been issued through the city’s Trust for Cultural Resources, a public benefit corporation that helps institutions finance capital projects. In 2009 the museum defaulted on its debt payments, the first institution borrowing through the trust ever to do so.

“Building on the Works of Its Artist; The Whitney Organizes an Auction to Help Finance Its New Downtown Home.” Wall Street Journal. April 4, 2013. It takes a lot to move a museum. The Whitney Museum of American Art’s new downtown location, at the southern tip of the High Line promenade on Gansevoort Street, is set to open in 2015 with fresh displays of contemporary art. But to get closer to its $760 million fundraising goal, the museum is asking some artists to pitch in now. On May 14 and 15, Sotheby’s New York will auction off 25 works by artists with strong ties to the Whitney, including living artists such as Jeff Koons and Jasper Johns—whom the museum championed early in their careers—as well as the estates of late giants including Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Sotheby’s specialist Alexander Rotter estimates the auction will raise about $8 million, though the Whitney’s director, Adam D. Weinberg, said the museum is hoping for more. He said the sale will augment the $562.4 million it has already raised ($225 million of which is earmarked for its endowment), and that the Whitney is on track to open the new 200,000-square-foot downtown building, designed by Renzo Piano, in 2015.

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WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST (April 1-6, 2013)

April 7th, 2013

EDUCATION

CHARTER SCHOOLS

“Charter school experiment a success: Our view.” Editorial. USA Today. April 1, 2013. KIPP’s eighth-grade graduates go to college at twice the national rate for low-income students. A Houston district courted charters to open with their own teachers and principals inside two existing public schools. Mathematica Policy Research found that KIPP schools improved student achievement in math, reading, science and social studies. The arrival of charter schools in any city usually starts a fight. A rigorous new study of KIPP, the nation’s best known and most scrutinized charter network, blew away criticism that has fueled the charter fight. Critics have long contended that KIPP’s success with minority and low-income children is less about its methods than about skimming the best students with the most motivated parents. Not so, the five-year study of 43 KIPP middle schools concluded. Instead, Mathematica Policy Research found that KIPP schools improved student achievement in math, reading, science and social studies. Researchers compared students who had won lotteries to enter KIPP schools against students in the lotteries who lost out. Thus, students and their parents were equally motivated. Even so, the KIPP students did better.
The sooner educators figure out how to replicate charter successes, the better off students will be.

“Charter school operators guilty of misusing funds; The couple running Ivy Academia could face prison time over the $200,000 in public funds. The case is seen as having major implications for other charters.” By Howard Blume. Los Angeles Times. April 5, 2013. In a case that could have impact statewide, a Los Angeles jury Friday found the operators of a west San Fernando Valley charter school guilty of illegally taking or misappropriating more than $200,000 in public funds. Together, Yevgeny “Eugene” Selivanov, 40, and his wife, Tatyana Berkovich, 36, faced 26 felony counts for using state money in ways they insisted were legal under laws that apply to nonprofits and charter schools in California. Over several years, for example, they spent more than $34,000 on meals, entertainment and gifts that they classified as business expenses or gestures of appreciation for teachers. Charter advocates followed the case closely because it could expose other operators to prosecution and, because, they said, it could undermine the flexibility that is benefiting more than 410,000 California students now enrolled in those campuses. For charter critics, the result is a long overdue rebuke of an anything-goes mentality that they contend sometimes abuses the public trust and drains resources from students. “This message is going to resonate throughout the charter school community,” said prosecutor Sandi Roth. “You can’t spend the charter school funds for anything you want. It has to be money spent on the kids and the schools.” Charters are independently managed, publicly funded and exempt from some rules that apply to traditional schools. Defense attorneys argued that a charter school — California has nearly 1,000 — should be treated as nonprofits, which have flexibility in spending money, provided it furthers the mission of the organization.

FINANCE

“Investments in Education May Be Misdirected.” By Eduardo Porter. New York Times. April 3, 2013. James Heckman is one of the nation’s top economists studying human development. Thirteen years ago, he shared the Nobel for economics. In February, he stood before the annual meeting of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry, showed the assembled business executives a chart, and demolished the United States’ entire approach to education. The chart showed the results of cognitive tests that were first performed in the 1980s on several hundred low-birthweight 3-year-olds, who were then retested at ages 5, 8 and 18. If education is supposed to help redress inequities at birth and improve the lot of disadvantaged children as they grow up, it is not doing its job.

