The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Federal Department of Education" ...
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In the Line of Fire: Former Civil Rights advocate Norma V. Cantu now runs the federal office that investigates discrimination in schools. Her views and her office's tactics have some critics up in arms.
This story explains how one woman (Norma V. Cantu) is working to fight discrimination and ensure the survival of affirmative action programs. Norma V. Cantu is the U.S. Department of Education's assistant secretary for civil rights.
Tags: Norma V. Cantu; Norma Cantu; affirmative action; discrimination; education; schools; civil rights.
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Slammed
The New Times examines the conditions at the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections. The series reveals "evidence of physical, sexual and verbal abuse of juvenile detainees by staff, inadequate mental health services and instances where kids were kept in detention far longer than their recommended time of stay." One of the stories focused on how the department was providing substandard education. Another article shed light on the vicious practice of using solitary confinement as punishment for days or weeks, without allowing the detainees to go to classes or to the bathroom. The conditions deteriorated after a federal court order requiring the department to be monitored expired in 1998, the Times reports. Juveniles are released when they turn 18 without any adequate preparation or support.
Tags: FOIA; Arizona's public records law; juvenile justice; children; psychiatry; mental health; incarceration; drugs; crime
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Doctors in Debt
Dallas Business Journal examines the federal government's "troubled efforts to collect on $168.8 million in student loans remaining from the defunct Health Education Assistance Loans (HEAL) program. About 1,700 chiropractors, dentists and other former medical students have found their starting salaries too low to repay their student debts, the story reveals. The Journal's analysis of the government data about the debtors shows "discrepancies in payment records, departures from agency rules and confusion among those running the system." The defaulted doctors' debts could cost some of them their licenses, Patrick reports.
Tags: doctors; licensing boards; bankruptcy; college financial aid; U.S. Department of Health and Human Service; Health Education Assistance Loans (HEAL); Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners; Texas State Board of Dental Examiners
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UC keeps sex crimes in shadows
A five-month Bee investigation finds that "reports of rapes and sexual assaults at University of California campuses are seldom made public each year despite a decade-old federal law created to force colleges to do so." Bee reporters found that several UC campuses violated the federal campus crime reporting law, called the Clery Act. "The result: annual crime reports provided to students and parents that create a misleading portrayal of safety at UC campuses." While the nine UC campuses reported 60 forcible sex offenses in 1998, including rapes, the Bee discovered "at least 190 cases of rape and forcible sex offenses...The figure is by no means comprehensive." UC Irvine and UC Riverside sidestepped the more stringent reporting requirements of the Clery Act by using FBI statistics.
Tags: Clery Act; sexual assault; sex crimes; universities; colleges; campus crime statistics; University of California; U.S. Department of Education
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Police Corps
"The enemy: rising crime in urban America, coupled with police brutality and corruption. The man with answer: a former Robert F. Kennedy aide who had turned crime crusader. Eventually heeding the constant lobbying of Adam Walinsky, Congress finally created the Police Corps training program to create an elite generation of sophisticated, college-educated officers. But with lax oversight at the U.S. Department of Justice, state and federal program administrators relied on Walinsky for guidance. The result: a rogue program that after $54 million had put only 246 cops on the street. What's more, Walinsky's influence took a controversial path of militaristic, boot-vamp style of training, including sleep deprivation, Hell Week endurance tests and live-fire over cadets' heads."
Tags: police training; FOIA; criminal justice; Florida State University; university graduates into neighborhood cops; Outward Bound training style; character; commando; ROTC for police; sleep deprivation; National Institute on Justice
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Dividing Lines
The Columbus Dispatch investigated the "uneven educational opportunities in the Columbus Public Schools." The series revealed that "the Columbus elementary schools again are divided by race and income - and by student achievement, teacher experience and resources." The reporters identified problems with "poor test scores, a high dropout rate, financial and policy mismanagement, aging buildings" as common in the schools with prevailing minority enrollments. Some of the key findings were that "the assignment boundaries for some neighborhood schools closely match those ones singled out by the courts as racially gerrymandered", "spending by building bears little relation to the number of poor children" and "private donations...exacerbate inequities among schools". The newspaper also investigated how teachers' absenteeism and salaries correlate with the inequity issue. The reporters came to the conclusion that "veteran educators generally work at schools in middle-class neighborhoods, while beginning teachers get assigned to the poorest schools."
Tags: diskette; education; academics; race; income; poverty; segregation; FOIA; Ohio Department of Education; teachers; absenteeism; minority students; federal funds; database mapping project
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To Protect and Collect
The Star investigates how police circumvent forfeiture laws on a national scale. Seized money that should go through state courts and then to education often ends up going back to the police that seized it. Also looks at how in many cases federal agencies help local law enforcement keep most of the money they seize.
Tags: Seizure; forfeiture; federal agencies; law enforcement; drug money; Department of Justice
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Alternative Schools
A Palm Beach Post investigation of the Palm Beach County School Board revealed that it was "violating federal and state laws in the way they assign special education students to alternative schools.... students were sent without parental notification or approval - a legal requirement. They also kept sloppy records and couldn't prove that many of the children they said were in the program actually attended."
Tags: Palm Beach County School Board law Columbia Academy Department of Education Office of Civil Rights
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Poisoned on the Job
CBC News reports "a story about transit workers in the small Alberta city of Medicine Hat who say they are sick because they were exposed to dangerous levels of methanol during a federally funded test project of the alternative fuel. Methyl alcohol is highly toxic, but the workers were told it was 'environmentally friendly.' A report from an internal investigation confirmed the workers were exposed to excessive levels of the chemical for years as they worked in clothes soaked with the fuel and breathed formaldehyde fumes produced by incomplete combustion. Today, the workers say they suffer from chemical sensitivities because of their exposure. Alberta's Workers' Compensation Board has rejected their claims...."
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Good Deeds Punished
Metro Santa Cruz reports "a Department of Education investigation into allegations that (the Center for Employment Training) misappropriated federal Pell Grant funds, and the impact CET's actions had on disadvantaged workers. CET's zeal in pursuing its mission resulted, over the years, in a kind of hubris that tempted the organization into a financially catastrophic expansion program. Eventually, according to the DoE, CET used those federal funds to cover cash flow problems, instead of paying them out to students."
Tags: corruption; financial aid; Russell Tershy; Anthony Soto welfare-to-work