Education

LOS ANGELES – California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today unveiled the first state-wide statistics on California’s truancy crisis which reveal that, last year alone, 1 million elementary school students were truant and 250,000 elementary school students missed 18 or more school days at a cost of $1.4 billion in lost funds to California school districts.

These findings are part of a report, In School and On Track, issued today by Attorney General Harris in Los Angeles where statewide education, public policy and law enforcement leaders were convened to discuss this crisis and identify concrete solutions.

“The California Constitution guarantees every child the right to an education, yet we are failing our youngest children, as early as kindergarten,” Attorney General Harris said. “These are children as young as five years old who are out of school, falling behind, and too many of them never catch up. This crisis is not only crippling for our economy, it is a basic threat to public safety.  It’s time for accountability and to craft real solutions at every level - from parents to school districts, to law enforcement - to solve this problem.”

According to the report, elementary school truancy is at the root of the state’s chronic criminal justice problems. According to the report, missing large amounts of school is one of the strongest predictors of dropping-out, even more so than suspensions or test scores. Annually, dropouts cost California taxpayers an estimated $46.4 billion in incarceration, lost productivity and lost taxes.

Information broken down by school district and county is available here: https://oag.ca.gov/truancy and: https://oag.ca.gov/truancy/ch1

Key Findings from In School and On Track:

• In California last year, 1 million elementary school students were truant and 250,000 students missed 18 or more school days.
• In some California elementary schools, 92% of students were truant last year.
• California school districts are losing $1.4 billion in funding due to truant students.

Solutions from In School and On Track:

• California must create a statewide system to collect student attendance records.
• School districts must improve the way truant students are monitored.
• School administrators must meet with parents or guardians immediately when a child is truant.
• Law enforcement must focus on early, positive intervention to empower parents and students.
• Parents must be held accountable, including prosecution in the most severe cases.

Attorney General Harris was joined at the symposium by: Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey, California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, Compton City Mayor Aja Brown, Dr. Robert Ross, President & CEO of the California Endowment, Tom Saenz, President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Hedy Chang, Director of Attendance Works.

The California Attorney General’s office will issue this report annually.  The office’s Civil Rights Enforcement Section spent 7 months researching this crisis and convening stakeholders to devise solutions.

As the District Attorney of San Francisco, Attorney General Harris started a citywide truancy initiative in 2006.  In the course of investigating factors contributing to the city’s violent crime rate, she found that 94% of San Francisco homicide victims under age 25 were high school dropouts.  Then-District Attorney Harris formed a partnership with the school district to inform parents that they had a legal duty to ensure that their children attended school, provide parents of chronically truant students with wrap-around services and school-based mediation, and prosecute parents in the most severe cases where other interventions did not work.

Over a two-year period, then-District Attorney Harris’s initiative reduced truancy among elementary students in San Francisco by 23%, according to the San Francisco Unified School District.  The initiative also served as a model for SB 1317 (Leno), which defined “chronic truancy” for the first time under state law and established the initiative’s model of combining meaningful services with smart sanctions in the California Penal Code.  The bill was sponsored by then-District Attorney Harris and was enacted in law in 2010.

The report is available in its entirety online at: https://oag.ca.gov/truancy

SAN FRANCISCO -- Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court affirming the critical importance of diversity in higher education.

Attorney General Harris’ brief urges the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm an appellate court decision in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case that involves race-conscious admissions at the University of Texas. The brief argues that the considerable educational and societal benefits of a diverse student body strongly support the Court reaffirming its acknowledgment under the 14th Amendment that the U.S. Constitution affords educators the flexibility to consider race, among many factors, in admission decisions.

Oral arguments for Fisher v. University of Texas will be heard on October 10.

“A diverse student body better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce and society, and better prepares them as professionals. Moreover, it has been shown that because of the “resegregation” of American society, many students enter college with limited precollege exposure to people of different races, cultures, and ethnicities. Interaction during college years with students of different races and cultures can help disrupt the cycle of resegregation and lead to more positive cross-racial interaction and understanding,” the amicus brief states.

A copy of the brief is attached to the online version of this release at www.oag.ca.gov

During this National Week of Action on School Discipline, I encourage local and state policymakers to consider the range of alternatives to suspension and expulsion. We need to hold kids accountable and help them learn from their mistakes, but also keep them in school and on course to graduate. As a career prosecutor, I know that frequent use of out-of-school suspension for non-violent offenses can set the stage for the type of chronic truancy that leads to students dropping out of school and becoming victims of crime.