HIGHER EDUCATION

“Massachusetts: Harvard Admits Deeper Search.” By Richard Perez-Pena. New York Times. April 2, 2013. Harvard’s search of staff e-mail accounts went further than previously disclosed, administrators said Tuesday. They announced that an outside lawyer would investigate the matter and a task force would review privacy policies. President Drew Gilpin Faust and two deans revealed the developments in a faculty meeting, and the deans apologized. In investigating leaks about a cheating scandal, administrators searched subject lines in the accounts that 16 instructors have as resident deans. On Tuesday, administrators said that with one resident dean, the search included that dean’s personal Harvard account, but no e-mails were opened.
Related stories:
“Revelation of Second Email Search Contradicts Administrators’ Previous Statement; Smith and Hammonds Apologize for Handling of Searches at Faculty Meeting.” Harvard Crimson. April 3, 2013.
“Harvard e-mail searches broader than first described.” Boston Globe. April 2, 2013.
“Email Search Fallout Prompts Dismay Over Privacy, Trust.” Harvard Crimson. April 4, 2013.

“New Medical School Wants To Build Ranks Of Primary Care Doctors.” By Jeffrey Cohen. Morning Edition/National Public Radio. April 2, 2013. The Frank H. Netter School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., will open this fall. The school has a specific mission: minting doctors who want to go into primary care practice. Michael Ellison has a tough assignment. He’s the associate dean of admissions choosing the first class of a brand new medical school, the Frank H. Netter School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. “We have over 1,600 applicants, and we will interview 400 for 60 spots,” Ellison says. The school has a very specific mission: minting doctors who want to go into primary care practice. Under the Affordable Care Act, millions more people with insurance may be headed to the doctor’s office. That means the medical system will need more doctors, nurses, physician assistants, and other health care workers to meet the demand. Quinnipiac is one of about a dozen new medical schools cropping up, and it’s spending $100 million just to get up and running.

‘Startup Takes Aim at Old-School Ways; Pittsburgh’s Saxifrage Offers Classes at a Fraction of the Price of Traditional.” By Douglas Belkin. Wall Street Journal. April 2, 2013. Tim Cook is fighting the sky-high cost of a college education by constructing his own school here without expensive buildings or well-paid deans. Classes are taught in local coffee shops. The administrative staff of two works in a church basement. The Saxifrage School, Mr. Cook’s two-year old experiment, is seeking to upend the traditional notion that college students need a sequestered, ivy-covered campus—and will endure the price tag that comes with it. He is gambling that for a nominal tuition—$395 a class—they will use the public library, the neighborhood YMCA and existing apartment buildings to study, play and live in. “What’s the point of spending a fortune to reinvent the wheel?” said the 28-year-old Mr. Cook. “Everything you need to operate a campus is already right there in the community.” With just four classes and 60 part-time students so far, Saxifrage is still a long way from competing with established universities. It doesn’t yet offer a degree or have accreditation. But it reflects a larger antiestablishment surge beginning to reshape higher education. In the last decade, the average cost of a public four-year school including tuition and fees has climbed to $17,860 a year from $12,304 in 2012 dollars. Student debt has soared as a result, and some are looking beyond traditional institutions. Neil Shah explains how young people have become more wary of taking on more debt in general as student loan debt has reached record levels

“The Golf Shot Heard Round the Academic World; The tale of a teed-off philanthropist and the head of Bowdoin College, where identity politics runs wild.” By David Feith. Wall Street Journal. April 5, 2013. It sounds like the setup for a bad joke: What did the Wall Street type say to the college president on the golf course? Well, we don’t know exactly—but it has launched a saga with weighty implications for American intellectual and civic life. Here’s what we do know: One day in the summer of 2010, Barry Mills, the president of Bowdoin College, a respected liberal-arts school in Brunswick, Maine, met investor and philanthropist Thomas Klingenstein for a round of golf about an hour north of campus. College presidents spend many of their waking hours talking to potential donors. In this case, the two men spoke about college life—especially “diversity”—and the conversation made such an impression on President Mills that he cited it weeks later in his convocation address to Bowdoin’s freshman class. That’s where the dispute begins. In his address, President Mills described the golf outing and said he had been interrupted in the middle of a swing by a fellow golfer’s announcement: “I would never support Bowdoin—you are a ridiculous liberal school that brings all the wrong students to campus for all the wrong reasons,” said the other golfer, in Mr. Mills’s telling. During Mr. Mills’s next swing, he recalled, the man blasted Bowdoin’s “misplaced and misguided diversity efforts.” At the end of the round, the college president told the students, “I walked off the course in despair.” Word of the speech soon got to Mr. Klingenstein. Even though he hadn’t been named in the Mills account, Mr. Klingenstein took to the pages of the Claremont Review of Books to call it nonsense: “He didn’t like my views, so he turned me into a backswing interrupting, Bowdoin-hating boor who wants to return to the segregated days of Jim Crow.”

