Minnesota’s other racial disparity: voting
Minnesota consistently ranks at the top in terms of voter turnout. It earns accolades for the quality and competence of...
Minnesota consistently ranks at the top in terms of voter turnout. It earns accolades for the quality and competence of its election administration. Recently Secretary of State Steve Simon challenged Minnesotans to register and vote so that the state can continue to be the leader when it comes to election turnout. Yet that high turnout comes with a racial gap that is among the worst in the country.
Minnesota is a land of racial disparities, such as in education. Minnesota Department of Education data point to blacks and other students of color scoring 30 points or more lower on achievement tests compared to whites. U.S. Department of Education data show Minnesota near the bottom of the list in on-time high school graduation rates for blacks, with an overall 67 percent graduation for black males (compared to 90 percent for white males), according to the 2015 Schott Foundation for Public Education report. The black/white male graduation gap is one of the highest in the country. A 2014 study found black students 10 times more likely to be suspended or expelled from Minneapolis schools than white students.
Income and employment
Second, look at income and unemployment. A 2013 Minnesota Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report found the unemployment gap for blacks to be three times that of whites. A 2015 report by the Center for Popular Democracy found the gap to be second worst among states in the nation, only behind Wisconsin. And 2015 U.S. Census data point to Minnesota as having one of the highest black/white gaps in medium family income in the nation. WalletHub, a personal finance site, documented the financial gap between whites and minorities in Minnesota as the biggest in the nation, with median income (4th highest), home ownership (3rd), poverty rate (3rd) and education level (14th).
In criminal justice, groups such as the Sentencing Project note Minnesota among the worst when it comes to racial disparities in terms of incarceration. And the Institute for Metropolitan Opportunity 2015 report “Why Are the Twin Cities So Segregated?” confirmed what john powell and I had documented a generation ago at the Institute on Race and Poverty: that the seven-county metro region has one of the worst residential and educational segregation patterns in the country.
Now consider the racial disparities in voting. WalletHub earlier this year released a study examining political engagement among blacks, using six criteria. It found Minnesota ranked 16th. Among notable failures, Minnesota was 45th in the nation for black voter turnout in the 2014 elections. According to the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2012 elections, 80.2 percent of white non-Hispanic citizens registered to vote, compared to 66.9 percent and 56.1 prcent for blacks and Hispanics. In terms of actually voting, white non-Hispanic turnout was 74 percent, compared to 49.2 percent and 32.5 percent for blacks and Hispanics. For Asian-Americans, their registration was greater overall than for white non-Hispanics at 87.6 percent, but actual turnout was only 56.2 percent.
Why the disparity in registration and voting? It is no coincidence that the poverty, education and incarceration disparities along with the residential segregation are related to the lower voter turnout. Political scientists have long documented the correlations between income, education, and geography. High incarceration rates bring felon disenfranchisement, contributing to decreased eligibility to register and vote.
Low voter turnout compounds other disparities
Low voter turnout among people of color feeds upon itself, compounding other racial disparities and problems. People of color are unable to electorally challenge employment or housing policies. They are unable to challenge policing policies, and they are unable to challenge the voting laws and procedures that may hinder their political engagement.
Minnesota must address the racial voting disparity, especially in light of the growing diversity of the state population. It will require not just addressing problems in the voting laws including felon disenfranchisement, but also tackling the other racial disparities that contribute to the voting problems. If it does not, Minnesota risks perpetuation of a second-class citizenship for many of its people.
By David Schultz
Source
The ugly charter school scandal Arne Duncan is leaving behind
US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s surprise announcement to leave his position in December is making headlines and...
US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s surprise announcement to leave his position in December is making headlines and driving lots of commentary, but an important story lost in the media clutter happened three days before he gave notice.
On that day, Duncan rattled the education policy world with news of a controversial grant of $249 million ($157 the first year) to the charter school industry. This announcement was controversial because, as The Washington Post reports, an auditby his department’s own inspector general found “that the agency has done a poor job of overseeing federal dollars sent to charter schools.”
