Putting the lie to Obama's concern for the working stiff

Obama gives coal workers the shaft

by Neil W. McCabe

The leader of the United Mine Workers of Americas, the continent’s largest coal workers union, December 21 denounced the President and the EPA on the day the agency issued its new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule.

“The final language of the Environmental Protection Agency rule requiring maximum achievable control technology for the nation’s power plants shows just how tone-deaf the Obama administration and the EPA have become when dealing with issues that will affect coal miners, their families and their communities," said Cecil E. Roberts, the union’s president and a former West Virginia coal miner.

The union leader's tone was a sharp contrast from his full-throated 2008 support of candidate Barack H. Obama Jr., when he said, "Obama's election will mean a new day for American coal miners and all working families throughout our nation."

In 2008, Roberts said campaign volunteers from the miners union were critical to Obama's victory in the Virginia, where they focused on Northern Virginia, where the President won Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties and carried the state with 52.7 percent of the vote.

On the same ballot, Democrat Mark R. Warner won his senate seat with 65 percent of the vote, so it is not as if Obama can afford to lose such key supporters.

Then, the union leader said he was confident the new president would work with the miners to improve their lives.

With this new EPA rule that no longer seems the case.

“We have held repeated meetings in the White House and at the EPA, bringing our concerns about just how significant of an impact these rules will have on the people we represent, their families and their communities,” he said. The rule requires power plants, in particular coal-fired plants, to install expensive pollution-collecting equipment.

“But many of our suggestions for ways to make this rule more workable have simply been ignored,” he said. “I have to assume that the administration either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care what the impact on coal miners and their communities is going to be from the inflexible timetable imposed under this rule.”

Attorney Seth Jaffe, an environmental law specialist and partner at Boston’s Foley Hoag law firm, said even the EPA realizes the rule has problems.

The 1,117-page rule is not easily summarized, he said. “In fact, the rule is so complicated—and controversial—that the EPA had to generate four separate fact sheets to summarize the rule and its impact.”

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said the purpose of the rule is to prevent 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks caused by air toxics.

"By cutting emissions that are linked to developmental disorders and respiratory illnesses like asthma, these standards represent a major victory for clean air and public health– and especially for the health of our children,” she said.

“With these standards that were two decades in the making, EPA is rounding out a year of incredible progress on clean air in America with another action that will benefit the American people for years to come," she said.

"The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards will protect millions of families and children from harmful and costly air pollution and provide the American people with health benefits that far outweigh the costs of compliance,” she said.

Roberts, whose grandfathers were both killed in coal mine accidents, said the union support clean air and other environmental goals of the administration, but the EPA went about it the wrong way and without considering the price coal workers and others would pay.

“Studies we have done predict this rule will put more than 50,000 jobs in the utility, coal and transportation industries at risk, and threaten tens of thousands more in supporting and dependent industries,” he said.

Former West Virginia governor Sen. Joseph Manchin III (D.-W.V.) said, “Today’s announcement of yet another onerous rule by the EPA completely ignores the devastating impact these regulations will have on jobs and our economy, not only in West Virginia but across this nation.”

Manchin said he has drafted a bill that would ease the expensive new requirements with Sen. Daniel R. Coats (R.-Ind.) that would avoid billions of dollars in new costs to the economy in the middle of a recession, which would lead to massive job losses.

“I believe we can find a responsible and reasonable balance when it comes to the environment and our energy needs as a nation,” he said.

“I hope that Congress will address these regulations, and take up the Fair Compliance Act as soon as possible, to prevent the potential loss of a million jobs, increased utility rates, and more damage to our economy,” he said.

Roberts said he support the Manchin-Coats bill, which he said would be a reasonable approach.

“Instead of taking a reasonable approach that gives utilities the time they need to meet the stringent requirements set by these rules, the White House and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson have decided to stick with rigid requirements that will lead to the premature closing of dozens of power plants around the nation and the potential loss of 56,000 megawatts of electric generation capacity,” he said.

Newspaper distortions and lies

USA Today Ignores Occupy, Vilifies GOP, Tea Party With ‘Civility’ Redux

How do you write a news story about incivility in our politically charged times and not name drop Occupy Wall Street?

Just ask the folks over at USA Today.

