Anyone remember Michael Milken? The Junk Bond king? Who went to prison?
Michael Milken's been into the
daycare business big time for quite some time. From an articles written
by Kenneth J. Saltman in 2003:
"In the 1980s Michael Milken was sent to prison for his illicit
financial dealings - fraud and insider trading.
However, even his legal activities in the junk
bond market were destructive to companies, to
retirees, and to the general public.
He was a major factor in the
Savings and Loan collapse that cost the public
billions. He invented the junk bond market and
promoted its use in hostile corporate takeovers
that destroyed businesses, labor unions, and job security while
enriching a tiny corporate elite."
Also from Saltman's article:
"Wall Street considers the "early-childhood" market to be a $30 billion opportunity for corporations."
"...opportunity..."
Remember in the Robert Redford film All the President's Men when Deep Throat (Mark Feldt) told newspaper investigative reporter Bob Woodward, "Follow the money."?
It's a billion, billion, billion dollar business where the greedy want your children younger and younger to warehouse them in institutional settings for the benefit of their love of money.
These institutional settings are hurting our children, our families and our country. The few pockets of good can not out weigh the harm.
Something to think about and observe if you have children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews in day care settings. If you see something wrong, speak up immediately and speak up to others. Shine the light.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
State of the Union on Child Day Care - 2013 Washington State Department of Early Learning and DSHS
The State of the State of Washington State as well as the State of the Union Related to Day Care Regulations.
Having worked thirteen years as a day care licensor and investigator; and now seven years as a analyst and expert witness on day care licensing in Washington State as well as nationally, the state of the state and the state of the union as related to day care bureaucratic state employees continue to ignore their respective citizen legislators.
HOW you might ask? Through ignoring laws passed by the citizens you elected who listened to you, the parent, the grandparent, the auntie, the uncle and other concerned citizens in state after state across these United States of America.
Supervisors, mid-managers, upper managers and line workers by their behaviors and actions for the most part seemingly do whatever they choose in spite of the citizen legislators passing child day care laws such as in Washington State:
RCW 43.215.370Reporting — Actions against agency licensees — Agencies notified of licensing requirement — Posting on web site. |
This law was passed in 2007. Not until February 2012 did the Department of Early make a show to implement this law, but continues to violate this law by not advising parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles and other concerned citizen if a license was revoked, denied or suspended. The DEL website only advises on all former license holders whose licenses are "closed" with no information as to WHY. It is now almost six years DEL has ignored this law.
Licenses are revoked per RCW 43.215.005(4)(c) : " To safeguard and promote the health, safety, and well-being of children receiving child care and early learning assistance, which is paramount over the right of any person to provide care;"
WHY is it important for parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles to know WHY?
Because such persons it has been documented have returned to doing child day care, unlicensed child day care. Even in such cases as to when a baby died at such a day care.
WHY are DSHS and DEL upper managers, middle managers, supervisors and line workers not held accountable to uphold the laws your citizen legislators enacted on behalf of the "health, safety and well-being of the child" in licensed child day care?
A big piece is that we have the Attorney General who does not and has not held DSHS and DEL accountable to the law and in fact has supported through his state employees, assistant attorneys general (AAGs) upper managers, middle managers and supervisors in their violations of RCW, WAC and policies, supported them in breaking the laws of Washington State.
Historically Attorneys General claimed they don't have the legislative authority to take such actions. It is well documented that Attorneys General on many occasions had public comments to the legislature to change this law, that law or create new laws. The Attorney General has a VOICE.
When the day care licensing agency whether under DSHS or the Department of Early Learning (DEL) failed in protecting a child instead of manning up to their failure they fight bereaved parents, grandparents, godparents, aunties and uncles as in the case of two year old Gabriel Tobin who drowned in 2004 while in the care of a licensed day care provider.
The Attorneys General (Christine Gregoire and then Rob McKenna in that time period) fought Gabriel's bereaved parents (and other parents) in court.
I testified to the Gabriel Tobin jury and the jury got it. There is perhaps nothing more mind numbing then listening to bureaucratic state workers and bureaucratic state attorneys trying to numb out a jury with a plethora of state paperwork forms accompanied by choking, gagging, bureaucratic language. The jury got the poor quality of work done ( which was in violation of law) by the state's employees and the state's attorneys.