Post reporter Lynsey Layton notes, “The agency’s inspector general issued a scathing report in 2012 that found deficiencies in how the department handled federal grants to charter schools between 2008 and 2011″ – in other words, during Duncan’s watch.
Even more perplexing is that the largest grant of $71 million ($32.5 the first year) is going to Ohio, the state that has the worst reputation for allowing low-performing charter schools to divert tax money away from educational purposes and do little to raise the achievement of students.
A number of Ohio officials were shocked by the news.
As a different article from The Post reports, Democratic Party Representative Tim Ryan “was alarmed” by the Education Department’s decision. Ryan called his state’s charter school sector “broken and dysfunctional.”
Ted Strickland, an ex-Governor and now Democratic candidate for a US Senate seat in Ohio, wrote Duncan a letter telling him to reconsider the Ohio grant. “Too many of Ohio’s charter schools are an embarrassment,” he states. Strickland quotes from a recent study showing charters in his state perform significantly worse than public schools. He points to a recent scandal in which the person in the state’s department of education responsible for oversight of charters had to resign because he was caught “rigging the books.”
Even Ohio Republicans are disturbed about Secretary Duncan’s generosity to charter schools in the Buckeye State. Like a parent who sees a visiting relative doling out chocolate bars to an already stimulated child, State Auditor Dave Yost quickly stated his concerns about the new charter school largesse to the media and his intention to track how the money is spent. Yost should know. An audit he conducted earlier this year found charter schools in the state misspend millions of tax dollars.
“Why is the Department rewarding this unacceptable behavior,” Strickland asked in his letter.
Money For What?
Certainly throwing unaccounted for federal tax money at charter schools is nothing new.
A recent report from the Center for Media and Democracy found that over the past 20 years the federal government has sent over $3.3 billion to the charter school industry with virtually no accountability. That report notes “the federal government maintains no comprehensive list of the charter schools that have received and spent these funds or even a full list of the private or quasi-public entities that have been approved by states to ‘authorize’ charters that receive federal funds.”
But Secretary Duncan has been particularly generous to charter schools. One of the conditions states had to meet to win a Race to the Top grant, his signature program, was to raise any caps they may have had on the number of charter schools allowed to operate in the state. His department warned states receiving waivers to the onerous provisions of No child Left Behind not to do enact any new policies that would undermine charter schools’ “autonomy.”
Congress has done its part too, raising the amount of federal money going to charter schools through the Charter School Grants program.
The CMD report cited above calculated that the feds are expected to increase charter school funding by 48 percent in FY 2016, which would have been Duncan’s last year on the job. That’s about $375 million more for charters estimates journalist Juan Gonzalez.
Yet at the same time federal support for charter schools continues to grow, revelations increasingly show the results of that spending are frequently disastrous.
Dollars For Disaster
A recent report from the Center for Popular Democracy and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) uncovered over $200 million in “alleged and confirmed financial fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement” committed by charter schools around the country.
The report follows a similar report released a year ago by the same groups that detailed $136 million in fraud and waste and mismanagement in 15 of the 42 states that operate charter schools. The 2015 report cites $203 million, including the 2014 total plus $23 million in new cases, and $44 million in earlier cases not included in the previous year’s report.
Authors of the report called $200-plus million the “tip of the iceberg,” because much of the fraud “will go undetected because the federal government, the states, and local charter authorizers lack the oversight necessary to detect the fraud.”
Adding to concerns over how federal funds for charter schools are used, state audits, like the one conducted in Ohio, have also found widespread financial fraud and abuse committed by these schools.
Although the CPD-AROS report made policy recommendations for mandatory audits of charters and increased transparency and accountability for these schools, none of those recommendations seem to have gotten any attention, much less action, from Duncan and his staff.
