HIGHLIGHTS
JUMP: EDUCATION | INFRASTRUCTURE | PUBLIC SERVICES | THE REST
First, the Good News
1) National: New research from the Center for American Progress (CAP) demonstrates that strong standards around public employment leads to direct benefits to the public—and that a lack thereof leads to reduced public benefit. “Good Jobs for Government Workers Improve Public Services,” written by Karla Walter and Sachin Shiva, explains how “state and local policymakers should uphold high standards for government workers and thereby ensure that the public continues to receive high-quality services.”
The brief points out that higher job quality standards lead to longer worker tenure and productivity, which leads to high-quality, reliable public goods and services and, ultimately, to a better return on investment for taxpayers.
2) New York: New York City has graduated its first IT academy class. “More than two dozen participants earned a certificate of completion from the program, which helped them understand city systems, HR and learn best practices from IT leaders.”
3) District of Columbia: “Now is the time to support D.C.’s community schools,” says Eboni-Rose Thompson, the Ward 7 Representative on the DC State Board of Education. “Community schools are the obvious key to opening those doors. I have seen firsthand at funded community schools — like Kimball Elementary, which has a food pantry and washing machines — investments that get our students in the schoolhouse door and learning. They are not band-aids; they are hubs. A community school coordinates on-site health and mental-health supports, breakfast and after-school meals, family resource centers, and partnerships with local food banks and mutual-aid groups.”
4) Indiana: Nonprofits have received funding support. “The Montgomery County Community Foundation awarded $218,234 to 11 nonprofit organizations Wednesday in its final grant cycle of the year and distributed an additional $243,000 from established funds to nearly 40 organizations. This year’s competitive grants supported projects in community development, education, health and youth services. The Animal Welfare League received $18,145 to upgrade outdoor areas at its shelter by rebuilding the cat cattery and adding more dog runs to give animals a safer and more enriching space. (…) MCCF manages more than 250 endowed funds, each established by donors with the desire to make Montgomery County a better place to live. Since 1991, over $31.5 million in grants and scholarships has been awarded to agencies and students right here in Montgomery County.”
5) New Report: Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety has released its latest report. See its reading list on autonomous vehicle safety.
6) National: The latest episode of Jennifer Berkshire’s Have You Heard podcast has a discussion on the right wing and education. “The MAGA vision for public education isn’t just to dismantle it. Key parts of the coalition also want to reshape schools along religious and political lines. In this episode we hear from two experts about MAGA’s education project. Kevin Kumashiro tells us about the growing influence of Christian Nationalism, while Laura Fields, author of the new book Furious Minds, introduces us to the intellectuals of the ‘new right,’ for whom taking back America also entails taking back K-12 schools.” [Audio, about 40 minutes]
7) National: The Washington Post has published a major report on billionaire school voucher and privatization supporter Jeff Yass. “He argues that public schools are failing millions of children, and says those students deserve the chance to attend the school of their choice—private, religious, charter, or traditional public — with taxpayer dollars. His views have made him a nemesis of the left and allied him with President Donald Trump, whom he once opposed but now supports, including with a contribution to remake the White House by demolishing the East Wing and constructing a $300 million ballroom.” Yass was also instrumental in supporting Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s school voucher initiative.
8) Idaho: Writing in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Ryan Urie says Private-school Vouchers are a Scam. “While presented as a “tax credit,” funds are distributed as direct payouts that are unrelated to a family’s tax burden. In short, Idaho taxpayers are now on the hook to subsidize families already wealthy enough to afford private schooling. Similar programs have been tried across the country, and the costs consistently balloon far beyond initial estimates, blowing holes in state budgets with no improvement in educational outcomes. In Arizona, for example, a program originally budgeted for $65 million now costs the state nearly $1 billion per year—a 15-fold increase. In states that opt to fund private schools with public funds, spending on public schooling predictably contracts.”
9) Maryland: The Baltimore Banner’s Maya Lora explains “How a West Baltimore Charter School’s 30-Year Legacy Collapsed in Months.” “Baltimore City Public Schools officials say the nonprofit that operates New Song hid the extent of its financial woes, a heap of debt that left little choice but to close. The nonprofit’s former executive director, Jayson J. Green, blames its board for going silent when he asked for help. Meanwhile, one of the last remaining board members said, if Green had kept it better informed of the severity of the debt, donations could have saved the school. The mess has blindsided students and parents.”
10) New York: Bloomberg moves in to pair up charter schools with HBCU’s, historically Black colleges and universities. “City Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies are committing $10 million each, marking one of the largest coordinated efforts to foster K-12 and higher education partnerships with HBCUs. Long-standing HBCU champion, UNCF, will serve as a key partner in advancing this effort and supporting new K-12 collaborations.”
