My Beauty Best Teacher

It seems like DC Public Schools isn't the only school system fraught with multiple problems. Based on a investigative report by CBS 2 - corporal punishment cases in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) aren't investigated in a timely manner. The findings of this CBS 2 investigation dating back to September 2008 suggests that even in the cases in which CPS staff were found guilty of corporal punishment, discipline did not match the offense. Many of the students involved were as young as kindergarten through middle school which is a scary thought. Treveon Martin, the 10-year-old Chicago Public School student who was featured in this investigative story expressed how fearful he is now of attending school.

On February 9th, 2009, CBS Reporter Dave Savini and his investigative team reported on an ongoing investigation of the use of corporal punishment in Chicago Public Schools. Savini's investigation revealed that hundreds of Chicago Public School students have alleged being battered (i.e. beaten, whipped, chocked, paddled) by a teacher or an aide, coach, security guard or a principal. In 568 of the 818 reported corporal punishment cases, Chicago Public School Investigators determined that students were telling the truth.

Treveon Martin was featured on CBS as one of 818 Chicago Public School students, since 2003, to allege being battered by a teacher or other staff member. "Treveon Martin, 10, is afraid of a teacher at his school. "I've seen him hit five of them in the classroom," Martin said. Martin says he and others have been hit, grabbed and even struck with a belt. "He's threatened almost all the kids in his classroom," Martin said. He says it happened at Robert Emmet Academy in November but a Chicago Public School investigator didn't talk to him until last week - 70 days after the case was reported, and not until after we started asking questions. "He holded my arms and he picked my body up, and then he just slammed me on the desk," Martin said.

CBS 2 investigators found reports of students who were beaten with broomsticks, whipped with belts, yard sticks, struck with staplers, choked, stomped on and pushed down stairs. A student was paddled by a coach after missing serves. A substitute teacher fractured a student's neck. The majority of cases of staff who were found guilty were only given a slap on the wrist, Savini said.

"CBS 2 informed former Chicago Public School CEO Arne Duncan of our investigative findings shortly before he was promoted to U.S. Secretary of Education. Duncan responded: "If someone hits a student, they are going to be fired. It's very, very simple. " Before heading to Washington, Duncan vowed to take the following action. "Any founded allegation where an adult is hitting a child, hitting a student - they're going to be gone," Duncan said. Savini reported that's not what happened under Duncan's watch.

In response to CBS 2's report- Chicago's Alderman Pat O'Connor who is on the City Council Education Committee promised to have all of the cases re-examined including Treveon Martin's case as well as the incoming Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman. Huberman also promised a further review of how these cases were investigated. (Story courtesy of CBS Broadcasting Inc.) Posted by The Washington Teacher.

Nuhu Ribadu and others at a 'Symposium on Investigative Reporting on bribery and corruption',  in Bombastic Element:

A high profile panel aptly titled "Corruption Hunters," answered questions about international corruption and the role of the media during the 3rd Annual Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting back in April.

Jonathan Elendu's Elendu Reports and Sowore Omoleye's Sahara Reporters are a pointer to the promise of bottom-up methods. More familiar but maverick instruments like Al-Jazeera have been positively disruptive to the social-political fabric of the Middle East and beyond,however their establishment and operational costs have been prohibitive and a barrier to scrappy potential new entrants. Elendu Reports demonstrates the potential of diligent no holds barred investigative reporting for the continent of Africa enabled by the tools of web 1.0 and 2.0 . Recent reports of corrupt goverment officials with the accompanying images of their ill-gotten luxury properties in Western cities is threshold breaking,the denials and obfuscations of the past by the officials is now indefensible the brigandage seemingly more brazen . The effect of this is undeniable, it brings the third dimension of texture to accusations of corruption, in the flesh so to speak, the world can now see what happens to the revenue and resources of some of the most impoverished countries in the world, while the leaders don the caps of debt-relief and aid. This medium yet to include podcasting (sound) and vodcasting (video),are the developing worlds alternatives to '60 Minutes' etc. The erosion of the digital divide and its interactive enabling nature could have an accelerated cleansing effect on the hitherto incorrigibles that rule the roost, accountability and transparency sought so long in Africa's leadership might now be within its grasp.

After a careful tallying of votes and considerable consideration of all bribe offers, I have ruled that The Best Posts of A Conservative Teacher 2008 are:

• Liberal Teachers: about liberal teachers and their agenda
• Working on the Standards: remembering my attempts to fight liberal bias on state tests
• Obama Calls for More Public Service: comments on Obama's call for more public service
• Happy-nicing Ourselves into a Dictatorship: Obama brings us into a brave new world
• Comparing Michelle Obama's Speech to Condoleezza Rice's Speech: this gem gives amazing insight into two women who have a lot of influence over Presidents
• Obama's Energy Plan Vision: see the pictures
• Global Warming Melted my Ice Cream Cone: shockingly, hot magma is causing ice to melt under Greenland, not my SUV
• Shays' Rebellion and the Financial Bailout- A Surprising Connection: title of post says it all
• Former Student Reports Voter Fraud on College Campus: I become more cynical about elections after hearing many of these personal stories
• Obama, Granholm, Kwame, Michigan, and Lions: The results of hope and change: written months before the disaster seasons of UM and Lions and the prison term for Kwame and the continuing destruction of Michigan's economy... only prediction not correct yet is on Obama
• Green Jobs, Jeff Daniels, the MEDC, and the myth of FDR: random connections
• Liberal Judge rules homeless voters may list air as addresses to get ballots: ah, liberal judges, making up laws as they go
• Parent protests assigned book: my call to action causes school district to pull liberal book from curriculum
• Buying the American Presidency One Criminal Act at a Time: on Obama's fundraising
• America Has Strayed from Its Founding Children's Books Ideals: what are you reading your child?
• Joe the Plumber Must Be Destroyed: also Palin
• Barack Obama was a member of the New Party: on Obama's membership in radical left organization
• My Experience Meeting Bill Ayers: my protests may have contributed to my eventual separation from that school district
• Warren Schools Blows Budget on Green Boondoggle: a sign of things to come
• Recent Evaluation of Michigan's Business Tax: sometimes I feel like a journalist, then I realize I'm doing real investigative work
• May You Live in Interesting Times: it's a curse
• Obama's Draft Registration Raises Serious Questions: anyone in MSM get this one?
• Libertarians Screwed Themselves By Not Voting or Voting Libertarian: to my libertarian readers
• Our Long Conservative Nightmare is Over: satire
• Bizarro World and the Israeli-Hamas Conflict: explore the concept
• Rezko's Lawyer Owns Obama's House?: does anything about Obama surprise
• Can you Smell what Barack is Cooking?: shady book stew
• Orwell's Children: is future 1984 or Brave New World?
• Beware of the Church of Climate Alarm: they have wooden stakes and will shove one through your heart if it will make you stop polluting the air with your stinking conservative breath

