No indictment in Eric Garner police killing
Reports indicate that a grand jury has decided not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner,...
Reports indicate that a grand jury has decided not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed Black man. Garner died in July in Staten Island of neck compression, combined with asphyxia as a result of a chokehold applied while police officers were arresting him for the suspected sale of untaxed cigarettes. The incident was captured on cellphone video by Ramsey Orta who was a bystander. Garner had broken up a fight when officers attempted to arrest him. Pantaleo put Garner on the ground by the use of force, which included the use of a headlock resulting in Garner’s death. The city’s medical examiner later ruled the death a homicide. The NYPD is banned from using chokeholds, however, chokeholds are not illegal.
At a press conference Wednesday night, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Garner's family spoke about the grand jury's decision. Sharpton announced plans for a national march in Washington, D.C. on December 13 to urge the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the string of recent police killings of unarmed Blacks.
"We are dealing with a national crisis," he said. "We are not advocating violence, we are asking that police violence stop. Now you have a man chocked to death on videotape and says 11 times 'I can't breathe.'" Garner's wife, Esaw, said she did not accept the apology give by Pantaleo on Wednesday after the grand jury didn't indict him. She said she plans to move forward to get justice for her late husband.
"I'm determined to get justice for my husband," she said. "He should be here celebrating Christmas and Thanksgiving and he can't. My husband's death will not be in vain. As long as I have breath in my body I will fight the fight."
Several Black and Latino congressional members, including Gregory Meeks and Yvette Clark, held a press conference in Washington, D.C. after the grand jury's decision was announced. The legislatures called for the Justice Department to step into the case. The U.S. Department of Justice is going to investigate Garner's death, according to reports. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that a federal civil rights investigation would be opened in the case.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, Public Advocate Leticia James and several city council members held a press conference in Staten Island on Wednesday to address the issue. De Blasio said that frustration over the grand jury's decision is understandable. "It's a very emotional day for our city. It's a very painful day for so many New Yorkers," he said. "We're grieving – again – over the loss of Eric Garner, who was a father, a husband, a good man – who should be with us."
The decision in the Garner killing by a grand jury comes just over a week after a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo. decided to not indict Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown. Peaceful demonstrations along with rioting followed the announcement of that decision. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton met with several elected officials in Staten Island before the decision was announced anticipating the reaction to the decision. Demonstrations were being announced via social media on Wednesday and took place Times Square, Grand Central and Union Square. A gathering was also planned for the nationally televised Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting set to take place in the evening.
Several groups including Communities United for Police Reform Justice Committee, Make the Road NY, VOCAL-NY, Center for Popular Democracy, Color of Change, Million Hoodies and Freedom Side announced they are organizing demonstration.
Source: Amsterdam News
Connecting The Dots Between Banks and Immigrant Detention
July 26 was the deadline by which the government was ordered by a judge to reunite all immigrant children separated...
July 26 was the deadline by which the government was ordered by a judge to reunite all immigrant children separated from their parents in Trump's so-called zero-tolerance border policy earlier this year. But of the approximately 2,500 children that were separated 711 still remain without their parents after the deadline, lawyers for the government said. Of those, 431 cases remain where the parents were deported before getting their children back and the rest were "ineligible" to be returned as per the government. Meanwhile protesters across the country have continued confronting ICE offices and other institutions involved in the immigrant crackdown including banks that are financing private prisons for immigrants. JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and BlackRock, have been targeted by activists this week after the Center for Popular Democracy released a report called Bankrolling Oppression. Eight people were arrested while protesting outside the home of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon.
Watch the video here.
The Fed needs a revolution: Why America’s central bank is failing — and how we can make it work for us
The Fed needs a revolution: Why America’s central bank is failing — and how we can make it work for us
One reality hanging over the presidential election and our politics in general is this: No matter what terrific plan a...
One reality hanging over the presidential election and our politics in general is this: No matter what terrific plan a politician has for creating jobs and boosting wages, it must contend with the Federal Reserve’s ability to unilaterally counteract it. If the Fed decides higher wages risk inflation, they can raise interest rates and deliberately strangle economic growth, reversing the wage effect. Why come up with ways to grow the economy, then, if the Fed will react by intentionally slowing it?
