The Up North Progressive is Very Sick

Wednesday , 24, February 2016 Up North Progressive Presidential Primary 2016 Leave a comment

So enjoy this while recovery is in progress.

And here’s another, just for laughs*

*Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer

In Which We Instruct John Wilson That 1 Percent Below the National Average is Not A Bad Thing

Sunday , 14, February 2016 Up North Progressive Gateway To Success Academy, Section 16 3 Comments

The Up North Progressive knows that Western Land Services Owner John Wilson reads this blog (Hello!). The anticipated reply to Friday’s article did not disappoint.

Oh good Lord!

Both G2S and Oaktree Academy are 501c non-profit educational institutions. We’ve invested $250,000 into South Hamlin School to rehab a school that was literally falling apart. Our goal is for all Mason County 4 year olds to have a preschool experience. When kids are kindergarten ready they have a better chance of reading by the 3rd grade. Last year 88%, this year 92%, hopefully we’ll reach 100%. We pay Ludington Schools annual rent of $60,000. That facility will never make any money, nor can it.

Wilson goes on to explain how Gateway To Success wasn’t even his idea, it was everyone else (Ludington Schools, West Shore ESD and MCC) who wanted the charter school; he just donated some money to help. So what about that conversation that happened in Arizona when Mrs. Wilson said G2S would never be for alternative ed?

Wilson then goes on to give everyone else (Ludington Schools, West Shore ESD and MCC) a black eye about the dismal 80 percent graduation rate they’re suffering.

We’re investing $3.5 million into raising our ESD’s graduation rate from its current 80%. When kids drop out of school no one gets their funding. That’s our target audience. If we can identify those kids before they drop out we’ll have a better chance of helping them graduate. Our current graduation rate of 80% is unacceptable. Too many kids are falling through the cracks. G2S is hoping to help give those those kids a better future.

80 percent is unacceptable according to John Wilson. Yes, that means out of 626 students enrolled in Ludington High School, statistically only 501 will graduate and 125 will not.

125 students by the way was the enrollment of Journey Junior Senior High School before it closed. Journey was the alternative education program shuttered to make room for Gateway To Success. What about the future that program offered students so they didn’t fall through the cracks?

Are Ludington Schools really so far below average they need this charter school to pick up the slack before the chaos of the uneducated reigns over the Mason County lakeshore? Just how far below the national average of high school students graduating is Ludington High School? The district must be in a free fall of panic dealing with the scandal of only graduating 80 percent of their total school enrollment. According to the United States department of Education, the current average nationwide is …. wait for it …. are you sitting down? …. 81 percent!

In fact, here is a quote from the US Department of Education’s own website about this “unacceptable” situation:

U.S. students are graduating from high school at a higher rate than ever before, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. The nation’s high school graduation rate hit 81 percent in 2012-13, the highest level since states adopted a new uniform way of calculating graduation rates five years ago.

The current federal goal for graduating high school students is 90% by the year 2020.

But that may still be too low for John Wilson. He probably remembers a time when everyone he graduated from high school with graduated, and Ludington’s 80 percent graduation rate must be some all-time new low. John Wilson couldn’t be more wrong.

American public schools graduate more high school students now than they ever have in the history of the United States. In 1953 about 50 percent of our population graduated from high school. In the 1930’s it wasn’t even 30 percent. The GED program came about as part of the GI bill. The US Government offered to pay for WWII veterans to go to college, but most of them were so poorly educated, they didn’t have the basic skills to pass college entrance exams. In 1910, most school children were done with school when they reached the 8th grade.

In 1938, this article appeared in a late spring issue of my grandfather’s high school newspaper. He graduated from Henry Ford Trade School in 1940.

74 percent was astronomical in 1938. Notice no one called this school’s graduation rate “unacceptable.”

Jamie Vollmer said it best:

The golden age of America’s schools is a myth. For over two hundred years, America’s public schools have risen to meet every challenge posed by a rapidly-evolving society—an experiment in free-market, representative democracy that is unique in world history. The truth is that, each succeeding generation of young Americans has been better educated than its predecessors.