Go back and spend a minute enjoying some of these classic posts from 2008, and get ready for a new year! My blog is growing (thousands of hits), and with your continued readership, and telling your friends, and linking to it on your blog, and emailing me- we will grow it further. My battle continues- be part of it by linking to A Conservative Teacher often!

Philip Shenon reports on Omoyele Sowore's investigative media house Sahara Reporters in the Daily Beast:

From a cubicle in midtown Manhattan, a Nigerian publishes staggering examples of his country’s government corruption online—information that would get him killed back home...“This is evidence-based reporting,” said Sowore. “We are here as a check against corruption and bad government. If we have photographs of the corruption, we post them.” He said “a lot of our leaks come from Nigerians who are angry—who want to see a different country.” The site has given Nigerians a journalistic watchdog that local reporters back home in West Africa could not hope to duplicate. In Nigeria, reporters are routinely threatened with violence or bribed into silence.

The role an Al Jazeera type organisation would play in Sub-Saharan Africa is undeniable, from investigative journalism to re-education its effect could be profound. Africast reports on an effort to realise this vision with the establishment of "Africa TV", "...Driven by the vision of Africans reporting on Africa for the world, a group of professional broadcasters, business people and reporters is setting up a pan-African satellite television network, to be launched within a year.Modelled on Arabic satellite network al Jazeera and led by Salim Amin, son of legendary Kenyan photojournalist Mo Amin, Africa TV aims to be an independent voice reporting on all events - good and bad - to the continent and the rest of the world."My vision is to give a more balanced view of Africa by Africans rather than by foreign correspondents,"..."The way the international 24-hour news machine works the big networks have a lot of other big stories that need to be covered and they can't devote the resources that I believe are necessary to cover Africa properly..."

Solyndra’s chief executive warned the Energy Department on Oct. 25, 2010, that he intended to announce worker layoffs Oct. 28. Solyndra was bleeding cash and quickly going bankrupt, and the only thing that would possibly save the company, bring confidence to investors, and help protect taxpayers heavy investment in the company would be quick action in trimming its workforce and shutting down factories. It was an economic decision that needed to be made.

But Democratic President Barack Obama disregarded all of those things and made a political decision and urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections. He didn't want citizens to pick up on the fact that he used his clean energy initiatives to steer valuable taxpayer money to benefit his friends and donors, all under the oversight and supervision and approval of a Democratic Congress that was about to suffer historic losses to to their historic bad governance of the nation's finances.

President Obama made a political decision to bring pressure to bear on private companies to hide their financial position and continue to go further into debt until there was no hope left but bankruptcy and ruin. In many ways, Solyndra is a metaphor for his plan for America- cover up the true reality of the destruction that his policies are doing to our nation and put off crucial economic decisions in a desperate attempt to hold tight to political power.

From the Washington Post article "Solyndra: Energy Dept. pushed firm to keep layoffs quiet until after midterms":

The Obama administration urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections, newly released e-mails show.

Solyndra, the now-shuttered California company, had been a poster child of President Obama’s initiative to invest in clean energies and received the administration’s first energy loan of $535 million. But a year ago, in October 2010, the solar panel manufacturer was quickly running out of money and had warned the Energy Department it would need emergency cash to avoid having to shut down.

The new e-mails about the layoff announcement were released Tuesday morning as part of a House Energy and Commerce committee memo, provided in advance of Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s scheduled testimony before the investigative committee Thursday.

Solyndra’s chief executive warned the Energy Department on Oct. 25, 2010, that he intended to announce worker layoffs Oct. 28. He said he was spurred by numerous calls from reporters and potential investors about rumors the firm was in financial trouble and was planning to lay off workers and close one of its two plants.

But in an Oct. 30, 2010, e-mail, advisers to Solyndra’s primary investor, Argonaut Equity, explain that the Energy Department had strongly urged the company to put off the layoff announcement until Nov. 3. The midterm elections were held Nov. 2, and led to Republicans taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives....

I've written about Solyndra or related topics before- check out my posts Data Reveals that SunPower Employees Donated to Democrats, then Got Massive Loans or Executives as Investors-in-Chiefs: A Bad Idea?

For more information, check out Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies.

The roll-call of incompetence continues, Okey Ndibe in 234Next on Nigeria's legislators:

A week ago, two reporters at this newspaper, Idris Akinbajo and Elor Nkereuwem, wrote an investigative report that unmasked Nigeria’s current crop of senators for the mediocrities they are. The report, simply captioned “The Senate’s scorecard,” revealed that the Senate had passed only 15 bills in more than two years. This paltry output represents what the reporters aptly described as “a miserable five percent” of the 284 Bills that came before the legislative body. I don’t care what your line of work is: any employee who completes a mere five percent of his or her assigned tasks is a failure. Such an employee would be an eminent candidate for rustication. Not, however, if you happen to be a Nigerian senator. In the perverted logic of the Senate, five percent performance is a mark of distinction!

More here.
The need for a Nigerian Mzalendo becomes all the more urgent.

