CPD IN THE NEWS

The Tennessean - April 14, 2015, by Stephen Henry & Erick Hutch - Teachers are joining parents and local community groups to ask the Metro Nashville Public School Board to adopt tougher accountability and transparency standards to protect students and taxpayers. Here's why.

We should all be working together to find a coordinated approach that serves all children.

Studies confirm that the proliferation of new charters is forcing existing under-funded public schools to compete for the same taxpayer dollars without proper checks and balances. There is also a growing concern among teachers and parents that we are not doing enough to ensure equal access to ALL of Nashville's public schools.

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University recommends national standards for schools to protect students and the public. A mandate on transparency and equitable student policies ensures all students have fair access to the schools they deserve. The Institute also recommends all approved charter schools be fully funded by the state. Under our current system, Nashville taxpayers absorb the costs of state-approved charters already rejected locally.

Right now, charters cost our public school system $9,000 per student, according to a recent performance audit commissioned by the Metropolitan Government. We should require a rigorous financial review of charter expansion on our public school system – a prudent step before approving more charters.

A national study by the Center for Popular Democracy found charter school operators across the country were engaged in rampant abuses because they lacked appropriate oversight and transparency guidelines. Last month, the CPD released findings for an 11-point program for reform.

A local audit released in February, found that the unchecked expansion of new charter schools is taking a toll on existing schools. Specifically, the audit noted that when new charter schools open and compete for the same system resources, fixed costs at existing schools — such as maintenance, technology and health services —are often neglected as they cannot be reduced.

Additionally, the audit observed that existing schools cannot easily adjust staffing patterns as a result of new charters. "For these costs to be reduced significantly," the audit observed, "the school would need to close altogether." The audit also confirmed the results of a fall 2014 report that found "new charter schools will, with nearly 100 percent certainty, have a negative fiscal impact on MNPS."

As the search for the next director of MNPS begins, we need a leader who will commit the resources and support necessary for our existing schools to be successful. A single, 600-seat charter school requires $5.4 million annually from our public schools. At a time when our schools are universally considered to be under funded, now is the time to invest resources in public education instead of systematically starving it.

In 2010, the entire state of Tennessee had only 20 charter schools. In Nashville alone in the 2015-16 school year, 27 charter schools will operate at an annual cost of $75 million. Another 18 proposed charters are seeking to divert as much as $104 million annually. In fact, even if the school board approved no new charter schools, more than 5,000 charter seats will come into existence between now and the 2019-20 school year under previous charter approvals. That's the equivalent of adding five new MNPS middle schools.

It's time to protect students and taxpayers with common-sense standards that serve all of us.

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Executive Summary

The story of the economic recovery varies dramatically depending on where it is being told. On Wall Street, big banks look stronger, bigger, and healthier than ever. Large companies are making record profits. But, the labor market remains weak. Although the economy has added more jobs in recent months, job growth on Main Street is not nearly as robust as during previous recoveries.[i] Unemployment rates in nearly every state remain above pre-recession levels. Wages have been stagnant or falling for most workers and the quality of jobs has decreased significantly. Main Street still has no clear route to prosperity.

Dowload the report now.

Many communities are disproportionately struggling in this economy. The Latino unemployment rate is more than 2 percent higher than the rate for whites, and Latino wages and wealth are considerably lower than whites. Women continue to earn substantially less than men. This paper focuses on the economic disparities facing the African-American community in particular because the economic crisis is most acute there: African-American unemployment rates continue to exceed the national unemployment rates at the height of the recession, Black workers’ wages have dropped $0.44 over the past 15 years, though Latino and white wages have risen by $0.48 and $0.45, respectively; unemployment rates among African Americans are higher than those of other racial or ethnic groups; and, though Latino and white wealth has stabilized since the Great Recession, Black wealth continues to shrink. So, while Main Street may be stabilizing (albeit at a lower standard), the recovery has yet to reach Martin Luther King Boulevard. Creating a strong American economy must include prioritizing a genuine recovery for the African American community.

