Report: Emanuel's $13 Minimum Wage Plan Would 'Shortchange' Women, Minority Workers
Progress Illinois - October 29, 2014, by Ellyn Fortino - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's proposal to lift the city's...
Progress Illinois - October 29, 2014, by Ellyn Fortino - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's proposal to lift the city's hourly minimum wage to $13 would leave out approximately 65,000 low-wage workers who are mostly women and people of color.
That's according to a new Center for Popular Democracy report, which compared the potential impacts of the mayor's $13 minimum wage plan with a competing $15 minimum wage ordinance introduced in late May by a group of aldermen, including members of the council's Progressive Reform Caucus.
The proposed $13 ordinance specifically "shortchanges" domestic and tipped workers, the majority of whom are women of color, according to the report.
The Raise Chicago coalition, which supports the $15 plan, released the report's findings at a City Hall press conference Wednesday morning. More low-wage Chicago workers would be covered by the $15 plan, which would also almost double the economic impact for the city compared to the $13 measure, the report found.
"With the opportunity to nearly double the economic growth of people across the city, our Raise Chicago ordinance would help propel people towards financial stability, help this city and state with tax revenues, and its effects would ripple through every community in Chicago," said Action Now Executive Director Katelyn Johnson, a Raise Chicago leader. "The mayor's proposal does not do enough to address the needs of Chicagoans and, in fact, will keep people living paycheck to paycheck."
In July, Emanuel, along with 25 other aldermen, introduced an ordinance to bump the city's hourly minimum wage from the current $8.25 to $13 by 2018.
The measure models the recommendations of the mayor-appointed Minimum Wage Working Group, which was tasked with researching and gathering public comment about increasing the city's minimum wage. The mayor formed the commission the same month the ordinance seeking to hike Chicago's base wage to $15 an hour by 2018 was introduced.
Under the mayor-backed ordinance, the city's minimum wage for non-tipped employees would increase by $1.25 in each of the next three years and $1 in 2018 to hit the $13 level. The city's minimum wage would be adjusted each year after 2018 to keep pace with inflation. The tipped minimum wage, which is currently $4.95 at the state level, would be lifted by $1 to $5.95 over two years and indexed to inflation after that.
The $15 plan, on the other hand, would require large employers in Chicago making at least $50 million annually to raise their employees' wages to $12.50 an hour within 90 days. Those companies would then have to raise workers' hourly wages to the $15 level within one year of the measure taking effect.
Businesses with less than $50 million in annual revenue would have a different minimum wage phase-in period. Small and mid-sized businesses would have to increase their base hourly wage to $12 within 15 months. After that, the smaller employers would have to increase their minimum wage by $1 each year until they hit the $15 level by 2018.
Johnson said the mayoral working group's measure "burdens small businesses," because it provides "no separate phase-in period for large corporations and small businesses."
The city's minimum wage under the $15 proposal would be adjusted each year after 2018 to keep pace with inflation. If that plan were adopted, the base hourly wage for tipped workers would be 70 percent of the overall minimum wage.
Tipped workers under the $15 ordinance would earn a $10.50 hourly wage once the phase-in process is completed. That wage would be 63 percent greater than what the $13 plan proposes.
Domestic workers, meanwhile, are covered by the Raise Chicago minimum wage ordinance, but they're excluded from the $13 proposal.
"This exclusion would have a disparate impact on women of color, who make up the majority of domestic workers in Chicago," the report reads.
Ovadhwah "O.J." McGee, a Chicago home care aid and SEIU* Healthcare Illinois member, said workers who provide supports to seniors and those with disabilities, for example, deserve a living wage. McGee, a single father who is also a certified nursing assistant, said he earns less than $13 an hour and struggles to make ends meet. He said "$15 would make such a great difference for me."
"The mayor's proposal will leave domestic workers behind. They wouldn't even get the $13 an hour, and that's an injustice," McGee said, adding that the $13 ordinance also "shortchanges tipped workers, providing them with only a $1.50 wage increase."
"That's a shame," he stressed. "The reality is by leaving domestic and tipped workers behind, the mayor is leaving workers of color behind. The majority of these jobs are ... held by African Americans and Latino workers."
Nearly 40 percent of the city's more than 1.3 million workers living in Chicago make less than $15 an hour, according to the report, which also estimated the total number of workers who would see their wages lifted, either directly or indirectly, by the two proposals.
"Under the $15 proposal, we project that 444,000 workers earning up to $17.30 will receive wage increases related to raising the wage floor," the report states. "Under the $13 proposal, only those workers currently earning up to $15.60, or about 379,000 workers, would receive higher wages."
The $13 measure would leave out 65,000 low-wage workers, including 42,000 Chicago residents, according to the report. Of the 65,000 low-wage workers who would be excluded from the $13 plan, approximately 13,000 are African American and 20,000 are Latino.
Additionally, the mayor's $13 measure "fails to secure the truly robust economic recovery that the $15 Raise Chicago ordinance would achieve," the report reads.
After full implementation, the $15 proposal would generate $2.9 billion in new gross wages; $1.04 billion in new economic activity and 6,920 new jobs; more than $80 million in new sales tax revenues; and $125 million in new income tax revenues, the report found.
On the flip side, the $13 plan would lead to $1.25 billion in new gross wages; $522 million in new economic activity; and $40 million in new sales tax revenues.
