Friday, August 24, 2018

Craig Harris Report: Here In Mesa > On-The-Money In Online Public Education: For-Profit Charter Schools

With two more BIG SPENDING items on the November 8 General Election 2018 Ballot to approve $300,000,000 in taxpayer-financed debt for the Mesa Public Schools, it's a good time to step-back from any political-wrangling that might be going on to focus on some good solid investigative reporting once again by the Arizona Republic's Craig Harris.
Why? Because (1) we need more investigative reporting and (2) Students here in Arizona are getting short-changed by a system that can do better to deliver achievements results'
Another report about for-profit public charter schools here in Mesa was published on the blog site 17 July 2018 about the American Leadership Academy that operates "brick-and-mortar" charter schools where smooth operator Glenn Way raked-in about $37 million on real estate deals associated with the charter school chain.
Charter schools are big business.
Who’s making money?


Trevor Huxham/KJZZ
< Craig Harris.
"An Arizona charter school held an emergency budget meeting over the weekend after criticism over a lack of public comment that may have violated the state’s Open Meeting Law.
American Leadership Academy Director Glenn Way is also under scrutiny after earning millions of dollars for building his campuses.
An investigation by the Arizona Republic found Way took advantage of Arizona’s favorable charter school laws, and made about $37 million on real estate deals associated with the charter school chain.
To explain what is happening, The Show reached out to the Republic’s senior investigative reporter, Craig Harris. . . " 
- You can read that post from July by clicking on this link 
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 Here's are the results published by investigative reporter Craig Harris
Mesa’s online program educates students at 1/8th the cost of Primavera online charter
Brinkwire 
Unlike their brick-and-mortar counterparts, online schools don’t have to build classrooms or buy textbooks. They have no lunchrooms or sports teams.
But they do hire teachers, furnish curriculum and pay for a lot of computer equipment.
There are at least 41 districts and 20 charter schools operating online programs, state records show.
So how much should it cost to provide a publicly funded education to students who pursue it online?
Comparing the online operations of the state’s largest public district, Mesa Public Schools, with Arizona’s largest virtual charter school, Primavera, gives two very different answers..."
- Published on Brinkwire News
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The answers from investigative reporting by Craig Harris are presented in some of these details in the report published yesterday:
State records show:
The bottom line: Mesa operates an online program at roughly one-eighth the cost of Primavera.
Why such different costs?
Again,. . . The Motive For Private Profit It's working well for most public taxpayer-funded corporate charter schools
_______________________________________________________________________
The difference here in Mesa, other than grade-performance:
“We are not trying to make tons of money,”
said Jennifer Echols, Mesa’s online school director.
“The priority to run a school should not be to make people wealthy. It should be to educate students.”
QUESTION:
Are Mesa Public Schools doing enough to do more to expand more cost-effective online education, rather than ask for a whopping $300,000,000 to maintain, operate and repair "brick-and-mortar" schools that are only used 5 days a week/9 months-a-year?
_________________________________________________________
"One reason for the big disparity in total cost between Primavera and Mesa: Mesa doesn’t divert state education funds to investments in stocks, bonds and real estate, or make multimillion-dollar shareholder distributions like Primavera has to its founder, CEO Damian Creamer.
The for-profit company that runs Primavera last year awarded Creamer an $8.8 million shareholder distribution, The Arizona Republic found. . . Charter CEO gets $8.8M despite having third-highest dropout rate . . ."
YOU CAN READ THE HARRIS REPORT >> https://en.brinkwire.com_________________________________________________________________________
Reach the reporter at craig.harris@arizonarepublic.com
or 602-444-8478 or on Twitter @charrisazrep.
ABOUT THIS REPORT: Throughout 2018, investigative reporter Craig Harris examines the finances of some of Arizona’s most prominent charter schools to reveal how they spend the tax dollars they receive, who profits off the operations and what those deals mean for the future of education.
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Thursday, August 23, 2018

What Happens In Mesa Doesn't Stay In Mesa: Mesa Ammo Dealer Indicted in Las Vegas Massacre

Here's at least one guy that caught > Read for yourself since this story somehow dropped out of the headlines here, just like so many things do
Story image for mesa arizona from KNAU Arizona Public Radio
Mesa Man Who Sold Ammo To Las Vegas Shooter Indicted
KNAU Arizona Public Radio-2 hours ago
An Arizona man who sold ammunition to the gunman in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history was charged Wednesday in Nevada on a charge of ...
 
