Jóvenes dreamers envían contundente mensaje a políticos demócratas de California
Jóvenes dreamers envían contundente mensaje a políticos demócratas de California
Un grupo de soñadores se dieron cita para pedir a líderes políticos que defiendan el Dream Act ante el gobierno. De no...
Un grupo de soñadores se dieron cita para pedir a líderes políticos que defiendan el Dream Act ante el gobierno. De no hacerlo, apoyarán y buscarán la ayuda de otros legisladores, afirmaron.
Mira el video aquí.
Biggest U.S. Mass Protest & Rally Ever Staged for $15 Wage Set for April
Sky Valley Chronicle - April 1, 2015 - According to organizers, it's going to be huge. Fast food workers across the...
Sky Valley Chronicle - April 1, 2015 - According to organizers, it's going to be huge. Fast food workers across the country, evidently unmoved by the Reagan era inspired trickle-down theory of economics plan on striking in hundreds of U.S. cities on April 15, tax day in efforts to secure a $15 an hour wage and the right to form unions without retaliation from employers.They say they'll be joined by more than 60,000 people across the country as well as others in 35 countries around the world and that this time workers from new industries will be standing with them – from home care and child care workers, to adjunct professors, to Walmart employees. One report calls the planned action a "series of global labor strikes with protests on college campuses." According to April15.org "Millions of underpaid workers can’t support their families or make ends meet on hourly wages that haven’t kept pace with the bills – or their employers’ profits. On April 15, fast food cashiers and cooks, retail employees, child care workers, home care providers, airport workers, and all of us who believe they deserve better are showing up in cities across the country to say ENOUGH."The April 15 strike action will include rallies and marches on 170 university campuses. CBS News notes that, "Expanding the labor movement to college campuses hearkens back to successful social movements that included pressure from university students, such as the 1980s divestment campaign against U.S. corporations that invested in apartheid-era South Africa. While college students have long served as a vocal social force in American history, though, there's a growing group on campuses seeking higher wages: adjunct professors."The same report quotes Tiffany Kraft, an adjunct professor in Portland, Oregon as saying, "The universities I work for pay me next to nothing and treat me like I'm expendable. I joined the Fight for $15 to demand higher wages and more respect for our role as educators." CBS reported that adjunct professors typically earn about $20,000 to $25,000 per year and get no health benefits or job security, even though "they hold doctorates or other advanced degrees."In many communities brick layers, construction workers and auto mechanics with no college degrees earn that and more.Terrence Wise, a Burger King worker from Kansas City, Missouri, and a national leader for the Fight for $15 push told the Associated Press "This will be the biggest mobilization America has seen in decades," and will feature some 2,000 groups including Jobs With Justice and the Center for Popular Democracy.
SourceYou can find out here where an event near you will take place.
Elizabeth Warren And Congressional Democrats Call Out Lack Of Diversity At The Federal Reserve
Elizabeth Warren And Congressional Democrats Call Out Lack Of Diversity At The Federal Reserve
A majority of House Democrats and eleven Democratic senators sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on...
A majority of House Democrats and eleven Democratic senators sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Thursday, urging the Fed to improve the diversity of its top officials and increase the representation of consumer and labor groups in its ranks.
The letter, spearheaded by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in the Senate and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) in the House, argues that a lack of diversity of all kinds at the Federal Reserve undermines the central bank’s ability to represent the public.
The Fed’s control over monetary policy, the letter notes, gives it far-reaching influence over the economy. When the central bank decides to raise interest rates, it increases borrowing costs, putting downward pressure on job creation in order to keep inflation in check.
A Fed with fewer black and female decision-makers might be less attuned to the ways in which modest changes in the job market disproportionately affect African-Americans and women, both of whom suffer from employment discrimination.
“When the voices of women, African-Americans, Latinos, and representatives of consumers and labor are excluded from key discussions, their interests are too often neglected,” the letter states.
Boasting the signatures of 116 House Democrats, including all of the Democrats in the Congressional Black Caucus, the letter does not lack for evidence with which to critique the central bank.
Eighty-three percent of the board members of the regional Federal Reserve banks are white, and almost three-quarters of them are men, according to a Center for Popular Democracy study cited in the letter.