"Our research found that the benefits of a $15 minimum wage far outweigh those of the mayor's proposed $13," Connie Razza, director of strategic research at the Center for Popular Democracy, said in a statement. "At a time when income inequality is at historic levels and American communities are still reeling from the financial crisis, two dollars more may well be the threshold between survival and stability."
"For Chicago, it means over half a billion more dollars in economic activity that would benefit small businesses and communities, millions more in tax revenue for the city, and would significantly raise the wage floor," she added.
During the March 18 primary election, Chicago voters overwhelmingly supported a non-binding ballot referendum to increase the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour for employees of companies with annual revenues over $50 million. The referendum appeared on the ballot in 103 city precincts, garnering support from about 87 percent of voters.
"The time to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour is now, and no half measurers will be accepted," Johnson stressed.
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America's employment problem isn't in manufacturing
America's employment problem isn't in manufacturing
President Donald Trump has vowed to bring back manufacturing jobs to the U.S., but there's another major industry that'...
President Donald Trump has vowed to bring back manufacturing jobs to the U.S., but there's another major industry that's not only already larger but creating more economic problems for its workers: retail.
Read the full article here.
Climate Jobs for All
Climate Jobs for All
Other groups like the Sierra Club, Demos, 350.org, the Center for Popular Democracy, the Labor Network for...
Other groups like the Sierra Club, Demos, 350.org, the Center for Popular Democracy, the Labor Network for Sustainability, and the US Climate Action Network have also been discussing the climate jobs guarantee (CJG).
Read the full article here.
The Devastating Impact of School Closures on Students and Communities
The Devastating Impact of School Closures on Students and Communities
Shuttering “failed schools” can have painful consequences for children and neighborhoods. By Rachel M. Cohen / The...
Shuttering “failed schools” can have painful consequences for children and neighborhoods.
By Rachel M. Cohen / The American Prospect April 22, 2016
In 2013, citing a $1.4 billion deficit, Philadelphia’s state-run school commission voted to close 23 schools—nearly 10 percent of the city’s stock. The decision came after a three-hour meeting at district headquarters, where 500 community members protested outside and 19 were arrested for trying to block district officials from casting their votes. Amid the fiscal pressure from state budget cuts, declining student enrollment, charter-school growth, and federal incentives to shut down low-performing schools, the district assured the public that closures would help put the city back on track toward financial stability.
One of the shuttered schools was Edward Bok Technical High School, a towering eight-story building in South Philadelphia spanning 340,000 square feet, the horizontal length of nearly six football fields. Operating since 1938, Bok was one of the only schools to be entirely financed and constructed by the Public Works Administration. Students would graduate from the historic school with practical skills like carpentry, bricklaying, tailoring, hairdressing, plumbing, and as the decades went on, modern technology. And graduate they did—at the time of closure, Bok boasted a 30 percent–higher graduation rate than South Philadelphia High School, the nearby public school that had to absorb hundreds of Bok’s students.
The Bok building was assessed at $17.8 million, yet city officials sold it for just $2.1 million to Lindsey Scannapieco, the daughter of a local high-rise developer. On their website, BuildingBok.com, Scannapieco and her team envision repurposing the large Bok facility into “a new and innovative center for Philadelphia creatives and non-profits.” They describe the “unprecedented concentration of space” in the Bok building for “Do-It-Yourself innovators, artists, and entrepreneurs” to congregate.
In August 2015, Scannapieco launched Bok’s newest debut, a pop-up restaurant on the building’s eighth floor, which served French food, craft beers, and fine wines. The rooftop terrace was decorated with student chairs and other school-related items found inside the building. Young millennials dubbed the restaurant “Philly’s hottest new rooftop bar,” while longtime residents and educators called it “a sick joke.” Situated in a quickly gentrifying community where nearly 40 percent of families still have incomes of less than $35,000, there was little question about who would be sipping champagne and munching on steak tartare on Bok’s top floor.
When it comes to closing schools, Philadelphia is not alone. In urban districts across the United States—from Detroit to Newark to Oakland—communities are experiencing waves of controversial school closures as cash-strapped districts reckon with pinched budgets and changing politics.
The Chicago Board of Education voted to close 49 elementary schools in 2013—the largest mass school closing in American history. The board assured the distressed community that not only would the district save hundreds of millions of dollars, but students would also receive an improved and more efficient public education.
Chicago Board of Education President David Vitale, center, listens to opponents of proposed school closures at a packed board meeting Wednesday, May 22, 2013, in Chicago.
Yet three years later, Chicago residents are still reeling from the devastating closures—a policy decision that has not only failed to bring about notable academic gains, but has also destabilized communities, crippled small businesses, and weakened local property values. With the city struggling to sell or repurpose most of the closed schools, dozens of large buildings remain vacant, becoming targets of crime and vandalism throughout poor neighborhoods. “These schools went from being community anchors into actual dangerous spaces,” says Pauline Lipman, an education policy professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
African Americans have been hit hardest by the school closings in Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. While black students were 40 percent of Chicago’s school district population in 2013, they made up 88 percent of those affected by the closures. In Philadelphia, black students made up 58 percent of the district, but 81 percent of those affected by closures. Closure proponents insist that shutting down schools and consolidating resources, though certainly upsetting, will ultimately enable districts to provide better and more equitable education. It’s easier to get more money into the classroom, the thinking goes, if unnecessary expenses can be eliminated. But many residents see that school closures have failed to yield significant cost savings. They also view closures as discriminatory—yet another chapter in the long history of harmful experiments deployed by governments on communities of color that strip them of their livelihood and dearest institutions.
