CPD IN THE NEWS

On a sunny morning in early May, a wayward DART bus pulled to a stop in front of Paul Laurence Dunbar Learning Center in South Dallas. From the porches of tumbledown homes, neighbors glanced with mild curiosity as the school’s principal, Dionel Waters, stepped aboard. Waiting for him on the bus was an array of local dignitaries, including a city council member, a state representative, a U.S. Congressman, a Dallas County judge, and the guest of honor, Robert Kaplan, the president of the Dallas Fed. The riders had accepted an activist group's invitation to tour hardscrabble Dallas neighborhoods that remain untouched by the region’s booming economy.

Waters stood at the front of the idling bus with a microphone and described for Kaplan some of Dunbar’s challenges. The previous school year, all but two of the campus’ 594 students qualified as low-income. The median household income for the surrounding neighborhood, which borders the sprawling parking lots on Fair Park’s eastern edge, is around $10,000 per year. Broken families are the norm, as are parents with criminal records. Unemployment in the area is staggering, with only a third of working-age men and around 40 percent of working-age women with jobs, according to census data.

Then, Waters pivoted. Together with Hank Lawson, who works for the community development nonprofit Frazier Revitalization Inc., Waters described a vision for transformational change at Dunbar. With support from the Texas Organizing Project, which organized the bus tour, Dunbar would open the 2016-17 school year as Dallas ISD’s first ever “community school.”

Community schools are built on the idea that education doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Poverty levels, family structure, health and nutrition, emotional well-being, and all manner of other outside factors impact academic performance and school quality. Creating a better school, then, requires addressing not only what happens in the classroom but outside social and economic factors as well.

Exactly what a community school looks like depends on the specific needs of the individual school and the surrounding community. Generally speaking, though, the model emphasizes getting parents, community members and teachers greater input in campus decision-making; forging partnerships with local businesses and nonprofits to provide programming and services the school can’t; and finding non-punitive ways to address student behavior.

It is billed as a more humane alternative to No Child Left Behind-style school reform, which can punish poor and heavily minority schools for poor performance without doing much to address root causes.

Community schools are meant to be transformational. A report released in February by the Center for Popular Democracy profiled eight campuses and school districts across the country that have implemented the community schools model with tremendous success.

One of the more dramatic turnarounds took place in Austin. Webb Middle School, a perennially low-performing campus in a working class Hispanic neighborhood in northeast Austin, was on the brink of closure in 2007 when neighbors rallied and convinced the district to give them a final chance to save the school. They turned to the community schools model and crafted a detailed plan based on feedback from parents and neighbors.

The school restored music and art to the curriculum, adding band, orchestra and a dance troupe. The Boys and Girls Club began offering after-school programs. Another nonprofit provided college mentoring. A mobile clinic offered free immunizations and physicals. Other organizations provided parents help with employment, housing and health issues and offered them ESL classes.

Test scores climbed. So did enrollment. By 2015, Webb had gone from the worst middle school in the district to one of its best.

Waters and Lawson hoped something similar could happen at Dunbar, which had been placed on the state’s list of failing schools in the 2014-15 school year. So did Ed Turner, the Texas Organizing Project staffer who’d already spent months laying the groundwork and joined Waters and Lawson on the bus. And so, for that matter, did DISD administrators. Cynthia Wilson, Superintendent Michael Hinojosa’s chief of staff, told the Observer the following day that the district was supporting the community schools model in general and the Dunbar pilot in particular. “From our perspective, [it’s] a win-win,” she said.

On the bus, Kaplan nodded along as Waters spoke; turning Dunbar into a community school certainly seemed like a no-brainer.

But then, rather abruptly, DISD pulled the plug. Alendra Lyons, a community leader in the Dunbar neighborhood who both works at the school and serves on its site-based decision-making committee, was told at a committee meeting in June that the community schools pilot had been moved elsewhere.

Why, after months of planning and the showy presentation to the VIPs on the DART bus, the Dunbar project had been unceremoniously scrapped, Lyons couldn’t say, only that it definitely wasn’t happening.

DISD’s official explanation is, in a word, bureaucracy.

In a July 25 email, DISD spokesman Andre Riley said the community schools initiative had been moved from under Wilson and into the school leadership department.

Stephanie Elizalde, the chief of school leadership, said in a subsequent interview that she decided that John Neely Bryan Elementary in East Oak Cliff was a better fit for the pilot. Like Dunbar, John Neely Bryan is overwhelmingly low-income and has struggled academically, bouncing on and off the state’s list of failing schools. Last August, it received its second consecutive “improvement required” designation from the Texas Education Agency; a third would mean implementation of a “campus turnaround plan” and potentially drastic changes at the campus.