The company chided for its brief news stories pulled out all the stops this week to document the lack of civility nearly a year after the Tucson shooting of Dem. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

That savage act had nothing to do with incivility. It was about a mentally deranged man who got his hands on a dangerous weapon. Yet the media meme quickly became how our national dialogue had descended beyond the bounds of decency, conveniently at a time when public criticism of President Barack Obama was reaching a fever pitch.

The media lectured us for weeks on why we all should tone down the rhetoric, but when members of the Left cranked their hate meters to 11 those same scribes didn’t bother to mention it, let alone critique them.

Narratives flow in only one direction, you see.

Flash forward to a new year, and USA Today is still scratching its head over the civility meme. But even in round two the newspaper can’t let the narrative go, facts be darned.

As victims fought to survive, the finger-pointers just fought. When an emotional President Barack Obama, speaking at a memorial service at the University of Arizona, pleaded for “a more civil and honest public discourse,” the airwaves and the Internet instead sputtered with bickering over the Native American speaker whose invocation at the memorial included references to his religious traditions and his family’s Mexican heritage.

The paper naturally puts Obama in the Comforter in Chief role, even though you could fill a front page story with all the cruel, cold and calculating things he’s said since becoming president. From unexpurgated class warfare to belittling his political opponents, Obama is a textbook case of presidential incivility. Isn’t this the same person looking for “whose ass to kick” after the BP Oil spill?

Next, the article cites three uncivil examples – can you guess which party each one targets?

But researchers say the level of incivility has risen in recent years, and it has moved from the backrooms and barrooms into council chambers and once-decorous settings like Obama’s 2009 address to Congress, where Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., famously yelled to Obama, “You lie!”….

A Republican leader last month walked out of the House chamber rather than allow a Democrat the chance to speak….

At a 2009 constituent meet-and-greet at a Holbrook Safeway, one very similar to Giffords’ 2011 event, former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., left abruptly after some people in line to see her started shouting and demanding that she answer questions.

Naturally, the article couldn’t go on without blaming the tea party for the current stage of affairs – and note the use of square quotes.

Incivility in politics has almost certainly existed since the moment politics itself was invented. The shootings at a shopping center near Tucson only brightened the spotlight, just as the rancorous health care town halls did in 2009 and the “tea party” infused elections in 2010.

No mention of the Wisconsin fleabaggers? The hateful Occupiers who trashed property as a means of exhibiting their free speech, defecated on a cop car and kept businesses from operating in cities nationwide? How about Occupy Denver, whose esteemed members interrupted a ceremony remembering the lives of homeless people who died on the city’s streets?

The USA Today article isn’t done yet. Time to paint the president as Healer in Chief once more!

After the Tucson shootings last year, Dahnke said her group saw a dramatic increase in interest from the public and from politicians and businesses. They wanted to take up the president’s call for honest civil discourse. Then, after a time, the interest faded.

Heck, it faded in the White House seconds after Obama’s teleprompter went silent. Why not elsewhere?

USA Today never lays a lick of blame on the Left for starting the whole erroneous, vile blame game. Why not call out New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, arguably the most aggressively mean-spirited scribe on this topic?USA Today does offer a solution, though:

[Clark Olson, an Arizona State University communications professor] said listening is the starting point. No one was listening the day Giffords was shot. They jumped to conclusions about the motive of the shooter almost before the shooter was identified, conclusions that were mostly wrong.

Mostly wrong? How about 100 percent wrong? What was right about the blame game? And why not define “they” when the word is so clearly definable?

The liberal bias shines through so often in the incivility piece it should be a “teachable moment” for today’s journalists. Too bad the vast majority would have written essentially the very same screed.

IRS scams

Hundreds of prisoners register as tax preparers

BY KEVIN MCCOY

Hundreds of prison inmates have found new careers behind bars — by registering with the IRS as income tax preparers.

A total of 331 inmates were serving prison terms when they got active or provisional tax preparer tax identification numbers from the IRS, according to an audit issued by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

Forty-three of those applicants were serving life sentences at the time. Yet none of the lifers disclosed their felony convictions on the IRS application, the audit found.

In all, 962 applicants who had an incarceration date within the last 10 years got active or provisional tax preparer identification numbers. More than three in four didn’t disclose their convictions.