11) West Virginia: The Intelligencer reports that “In a 39-page order released Wednesday, 8th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Bailey ruled that the creation of the state’s five brick-and-mortar public charter schools and two statewide virtual charter schools violates the state Constitution. Those schools were authorized by the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board (PCSB). (…) ‘That was the whole point, to evade county school board authorization and supervision, as the Court’s factual findings make clear.’ Bailey issued a permanent injunction that immediately prohibits the PCSB from authorizing any new charter schools unless local voters approve them via special election.” At present, voters do not get a direct say in whether or not charter schools are opened in their communities.
12) National/Virginia: A P3 for a Dulles airport makeover? “The Secretary is inviting proposals and public-private partnership plans from the best and brightest developers, architects, and engineers to construct completely new terminals and concourses at IAD. These structures would replace or build on the existing main terminal and satellite concourses at IAD.”
Government Market News reports that the following are the primary questions posed in the RFI:
- What designs should be considered for a bold new airport to replace the existing terminal and concourses?
- What is a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost estimate for a redesign or major renovation?
- How could a design-build be structured and financed to maximize available funds and speed of construction of new terminal(s) and concourses to replace or build upon the existing terminal and concourses?
13) National: Modernization, not privatization, is key to air traffic control success, says Ed Bolen, president and CEO of the National Business Aviation Association. “Unfortunately, misguided proponents of privatizing air traffic control have predictably gone into overdrive in trying to distract from this effort to promote their privatization agenda. The fact is, privatized ATC systems are not a panacea—they are a problem. The privatized ATC models in Canada, the European Union and elsewhere are beset with a host of well-documented flaws, including delays and disruptions caused by funding and management instability, staffing shortages, safety concerns, technology breakdowns and other serious weaknesses.”
14) Louisiana: The Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton Rouge (BREC) are proposing staff cuts and privatization. See also Anne “Dede” Neal Petri, the Olmsted’s Network’s president and CEO, on how privatization of our parks is a real danger. “In an essay called ‘The Spoils of the Park,’ [Frederick Law] Olmsted railed at politicians and public officials who regarded parks as building sites. Olmsted wasn’t talking in a legal sense, but he understood that misguided park development would inevitably result in irrevocable harm. Once public park land is lost, it is lost forever. That is what the Emerald Necklace Conservancy understands as well.”
15) New York: Puerto Rican families in New York’s public housing worry that privatization will cause displacement. “But since renovations have been completed at many PACT developments, eviction threats against tenants have surged and eviction rates are about five times higher than NYCHA’s regular buildings, although actual evictions remain low. For communities like Puerto Ricans, whose population in New York City decreased by 20 percent between 2017 and 2022 and who largely rely on public housing as a last holdout in gentrifying neighborhoods, this reality makes PACT feel like the latest ploy to drive them out for the benefit of real estate interests.”
16) Pennsylvania: The PA DOT reports that the Allegheny County Airport Authority (ACAA) “is seeking approval to pursue a Public-Private Partnership (P3) to develop and implement an autonomous shuttle system at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT).” Also, CINTRA has submitted an unsolicited proposal to install managed lanes on I-76 Schuylkill Expressway.
17) National/Texas: Texas history, meet Texas-America 2025. In its Fall 2025 issue, Boston Review has an in-depth investigative report by Honora Spicer on Profiting in Nowhereland: The Sordid Histories behind Texas’s Industrial-Scale Immigration Detention Center. “In a move toward privatization on an enormous scale, Texas granted a vast ribbon of land stretching across the northern and western portions of the state to the Texas and Pacific Railway in 1873. For the mileage of track and other railroad facilities constructed by 1880, the railway would earn certificates exchangeable for sections of state public land it was then tasked with surveying. But the location of the land granted had no correlation to the location of the railroad: while track was constructed for cotton export along the Red River, much of the fourteen million acres Texas placed in the T&P Railway’s reserve was in West Texas, hundreds of miles away.”
18) National: DOGE is dead, but the damage lives on, according to Peter Hart, the domestic communications director at Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). “While some might consider that a reason to celebrate, a fair accounting suggests that DOGE did none of what it was promised to do, but nonetheless managed to do substantial damage to the day-to-day functioning of the federal government, and to the vital public services it provides. (…) In short, DOGE was a con job. The government is not more efficient than before, it did not reduce overall spending, and it failed to uncover much in the way of government waste – probably because it neglected the parts of government, like military spending and Medicare Advantage overpayments, where fraud and waste is well-documented. What it did was serve as a means to achieve some key political goals that the Trump administration had championed – making the government better serve the interests of corporate interests and Trump himself. The effects of those policies will reverberate well into the future.”