The reason the Fed operates as a wet blanket on the economy has to do with who really controls the institution. If the desires of bankers and the rich outweigh the desires of laborers, then their fear of inflation (which cuts into their profits) will always take precedence over full employment. Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke unwittingly gave a perfect example of that yesterday. Talking about how the Fed could institute “helicopter drops” of money to supplement federal spending and jump-start the economy, he stated from the outset, “no responsible government would ever literally drop money from the sky.” Who sets the boundaries of what’s “responsible” matters a great deal here.
To make the central bank work in the public interest rather than the interests of a select few, you must reform the very structure of the Federal Reserve. That’s the purpose of a new proposal from Andrew Levin, an economics professor at Dartmouth College and former advisor to Fed Chairs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen. In conjunction with the activist group Fed Up, which advocates for pro-worker policies at the Fed, Levin has devised a framework to make the central bank a fully public institution, with all the transparency and accountability demanded of other government entities.
It’s such an important idea that Warren Gunnels, policy director for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, talked it up yesterday on a conference call with Levin. While stopping short of endorsing taking the Fed public, Gunnels did say, “Senator Sanders believes we need to made the Fed a more democratic institution, responsive to the concerns of all Americans, not a few billionaires on Wall Street.”
Right now, the Fed is a quasi-public, quasi-private hybrid, taking advantage of that status to maintain high levels of secrecy. Members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, like other federal agencies. But the twelve regional Federal Reserve banks are legally owned by commercial banks in each of those regions. Banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo hold stock in these regional banks, which happen to be one of their primary regulators.
This was how central banks worldwide operated at the time of the Fed’s founding, but that has changed. “Every other central bank around the world is fully public,” Professor Levin said, citing the Bank of Canada’s shift in the 1930s and the Bank of England in the 1940s.
Not only does having private banks own a chunk of the Fed raise questions about regulatory supervision, it implicitly privileges banker concerns over the public at large. This is particularly important because the Fed has failed as an institution consistently over the past decade.
First it failed to identify an $8 trillion housing bubble, along with increases in leverage and derivatives exposure that magnified the housing collapse into a larger crisis. Then, it failed to deploy all its policy tools and allowed a slow recovery to take hold that left millions of workers behind, as growth never caught up to its expectations. British economist Simon Wren-Lewis believes the third big mistake is happening now, through premature interest rate hikes to return to “normal” operations. “Central banks are wasting a huge amount of potential resources” by tightening too quickly, Wren-Lewis says. For everyday Americans, that translates into millions more people out of work than necessary.
So Levin’s plan would cash out the banks’ stock, and begin to remove their influence over the Fed. The board of directors of the regional Fed banks, which currently includes commercial bank executives, would be chosen through a representative process with mandates for diversity (no African-American has ever served as a regional Fed president) and a variety of viewpoints. Nobody affiliated with a financial institution overseen by the Fed could serve on any regional board.
These newly elected boards of directors would choose the regional presidents, which have a say on monetary policy decisions. That selection process would include public hearings and feedback. Under the current system, Fed presidents are re-elected through a pro forma process, with no opportunity for public engagement. Four of the 12 regional presidents were formerly executives at Goldman Sachs, and it’s hard to call that a coincidence.
In addition to breaking the conflict of interest inherent in current Fed governance, making the institution public would subject it to disclosure requirements, Freedom of Information Act requests, and external reviews that all other public agencies must submit to. Levin’s proposal calls for an annual Government Accountability Office review of Fed policies and procedures, and would allow the Fed’s inspector general new authority to investigate the regional banks.
The Levin proposal too often makes concessions to preserving central bank “independence,” like preserving the regional structure and giving Fed officials nonrenewable seven-year terms, which seems a little arbitrary. This impulse also led Democrats to reject Sen. Rand Paul’s legislation to audit the Fed earlier this year. The rhetoric of Federal Reserve “independence” conceals an institutional capture that allows it to ignore workers’ needs in favor of the wealthy. And its persistent failures and banker influence weaken the case for that independence.
Nevertheless, the heart of the proposal is to return democracy to the Fed, so the institution will edge away from its commitment to capital over labor. “The fundamental piece is that the Fed must be a public institution,” said Ady Barkan of the Fed Up Coalition.