The inmates and ex-cons were among thousands of applicants who got the identification numbers from the IRS from September 2010 through July 2011 as the agency began phasing in a 2009 congressional mandate that requires many preparers to file tax returns electronically.

The IRS officials told auditors it would suspend tax preparer identification numbers already issued to prisoners and deny any future applications from inmates.

“Our report shows that the problem of misuse of the tax system by prison inmates continues,” said J. Russell George, who heads the inspector general’s office. “Based on our report, the IRS is working on solutions for suspending preparer identification numbers obtained by prisoners and preventing future applicants who are prisoners from receiving a preparer ID number. They must persevere in these efforts ... especially given the prison inmate population’s determination to misuse the system.”

Prisoner registration as tax preparers is a new twist in a long history of tax scams involving inmates.

For instance, USA Today reported in February that prisoners in three states — Florida, Georgia and California — led the nation’s inmate population by using false or fraudulent tax returns to scam nearly $19 million in IRS refunds during 2009.

That total was part of $39.1 million in unmerited federal tax returns the IRS issued to jail and prison inmates nationwide, according to an IRS report to Congress in January.

Knowing OWS

Scissors-wielding OWS protester charged with felony assault on cop

By LAURA ITALIANO and DOUG AUER

A Berkley, CA-based Occupy Wall Street protester has been charged with felony assault for allegedly stabbing a cop in the hand with a pair of scissors as a crowd tried to retake Zuccotti Park on New Years Eve.

Officers had originally moved in to arrest Zachary Miller, 28, after watching him push a police barrier into a marked NYPD van, according to the criminal complaint against him.

Officer Christopher Vega was cut in the right hand by scissors as he arrested the struggling protester, causing him "substantial pain," according to the complaint. Vega also bruised both knees and suffered a back injury, according to a police source.

Miller already has Zuccotti-related disorderly conduct arrests from October and November, plus a record of narcotics, parole violation and burglary arrests in California, the source said.

For the New Years Eve arrest, Miller was additionally charged with weapons possession, obstruction of governmental administration and resisting arrest. He was released on $500 bail.

Ivy League education in absurdity. Devaluing the Columbia degree

‘Occupy Wall Street’ Participation To Earn Class Credit At Columbia U.

Having a gun and knowing how to use it can save your life

Teen Mother Shoots, Kills Intruder

BLANCHARD, Okla. -- A teen mother from Blanchard shot and killed an intruder Saturday night, authorities said.

Sarah McKinley was at home with her baby son when, police said, Justin Martin broke into her home and pursued her with a 12-inch knife.

She shot and killed Martin.

Another man, Dustin Stewart, was arrested in connection with the break-in.

Read more: http://www.koco.com/news/30114963/detail.html#ixzz1iKSG3Z8W

The Times has always had disdain for those who get their hands dirty

The joke’s on The Times

Never one to pass up a good redneck joke, The New York Times last week happily heaped scorn on the scraped-knuckle roughnecks who make a (good) living extracting energy from Pennsylvania shale rock — and their less-well-off upstate New York neighbors.

To wit:

HORSEHEADS, N.Y. — At the Glamour and Glow boutique in the local mall here, crystal necklaces and fake fur vests have been hot-ticket items the last year.

When the drilling workers head home between long stretches of work in this gas-rich region, explained Christy Spreng, the [Chemung County] shop’s owner, they need gifts for their wives and girlfriends. “They know what they want,” she said. “They’ll say: ‘Looks good. Wrap it up.’ ”

Would the Times ever so condescend to folks who cash government checks for a living? Of course not.

But never mind.

Those who read beyond the initial ridicule found a story that — however inadvertently — underscored the indisputable fact that natural-gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing will be a financial boon to the economically ravaged Southern Tier.

In fact, it already is — albeit indirectly.

Local Chemung County businesses are reporting surging sales. Hotels are booked solid for months at a time. The county airport is adding flights and looking to build a new runway.

And that’s without any fracking.

All the action is on the Pennsylvania side of the border, where fracking — the process by which natural gas is extracted by blasting rock with high-pressure water and chemicals — is both legal and flourishing.

And it turns out that even tiny Chemung — whose biggest city is Elmira — is a metropolis compared to sleepy Pennsylvania. So the neighboring gas workers come to Chemung to spend money.

