Passenger with ALS Calls Out Sen. Jeff Flake on Tax Vote, DACA
Passenger with ALS Calls Out Sen. Jeff Flake on Tax Vote, DACA
Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake recently has been masquerading as a Republican with a heart, someone willing to...
Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake recently has been masquerading as a Republican with a heart, someone willing to stand up to Donald Trump and others in the GOP whose lack of principles is tearing the country apart.
Flake recently wrote a check for a whopping $100 to support Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones in Alabama. He claims to have secured political promises from the Trump administration over DACA, which protects immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. (The White House denies there are any deals.)
Read the full article here.
Jeff Flake Explains Why He Called for a Delay on the Kavanaugh Vote
Jeff Flake Explains Why He Called for a Delay on the Kavanaugh Vote
As for Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher, the women who confronted him in the elevator, Flake said their...
As for Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher, the women who confronted him in the elevator, Flake said their intervention was “poignant,” but that he believed “some of their concern was how Kavanaugh would rule on the court. They may have been there prior to the allegations against him because of his position on some issues.”
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Victoria's Secret on-call policy remains under wraps
In the face of a legal challenge in California and a probe by the New York State attorney general, underwear purveyor...
In the face of a legal challenge in California and a probe by the New York State attorney general, underwear purveyor Victoria's Secret is said to have pulled the plug on a controversial labor practice known as on-call scheduling.
BuzzFeed reported the chain informed employees on Monday that it would no longer require its workers be available for shifts that could then be canceled with little notice and zero pay.
Victoria's Secret, one of five brands run by Columbus, Ohio-based L Brands (LB), on Tuesday said it was working on a response to the online publication's story but was not yet ready to do so seven hours after being called for comment.
In addition to Victoria's Secret, L Brands operates Bath and Body Works, La Senza, Victoria's Secret PINK and Henri Bendel. The company rang up $11.5 billion in sales in 2014 and runs nearly 3,000 specialty stores in the U.S.
"It feels like a safe bet to say that Victoria Secret's is feeling pressure," Elianne Farhat, deputy campaign director for the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, said. "We've seen a growing demand across the country for fair schedules because of the extreme chaos it creates."
Workers and labor activists say on-call scheduling can create havoc for livelihoods and personal lives, with the unpredictable hours making tasks such as taking classes, working another part-time job and covering child care difficult.
The practice of having on-call shifts has historically involved professions including emergency and medical workers, "but they are fairly compensated," Farhat said. "Over the last 10 years, as the retail sector has become the source of many jobs in our economy. It has seen the increased use of on-call scheduling."
If Victoria's Secret is shelving the on-call practice, "they are probably doing it to err on the side of caution, and not spend the time or money litigating the issue," said Los Angeles attorney Laura Reathaford, a partner at Venable who specializes in management-side employment issues. "California is a very employee-friendly state -- it's a very litigious state too."
If the company is indeed discontinuing the system, it would be offering some of what is sought in a lawsuit pending against the retailer in California.
"We're suing to recoup wages, and we're also seeking to put an end to the practice," David Leimbach, an attorney at Marlin & Saltzman, said of the litigation filed on behalf of two former Victoria Secret workers.
The complaint was filed on July 9, 2014, and the proposed class includes all individuals who worked at Victoria's Secret in California from July 9, 2010, to the present. L Brands told the court the proposed class numbered around 20,000, Leimbach said.
The federal judge presiding over the case dismissed the workers' claim that they were entitled to compensation under the state's reporting-time-pay law for on-call shifts for which they did not have to show up for work. But he also granted the two the right to appeal, saying the question of on-call shifts presented a question of law that could go either way.
"I can see the judge's point, no one really showed up, no one took the bus only to turn around and go home," Reathaford said.
"The district court dismissed that one claim, but said it's something the 9th circuit should immediately consider," Leimbach said.
