Charter Schools Struggling to Meet Academic Growth
Star Tribune - February 17, 2015, by Kim McGuire - Students in most Minnesota charter schools are failing to hit...
Star Tribune - February 17, 2015, by Kim McGuire - Students in most Minnesota charter schools are failing to hit learning targets and are not achieving adequate academic growth, according to a Star Tribune analysis of school performance data.
The analysis of 128 of the state’s 157 charter schools show that the gulf between the academic success of its white and minority students widened at nearly two-thirds of those schools last year. Slightly more than half of charter schools students were proficient in reading, dramatically worse than traditional public schools, where 72 percent were proficient.
Between 2011 and 2014, 20 charter schools failed every year to meet the state’s expectations for academic growth each year, signaling that some of Minnesota’s most vulnerable students had stagnated academically.
A top official with the Minnesota Department of Education says she is troubled by the data, which runs counter to “the public narrative” that charter schools are generally superior to public schools.
“We hear, as we should, about the highfliers and the schools that are beating the odds, but I think we need to pay even more attention to the schools that are persistently failing to meet expectations,” said Charlene Briner, the Minnesota Department of Education’s chief of staff. Charter school advocates strongly defend their performance. They say the vast majority of schools that aren’t showing enough improvement serve at-risk populations, students who are poor, homeless, with limited English proficiency, or are in danger of dropping out.
“Our students, they’re coming from different environments, both home and school, where they’ve never had the chance to be successful,” said April Harrison, executive director of LoveWorks Academy, a Minneapolis charter school that has the state’s lowest rating. “No one has ever taken the time to say, ‘What’s going on with you? How can I help you?’ That’s what we do.”
Minnesota is the birthplace of the charter school movement and a handful of schools have received national acclaim for their accomplishments, particularly when it comes to making strong academic gains with low-income students of color. But the new information is fueling critics who say the charter school experiment has failed to deliver on teaching innovation.
“Schools promised they were going to help turn around things for these very challenging student populations,” said Kyle Serrette, director of education for the New York City-based Center for Popular Democracy. “Now, here we are 20 years later and they’re realizing that they have the same troubles of public schools systems.”
More than half of schools analyzed from 2011 to 2014 were also failing to meet the department’s expectations for academic growth, the gains made from year to year in reading and math.
Of the 20 schools that failed to meet the state goals for improvement every year, Pillsbury United Communities is the authorizer for six of those schools: Dugsi Academy, LoveWorks Academy for Visual and Performing Arts, Connections Academy, Learning for Leadership Charter School, and the Minnesota Transitions Charter School’s elementary, Connections Academy and Virtual High School. Those schools also missed annual achievement gap targets.
Officials with the Urban Institute for Service and Learning, which oversees Pillsbury’s charters, say most of their schools cater to students at risk of dropping out, those who have been kicked out of other schools, and many who are learning to speak English.
“We intentionally work with students that most other people would really not want to work with,” said Antonio Cardona, director of the institute.
Two years ago, Pillsbury closed Quest Academy, a small St. Louis Park charter school that consistently failed to meet state performance goals.
Cardona said Pillsbury would consider closing more chronically low-performing schools, or more likely, adopt new turnaround strategies. They also want to add some high-performing schools to their portfolio so that some of their low-performing schools might be able to absorb successful teaching strategies.
At LoveWorks Academy in Minneapolis, about 85 percent of the school’s students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches. About 13 percent of its students were proficient in math and 12 percent are proficient in reading.
“What success means for me is our students are reaching the top,” Harrison said. “We are going to work until we get there.”
Some charter schools struggle with stability and finding qualified teachers who are the right fit. In one year, about 65 percent of LoveWorks’ teaching staff turned over. Some left on their own accord while others were not offered their job back.
“I think that’s why we’re seeing success now because we have a staff that’s willing to listen and learn and take the coaching,” said Jamar Smith, the school’s arts coordinator.
Just like traditional public schools, the highest-performing charter schools tend to serve students from more affluent families, the analysis shows.