Just 11 percent of those board members represent consumer and community groups or labor organizations, the study states, while 39 percent come from the financial industry and 47 percent from other major business sectors.
When the voices of women, African-Americans, Latinos, and representatives of consumers and labor are excluded from key discussions, their interests are too often neglected.
Warren-Conyers letter to Janet Yellen
The congressional Democrats praised Yellen in the letter for prioritizing full employment since she has taken the helm in 2014. Yellen has presided over just one increase in the Fed’s benchmark rate in December, when the Fed raised it to a range of 0.25 to 0.5 percent from the near-zero level, where it had been since the 2008 financial crisis.
The letter also credits Yellen for promising to “consider” African-American candidates for open regional Fed president positions during her congressional testimony in February, and expressing “concern” that there has never been a black president of a regional Federal Reserve bank.
But just days after Yellen’s testimony, the Democrats note, the Fed announced it had approved the re-appointment of 10 regional Fed presidents, all of whom are white and eight of whom are men.
“Despite the importance of this decision, there appears to have been no public consultation, and limited transparency regarding the metrics and criteria used to evaluate the presidents’ performance, or in the decision to reappoint them,” the letter alleges.
Warren and Conyers’ letter is part of a broader push by progressive members of Congress, along with national activist groups and like-minded economists, to make Federal Reserve monetary policy a key component of the progressive agenda. They argue that the outsize influence of inflation-wary financial professionals on the central bank, plus sustained pressure from ideological conservatives in Congress, mean it’s time for liberals to be more vocal about their views.
The Fed Up coalition, an alliance of progressive groups headed by the Center for Popular Democracy, has led these efforts, which include a reform plan released in April that would transform the Fed into a wholly public entity, among other changes. (The 12 regional Fed banks are currently owned by private financial institutions.)
Fed Up said activists affiliated with its member groups made calls to members of Congress to encourage them to sign the letter.
Democratic hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was among the lawmakers who did so. Sanders also praised Fed Up’s April reform plan and released detailed proposals of his own for the central bank in December.
Fellow Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign implied that Clinton agreed with the letter’s key demands.
“Secretary Clinton believes that the Fed needs to be more representative of America as a whole as well as that commonsense reforms — like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks — are long overdue,” Jesse Ferguson, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said in a statement. “Secretary Clinton will also defend the Fed’s so-called dual mandate — the legal requirement that it focus on full employment as well as inflation — and will appoint Fed governors who share this commitment and who will carry out unwavering oversight of the financial industry.”
The remarks appear to be the most explicit comments to date by either Clinton or her campaign on the Democratic presidential front-runner’s vision for the Fed and the types of Fed officials she would appoint as president.
Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump’s presidential campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Trump told CNBC last week that he would likely replace Yellen, who is the first female chair of the central bank, once her term ends in 2018. In the same interview, he said he supports low interest rates, a policy Yellen promoted that might be undone by a more conservative Fed chair.
Trump’s latest comments suggest a departure from claims he made in August, when he said the low rates were feeding a financial asset bubble.
By Daniel Marans
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As the federal government fails the people of Puerto Rico, local governments and states must step up
As the federal government fails the people of Puerto Rico, local governments and states must step up
Given the likelihood that even more Puerto Ricans will resettle on the mainland the Center for Popular Democracy and...
Given the likelihood that even more Puerto Ricans will resettle on the mainland the Center for Popular Democracy and Local Progress have published a policy guide, the first of its kind, offering a roadmap for cities and states to address the immediate needs of their new constituents.
Read the full article here.
Scaffold Law Debate Heats Up Over Dueling Reports on Safety and Costs
Legislative Gazetter - April 21, 2014, by Matthew Dondiego - A new report released last Thursday by a pro-labor, pro-...
Legislative Gazetter - April 21, 2014, by Matthew Dondiego - A new report released last Thursday by a pro-labor, pro-immigrant rights advocacy group criticizes the construction industry for using what they call misleading figures and cherry picking data to lobby against the state's controversial "scaffold law."
The scaffold law is a century-old law in place to protect worker's rights. Under the law, contractors and property owners serving as contractors are responsible for providing a safe work environment for their employees or become liable for any on-site injuries and accidents.