This joint report of the Center for Popular Democracy and the Economic Policy Institute examines the current state of the American economy and labor market, with particular attention to racial inequality and its contours before, during, and in aftermath of the Great Recession. It describes the role that federal monetary policy has played in exacerbating economic disparities over recent decades -- the shrinking national income share for working America and the exploding income and wealth gaps between the top 1 percent and the rest of us. The paper further explores the consequences of the major policy decision currently facing the Federal Reserve (or the Fed): whether to prioritize genuine full employment or to avoid inflation at the cost of robust employment and wage gains. Only by pursuing genuine full employment will the Fed ensure that the recovery reaches Main Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard – and communities of working people throughout the country. As the Fed makes crucial monetary policy decisions in the months and years to come, it must ensure that all communities can share in the prosperity of a functional economy.

The report also studies the decision-making processes and bodies of the Federal Reserve. Although the Board members that govern the regional Federal Reserve banks are legally required to represent the broad interests of the public, they are, in fact, predominantly representatives of the financial sector or large corporations. Without governance that represents the full diversity of the public, Fed decisions risk remaining uninformed by the full economic reality they create, as experienced in communities throughout the country. The Federal Reserve’s focus over the past 35 years has been on price stability, or tamping down inflation. While this focus is good for Wall Street, it has resulted in wage stagnation for most workers on Main Street.  The cost of this focus has been slow recoveries in labor markets after each downturn. America needs the Federal Reserve to concentrate on labor market stability and insure that wages are rising with productivity, so that workers reap the benefits from their efficiencies and hard work; that means prioritizing a wage growth target, rather than inflation. A Federal Reserve dominated by banks and major corporations will produce an economy that works for them, at the risk of leaving tens of millions of working families – particularly Black working families – with little hope of a better life.

The report recommends that the Fed:

Create a Strong & Fair Economy

Stimulate Good Jobs for All: The Federal Reserve should commit to building a full employment economy. It should keep interest rates low so that the numbers job openings and job seekers are balanced and everybody who wants to can find a good job.

Invest in the Real Economy: The Fed should use its existing legal authority to provide low- and zero-interest loans so that cities and states can invest in public works projects like renewable energy generation, public transit, and affordable housing that will create good new jobs.

Research for the Public Good: The Fed should study the harmful effects of inequality and examine how policies like raising the minimum wage and guaranteeing a fair workweek can strengthen the economy and expand the middle class.

Create a More Transparent & Democratic Federal Reserve

Ensure That Working Families’ Voices Are Heard: Fed officials should regularly meet with working families and community leaders, not just business executives, in order to get a more accurate picture of how the economy is working.

Represent the Public: In regional banks around the country, Fed leaders come overwhelmingly from financial institutions and major corporations. The Fed should appoint genuine representatives of the public interest to these governance positions.

Create a Legitimate Process for Selecting Fed Presidents: In late 2015 and early 2016, the regional Fed banks will select their next presidents, who will serve five year terms. Currently, the process for selecting those presidents is completely opaque and involves no public input. That needs to change, so that the public has a real role in the selection process.

Dowload the report now.

[i] Dean Baker, “257,000 Jobs Are Great, but Those Wall Street Boys Are Really Smart” (blog post), Center for Economic and Policy Research, February 6, 2015, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/257000-jobs-are-great....

Last Updated April 21, 2015.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JANUARY 17, 2014

CONTACTS: See below  

 

NEW YORK – Today, Mayor Bill de Blasio and newly elevated City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito jointly announced their intention to expand the Earned Sick Time law passed last year with support from the NY Paid Sick Days Coalition.  

Specifically, their proposal will close the following loopholes in the Earned Sick Time Act:

Employers with 5-14 workers must now provide paid sick days to their workers.   Employers with 15-19 workers must provide paid sick days immediately rather than waiting until 2015.   Workers may now use their earned sick time to care for a sibling, grandchild or grandparent.   Certain manufacturing employees previously left out will now be covered by the law.   City agencies will now be able to proactively enforce the law rather than relying solely on worker complaints.    

The NY Paid Sick Days coalition includes over ninety organizational members, representing labor unions, public health organizations, educators and children’s advocates, women’s groups, economic justice groups, civil rights leaders, faith leaders, business owners and associations, research organizations, senior advocates, and immigrants’ rights groups.  