Unlike Dunbar, however, Bryan is part of DISD’s “Intensive Support Network,” two dozen struggling schools targeted by district administrators for special oversight. It also has a more seasoned principal. Elizalde describes Waters as “likeable, intelligent [but] also relatively inexperienced” – barely 30 with just two years as a principal under his belt. Elizalde felt that Bryan’s principal, DISD veteran Tonya Anderson, was better equipped to make the pilot a success.

For advocates of community schools, the stakes are high. A high-profile failure in the pilot could taint the model in DISD and cripple efforts to expand to other campuses. “That is what I don’t want to have happen,” Elizalde said. "I’ve got to think bigger picture."

But several people familiar with the discussions say Dunbar was the victim less of ordinary bureaucratic machinations but of DISD’s toxic internal politics. Specifically, they point to a long-simmering feud between the Texas Organizing Project and trustee Bernadette Nutall.

The rift dates back to efforts to rescue Dade Middle School, which, thanks to poor planning, sky-high turnover, and heavy-handed interventions by then-Superintendent Mike Miles, spun into chaos soon after it opened for the 2013-14 school year. The Texas Organizing Project was heavily involved in the turnaround effort, mobilizing parents and pushing DISD to make Dade the first of 20 community schools in the district. So, for that matter, was Nutall, who was famously removed from the campus following a confrontation with Miles.

By all accounts, the turnaround effort has been a success. There is much less agreement on whether Dade’s resurgence has more to do with the Texas Organizing Project’s community work, Nutall’s close oversight, or, alternately, a belatedly successful intervention by Miles, whose administration found a hyper-competent principal in Tracie Washington and offered the district’s best teachers a hefty salary bump to teach at Dade.

Nutall has bristled at the Texas Organizing Project’s credit-taking. In response to a KERA story this spring focused on the organization’s efforts to turn Dade and other campuses into community schools, Nutall sent an indignant email to trustee Miguel Solis, who was quoted in the piece broadly endorsing the community schools concept, and several DISD administrators saying Dade’s success had been “hijacked.”

Dade staff and community members had long been trying to have a meaningful role in the school, Nutall wrote, but they were consistently rebuffed by Miles and the previous campus administration.

“However, since the new administration has been in place, the staff, parents, students and community members have been able to implement the very same suggestions that were ignored before,” she wrote. “The results have been tremendous. Yet, they weren’t recognized for their efforts. Instead, they believe that their results have been hijacked in an effort to falsely attribute their success to a concept that had little to do with the results.”

In an interview, Nutall said she supports community schools but that there “has to be buy in from all parties.” That wasn’t present at Dade, and it wasn’t present at other campuses where Texas Organizing Project wanted to implement the model. “I understand them [the Texas Organizing Project] getting upset,” she said, adding that “they wanted the whole Lincoln-Madison feeder pattern.”

“I am not going to force something on principals and teachers,” Nutall said. “That is not good governance.”

At the same time, Nutall distanced herself from the decision to move the community schools pilot from Dunbar. The decision, Nutall said, was a judgment call by Elizalde and other DISD administrators.

Allison Brim, organizing director for the Texas Organizing Project, was also careful to downplay the friction between her group and Nutall.

“Essentially what happened, there had just been turnover in the administration,” Brim said.

In early 2016, former chief of school leadership Robert Bravo, with whom the Texas Organizing Project had been in discussions, was replaced by Elizalde. “She was very supportive of the community school concept but really wanted to reconsider where we were going to do the first pilot, which we were open to in some ways as well.”

John Neely Bryan, in everyone’s view, could benefit as much from the community schools model as Dunbar. Perhaps even more, given the comparative lack of outside resources directed at Bryan by churches and nonprofits.

“We were also interested in having full support from the trustee,” Brim said. She described Nutall as “supportive” of community schools but said that John Neely Bryan’s trustee, Lew Blackburn,”was pretty eager to find a school in his district” for a pilot.

In the end, for the Texas Organizing Project as well as for Elizalde, the most important thing “was really getting the opportunity to prove that this model was an effective, successful model for school turnaround,” Brim said.

All parties – Brim, Elizalde, and Nutall – were quick to say that the idea of turning Dunbar into a community school isn’t dead. Discussions are ongoing, and DISD and the Texas Organizing Project may well get around to implementing the model in the coming years.

Dunbar, after all, is still in sore need of a turnaround. State accountability ratings the Texas Education Agency will release in the coming days will show that Dunbar is on the state’s list of failing schools for the second consecutive year, which has made Elizalde rethink the decision to move the pilot.

