Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

Put THIS post School Facilities Planning Roundtables (2008 in California) and the Internationally-conferencing Trade Association Re-Branding Runaround (case-sensitive short-link ending “-6Zr”) together with this one, please, called: Yet Another “Recent Research Suggests” link (2015 quoting pre-2010 source)~ unearths Yet Another Chameleon Corp. and its (Yet Another, Also Recently Re-branded) Partner, ALL Targeting the $20 Billion School Supplies, Facilities, Technology and “Learning Environments” Marketplace. Internationally, of Course. (with case-sensitive shortlink ending “-6Wy”)

Some images from this post give a  preview of its contents:

CEFPI (“Where great schools begin) logo shown (2013) on an “Education Markets” Association web page as a “Partner,” the website (vs. 501©6 name) was “EdSpaces.com.” Click image to see the Dec. 2013 conference page

[CLICK IMAGE for more from “ABOUT US” page] The Education Market Association (EDmarket) is the leading trade organization for the educational products marketplace. [TIMELINE shows this name dates only back to 2013 before which it was the National School Supply & Equipment Association (NSSEA). EDmarket puts the collective experience of the most successful school industry businesses in the world at your fingertips. EDmarket represents companies of all sizes that produce and deliver every type of product you find in an education environment. Founded in 1916, EDmarket promotes an open market for quality educational products and services that are produced and delivered by professional suppliers and dealers.

Ideally, both posts will be posted today, June 10, 2017.  I could do more work on this section (i.e., post more of the material I researched, including more screenprints and narratives explaining the issues the tax returns present).  But I’m taking a short break from it after some very intense days working through the material.

Also — is this not true? — once the point has been raised, anyone of reasonable intelligence and persistence, with familiarity to IRS Forms 990 (or 990O, 990PF where that may apply) could also look through any tax return to see if it’s:

• complete
• internally consistent in both labeling (i.e., if grants were provided — say so on where the form prompts for information about grants (In a Basic Form 990, 2008ff (the form changed around that time) that’d be:  Page 1 Summary; Page 2 under “program service accomplishments” (lines 4a,b,c & d, “Expenses…. including grants of …”), Part VIII IX (Statement of Expenses) Line 1 “Grants” and if there are some, find the corresponding Schedule (“I” for domestic, “F” for outside the US) showing “GRANTS TO WHOM.” And where the form prompts for a grantee EIN#, was it provided.  Was the listing of grantees even legible and so forth.
• internally consistent for numbers reported under each section.

And, to:

• simply look at the various pages, and extract the organization’s statements about itself, its activities, any related (Schedule R) entities, and any “anomalies” such as having a major cost under “salaries” while claiming NO employees.
• look at progression or changes in funding, expenses, or how tax return is filled out (incl. Schedule A of support) over time (including earlier returns especially).
• if there’s a number requiring explanation in an attached Schedule (such as Schedule “O”), notice if that explanation is given on the uploaded document you are viewing.
• notice when and whether patterns of avoidance seem to recur.
• if the entity is large ($50-$100M assets, or over $1B or more, as some major foundations are), where are the largest expenses, and if that’s grantmaking, which grantees get the biggest ones over time.
• just be observant!

If questions come up on what is the filing rule, another source of information is simply the IRS itself (they do have an 800#) and as I read, some questions whether I’m understanding the instructions on the form do come up.  BUT, you can still learn a lot about any entity from its tax return, or better yet, from several from the same entity, one year compared to others, a lot more than if you never looked it up!

I use the word “entity” often because there are “non-entities” posing as “entities,” for example when a named program or initiative is spoken about as if it had a life of it’s own, that program or initiative is probably someone else’s (some other entity’s, or combination of entities’) puppet, or prop.  NO program or initiative exists in a vacuum; it’s going to occur in a context (platform, stage) and it has promoters, and even if it’s 100% volunteer run (the exception), it has costs.