Today “the pain is still so raw, it’s not business as usual,” Reverend Robert Jones told me, speaking inside the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, the oldest black grassroots center in Chicago. Indeed, threats of further closures have not abated since 2013. Jones was one of 12 local residents to go on a highly publicized hunger strike late last summer, starving himself for 34 days to prevent another beloved school from being shut down. Their dangerous efforts proved successful; the district reversed its decision and pledged to reopen Walter H. Dyett High School, located on the South Side of Chicago.
Rather than shutter schools, residents argue, districts should reinvest in them.
Rather than shutter schools, residents argue, districts should reinvest in them. They point to full-service community schools, a reform model that combines rigorous academics with wraparound services for children and families, as promising alternatives. The effort to fight back against school closures has grown more pronounced in recent years, as tens of thousands across the country begin to mobilize through legal and political channels to reclaim their neighborhood public schools.
TO TALK ABOUT SCHOOL CLOSURES, one must talk about school buildings. The average age of a U.S. public school facility is nearly 50 years old, and most require extensive rehab, repair, and renovation—particularly in cities. None of the school buildings constructed before World War II were designed for modern cooling and heating systems, and many schools built to educate baby boomers in the 1960s and 1970s were constructed hurriedly on the cheap. Studies find that poor and minority students attend the most dilapidated schools today.
But the federal government offers virtually no economic assistance to states and local districts trying to shoulder the costs of building repairs. And things don’t look much better on the state level, either. Jeff Vincent, the deputy director of the Center for Cities & Schools at University of California, Berkeley, says that state spending has failed to keep up with the needs in schools following the recession, leaving local districts to take on those capital costs even if they can’t afford to.
Despite contributing next to nothing toward school facility spending, the federal government encourages public-school closure and consolidation as a strategy to boost academic performance. Such school improvement interventions for “failing” schools began during the controversial No Child Left Behind era, but financial incentives to close schools and open charters really ramped up under the Obama administration.
“Our communities have been so demonized to the point that nobody thinks they’re good. But no, our institutions have been sabotaged,” says Jitu Brown, the executive director of Journey For Justice (J4J), an alliance formed in 2013 that connects grassroots youth and parents fighting back against school closures. “These districts—Newark, Chicago, Detroit—they all cry ‘broke’ as they shift major portions of their budget towards privatization while neglecting and starving neighborhood schools.”
Besides pointing to low performance, districts often justify closing schools on the basis of the facilities being “underutilized.” This refers to buildings deemed too large for the number of students enrolled, and thus too expensive for districts to operate. Critics of school closures say that how districts determine “utilization” insufficiently accounts for the variety of ways communities use and rely on school facilities. Moreover, Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, says that urban districts tend to “completely underestimate” how much space is needed for special education and early childhood learning.
“When you’re resource-starved, you tend to take a defensive approach,” says Ariel Bierbaum, a Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. “You’re in a crisis mode, you’re looking to balance your books, so you’re not necessarily thinking the most creatively” about how to use some of the seemingly excess facility space.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS HAVE ALWAYS impacted communities in ways that go beyond just educating young people. Well-maintained school facilities can help revitalize struggling neighborhoods, just as decrepit buildings can hurt them. And whether it’s attracting businesses and workers into the area, directly affecting local property values, or just generally enhancing neighborhood vitality by creating centralized spaces for civic life, research has long demonstrated the influential role schools play within communities.
Custodian Felix Bonafe finishes placing letters on a sign announcing his school's closure on Monday, June 24, 2013, outside Trumbull Elementary School in Chicago.
Yet most existing research on school closures has failed to explore the ways in which shuttering schools impacts these civic spheres; instead researchers have adopted a narrower focus on how school closures impact school district budgets and student academic achievement. On both of these fronts, though, the record has not been impressive.
Researchers find that what districts promise to students, staff, and taxpayers when preparing to close schools differs considerably from what actually happens when they close. For example, most students who went to schools that were closed down in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Newark—whether for fiscal reasons or for low academic performance—were transferred to schools that were not much better, and in some cases even worse, than the ones they left. In Chicago, for example, 87.5 percent of students affected by closures did not move to significantly higher-performing schools. Children also frequently encounter bullying and violence at their new schools, while teachers are often unprepared to handle the influx of new students.
Moving students around can negatively impact student achievement, and closures exacerbate such mobility. In some cities, students have been bumped around two, three, four times—as their new schools were eventually slated for closure, too.
Not all research casts school closures in a uniformly negative light. One study found that New York City school closures had little impact—positive or negative—on students’ academic performance at the time the schools were shut down, yet “future students”—meaning those who had been on track to attend those schools before they closed—demonstrated “meaningful benefits” from attending new schools. Another study found that while most children experienced negative effects on their academic achievement during the year they transitioned to new schools, such negative effects were impermanent, and student performance rebounded to similar rates as their unaffected peers the following year. Essentially, researchers find that there can be substantial positive effects if students are sent to much better schools than they ones they left; however, the reality is that most students do not go to such schools.