Opponents of the law point out that contractors are fully liable for workers' injuries even if it is determined the worker is at fault. Opponents say it is outdated and causes construction costs to rise due to the increased costs of insurance premiums. Supporters of the law say it provides common sense protection for workers performing a dangerous job and maintain that contractors are not held liable in court if proper safety precautions are in place.
The new report, titled Fatally Flawed and released by the Center for Popular Democracy, which is supported financially by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and labor unions, is a scathing criticism of a Rockefeller Institute study — which is frequently referenced by the construction industry — that concluded the scaffold law resulted in an additional 667 work site injuries and adds about $3 billion in additional costs to construction projects in New York state each year.
According to last week's report, the oft-cited Rockefeller Institute study is "fundamentally biased" and calls the New York Civil Justice Institute, which paid $82,800 to commission the Rockefeller study, "a poorly-disguised front group" for the construction industry aligned Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York. According to the report, the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York and the New York Civil Justice Institute share the same address, 19 Dove St, Suite 201, Albany, N.Y., and the same telephone and fax numbers.
"This [Rockefeller Institute] study was bought and paid for by the construction industry," Josie Duffy, a staff attorney for the Center for Popular Democracy. "This is a direct result of people who do not like the scaffold law for business reasons, paying for this report to be released."
On the claim that the scaffold law contributed an additional 667 injuries, the report says the Rockefeller Institute "confuses correlation with causation."
This claim, according the Center for Popular Democracy, is based on worker injury rates in "sub-sectors and non-construction industries," such as warehouse work, transportation, roofing, residential building construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade and utilities industries, and are compared to the rest of the nation.
"The authors assert that these differences are greater in New York and attribute these greater differences entirely to the scaffold law," the new report reads. "There is simply no basis to conclude that the scaffold law is the cause of these differences. Indeed, the authors provide no justification for comparing injury rates in construction with injury rates in less hazardous industries, or using those differences as a proxy for the impact of the scaffold law."
Duffy bluntly says that the scaffold law does not cause an increase in workplace accidents. She says the Rockefeller Institute's study, which was released in February, lacks factual evidence that the law makes work sites more dangerous and "that number is coming from nowhere."
"To me, that is the most egregious part of this whole report," Duffy said.
Despite the strong words used in the report and by Duffy, Tom Stebbins, executive director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, says that the Rockefeller report "conclusively" found the law made construction sites more dangerous for workers.
He said that absolute liability for contractors creates "perverse incentives" for workers.
"Workers are not incentivized because they are never held responsible and contractors are not incentivized because they are guilty in nearly every circumstance," Stebbins said. "Only by apportioning liability to fault, as is done in every other state and every other part of our civil justice system, can we maintain balance and improve safety."
According to Stebbins, the report released by the Center for Popular Democracy last week is a "political hit piece, with no statistical merit or actual research of any kind. They cannot get researchers to back up their opinions, because the facts do not support the scaffold law."
Stebbins argues that absolute liability causes the insurance markets to treat sites with sterling safety records the same as companies with less stringent safety precautions. Opponents of the scaffold law say that absolute liability holds the company liable for the worker injuries regardless of who is actually found to be at fault.
Duffy however, said that companies are not automatically found to be liable for injuries sustained by workers on construction sites and are typically safe from injury-related costs so long as they had the proper safety precautions in place.
"What absolute liability means is that you have to pay for the costs of the injuries … and that's only going to happen if you're breaking the law," she explained. "What this law says is there has to be some level of protection for workers."
According to Duffy, under the law companies still hold the right to argue their case in court and they are not automatically found responsible for every injury.
"It's important that employers get to have their voices heard in law, I support that this law allows people to get their voices heard on both sides and that's a very, very real protection," she said "Nothing happens automatically in this law and you can't even be taken to court unless your breaking the law in the first place."
The report also criticizes the Rockefeller Institute for failing to take into consideration certain conditions in New York that may affect the injury rates in the state. Such measures include New York generally has more high-level construction works which may drive up injury rates and New York construction workers are more likely to be union workers and therefore are more likely to report injuries. According to the report, Texas has one of the lowest construction injury rates yet is among the highest in construction fatality rates.
