A New Front On Immigration: NY Legislation Would Let Undocumented Vote, Drive
Buzzfeed - June 16, 2014 by Adrian Carrasquillo - New York Democrats announced Monday new legislation that would grant...
Buzzfeed - June 16, 2014 by Adrian Carrasquillo - New York Democrats announced Monday new legislation that would grant state citizenship rights to undocumented immigrants.
The bill could represent a bold new advocacy strategy: using states’ rights to secure legal protections for the undocumented.
York state senator Gustavo Rivera and assembly member Karim Camara’s bill would allow undocumented immigrants to vote, drive, receive professional licenses, run for civil office, and receive Medicaid as well as in-state tuition in New York by making them New York state citizens.
“It’s up to New York to figure out who it’s political community is,” said Peter Markowitz, professor at the Cardozo school of law, who made the legal case for the legislation through the country’s dual-sovereign structure. “New York gets to decide who is and who isn’t a New Yorker. The federal government may not interfere.”
The prospects for federal changes to U.S. immigration law took a hit last week after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s primary election loss, attributed by some as directly the result of attacks by Cantor’s opponent on his immigration record.
Flanked by activists in front of the Statue of Liberty Monday, Rivera struck a positive tone about the bill, called the New York is Home Act.
Immigrants would be eligible to become state citizens if they show proof of identity, proof of three years of New York State residency and proof of three years of New York State tax payments; the bill also requires a commitment to abide by state laws and uphold the state Constitution, and a willingness to serve on New York juries and to keep paying state taxes.
Rivera said the idea has been in the works for two years and called the legislation “bold,” not because of the pieces themselves, but because they are all in one bill.
“This is unlike SB1070,” Rivera told BuzzFeed after the event. “Arizona said, ‘We can do this and affect things on a federal level.’ No, you can’t. But the conversation we need to have is: What rights do we have in a state?”
Spokespeople for Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, the first Latina in the role, said Monday they were reviewing the legislation.
“In light of inaction at the federal government, the administration is interested in learning about local initiatives to increase equality among immigrant communities,” de Blasio deputy press secretary Maibe Ponet said.
“Given congress’s failure to address immigration reform, people are obviously becoming increasingly frustrated, a spokesman for Mark-Viverito said. “[The speaker] is supportive of increasing voting rights and will be reviewing the legislation.”
Cesar Vargas, a DREAMer who has been fighting for the right to practice law as an undocumented immigrant, would benefit from the portion of the legislation that would give licenses for professions like lawyers, doctors, dentists, midwives and others. He said he is set to work with the mayor and the city council speaker to “see how they can support undocumented lawyers.”
“As we stand in front of the Statue of Liberty, we’re reminded of the American Dream, and I’m reminded of the dream of my mother for me to be a lawyer,” Vargas said.
Many sought to draw a parallel between the fight for marriage equality — and its stops and starts over the years.
“This will get a lot of attention for New York,” DREAMer Antonio Alarcon, 19, said. “It will take months to pass, we’re going to be fighting for this like they did for marriage equality.”
“Full equality and inclusion will gain momentum in our time,” said Andrew Friedman, co-executive director of The Center for Popular Democracy.
He said his group is in discussion with four to five other states for similar legislation with the stated goal of putting “another horse in the race” in the way those who fought for marriage equality continued to refine what they were asking for.
Jose Davila, the vice president off policy and government relations at the Hispanic Federation echoed the belief that the legislation comes at an important time for the fight for changing U.S. immigration laws.
“Instead of tear families apart, we should be reframing the debate. What kind of state do we want to be?”
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These Organizations Are Working To Help Puerto Rico's Recovery Efforts
These Organizations Are Working To Help Puerto Rico's Recovery Efforts
Puerto Rico was badly damaged by Hurricane Maria. The storm caused billions of dollars worth of property damage....
Puerto Rico was badly damaged by Hurricane Maria. The storm caused billions of dollars worth of property damage. Efforts to repair and rebuild houses, roads, and telecom infrastructure are going to take months. Around half of the U.S. territory's residents lack cell phone service. More than eight out of every ten people in Puerto Rico still don't have electricity.
Read the full article here.
Fed, Eager to Show It’s Listening, Welcomes Protesters
Fed, Eager to Show It’s Listening, Welcomes Protesters
WASHINGTON — When a dozen protesters in green T-shirts showed up two years ago at the Federal Reserve’s annual...