The word “entity” also prepares us to distinguish between government or business entities, which then locates them on the tax continuum (government entities CAN tax, but their profits are not taxed.  They may and do pay employment tax for their employees — but the overall government entity’s excess revenues after all expenses and overhead, no matter how large it may be, IS NOT TAXABLE.  Business entities occur in for-profit and not-for-profit forms, i.e., taxable (depending on the level of income after write-off of expenses and so forth), or not.  Look at any Form 990 Schedule R, [2008ff] “related entities” and notice they are divided into categories “disregarded” “tax-exempt” “taxable as a corporation” and “taxable as a partnership or trust.”

Apparently those distinctions (terms) are meaningful to the IRS, and they should be to us when programs in the public interest are promoted and reported on to us, or (should we eavesdrop on the industry journals and roundtables where they are provided on-line) to each other.

Post technicalities: Read in either order, but know the one you’re looking at was written first and that because it represents a split, some internal references (“above here” or “below here”), if I don’t catch them all, might refer to the other post of this dynamic duo.  Also, there are some “off-ramps” to both posts, on which the “home destination” may be labeled that second link (“Yet Another Recent”) when it was actually to the part I’ve moved to this one, with “case-sensitive short-link ending “-6Zr.”)

Post payload (both of them):

They have overlapping subjects; this is (approximately) where the drill-down began, and the other post I’m linking to (Yet Another “Recent Research Suggests”…unearths Yet Another Chameleon Corporation…) went deeper and wider as I discovered a whole other category of associations operating (several of them) out of a single office in the state (of California) capital, Sacramento, and run by a firm one of whose partners has a history working in the Department of Finance and on Education matters, most of his career (Murdoch, Walrath & Holmes).  Several I did find Forms 990 for (however as mutual benefit entities they didn’t have to file at the state level, meaning government agencies contributing, annual registration reports, founding articles, etc., were not available through the state Charitable Registry).  One of them named a “County School Facilities Consortium,” I haven’t been able to find any Form 990 filings for (B/W image below).

Associate (profit or nonprofit org.) membership fees — $595.

An amazing “amnesia” exists among those promoting certain kids of school bonds and those reporting on them for how they are playing the taxpayers, burdening with long-term debt and unnaturally high interest payments when (in several cases) that debt comes true.  Although this has been reported, extensively, in the news and presented to the (County Board of Oversight Commission) in California, the table talk goes on among those in the industry as though it were not a factor, and just did not exist — from what I saw so far).

Into this mix, my contribution is naming some of the parties involved by their operating sector (trade association, center at university, government department or agency, school district, etc.) and reminding us all that the underlying reporting vehicle still IS for government entities, the CAFRs; the ramification of not reading CAFRS, and (working on this now) a clear report, in its own words, on WHO has been setting and can, at will, change the reporting rules (an $86 million (total gross assets at last available tax return shown) tax-exempt foundation in Norwalk, Connecticut, called the Financial Accounting Foundation, set up in the early 1970s. This FAF has two boards — FASB and GASB, and has delegated its authority (but not absolute control — board of directors of FAF still retains overall control) on the rulemaking.

That is an “in-the-works” post, although I left some preview material on the second post referenced above.

I spent several days on this, learning and posting at the same time; I already knew the school infrastructure nationally and in California was massive, was undergoing not just structural, but also funding and raising-capital changes, some of them made possible by passing “initiatives” to get on the state ballots. Initiatives can come from either the legislature, or from “the voters” (which, cases in point here also, may well included moneyed lobbies who stand to profit as developers, architects, or government employees (high-ranking) when billions more are made available for their projects).

As a parent with no current minor children, currently no grandchildren (that I’m aware of!), and who doesn’t have the highest regard overall for public education versus other ways of educating children with fewer damaging side effects, better academic and social outcomes (documented), including acceptance under scholarships to reputable liberal arts colleges, and far lower administrative overhead because it’s just more flexible, efficient, and personalized, I was not particularly eager to get down in the trenches on some of the details on how things have been restructured for “21st Century Learning.”

But I live in the 21st century too, and this information is relevant to parents and nonparents. Looking into this also reveals so much into how the overall systems work, and what place the “commoners“ (individuals not trying to institute a one-world global government, not considering other people’s children “MY” children by association, and in short, people who seek to mind and conduct their own life’s business, (hoping and expecting based on their ongoing support that when it comes to preventing criminal behavior, by family members or strangers, white-collar crime and other kinds, this government will at least periodically protect them, too) occupy in relationship to the government and its facilities they already support, long-term, ongoing, just by living and working in the USA.