A Process Cloaked In Mystery
Both the ends and the means of federal grants to charter schools remain mostly a mystery. Not only do we not know what happens to most of the money; we don’t know how recipients for the money are chosen.
As CMD’s Jonas Persson writes on that organization’s PR Watch blog, “The public is being kept in the dark about which states have applied for the lucrative grants, and what their actual track records are when it comes to preventing fraud and misuse … The U.S Department of Education has repeatedly refused to honor a CMD request under the Freedom of Information Act for the grant applications, even though public information about which states have applied would not chill deliberation and might even help better assess which applicants should receive federal money.”
Also unknown are the names of the “peers” who review applications for the grant money.
How Ohio became chosen for more charter school money is especially enigmatic, not only because of the bad reputation of the state’s charter schools, but also because of the circumstances of how the state’s application was pitched to Duncan and his staff.
Soon after the announcement of the grant, the Akron Beacon reported a Ohio Department of Education official who helped obtain the $71 million in federal money was the very same official who resigned in July “after manipulating data to boost charter schools.” The official resigned a mere two days after filing the grant application.
What’s also interesting about the new federal grant money for Ohio charters is its timing.
Was Money Timed For Youngstown Takeover?
As the Beacon report notes, “The additional federal dollars come as the Ohio Department of Education decides how to distribute $25 million set aside by state lawmakers to help charter schools pay rent, purchase property, or renovate buildings. The money is yet one more assist to charter-school proponents in need of a building. Rent and building acquisition are two of the biggest deterrents to start-ups.”
The grant to Ohio also seems especially well timed to the targeted takeover of one of the most troubled school districts in the state, Youngstown.
As a recent report in Belt Magazine explains, “The Youngstown City Schools, which could lay claim to the title of the worst school district in the state … had been under academic distress for the past five years. Enrollment had dropped 21 percent since 2010.”
This summer, a House education bill with bipartisan support was about to sail through the legislature when State Senator Peggy Lehner, the chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, suddenly introduced an amendment.
“The amendment,” Belt reporter Vince Guerrieri recounts, “informally dubbed ‘the Youngstown Plan,’ allows for the dissolution of the academic distress commission of any district that’s gotten an F grade for three years in a row or has been under academic distress for at least four years. Youngstown is the only school district that meets that qualification.”
“Within 12 hours of the introduction of the amendment, it had passed the legislature,” Guerrieri writes.
The fast-tracked legislation sets up, according to an NPR outlet in the state, “a five member Academic Distress Commission with a three member majority chosen by the state school superintendent. That group then appoints a CEO with extraordinary powers. He could not only change the collective bargaining agreement with teachers but also create or contract with charter schools.
State school board member Patricia Bruns – a Democrat – says bypassing local elected officials including the school board is unconstitutional. ‘Their idea is to take over the schools, dismantle what’s there, and dole them out to private, for-profit charters.’
So was the federal grant to Ohio timed to pay for the take over of Youngstown schools?
That’s the question Ohio edu-blogger and public school advocate Jan Resseger wants answered. She points to an article by Akron Beacon education reporter Doug Livingston who alleges the new funding for charter schools in Ohio is “designed specifically to pay for the fast-tracked state takeover of the Youngstown schools.” Livingston backs up his claim with a quote from Arne Duncan’s press secretary Elaine Quesinberry who confirmed, “that the Ohio education officials filled out the grant application with the intent to direct money to charter school startups in academic distressed areas. Only two, Youngstown and Lorain, currently fit that description.”
What ‘Reform?’
Meanwhile, as the House bill containing the Youngstown Plan passed with extraordinary haste, another bill to make charter schools more transparent and accountable remained mired in contentious through the summer recess. That bill now seems likely to get approved by the legislature, based on reports received at press time. But “there’s no clear magic bullet” in the bill, according to a Cleveland news outlet, at least in terms of reforming charter schools in the state.