There are some notable exceptions, many of which are noted annually in the Star Tribune’s “Beating the Odds” list, which is a ranking of high-performing schools that serve a large number of poor students. For years, that list has been dominated by charter schools.
“These are schools that have fully utilized the charter school model to do what needs to be done,” Sweeney said. “If a program isn’t working, if a schedule needs to be changed, they have the flexibility to turn on a dime.”
New Millennium Academy, a Minneapolis charter school that serves mostly Hmong students, has hit the state’s benchmarks for improvement every year from 2011 to 2014. In 2013, it was designated a Celebration school, one of the state’s top school designations.
Amy Erickson, the school’s director of teaching and learning, said the school’s improvement is due to a focused effort to help its students who are learning to speak English — about 85 percent of New Millennium’s enrollment.
Among the ways the school has done that is through data-driven instruction. New Millennium tests its students about every six weeks to see how they’re doing. Those who need extra help receive it in small groups.
“Many of our parents don’t read or write English,” said Yee Yang, the school’s executive director. “So we have meetings where we just talk about the importance of education. We want to make sure they’re focused on that, too.”
In recent years, Minnesota has increased its scrutiny of charter schools, particularly organizations that authorize them. Starting in 2015, the state will begin evaluating authorizers. An unsatisfactory rating means an authorizer would lose the ability to create new schools.
The legislative effort has revealed a rift between differing charter groups.
Charter School Partners is supporting legislation that would make it easier for authorizers to close schools that perform poorly.
“We think it’s an inoculation for our charter community,” said Brian Sweeney, Charter School Partners’ director of public affairs.
The Minnesota Association of Charter Schools, which represents about half the state’s charter schools, will oppose any legislative efforts that give authorizers more authority to close low-performing schools.
“It’s the teachers and principals who have a much more direct impact on student achievement,” said Eugene Piccolo, the association’s director. “Not the authorizers.”
Instead, the association is throwing its efforts behind legislative proposals it believes might help level the financial playing field between charters and traditional public schools.
A recent report commissioned by Charter School Partners shows that Minneapolis Public Schools receives about 31 percent more in funding per pupil than the average Minneapolis charter school. St. Paul Public Schools receives about 24 percent more per pupil.
Charter school supporters say the model continues to evolve.
“Twenty years ago when charters began in Minnesota, it was 1,000 flowers blooming. Let’s experiment. Let’s innovate. Let’s see what works” Sweeney said. “Nobody ever thought it was to have schools last forever that are failing. So there’s a national move to improve the sector and I think we need to do that here in Minnesota.”
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As the federal government fails the people of Puerto Rico, local governments and states must step up
As the federal government fails the people of Puerto Rico, local governments and states must step up
Given the likelihood that even more Puerto Ricans will resettle on the mainland the Center for Popular Democracy and...
Given the likelihood that even more Puerto Ricans will resettle on the mainland the Center for Popular Democracy and Local Progress have published a policy guide, the first of its kind, offering a roadmap for cities and states to address the immediate needs of their new constituents.
Read the full article here.
More than one thousand march downtown in Black Lives Matter protest
More than one thousand march downtown in Black Lives Matter protest
To first-time organizer Sarafina Davis, Saturday’s Black Lives Matter protest was about one thing: The death of people...
To first-time organizer Sarafina Davis, Saturday’s Black Lives Matter protest was about one thing: The death of people who look like her.
“Our black men are being killed on these streets and there is no accountability,” Davis, a Pittsburgh resident, said.
Spreading fast through social media, Saturday’s demonstration started at Point State Park, where two separate groups gathered before meeting under the I-279 overpass. The protesters then made a loop through Downtown, along Liberty Avenue, Sixth Street, Grant Street and Fort Pitt Boulevard before returning to Point State Park. The march, coming after a week of carnage, lasted nearly three hours.
Police placed the number of protestors between 1,200 and 1,300 strong at its peak on Sixth Avenue.