Beyond the pending suit, no-call scheduling is drawing the attention of the New York state attorney general's office, which in April sent letters to 13 retailers, including Victoria's Secret, seeking information about their scheduling practices. A spokesman on Tuesday said the AG's office had no further comment.
And San Francisco next week begins enforcing an ordinance that requires major retailers give at least 24 hours notice to workers when changing or canceling shifts, or give them at least two hours of pay. The measure, which took effect in January, applies to retailers with at least 20 stores worldwide and 20 or more employees in San Francisco.
Source: CBS News
Activist With ALS Spearheads Campaign To Punish Lawmakers Who Voted For Tax Law
Activist With ALS Spearheads Campaign To Punish Lawmakers Who Voted For Tax Law
The campaign will involve using digital persuasion ads and get-out-the-vote efforts to vote out incumbents who...
The campaign will involve using digital persuasion ads and get-out-the-vote efforts to vote out incumbents who supported the tax law. Barkan and his team are still developing their strategy, but they plan to focus on congressional races in eight districts around the country. They will be campaigning in Arizona, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.
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“These Disasters Aren’t Natural Anymore”: A Dispatch from Puerto Rico After Maria
“These Disasters Aren’t Natural Anymore”: A Dispatch from Puerto Rico After Maria
Several weeks ago, Puerto Rico avoided a direct hit from Hurricane Irma, which shifted north at the last minute. But...
Several weeks ago, Puerto Rico avoided a direct hit from Hurricane Irma, which shifted north at the last minute. But Hurricane Maria hit head on, and has left a humanitarian crisis in its wake. Power on the island could be out for as long as six months, and many parts of the island have yet to be contacted.
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Metro Phoenix Woman Fights For Toys R Us Workers' Severance Pay
Metro Phoenix Woman Fights For Toys R Us Workers' Severance Pay
Auerbach got mad and got moving. With the help of two groups, Rise Up Retail and Center for Popular Democracy, she...
Auerbach got mad and got moving. With the help of two groups, Rise Up Retail and Center for Popular Democracy, she joined other former employees to lobby politicians in Washington, D.C., and to march into the lobbies of companies they hold responsible.
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Charter Schools Fail: New Reports Call Their ‘Magic’ Into Question
Education Opportunity Network - May 7, 2014, by Jeff Bryant - When members of the U.S. House of Representatives...
Education Opportunity Network - May 7, 2014, by Jeff Bryant - When members of the U.S. House of Representatives consider, beginning today, a bill to incentivize the expansion of charter schools, you can expect there to be a lot of heat but not very much light in their discussion of the need for more of these institutions.
The bipartisan bill, HR 10, is “likely to pass,” according to the experienced observers at Education Week. And “amid lots of cross-aisle fist-bumping,” there is apt to be “a much glitzier rollout, with lots of floor speeches about the power of charters to help disadvantaged kids. Debate is also expected to begin Thursday and final passage could happen Friday.”
In today’s climate of trumped up political truisms (remember “deficit hysteria?”), the supposed necessity of charter schools is just the latest one to hit The Hill.
In even the most casual treatments of education, charter schools are now regarded by many as a given “improvement.” New York Times columnists David Leonhardt illustrated this intellectual nonchalance the other day, writing for the paper’s magazine, that our nation’s “once-large international lead in educational attainment has vanished,” but “there are some reasons for optimism in education” – principally, “charter schools” that “offer some lessons about what works and doesn’t in K-12.”
Echoing Leonhardt in the halls of Congress, Senator Mary Landrieu (D, LA) recently harangued U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan during a Senate committee meeting for not giving enough federal financial support to charter schools. According to the report from Education Week, she “chided Duncan for proposing level funding for the federal charter program.” Said Landrieu, “We gave you billions of dollars for traditional public schools. You’ve given a very small amount of money for public high performing charters. The evidence is in, they work.”
Even the President himself declared this week National Charter School Week in a proclamation claiming charter schools “show what is possible.”
The fact that the House vote on the HR 10 coincides with the president’s designation of a special week for charters tells you the marketing campaign for these schools has been very carefully orchestrated.
