Campaign News

SCTimes - March 13, 2013, by Annette Meeks - Late last month, the Minnesota Department of Education released new data regarding Minnesota's high school graduation rate. The good news from the department, according to the Star Tribune, is that the "graduation rate for Minnesota students is the highest it's been in a decade, even though many minority students continue to lag behind their white peers when it comes to getting a diploma on time."

The new data showed that in 2013, "85 percent of white students, 56 percent of black students and 58 percent of Hispanic students graduated." Minnesota is not alone — many other states show an increase in the number of students leaving high school with a diploma. In 2014, according to the Star Tribune, the U.S. graduation rate was the highest it has been in 40 years when nearly "78 percent of high school students nationwide graduated on time."

What happens to a Minnesotan who doesn't earn a high school diploma? Those students face daunting challenges in life because the public education system has failed them. Instead of a celebratory front page news story, these students become a statistic in a report issued by the Center for Popular Democracy. Hardly part of the "vast right-wing conspiracy." The Center for Popular Democracy's "partners" include the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO, to name just a few.

According to a recently released report by the center, "Minnesota has the third-highest unemployment gap between white and black people in the country — with the jobless rate among blacks almost four times higher than among whites."

Minnesota's astonishing statewide high rate of unemployment among African-Americans "fell" to 11.9 percent in 2014, down from a previous high of 15.4 percent seven years earlier. In 2014, the white unemployment rate in the state was 3.2 percent.

In 2013, the Star Tribune reported that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Minnesota was second only to Wyoming [where the] black unemployment rate was triple the white rate." There was virtually no change in the Minnesota's Hispanic unemployment rate (7 percent), which remains at nearly twice the rate of white unemployment.

Furthermore, according to a report on BringMetheNews.com and WalletHub, "Minnesota has the second-worst wealth gap between white people and people of color in the United States."

So while officials at the Minnesota Department of Education continue celebrating the improving graduation rate, we'll postpone any celebrations. We'll wait until there is no achievement gap for minority students that attend (and graduate on time from) Minnesota's public schools. That will be worth celebrating.

This is the opinion of Annette Meeks, founder and CEO of Freedom Foundation Of Minnesota.

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Sunrise Movement is a youth climate organization that aims to “stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.” It has been taking the lead on efforts to combine climate protection with a federal jobs guarantee. Other groups like the Sierra Club, Demos, 350.org, the Center for Popular Democracy, the Labor Network for Sustainability, and the US Climate Action Network have also been discussing the climate jobs guarantee (CJG).

Read the full article here.

The Guardian - June 27, 2013, by Brittny Saunders - New York City Council passed two bills designed to guarantee safety and respect for all New Yorkers. The measures were championed by Communities United for Police Reform, a broad coalition of city groups, and will strengthen the existing ban on police profiling and establish independent oversight of the city's police department.

Today is a new day for New York City. The move reflects a growing alarm over NYPD policies and practices that violate the rights of thousands of New Yorkers and undermine police-community relationships – practices such as the discriminatory use of stop-and-frisk that waste valuable public dollars, while producing no measurable impact on public safety.

Criticism is mounting, not only in the council, but also in federal court, where the legality of these practices is being questioned. Those same questions are echoed in the homes of regular New Yorkers – a majority of whom disapprove of stop-and-frisk and two-thirds of whom support independent oversight of the department. The message is clear: it's time for New York City to turn away from an approach to policing that results in countless rights violations each year, while doing little to reduce crime, according to an analysis by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The bills passed by city council respond to increasing evidence that in too many cases the department has substituted stereotyping for real police work. A study by the New York Civil Liberties Union found that in 2011, for example, 41.6% of all New Yorkers stopped by the NYPD were black and Latino men between the ages of 14 and 24 years old, despite the fact that that these groups make up a mere 4.7% of the city's population. The department has continued to defend these discriminatory tactics, despite evidence that they do not even succeed on their own terms, failing to take guns off the street or to significantly reduce crime. In more than 99% of all 2011 stops, for example, no gun was retrieved. And in the first three months of 2013, crime dropped, even as stops also tapered, undermining the department's claim that stop-and-frisk is responsible for the city's lowered crime rate.

All of this suggests that the department's continued reliance on discriminatory tactics is not about what it takes to actually keep all New Yorkers (and those visiting the city) safe. Instead, it is about what it takes to convince some in New York City's whiter, wealthier communities that the administration and the department are serious about public safety.

