March 4: Rally for Education

March 4, 2010.
Rally for Education
IT IS UP TO US !


JOIN THE SACRAMENTO RALLY FOR CALIFORNIA'S FUTURE! 11Am. North Steps. State Capitol.

Students and Faculty, will march to demand a decent budget for California’s schools and universities. Protests will occur around the state, at universities and work sites at the Capitol in Sacramento. Please join us.

The campaign for majority rule has a new web site.

http://www.ca4democracy.com/ Help us with signature gathering.


In the last two years California’s k-12 schools have received over a $16 Billion cut back. California presently ranks 45th of the states in per pupil spending and last among the states in class size. Now, the Governor proposes to reduce k-12 spending by another $2.4 Billion. The U.C’s and the CSU campuses have suffered over a $2 billion cut while tuition and fees were increased over 30%. Classes have been cut, graduation delayed, and faculty dismissed. They must not be cut more. We must work together to save public education.

Left Turn Only

Hope you can join us this Sunday afternoon at the Avid Reader (formerly Tower Books). Brad Parker and Ahjamu Makalani have a new book and a new plan to revitalize the Democratic Party and advance the progressive agenda. It promises to be a fascinating and timely presentation and discussion.

 

In Peace & Solidarity,

Paul B

 

 Sacramento Progressive Alliance

& Capital Area Progressives

Proudly Presents

The Progressive Speaker Series

Left Turn Only

Dispatches from the Progressive Underground

Brad Parker

with Ahjamu Makalani

Brad & Ahjamu are leaders of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party

                                             

Sunday, February 28, 2:00pm

The Avid Reader (at Tower)

1600 Broadway, Sacramento

Info: 916-248-3970

 

 

UFW President Slams California Water Bonds

UFW President Slams California Water Bond 

by Dan Bacher 

Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farmworkers Union (UFW), today blasted the $11.1 billion water bond on the November ballot in an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle. 

"The water bond that was recently approved by our lawmakers will give agricultural companies billions more in subsidized water," said Rodiguez. "The state treasurer has asked the right question: Why aren't these giant ag industry operators paying for their water like everyone else?" 

Rodriguez's eloquent slam against the water bond rammed through the California Legislature by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger completely negates the argument of corporate agribusiness "Astroturf" groups, such as the Latino Water Coalition, that the battle against the water bond and the peripheral canal is a conflict of "fish versus people" or "fish versus jobs." 

In reality, the campaign to restore the Delta, stop the peripheral canal and defeat the water bond is a conflict between the vast majority of people - including farmworkers, fishermen, Delta family farmers, California Indian Tribes and environmentalists - and greedy agribusiness corporations that don't care about the health and safety of their workers or the thousands of workers and fishermen unemployed because of the Central Valley salmon collapse. 

"The $800 million per year in annual bond payments required under the new water bond is more than California spends on health care for farmworkers and their children, more than the entire worker-safety budget, more than on farmworker housing, more than on pesticide regulations and food safety. In fact, it's more than all those things added together," noted Rodriguez. 

Why is the UFW opposing the bond? "We don't believe that the giant agriculture corporations should get more subsidized water until farmworkers get the right to protect themselves, including the right to clean and fresh drinking water," explained Rodriguez. 

"We see a clear and ironic link between a state government unwilling to enforce its own laws protecting farmworkers, a governor vetoing legislation to allow farmworkers to protect themselves, and a Legislature that bemoans budget cuts while giving the agriculture industry water subsidies at a cost of $800 million every year," said Rodriguez. 

Last year SEIU and the Teamsters Union put $1 million into a UFW "war chest" to fight Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's water bond. The groups fighting the peripheral canal and water bond were eagerly awaiting an official announcement by UFW against the water bond - and that announcement took place today. 

In the New York Times on April 17, 2009, Rodriguez condemned the Latino Water Coalition's "March for Water" for being a "farmer march orchestrated and financed by growers.” 

The UFW joins a growing group of conservation, fishing, environmental, tribal and family farming groups opposed to the water bond's bailout to corporate agribusiness. Everybody who cares about the future of California fisheries and Delta farms and the thousands of jobs that depend on them must applaud Rodriguez for speaking out against the budget-busting water bond! 