The jury got how state workers, supervisors and middle managers looked the other way in processing that particular applicant who was asking for the privilege of obtaining a license. They gave her a license not once, but...twice without doing the proper process based on the laws the citizen legislature passed.
In their testimonies the licensors, supervisors and managers acted, in my experience and observation, in my most charitable view disconnected perhaps in deep denial that their failure to act caused the death of a child which does not absolve them from their duties to read and apply the laws and in my most analytic view and opinion, manipulative and disingenuous when faced with their failure in that duty under law.
Gabriel died in 2004, the jury in 2008 came back with an $11.8 million dollar judgment against the state. DEL went into a lengthy, an excruciatingly long process of reviewing their day care regulations to implement the laws passed by the citizen legislature.
After Gabriel drowned the child death review was ONLY done in-house and the upper managers, middle managers, supervisors and assistant attorneys general step after Gabriel's death was to weaken the existing water safety regulation.
Four LONG years after a citizen jury told the state you licensed a home that couldn't have been licensed under the law and eight years after Gabriel died, in May 2012 this water hazard WAC was put into the day care regulations (WAC Chapter 170-296A) and ONLY put in the regulations because Gabriel parents' stood up in their grief and asked the citizens of the State of Washington to make an examination, an evaluation and a judgment. Here is that new WAC:
WAC 170-296A-5250 |
Agency filings affecting this section |
Bodies of water outside and near licensed space. |
|
(a) Ponds, lakes, storm retention ponds, ditches, fountains, fish ponds, landscape pools or similar bodies of water located outside and near (in close proximity to) the licensed space, regardless of whether the body of water is on or off the premises; or
To honor Gabriel Tobin, it should be titled the Gabriel Tobin WAC regulation.
The amount of courage and stamina it takes for a parent who has lost a child to step forward to speak up for their child and of great importance in that moment to speak up in a public forum to take steps to protect future children is beyond most parents; and I am humbled by parents who go beyond their grief to make a difference. To go up against state bureaucrats, the regulators, state employees and most painful of all their state attorneys, all paid for by us the taxpayers is a bit beyond most of our comprehension.
Parents are at such a disadvantage in their attempts to interface with DSHS and DEL. The real "customer" for DEL is not the child, it is not the parent and it is the licensed day care provider. There are many examples across the nation of the regulated taking over the regulatory agency. In Gabriel's case the State put forward as their "expert witness" the head of the national regulatory association, Judy Collins, to support the upper managers, middle managers, supervisors and licensors in their failure to follow law, regulations and policies.
If justice is to remain in our country, in our states and in this case the State of Washington, it is still, we, the people who sit on juries that hold the government accountable. It is the courage of the individual to bring a case to we, the people, we the jury in a court of law that creates a change.
Perhaps the Attorney General, Rob McKenna, will step up to the plate, will ask the legislature this legislative session to make the laws of the Attorney General's Office such as to hold upper managers, middle managers, program managers, licensors and clerical state employee staff responsible for applying the laws as passed by the citizen legislature in Washington State.
Perhaps our new governor, Jay Inslee will understand the importance of high elected government officials stepping up to the plate and stating, "yes", all state employees must obey the laws as passed by our citizen legislature and that the Attorney General's Office cannot protect those that fail to obey those laws.
In the meantime, God Bless, the parents who have lost children due to being in day care and God Bless the many children who have been hurt and/or traumatized in day care. There are so many secrets, so many stories of children being hurt that don't see the light of day because this state and other states craft their systems and public websites in such ways to hide information from the public citizen as well as the state legislators themselves.
Please remember two year old Gabriel Tobin. Please remember that if a regulation exists does not mean the Department of Early Learning will enforce it. It will be due diligence by citizens pressing their government, it will take juries to find out if DEL and other such state agencies across the nation are following the laws enacted by citizen legislators.
Please remember Gabriel Tobin.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
DSHS, Department of Early Learning, Washington State, Florida...It's all the Same, Failure by Regulators to Take Action
With four year old Jordan Coleman dying in a hot day care car in Sunrise, Florida, his day care provider like so many was given a heads up by the state that they'd be visiting her home.
In Washington State as a day care licensor when I made unannounced monitor visits to a day care home and found them overcapacity repeatedly, Washington State managers would not shut down the home. Then after a child dies, the state regulators will revoke the license citing all the violations they'd seen over the years that they never took action on.
