Long post title with shortlink (short enough to “tweet”): 4th Quarter 2016 Review Part 1, of Who’s Pushing Things “First 5” (and K12) Public School “Transformation” (Sticky, published 12-13-2016)

Short link to Part 2 (similar title, “4th Quarter 2016 Review, Part 2, of Who’s Pushing Things “First 5” (and K12) Public School “Transformation,” incl. Ounce of Prevention Fund (Sticky, publ. 12-13-2016). Link will be provided again at the bottom of this post again, both published the same day.  The proportional split is about ⅓ Part 1, here, and ⅔ Part 2, there.  Because of the last-minute decision to split, some references here such as “in this post below” may actually refer to Part 2.

The decision to split was made after discovering important information about an organization called NACCRRA, whose former Executive Director is now positioned high up in the Head Start/Early Head Start and Child Development Fund position at HHS, which is explained on this post. Looking through that situation I was transfixed with the scope, centrality, and purpose demonstrated in the associated tax returns, and spent almost two days going through them, and posting/annotating several images to the blog.

I had never heard of this person’s name, but was reading a post she’d authored on the White House announcement of a billion-dollar campaign for early childhood education (Dec. 2010 Summit).

(Left Image above is Valerie Jarrett at a 2010 White House Summit on ECE.  More captions provided below where the same images recur, but larger.  I also just noticed (from “ChildCareAware® of America” website) that there is a Renee Boynton-Jarrett, MD, ScD (Princeton, Harvard, Yale) on the board and wonder if they are family or related.  (2009 FAQs from USNews on the famous White House senior advisor; current from Boston Univ. on Boynton-Jarrett). Also a member of the Yale Child Study Center and a Circuit Judge from Oregon are on that board..

501©3 is NACCRRA, ChildCareAware® Academy Website is, naccrra.smarthorizons.org. Good luck finding an admission of who NACCRRA is on that website, or even a street address (it’s a VA address, CA legal domicile, and has been since the start–inc. 1987)

ChildCare Aware® of America also appears to be a dba (?) of the nonprofit NACCRRA, but not even their 2015 Annual Report lets on the relationship, nor on the bio blurb at HHS of Linda K. Smith, Deputy Assistant Director  (within HHS/ACF) for Early Childhood Development, is the term “Child Care Aware® of America even hinted at:

(See NACCRRA section, below in this post (read Para. 1 here). My concern: we have a central position for just ONE person, Linda K. Smith, re: nationwide coordination of Head Start, Early Head Start, and Child Care Development Fund, and as a liaison with the US DOE and other federal agencies, and the most recent work experience cited is to an organization going by a DBA not referenced here, nor does the organization’s website use the term “NACCRRA” or in its written out form, nor provide an EIN#, nor a street address.

All this is high-intensity lookups with major “scope of operations” (basically, the next generation of children in the USA, excepting those who are not in the public school systems only), so IF looking at such things is unfamiliar, it may also be high-intensity reading, but no apologies on this end.  You want to know what’s going on in this country?  You MUST to understand by viewing some of the details.   Is there really something more critical to understand than how our own government works, and with whom it is establishing critical relationships (i.e., the nonprofit = the corporate sector)!

Which reminds me, Part 2 also reminds US what are public school districts as government entities, quoting from the US Census of Governments.  Understanding what IS an entity (public or private = government or business) leads to clues where to look for the financials, which is ALWAYS relevant, and sometimes much more relevant than the information provided on any of a variety of websites, whose names, banners, or logos may have little do with the actual entity name.  

This type of detail typically will NOT be headline news, and headline news is not constructed so as to deliver this type of information.  It is closer to the background, the “CPU” of government itself, or I should say, public/private partnership which most people are not privvy to, but will be affected by.  Part of my lookups reveal just how obscured (hidden) that operating system has been, and just how easy it has been to distract the public (again, see most headline news, not that they shouldn’t be read or heard, but — so should this type of information!).

If you think about it, government (generically) is in large part the administrative processing of cash receipts and expenditures, investments of assets acquired and managing of the attendant liabilities.  It’s basically, accounting, an economic undertaking, backed by the power to enforce and the authority (since a certain famous Constitutional Amendment in the early 1900s) to in particular, set and collect (under duress for nonpayment) the personal income tax.

Feedback is always welcome in the comments field, hopefully after reading the post.  Use PageDown function if available to for a preview; there are images of articles, quotes, and of annotated tax returns.  By the way, the Donate buttons on the blog are still active (but I am not a 501©3 so it’s likely not tax deductible).

HOW THIS POST BEGAN:

On 11/19/2016 I removed material from Table of Contents 2016 post to shorten it but not de-emphasize it, and I hope to put this as third post in line after the top two on the blog.  Moving this material is in part blog maintenance (housekeeping), but I don’t want it moved into “cold storage” and ignored.  [On 12/13/2016 I have now posted — in two parts, both “Sticky” to near the top of the blog.  In fact, the “moved” material is now on Part 2, but everything in between is still related, and relevant to current conditions!]