Story image for mesa arizona from KTAR.com
Mesa man indicted in Nevada court for manufacturing ammo without ...
KTAR.com-11 hours ago
Prosecutors in Arizona charged Haig, 55, with conspiring to make and sell armor-piercing ammunition in February. If convicted, he faces a maximum five-year ...
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No Bull Shit: The Rich Get Richer...You Know That Old Familiar Story All Too Well. This Time There's A Twist

“This is the decade in which wealth inequality has increased the most in U.S. history,” said Moritz Schularick, a professor of economics at the Bonn Graduate School of Economics in Germany who has written about the distribution of wealth in the United States. “The driver has been the very unequal gains in the very sharp performance of the stock market relative to the sharp drop of the housing market.”

Bull Market Hits a Milestone: 3,453 Days. Most Americans Aren’t at the Party.By Matthew Phillip
________________________________________________________________________
Stocks crossed a major threshold on Wednesday, when the 10-year-old bull market arguably became the longest on record.
It ranks among the great booms in American market history. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has soared more than 320 percent since emerging from the rubble of the financial crisis in March 2009, creating more than $18 trillion in wealth.
The Longest Bull Markets
At 3,453 days, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has reached a milestone: It is the longest bull market on record if you count a 19.9 percent decline in 1990 as the start of its rival. Bear markets are often marked by declines of 20 percent or more.



3,000
S.& P. 500-stock index
1,000
3,453
days
Scale is logarithmic to show
comparable percentage changes
1,826
days
+323%*
+102%
3,452
days
100
+417%
1,839
days
2,248
days
+229%
4,494
days
+126%
+582%
10
2,954
days
Each shaded area
is a bull market
+263%
1
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2018
*Percentage change through Tuesday. The duration counts all calendar days. | Sources: MacroTrends; Yardeni Research; Thomson Reuters | By Karl Russell

But the gains haven’t been spread among the masses. Stock market wealth is heavily concentrated among the richest families.
_________________________________________________________________________
For most of this bull market, the individual investor has largely sat out
". . . Even as the S. & P. 500 charges higher, retail investors continue to exit the equity markets. Between mid-March and late July, investors pulled some $40 billion out of American mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, while pumping some $80 billion into the safety of bond funds, according to Bespoke Investment Group, a stock market research firm . . ."
The moment to worry is when there is broad agreement that the market can only go higher. That would suggest there is little fresh money available to drive stocks to new heights.
 
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Wednesday, August 22, 2018

League of Arizona Cities & Towns Annual Conference 2018

2018 League Annual Conference - August 21-24
lact18_eheader.jpg

2018 League Annual Conference
August 21-24
Conference Hotel:All conference events will take place at the Phoenician Resort.
6000 East Camelback Road
Phoenix, Arizona 85251
 
Conference Program:
_________________________________________________________________________
Stay Connected!
> Conference Mobile App and Social Media Information:
We encourage all League Conference Attendees to stay connected and interact during the conference by taking photos and providing updates to the conference app and social media.
This year’s League Conference is available for download through Attendify. To find the conference app, visit your Apple or Android store to search for and download “Attendify.” Once downloaded, open the Attendify App and search for “League Annual Conference.” Select the “Join” icon to become part of the event.
For specific directions on downloading the conference app click here.

Also connect through:
Twitter: @AZCities
Instagram: AZCities
Hashtag: #LACT18
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Yeah Mesa Has A Reputation Alright: For A Goofy Mayor Jivin' John Giles

Another opportunity here in The Old Donut-Hole to bust the mayor's chops - it's getting way- too-easy!
He's earning more "Pinocchios" than he ever could have imagined after just four years in-office, getting elected in his own right with less than 80,000 votes citywide.
We are so blessed to have such an entertaining leader inside City Hall. He's certainly a prodigious producer of so many goofy episodes in what is otherwise a boring conservative city no more when politics can be so much fun when Giles supplies all the raw material with the words out-of-his-mouth.
__________________________________________________________________________
Here's a little whopper today from https://kjzz.org
Arizona Inches Toward Education Goals
By Mariana Dale  Published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018 - 6:34pm
Mesa Mayor John Giles said cities alone cannot solve the state’s education woes.
“I hate to be the downer in the room but I think at the current trajectory, I’m pessimistic,” Giles said. “I’m thrilled with the enthusiasm we saw in the last year around education, but it’s not enough.”
Other local leaders at the meeting are working to influence change on a smaller scale...
Context: Nonprofit Expect More Arizona  outlined these goals with the support of education and business leaders last year and presented on their progress before the annual League of Arizona Cities and Towns conference Tuesday. . . Mesa is providing resources, like tablets to some families to help prepare kids for school through a program called Mesa K-Ready.through a program called Miss Humblebee’s Academy.
FACT: "Miss Humblebee’s Academy" is the brainchild of Natalie Lewis. Less than 50 are enrolled in one school in West Mesa.

