As debate heats up over interest rates, progressive movement mobilizes behind a pro-wages, racial equity agenda
Following the call, participants released the following statements: Dawn O’Neal, teaching assistant and member of Rise...
Following the call, participants released the following statements:
Dawn O’Neal, teaching assistant and member of Rise Up Georgia: Atlanta, Ga.
"When the Fed meets in Jackson Hole to discuss inflation, they will be almost 2,000 miles away from South DeKalb County. Here, the lines of people desperate for even a temporary job at the local work pool stretches around the block – those people include my husband. Together, despite our hard work and best efforts, we still struggle at the end of the month with health and household bills. That’s not just our story, but that of our neighbors and our community. For members of the Fed looking to slow down the economy, I’d invite them to come here to East Atlanta. It’s not easy to live here; for some people the economy means our very survival.”
Keesha Moore, intern, job seeker, and member of Action United: Philadelphia, Penn.
“I have been searching for employment for 7 months now. I am 36 years old and I have a family to provide for and a house to maintain. I know I’m not alone when saying that the way the economy is today my household needs dual income in order to maintain and stay afloat. In Philadelphia, mine is a story all too common: We need more jobs available and fair wages. I don’t think that people who do not live here or pay taxes here should be able to take our jobs away from us with the stroke of a pen. At Jackson Hole, we will remind them that our communities also deserve a say in this debate.”
Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute
“The recovery will never reach workers’ wages if the Federal Reserve prematurely slows the recovery. The Fed should at least keep short term rates low until we reach a genuine full recovery from the Great Recession. At a minimum, this means waiting until wage growth is consistent with the Fed’s overall inflation targets and the labor market is back to pre–Great Recession health. And since the pre-Great Recession labor market was likely not at genuine full-employment, we can probably be even more aggressive in that in letting unemployment decline.”
Ady Barkan, campaign director for the Fed Up at the Center for Popular Democracy
“Members of the Fed Up coalition across the country have rallied for a more inclusive Federal Reserve that prioritizes wages and promotes a recovery in all of our communities. Our members have shared their stories with regional Fed Presidents and informed them why raising the rates prematurely would be disastrous in our communities, where many are still mired in a Great Recession. In Jackson Hole, we will put a faces and stories within reach of the Federal Reserve. Before they can have a real discussion of raising interest rates and slowing the economy, they should understand first-hand who it would affect.”
The Fed Up campaign, anchored at the Center for Popular Democracy, will hold a number of teach-ins in Jackson Hole, Wyo. during the Federal Reserve’s symposium from August 27 to 29 to convey why it does not make sense to stop the recovery for America’s families. The teach-ins will be led by workers, economists, and Fed Up allies and will cover an array of topics like the Fed’s role in full employment, the intersection of Black Lives Matter and the Fed, the selection process for regional bank presidents, a historical look at inflation, and more.
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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.
Liberals turn to Fed in populist push
Left-leaning groups and lawmakers are taking their populist economic fight to the Federal Reserve, as they seek to...
Left-leaning groups and lawmakers are taking their populist economic fight to the Federal Reserve, as they seek to exert new influence over key monetary decisions and a pair of vacancies at the central bank.
The Fed has faced heavy criticism from the right for years, but the other side of the aisle is now beginning to publicly push the institution for preferred policies. With Congress and the White House seemingly set to butt heads for the next two years, left-leaning community and labor groups are turning to the Fed in an attempt to get an economic policy boost for middle- and working-class Americans.
“In the face of the fiscal side not being really a realistic option to promote an economic recovery, the most important economic policymaker in the United States is the Federal Reserve,” said Shawn Sebastian, policy advocate for the Center for Popular Democracy.
And after successfully driving President Obama to nominate Janet Yellen to lead the Fed, some Senate Democrats are again pressing the administration about openings at the central bank. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) are vocally calling on Obama to nominate tough-nosed Wall Street watchdogs to fill out two board spots that often are filled by academics or economists.
The resurgence of left-leaning interest in the Fed’s operations further complicates the bank’s efforts to remain above the political fray. The Fed has weathered years of criticism from the right, which argues its unprecedented foray into monetary stimulus after the recession was a recipe for disaster.But now, with the Fed preparing to finally dial back years’ worth of quantitative easing, it’s the other side that is airing concerns. This time, the worry is that the Fed could tighten policy too quickly, even as millions of Americans still are looking for work or grappling with stagnant paychecks.
“I have been concerned for some time that when the Federal Reserve began to tighten policy that they would be subject to considerable pressure from people who don’t want them to do that,” said Donald Kohn, a former Fed vice chairman now with the Brookings Institution.
A host of left-leaning groups, including the AFL-CIO and the Economic Policy Institute, have joined forces to take a populist message directly to the Fed. The groups have protested a central bank powwow in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and have held public protests outside the institution’s headquarters in Washington.
The leftward push on the Fed follows those groups notching a major victory at the central bank in 2013. With Obama reportedly favoring economic adviser Lawrence Summers to replace the outgoing Ben Bernanke as head of the Fed, Democrats on and off Capitol Hill embarked on a concerted campaign to get Yellen nominated for the top job instead.
