2011年6月26日星期日

Owners of Calif. test pilot school settle tax case (AP)

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The owners of a Southern California civilian test pilot school pleaded guilty Monday to defrauding the federal government of nearly $710,000 by filing a false tax return related to a secret Swiss bank account, and are expected to pay more than $2 million in civil penalties.

Prosecutors said Sean and Nadia Roberts of Tehachapi face up to three years in prison at their sentencing Sept. 6 after entering the guilty plea in U.S. District Court in Fresno.

They own and operate the National Test Pilot School, a nonprofit founded in 1982 at Mojave Airport that trains test pilots. They also own Flight Research Inc., which owns most of the aircraft used by the school.

Prosecutors, in court documents, call it the world's only civilian test pilot school. A school official once claimed it is the world's largest private test pilot training facility.

Their attorney, Edward Robbins Jr. of Beverly Hills, said the couple was caught up in the U.S. government's investigation of secret accounts at Switzerland's UBS bank. Under a deferred prosecution agreement in 2009, UBS admitted helping U.S. taxpayers hide accounts from the IRS and agreed to provide names of some customers.

"They had the unfortunate luck to be among the first 260 UBS customers who were turned over to the U.S. government," Robbins said. "Sean and Nadia Roberts, but for the fact that they were in the first 260, would have dodged any criminal liability and gone in under the civil settlement."

That settlement was offered to 4,500 other bank clients whose identities were disclosed later, he said.

He expects the couple may qualify for probation and no prison time because they promptly admitted their guilt and are cooperating with the investigation. They remain free on bail.

The couple pleaded guilty to the single count of filing a false 2008 tax return under a plea agreement. The lost taxes amounted to nearly $710,000, according to the agreement filed in federal court.

Prosecutors say the couple transferred money from their corporation to several offshore accounts, then improperly deducted the transfers from their corporate and individual income tax returns. They also failed to report interest earned on the foreign accounts.

Aside from repaying the $710,000, the couple agreed to pay a penalty on the rest of the money held in offshore accounts to settle a civil claim filed by the federal government alleging that they failed to properly report their income for tax years 2004-08. The amount of the penalty is to be set before sentencing.

"They're going to end up eating, I think, a $2 million penalty," Robbins said. "It will be in the neighborhood of 50 percent of $4 million."


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Homeschoolers Are Getting In on the Cap-and-Gown Fun (Time.com)

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High school graduation is a right of passage for millions of teens. Now, those schooled at home want mortar boards too.

It turns out that students and parents who have turned down traditional education still long for a little "Pomp and Circumstance." As the number of homeschoolers in the U.S. balloons to 2 million children, high school graduation ceremonies are the new hot trend in non-traditional education.

This June, a group of students donned capes and listened to speeches in what organizers called the "very first South Florida home-school graduation."

(PHOTOS: At Home With Homeschoolers)

"I was getting all down when I didn't think he'd have a graduation," one proud mother of the "home-school class of 2011" told the New York Times. "I wanted to see him walk and have the cap and gown and the pictures."

The Florida group had just 26 students, but some organizations are holding mass convocations. Christian groups like the Home Educators Association of Virginia offer graduation ceremonies for hundreds of homeschoolers at their annual conventions.

There are plenty of accoutrements for the proud parents too. Online retailers catering to the burgeoning home-school market sell everything from class rings to "Proud of Our 2011 Home-School Graduate" yard signs.

Some students are reluctant to participate, in part because their classmates are strangers. But often it is the parents who urge them on. "I imagined her walking across the stage just like I did at my graduation," said Florida mom Brenda Orr of her daughter Vanessa. "I didn't want her to feel she'd missed out on something."

(MORE: Homeschoolers: From Home to Harvard)

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The No Child Left Behind Showdown (Time.com)

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Is it finally the beginning of the end for No Child Left Behind?

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced late last week that if Congress does not overhaul the ten-year old federal education law known as No Child Left Behind in the next few months, he will do it himself. His plan? To give states waivers from some of the law's provisions in exchange for a commitment to undertake a currently unspecified set of reforms. Immediately dubbed "Plan B" by the Secretary and others, the announcement was not a surprise. Using regulations to amend the law, which is years overdue to be revised, has been under consideration for months. Still, the reaction to Duncan's announcement highlighted why Congress is having such a hard time fixing the law in the first place. (See "Can Anyone Change No Child Left Behind?")