This information on the various school industries, trade conferences, networks for transformation, facilities/infrastructure renovation lobbyist and trade association groups, also fascinating information on the chasm between common perception and underlying realities.

I have read several times in the literature (of such groups) that the school infrastructure (DNR whether referring to PK-12 only, or through college/university levels) infrastructure is the second largest public investment only to the highway and bridges in the USA.  So you can imagine what an attractive market niche it would be to those who got their first for “transformation” purposes.

I know I will not ever get ALL the industry-related nonprofits who can’t or won’t tell the truth on their tax returns, if and when they get around to filing. But, I can at least put some names on the table, show who’s working with whom, and question the “Roundtable, Commissions, Public/Private = the Road to Perfection” way of managing the population, and steering policy and operations for almost all major aspects of life in America.

If we have no REAL say in planning, or in how tax receipts are spent without sacrificing such significant time and life energies** and plowing through websites which strategically withhold that information

(**…apart from that engaged in just staying alive and establishing, for example, boundaries around a working life, or boundaries around our time and person when (as happens so often with domestic or family violence survivors from this OR recent generations) we may need to rebuild it from scratch in the middle of ongoing strategic war to prevent that rebuilding — and for long-term control of anything left in the way of individuals, or assets…)

…then what is the over-arching administrative infrastructure THERE for — or, what are WE here for? To occupy some physical space and support others’ career curves in pretending to attempt to eradicate bad things for the poor or oppressed? To be exploited while the Social Science and Behavioral Modification R&D continues, if not on some of us as parents, on our children — and through the massive education system and its various professionals struggling to dominate the marketplace with their friends and internationally-conferencing colleagues?

Here’s where I started writing this post:

I could do short titles IF I just listed entity acronyms, but most people not working for, conferencing with, or contracting with the entities, quasi-entities, or their mega-regional trade show events (conferences/ marketplaces) probably wouldn’t recognize them, and my intent here is that people NOT working at or advertising through these entities but supporting their market niche through taxation and compulsory education laws at least in the USA, do.  The market “niche” happens to include the public schools AND colleges AND community development (as related to the same) sector, and the organization names have been adjusted accordingly from, for example a trade association historically referencing “Schools Supplies & Equipment” (NCSSEA) and with the word “National” in its name to one referencing “Education Markets.” Or the one formerly a council for “educational facilities planning” (already labeled international) to a name implying all children, all learning, everywhere, that is, “learning environments for all children.”

Even when some of these entities conference or sponsor an initiative, get quoted by their colleagues, I see they still can (and do) suddenly re-brand themselves from top to bottom (name, websites, and even names of certification programs — I’ll show it) , while not posting financials at either former or current websites. Would you recognize these acronyms, relating to the main two entities in this post? CEFPI AL43, NSSEA, EdMarket + “BEST Collaborative”?

But, all have partners, and all have places (typically conferences) to meet-up, which adds to the mix of catchy phrases communicating, well, NOT the underlying realities, it would be closer to this list:

CEFPI, AL4E, NSSEA, EdMarket, 21stCSF, EdSpaces and LearningScapes, or, even with a few directional signs and dates as signposts:

What the annotations don’t explain the post context, probably, will.

CEFPI ~ ~ >(2015) AL4E + (partner found at EdSpaces) NSSEA ~~>(2012)EdMarket.

But, to tell the whole story (starting at tab#1 in the annotated image to my left, which is where it started, for this round of drill-downs and look-ups…), I’d have to add: NCSF (functionally VERY related), TAP (an sponsor of NCSF via 21stCSF).

Technically speaking, the former CEFPI Charitable Fund sponsored 21stCSF — although in the piece quoted, it was really Ford Foundation sponsoring the BEST Collaborative of which 21stCSF was only a small part.  That said, 21stCSF ca. 2012 jumpstarted NCSF (both in D.C.) with $50K help from (CA-based) TAP (The Advancement Project), although this $50K was not then granted to NCSF — which itself I have seen, though DNR where, as a grantee of some other 990PF filer.