Democratic lawmakers took the rare step of publicly advocating for Yellen, then the Fed’s vice chairwoman, before a nomination was made, effectively announcing opposition to Summers in the process. Though Obama defended Summers in public, he ultimately deferred to that pressure and nominated Yellen for the job.
Now, Warren and Manchin are hoping to exert more influence, calling on Obama to fill two openings at the seven-member board with tough supervisors who “have a demonstrated commitment to not backing down when they find problems.”
Fed governors are given a 14-year term, so if those two find success on that front, the end result could be a considerable shift in how the central bank operates as a financial regulator. And any new voices would likely receive an open hearing from Yellen, whose background is as an economist, not a regulator.
“My impression is that Chair Yellen is running the system by consensus in a considerable way, she consults widely,” said Kohn.
Since taking the job, Yellen has made a concerted effort to place the Fed’s deliberations within the context of the working class. One of her first acts as the Fed’s new leader was to address at a Chicago event how the central bank hoped to boost jobs, and she has agreed to meet with left-leaning protestors to hear their concerns.
But Yellen’s openness to those new voices is leaving some unsettled.
“There’s a trend here that’s pretty clear and pretty concerning,” said Steven Lonegan, director of monetary policy at American Principles in Action, which advocates for tighter Fed policy, including a return to the gold standard.
“You can’t start manipulating the value of our money because you have a specific political agenda,” he added.
But these new advocates argue the Fed has always been subject to politics. Sebastian argued that Fed officials and those that track Fed policy skew heavily from corporate and banking interests, leaving a “Main Street” voice out of the picture.
“Every person carries political baggage,” he said. “All we’re trying to do is have that conversation reflect reality.”
But even the people behind the new leftward push on the Fed acknowledge advocacy of the publicly mysterious institution is somewhat novel. Conservative criticism of the Fed has been around for years, first helmed by former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), but a more liberal effort for influence has not been seen in decades.
“This is a new space for us,” said Sebastian. “We don’t know what the effect of this type of engagement will be.”
Source: The Hill
We’d Be Picking Workers Up Off The Street
Salon - October 29, 2013, by Josh Eidelson - If the potential president does business's bidding on a new...
Salon - October 29, 2013, by Josh Eidelson -
If the potential president does business's bidding on a new scaffolding bill, workers will die, an advocate warns.
Industry groups hope New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo – a presumed presidential aspirant who’s frequently defied liberals on economics – will back their push to “reform” the country’s toughest law holding contractors responsible when workplace falls end in injury or death.
“I think we’d be picking workers up off the street,” if the state’s “scaffold law” is gutted, said Joel Shufro, who directs the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. “Because I think employers would cut corners in ways that would result in workers being injured or killed.” Cuomo’s office did not respond to inquiries.
In an Oct. 16 letter, dozens of business groups and the New York Conference of Mayors urged Cuomo to reform the stat’s “scaffold law,” a move they said would “help alleviate fiscal stress by saving taxpayer dollars, creating jobs, and increasing revenue to the state and localities.” Signatories included the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, whose director Tom Stebbins told Salon that the group has made the issue a priority because “insurance rates put people of business, they take jobs away, and as we’re finding out more and more, it’s costing us more and more in our public projects.”
The 128-year-old “scaffold law” allows contractors to be held liable for “gravity-related” injuries suffered by their employees when management failed to comply with a safety rule, even (with certain exceptions) if the employee was also at fault. Stebbins contended there was “no data that supports” the claim that it improves safety, and argued that what he called the law’s “absolute liability” standard means “you’re assigned fault without negligence,” and actually “makes job sites less safe.”
“If you absolve employees from responsibility for their actions, they’re less responsible,” said Stebbins. “And if employers are guilty under almost any circumstances, they’re not as incentivized.”
NYCOSH’s Shufro countered that the law holds employers liable “if they violate OSHA regulations or other city, state ordinances, do not provide appropriate training, do not provide appropriate personal protective equipment … But if they are in compliance … they are not liable, they will not be found at fault.”
Stebbins acknowledged that “if you were the only cause of your injury, then that absolute liability doesn’t apply,” but he told Salon that “even the responsible contractor can’t stop every situation.” Stebbins cited the case of a worker who he said intentionally “jumped off the building in order to make a scaffold law claim.” Under current law, he said, a contractor “could be a fraction of a percent responsible and be held liable for 100 percent of the judgment,” rather than having “liability apportioned by fault.” He argued that the law also hurt workers because cash devoted to insurance costs is “money that’s not being spent on jobs, not being spent on union labor.”
Labor groups rejected such claims. “Opponents claim that the Scaffold Law drives up costs and is a job killer; the reality is that it helps prevent a job from being a worker killer,” New York AFL-CIO president Mario Cilento told Salon in an email. Cilento credited the law with “placing responsibility for providing adequate safety equipment and measures squarely in the hands of contractors and owners, ensuring that there is absolutely no ambiguity in who is responsible for maintaining a safe workplace in a very dangerous occupation.” He added that “insurers and contractors try to gut the Scaffold Law and in turn workplace safety” over and over, but “they’ve been rebuffed because the Legislature has recognized that there is no price tag on the lives and well-being of New Yorkers.” Cilento’s Illinois counterpart, state AFL president Michael Carrigan, emailed that the labor federation “regrets the repeal” of the similar Illinois Scaffolding Act, prior to which “Illinois had been the second safest state in construction deaths and accidents.” (The business groups’ letter to Cuomo credited the repeal of Illinois’ law for a subsequent 53 percent decline in construction injuries and said it gave the state “the 10th lowest injury rate in the country”; NYCOSH attributed the decline in injuries to overall national trends.)