Let's take the objections in order:

Not surprisingly, leaders in Congress were not pleased. Even though Duncan has the legal authority to waive a variety of provisions in the law - essentially those not dealing with money or civil rights - Congress understandably sees making laws as their turf. The secretary is betting that the threat of being preempted will be enough to prod action on Capitol Hill.Perhaps he's right. The Republican Chairman of the House education committee and his Democratic counterpart in the Senate both agreed that Duncan's proposal was a bad idea.That was the first glimmer of education bipartisanship in a long while.

The chattering class was even sourer. American Enterprise Institute scholar and pundit Rick Hess accused Duncan of trammeling on the Constitution. Education reform critic Diane Ravitch rushed to agree, and those two agree on little these days, so again, Duncan succeeded in bridging differences.But while Hess and Ravitch called on Duncan to read the Constitution, they might want to read the No Child Law itself. The waiver authority is long standing and clearly spelled out. Secretary of Education Margaret SpellingsDuncan's predecessor in the Bush Administration used it several times to launch pilot projects for various reform ideas. And waivers and regulations are a common tool for policymaking on a range of issues besides education. (See 11 education activists for 2011.)

Education's alphabet soup of special interest groups were not any happier. They've been demanding waivers for years but this wasn't quite what they had in mind - they object to Duncan's idea to attach reform conditions to any regulatory relief. School reform groups, conversely, worried that any conditions would be toothless and weaken the law's emphasis on accountability for struggling students. Privately, reformers worried that by this fall the figures driving decision-making at the White House were as likely to be the President's reelection numbers as school performance data.

It's not an unwarranted concern. History doesn't bode well for proponents of accountability and waivers have rarely led to reforms. Most recently, during the Bush Administration, there were several attempts to use waivers to change the No Child policy. As a rule when education special interest groups, especially the teachers unions, favored suggested changes - for instance revisions to the No Child law's school accountability rules to make it easier for schools to meet performance targets - they sailed through. But when proposed fixes were not so popular - for example when Secretary Rod Paige tried to change how the law affects local collective bargaining agreements - they were stopped dead in their tracks. In other words, if Duncan's reform conditions are too stringent the administration could find itself under intense political pressure, challenged in court, or both. (Read about states' rights on school reform.)

It's worth remembering that this latest No Child Left Behind contretemps is only unfolding because Congress has been unable to revise the law since it was first scheduled to do so in 2007. In addition to the general dysfunction plaguing Washington, these days the lack of progress owes to disagreements between key special interest and reform groups, the House and the Senate, and Democrats and Republicans. One senator told me that, given a free hand to rewrite the federal education law, their version would represent the biggest rollback of the federal role in a generation - but even their streamlined version wouldn't satisfy conservatives in both chambers.

So as students stream out of school for the summer it's a safe bet that the law will be exactly the same when they return this fall. In fact, most Washington insiders think Congress won't be able to finish work on the law until after the next election. Waivers would make that pretty much a certainty. If the almost universal unpopularity of Duncan's proposal ends up bringing people together and energizing the legislative process, then it's a clever act of leadership. Otherwise, the Administration is undertaking a risky political high-wire act through the waiver process. In fact, all things considered, it's not too soon to start asking what Plan C is?

Andrew J. Rotherham, who writes the blog Eduwonk, is a co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education, a nonprofit working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. School of Thought, his education column for TIME.com, appears every Thursday.

Read about 'Parent Trigger'laws.

End times for Charter schools?

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4 reject probation deals in Columbia U. drug case (AP)

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NEW YORK – Four of five Columbia University students arrested in what authorities described as a major crackdown on drug dealing on the Ivy League campus rejected no-jail plea deals Tuesday in hopes of wiping the legal slate clean by getting drug treatment instead.

Noting the students' previously clean records, the city Special Narcotics Prosecutor's office said it would agree to probation if Christopher Coles, Adam Klein, Jose Stephan Perez and Michael Wymbs pleaded guilty to felony charges.

But defense lawyers said their clients were drug users and would be better rehabilitated through a treatment program.

State Supreme Court Justice Michael R. Sonberg didn't decide on the students' request, which will hinge on whether they represent what state lawmakers had in mind when they agreed in 2009 to let some nonviolent drug offenders go to treatment instead of prison. Prosecutors oppose the students' request. The students are free on bail and due back in court July 19.