OK now compare what he said today with what Giles said at a Bloomberg WhatWorksCities event last year:
“If you need an aircraft carrier, it is great that we have the federal government. If you need a driver’s license, I’m really glad the state can take care of that,” said John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, Arizona. “Nearly every other service that people receive from government on a daily basis comes by and through the cities.”
Four years in-office has Giles done enough? His father was a principal in city public schools for over 25 years.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Here's a post on this blog from last year: see another whopper in Point 2
05 August 2017
Mayor John Giles Knows What's What :
BLOOMBERGIZE Mesa
Mesa Mayor John Giles actually got quoted twice: not about tax reform where the city has one of the worst CAFR positives out of the 50 largest cities, not about infrastructure expanding suburban sprawl, and not about healthcare except where the City's biggest job-provider is threatened by huge cuts in federal funds by a Republican regime he help get elected. Furthermore, Giles is not widely considered a collaborator nor has he a good reputation or history of engaging citizens in city government - he has admitted that shortcoming publicly. In his State-of-the-City Speech 2017 he has likewise said he needs ideas... perhaps "getting educated" on-the-job might help. Results so far? Not clear  
1. “If you need an aircraft carrier, it is great that we have the federal government. If you need a driver’s license, I’m really glad the state can take care of that,” said John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, Arizona. “Nearly every other service that people receive from government on a daily basis comes by and through the cities.”
2. “I think the answer is we all need to be a little more collaborative,” said Giles. “We need to reject the model that the federal government has kind of fallen into, particularly in the last year or so, of taking a small group of men and sending them into a room and closing the door and thinking that’s the best way to solve the problem.”
“I think the answer is we all need to be a little more collaborative,” said Giles.
The conference pledged to be a continued presence in Washington, pushing lawmakers to work from the bottom up . . .  
Mayors said the most effective way to tackle these large problems would be to work in local governments earlier in the process because ultimately, local governments are the ones that interact most with citizens.NOT THE WAY THAT WORKS HERE IN MESA
________________________________________________________________
“I think the answer is we all need to be a little more collaborative, . ." said Giles.
Jivin' Johnny might say that but what does he really do in office. We don't really know since his Office For Public Information, with two full-time salaried employees, does not publish what the mayor's public schedule is.
We pay his salary.
We have the right to know what the mayor is doing on-the-job. That is open, transparent and accountable government.

Again that's not the way it works here in Mesa: Giles and other city officials works best making deals behind closed doors with a small group men, some of whom hold public office at the state and federal level who collaborate in a closely-connected network for their own private wealth creation financed by taxpayers so they can capitalize on rampant real estate speculation here in downtown.
__________________________________________________________________________
Just one more Pinocchio zinger zapped to Jivin' John Giles:
 < His NextMesa Campaign:
it started out as just lunch and "Food For Thought". When that didn't get any traction for the former track-star, he realized he needed help real bad.
So let's have go at that Vision Thing, hire some guy like Jeff McVay we give a title to like maybe "The Director of Downtown Transformation" as a front foil for all the behind-the-scenes deals we want to do to make more money for our friends-and-family. Screw the taxpayers!


 
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Flash-Back > Fast-Forward: Here In Mesa Urbix Taking Top Position In World Graphene Production

Now here's a Lo-Fi downtown Mesa success story if ever there was one: the transformation of an under-used existing 53,000 sq.ft building that didn't deliver the results when city officials wanted to make Mesa "a college town" by locating Wilkes University and the so-called Center for Higher Education in the former Police Building on 2nd Street.
What is working well now at LaunchPoint is a company named Urbix, as noted on this blog site last year in a post an excerpt is inserted here. Read entire post > click here
There's an update today about advanced testing programs and more investments
16 May 2017
A New Era For Transnational AZ-Mexico Tech Development
Chairman of Mesa-based Urbix, Nico Cuevas Ushers in a New Graphene Era
by Maciej Heyman
military-technologies.net
Phoenix, Arizona – May 15, 2017 – At a TEDx event in Hermosillo, Mexico early in May, Phoenix-based Urbix Resources co-founder and chairman, Nico Cuevas, heralded in the Graphene Age.

