HIGHLIGHTS
JUMP: EDUCATION | INFRASTRUCTURE | PUBLIC SERVICES | THE REST
First, the Good News
1) National/New Report: Good Jobs First has a new report out on Smart Growth and Construction Jobs: How Urban Density Benefits Union Density. “Building on our 2003 study ‘The Jobs Are Back in Town’ and several more studies since, we revisited the empirical evidence favoring anti-sprawl construction policies, looking at correlations between smart growth policies and both wage and job growth, at the impacts of different types of traffic and transit projects, and at union strength in metropolitan areas with more compact development patterns relative to those with unlimited sprawl.”
2) Connecticut: Existing preservation laws could protect rural public schools from vouchers and charters, says Kimberly Phillips in UConn Today. “Worried about how a declining birth rate coupled with an increasing number of charter schools and voucher programs will affect rural public education, a team of researchers led by UConn’s Neag School of Education has suggested using existing laws from an unlikely place to maintain its survival. Preston Green III, the John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education, says he was talking with a neighbor in upstate New York not long ago about the rules that dictate what that state’s hunters can and cannot do, when the idea of using those regulations to protect public schools sparked in him an aha moment.”
3) Indiana: Michael J. Hicks, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State says quality of life investments spur economic growth. “Indiana policymakers certainly talk about education and quality of life. And we’ve had some important policies that offered quality of life improvements, including the Regional Cities Initiative and READI Grants But, these investments of a few hundred million dollars are tiny compared to the nearly $2 billion we spend each year chasing development using the third theory.”
4) New Mexico/National: New Mexico becomes the first state to offer free child care. “Under the program, families, regardless of income, can receive state vouchers to cover public and private child care fees.”
5) Wisconsin: Full SNAP benefits for November have been paid to Wisconsin FoodShare recipients. “Shortly after the court decision was released, the Evers administration announced it was taking steps to get the funds out the door as soon as possible. ‘My administration worked quickly to ensure these benefits could be released as soon as possible so that our kids, families, and seniors have access to basic food and groceries without one more day of delay,’ Evers said in a statement Thursday evening.”
6) Think Tanks: An interesting article in The Baffler by David I. Backer, an Associate Professor in the Department of Education Leadership Management and Policy at Seton Hall University, on the municipal finance “straitjacket” that challenges all forms of municipal power.
7) National/Florida: Universal vouchers have public schools worried about something new: market share says The Hechinger Report. “As districts scramble for students, some are hiring consulting firms to help recruit, and also trying to sell seats in existing classes to homeschoolers. There is also the instability of students frequently switching schools — and of new charter or voucher schools that open and then shut down, or never open at all as promised.”
8) Florida: State lawmakers from both parties are “frustrated” with problems tracking student voucher funding. “Florida House members on both sides of the aisle criticized the organizations in charge of managing state private school vouchers, questioning why they were still having issues disbursing funds accurately. Public schools are just now receiving back pay for budget shortfalls they experienced due to the mobility to and from public and private schools, and lawmakers say they’re receiving calls from parents frustrated about late reimbursements.”
9) Florida: Natalie La Roche Pietri of WLRN public radio reports that “Islamic leaders in South Florida have pushed back against Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s claims that tax-payer funded vouchers for private Islamic schools violate Florida law and pose a national security threat.”
10) Mississippi: “Private schools would take public fund vouchers, but not with strings attached,” Mississippi Today reports. “When asked about a possible middle ground, Barrett Donahoe, executive director of the Mid-South Association of Independent Schools, replied, ‘I don’t think we have to compromise anything. I think our schools do a good job.’”
11) Texas: A billionaire supporter of private schools vouchers has pledged $100 million to the University of Austin on the condition it will take no federal funding. “The university, which announced the gift last month, did not initially identify Yass as the donor. It named him in a Wednesday news release. The gift comes amid a broader push by wealthy conservative donors and political leaders to build new education models outside public systems and to exert influence on existing institutions, which they say have become ideologically imbalanced.”
12) National: Saying the quiet part out loud. “An attorney for Microsoft has said that ‘nobody really wants a data center in their backyard.’ The comments were made by Lyndi Stone, principal corporate counsel at Microsoft, who was speaking on a webinar hosted by law firm Norton Rose Fulbright titled ‘Data centers: Construction, contracts and debt.’ Stone said that ‘where data centers used to be built more away from communities, neighborhoods, and more urban areas, as they move into these areas, then you have neighbors that are near you, and nobody really wants a data center in their backyard. I don’t want a data center in my backyard,’ she added.”