“All this law says is that the employers shall be liable if they do not follow rules and regulations that govern safety on these jobs,” said NYCOSH’s Shufro. “So it seems to me that the best way of reducing their costs is to require employers to follow the law.” An NYCOSH analysis of OSHA data on New York state construction found that “At least one OSHA fall prevention standard was violated in nearly 80 percent of accidents in which a worker fell and was killed.”
A study released Thursday by progressive Center for Popular Democracy argued that the industry’s death and injury toll is disproportionately borne by immigrant workers and Latinos. CPD found that Latino and/or immigrant workers made up 60 percent of “fall from elevation fatalities” investigated by OSHA in New York State, and reported that “In 2011 focus groups, Latino construction workers reported fearing retaliation as a key deterrent to raising concerns about safety.”
While business groups have long sought changes in the scaffold law, both sides said this year’s showdown on the issue could be particularly acute. “More and more we’re seeing the cost to the public,” said Stebbins, including insurers “leaving because they can’t sustain an absolute liability and it’s impossible for them to gauge risk.” Shufro countered that insurers “have refused” when asked by legislators to “open the books” and document their losses; NYCOSH also notes that New York experienced only a 9.1 percent drop in construction employment from 2006 to 2011, while the national decline was 28.4 percent.
Cuomo has previously clashed with labor on issues ranging from public workers’ pensions to an expiring (ultimately partially extended) millionaire’s tax. Salon’s Blake Zeff argued in a January BuzzFeed essay that Cuomo’s “approach to balancing two competing interests – piling up points to advance in a Democratic primary for president, while steering to the center in key areas (and carefully avoiding antagonizing monied interests who fund campaigns and influence elite opinion) – has consisted of aggressive advocacy of ‘cultural’ or ‘social’ progressive causes, while downplaying economic ones.” Cuomo this month appointed GOP former Gov. George Pataki to co-chair a commission on reducing tax rates, a move that Michael Kink, who directs the labor-backed coalition A Strong Economy for All, compared in a Capital New York interview to “bringing in Godzilla to oversee the rebuilding from a Godzilla attack.”
Shufro said the scaffold question would “be one of the major political battles that will go on and dominate Albany for the next session,” and so Cuomo was “going to have to make a certain decision about which side he’s going to come out on … I know that this is an important issue to labor, just as it seems to be an important issue to the business community.” Shufro predicted Cuomo’s approach to the scaffold law would be “one of the major issues that will help unions make decisions about how they see him going forward.” He added, “It’s not an easy place to be in.”
Source:
Jeb and Hillary’s opportunity on workweek fairness
Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton have been trading barbs about whether Americans are working hard enough, but behind the...
Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton have been trading barbs about whether Americans are working hard enough, but behind the give-and-take is a real emerging issue that has a dire impact on our country’s 75 million hourly workers and their families: the 40 hour workweek is no longer something we can count on. The candidates have a chance to move beyond the gamesmanship and support concrete solutions at the national and local level to show their commitment to the stability of working families.
To summarize the exchange, Bush said that “people need to work longer hours.” Clinton quickly responded on Twitter, “Anyone who believes Americans aren't working hard enough hasn't met enough American workers.” Bush retorted, referencing the number of people who are involuntarily working part time and seeking full time work that, “Anyone who discounts 6.5 million people stuck in part-time work and seeking full-time jobs hasn’t listened to working Americans.”
Taken at their word, neither of them is wrong; both sides of the argument resonate in the lived experiences of the millions of people working by the hour. For hourly workers trying to work enough hours to earn enough to get by, it can mean taking the hours they can get –sometimes working short four-hour shifts, putting their lives on hold for a last-minute on-call shift, or working the late night shifts followed by too little sleep because of an early morning shift the next day – also known as a “clopen.”
This is reality for millions of Americans all across the country. Strained, exhausted, and without seeing their families some days. Their rent and bills are predictable, but the work hours they need to pay them are not.
Many of these workers both want more hours, like Bush says, and are working hard, like Clinton says. The American workforce is rapidly changing, and millions of people are caught in a cycle of too few hours, too little control of when their hours occur, and not getting paid for the time they make available to their employers. For part-timed hourly workers, there’s often no way to get ahead.
The issue missing from Jeb and Hillary’s exchange is how underemployment and unpredictability go hand in hand. The one thing these workers can count on is that their schedules will change each week, sometimes with just minutes’ notice. This last minute notice is typical of part-time hourly workers across the economy, especially in fast food and retail, by employers like Target, Starbucks, the Gap, Victoria’s Secret, and others. It’s impossible to pick up more hours at another job if you don’t know day to day what your schedule will be.
If Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton are looking for real solutions to these issues, a new movement being led by working moms has some concrete policy solutions to offer. Last week, Congress introduced the Schedules That Work Act, a path-breaking bill addressing these underlying problems of part-time work that Bush and Clinton are debating. The bill is a result of workers calling for schedules they can predict, more stable hours they can count on, and the right to have a say into the hours they work without retaliation. The Schedules That Work Act has garnered a wave of support, in both the House and Senate, and comes after a year when legislators in 12 states introduced policies to guarantee a fair workweek, including active municipal campaigns that includes Minneapolis, Albuquerque, and Washington DC.
Clinton launched her campaign and declared, “I believe you should receive your work schedule with enough notice to arrange childcare or take college courses to get ahead” and Bush’s recent statements on involuntary part-time work show that even the GOP can’t ignore the under-employed. But the chaos that under-employment and unpredictable scheduling sows into workers lives is not just fuel for rhetoric, it’s real. And it requires real policy solutions. Hillary and Jeb have the chance to go deeper than their back and forth, address the common underlying problems they’ve both identified, and stand in favor of federal and local legislation that builds a fair workweek.
Gleason is the director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy
Source: The Hill
Should state be allowed to take over chronically failing schools?
Should state be allowed to take over chronically failing schools?
Georgia voters are being asked to approve a new and controversial way to improve public education. The proposal would...
Georgia voters are being asked to approve a new and controversial way to improve public education. The proposal would empower the state to take over chronically failing schools or convert them to charters or even close them.
It’s called Amendment 1 on the Nov. 8 ballot, and it’s called the Opportunity School District in the legislation that authorized it. The Georgia General Assembly passed Senate Bill 133 during this year’s session with the required two-thirds majority in both chambers. The referendum now needs a simple majority from voters to become law.
Then it asks voters this question:
“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?”
Gov. Nathan Deal’s OSD proposal, based on similar initiatives in Louisiana and Tennessee, would allow Georgia’s governor to appoint an OSD superintendent, separate from the Georgia Department of Education superintendent, who is elected by voters. The OSD superintendent could take over as many as 20 eligible schools each year and control no more than 100 such schools at any time. The OSD superintendent could waive Georgia Board of Education rules, reorganize or fire staff and change school budgets and curriculum. The state also could convert OSD schools to nonprofit or for-profit charter schools or close them if they don’t have full enrollment.
The state would use the College and Career Ready Performance Index to determine which schools are eligible for takeover. Schools that score below 60 on the 100-point CCRPI for three straight years could be included in the OSD. Those schools would stay in the OSD for no less than five years (or, if they are an OSD charter school, for the length of the initial charter’s term) and no more than 10 years before returning to local control. Opportunity Schools could be removed from the OSD whenever they are graded above an F in the state’s accountability system for three straight years.
Muscogee County had 10 of the 141 schools on the state’s original list of chronically failing schools released last year. Georgetown and Rigdon Road elementary schools, however, improved enough with other schools in the state on the 2015 CCRPI to move off the list. That leaves 127 schools in Georgia and these eight in Muscogee on the current list: Baker Middle School and Davis, Dawson, Forrest Road, Fox, Lonnie Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr. and South Columbus elementary schools.
The case for Yes
OSD proponents cite the number of chronically failing schools as the most obvious reason to try something drastically new. They also note the reduction in the number of chronically failing schools since the threat of state takeover became possible after Senate Bill 133 passed.
Deal says on his proposal’s website, “While Georgia boasts many schools that achieve academic excellence every year, we still have too many schools where students have little hope of attaining the skills they need to succeed in the workforce or in higher education. We have a moral duty to do everything we can to help these children. Failing schools keep the cycle of poverty spinning from one generation to the next. Education provides the only chance for breaking that cycle. When we talk about helping failing schools, we’re talking about rescuing children. I stand firm on the principle that every child can learn, and I stand equally firm in the belief that the status quo isn’t working.”
Alyssa Botts, spokewoman for the pro-Amendment 1 campaign committee Opportunity for All Georgia Students noted, “The graduation rate for students attending failing schools is an abysmal 55.7 percent,” compared to the most recent statewide figure of 78.8 percent in the class of 2015.
“A school that fails to properly educate its students perpetuates cycles of poverty and increases the likelihood of incarceration,” Botts said in an email to the Ledger-Enquirer. “For many students, educational opportunities provide the best chance to break out of these cycles. … Voting ‘yes’ for the Opportunity School District amendment is a vote to ensure that future generations of Georgians will have the best opportunities available. No child in Georgia should be forced by law to attend a failing school.”
The governor-appointed Georgia Board of Education and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce have endorsed the OSD referendum.
Michael O’Sullivan, executive director of the Georgia Campaign for Achievement Now, part of the 50-state CAN nonprofit organization advocating “a high-quality education for all kids, regardless of their address,” has successfully fought a similar political battle, helping to convince voters to approve the 2012 Georgia charter school amendment. And the OSD is the next logical step, he figures.