Written By Candi Peterson

by Candi Peterson

Let’s take a trip down memory lane. Remember back in 2008, OSSE (Office of the State Superintendent of Education in DC) requested that McGraw Hill Testing Company conduct an erasure analysis due to abnormally high (statistically improbable) proficiency rates on standardized tests conducted in Washington, DC during April 2008? This computerized analysis revealed some disturbing results that occurred when103 public schools in the District of Columbia and some charter schools were flagged for having statistically high rates of wrong answers that were erased and replaced by correct answers on standardized tests during years 2008 to 2010. Deborah Gist, former DC State Superintendent of Education, recommended an investigation into why DC Public Schools (DCPS) erasure rates were so high but her recommendation to investigate met a roadblock by the Rhee/Henderson administration. USA Today's – through the use of Freedom Of Information Access (FOIA) requests uncovered a five month exchange of memos from DCPS officials questioning the rationale for a further investigation at the time. (click link to see memos, emails and tables).

Fast forward to year 2011, when USA TODAY'S newspaper and their cast of thirteen staff writers conducted their own investigative probe into the extraordinarily high erasures on standardized tests in the District of Columbia Public Schools. This piece found that DCPS likely cheated under the Rhee/Henderson administration. Even when these findings came to light and a recommendation was proffered by Gist to investigate further, Michelle Rhee along with Deputy Mayor of Education, Victor Reinoso and Kerri Briggs – successor to Deborah Gist in 2008 - refused to investigate and swept its dirty little secret under the rug.

Again in 2009, there was a second round of questionable proficiency rates on standardized tests in DC Public Schools. The USA TODAY investigation revealed that 46 DC public schools were flagged for having high erasure rates of wrong answers corrected to right ones. Caveon Consulting Services eventually conducted limited investigations in 2009 into the process and training of eight DC public schools at the request of DCPS. However, DCPS did not request that Caveon Consulting Services conduct a data analysis of the questionable testing data.

Given that three years have now passed since the questionable results were first released, one has to wonder why Mayor Gray and other government officials aren’t irate and calling for an intensive federal investigation to determine if fraud occurred like the federal probe conducted by the state of Georgia in 2010 by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. A USA TODAY article reported that “… only 4% of Georgia’s schools were considered of “severe concern” after their 2009 standardized tests,” according to Kathleen Mathers of the Georgia Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. In contrast, more than 15% of DC’s public schools had so many classrooms flagged in 2008 that they would have raised severe concern."

Former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue (whose term ended in January 2011) ordered law enforcement to take over the Georgia investigation because he said he was dissatisfied with the failure of the districts in Atlanta and elsewhere to explain the erasures. Here in DC, It is important to note that a referral was only recently made by the Henderson administration to the DC Inspector General to investigate after the USA TODAY's newspaper investigation featured a number of articles on DC Public Schools' questionable testing gains at schools like Noyes Elementary School (Former Principal Wayne Ryan during 2001-10- now Instructional Superintendent for DCPS) and others. Even though Kwame Brown, Chairman of the DC City Council, announced that he would hold public hearings on high erasures, these hearings have now been cancelled.

Do DC politicians really care? Why aren’t government officials more alarmed? What are they afraid they will learn? Why were the DC City Council hearings cancelled? This scandal is full of many examples where unethical actions have had negative effects on the entire city of Washington, DC, our public schools, parents, community, school personnel and especially our students. The principles of accountability were sacrificed by Rhee’s administration. Besides obviously being disingenuous and dishonest, Rhee’s administration acted unethically.

Frequently on my blog I talk about how the policies of Democrats like Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Peters, or your Democratic Congressman threaten 'life, liberty, and property.' I don't do this just to evoke our founding fathers and our Declaration of Independence- I do it because in reality, these principles are increasingly under attack when your friends and family put Democrats into office.

On Thursday and Friday, several major American companies- including AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Deere, Valero Energy, AK Steel and 3M- said a tax provision in the new health care law will make it far more expensive to provide prescription drug coverage to their retired employees. These major job providers and major providers of important goods and services in our nation stated that they think that this new health care law will hurt their companies in many ways. In a free nation, companies should be allowed to state how government policies will adversely affect their bottom lines without fear of the government attacking them. But America is not a free country when Democrats are in charge.

Via the Washington Examiner article Democrats threaten companies hit hard by health care bill by Byron York:

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has summoned some of the nation's top executives to Capitol Hill to defend their assessment that the new national health care reform law will cost their companies hundreds of millions of dollars in health insurance expenses. Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances.

Waxman has ordered the executives (of those companies) to (fly to Washington DC and) explain themselves at an April 21 hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative subcommittee.

Waxman's request (for internal company documents relating to finances) could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation.

If you own and operate a business, or work for a business that is owned and operated by someone, you are under attack by the government of the United States of America. If your business speaks out against a law, they will be dragged off to far away locations (Washington DC) to answer to the lords and masters of our empire, where in front of cameras and the howling masses, they will be subjected to ridicule and threats and intimidation. If your business does not show up, then the government that the Democrats are running will pass laws targeting your company for punishment or will not distribute government funds to you in 'stimulus' bills or other corrupt government give-aways.

This is no longer a free nation of a free people. Democrats like Waxman are turning it into a tyranny.

Written by Candi Peterson

DC Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson issued “You’re fired letters" this past week to 206 DC teachers. Before DC teachers knew of their own fate, the mainstream media had received a lengthy DCPS press packet on Friday, July 15 from the Office of the Chancellor (OOC) lauding teacher terminations and celebrating highly effective teachers eligible for merit pay. Bill Turque, staff writer for the Washington Post reported on the details of the DCPS firings as early as July 15. Turque wrote: “Of the 206 fired, D.C. officials said, 65 were rated ineffective this year and 141 were judged minimally effective for the second consecutive year, triggering dismissal.” An additional twenty-one teachers who were effective and/or highly effective were also terminated by DCPS because they could not find a permanent placement.