“Places are jammed,” crowed an obviously thrilled County Executive Thomas Santulli.

At least half of Chemung’s tax-revenue growth is directly attributable to fracking in Pennsylvania.

Some two dozen companies — providing more than 1,000 jobs — have leased or bought more than a million square feet of commercial space in anticipation of future drilling in the high-gas region.

Again, that’s without any fracking under way in New York. Just think how Chemung’s success could be replicated across the Southern Tier.

But fracking’s future here remains uncertain at best: The green lobby, backed by allies within the state Department of Environmental Conservation, will be damned if it’ll allow such a thing in New York.

Gov. Cuomo appears favorably disposed toward fracking — at the very least, he’s not openly opposed to it — and the results of an environmental study of the practice that he ordered are expected soon.

But, again, opponents are throwing up one roadblock after another, apparently hoping to inflict death by a thousand cuts.

Yet New York remains in desperate need of the economic shot in the arm that fracking would provide.

And it needs the energy, too.

As one gas worker told the Times: “[Opponents] want to know why we’re up here drilling. I say, because you like to heat your home.”

Time to end the delays and speed up the approval process — now.

And that’s no joke.

Read more:http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/the_joke_on_the_times_CGt3vetm5uAFe254BF2H8M#ixzz1iKMZY1xR

Those jobs are long gone. This is another lawyer jobs action. Creeping socialism, government control of everything.

EEOC: High school diploma requirement might violate Americans with Disabilities Act

Employers are facing more uncertainty in the wake of a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission warning them that requiring a high school diploma from a job applicant might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The development also has some wondering whether the agency's advice will result in an educational backlash by creating less of an incentive for some high school students to graduate.

The "informal discussion letter" from the EEOC said an employer's requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criterion for screening potential employees, must be "job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity." The letter was posted on the commission's website on Dec. 2.

Employers could run afoul of the ADA if their requirement of a high school diploma "'screens out' an individual who is unable to graduate because of a learning disability that meets the ADA's definition of 'disability,'" the EEOC explained.

The commission's advice, which does not carry the force of law, is raising alarms among employment-law professionals, who say it could carry far-reaching implications for businesses.

Maria Greco Danaher, a lawyer with the labor and employment law firm Ogletree Deakins, said the EEOC letter means that employers must determine whether job applicants whose learning disabilities kept them from obtaining diplomas can perform the essential job functions, with or without reasonable accommodation. She said the development is "worthy of notice" for employers.

"While an employer is not required to 'prefer' a learning-disabled applicant over other applicants with more extensive qualifications, it is clear that the EEOC is informing employers that disabled individuals cannot be excluded from consideration for employment based upon artificial barriers in the form of inflexible qualification standards," she wrote in a blog post.

Mary Theresa Metzler, a lawyer with Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia, said there may be an "unintended and unfortunate" repercussion of the EEOC's discussion: "There will be less incentive for the general public to obtain a high school diploma if many employers eliminate that requirement for job applicants in their workplace."

Officials at the EEOC said the letter in question addressed "a particular inquiry" and disputed that it would have repercussions in secondary education.

"No, we don't think the regulation would discourage people from obtaining high school diplomas," said Peggy Mastroianni, legal counsel for the EEOC. "People are aware that they need all the education they can get."

She said the letter does not offer a new interpretation of the ADA.

Jeanne Goldberg, a senior lawyer/adviser at the agency, said the issue would come up only when high school graduation standards are not related to a specific job.

"This would never arise when the high school diploma is in fact necessary to do a job," she said.

Ms. Metzler said the policy could lead the EEOC to bring claims against employers or encourage applicants who have failed to gain employment to raise the issue.

"The EEOC may be inclined to test its view on the high school diploma requirement and its impact on the disabled in a court case," said Ms. Metzler, who is advising clients to "review their job descriptions to determine if a high school degree is truly necessary, or would aid the employee in performing the essential functions of the particular job.

"While such a requirement is routinely included by many employers, a deeper analysis may demonstrate that a lesser educational requirement might suffice," she said.

