HIGHLIGHTS
JUMP: EDUCATION | INFRASTRUCTURE | PUBLIC SERVICES | THE REST
First, the Good News
1) National/California: Immigrants detained in a California City ICE facility run by the private, for-profit CoreCivic corporation are denouncing conditions and standing up for their rights. “‘This place is like a torture site,’ Patel told the Chronicle on Thursday. ‘I’ve had clients in facilities all over the country, all different prisons, and they express to me (that) this is the worst place they’ve been. They truly are being treated as if they’re animals.’ Brian Todd, the public affairs manager for CoreCivic, in a statement denied the allegations of the lack of clean drinking water, unclogged toilets, medical care and legal resources.”
California City is a small town that has been “plunged into chaos” after a “secretive ICE facility” began receiving hundreds of migrants, “The facility has come under fire from city leaders who said its lacking the locally issued permits that state law requires. ‘It all happened in the cover of darkness,’ Mayor Marquette Hawkins said, the Chronicle reported. City leaders said there wasn’t any warning that the facility would begin taking in detainees. And once news broke, anti-ICE protestors began appearing. City Council became overrun with residents opposing the facility, causing meetings to descend into public commentary lasting five hours-long.”
2) National: Good government rests on good data, says data scientist Dr. Sheldon H. Jacobson. “If the unspoken goal of the administration is to centralize power around itself and create a perception of instability surrounding the status quo, then fomenting mistrust in data is an effective approach. The recent deployment of National Guards to combat a claimed worsening of violent crimes in D.C. is an example of such data misrepresentation. If this tactic continues unfettered, lack of trust in data will eat away and erode the very pillars of stability that define our nation. Data may not be an exciting topic for most people. Yet reliable and trustworthy data is the oil that keeps the American economic and societal engine operating at peak performance; and, most importantly, stable.”
3) Idaho: After a federal pause, Idaho has applied to get back to work on a program developing EV charging stations. “A working group in Idaho had already gathered public feedback, conducted a study and narrowed down a list of potential sites for charging stations, including potential sites along highway corridors near Bliss, Lewiston and Pocatello. (…) If Idaho’s plans are approved, Tomlinson said the NEVI working group would reconvene and spend several months assessing how to implement the plan.”
4) International/United Kingdom: The Starmer government’s shift on outsourcing is a positive step for the National Health Service, says UNISON, one of the largest public sector workers’ union in the U.K. “Proposals to move NHS staff into separate companies, known as SubCos, will be paused. And any future transfer of NHS workers will be approved only where there is clear union support, as well as protection of NHS terms and conditions. Guidance issued today by NHS England specifically highlights UNISON’s role in raising concerns about moving staff into separate companies. The union says the practice undermines the principle of a single NHS workforce and creates unnecessary anxiety for staff.”
5) Think Tanks: Standing up for veterans. The Guardian’s Aaron Glantz reports that “nearly 100 doctors who have practiced at the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) issued a mass letter on Wednesday raising ‘urgent concerns’ about Trump administration policies that they said will ‘negatively affect the lives of all veterans.’ The letter sent to congressional leaders, Doug Collins, the VA secretary, and the agency’s inspector general marks the first time VA physicians have spoken collectively about staffing cuts and aggressive privatization moves at the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system.”
6) California: The Golden State is touting community schools after a study finds a positive impact, KRCR’s Maxwell Tedford reports. “California’s Department of Education is sharing a study from the Learning Policy Institute that found the $4.1 billion California Community Schools Partnership Program has positively impacted students since it was started in 2021. Contributing to reduced chronic absenteeism, suspension rates and improved grade averages when compared to schools not in the program. Many of the counties in the Northstate including Shasta County were some of the first to join the community schools program state wide, and leaders of it locally say they’ve seen the impact. (…) ‘[The administrator] found they were feeling some effects of some social things going on, and so he specifically went out, he pulled a parent team together and they went out and found resources, mentoring groups, to come in, and girl clubs and thing like that to boost that social connection and the following year, he was so excited,’ explained Hall. ‘7th grade girls had improved, and the same cohort who was now in 8th grade were seeing the improvement as well.’”