But upsetting the ad campaign are a number of recent revelations showing that among “what is possible” from charter schools is a lot of bad education, ridiculous hype, wasted resources, and widespread corruption.
For sure – and let’s get this straight from the get go – there are always a few “charter school success stories” that can be cherry picked from the tree, but that’s not the point. After all, imagine an advocate for traditional public schools pleading his case saying, “But look at this great public school over here.” He’d be mocked in the media and shamed by politicians. The point is that after years of studies about charter schools, there is not really any definitive proof of any “charter magic” they bring to the field.
In the meantime, look at what’s being introduced . . .
Spreading Bad Education
Opening the truth telling about charter schools was a recent study from the Economic Policy Institute on a call for public schools to be replaced by charter schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee, you should note, is the city that has experienced the nation’s longest running experiment, more than 20 years, with charter schools and vouchers as replacements for traditional public schools. The consensus view is that charter schools in Milwaukee do no better than the public schools they replace, and many of the charter schools that perform the worst are never held accountable and continue to remain open after years of failure.
Despite this humble track record for charters in Milwaukee, the EPI report “Do Poor Kids Deserve Lower-Quality Education Than Rich Kids? Evaluating School Privatization Proposals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” explores the latest demand from state officials who are for “enamored with a new type of charter school represented by the Rocketship chain of schools.”
The study’s author, Gordon Lafer, looked closely at Rocketship’s practices and found “everything is built around the tests.” However, tests scores for students in the Rocketship programs – as measured by California’s Academic Performance Index (where Rocketship is primarily based) – have declined by just over 10 percent from 2008–2009 to 2012–2013. “Indeed, in 2012–2013, all seven of the Rocketship schools failed to make adequate yearly progress according to federal standards.”
Despite this poor performance, Rocketship executives are bent on an “unshakeable pursuit of large-scale growth.” But instead of good education practice, what drives the Rocketship model is profit. As the report explained, along with a test-driven instructional method, the Rocketship model relies heavily on substituting extensive online instruction for personal instruction from teachers. However, this model leads to clear conflicts of interest when the charter network partners with its own for-profit providers of curricula, and two leaders of the charter venture both sit on Rocketship’s Board and are primary investors in a for-profit company that provides the math curriculum used by Rocketship.
Thus, as Lafer concluded in his report, “Rocketship promotes itself as a dynamic learning organization, and indeed the company is continually experimenting. However, its innovation appears to be restricted within specific boundaries: It seems that it will not adopt education reforms that have no potential to make money for investors.”
This profit over pedagogy mentality “would likely be prohibited as illegal conflicts of interest if they took place in a public school system,” but, “Rocketship is not bound to uphold the same standard of ethics demanded of public officials.”
Is this really a model of schooling we want spread across America?
Engaging In Marketing Hype
Another outcome of the push for charter schools is the circulation of unfounded and unwarranted rhetoric to support them. Demands for more charter schools, and more money for charter schools, are often justified by suspect information masquerading as “research” and inflated arguments about their financial needs.
Two recent examples of the hype machine behind charter schools were, first, a new report arguing for more money for charter schools and, second, the annual ritual of circulating figures representing a charter school “waitlist.”
The report calling for more funds for charter schools found that in 2011, charter schools received $3,059 less per student than traditional public schools. “Shocking,” wrote one of the report authors on his personal blog.
But as education journalist Joy Rosmovits noted at The Huffington Post, the report came from a University of Arkansas endeavor “funded by the Walton Foundation, a group associated with Walmart that aggressively uses its philanthropy to spur the creation of new charter schools. (The foundation also funded the report, which contains a disclaimer that its findings “[do] not necessarily reflect” the group’s views.)”
Further, as charter schools expert and Western Michigan University professor Gary Miron explained to a blogger for Education Week, “This is not research that’s helping draw good policies.” As it turns out, based on the data, charter schools often get less money because they don’t provide many of the services traditional public schools do, in particular, special education services, student support services such as counseling and health, vocational education, and transportation.