Some worry that the EEOC's letter could place less emphasis on a diploma in the workplace, but the push in Congress has been in the opposite direction. House Republicans sought late last year to reform the federal unemployment-benefit system by requiring recipients of aid who do not have high school degrees to be "enrolled and making satisfactory progress in classes" toward a General Education Development certificate or equivalent.

That proposal was not part of the final deal that Congress approved to extend a payroll-tax holiday for two months, but Republicans say they intend to renew their call for the reform this year.

Some corporate counsels are advising clients to adjust the way they approach the hiring process.

"Employers are wise to evaluate whether a high school diploma really is necessary to perform the essential functions of any job for which it is being required," the Employer Law Report advised in a blog post by Lisa Whittaker, a lawyer with the Porter Wright firm, which has represented business clients for more than 150 years.

"Even in those situations where the high school diploma requirement can be justified, employers will still need to consider" whether a "reasonable accommodation" could be provided to allow a disabled person without a diploma to perform a given job.

Since government schools can't teach they've decided it's no longer important.

The creeping anti Semitism on the left.

NGOs slam ‘anti-Semitic’ US think tank comments By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT "Think tanks are entitled to their political viewpoints – but they’re not free to slander with impunity," AJC says of CAP.

The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League weighed in last week on the mushrooming anti-Israel scandal surrounding a group of bloggers working for the US think tank Center for American Progress (CAP). Jason Isaacson, the AJC’s director of government and international affairs, told The Jerusalem Post by e-mail on Friday that “think tanks are entitled to their political viewpoints – but they’re not free to slander with impunity. References to Israeli ‘apartheid’ or ‘Israel-firsters’ are so false and hateful they reveal an ugly bias no serious policy center can countenance.”

He called on CAP to “disavow them and put a stop to them.” CAP, which has an estimated annual budget of $38 million, formulates policy suggestions about the Middle East for the Democratic party and politicians. Zaid Jilani wrote on Twitter, where he is identified as a blogger for CAP website ThinkProgress, “So DC ‘liberals’ are going to spend a lot of time defending Obama against the charge that he’s not supportive enough of Israeli apartheid.” In an earlier Twitter item, Jilani termed US supporters of the Jewish state “Israel- Firsters.” The Simon Wiesenthal Center and NGO Monitor in Jerusalem blasted Jilani and CAP for stoking hatred of Jews. In addition to these “dualloyalty” accusations, Ali Gharib, a CAP blogger, suggested in a Twitter item that US Senator Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) was more loyal to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than to the United States. Gharib asserted that Kirk represented the pro- Israel organization in Congress. After the Post reported last week on Gharib’s comment, he wrote that “one [of] my tweets several months ago, a crude characterization of a senator, is being seized upon by critics branding me as an anti-Semite. While the accusations are completely false and contemptible, I do apologize for the crudeness of the flippant tweet in question.” The ADL, meanwhile, issued an e-mail statement to the Post last week citing two expressions of anti-Semitism at CAP. One was the “Israel Firsters” comment, which the ADL said was “playing into the old anti- Semitic notion that Jews are more loyal to some foreign entity than to their own country.” However, the ADL acknowledged that Jilani had “later tweeted that he didn’t realize the implication of this term, apologized for it, and indicated he would be more careful about his language.” The second example it cited was “an accusation in a blog that the Israel lobby was marching America to war against Iran as it did with regard to Iraq.” The ADL expressed “strong disagreements” with the way CAP addressed issues relating to Israel, American-Israeli relations and US policy in the Middle East. “Most of their blogs come from a perspective of blaming Israel for the lack of progress in Israeli-Palestinian affairs and minimizing or rationalizing the Iranian threat,” the statement read. Critics also accuse CAP blogger Eli Clifton of ignoring indications that Iran is working on a nuclear device and of pushing a biased agenda against the Jewish state. The ADL wrote that it had “raised our concerns directly with CAP about the preponderance of articles critical of Israel.” In response to the Jewish groups’ criticism, CAP spokeswoman Andrea Purse told the Post on Saturday that “hundreds of articles and policy papers from the Center for American Progress and ThinkProgress demonstrate our longstanding support for Israel and the two-state solution to Middle East Peace Process as being in the moral and national security interests of the United States.” She stressed her organization’s abhorrence of anti-Semitism, noting that CAP had “written about its continuing undercurrents and takes any allegation of anti-Semitism extremely seriously. A handful... of tweets on the personal accounts of ThinkProgress staff were inappropriate, and the authors have publicly apologized for using objectionable language. That language never appeared in any CAP or ThinkProgress publication and never will.” The spokeswoman added, however, that the think tank would also not tolerate “attempts to ascribe to CAP or ThinkProgress views we clearly do not hold or attack us by association with individuals and groups we have no connection with whatsoever.” She refused to comment on whether CAP agreed with Matthew Duss, the director of the think tank’s Middle East Progress department, who has compared Israel’s policies to racism in America’s “segregated South.” Duss declined to answer repeated queries regarding these statements. Multiple attempts to reach CAP president John Podesta, who was former president Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, were also unsuccessful. CAP staffers’ remarks on the Jewish state have attracted growing concern from Demcoratic and Republican congressional officials. “I think what we’re seeing play out is a power struggle inside the Democratic Party over the very nature of the USIsrael relationship,” a senior Republican Senate aide told the Post. “There are some forces on the far-Left who insist on perpetuating anti-Semitic stereotypes as a way to achieve their political goals and to change US policy toward Israel. And then you have individuals in the Center-Left, like a Josh Block [the former Clinton administration and AIPAC spokesman who first brought the CAP bloggers’ comments to the attention of Washington news site Politico in December], who are pushing back and saying enough is enough.” http://www.americanprogress.org/aboutus/staff/