In addition to overselling academic gains, districts also tend to overstate how much money they’ll save from shutting down schools.
In addition to overselling academic gains, districts also tend to overstate how much money they’ll save from shutting down schools. When Washington, D.C., closed down 23 schools in 2008, the district reported it would cost them $9.7 million. A 2012 audit found the price was actually nearly $40 million after taking into account the cost of demolishing buildings, transporting students, and the lost value of the buildings, among other factors. Another study conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts in 2011 found that cost savings are generally limited, at least in the short term, and such savings come largely through mass employee layoffs.
Bierbaum, however, has been studying Philadelphia’s school closures from a broader community-development and urban-planning perspective to understand how school closures, sales, and reuses are related to larger issues of metropolitan-wide racial and class inequality. This means examining school closures in the context of neighborhood change, like gentrification or disinvestment, and in relationship to the city plans and policies that help facilitate that change.
In some cases, Bierbaum says that residents feel closures are “necessary” responses to dramatic demographic shifts, even if “draconian”; city officials are “doing the best they can to deal with things out of their control” in terms of fiscal management, she says. But in other cases, residents see closures as yet another manifestation of systemic oppression, closely related to other kinds of disinvestment within neighborhoods. “In this way, not only closures but also school building disposition is actually experienced as dispossession,” Bierbaum explains.
A majority of closed schools are converted into charter schools, with a second significant chunk repurposed into residential apartments. Other buildings are demolished or left vacant. Interviews with experts in several cities reveal that school district officials have not prioritized urban-planning questions, like those Bierbaum is asking, when deciding whether to close schools.
Clarice Berry, the president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association and member of a state legislative task force focused on Chicago school facilities, says the Chicago public school district was simply uninterested in discussing those sorts of civic topics. “At no time have they wanted to study that, or even been interested in discussing it,” she says. “The district spends all their time trying to keep us from getting data [on school closures] that could show us how they could make improvements.” While the task force has repeatedly asked the district to track kids who have been shuffled around from school to school, by and large Chicago and other urban districts have not carefully tracked how school closures have impacted students, families, and communities.
Signs are shown inside of closed Lakeview Elementary School in Oakland, California, Tuesday, June 19, 2012 during a protest against school closures.
SHORTLY AFTER J4J BEGAN ORGANIZING, another network formed—the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS)—comprising ten national organizations, including the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and J4J. Through weekly email newsletters and support for on-the-ground organizing, AROS has helped mobilize individuals looking to fight for public education. Parents and community groups hope they can agitate districts to think creatively about facility space, and invest more in neighborhood schools.
In mid-February, AROS helped stage the first-ever national day of “walk-ins,” where students, teachers, and parents at 900 schools in 30 cities across the country rallied in support of increased school funding, local schools with wraparound services, charter school accountability, and an end to harsh discipline policies, among other demands.
Their action built on momentum that’s been brewing over the past two years around the idea of “full-service community schools,” or schools that offer not only academics but also medical care, child care, job training, counseling, early college partnerships, and other types of social supports. This school model, which dates back more than a century, can be particularly beneficial for low-income residents who face challenges like accessing transportation.
In February, the Center for Popular Democracy released a report on the roughly 5,000 self-identified community schools across the country, lifting up particularly successful examples and offering strategies on how to replicate their success. One such school was Reagan High School, a poor and minority school in northeast Austin, Texas, which adopted a community schools strategy five years ago. In 2008, the local district was threatening to close Reagan due to its declining enrollment and its below–50 percent graduation rate. Parents, students, and teachers began organizing around a community schools plan to save Reagan from closure, and the district gave them permission to give it a shot. After expanding supportive services, like mobile health clinics and parenting classes, after changing its approach to discipline, and after expanding after-school activities, among other things, graduation rates at Reagan have now increased to 85 percent, enrollment has more than doubled, and a new Early College High School program has enabled many Reagan students to earn their associate’s degree before they graduate.
Implementing community schools can be difficult, particularly to the extent that it requires schools to adopt joint-use policies so that facility space can be shared with other public agencies and nonprofits, many of which have no prior experience working together. Some states and local districts have been much more amenable to these types of partnerships than others. “Yes, there’s complexity. But my response is ‘welcome to modern life.’ Stop whining, we know we can do this,” says Filardo of 21st Century School Fund.
Political support for full-service community schools is also on the rise.
Political support for full-service community schools is also on the rise. Philadelphia’s new mayor, Jim Kenney, has pledged to create 25 new community schools by the end of his first term. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio aims to create 200 community schools during his tenure. The new federal education bill passed in December even authorizes grant-funding for community schools, which has incentivized many other cities and states to begin thinking about how to take advantage of this opportunity.
I sat down with Antoinette Baskerville-Richardson, a member of Newark’s elected advisory school board, to learn more about her interest in expanding community schools. With more than one-third of Newark’s children living in poverty, Baskerville-Richardson says local leaders have been looking for ways to address the harms of poverty while also supporting student achievement and school success. After five years of controversial education reforms pushed by Republican governor Chris Christie and his appointed superintendent, Baskerville-Richardson says the Newark community is just plain tired.