“If I had a crystal ball and could have seen that Dunbar was going to wind up in [improvement required]-2 status," she said, "I would have left it there anyway.”

By ERIC NICHOLSON 

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Capital Tonight's Liz Benjamin interviews Center for Popular Democracy Policy Advocate Josie Duffy on the Scaffold Law. For more information on how the construction industry safety standards elude workers of color, read CPD's report "Fatal Inequality."

 

 

April 16, 2018

 

Alexander R. Mehran

Chair of the Board

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

 

Dear Mr. Mehran:

We are writing to offer you our view about the urgency of appointing an individual who deeply understands the economic realities facing working class Americans to serve as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

For all of the dynamism and strength of the US economy, it has come to be characterized most fundamentally by enormous disparities in wealth, income and opportunity that strongly correlate to race, ethnicity and geography. Failing to address significant disparities in income and net worth between major segments of our population, and particularly in segments that are driving our nation’s demographic growth, will result in a less globally competitive US economy. This is a significant economic risk for the 12th District and the United States.

The San Francisco Fed will be strengthened by having a President whose experience and expertise better reflect the large segments of our population that are not proportionally experiencing the benefits of our economy. Ensuring that this expertise and perspective is represented within the Fed is a critical way to prepare for the challenges and opportunities in our economic future. This will require considering candidates with more diverse experience including in the fields of community development and philanthropy. We submit that the San Francisco Fed has a historic opportunity to name the first Hispanic, East Asian American or Pacific Islander President of a Federal Reserve Bank.

We applaud Chairman Powell's insightful comments on the necessity for diversity in Federal Reserve System and the larger economics profession. In his testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on November 28th, 2017, he stated, “We make better decisions when we have diverse voices around the table—both at the Board of Governors and at the Reserve Banks…We’ve seen what works. It’s about recruiting. It’s about going out of your way. It’s about bringing people in. Once they’re in, it’s about giving them paths for success. And it’s about having an overall culture and company that is very focused on diversity and sticks with that focus for a long period of time. That works.” This recognition must be coupled with bold leadership and action.

In order to decide the course of monetary policy through an informed assessment of different regional economic conditions from diverse points of view, the Federal Reserve System was designed to be decentralized, independent and include representatives of the public in its governance. The Fed’s mission is undermined when regional Reserve Banks fail to recruit leaders who live up to the mandate to “represent the public.” Selections that fail to allow meaningful opportunities for public input and engagement have tended to result in the elevation of Fed insiders. This insularity undermines the Fed’s public credibility and increases the likelihood that Congress will ultimately intervene to reform the process. The process for selecting the President of the New York Fed perpetuated the status quo. We urge the San Francisco Fed to avoid the same mistake. As a first step, we call on the San Francisco Fed to include the Chair of its own Community Advisory Board in the official selection committee for the next President.

Please accept this letter as an offer of support. We will do anything we can to help identify strong candidates as well as to publicly support actions that the San Francisco Fed takes to ensure progress on diversifying its Board of Directors and executive leadership.

Thank you for your service to the 12th District and our nation.

Respectfully submitted,

California Reinvestment Coalition Center for Popular Democracy Chicanos Por La Causa Community Council of Idaho Greenlining Institute NALCAB – National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development TELACU

cc: Jerome Powell, Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Lael Brainard, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Randal Quarles, Vice Chairman for Supervision, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve

 

San Francisco Fed Board Chair Alexander Mehran's April 20 Response to Coalition Outreach re: Collaboration Surrounding San Francisco Fed Presidential Appointment