According to the report, "Such low-injury-rate states have artificially suppressed the US injury rate, which the paper nonetheless compares to the New York rate."
"This is a law that protects construction workers. Construction workers are doing a really difficult job and they're doing it every day and they are growing our economy," Duffy said. "Construction workers are literally the bread and butter of what makes New York City, New York City … and this is a state of construction."
Assemblyman Francisco Moya, a Democrat from Queens, said the Center for Popular Democracy's report "injected some truth into the politically-charged debate surrounding the scaffold law."
"Many untruths have been lobbed at the scaffold law in an attempt to dismantle it. This report makes clear that those untruths have unfortunately been crafted by parties who have a financial interest in watering down workplace protections," Moya, a staunch supporter of the law, said in an e-mail. "When it comes to life and death decisions about workplace safety, there's no room for politics. It has to be about facts. And the fact is that the Scaffold Law protects workers. That's the real bottom line."
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Activists Deliver Climate Plan for Just Transition to EPA Offices Nationwide
On January 19, activists at each of the Environmental Protection Agency's 10 regional offices issued their own...
On January 19, activists at each of the Environmental Protection Agency's 10 regional offices issued their own corrective on the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. Days before the end of the federal comment period, the Climate Justice Alliance's Our Power Campaign - comprised of 41 climate and environmental justice organizations - presented its Our Power Plan, which identifies "clear and specific strategies for implementing the Clean Power Plan, or CPP, in a way that will truly benefit our families' health and our country's economy."
Introduced last summer, the CPP looks to bring down power plants' carbon emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels within 15 years. The plan was made possible by Massachusetts vs. EPA, a 2007 Supreme Court ruling which mandates that the agency regulate greenhouse gases as it has other toxins and pollutants under the Clean Air Act of 1963. Under the CPP, states are each required to draft their own implementation plans by September of this year, or by 2018 if granted an extension. If they fail to do so, state governments will be placed by default into an interstate carbon trading, or "Cap and Trade," system to bring down emissions.
Michael Leon Guerrero, the Climate Justice Alliance's interim coordinator, was in Paris for the most recent round of UN climate talks as part of the It Takes Roots Delegation, which brought together over 100 organizers from North American communities on the frontlines of both climate change and fossil fuel extraction. He sees the Our Power Plan as a logical next step for the group coming out of COP21, especially as the onus for implementing and improving the Paris agreement now falls to individual nations.
"Fundamentally," he said, "we need to transform our economy and rebuild our communities. We can't address the climate crisis in a cave without addressing issues of equity."
The Our Power Plan, or OPP, is intended as a blueprint for governments and EPA administrators to address the needs of frontline communities as they draft their state-level plans over the next several months. (People living within three miles of a coal plant have incomes averaging 15 percent lower than average, and are eight percent more likely to be communities of color.) Included in the OPP are calls to bolster what CJA sees as the CPP's more promising aspects, like renewable energy provisions, while eliminating proposed programs they see as more harmful. The CPP's carbon trading scheme, CJA argues, allows polluters to buy "permissions to pollute," or carbon credits, rather than actually stemming emissions.
The OPP further outlines ways that the EPA can ensure a "just transition" away from fossil fuels, encouraging states to invest in job creation, conduct equity analyses and "work with frontlines communities to develop definitions, indicators, and tracking and response systems that really account for impacts like health, energy use, cost of energy, climate vulnerability [and] cumulative risk."
Lacking support from Congress, the Obama administration has relied on executive action to push through everything from environmental action to comprehensive immigration reform. The Clean Power Plan was central to the package Obama brought to Paris. Also central to COP21 was US negotiators' insistence on keeping its results non-binding, citing Republican lawmakers' unwillingness to pass legislation.
Predictably, the CPP has faced legal challenges from the same forces, who decry the president for having overstepped the bounds of his authority. Republican state governments, utility companies, and fossil fuel industry groups have all filed suit against the CPP, with many asking for expedited hearings. Leading up the anti-CPP charge in Congress has been Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who hascalled the plan a "regulatory assault," pitting fossil fuel industry workers against the EPA. "Here's what is lost in this administration's crusade for ideological purity," he wrote in a November statement, "the livelihoods of our coal miners and their families."