19) National: “As Open Enrollment Ends, Medicare Advantage Companies Focus on Profits Over Care,” Eileen Appelbaum reports. “MA plans are under pressure from financial markets to increase margins. And most have taken steps to do just that. UnitedHealthcare, for example, has increased deductibles on prescription drugs and reduced benefits for over-the-counter medications. Like many insurers offering MA plans, it now charges coinsurance on preferred brand name medications instead of set copayments. This means that members will have to pay more for higher priced drugs. These changes, according to health consulting company Jeffries, mean that UnitedHealthcare is likely to ‘extract more profit from its plans, even as they attract fewer members.’”
20) Michigan: In an online meeting held by the Michigan Public Service Commission, sharp criticism was levelled at a proposal for a massive data center that will suck up massive amounts of local energy. “The data center was proposed by OpenAI, Oracle, and data center developer Related Digital. The meeting featured comments from residents about environmental, ethical, and economic concerns regarding the plan for the data center. DTE filed the request ex parte, which means interested parties, such as Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office, cannot file testimony or conduct discovery before the MPSC decides whether to approve the project. (…) Bryan Smigielski, a campaign organizer for the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, said DTE’s plans for the development of the data center are largely unavailable to the public. He said the speed with which DTE is seeking acceptance of their application is reckless and could create unknown risks for residents. ‘If (DTE’s) entire business case collapses under the timelines needed to holistically plan and engage with formal public scrutiny and factor in risks, then its entire business model does not work,’ Smigielski said. ‘Expedited approval is the very reason (DTE’s application) must be denied. Approval would clearly be a betrayal of public interest.”
21) International/Australia/New Report: A new report from Australia’s top doctors’ organization says private health insurance is increasingly failing to deliver value. The report card says, “The AMA’s 2025 Private Health Insurance Report Card reveals a system increasingly failing to deliver value for money. Premiums have risen sharply, outpacing inflation, wage growth, and Medicare indexation—while coverage has narrowed. Sixty-eight per cent of hospital policies now contain exclusions, meaning many Australians are paying more, but are covered for less. At the same time, a smaller share of premiums goes towards covering the cost of care for policyholders: in the last financial year, only 84 per cent of premium revenue was paid out as benefits reimbursing care. The tiered product system introduced in 2020—basic, bronze, silver, and gold—was designed to simplify choices but has instead created confusion and contributed to underinsurance. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of Australians with gold-tier health cover has fallen by 360,000 to just 743,000, despite overall growth in health policy coverage. Many Australians have shifted to silver or bronze policies, which often exclude critical services. Meanwhile, those seeking to purchase insurance for the first time are being priced out of the market for gold-tier policies, which have become prohibitively expensive.”
22) National: Efforts to regulate artificial intelligence in the face of industry pressure are gaining momentum across ideological lines, at the federal and state levels. “The current push for federal AI pre-emption efforts, so called because they would pre-empt or prohibit states’ ability to regulate AI, kicked off early this week.”
23) National: Does Palantir fuel ICE? The Washington Post reports that “The company has hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts. One of its software products is used to track and deport suspected noncitizens. (…) After going public five years ago, the company rose to become one of the top-performing stocks on the S&P 500 so far this year. It pulled in $2.87 billion in revenue last year and about $1.2 billion in the third quarter of this year alone, with the largest share coming from U.S. government contracts. It expects to make more than $4 billion in revenue this year, according to a recent quarterly filing.”
24) National: A court has temporarily blocked the dismissal of 250 State Department employees. “‘Yet again, the president’s unlawful assault on the American people and those who serve them will be blocked by a federal court,’ said Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman. ‘We are pleased by the judge’s decision to grant a temporary restraining order to protect civil servants.’ (…) AFGE and AFSA had requested the temporary restraining order by Friday morning to block the State RIFs before the department separated the employees. ‘OMB and [the Office of Personnel Management] have no authority to direct other agencies to apply a misinterpretation of federal law,’ the groups said. ‘Federal agency defendants likewise have no authority to violate’ the CR.”
25) National: Direct File won’t happen in 2026, the IRS tells states. “Most of the taxpayers that used Direct File earlier this year — over 296,500—gave it high marks. Those users won’t be able to log on to the Direct File website to get their returns anymore, according to the new email, which directs anyone needing a transcript to their IRS online accounts. The Trump administration’s massive tax and spending policy bill signed into law over the summer directed the IRS to set up a task force to examine how the tax agency can use public-private partnerships to replace Direct File.”
26) Fun Fact: Antigovernment icon Ayn Rand received Social Security and Medicare with the aid of a social worker.
Aerial photo taken by the Army Air Forces in 1945 over the Fort Bliss barracks. Image: National Archives