Liberals too often ignore the Fed and the role it plays in the economy, but that’s starting to change. An obscure piece of the Federal Reserve Act statute identified by then-House staffer Matt Stoller led to a remarkable cut of billions of dollars in subsidies to big banks last year, under a Republican-majority Congress. Now the Fed Up coalition is not only rolling out this reform plan, but pushing the presidential candidates to answer whether the Fed should deliberately slow down the economy, make sure their institution looks like the general public, and reduce the power of private banks on its operations. (Bernie Sanders laid out his views on Fed reform in the New York Times last December, some of which intersect with the Fed Up proposal. Warren Gunnels, Sanders’ Policy Director, would only say that the Fed Up plan “deserves serious consideration.”)
A public, inclusive debate over Fed transparency and accountability is critical, given the importance of this institution to the economy. “These reforms would put the Fed on a path to serving the public for the next 100 years,” said Professor Levin. And that has to mean all the public, through democratic principles, not just the executives at our biggest banks.
By David Dayen
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A 'striking lack of diversity' at the Fed distorts economic policy in ways most people don’t consider
A 'striking lack of diversity' at the Fed distorts economic policy in ways most people don’t consider
In a new report from the liberal-leaning Fed Up, a coalition of community groups advocating for continued low interest...
In a new report from the liberal-leaning Fed Up, a coalition of community groups advocating for continued low interest rates from the Fed with a view to helping the country's poorer families enjoy some of the benefits of the recovery, the group says a lot of work remains to be done despite recent progress on diversity under Yellen's tenure.
Read the full article here.
NYC, LA y Chicago Quieren Aumentar el Múmero de Ciudadanos
El Diario - September 17, 2014 - “Grandes ciudadanos para grandes ciudades”. El alcalde Bill de Blasio se unió a sus...
El Diario - September 17, 2014 - “Grandes ciudadanos para grandes ciudades”. El alcalde Bill de Blasio se unió a sus colegas Rahm Emanuel de Chicago y Eric Garcetti de Los Angeles para anunciar la iniciativa Cities for Citizenship-C4C (Ciudades por la ciudadanía) la cual busca incrementar el número de residentes permanentes que pueden obtener el pasaporte azul.
“Este es un esfuerzo ganador por donde se le mire y ayudará a crear más ciudades incluyentes que eleven a todo el mundo. Se incrementará la actividad económica y la base tributaria”, dijo el Alcalde neoyorquino en un comunicado de prensa, en el cual indicó que aspiran a animar a otras ciudades a invertir en este programas.
Ciudades por la Ciudadanía permitirá aumentar los programas para convertir en ciudadanos a los inmigrantes que son residentes permanentes, con asesoría legal y microcréditos para ayudar a pagar su costo, que actualmente asciende a $680 por persona.
La iniciativa C4C se basa en la promesa de De Blasio de reducir la inequidad. Los beneficios de conseguir la ciudadanía van desde mejora de ingresos, poder adquirir viviendas, hasta lograr una mayor participación política.
“La iniciativa es un gran triunfo para familias inmigrantes. Facilitar el paso a la ciudadanía robustecerá la economía desde abajo”, dijo Andrew Friedman, co-director del Center for Popular Democracy, una de las organizaciones coordinadoras junto al National Partnership for New Americans. Citi Community Development to contribuirá con $1.15 millones.
Un estudio divulgado hoy por el Centro para la Democracia Popular (CPD), que será uno de los coordinadores de la iniciativa, estima que actualmente hay 8.8 millones de residentes permanentes en EEUU en condiciones de convertirse en ciudadanos, y de ellos el 52 % tiene bajos ingresos que dificultan el pago de las tasas que cobra inmigración.
“Esta es una herramientas para luchar contra la pobreza”, dijo Nisha Agarwal, Comisionada de Asuntos para Inmigrantes de NYC. “Ayudará a miles que no han dado el paso por el precio y el temor a un proceso legal complicado.”
El programa NYCitizenship trabajará con agencias de la Ciudad con asistencia para llenar los formularios y reducir los costos del proceso, según los casos. También habrá ayuda legal. Los programas se promoverán en las bibliotecas públicas.
La Oficina de Asuntos para Inmigrantes de NY comisionará un estudio sobre el impacto económico de los programas de ciudadanía a lo largo del país. Intentará demostrar la importancia de las inversiones en la ciudadanía y el impacto de conectar inmigrantes con ayuda legal.
Beneficios de la ciudadanía:
Facilitará el acceso a mejores trabajos con un aumento de hasta el 11 % en los ingresos personales.