For too long, too many city leaders have accepted discriminatory policing tactics on the assumption that the costs borne by the New Yorkers who are targeted are outweighed by the benefits enjoyed by communities that are not singled out for unlawful and abusive treatment. But the truth is the NYPD's discriminatory policies and practices have indirect negative impacts on all who live in the city, including its white residents. They allow the NYPD to substitute crude and ineffective strategies – like stopping New Yorkers on the basis of their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender expression – for the sophisticated police work one might expect from the nation's largest local law enforcement agency. In the process, they position NYPD officers as adversaries instead of allies of many of the communities they are charged with protecting, reducing willingness to report crime and making all New Yorkers less safe.

It is becoming increasingly apparent, then, that the costs of massive spending on ineffective policing strategies extend beyond those borne by the individuals who are unlawfully targeted in the streets each day. But the most powerful argument for increased NYPD accountability has nothing to do with financial costs and benefits and everything to do with what we, as New Yorkers, allow to be done in our names. And it is about staying true to the city's own legacy of innovation and the conviction that here – if nowhere else – we can find a way to keep everyone safe without sacrificing anyone's rights.

City Council made an important choice today. They stopped endorsing a set of NYPD policies and practices that are discriminatory, ineffective and wasteful. They chose instead to guarantee safety and respect across the boroughs. The choices that they and other city leaders will make in the coming weeks, months and years as these bills are enacted and implemented will have a lasting impact on New York City and hopefully set a better example for cities across the country.

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Weekly Press - December 17, 2014, by Nicole Contosta - Charter Schools have become a divisive issue in Philadelphia. Supporters swear to their effectiveness. Critics argue that they lack accountability.

Both sides of the charter school debate were heard last Tuesday, December 9th. That’s when the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), hosted the Philly Charter School Forum: Who’s Minding the Store?

Panelists included Feather Houstoun from the Philadelphia School Reform Commission (SRC); Jurate Krokys, founding principal of the Independence Charter School, Kyle Serette of the Center for Popular Democracy and author of Fraud and Financial Mismanagement in PA’s Charter Schools; and Barbara Dowdall, retired public school teacher and former ADA board member.

Solomon Leach, Philadelphia Daily News Education Reporter, moderated. Leach began the evening’s discourse by asking Houstoun to comment on the evolution of charter schools in Philadelphia.

Houstoun, who spent most of her career in managing care, transit and welfare problems, cited her experience with "good oversight." But when Houstoun joined the SRC three and half years ago, "I was really surprised […] about the incredibly precarious situation the school district was in. Now," Houstoun continued, "we’re living within our means, but we’re horrifically under-resourced."

And with regard to charter schools, Houstoun said, "I was really dumbfounded by how badly over the course of time the [Philadelphia School] District had organized itself to assure that we were getting good value for children in charter schools."

To Houstoun, getting good value for the city’s children proves relevant given the fact that "40 percent of our children are being educated at charter schools that are separate from the district apparatus."

But, Houstoun continued, "We must accept responsibility for these things." And in Houstoun’s opinion, part of the problem resulted from the fact that "the District did not set up standards for academic performances. There were no systematic annual check-ups about what they were doing in terms of finance, corporate or academic measures."

Houstoun cited the fact that the SRC only renews charter schools on a five-year basis as contributing to the lack of oversight. However, at the same time, Houstoun expressed optimism when it comes to moving forward with the city’s charter schools. Over the past year, the SRC performed an overhaul of the charter school office, placing Julian Thompson at the helm. "We’re operating within charter school law that gives us the obligation to monitor and review charter schools," Houstoun emphasized.

From the charter school perspective, Krokys said that she hasn’t always had the best experience working with the SRC.

"I’ve been in the charter world for about 14 years," Krokys said, "In the past and sometimes the not so recent past—what it was—the relationship and the process of authorization and renewal were secret, haphazard, and hostile. And I’m not exaggerating. It was always up for grabs."

In answering Leach’s question about what she’s learned from really effective charter schools, Krokys said, "Community partners and stakeholders are one of the things that can be done with all schools—but it’s especially important for charter schools. Site admission selection for parents and staff—there’s nothing like feeling that you have chosen something and were not defaulted to it," Krokys stressed. "That makes a big difference in partnership.

The same thing," Krokys continued, "goes for staff. The staff is not assigned; they’re not grazing until they get their retirement. Staff is selected to work in a specific school."

