Charters’ exorbitant fees hinder efforts to obtain public info
Public records requests made to 10 publicly funded Boston charter schools have been thwarted by demands for fees totaling $91,440 from seven of the schools, according to Russ Davis, director of...
Public records requests made to 10 publicly funded Boston charter schools have been thwarted by demands for fees totaling $91,440 from seven of the schools, according to Russ Davis, director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice and a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance.
The requests for information were made on behalf of the MEJA, a coalition of labor, faith and social justice organizations, and concerned whether information on parents of charter school students was provided to two pro-charter advocacy organizations.
“The demands for absurdly high fees to comply with our requests underscore an appalling lack of transparency on the part of these publicly funded Commonwealth charter schools,” said Davis.
This issue underscores problems that would be addressed in a public records access bill that Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo told the State House News Service may come to the floor for a vote next week.
Kyle Serrette, the director of education justice campaigns at the Center for Popular Democracy, who has issued similar requests to both public school districts and to charter schools in other states, said that schools typically charge very little or no money to respond to public information requests.
“Exorbitant requests for fees like this by large school companies limit transparency and reduce public trust in these schools,” Serrette said.
MATCH Charter Public Middle School demanded the most for the information: $36,015 (click here to see letter). Roxbury Preparatory Charter School quoted the second-highest fee estimate, $12,500. To date, Boston Renaissance Charter Public School and Boston Preparatory Charter Public School have failed to respond.
UP Academy Dorchester, an in-district Horace Mann charter school, was the only one to respond with the information requested, providing its student records policy free of charge and stating that it has not engaged in any of the actions for which information was requested.
“These fee estimates from seven of the eight schools that responded are exorbitant and beyond our capacity to pay,” said Davis. “These charges violate the spirit and letter of our public records law.”
The MEJA requests were made in an attempt to determine the relationship between these Boston charter schools and two charter advocacy organizations —Families for Excellent Schools and the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. Specifically, the coalition is trying to determine whether the schools had any contracts with these groups, any policies related to providing outside groups with contact information for students’ families, and any record of providing these two outside groups with that contact information.
“We were concerned about reports that the charter schools may have been giving these corporate-backed, pro-charter organizations parent contact information so that parents could be enlisted to lobby on behalf of the charter school agenda,” said Davis. “If that has been going on, we believe the public has a right to know. Charter schools are publicly funded. We do not believe that public funds should be used to persuade parents to lobby on behalf of the private charter school industry.”
Families for Excellent Schools is a New York-based organization that supports Unify Boston and Great Schools Massachusetts, both of which are pro-charter advocacy groups. FES has received millions of dollars from corporate foundation groups, including the Broad Foundations and the Walton Family Foundation.
This chart indicates when the charter schools queried responded to the request for information, which was made in a letter dated Aug. 20, 2015. It also lists the fee estimate from each school and the name of the law firm, if any, that responded to the request.
School Response Date Records Produced Fee Estimate Firm Boston Collegiate Charter 21-Aug-15 $7,250 Krokidas & Bluestein KIPP Academy Boston Elementary and Middle 28-Aug-15 $9,560 Krokidas & Bluestein Brooke Roslindale Charter 28-Aug-15 $7,500 Krokidas & Bluestein Neighborhood House Charter 28-Aug-15 $8,615 Krokidas & Bluestein Excel Academy - East Boston 28-Aug-15 $10,000 Krokidas & Bluestein UP Academy Charter - Horace Mann 01-Sep-15 04-Sep-15 $0 None Roxbury Preparatory Charter 22-Sep-15 $12,500 None Match Charter Public Middle 25-Sep-15 $36,015 Krokidas & Bluestein Boston Renaissance Charter Public Boston Preparatory Charter Public
Excerpts from guidance from the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office on what fees may be charged for providing public records:
“In the interest of open government, all records custodians are strongly urged to waive the fees associated with access to public records, but are not required to do so under the law.” “A records custodian may charge and recover a fee for the time he or she spends searching, redacting, photocopying and refiling a record. The hourly rate may not be greater than the prorated hourly wage of the lowest paid employee who is capable of performing the task. A records custodian may not recover fees associated with record organization.”Public Records Request made by the service Muckrock on behalf of MEJA on Aug. 20.