In fact, according to the writer, “Miron found that charters have a cost advantage,” especially when there is a thorough accounting of “considerable money that comes into charters from private sources.”
And about that extensive charter school wait list? Like clockwork, the numbers were indeed released, showing, supposedly, over a million students champing at the bit to get into charter schools. Fortunately, just prior to the release, a report from the National Education Policy Center warned, “While there are undoubtedly many students who wish to enroll in popular charter schools and are unable, the overall waitlist numbers are almost certainly much lower than the estimates.”
The report, ” Wait, Wait. Don’t Mislead Me! Nine Reasons to Be Skeptical About Charter Waitlist Numbers,” caution that the methods for obtaining the waitlist data are not transparent, there’s no means of verifying the results, and waitlist record-keeping is chronically unreliable – for instance, charters often count as “waiting” applicants who apply to enter into grade levels for which charters provide no entry. Also, a small number of very popular charters disproportionately account for the charter waitlists, while traditional public schools – which are not allowed to turn away applicants or, as with popular magnet schools, offer selective enrollment – are not given a “meaningful comparison” in the charter school data.
So as charter proponents continue to inflate their cause, the facts continue to deflate it. Maybe we’ve had enough of this shameless hype?
Wasting Resources, Spreading Corruption
Last but hardly least, a blockbuster report released by Integrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy revealed, “Fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are responsible for losing, misusing or wasting over $100 million in taxpayer money.”
The report, “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud And Abuse,” combed through news stories, criminal records, and other documents to find hundreds of cases of charter school operators embezzling funds, using tax dollars to illegally support other, non-educational businesses, taking public dollars for services they didn’t provide, inflating their enrollment numbers to boost revenues, and putting children in potential danger by foregoing safety regulations or withholding services.
“Despite rapid growth in the charter school industry,” the report contended, “no agency, federal or state, has been given the resources to properly oversee it. Given this inadequate oversight, we worry that the fraud and mismanagement that has been uncovered thus far might be just the tip of the iceberg.”
In a write up of the report at Bill Moyers and Company, Joshua Holland wrote, “The report looks at problems … with dozens of case studies. In some instances, charter operators used tax dollars to prop up side businesses like restaurants and health food stores — even a failing apartment complex.”
At her blog at The Washington Post, Valerie Strauss cited some of the most egregious examples including a Washington, DC-based charter that used public tax dollars to cover travel-related expenses, membership dues and dinner tabs at an exclusive club, and slew of bills from sources as diverse as wine and liquor stores, Victoria’s Secret, and a shop in France frequented by the charter school operator and his wife.
A state auditor in Ohio found nearly $3 million in unsubstantiated expenses amassed by a charter in that state. Another operator in Milwaukee “spent about $200,000 on personal expenses, including cars, funeral arrangements and home improvement.” And yet another in California pleaded guilty to “stealing more than $7.2 million worth of computers from a government program.”
The report concluded with recommendations for policy makers to adopt to curb these abuses, including
Rigorous oversight from officials solely dedicated to charters and an annual auditing process. Increased transparency through public access to records, meetings, and documents and required disclosure of finances and vendor relationships. Stricter governance from board members who live in reasonable proximity of where charter schools operate and who are accountable to the public.Given the situation, these recommendations seem all too reasonable.
Time For This Truism To Die
Despite these urgent and well-founded calls for a change in direction on charter schools, public officials still seem intent on pursuing bad policy.
In New York, new changes in state laws allowing an unfettered charter industry to expand are leading to a “charter school gold rush.”
In Pennsylvania, credit-rating agency Moody’s has warned that charter expansions promoted by the state endanger the financial livelihood of Philadelphia Public Schools, the state’s largest school district.
And inside the Beltway, Members of Congress, U.S. Senators, and state governors are feted by the well-financed backers of charter schools as being “champions” of good education.