PRIVATE & PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS

“Abuse Charge at Academy Stirs Inquiry.” By Jess Bidgood. New York Times. March 31, 2013. Prosecutors plan to investigate possible sexual abuse at Deerfield Academy, an exclusive private boarding school in western Massachusetts, after a report released by the school detailing its own investigation into allegations against two faculty members who taught there for decades. “We intend to independently investigate whether these abuse allegations were criminal in nature and, if so, whether or not the statute of limitations or other factors would preclude criminal prosecution,” David E. Sullivan, the district attorney for Hampshire and Franklin Counties, said.
The school’s report, which was released Saturday in a letter to the Deerfield community, said investigators had confirmed that Peter Hindle, a mathematics teacher who worked at Deerfield from 1956 to 2000, engaged in sexual conduct with at least one student. The investigation also found evidence that Bryce Lambert, who taught English at the school until 1990 and is now dead, engaged in sexual conduct with two students, and that investigators received additional reports of sexual misconduct that they could not corroborate. “The investigation also led us to the conclusion that the Deerfield administration in the 1980s could have — in the case of Peter Hindle — moved more forcefully to address reports of inappropriate behavior,” read the letter, signed by Philip Greer, the president of the school’s board of trustees, and Margarita Curtis, who is the head of the school. “Given Mr. Hindle’s denials and highly revered status, the administration relied solely on verbal and written warnings,” said the letter. “By any measure, Mr. Hindle’s behavior represents an outrageous violation,” read the report, which said Mr. Hindle lied to investigators, “raising serious questions about whether his admission was too limited.” Mr. Hindle, 78, declined to comment.
Related story:
“Former Students Recall Teachers Accused of Abuse.” New York Times. April 2, 2013.

“A Reporter at Large: The Master: A charismatic teacher enthralled his students. Was he abusing them?” By Marc Fisher. New Yorker. April 1, 2013 .

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WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST (April 1-6, 2013)

April 7th, 2013

FINANCE

“Nonprofit finances on the mend; Groups, feeling more confident about future, add new programs and expand their services, study says. Still, some organizations continue to struggle as they get used to ‘new normal’.” By Theresa Agovino. Crain’s New York Business. March 29, 2013. Executives at nonprofit groups in New York City are feeling more confident about the future, with an increasing number saying they plan to add new programs and serve more people this year than they did in 2012, according to a new study. This year, 61% of nonprofits surveyed planned to boost services, while 57% expected to add clients, according to the study by the Nonprofit Finance Fund, which makes loans to charitable organizations. Last year, only 53% of the groups said they had expanded programs while 44% served more people. The executives’ optimism likely stems from their organizations’ improved financial picture. According to the study, 31% of nonprofits surveyed ended their 2012 fiscal year with a deficit while 22% broke even; yet 23% predict they will end their 2013 fiscal year in the red, while 38% believe they will break even. Despite the brightening picture, executives say many organizations are still struggling in the aftermath of the recession, which increased need and decreased funding. “I think they are getting used to the new normal and accepting that the money they used to get isn’t coming back,” said Anjali Deshmukh, director of knowledge and information for the Nonprofit Finance Fund. The organization surveyed 224 New York City charities in various sectors including health, the arts and human services.

“Tennessee Republicans freak out that voucher plan might fund Muslim schools.” By Laura Clawson. Daily Kos. April 03, 2013. Tennessee Republicans’ anti-Muslim hysteria may actually do a good thing, if for the absolute wrong reason (anti-Muslim hysteria). The state legislature is considering a school voucher bill, but there’s a hitch: At least one Muslim school might qualify for voucher money, and some legislators are freaking out over it. That the same people whose first thought on seeing a mop sink was “OMG MUSLIM FOOT-WASHING” would have objections to public money going to Muslim schools is, shall we say, not a surprise. And it’s gross. But in this case, it may get in the way of another top Republican priority: sending public money to Christian schools in the form of vouchers. The voucher plan currently under consideration was proposed by Gov. Bill Haslam and would give vouchers to kids eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches in the bottom five percent of public schools. Some Republican legislators want to broaden the bill substantially, extending it to every school in the state and raising the income cap. But where Haslam’s plan would only make one Muslim school eligible for vouchers, several others would be eligible under the expanded plan. And one is already one too many for the mop-sink brigade.

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