Friday's teacher firings are a continuation of Michelle Rhee's educational plan to terminate a significant share of the DC teaching workforce while establishing job loss as a likely consequence of poor classroom test scores on standardized tests. In DC, fifty-five percent of a teacher's performance evaluation is tied to student test scores in the testing grades. Prior to getting elected as DC Mayor in 2010, Vincent C. Gray who was then Chairman of the DC City Council stated that there was controversy over IMPACT teacher evaluations after the announcement of 241 teacher firings. At the time, Gray stated that he wanted to look further into the 2010 teacher dismissals. Fast-forward to 2011, we have heard nary a word from Mayor Gray on this issue now that he has been elected as city mayor. I guess with all of the ethical dilemmas the Gray administration has faced during his short tenure as mayor – teachers’ dismissals aren’t the priority they once were while he was campaigning. If Gray doesn’t take the time to review the IMPACT controversy, then shame on him.

Given that USA Today newspaper broke the story on March 28, 2011 that half of all DC Schools likely corrected students mistakes and cheated on standardized tests, one has to wonder why Chancellor Kaya Henderson is moving forward with the dismissal of teachers based on flawed standardized test score data. Unfortunately, it took Henderson three years to finally support an investigation into allegations of a DCPScheating scandal that was previously made known to the Rhee/Henderson administration by former State Superintendent Deborah Gist in 2008. It begs the question, can we really trust that a comprehensive investigation will be completed by the DC Inspector General Charles J. Willoughby who appears to be a one man operation? Given that USA Today newspaper had an entire investigative team of 12 reporters when looking into cheating on standardized tests and former Governor Sonny Perdue had Georgia law enforcement to take over their investigation into the 2010 Atlanta public schools high erasure scandal after he declared a local investigation as “woefully inadequate”, why should we expect anything less in our nation’s capital?

Now is the time to support the end to the test driven culture in Washington, DC and elsewhere. I concur with teachers and parents for education reform that we must demand a call to action and insist on a thorough federal investigation of the extent of cheating in DC Public Schools over the past three years, the causes and the consequences, and needed corrections in our school system culture. This investigation must address specific allegations of erasure and falsification on answer sheets, as well as any district actions that might have encouraged cheating, or that were taken to cover it up. It is also time to call for a moratorium on the IMPACT evaluation system and teacher terminations until a federal probe has been conducted into the DCPS cheating scandal. Anything less would be a real tragedy.

For a long time, I've had my doubts about the Democrat's much-touted subsidies and tax credits for filmmaking in Michigan. Most of my doubts center around the fact that these subsidies are being given away with very little oversight and are being given away to those with political connections (for example, Michael Moore sits on the board that recommends who gets these tax credits- and recently gave them to himself). This lack of transparency and political favoritism has not received the attention it should, because hidden behind the wall of secrecy that is the Democratic-run Film Office, there are a lot of corrupt deals being made that are screwing taxpayers over. Now it is confirmed though.

Breaking News: The chief-of-staff for a Grand Rapids Democratic State Congressman has been implicated in a million-dollar fraud scheme whereby he would buy a $4 million dollar building for $50 million and then apply $12.5 million dollars in subsidies through the state of Michigan's disgraced Film Office.

Noah Seifullah, who has been forced to resign from Congressman Robert Dean's staff, was in the process of finalizing the details of the Hangar42 studio scheme when the news broke. The Michigan Film Office had already given preliminary approval to the request for over $10 million in film-credits when the news broke.

This Hanger 42 scheme represents just the tip of the iceberg into the corruption that is rampant in the Michigan Film Office, so much so that Janet Lockwood, who is the director of the Michigan Film Office, is being forced to resign amid the growing criticism. Her office has stonewalled efforts to find out more information about the Hanger 42 deal, and many others, and she has attempted to provide citizens as little information as possible about the decision making process involved in the give-away of millions of taxpayers money.

The Mackinac Center was the first to publicly raise questions about the Hangar 42 deal with an essay and investigative video posted on its website May 20. They reported that the studio was on the market for as little as $9.8 million as late as February, but apparently sold for as much as $40 million not soon after that in order that the buyer could claim a much larger film-credit. As of today, the Michigan Film Office, the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the seller and the buyers are all unwilling to answer questions about this scheme, and the Democratic Governor who is so proud of her Film Office (and even bragged about the Hanger 42 deal as evidence of the success of the film-credits in her recent State-of-the-State speech) nor the Democratic-controlled Michigan Legislature have pressed for answers or explanations.

The Grand Rapids Free Press deserves a lot of credit for putting this story together and piecing together the details here. They found the speech where Noah Seifullah outlined a 'hypothetical' situation whereby massive amounts of fraud could bilk the Michigan taxpayers out of millions. They then connected the 'hypothetical' situation described by Siefullah to the real world Hanger 42 project. Give the Grand Rapids Press credit for doing the real work on this story, fighting through government obstruction and attempts by Democrats at every turn to keep the corruption and fraud that is running rampant in their Film Office secret.

This scandal raises important questions. The Michigan Film Office is Democrat Governor Jennifer Granholm's pet project, one that she brags about often, and yet this scandal raises questions and concerns about how thoroughly corrupt it is. She continually plows taxpayer money into this project, and yet her top example of success for this program (Hanger 42) has proven to be a corrupt sham. Next, at what point in this sham did someone cry foul- who knew what when at the Michigan Film Office about Hanger 42? Perhaps the Attorney General should start asking some questions. Is this the kind of public-private corporate welfare project that Democrats promote, rife with corruption of public officials? Last, is the corruption limited to just the local (state) Representative? Or is this something that many officials in the Democratic party are caught up in?

Stay tuned for further updates, and please feel free to link to this story- perhaps if this story gets big enough the Michigan Film Office and the millions that it is giving out to politically-connected individuals under great secrecy can be brought to light and analyzed and cleaned up.

UPDATE: Here is a video of the story:


UPDATE II: Looks like the Attorney General is getting into this situation- according to this story, Mike Cox (the AG for Michigan, and GOP candidate for Governor) is looking into the Hanger 42 scheme.