Dear Records Officer:
Pursuant to Massachusetts Public Records Act § 66-10 et seq., I am writing to request the following records:
Copies of all communication, including email, between your organization and Families for Excellent Schools, a/k/a Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy, or any agent thereof, inclusive of all attachments and memoranda. For purposes of manageability, you may limit this request to only those communications from the previous 24 months. Copies of all communication, including email, between your organization and Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, or any agent thereof, inclusive of all attachments and memoranda. For purposes of manageability, you may limit this request to only those communications from the previous 24 months. Copies of any contracts between your organization and Families for Excellent Schools, Inc., and/or Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy, Inc., if applicable. Copies of any contracts between your organization and Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, if applicable. Copies of any policies relating to the transmission of student records to a third party, promulgated since 2012, including revisions. Copies of any school policies relating specifically to the disclosure of student “directory information” to third parties promulgated since 2012, including revisions. Copies of any parental notifications regarding transmission of student information to Families for Excellent Schools, Inc., and/or Families for Excellent School Advocacy, Inc., if applicable. Copies of any parental notifications regarding transmission of student information to Massachusetts Charter Public School Association if applicable. Documentation of any payments made to Families for Excellent Schools, Inc. and/or Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy Inc. in the previous two years, if applicable. Documentation of any payments made to Massachusetts Charter Public School Association in the previous two years, if applicable.Source: Massachusetts Teachers Association
Martin Luther King, institutions and power
Martin Luther King, institutions and power
Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to Vice President Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and author of the new book 'The Reconnection Agenda: Reuniting...
Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to Vice President Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and author of the new book 'The Reconnection Agenda: Reuniting Growth and Prosperity.'
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gestures during a speech at a Chicago Freedom Movement rally at Soldier Field in Chicago on July 10, 1966. (Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)
When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, he was in Memphis, supporting striking sanitation workers. By that time in his crusade for racial justice, he had elevated full employment to a key plank in his platform. The full name of the March on Washington was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. A common placard held up that day read, “Civil Rights Plus Full Employment Equals Freedom,” a powerful economic equation indeed.
In my experience, too few people remember this aspect of King’s movement, instead emphasizing his stirring spiritual commitment to racial inclusion. But King was of course thoroughly versed in the reality of the institutional barriers blocking blacks and his unique genius was to combine deep spiritual awareness with an equally deep understanding of the role of power in economic outcomes. That’s one reason he was in Memphis, supporting the union.
In 1967, King called for “a radical redistribution of economic and political power.” He particularly understood the power, for better or worse, of American institutions, most notably of course, the institution of racism, which so successfully blocked African Americans from decent homes, jobs, schools and opportunities.
But countervailing institutions existed within his vision as well, including the church and the union, and, if it could be forced to live up to its promise, the government. Even the institutions of the consumer economy and the job market could, with the right force and strategy, including boycotts that flexed black consumer muscle and equal opportunity laws, be nudged in the direction of racial justice.
To some readers, this “institutional” framework may be confusing. What do I mean by referencing the consumer or job markets or racism or unions, as “institutions”? This certainly doesn’t square with the classic economic explanation of how the economy works: profit-maximizing individuals achieving optimal social welfare by each individual pursuing their goals.
The institutional framework, with its emphasis on historical, legal and cultural practices (norms) embedded in economic systems, stands in stark contrast to the market forces framework. Surely no one could question whether the legal system or the housing market black people faced in King’s time, not to mention our own, promoted objective, blind justice. Discrimination in schools, the economy, and almost every other walk of life could not and cannot possibly be viewed as a fair or merit-based system.
Honoring King’s vision and legacy thus requires not simply remembering his most well-known dream: a racially inclusive society very different from the one that existed in his, or sadly, our own time. It requires recognizing the need to redistribute the power from the oppressive, exclusionary institutions, many of the same ones — housing, schools, criminal justice, the economy — he fought for until the day he was taken from us.
What does honoring that vision mean today?
Although I certainly don’t advocate giving up on President-elect Donald Trump’s administration before it has started, all signs suggest that it and the Republican-led Congress will hurt, not help, the economically less advantaged. Republican budgets threaten to undermine the safety net, Trump’s proposed tax policy squanders fiscal resources on tax cuts for the rich, undermining opportunities for those stuck in places without adequate educational or employment opportunities. There’s talk among Republicans of trying to get more states to pass “right to work” laws that undermine unions and cut workers’ pay. Listening to Ben Carson’s hearing for secretary of housing and urban development quickly disabuses one of hope that he’ll tackle the legacy of segregated housing that remains a serious problem. As far as reforming the institutionalized racism the remains embedded in our criminal justice and policing systems, again, it’s awfully hard to be hopeful.