Any move within the blog typically comes with an explanation of context, and often more development of the theme, with the the subsequent post also naturally splitting into sections, but each section may have mentions or threads of reference to the others.  It is rarely a 100% clean break.  That’s just part of the writing process, or at least my writing process, keeping these ideas and topics under observation and also considering as I find it, what is the larger picture, as it changes over time, and how can I communicate that understanding — in blog format.

In this one, I was already looking at nonprofits seeking to transform the public school system (not just the “First 5 Years” part of it) through outside leverage from certain nonprofits.  I looked at one of these discovered some of the investment platforms had been, ah, er, heavily dedicated in its early years to “Bernard L. Madoff” investments, and later were taking certain payments (or repayments of stolen funds) from the same.

Naturally, this along with the illicit behavior already known about said nonprofit and/or its affiliates, should be at least brought up.

Bringing it up exposed that a single family line with a background in the online business and technology media, whose nonprofits were definitely playing down that the “family publishing business” just sold by its NY-based owners was sold for $920 million — not a sum the average family has access to these days — and sold to an individual whose major base of operations, and nationality, was the UK. (Dec. 2, 2014 obituary of the father, more details on next generation’s activities, further down on this post).

Meanwhile, the same family line in the US has been setting up multiple smaller nonprofits and related organizations, plus a privately controlled LLC (or so), justifying multiple websites referring to their generosity and accomplishments and spreading the good news about how to digitally transform the schools and achieve gender and racial equity and close income gaps with their stockpiled, revenue-producing assets and in association with others who have, historically, lived the same type of business life — building (which at times entails acquiring other businesses) the business empires, reducing taxes on it through formation of tax-exempt entities (some big ones, and lots of smaller ones), teaching their offspring to do the same, having their offspring control the multiple nonprofits (adding board members from time to time to conceal the historical tight control of operations), and from there, tell the rest of the country how to educate their own children without the same privilege (that’s the “very short” overview of part of the larger scenario).

So this material, and that family line’s activities, intersects with something I also posted on recently:  See post published 11/18/2016 evening.  Some material and recent insights in this Intro and later Drill-Down section comes from it and if read, gives the background  ConnectED + MPR Associates Inc. + Gary Hoachlander, WestEd, and the US Dept. of Ed, with help from James Irvine Foundation. I just spent “too much time” on that post, on DC-based “Alliance for Excellent Education”

As to FIRST 5 (and First Five Years Fund)

As to “FIRST 5” as a theme, and the First Five Years Fund (website FFYF.org) which I was researching one or two months ago, what’s reflected here is only part; I have stored other information in draft, not having yet figured out how to weave them into one post without too much repetition, or to develop each with its basic theme.

One theme, for example, was WHO or WHAT IS the organization “First Five Years Fund” (<==ffyf.org website)– IS it an organization?  If so, what kind, for-profit or not? Does it have an EIN# or is it a program of some other organization? (That question has been since answered, and I will post the proof.  As usual, the best place to find out may not be on the website named after the initiative, or even description of those behind it, except to provide more clues while looking for an actual entity name of that which is being talked about as though it was indeed a business entity with the last word and only noun being of its four-word title being “Fund.”

I will be quoting from and commenting on an article )“Meet the Funders behind the First Five Years’ Fund“ by L.S. Hall, which provided a key clue — the relationship of “First Five Years Fund” (FFYF for short) to an earlier Chicago nonprofit, “Ounce of Prevention Fund.  (Note:  There are Ounce of Prevention Funds in other states, and not all refer to the same subject matter. The reference to the one I’m curious about came from an article in “Inside Philanthropy,” is now almost exactly two years old, and was apparently for circulation among philanthropists and those who subscribe to the magazine.  No one particularly felt responsible to post this information clearly on the FFYF website.   On further investigation, I can see why.

Briefly, we can already see that “FFYF” is either an organization (para 2 of quote below, maroon) spearheading the “Invest in US” initiative, with “Washington” being standard code for “the public” …

i.e., US federal government funding, probably USDOE) taking — almost as with that HHS/OCSE-administered child support enforcement $4billion/a year investment (ongoing) — a 2:1 burden (although on Child Support the 2:1 was Federal:State, meaning that as to both, the public was still propping up ⅔ of that infrastructure).  Here, Washington is to offer $700 million in grants to programs and the other sector $300 million, which is obviously a greater than >2:1 ration (2:1 would be $600M:$300M).

Or, in the very next paragraph quoted, “FFYF” isn’t an entity but an effort affiliated with the Ounce of Prevention Fund, differing in that FFYF also operates (who is the operatOR here, really) in D.C. too. (??)
So, if FFYF is now an effort instead of an entity, then what does that make “Invest in US” which read phonetically, does actually say “invest in us” — meaning the “us” of that those actually contracting to the public/private partnership?

