Internal Emails Show ICE Agents Struggling to Substantiate Trump’s Lies About Immigrants
Internal Emails Show ICE Agents Struggling to Substantiate Trump’s Lies About Immigrants
As hundreds of undocumented immigrants were rounded up across the country last February in the first mass raids of the...
As hundreds of undocumented immigrants were rounded up across the country last February in the first mass raids of the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials went out of their way to portray the people they detained as hardened criminals, instructing field offices to highlight the worst cases for the media and attempting to distract attention from the dozens of individuals who were apprehended despite having no criminal background at all.
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Fed chairman defends interest rate hikes as Trump’s attacks show no sign of working
Fed chairman defends interest rate hikes as Trump’s attacks show no sign of working
Several protesters from the progressive group Fed Up stood outside the conference room where Powell delivered the...
Several protesters from the progressive group Fed Up stood outside the conference room where Powell delivered the speech. Much like Trump, they say raising rates again will harm working people’s chances of getting jobs and better pay. The protesters wore green T-shirts reading “The Fed wants more of us unemployed.
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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
An Imperfect Victory for New York Workers
An Imperfect Victory for New York Workers
Millions of New Yorkers are celebrating a deal this week to raise the state’s minimum wage. The deal puts a better...
Millions of New Yorkers are celebrating a deal this week to raise the state’s minimum wage. The deal puts a better future in sight for families around the state and sends a powerful signal to other states considering wage hikes of their own.
The deal is a testament to the power of organizing. Today’s headlines would be unimaginable just a few years ago. When New York Communities for Change organized the first fast food worker strike – almost four years ago – people thought we were crazy.
As the federal government repeatedly stalled on a meaningful increase to the nationwide minimum wage, it seemed that higher wages were out of reach.
In response, fast-food and other low-wage workers rose up to fight for better wages and a better quality of life, sparking a movement that spread to cities and towns across the nation.
It is no coincidence that the Fight for $15 began right here in New York City. The level of inequality in our city has long been one of the worst of the country – and has grown to historic proportions in recent years.
According to a 2014 Census Bureau survey, the top 5 percent of Manhattan households made 88 times as much as the poorest 20 percent. And as of last year, workers earning minimum wage could not afford median rent in a single neighborhood in New York City.
Wages have long failed to keep pace with the growing cost of living. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute found that the statewide wage of $9.00 per hour was well below what it would be if it had simply kept pace with inflation since 1970. The same study found that, accounting for both inflation and a higher cost of living, the minimum wage today would match its 1970 value if it reached $14.27 per hour this year – nearly the level agreed on by the New York State Legislature.
Governor Cuomo made the right move last year by mandating higher wages for fast-food workers – those on the front lines fighting for reform. But leading industry by industry risked neglecting too many workers. In order to truly create change, the rules must apply equally to everybody. Last week’s deal did that, letting workers across the economy finally dream bigger than the next paycheck.
The deal is a victory for New York City workers. However, it bypasses hard-working families in Upstate New York. While over a million low-wage workers in the city will see their wages rise to $15 per hour by the end of 2018, those in Long Island will only reach $15 in almost six years and those upstate will need to wait five years only to reach $12.50. Although the deal allows wages to rise to $15 after that, the rate will depend on review and inflation and could take years.
It is a painfully long stretch given the growing cost of living north of the city. The New York State Comptroller, for example, has found housing costs skyrocketing, with at least one in five people in every county – including those far upstate like Warren and Monroe – spending more than a third of their salary on rent. In some counties half of residents must spend that much. With added expenses like utilities and food, it leaves little room to save up for college or retirement.
It is imperative that legislators now finish the job and give all New Yorkers a chance at a living wage.
Just days before Albany finalized its deal; California showed us that a $15 wage statewide is possible. Our state must fulfill the promise of Fight for $15 statewide and let all workers adequately provide for themselves and their families. Otherwise New Yorkers will continue doing what they have been doing for almost four years: risking everything to provide a better life for their families.
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By JoEllen Chernow &. Jonathan Westin
Source
Retail and restaurant workers have the worst schedules. Oregon plans to change that.
Retail and restaurant workers have the worst schedules. Oregon plans to change that.
In the next upcoming battle for workers’ rights, activists aren’t asking for more money or more time off. They just...
In the next upcoming battle for workers’ rights, activists aren’t asking for more money or more time off. They just want workers to get a little advance notice about what their schedule will be.
Activists for better working conditions have scored victories lately. This year, 19 states increased their minimum wage — the result of a coordinated state-by-state campaign to take action on an issue that the federal government has basically ignored for a decade. And a handful of cities and states have passed laws requiring employers to offer workers paid parental leave.