13) National/An Oldie but Goody: Check out Shannon Mattern’s piece, Library as Infrastructure: Reading room, social service center, innovation lab. How far can we stretch the public library? “I propose that thinking about the library as a network of integrated, mutually reinforcing, evolving infrastructures—in particular, architectural, technological, social, epistemological and ethical infrastructures—can help us better identify what roles we want our libraries to serve, and what we can reasonably expect of them. What ideas, values and social responsibilities can we scaffold within the library’s material systems—its walls and wires, shelves and servers?”
14) National: Younger people really don’t like data centers, says Matthew Zeitlin, a correspondent at Heatmap News. Check out his heatmap. “Activists on both the left and the right are pushing back against AI development.”
15) Minnesota: Writing in Minnpost, a nonprofit independent news source, Margaret Levin and Lois Norrgard say “privatizing vast areas of natural forest would be devastating. The Trump administration’s plan to revoke the Roadless Area Conservation Rule is a threat to public lands.”
16) New York: Will New York City’s new mayor take steps to slow or stop the privatization of public housing? “RAD/PACT is a NYCHA program that privatizes public housing, as is the case today at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses.”
17) International/Jamaica: Hurricane Melissa left $8 billion in damage in Jamaica, which needs U.S. support to get back on its feet. “The Caribbean remains highly vulnerable to hurricanes and other climate-related events, which can disrupt or extend projects critical to rebuilding, driving up costs. Natural disasters often destroy essential infrastructure, forcing projects to pause or cancel. The question now is how long it will take Jamaica to recover from this cumulative destruction. The immediate response is urgent, but so too is planning for the months ahead. With projections indicating that dangerous climate events will become more frequent and severe, insurability declines and the cost of future investment rises.”
18) National: Writing in Jacobin, Katya Schwenk reports that ICE is planning to build a bounty hunter army. “In February, at the start of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, news broke that a group of military contractors was circulating a blueprint for mass deportations, to be carried out by private contractors. Led by Erik Prince, Donald Trump ally and founder of the notorious mercenary firm Blackwater, the group proposed (among other ideas) that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) create a “skip tracing team” that would send out private contractors to hunt down immigrants targeted for deportation, per reporting at the time by Politico. Now, there are indications ICE is carrying out those plans.”
19) National: In the Public Interest Executive Director Donald Cohen says “DOGE slashed research for cancer. Its budget cure will make the disease worse. (…) The super-wealthy who supported these cuts don’t need SNAP, or Medicare. They can buy acre after acre to make their own park lands. They can amass private book and art collections to enjoy with their friends. They can send their children to elite private schools. They can separate themselves into their own exclusive enclaves. But the most secure gate of any gated community can’t keep cancer out. ‘All means all’ means them, too–and we should all be committed to the cure.”
20) National: Writing in NOTUS, Jackie Llanos reports that “business is booming for the private prison companies that operate much of President Donald Trump’s immigrant detention apparatus. Private prison giant GEO Group announced this week that it has seen its largest amount of new business ever in 2025. The company’s executives expect it to translate into $3 billion in revenue next year. GEO Group’s detention occupancy level—26,000 people—is at an all-time high, according to its latest quarterly report.”
21) National: Jake Johnson, the intrepid and incredibly productive Common Dreams staff writer, reports on a new paper that says privatized Medicaid could cost Americans $2 trillion extra over the next decade. “A new paper published Friday in the journal Health Affairs argues that if the administration actually wanted to target waste, fraud, and abuse, it would have been much better off taking aim at Medicare Advantage (MA) and Medicaid privatization. (…) “Ending that waste would inflict losses on private insurers’ shareholders and executives (the CEO of the largest MA firm made $26.3 million last year). But patients, not just government coffers, might gain,” wrote Adam Gaffney, Danny McCormick, Steffie Woolhandler, and David Himmelstein.”