En general se estima que en los próximos diez años la economía de Chicago recibiría $1,600 millones producidos por los nuevos ciudadanos, en Los Ángeles serían $2,800 millones y $4,100 millones en Nueva York.
redundará además en un aumento de la base de votantes y de contribuyentes.
Cifras del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional indican que el año pasado hubo 779,929 naturalizaciones, casi un 3 % más que en 2012.
El área metropolitana de Nueva York registró un aumento de casi un 37 % en 2013 comparado con 2011, mientras que en el área de Los Ángeles el aumento fue del 12 %.
Sin embargo, en la región metropolitana que incluye a Chicago la cantidad de nuevos ciudadanos se ha mantenido estancada.
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Mind the Gap: How the Federal Reserve Can Help Raise Wages for America’s Women and Men
The American economy remains too weak. Over the past 35 years, the vast majority of workers have seen their wages...
The American economy remains too weak. Over the past 35 years, the vast majority of workers have seen their wages stagnate. And, racial and gender wage gaps have persisted. The failure to aggressively target and achieve genuine full employment explains a large part of this disappointing performance. And this failure looks poised to continue. Despite these indicators that we are far from full employment and the fact that the inflation rate remains below the Federal Reserve’s target rate, pressure is mounting on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to slow the pace of economic expansion and job growth in the name of fighting hypothetical future inflation. It would be a terrible mistake for the Fed to yield to this pressure.This paper makes the case that the Fed should pursue genuine full employment that features robust wage growth, rather than be satisfied with job growth that is consistent but does not boost the pace of wage growth. The paper considers the shifts in gender and racial wage gaps since 1979 and highlights the fact that because the vast majority of American workers have seen near-stagnant wages even as economy-wide productivity growth has consistently risen, there is ample room for wage-gaps to close without any group suffering wage declines.Key findings:
A significant portion of the limited progress towards closing the gender wage gap in recent decades has been due to the outright decline of men’s wages. Although there is greater gender wage equity among the bottom 10 percent of earners than among higher wage-earners, the gap between men and women has closed very little since 1979 Wage disparities between white earners and Latino or Black earners have increased in the past 35 years Productivity growth—which measures the average amount of income generated in each hour of work in the economy—has remained strong. At 64.9 percent over the 35-year period, productivity growth represents the possible increases in every worker’s wage throughout the economy. White women, the group whose median wage growth has been strongest over the period, gained at roughly one-third the rate of productivity.The Federal Reserve plays a powerful role in shaping labor market trends. To be sure, these wage gaps among groups of workers result from a long history of discrimination within the labor market, education, housing, wealth-building, and criminal justice policies, and require a full array of economic, social, and political policies.However, until we reach genuine full employment, a Federal Reserve decision to slow the economy will hamper the ability of workers’ wages to rise.Key recommendations:
The Federal Reserve should set a clear and ambitious target for wage growth, which will provide an important and straightforward guidepost on the path to maximum employment.Wage targeting can be fairly easily tailored to the Fed’s price-inflation target and pegged toincreases in productivity. The Fed should maintain a patient, but watchful posture. The history of the past 35 years shows a generally steady downward trend in price inflation and that prematurely slowing the economy results in higher than desirable unemployment. The Federal Reserve should not consider an interest-rate hike until indicators of full employment—particularly wage growth—have strengthened.Raising interest rates too soon will slow an already sluggish economy, stall progress on unemployment, and perpetuate wage stagnation for the vast majority of American workers. This harm will be disproportionately felt by women and people of color, who are concentrated in the most vulnerable strata of the workforce.
Download the report here
Lael Brainard, a Fed governor in the political glare
In the middle of meetings of the world’s central banking elite in Wyoming’s Jackson Lake Lodge in August 2015, Lael...
In the middle of meetings of the world’s central banking elite in Wyoming’s Jackson Lake Lodge in August 2015, Lael Brainard sat down with activists who were denouncing calls for tighter monetary policy amid America’s sluggish wage growth.
As the Federal Reserve Board member listened intently over the course of about an hour, protesters from New York ranging from fast-food employees to a worker on film sets talked about the difficulties of making ends meet on rock-bottom wages in a high-cost metropolis, recalls Shawn Sebastian, field director of the Fed Up coalition that arranged the meeting.