“The bill makes several small changes,” the reporter contends. “Private and for-profit charter school operators will have to provide more information to the public about how they spend tax dollars they are paid to run the schools.” But “the books won’t be anywhere near as open as a public school district’s.”
Also, what amounts to accountability for charters seems especially weak under the provisions of the new law. “The Ohio Department of Education will start to publicize which operators run each school and give information to the public about the academic performance of the schools that each operator runs. That will let families know the track record of the people running a school.” It will? How many families will dig into state reports to make decisions about where to send their kids to school?
A Hands-Off Policy For Charter Schools?
For his part, Secretary Duncan seems little interested in how new federal grants to charter schools will be spent, saying it’s “largely up to states and the public agencies that approve charter schools,” according to the Post article cited above. “At the federal level, we don’t have a whole lot of leverage,” he mused.
This seems an oddly resigned comment from an education secretary whose department has made the minute scrutiny of state policy governing nearly everything having to do with public education – from standards, to teacher evaluations, totutoring requirements.
Why would a secretary so often accused of leading an unprecedented overreach of federal intrusion in state education policy suddenly become so nonchalant about oversight of charter schools?
It certainly doesn’t help dampen suspicion that Duncan’s replacement as acting secretary will be John King, the controversial former New York State Education Commissioner, who has deep ties to the charter school industry.
Before becoming New York Commissioner, King helped to found and operate a charter school management organization with schools in New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.
Because King will be acting secretary, no nomination process or Congressional hearings will be needed to approve the leadership change.
Source: Salon
At Unprecedented Meeting, Fed Officials Voice Support for Activists’ Issues
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At Unprecedented Meeting, Fed Officials Voice Support for Activists’ Issues
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo.—Federal Reserve officials sought to reassure a group of labor activists that the central bank isn’t...
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo.—Federal Reserve officials sought to reassure a group of labor activists that the central bank isn’t going to cool down the economy just as a stronger labor market is reaching a broader swath of Americans.
“We’re going to run [the economy] hot, get the unemployment rate down lower,” San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams said at an unprecedented meeting with activists from the Campaign for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Campaign.
The meeting of activists and high-ranking Fed officials took place shortly before the start of the Kansas City Fed’s high-profile policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Central bankers in attendance included Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s two top lieutenants, New York Fed President William Dudley and Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer. Ms. Yellen, although scheduled to speak at the Jackson Hole symposium early Friday, didn’t attend.
The left-leaning activist group Fed Up publicly met with eight Federal Reserve presidents Thursday to discuss inequality and interest rates during the central bank's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Nine regional Fed bank presidents and two governors held a public discussion with the left-leaning group, whose goal is to convince Fed officials to keep short-term interest rates low to boost short-term growth and drive unemployment further down. It came as pressure mounts on Fed officials on many fronts to explain a disappointing economy.
Several Fed Up activists argued the only way to lower unemployment in the black community is to heat up the broader labor market.
Rod Adams, a 27-year-old community group organizer from Minneapolis, told the meeting, “I don’t understand how you can think that,” when confronting Fed officials’ statement that the U.S. is near full employment.
“I don’t want to be sacrificed for a war against an inflation enemy that isn’t here,” Mr. Adams said.
Transcript: Fed Officials Meet With Fed Up Activists at Jackson Hole
Fed Up activists also challenged Fed representatives on diversity. The group doubled down on its earlier criticism of the Federal Reserve’s leadership as overly male, almost entirely white and drawn too frequently from the banking community.
The composition of Federal Reserve leadership has also received criticism from Democratic elected officials who say the institution doesn’t adequately reflect the demographics of the nation it is meant to serve.
New York Fed President William Dudley told the meeting Thursday that the Fed’s record on diversity has been “pretty lousy.” His counterpart from the Minneapolis Fed, Neel Kashkari, said that “we have made progress and can make more progress.”