WASHINGTON — When a dozen protesters in green T-shirts showed up two years ago at the Federal Reserve’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., they were regarded by many participants as an amusing addition.
Two years later, they have won a place on the schedule.
The protesters, who want the Fed to extend its economic stimulus campaign, are scheduled to meet on Thursday with eight members of the central bank’s policy-making committee. At the start of a conference devoted to esoteric debates about monetary policy, officials will hear from people struggling to make ends meet.
The Fed’s effort to show that it is listening to its critics reflects the central bank’s broader struggle to find its footing in an era whose great challenge is not the strength of inflation, but the weakness of economic growth.
Officials are wrestling with the limits of monetary policy, the focus of the conference, even as they try to address simmering discontent among liberals who want stronger action and among conservatives who say the Fed has done too much.
The meeting also represents an unlikely victory for Ady Barkan, the 32-year-old lawyer who decided in 2012 that liberals should pay more attention to monetary policy. He now heads the “Fed Up” campaign, a national coalition of community and labor groups that plans to bring more than 100 protesters to Jackson Hole.
“We want to make sure that regular voices are being heard,” Mr. Barkan said in beginning the campaign two years ago. The American economy, he said, was not working for all Americans — particularly not for blacks and other minority groups.
Fed officials so far have chosen to accommodate the group by applauding its efforts at public education, not by seriously engaging its arguments that interest rates should be raised more slowly. Esther George, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, which hosts the Jackson Hole conference, arranged Thursday’s meeting with the activists. She said in an interview earlier this year that the Fed must balance job growth with other issues, like financial stability.
“I am completely sympathetic,” she said of the group’s concerns.
But she cautioned that the Fed’s powers were limited. Pushing too hard to lower unemployment could lead to higher inflation, or speculative bubbles, that would force the Fed to raise interest rates more quickly. The resulting economic volatility could end up doing more harm than good.
“The Federal Reserve has become somehow the answer to many problems far beyond what we can actually address,” she said. “I wish I could fix all of it with a tool like monetary policy. But we can’t.”
Even Mr. Barkan’s supporters acknowledge the long odds. Fed Up’s budget has grown to $2 million this year, from $145,000 in 2014, mostly from Good Ventures, a nonprofit foundation created by the Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, which describes the campaign as “relatively unlikely to have an impact.”
Fed Up’s more visible success has come in pursuit of a longer-term goal: advocating for changes in the Fed’s governance that could eventually shift its decision-making.
In a report published earlier this year, Fed Up highlighted the Fed’s lack of diversity. There are no blacks or Hispanics among the 17 officials on the Fed’s policy-making committee of 12 regional bank presidents and five governors. No black or Hispanic has ever served as president of a regional reserve bank.
Moreover, the report said that whites composed 83 percent of the directors of the Fed’s 12 regional reserve banks, who select the regional presidents.
Narayana Kocherlakota, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said that the absence of minorities was “quite troubling.”
“Those kinds of persistent absences of key demographic groups really suggest that the appointment process, there is something that can be fixed there,” he said.
Fed Up also argued that bank executives should not sit on regional Fed boards. Under current law, bankers hold three of the nine seats on each board. The regional reserve banks are owned by the commercial banks in each district, although they operate under the authority of the Fed’s board, a government agency whose members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
In May, 127 congressional Democrats signed a letter to Janet L. Yellen, the Fed chairwoman, calling attention to the Fed’s lack of diversity and the influence of the banking industry.
On the same day, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign said in a statement that “Secretary Clinton believes that the Fed needs to be more representative of America as a whole and that common sense reforms — like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve Banks — are long overdue.”
Two months later, the Democratic Party adopted a campaign platform that included similar language, the first time in recent decades it mentioned the Fed.
Andrew Levin, an economist at Dartmouth College, said Fed Up’s greatest chance for significant influence was not in framing the current debate about interest rates, but in changing the Fed itself. He co-wrote a report that the campaign published Monday detailing a proposal to make the Fed a fully public institution.
“Having a diverse set of policy makers — including African-Americans and Hispanics — will influence the Fed’s decision-making,” he said. “And it should. The public should have confidence that the public is well represented at the F.O.M.C. table.”
Mr. Barkan started the “Fed Up” campaign after joining the Center for Popular Democracy in 2012, a few years after graduating from Yale Law School. He had read a 2011 article by the journalist Matthew Yglesias, titled “Fed Up.” Unions and other advocacy groups were focused on minimum-wage laws. Mr. Barkan was compelled by the argument that they also should be focused on interest rates.