NOTE to NEW READERS: New readers, please feel free to also check out some of my recent good posts like Obama is a Caudillo, The Inside Deal: Obama's Economic Program, Employment-Population Ratio Drops to 58.5%, Earth Day: Is it just one big Communist Plot?, Gifted Programs in Schools Training Future Liberals, or Obama On Inner and Outer Circles of Leadership. Also feel free to link to blog-curhatanku.blogspot.com on your blog, and bookmark conservativeteacher.blogspot.com so you can become a regular reader of the battles of a conservative teacher's attempt to advance the principles of liberty and freedom.

Mired in grinding poverty and social destitution, Africa cries for help. A cacophonous galaxy of rock stars, anti-poverty activists, and heads of state are calling on the G-8 countries to cancel Africa’s $350 billion crippling foreign debt and double aid to the continent. British Prime Minister Tony Blair will make aid to Africa the centerpiece in Britain's presidency of the G-8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland in July. Live 8 is planned for July 2. After meeting with President Bush on June 10, modalities are being worked out to cancel at least $34 billion in debt of 27 of the world’s poorest nations, mostly African. Will this African Marshall Aid Plan work?

Africa’s plight follows a ten-year attention deficit cycle. Every decade or so, mega-plans are drawn up and rock concerts held to whip up international rescue mission for Africa. Acrimonious wrangling over financing modalities ensues. Years slip by, then a decade later, another grand Africa initiative is unveiled. Back in 1985, there was Live Aid and a “Special Session on Africa” held by the United Nations to boost aid to Africa. Then in March 1996, the U.N. launched a $25 billion Special Initiative for Africa. In September 2005, the plight of Africa will again take center-stage at a U.N. conference with clockwork precision. Expect another major initiative for Africa in 2015.

Helping Africa of course is noble but has now become a theater of the absurd – the blind leading the clueless. A recent IMF study estimated that Africans in the diaspora remit $32 billion annually back to Africa, with the main destinations being Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya. About $7 billion is sent to southern Africa (Ghana News Agency, Accra, May 31, 2005). The amount Africans abroad remit back exceeds the $25 billion Tony Blair seeks to raise.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says corrupt African leaders have stolen at least $140 billion (£95 billion) from their people since independence. The World Bank estimates that 40 per cent of wealth created in Africa is invested outside the continent. Even the African Union, in a stunning report last August, claimed that Africa loses an estimated $148 billion annually to corruption – or 25 percent of the continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Rather than plug the huge hemorrhage, African leaders prefer to badger the West for more money. And the West, blinded by its own racial over-sensitivity and guilt over the iniquities of the slave trade and colonialism, obliges. This is the real tragedy of Africa.

Between 1960 and 1997, the West pumped more than $450 billion in foreign aid – the equivalent of four Marshall Aid Plans – into Africa with nothing to show for it. Contrary to popular misconception, foreign aid is not free but a soft loan. Outright debt relief and massive inflow of aid without any conditionalities, safeguards or monitoring mechanisms is absurd. It is akin to writing off the credit card debt of a drunken sailor and allowing him to keep the same credit cards. No African government has been called upon to give a full public accounting of who took what loan and for what purpose since many of Africa’s foreign loans taken in the past were misused and squandered. No government official has been held accountable; instead, irresponsible past borrowing behavior is being rewarded.

More distressing, much of the new aid money will flow directly into an African government budget – a huge black maze of vanishing tax receipts, extra-budgetary expenditure items, perks and off-budget “presidential privy accounts,” redolent with graft, patronage and waste. Over the past few decades, African budgets have careened out of control. State bureaucracies have swollen, packed with political supporters. Back in 1996, 20 percent of Ghana's public sector workforce was declared redundant by the Secretary of Finance and Guinea’s 50,000 civil servants were consuming 51 percent of the nation's wealth. In Kenya, civil service salaries take up half the budget; in Uganda, it is 40 percent. Zimbabwe has 54 ministers; Uganda with a population of 35 million has 70, while Ghana, with a population of 22 million, has 88 ministers and deputy ministers. With bloated bureaucracies, soaring expenditures and narrow tax bases, budget deficits have soared.

They are covered with World Bank loans and foreign aid (Ghana’s budget is 50 percent aid-financed and Uganda’s is 60 percent). If the aid is insufficient, the rest of the budget shortfall is financed by printing money. Even when is aid available for “budgetary support”, there is no guarantee that it will be used productively to generate a return to repay the soft loan. It could well be “consumed” when it pays for the salaries of civil servants. Writing off Uganda’s debt does not eliminate the aid dependency. In fact, when the World Bank canceled $650 million of Uganda’s debt in 1999, the first item President Yoweri Museveni purchased was a new presidential jet!


British Prime Minister thinks he can cajole or browbeat African leaders into curbing corruption and ensuring that resources released by debt relief are put to some good use – such as increased spending on education and health care. But the push for good governance and reform must come from within – from African civil society groups, organizations and the people. However, in country after country, chastened by diabolical restrictions, these groups have no freedom or political space to operate.

Carlos Cardoso, an investigative journalist, was murdered in November 2000 for uncovering a bank scandal in which about $14 million was looted from Mozambique's largest bank, BCM, on the eve of its privatization. The official in charge of banking supervision, Antonio Siba Siba, was also murdered while investigating the banking scandals. Such was also the fate of Norbert Zongo, a popular journalist in Burkina Faso, who was gunned down on Dec 13, 1998, while investigating official corruption. In September 2001, President Isaias Afwerki closed down all the independent media and arrested its staff, quashing calls for democratic reforms. In all, the government shut down eight private newspapers and arrested its journalists, picking them up in their newsrooms and homes and from the streets. They were held in a central jail until April, 2002, when they threatened to begin a hunger strike to protest their detention. They were then transferred to an undisclosed location.

