Post-Thanksgiving catch-up

The education world did not stop turning just because teachers and school employees had a few days off for Thanksgiving. Here, briefly, are a few things you might have missed:

BESE election: Following the November 19 general election. Governor Bobby Jindal is in complete command of the state's Board of Elementary and Secondary Eduction. Candidates favored by the governor and others who believe in his style of "reform" swept all three BESE runoffs: Kira Orange-Jones won District 2, Chas Roemer took District 6 and Carolyn Hill won District 8.

According to this article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell, that means the governor "could have the support of nine or 10 members after months of 6-5 votes on key school topics."

The governor's only disappointment in the BESE races came in District 3, where St. Martin Parish School Board Human Relations Director Lottie Beebe defeated long-time incumbent Glenny Lee Bouquet in the October 22 primary.

In this article by Gannett's Mike Hasten, Gov. Jindal reports that he is happy with the new, right-leaning BESE. The new members seem to be struggling to maintain their own identity, but will that last when the governor applies pressure?

Expensive charter school: One charter school in Jefferson Parish spends $87,500 per student, according to this article by Times-Picayune reporter Barri Bronston. The school, which was established to serve students who have been expelled from middle schools for various offenses, has seven teachers and eight students.

That news prompted the Monroe News Star editorial writer to question, in very understated fashion, the wisdom of spending that much money on one school: "it's important to note that even charter schools require some close supervision."

"Within our local systems," the editorial notes, " you could ask Ouachita Parish Superintendent Bob Webber or Monroe City Schools Superintendent Kathleen Harris what they could do with $87,500 per student, and we are quite certain either one of them would respond that an investment of that much public money per student would result in a world-class school system."

Teach for America: The growing influence of Teach for America was explored in this article by Times Picayune reporter Andrew Vanacore.

Once seen as a sort of Peace Corps that brought idealistic young college graduates into hard-to-staff schools, Teach for America has become a political as well as educational force to be reckoned with.

Best known is John White, currently the superintendent of the Recovery School District and Gov. Jindal's pick to replace Paul Pastorek as State Superintendent of Education. But newly minted BESE member Kira Orange-Jones is also a TFT alum, along with the new executive director of BESE and Gov. Jindal's new policy advisor.

A little justice for some Filipino teachers: The Caddo Parish School Board has done the right thing and settled with the U.S. Department of Labor, awarding Filipino teachers in the parish some $1,300 each because of their entanglement with a crooked recruiting firm.

It is a small step to correct a much larger injustice. The settlement only applies to a specific charge brought by the U.S. Department of Labor against the Caddo school board. It leaves open U.S. allegations against other school systems, and does not deal with the LFT complaint, filed with the State Workforce Commission, that Filipino teachers were forced to pay fees that should have been paid by school boards under Louisiana law.

Value Added Model: As the state tests a new teacher evaluation scheme called the Value Added Model, questions are popping up about how fair it will be.

Reporter Sue Lincoln filed this story for the Southern Education Desk, in which LFT President Steve Monaghan questions how well the new system will actually measure teacher effectiveness.

The privatization of public education: In an epic article for The Nation, reporter Lee Fang exposed the "quiet but astonishing national transformation" of public education into a cash machine for big business.

Lobbyists, he writes, have "combin(ed) the financial firepower of their corporate clients with the seeming legitimacy of privatization-minded school-reform think tanks and foundations."

Focusing on virtual schools, he writes, "This legislative juggernaut has coincided with a gold rush of investors clamoring to get a piece of the K-12 education market. It’s big business, and getting bigger: One study estimated that revenues from the K-12 online learning industry will grow by 43 percent between 2010 and 2015, with revenues reaching $24.4 billion."

Local Federation chapters grow together: Educators in Caddo and Bossier parishes can expect to see their influence grow with the creation of the new Red River United Federation.

As reported here by Mary Nash-Wood of the Shreveport Times, the new organization combines the power of the Caddo Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel and the Bossier Federation of Teachers and School Employees.

"It will essentially be a super group over the two organizations," said CFT President Jackie Lansdale.

Lawyer says Filipino recruiter will appeal fine

The attorney for a recruiter charged with victimizing Filipino teachers in Louisiana says he will appeal an order demanding repayment of $1.8 million in improperly collected fees, according to this article by Advocate reporter Joe Gyan, Jr.

Last spring, Administrative law Judge Shelly Dick ruled that Universal Placement International and its owner, Lourdes "Lulu" Navarro illegally collected fees from about 360 Filipino teachers hired to work in Louisiana schools. That decision was part of a much larger investigation into Navarro's practices, which the teachers' union representatives likened to human trafficking. The Filipino teachers are represented by the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers in the action.