That is why I am pleased to recognize this National Week of Action on School Discipline from October 1-8 in California and across the United States.

SAN FRANCISCO – Attorney General Kamala D. Harris hosted a Smart on Crime Policy Summit today with a veteran, bi-partisan group of leaders from across the state. Ten work groups – focusing on topics ranging from policing to victims’ rights – prepared briefing papers for Attorney General Harris. The papers, dealing with critical issues facing California, were the focus of the summit at U.C. Hastings College of the Law.

The 10 groups drew insights from best practices of other attorneys general, law enforcement leaders, universities, foundations, think tanks and others at the forefront of research, ideas and innovation. More information about the work groups, and the briefing papers, can be found at: www.smartoncrimepolicy.org.

The honorary co-chairs are William Bratton, former Los Angeles Chief of Police; Warren Christopher, former U.S. Secretary of State; Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers; State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco); Constance L. Rice, co-director of The Advancement Project; George Shultz, former U.S. Secretary of State; and Kathleen Sullivan, professor and former dean of Stanford Law School.

The following is a list of topic areas and chairs of the 10 work groups:

Civil Rights Enforcement
Bill Lann Lee, Shareholder, Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson, P.C.

Education & Truancy
Carlos Garcia, Superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District
Laurene Powell, Co-founder & President of the Board, College Track

Environmental Enforcement
Rick Frank, Director, California Environmental Law & Policy Center, U.C. Davis School of Law
John Poyner, District Attorney, Colusa County

Organized Crime, Gangs and Gun Crime
Lee Baca, Sheriff, Los Angeles County
Charlie Beck, Chief of Police, Los Angeles Police Department
Rev. Jeff Carr, Chief of Staff, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, City of Los Angeles
Gilbert Otero, District Attorney, Imperial County
Mike Ramos, District Attorney, San Bernardino County
Jack Weiss, Managing Director & Head of Los Angeles Office, Kroll

Health
Paul Gallegos, District Attorney, Humboldt County
Jane Garcia, CEO, La Clincia de La Raza
Dr. Mitch Katz, Director, Los Angeles Public Health Department
Dr. Bob Ross, President & CEO, The California Endowment

Mortgage Fraud and Consumer Protection
Kelly Dermody, Partner, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein
Dan Grunfeld, Co-Chair, Litigation Department, Kaye Scholer
Greg Totten, District Attorney, Ventura Country

Policing
Tony Batts, Chief of Police, Oakland Police Department
Ron Davis, Chief of Police, East Palo Alto Police Department
George Gascon, District Attorney, San Francisco
Bill Landsdowne, Chief of Police, San Diego Police Department

Reentry & Recidivism Reduction
Lee Baca, Sheriff, Los Angeles County
Bonnie Dumanis, District Attorney, San Diego County
Larry Morse, District Attorney, Merced County
Tim Silard, President, Rosenberg Foundation
Mimi Silbert, President & CEO, Delancey Street Foundation

Technology
Ed Berberian, District Attorney, Marin County
Jack Christin, Jr., Associate General Counsel, eBay/PayPal
David Drummond, Senior Vice President & Chief Legal Officer, Google
Fred Humphries, Managing Director, Microsoft
Bruce Ives, Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Hewlett-Packard
Scott Forstall, Senior Vice President, iPhone Software, Apple
Mitchell Kapor, Founder, Lotus Development Corporation
Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook

Victims' Rights
Gary Lieberstein, District Attorney, Napa County
Nancy O’Malley, District Attorney, Alameda County
Esta Soler, Founder & President, Family Violence Prevention Fund

For additional information, please call the Attorney General’s press office at 510.622.4500.

###

LOS ANGELES - Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced a half-million-dollar settlement with the operator of a sham nursing school in Los Angeles that created “the illusion it was training future nurses” by pretending to offer an accredited nursing program and tricking graduates into believing they had qualified to become registered nurses.

As many as 300 students paid $20,000 each to enroll and attend classes at RN Learning Center, which advertised its fast-track program for earning a bachelor of science degree in nursing in less than two years.

“By creating the illusion it was training future registered nurses,” Brown said, “the school destroyed the aspirations of hundreds of students who also lost thousands of dollars in wasted tuition. The school will shut its doors today and pay back its former students as fully as it can.”

In the settlement negotiated by Brown’s office on behalf of the Board of Registered Nursing, Junelou Chalico Enterina, owner and operator of RN Learning Center, which operated on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, agreed to close his business and pay victims restitution of $500,000. He also agreed never again to open a nursing school in California.