(from Inside Philanthropy December 2014, we see an idea in part from Chicago — former Senatorial home of current (as of this writing) US President Barack Obama):

Meet the Funders Behind the First Five Years’ Fund by L.S. Hall

…Earlier this year, there was My Brother’s Keeper, a $200 million initiative to provide greater support to boys and young men of color. This week brought news of a much larger partnership focused on early childhood education. President Obama announced a new $1 billion public-private campaign to expand the availability of preschool programs for children across the country. Under this initiative, dubbed Invest in US, Washington** will offer more than $700 million in grants for Preschool Development and Early Heard Start programs, with the remaining $300 million coming from philanthropic and corporate sources. An organization known as the First Five Years Fund (FFYF) will run the program.

You may not have heard of FFYF, but we bet you’ve heard of the Ounce of Prevention Fund. FFYF is a national advocacy effort affiliated with the Ounce, which focuses much of its work in Illinois, particularly the city of Chicago. FFYF and the Ounce of Prevention Fund share the same Chicago address, while FFYF also operates in Washington, DC. FFYF traces its beginnings to 2007, when a group of advocates for early childhood education saw a need to better leverage their funding for these activities. They formed FFYF to capitalize on the potential of public-private partnerships and bring together representatives from business, government, philanthropy, and academia.

“Invest In Us” image below found from FFYF.org website, with a side-article, after multiple clicks deducing that the organization website, inbetween advertising, was NOT going to “out” what kind of entity or non-entity “First Five Years Fund” actually was.

I have since found out (while writing this post) who, what and since when was “First Five Years Fund” but won’t spill the beans before granting a taste of what it took to dig this information out –and just how many other nonprofits, collaborations, and Form 990s (filed by some of the leadership) with major math, labeling, categorizing and other glaring errors (?? in the most lenient interpretation of such “Form 990-filing outcomes” by the self-appointed leaders of children under 5 years old  and those educating them, those were “mistakes” and doesn’t represent anything illicit), raising “just a few” concerns about how this type of activity might be called up on to “fix” anything related to, ah, numbers, or reading (i.e., basic literacy), are involved.

Below, notice the wallpaper and the double meaning (how clever) underneath what is probably supposed to represent children (minus mouths, noses, hands, or ears), i.e., “invest in “us” kids — but in the context and with the red white, and blue colors, also to be equated with “invest in the US(A).”

This is a photo of Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama, at “Investinus.org” website, and regarding a December 10, 2014 White House Summit chaired by Arne Duncan, Sec’y of Education; it is one of six sliding home-page banners for the site InvestInUs.org.Click for full-sized. See next image (from same banners on home page of the site) showing other participants, including Hirokazu Yoshikawa of NY Steinhardt…also posted on a NYU website.

OR, Caption from NYU Steinhardt article (quoted to right) displaying the same photo: “(Screenshot photo from left to right: Hirokazu Yoshikawa (NYU), Eric Gordon (Cleveland Metropolitan School District), La June Montgomery Tabron (W.K. Kellogg Foundation), Sherriff Russell Martin (Delaware County, Ohio), U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.)

(****light-blue background and fine-print marks the quote)

The article I quoted, showing the same photo as on “InvestinUS.org” shows up, naturally — it’s where Yoshikawa works — at NYU’s “STEINHARDT SCHOOL OF CULTURE, EDUCATION, AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT,” which for some (including some living a continent away and who have had small children growing up on, say, the West Coast, and not the Boston/NYC/D.C./Baltimore/Philadelphia corridors, or say, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and here, also NYU…) may bring up the question, “so who or what is NYU| Steinhardt? (Although the name Steinhardt is well-known, who is this particular school in this particular university may not be).

This Dec. 10, 2014 White House Summit features (with mike on photo) Hirokazu Yoshikawa. I had become aware of him as an “ECE” expert earlier in 2016, while blogging some marriage/fatherhood (and abstinence) grantees and activity in Alabama and Georgia, found their “CPC” system citing to an institute on promoting the field, and starting some posts on just HOW IS IT that the two fields of psychology and education have been permitted to, basically, become ‘THE” cited experts to drive federal policy?

When it comes to “holistic social change,” Steinhardt correctly identified which profession comes first, in fact which two — mentioned three times in a row below, “plus some” after making the point:

NYU Steinhardt’s one-of-a-kind integration of education, communication, health, and the arts puts us at the heart of a movement: education for social change.  (from http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/about/)

…Our academic programs are ranked among the country’s best.

NYU Steinhardt’s undergraduate programsin applied psychology, studio art, teacher education, health, media studies, music and music professions, and educational theatre combine inquiry in the liberal arts and sciences with study abroad and hands-on learning.

Our master’s programsin applied psychology, education, health, media, music and performing arts professions, and the arts and arts professions attract recent college graduates, established professionals seeking licensure or certification, and career changers.

Advanced certificate programs allow you to pursue study in specialized areas of applied psychology, art, education, music and performing arts, and physical therapy.