Navarro has a history of violating the law - she has been convicted of defrauding a government agency in California and of money laundering in New Jersey.

Navarro's attorney, Murphy Foster I, appealed Judge Dick's decision. On December 30, District Judge Janice Clark of Baton Rouge upheld the original ruling. In a move already expected by Federation attorneys, Foster says he intends to appeal Judge Clark's ruling to the State Court of Appeal.

In defense of the indefensible

What do you do?

Your client is a convicted felon who's been found guilty of violating Louisiana's labor law, and has been ordered to repay victimized foreign teachers some $1.8 million in illegally charged fees.

The foreign teachers who were ripped off by the client joined a union which brought the case that resulted in the judgment.

That same union unearthed evidence that your client is guilty of violating Racketeering Influenced Organized Crime statutes, and is assisting in a federal suit to claim damages on behalf of the foreign teachers.

You appear in district court to ask a judge to overturn the ruling against your client.

What do you do?

If you are the attorney for the disgraced and disreputable Lourdes "Lulu" Navarro and Universal Placement International, you claim that the union actually hates the foreign teachers on whose behalf these actions were filed. You claim that there is a secret union plot to get rid of the teachers.

And you hope that you've made enough noise to deflect attention from the uncomfortable facts of the case.

Advocate reporter Joe Gyan covered the story for this report; the LFT Web site has more information here and here.

Another shoe drops in Filipino scandal

Another shoe has dropped in the ongoing Filipino teacher scandal. In April, an administrative law judge found that the company which recruited Filipino teachers for Louisiana schools was guilty of breaking state labor law, and fined Universal Placement International $1.8 million.

Today the Louisiana Federation of Teachers announced a federal RICO lawsuit against UPI, its sister company, PARS, and the principals of those companies.

But it goes deeper than that. Also named in the suit, filed by the American Federation of Teachers, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Covington and Burling LLP, are the East Baton Rouge School District and some of its administrators. It is charged that they actively participated in a scheme in which foreign teachers "were cheated out of tens of thousands of dollars and forced into exploitative contracts by an international trafficking ring run by labor contractors."

“For more than two years, we have been working toward this moment,” said Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan. “The practices described in this lawsuit are disgusting, unacceptable and, frankly, un-American."

It is amazing that the recruiting agency was able to do business at all in Louisiana. Its president, Lourdes "Lulu" Navarro, had served jail time in California for defrauding the state medical system, and was found guilty of fraud in New Jersey as well.

Watch for some disturbing and shocking revelations when testimony is heard in this case.

“Bondage and harassment” alleged against Philippine recruiter

AFT Attorney Dan McNeil, left, grills Universal Placement International director Jack Navarro in a Louisiana Workforce Commission hearing.

(Baton Rouge - April 6, 2009) Filipino teachers in Louisiana saw the wheels of justice take a turn on Monday when the state’s Workforce Development Commission held a hearing on the validity of contracts that allegedly violate state and federal law.

In the next two weeks, an administrative law judge will rule on complaints filed against Universal Placement International by the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers. The company recruited Filipino teachers for Louisiana classrooms.

Testimony by teachers revealed shocking details of company practices that one called “bondage and harassment.”

“The alleged behavior of this recruiter and the treatment of these teachers is quite frankly disgusting and an affront to basic American values,” said LFT President Steve Monaghan.

Penalties that could be assessed against the California-based UPI include the voiding of all contracts with Filipino teachers, refunds of the thousands of dollars in fees paid by the teachers, and fines.

A director of the company, Jack Navarro, admitted under oath that the company does not have a license to act as an employment agency in Louisiana and does not maintain an office here, as required by law. Since the complaints were filed, he said, UPI applied for a license and was denied.

To read more of this story, please click here.

Philippine government shuts down recruiter

Thanks in large part to complaints filed by the Louisiana and American Federation of Teachers, the Philippine government has shut down two companies that recruited Filipino teachers for Louisiana school districts.

The companies, Universal Placement International and PARS, are accused of
extracting huge fees from teachers in The Philippines, and continuing to drain their paychecks after they are hired by Louisiana school systems. LFT President Steve Monaghan characterized the companies' practices as "disgusting and an affront to basic American values."

News of the Philippine government's action is here; EdLog's complete coverage of the issue is here.

Pastorek: state needs policy on foreign teacher recruiters

Responding to the scandalous treatment of Filipino teachers by the firm that recruited them to work in Louisiana, State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek now says the state should have a policy governing the use of such recruiters.