The fifth student, Harrison David, faces more serious charges related to selling cocaine. He was offered a plea deal that would get him a year in prison. The engineering major, 20, would face at least three years if convicted.

David's lawyer, Matthew Myers, said Tuesday that the undercover officer had urged David to sell cocaine. Myers said to single his client out for more serious charges "is really an unfair separation." David also rejected the plea deal.

Arrested in December, the students allegedly formed a ring that peddled a cornucopia of drugs — from marijuana to prescription pills to LSD-spiked candy — from dorms and fraternity houses. An undercover officer bought a total of about $11,000 worth of various drugs from the students over five months in one of the biggest drug takedowns at a New York City college in recent memory, authorities said.

All but David are seeking what's known as "diversion" to drug-abuse treatment. Under that approach, they could get the charges dismissed or lowered to misdemeanors if they succeed in treatment.

While diversion options have existed in some New York courts for years, a 2009 overhaul of the state's once notoriously stringent drug laws gave judges more leeway to send nonviolent offenders to treatment or other alternatives to prison. The idea is that some people's crimes are offshoots of their drug use and treatment would do more than incarceration to keep them from reoffending.

If Coles, Klein, Perez and Wymbs were selling drugs, it was because they used them, their lawyers say. But prosecutors say the students were drug dealers who were in it for the money, not addicts who should be afforded help.

Wymbs, 22, an applied mathematics major charged with selling LSD and Ecstasy, has "multiple addictions," lawyer Scott J. Spittberger told the court Tuesday. Perez, a published poet known as Stephan Vincenzo, also is a substance abuser, said his lawyer, Peter M. Frankel. Perez, 20, is accused of selling Adderall, a stimulant for which he had a prescription and other students sought as a study aid, Frankel said.

"Does that justify him selling it? Of course not. But is there some mitigation in that? I would think so," Frankel said after court.

Klein, a 21-year-old charged with selling LSD, is addicted to marijuana and "several other drugs" that took a severe toll on his academic performance, said his lawyer, Alan Abramson. Coles, primarily charged with selling marijuana, developed a $70-to-$100-a-day marijuana-smoking habit in college that prompted him to seek counseling even before his arrest, said his lawyer, Marc Agnifilo.

Like David, Coles, 21, told police he sold drugs to pay tuition, prosecutors say. Agnifilo said Coles' family had cut him off financially because of his marijuana habit.

"He had to try and make that money, and that's how this whole nightmare started," Agnifilo said after court.

But prosecutors say the students' dealing was businesslike and, in some cases, extensive.

Coles at one point sold a pound of marijuana, and Klein had $4,325 in cash and 300 doses' worth of LSD in vials in his room, assistant special narcotics prosecutor William Novak told the court. Wymbs sent text messages discussing the quality of his product and advising customers about what combination of drugs to take, and Perez exchanged text messages about drug sales with some 90 people and did some of his deals in the campus library, Novak said.

"Diversion was not designed to allow every drug- or alcohol-abusing defendant to escape the consequences," he said.

___

Jennifer Peltz can be reached at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz


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Michigan man accused of abusing Haitian children (AP)

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By JENNIFER KAY and TRENTON DANIEL, Associated Press Jennifer Kay And Trenton Daniel, Associated Press – Fri?Jun?24, 8:26?pm?ET

MIAMI – A Michigan man who ran a residential center for poor children in Haiti has been indicted on charges of child sex tourism, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Matthew Andrew Carter, 66, of Brighton, Mich., forced boys at the Morning Star Center, which provided food, shelter and education, to engage in sexual conduct in exchange for gifts, money or continued care, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami said.

At the Port-au-Prince center, Carter, who also went by the names "William Charles Harcourt" and "Bill Carter," was known as "Mister Bill."

A bearded father figure who walked with a limp, Carter showered boys with attention at the concrete home he has rented for the last four years, and at two other locations where he operated earlier. But he also beat his boys with sticks, punched them with his fists, fired his gun in the air and locked them in the yard "with the dogs," four young men at his center told The Associated Press. Yet despite the abuse they said they suffered or witnessed, the boys stayed at the center.

Carter has been in custody since his arrest May 8 in Miami on a charge of traveling from the U.S. to Haiti for the purpose of engaging in sexual conduct with minors.