In neighboring Ethiopia, President Meles Zenawi, a member of Tony Blair’s Africa Commission, just held fraudulent elections. Anticipating public outrage, he banned street demonstrations for one month and assumed full control of the country’s security forces. When the opposition rallied to protest the results dribbling in, the police opened fire, killing 26; opposition leaders have been placed under house arrest. Witness the election machinations in Egypt.

The paucity of good leadership has left a garish stain on the continent. Worse, the caliber of leadership has distressingly deteriorated over the decades to execrable depths. The likes of Charles Taylor of Liberia and Sani Abacha of Nigeria even make Mobutu Sese Seko of formerly Zaire look like a saint. In an unusual editorial, The Independent newspaper in Ghana wrote: "Most of the leaders in Africa are power-loving politicians, who in uniform or out of uniform, represent no good for the welfare of our people. These are harsh words to use on men and women who may mean well but lack the necessary vision and direction to uplift the status of their people (The Independent, Ghana, July 20, 2000; p.2).

The crisis in leadership remains a major obstacle to poverty reduction and has many manifestations. It is characterized, among others, by the following dispositions and failings: The "Big Man" syndrome, subordination of national interests to personal aggrandizement, super-inflated egos, misplaced priorities, poor judgment, reluctance to take responsibility for personal failures, and total lack of vision and understanding of even such basic and elementary concepts as "democracy," "fairness," "rule of law," "accountability," and "freedom" -- among other deficiencies. In some instances, the leadership is given to vituperative utterances, outright buffoonery, stubborn refusal to learn from past mistakes, and complete absence of cognitive pragmatism.

Believing that their countries belong to them and only them only, they cling to power at all costs. Their promises are worth less than Al Cappone’s. They stipulate constitutional term limits and then break them: Angola, Chad, Gabon, Guinea, and Uganda. African leaders themselves drew up a New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in 2001, in which they inserted a Peer Review Mechanism (PRM), by which they were to evaluate the performance of fellow African leaders in terms of democratic governance. What happened? To be fair, they acted in reversing the “military coup” in Togo in February but went on vacation when elections were stolen in Zimbabwe and Togo.

Ask them to cut bloated state bureaucracies or government spending and they will set up a “Ministry of Less Government Spending.” Then there is the “Ministry of Good Governance” (Tanzania). They set up “Anti-Corruption Commissions” with no teeth and then sack the Commissioner if he gets too close to the fat cats (Kenya) or issue a Government White Paper to exonerate corrupt ministers (Ghana in 1996). To be sure, multi-party elections have been held in recent years in many African countries but the electoral process was so contumaciously manipulated to return incumbents to power. Four such “coconut elections” have so far been held this year: Zimbabwe, Togo, Congo (Brazzaville), and Ethiopia.

Ask them to place more reliance on the private sector and they will create a Ministry of Private Enterprise (Ghana). Ask them to privatize inefficient state-owned enterprises and they will sell them off at fire-sale prices to their cronies (Uganda). Or ask them to move a foot and they will demand foreign aid in order to do so. In 2003, some 30,000 ghost names were discovered on the payroll of the Ministry of Education, costing the government $1.2 million a month in salaries heisted by living workers. When Ghana demanded foreign aid to purge the payroll of these ghost names, Japan coughed up $5 million.

The reform process has stalled through vexatious chicanery, willful deception, and vaunted acrobatics. Only 16 out of the 54 African countries are democratic, fewer than 8 are “economic success stories,” only 8 have a free and independent media.

No amount of debt relief and increased aid will help Africa until Africa cleans up its own house. But the leadership is not interested in reform. Thus, without new leadership and genuine reform, debt relief and increased aid would compound Africa’s problems and more African countries will implode. The continent is stuck in a veritable conundrum. What can Western donors do?

Smart aid would do one of two things. One, bypass the vampire state and target the people, who produce Africa’s real wealth. An African economy consists of three sectors: the traditional, informal, and the modern sector. The people who produce Africa’s real wealth – cash crops, diamonds, gold and other minerals – live in the traditional and informal sectors. Meaningful development and poverty reduction cannot occur by ignoring these two sectors. But in the 1960s and 1970s, much Western development aid was channeled into the modern sector or the urban area, the abode of the parasitic elite minority. Industrialization was the rage and the two other sectors – especially agriculture – were neglected. Huge foreign loans were contracted to set up a dizzying array of state enterprises, which became towering edifices of gross inefficiency, waste and graft. Economic crises emerged in the 1980s and billions in foreign aid money were spent in an attempt to reform the dysfunctional modern sector. Between 1981 and 1994, for example, the World Bank spent more than $25 billion in Structural Adjustment loans to reform Africa’s dilapidated statist economic system. Only 6 out of the 29 “adjusting” African countries were adjudged to be “economic success stories” in 1994. Even then, the success list was phantasmagoric. Ghana, declared a “success story” in 1994, is now on HIPC life-support system.

At some point, even the most recklessly optimistic donor must come to terms with the law of diminishing returns: That pouring in more money to reform the modern sector is futile. Greater returns can be achieved elsewhere – by focusing on the traditional and informal sectors.

Second, smart aid would empower the African people (African civil society groups) to monitor how the aid money is being spent and to instigate reform from within. Empowerment requires arming the African people with information, the freedom and the institutional means to unchain themselves from the vicious grip of poverty and oppression.

Africa already has its own Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights (the 1981 Banjul Charter), which recognizes the right to liberty and to the security of his person (Article 6); to receive information, to express and disseminate his opinions (Article 9); to free association (Article 10); to assemble freely with others (Article 11); and to participate freely in the government of his country, either directly or through freely chosen representatives in accordance with the provisions of the law (Article 13). Though the Charter enjoins African states to recognize these rights, few do so. When President Thabo Mbeki called on June 3, President Bush should have handed him a signed copy of this Charter to be delivered to President Robert Mugabe of ‘Zimbabwe.

The institutional tools Africans need are an independent central bank (to assure monetary stability and stanch capital flight), an independent judiciary (for the rule of law), a free and independent media (to ensure free flow of information), an independent Electoral Commission, an efficient and professional civil service, and a neutral and professional armed and security forces.