It's a known practice for day care providers to delay opening the door to a regulator or food program monitor while children are hidden in closets, put in the garage, sent out the back door to a neighbor's house and now in Florida to die in a car. Other day care providers know it and the states know it.
In Washington State and most other states the department managers won't post the violations seen in day care homes and the government managers don't give that information to Child Care Resource and Referral now called Child Care Aware. Child Care Aware is just an extension of the same old government failure, tricking parents into believing that licensed means the day care provider is operating per law. It doesn't.
From the article:
"Coleman was left inside a sport utility vehicle outside the Versailles Gardens Condominium complex in Tamarac on Aug. 1. He was supposed to be at the 3C's Day Academy in Sunrise, which is run out of a home. However, he and several other children were removed from the home by the daycare owner's daughter. The daycare had been expecting to see a visit from state investigators that day and had been cited before for being over capacity."
Child Care Aware? Child Care Beware.
America's regulatory history is shocking and the amount of taxpayer money that goes into giving the illusion that there is oversight and enforcement is a shocking deadly farce.
Regulation came in the 1880s specifically to create a barrier between pesky concerned citizens and the big railroad companies at that time. It was never created to prevent harm, it was created to allow harm. Dead history, history not taught in public school education, has created dead citizens under the specifically created illusion that our regulatory laws mean something when they don't.
http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21008232062214/lawsuit-filed-after-child-dies-in-car/
In Washington State as a day care licensor when I made unannounced monitor visits to a day care home and found them overcapacity repeatedly, Washington State managers would not shut down the home. Then after a child dies, the state regulators will revoke the license citing all the violations they'd seen over the years that they never took action on.
It's a known practice for day care providers to delay opening the door to a regulator or food program monitor while children are hidden in closets, put in the garage, sent out the back door to a neighbor's house and now in Florida to die in a car. Other day care providers know it and the states know it.
In Washington State and most other states the department managers won't post the violations seen in day care homes and the government managers don't give that information to Child Care Resource and Referral now called Child Care Aware. Child Care Aware is just an extension of the same old government failure, tricking parents into believing that licensed means the day care provider is operating per law. It doesn't.
From the article:
"Coleman was left inside a sport utility vehicle outside the Versailles Gardens Condominium complex in Tamarac on Aug. 1. He was supposed to be at the 3C's Day Academy in Sunrise, which is run out of a home. However, he and several other children were removed from the home by the daycare owner's daughter. The daycare had been expecting to see a visit from state investigators that day and had been cited before for being over capacity."
Child Care Aware? Child Care Beware.
America's regulatory history is shocking and the amount of taxpayer money that goes into giving the illusion that there is oversight and enforcement is a shocking deadly farce.
Regulation came in the 1880s specifically to create a barrier between pesky concerned citizens and the big railroad companies at that time. It was never created to prevent harm, it was created to allow harm. Dead history, history not taught in public school education, has created dead citizens under the specifically created illusion that our regulatory laws mean something when they don't.
http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21008232062214/lawsuit-filed-after-child-dies-in-car/
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Panel Protects DSHS in their Failures in Powell Case
Who was on the panel? The article says, "a panel of lawyers, a judge, a police officer, social service providers, a psychologist and two state senators."
No citizens, no we, the people were involved. And as usual in these child death cases no mention is made of managers, the attorney general's office and high ranking government officials.
I helped a dad protect his sons, a four year old and six year old last year from CPS who let the boys be around the boyfriend of the mom who terrorized and beat the boys. The line social worker had a congeal relationship with mom's boyfriend. He was very cavalier, confident and controlling about his power over the boys.
I had to go back inside my old agency, DSHS CPS and pound away to get the CPS head honchos to walk a simple piece of paper over to the judge so the dad could get back custody. What a nightmare, worrying about those two boys, especially the four year old.
Little ones with a single mom who has a boyfriend is at higher risk to be killed.
All up the chain to the highest mucky mucks I went. I finally got inside and met with a high manager who remembered he and I had worked well together when I was on the inside. He then agreed to walk that piece of paper over to the court and the dad got back custody.
I called the CPS hotline and made a CPS report on CPS. I urge all citizens to do the same.