There are, however, many levels of institutional norms, laws and practices. The Fight for Fifteen has been immensely successful in raising minimum wages at the state and sub-state levels. I can’t prove this, but I’d bet that without Black Lives Matter, there would be no “blistering report” from the Justice Department on the racial practices of the Chicago Police Department. The activist group “Fed Up” has had great success elevating the issue of economic justice as regards Federal Reserve policy, a policy area that even liberal presidents have avoided getting into.
As I recently wrote regarding “ban the box,” a policy designed to give job-seekers with criminal records a fairer shot at employment:
Nineteen states and over 100 cities and counties have already taken similar action for government employees, and seven states (Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island) plus Washington, DC and 26 cities and counties have extended ban the box policies to cover private employers. Some private businesses, including Walmart, Koch Industries, Target, Starbucks, Home Depot, and Bed, Bath & Beyond, have also adopted these policies on their own.
This last part about the private businesses is instructive. The Selma bus boycott was, of course, in no small part an economic action: Black people would not pay for discrimination. Regarding full employment, King realized that at high levels of unemployment, it’s costless to discriminate against a significant swath of potential workers. But when the job market tightens up, discriminating against a needed worker means leaving profit on the table.
Especially in the age of Trump, when so many Americans feel as if representative democracy is seriously on the ropes, it seems a no-brainer to channel King and once again tap the power of boycotts and leaning on businesses to do the right thing. It makes no sense at all to cede this field to Trump as he nonsensically claims (and gets) credit for job creation that already was happening.
My intuition is that many businesses, as in the ban-the-box example, would be willing to help push back on the institutional injustices that persist. Higher and more equal pay scales, implementation of the updated, higher overtime threshold that was wrongly blocked by a Texas judge (in fact, many businesses, to their credit, have gone ahead with this change), not blocking collective bargaining if their workers want to exercise that right, flexible scheduling policies that help parents balance work and family — there’s no reason for progressives not to fight for these ideas at the sub-national level and the private sector.
Although these sub-national fights are more likely where the action is for the next few years, meaningful action is developing at the national level as well. King would have easily recognized the Trump phenomenon as the work of exclusive institutions once again grabbing the power and would have organized accordingly and effectively. As we speak, many of us are trying to block the repeal of health-care reform in this spirit. The Indivisible Movement and the Women’s March would also have been highly familiar to Dr. King.
But on whatever level or in whatever sector the fight takes place, as we celebrate King’s indelible contributions, let us recall his understanding of power, the institutions that power supported and his admonitions to us not to rest until much more of that power lies in the hands of those who still command far too little of it.
By Jared Bernstein
Source
Campaign regulatory board stymied by Legislature
Campaign regulatory board stymied by Legislature
Minnesota’s campaign finance regulatory board heads into election season with its slimmest possible board membership for taking action after the Legislature failed to confirm two appointees before...
Minnesota’s campaign finance regulatory board heads into election season with its slimmest possible board membership for taking action after the Legislature failed to confirm two appointees before adjourning its session.
Two appointments before lawmakers got hung up over concerns raised by Senate Republicans about the DFL political background of Emma Greenman. Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board appointments require confirmation from the House and Senate on a three-fifths vote; the House supplied sufficient votes to confirm Greenman and former Republican state Rep. Margaret “Peggy” Leppik during the session’s final day.
Board chairman Christian Sande said Friday that it could be August before the board is back to full strength. That’s because of the legal steps Gov. Mark Dayton must take to fill the slots, by which time election contests will be in full swing and campaign finance complaints will be streaming in.
“It means for the board to take any action the votes have to be unanimous,” Sande said. “I don’t know that it handicaps us. But it certainly does indicate that where in the past with six active members of the board it might be easier to arrive at four votes to achieve something.”
Absence of a single member would deprive the board of the quorum it needs to even meet.
The remaining members would have to be in complete agreement to impose any penalties, issue any advisory opinions or take other substantive action because state law requires four votes in favor when the typically six-member board makes decisions.
Campaign finance board appointments always have come with more political sensitivity and scrutiny than most agencies. In fact, state law dictates a specific political makeup and that some members be former lawmakers.
Greenman and Leppik had been serving on the board pending confirmation but their appointments were considered null when the Legislature adjourned without positive votes.