“Even if they move once less over the course of several years, that’s still massive,” he said earlier this year. “The number of people who have jobs because of that, or higher wages, that dwarves a $15-an-hour wage increase in a smaller city.”
The campaign has gained traction in part because the Fed is eager to show that it is listening. During the first protest two years ago, Mr. Barkan approached Ms. Yellen, who listened politely and invited him to bring a group of workers to Washington, where she met with them in November 2014.
Lael Brainard, a Fed governor who plans to attend the Thursday meeting, made a point last year of visiting the parallel conference Mr. Barkan staged on the sidelines of the Fed event. And Mr. Barkan’s group has now succeeded in persuading each of the regional reserve presidents to meet with groups of local workers.
Neel Kashkari, the new president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, met with Fed Up’s local affiliate, Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, this month, telling the group that he shared their concern about the persistence of higher rates of unemployment among blacks and other minority groups.
Mr. Kashkari also accepted an invitation to spend a day with one of the group’s members, Rosheeda Credit, a Minneapolis resident who described the struggles she and her boyfriend faced to cover the cost of rent and child care for their five children.
“Walking a day in somebody else’s shoes is actually — it makes the anecdotes that much more real,” Mr. Kashkari, who arrived at the bank in January, told reporters after the meeting. “It influences how I think about the problems we face.”
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
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#WeRise Supporters Rally at the NH Statehouse
Concord Patch - March 13, 2015, by Tony Schinella - About 40 people gathered at the Statehouse this week to protest a...
Concord Patch - March 13, 2015, by Tony Schinella - About 40 people gathered at the Statehouse this week to protest a political system rigged on behalf of big corporations and the wealthy, according to a press statement.
The rally was part of a “Day of Action” involving thousands of protesters in 16 states across the country.
In Concord, the event drew activists from NH Citizens Action, the NH Rebellion, American Friends Service Committee, Open Democracy, Granite State Progress, People For the American Way, Every Child Matters and other New Hampshire organizations.
“Congress needs to stop acting like a wholly-owned subsidiary of multinational corporations,” said Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and Head Stamper of StampStampede.org told the protesters. “When billions of dollars are being poured into our elections, government stops serving the people and serves the corporations instead.”
Cohen cited a Sunlight Foundation study showing that politically-active corporations get back $760 in government benefits for every dollar they spend influencing politics. “People watch this stuff happening, and they’re angry about it. People in both parties are angry about it. Our elected officials are supposed to be serving us, their constituents, and instead they’re spending our tax dollars subsidizing corporations.”
“It’s time to take our government back,” Cohen said. “If ‘We the People’ can’t out-spend the corporations, we can at least out-shout them. That’s why StampStampede.org is turning US currency into millions of miniature political billboards, by legally stamping it with messages like ‘Not to Be Used for Bribing Politicians.’ Every stamped dollar bill is seen by about 875 people. That means if one person stamps three bill a day for a year, the message will reach almost 1 million people. It’s a petition on steroids,” said Cohen.
There are over 30,000 stampers across the country and hundreds in New Hampshire. StampStampede.org has also recruited over 50 small businesses in the state to set up small point-of-purchase stamping stations where customers can stamp their dollars, buy a stamp and learn more about the influence of money in politics.
“Our goal is to stamp 3.4 million bills – that’s 10% of the currency in New Hampshire – before next February’s presidential primary,” said Cohen, “It’s monetary jiu-jitsu – we’re using money to get money out of politics”
The nationwide “Day of Action” was sponsored by National People’s Action, Center for Popular Democracy, and USAction. “All across the country, families are taking to the streets, parks and state capitols to send a clear message: ‘Our statehouses and our cities belong to us. It’s time for legislators to enact our bold agenda to put people and planet first.’”
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Five Key Questions to Ask Now About Charter Schools
Washington Post - January 23, 2015, by Valerie Strauss - You can tell that National School Choice Week is nearly upon...
Washington Post - January 23, 2015, by Valerie Strauss - You can tell that National School Choice Week is nearly upon us — it runs from Jan. 25- 31 — by the number of announcements coming forth hailing the greatness of school choice.
Jeb Bush’s Florida-based Foundation for Excellence in Education put out an announcement that it would participate in a march next week in Texas to support school choice (with one of the speakers being Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, Jeb’s son). There’s a new poll by the pro-choice American Federation for Children showing (I bet you can guess) that most Americans support school choice. Etc., etc.