We offer PhD programs that prepare graduates for careers in academic research and teaching, as well as professional doctoral programs for advanced practice in educational leadership, occupational therapy, and physical therapy.

We’re redefining holistic education.

Our students belong to a strong and supportive community of scholars – a warm, nurturing environment that encourages the exploration of new ideas. Our faculty lead in their professional fields and collaborate across academic disciplines: teachers working with psychologists and health professionals, musicians with speech pathologists, educators with visual artists. They work with students to research topics like the effects of immigration on learning, childhood nutrition and obesity, and how digital media is transforming social relationships. Our research institutes impact scholarship and policies around the globe.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY (since 1831), nonsectarian, considered a top research university, has globally-located campuses and has graduated some of the world’s top Fortune founders and “17 living billionaires” (Wikipedia).  WIKIPEDIA IS ASKING FOR DONATIONS AT THIS TIME…

NYU is influential.  It is private, it is nonprofit, and it is, says Wiki on its history, the largest landowner in New York City.  Its alumni are wealthy (17 living billionaires) and have been throughout influential.  Founded in 1831 (with a school of law), it did admit women in 1888 at one of its campuses (with protests).  In the 1920s it attracted some of the most talented Jewish students who were being rejected at other ivy league campuses (along with, I must mention, women who only obtained suffrage in the US in 1924!!), and at one point it began going global, establishing campuses overseas (Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Shanghai, recently Paris), with some adverse consequences for the workers involved on campus construction (i.e., slave-like conditions helping this multi-billion-dollar, urban, research university expand its reach).

I can’t put it all on this post.  However, in the context of this post, the positioning at NYU |Steinhardt of an Early Childhood Expert includes awareness of who is NYU, not just NYU | Steinhardt.  Accessible as a separate published (but not otherwise advertised on the blog) page, “New York University” Wiki and History or similar title

I left in a map of AAU membership in the USA (NYU is one member) showing vast, uninhabited (by AAU members) of the West (except California), Midwest, and most of the South except the East Coast.  In the Midwest, you can see the universities radiating out from Chicago.

Yale, Harvard, MIT, Boston University, and others, are members, along with many reading “University of” — which, if followed by the name of a state, generally means a public university.   AAU tend to be large and focused on research, as well as membership being “by invitation only.”  It’s a “prestige” thing. yet the same NYU was constructing an overseas campus (with government of Abu Dhabi involved) right after another capital fund-raising campaign, which simply enslaved the workers, and did not stop until the New York Times exposed it ca. 2009.

From the link (Wiki) to AAU:

The AAU was founded in 1900 by a group of fourteen Ph.D.-granting universities in the United States to strengthen and standardize American doctoral programs. Today, the primary purpose of the organization is to provide a forum for the development and implementation of institutional and national policies, in order to promote strong programs in academic research and scholarship and undergraduate, graduate, and professional education.

Benefits[edit] The largest attraction of the AAU for many schools, especially nonmembers, is prestige…

From Wiki on AAU (Association of American Universities) viewed 12/2016

 

From pdf (Portable Document Format) to PNG file, check out search results on the key expert above.  My comments, instead of on here, are on the PDF, as these images show:

Pushing Universl PreK US=essential step to Globalizatn~~RE~>FFYF LLC | Oz of Prevntn (Chicago 501©3), Dec2014 White House -InvestInUS- Summit ($1B ECE campaign), UN Sustainble Devpmt Goals Scholar~~> Hirokazu Yoshikawa ECE – 2pp Search (links ACTIVE).png

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As a shortcut (for readers — not me!) to presenting “WHO IS?” this particular individual and, more important, who’s been behind him and similar experts in recent years for this cause, I did a Google Search.  The links were loading so slowly (at present), I turned the search results into a two-page pdf, annotated it (plenty of graphics, and my comments) and am posting it, as well as two images of it, here.

<==These two images (to left and below, heavily annotated, with red borders) mimic what’s on the single, two-page pdf; click on next link to see it full-size: pushing-universl-prek-usessential-step-to-globalizatnreffyf-llc-oz-of-prevntn-chicago-5013-dec2014-white-house-investinus-summit-1b-ece-campaign-un-sustainble-devpmt-goals-schola

Note: While links in any image displayed will NOT be active, links displaying within pdfs probably still are, if they are still active on-line, that is.   I often start with an image (*.png file), annotate, and then send it to pdf (*.pdf file), especially when it’s an image without interior links, such as parts of a Form 990PF (tax return), in which case those enclosed links would not be active.  But when I start with the pdf, (annotate, if I’m going to) and then export to an image (“*.png file) , the links on the original “pdf” (which displays here as a link only) WILL be active — if they are still valid links on the Internet.

Note: As on any Google search, the active links are the titles above the fine-print-green string of text although those may look more like actual web addresses. Use Google/basic search competency it’s just a snapshot in time; two-pages of search results with added  “Let’s Get Honest” commentary inside colorful blurbs, arrows and a couple of stars.  See full-size, again, by clicking here:  http://tinyurl.com/HYoshikawaSrch-LGH-annotated.