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Progressive Groups Go On The Offensive Against A Fed Interest Rate Hike
Progressive groups are launching a national campaign this week to pressure the Federal Reserve not to raise interest...
Progressive groups are launching a national campaign this week to pressure the Federal Reserve not to raise interest rates until wages begin growing more significantly. And they are getting some help from popular liberal economist Robert Reich.
The groups, led by the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign -- a foundation-funded nonprofit committed to a more "pro-worker" Federal Reserve -- inaugurated the effort in earnest over the weekend with mass email blasts and solicitation on other digital platforms of a petition, “Tell the Fed: Don’t Raise Interest Rates!”
Participating organizations, which include online progressive heavyweights CREDO Action, Daily Kos and the Working Families Party, will send the petition to an increasing number of activists over the course of the week. The groups, a complete list of which you can find in the petition, have a combined email list and website visitor reach in the millions.
Activists will deliver the petition signatures they amass in the coming weeks to Fed officials at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, onAug. 27-29. Fed Up is sending a delegation of low-income workers and representatives from communities of color to the symposium with the goal of raising awareness of working families’ concerns about Fed monetary policy. The Fed Up campaign formally began with a similar visit to Jackson Hole last year.
Some of the emails to activists will include a video from Robert Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley and former secretary of labor, that is likely to give the effort a high-profile boost. Reich posted the video, along with a link to the petition, on his Facebook page on Friday. As of Monday afternoon it already had been viewed over 142,000 times -- and shared by more than 3,600 people. Reich relies on a production team to make his videos, but does the illustrations featured in them himself.
The new online campaign aims to influence the Fed at a pivotal moment: The central bank is indicating that it will raise interest rates as soon as September. Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart, who sits on the FOMC, confirmed on Monday that the Fed would soon raise rates, saying the "the point of 'liftoff' is close." Lockhart's remarks come after July jobs numbers Friday showed relatively steady job gains.
Robert Reich’s Federal Reserve 101
The progressive groups pushing back against a rate hike are betting that if the public knew how much they stood to lose if rates go up, they would be willing to speak out against a hike. They could then generate pressure to change the Fed’s calculus.
For that to happen, though, people need to understand what the Federal Reserve is -- which activists acknowledge is rare.
So Reich’s five-minute video starts at square one, explaining how the Federal Reserve works and why it affects Americans’ lives -- before articulating the case against a rate hike. The Fed cuts interest rates, or keeps them low, he explains, in order to stimulate the economy. “The lower the [Fed’s] rates, the easier it is to borrow,” Reich says in the video. “The easier it is to borrow, the more active the economy becomes.”
Reich then elaborates on the virtuous cycle that takes hold when low rates leave people with more disposable income, as graphics illustrating his points whiz by onscreen. Consumers spend more, Reich explains, growing businesses and increasing demand for labor. And if there is enough demand for workers, he continues, employers raise wages to compete for those workers.
Why Do Progressives Think A September Rate Hike Is Premature?
Reich, like the campaign he is backing, makes the case that the Fed should wait until demand for workers is high enough to increase wages substantially before raising interest rates. Although the official unemployment rate of 5.3 percent is low by historical standards, it has yet to translate into substantial wage growth. Average wages have risen 2.1 percent in the past 12 months -- not much higher than the rate of price inflation, which, as of June, was 1.8 percent (not including energy and food).
Economists like Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argue that wage growth has yet to take off because there are still too many job seekers for the number of jobs available. The official unemployment rate does not account for the 6.3 million underemployed workers, who have part-time work but want to work full time, or the 668,000 jobless workers, who have given up seeking work altogether.
Although the progressive groups’ petition does not explicitly demand that the Fed wait for a specific wage growth figure before raising interest rates, the Fed Up campaign and its partners have largely coalesced around a wage growth target of 3.5 to 4 percent. The liberal-leaningEconomic Policy Institute, which is participating in the new petition campaign, estimates that with that type of wage growth, price inflation will not “significantly exceed” the Fed’s 2 percent inflation target.
These progressives warn that a Fed interest rate hike that occurs before significant wage growth takes hold would disproportionately hurt people of color and women. Both groups face routine discrimination in the job market that they are more likely to overcome in a high-demand economy buttressed by low rates. And people of color are much more likely to be workers on the lower side of the earnings spectrum, who have the least leverage vis-à-vis employers. That means they are often the last people to get hired or get a raise when the job market heats up, and the first to lose their jobs when it cools down. For evidence of this, they say, look no further than the shockingly high African-American unemployment rate of 9.1 percent.