Ms Brainard’s decision to drop by carried a message. A fairly new member of the Board of Governors who had said relatively little about monetary policy, Ms Brainard was about to set out her stall as a vocal advocate of low interest rates at the Fed — based in part on the absence of wage growth.
Her steadfast calls for continued economic stimulus have burnished her credentials among pro-worker groups including Fed Up, which met a broader range of Fed officials at this year’s Jackson Hole gathering. They come amid speculation that she could be in line for a cabinet role if the Democrats hold the White House in November.
“When it comes to monetary policy, Lael Brainard is one of the strongest and loudest voices advocating for policies that working families across the US need,” says Mr Sebastian.
In Washington, Ms Brainard is being spoken of as one of the candidates for Treasury secretary in a Hillary Clinton administration — a move that would make her the first woman to head the department. At the same time she has become the target of Republican attacks because of her public support for the Clinton campaign and fury within the party over easy-money policies.
Early this year Ms Brainard donated $2,700 to the Clinton campaign, a decision described by former officials as a blunder for a sitting Fed governor during an election year — even if it is permissible under Fed rules. It increased the Fed’s political vulnerability at a time when it is a prime target for vituperative assaults on its independence by Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate.
The donation was the subject of sharp exchanges in Congress last month as Fed chair Janet Yellen was forced to reject claims by Republican representative Scott Garrett that the central bank is excessively cosy with the Democrats.
There are people who blather on and she is not one of them
Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Joe Biden
Ted Truman, a former Fed official who is a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says Ms Brainard’s donation was a personal mistake that “didn’t help the Fed at all”. He also argues that the issue pales in comparison with politically charged episodes in the past, such as the Nixon years when the Fed was leaned on heavily to keep rates low.
Ms Brainard’s forceful drive for easy monetary policy began two months after the 2015 Jackson Hole meetings, when she delivered a blunt speech that left some with the impression that she was at loggerheads with Ms Yellen. Ms Brainard warned against prematurely lifting rates amid slack in the labour market and subdued inflation — even as the chair was steering markets to expect a move by the end of the year.
Ms Brainard did not go on to formally dissent when Ms Yellen presided over a rate increase that December. Since then the two policymakers have appeared more closely aligned, with both recently arguing that the US recovery has further room to run before the central bank needs to increase rates again.
Ms Brainard has urged caution in part because of the risk that overseas shocks ricochet back to the US via highly integrated financial markets. This global focus builds on her work as the US’s top financial diplomat under former Treasury secretary Tim Geithner between 2010 and 2013, where in the gruelling post of undersecretary for international affairs she was a key US figure in discussions over the euro area debt crisis, as well as the broader global fallout from the financial crash.
Fed should not rush to raise rates, says Brainard
Already low expectations of a September increase fall further after policymaker’s cautious comments
One official who spoke with her regularly was George Papaconstantinou, Greece’s finance minister from 2009 to 2011. He recalls hearing from Ms Brainard two or three times a week during the febrile days of early 2010, as Europe dragged its feet over how to handle the Greek crisis and the US pushed for action. The calls were partly “therapy” for him and partly information-gathering by Ms Brainard so she had “a better sense of how close we were to the edge”. He says: “She clearly knew her stuff.”
Ms Brainard, who declined to comment for this article, developed her interest for global affairs in part on the back of her upbringing as a diplomat’s daughter, spending some of her childhood behind the iron curtain in Poland and East Germany. A former MIT economics professor, she has three children and is married to Kurt Campbell, a former top state department official.
A reserved individual, Ms Brainard left the Treasury with a mixed reputation among officials, some of whom found her unsupportive and distant. Others, including Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to vice-president Joe Biden, praise her straight-talking manner and clarity of thought. “There are people who blather on and she is not one of them,” he says.
When Washington observers size up potential Treasury secretaries, Ms Brainard’s name comes up alongside Gary Gensler, the former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook.
What gives Ms Brainard’s claim potency is not only her international and domestic economic experience, but also the helpful absence of a stint on Wall Street in her curriculum vitae. For many Democrats, her very public campaign for low rates has only strengthened her qualifications for the post.
By Lael Brainard
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New Report: Racial Disparities Continue at an Alarming Rate for Black Communities
KPFT Houston Radio - March 6, 2015, by Tucker Wilson - CPD's Policy Advocate Shawn Sebastian joins KPFT Radio to...