“What this has done is create a sense of urgency for districts to act,” O’Sullivan said in an interview with the Ledger-Enquirer. “Voters should be asking what’s being done now? What plans are in place to improve our schools? That’s the ultimate goal. How can we ensure that every student in the state has access to quality education? Right now, 68,000 students attend a school that has failed at least three years or more.”
The opposition is based on being “afraid of loss of control,” O’Sullivan said. “… It’s my hope that opponents would be putting as much effort into fixing their schools so they aren’t eligible for the OSD. I can tell you which option will be best for schools.”
O’Sullivan emphasized that state takeover is only one option for intervention in the OSD.
“There is the ability for the state to assist schools that are failing for one year or two years, and then, after three years, there is a multiple intervention model,” he said. “One is a joint governance structure, with the OSD and the local school district working together to turn around the school.”
Addressing concerns that OSD schools would receive less funding, O’Sullivan said, “Whatever amount that would have been dedicated to that school remains in that school.”
Louisiana enacted the Recovery School District in 2003. The RSD comprises 62 autonomous charter schools in Orleans, East Baton Rouge and Caddo parishes with a total enrollment of more than 32,000 students, according to the RSD’s 2015 annual report. The percentage of RSD schools considered to be failing has been reduced from 44 percent in 2011 to 19 percent in 2015, the report says.
According to the RSD’s 2014 annual report, the percentage of students performing at the basic level or above increased 29 percentage points from 2008 to 2014, while the state average increased 9 percentage points.
In New Orleans, 63 percent of the public school students are in the RSD. According to a June 2015 study by Patrick Sims and Vincent Rossmeier of the Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives at Tulane University, “the percentage of (New Orleans) students at the basic level or above has increased 15 percentage points over the past six years. That growth has largely come from the RSD, which has improved by 20 percentage points.”
In Tennessee, as of the 2015-16 school, there were 29 schools in the Achievement School District, enacted in 2010 with the goal of moving the state’s bottom 5 percent of school into the top 25 percent of student achievement. The ASD has made progress, according to its July 2015 report.
“Over a three-year period, ASD students have earned double-digit gains in math and science proficiency and have grown faster than their state peers,” the report says.
The ASD reading scores, however, declined along with the state average.
“We know from national research and our own experience that reading growth tends to lag behind other subjects in a school turnaround setting,” Malika Anderson, then the ASD deputy superintendent and now its superintendent, says in the report.
The case for No
Georgia Federation of Teachers president Verdaillia Turner, a retired Atlanta educator, has seen the statistics that indicate state takeovers improved student achievement, but her organization touts evidence that argues otherwise.
The federation says in its campaign literature that the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit against the state-created school district in New Orleans on behalf of 4,500 students for denying appropriate services. A July 2015 SPLC fact sheet notes that, while an average of 19.4 percent of students with disabilities graduated high school in Louisiana, only 6.8 percent of them graduated in the Recovery School District.
A February 2016 report titled “State Takeovers of Low-Performing Schools: A Record of Academic Failure, Financial Mismanagement and Student Harm” from the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal-leaning nonprofit advocacy group, found that state takeovers of schools in Louisiana, Michigan and Tennessee produced:
▪ “Negligible improvement — or even dramatic setbacks — in their educational performance.”
▪ “A breeding ground for fraud and mismanagement at the public’s expense.”
▪ “High turnover and instability” among staff, “creating a disrupted learning environment for children.”
▪ “Harsh disciplinary measures and discriminatory practices” for students of color and those with special needs.
Turner fears too much of the motivation for the OSD proposal is about creating profit opportunities in public schools for private charter school companies.
“The bottom line here is that this is a new business at the public’s expense,” Turner said in an interview with the Ledger-Enquirer. “The only thing public about these schools is our tax dollars.”
The federation notes the OSD may retain 3 percent of state funds for administrative operations, reducing the amount of money available for instruction.
“I love my state, and I respect the office of the governor and all of government,” Turner said. “However, this is still a democracy, and we believe that educators and the public need not be misled by what’s about to happen.”
That includes the OSD superintendent’s authority to “get rid of people at will” at any OSD school, Turner said. “The law says, the last line in Senate Bill 133 says, all laws in conflict with this act are repealed.”
Turner noted the state’s standardized testing system has changed the past five consecutive years. “Therefore, we know it’s not reliable,” she said.
In many chronically failing schools, Turner said, “children end up going to jail. But in many of these same schools, children go to Yale. So we need to have a real conversation about what makes schools work.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported that a political group called the Committee to Keep Georgia Schools Local has a TV ad campaign opposing the OSD referendum. The group includes the Georgia Association of Educators, Georgia AFL-CIO, the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, Georgia Stand-Up, the Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Public Education Matters, Southern Education Foundation, Working America, Pro Georgia, Better Georgia, Georgia Federation of Teachers and Concerned Black Clergy of Metro Atlanta, according to the AJC.
The Georgia School Boards Association’s board of directors voted to oppose the amendment. School boards representing the counties of Bibb, Chatham, Cherokee, Clayton, Fayette, Henry, Richmond and Troup have expressed opposition.
The Muscogee County School Board was scheduled to join them last month, but the proposed resolution was deleted from the agenda between the Sept. 12 work session and the Sept. 20 meeting. Neither superintendent David Lewis nor board chairman Rob Varner has responded to the Ledger-Enquirer’s requests for an explanation.