The board, which is the state agency that oversees the practice and education of nurses, believes no student of RN Learning Center was able to use her degree to qualify for the state’s nursing exam or become a registered nurse. However, the board is contacting every medical facility in the state to warn about unaccredited schools such as RN Learning Center.

The settlement today concludes a board investigation that began in early 2007. Despite purporting to be a nursing school, RN Learning Center never applied to the nursing board to obtain accreditation as a school of nursing. Three years ago, the board ordered the school to close. It also disciplined two licensed registered nurses associated with the school and posted a notice on its website warning prospective students that unaccredited schools were operating in California.

Despite the scrutiny, RN Learning Center continued to operate, targeting mostly Filipino-Americans who already worked in the health field. The school’s marketing materials promised the program would, “Advance Your Education. Increase Your Earnings. Secure Your Financial Future.” Just as they would in a real nursing school, students took classes in anatomy, microbiology and learned to do sutures. They traveled to the Philippines for a month of clinical study in hospitals and prisons, and attended classes at a foreign nursing school that also had not been approved by California’s board.

RN Learning Center kept the deception going by holding formal graduation ceremonies. About 50 of its students applied to the nursing board to take the National Council Licensing Examination, which qualifies nursing school graduates to become licensed registered nurses. The students submitted transcripts that were declared fraudulent, so they were unable to meet the eligibility requirements and were not allowed to take the licensing exam. Because RN Learning Center was unlicensed, none of the course work taken there can be counted toward completing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.

One student, Faith, described how she applied to RN Learning Center because the class schedule allowed her to also work and juggle childcare. She attended classes for two years, driving 240 miles twice a week from Bakersfield to Los Angeles with her two children. When she raised questions, such as asking about the school’s lack of clinical training, the staff reassured her. “My children, ex-husband, brother, friends and everyone I worked with, can attest to my commitment and sacrifice I made to complete this program,” she said in a declaration. “We the students have lost a lot.”

If you were a nursing student of RN Learning Center, please contact the Attorney General’s Office at (213) 897-2000. For more information about the California Board of Registered Nursing, please see http://www.rn.ca.gov/

SAN FRANCISCO – Concluding an investigation into fundraising practices at California State University at Stanislaus, Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced today that the CSU Stanislaus Foundation has agreed to improve oversight of the money it raises and spends for the school.

“We examined whether money given to a charitable foundation was handled appropriately, but found no violation of law,” Brown said. “However, the foundation board has agreed to make changes to improve oversight of its funds.”

Brown’s Charitable Trusts Section found that the foundation exercised inadequate oversight of its $20 million in assets, but found no misuse of its funds and no violations of state law.

In April, at the request of state Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco, Brown agreed to investigate the foundation, including whether it was spending its money for the benefit of the campus as it promises its donors, the university and the public. Brown also investigated the refusal of CSU Stanislaus to turn over records of an appearance by Sarah Palin at a university fundraising event.

Subsequently, Californians Aware, a non-profit watchdog group, filed a civil lawsuit against both the university and the foundation to compel disclosure, and Brown suspended his investigation pending resolution of the lawsuit.

Brown’s audit showed that the foundation’s accounting procedures were inadequate, it failed to understand fully its duties and responsibilities under the law – including basic charitable trust concepts – and it failed to implement its own auditor’s recommendation to prepare a budget for all fundraising events. Recently, the foundation has been working with an independent auditor to rectify these lapses.

The foundation’s board of directors agreed to:

• Participate in directors’ training on management of charitable organizations and the fiduciary duties of charitable boards of directors.
• Consider immediately all recommendations made by its independent auditor.
• Ensure that its relationships with all outside fundraisers comply with California law.
• Ensure that it consistently follows all its fiscal and governance policies.

The Attorney General’s Charitable Trusts Section oversees charities to make sure they comply with the law and their articles of incorporation. The Attorney General is authorized to bring legal actions against charities if they misuse funds under their control or otherwise fail to follow the law.

The closing letter to CSU Stanislaus is attached.

PLEASANTON – Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. and the City of Pleasanton have reached a precedent-setting agreement ending Pleasanton’s restrictions on new housing and opening the way for jobs and new housing to be located close to each other.

“This agreement clears the way for new jobs, less congested freeways and cleaner air,” Brown said. “It requires homes to be built closer to where people work to reduce long commutes and create a more neighborly urban environment.”

Tuesday night, the Pleasanton City Council voted unanimously to accept the agreement.

