www.click10.com Posted: 1:19 p.m. EST February 26, 2003

Are Florida taxpayers being hoodwinked into paying to educate foreign visitors? According to a Channel 10 investigation, that's exactly what's happening at at least one Miami-Dade Public School.

It's the same school where investigative reporter Jilda Unruh, three years ago, discovered staff brazenly enrolling adult tourists as Florida residents for free English classes, paid for by you the taxpayer.

Unruh: In light of the state revenue shortfalls, you'd think the legislature and the Miami-Dade School District would be doing everything in their power to clamp down on the the unnecessary expenditure of taxpayer dollars. But, as you're about to see, the same loophole in the law we uncovered three years ago, continues to allow foreign visitors to get an education on your tab.

Unruh: According to their passports, they came from Argentina, Peru, Italy, Brazil and Uruguay. And, not one of them has been authorized by the INS to stay in the United States of America longer than 6 months. In fact, according to the INS, and according to them, they are tourists. Sharon Fernandez is from Venezuela.

Unruh: Are you a tourist?

Sharon Fernandez/Foreign Tourist: A tourist? Yes.

Unruh: So you are not a resident of the State of Florida?

Fernandez: No. No. I'm going back to Venezuela.

Unruh: Yet, Sharon is one of more than half a dozen tourists, who should have been charged a fee for English classes. But, according to documents we obtained, they've all been enrolled in the last two months, as Florida residents at Feinberg/Fisher Adult education center on Miami Beach, entitling them to free English instruction while they're visiting, paid for by you, the taxpayer. Andre Augusto de Carvalho from Brazil is another, according to his roommate.

Unruh: So, he's just a tourist?

Roommate: Yes.

Unruh: But don't just take a roommate's word for it. Take a look at copies of the INS, I-94 tourist visas, which we obtained. In each case, it shows the person's entry date into and scheduled departure date from the United States. Government proof they are tourists. Just one problem: The school district's policy doesn't ask enrollees for these documents. Mayco Villafana is spokesman for the district.

Unruh: The district isn't asking for documents that unequivocally prove they're tourists? Mayco Villafana/Miami-Dade School Spokesman: Correct.

Unruh: Why?

Villafana: Well, we're not asking for that information because state law doesn't require it.

Unruh: That's right! State law doesn't require it, because the Florida legislature has never defined, who is and who isn't, a Florida resident when it comes to adult basic education.

Villafana: The state of Florida law right now is silent when it comes to adult education.

Unruh: Three years ago (May 2001), the Channel 10 Investigators first exposed employees at Feinberg/Fisher adult enrolling tourists as Florida residents, even though they'd admitted they were not.

Foreign Tourist: As I am French, I just put France on it and they just erased it and put Florida resident.

Unruh: This time, we discovered a different problem, but tourists are still getting a free education. After our first investigation, the district issued specific guidelines for verifying residency, actually going above and beyond state law. One of the items enrollees must show is a court sworn declaration of domicile which is the exact document each of our tourists provided, including Sharon from Venezuela. She told us, school officials told her she needed it to enroll for free.

Fernandez: They told me that I can sign up. That its assistance from the government.

Unruh: Martha Montaner is principal at Feinberg/Fisher adult.

Montaner: That's certainly not the practice of this school. We would have to look into it.

Unruh: Will you concede that a person who is only here six months is not a resident?

Villafana: Well, I don't know that. It's far-fetched to think that tourists who only came for a very small amount of time want to take English courses or other vocational classes.

Unruh: Perhaps Villafana and district administrators should meet Sharon Fernandez. Asked why she was taking English classes if she was going back to Venezuela to have her baby, she told us:

Fernandez: To help me in Venezuela. To better my job.

Unruh: Nice for Sharon, but should Florida taxpayers be helping her, and others like her, to get better jobs in foreign countries?

Villafana: We're taking them at their word. Unruh: You're supposed to be the gatekeepers for the taxpayer. You're willing to take people at their word to spend taxpayer dollars?

Villafana: I'm saying that we're taking people at their word so that we can educate them.

Unruh: The district insists it is not an arm of the INS. According to the INS website, a "tourist" is defined as "a non-immigrant or temporary visitor for pleasure, not for permanent residence." State law, however, provides no such definition for adult education. And, as we've shown, you the taxpayer will continue to pay, until the legislature closes that loophole, defines a Florida resident and demands district enforcement.

Copyright 2003 by Click10.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, February 20, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

The Education, Culture & Sports (MECD) Ministry has invited UNICEF-Venezuela, National Children’s Rights Council (CNDN), The Inter American Institute of the Child, Ombudsman’s Office and Attorney General’s office to discuss violations of children’s rights during the national stoppage.

When the discussion finishes tomorrow, those attending the event hope to draw up a declaration on children’s rights in Venezuela during events of December-January.

UNICEF-Venezuela representative, Ana Lucia D’Emilio has called on both sides not to use children’s rights as part of their political discourse. More and more people are coming around to the viewpoint that teachers who abandoned the classroom to join the national strike did indeed violate children's right to education and the UNICEF representative suggests that rights cannot be separated.

“Teachers can’t argue in their favor that the right to life is higher than the right to education … rights cannot be separated … by violating one right today, we may be violating a whole string of rights tomorrow.”