This in my expert opinion is just one more cover up of DSHS.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018832435_powell03m.html
No citizens, no we, the people were involved. And as usual in these child death cases no mention is made of managers, the attorney general's office and high ranking government officials.
I helped a dad protect his sons, a four year old and six year old last year from CPS who let the boys be around the boyfriend of the mom who terrorized and beat the boys. The line social worker had a congeal relationship with mom's boyfriend. He was very cavalier, confident and controlling about his power over the boys.
I had to go back inside my old agency, DSHS CPS and pound away to get the CPS head honchos to walk a simple piece of paper over to the judge so the dad could get back custody. What a nightmare, worrying about those two boys, especially the four year old.
Little ones with a single mom who has a boyfriend is at higher risk to be killed.
All up the chain to the highest mucky mucks I went. I finally got inside and met with a high manager who remembered he and I had worked well together when I was on the inside. He then agreed to walk that piece of paper over to the court and the dad got back custody.
I called the CPS hotline and made a CPS report on CPS. I urge all citizens to do the same.
This in my expert opinion is just one more cover up of DSHS.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018832435_powell03m.html
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Department of Early Learning In Washington State Non-expiring Day Care Licenses
With the State of Washington having gone to non-expiring family home child day care licenses there should have been an increase in enforcement actions. No such announcement has been forthcoming from the Department of Early Learning to date.
The the non-actions may actually increase injury and deaths like from the article about day care in Minnesota. Weird stuff can go on behind private closed doors.
There was one day care provider in Washington State who wouldn't allow parents into the home to drop off or get their children. I caught her with eight over her capacity of twelve. She had no assistant and hid children upstairs in the closet. The Department of Early managers would not revoke her license.
The article below quotes Washington State's day care manager Aimee Lapp Payne. Ms Payne failed to disclose for the report the numerous times that Washington State regulators allowed poor and risky providers to keep their licenses
From the article: "The risk is that low standards result in low quality, said Aimee Lapp Payne, who wrote an influential 2011 report for the National Association for Regulatory Administration on child-care safety. "If it isn't a regulatory requirement, they aren't going to do it," she said."
Aimee should have said, "Even though it's a requirement we too many times Washington State day care licensing didn't take action, not until children were injured, maimed or killed."
http://www.startribune.com/local/162479246.html?page=2&c=y
Bottom line nothing in Washington State that I've witnessed at this time nor has Washington State shared any data to show that it is making a change at this time.
With non-expiring licenses we may see a change towards what's happening in Minnesota increased injury, maiming, death and an increase in the department hiding information from the public to cover up those failures,
The the non-actions may actually increase injury and deaths like from the article about day care in Minnesota. Weird stuff can go on behind private closed doors.
There was one day care provider in Washington State who wouldn't allow parents into the home to drop off or get their children. I caught her with eight over her capacity of twelve. She had no assistant and hid children upstairs in the closet. The Department of Early managers would not revoke her license.
The article below quotes Washington State's day care manager Aimee Lapp Payne. Ms Payne failed to disclose for the report the numerous times that Washington State regulators allowed poor and risky providers to keep their licenses
From the article: "The risk is that low standards result in low quality, said Aimee Lapp Payne, who wrote an influential 2011 report for the National Association for Regulatory Administration on child-care safety. "If it isn't a regulatory requirement, they aren't going to do it," she said."
Aimee should have said, "Even though it's a requirement we too many times Washington State day care licensing didn't take action, not until children were injured, maimed or killed."
http://www.startribune.com/local/162479246.html?page=2&c=y
Bottom line nothing in Washington State that I've witnessed at this time nor has Washington State shared any data to show that it is making a change at this time.
With non-expiring licenses we may see a change towards what's happening in Minnesota increased injury, maiming, death and an increase in the department hiding information from the public to cover up those failures,
Friday, July 13, 2012
Department of Early Learning in Washington State has History of Allowing Day Care Providers to have Too Many Children
This article from Minnesota shows on average eight children die in licensed child day care a year. There have been articles lately as well that state that previously deaths said to be SIDS may likely not have been SIDS but suffocation as happened to three month old Dane Abledinger in this article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172651/Three-month-old-baby-dies-daycare-worker-face-heavy-blanket-floor-left-HOUR-months-girl-16-watch-children-got-hair-done.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Licensed under laws that require state agencies to protect children in day care these state agencies don't and this story is typical of keeping day care providers licensed violation after violation until a child dies then they revoke the license.