Davis had never been involved in activism before this weekend but was drawn in because of concern for her children.
“[I realized] that could be my kid,” Davis said, referring to deaths like that of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
Early Tuesday morning, Sterling was killed during a police confrontation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in a parking lot where he sold homemade CDs. On Wednesday, Castile, a school cafeteria supervisor, was killed during a traffic stop in St. Paul, Minnesota. Both deaths were filmed and went viral on social media.
An otherwise peaceful protest of hundreds of people in downtown Dallas Thursday night turned violent when 25-year-old Micah Johnson shot police officers, killing five and injuring seven.
At Pittsburgh’s protest, concern for the next generations inspired activist Rod Adams, from Minneapolis, who was in town for the People’s Convention, a weekend gathering of more than 1,500 people from community organizations across the country to discuss confronting social issues such as immigration and economic inequality.
“They are not only killing us, they are killing our future,” Adams said.
After two groups of protesters combined in Point State Park, they marched up Liberty Avenue before hooking onto Sixth Avenue.
Adams was out in front of the demonstration for the majority of the march, which swelled in numbers as it moved through Downtown.
“People were coming out of their businesses and taking off their aprons [to join the march],” Adams said.
The protesters stopped outside the Port Authority Building for 10 minutes to protest the January killing of Bruce Kelley Jr. in Wilkinsburg. Port Authority police shot and killed Kelley, who was black, after he stabbed and killed a police dog. After a five-month review that ended in June, the Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala found the two officers were justified in their use of force.
But Kelley’s case still makes Juliandra Jones, a Pittsburgh resident, concerned about police conduct with black people.
“We need to better train police officers in how to handle situations with minorities,” Jones said. By protesting, she hoped “the government would properly look at its policies.”
While Kelley was armed, reporting by The Guardian has shown that black people are more likely to be killed by police than white people regardless of situation, with 7.13 black people killed per million people, compared to 2.91 white people killed per million.
On Sixth Street, the protest erupted in an optimistic rendition of the chorus from Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” several times, but most chants expressed deep frustration. Protesters — and the occasional bystander — joined in chants of “the whole damn system is guilty as hell” and “if we don’t get [justice] then shut it down” throughout the march.
The protest itself cooperated with city police throughout the day. After walking down Sixth Avenue — with a stop in front of Allegheny County Courthouse — protesters hoped to march onto I-376. But a police barricade — which including some officers in tactical gear — stood in the way.
A call went out for parents to take their kids home, and protesters locked arms and marched towards the entrance to the parkway.
The police line did not budge, and leaders huddled with police officers as the crowd chanted slogans. After 10 minutes of conversation, the protest’s leaders announced the police’s intention to arrest anyone who entered the parkway. Instead, the protesters turned onto Fort Pitt Boulevard and marched back to Point State Park.
There, numerous speakers, including Adams, Davis and Brandi Fisher, another Pittsburgh activist, took to a previously set-up stage to engage the dwindled crowd, which police said was 400 to 500 people, for an hour.
Some made use of spoken word poetry when presenting their point. Despite differences in presentation, they all coalesced around one point — their struggle would be a long one requiring constant action.
“Every time a body hits the ground that looks like my brother or sister, I will be out in the streets,” Adams said. He pressed others to make the same commitment.
Fisher, who is president of the Alliance for Police Accountability, made reference to Thursday night’s shooting in Dallas.
“What the Dallas shooting shows us is that if there is no accountability, there is no justice, there is no peace,” Fisher said, harkening back to the much-used chant “No justice, no peace”.
After the speeches, protesters dispersed from the park. The protest was peaceful, with no arrests or citations reported. Adams was impressed by the turnout produced by a Facebook event and thought it showed the precarious state of the nation.
“This is amazing,” Adams, who protested in Ferguson, Missouri, said. “[But] it shows you the moment we are in in this country.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
By Stephen Caruso
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The Health-Care Industry Is Sick
I have ALS, a deadly, incurable neurological disease that is paralyzing my whole body, including my diaphragm. This...