To read the article, go to: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/22/ED7U1BUUH3.DTL. 

March 4 Rally -Sacramento

  March 4, 2010.

March and Rally  for Education

IT IS UP TO US !

 JOIN THE SACRAMENTO RALLY FOR CALIFORNIA'S FUTURE!  11Am.  North Steps. State Capitol.

Students  and  Faculty, will march to demand a decent  budget for California’s schools and universities. Protests will occur around the state, at universities and work sites at the Capitol in Sacramento.  Please join us.

The campaign for majority rule has a new web site.

http://www.ca4democracy.com/

In the last two years California’s  k-12 schools have received over a  $16 Billion  cut back.  California presently ranks  45th  of the states in per pupil spending and last among the states in class size.  Now, the Governor proposes to reduce  k-12 spending by another  $2.4 Billion. The U.C’s and the CSU campuses have suffered over a  $2 billion cut while tuition and fees were increased over 30%.  Classes have been cut, graduation delayed, and faculty dismissed.  They must not be cut more.  We must work together to save public education.

For 2010, the Governor proposes  further draconian cuts in Cal Works, IHSS, Medi Cal and Children’s nutrition  among others-  each of which hurts the  poor in our state.   State  budget cuts make the crisis worse. They create more unemployment. The legislature must hear from us.

To respond to these cuts, California needs majority rule.  We must eliminate the 2/3 rule on budgets and revenue.  Sign the California Democracy Act initiative.

On the road to economic recovery

Dean Baker

The reality is that we got into this mess because of an overwhelming excess of greed and stupidity on the part of the Wall Street bankers and the people deciding economic policy. We continue to face excessive rates of unemployment because of a continuing reluctance to pursue policies that can restore the economy to health.

Very briefly, one of these policies is more government spending to create jobs. The government can employ people directly; it can give companies incentives to employ people, and it can give tax cuts that give people more money to spend. Mix and match in large enough quantities and we will get the unemployment rate down to more acceptable levels.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/01/the_second_great_depression_bogeyman/?ref=mp

Director. Center for Economic and Policy Research. 

North Dakota has a solution for the bank robbery

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/16-3

Fix school funding -Schrag

Fixing funding for schools -- and colleges, and all the rest

By Peter Schrag

CSBA, the California School Boards Association, and other major education groups have been talking for years about suing the state to bring California’s dismally low school funding up to something approaching adequate levels.

[This is an important opinion piece by Peter Schrag. You can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above.]

Six years ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, much to his credit, settled the Williams v. California, a suit demanding that the state provide the materials, decent facilities and competent teachers – or indeed any regular teachers – that tens of thousands of poor and minority California school children weren’t getting.

A Climate of False Crisis

Dear Diane,

Leisure is an essential ingredient for a successful working democracy. We need time to think and unbundle some of the contradictions by which we live. If "elitism" is wrong for charters, why is it okay for public schools? Why do we presume that poor kids need a more rigid and authoritarian school climate than "ordinary" kids? How can I both believe in the importance of local decision-making where possible, and also support choice in schooling? My list is long.

But my time for discussing such issues isn't enough.

Then add to it the climate of false crisis that is whipped up by those who are quite sure of their agendas and have learned that giving citizens more time will only cause trouble, for them.

California Democracy Campaign

The campaign for majority rule has a new web site.

http://www.ca4democracy.com/

In the last two years California’s  k-12 schools have received over a  $16 Billion  cut back.  California presently ranks  45th  of the states in per pupil spending and last among the states in class size.  Now, the Governor proposes to reduce  k-12 spending by another  $2.4 Billion. The U.C’s and the CSU campuses have suffered over a  $2 billion cut while tuition and fees were increased over 30%.  Classes have been cut, graduation delayed, and faculty dismissed.  They must not be cut more.  We must work together to save public education.

For 2010, the Governor proposes  further draconian cuts in Cal Works, IHSS, Medi Cal and Children’s nutrition  among others-  each of which hurts the  poor in our state.   State  budget cuts make the crisis worse. They create more unemployment. The legislature must hear from us.

To respond to these cuts, California needs majority rule.  We must eliminate the 2/3 rule on budgets and revenue.  Sign the California Democracy Act initiative.

