Campaign News

Shawn Sebastian, Policy Analyst at the Center for Popular Democracy, released the following statement on behalf of the Fed Up campaign: 

“The Fed Up campaign has been saying for more than a year that the economy is too weak to warrant interest rate hikes. Although the stock market was performing well and Wall Street was reaping major profits, the real economy has seen stagnant wages and insufficient job growth.

“The past week’s events vindicate our argument. The economy is too weak, and the performance of the stock market is not a legitimate basis for making interest rate decisions. Just as the market inflated itself over previous months, and witnessed a “correction” recently, it will likely continue to fluctuate in the months ahead. Fed officials who pointed to an inflated stock market as a justification to raise interest rates have been proven wrong: the health of the economy should be measured by the labor market, not the stock market, and the labor market is far from recovered.

“The Fed must continue focusing on the fundamentals: building a labor market that works for all communities, and that features rising wages and good jobs for everybody who wants to work. Creating genuine full employment is the Fed’s mandate, and the past few days vindicate the message that the Fed Up campaign’s worker leaders and economists have said all along: this economy is far too weak for the Fed to intentionally slow it down.”

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The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.

Bill Moyers - May 5, 2014, by Joshua Holland - Charter school operators want to have it both ways. When they’re answering critics of school privatization, they say charter schools are public — they use public funds and provide students with a tuition-free education. But when it comes to transparency, they insist they have the same rights to privacy as any other private enterprise.

But a report released Monday by Integrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy — two groups that oppose school privatization – presents evidence that inadequate oversight of the charter school industry hurts both kids and taxpayers.

Sabrina Joy Stevens, executive director of Integrity in Education, told BillMoyers.com, “Our report shows that over $100 million has been lost to fraud and abuse in the charter industry, because there is virtually no proactive oversight system in place to thwart unscrupulous or incompetent charter operators before they cheat the public.” The actual amount of fraud and abuse the report uncovered totaled $136 million, and that was just in the 15 states they studied.

Diane Ravitch on school privatization.

According to the study, fraud and mismanagement of charter schools fall into six categories:

Charter operators using public funds illegally — outright embezzlement

Using tax dollars to illegally support other, non-educational businesses

Mismanagement that put children in potential danger

Charters illegally taking public dollars for services they didn’t provide

Charter operators inflating their enrollment numbers to boost revenues

General mismanagement of public funds

The report looks at problems in each of the 15 states it covers, with dozens of case studies. In some instances, charter operators used tax dollars to prop up side businesses like restaurants and health food stores — even a failing apartment complex.

The report’s authors note that, “where there is little oversight, and lots of public dollars available, there are incentives for ethically challenged charter operators to charge for services that were never provided.” They cite the example of the Cato School of Reason Charter School in California, which, despite its libertarian name, collected millions of tax dollars by registering students who actually attended private schools in the area.

Perhaps the most troubling examples of mismanagement were those the report says actually put kids in danger:

Many of the cases involved charter schools neglecting to ensure a safe environment for their students. For example, Ohio’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dr. Richard A. Ross, was forced to shut down two charter schools, The Talented Tenth Leadership Academy for Boys Charter School and The Talented Tenth Leadership Academy for Girls Charter School, because, according to Ross, “They did not ensure the safety of the students, they did not adequately feed the students, they did not accurately track the students and they were not educating the students well. It is unacceptable and intolerable that a sponsor and school would do such a poor job. It is an educational travesty.”

Integrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy aren’t the first to warn of problems plaguing an under-regulated industry fueled by billions of tax dollars. A 2010 report to Congress by the Department of Education’s Inspector General’s office warned of the agency’s “concern about vulnerabilities in the oversight of charter schools” in light of “a steady increase in the number of charter school complaints.” It blamed regulators’ failure “to provide adequate oversight needed to ensure that Federal funds [were] properly used and accounted for.”

Read the full report for the watchdogs’ recommendations for how policymakers could strengthen oversight and bring real transparency to the charter school industry.

Source

In her testimony before the House on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen downplayed what the Fed can do to address the outsized unemployment among African Americans. Responding to a question about racial inequality in the job market, Yellen said “there really isn’t anything directly that the Federal Reserve can do to affect the structure of unemployment across groups . . . there’s nothing we can do about any particular group.” Connie Razza, director of strategic research at the Center for Popular Democracy, issued the following statement on behalf of the Fed Up Coalition:

“Chair Yellen’s response is troubling. With African Americans still mired in our own Great Recession, we should be hearing a positive vision from the Fed on how to foster full employment. While the economy is complex and the Federal Reserve’s tools are limited, there is plenty the Fed can do to improve the labor market for Black workers and to reduce racial inequality in the job market.

“Today, the unemployment rate for African Americans is 9.5 percent – higher than it ever was for whites during the worst months of the Great Recession. Black America is still in the middle of a Great Recession. Chair Yellen must consider the many places in our country where Black unemployment is double pre-recession levels before putting the brakes on recovery. 

“When Chair Yellen and other Fed officials talk about raising interest rates in 2015, they are talking about intentionally slowing down the economy and job growth, which would make it harder for most Americans, and particularly Black workers, to find good paying jobs. The direct consequences of the Fed’s projected interest rate hikes would harm millions of workers.

“Instead, the Fed could continue to push toward a tight labor market, in which the number of people looking for work more closely matches the number of jobs available. A full-employment economy, as we saw in the late 1990s, shrinks racial inequity and will bring particular benefits to Black workers, who are disproportionately unemployed, underemployed, underpaid, and endure more difficult scheduling circumstances in the workplace.

“In particular, a tight labor market reduces the practicability of discriminating. High unemployment rates facilitate racial discrimination because there are too many qualified job candidates for every job, so employers can arbitrarily limit their labor pool with unnecessary educational requirements, irrelevant credit or background checks, or straightforward discrimination. A tight labor market makes it much harder for employers to succumb to conscious and unconscious biases and instead hire workers who are qualified. The Federal Reserve must not raise interest rates until a tighter labor market has been achieved.

“Inflation is below the Fed’s already-low two percent target. Unemployment and underemployment are too high, while wages are still too low. There is no reason to raise interest rates in 2015. Doing so would cause tremendous harm to the aspirations and lives of tens of millions of working families, and would disproportionately harm African Americans.”

To schedule interviews with Connie Razza, send an email to press@populardemocracy.org. 

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The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.

Radicalized white men are on a reign of terror, and I’m not just talking about the tiki-torch terrorists in Charlottesville. I’m talking about the white men who are threatening our health care, our schools, our communities, our institutions, and our families through their callous and self-serving policies. Hoods have been replaced by pinstripe suits.

Read the full article here.