Organizers of Tuesday's actions, however, were quick to point out that the Our Power Plan is aimed at strengthening - not defeating - the CPP as it stands. Denise Abdul-Rahman, of NAACP Indiana, helped organize an OPP delivery at the EPA's Region 5 headquarters in Chicago, bringing out representatives from Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, National People's Action and National Nurses United.
"We appreciate the integrity of the Clean Power Plan," she said. "However, we believe it needs to be improved - from eliminating carbon trading to ensuring that there's equity. We want to improve CPP by adding our voices and our plan, and we encourage the EPA to make it better." Four of the six states in that region - which includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin - are suing the EPA.
Endorsed by the National Domestic Workers' Alliance, Greenpeace and the Center for Popular Democracy, among other organizations, yesterday's national day of action on the EPA came as new details emerged in Flint, Michigan's ongoing water crisis - along with calls for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's resignation and arrest. The EPA has also admitted fault for its slow response to Flint residents' complaints, writing in a statement this week that "necessary [EPA] actions were not taken as quickly as they should have been."
Abdul-Rahman connected the water crisis with the need for a justly-implemented CPP. "The Flint government let their community down by not protecting our most precious asset, which is water," she said. "The same is true of air: we need the highest standard of protecting human beings' air, water, land."
Source: Truthout
Many residents stand against Donald Trump
Many residents stand against Donald Trump
Queens residents have been among the thousands protesting President-elect Trump in Manhattan since the election. “It...
Queens residents have been among the thousands protesting President-elect Trump in Manhattan since the election.
“It was a rally and a march called together primarily by immigrants rights groups to provide a space for immigrant communities, people that are undocumented to be able to raise up the voices and the perpsectives of immigrant communities,” DRUM — South Asian Organizing Center Executive Director Fahd Ahmed told the Chronicle, adding that Sunday’s march would not be the last that they attend.
According to the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New York, more than 15,000 immigrant New Yorkers and their supporters attended the event.
“Well, basically we were marching because we will not tolerate the hate agenda, we’re here to stay and we reject that,” Ozone Park resident Julissa Bisono said. “We want to make sure that New York City continues to be a sanctuary for immigrant families and that’s why we decided to march yesterday, to make sure that President-elect Trump hears our message.”
Kenneth Shelton, a St. John’s University student, organized the march on Saturday from Union Square to Trump Tower with the news outlet BlackMatters US.
“It was just for people to vent their frustration, get out there and protest but also to show that we’re unified,” Shelton said. “We need to organize ourselves into a movement socially, politically and economically.”
“We reject his hate and refuse to live in constant fear under a president who does not regard us as human,” Queens resident Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, said in a prepared statement. “[Sunday’s] rally and march marks our first, though certainly not last, line of resistance against Trump’s brutal anti-immigrant regime.”
Queens is believed to have more unauthorized immigrants than any other borough, nearly 250,000, who could face deportation.
“The immigrant communities here, they’re real hard-working families and they’re scared,” Bisono said.
According to Bisono, there is a serious fear among immigrants that they could be harmed after last week’s election.
“We had kids that came who didn’t even go to school because they were afraid to not come back the next day,” she said. “We shouldn’t be living in fear.”
For people who feel like they may be threatened by the Trump administration, the protests were an opportunity to stand in solidarity with others who are as worried.
Ahmed, whose group is based in Jackson Heights and used to be called Desis Rising Up and Moving, said that the protests are “to get people out of fear, to get them out of isolation and to build with each other.”
Although Trump has urged his supporters to not hurt others and commit hate crimes, those have spiked nationwide in the days following his election victory.
“The large number of people that came to these actions have been black communities, Latino communities — the people explicitly being told that they need to watch out and will be targeted,” Ahmed said.
By Ryan Brady
Source
The John Gore Organization & Scarlett Johansson's Our Town Benefit Raises $500,000 for Hurricane Maria Community Relief Fund
The event played to a full house and a very enthusiastic crowd. With more than 3,500 tickets sold, it was one of the...