Ludington High School graduating 80 percent of their students means they’re right on track with the rest of the nation in education achievement. If they make it to 89 percent by 2020, the teachers and staff of Ludington High School deserve a pat on the back, not John Wilson’s condemnation that their efforts are “unacceptable.”

Your move, Mr. Wilson.

I’m In Your District Stealing Your Tuition: Gateway to Success For-Profit Charter School Announces Open Enrollment

Friday , 12, February 2016 Up North Progressive Section 16 5 Comments


For-profit charter school of the future Gateway To Success Academy announced open enrollment for their program scheduled to begin in the fall of 2016. Gateway is the brain child of former Journey Alternative High School Principal, Jamie Bandstra, and Western Land Services owner John Wilson. Bandstra began working and promoting the project while still principal of the alternative education program, even using public school professional development hours to have soon to be unemployed public school teachers help him study the blueprints of the for-profit charter school they were not guaranteed to be offered jobs to teach at. The location for the enrollment paperwork is at 1100 Conrad Industrial Drive in Ludington. This address is also the location for Western Land Services.

John Wilson has his fingers in many pies in Mason County and surrounding communities. He’s the owner of Western Land Services, an oil royalties company that specializes in helping oil companies lease land for oil and gas drilling. Not only heavily invested into opening Gateway To Success Academy, he helped a for-profit company open a day care in Ludington’s closed South Hamlin elementary school (a building that Journey could have used, but the day care was chosen for the building instead). Wilson is the current head of the West Shore Bank Board. He also in the process of opening through his Pennies From Heaven charity partnered with the United Way the Lakeshore Resources Network, a members-only food pantry and community services center.

John Wilson’s Western Land Services was busy until 2010 leasing mineral rights from Northern Michigan land owners for a company called Northern Michigan Exploration. This was a shell company formed in Michigan by another shell company from Delaware called LA Land Acquisition. LA Land then hired O.I.L. Niagaran, who in turn hired Western Land Services to offer land leases to unsuspecting Michigan residents. Who was behind all of this shell company within a shell company smoke and mirrors? Oil giant Chesapeake Energy of Oklahoma. Wilson’s Western Land was under orders not to disclose which company was really leasing the mineral rights from Michigan property owners, and they would have gotten away with it too if hadn’t been for Chesapeake suddenly voiding all of the leases, which means the landowners expecting promised bonuses were never paid. People promised money and not getting it after they signed the contract tend to get angry and sue. Western Land Services was named with all of the other companies involved in the lawsuit on behalf of the leaseholders.

What is it with these “entrepreneurs” and their need to take over property and convert perfectly good public institutions like schools into for-profit corporations? John Wilson reminds of another man who bought up part of a city, opened charter schools and got caught in a fraudulent business deal while convincing people he was a community builder and philanthropist.

The for-profit charter school will be holding a series of presentations over the next few weeks to convince parents to enroll their children into a new, untried school program based on a for-profit charter school chain in San Diego where parents complain about the remedial classes their kids have to take in college because they didn’t learn the skills they need in high school, and all of the students are required to fill out applications to local community colleges so the school chain can boast ALL of their graduates are accepted into college.

We don’t need another for-profit charter school in Northern Michigan siphoning state funds from our already underfunded public schools. The best thing would be for Gateway To Success to never open, or close after failing to make a profit from our tax dollars.

Register Today To Vote In the Michigan Primary Election on March 8

Tuesday , 9, February 2016 Up North Progressive Uncategorized Leave a comment


The Michigan Democratic Primary is on March 8, 2016. Any person 18 years or older by that date may vote. Today is the last day to register at the Secretary of State.