UNICEF insists that children’s rights must be guaranteed in times of crisis and the government must be aware of this.

www.wfn.org

From PCUSA NEWS PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org Date 31 Jan 2003 07:53:39 -0500 Note #7577 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Group plans mission-education network 03057 January 29, 2003

Group plans mission-education network

Idea is to rally support for PC(USA)-related schools overseas

by John Filiatreau

LOUISVILLE - A dozen Presbyterians who are passionate about educational missions gathered here last week to take the first steps toward forming a "network" to support the educational efforts of the overseas partners of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The idea was to create a new organization to focus on the educational

component of international mission, as the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship and Outreach Foundation support evangelism and the Presbyterian Medical Benevolence Foundation promotes health ministries.

However, the group - composed of pastors, missionaries, retired

missionaries, lay volunteers and presbytery and synod representatives - decided against becoming a validated mission support group structured like those foundations, at least for now. It also passed on the idea of trying to become an official PC(USA) advisory group, choosing instead a "program network" model, whose purpose would be to identify needs and marshal PC(USA) resources to address them.

The participants' commitment to the cause is shown by the fact that

they paid their own way to Louisville for the two-day brainstorming discussion at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

They ultimately planned several other trips - to countries in Africa,

the Middle East and South America, to identify successful models of educational mission to be promoted by the group, which hasn't chosen a name, but seemed to be leaning toward OPEN (Overseas Presbyterian Educational Network).

Participants agreed to meet again in late summer or early fall, and

in the meantime to recruit other education enthusiasts in the PC(USA).

David Maxwell, coordinator for global education and leadership

development in the Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD), said the idea of forming such a group has been "festering" on his agenda for some time. He said its purpose will be to "guide, steer, nudge, push" the denomination to step up its efforts on behalf of international education missions.

Maxwell's office spends about $500,000 a year in support of more than

200 schools and literacy programs around the world.

Will Brown, WMD's associate director for ecumenical partnership, told

the participants that education is one of the things that differentiates Presbyterian mission efforts from those of other Christian groups. "If there's one thing our denomination knows how to do, it's education," he said. "We have a capacity and we aren't using that capacity."

Marian McClure, the WMD director, found time in her busy schedule to

drop in to make "a quick little speech of support" of the organizing effort, which she called "the culmination of at least seven years of dreaming."

Educational mission takes in literacy programs, primary and secondary

schools, teacher-training and leadership-development programs, colleges and universities, and seminaries.

Maxwell said "it makes sense for a Reformed church" to strongly

support education because of its conviction that people everywhere "have a right and responsibility to read and write and be part of their churches and communities," and because of the central importance of enabling people to read scripture. He noted that many Presbyterian missionaries who established churches in foreign lands "often started a school right next to the church."

The envisioned network would include congregations, presbyteries,

synods and "individual Presbyterians with a passion for mission" who want to be involved in the overseas educational efforts of the PC(USA).

Participants would: share information and experience; work out common

strategies; coordinate educational efforts; facilitate communication; and "maximize" contact with international partners.

Organizers passed out a WMD paper, Guidelines for WMD-Related

"Mission Networks," that says in part: "We would hope to assist in the gathering of those with like interests and ... help in the whole of the PC(USA) in the organization and funding of the platforms necessary at national and regional levels for responsible, transparent, accountable and invitational mission work."

Maxwell wrote after the first day of meetings: "On the one hand, we

want to build a network that is not restrictive (much like the country networks), but rather a gathering of everyone doing everything. On the other hand, we see the need to create at least two programs that currently do not exist that would be more uniform and centralized that can engage individuals, congregations and presbyteries and synods."

One idea that seemed to have a lot of support was an "adopt-a-school"

program in which PC(USA) individuals, Sunday schools and churches would support a particular school of a partner church.

Several participants spoke favorably of scholarship programs to make

schooling accessible to children whose families cannot afford to pay even minimal tuition and expenses.

Jeff Boyd, a PC(USA) mission worker in Cameroon now on a visit to the

United States, said the problems educators in many parts of the world face are primarily: lack of access to schools, a particular problem for the poor and for girls; poor teaching, the result of "undertraining" and a scarcity of educational materials; declining, poorly maintained school buildings and other infrastructure; and isolation from the outside world and its resources.

Don Mead, of Glen Arbor, MI, a former missionary, proposed that the network begin by identifying "a couple of platforms and a couple of programs ... in places where we have good, solid relationships" that can serve as "models to be replicated elsewhere."

The group tentatively planned "exploratory" trips to Congo, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Malawi, and identified other countries that might be added to the list, including Lebanon, Palestine, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Colombia and Venezuela.

When Peggy Owens, associate general presbyter the Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, asked the awkward question, "Who's financing these trips?", Maxwell admitted, "At this point we have no budget." He said he may approach PC(USA) entities for financial backing, and expressed confidence that Presbyterians will support the new network and its purpose.

"Let's let the word out in the denomination and see what comes up," Maxwell suggested.

Mitri Raheb, of Palestine, a mission partner in residence at the Presbyterian Center, is a Lutheran who runs a Christian school in Bethlehem. He said many in his country appreciate American-style education, which emphasizes "critical thinking and creativity" over the rote learning prevalent in many cultures. He said his school also imparts "Christian values" to its students, half of whom are Muslims.

The participants agreed that the timing is right for such an effort.

Several said it is important that the network involve "the grass roots of the church" and be "owned" by people across the denomination, rather than becoming just another office in WMD.

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