A Dayton spokesman says the governor plans to resubmit their names once the openings are posted, which would allow them to serve again until the Legislature returns next year and takes another look. It’s not clear when that could happen.
Sen. Scott Newman of Hutchinson said he and his Republican colleagues weren’t willing to confirm Greenman because of past and present political activity.
“Is this someone who would be able to set aside partisan politics and render judgment as to violations of campaign finance laws? We really doubted it,” Newman said in a phone interview. “We were very concerned about it because of the degree of involvement in political partisanship.”
He added, “This is not a personal attack on her. It is simply a realization of her past activities. She was a very politically active person.”
Greenman, a 36-year-old Minneapolis lawyer, is director of voting rights and democracy for the Center for Popular Democracy. Past stints include work for the Wellstone Action organization formed after the death of Sen. Paul Wellstone and for a Minnesota unit of the Service Employees International Union. In her appointment materials, she lists her political affiliation as with the DFL.
Greenman didn’t immediately return a call or email inquiring about her intentions moving forward said in an email Friday that the lack of a vote was disappointing. She said she is considering reapplying and has been encouraged to do so.
“I have had the pleasure of of serving on the board since January and believe it plays an important role in supporting and protecting Minnesota’s democracy,” she wrote.
In a packet compiled in connection with her earlier appointment, Greenman disclosed details about her past political involvement and her present job, which she said posed no conflict with a campaign board role and didn’t encompass campaign finance matters.
“At this point in my career I am able to serve on the board without any direct conflicts of interest. I do not work for any candidates or any political campaign committees. I do not currently represent the Minnesota DFL or any party official or political candidate,” she wrote in a November letter to Dayton seeking the appointment.
By Brian Bakst
Source
I confronted Jeff Flake over Brett Kavanaugh. Survivors like me won't stand for injustice.
I confronted Jeff Flake over Brett Kavanaugh. Survivors like me won't stand for injustice.
I began my week in tears, as I stood in front of Sen. Jeff Flake’s office to tell my story of sexual assault for the first time. I ended my week in rage after learning that Flake, R-Ariz., would...
I began my week in tears, as I stood in front of Sen. Jeff Flake’s office to tell my story of sexual assault for the first time. I ended my week in rage after learning that Flake, R-Ariz., would vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Read the article and watch the video here.
Five Key Questions to Ask Now About Charter Schools
Washington Post - January 23, 2015, by Valerie Strauss - You can tell that National School Choice Week is nearly upon us — it runs from Jan. 25- 31 — by the number of announcements coming forth...
Washington Post - January 23, 2015, by Valerie Strauss - You can tell that National School Choice Week is nearly upon us — it runs from Jan. 25- 31 — by the number of announcements coming forth hailing the greatness of school choice.
Jeb Bush’s Florida-based Foundation for Excellence in Education put out an announcement that it would participate in a march next week in Texas to support school choice (with one of the speakers being Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, Jeb’s son). There’s a new poll by the pro-choice American Federation for Children showing (I bet you can guess) that most Americans support school choice. Etc., etc.
There is other school choice news too, but you won’t hear it from the pro-choice folks. This comes from 10th Period blog, by Steven Dyer, a lawyer who is the education policy fellow at Innovation Ohio and who once served as a state representative and was the chief legislative architect for Ohio’s Evidence Based Model of school funding:
In a disturbing new report from State Auditor David Yost, officials found that at one Ohio charter school, the state was paying the school to educate about 160 students, yet none, that’s right, zero, were actually at the school. And that’s just the worst of a really chilling report, which, if the results are extrapolated across the life of the Ohio charter school program, means taxpayers have paid more than $2 billion for kids to be educated in charter schools who weren’t even there. Here are the takeaways:
Seven of 30 schools had headcounts more than two standard deviations below the amount the school told the state it had.
Nine of 30 schools that had headcounts at least 10% below what the charter told the state it had, though it was less than two standard deviations.
The remaining 14 had headcounts that weren’t off by as much.
However, 27 of 30 schools had fewer students at the school than they were being paid to educate by the state
This means that more than 1/2 of all the charter schools chosen at random had significantly fewer students attending their schools than the state was paying them to educate, while 90% had at least some fewer amount.
So in honor of National School Choice Week, here are five questions that should be asked about charter schools, which today enroll about 2.57 million students in more than 6,000 charter schools nationwide.