The Democratic Party currently has two candidates running for the presidential nomination: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator of Vermont Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders’ entire career has been in politics. Currently, he is a member of the US Senate as an independent. This presidential campaign is his first time to run in the Democratic primary. Senator Sanders sponsored three bills that passed, two of them to rename a post office. Sanders’ campaign promises include convincing a conservative Republican congress that has voted to repeal Obamacare over 50 times to pass universal health care, and to make enemies of Wall Street.

Hillary Clinton is the first former First Lady to be elected to public office. As Senator of New York, she sponsored 711 bills. Other accomplishments include expanding health care for children and veterans, negotiating a cease fire between Zionist occupiers of Palestine and Palestinians, and declared women’s rights and LGBT rights are human rights. Her campaign issues include gun violence prevention, immigration reform, climate change, and campaign finance reform.

The importance of the Democratic Party holding on to the White House in 2016 is critical. The next president will appoint new Supreme Court Justices. The current court has ruled on a number of issues that have had negative effects on campaign finance and voting rights, and imposing fundamentalist religious law over the will of the American people.

Please register to vote today if you haven’t already. On March 8, vote for the Democratic candidate of your choice, and vote blue no matter who in November.

Best Presidential Primary Ever

Saturday , 6, February 2016 Up North Progressive Elections, Presidential Primary 2016, Romney Runtime Executable 3.0 Leave a comment

No one thought the Republican Party would top 2012 with Romney Runtime Executable 2.0, “I’m n ur caucus, stealin’ ur delegates” Ron Paul, Ole Frothy, and Moonbase Gingrich. But as we know with the GOP: There’s always more, and it’s always worse.

How much is Reince Priebus’ liver suffering? He’s entertained Romney Runtime Executable 3.0. Something to think about as we watch tonight’s GOP debate.

And how has this video not gone viral yet?

(Chris Christie doesn’t really have an older brother named Kelly)

State of Michigan Seeks Public Comment On Independent Analysis of Aging Mackinac Oil Pipeline

Monday , 1, February 2016 Up North Progressive Enbridge Line 5, Environment 1 Comment

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and Michigan Agency for Energy invite public comments on two draft documents to hire contractors to perform inspection and analysis of Enbridge line 5, the 60 year old oil pipeline that runs under the Mackinac bridge through the Straits of Mackinac.

Enbridge Line 5 carries over 20 million gallons of oil every day through the straits. After Enbridge Line 6B ruptured in the Kalamazoo River on July 26, 2010, creating the worst inland oil disaster in the country, people grew rightfully concerned about other oil and natural gas pipelines operating in the state. Enbridge Line 5 is 15 years older than Line 6B.

Enbridge Line 5 poses an environmental threat to the Great Lakes greater than the spill that happened to the Kalamazoo River near Marshall in 2010. Michigan residents want the pipeline removed from the straits before another ecological disaster happens.

People wanting to make comments on the two draft documents can do so by emailing Holly Simons. The deadline is February 5, 2016.

Donald Trump Being Donald Trump Early This Morning

Thursday , 28, January 2016 Up North Progressive Candidates, Presidential Primary 2016 Leave a comment

He doesn’t even let the sun come up before he’s slinging insults and misogyny around. What a jackass.

GUEST POST: Miss Fortune Ruminates About The Beginning of the End of Dr. Steven Ingersoll

Monday , 25, January 2016 Up North Progressive Dr. Ingersoll, Section 16 2 Comments

Like a Grateful Dead free-form jam that seems to go on forever, Bay City Academy founder Steven Ingersoll’s federal sentencing hearing spectacle returns to U. S. District Court on Tuesday, January 26 for a three-day run. The disgraced charter school honcho’s month-long trial in Bay City ended on March 10, 2015, with a jury convicting him on two counts of attempting to evade taxes and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. The same jury also found one of Ingersoll’s co-defendants, Roy C. Bradley, Sr. guilty of conspiracy to defraud the government.