In 2006, the nonprofit group Urban Habitat filed a lawsuit challenging Pleasanton’s housing cap, which placed a permanent limit of 29,000 housing units in the city. Brown intervened in the case in 2009 and argued the housing cap violated state law by promoting urban sprawl and clogging the freeways with unnecessarily long commutes.

In March 2010, the Alameda County Superior Court ruled in the Attorney General’s favor.

In the settlement approved last night, Pleasanton agreed to remove restrictions on new housing and to accommodate affordable housing adjacent to the city’s BART station. Along with creating jobs and fulfilling the city’s share of regional housing, the new development will enable workers to live within walking distance of a major transit hub.

While Pleasanton has been a magnet for new employment, housing has lagged far behind the number of new jobs, despite ample land for development, including property adjacent to the Pleasanton BART station. In the last decade, the number of new jobs nearly doubled – from 31,683 to more than 58,000. Unable to find affordable housing within the city, some workers were forced to commute two hours per day or more. One study found that 79 percent of workers lived outside of Pleasanton.

Brown has taken an active role in encouraging local governments and businesses to help the state reach its greenhouse gas reduction goals. He has commented on several dozen environmental review documents, including those created for the General Plans of cities and the regional transportation plans of counties, as well as for projects related to oil refineries, cement plants, and dairy expansions. Brown has also reached path-breaking settlements with the County of San Bernardino and the City of Stockton, which required them to develop plans to ensure sustainable growth with a reduced carbon footprint.

SAN FRANCISCO – Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced today that he has launched a broad investigation into the California State University Stanislaus Foundation to include an examination of its finances and the alleged dumping of documents into a university dumpster.

This action follows an inquiry Brown began last week into whether the CSU Stanislaus Foundation violated the California Public Records Act. On April 7, State Senator Leland Yee asked Brown to investigate the refusal of California State University Stanislaus to turn over records, under the Public Records Act, pertaining to the $500-a-plate June 25 speaking engagement of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin at the university’s 50th anniversary gala. Palin’s compensation for speaking at the CSU Stanislaus gala hasn’t been disclosed, but she earned $100,000 for speaking in February at a Tea Party convention in Nashville.

The expanded inquiry will seek to determine whether the foundation, which has assets of more than $20 million, is spending its money to benefit the campus, as it promises donors, the university and the public. The CSU Stanislaus Foundation spends more than $3 million each year on university endeavors. The Attorney General is asking university officials to preserve foundation documents.

“We are taking this action to make sure that the money raised goes toward the intended educational purposes and not a dollar is wasted or misspent,” Brown said, “Prudent financial stewardship is crucial at a time in which universities face vastly decreased funding and increased student fees.”

The Attorney General oversees charitable organizations to make sure that they comply with the law. Brown’s office has recently sought records of several foundations following allegations of improprieties including a no-bid contract to a foundation board member, a loan -- with a large loss -- to a former foundation board member, a $1.5 million-dollar loss because of bad debts, a questionable real estate deal and a $200,000 low-interest loan to a university president.

The university foundations provide crucial financial help to state universities, supplementing student fees and state support for scholarships, academic programs, buildings and operating expenses.

Brown said his office would also review documents obtained from Yee today, including part of Palin’s speech contract, which students say they plucked out of a dumpster near the CSU Stanislaus administration building. Investigators will first attempt to determine whether the documents are authentic and how they ended up in the dumpster.

“This is not about Sarah Palin,” Brown said. “She has every right to speak at a university event, and schools should strive to bring to campus a broad range of speakers. The issues are public disclosure and financial accountability in organizations embedded in state-run universities. We’re not saying any allegation is true, but we owe it to the taxpayers to thoroughly check out every serious allegation.”

The assets controlled by 95 auxiliary bodies and foundations associated with the entire CSU system amount to $1.34 billion, according to the CSU chancellor’s office. UC system foundations control another $4 billion in assets.

The Attorney General’s investigation is being conducted by its Charitable Trusts Section, which works with charities to make sure they comply with the law and their articles of incorporation. The Attorney General is also authorized to bring legal actions against charities if they misuse funds under their control.

For more information on the Attorney General’s Charitable Trusts Division, see http://ag.ca.gov/charities.php.

Mendocino, Calif—Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced a settlement with James L. Harrison, 62, of Ukiah, after he “looted college scholarship funds” from a Trust intended to benefit female graduates of Ukiah High School pursuing careers in medicine.

Brown’s office, working with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the California Department of Financial Institutions, recovered both the principal and the interest—totaling over $650,000—owed to the Trust. In the settlement, Harrison agreed to a lifetime ban from serving as a charitable trustee or officer of a public benefit corporation.