The questions, and supporting material, come from the Center for Popular Democracy, which has exposed over $100 million public tax funds stolen in the charter school industry in a report titled, “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse.”
Here are the center’s questions: 1. How much money has your state lost to charter waste, fraud and abuse?
With at least $100 million tax dollars lost to fraud, waste, or abuse by charter operators in the United States, there is significant progress needed before the charter sector can claim best practices on fraud and abuse. What’s worse, given the scant auditing and little regulation, the fraud uncovered so far might only be scratching the surface. The types of fraud fall into six major categories: [Reference: CPD report, May 2014] • Charter operators using public funds illegally for personal gain; • School revenue used to illegally support other charter operator businesses; • Mismanagement that puts children in actual or potential danger; • Charters illegally requesting public dollars for services not provided; • Charter operators illegally inflating enrollment to boost revenues; and, • Charter operators mismanaging public funds and schools.
2. Are charter operators required to establish strong business practices that guard against fraud, waste, mismanagement, and abuse? Do regulators in your state have the authority and resources to regularly assess charter school business practices?
Despite millions of dollars lost to shady practices, charter operators are overwhelmingly not required by law to establish strong business practices that protect against fraud and waste. We need change:
* Charter schools should institute an internal fraud risk management program, including an annual fraud risk assessment. * Oversight agencies should regularly audit charter schools and use methodologies that are specifically designed to assess the effectiveness of charter school business practices and uncover fraud.
3. Does your state require charter school operators and their boards of directors to provide adequate documentation to regulators ensuring funds are spent on student success?
Across the country, investigations led by attorneys general, state auditors and charter authorizers have found significant cases of waste, fraud and abuse in our nation’s charter schools. The majority of investigations are initiated by whistleblowers because most regulators do not have the resources to proactively search for fraud, waste, or abuse of public tax dollars. [References:CPD report, December 2014; CPD report, October 2014]
4. Can your state adequately monitor the way charters spend public dollars including who charter operators are subcontracting with for public services?
Because most charter schools laws do not adequately empower state regulators, regulators are often unable to monitor the legality of the operations of companies that provide educational services to charter schools. For example, Pete Grannis, New York State’s First Deputy Comptroller, reported recently that charter school audits by his office have found “practices that are questionable at best, illegal at worst” at some charter schools.[1] While his office would like to investigate all aspects of a charter operators business practices, they do not have the authority. To reform the system, he believes that “as a condition for agreeing to approve a new charter school or renew an existing one, charter regulators could require schools and their management companies to agree to provide any and all financial records related to the school.” [2]
This example typifies the lack of authority given to charter oversight bodies. Lawmakers should act to amend their charter school laws to give charter oversight bodies the powers to audit all levels of a charter schools operations, including their parent companies and the companies they contract out their educational services to.
5. Are online charter operators audited for quality of services provided to students and financial transparency?
Online charter schools represent another rapidly growing sector. The rapid growth has made the online charter school industry susceptible to similar pitfalls facing the poorly regulated charter industry as whole. As one longtime academic researcher puts it, “The current climate of elementary and secondary school reform that promotes uncritical acceptance of any and all virtual education innovations is not supported by educational research. A model that is built around churn is not sustainable; the unchecked growth of virtual schools is essentially an education tech bubble.”[3]
Given the poor outcomes being generated by most online charter schools, state regulators should be empowered with more authority to ensure these schools are not violating state laws or their charter agreements.
[1]https://www.propublica.org/article/ny-state-official-raises-alarm-on-charter-schools-and-gets-ignored [2] https://www.propublica.org/article/ny-state-official-raises-alarm-on-charter-schools-and-gets-ignored [3]http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2013/05/virtual-schools-annual-2013
The Fed Just Inched Closer To Raising Interest Rates
The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will keep interest rates at or near zero for now, but implied it would soon raise them, alarming left-leaning activists and economists concerned...
The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will keep interest rates at or near zero for now, but implied it would soon raise them, alarming left-leaning activists and economists concerned about stagnant wages.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which is the central bank’s body responsible for managing key interest rates, said in a statement that its decision was based on the conclusion that interest rates of zero to 0.25 percent -- known as the “zero lower bound” -- were still needed to “support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability.” The statement refers to the Fed’s dual mandate to both pursue full employment and keep inflation low through its control of the money supply.
The FOMC said that inflation in particular continues to remain too low to warrant an interest rate hike.