Delayed by months due to legal maneuvers (including Ingersoll’s request for a new trial, which was denied on July 13, 2015 by Judge Thomas L. Ludington), the sentencing hearing finally began on October 20, 2015. Testimony was heard over three days in early December (including Steven Ingersoll’s), along with three additional days in early January. Government prosecutors are presently focusing on whether Ingersoll should be assessed two additional guideline points for abusing a position of trust with the Grand Traverse Academy. 

In its April 10, 2014 indictment, the government alleged that Ingersoll diverted $934,000 of a $1.8 million Bay City Academy-related Chemical Bank loan in an attempt to reduce his estimated $3.58 million debt to the Grand Traverse Academy, another charter school formerly managed by Ingersoll. Ingersoll’s resulting federal trial was the largest ever related to a Michigan charter school.
Although former Grand Traverse Academy superintendent Kaye Mentley famously circled the wagons in the days after Ingersoll’s indictment, claiming in an email blast that Ingersoll’s “charges have nothing to do with the Grand Traverse Academy”, it appears (as I predicted nearly two years ago) this case has everything to do with the Traverse City charter school Ingersoll helped found.

As an example, in June 2011, Steven Ingersoll and Roy Bradley submitted a draw request of $704,000 from the Chemical Bank line of credit as a reimbursement for money spent with the Macomb Group on heating equipment and boilers for the Bay City Academy.  By signing the draw request, Ingersoll and Bradley were “swearing” to Chemical Bank the amount requested was accurate. However, trial testimony revealed that the Macomb Group’s invoice amount “was half” the $704,000 Ingersoll and Bradley requested.

The $704,000 moved from Roy Bradley, and was then wired to Gayle Ingersoll’s account before finally being wired to a personal account held by Steven and Deborah Ingersoll.

The money was then transferred by Steven Ingersoll back to the Grand Traverse Academy’s bank account on June 30, 2011—plugging a gaping financial hole on the last day of the charter school’s 2010-2011 fiscal year, ensuring the school avoided a deficit.

According to the official December 8, 2015 hearing transcript, Burton optometrist Brad Habermehl, president of the Grand Traverse Academy board of directors, flip-flopped like an Asian carp on the stand before finally admitting he and Ingersoll — along with former Lake Superior State University’s former charter office head Bruce Harger — were launching a private school venture with two other partners.

But Habermehl’s admission came only after he was confronted by the prosecution with a series of emails that revealed he’d solicited a $300,000 “loan” from a business associate on behalf of his “friend and colleague” Steven Ingersoll, beginning on November 24, 2014.

Even more shockingly, Habermehl’s March 15, 2015 follow-up email to his business associate revealed he continued to tout the school project as “a very good investment with a good return” just days after Ingersoll’s March 10, 2015 conviction. Habermehl flatly denied to his associate knowing about “the extent of his (Ingersoll’s) problems” when Habermehl initiated the investment pitch in November 2014. 

But contemporaneous reporting, including the Traverse City Record-Eagle, refutes Habermehl’s assertion.

Habermehl was quoted in the April 11, 2014 edition of the Record-Eagle, telling the paper he’d just learned of the charges against Ingersoll that day, but claiming that “declining MEAP scores” prompted the Grand Traverse Academy board’s decision to sever ties with Ingersoll’s Smart Schools Management. And on December 27, 2014, roughly one month after proposing Ingersoll’s loan collateral “terms” to his business associate, Habermehl was quoted by the Traverse City Record-Eagle, telling the paper that Ingersoll’s “ordeal” had left the Grand Traverse Academy “stronger”. 

However, in his March 15, 2015 email to a business associate, who’d already rejected the deal, Habermehl claimed that Ingersoll’s conviction had “no effect on this school project”, even though Ingersoll remained one of the project’s five partners.

While the government has not publicly disclosed a witness list, Mark Noss, former Grand Traverse Academy board president and head of its current management company, Full Spectrum Management, is expected to be among those taking the stand this week.

Although Noss and Habermehl have long displayed the synchronicity of a 90s boy band’s dance moves while defending Ingersoll, claims Noss made in two recent affidavits are directly contradicted by an affidavit and the trial testimony of Thrun Law Firm attorney Margaret (Meg) Hackett.