There is other school choice news too, but you won’t hear it from the pro-choice folks. This comes from 10th Period blog, by Steven Dyer, a lawyer who is the education policy fellow at Innovation Ohio and who once served as a state representative and was the chief legislative architect for Ohio’s Evidence Based Model of school funding:
In a disturbing new report from State Auditor David Yost, officials found that at one Ohio charter school, the state was paying the school to educate about 160 students, yet none, that’s right, zero, were actually at the school. And that’s just the worst of a really chilling report, which, if the results are extrapolated across the life of the Ohio charter school program, means taxpayers have paid more than $2 billion for kids to be educated in charter schools who weren’t even there. Here are the takeaways:
Seven of 30 schools had headcounts more than two standard deviations below the amount the school told the state it had.
Nine of 30 schools that had headcounts at least 10% below what the charter told the state it had, though it was less than two standard deviations.
The remaining 14 had headcounts that weren’t off by as much.
However, 27 of 30 schools had fewer students at the school than they were being paid to educate by the state
This means that more than 1/2 of all the charter schools chosen at random had significantly fewer students attending their schools than the state was paying them to educate, while 90% had at least some fewer amount.
So in honor of National School Choice Week, here are five questions that should be asked about charter schools, which today enroll about 2.57 million students in more than 6,000 charter schools nationwide.
The questions, and supporting material, come from the Center for Popular Democracy, which has exposed over $100 million public tax funds stolen in the charter school industry in a report titled, “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse.”
Here are the center’s questions: 1. How much money has your state lost to charter waste, fraud and abuse?
With at least $100 million tax dollars lost to fraud, waste, or abuse by charter operators in the United States, there is significant progress needed before the charter sector can claim best practices on fraud and abuse. What’s worse, given the scant auditing and little regulation, the fraud uncovered so far might only be scratching the surface. The types of fraud fall into six major categories: [Reference: CPD report, May 2014] • Charter operators using public funds illegally for personal gain; • School revenue used to illegally support other charter operator businesses; • Mismanagement that puts children in actual or potential danger; • Charters illegally requesting public dollars for services not provided; • Charter operators illegally inflating enrollment to boost revenues; and, • Charter operators mismanaging public funds and schools.
2. Are charter operators required to establish strong business practices that guard against fraud, waste, mismanagement, and abuse? Do regulators in your state have the authority and resources to regularly assess charter school business practices?
Despite millions of dollars lost to shady practices, charter operators are overwhelmingly not required by law to establish strong business practices that protect against fraud and waste. We need change:
* Charter schools should institute an internal fraud risk management program, including an annual fraud risk assessment. * Oversight agencies should regularly audit charter schools and use methodologies that are specifically designed to assess the effectiveness of charter school business practices and uncover fraud.
3. Does your state require charter school operators and their boards of directors to provide adequate documentation to regulators ensuring funds are spent on student success?
Across the country, investigations led by attorneys general, state auditors and charter authorizers have found significant cases of waste, fraud and abuse in our nation’s charter schools. The majority of investigations are initiated by whistleblowers because most regulators do not have the resources to proactively search for fraud, waste, or abuse of public tax dollars. [References:CPD report, December 2014; CPD report, October 2014]
4. Can your state adequately monitor the way charters spend public dollars including who charter operators are subcontracting with for public services?
Because most charter schools laws do not adequately empower state regulators, regulators are often unable to monitor the legality of the operations of companies that provide educational services to charter schools. For example, Pete Grannis, New York State’s First Deputy Comptroller, reported recently that charter school audits by his office have found “practices that are questionable at best, illegal at worst” at some charter schools.[1] While his office would like to investigate all aspects of a charter operators business practices, they do not have the authority. To reform the system, he believes that “as a condition for agreeing to approve a new charter school or renew an existing one, charter regulators could require schools and their management companies to agree to provide any and all financial records related to the school.” [2]
This example typifies the lack of authority given to charter oversight bodies. Lawmakers should act to amend their charter school laws to give charter oversight bodies the powers to audit all levels of a charter schools operations, including their parent companies and the companies they contract out their educational services to.