Recent events in Ukraine (November), Ghana (December), Zimbabwe (March), Lebanon (April), and Togo (April) unerringly underscore the critical importance of these institutions. Without them, President Bush’s plan to spread democracy may stall. Democracies are not built in a vacuum but in a “political space” in which the people can air their opinion, petition their government without being fired on by security forces and can choose who should rule them in elections that are rigged by electoral commissions packed with government goons.

On May 13, thousands of Egyptian judges, frustrated by government control over the judiciary, agitated for full independence from the executive in their oversight of the electoral process. “The institutions are presenting Mr. Mubarak with an unexpected challenge from within, one that will be difficult to dismiss. The fact is, major changes in this country are going to come out of those institutions, not from the streets," said Abdel Monem Said, director of the Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo.

In the past 24 years, Egypt has received more than $55 billion in U.S. aid in direct government-to-government transfers. Smart aid would assist civil society in instigating institutional reform. Since this approach carries some risks, the same objective can be achieved by funneling aid through diaspora Africans and their organizations, as was the case with Soviet dissidents during the Cold War.

Africa’s long term growth prospects do not lie in rock concerts and increased dependency on Western aid but on the ability of the African people or civil society groups to instigate reform from within. Assistance to such groups – both at home and abroad – constitutes much smarter aid to Africa than all the LIVE AID concerts Bob Geldof can organize.
______________

The writer, a native of Ghana, is a Distinguished Economist at American University and President of the Free Africa Foundation. His new book is Africa Unchained (Palgrave/MacMillan). This article is culled from his May 10 testimony before the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate of Canada.

Searching for Facts image from Bigstock.

Social media impacts lives. When you have someone in a controversial matter like the wrong thing or say the wrong thing it can cause a snowball that can influence and even harm.

I've seen this first hand. I know people who've lost jobs, seen marriages destroyed, and organizations teeter on the brink of nonexistence through poorly thought-out likes, unfriending, and comments. Perhaps it is because I live in a small town where there are no secrets.

It makes me angry when people who should know better casually post or comment and assume things that just aren't true. So, I'm going to get these lies out on the table. Every one of these 11 has a example  that I have personally witnessed. This is real and real life. Please wake up and understand what social media is and is not.

#11 Social media is free.
Everything comes with a price. Facebook is funded by advertising. In the advertising model they need to sell advertising and need to have happy advertisers. To have happy advertisers the advertisements need to "work" so Facebook must make sure that the ads served on their site hit the proper target. Good companies know the ages, genders, and even more details about their target market. This means that as you use Facebook you are being tracked through the use of cookies (a tiny file on your computer that stores information) and your profile data (all that data you give your "friends" also belongs to Facebook.)

Although the FTC has now required Facebook to allow users to "opt in" for Facebook privacy changes, you are giving up quite a bit of freedom as you surf, particularly when you log into Facebook. What I've seen happen to students is that if a student surfs to a somewhat inappropriate site or goes to a site that they would never go to for research projects, it can effect the kind of ads they start seeing on their page.

Ads on my Facebook page today.

So, for example, a child logs into Facebook with parents over shoulder - now the child is getting seedy ads or things showing on their page that aren't age appropriate because of some iffy searching habits from earlier in the week. Parents should notice the ads coming up on Facebook pages because it tells you a lot about your child's interests. The same is true for us adults.

The result is that the ads that show on your Facebook page tell a lot about you. Shown to the right are the ads I have on my facebook page today. First of all, I'm a coupon clipper and a Mom and I do shop online - so I have two ads relating to the fact that I shop. Another ad is for an event in Tallahassee - I do like cultural events and I live close to there. Finally, I am a bit of a health conscious person and I have recently shopped for some new vitamins online and do buy green matcha tea online. I have acupuncture atlanta showing up. See how this works?

Of particular interest is an article that will be in Forbes magazine on December 5, 2011 (Facebook's new advertising model: You) that talks about how your likes of a product will now be shown in ads for your FRIENDS. So, a movie ad may show a friend who has liked that ad. Or, a store may actually show someone who "likes" that store. Their research shows that a person is more likely to remember an ad with the name of a friend in it! I see a whole new set of privacy concerns coming with this advertising model.

Just how deeply they will dig into your shopping and buying habits or if this is just being generated off of likes is anyone's guess. Personally, I don't want my "endorsement" on anything without my permission. Just because I buy it doesn't mean I "endorse" it. I buy male sports garments for my 16 year old athlete, for goodness sakes - I could only imagine how that would turn out.


#10 Social media is just social

Jane Hart's Top 100 Tools for Learning survey results

Social media has a real impact in all areas of our life. Professional, personal, educational. In fact Twitter was listed as the top educational resource for the last two years in Jane Hart's annual poll of the top 100 tools for learning.

You may use a website socially but if you go home and make a comment about a bad day (See how to lose your job in 140 characters or less) or obnoxious client or sucky boss or give out private information and everyone knows who you're talking about you will have very real consequences in your life that can extend to your pocketbook, where you live, your job and all aspects of your life. The sooner people realize that social media is life media the better off we'll all be.

Likewise if you learn something powerful or make a connection, you can reap big dividends in your life both financially, personally, and in positive learning experiences for your students.

#9 People understand context.
Imagine kids doing a project about cyberbullying and they take a photo and upload to their Facebook to grab a screenshot and film (instead of using photoshop.) It gets uploaded in school, looks like an awful event, and everyone thinks it is really happening. The students take it down but the damage is done.

Every photo you use should be real. Be careful about using your social media sites for a "project" especially on a controversial topic. If it isn't real, don't upload it. Period. Don't experiment in places where you can do permanent damage. This is why people studying to be doctors operate on cadavers not real people as they begin.

I know a student who posted a fake status update to "see what would happen." Another student posted an April fool's joke that his house was robbed only to have the neighbors show up at their door 10 minutes after the post was made from his cell phone.