In his September 10, 2015 affidavit, Noss claimed the “conclusions reached by Meg Hackett and the Thrun Law Firm” in its May 30, 2013 legal analysis were “erroneous and inconsistent with the ultimate conclusion reached by the accountants”. Asserting that “Meg Hackett was not retained by the GTA board”, Noss accused Kaye Mentley of going rogue and hiring Hackett’s firm. (The Thrun law firm issued a 15-page analysis to the Grand Traverse Academy board, after meeting with Noss, Kaye Mentley and Steven Ingersoll on May 20, 2013. In the letter, Thrun detailed the meeting where Ingersoll acknowledged his estimated $3.5-million-dollar debt to the Grand Traverse Academy, while asking to have his debt reclassified as a “loan”.)

But in her February 23, 2015 affidavit, Hackett stated the “Thrun Law Firm, P.C. was first retained as legal counsel for the Grand Traverse Academy in September of 2009 and the Academy’s Board of Directors has retained that attorney-client relationship from year-to-year to date.” In addition, Hackett testified under cross examination during Steven Ingersoll’s trial, repeatedly asserting Mark Noss was her client, and not Kaye Mentley as Noss claimed.

Reminds me of the story comedian Richard Pryor told in his filmed comedy performance, “Live on the Sunset Strip”. He told of his wife catching him with another woman. He denies anything is going on, and asks his wife, “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?”

When the hearing resumes Tuesday, January 26, three remaining issues are scheduled to be addressed:


  1. The prosecution’s contention that additional guideline points should be assessed for Steven Ingersoll’s leadership role in a criminal conspiracy

  2. The assessment of Ingersoll’s tax loss from 2009 to 2011 to establish the correct base level offense

  3. Ingersoll’s “financial solvency”

It’s too bad no one will be there in court, telling us what new Grand Traverse Academy board secrets were revealed.

Thank You Glistening Quivering Underbelly For Your Excellent Work

Sunday , 24, January 2016 Up North Progressive Dr. Ingersoll, Section 16 3 Comments

Last summer while the City of Flint suffered with lead poisoning and the Michigan media spent months laughing at tea party legislators Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat instead (thanks for reminding us, ABC), local media published stories about the foul water, people dying, and children getting sick. The state media paid no attention, and the state government referred to the crisis in Flint as “apparently this is going to be a thing now” in their glib emails to each other. Finally, Rachel Maddow started giving Flint air time in November, and suddenly, Rick Snyder’s appointed EM toady poisoning an entire city with lead caused outrage and international notoriety. The damage is done, and while children are tested for lead and the people of the state of Michigan demand The Nerd’s head on a platter, there are other crises in the state not getting the attention they deserve.

Miss Fortune ceased publishing her blog, Glistening Quivering Underbelly, on January 20, 2016. The blog went to “invite only” on January 14. The only serious investigative source of information on the Steve Ingersoll case for years, she worked tirelessly to expose the criminal activity and corruption going on at Grand Traverse Academy and Bay City Academy through Smart Schools Inc. When Federal indictment papers were finally served, the Bay City Times blandly reported about it. Up North Progressive published a story about Steve Ingersoll afterward, and that’s how Miss Fortune found me.

Miss Fortune broke the news about the indictment on her blog. In fact, she broke 99% of the news about Steve Ingersoll’s shenanigans in Michigan, California, Idaho, and anywhere he could convince people he had the cure for just about every learning disability that exists, except for physical blindness. This blog focused on Integrated Visual Learning, interviewing former teachers and parents when they were willing to come forward, and what passed for curriculum at Ingersoll’s various for-profit charter schools.