7) Florida: A major charter school network is expanding to Miami after lobbying for pro-charter state law, the Associated Press reports. “Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has overseen a major expansion in state funding for school choice, presided over Thursday’s announcement in Miami alongside Success Academy Charter Schools CEO Eva Moskowitz and Citadel investment firm founder Ken Griffin, a GOP megadonor who has pledged $50 million toward the charter school network’s Florida expansion.” New York public schools advocate Leonie Haimson has just called for an investigation of Success Academy.
WSVN reports that “the charter schools were started in New York as their largest charter school system, and now they’re coming to Florida, thanks to a mix of state funding and private donations, including a $50 million from Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, a hedge fund company that relocated its headquarters from New York to South Florida.” In a statement, United Teachers of Dade’s Antonio White said “Co-location proposals further strain our schools by forcing us to provide custodial, food, safety, nursing, and transportation services to charters for free, stretching already inadequate budgets even thinner. Our students deserve real investment in proven public-school solutions, not experiments that pull resources from the schools serving our communities.”
8) Idaho: Public school advocates are suing to stop taxpayer money from going to private schools. “Often referred to as ‘school vouchers,’ the system was heavily criticized by public school advocates who said Idaho already underfunds public schools, which are held accountable through state and federal standards. The petition, a copy of which was obtained by the Idaho Statesman, argues that House Bill 93 violates the Idaho Constitution and its mandate to provide a ‘uniform, thorough and free’ public school system.
‘Diverting taxpayer funds to a disparate collage of private schools does not ‘establish and maintain’ or even promote a general uniform or common system of statewide education,’ said Daniel Mooney, a Boise-based attorney who heads the Committee to Protect and Preserve the Idaho Constitution.”
9) Mississippi/National/Think Tanks: Mississippi Free Press reports that Lindsey Burke, author of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan to overhaul the American education system, “is pushing Mississippi leaders to adopt the Trump administration’s education plans—including using public funds to support ‘school choice’ initiatives like vouchers for attending private schools.”
MFP provides the history: “Like much of the South, ‘school choice’ laws, particularly those involving vouchers for private schools, have a sordid history in Mississippi. The 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education outlawed segregating schools by race. But most schools in Mississippi remained starkly separate and unequal. In Jackson, instead of combining schools’ Black and white student bodies, school leaders raised more funds to give to Black schools, although the funding still was not equal to white schools’ funding. During a 1964 special legislative session, the all-white Mississippi Legislature passed a tuition grant law that allowed public funds to pay for private schools so that white people could send their children to private schools using taxpayer dollars.”
Heritage’s founder, the late Paul Weyrich, was recorded in 1980 saying, ‘I don’t want everybody to vote… our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.’
10) North Carolina/National: The U.S. Department of Education, now run by a former professional wrestling executive, “announced Wednesday that it’s releasing $500 million to the Charter Schools Programs, marking the largest investment ever in the program. The grants include $53 million over five years to the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools (NCAPCS), which supports charter schools across the state.”
Meanwhile, the Goldsborough Daily News reports that “the North Carolina Association of Educators is pressing state legislators to resolve their ongoing budget dispute and pass a comprehensive state budget that has been stalled for more than two months beyond its July 1 deadline. The delay has left state employees, including teachers and other education professionals, without promised pay increases while facing rising costs of living and higher health insurance premiums. The biennial budget was scheduled to take effect at the beginning of the fiscal year but remains unfinished due to disagreements between the state Senate and House of Representatives.”
11) Think Tanks/New Book: The “libertarian” Cato Institute, founded in 1977 by Murray Rothbard and Charles Koch, has a nasty review of Josh Cowen’s excellent The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers. Read this instead.
12) National/New Reports: The National League of Cities has released its report on cities’ top infrastructure priorities. “Water, Roads, and Mobility Projects Lead the Way.” See also KPMG’s “The Great Reset: Emerging Trends in Infrastructure and Transport” 2025 edition.
13) National: Writing in Voice of San Diego, Bella Ross asks if San Diego can end its dependence on cars. “Unless you have no other choice or pay ‘walkable neighborhood’ rent prices, going out of your way to reject car culture feels borderline masochistic.” But in a retrograde step, “the Trump administration canceled grants for street safety measures, pedestrian trails and bike lanes in communities around the country this month, each time offering a simple rationale for yanking back federal aid: the projects aren’t designed for cars.” The pushback has begun. “‘The City won these competitive federal grants to replace sidewalks, improve lighting, upgrade bus stops, and plant trees on neighborhood streets,’ a spokesperson for the administration of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said in an email. ‘The federal government’s decision to cancel these grants once again ignores the clear intent of Congress and we are reviewing our options.’”