This is especially important for teachers to tell students if you allow the use of social media at your school.

#8 Profiles are accurate
People use photos from 10 years a go. They lie about their age. They may even lie about who they say they are or what they are doing for a living. Be a smidge wary when you first "meet" people particularly if you don't "know" them and decided to friend or follow because of mutual "friends." (See #2.)

I have students who are presenting at the Global Education conference who are filming an expose called "Cute little liars" where they created a fake profile and friended kids they knew to be under 13. Over half the students accepted the request. They are doing investigative reporting to uncover why.

Facebook Terms of Service

Right now, people can make fake profiles and enter fake data, but interestingly, here in the US, the Department of Justice wants to make it a federal crime to violate a website's terms of service. If that is the case, they may have to lock up half of the 10-12 year olds I know who are all lying to get a Facebook profile. (In my opinion, this is a slippery slope- who is watching those who write terms of service to make sure that they are fair to users and how many users take the time to read the TOS anyway? They are important they are just so long the average person doesn't read or understand them.)




#7 People not on that site don't see your stuff
In fact, I've seen things people posted printed out and handed around. Just because someone is not on Facebook or Twitter does not mean they cannot see your stuff. Someone can print it out or screenshot it and everyone can see it as it is handed around at the local gas station. The fact that someone is social media illiterate gives you no protection at all from their prying eyes. (See also #2.)

Reporting requires a Facebook account.

#6 You don't HAVE to have a page on their site to be treated fairly.
In fact, you do if you're going to protect your identity. I had a student here at Westwood who didn't want to get on Facebook. However, someone on Facebook with lots of pornographic links snagged her photo from a project and uploaded it as his profile picture.

She had named her picture her first name so it turned up in google search when her name was typed. Facebook would not let her report it and would not respond to her until she had a profile for a month with multiple pictures of her on it proving that she was that person in order for them to get the other person to stop using her photo. In effect, you have no right to complain about content unless you are on that site and a "real person" to them.

It says that you can have your friend report it and her friends did report it. However, they said because my student wasn't on Facebook and didn't have any photos of herself uploaded, that they couldn't verify that those photos were actually stolen from someone because she didn't exist to Facebook.

I heard an 80 year old woman call into Leo Laporte "the Tech guy" complaining that people were making things up about her on Facebook and his answer was that if she wasn't online and didn't use the Internet that there wasn't really anything she could do about it.

#5 You have a license to your work
Screen snipping software comes with every operating system I know of. It is easy to take photos. It is easy to PhotoShop off watermarks. Licenses should be respected, yes, but know that there are always pirates. It is no reason to run to the hills but remember that if you don't want it stolen that you should take some steps to protect it - especially photos of you and your children. Those are photos that you may have problems with people taking (at least I would.) I take steps to protect those photos.


Also, if you use just about any site that lets you upload photos, you may have lost the license already. For example, did you know that on Facebook according to their Terms of Service:

1. "For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it. 

2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others)."

This was brought to light when a woman who shot a picture and video of a shuttle launch from the air was surprised to see her video used without permission. They had contacted Twitpic, the place she uploaded the content, an according to their terms of service if Twitpic gives permission - they can have it without contacting the user. Sites like flickr support and have licenses but remember that you may not have the license you think you have if the terms of service claim rights for the service.

#4 Your password is secure
Many people use the same password for everything. Some websites have protection measures in place and others do not. You are only secure as the least secure website you have used that password on. You should have unique passwords for banking, Facebook, and email in my opinion. So what if it is a pain. What is your identity and reputation worth?

See also Lifehacker's Guide to Sniffing Out Passwords and Cookies (and how to protect yourself against it.)  If you're not logging in using https, your password is easy to intercept. Also make sure your web browser is updated. Many sites don't support https and if they do not, your password can be easily intercepted. (One suggestion worth taking in the article is: "Everywhere is that it only redirects sites in its list, so if you'd like to be able to redirect any site to HTTPS, you may want to check out Force-TLS for Firefox or HTTPS Everywhere for Chrome. Both of these extensions allow you to add new sites to the automatic HTTPS redirect.")

#3 Delete will delete something
Delete doesn't really happen. Some companies (like Facebook) keep the original photo and just delete the link to your account. The permalink is still there. Plus you have the fact that files when deleted are still there - either in the recycle bin on on that hard drive or on a backup. Someone on this planet can always get to it.

Friends photo from Bigstock

#2 Your friends are really friends
Just because Facebook calls them friends doesn't mean that they are. If you tick the wrong person off, they'll screenshot your "private" rant faster than you can open and shut your back door.

A companion to this statement is that "your friends friends are really their friends." Overfriending is a problem and many people got online and started friending. Although they may be more selective now, people tend to not want to unfriend people. Just because you have mutual friends doesn't mean a thing. If you accept on the basis of "mutual friends" you are leaving your vetting up to people who just may not care or were uneducated at some point about how to friend.

#1 You have privacy settings
Yes, you can "lock down" your account, but truly nothing is really private. If anyone besides you is on your page, you still have all those anonymous administrators or hackers who can get to your account through the back door or a security hole. Sure, set your private settings and "lock it down" but remember that if you don't want it shared that you shouldn't share it.

Plus, it is easy to cross post from one platform to another. You may have protected tweets on Twitter but if you cross post to Facebook and are set to Friends of Friends EVERYONE can read your tweets.

Nothing is private if it is online.

Why use social media at all?
All this being said, I am a huge social media fan. My life has been improved by social media. I have received book contracts, new friends from around the world, new best practices for my classroom, and trips to incredible places. Social media has been a very positive influence in my life. I've had my own share of gaffe's and mess ups -- that is a fact!

But I think it is time to wake up and realize that this stuff is for real and that offhand comments can crush and hurt people.

Be careful what you say especially when it is in writing or electronic format. A like can have just as much impact as if you said it yourself. Like means you agree in the eyes of many because of the word that Facebook chose to use.