Jobs Now Rally

Over 400 workers, many of  them now unemployed,  marched  on the California State Capitol  for a a Jobs Now rally in Sacramento California.  The major chant was Jobs ! Jobs! Jobs!

Darrell Stienberg, Senate Pro temp California State Senate and numerous other speakers  called for the ending of the 2/3 vote rule in the California legislature as a means of building a progressive budget.

Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO was to have been there, but the snow storm in the east kept him from attending.  

Bill  Camp; Executive  Secretary of the Sacramento Central labor Council focused the issue,  “The Banks have received millions /billions in bailouts.  When  in the hell are they going to give a bailout to the working class?”

 U.S. Representative John Garamendi  said,  “Wall street took the entire economy into the tank. And, they got a bail out.  We want the money back. “

 Garamendi said that the House has passed a $120 Billion for Jobs for Main Street bill but it is being held in the U.S. Senate by the consistent use of the filibuster by the Republicans Senators with the support of 4-6 Democratic Senators.  Congressman Garamendi called for pressure on the Senate to pass the bill – with 51 votes. 

For more see the California Labor Federation.  Here; http://www.calaborfed.org/

Congressman Garamendi 

Charters and school segregation

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/research/new-study-looks-at-segregation.html#more

New study looks at segregation in charter schools

My guest is Kevin G. Welner, professor of education policy and program evaluation in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and director of theEducation and the Public Interest Center. He can be reached at welner@colorado.edu.

By Kevin G. Welner
The Washington Post published an article last Wednesday about a study from UCLA’s Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles which analyzed charter schools across the country and found them to be substantially more racially isolated than traditional public schools. The study has received quite a bit of attention, as well as pushback from charter school advocates.

Today, CU-Boulder’s policy center, along with its partner policy center at Arizona State University (collectively, EPIC/EPRU) is releasing a studyhttp://epicpolicy.org/publication/schools-without-diversity that, coincidentally, asks some of the same questions as the UCLA study did.
Our study provides a comprehensive examination of enrollment patterns in schools operated by private corporations and finds these schools to be segregated by race, family income, disabilities and English language learner status. As compared with their local public school districts, these schools operated by Education Management Organizations, or EMOs, are substantially more segregated, and the strong segregative pattern found in 2001 is virtually unchanged through 2007.

Sacramento Black Parallel School Board

Good Morning.  First let me say that I am honored and humbled to have been selected as your guest speaker today.  CONGRATULATIONS are due to the Executive Board of the Black Parallel School Board on this day, the 2^nd Anniversary of your creation.  It is appropriate to celebrate during Black History Month, since much of our past struggle has surrounded the right of blacks to obtain a quality education or to be educated at all.  Even before the cases of Plessy vs. Fergueson and Brown v. Board of Education were decided, Africans were striving to learn a new language and have the right to have a book and read it.  Remember that it was after Africans arrived in America and owned land and property that the first Negro Act was passed making it illegal for us to read, be educated and even assemble for fear that we would rebel against whites.

Kudos to BPSB for taking on the arduous task of representing the community that makes up Sacramento City School Districts.  SCUSD has been difficult.  I say that because although there are similar alternative Board organizations elsewhere around the State, the school system inSacramento is probably one of the most resistant and difficult Districts to deal with.   It has a history of ignoring the needs of our children and it has a structure and administration that does not accept criticism or change, and frankly did not readily embrace this organization as a good thing.

Poll Results: Tea party

A Feb.4, 2010 poll by CNN says,

33% of the U.S. supports the Tea Party.

A Feb. 4, 2010  poll by Gallop say,

36% in the U.S.  have a positive view of socialism.

Now, which one of these- Tea Party or Socialism gets access to mainstream media.?

School budget cuts and the economic crisis

I was watching the Sacramento City School Board discussing their impending budget crisis. 

Like newspaper writers, they discuss the economic crisis as if  the crisis is a neutral act, or as if a natural act.  Like rain or snow.  The school budgets are  a disaster not because of   some natural phenomena.  The crisis was created by people and policies of our government and of the financial system.