The event played to a full house and a very enthusiastic crowd. With more than 3,500 tickets sold, it was one of the largest audiences the play has ever been presented to in one night. Johansson was joined on stage for opening remarks by director Leon and Xiomara Caro, Director of New Organizing Projects for the Center of Popular Democracy and coordinator for The Maria Fund, sharing an inspiring message about the purpose of the event and the relief effort. They brought the crowd to their feet when they revealed that the evening’s efforts resulted in half of a million dollars raised to help Puerto Rico in their hour of need.
Read the full article here.
Americans for Democratic Action Hosts Philly Charter School Forum: Who’s Minding the Store?
Weekly Press - December 17, 2014, by Nicole Contosta - Charter Schools have become a divisive issue in Philadelphia....
Weekly Press - December 17, 2014, by Nicole Contosta - Charter Schools have become a divisive issue in Philadelphia. Supporters swear to their effectiveness. Critics argue that they lack accountability.
Both sides of the charter school debate were heard last Tuesday, December 9th. That’s when the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), hosted the Philly Charter School Forum: Who’s Minding the Store?
Panelists included Feather Houstoun from the Philadelphia School Reform Commission (SRC); Jurate Krokys, founding principal of the Independence Charter School, Kyle Serette of the Center for Popular Democracy and author of Fraud and Financial Mismanagement in PA’s Charter Schools; and Barbara Dowdall, retired public school teacher and former ADA board member.
Solomon Leach, Philadelphia Daily News Education Reporter, moderated. Leach began the evening’s discourse by asking Houstoun to comment on the evolution of charter schools in Philadelphia.
Houstoun, who spent most of her career in managing care, transit and welfare problems, cited her experience with "good oversight." But when Houstoun joined the SRC three and half years ago, "I was really surprised […] about the incredibly precarious situation the school district was in. Now," Houstoun continued, "we’re living within our means, but we’re horrifically under-resourced."
And with regard to charter schools, Houstoun said, "I was really dumbfounded by how badly over the course of time the [Philadelphia School] District had organized itself to assure that we were getting good value for children in charter schools."
To Houstoun, getting good value for the city’s children proves relevant given the fact that "40 percent of our children are being educated at charter schools that are separate from the district apparatus."
But, Houstoun continued, "We must accept responsibility for these things." And in Houstoun’s opinion, part of the problem resulted from the fact that "the District did not set up standards for academic performances. There were no systematic annual check-ups about what they were doing in terms of finance, corporate or academic measures."
Houstoun cited the fact that the SRC only renews charter schools on a five-year basis as contributing to the lack of oversight. However, at the same time, Houstoun expressed optimism when it comes to moving forward with the city’s charter schools. Over the past year, the SRC performed an overhaul of the charter school office, placing Julian Thompson at the helm. "We’re operating within charter school law that gives us the obligation to monitor and review charter schools," Houstoun emphasized.
From the charter school perspective, Krokys said that she hasn’t always had the best experience working with the SRC.
"I’ve been in the charter world for about 14 years," Krokys said, "In the past and sometimes the not so recent past—what it was—the relationship and the process of authorization and renewal were secret, haphazard, and hostile. And I’m not exaggerating. It was always up for grabs."
In answering Leach’s question about what she’s learned from really effective charter schools, Krokys said, "Community partners and stakeholders are one of the things that can be done with all schools—but it’s especially important for charter schools. Site admission selection for parents and staff—there’s nothing like feeling that you have chosen something and were not defaulted to it," Krokys stressed. "That makes a big difference in partnership.
The same thing," Krokys continued, "goes for staff. The staff is not assigned; they’re not grazing until they get their retirement. Staff is selected to work in a specific school."
Serette discussed the history and evolution of charter schools. That began on March 31, 1988. "That’s when our chamber got in front of the press club in DC and announced a new type of school, something that would help figure out the most complicated problems in our education system. And it was the charter school."
As Serette explained it, the charter school concept was designed as a "calculated risk to figure out if we could figure out something that could then be exported into the public system. And," Serette continued, "This makes sense because you don’t want to take a calculated risk and export it into the whole system. I think we forgot that lesson as we were expanding throughout the nation.
We have a situation where we have the largest charter school system in the country-K12 Inc.," Serette continued, "It’s fully funded by public dollars but it’s traded on the stock exchange. The goal of being on the exchange is to make money. So we have slightly diverged from the original mission of charters."