“There was a period when all our efforts were basically just fighting against these reforms being imposed on our communities,” she explains. “At the same time, we realized that the conversation could not just be about what we were against, and we had to mobilize around what we were for.” And so, a little over two years ago, public school leaders and local advocates began to really home in on the idea of full-service community schools.
“We began to do a lot of research, we got in touch with experts, talked with people from the Center for Popular Democracy, the Children’s Aid Society, and people involved on the national level,” Baskerville-Richardson recalls. “We also started visiting community schools like in Paterson, New Jersey—which is also a state-controlled district—[and] in Orange, New Jersey, which has similar demographics as ours. We visited Baltimore, New York City; some of our people visited Cincinnati; we talked to people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. … We’re really looking to dig into a model that has been proven to work.” Starting in the fall of 2016, five full-service community schools are set to open up in Newark’s South Ward, its poorest area.
ON THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF Brown v. Board of Education in 2014, parents and community organizations in New Orleans, Chicago, and Newark filed federal complaints under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They alleged that school closures in their cities have had a racially discriminatory impact on children and communities of color. The groups received legal assistance from the Advancement Project, a civil-rights organization.
Jadine Johnson, an attorney with the Advancement Project, says they chose to file Title VI complaints because they wanted to raise disparate impact claims. “When districts are making these decisions they don’t say ‘we’ll close black and Latino schools.’ They’ll say ‘we’ll close schools that are under-enrolled or under-achieving,’” she says. “But those decisions can still have discriminatory effects on black and brown students.” In Newark, for example, during the 2012–2013 school year, white students were nearly 20 times less likely than black students to be affected by school closures, despite what would be predicted given their proportions of student enrollment.
Ariel Bierbaum says her field research demonstrated that many Philadelphians understood school closures as symbols of continued and consistent disrespect and disinvestment for poor communities of color. “Many of my interviewees tied school closures to urban renewal, to their parents’ experience, … [to] the Jim Crow south and migrating north,” a legacy that dates back to slavery, she says. “For them, these closures are not a ‘rational’ policy intervention to address a current fiscal crisis. School closures are situated in a much longer historical trajectory of discriminatory policymaking in the United States.”
Sharon Smith, a founder of Parents Unified for Local School Education, stands with supporters as she talks about a boycott of Newark public schools in a news conference on Thursday, September 4, 2014 in Newark, New Jersey.
J4J has also helped to bring a racial-justice lens to the school-closure conversation, namely by forcing the public to discuss it within the context of discrimination, segregation, underfunding, and marginalization—both inside and outside of schools. In some respects, there’s a seeming irony around efforts to save schools in poor and racially segregated neighborhoods—these are the same schools that were treated as expendable during the desegregation era. But residents understand that their schools aren’t closing for integration purposes, and if one looks closer, it is clear that aims to create more diverse neighborhood schools are still very much on the table.
In December, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Education reached a groundbreaking resolution with Newark Public Schools to aid those who may have been negatively impacted by Newark’s closures. Johnson, the Advancement Project attorney, says she believes the Newark OCR resolution “sends a loud message” to school districts that may be considering similar types of school closures. “We see this [as] a multi-year strategy,” she explains. “This resolution is hopefully the first of many agreements, and the first step to sounding the alarm for why public schools should remain public.”
Meeting with some parent activists who helped to file the Newark Title VI complaint, I wanted to see how they were feeling about the OCR resolution. Sharon Smith, the founder of Parents Unified for Local School Education (PULSENJ), thinks that irrespective of whatever remedies their superintendent proposes, it will take generations until Newark’s South Ward heals.
“It’s always very scary to me when people who are guilty of something, like the district is, say ‘Yes, we are guilty, but we’re going to fix this our own way without the input of the people who were hurt,’” says Darren Martin, another parent involved with PULSENJ. “We’re happy the OCR took our complaint seriously, but it feels almost like the police are policing themselves. How do you allow the person who helped design all these destructive policies [to] also design the remedy?”
IN FEBRUARY, I VISITED KELLY HIGH SCHOOL, a full-service community school on the southwest side of Chicago, serving a student body that’s more than 90 percent low-income. Kelly used to draw a large Italian, Polish, and Lithuanian population, but now predominately serves Hispanic students. With the help of the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, a local community organization, Kelly offers all sorts of programs for parents and children, ranging from tax-prep classes and English-language instruction, to tutoring and political organizing. The academic improvement Kelly students have shown over the past decade has also been substantial—targeted interventions have helped more at-risk students stay on track to graduate, and the school is now ranked as a Level 2+ in the district’s rating system—where the highest possible score is a 1+ and the lowest is a 3.
But Kelly’s progress, both academically and as a civic institution, is threatened by increasing budget cuts, declining student enrollment, and the growth of charter schools in the surrounding area. In July 2015, the Noble Network of Charter Schools, the largest charter chain in Chicago, submitted a proposal to open a new high school a few blocks away from Kelly. Students, parents, and teachers began mobilizing against the proposal, concerned that this new project would siphon even more resources from their already-pinched school, which had been forced to slash programs and teaching positions over the last few years. In October, 1,000 Kelly High School students walked out of class to protest the proposed new school. Yet despite overwhelming local opposition, the unelected Chicago Board of Education voted unanimously to open the new charter.
In this May 16, 2013 photo, a for sale/lease sign is displayed at the vacant Crosman Alternative School in Detroit which closed in 2007.