Glistening Quivering Underbelly exposed much more, including emails, documents, financial records, and threats from the litigants of the felony fraud case. She received threatening notes, and had the son of one of the convicted felons make threats to her face outside the courthouse in Bay City after another day of the ongoing sentencing hearing that will reconvene on January 26. None of this stopped her, however, she pushed on, finally uncovering the shocking secret business partnership between Grand Traverse Academy Board President Brad Habermehl, Former Lake Superior Charter School Director Bruce Harger and Steve Ingersoll – after Ingersoll was convicted.

When asked why she stopped publishing her blog and set it to private, Miss Fortune stated she had gone as far as she could go with it. She’s doing all of the work and not getting paid. Meanwhile, the Traverse City Record-Eagle, Bay City Times, or any other state newspaper refuses to publish this information. It’s frustrating when blatant disregard for the law and taxpayers of the state of Michigan can go on and the press doesn’t feel it’s necessary to inform the public that a charter school manager defrauded a bank to cover up the millions they stole from a local charter school. Of course, when a TCAPS employee was caught nicking the petty cash to buy herself manicures and concert tickets, the Record-Eagle was all over that story. They published updates on the front page daily. The writer, Sara Elms, received several bylines for the story about the former TCAPS employee stealing $20,000 over a period of 5 years.

If Sara Elms can get that excited about a school being robbed for $20k, why isn’t she frothing at the mouth to write every day about Steve Ingersoll embezzling $3.5 million from GTA? He’s already convicted and awaiting sentencing … where’s the story, Sara? Maybe if we emailed her, she could explain why. In fact, while we’re at it, email the editor of the Record-Eagle, Nathan Payne and ask him why he feels the people of Traverse City don’t deserve to know the truth about Steve Ingersoll. Another person to try and contact is Michelle Merlin, another reporter at the Record-Eagle.

Perhaps the editor over at the Bay City Times, Rob Clark, should also answer to why his paper hasn’t spent more time covering the sentencing hearing that’s happening in his city, leaving it to a local, unpaid citizen journalist to do all the work and get the death threats?

Certainly the Michigan Department of Education must be on top of this. Millions of taxpayers’ dollars embezzled, a bank defrauded. Why aren’t they investigating these charter schools more closely, or investigating the authorizers who see no conflict of interest in entering into business deals with convicted felons when they still worked for the university that authorized the school being embezzled from? Does our Superintendent of Instruction, Brian J. Whiston see no problem with this? Give him a call and ask. His number is 517-373-3324.

Thank you, Miss Fortune, for all of your hard work. Good luck with your future endeavors.

Mason County Central Schools Makes Gateway To Success Academy Redundant With New Alterantive Ed Program

Saturday , 23, January 2016 Up North Progressive Gateway To Success Academy, Section 16 Leave a comment

The Ludington Daily News recently reported on the fate of some of the former students of Journey Junior Senior High School. The alternative school was closed at the end of the 2015 school year due to maintenance of the building not up to code. All of the students relocated to their home districts, and MCC stepped up to provide a classroom for them.

Currently 29 students attend alternative education classes at MCC. Most of the instruction takes place online, with ELA classes taught by classroom teacher Christine Justice. The students have been very successful achieving growth in their studies and the students have a quiet space away from larger classrooms so they can focus on school work.

Alternative education programs are helpful for students who don’t do well in a traditional setting; adolescents who may not be able to attend a traditional high school due to expulsion or behavioral issues. Alternative education gives students another chance to earn their high school diploma and go on to finding a job or education at a college or tech school.

MCC receives funding for the alternative education program from the state, and the success of the first year guarantees the program will continue into future school years. This is very good news, as these students will need somewhere to go and complete their high school education when building tiny houses at Gateway To Success doesn’t help them with the SAT or admission into college.

The new for-profit charter school insists they are not in competition with any of the surrounding school districts, but the reality is they will pull funding away with any students who attend Gateway To Success instead of a real public school. What is the purpose of supporting this for-profit school if local districts like MCC can provide successful alternative education on their own? Gateway To Success is unnecessary competition the region doesn’t need, especially when they can provide successful alternative education for at-risk students.