5. Are online charter operators audited for quality of services provided to students and financial transparency?
Online charter schools represent another rapidly growing sector. The rapid growth has made the online charter school industry susceptible to similar pitfalls facing the poorly regulated charter industry as whole. As one longtime academic researcher puts it, “The current climate of elementary and secondary school reform that promotes uncritical acceptance of any and all virtual education innovations is not supported by educational research. A model that is built around churn is not sustainable; the unchecked growth of virtual schools is essentially an education tech bubble.”[3]
Given the poor outcomes being generated by most online charter schools, state regulators should be empowered with more authority to ensure these schools are not violating state laws or their charter agreements.
[1]https://www.propublica.org/article/ny-state-official-raises-alarm-on-charter-schools-and-gets-ignored [2] https://www.propublica.org/article/ny-state-official-raises-alarm-on-charter-schools-and-gets-ignored [3]http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2013/05/virtual-schools-annual-2013
New Report Details Plans for Low-Wage Worker Justice
The Village Voice - February 14, 2013 - When a worker in this city has to endure a three-hour walk to work because his...
The Village Voice - February 14, 2013 - When a worker in this city has to endure a three-hour walk to work because his minimum wage salary doesn't allow for him to afford public transportation, that's a problem.
Low-wage workers across the city have stood up in the past year to demand that such insecurity be eradicated and to pressure employers to finally begin to provide them with just compensation for their labor.
Building on the progress generated by these worker-led movements--in industries such as retail, fast-food, airline security and car washing--UnitedNY, the Center for Popular Democracy and other advocacy groups held a symposium and released a report yesterday analyzing the state of the city's low-wage worker movement.
"It's very difficult to try and make ends meet on $7.25 minimum wage in New York City," Alterique Hall, a worker in the fast-food industry, said during a news conference following the event. "Some nights you want to lay down cry because you [feel] like 'what's the point of going to work and putting all of myself into a job, [if] I'm going to be miserable when I get off work, miserable when I go home...and don't want to wake up and go to work the next day...to get disrespected, treated poorly and paid poorly.'"
Hall, who's been active in the push for fairer wages in the fast-food industry, is the worker who is often forced to embark on the three-hour treks to work. Hall said that his boss will sometimes said him home as a penalty for his tardiness--without considering the ridiculous journey he has to travel just to get to there.
"Working hard, and working as hard as you can, isn't paying off for them," mayoral hopeful and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson, said during the news conference. "They're being underemployed, They're being underpaid. They're being taken advantage of. They're being ignored. They're becoming a permanent underclass in the city of New York."
The UnitedNY and CPD report lays out four specific initiatives that workers and advocates must pressure the city to implement in order to help better the plight of low-wage workers. The reports calls on the city and employers to :
[Raise] standards for low-wage workers. [Regulate] high-violation industries where labor abuses are rampant. [Establish] a Mayor's Office of Labor Standards to ensure that employment laws are enforced. [Urge] the State to allow NYC to set a minimum wage higher than the State minimum--due to the higher cost of living in the City.The report pays close attention to the need for City Council to pass the paid sick-leave bill, and increase the minimum wage in the city to $10/hour--a salary that would net a worker with regular hours about $20,000/year in earnings.
"We can't continue to be a Tale of Two Cities, where the path to the middle class keeps fading for thousands of New Yorkers," said New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. "We must break the logjam and pass paid sick leave in the City Council. We have to protect low-wage workers fighting union busting employers. We can't tolerate inaction any longer. It's time for real action to fight for working families."
During one of the symposium workshops, a panel of labor experts discussed the obstacles facing low-wage workers in their fight to obtain such rights.
"[We've] shifted from a General Motors economy to a Wal-Mart economy," Dorian Warren, a professor of public affairs at Columbia University, said during the discussion. "[The job market is filled with] part-time jobs, low wages, no benefits, no social contract, no ability to move up in the job the way 20th century workers were able to."
Warren says that the quality of jobs in the American economy will only decline if something isn't done. He noted that 24 percent of jobs were low-wage in 2009. By 2020, that number is expected to nearly double and hit 40 percent. To make matters worse, technological "advances" are expected to increase unemployment rates by 3-5 percent moving forward.
"We're looking at an economy only of low-wage work in the future, but also of high and permanent levels of unemployment," Warren said.
The panel was moderated by acclaimed labor reporter, Steven Greenhouse of the N.Y. Times and included Angelo Falcon, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, Deborah Axt, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, M. Patricia Smith, the solicitor of labor for U.S. Department of Labor and Ana Avendano of the AFL-CIO.