As reporter Karina Donica writes here for the Alexandria Town Talk, several local school districts and the state Recovery School District have hired upwards of 300 Filipino teachers through a company called Universal Placement International. These districts, she writes, "could be facing significant penalties if it's found the firm broke federal law."

In the Town Talk report, Pastorek tells the reporter that the state has also recruited teachers from Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, France and Canada. Those teachers have been hired through international trade agreements, and not through recruiters like Universal Placement.

Universal and its president, Lourdes Navarro, are the subjects of official complaints filed by the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and our national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers.

To see a complete list of EdLog entries about the Filipino teachers and the story of their abuse, please click here.

USA Today slams Filipino teacher recruiter and local school officials

USA Today reporter Greg Toppo and Shreveport Times reporter Icess Fernandez collaborate in this story to bring readers the most complete account to date of the ordeal faced by Filipino teachers in thrall to an unscrupulous recruiter.

They are among the first reporters to get an interview with one of the teachers, who have been reticent because they fear retribution from Lourdes Navarro, the notoriously litigious recruiter at the heart of the scandal.

Navarro declined to be interviewed for this story, as she has for all the others that appeared after LFT filed complaints with the Louisiana Attorney General and Workforce Commission.

Aside from the personal interest angle documenting the trauma experienced by the Filipino teachers, Toppo and Fernandez explore the possibility that some Louisiana school officials were complicit in Navarro's scheme:

If they violated state or federal labor laws, the districts could face
substantial penalties: Federal law says they could be on the hook for millions
in fees. Already, the Caddo Parish school district in northwestern Louisiana has
agreed to pay $1,660 to each of the district's 43 teachers recruited by
Universal — and has reserved $400,000 for "reimbursement for any potential
claims sustained" by teachers.

Clearly, this will not be the last story about the unfolding scandal.

Next shoe drops in Filipino teacher scandal

Adding to the troubles faced by Filipino teacher recruiter Lourdes "Lulu" Navarro, the American Federation of Teachers has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor. The complaint alleges that Navarro's company, Universal Placement International, violated federal laws when it exploited, intimidated and threatened the teachers.

The federal complaint follows closely on the heels of charges filed with the Louisiana Workforce Commission and Attorney General, alleging that Navarro violated state laws when she recruited over 200 Filipino teachers to work in school districts across the state.

The AFT complaint, at 141 pages long, includes allegations that some Louisiana school districts "submitted false statements to exceed the cap for work visas," according to this article by Shreveport Times reporter Icess Fernandez.

AFT President Randi Weingarten pledged the union's support for the aggrieved Filipino teachers, saying "The allegations, backed by the facts, show these teachers to be victims of worker abuses like the ones in our students' history books: indentured servitude, debt bondage and labor contracts signed under duress. at makes these allegations especially heinous is that the victims are good teachers, that school districts and tax dollars are involved, and that all this is taking place in 21st-century America."

To read more, please click here.

Pastorek: I know noth-eeeng...

State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek does his best Sgt. Schultz impression for this story, telling Shreveport Times reporter Icess Fernandez that he didn't know his office had cancelled a contract with a recruiter of Filipino teachers.

Also in The Times - which has covered the Filipino story better than any other news outlet in the state - is an editorial reminding us that the Filipino teachers are victims, and that their qualoifications and abilities should not be tainetd by the scandal.

Many of the Filipino teachers are members of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. We filed the complaints on their behalf because that is what we do. It is who we are. We exist to represent teachers and school employees, and we do it better than anyone else.

Caddo looks at foreign teacher policy - what about the others?

The Caddo Parish School Board is working on a policy to control the district's relations with third-party recruiters such as Universal Placement International, the source of an ongoing scandal involving Filipino teachers.

As Shreveport Times reporter Icess Fernandez writes here, the Caddo board already has a first draft of a policy that "would require that administrators submit documents to support their recommendation of a particular recruiter or recruiting company."

When will other school boards involved in the scandal - East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, the State Recovery School District and others - take action to avoid future problems?

Watch the LFT's Filipino teacher press conference

There is now a video online to view the LFT's press conference about Universal Placement International and the plight of Filipino teachers who were recruited by the company.

Please click here to watch the video.

Editorials condemn Filipino recruiter, demand action

Demand is mounting for full-scale investigations of the abuses perpetrated by Filipino teacher recruiter Lourdes Navarro and her company, Universal Placement International.

From the Shreveport Times:

Solving our teacher shortages is critical if we are to ensure the best education
for our children. But what was once viewed as a resourceful answer to filling
these gaps has now become a huge embarrassment. It deserves now a full
investigation. And wherever fault lies, let's hope hard lessons have been
learned.