What’s fascinating about Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education at Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, is how someone who had ALREADY gone Yale (summa cum laude 1987) AND Juilliard, located in NYC (easily one of the top 5 or 10 music conservatories in the country, particularly for people focused on concert careers — and not in music only, but well-known for its musicians, classical and popular, and some actors), then also went NYU and Harvard — and into psychology!!  As a musician, I simply do not understand how this could happen — unless the concert life just wasn’t for this man:

• 1998 Ph.D., New York University, Psychology (Clinical Psychology).
• 1992 M.A., Psychology, New York University.
  1989 M.M. (Masters in Music), Piano performance, The Juilliard School.
• 1987 B.A. summa cum laude, English literature, Yale University

For some reason, he made a major career switch — or the piano was just a minor break in his academic career, after which he went 100% “Psychology” and “Education.” From that C.V. (just part of page 1, Academic Employment), you can see the “Courtney Ross” designation as of late 2014 was only about a year old.  The next FOUR images below (borders: black, blue, red, and thicker red) are from a January 2016 C.V. and I hope readers will consider the contents. Link is in annotated pdf above, and also here.

H Yoshikawa CV, Honors and Awards (partial).  See also (next images), GRANTS – RECENT ONES — RECOMMENDED READING TO COMPREHEND (“GET”) that LOW-INCOME, URBAN FAMILIES ARE BEING CROSS-COMPARED WITH “CONFLICT-RIDDEN” COMMUNITIES IN LATIN AMERICA AND ELSEWHERE, THANKS TO MAJOR GRANTS FROM US DHHS, DOE, AND OF COURSE PRIVATE FOUNDATIONS (ANNIE E. CASEY, EINHORN FAMILY CHARITABLE TRUST, SAVE THE CHILDREN USA, AND OTHERS)! (images will have red borders in this post):

Grants and Awards (with last bit of “honors” for overlap)

More Grants (note bottom of p.4, Yoshikawa C.V., references Bernard van Leer Foundation (may not show in image)

Apart from this expert, for people who have their “connected” radar out to read all HHS and USDOE “blogs,” who are on the White House Economic Policy Council email lists, who perhaps subscribe to Inside Philanthropy or other publications which would MAKE SURE the information got out timely — and who just a few days before Christmas 2014 had nothing better to do than catch up on this type of information — we also might have seen this touching photo, coordinated with the other PR, to announce this Billion-dollar public/private funding opportunity over at HHS, under the title “Big Day For Early Childhood Education at the White House” with a photo of our current (as I write, 2016!) President and presumably a little baby girl in his arms, beneath which the fine print talking about “InvestInUS” as the name of the campaign, and in finer print yet, that the funding would be coming from (or rather, through) HHS and DOE and “Up to $750 million,” as well as that he was responding to recent news from the Economic Policy Council:

(Next two colorful images below left, but see above link for the whole page):

Image #2 of 2 for “Big Day for Early Childhood Education at the White House” (from HHS blog, 12/22/2014)

After those two images, the article continues, talking about disproportionate expulsion (by race in particular) from Pre-K/Child Care and Head Start, Early Head Start as an ongoing problem, for which the solution is more mental health funding for the earliest ages children:

I clicked on that link, to see the message, “Forbidden – you do not have permission…”

…To see a list of the grantees??? (Image of error message provided below).

Again, article title, date, and author:

I clicked on “Linda K. Smith” but found only 3 posts in 3 years (Next image and mustard-colored-background quote).  The middle one, June 15, 2015, (if clicked on — not in its lead-in text) a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) you might want to read (at least in hindsight) stating that full school days for Head Start are better than half days, and the longer kids are in it, the better for their learning. Here’s an image + link in its caption, the image contains a url to view the middle post, which includes this language:

<=Click image to full-size pdf. Head Start is a major HHS investment, grants to state agencies and other providers tend to be continuing and huge — last summer — a major overhaul emphasizing “more = better” (Full Days in Child Care for little kids) — is slipped into the middle blog, with a 60-day comments window. I posted that URL on the image. Or click here for plain text article: http://www.hhs.gov/blog/2015/06/16/increased-head-start-quality.html#

… The Head Start Program Performance Standards describe how local grantees provide comprehensive Head Start services to children and their families. They encompass requirements to provide education, health, mental health, nutrition, and family and community engagement services, as well as rules for local program governance. And, they reflect what it takes to run an effective program where children thrive and enter kindergarten ready to succeed.

For the first time since the Head Start Program Performance Standards were introduced in 1975, the Office of Head Start (OHS) is issuing a proposal for a complete overhaul of these Standards.These standards, based on the best research and effective program practices, will provide an updated and streamlined foundation for Head Start to provide the highest quality services to improve outcomes for all the young children and families they serve.