A recent paper by the Brookings Institution noted that of the 134 different presidents of regional Fed banks in history, none has been Hispanic or African-American. Ms. Yellen is the central bank’s first female leader, and she and Federal Reserve governor Lael Brainard are two of only nine women to serve on the Fed’s board in its history. Currently, two of the Fed’s 12 regional banks—Cleveland and Kansas City—have female presidents.
The central bankers at Thursday’s meeting expressed support for the issues that Fed Up questioners raised. However they also argued that the Fed’s main goal should be avoiding another recession and promoting maximum employment and price stability.
Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer praised the group for setting up the discussions, but he called on the activists to research the issues that confront the communities involved.
“When you get the facts, when you get the analysis, you can make a difference. When you speak about how bad the problem is it’s a much less effective tool,” the former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor said.
Write to Harriet Torry at harriet.torry@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications:
U.S. Federal Reserve officials argued that the central bank’s main goal should be avoiding another recession and promoting maximum employment and price stability. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said they argued that the goal should include promoting maximum unemployment. [Aug. 26]
By Harriet Torry
Source
Proposal Would Allow Immigrants in New York Illegally to Become Citizens
ABC 7 New York - June 16, 2014, by Dave Evans - It is a long shot, but a proposal by a New York State lawmaker would...
ABC 7 New York - June 16, 2014, by Dave Evans - It is a long shot, but a proposal by a New York State lawmaker would allow immigrants in the state illegally to become so-called "state citizens" if they've paid state taxes for at least three years.
It might sound a little strange for people to say 'I'm a citizen of New York State yet not an American citizen', but legal experts say it's doable.
And it's something many immigrants in New York desperately want, since the federal government hasn't budged on immigration reform.
"I could be deported tomorrow even though New York is my home. Brooklyn has been my home," said lawyer Cesar Vargas.
Vargas came to this country from Mexico when he was five. He's like almost 3 million other undocumented workers in New York State with few rights. He's a lawyer. He passed the bar but can't practice. He's not a citizen.
"I pay taxes, I created my own small business, I advocate for my community, I only want the opportunity, no special treatment, just the opportunity to be a lawyer for my community," he said.
In Battery Park Monday, a rally was held with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop.
"2.7 million people make their home in this state and we have a responsibility to them as a state," said State Senator Gustavo Rivera.
Rivera introduced a bill Monday that if someone has an ID, has lived in this country for three years and paid taxes, they could then become a citizen of New York State.
They would be allowed to vote and run in local and state elections. They could get a driver's license, and qualify for Medicaid coverage.
"Now all of these things will allow almost 3 million people to fully participate in the civic, political and economic life of the state of New York. They are already contributing," said Rivera.
The bill has almost no chance at becoming a law anytime soon in Albany. If it did, we would be American citizens and New York citizens as well, and conservatives call that absurd.
"It's a bad idea. It's not only bad, it's probably an insane idea to create a separate category of citizens in our country," said New York Conservative Party chairman Mike Long.
Conservatives say they're worred the idea is even being brought up in Albany, because that gets the discussion rolling, and eventually they fear something like this could pass.
Also, advocates agree, saying this bill won't pass anytime soon. But they want people to start thinking and talking about this issue.
Source
How to Help Puerto Rico, Even When the President Won't
Donald Trump's idea of humanitarian aid to Puerto Rico is throwing paper towel rolls to a crowd. His callous and...
Donald Trump's idea of humanitarian aid to Puerto Rico is throwing paper towel rolls to a crowd. His callous and grandstanding attitude following Hurricane Maria's devastation is breathtaking, even for a man who uses a golden toilet. His cheap imitation of a T-shirt cannon was enough to make America collectively throw the phones we watched it on into the sea. If you're looking for less expensive ways to channel your rage, consider donating time, money or supplies to organizations and individuals on the ground in Puerto Rico.
Read the full article here.
Can Community Organizers Build Progressive Power?
Last Tuesday, Alton Sterling was shot and killed while pinned on the ground by Baton Rouge police. The next day,...