“Inflation continued to run below the Committee's longer-run objective, partly reflecting earlier declines in energy prices and decreasing prices of non-energy imports,” the committee said in the statement.
However, the Fed also indicated in its statement that it is optimistic about the pace of economic growth, buoying expectations of a rate hike in September when the FOMC meets next. Many analysts have been predicting that the Fed would raise rates as soon as September, or at least before the year’s end.
The FOMC statement noted that “economic activity has been expanding moderately in recent months. The labor market continued to improve, with solid job gains and declining unemployment.”
The Fed has kept the primary interest rate it controls near zero since December 2008.
Many activists and economists, including the left-leaning nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign, believe that the Fed has prioritized the inflation half of its dual mandate at the expense of full employment. They argue against raising rates before unemployment gets low enough for employers to raise wages. And they are especially considered that unemployment rates remain disproportionately high in communities of color.
The Fed Up campaign was pleased that the Fed did not raise rates on Wednesday, but called the lack of a rate hike a “low bar,” since it was not even expected by most observers. Instead, the campaign emphasized its frustration with the FOMC statement for ignoring signs of slack in the job market.
“The FOMC statement hails ‘solid job gains,’ but does not mention that the most recent job figures showed a slowdown in wages,” said Jordan Haedtler, deputy campaign manager for Fed Up. “The downward trend in wages is a major reason why the Fed should not raise interest rates in 2015.”
Source: Huffington Post
Death Cab for Cutie Kick Off Anti-Trump Campaign ’30 Days, 30 Songs’
Death Cab for Cutie Kick Off Anti-Trump Campaign ’30 Days, 30 Songs’
A group of musicians will be using their music to help convince voters not to support Donald Trump. Titled “30 Days, 30 Songs,” the project will release one track each day between now and the...
A group of musicians will be using their music to help convince voters not to support Donald Trump. Titled “30 Days, 30 Songs,” the project will release one track each day between now and the election in the hopes of creating a “Trump-Free America.”
Related: Roger Waters Trashes Donald Trump at Desert Trip Festival
Death Cab for Cutie begins the project today (Oct 10) with the original track “Million Dollar Loan.”
Ben Gibbard said of the song, “Lyrically, ‘Million Dollar Loan’ deals with a particularly tone deaf moment in Donald Trump’s ascent to the Republican nomination. While campaigning in New Hampshire last year, he attempted to cast himself as a self-made man by claiming he built his fortune with just a ‘small loan of a million dollars’ from his father. Not only has this statement been proven to be wildly untrue, he was so flippant about it. It truly disgusted me. Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he is unworthy of the honor and responsibility of being President of the United States of America, and in no way, shape or form represents what this country truly stands for. He is beneath us.”
This week, Jim James, Aimee Mann, Thao Nguyen, clipping., and Bhi Bhiman will all share songs, and R.E.M. will premiere a never-before-heard track. New songs will be available every day at 9am PST on Spotify, and will appear 24 hours later on Apple Music.
Fans can also purchase individual songs with proceeds benefitting Center for Popular Democracy (CDP), which aims for Universal Voter Registration.
By Amanda Wicks
Source
What the Overworked and Underemployed Have in Common
Huffington Post - October 7, 2014, by Robin Hardman - One morning last week I joined a small gathering in a conference room at New York City's Baruch College to listen to a line-up of speakers and...
Huffington Post - October 7, 2014, by Robin Hardman - One morning last week I joined a small gathering in a conference room at New York City's Baruch College to listen to a line-up of speakers and panelists talk on the subject of "Families and Flexibility." The event was sponsored by Scott Stringer, our NYC Comptroller, who has been promoting city-wide "right to request" legislation. In case you've missed them, right to request laws, currently on the books in many countries around the world and very slowly gaining traction here in the U.S., provide employees with the simple right to request a flexible schedule. Details--including who can ask and for what reasons, and how much leeway employers have in responding-- vary, but laws are already in place in San Francisco and Vermont, and legislation is pending in many other places--including the U.S. Congress.
Hence this event, which gave Comptroller Stringer an opportunity to strut his stuff; featured a closing keynote by Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO of the New America Foundation; and allowed a number of smart policy-makers, advocates, researchers, corporate work-life champions and workers to weigh in with their stories and data. But perhaps the most noticeable aspect of the morning was what I'll call the Great Divide between the two panels that made up the bulk of the agenda.