14) National: The U.S. Navy has let a contract to further privatize facilities support. “Under the contract, CDM Federal Programs Corporation will deliver specialized expertise in electrical, mechanical and civil utility systems to support NAVFAC’s global utilities infrastructure programs. Services include utility management; operations and maintenance; asset inventory and management; electric and steam production and distribution; water and wastewater treatment; wastewater and stormwater collection; cybersecurity and control systems; advanced metering; energy management and security; and regulatory compliance. The contractor also will support development of UP contract documents, technical libraries and cost models essential for competitively awarding long-term privatization contracts.”
15) California: “The Ventura City Council doesn’t appear likely to sell its water department anytime soon,” says the Ventura County Star. “Privately owned water utilities in the state charged 18% more, or $67 more per year for an average household, than public utility companies, Deputy City Manager Brad ‘Brick’ Conners said during a presentation on the item.”
16) West Virginia: “The Lincoln Public Service District has filed a petition to the Public Service Commission of West Virginia to stop a planned sale to West Virginia American Water,” 13News reports. “The Lincoln PSD says they own their own assets and any sale would require their approval.”
17) National: AFSCME President Lee Saunders denounces President Trump’s threat to engage in mass firings of federal workers in the event of a federal government shutdown. “After slashing public services nationwide and stripping away health care from millions of people, the Trump administration is now threatening to use a potential federal government shutdown to carry out mass firings. This is a blatant attempt to hold federal workers hostage, instead of addressing an imminent extreme increase in ACA premiums for 22 million Americans. These cynical threats of mass firings, if they occur, will further hurt public services not only at the federal level, but states, cities and towns too.”
18) National: The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) have sued President Trump and others in his administration “over his Aug. 28 executive order stripping employees at the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and its Voice of America (VOA) of their collective bargaining rights. In their complaint, the unions argue that the administration’s union-busting action is a direct attempt to prevent the agency’s employees – who are journalists and other media professionals – and their unions from exercising their First Amendment rights by pursuing litigation and filing grievances to challenge the administration’s closure and dismantlement of USAGM and VOA. The employees are represented by AFGE Local 1812 and AFSCME Local 1418.”
19) National: As critics of privatization have long warned about the risks of “public-private partnerships,” a private company, the GEO Group, is demanding the U.S. Supreme Court give it qualified sovereign immunity protection—the shield that protects government entities from lawsuits—for its own profit-making operations. AFSCME says, “a ruling that shields government contractors from lawsuits would encourage public employers to outsource union jobs in corrections to private prison companies who are only interested in the bottom line, and not the safety of corrections officers, communities or the rehabilitation of incarcerated adults and children. Experience shows that privatization often leads to worse wages, benefits and working conditions. And for decades, AFSCME members in corrections have stood on the front lines in the fight against private prisons.” AFSCME’s amicus brief in the case says, “the consequences of adopting GEO Group’s proposed extension of the law would be to insulate private contractors from liability in circumstances in which the federal government itself faces civil liability, thus unnaturally incentivizing privatization.”
The Miami Herald reports that the GEO Group plays central role in Trump’s mass deportation plan. “The company has already landed contracts worth up to $500 million since Trump’s second inauguration on January 20, 2025, a Miami Herald analysis of federal contracting records found. (…) The federal contracts include a renewal to a prior contract to operate the Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility in Pompano Beach. Four months ago, the firm also agreed on a 15-year contract to operate an immigrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey. GEO told investors that it expects to generate $60 million in revenue from that deal in the first year alone and up to $1 billion over 15 years.”
20) National: The Trump administration has filed a court motion arguing that it has the right to roll over a city’s objection to a proposed ICE detention center. “CoreCivic’s detention center closed in 2021, but the corporation plans to reopen it – using it to detain undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation. Scott Peterson, Leavenworth city manager, won’t comment directly on this case or the DOJ’s filing, but on Wednesday, he said this move won’t change the city’s approach to the legal process.”