But with these recent disclosures, and others that are sure to come, about the reality of charter schools, there’s every reason to believe that a tipping point in the debate over their fate is drawing nigh.
Source
Report Says Minnesota's Job Boom Has Skipped Minorities
Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal - March 6, 2015, by Mark Riley - Minnesota's unemployment rate for black job-...
Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal - March 6, 2015, by Mark Riley - Minnesota's unemployment rate for black job-seekers is four times the rate for whites, according to a new report that calls on the Federal Reserve to keep rates low until the job market recovers for minorities.
WCCO has a story on the report, released by the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy, and talks with Neighborhoods Organizing for Change Executive Director Anthony Newby. "We're told that Minnesota is one of the best places in the country to live if you want a job, and that's true if you're a white person," he said.
Statewide, the unemployment rate for African Americans is 11.7 percent, compared to 3.2 percent for whites.
You can download a PDF of the the full report here.
The numbers highlight some of the same criticisms leveled at a recent Atlantic piece about the " Miracle of Minneapolis". That article focused on the economic might and resiliency of the market, but didn't include racial breakdowns — something that was immediately called out by the Washington Post and others
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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.
Report: Charter Schools Pose $54M Fraud Risk
Utica Observer-Dispatch - December 13, 2014, by Alissa Scott - Charter schools have been accused of posing a $54...
Utica Observer-Dispatch - December 13, 2014, by Alissa Scott - Charter schools have been accused of posing a $54 million fraud risk to taxpayers, according to a new report.
The Alliance for Quality Education said vulnerabilities in the state’s charter system potentially could cause millions of dollars in fraud this year alone.
“There’s two parts of operating a charter,” said Kyle Serrette, director of the Education Center for Popular Democracy. “You need good educators — you have to provide academics — and you also need to know how to run a business. … What we’re seeing is folks that don’t know how to do either.”
Jessica Mokhiber, communications director of the Northeast Charter Schools Network, doesn’t agree with the report.
“Charter schools in New York are the most accountable public schools there are,” she said. “If they don’t perform, they close. Each year they are subject to outside audits. If they mismanage their finances, they close.”
The Utica Academy of Science, the city’s sole charter school, declined to comment on the report. Kelly Gaggin, chief communications officer of Science Academies of New York Charter Schools, said the school wants to wait until the comptroller report — the first audit it’s had since its founding two years ago — is released.
She said this will allow the school to “provide current examples and direct correlations that illustrate the checks and balances that are implemented to eliminate opportunities for malfeasance and provide exceptional stewardship of funds.”
They expect the report to be released early next year.
The AQE report found that 24 percent of charter schools in New York have been audited. The Comptroller’s Office audits about 2 percent every year, it said.
Part of what the agency is recommending is to have schools audited regularly with an external system to catch any internal flaws.
“A school could have not committed fraud in 2010, but they did in 2014,” Serrette said. “We’re spending $1.5 billion on charter schools. We need a system in place that makes sure those dollars are reported in some correct way.”
The most alarming part, Serrette said, is that 95 percent of the time the comptroller checked into a charter school’s finances, he found issues — some really bad, some just sloppiness.
Mokhiber said to “consider the source of the report.”
“These are groups who are trying every trick in the book to deny school choice to parents who have no other option,” Mohkiber said.
“The Utica Academy of Science charter school was started by the founders of the Syracuse Academy of Science charter school, which is a highly successful school with a track record of academic achievement,” Mohkiber said. “The Utica school is providing families with another public school option. The school emphasizes a science and technology education in a college prep setting, which sets students up for success in college or career.”
Either way, Serrette said this is something taxpayers should be paying attention to. And while it would cost them more money to hire extra auditors to check on all of the state’s charter schools, it will save money in the long run.
“You could hire more auditors to look at charter schools for $5 million, but if you end up catching $10 million of mismanagement, you’re $5 million ahead,” Serrette said.
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6 days ago
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