Picks of the Week: Milwaukee Schools Spending, Border Tracking, and Child Hunting Deaths
In a regular feature of Post Investigations, our editors have combed through the in-depth and investigative reports from news outlets across the nation and selected the notable projects of the week.
Get the complete list (in no particular order) after the jump.
Milwaukee Schools Spend Millions on Unused Classrooms
A watchdog report by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that the city's school system spent $102 million on a building spree between 2001 and 2005 on unused classrooms and at schools where enrollment has lagged far behind expected growth.
"The $102 million Neighborhood Schools Initiative was supposed to get students off buses and into revamped schools near their homes. Instead, darkened classrooms and half-empty buildings serve as monuments to the program's failures," report Dave Umhoefer and Alan J. Borsuk in "Subtraction By Addition."
U.S. Tracks Border Crossings by Americans
U.S. authorities have been using border checkpoints to collect information on its citizens that can be used down the road in criminal and intelligence investigations, The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima revealed this week.
The Border Crossing Information system, which was disclosed last month, is designed to protect the country against terrorist attacks, but it also reflects a "growing number of government systems containing personal information on Americans that can be shared for a broad range of law enforcement and intelligence purposes, some of which are exempt from some Privacy Act protections," Nakashima writes.
Study Cites High Death Rate for Young Hunters
More 13-year-olds since 2001 were shot in hunting-related accidents than persons of any other age, a Tulsa World analysis found. The 10 kids who were killed at age 13 represent more than two times as many hunting accidents than any other age group since 2001.
The World's Gavin Off found that three of the ten accidents reported to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation were fatal.
By Derek Kravitz |
August 22, 2008; 2:41 PM ET
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Unfortunately I believe that we are limited in what we can focus on. I think that if we proceed with the partisan sideshow of prosecuting Bush admin. officials, healthcare will get lost in the brouhaha.
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