It’s possible that over the next few years, Kelly High School’s fiscal strain will become just too much to manage, and the school will be slated for closure, too. “The narrative to close schools is essentially a budget one, which can be extremely powerful,” says Filardo. Even if the budget savings turn out to be fairly small, or nonexistent.
One way to reduce budgetary pressures on schools, thereby helping prevent school closures, would be for states and the federal government to pay more, particularly toward local capital budgets. Decades of social-science research have shown how unsafe and inadequate school facilities can negatively affect students’ academic performance—particularly when a school has poor temperature control, poor indoor air quality, and poor lighting. Researchers also find that the higher the percentage of low-income students in a district, the less money a district spends on the capital investments needed to keep school facilities in good repair. The most disadvantaged students tend to receive about half the funding for school buildings as their wealthier peers. And often, low-wealth districts spend more from their operating budgets on facilities—paying for large utility bills, more demanding maintenance for old systems, and the high costs of emergency repairs. It’s not a coincidence that affluent communities invest more in their public school buildings. “They improve and enhance their school facilities because it matters to the quality of education, to the strength of their community, and the achievement and well-being of their children and teachers,” says Filardo.
In other words, increasing state and federal spending could both help struggling urban schools, and also help fortify communities more broadly. Filardo thinks districts should be able to leverage up to 10 percent of their Title I funds to help pay for capital expenses—right now, Title I funds can only go toward local operating spending. Or, even better, Filardo thinks the federal government should start contributing at least 10 percent toward district capital budgets, just as it contributes 10 percent to district operating budgets.
“Schools belong to the entire community, and it should be the state and federal government’s job to find the right policy levers so that we can really advance our educational and economic development together in the best, most equitable way,” she says.
Battles about how best to save and improve public education are sure to intensify in the coming months and years. No researcher has been able to conclusively say what the optimal policy intervention is for students in terms of boosting academic achievement. And some individuals are certainly more sympathetic to closing schools, particularly if it means their children could attend higher-performing district schools or charters. Even on the question of school governance, researchers have reached no clear consensus on whether state takeovers or local control is better for student outcomes or fiscal management. Nevertheless, there’s consensus that any system which generates uncertainty and distrust is a recipe for disaster.
Reflecting on the past four years in her city, Lauren Wells, the chief education officer for Newark Public Schools, notes that reform-minded leaders expanded charter schools quickly without really taking into account the impact such decisions would have on existing schools. A recent report from the Education Law Center, a legal advocacy group, found that the combination of the state’s refusal to adequately fund New Jersey’s school aid formula, coupled with rapid charter-school growth, has placed tremendous strain on district finances, forcing Newark to make significant cuts to district programming and staff. “We really want to move the conversation away from charters versus district schools,” Wells says. “We’re trying instead to build a coalition around this idea that we are the guardians of all children. That should be the basis of any decision that we make.”
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80 Arrested in DC Protesting GOP Health Care Bill
80 Arrested in DC Protesting GOP Health Care Bill
Capitol Police arrested 80 people protesting the Republican health care bill in Washington, DC, reports CNN. Over 100...
Capitol Police arrested 80 people protesting the Republican health care bill in Washington, DC, reports CNN. Over 100 protesters from across the United States gathered outside GOP lawmakers’ offices on July 10 to try to stop the Republican bill—dubbed the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA)—that would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare).
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Washington Wrap: Goldman Sachs under review over Panama Papers
Washington Wrap: Goldman Sachs under review over Panama Papers
New York's Department of Financial Services is seeking information from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., BNP Paribas SA,...
New York's Department of Financial Services is seeking information from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., BNP Paribas SA, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Standard Chartered Plc on shell companies established through a law firm in Panama, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. The investigation came after the Panama Papers leak about global banks using law firm Moasack Fonseca & Co. to set up anonymous shell companies. The data behind the leaks was made public this week by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The massive leak put a spotlight on the possible use of shell companies for tax evasion and other purposes. The White House's Office of Management and Budget accepted the final review of a FinCEN Treasury rule last month that would require banks to identify owners of shell companies.
Rick Aragon, AML compliance manager at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, said in an interview that the rule will increase compliance costs and complexity for banks. The new obligation for banks to identify and verify beneficial owners will affect system processes and could ultimately impact the risk profile of banks, he said.
"There's all sorts of different downstream processes that are going to be impacted by this," he said.
While offshore accounts are already considered high-risk, the publicity of the accounts will cause banks to re-evaluate whether or not they want to take on this type of business, he added.
The House Science, Space, and Technology's Oversight Subcommittee is investigating the FDIC's slowness to report data breaches that were later deemed as posing a major cybersercurity risk. The FDIC has reported seven security breaches since October 2015, all related to employees leaving the agency and downloading data on personal external devices. Lawrence Gross, chief information officer and chief privacy officer at the FDIC, testified at a May 12 hearing that the agency has taken steps to mitigate further breaches, but Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., said he does not think the agency is taking the breaches seriously.
Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton said she supports increasing diversity at the Federal Reserve and removing bankers from the board of directors, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Her comments were made in response to a letter from 127 legislators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, asking Chair Janet Yellen to improve leadership diversity. "As the Board of Governors embarks on its search for regional bank directors to serve beginning in 2017, and as you consider future regional president vacancies, we urge you to engage in an inclusive process to consider candidates from a diverse set of backgrounds, including a greater number of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Pacific Americans, women, and individuals from labor, consumer, and community organizations," the lawmakers wrote. The group cited a Center for Popular Democracy study that found 83% of Fed head office board members are white and three-fourths of regional bank directors are male.
Chatter:
The argument between JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chairman, President and CEO Jamie Dimon and Independent Community Bankers of America President Camden Fine heated up this week after Dimon called Fine a "jerk" on CNBC. Fine retorted that Dimon's language was that of a junior high-schooler.
Dimon's comments were made in response to statement Fine made April 9. "Just because Jamie Dimon says 'let's sing kumbaya' doesn't mean community banks are going to just line-up like a Greek chorus," Fine said in response to an op-ed Dimon wrote, calling banks of all sizes to unite.
Legislation/regulation:
The Office of Financial Research outlined best practices for data collection by regulators, including the agencies composing the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Among common pitfalls it pointed out in regulatory data collection were a failure to use existing industry standards, missing or incomplete data requirements, inadequate instructions and preparation, and a lack of resources to support institutions reporting the data.
The OFR suggested more collaboration among data collectors and noted that regulators' collection processes should be designed to be comprehensive and attentive to detail while also having a foundation of simplicity.
The OFR also released a study in which it compared the reported credit standards in the Fed's senior loan officer opinion survey to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. It found that the survey results have "the expected relationships" with actual denial rates at banks and economic conditions such as delinquency rates and home prices in MSAs where credit tightening occurs.
The House Financial Services Committee could soon introduce a bill that would provide regulatory relief for community banks if they meet a certain capital threshold. Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, said in an interview Wednesday that the bill would also include a dual mandate for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect consumers and encourage access to credit.
The Treasury Department wants to work with Congress to pass legislation overseeing and providing protection for borrowers in the marketplace lending industry. In a white paper reviewing the industry, the Treasury stated that to ensure market soundness prudent loan underwriting, securitization transaction pricing, and robust governance and disclosures are necessary. The paper also recommended that online lenders should promote a transparent marketplace for borrowers and investors, ensure safe and affordable credit through partnerships, and support robust and effective oversight.
By Moriah Costa
Source
Nationwide protests against Trump’s family separation policy planned for June 30
Nationwide protests against Trump’s family separation policy planned for June 30
The Women’s March is also organizing a nonviolent civil disobedience in partnership with Center for Popular Democracy...
The Women’s March is also organizing a nonviolent civil disobedience in partnership with Center for Popular Democracy and CASA in Action event for Thursday, June 28, in Washington, DC. The organization is asking women if they’re ready to risk arrest — and will provide training to those willing to participate.
Read the full article here.
Immigration Advocates Praise de Blasio's Proposal for Municipal ID Program
Immigration advocates are praising Mayor Bill de Blasio's proposal for a municipal ID program. In his State of...
Immigration advocates are praising Mayor Bill de Blasio's proposal for a municipal ID program.
In his State of the City address, de Blasio said that the city would make ID cards available to all New Yorkers.
That includes people who usually can't get other forms of identification, like the homeless and undocumented immigrants.
On Tuesday, the Center for Popular Democracy released a report analyzing similar programs in other cities.
Advocates say that the program could be a big help to vulnerable populations.
"Without this ID, it can be difficult to register to a child for school. It can be difficult to open a bank account. It can be difficult to even exercise your right to vote, to file a complaint with the police department," said Brittny Saunders of the Center for Popular Democracy.
"We also want to make sure that this card is available to multiple constituencies in this city," said City Councilman Carlos Menchaca of Brooklyn. "There's so many constituencies in this city that can benefit from this card, so we want to make sure that we know all those so we design the best cards that everyone has it."
Menchaca, who is the immigration chair for the City Council, also said that the Council plans to hold hearings in the next month about the best way to design the program.
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Low world inflation dogs central bankers, even as economies grow
Low world inflation dogs central bankers, even as economies grow
Jackson Hole (Wyoming): The world’s top central bankers gather in Jackson Hole, their confidence bolstered by a...
Jackson Hole (Wyoming): The world’s top central bankers gather in Jackson Hole, their confidence bolstered by a sustained return to economic growth that may eventually allow the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Japan to follow the Federal Reserve in winding down their crisis-era policies.
Yet in one key area, none of the world’s central banks has found the answer. Inflation remains well below their two percent targets, stoking a debate about whether they are missing signals of a less than healthy economy and the need for a slower path of “rate normalisation”, or that they simply don’t understand how inflation works in a globalised world.
Read the full article here.
Five things to watch for as the Federal Reserve makes its rate hike decision
The typical Federal Reserve monetary policy announcement has all the drama of a traffic signal. Officials provide...
The typical Federal Reserve monetary policy announcement has all the drama of a traffic signal.
Officials provide enough hints beforehand that there's little surprise when the news comes about whether they have given the green light to an interest rate change.
That's not the case Thursday.
Nearly a decade after the last increase in the benchmark federal funds rate — and after almost seven years of keeping it at the unprecedented level of near-zero — central bank policymakers will announce if the time has come for an increase.
Analysts said the potential for a rate hike is too close to call as the Federal Open Market Committee on Thursday wraps up its most eagerly awaited meeting in years.