Last Tuesday, Alton Sterling was shot and killed while pinned on the ground by Baton Rouge police. The next day, Philando Castile was shot and killed by a cop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, as he reached for his ID. On Thursday, protests swept across the country calling for an end to police killings of black and brown men. At one of those peaceful protests, in Dallas, a sniper opened fire from a vantage point above the march, trying to kill white police officers. Five officers died.
It was against this backdrop of deep social turmoil that dozens of community organizing groups from across the country came together in Pittsburgh for the People’s Convention.
Over the weekend, more than 1,500 community organizers and leaders—many of them Black and Latino—convened to discuss ways to create a more cohesive, powerful progressive grassroots network. It was the first step by the Center for Popular Democracy, a progressive organization that is trying to fill the vacuum left in the wake of ACORN’s demise in 2010.
On top of the recent events in Louisiana, Minnesota, and Texas, the convention also came at a critical political moment—on the Republican side, Donald Trump’s campaign is increasingly stoking racial animosity; on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders has worked to push his party’s platform leftward.
“We wanted to make it both a statement in the electoral moment and really a statement that transcends the electoral moment,” Brian Kettenring, co-director of the Center for Popular Democracy, told the Prospect at the convention. “We’re trying to stand in this particular moment but also not be captive to the narrow partisan politics of our country.”
The convention started off Friday with a march of more than 1,000 activists through the streets of downtown Pittsburgh, including stops outside the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to demand fair wages for workers; the Pittsburgh Federal Reserve to call for equitable economic policies for working families; and Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey’s office to protest his anti-immigration stances. Some onlookers joined the chanting—“What do we want? Justice. If we don’t get it? Shut it down,”—and raised their fists in solidarity. Others were visibly angry at the marchers’ message of justice for undocumented immigrants and victims of police brutality.
The following day, activists heard speeches from heavyweights of the progressive movement like Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison and the Reverend William Barber III, leader of North Carolina’s Moral Mondays movement, who both spoke powerfully about the recent killings and the need for a unified response.
“The country needs healing, but you can’t heal a dirty wound,” Ellison pronounced. “A dirty wound needs disinfectant.”
He pointed to the “amazingly poised” Diamond Reynolds, the fiancée of Philando Castile, who streamed the immediate aftermath of his shooting on Facebook, as a model for the movement. “We need to push back with the same presence of mind of Diamond Reynolds,” he said.
With the killings of Sterling and Castile fresh on everyone’s mind, the specter of police violence loomed large at the convention. But the People’s Convention also wove together the threads of today’s social justice movements—not just Black Lives Matter, but also those campaigning for immigration reform, the Fight for $15, LGBTQ rights, and environmental justice, in a way that made clear the intersectionality of modern progressive organizing.
“We’re all dealing with the various layers of oppression,” said Jose Lopez, organizing director for Make the Road New York. “Whether it’s workplace inequality, housing inequality, or the recent decision from the Supreme Court, which to a degree sent a message to our families that we’re going to create opportunity for a limited number of children but we’re going to throw away the key to the gate to this country when we begin to talk about their parents.”
“[This convention] created the space and now we have to make sure we continue to stay in contact—using CPD as the vehicle—so that we can build out a network of power that can transform everything from immigration reform to worker rights to housing rights to the attack of black and brown people in this country by police,” Lopez said.
Groups attending the convention included New York Communities for Change, which helped launch the Fight for $15 back in 2012 and is now turning its focus toward addressing affordable housing needs in the city; Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, which, in response to the police killing of Jamar Clark helped organize a protest occupation outside a North Minneapolis police precinct that lasted 16 days; the Texas Workers Defense Project, a worker advocacy group that has improved labor standards in the Texas construction industry; and Make the Road state chapters that have led local fights against deportations. Some of these groups have collaborated before, while others have been somewhat isolated from other community organizing groups.