I have ALS, a deadly, incurable neurological disease that is paralyzing my whole body, including my diaphragm. This makes it difficult for me to breathe while lying flat in bed. This month, my doctor prescribed me a Trilogy breathing-assistance machine, which would solve the problem (at least for now). Yet my insurance, Health Net, denied coverage, calling it “experimental.”
Read the full article here.
Charter Financing: Study Finds Too Little Accountability in California
San Jose Mercury News - April 9, 2014, by Raymond Blanchard - Every parent wishes their children will reach their...
San Jose Mercury News - April 9, 2014, by Raymond Blanchard - Every parent wishes their children will reach their highest potential to live the life they choose. We do everything in our power to make this wish a reality, and we know an extraordinary education is essential.
Fulfilling this wish is difficult, particularly in the Bay Area. When California, the eighth largest economy in the world, ranks 49th among the states in school spending, we know it's difficult for our schools to provide the best education possible.
That's why I enrolled my children in Gilroy Prep Charter School, a Navigator school that achieved the highest API score -- 978 -- in California for a first-year charter school in 2011-12. I also served on the Navigator Board for three years but recently resigned due to transparency and accountability concerns with the Charter Management Organization (CMO), a service some charters use to manage their finances.
Now I find that my concerns were not an aberration. A recent study by the Center for Popular Democracy (linked with this article at mercurynews.com/opinion) found mismanagement of funds, fraud and abuse to the tune of $80 billion, or $160,000 per child, across all California charter schools, and our state could lose another $100 million in 2015 to charter school fraud. That's enough money to pay full tuition and board for every student in California at a University of California school for four years.
The report found that charter schools in California undergo little monitoring of finances, and the districts that oversee charter schools do not have the resources to provide sufficient oversight. Over my three years on the Navigator board, the local districts only attended seven board meetings.
Charter schools were created to bridge the achievement gap by granting increased freedom to administrators, teachers and parents to innovate without being subject to most California education laws. I support charter schools and think many of them provide an excellent education: 60 percent of Santa Clara County charter schools outperform the districts in which they reside. As a former entrepreneur and venture investor, I am all for freedom, innovation, competition and choice.
But the charter school financial model is at risk of failing.
Charter Management Organizations use public money with little public accountability and transparency, and that's starting to cause material financial problems. Not all charter schools have a CMO and run very well on their own, and some CMO-run charter schools are clearly better than others.
In 2014, charter schools authorized by the Santa Clara County Board of Education received $42 million in public revenue, excluding the millions of dollars in philanthropic investments. Some CMOs charge the schools they manage up to 25 percent of school revenue, while our local district charges about 6 percent per school.
In Santa Clara County, 73 percent of charter schools spent $1,287 less per student than their district school peers in 2012-2013. That's worth a musical instrument, computer, books, iPad and field trip per child. Where does the money go? It's not clear, and that's a problem.
To avoid financial risks, charter schools should be held to the same types of regulations as other public schools and the boards that oversee them. All public schools should be given the same freedoms charter schools have to innovate.
My wish is that all public schools be excellent educational institutions and stewards of our tax money. However, we must improve transparency and accountability. I think this is a wish we can all agree on.
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Anti-gay laws drive significantly higher rates of poverty for LGBT people: report
Out and About Nashville - October 3, 2014 - A landmark report released today paints a stark picture of the added...
Out and About Nashville - October 3, 2014 - A landmark report released today paints a stark picture of the added financial burdens faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans because of anti-LGBT laws at the national, state and local levels. According to the report, these laws contribute to significantly higher rates of poverty among LGBT Americans and create unfair financial penalties in the form of higher taxes, reduced wages and Social Security income, increased healthcare costs, and more.
The momentum of recent court rulings overturning marriage bans across the country has created the impression that LGBT Americans are on the cusp of achieving full equality from coast-to-coast. But the new report, Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for Being LGBT in America, documents how inequitable laws harm the economic well-being of LGBT people in three key ways: by enabling legal discrimination in jobs, housing, credit and other areas; by failing to recognize LGBT families, both in general and across a range of programs and laws designed to help American families; and by creating barriers to safe and affordable education for LGBT students and the children of LGBT parents.