April 20, 2018

Noel Poyo  Executive Director  National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders 5404 Wurzbach Rd.  San Antonio, TX 78238    Dear Mr. Poyo:    Thank you for your letter of April 16, 2018, concerning the appointment of the next President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. We appreciate your taking the time to reach out and share your perspectives on this important undertaking. As Chair of the Board of Directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, I know that I speak for all of my board colleagues in saying that the appointment of a Federal Reserve Bank President is among our most important responsibilities and one that we take very seriously.    We share your desire to find a qualified candidate to fill this important role that understands and is able to represent the varied needs and interests of the richly diverse people and business communities throughout the Twelfth District. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has a legacy of success with regard to recruiting, developing and promoting women and minorities into leadership positions within its senior ranks. As you are well aware, Janet Yellen served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Bank from 2004 to 2010 before going on to become Vice Chair and later Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Under President Williams' leadership, the Bank continued to strengthen its focus on diversity and inclusion at all employee levels but particularly an10ng its leadership ranks where women now occupy over 30 percent and minorities over 45 percent of senior­level roles. In addition, President Williams established the Bank's Community Advisory Council in 2017 to give even stronger voice to those representing the district's underserved communities and to contribute to his ongoing economic analyses and monetary policy views.    The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has set a high bar for its executive leadership that we fully intend to uphold. Our board has not yet publicly communicated about the selection committee, job specifications or the processes that we will undertake to gather a list of qualified candidates for this important role. We expect to do so in the near future and will keep you apprised of our progress. For now, please know that we are absolutely committed to gathering input from various community and business leaders like you and your colleagues regarding the appointment of the next President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.    While I appreciate your suggestion to include Mr. Matsubayashi, who chairs the Bank's Community Advisory Council, as part of the official selection committee, the Federal Reserve Act stipulates that only the Class B and Class C directors (those not affiliated with banks or financial institutions) are eligible to participate in the appointment process. As such, Mr. Matsubayashi is unable to serve in this capacity. However, we recognize that he is doing an outstanding job leading the Community Advisory Council, and we would greatly value his input and suggestions, as well as input from you and your colleagues, regarding qualified candidates for this important role.    I wish to thank you once again for reaching out and offering your support of this important undertaking. We look forward to continuing this open, constructive dialogue, and with your support, doing all that we can to find the absolute best person from a diverse candidate pool to lead the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.    Sincerely,  Alexander R. Mehran Chair of the Board Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Federal Reserve Agent   cc: Danielle Beavers, Diversity and Inclusion Director, The Greenlining Institute  David Adame, President and Chief Executive Officer, Chicanos Por La Causa  Irma Morin, Chief Executive Officer, Community Council of Idaho  Jerome Powell, Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve  Jordan Haedtler, Campaign Manager, Fed Up, Center for Popular Democracy  Jose Villalobos, Senior Vice President, TELACU  Lael Brainard, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve  Orson Aguilar, President, The Greenlining Institute  Paulina Gonzalez, Executive Director, California Reinvestment Coalition  Randal Quarles, Vice Chairman for Supervision, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Seema Agnani, Executive Director, National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development      Coalition's Response to Chair Mehran's Letter

May 4, 2018

Alexander R. Mehran Chair of the Board Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Dear Mr. Mehran:

Thank you for your letter dated April 20 and for your commitment to finding a San Francisco Fed president who “understands and is able to represent the varied needs and interests of the richly diverse people and business communities throughout the Twelfth district.”

We  appreciate  that  the  San  Francisco  Federal  Reserve  Bank  has  shown  its  commitment  to  public representation by strengthening diversity among Reserve Bank staff.  Unfortunately, that commitment has not extended to the position of President. Similarly, diversity and public representation on the San Francisco   Fed’s   governing   board   remains   lacking.   The  Twelfth   District  is   one  of   the  most demographically  diverse  districts  in  the  country,  yet  a  recent  analysis  by  the  Center  for  Popular Democracy found that the San Francisco Fed’s board of directors is the least diverse in the Federal Reserve System.

Your letter indicated that it would not be possible to include a Community Advisory Council member on the search committee because “only the Class B and C directors (those not affiliated with banks or financial institutions) are eligible to participate in the appointment process.” We would like to clarify our   request   regarding   Mr.   Matsubayashi’s   inclusion.      Following   established   precedent,   Mr. Matsubayashi can play a critical advisory role on the search committee by suggesting, interviewing, and advising on candidates under consideration. We are not suggesting or expecting that he would have final decision-making authority over which candidate is ultimately chosen.

The Federal Reserve Act clearly designates Class B and C directors as the final arbiters of who serves as president of each Reserve Bank.  We do not agree that inclusion of a member of the public on the search  committee would  in  any  way  violate the  law.  We have consulted  with  legal experts  on  the Federal Reserve Act, and they concur. Whenever a regional Reserve Bank encounters a presidential vacancy, it is customary to hire an executive search firm to identify and vet candidates who can fill that vacancy. We posit that employees of those executive search firms are participating in the search process. In 2014, outgoing Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher solicited the participation of non-Class B/C directors when he reportedly convened an advisory committee consisting of former Dallas Fed chairmen to help choose his successor.2  Freedom of Information Act requests have also revealed that members  of  the  Board  of  Governors  have  occasionally  suggested  candidates  to  fill  Reserve  Bank presidential  vacancies,  thereby  going  beyond  the  final  approval  role  that  the  Federal  Reserve  Act prescribes  for  governors.  We  fail  to  see  how  the  inclusion  of  Mr.  Matsubayashi  on  the  search committee in an advisory capacity is distinguished from these other examples of involvement by non- Class B and C directors in recent Reserve Bank presidential selections.