The revisions will help Head Start programs focus more on child outcomes than on processes and plans. They put in place higher standards for curriculum and professional development based on research and best practice. The proposed Standards strengthen Head Start’s commitment to comprehensive services, including health and family engagement, which are a hallmark of Head Start and vital to helping children succeed and working families flourish.

One of the most significant changes we propose is to ensure that all center-based programs operate for a minimum of a full school day and a full school year. Many Head Start programs already serve children in full-day/full-year programs. But, children in programs operating under Head Start’s current minimums spend less than half of the time in the classroom that children in full school day, full school year programs do. Parents intuitively understand what strong and mounting evidence from research tells us – when children are in programs that last longer, they learn more.

This proposal, which will officially be published on Friday as a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) in the Federal Register, represents an important next step in Head Start, which has long been a leader in early learning. I hope you think so too. I urge you to read the proposed standards and then let us know what you think….(by August 18, 2015)

HHS’ Linda K. Smith & Prior Employer “NACCRA” (USA ChildCareAware)

Linda K. Smith, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development (HHS description of her current responsibility/function, and a few paragraphs of work history.

Middle paragraph (previous involvement with a national child care association NACCRA) and before that legislative fellow and staffer under the late Sen. Ted Kennedy; before that, the military, and she’s a graduate (degree or major, not shown) of Univ. of Montana.  First early childhood education experience was on a Cheyenne reservation.

Smith previously served as the executive director for the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA), where she represented more than 650 community-based agencies concerned with the care of children in their earliest years. Linda Smith led the organization through significant growth and transformation- she was the driving force behind NACCRRA’s national policy agenda and strategic plan to improve the quality of child care nationwide. Key components of NACCRRA’s advocacy efforts included strengthening child care licensing and oversight, requiring comprehensive background checks, and establishing minimum training requirements for all child care workers.

Unbelievable, and why I tend to go “just one more step” when something catches my eye as possibly significant, particularly a national association (=private) seeking to organize something to be obviously funded and regulated (as to who gets that funding) by significant public resources, existing health and human services funding.

Here (read Para. 1), we have a central position for ONE person, Linda K. Smith, regarding nationwide coordination of Head Start, Early Head Start, and Child Care Development Fund, and as a liaison with the US Department of Education and other federal agencies.

Sound like a central, command-control situation?

Yet the immediately preceding work background from which she comes it turns out is as executive director of a nonprofit which (I learned, from looking it up) is primarily government-funded (both as to grants and program service fees) and dedicated (as to grants distributed and program service accomplishments described)towards providing child care for military personnel, and assisting both military personnel and the providers through what looks like direct grants to individuals, NOT organizations (per Schedule I), in the last year shown, of $51M.

Total receipts was $72M (gross).  This is also showing as a California legal domicile with an Arlington, Virginia address. WHY?  It shows no Schedule-R “related organizations” however as a nonprofit, its supplementary information indicates that there are voting (CCR&S) and nonvoting (state networks supporting the CCR&S agencies). Basically, this is functioning as a government operation, but not organized as one.

National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) EIN# 943060756, formed in 1987

Here are the tax returns (last 3), top row showing board of 13, over 1,000 employees, and again, three out of four program service activities (and most of the money) directed towards serving the military sector.

California Secretary of State Registration:

**Correction — latest available tax return showed this, however, a subsequent one (FY2014, YE9/30/2015) was found at California Charitable Trust, and related RRF, I did see “3rd Floor.”

Showing website, gross receipts, Arlington, Virginia address, 1987 founding, but California legal domicile, as well as that the Fiscal Year ends 9/30 — so the latest year shown is for fiscal year “2013.”  Where is the more current filing, which ended 9/30/2015, over one year ago?

CLICK for full-size, annotated image: naccrra-fyr2013-990-ein943060756grossreceipts-courtesy-mostly-govt-72m-va-addr-1515-n-courthse-rd-11th-flor-arlingtn-but-ca-domicile-military-emphasisscreenshot-2016dec11-pm

Do I believe the US military should have access to excellent child care?  Yes, like the rest of the people who need and opt for it, which is NOT everyone.  But this should be reflected in fundings traceable from the USDOD, and if run through a nonprofit, that nonprofit should be required to produce better documentation than a simple statement, “we paid $51M of assistance to 23,808 (unnamed) recipients.”

Also, do I believe that the ENTIRE US Education system, from Early Childhood Education forward, should be run by someone whose most recent experience (and prior) is in the private, if you can call something this dependent on government support actually “private” (it is as an entity, if not in function) military sector, as well as previous work experience, yet the HHS website does not even post a college major or degree level for the person in charge (Ms. Smith, presumably as I see no Ph.D.)?

While that implies and I’m sure requires excellent organizational and admininistrative skills, it also implies a certain mindset which may not translate well into handling an entire nation’s worth of young kids.  Wow.