Lost yet?  Don’t be.  We are talking about a $20 billion (as of 2013) industry which these larger and smaller, older and newer fish are feeding off — and that’s school systems (internationally, but with several of the originating nonprofits taking advantage of the U.S.A. for their substantial population tax base, in order to set up tax-exempts “the better to service you with…”)

So instead, here’s my appropriately sarcastic title, descriptive by category, not company names:

Yet Another “Recent Research Suggests” link (2015 quoting pre-2010 source)~ unearths Yet Another Chameleon Corp. and its (Yet Another, Also Recently Re-branded) Partner, ALL Targeting the $20 Billion School Supplies, Facilities, Technology and “Learning Environments” Marketplace. Internationally, of Course. (with case-sensitive shortlink ending “-6Wy”) [[UPDATE: Note, that no longer refers to the post you are reading, but to its counterpart. See top of this post!]]

I found YET another tax cheating organization cited by the 21st Century School Fund, Inc., as having sponsored its research.

This grandiose-sounding entity (CEFPI) Council of Educational Facilities Planning International in Scottsdale, AZ:  abruptly changed its name in Sept. 2015 to “Association For Learning Environments” (A4LE.org); is clearly organized regionally (country and state lines are well, who cares about them? — although that affects support of public school funding!); and is nevertheless conducting professional training for other entities apparently, like AIA.  I saw the forms.  I looked at the Forms 990 (earliest available, and most recent) and  I showed a local friend, as in “rubbing my eyes — is this what I think it is?” on the tax returns.

CEFPI (“Where great schools begin) logo shown (2013) on an “Education Markets” Association web page as a “Partner,” the website (vs. 501©6 name) was “EdSpaces.com.” Click image to see the Dec. 2013 conference page

[CLICK IMAGE for more from “ABOUT US” page] The Education Market Association (EDmarket) is the leading trade organization for the educational products marketplace. [TIMELINE shows this name dates only back to 2013 before which it was the National School Supply & Equipment Association (NSSEA). EDmarket puts the collective experience of the most successful school industry businesses in the world at your fingertips. EDmarket represents companies of all sizes that produce and deliver every type of product you find in an education environment. Founded in 1916, EDmarket promotes an open market for quality educational products and services that are produced and delivered by professional suppliers and dealers.

“…and what a market it is…” according to EdMarket.org’s timeline —

“The K-12 instructional materials market, including textbooks, supplemental materials, and technology products, totaled $19.430 billion in sales in the 2012-13 school year. It is projected that sales in 2013-14 will be $20.979 billion, a 7.9% increase compared to the prior year.

(In 1986 — 70 years after it started, 20 years ago, approx. — the then- “NSSEA” even let a women “man the helm” of the association targeting sales to a profession that, historically, had been one women were allowed and encouraged to enter, as opposed to most of the other ones!  (i.e., teaching)….) I also see from a quick look that its filing habits resemble those of CEFPI (for example, manually typing in “Membership dues” in the wrong place on “Statement of Revenue” — and leaving the pre-printed “membership dues” IRS prompt blank, at the top.  It is a trade organization; maybe that’s why?  However, also (and I looked at several years worth, briefly) they have almost NEVER filled in page 2 of the IRS form (“Program Service Accomplishments”) and habitually do not list all their directors where prompted (on the form).  This entity is in Silver Springs, MD.

They have a related entity (Memorial Fund, EIN#521578986, which (like main entity) leaves blank its “Year Founded,” seems to have not filed any return before 2007, and after 2008, they are showing up at Form 990-N Post-cards),*** and are in the primary business of running industry conferences (i.e., tradeshows).

Total results: 4. Search Again.

***Re: EIN#521578986 (related entity still being reported, a Memorial Fund last showing assets of $155K or so, but no revenues over $25K or (since FY2010 the limit was) $50K year after year.  Are scholarships being distributed when there are no revenues, and the last three (“0 hrs/week” and no employees) directors lived in: Georgia, Texas, and Illinois for this Maryland-located entity?