In your letter of April 20th, you identified the establishment of the Community Advisory Council as an important step toward giving an “even stronger voice to those representing underserved communities,” in the District.  The Council includes individuals selected by the San Francisco Fed itself as credible representatives  of  diverse  communities.    If  the  San  Francisco  Fed  is  unwilling  to  find  a  way  to meaningfully include a leading member of that advisory council in the selection process for the next President, it is difficult to understand how underserved communities are truly gaining a stronger voice.

It is also difficult to be assured that people of color will be given due consideration for the position of President when communities of color and other important segments of the District’s population are not adequately reflected in the selection process. Despite clear calls for consideration of diverse candidates from members  of  Congress  and  the public,  the  last  two  Reserve Bank  presidential vacancies  have resulted in the selection of white, male, longtime Fed insiders.  Including the Chair of the San Francisco Fed’s Community Advisory Council on the search committee in San Francisco is an essential step to maintain the credibility of the selection process for the next President of the San Francisco Fed.

In light of this clarification, we respectfully request that you consider including the Chair of the San Francisco Fed’s Community Advisory Council in the search process in a manner consistent with the Federal Reserve Act.  If the San Francisco Fed chooses not to accept this recommendation, we would appreciate an explanation as to why.  Regardless of your decision, we look forward to your continued collaboration  as  you  take  on  the  important  responsibility  of  finding  a  qualified  candidate  to  fill  a policymaking role of crucial importance to the public.

Thank you for your service to the 12th  District and our nation.

Respectfully submitted,

California Reinvestment Coalition Greenlining Institute Center for Popular Democracy Community Council of Idaho Chicanos Por La Causa NALCAB – National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development TELACU

cc: Jerome Powell, Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Lael Brainard, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Randal Quarles, Vice Chairman for Supervision, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve

New York Law Journal – September 30, 2013, by Mark Hamblett and Jeff Storey -

Aiming to foster the rights of immigrants and to keep their families together, two legal services organizations, the Bronx Defenders and Brooklyn Defender Services, have been picked for a unique pilot project to represent indigent detainees facing deportation.

The two organizations will form the New York Immigrant Defenders, which will take on 166 cases in the next year at the Varick Street Immigration Court.

The program will be funded by a $500,000 grant made available by the New York City Council in June.

Robin Steinberg, executive director of the Bronx Defenders, said that her organization created an in-house immigration practice more than a decade ago when it realized that nearly one-third of its clients were facing adverse immigration consequences from even minor brushes with the law.

“The Bronx Defenders joining forces with the Brooklyn Defender Services to create NYID is a natural and necessary step in ensuring that all residents of New York City—no matter where they were born—have their day in court with lawyers who will fight for their right to stay here, with their families and in the communities they now call home,” she said in a statement.

Lisa Schreibersdorf, executive director of Brooklyn Legal Services, agreed that working with immigrants was “very much in line with our mission.”

Schreibersdorf said that she had told her daughter after the group’s selection Thursday that the new program was part of the most groundbreaking public defense development of her generation—the extension of the right to counsel to immigrants.

“This is a groundbreaking program. There is no program of this sort anywhere else in the country. It’s a program that aligns American values with the reality on the ground when it comes to immigrants and due progress,” said Angela Fernandez, executive director of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, one of the groups that advocated for creation of the program.

According to Brittny Saunders, senior staff attorney for the Center for Popular Democracy, another leading advocate for the effort, potential clients will be screened only for economic need, with anyone making under 200 percent of the poverty limit making the cut.

The poverty limit currently is $11,400 for a single person and $23,550 for a family of four.

Other factors, such as the strength of immigrant cases, will not be considered.

Oren Root of the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit and nonpartisan center for justice issues, said the program will stress the importance of keeping families together. In many cases, the detainee has lived in the country for years, is the family’s principal wage earner, serves as the caretaker for family members and has children born and raised in the United States.

The one-year pilot project will be administered by Vera, which will coordinate the delivery of legal services and analyze the data that emerges from the effort.

Root said that Vera is “thrilled” to be working with “such high-caliber, innovative organizations as Brooklyn Defender Services and the Bronx Defenders.”

Providing support for the effort to represent immigrant families has been the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Center at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

Most immigrants cannot afford representation, and attorneys and bar groups have become increasingly concerned about the dire consequences they face

Schreibersdorf said studies show that detainees with a lawyer are “more likely to identify valid immigration remedies.”

She cited one case of a 17-year-old on a minor offense handled by her agency. His attorney dug into the defendant’s family background and discovered that his parents had been naturalized, and thus he was a citizen himself.

“Without a lawyer, that kid would have been deported,” she said.

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