There have been fewer than normal signals from Fed policymakers, including an unusual two months of public silence from Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen.
And the turmoil in financial markets that began in late August has dampened expectations that the Fed would raise the target level for the rate by 0.25 percentage point this month.
Here are five things to watch for when the Fed makes its announcement at 11 a.m. Pacific time, followed 30 minutes later by a news conference with Yellen.
One and done
In June and July, Yellen said she expected a rate hike this year, and most analysts put their money on September.
But that was before China devalued its currency late last month. The move, a signal that the Chinese economy was slowing, roiled financial markets. Many fear a Fed rate hike could add to the volatility.
The 0.25 percentage point increase in itself is minor.
"If the Fed moves the rates a quarter of a point, it probably isn’t going to have a significant impact in how CEOs invest and hire over the next 12 months," AT&T Inc. Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said this week.
But the expectation has been that once the Fed started raising the rate, it would continue with 0.25 percentage point increases at just about every meeting for the near future.
That would be part of a long, slow climb back to about the 3% level the rate averaged from 2001 to 2007.
If the Fed goes ahead with a rate hike Thursday, it could try to soften the impact by signaling there won't be another increase for a while.
Some analysts have called that a "one and done" rate hike.
Policymakers could indicate that approach in their policy statement. They also could show that in their estimations in the accompanying quarterly economic projections, which contain each member's evaluation of where the federal funds rate would be at the end of the year.
Or Yellen could simply state it when she addresses reporters after the meeting.
Split the baby
If Fed officials are torn between a 0.25 percentage point rate hike or no rate hike at all, some think they could split the difference with a mini-hike of 0.125 percentage point.
The Fed frequently moved the rate by increments of an eighth of a point in the 1970s and '80s. But it hasn't made such a minor move since 1989.
It's unclear whether a mini-hike would make everyone happy. It could end up upsetting both those wanting a rate hike and those opposed to one.
But don't be shocked if the rate moves up by less than 0.25 percentage point.
All aboard
On a major policy decision like the first rate hike since 2006, Yellen will strive for consensus.
Recent Fed history shows that will be difficult to obtain.
Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Va., one of the 10 voting members of the FOMC, could be a dissenter if the committee votes to hold the rate steady.
He said this month that "it's time to align our monetary policy with the significant progress we have made."
On the other side, John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, warned this month of "pretty significant" headwinds for the U.S. economy that have "grown larger" recently.
And the committee's vice chair, William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said late last month that the case for a September rate hike had become "less compelling" amid concerns about the global economy.
Dudley, a close ally of Yellen's, is unlikely to dissent if the rate is raised. But Williams could.
Yellen probably will try for a unanimous vote to send a clear signal to financial markets about the Fed's view of the economy. Getting such a vote could be a big accomplishment.
Market reaction
The lack of clear signals from the Fed about what it will do Thursday could translate into a wild ride on Wall Street and in financial markets abroad after the news breaks.
By one indicator based on federal funds futures, investors believe there is only about a 30% chance of a rate hike. So if the Fed increases the rate, markets would be expected to nosedive.
Adding more volatility to an already roiled financial marketplace is a reason some analysts believe Fed policymakers will wait to increase the interest rate.
In addition to its dual mandate of maximizing employment and keeping inflation in check, the Fed has had an unwritten third mandate since the Great Recession: financial stability.
"The worry surrounding a rate hike really centers around how it might affect financial markets abroad, especially in emerging market countries such as China," said John Lonski, chief economist at Moody's Capital Markets Research Group.
"They probably don’t want to go ahead and add to financial market volatility at this point in time," he said.
But survey results Wednesday from CNBC showed 49% of the 51 economists, money managers and strategists the business news network polled think the Fed will increase the rate.
About 43% think the hike will come later, with the rest undecided.
That would point to a market decline if the Fed doesn't act.
But some argue removing the questions about when the Fed would raise the rate would do more for financial stability, particularly in the long-term, than holding steady.
"It’s this deep uncertainty surrounding the conduct of monetary policy that is exacerbating swings in financial markets," said Lawrence Goodman, a former Treasury official who is president of the Center for Financial Stability think tank.
Political fallout
The Fed's decision will reverberate around the globe. But some of the biggest reactions could come from within Washington.
Liberals have been calling for Yellen and her colleagues to delay a rate increase, arguing the economy still is too weak.
Fed Up, a coalition of 25 labor, community and liberal activist groups plan a news conference Thursday morning in front of the building where Yellen will meet with reporters. The group plans to make its case that the Fed should wait until there is more improvement in the jobs market.
Liberal activists pushed for Yellen to be made Fed chair over former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, and they'll be upset with a rate increase this month.
Summers recently said that a rate increase now would be "a serious mistake." His comments echoed warnings from the World Bank.
But holding the rate steady carries its own political risks.
Many Republicans have been highly critical of the Fed's actions since the Great Recession. They've pushed to change the law to allow for audits of the Fed's monetary policy decisions and require the central bank to set rules for adjusting the federal funds rate.
"Our economy would be healthier if the Federal Reserve were more predictable in its conduct of monetary policy and more transparent about its decision-making," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
Whichever way the Fed goes Thursday, Yellen will face heat for the decision the next time she testifies on Capitol Hill.
Source: Los Angeles Times
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