Community organizations lost much of their national clout in the wake of ACORN’s demise, which was brought about in 2009 by a conservative smear campaign. CPD’s goal now—and that of the organizations represented at the conference—is to rebuild such groups’ institutional power and make it a critical part of the broader progressive movement.
In recent years, that movement has had some signal successes, which conference workshops showcased: how SEIU successfully organized for a $15 minimum wage in Seattle; how black community groups in St. Louis helped create lasting momentum for policing reform in the wake of Ferguson; how the New York Working Families Party established a powerful electoral presence; how organizers in Florida worked for climate justice in communities vulnerable to climate change.
“We are beginning to launch a real national organizing framework—that’s something that really hadn’t been seen since ACORN went under,” said Jonathan Westin, executive director of New York Communities for Change. “I think this is the beginning of an intentional path forward to try to create real structural power for community institutions and neighborhoods that already exists in places like the labor movement.”
Creating such structural power, organizers admit, will be challenging. There’s a shortage of funding for community organizations, which has kept them closely tethered to more well-funded labor unions and foundations—and, in many ways, also tethered to their funders’ agendas. The central challenge is how to establish a sustainable and independent source of funding, as unions have done with member dues, in order for community power to become a singular force on its own.
Beyond that, a critical question for community organizers is how to capitalize on both the current social and political moment.
“The genie is out the bottle with progressive politics,” Kettenring said. He believes that a strong force of community organizations can help direct the progressive movement’s current political capital in a way that avoids pitfalls of the past. “One of the historic strategic failures of the progressive movement has been its failure on race. So when you look at this convention and look at how diverse it is and how many of the organizations are rooted communities of color, you see the potentiality of how the community organizing sector can help root a more progressive, but also diverse politics.”
By Justin Miller
Source
A New Divestment Movement Against Trump Gears Up
New York City has pledged to divest its pension holdings from companies involved in the private prison industry. But...
New York City has pledged to divest its pension holdings from companies involved in the private prison industry. But the ultimate goal is to help build a mass movement against the White House.
Read the full article here.
Ulster County Legislator Calls for Equity and Accountability in School Funding
Mid-Hudson News - December 29, 2014 - It took a 2007 Federal lawsuit to ensure equity in New York State school aid...
Mid-Hudson News - December 29, 2014 - It took a 2007 Federal lawsuit to ensure equity in New York State school aid funding to local districts. Over the course of the past six years, Ulster County school districts received close to $26 million or at least they would have, had the State actually implemented the promised foundation aid. Instead, the foundation aid was frozen as part of the State's budget process.
"Ulster County tax payers have been paying more and more to ensure education for all," said County Legislator David Donaldson (D, Kingston). "Yet, the State has balanced its budget without paying its promised share. The State leadership has to stop talking about supporting the future of our State and actually pay for what they promised."
Over a billion dollars are being given to serve the 3% of student population that attend Charter Schools in New York State for 2014. $54 million is estimated by a Center for Popular Democracy's report to be lost because of charter school fraud and abuse in 2014 alone. Only eighteen of the sixtytwo counties in New York State have a charter school. Ulster County has no charter schools.
"I am all for helping parents to ensure their children receive the quality education they deserve," said Donaldson. 'That quality education starts with the public education system that serves 85% of New York State's children. Until the State leaders provide the funding that will address the educational gaps in public education and ensure the oversight and accountability of private charter school education, no taxpayer dollars - whether State or local taxes - should be spent on privately run schools that are not held to the same standards or expectations as the public school system."
Donaldson wants the County Legislature to consider the measure at their January 9 session.
Source
Instead Of Turning On Each Other, Immigrant And Domestic Workers Unite To Form New Organization
The Huffington Post - November 17, 2013, by Farah Mohamed & Ryam Grim - In times of economic weakness, the...
The Huffington Post - November 17, 2013, by Farah Mohamed & Ryam Grim - In times of economic weakness, the ruling class has tended to pit domestic workers against immigrants, warning the former that wages are low and jobs are scarce because of the latter.