22) National: Writing in Capital & Main, Marcus Baram says the Veterans Administration is bleeding doctors and nurses despite vows to protect veteran health care. “‘Our staffing in the ER is beyond dire now,’ said Heather Fallon, a nurse in the emergency department at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago who had long been dreading the arrival of Sept. 30, the day the fiscal year came to an end. That was the day she says she lost two nurses—and the facility lost nine staffers in total—whose contracts ended, putting further strain on her team, which has seen an increase in patients this year. Veteran Affairs Secretary Doug Collins had vowed to have reduced the size of the agency by 30,000 positions by that date without impacting health services for veterans.”
23) National: Tennessee Lookout reports that the private prison operator CoreCivic saw a 55% increase in immigration detainee contracts. “From July to September 2024, CoreCivic generated $140 million in contracts from ICE. Over that same period this year, revenue increased to $215 million, and the company expects it to grow further, CoreCivic announced during its earnings report.”
24) Georgia: In a huge shakeup, the leadership of the Public Service Commission has changed composition, which is expected to have an impact on rates and project decision-making, the nonprofit Georgia Recorder reports.
25) Louisiana: What are New Orleans taxpayers paying for privatized policing? WDSU New6 reports that “over $1 million in city money was spent in a six-month period to pay a private security company to help the NOPD. With the city facing a financial crisis, can it keep paying that, and more? (…) But the new contract hasn’t been signed by the council or mayor, and with talk of cuts to NOPD officer overtime on the table, Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick says the city will be forced to make a tough decision.”
26) Texas: A massive recycling facility in Waller County owned by Waste Management that opened less than a year ago is closing down and letting 88 employees go. “While operations have been temporarily halted, the company said it is not being fully shut down and may reopen should market conditions improve. However, the layoffs are considered permanent, and none of the affected employees are represented by a union, the notice confirmed. The cuts hit a wide range of workers—from technicians and maintenance staff to engineers and lab technicians, according to the WARN filing’s job list.”
27) Texas/Mississippi: Texas Scorecard reports that a Mississippi inmate housing contract with Lasalle Corrections has been canceled as a Harris County jail addresses compliance issues. After years of overcrowding and out-of-compliance warnings, the Harris County Jail is taking steps to bring hundreds of inmates back from out-of-state facilities. (…) During yesterday’s meeting, Chief Deputy Thomas Diaz said that while there isn’t yet a set timeline for ending the Louisiana outsourcing contract, the department has made significant strides. Not only is the Mississippi contract now being terminated, but the number of Harris County inmates housed in Louisiana has dropped from 1,000 to about 800. Diaz also noted that the average time inmates spend in jail has been reduced from a high of 200 days to about 166 days.” Detainees have reported insufficient meals at LaSalle Corrections’ ICE facility in Richwood, Louisiana.
28) National: ICE’s detainee population has reached 66,000, a new record high, statistics show. “Historically, the agency’s detention system has mostly consisted of for-profit prisons and county jails. But, under the second Trump administration, that detention network has been supplemented by military installations and facilities in Republican-led states that have been converted into immigration holding sites,” CBS reports.
29) National: CBS News reports that artificial intelligence is turbocharging corporate profits but cites concerns that unemployment will surge. “U.S. corporate profits and stocks are surging even as companies have cut nearly 1 million jobs in 2025 — a ‘jobless boom,’ according to Chen Zhao, chief global strategist at Alpine Macro. CBS News reported that ADP data shows private employers added 42,000 jobs in October, while unemployment stood at 4.3% in August. Zhao attributes the disconnect to rapid AI-driven productivity gains and a shrinking labor pool.”
30) National/Think Tanks/Upcoming Meetings: The pro-privatization, Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council has published the meeting dates in early December of its Task Forces. Check out the private sector chairs.
31) National: Air Force families at a Florida base have been told to take down their Christmas decorations in privatized housing. “Air Force Capt. Justin Davidson-Beebe, the public affairs chief at Tyndall, confirmed that the message came from Balfour Beatty Communities, the landlord for all privatized housing on the base. ‘They are enforcing the community standards outlined in the legally binding lease agreement all residents voluntarily sign,’ Davidson-Beebe told Task & Purpose on Thursday.”
32) National: A “public-private partnership” to field 1 million drones in the next 2-3 years. 33) California: LAist’s Imperfect Paradise podcast had an interesting episode on the historic and financial stakes behind the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. [Audio, about a half hour]