“We are entering a new era,” Cuevas told a full and enthusiastic audience at the Auditorio del COBACH. What is coming, Cuevas says, is a “wave of innovation that will allow a social and economic development only comparable to the Industrial Revolution.”
As Cuevas points out, graphene makes possible the next level of technological development, including conductive inks for the production of ultra thin and ultralight circuitry, radically thin mobile phones, super-light bulletproof vests, water purification membranes, light and highly efficient batteries and other innovations.
The challenge, Cuevas stresses, is that, while the demand for this super-material is growing at a phenomenal rate as ever more high tech uses are found, at present, “the graphene market has a huge bottleneck: industrial scale production.”
By popular estimate, in 2016, only a few hundred kilograms of graphene were produced world-wide. And much of that, Cuevas maintains, was not even pristine graphene, but a different substance called graphene oxide.
“In reality,” says Cuevas, “it is very difficult to compare graphene oxide directly with graphene due to the fact that the production processes and applications can be very different.”

That said, Cuevas is clear on what is better. “Imagine you go to the most prestigious vineyard in the world and order a bottle of their best vintage. You buy the bottle, take it home, open it, and then realize that what they sold to you was a purple juice with mashed grapes, something that is not wine yet. That in my opinion is graphene oxide.”
Blogger Note:
A rash of recent market estimates towards the end of last year put the international market for a graphene in the range of a few hundred million dollars.
Urbix Resources, the company Cuevas co-founded in 2014, currently “has the monthly capacity to produce eight kilograms of pristine graphene” in the company’s state-of-the-art lab in Mesa, Arizona.
According to international graphene production estimates, Cuevas says, that could be half of what was produced worldwide last year. More, says Cuevas, their methods are green and the company uses “a graphite purification method that doesn’t use hydrofluoric acid, a graphene exfoliation with poly-ionic liquids that are 95-percent recyclable, and has an efficiency of 97-percent.” And that production capability is growing.

In addition to the Mesa-based lab, Urbix has a milling facility in Hermosillo, Mexico where the company is mining the source material for what Cuevas feels are some of the highest grade graphite products currently available.
The company recently completed their second round of financing and is moving into position to take their place as one of the top graphene-producing organizations in the world.
Visit: www.UrbixResources.com
Media Contact
Company Name: Urbix Resources
Contact Person: Adam Small
Email: asmall@grupourbix.com
Phone: (480) 269-4662
Country: United States
Website: www.UrbixResources.com
Contact Us
245 W. 2nd Street Mesa, AZ 85201
Phone: (480) 269 - 4662
Urbix Resources, LLC is an advanced natural graphite processor with expertise ranging across low-cost environmentally friendly graphite purification, nuclear graphite, graphene, and other advanced carbon derivatives. Urbix is also an expert in li-ion battery cell design and boasts next generation high voltage electrolyte and fast charging electrode nanoarchitecture.

Mining News - Published on Wed, 22 Aug 2018

Image Source: southstarmining.com
South Star Mining Corp. announced that it has entered into an agreement with Urbix Resources, LLC for advanced testing, optimization development and commercialization of its Santa Cruz project graphite concentrates. The Company would also like to announce that it has been listed for trading on the OTCQB(R) Market exchange in the United States under the symbol "STSBF". South Star has also applied for Depository Trust Company ("DTC") eligibility.
The testing program will include detailed characterization, purification, expandability and market suitability on four different flake-size concentrates previously produced during the Company's pilot plant program. The evaluation will take place at Urbix's cutting edge R&D facility in Mesa, Arizona and incorporate its advanced purification and exfoliation technologies. The program will begin within 30 days and require approximately twelve weeks to complete. Upon completion of this round of test work, the companies have agreed to work toward formalizing potential commercial relationships including offtakes, processing, technology sharing and product distribution. Total estimated value of the test program is approximately C$400,000 which will be partially paid in cash and grants with the balance payable to Urbix as 384,000 shares in the Company valued at C$0.45 per share. The share issuance is subject to TSX approval and a four month hold period.
Company CEO Mr Eric Allison stated "We are very excited about moving forward on one of our key strategic objectives in association with a leading graphite technology company like Urbix. The information provided will greatly assist South Star in its marketing efforts as well as in the ultimate design of our processing facilities in Brazil. We are firm believers in the future of graphite, not only in its traditional markets, but in many new advanced applications and Urbix is at the forefront of this technological development."
 
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Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Rocky and Bullwinkle > Funny Business (TV Series)


Published on Aug 21, 2018
Views: 494
Rocky and Bullwinkle | TV Series Full Episode | Cartoon For Children
🐿️ Subscribe for more Rocky and Bullwinkle 🐿️ http://bit.ly/2x0T3ql
🐿️Episodes in order without compilations 🐿️ https://bit.ly/2K4rl3U
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