The effort in the United States has led to tremendous hostility toward immigrants, exhibited by then-GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's recommendation that conditions be made so unbearable for undocumented immigrants that they "self deport."
With precious little Latino support, the Republican coalition doesn't need to reconcile its domestic and foreign-born workers. But the Democratic Party, which includes many Latinos, Asians and African-Americans, is strengthened when the various elements of its coalition see themselves as aligned in a similar struggle -- one for jobs, better conditions and higher wages.
It's the kind of strengthened coalition that two major grassroots community organizations say they're hoping to build with a previously unreported merger. The Center for Popular Democracy and the Leadership Center for the Common Good will merge on Jan. 1, to become a larger and better resourced Center for Popular Democracy, officials at both groups tell HuffPost.
The new organization, which will have offices in New York and Washington, and staff in California, Minnesota and Illinois, will be composed of 35 staff members and 11 core partner organizations with more than 70 partner organizations in 27 states.
"We are actually trying to connect the world of immigrant justice and the world of economic justice by bringing together two hubs," said Ana Maria Archila, co-director of the new organization. "We haven't seen this level of popular trends and organizations in a while, and our merger is really kind of at the center in the world of economic justice, worker community and immigrant rights."
The Center for Popular Democracy, based in New York, has worked with a range of organizations fighting for social justice. Some of its victories include reforming the New York City Police Department's stop-and-frisk policing, raising New York's minimum wage and forcing the passage of legislation requiring paid sick leave for 1 million New Yorkers. The Washington-based Leadership Center for the Common Good advocates for low- and moderate-income communities, communities of color and immigrants.
By uniting, the two hope to increase their reach. For instance, the CPD maintains that its strongest ties are with immigrants' rights and worker organizations. LCCG, by contrast, works with partners rooted within the African-American community.
The merger would fill a vacuum in strong community advocacy. In 2009, conservative provocateur James O'Keefe targeted the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a low- to middle-income grassroots activism group, in a series of videos which resulted in the dissolution of ACORN in 2010. House Republicans still include language in spending bills to ensure no federal money goes to the organization, even though it no longer exists.
But Archila and her new CPD co-director Brian Kettenring, who is a veteran of ACORN, see the new partnership as something different. "We're building something entirely new. We're not building a closed network," Archila said.
The new Center for Popular Democracy's mission, according to a concept paper provided to The Huffington Post, is to "build the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda." Staff will be organized around nine "core capabilities," including capacity building, campaigns and politics, and will focus on immigration rights and racial justice, economic justice, voting rights and democracy, education and housing, and Wall Street accountability.
"I would describe the new CPD as a campaign, policy and capacity-building center for community organizations," Kettenring said.
CPD will not launch new campaigns because of the merger, he added, but it does have projects in the works for January, including one that will focus on "articulating a firm vision -- a progressive vision -- of what public education should look like" and "defeating what we see as a corporate takeover of education in America."
By expanding the scale, strength and reach through the merger, the new CPD hopes to play an increasingly crucial role in the rejuvenated battle for social justice.
"There is tremendous energy in our communities -- in communities of color, in working class communities -- to change the way the things are done," Archila said. "There is tremendous political energy, and what we need is organizations -- institutions -- that will take advantage of that and will nurture that and drive it in the direction of concrete victory ... We know how to bring institutions together to make sure that it doesn't just mean one plus one equals two, but one plus one equals so much more. And that's what we think is going to happen with this merger."
Source
Taxing the rich: how Seattle leads a ‘go-local’ trend in liberal politics
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Taxing the rich: how Seattle leads a ‘go-local’ trend in liberal politics
Seattle is trying to tackle income inequality one local move at a time – and becoming a case study in how cities are...
Seattle is trying to tackle income inequality one local move at a time – and becoming a case study in how cities are testing liberal policies that lack traction at the state or federal level.
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