A grand jury indicted Carter on May 19, and a superseding indictment filed Thursday added three additional counts. If convicted, Carter faces up to 15 years in prison for one count of child sex tourism and up to 30 years in prison for each of the other counts.

Carter's federal public defender did not immediately return messages Friday from The Associated Press.

Carter had run the school in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince since the mid-1990s, and he regularly traveled between the Caribbean country and the U.S. to fundraise, according to court documents.

Fourteen boys currently live at the center full-time, and three others live there on the weekends, the documents said.

Most of the boys' families sent them to Carter's center to receive support and educational opportunities that they could not afford, while other boys were orphans, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Alvaro Flores wrote in a May 4 criminal complaint.

Carter engaged in illicit sexual conduct with at least eight former and current students from the mid-1990s through April, according to the criminal complaint. He allegedly forced the students to engage in sexual acts in exchange for gifts, money or continued care.

"This defendant preyed on innocent Haitian children living in severely depressed conditions, making his conduct particularly deplorable," said U.S. Attorney Wilfredo Ferrer in a statement Friday. "Rather than using Morning Star as he promised — to administer aid and provide sanctuary to needy children — he used the center to manipulate, abuse and sexually exploit them."

One of the students told investigators that the sexual abuse continued for six years, beginning when he was 10. The student said Carter stopped buying him clothing, shoes and books when, at age 16, he refused to perform any more sexual acts on Carter, Flores wrote in the complaint.

Another student said that Carter would threaten to send other boys back to their families and poverty if they refused to perform sexual acts with him, Flores wrote. Yet another student reported Carter beating him with a stick when he refused Carter's instructions for sexual acts.

The young men who spoke with the AP have been living outside the center in tents since May when U.S. and Haitian authorities locked its doors. One 22-year-old man told the AP he was sexually abused by Carter but declined to elaborate. Another said he was among the boys Carter invited into his bedroom.

The sexual activity wasn't a secret, the men said.

"I knew what was going on but couldn't do anything," said the 22-year-old man, who moved in with Carter nine years ago. "He did a lot for me. He put me in school. If he gives me money, I wouldn't give anything back."

The Associated Press generally does not identify victims of alleged sexual abuse.

A friend of Carter's, Bertha Wiles of Brighton, Mich., 50 miles west of Detroit, said Carter spent most of his time in Haiti and rarely visited Michigan.

"The Lord spoke to our hearts and we take him in whenever he visits," Wiles, 70, said. "The FBI guys came to our house. This is all a lie. This man would never do that. I don't care what they try to put on him. There's just a whole bunch of things that are not true."

Carter's trial is scheduled to begin July 5.

___

Daniel reported from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.


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Apple Gives Back-to-School Promotion a Mac App Store Twist (Mashable)

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Apple launched its back-to-school promotion Thursday, offering students a $100 gift card for the Mac App Store when they purchase a new Mac. The promotion runs from June 16 through September 20. International Apple Stores are also taking part in the promotion, offering users gift cards in local currency (75 Euros, £65, etc.).

[More from Mashable: 10 Stunning iPhone Bird Photos]

Apple does a back-to-school promotion every year, usually giving students a free iPod (or in recent years, an iPod touch) after mail-in-rebate, with the purchase of a new Mac.

College students, students accepted to college, their parents and faculty and staff members at any grade level qualify for the promotion. Apple also offers educational discounts ranging from $50 to $200 off the retail price on Mac products. The promotion is good at Apple Stores, the Apple Online Store for Education and authorized Apple campus stores. A full list of terms and conditions can be found at this page [PDF].

[More from Mashable: New MacBook Air Coming Late June [REPORT]]

Apple isn't the only company with a back-to-school promotion. Microsoft is giving college students a free Xbox 360 with the purchase of a Windows PC priced $699 or higher.

It's telling that Apple is switching its promotional tactics to the Mac App Store. The store soft-launched in January and is already proving successful for software developers. When Mac OS X Lion comes out next month, it will be available exclusively through the Mac App Store. All customers who purchase a Mac before Lion's release will be able to download the latest OS for free.

This story originally published on Mashable here.


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Joplin school district tries to rebuild, reinvent (AP)

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JOPLIN, Mo. – The twister that laid waste to much of Joplin last month hit the school system especially hard: It killed seven students and one teacher and destroyed three school buildings, including the only public high school. Seven other buildings were badly damaged.