QUOTES FROM COALITION MEMBERS

Center for Popular Democracy:

The following quote can be attributed to Amy Carroll, deputy director of the Center for Popular Democracy:  

“We applaud Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito for championing and expanding the Earned Sick Time Act. It signals a new day for New York workers and their families that their needs will come first in this administration. We look forward to working with the administration and the council to create policy that will close the income gap and create a more affordable, inclusive city for everyone.” 32BJ SEIU:

The following quote can be attributed to Hector Figueroa, president of 32BJ Service Employees International Union:  

“We applaud Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito for making good on their campaign promises to expand the Paid Sick Act. Although our members can afford to get sick, many of their family members and their neighbors have been forced to choose between their health and their livelihoods. This bill is an important first step in the fight for real income equality in this city and we look forward to working with the administration to make sure this bill and others aimed at improving the quality of life for New York’s working families become law.”   

A Better Balance:

The following quote can be attributed to Sherry Leiwant, co-president of A Better Balance:

“A Better Balance is thrilled that the Mayor is expanding the Earned Sick Time Act we helped negotiate last year to provide paid sick days to so many of the workers excluded under that law.  Thank you to Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito for recognizing that  New Yorkers should not be forced to choose between their jobs and their own or their family's health."

 

Community Service Society:

The following quote can be attributed to David R. Jones, president and CEO of the Community Service Society:  

"Amending the paid sick leave law to cover more of New York City's smaller businesses is critical because employees of these businesses are the ones who most often now lack access to even one paid sick day. Our latest Unheard Third data shows that the original law effectively leaves out more than a third of the workers now without a single paid sick day -- and just gives them job protection in the form of unpaid leave. CSS applauds the mayor and speaker for their efforts to create a more stable and healthier workforce while ensuring that more low-wage workers receive a basic labor standard that most higher-income earners take for granted."  

Make the Road New York:

Leonardo Fernando, member of Make the Road New York, is an immigrant worker originally from Mexico. He works at a car wash in Queens and he said: "I have lived and worked in this country for nine years, and I've never had paid sick days. The business where I work now, Fresh Pond Car Wash, would be covered under this new paid sick days law because it has thirteen employees. We work long shifts, in the heat and the cold, and we use hazardous chemicals. But I never take a day off, even when I'm sick, because I have four children to support and I can't afford to miss a day's pay or risk losing my job. I've gone to work with a fever and with the flu, and I'm so happy that I'll be able to take the day off when I'm too sick to work. I would like to thank Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council for expanding the paid sick days law and making this one of the new administration's first priorities."  

New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO:

The following quote is attributable to Vincent Alvarez, President of the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO: "A healthy workforce is a more dedicated and focused workforce. I applaud Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Vivierito for taking this step in the right direction toward expanding the historic Earned Sick Time law that was passed last year, and making it a real priority to improve conditions for hundreds of thousands of our city's workers. The New York City labor movement is committed to continuing to work with the Mayor and the Speaker to ensure that our city's workers are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. "  

New York Paid Leave Coalition:

The following quote can be attributed to Martha Baker, New York Paid Leave Coalition:  

“The NYC Paid Sick Days Coalition applauds Mayor de Blasio for proposing amendments to the recently passed Earned Sick Time Act that will provide paid sick days on April 1, 2014 to hundreds of thousands of workers not covered by the original bill.  We are delighted that the bill has been expanded and that the Mayor recognizes how important it is that New York City workers have access to paid sick days.”  

Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York:

The following quote can be attributed to Daisy Chung, executive director of the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York:  

"We are pleased that Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito are moving quickly to give more workers the right to paid sick days. With these changes, many restaurant workers who work in the city's smaller restaurants will now have the right to paid sick days. We look forward to working with the Mayor and Speaker to strengthen the Earned Sick Time Act even further so it can be used as a model for the rest of the country."  

Working Families Party:

The following quote can be attributed to Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party:  

"This is the first sign of what the new administration could mean for New York. Mayor de Blasio has done what every sensible New Yorker knows he should, and he didn't waste any time. The expansion of paid sick days delivers on a basic tenet of fairness -- that no one should face a choice between their families, their jobs, or their health."  