Paying an Unfair Price was co-authored by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) and the Center for American Progress (CAP), in partnership with Center for Community Change, Center for Popular Democracy, National Association of Social Workers, and the National Education Association. It is available online at www.lgbtmap.org/unfair-price (link is external).
“Unfair laws deliver a one-two punch. They both drive poverty within the LGBT community and then hit people when they are down,” said Ineke Mushovic, Executive Director of MAP. “While families with means might be able to withstand the costs of extra taxation or the unfair denial of Social Security benefits, for an already-struggling family these financial penalties can mean the difference between getting by and getting evicted. Anti-LGBT laws do the most harm to the most vulnerable in the LGBT community, including those who are barely making ends meet, families with children, older adults, and people of color.”
The report documents the often-devastating consequences when the law fails LGBT families. For example, children raised by same-sex parents are almost twice as likely to be poor as children raised by married opposite-sex parents. Additionally, 15 percent of transgender workers have incomes of less than $10,000 per year; among the population as a whole, the comparable figure is just four percent. To demonstrate the connection between anti-LGBT laws and the finances of LGBT Americans and their families, the report outlines how LGBT people living in states with low levels of equality are more likely to be poor, both compared to their non-LGBT neighbors, and compared to their LGBT counterparts in state with high levels of equality. For example, the denial of marriage costs gay and lesbian families money; same-sex couples with children had just $689 less in household income than married opposite-sex couples in states with marriage and relationship recognition for same-sex couples, but had an astounding $8,912 less in household income in states lacking such protections.
DISCRIMINATORY LAWS CREATE A DEVASTATING CYCLE OF POVERTY
How do inequitable laws contribute to higher rates of poverty for LGBT people? The report documents how LGBT people in the United States face clear financial penalties because of three primary failures in the law.
Lack of protection from discrimination means that LGBT people can be fired, denied housing and credit, and refused medically-necessary healthcare simply because they are LGBT. The financial penalty: LGBT people can struggle to find work, make less on the job, and have higher housing and medical costs than their non-LGBT peers.
Refusal to recognize LGBT families means that LGBT families are denied many of the same benefits afforded to non-LGBT families when it comes to health insurance, taxes, vital safety-net programs, and retirement planning. The financial penalty: LGBT families pay more for health insurance, taxes, and legal assistance, and may be unable to access essential protections for their families in times of crisis.
Failure to adequately protect LGBT students means that LGBT people and their families often face a hostile, unsafe, and unwelcoming environment in local schools, as well as discrimination in accessing financial aid and other support. The financial penalty:LGBT youth are more likely to perform poorly in school and to face challenges pursuing postsecondary educational opportunities, as can youth with LGBT parents. This, in turn, can reduce their earnings over time, as well as their chances of having successful jobs and careers.
“Imagine losing your job or your home simply because of who you are or whom you love. Imagine having to choose between paying the rent and finding legal help so you can establish parenting rights for the child you have been raising from birth,” said Laura E. Durso, Director LGBT Progress at the Center for American Progress at CAP. “These are just a couple of the added costs that are harming the economic security of LGBT people across the country. It is unfair and un-American that LGBT people are penalized because of who they are, and it has real and profound effects on their ability to stay out of poverty and provide for their families.”
Paying an Unfair Price offers broad recommendations for helping strengthen economic security for LGBT Americans. Recommendations include: instituting basic nondiscrimination protections at the federal and state level; allowing same-sex couples to marry in all states; allowing LGBT parents to form legal ties with the children they are raising; and protecting students from discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
“At a time when so many American families are struggling to make ends meet, the report's findings point to an even bleaker reality for those who are both LGBT and people of color," said Connie Razza, Director of Strategic Research at the Center for Popular Democracy. "Unchecked employment discrimination and laws that needlessly increase the costs of healthcare, housing and childcare are doing profound harm to our economic strength as a nation. This report offers real-life policy solutions that, if implemented, would protect some of our most vulnerable individuals and families."