Watch old Marxist hippies at work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y95Qqpry5co

Barbaric. Where are the animal rights groups

We won't eat halal meat, say MPs and peers who reject demands to serve it at Westminster

• Some parliamentarians have eaten meat at Westminster having been assured it was halal

The Palace of Westminster has rejected demands to serve halal meat in its restaurants.

Muslim MPs and peers have been told they cannot have meat slaughtered in line with Islamic tradition because the method – slitting an animal’s throat without first stunning it – is offensive to many of their non-Muslim colleagues.

The stance has infuriated some parliamentarians who have eaten meat in the Palace’s 23 restaurants and cafes, having been assured that it was halal.

Lord Ahmed of Rotherham said: ‘I did feel misled. I think a halal option should be made available.’

In 2010, the Mail on Sunday revealed schools, hospitals and restaurants were serving halal meat to unwitting customers.

Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Somerfield and the Co-op all said they stocked meat slaughtered according to Islamic tradition without letting customers know.

Fast-food chains including Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, KFC, ­Nando’s and Subway are also using halal meat without ­telling customers, it was revealed.

Members of the Church of England have complained that the spread of halal meat was 'effectively spreading Sharia law' across Britain.

The Palace of Westminster has rejected demands to serve halal meat in its restaurants

However, a spokesman for the House of Lords and the House of Commons confirmed that it was not served in their restaurants.

Alison Ruoff, a member of the Church of England, said: ‘It’s a bit hypocritical that the Houses of Parliament, which have allowed other people to provide halal food, have ruled it out on their own premises.’

When the meat is slaughtered, Islamic verse is uttered before the animal has its throat slashed.

At Halal slaughterhouses thousands of birds are killed every hour.

Creeping Sharia. Islam's view of animal welfare gives a view into their mindset. Like female genital mutilation it needs to be pushed back into the darkest corners. You cannot eliminate animal cruelty in all cases but you need not encourage it.

Changing the education paradigm

From the Fab Five to the Three Rs

After 20 years of basketball fame and fortune, Jalen Rose returns home to Detroit to promote school reform and parental choice.

By STEPHEN MOORE

The 40-minute cab ride from the airport to the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy in Northwest Detroit isn't pleasant. Nearly every other home is boarded up, abandoned, dilapidated, with rusted-out cars in the front lawn on sale for as little as $300. Some of the houses can be snatched up for as little as $5,000, and the main commerce visible are liquor stores, auto-repair shops and seedy bars. "You may have noticed," says Jalen Rose, "there aren't any Ritz-Carltons here or five-star restaurants, or even many businesses at all." Welcome to the land of broken families and bankrupt businesses.

And school reform. Every weekday, 120 high-school freshmen from these neighborhoods attend Mr. Rose's academy, some arriving after two bus trips and all before 7:30 a.m. Located in a former public school building, the school has spartan facilities—a science lab with almost no equipment, cracked windows—and few modern frills, though every student is given a computer.