CONTACTS:

Meredith Kolodner, 32BJ SEIU: 917-881-3896

Sherry Leiwant, A Better Balance, 917-535-0075

TJ Helmstetter, Center for Popular Democracy: 973-464-9224

Jeff Maclin, Community Service Society: 212-614-5538

Hilary Klein, Make the Road New York: 347-423-8277

Cara Noel, NY Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO: 212.604.9552

Martha Baker, NY Paid Leave Coalition: 917-992-5300

Rahul Saksena, Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York: 203-561-2959

Khan Shoieb, Working Families Party: 347-596-6389

There might be no issue that splits so neatly along party lines as climate change. While Democrats have all but consensed on the existence of man-made global warming, Republicans have staked out their place as the party of denial. But with climate-fueled chaos on the horizon, trumping Trump’s climate plan may not be enough to stave off the end of the world as we know it—and progressive activists are looking for more ambition on their side of the aisle. 

First, the bad. At this year’s Republican National Convention, the GOP’s drive to drill baby drill toward an “all of the above” energy policy yielded chilling results.

Take the GOP’s climate and energy platform, an extremist document—even for them—that calls for more pipelines, a cancellation of the Clean Power Plan, the United States’ total withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement and the end of the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon dioxide and just about anything else, morphing it into “an independent [and toothless] bipartisan commission.”

Others fused energy policy with Trumpian law-and-order nationalism: “Every onerous regulation puts American lives at risk,” Harold Hamm, a fracking mogul and Trump’s pick for energy secretary, said Wednesday. “Developing America’s own oil supply is a matter of national security.”

And official RNC proceedings were dotted with panels on energy sponsored by the likes of the American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying outfit for the fossil fuel industry. At one such event, Congressman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) voiced a myth popular among her colleagues: “The earth is no longer warming, and has not for the about past 13 years, in fact it has begun to cool.”

Squared with any climate science worth its peer review, the GOP’s plan is a recipe for literal disaster. This year will likely be the hottest on record, and recent research shows that thanks to ramped-up melting, Greenland lost a trillion tons of ice from 2011 to 2014.

Rising temperatures could cost the global economy some $2 trillion by 2030, around the time when coastal cities might become virtually uninhabitable. By stripping the government of its ability to scale back the emissions fueling these trends, the Republican platform might well kill us all—or at least force us inland.

But is the Democrats’ plan much better? When it comes to climate change, there’s precious little time for lesser evils; the physics—as scientists are quick to tell us—has put humanity on a deadline. Next week, thousands will converge on the Democratic National Convention to enforce it.

Articulating climate change as “an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time,” the Democratic platform sets out a series of ambitious goals on climate for the next half-century: a full transition to clean energy by 2050, creating millions of well-paying green jobs, fulfilling the Paris Agreement for a 1.5 degree Celsius global cap on warming, pricing both carbon and methane, and abandoning the “all of the above” stance Democrats wrote into their platform in 2012.

The issue, climate organizers say, is that the plan says next to nothing about how to get there. Though the platform benefitted from input of climate hawks like Bill McKibben, Keith Ellison and Cornel West, many of the strongest environmental protections brought up in the drafting process were struck down. Food and Water Watch National Organizing Director Mark Schlosberg noted that, among other shortcomings, the document failed to ban fracking, reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership or commit to keeping fossil fuels buried.

Not only that, but Clinton’s staffers have made pains to distinguish the party’s plans from her own, which are focused largely on market-based clean energy incentives and a handful of regulations. If the Democrats’ own nominee won’t champion her party’s policy slate, pushing beyond it will be no easy task.

Despite its flaws, the Democrats’ platform remains the most ambitious the party has produced to date. But meeting its relatively lofty benchmarks would require rapid cuts to current fossil fuel use, and a virtual moratorium on new pipelines, drilling projects, coal-fired power plants and fuel export terminals—none of which are included to sufficient degree in either the document or Clinton’s own agenda. Even if every national commitment outlined in the Paris Agreement is met, the world is still on track for around 3 degrees of warming. A recent report from Nature, moreover, finds that “the window for limiting warming to below 1.5 C … seems to have closed.” Meeting that now, researchers say, would require the use of some magically efficient (and currently non-existent) technology to suck carbon out of the atmosphere.