What About Inflation?
The Fed balances its mandate to maximize employment with an obligation to prevent excessive inflation. That is why it raises interest rates when it believes prices are at or near its target inflation rate of 2 percent. Some economists also believe that even when consumer prices are below the target rate, the Fed should raise rates if housing and stock prices are getting unreasonably high.
Reich -- and the many economists and activists with whom he finds common cause -- appreciate the Fed’s obligation to prevent runaway inflation. But they note that inflation has remained consistently below the Fed’s target rate of 2 percent. And they believe that for the sake of job creation and wage growth, the economy can tolerate slightly higher inflation than the current Fed target.
“More jobs and better wages are more important than theoretical worries about accelerating inflation,” Reich concludes.
Reich and allies point to the late 1990s as a model for Fed monetary policy. They credit then-Fed Chair Alan Greenspan for refusing to raise interest rates even as the official unemployment rate dipped, against the wishes of other Fed officials concerned about inflation. As a result, wage growth was widespread enough to produce significant gains for workers at the bottom of the earnings spectrum.
A New Progressive Priority?
The petition campaign against a Fed rate hike is something of a coup for advocates who, asHuffPost reported at length in June, have long argued that Fed monetary policy should be a higher priority for the political left. Although the foundation-funded Fed Up campaign has been agitating for a more “pro-worker” Fed for nearly a year now, this is the first time it is collaborating with major progressive players like CREDO Action, Daily Kos and the Working Families Party. The Economic Policy Institute, which is a member of the Fed Up campaign’s founding coalition, is also activating its email list for a Fed Up petition effort for the first time.
A broad array of liberal-leaning organizations joined forces in the summer and fall of 2013 to torpedo President Barack Obama’s nomination of Lawrence Summers as chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Summers united economic progressives concerned about his Wall Street ties and women’s advocates angered by his remarks about women. Their efforts succeeded in winning the appointment of Janet Yellen as chair instead of Summers.
But since that time, the Fed has largely faded from the progressive foreground. Higher-profile fights like the movements for the $15 minimum wage and against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal have taken up the lion’s share of progressive energy and attention, dwarfing more esoteric causes. To the extent progressives have publicly pressured the Fed, it has been to police Wall Street more carefully, not maintain a dovish monetary policy.
“In general it’s clear that the Federal Reserve gets far less attention from progressives than it should in light of the tremendous influence it has over the economy and Americans’ quality of life,” said Josh Nelson, communications director for CREDO Action.
This relative inattention is evident in how little Federal Reserve monetary policy has come up in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. The topic has not been discussed widely on the campaign trail. Of the major Democratic presidential candidates, only former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley responded to a request for comment last week on a possible Fed rate hike. O’Malley agreed with progressive activists that the Fed should wait for more robust wage growth before raising rates.
By contrast, the right wing has relentlessly trained its fire on the Fed for “debasing” the dollar with its quantitative easing program -- its now-defunct multitrillion-dollar asset purchasing program -- and low interest rates. Republican members of Congress regularly grill Yellen for printing too much money.
To the extent that Republican presidential candidates have broached the subject, they have weighed in in support of raising rates. Donald Trump, a real estate mogul and ersatz Republican presidential candidate, warned last week that the Fed’s low interest rates are causing an asset bubble. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has also slammed the Fed’s “easy money” policies for endangering the economy.
But the petition effort raises advocates’ hopes that a progressive movement with the power to match the right's Fed lobby is finally taking shape.
Haedtler said that CREDO Action, Daily Kos and the Working Families Party were eager to get involved.
“They were very enthusiastic about targeting a new institution that was not accustomed to outside pressure by working families,” Haedtler said, adding that he thought soliciting these groups’ involvement “would be more challenging than it was.”
They were receptive to the argument, Haedtler said, that the Federal Reserve can “wipe out a lot of progress” on more visible issues like the minimum wage, if the Fed “does not recognize that the economic recovery has not benefitted everybody.”
CREDO Action did not specify how many activists it would target, but said that the petition would reach “many of the economic justice activists” on the group’s 3.8 million-person email list.
“The traditional obscurity [of the Fed] is why we must organize around it,” CREDO Action’s Nelson said. “People assume they can't influence the Fed. But that's wrong. These are people and they are open to both pressure and input. Pointing out that many communities still suffer is an essential role for advocates.” Nelson added that progressive input is a “necessary counterweight” to Wall Street influence on the central bank.