Now officials are trying to put the crippled district back in order, with only a couple of months to get everything working again before the fall term begins. Many classes will have to meet in vacant buildings. There are also computers to order, furniture to replace, water-logged lesson plans to rewrite — even dirt-encrusted books to salvage.

And the effort goes beyond accommodating students and teachers. In the aftermath, the resurrection of Joplin High and other public schools has become a rallying point for the whole community.

At the debris pile that used to be the high school, someone used duct tape to turn a sign missing all but two letters from "OP" into ""HOPE." In front of that sign are three wooden eagles — the school mascot — carved by a Tennessee artist from the remnants of oak trees that were sliced in two and stripped of their bark by the nation's deadliest single tornado in six decades.

"Her feathers are ruffled, but she's not dead," reads a nearby spray-painted, cardboard sign.

Barely three weeks after the storm, summer school began last week. More than 1,600 elementary school students alone enrolled — almost double the number from last year. The district added an extra month of classes for a session that was initially scheduled to end in early July. And unlike previous years, it's offering free transportation.

"These children don't have a home to live in," said Irving Elementary School Principal Debbie Fort, whose school was one of those destroyed. "Parents know they need to get a routine back. Their lives have been turned upside-down."

Because so many buildings were damaged or destroyed, half of the high school students will attend classes in an empty big-box store. Many middle school kids will go to a vacant warehouse in a far-flung industrial park. Some administrators will take over an old office of the state transportation department.

Signs of the tornado are visible even in schools that escaped any damage. At Stapleton Elementary, boxes of library books rescued from damaged buildings sit piled outside the main office. A 7-year-old boy matter-of-factly explains to a visitor why he's on crutches — a piece of wooden shrapnel pierced his calf, requiring emergency surgery and a week in the hospital.

The twister killed more than 150 people. Immediately after the storm, Fort searched for missing teachers. Even now, two displaced families, including one of her faculty members, are staying at her home in nearby Webb City.

Yet for the most part, the rhythm of the school day is unchanged. For many students, the classroom offers a respite from troubles at home.

"The kids are just relieved to be back at something peaceful," teacher Isaiah Basye said. "It gives them hope, to see that we're not letting the tornado change us. We're still here with open arms. This place is a haven."

The tornado forced school officials to end the spring term nine days early. Administrators have promised that fall classes will begin on time Aug. 17, and they have found alternate sites for each of the damaged or destroyed buildings.

At Junge Field, the high school football team has started practice. Its stadium was unharmed, but its practice field and weight room were both a total loss. One team member remains hospitalized. Others have yet to return after they were scattered to temporary living arrangements with friends or faraway relatives.

New coach Chris Shields lost the rental home into which he had moved some belongings even before relocating to Joplin from suburban St. Louis. Seventy students attended the first day of practice, fewer than the 85 he expected.

"When your home is destroyed, football is not always your top priority," Shields said.

Defensive end Jarad Bader said he and his teammates feel an added sense of responsibility to represent Joplin on Friday nights this fall.

"We don't really feel like we need to say, `Win for Joplin,'" he said. "We know inside that Joplin is helping us. It's time for us to help Joplin."

Said free safety Evan Wilson: "It's kind of understood. We have a lot of weight on our shoulders."

With the loss of Joplin High, which served 2,200 students, school leaders say they want to do more than merely rebuild. They envision a state-of-the-art structure that could establish Joplin not as a district scarred by disaster but as a center of innovation.

School administrators invited a panel of education leaders to a wide-ranging discussion of how the new Joplin High can emerge better than ever. Among the goals: more one-on-one learning and increased collaboration with the adjacent Franklin Technology Center, a vocational training site that was also destroyed.

"We need to let ourselves be free to dream," Assistant Superintendent Angie Besendorfer said. "It's really hard. We're living with the reality of what happened. You almost have to give yourself permission to move past the really horrible, horrific things."

Those discussions were already taking place before the tornado, Besendorfer said. But now they have moved from hypothetical to urgent.

"This tornado accelerated that process — in about 45 seconds," she said. "We had already dreamt about `what if?' Now, it's very much `what's next?'"

___

Alan Scher Zagier can be reached at http://twitter.com/azagier


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