Responding on their behalf, MCSD communications director Valerie Fuller also didn’t explain the sudden change in thinking, who proposed the resolution, who rescinded it and why. Here is her statement in an email to the Ledger-Enquirer:
“The Muscogee County School District is a public school system, which is supported by taxpayer money. All of our stakeholders (taxpayers, students, parents, teachers administrators and staff) have different opinions on this proposal. Although we believe, and the results indicate, that we are making progress with our challenged schools, to take a side could anger supporters, who might say the BOE is opposed to helping ‘failing’ schools.
“We don’t think it would be wise for a publicly elected body to pass a resolution in opposition of this amendment that might result in controversy, causing unnecessary distractions from the work being done on behalf of these schools. Because this could result in a change to Georgia’s Constitution, we do believe it is important for voters to read and be fully informed about the amendment and its implications.”
In a letter Tuesday to school district superintendents and Regional Education Service Agency directors, Georgia Department of Education deputy superintendent for external affairs and policy Garry McGiboney reminded public school officials that the Georgia Office of the Attorney General advised the GaDOE in 2012, “Local school boards do not have the legal authority to expend funds or other resources to advocate or oppose the ratification of a constitutional amendment by the voters.”
Regardless of whether the proposed OSD is good for Georgia, the referendum’s wording doesn’t accurately explain it, some folks insist. The Georgia PTA called it “deceptive.”
“If the governor and state legislators believe the best way to fix struggling schools is to put them under state control and either close them or turn them over to charter schools, then let the language on the ballot reflect this initiative,” Georgia PTA president Lisa-Marie Haygood said in a news release. “As it stands, the preamble, and indeed, the entire amendment question, is intentionally misleading and disguises the true intentions of the OSD legislation.”
To that end, a class-action lawsuit was filed Sept. 27 against the governor, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp. The three lead plaintiffs, all from metro Atlanta — parent Kimberly Brooks, First Iconium Baptist Church senior pastor Timothy McDonald III and Coweta County teacher Melissa Ladd — allege in the complaint that the wording is “so misleading and deceptive that it violates the due process and voting rights of all Georgia voters.”
Gerry Weber, an Atlanta lawyer representing the three lead plaintiffs, told the Ledger-Enquirer in an interview the Georgia Supreme Court ruled about 10 years ago that a challenge to the wording of ballot measures must be decided after the vote because the lawsuit would be moot if the proposal fails.
The Ledger-Enquirer asked Deal spokeswoman Jen Talaber Ryan for the governor’s response to the allegation about the referendum’s wording. Ryan replied in an email, “The opposition didn’t attend the publicly announced constitutional amendment meeting where the language was discussed and approved. Why don’t you ask them why? And the preamble and question say exactly what the OSD will do — provide a lifeline for children forced by law to attend a failing school. The only thing misleading here is the fact that national, outside special interest groups are spending money instead of local groups. After all, their go to line is about ‘local control.’ Hypocritical, don’t you think?”
Keep Georgia Schools Local campaign manager Louis Elrod told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email from media relations manager Michelle Davis, “It’s unbelievable that pro-school takeover advocates would make this charge. They are grasping at straws because they’re desperate and losing this fight.
“They know full well that many members of our bipartisan coalition of parents, teachers and public school advocates actively petitioned for changes to both the amendment and the ballot question at multiple hearings. The even more deceptive preamble language was drafted at a separate meeting in Deal’s office. Janet Kishbaugh of Public Education Matters Georgia says she and other opponents called and searched online daily to find an announcement of this meeting. It was later revealed that the preamble was written in Deal’s office in a meeting attended only by the three men who drafted the words.
“The pro-takeover campaign’s political maneuvering just confirms what we know about their intentions — this amendment is designed to silence parents and strip away local control.”
Do your homework and vote
The Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education has taken a neutral position on the OSD referendum, but the partnership’s president, Steve Dolinger, is advocating this:
“The important thing is Georgia voters do their own homework on this issue and make their decision based on solid research and fact-finding, not emotion,” Dolinger, who was superintendent of Fulton County Schools (1995-2002), said in an email to the Ledger-Enquirer from Bill Maddox, the partnership’s communications director. “Both sides make compelling arguments, but it should always come down to what the voter feels is right for the children of our state.”
BY MARK RICE
Source
Open Letter to the Governor of Puerto Rico Ricardo Roselló
Sign-On Letter Condemning the Actions of the Puerto Rican Government on May Day and Demanding Justice for the Puerto...
May 3, 2018
We, the undersigned organizations, stand in solidarity with the Puerto Rican people and organizations that came together on May 1, 2018 to march against inhumane austerity measures that continue to drive a massive exodus of families in search of a better life. We stand with the millions of Puerto Ricans who remain on the island and fight every day to sustain their families and improve their collective quality of life. We write today to condemn the inhumane and violent police actions of the government of Ricardo Rosselló.