Rick Hammett of the Carceral Accountability Council says “this is a case about zoning laws.” Hammett and his agency “support the city commission’s demand that CoreCivic file for a special use permit to reopen the detention center. The company began that process in February, but quickly ended it – claiming that its contract with ICE allows it to bypass Leavenworth law. Hammett contends this has less to do with immigration enforcement and more to do with following local laws.” The town has vowed to fight the effort. U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse set a hearing on a CoreCivic motion for a preliminary injunction for 3 p.m. Nov. 25.
For background, see the Congressional Research Service brief, “Federal Preemption: A Legal Primer.”
21) National: Irresponsible contracting? Jacobin reports that the Trump administration is promising corporations a deregulatory bonanza. “The Trump administration is asking corporations to identify state laws “that hinder America’s economic growth, including those that burden industry.” Corporate lobbies are now responding to the Justice Department’s request with their wish lists of consumer protection laws they want the Trump administration to preempt. This is no empty threat: in July, the Trump administration sued California after residents voted to mandate that eggs sold in the state come from cage-free hens.”
22) National/Think Tanks: Tennessee-based CoreCivic “is benefiting from Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda and his reversal of an order under the Biden administration that barred the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Marshals Service from contracting with private detention facilities, the company told investors earlier this year. (…) CoreCivic is primed to cash in on the budget bill Trump signed in July that appropriated $75 billion for ICE, tripling the agency’s annual spending and making it the country’s biggest law enforcement agency. Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the justice program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said in a report published Wednesday that private prison companies like CoreCivic have long been integral to immigration enforcement.” See Eisen’s report at Just Security.
23) National: Migrant Insider reports that senators’ letters “raise concerns about [White House border czar Tom] Homan’s known ties to private companies that profit from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contracts. The documents cite that after his first tenure as Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the first Trump Administration, Homan’s financial disclosures showed he received ‘substantial consulting fees’ from The GEO Group, a major private detention center contractor. The senators also highlight that since his appointment as White House border czar, Homan has advocated for creating more than 107,000 detention beds, which would necessitate new detention center contracts, while making frequent visits to the Capitol to press lawmakers into passing over $100 billion in funding for migrant detention and removal that Trump signed into law on July 4.”
24) National/International: Heather Penatzer has a deep dive on the privatization of the warfare state, focusing on Erik Prince. “His vision of contracting out mass deportations shows how the same logic of privatized violence migrates seamlessly between domestic and foreign spheres, where state functions are delegated to private companies. One can imagine Prince having similar proposals at the ready for overseas endeavors should Trump desire to don ‘the imperial hat.’ (…) An empire of contractors is eating the foundations of the American state from within. Advocates for the privatization of governmental functions insist that market competition leads to efficiency and innovation. In practice, selling off the state’s monopoly on violence to self-interested actors has undermined the American national interest.”
25) National: One Night Live, a collaborative effort to support emerging artists and small independent music venues is back with its second tour, Bruce Houghton reports in Hypebot. “The nonprofit Music Cities Together is also supporting this second tour by connecting the routing with music advocates in each location and the Fan Alliance, is partnering with Kid Tigrrr to engage with local fans. ‘Our mission is to educate fans on the issues facing working artists, to create a fair and equitable music economy,’ said Donald Cohen, founder of the Fan Alliance, ‘One Night Live gets that by providing support to both the artists and the venues.’”
26) National: A mixed picture on the government consulting industry. Trading View reports that “Accenture Plc posted stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter results, showing resilience despite investor concerns over federal spending cuts and a broader slowdown in the consulting sector. The global consultancy and outsourcing firm said revenue grew 7% in the quarter, even as it cautioned that reductions in US government spending on consultants will weigh on growth in the coming year.” Hopes are being placed on an AI boom. “Generative artificial intelligence bookings rose to $1.8 billion, compared with $1.5 billion in the prior quarter and $1 billion a year earlier, underlining strong demand for AI-driven services. (…) Chief Executive Officer Julie Sweet emphasized the firm’s investment in artificial intelligence, describing its 7% annual revenue growth to $69.7 billion as evidence of Accenture’s ability to help clients ‘reinvent and lead with AI.’ The company has begun training its more than 700,000 employees in agentic AI, designed to work autonomously alongside human staff.”