KPFT Houston Radio - March 6, 2015, by Tucker Wilson - CPD's Policy Advocate Shawn Sebastian joins KPFT Radio to discuss racial disparities in unemployment and how the Federal Reserve can build a strong economy for all communities.
Listen to the clip here.
Fed Chair Candidate Kevin Warsh Draws Opposition From Left and Right
Fed Chair Candidate Kevin Warsh Draws Opposition From Left and Right
On a Wednesday in mid-September, a group of progressive activists concerned about the stewardship of the American...
On a Wednesday in mid-September, a group of progressive activists concerned about the stewardship of the American economy packed a meeting room on Capitol Hill with staff of Senate Democrats. Part strategy session and part pep talk, the gathering had a very specific aim.
“We’ll do whatever we can do to prevent Kevin Warsh from taking on the role of chair of the Federal Reserve,” Jennifer Epps-Addison, president of the Center for Popular Democracy, told the gathering.
Read the full article here.
Let's Choose Children Over the Charter Industry
Roll Call - May 14, 2014, by Kyle Serrette and Sabrina Joy Stevens - Our children are too precious, and education...
Roll Call - May 14, 2014, by Kyle Serrette and Sabrina Joy Stevens - Our children are too precious, and education funding too scarce, to risk turning either over to unscrupulous or incompetent organizations. That’s why charter schools were originally supposed to be something akin to a small, controlled experiment: public school laboratories intended to encourage new ways to educate students. That way, if something turned out not to work, the risk to students, educators and communities could be contained.
Unfortunately, the modest educators and community members of the charter school movement’s early days have been eclipsed by members of the charter school industry: an industry rife with fraud, waste and abuse. Yet advocates, particularly among elected officials, have been unwilling to confront this fact and deal accordingly.
Fraud and abuse is rampant in the charter sector. Last week, our organizations issued a new report detailing how charter operators wasted or stole more than $100 million in taxpayer dollars. That number only reflects cases that have been reported in 15 states; it boggles the mind to consider what an examination of all states would uncover.
We found examples of operators embezzling millions in public funds for years before being detected, spending public funds on vacation homes instead of textbooks. In one case, someone bought a private airplane; in another egregious example, they used the money for visits to a strip club. In other cases, unfit operators just plain lost vast amounts of taxpayer money.
Sadly, H.R. 10, the charter schools bill recently approved by the House, fails to address the corruption within this poorly regulated industry.
Ignoring several representatives who offered common-sense amendments, the House passed a bill that fails to call for even basic protections like conflict-of-interest guidelines. It “requires” annual audits, yet allows states to waive the requirement, making it easier for fraudulent actors to hide their theft. It does not extend open meetings laws to charters, nor does it require charter operators to include community representation on their boards.
The bill further erodes community input and oversight by awarding priority status to states that allow entities that are not local education agencies (LEA) to be charter authorizers. Not only will this make it harder for local communities to control access to our tax dollars, it will also erode the quality and consistency of children’s education. For example, 17 charters abruptly closed in Columbus, Ohio, last year alone. In most cases, their non-LEA authorizers’ slipshod vetting processes missed red flags that would have allowed them to thwart fraud and mismanagement.
Disturbingly, the bill awards priority to states that don’t have charter caps, encouraging states to further accelerate charter growth before they’ve established the protections that could prevent the aforementioned abuses. States already struggle to monitor the charter schools they have; it is simply reckless to incentivize them to open more before establishing necessary protections.
H.R. 10 ignores many of the most pressing community concerns about charters. Any new funding for charter schools must encourage more, not less, oversight and involvement by local taxpayers and families. Specifically, a new bill should ban the practice of requiring parent contracts, one of many practices that charter operators use to avoid serving the neediest students.
Charter operators should also be required to collect and publicly report information on student attrition, mobility, and transfer before coming back to the public till. This crucial information will ensure that public funding stays with the students it’s intended to benefit. It will also allow families and policymakers to make informed comparisons between charter and public schools.
If our senators want to ensure success and opportunity through quality public schools, they should create legislative protections that promote quality, and mandate the transparency and accountability that make a school public. H.R. 10 does none of this. Children and taxpayers deserve better.
Kyle Serrette is the director of Education Justice Campaigns at the Center for Popular Democracy. Sabrina Joy Stevens is the executive director of Integrity in Education.
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