OVERVIEW:

Showing California Charity Registry is “Current” (as well as the registration #).

califcharity-virg-address-naccra-ein94-3060756-1987-charity-srch-resultscurrent-screen-shot-2016-12-12

The “Details” page has its own story to tell, for example drastic increase in revenues by 2006, at which time it switched the fiscal year from the calendar year; some missing Form 990s for earlier years, consistently late (by about a half year) registrations (RRFs) as a charity, and from the looks of the “Details” pattern, the missing tax return (i.e., for Fiscal Year 2014, ending 9/30/2014) somehow the “Revenues” were about half the previous year.  One wonders why.

Here’s a “pdf” (4pp, annotated to explain my comments above) of the Charitable Details, viewed 12-11-2016, referring to its financials from Jan 2001 – August 2016, and a few images to show what types of notations I’ve made (which are, inci**dentally, proprietary; they are my work product; see also WordPress TOU/Terms of Use for more clarification and/or any exceptions to things posted here). I’d like this information known — but it should be linked to the blog for better comprehension, and my name; especially after all the effort put in!  

see-hhs-ece-person-lindaksmith-bio-chartbl-details-4pp-courtesy-califoagrct-of-naccrra-ein943060756-recpts-started-11m-in-fy02-71m-by-fy2013-militarychildcare-focus-of-org

Page 4 of 4, see separate single-page-pdf** for the annotations on this page (not seen on the 4-pager)

(**image comments-annotated-p4 of 4-only  (<==click to read p4 notes, NACCRRA char. details)

Comments discuss the most striking aspect is rapid increase in revenues and assets, for which their sources (and how assets are held — for example, “pledges receivable” (which, here, means, mostly from gov’t) is one category of assets; they are not all “cash in hand” (cash or savings) and from what I could see, this entity isn’t exactly investing in public-traded (or other) securities.  Their main source of ongoing revenues seems to be, to put it bluntly, “government.”

Because of this, and because of what position a recent (sounds like) executive director moved into — that is, under HHS — what this organization is doing is included on this discussion of “ECE” and who’s pushing for more of it. Again, I just noticed the author of a blog to find the information; it’s just attention to details, also at times instinct certainly helps (instinct developed over time in the general field here).

There is much more behind this entity (I just went through almost all of its RRFs, and several tax returns, noticing the avoidance (in later years) of correctly answering the simple question on the RRF (state charitable reporting form), which was also delivered, usually VERY late, when it says “who’s your Daddy?” was there any government funding?  If so, provide THIS information (which included contact telephone and person).   Founding Documents from 1987 (41pp) show from the start it was set up to be regional (8 regions, probably corresponding to HHS nationwide regions at the time).  naccrra-founding-dox-41pp-1987inc-ca-entity-sf-orig-agent8-regions-but-no-cal-charity-registry-shown-before-2007

No, I do NOT see any Charitable Registration for this organization in California before Year 2007, i.e., until 30 years after its startup.  That doesn’t mean there was none, however the only evidence I have so far –and on those “founding documents” points to that possibility.

Another article 2012 featuring “Week of the Young Child” and an Alaska base CCR&R (child care resource and referral) explains how far the promotion goes back, and implies that NACCRRA changed its name, which I see no evidence of.  It may have acquired a dba:

Child Care Aware and thread honor Begin @ “JuneauEmpire.com” 5/5/2012 (no author shown)

…The Week of the Young Child was first established in 1971 in recognition of the fact that the early childhood years lay the foundation for a child’s future success in school and in life. The theme for the Week of the Young Child 2012 is “Early Years are Learning Years.”

“We are pleased to join with thread to commend the work of Senator Mark Begich,” said Ollie M. Smith, Interim Executive Director of Child Care Aware of America (formerly NACCRRA, the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies). “Senator Begich is a leader for young children. He understands the importance of the earliest years in a child’s life and how important those years are to laying a foundation for future growth and development.”

In March, Senator Begich introduced three bills to strengthen early childhood education. The first bill, S. 2180, the Tax Relief for Early Educators Act, will offer up to $3,000 in tax credits to early childhood educators and increase the child care tax credit so more parents can afford to put their children in quality child care programs. A second bill, S. 2181, the Preparing and Re-investing in Early Education Act, will create a new student loan forgiveness program for graduates of associate’s or bachelor’s degree programs in early education. Lastly, S. 2182, the Child Care Public-Private Partnership Act, will establish a program to provide child care through business partnerships. Matched 50/50 (50 percent from private sector businesses and 50 percent from federal funding), this program would expand the supply of affordable, quality child care for working parents.

As we saw, not three years later, the proportion our President and Administration had in mind was more like 2:1, with the “2” representing the public part, and in references to a billion-dollar initiative….

“Senator Begich is clearly looking for creative solutions to strengthen the quality of care,” said Smith. “Children should be safe in child care and in a setting that promotes their healthy development.”