Several panelists stressed the need to combat attacks from right-minded forces seeking to erode worker wage and benefit rights. Falcon says that those fighting for worker rights must correct popular narratives, many of which categorize wage and benefit increases for workers as business-killers.
"When we talk about the minimum wage, the immediate response from business is, we're going to lose jobs because, we're only going to be able to hire a few people. We have to have an answer to that objection," Falcon said. "Through raising the minimum wage, you create job growth in terms of people being able to put more money into the economy. You're [putting] less pressure on social welfare systems...the system is still subsidizing business [when the public provides] welfare and other social services."
Warren* argued a similar point.
"I think we have to be much more explicit about targeting the right the way that they've targeted us. There's a reason why the right has gone after public sector unionism," Warren* said. "They know that's where the heart of the labor movement is in terms of funding and in terms of membership. We have to get smarter about which parts of the right do we target to destroy ideologically, organizationally so that we can advance further our movements. "
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Immigrant group targets Wells Fargo for supporting ‘Trump campaign of hate’
Immigrant group targets Wells Fargo for supporting ‘Trump campaign of hate’
Advocates for undocumented immigrants gathered outside 3 Wells Fargo Center in uptown Charlotte Wednesday to demand the...
Advocates for undocumented immigrants gathered outside 3 Wells Fargo Center in uptown Charlotte Wednesday to demand the bank cut all ties with companies that profit from deportations.
Hector Vaca of Action NC says the goal of the event is to get Wells Fargo to pull its money out of private prisons and immigrant detention centers. The protesters are also demanding the bank use its political influence to stop plans for a wall along the Mexican border.
Read the full article here.
A top regulator's close ties to Wall Street damage one of its most crucial functions 10 years after the crisis
A top regulator's close ties to Wall Street damage one of its most crucial functions 10 years after the crisis
“A new report from the Fed Up coalition, an activist group calling for more inclusive economic policies, says the key...
“A new report from the Fed Up coalition, an activist group calling for more inclusive economic policies, says the key regional Fed bank's conflicts lead to subpar regulation of Wall Street. As William Dudley, a former Goldman Sachs partner, prepares to retire as New York Fed president, Fed Up calls on the bank to "select a new president who will put the interests of the public before Wall Street. A new report from the Fed Up coalition, led by the Center for Popular Democracy, a Washington-based nonprofit, shows just how stark the lack of diversity in race, gender, and professional backgrounds has been at the New York Fed.”
Read the full article here.
Epic Charter School Fail Exposed
Capital & Main - October 2, 2014, by David Cohen - A $300,000 plane; $861,000 to pay off personal debts and keep...
Capital & Main - October 2, 2014, by David Cohen - A $300,000 plane; $861,000 to pay off personal debts and keep open a struggling restaurant. A down payment on a house and an office flush with flat-screen televisions, executive bathrooms and granite counter tops. This isn’t a list of expenditures from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, this represents a small slice of the more than $30 million of taxpayer funds that have been wasted through fraud and abuse in Pennsylvania’s charter schools since they first opened in 1997.
A new report from the Center for Popular Democracy, Integrity in Education, and Action United is blowing the lid off the lack of public oversight at Pennsylvania’s 186 charter schools.
Inadequate audit techniques, insufficient oversight staff and a lack of basic transparency have created a charter system that is ripe for abuse in the Keystone State. But there is hope. The report provides a detailed roadmap for Pennsylvania to create an effective oversight structure and provide meaningful protections that can curtail endemic fraud and waste.
The report calls for an immediate moratorium on new charters until the inadequate oversight system can be replaced with rigorous and transparent oversight. That’s the right first step.
According to the authors, charter school enrollment in the state has doubled three times since 2000 and Pennsylvania’s students, their families and taxpayers cannot afford to lose another $30 million. Pennsylvania’s students and taxpayers deserve better.
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Bankruptcy lenders say 'no' to more cash benefits for fired Toys 'R' Us workers
Bankruptcy lenders say 'no' to more cash benefits for fired Toys 'R' Us workers
Wachtell's letter said there's $180 million set aside for unsecured creditors with administrative claims. The two...
Wachtell's letter said there's $180 million set aside for unsecured creditors with administrative claims. The two advocacy groups, which include the Center for Popular Democracy and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, estimated the workers should have received $75 million in severance under the company's policy, and are asking for contributions to meet that sum.
Read the full article here.
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