The first panel featured political scientist Janet Gornick; A Better Balance co-president Dina Bakst; Families and Work Institute's Kelly Sakai-O'Neill, and work-life/flex champions from two accounting firms: Marcee Harris Schwartz of BDO and Barbara Wankoff of KPMG. Moderated by New York Times reporter Rachel Swarns, the panelists conducted an interesting, data-driven discussion about why flexibility matters and the very real problems many professional men and women face achieving any kind of work-life "balance." The ideas and concerns they raised were the important stuff that is often stressed in our national work-life conversation: The business benefits of a more flexible workplace. The negative impact of overwork on both families and society at large. The dark-ages state of parental leave laws in this country, especially in comparison with pretty much every other country in the developed world.
We listened to and discussed these topics for a full hour, grabbed some more coffee, and moved on to the second panel. I wished I'd worn my sneakers: it was a dizzying leap across a conceptual chasm.
The second panel featured A Better Balance's other co-president, Sheery Leiwant, as well as sociologist Ruth Milkman and Carrie Gleason, Director of the Center for Popular Democracy's Fair Workweek Initiative. It also featured a woman named Deena Adams, a single parent who, shortly after receiving a service award for loyalty, lost her job because she couldn't find child care to accommodate a sudden requirement that she start taking on overnight shifts. (A fifth panelist, Carrie Nathan, is a union activist and hourly employee at Macy's, which apparently has an exceptionally supportive system for shift scheduling.)
At this panel, moderated by Times labor reporter, Steven Greenhouse, we heard about the other end of the spectrum. We heard about things not usually talked about in the context of work-life and not talked about enough in any context. In contrast to the (very real) problems of professional workers--so many of whom feel overworked and short on time--we now focused on the growing legions of workers who aspire, most of all, to have a full-time job. The exploitation of the underemployed has become something of a science in recent years, as technology provides elaborate algorithms that can tell employers on a day-to-day--sometimes hour-to-hour--basis exactly how many employees they need on site and how many they can just tell to stay home. Many employers use this hyper-efficiency to move workers about like pieces on a chessboard, expecting them to be on call for the next move, whenever it may come.
Please understand what this means: employees must be ready, sometimes forty hours a week, sometimes 24/7, to drop everything and show up for their minimum wage job. They have to have child care available; they can make no permanent social or vacation plans; they cannot take a class. Generally, all this readiness leads to far less than full-time work and yet by definition also makes it impossible to take a second job. One man quoted in an article by Greenhouse talked about being told in a job interview that he'd have to be on call full-time but would be able to work no more than 29 hours/week. When he objected, the interview was over. Another described asking his employer to schedule his "wildly fluctuating" 25 hours/week at the same time each day so could find a second job--and promptly had his weekly hours cut to 12. A woman commuted an hour to her scheduled shift only to be told to go home (with no pay)--she wasn't needed today.
The overworked, the underworked. The Great Divide. It's odd to wrap the phrase "work-life" around the situations of these two groups of people, yet it does apply to both. Each ultimately comes down to a lack of control over one's own time. Each apparently stems from employers' mistaken belief that providing a modicum of flexibility and predictability is bad for business (as if stressed-out employees and high turnover were good for the bottom line). Each affects more than just the people involved--it affects our families, our friends and our communities.
The good news is that some of the "right to request" existing and pending legislation around the country focuses not just on flexibility but also on predictability. The tools are at hand to make changes that affect men and women on both sides of the chasm. Did I mention that it's National Work and Family Month? Come on, people, let's get going.
Robin Hardman is a writer and work-life expert who works with companies to put together the best possible "great place to work" competition entries and creates compelling, easy-to-read benefits, HR, diversity and general-topic employee communications. Find her and follow her blog at www.robinhardman.com.
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Activist Ady Barkan says despite loss in Arizona, every seat is up for grabs
Activist Ady Barkan says despite loss in Arizona, every seat is up for grabs
Activist Ady Barkan, who is fighting ALS, is starting a new fight - to get people to vote. He’s asking people to “Be A Hero” and vote for candidates who protect healthcare. Ady tells Ali Velshi...
Activist Ady Barkan, who is fighting ALS, is starting a new fight - to get people to vote. He’s asking people to “Be A Hero” and vote for candidates who protect healthcare. Ady tells Ali Velshi that with all the challenges he faces that if he can get out and vote, everyone can.
Watch the video here.
Why Aren’t Presidential Candidates Talking About the Federal Reserve?