(Partial Screenprint for post visibility  only; see nearby clickable image of same thing) EIN# shown as having filed Forms 990-N (statement of low revenues) 2009 – 2015 from IRS Exempt Org Search website -relates to the current “EdMarket.org (Education Market Association) a 501©6 entity in MD

(Click to see Full-sized)EIN# shown as having filed Forms 990-N (statement of low revenues) 2009 – 2015 from IRS Exempt Org Search website -relates to the current “EdMarket.org (Education Market Association) a 501©6 entity in MD

Do not ANY of these organizations even care about their colleagues’ behaviors? Or are they “like choosing like” as in, “if you’re corrupt, welcome to the crowd — wanna make a deal?” So long as it comes in a multi-color pdf on a halfway-respectable looking website under a good theme song about the public benefit, what it actually represents, simply doesn’t matter any more?

That example: “Recent Research Suggests” link under “Ticking Time Bomb” (<=links to an image) article below, in this section of my page.  Next screenshot quoting one nonprofit (logo at bottom) another Collaborative (“BEST” — admits it’s  Ford Foundation-sponsored) and the short-lived (after this report, by that name) “CEFPI” shows that, at any point in “reportage” you are likely to need “translation” of several, not just one or two, “entity” names to understand the financial and network relationships between them. While taking money from different sources, the 21st Century School Fund, which claimed starting 1994, shows some evidence of having been itself “Funded” by 1999, I have only been able to locate its first tax return (showing by then a well-developed purpose and connections) not until 2000, for Ford Foundation to come in by 2002 already with $1M, shows more than average connections to some major power structures.

This link, “BEST” info stored at the 21st Century School Fund website leads to description of BEST (scroll down to read 2002 press release acknowledging Ford Foundat’n Involvement, see links to pdfs and brochures on the operations. That page is © 2002-2006

Older image regarding the “BEST” Collaborative established by the 21st Century Schools Fund (see my other, mid-May posts on UCB CC+S for more details).  The street address shown appears to have been the Executive Director’s home, before it moved to the Thurgood Marshall Center for Heritage and Service in D.C.

Click image if needed to see better. This document (predates Sept 2010) was cited in a 2015 article on Capital Appreciation Bonds in iNews.org (shown below in FamilyCourtMatters.org page “About My Blog Motto” published late May 2017)

It’s in the “details” and the “drill-downs” that understanding can seep through the ongoing promotion, public relations, and pictograph iconography about how great causes A, B, C — later to be combined with D & E — are supposedly.

These next images reference a topic I brought up (see annotated images above) in the “Map to this Page” section on “About My Blog Motto” (also found on the post promoting this page by a different, longer title).

The EIN# of this entity, which easily leads to its tax returns on Form990 Finder (or any other database of tax returns for nonprofits), is EIN# 38-1774261; it claims origins pre-dating World War II and even the Social Security Act (that is, back to 1921…). Note: Images on this page may cause surrounding text to display erratically (weaving its way between the images) despite my best efforts to mitigate that.

Another image from 2-15 Annual Rept of the re-branded entity CEPFI “now known as” Assoc for Learning Environments” (notice the expanded point of reference from “Educational Facilities” under CEFPI. Certifications had to be re-branded also, and this announced at a conference in San Diego CA taking place after the “CAB” (Cap. Apprec. Bonds) fiasco — particularly in So Cal — was getting, imho appropriately, negative press for the long-term debt burden and 10:1 payment-to-principal ratios. The greater the investments, the better, apparently, for the industry, “forget” the impact on the taxpayers (….)

More Images from the A4LE.org Website show the regionalization and state/national/border-crossing:

Click image for better view if needed (A4LE.org Mission & Vision page)

Three images (two from 2015, one from 2002) raising some “reporting” issues with the CEFPI turned AL4E 501©3 that just wants to encourage communities to support education and have better learning environments for all the children:

They file late, inaccurately, and internally and over time inconsistent tax returns, while on the tax returns (over time) as some entities do, specifically dodging the IRS form’s request to list any websites (when they’ve obviously had websites):

This network targeting, primarily it seems, education facilities which BY LAW must be provided in the USA (and other countries) therefore will be drawing down public funds for support of the system, and professionalizing it, still wishes to operate a bit out of the public’s eye in general, that is the public not involved in drawing down funds, running the conferences, or cutting the deals.  As a nonprofit, it remains SMALL in size.