“Reducing the unfair financial penalties that LGBT people face in this country because they are LGBT is not that complicated. It is a simple matter of treating LGBT Americans equally under the law. For example, extending the freedom to marry, including LGBT students in safe schools laws, and ending the exclusion of LGBT people from laws meant to protect families when a parent dies or becomes disabled,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change.
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Seattle passes scaled-back tax on Amazon, big companies
On Monday, about 40 elected officials from across the United States, some representing local governments in the running...
On Monday, about 40 elected officials from across the United States, some representing local governments in the running to host Amazon’s second headquarters, published an open letter to Seattle in support of the head tax and expressing concern that Amazon opposed the measure. “By threatening Seattle over this tax, Amazon is sending a message to all of our cities: we play by our own rules,” the officials wrote.
Read the full article here.
AG-elect Ellison announces transition team
Minnesota Attorney General-elect Keith Ellison announced a 36-member transition advisory board on Monday that includes...
Minnesota Attorney General-elect Keith Ellison announced a 36-member transition advisory board on Monday that includes state legislators, prominent attorneys, union members — and even a past political opponent.
Read the full article here.
Hillary Clinton wants to shake up the Fed
Hillary Clinton wants the Federal Reserve to look a lot different. The Democratic candidate's campaign said Thursday...
Hillary Clinton wants the Federal Reserve to look a lot different.
The Democratic candidate's campaign said Thursday that it supports a plan presented by Democratic lawmakers calling for more diversity at the Federal Reserve and removing bankers from the boards of regional branches.
A statement from Clinton campaign spokesperson Jesse Ferguson argued that the changes were necessary in order to make the central bank more representative of the American people (emphasis ours):
The Federal Reserve is a vital institution for our economy and the well-being of our middle class, and the American people should have no doubt that the Fed is serving the public interest. That's why Secretary Clinton believes that the Fed needs to be more representative of America as a whole and that commonsense reforms -- like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks -- are long overdue. Secretary Clinton will also defend the Fed's so-called dual mandate -- the legal requirement that it focus on full employment as well as inflation -- and will appoint Fed governors who share this commitment and who will carry out unwavering oversight of the financial industry.
The biggest issue raised in Secretary Clinton's statement is that employees of banks make up a considerable portion of the boards of the twelve regional Federal Reserve banks.
The original letter, signed by Congressional Democrats such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and presidential candidate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, was sent to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Thursday morning. It cited some gains made by the Fed, but said there is more work to be done.
"However, despite these gains, we remain deeply concerned that the Federal Reserve has not yet fulfilled its statutory and moral obligation to ensure that its leadership reflects the composition of our diverse nation in terms of gender, race and ethnicity, economic background, and occupation, and we call on you to take steps to promptly begin to remedy this issue," said the letter.
The Democrats' letter also cited statistics that showed that 92% of regional bank presidents are white; 100% of the current voting members of the Federal Open Markets Committee are white, and 75% of the regional bank directorships are male.
The Fed's leadership is made of three levels. The lowest level is made up of the 12 regional banks' boards of directors. Those elect the next level, the presidents of the regional branches. At the top level are the seven members of the Fed's Board of Governors appointed by the US president, including the chair.
The seven governors and the regional presidents make up the Federal Open Markets Committee, which determines monetary policy for the US.
The letter from Democrats also advocated for caution in monetary-policy decision-making at upcoming meetings, taking into consideration how policy would affect average Americans.
"Moreover, as you make crucial monetary policy decisions in 2016, we urge you to give due consideration to the interests and priorities of the millions of people around the country who still have not benefited from this recovery," said the letter.
"We share the vision that you laid out in Chicago two years ago: an economy in which all working families 'get the chance they deserve to build better lives'."
There has been a push among Democrats in Congress urging the Fed to keep interest rates near their historically low levels in order to allow more workers to find jobs and increase wages.