Why Aren’t Presidential Candidates Talking About the Federal Reserve?
In an election fueled by populist anger and dominated by talk of economic insecurity, why aren’t any of the presidential candidates talking about the Federal Reserve?
After nearly a decade...
In an election fueled by populist anger and dominated by talk of economic insecurity, why aren’t any of the presidential candidates talking about the Federal Reserve?
After nearly a decade of high unemployment, severe racial and gender disparities and wage stagnation, voters are heading to the ballot box in pursuit of a fairer economy with less rampant inequality. In California and New York, low-wage workers are celebrating historic agreements to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. And the economy and jobs consistently rank among the top concerns expressed by voters of all political stripes.
One government institution reigns supreme in its ability to influence wages, jobs and overall economic growth, yet leading candidates for president have barely discussed it at all. The Federal Reserve is the most important economic policymaking institution in the country, and it is critical that voters hear how candidates plan to reform and interact with the Fed.
The Fed too often epitomizes the problems with our economy and democracy over which voters are voicing frustration: Commercial banks literally own much of the Fed and are using it to enrich themselves at the expense of the American working and middle class. When Wall Street recklessness crashed the economy in 2008, American families paid the price.
At the time, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sat on the board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, which stepped in during the crisis to save Dimon’s firm and so many other banks on the verge of collapse. Although the Fed’s actions helped Wall Street recover, that recovery never translated to Main Street, where jobs and wage growth stagnated.
Commercial banks should not govern the very institution that oversees them. It’s a scandal that continues to threaten the Fed’s credibility. An analysis conducted earlier this year by my parent organization, The Center for Popular Democracy, showed that employees of financial firms continue to hold key posts at regional Federal Reserve banks and that leadership throughout the Federal Reserve System remains overwhelmingly white and male and draws disproportionately from the corporate and financial world.
When the Fed voted in December to raise interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade, the decision was largely driven by regional Bank presidents — the very policymakers who are chosen by corporate and financial interests. In 2015, the Fed filled three vacant regional president position, and all three were filled with individuals with strong ties to Goldman Sachs; next year, 4 of the 5 regional presidents voting on monetary policy will be former Goldman Sachs insiders. Can we trust these blue-chip bankers to address working Americans’ concerns?
Yet despite the enormous power it wields and the glaring problems it continues to exemplify, the Fed has received little attention this election cycle. As noted by Reuters last week, two of the remaining candidates for president, Hillary Clinton and John Kasich, have been mute on what they would do about the central bank. Donald Trump’s sporadic statements about the Fed have been characteristically short on details, prompting former Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Narayana Kocherlakota to call for Clinton, Trump and all presidential candidates to clarify exactly how they plan to oversee the Fed’s management of the economy. Ted Cruz has piped up about the Fed on a few occasions, although his vocal endorsement of “sound money” and other policies that contributed to the Great Depression warrant clarification.
The most detailed Fed reform proposal from a presidential candidate to date was a December New York Times op-ed in which Bernie Sanders wrote that “an institution that was created to serve all Americans has been hijacked by the very bankers it regulates,” and urged vital reforms to the Fed’s governance structure.
On Monday, Dartmouth economist Andy Levin, a 20-year Fed staffer and former senior adviser to Fed Chair Janet Yellen and her predecessor Ben Bernanke, unveiled a bold proposal to reform the Federal Reserve and make it a truly transparent, publicly accountable institution that responds to the needs of working families.
The New York primary provides a perfect opportunity for the remaining presidential candidates to tell us what they think about the Federal Reserve. Candidates in both parties should specify whether they support Levin’s proposals, and if not, articulate their preferred approach for our federal government’s most opaque but essential institution.
As Trump, Cruz and Kasich gear up for a potentially decisive primary, they would do well to respond to the many calls for clarity on the Fed. And on Thursday night, Sanders and Clinton will have the chance to clarify their stances on the Fed when they debate in Brooklyn, just a few miles away from Wall Street and the global financial epicenter that is the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
As New York voters get ready to decide which of the remaining candidates would make the best president, they will be asking themselves which candidate will better handle the economy. The candidates’ positions on the Fed must be part of the equation.
Jordan Haedtler is campaign manager of the Fed Up campaign, which calls on the Federal Reserve to adopt policies that build a strong economy for the American public. Fed Up is an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy, a nonprofit group that advocates for a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda.
By Jordan Haedtler
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5 days ago
5 days ago