“Harrison looted college scholarship funds intended to help women graduating from high school achieve their dreams,” Brown said. “Today’s agreement makes sure that he is never in a position to steal from a non-profit again.”

In 1993, Ukiah residents Viola and Oscar Allen established a Living Trust. It was their wish that upon their deaths, funds from the Trust would be administered as scholarships for female graduates of Ukiah High School interested in pursuing further education in the medical field.

Harrison, who was then Vice President of Savings Bank in Mendocino County, became Trustee in 1993. Instead of funding scholarships for students, he began spending the money for his own benefit. He invested in real-estate ventures and loaned money to friends and family.

In 2005, the FDIC was notified of suspicious activity involving the Trust. The Attorney General’s Office began its own investigation and found that Harrison had diverted hundreds of thousands of the approximately $474,000 in the original Trust.

In February 2007, Brown’s office filed a civil lawsuit against Harrison seeking to remove him from the Trustee position. Brown’s office also filed criminal charges against Harrison in 2008.

In February 2009, Harrison entered no contest pleas to the following felony counts:

• Misappropriation of trust assets (Penal Code sections 487/506)
• Filing willfully false tax returns (Revenue and Taxation Code section 19705(a)(1))
• Admittedly taking in excess of $200,000 (Penal Code section 12022.6(a)(2))

Harrison was sentenced to one year in county jail and three years probation.

As a result of the civil action, a new trustee was appointed to administer the Viola and Oscar Allen Trust and scholarships have been distributed for the last two years to female graduates of Ukiah High School.

A copy of the settlement agreement is attached.

El Cajon—Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. and 11 other state Attorneys General today forced Student Loan Xpress, Inc. to provide $112.7 million in debt relief to students facing a “mountain of debt” for helicopter flight instruction they never received.

Of the $112.7 million, approximately $25.5 million in debt relief will go to California residents who did not receive the training they paid for.

“These students did not obtain the helicopter instruction they were promised, yet Student Loan Xpress insisted that they pay off the full cost of their tuition,” Brown said. “Without this agreement, Silver State flight school students would face a mountain of debt for training they never received.”

Silver State Helicopters was founded near Las Vegas in 2002, and the company quickly grew. At its height, the school comprised 34 campuses in 17 states, and included 2,700 students who paid approximately $69,900 each. In California, Silver State Helicopters operated flight schools in Sacramento, Chino and El Cajon.

In August 2005, Student Loan Xpress became the preferred student loan provider for Silver State Helicopters, lending or servicing some $180 million in student loans.

Yet, even before it made its first loan, Student Loan Xpress had reason to believe that the school was in serious financial difficulty. Students complained of a shortage of instructors, flight simulators and helicopters. Only 10 percent of Silver State students graduated. Ultimately, the school filed for bankruptcy in February 2008.

Many students paid thousands of dollars of tuition, but did not receive the flight training they were promised in return. Regardless of the bankruptcy, Student Loan Express demanded that borrowers repay the full cost of the loans.

Consequently, several state Attorneys General launched an investigation, which determined that the two companies had a close business relationship, and that that Student Loan Xpress had failed to comply with the duty to provide required notices to borrowers. Under the settlement, Student Loan Xpress denied any wrongdoing.

After several months of negotiations, the attorneys general and Student Loan Xpress reached a settlement agreement. The settlement, in tandem with the resolution of a private class action, calls for Student Loan Xpress to restructure approximately $174 million of student debt, based on the number of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certifications each student obtained. The fewer certificates obtained, the larger the amount forgiven. The average debt relief for students under this settlement is $46,016.

The company also agreed to:
• Forgive an additional 2.5 percent of the student loan if the adjusted loan is repaid within five years;
• Refrain from providing negative information to credit reporting agencies with respect to any loan restructured; and
• Forgive interest between the dates Silver State Helicopters filed for bankruptcy and approximately the end of 2009.

Student Loan Xpress will also pay $125,000 in legal expenses to the states. The states joining California in today’s settlement are: Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

The $112.7 in debt forgiveness included in this settlement includes the total relief provided in both the states’ settlement with Student Loan Xpress, and the proposed settlement in a private, nationwide class-action called Holman et al v. Student Loan Xpress, Inc. That class action was filed in federal court in Florida.

Student Loan Xpress borrowers with questions about the settlement are asked to contact the settlement administrator in this matter by e-mail, at settlementquestions@gmail.com.

A copy of the Assurance of Voluntary Compliance is attached.