Chris Bowers, the Daily Kos’ executive campaign director, is confident that the Fed rate hike is not too esoteric for Daily Kos members. “One thing we've learned over the years is that Daily Kos readers tend to be very sophisticated, highly engaged activists who know a great deal about all manner of political issues,” Bowers said in an email. “In fact, some of our best-performing campaigns have focused on topics that might seem surprisingly obscure, such as net neutrality and filibuster reform. So we expect that our readers will readily grasp what's at stake here.”
Daily Kos is soliciting signatures for the petition through a splash screen some people see when they visit the site. Bowers estimates that 20,000 people a day will see the splash over the course of a campaign that will last at least two weeks. He said Daily Kos is gauging the “intensity” of their members’ interest in the Fed based on their engagement with the petition. If enthusiasm is high, it will send the petition to its much larger email activism list.
Beyond Stopping A Rate Hike
Ultimately, the Fed Up campaign and its allies are on a larger mission to make the Federal Reserve more accountable to working people. That means not only preventing an interest rate hike before greater wage growth takes hold, but also pushing the Fed to rebalance its dual mandate toward genuine full employment and higher wages, and away from what they believe is excessive concern about inflation. The theme of this year’s Jackson Hole symposium is“Inflation Dynamics and Monetary Policy,” which Fed Up points to as a typical sign of the Fed’s inflation bias.
“We want to reframe the narrative” at the symposium, Haedtler said. Inflation, he explains, “is not what is on the minds of low-wage workers who have been suffering through a very slow economic recovery.”
“We think of our campaign less as a left/right divide, and more as an effort to bring the voices of working families to the Federal Reserve for the first time,” Haedtler noted. “Ultimately our members are fighting for a broader recovery, better wages and better working conditions.”
Fed Up can point to concrete progress toward this goal since its inaugural action at the Jackson Hole symposium last August. Their protests there led to a meeting between Fed Up activists and Kansas City Fed President Esther George. That in turn opened the door to meetings with four other regional Federal Reserve bank presidents. Fed Up has also met with Yellen and several members of the Fed Board of Governors in their Washington offices.
The meetings have enabled working people organized by Fed Up to share their economic experiences with Fed officials, who make decisions that will affect these people’s lives.
Haedtler believes these meetings are already bearing fruit. The Fed created a Community Advisory Council in January to solicit more diverse views on the state of the economy.
“Even very hawkish regional presidents -- like James Bullard, the St. Louis Fed president -- really seem to take to heart some of the stories we convey to them,” he said.
The Fed Up campaign also wants to reform the selection process for regional Federal Reserve bank presidents, which it says reflects the narrow interests of the bankers that dominate their boards of directors. They are asking regional Fed presidents that they meet with for a timeline of their selection process and a list of candidates being considered.
Fed Up claims credit for the Minneapolis regional Federal Reserve Bank’s decision to disclose the process through which it would select its next president.
“We know something about congressionally confirmed Fed board governors, but very little about regional fed presidents, other than that they are overwhelmingly white, male and have close ties to the financial sector,” Haedtler said.
Source: Huffington Post
Under scrutiny, New York Fed sets short list for Dudley successor
Under scrutiny, New York Fed sets short list for Dudley successor
“Community and labor activists led by the Fed Up coalition demonstrate and call for the selection of a Federal Reserve...
“Community and labor activists led by the Fed Up coalition demonstrate and call for the selection of a Federal Reserve Bank of New York president independent from Wall Street, outside the Fed bank in New York, March 12, 2018.”
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Who’s truly rebuilding the Democratic Party? The activists.
Who’s truly rebuilding the Democratic Party? The activists.
In June 2010 I made a very bad tweet that I came to regret. (Hard to imagine, I know.) I yelled at the disability...
In June 2010 I made a very bad tweet that I came to regret. (Hard to imagine, I know.) I yelled at the disability rights group Adapt.
I’d come to DC to attend a conference of progressive leaders, “America’s Future Now.” And while I knew a lot about financial reform, I didn’t know enough about politics, activism, or the Democratic Party.
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Let’s Be Real Episode 6: We’re Fed Up!
Let’s Be Real Episode 6: We’re Fed Up!
This episode, we take a look at a campaign that focuses on the Federal Reserve System and its impact on working people...
This episode, we take a look at a campaign that focuses on the Federal Reserve System and its impact on working people and people of color. We take you to a rally in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York where we spoke with two protesters about how the Fed impacts their communities. Then, we sit down with the Director of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up! Campaign to hear about the fight to put working people and communities of color at the center of the Fed’s decision-making process.
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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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