On May 1, 2018, thousands of Puerto Rican people, including elderly adults and children, who were exercising their First Amendment right to protest were met with state violence through the use of tear gas and violence at the hands of the police. Images captured at the event, corroborated by first-hand accounts, show crowds of people fighting to catch their breath as they ran away from police in riot gear. This type of scene has no place in a democratic society. The right to assemble and express frustration at the government is essential to the practice of democracy. We are deeply disturbed by Governor Roselló’s defense of the police brutality and demand that the local government take the appropriate actions to prosecute those who gave and executed the orders for these actions to take place.
On May 1, 2018, thousands of Puerto Ricans came out to protest the measures that the governor and the fiscal control board have put forward over the last two years. These measures adversely affect working class Puerto Ricans, and include:
Privatizing of the public school system and the power company; Doubling the tuition costs in Puerto Rico's public university; Closing over 300 schools; Slashing labor rights; Raising taxes; and Cutting pensions.This dire situation is forcing families to flee the island en masse. The Center for Puerto Rican Studies estimates that Puerto Rico could lose 14% of its population, 470,000 people, by 2019.
On May Day, the people of Puerto Rico came out with clear demands for their government. Today we stand with them and echo their demands in solidarity, and we commit to advocate for them in the United States.
We further demand immediate accountability for the May Day violence. Our demands are as follows:
Stop austerity: The Government of Puerto Rico should stop all austerity measures and invest in the working people of Puerto Rico by strengthening labor rights, raising the minimum wage, and promoting other policies that allow families in the island to live with dignity. Living with dignity includes rebuilding Puerto Rico’s power grid with 100% clean and renewable energy and keeping the power grid and power generation in public hands under community control, so as to mitigate the climate crisis and adapt for future extreme weather. Cancel the debt: The Government of Puerto Rico should not make, and the U.S. government should stop promoting, any more debt payments to billionaire bondholders. Instead, all government efforts should focus on securing payments to pension holders. The Puerto Rican government should also prosecute any individual that has profited from the debt crisis. Prosecute: The Government of Puerto Rico should conduct a full, transparent and impartial investigation into the police violence during the May Day actions and prosecute every police officer and civil servant who instructed and executed these acts of violence against the Puerto Rican people. We also encourage human right organizations to conduct their own independent investigations and oversight to guarantee that this process is done with full transparency.We, the undersigned organizations, stand in solidarity with the Puerto Rican people and their demands, condemn the actions of the Puerto Rican government, and demand that the local government take the appropriate actions to prosecute those who instructed and executed these actions.
Sincerely,
215 People Alliance 32BJ SEIU About Face: Veterans Against the War Action Center for Race and the Economy Action NC Alliance for Puerto Rico-Massachusetts Alliance for Quality Education American Family Voices Americas for Conservation Arkansas United Community Coalition Black Voters Matter Fund Blue Future CASA Center for Popular Democracy Chicago Boricua Resistance! Climate Hawks Vote Coalition for Education Justice Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) Courage Campaign CT PR Agenda Delaware Alliance for Community Advancement DiaspoRicans DiaspoRiqueños Florida Immigrant Rights Coalition- FLIC HANA Center Harry Potter Alliance Hedge Clippers Institute for Policy Studies, New Internationalism Project Journey for Justice Alliance Korean Resource Center (KRC) Lil Sis Maine People’s Alliance Make the Road CT Make the Road NJ Make the Road NV Make the Road NY Make the Road PA Maryland Communities United Massachusets Jobs with Justice Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition- MIRA Mi Familia Vota Movement Voter Project NAKASEC - Virginia National Economic and Social Rights Initiative National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC) New Haven Association of Legal Services Attorneys NYCC OLÉ in Albuquerque, NM One America Organize Florida Pennsylvania Student Power Network PICC Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) Presente Action Progressive Caucus Action Fund Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) Promise Arizona (PAZ) Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts Refund America Proyect Resource Generation Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network (SIREN) SPACEs Student Power Networks Sunrise Movement TakeAction Minnesota The Bully Project The Shalom Center United Action CT United for a New Economy United We DREAM VAMOS4PR WeChoose Coalition Womens March Youth Progressive Action Catalyst
www.populardemocracy.org
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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.
Media Contact: Samy Nemir, (929) 285-9623, solivares@populardemocracy.org
The First Time Maria Gallagher Talked About Her Sexual Assault, It Was to Senator Flake
The First Time Maria Gallagher Talked About Her Sexual Assault, It Was to Senator Flake
The Senate Judiciary Committee has officially voted to move Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination forward. However...
The Senate Judiciary Committee has officially voted to move Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination forward. However, Sen. Jeff Flake has requested an FBI investigation take place before the full Senate votes on Kavanaugh's confirmation, something Republican leaders have now agreed to, per The Hill.
Read the article and watch the video here.
De Blasio and Mayors of Chicago, Los Angeles Launch Initiative to Help Immigrants Become U.S. Citizens
SILive - September 18, 2014, by Anna Sanders - Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced the launch of a new...
SILive - September 18, 2014, by Anna Sanders - Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced the launch of a new initiative to push for eligible immigrants to become U.S. citizens in the nation's three largest cities.
"Cities for Citizenship" aims to increase naturalization programs and other efforts to help immigrants in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles.