As you approach and knock on the front door (the school is always locked to keep troublemakers away), you cross over a blue line. "When you cross that blue line," explains Mr. Rose, "you have to agree to leave all your troubles behind for the next eight hours." This is a sanctuary—and "one of the most promising school reform initiatives in the state," according to Michigan's Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has also offered praise.

For non-sports fans: Now a regular commentator on ESPN, Jalen Rose was a member of the University of Michigan basketball team's controversial and multitalented "Fab Five" from 1991-93. He joined four other high-school all-Americans—Juwan Howard, Jimmie King, Ray Jackson and Chris Webber—who became the first major team to start five freshmen. Not only did they start, but they won and won, going to two straight national championship games. In the process they became a cultural sensation with their yellow jerseys, baggy shorts, black socks and brash, trash-talking style of play. Fans either loved or hated them.

After skipping his senior year to enter the pros, Mr. Rose played 13 seasons in the NBA, earning millions in salary and endorsements—and getting his college degree along the way. On this drizzly and cold December afternoon, he could be living the good life in Palm Springs or South Beach.

Instead he's here building a school, work for which he takes no pay. And he doesn't just lend his name to the letterhead—he's often in the building for 20 hours a week, he says.

At 6 feet 8 inches, he towers as we stroll down the halls of his school at midday. "Do you notice that?" he whispers. "Listen to how quiet it is." He's right—the school has a serene quiet that suggests kids may actually be learning.

Since the Leadership Academy is a charter school free to set its own schedule, the students spend 20% more time in the classroom than they would in Detroit's traditional public schools. The school day runs from 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. and the school year is 211 days, not 176. Only one student has dropped out since the school opened in August.

Terry Shoffner

"We didn't cherry pick these kids," says Mr. Rose. "They chose us," he notes, through an oversubscribed lottery system. He adds: "Did you ever see the movie 'Waiting for "Superman"?' The excitement and the joy of families that got in here was similar to that." As the kids scurry past us between classes, they're in crisp uniforms. Several I spoke to exuded confidence—plus awareness that being here could be a life-altering experience.

Mr. Rose plans to start with this freshman class and add a new grade each year until there are some 500 kids in grades 9-12. "This is college prep. We expect 90% to 100% to go on to college"—no mean feat when many students are entering ninth grade with only fourth-grade levels of reading and math proficiency.

The youngest of four kids, Mr. Rose was raised by his mother and never knew his biological father, former NBA player Jimmy Walker. ("The only time we were in the same place at the same time was in 2007 at his funeral," he notes with obvious regret.) He was driven to pursue of his dream of playing in the NBA, he says, "to try to help take my family out of the financial situation we were in."

Mr. Rose's Fab Five days ended badly, with the team losing the 1993 national championship when Chris Webber earned a technical foul in the waning seconds by calling for a time out the team didn't have. ("Coach told us five times in the huddle we had no more time outs," says Mr. Rose.)

Then a federal investigation found that a Michigan booster had paid Mr. Webber, who was indicted for perjury in the case. Mr. Webber eventually pleaded guilty to a criminal contempt misdemeanor and performed community service. The scandal landed Michigan basketball on probation—leading the Fab Five's Final Four banners to be removed from Chrysler Arena.

Mr. Rose staunchly defends the team's legacy. "Michigan has only been to the Final Four five times ever, twice with us. Now they act like the Fab Five never happened, even though we made tens of millions of dollars for the university and they're still making money off of us." He fervently denies that he or Mr. Webber ever violated NCAA rules on payments from boosters. "Chris was my childhood friend. If he was getting that kind of money, we wouldn't have been still driving our mother's cars," he laughs.

Despite the scandal, Mr. Rose is at peace with the university's administration and is hopeful the banners will be returned to the rafters after the program's probation ends in 2013. He also sponsors an academic scholarship at the university, part of his charitable efforts beyond the Leadership Academy.

Those efforts drove him to start the school in the first place, since he saw many promising high-schoolers who had earned straight-As but couldn't score higher than a 14 out of 36 on the ACT. "What were they teaching these kids? There are just so many poor-performing schools here, and there are so many kids in our city that want to do the right thing, and families that want to put their kids in a quality school. But they can't."