Chair Yellen said in her regular testimony before Congress that she is sympathetic to the position.
By Bob Bryan
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Minimum wage going up
Voters have decided it’s time to give Colorado’s minimum-wage workers a long-overdue raise. Amendment 70, a measure...
Voters have decided it’s time to give Colorado’s minimum-wage workers a long-overdue raise.
Amendment 70, a measure that would increase Colorado’s minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020, was passing by a 10-percent margin. Minimum wage in the state is now $8.31 an hour.
With 25 of 64 counties reporting, the vote-count as of this posting was 55 percent yes to 45 percent no.
In a crowded, jubilant second-floor conference room at the Westin Downtown, a group of minimum wage earners, business owners and advocates celebrated.
“Amendment is going to help our local economy,” said Edwin Zoe, proprietor of restaurant Zoe Ma Ma. “When low income workers do well, we all do well.”
The amendment alters the state constitution to increase the minimum wage by yearly 90-cent increments until it reaches $12 in 2020. In 2020, it will be fixed at $12, except for yearly adjustments to account for inflation.
Who pushed it over the finish line?
Supporters of the increase coalesced in mid-2016 into a group called Colorado Families for a Fair Wage, a coalition of unions, economic justice advocates and progressive policy analysts. Many of them had been part of an informal consortium of anti-poverty groups called The Everyone Economy that came together to strategize about raising the minimum wage back in February 2014. Partnering with Democratic legislators, they advocated for a pair of bills in the 2015 legislative session to help low-wage workers. One would have allowed municipalities to set their own minimums, and the other would have created a ballot measure to reach a $12.50 per hour minimum by 2020. Republicans killed both bills in the Senate.
Democrats floated another bill in 2016 to allow cities to set their own minimum wages, which met the same fate as its predecessors. After that, Everyone Economy members decided they had no recourse but to pursue a ballot measure themselves and formed Colorado Families for a Fair Wage.
What does it mean that it passed?
The work is just beginning for Colorado labor unions and low-wage worker advocates. Most CFFW members acknowledge that $12 per hour is not in fact a living wage for workers with families in some parts of Colorado. Most estimates put a living wage for a single parent of two children in Denver at around $30 per hour. But advocates also believe that the current $8.31 per hour is inexcusable, and any more than $12 was not politically viable this time around.
But for some, the increase means a change in their lives. April Medina currently makes $11 per hour in assisted living. She works 60-70 hours per week, leaving very little time to spend with her four children. She brought her 9-year-old daughter, Jasmine, to the Westin Downtown to celebrate Amendment 70’s passage.
Medina said she was thrilled by the news.
“I’m excited to go to some basketball games,” Medina said.
How much firepower was against it?
Keep Colorado Working had a slower start raising funds, but raised $1.7 million in the last reporting period. It has spent just under $1.4 million as of the most recent campaign finance filings, primarily on television advertising and consultants. About half of its funds ($650,000) come from the Alexandria, Virginia-based Workforce Fairness Institute. It has also gotten $525,000 from Colorado Citizens Protecting Our Constitution, a committee that has donated hefty sums to pro-fracking campaigns and to a 2013 effort to recall legislators who had passed gun-control legislation.
CCFW outraised its rivals almost 3 to 1, raising about $5.3 million in donations, much of it from out-of-state groups like its largest donor, the Center for Popular Democracy, which has kicked in over $1 million. Its second-largest donor is the Palo Alto-based Fairness Project, which has contributed over $960,000 to CFFW and is also supporting minimum wage ballot measures in Maine, Arizona and Washington, D.C.
Keep Colorado Working wants to make sure you know that some of CFFW’s donors are not from Colorado. Virtually all of its communications use the terms “wealthy out of state special interests” liberally.
According to the most recent campaign finance filings, CFFW has spent $4.6 million on television and digital advertising, outreach efforts like canvassing and hosting events, mailers, polling and research.
By Eliza Carter
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2 days ago
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