"This win-win effort will help us create more inclusive cities that lift up everyone," de Blasio said in a statement announcing the initiative. "From increased economic activity to larger voting and tax bases, the advantages of citizenship will not only expand opportunity to our immigrant families, but to all New Yorkers and residents nationwide."
The de Blasio administration said increasing immigrant access to citizenship will help fight poverty and estimated that naturalizing 684,000 legal permanent residents will add up to $4.1 billion to the city's economy over a decade.
In a report released Wednesday, the Center for Popular Democracy estimated that there are about 750,000 legal permanent residents eligible for naturalization.
Citigroup, a corporate partner of the initiative, will contribute $1.15 million for the new initiative.
New York City will use funds for NYCitizenship, a coordinated effort to connect low- and moderate-income New Yorkers to free legal assistance during the naturalization process. NYCitizenship works with city agencies to connect those in the city eligible to become U.S. citizens with assistance, such as legal advice, help on applications and financial counseling.
The NYCitizenship program has already helped more than 1,800 New Yorkers complete naturalization applications since 2012, according to the Center for Popular Democracy report.
In addition to the initiative, the city's Office of Immigrant Affairs will also commission a study on the economic impact of citizenship programs nationwide.
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Fed Should “Freeze Interest Rates, Involve Citizens” Says Neighborhoods Organizing For Change
The Uptake - March 10, 2015, by Bill Sorem - Not everybody is benefiting equally from the economic recovery. A new...
The Uptake - March 10, 2015, by Bill Sorem - Not everybody is benefiting equally from the economic recovery. A new report shows in Minnesota blacks are suffering disproportionally to whites when it comes to employment.
Anthony Newby, Executive Director of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC), delivered a report of about the current economic state of people of color in Minnesota and specifically the current and possible role of the Federal Reserve Bank. The new report from the Center for Popular Democracy says since 2000, wages in Minnesota have declined by 4.5%, current unemployment rate for blacks is 10.9% vs a white rate of 2.8%.
This is the link to the full report “Wall Street, Main Street, and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard: Why African Americans Must Not Be Left Out of the Federal Reserve’s Full-Employment Mandate”
Newby argues that the Fed in addition to controlling interest rates, can control the rate of unemployment. He and Rev. Paul Slack, ISIAH President, ask that interest rates be kept at the current levels and that the Fed work to reduce unemployment.
Why there is a Federal Reserve
The nation’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics. There had been strong resistance to a central bank since the founding of the nation. The Fed was given the power to print money, establish bank interest rates and a number of sweeping powers. It is an independent entity within government, ownership of each of the 12 banks is claimed be the member banks, but the actual fiscal ownership is obscure. The ability to print money and loan it to the government is at the heart of its power and for many, a controversial power. President Kennedy challenged the authority of the Fed with Executive Order 11110, June 4, 1963 and he attempted to eliminate our current paper money, the Federal Reserve Note replacing it with US Notes. He did not succeed.
Newby further requested more transparency in the actions of the Fed and asked for more ordinary citizen participation. The current president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Narayana Kocherlakota, has indicated a willingness to keep interest rates low and to move towards more citizen participation in the actions of the Fed. However, he retires in a year. Newby would like citizens to have input on his successor.
Rev. Slack asked for justice and compassion in the Fed policies, in part to undo past unfair actions.
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Fed Up Coalition Complains About Jackson Hole Room Cancellations
Fed Up Coalition Complains About Jackson Hole Room Cancellations
A group of activists planning to attend the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual economic symposium in Jackson...
A group of activists planning to attend the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., has filed a complaint with the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior’s Inspector General’s Office and the Justice Department after the conference hotel canceled the group’s room reservations.
The Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Coalition said in an Aug. 9 letter that it booked 13 rooms in May at the Jackson Lake Lodge for its members for the nights of Aug. 24, 25 and 26. Last month, the lodge informed the group that their reservations had been canceled because of a “computer glitch,” according to the letter.
But the lodge didn’t cancel the reservations for other guests who booked after Fed Up did, said the letter written by Ady Barkan, campaign director of Fed Up, a left-leaning group that has lobbied for more diversity among Fed officials and more openness about the selection of regional Fed bank presidents.
“It is very hard for me to interpret the Company’s actions as anything other than a specific targeting of the Fed Up coalition,” he wrote in the letter.
Mr. Barkan said the group booked rooms at other hotels farther away from the conference, which will make it difficult for activists to attend events.
The Jackson Hole conference draws central-bank officials and economists from around the world who gather near the Grand Tetons to discuss monetary policy.
Fed Up members have been attending the conference for the past two years to urge Fed officials to hold off on raising interest rates, arguing that higher borrowing costs will slow economic growth and hurt low-income households. The group’s members often hold events and rallies near Fed events, wearing their signature green T-shirts.
A spokesperson for the Jackson Lake Lodge didn’t return a call for comment. Kathy Kupper, a spokeswoman for the National Parks Service said the lodges are run by independent contractors who are responsible for their day-to-day operations.
Mr. Barkan said he was writing the letter “to file a formal complaint regarding improper and potentially illegal behavior,” by the company.
By David Harrison
Source
2 months ago
2 months ago