Serette discussed the history and evolution of charter schools. That began on March 31, 1988. "That’s when our chamber got in front of the press club in DC and announced a new type of school, something that would help figure out the most complicated problems in our education system. And it was the charter school."

As Serette explained it, the charter school concept was designed as a "calculated risk to figure out if we could figure out something that could then be exported into the public system. And," Serette continued, "This makes sense because you don’t want to take a calculated risk and export it into the whole system. I think we forgot that lesson as we were expanding throughout the nation.

We have a situation where we have the largest charter school system in the country-K12 Inc.," Serette continued, "It’s fully funded by public dollars but it’s traded on the stock exchange. The goal of being on the exchange is to make money. So we have slightly diverged from the original mission of charters."

With regard to the effectiveness of charter schools, "they have had a meaningful impact," Serette said, adding, "They have taught us some really smart things to figure out and export to our system. The first charter school started in 1992. And now we have 43 states with charter school laws."

But, Serette noted, citing an investigation of 15 states, his office found, "about 136 million in charter school funding that was abused, that was used for fraud. To us, that was an alarming number."

In PA, Serette explained that he didn’t think the state government "did a great job of regulating the system. So we have here, two auditors looking after a system that has revenue of 700 million, auditing 86 charter schools.

Dowdall, in answering Leach’s question about academic accountability for charter schools said, "Rather than start with the charter school in the quest of academic accountability, we might journey back to the government entities that established, regulates and monitors them namely the PA State Legislature the Governor of PA, the State Department of Education and the SRC.

While the public schools whose assumed inadequacies sparked the takeover," Dowdall continued, "they were more or less placed in a giant petri dish; we more or less organized a dizzying away of name changes, administrative changes, etc. Test prep came to rule and push out libraries, librarians, music, art and other extra curricular activities. Funding cuts led to the disappearance of nurses, counselors, teaching assistants, custodial help and the financial oversight provided by operations personnel.

Twenty three neighborhood schools," Dowdall continued, "were shuttered. And 40 new charters are supposed to open. Since the SRC has the authority to approve schools," Dowdall said, "maybe they should do so based on the actual needs of the district rather than the whims and desires in some highly funded charters."

As the discussion continued, Leach asked Houstoun "how has the introduction [of reversing] no-charter re-imbursement in PA influence the SRC assessment when it comes to renewing charters?"

Leach’s question references the fact that Government Corbett eliminated the $100 million for charter school re-imbursement to the Philadelphia School District in 2011.

Houston cited the cancellation of the re-imbursement as painful. "For every child that’s added to charter school system, we can’t take off $10,000 for expenses. If," Houstoun explained, "we can restore the charter re-imbursement that was in place, it would alleviate the first level of pain that we’re suffering in the district right now."

Leach asked Krokys to comment on how to rectify the public perception of charter schools when taking into account those that are underperforming or fraudulent.

Krokys began her answering by stressing, "There are thousands and thousands of children who would not have had one chance in their neighborhood school. And a lot of them came through my doors and are now graduating from college."

When it comes to addressing inadequacies in Philadelphia charter schools, Krokys said, "It took a while for the charter school community to finally say, ‘yes. There are some charters that need be closed.’ Yes," Krokys said, "we are weary of the few bad apples because that’s what ends up in the papers. And that’s what ends up tainting everything else."

With regard to K12 Inc., "Who the hell gave permission for a for-profit to run a charter school?" Krokys asked. "Whose fault was that?"

To Serette, Leach asked, "One of the original aims of charter schools was to be a model for public schools. But that got lost in the shuffle over time. How do you think we can go back so that public schools can benefit from the successful roles of charters?"

According to Serette, "The narrative in the US is that the public school system is broken, right? And you can’t just get a good education so you have to be saved by a lot of other systems. But the truth is," Serette continued. "We have a good public school system in upper class and upper middle class neighborhoods. Those tend to be wonderful. And then you have the struggling sectors where people can’t make ends meet and we’re trying to figure that out."

Leach then asked Dowdall how charter and public schools could reach a middle ground.

To Dowdall, "It’s about equity. It’s about resources. Whether it’s traditional or charter, it can be defined. It’s about small classes with libraries where the students can be guided."

And in Dowdall’s opinion, "There needs to be an agreement between those on the board that authorization renewal for charter schools should be set at three years as opposed to five."

For more information on the ADA, visit Youth http://www.phillyada.org.

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