See images:

CEFPI FY2002 return Pt V (Dir, Officers, Trustees…) showing (1) Wm. DeJong (at-large volunteer) and (2) a 40h unpaid executive director, and (3) only4 people.

Year 2015 (delivered 7 mos late, it says in Nov 2016) Pt I top. Click image to view if needed

FY2015 Pt VIII Revenues show 0 contributns (Ln1) but strangely labeled (Ln2)Prog Service Revs.(for more info see whole return)

Below here is material developed later in the drill-down. Another version (posted not at CDE.ca.gov but at UCBerkeley Center for Cities and Schools, and labeled “Discussion” in stead of “Report”) is on the other post (“Yet Another….”), but it references the “CEFPI” mentioned above. Always when reading, try to remember what year you are in regarding other material presented with specific timelines.

Oct. 15-16 2008 Roundtable “Re-Visioning School Facilities Planning for the 21st Century,” Report as posted on CDE.ca.gov (Calif. Dept. of Educ)This is 68 pages long, double-spaced.

I’m posting three images from the END, remarks by Superintendent Jack O’Connell, and then by Kathleen J. Moore of the Schools Facilities Planning Division (the one that Gary Mehlua, who participated in the Jan. 2009 report I heavily annotated above in related post, apparently stepped down from, per news articles, in a heated debate over division direction).

I’m posting these because the Superintendent admits his role in lowering the voting threshold to pass those school bonds, which facilitated (as I’ve recently been posting — on my long “Page” promoted in a recent “Post” also, links near to top of this post) those Capital Appreciation Bonds.  Which the bond holders are SURE to appreciate when they come due — that is, if they aren’t forcibly defaulted on when property taxes can’t pay the 10:1 or other exorbitant interest on the long-term debt when they come due.

And, I’m including a screenprint (comment section following the superintendent’s) which references the organization CEFPI specifically as involved.  Obviously, all of this is a very big deal — and it took place eight-and-a-half years ago!

I also have several more images from the front part of this report, further down.

Image 2 of 3 from closing comments on Oct. 2008 Roundtable (CDE.ca.gov-posted report)

Image 1 of 3 from closing comments on Oct. 2008 Roundtable, State Supt of Public Instructn is proud that as a state senator, he “led the charge” to pass Prop 39, which lowered voting % to approve LOCAL school bonds, leading to $29B in bonds since 2000 (some of them — how many? — CABs).

Image 2 of 3 from closing comments on Oct. 2008 Roundtable, this because it references CEFPI (KJMoore of School Facilities Planning Div)…

I started keeping screenprints — here are several from that document now many years old.  In reviewing WHO was on the roundtable, by name and type, the name Randall Fielding of Fielding-Nair International (FNI) caught my attention, as I found it advertising in the nonprofit I intend to show tax returns for, today in this post. Fielding-Nair (representing two individuals, architects I gather) is also a member of the nonprofit entity NOW called Association for Learning Environments (but formerly, “Council on Educational Facilities Planning, International, “CEFPI”).  Fielding-Nair, naturally, are also associated with the AIA, (American Institute of Architects in D.C., its EIN# is 53-0025930) as a trade association.

I looked at several FNI sites (already having discovered it was involved in master-planning for the schools in Puerto Rico) and annotated a 5-pointed star on the image below where it shows up on the Roundtable. I’ll let the images speak for themselves; they are all (I believe) “Clickable” to enlarge if needed and not necessarily in order.  Notice one of them says, “these guidelines are not binding on local educational agencies….”

Notice that even the subtitle “Learning Environments” echoes what will later (2015?) become part of an association name while the title, of course combines two phrases already co-opted in combination by “21st Century School Fund,” whose executive director is on the roundtable (despite coming from D.C., not California) and also acknowledged by the roundtable report preparers (CC+S UCB), whose co-directors were its lead authors, etc.

American Institute of Architects logo, as found on Amazonaws.com

Star annotation: Earlier, I didn’t know about FNI (“Fielding Nair Int’l) Architects for Educational Change (global reach). Comes up in the post on CEFPI turned A4LE.org  That he was on this roundtable is significant.