The Democrats’ platform, Schlosberg explains, “Contains some good language [on climate change] … and calls for a World War II-scale mobilization to address it. But the rest of the platform doesn’t live up to what is necessary to implement that. …

“We need to put forward an affirmative vision of what [a low-carbon world] should look like,” he adds, “not just what we can bargain for.”

Party platforms, at day’s end, are symbolic documents—more of a temperature gauge on the party’s mainstream than a commitment that it will do what it says. Even the “strongest climate change platform ever,” as the Guardian called the Democrats’ plan, leaves a dangerous gap between science and policy.

That’s part of the reason why—on Sunday—Food and Water Watch, with the support of some 900 sponsoring organizations, is hosting a March for a Clean Energy Revolution through downtown Philadelphia, just hours before the convention is set to begin. Joined by the Center for Popular Democracy, National Nurses United, the Labor Network for Sustainability and others, the march will invite thousands to call for everything from a ban on fracking to keeping fossil fuels underground.

Also on the ground next week will be Nay’Chelle Harris, a member of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) and something called the It Takes Root People’s Caravan. A redux, of sorts, of a delegation of organizers who attended the Paris climate talks back in December, the caravan has been bringing together “grassroots Indigenous, Latin@, Black, Asian, Muslim and working class white organizers from around the country” to plan and support actions in Cleveland, Philadelphia and points in between.

This week they joined the immigrant rights’ group Mijente outside the RNC to “wall off Trump,” and in Philly will participate in actions to shut down an immigration detention center and stop the expansion of a South Philadelphia oil refinery. Like Harris, many “caravanistas” work at the intersections of racial, immigration and climate justice. They kicked off their trip with a Pledge of Resistance “to stand against the racism, misogyny and hateful and xenophobic policies being put forth at the Republican National Convention.” Climate justice, they say, won’t come without victory on other fronts as well.

Having first gotten involved in MORE’s campaign against coal company Peabody Energy as a student at Washington University in St. Louis, Harris started devoting more time to the group after Michael Brown’s killing in nearby Ferguson in the summer of 2014. MORE provided jail support to protesters arrested in Ferguson that summer, and since then has worked on a project mapping out the connections between St. Louis power brokers—including Peabody Energy, headquartered there—and the city’s police department. “Power Behind the Police,” as the project is known, looks to target the “St. Louis 1%” while building out a people’s agenda for a just transition away from fossil fuels and police violence alike.

“We need to confront the GOP, and confront Trump and his rhetoric,” Harris told me by phone from Cleveland. “But we also need to confront the DNC—they have been pushing militarism, they have been pushing market-based, false solutions to climate change. They haven’t shown real dedication to ending violence against black people.” Carbon taxes and trading schemes have been a favorite not just of progressives but also free market ideologues, whose proposed version of the carbon tax would swap corporate regulations for a price on oil and coal. (Former Bush economist N. Gregory Mankiw is a fan of the idea, along with ExxonMobil.) Many in the caravan, on the other hand, see such elite-driven, market-based proposals as a cynical way to stave off the kinds of strong regulations that might actually put a dent in the fossil fuel industry’s business model, and protect communities on extraction’s frontlines.

Schlosberg and Harris each said that taking on such false solutions, and securing a better climate plan, would take more coordination among movements across issues. Harris joins many millennials, too, in her frustration with politics as usual as a path toward that, saying she “doesn’t feel beholden to the Democratic Party.” But she is also part of a tide of grassroots organizers who see electoral fights as a field of struggle in pushing movements’ demands, along with mobilizations and other forms of pressure from outside of formal politics—like demonstrations happening in Philadelphia next week.

“We can’t depend on the political system,” Harris told In These Times. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use every avenue for change we have at our disposal.” She referenced two local St. Louis politicians—Democrats Megan Green and Rasheen Aldridge—as examples of what it looks like for officials to run on platforms and govern on platforms that are accountable to activists. Green, an alderwoman, and Aldridge—now running for Democratic Committeeman in the city’s fifth ward—have each used their campaigns to push for demands brought forth by the movement for black lives and Fight for $15.

“I don’t think anyone should consider a party to be their savior,” Harris added, whether it’s the Democrats or the Green Party. “What matters now is people power.”

By KATE ARONOFF 

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