So he threw out a life raft by starting his academy. "Only 28% of ninth graders in the Detroit public schools are graduating high school," he notes. The rest "become the statistic you read about in the newspaper. They are the people that are robbing you at the ATM machine."

Why's the situation so bad? "It starts at the top. A lot of the schools are poorly managed," he says. "Some of them have models that aren't set up for success. The kids have no interaction. They get lost."

At the Leadership Academy, "we have a 20-to-1 student teacher ratio and 10-to-1 in math and English. We want to invest in every young man or woman who comes here." That means tailoring achievement standards for every student. "There may be a kid reading at a fourth-grade level [when he enters ninth grade] who when he graduates is reading at a tenth-grade level. That's a victory."

His school also doesn't have tenure for teachers. "I hate tenure. Tenure allows teachers to put their feet up on the desk and possibly have a job forever. That's why I got turned on to charter schools. It's a business model. Every employee and every teacher will be monitored by performance."

Kids too: "We have a code of conduct here. If they act up, they're suspended. They come back with a better attitude."

What about the risk that setting up a high school means intervening too late in kids' lives? "I feel like the eight most at-risk years for young men or young women are the four they're in high school and the four they should be in college. You ask any adult whose dreams didn't come true or goals they didn't get accomplished, they point back to that eight-year period when they started driving, their hormones started taking over, they started having sex, they started partying," says Mr. Rose. "That's when you're in a position to make those poor decisions and actually execute them. That's why I really wanted to influence this age group."

He also wants to influence parents—empowering them to demand better schools for their kids. The rigid system of school boards telling families where their kids have to go to school perpetuates poverty and a sense of entrapment, he says: "Forty-seven percent of Detroit area parents are functionally illiterate. So that puts their kids at a real handicap. Say my mom is one of those 47%. That doesn't mean that I shouldn't have a fair opportunity for a quality public education. But since my mom is functionally illiterate and we grew up on the west side of Detroit, I'm forced to go to this school that has been a poor-performing school for 30 years."

"There should be parental choice," he says clearly. "Schools should be open. If it's a public education, and the school in your district is poor-performing, you should be able to put your student or kid wherever you want."

Choice could be relatively easily implemented, he says. "I'm a taxpaying citizen, right? So if I'm paying $4,000 worth of taxes and I don't want my kid to go to this school, why can't they give me my $4,000 and allow me to pick where I want to put my kids?"

Mr. Rose wants to end this injustice by starting small, with 120 students, and then scaling up—but it won't be easy. His top administrator totes around a nearly three-inch-thick binder of charter-school regulations and bylaws that he must comply with.

Parents at the Leadership Academy pay nothing, as 70% of the school's funds come from the state and the rest from private donations. The school is in the midst of a $5 million capital campaign that has included fund-raisers with other NBA celebrities like Isaiah Thomas, who donated $100,000 to the cause.

The school spends about $10,000 per student, a bargain compared to the roughly $14,000 average in Detroit's public schools. Mr. Rose's aim is to "keep the costs down, but yet still have an educational model and a facility that compares to Country Day," one of Detroit's most prestigious private schools.

Mr. Rose is no saint, and for much of his life the outspoken personality has been surrounded by controversy. In August he served jail time for drunk driving. "That was a terrible choice I made—a dumb decision, and at least I only put myself in harm's way," he concedes with seemingly genuine shame.

Some months before, he earned criticism for appearing in an ESPN documentary and calling a former college hoops rival, Duke University's Grant Hill, an "Uncle Tom." Mr. Rose explains: "This was what we thought about these middle-class black kids. We came from the inner city and had nothing and were jealous of their jerseys, their shoes and nice hotels—all the things they had that we didn't. We thought they were spoon-fed. I wanted what they had. I was jealous. The term 'Uncle Tom' was an ignorant term, but that is how we felt."

He continues: "I apologized—because I like Grant and we get along. And he owes me a visit to the school. He promised me that."

At the end of our interview, Mr. Rose says that most former athletes have voids in their lives after they leave center stage. They often can't find a new mission in life. But he has the Leadership Academy: "I just really felt I had to help the community I came from. I know how hard it is to make it out of here."

Mr. Moore is a member of the Journal's editorial board.