As a licensor in Washington State when I witnessed six children being hidden in a closet and two babies each behind closed doors upstairs in a provider's (Connie King) unlicensed space the Department of Early Learning managers would not revoke the provider's license. The provider was licensed for 12 and had 21 preschoolers in care with no assistant; and she wouldn't allow parents to come inside her house.
Another licensor found the same provider operating at over capacity a few days after I was there. Then the supervisor, Darcy Taylor went out and found her not supervising the children.
The taxpayers give Darcy Taylor and other managers a good salary, health care benefits and retirement pensions while the managers do not operate the agency by law, laws that would keep children safe if they enforced the laws.
In addition the Department of Early Learning does not obey the public disclosure law so that parents can get information. The department's history of altering and destroying public records is a felony for which no high ranking state government official would prosecute. The Department of Early Learning's record keeping is designed to hide information from the public as well.
The Department of Early Learning and the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) has been historically protected by the Attorney General's Office. The Attorney General's Office has not been protecting the citizens of Washington State especially when it come to protecting children.
The Department of Early Learning's website is designed to give an illusion that licensing works but as long as the department has no transparency it will be business as usual and failures will continue to be covered up until another child dies.
Parents shouldn't be forced to play Russian Roulette with their children's lives.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172651/Three-month-old-baby-dies-daycare-worker-face-heavy-blanket-floor-left-HOUR-months-girl-16-watch-children-got-hair-done.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Licensed under laws that require state agencies to protect children in day care these state agencies don't and this story is typical of keeping day care providers licensed violation after violation until a child dies then they revoke the license.
As a licensor in Washington State when I witnessed six children being hidden in a closet and two babies each behind closed doors upstairs in a provider's (Connie King) unlicensed space the Department of Early Learning managers would not revoke the provider's license. The provider was licensed for 12 and had 21 preschoolers in care with no assistant; and she wouldn't allow parents to come inside her house.
Another licensor found the same provider operating at over capacity a few days after I was there. Then the supervisor, Darcy Taylor went out and found her not supervising the children.
The taxpayers give Darcy Taylor and other managers a good salary, health care benefits and retirement pensions while the managers do not operate the agency by law, laws that would keep children safe if they enforced the laws.
In addition the Department of Early Learning does not obey the public disclosure law so that parents can get information. The department's history of altering and destroying public records is a felony for which no high ranking state government official would prosecute. The Department of Early Learning's record keeping is designed to hide information from the public as well.
The Department of Early Learning and the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) has been historically protected by the Attorney General's Office. The Attorney General's Office has not been protecting the citizens of Washington State especially when it come to protecting children.
The Department of Early Learning's website is designed to give an illusion that licensing works but as long as the department has no transparency it will be business as usual and failures will continue to be covered up until another child dies.
Parents shouldn't be forced to play Russian Roulette with their children's lives.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Department of Early Learning, Another Licensing Failure
http://www.king5.com/news/local/Marysville-teen-admits-daycare-crimes-161268135.html
This day care provider, Anne LaDale Moore, ran 24 hours a day, made $232,000.00, all paid by the taxpayers of Washington State all the while giving her son, Dakota Wilson, access to many children.
Now Dakota Wilson's violations against children won't identify him as a sex offender. Is this a story about the judicial system? The final failure in another taxpayer system?
This is repeat behavior from his mom's day care in Idaho, three times he was investigated for sexually offending against children there.
The Department of Early Learning likely made no contact with Idaho in processing her getting a license here.
The pertinent information for the public and parents to know is they can't trust the department to do proper licensing or monitoring. There is no monitoring done before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. There is no monitoring done on the weekends.
The Department of Early Learning website gives the illusion that licensing, monitoring and investigations are done properly, but that isn't the reality.
Child Care Resource and Referral now called Child Care Aware gets their funding from the state (via the Feds) and is again designed to give parents a false sense of security.
Child Care Resource and Referral now called Child Care Aware has NO access to the information that the state keeps on licensed day care facilities. You think when you call them, they are referring you to day care facilities that meet licensing regulations. They are not, they don't know.
Parents are in a difficult place in looking to keep their children safe in day care.
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