Understand that while an existing major marketplace has existed all along, the opportunity to re-invest, expand, and commandeer the position as “leading experts” in a new field one is defining, has already been identified (and I posted on it, too) as part of the Bain Capital (“Harvard/Bridgespan/Bain”) philosophy, the beauty, or at least brilliance, of being first in any field is being able to define its terms, particularly to accommodate existing relationships among colleagues and contractors.

The other part of this model is from the Leveraged Buyouts (“LBO”) practice, where those pushing the strategies also organize to implement AND evaluate it in something of a vertical monopoly on that field.

Check out those “roundtables” and lists of “stakeholders” on any subject matter over time. They have identifiable (by type) “moving parts” where the goal is system transformation according to a given model.

You can see this system-wide in the healthy marriage/responsible fatherhood field, which then merged into the already expansive “child protection” (Welfare/dependency courts), as certain groups repeatedly pushed through consolidation of jurisdiction to handle ALL subject matters in single courts which they set up and controlled, and from which some of their colleagues and friends would, naturally, get spinoff businesses.  I’m thinking in particular of a high-conflict court in Middletown Connecticut spearheaded by AFCC professionals, not to mention the “unified family court” concept being promoted throughout the Sayra and Neill Meyerhoff (name changed after it started to acknowledge major donors) “Center for Families and Children in the Courts” (CFCC) at UBaltimore School of law.  The consolidation there was of training and mentoring of family lawyers, presiding judges, and affiliated professionals (batterers intervention, supervised visitation, mediation, etc.) as represented in particularly by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) as the trade association.

I have already posted on this a few years ago, and over the years.  From what I can tell, the individual/s instrumental in persuading a well-known (deservedly) Chief Administrative judge in Maryland to issue an administrative order to set up the family court division — where it had not been passing the legislature for a number of years — as late as 1998, was connected to the later CFCC at UBaltimore School of Law, who has by now been more “out” in acknowledging the AFCC (private professional trade association) roots shown earlier mostly on the C.V. only.  Picking miscellaneous screenprints from April 21, 2017, but I’d reported more extensively on this back (as I recall) in late 2013. See Table of Contents Page.

Image 1 of 3 (UBaltimore School of Law S&M Meyerhoff CFCC Spring 2017 Full Court Press) email alert

#1 of 3 from my Dec 22, 2013 post referencing UBaltimore School of Law CFCC in re creation of the family law division (late 1990s) in Maryland — through an administrative judicial ruling

Image 2 of 3 (see caption for image 1)

UCBaltimore SOLaw Home page showing drop-down menu for “Centers” in very fine print) Click for full-sized.

Meanwhile, back in California, the “CFCC” designation arose under the Administrative Office of the Courts, itself a centralized operations.  California began moving control of the judicial system AND the courts, AND the courthouses AND their employees to a statewide presiding council (the council had been around a long time, but the other factors are more recent) in the 1990s.  A statewide “Family Court Services” was combined with another office labeled after children, and about the same time on BOTH east (Baltimore, Maryland) and west coasts (San Francisco), the “CFCC” label showed up.

I’ve reviewed the situation (with some more images and a brief 2017 follow up on one reference posted about five years ago) at:
Belated Lessons from Baltimore and San Francisco’s CFCCs: How “Centers” Coordinating Planning and Advance PR with Private Trade Associations can Effectively Monopolize ANY Field of Practice and Stick the Public for both Long-term Debt on Capital Infrastructure, and Ongoing Operational Expenses, for Ongiong Profit to the Providers and Advisors. (Page Added 6/4/2017)(Page title with case-sensitive short-link ending “-6XR”)

(I had to work the word “lessons” in there as a take off on the overuse of “Early Lessons from  [Project We Promise You, It’s a Great Idea]) but in fact I learned this in hindsight, so it’s “Belated Lessons.”  For those who chose to continue not noticing after some of us started exposing this, it’s even more “belated.”

If you can understand this situation, I believe you can also understand the situation I’m posting on today re: the School Facilities Planning associations (nonprofits), conferences, and roundtables involving elected government officials from state level departments and (in an example below) even State Senator and Assembly person.