With regard to the effectiveness of charter schools, "they have had a meaningful impact," Serette said, adding, "They have taught us some really smart things to figure out and export to our system. The first charter school started in 1992. And now we have 43 states with charter school laws."
But, Serette noted, citing an investigation of 15 states, his office found, "about 136 million in charter school funding that was abused, that was used for fraud. To us, that was an alarming number."
In PA, Serette explained that he didn’t think the state government "did a great job of regulating the system. So we have here, two auditors looking after a system that has revenue of 700 million, auditing 86 charter schools.
Dowdall, in answering Leach’s question about academic accountability for charter schools said, "Rather than start with the charter school in the quest of academic accountability, we might journey back to the government entities that established, regulates and monitors them namely the PA State Legislature the Governor of PA, the State Department of Education and the SRC.
While the public schools whose assumed inadequacies sparked the takeover," Dowdall continued, "they were more or less placed in a giant petri dish; we more or less organized a dizzying away of name changes, administrative changes, etc. Test prep came to rule and push out libraries, librarians, music, art and other extra curricular activities. Funding cuts led to the disappearance of nurses, counselors, teaching assistants, custodial help and the financial oversight provided by operations personnel.
Twenty three neighborhood schools," Dowdall continued, "were shuttered. And 40 new charters are supposed to open. Since the SRC has the authority to approve schools," Dowdall said, "maybe they should do so based on the actual needs of the district rather than the whims and desires in some highly funded charters."
As the discussion continued, Leach asked Houstoun "how has the introduction [of reversing] no-charter re-imbursement in PA influence the SRC assessment when it comes to renewing charters?"
Leach’s question references the fact that Government Corbett eliminated the $100 million for charter school re-imbursement to the Philadelphia School District in 2011.
Houston cited the cancellation of the re-imbursement as painful. "For every child that’s added to charter school system, we can’t take off $10,000 for expenses. If," Houstoun explained, "we can restore the charter re-imbursement that was in place, it would alleviate the first level of pain that we’re suffering in the district right now."
Leach asked Krokys to comment on how to rectify the public perception of charter schools when taking into account those that are underperforming or fraudulent.
Krokys began her answering by stressing, "There are thousands and thousands of children who would not have had one chance in their neighborhood school. And a lot of them came through my doors and are now graduating from college."
When it comes to addressing inadequacies in Philadelphia charter schools, Krokys said, "It took a while for the charter school community to finally say, ‘yes. There are some charters that need be closed.’ Yes," Krokys said, "we are weary of the few bad apples because that’s what ends up in the papers. And that’s what ends up tainting everything else."
With regard to K12 Inc., "Who the hell gave permission for a for-profit to run a charter school?" Krokys asked. "Whose fault was that?"
To Serette, Leach asked, "One of the original aims of charter schools was to be a model for public schools. But that got lost in the shuffle over time. How do you think we can go back so that public schools can benefit from the successful roles of charters?"
According to Serette, "The narrative in the US is that the public school system is broken, right? And you can’t just get a good education so you have to be saved by a lot of other systems. But the truth is," Serette continued. "We have a good public school system in upper class and upper middle class neighborhoods. Those tend to be wonderful. And then you have the struggling sectors where people can’t make ends meet and we’re trying to figure that out."
Leach then asked Dowdall how charter and public schools could reach a middle ground.
To Dowdall, "It’s about equity. It’s about resources. Whether it’s traditional or charter, it can be defined. It’s about small classes with libraries where the students can be guided."
And in Dowdall’s opinion, "There needs to be an agreement between those on the board that authorization renewal for charter schools should be set at three years as opposed to five."
For more information on the ADA, visit Youth http://www.phillyada.org.
Source
Seattle passes scaled-back tax on Amazon, big companies
Seattle passes scaled-back tax on Amazon, big companies
On Monday, about 40 elected officials from across the United States, some representing local governments in the running...
On Monday, about 40 elected officials from across the United States, some representing local governments in the running to host Amazon’s second headquarters, published an open letter to Seattle in support of the head tax and expressing concern that Amazon opposed the measure. “By threatening Seattle over this tax, Amazon is sending a message to all of our cities: we play by our own rules,” the officials wrote.
Read the full article here.
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