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

The Filipino workers have helped fill a shortage of teachers after Hurricane
Katrina, and the exploitation they allege should be intolerable. If the
accusations are true, officials need to stop this abuse before more foreign
workers are victims of it.

This is a story that won't be disappearing from the news any time soon.

Vallas: Filipino recruiter should be prosecuted

The superintendent of the state Recovery School District says the RSD has severed its connection with the company that recruited Filipino teachers to work in Louisiana.

Paul Vallas told WWL-TV reporter Paul Murphy for this story that Universal Placement International and its owner, Lourdes Navarro, were awarded a $47,500 contract to recruit Filipino teachers for hard-to-staff positions in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"We weren't comfortable using a for profit company to help us recruit teachers," Vallas told the reporter. "So, after that summer, we had no further use for them."

Vallas told Murphy that he believes the Filipino teachers should sue the recruiter to recover their losses, and that criminal charges should be filed against Navarro.

Board member's shocking, cruel reaction

"If they've got buyer's remorse and don't like what they have, then they can go back."
-Caddo Parish School Board member Barry Rachal

So here we have a what seems to be a clear-cut case of illegal activity: an unlicensed recruiter scams hundreds of Filipino teachers out of thousands of dollars, and keeps those teachers in what amounts to servitude.

And what does Caddo Parish School Board member Barry Rachal have to say about the victims?

"They signed an agreement, a contract," he told Shreveport Times reporter Icess Fernandez for this article, "and they were all thrilled to death to have a job in America and now they want to gripe about it. If they've got buyer's remorse and don't like what they have, then they can go back."

Except some of them can't go back, even for the Christmas holidays, because the recruiter is holding their work visas until the teachers cough up the vigorish they owe.

Rachal's comment might sound shocking and cruel, but it is also a symptom of what's wrong with American capitalism these days. If it's in the contract, it's OK. Whether or not the contract is with a corporation that operates legally, whether or not it violates principles of human dignity, whether or not any public agency has properly investigated the contract.

Get out of the way of business, and let business do what it wants. If people get hurt, so what. As Rachal puts it, "...sounds like they (the teachers) are not honoring their agreement."

That is the common thread running through the health care industry and the securities market that nearly brought us to financial collapse and the human trafficking at the core of our so-called immigration problem. Without regulation, oversight and prosecution of abuses, an unfettered "free market" can be very wicked indeed.

As any sports fan can tell you, all games need rules, referees and penalties. Otherwise chaos reigns. That's what happening in the case of these Filipino teachers. Politicians who can't see that are likely part of the problem.

Outrageous, offensive abuse of Filipino teachers

(From left, AFT Attorney Daniel McNeil, LFT President Steve Monaghan and East Baton Rouge Federation President Carnell Washington discuss allegations against foreign teacher recruiter Universal Placement International)

"Disgusting and an affront to basic American values." That's how LFT President Steve Monaghan characterizes the treatment of Filipino nationals teaching in Louisiana. The villain in this case is the recruiting agency that extracts huge fees from teachers in The Philippines, and continues to drain their paychecks after they are hired by Louisiana school systems.

(Jefferson Federation of Teachers President Meladie Munch, left, and United Teachers of New Orleans President Larry Carter explain how Filipino teachers recruited by Universal Placement International are faring in their local school systems.)

The charges involve multiple violations of state and federal laws. Attorneys for AFT and LFT said the union is asking that the teachers’ contracts with the California-based recruiter be voided, and that the recruiter be criminally prosecuted under state law.

Lourdes “Lulu” Navarro, the president of recruiting firm Universal Placement International, is a convicted felon who has served jail time in California and was also convicted of crimes in New Jersey. After treating some Louisiana school officials to Philippine Island junkets, she was allowed to recruit more than 200 teachers for Louisiana schools.

Each teacher recruited to work in Louisiana was charged about $15,000 by Navarro to obtain a job, and was then required to sign over 10 percent of the monthly salary to UPI for two years. The total amounted to some 37% of the teachers’ salary.

Teachers who could not afford to pay the fees up front were directed to loan companies by Navarro, and were charged exorbitant interest rates.

The story, revealed by LFT at press conferences in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, is available on the Federation Web site.

LFT's revelations were widely reported by the news media, including this story by Advocate reporter Will Sentell; this one by New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter Sarah Carr; and this story by Shreveport Times reporter Icess Fernandez.

Video reports are available here from WAFB in Baton Rouge; here on WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge;
here on WDSU-TV in New Orleans.