Also in March, Child Care Aware of America released a report, Leaving Children to Chance: 2012 Update. “The report shows that states vary greatly with regard to their child care licensing policies,” said Smith. “But, most states have weak protections for children.”…

thread is one of 47 Child Care Resource and Referral Networks across the nation. The Alaska Child Care Resource and Referral Network was formally established in 2008.

wow-recd-may222014-laterjan2016-oag-ltr-requests-missing-fy20112013-form990s-naccra-rrffy2011-under-execdir-lynette-fraga-finally-answers-ptb6-question-completely- (and reveals $61M out of $64 was from the Dept. of Defense, only $186K that year from HHS…)

wow-recd-may222014-laterjan2016-oag-ltr-requests-missing-fy20112013-form990s-naccra-rrffy2011-under-execdir-lynette-fraga-finally-answers-ptb6-question-completely-and-shows-61m-dod-min (<click to read both images here)

I looked up the 2008 IRS Form for this entity (tweak the year-end date on any url in table above to access; with some variations (change of organization YE date or whether it filed a 990EZ instead of 990 may also be involved. With those two variations, if 990finder.foundationcenter.org has the return uploaded, you should be able to find it), showing Linda K. Smith Executive Director.

From its page 2, Part III (Line 4) Program Service Accomplishments, in a year where revenues were $46M total, these are the fine-print descriptions of Program service Accomplishments, Lines 4a,b, and c (there was nothing on “d” for “other”).

I’m copying that text to show a suspicious figure, and that is that its revenues under two activities exactly matched the Expenses (Expenses — left side, Revenues, i.e., from program service activities, right).  In another, revenues exceeded expenses, and the other, while they did not, revenues were still over $2M.

Also what those activities were — primarily focused on servicing families in the military, also in Americorps and VISTA (abbrev. some to get $$ all on one line):

4a (Code )(Expenses $36,334,216 incl. grants of $24,265,516)(Rev. $38,874,204)

FEE ASSISTANCE NACCRRA WORKS WITH THE U S MILITARY SERVICES TO HELP THOSE WHO SERVE IN THE MILITARY FIND AND AFFORD CHILD CARE THAT SUITES (sic) THEIR UNIQUE NEEDS THROUGH SEVERAL INNOVATIVE CIVILIAN/MILITARY EFFORTS BETWEEN THE SERVICES, NACCRRA AND CHILD CARE RESOURCE AND REFERRAL AGENCIES (CCR&RS) ARE BUIDLING (sic) THE QUALITY AND CAPACITY OF CHILD CARE THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY DURING THE YEAR, NACCRRA SERVED 17,646 CHILDREN IN MILITARY PROGRAMS NACCRRA ALSO PROVIDES CHILD CARE SUBSIDIES FOR MEMBERS OF THE AMERICORPS AND VISTA PRGRAMS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES NACCRRA SERVED 2,143 CHILDREN IN THE AMERICORPS AND VISTA PROGRAMS DURING THE YEAR

4b (Code ) (Expenses $ 4,635,547 incl. grants of $1,743,575 ) (Revenue $ 4,635,547 )

RESPITE CARE NACCRRA RECRUITS, TRAINS, PROVIDES BACKGROUND CHECKS, AND MENTORS AGENCIES WHO PROVIDE CHILD CARE OF SPECIAL NEED CHILDREN OF MARINE CORPS AND NAVY FAMILIES DURING THE YEAR, NACCRRA SERVED 1,190 CHILDREN IN THE MARINE CORP AND NAVY RESPITE CARE PROGRAMS

4c (Code ) (Expenses $ 920,295 including grants of $ 0 ) (Revenue $ 920,295 )

CHILD CARE AWARE PROVIDES HIGH QUALITY CHILD CARE CONSUMER EDUCATION TO FAMILIES SEARCHING FOR CHILD CARE AND LINKING FAMILIES TO LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS THAT PROVIDE CHILD CARE REFERRALS THROUGH A TOLL-FREE HOTLINE AND WEBSITE – CHILD CARE AWARE, OVER ONE MILLION PARENTS ARE SERVED ANNUALLY

[**] (Code ) (Expenses $ 3,311,606 including grants of $ (Revenue $ 2,049,639 )

4d Other program services (Describe in Schedule 0 )
(Expenses $ including grants of$ )(Revenue $

4e Total program service exps $ 45,201,664 Must equal Part IX, Line 25, column (B).

From FY2008 Form 990, p2 bottom, for NACCRA

<==see added info w $$ entries, then a blank “4d”

Actually, after all that, extra, I see that Schedule O DOES explain the added-in money, calling it “Line 4d”

On 12/13/2016, I split this 22,000 word post in “half” at “Ounce of Prevention.” The other part begins with “Ounce of Prevention Fund” information.

SEE CONTINUATION POST!

Similar title, written earlier, both published the same day, Dec. 13, 2016.  The proportional split is about ⅓ here, and ⅔ there)  “4th Quarter 2016 Review, Part 2, of Who’s Pushing Things “First 5” (and K12) Public School “Transformation,” incl. Ounce of Prevention Fund (Sticky, publ. 12-13-2016).  Unfortunately, the post displays Part 2 on top when both are sticky, I DNK why.)