"The reality is that we got into this mess because of an overwhelming excess of greed and stupidity on the part of the Wall Street bankers and the people deciding economic policy. We continue to face excessive rates of unemployment because of a continuing reluctance to pursue policies that can restore the economy to health.

Very briefly, one of these policies is more government spending to create jobs. The government can employ people directly; it can give companies incentives to employ people, and it can give tax cuts that give people more money to spend. Mix and match in large enough quantities and we will get the unemployment rate down to more acceptable levels."

Dean Baker

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/01/the_second_great_depression_bogeyman/?ref=mp

Director. Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The California budget and the economic crisis

            I attended an excellent presentation on  “Searching for Balance: the Social and Economic Context for the Governor’s proposed 2010-11 Budget.” today offered by the California budget project.   Readers will recognize some key issues for this year’s budget as developed in prior posts on the economic crisis.

            California and the government are facing new challenges some of which imperil the health and well being of families in the state.  The state has budget shortfalls which will continue for years.  The governor’s approach to the budget problems is to pit one group against the other; poor people, the disabled, schools, health care. The weak labor market will take years to improve.

            You can see the entire presentation in pdf here. http://www.cbp.org/pdfs/2010/100202_Searching_for_Balance.pdf

Here is an illustrative graphic of the important information for us all.  (Click on the image to make it larger).  In future posts I will refer to some of the other information.  The governor has proposed draconian cuts to Healthy Families, Medi cal, In home supportive services, and k-12 education among others.

            It is essential that we come to understand the economic crisis and the options available to us.  The government is stalemated by the 2/3 rule. We need to figure out how to respond.

Capitol Alert: California's credit rating? On par with Libya and Estonia

Capitol Alert: California's credit rating? On par with Libya and Estonia

Posted using ShareThis

California majority rule campaign

 Campaigns  are up and running throughout the state  to place an initiative on the  California ballot for majority rule- that is for democracy.  The campaign is particularly strong on U C campuses and is seeking to spread to CSU and Community college campuses as well as to the general public.  Volunteer  field directors and county coordinators are distributing petitions and organizing a structure to gain 1 million signatures by April 3,2010. 

  The California budget  is in deep trouble  for the next several years , and the problem is aggravated the  anti democratic limits on the legislature’s ability to pass a budget.   George Lakoff  sent to the Attorney General a ballot proposition for the 2010 ballot called The California Democracy Act,  which simply says,

All legislative action on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote.

It’s just  this one sentence.  It would change two words in the Constitution, turning "two-thirds" to "majority" in two places.

Obam proposals on NCLB emerge

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/education/01child.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

February 1, 2010

Obama to Seek Sweeping Change in ‘No Child’ Law

By SAM DILLON

The Obama administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind, and will call for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing, as well as for the elimination of the law’s 2014 deadline for bringing every American child to academic proficiency.
Educators who have been briefed by administration officials said the proposals for changes in the main law governing the federal role in public schools would eliminate or rework many of the provisions that teachers’ unions, associations of principals, school boards and other groups have found most objectionable.
Yet the administration is not planning to abandon the law’s commitments to closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and to encouraging teacher quality.
Significantly, said those who have been briefed, the White House wants to change federal financing formulas so that a portion of the money is awarded based on academic progress, rather than by formulas that apportion money to districts according to their numbers of students, especially poor students. The well-worn formulas for distributing tens of billions of dollars in federal aid have, for decades, been a mainstay of the annual budgeting process in the nation’s 14,000 school districts.

Fair Test reaction to Obama's school reform proposals

 REACTION TO PRESIDENT OBAMA'S

STATE OF THE UNION  PROPOSALS ON SCHOOL "REFORM"

President Obama deserves praise for proposing increased funding for the nation's public schools, particularly if the additional money goes to classrooms serving children who have been left behind.

However, the President's plans for a national competition to improve schools embraces the failed high-states testing policies embodied in "No Child Left Behind."  The "Race to the Top" program actually intensifies the damaging consequences of over-reliance on standardized exams: declining graduation rates and increased dropouts; good students and teachers turned off by dumbed-down learning; and too many classrooms becoming little more than test prep centers.  Misusing tests to rank and judge teachers will make these problems worse.

A "world class" education requires major assessment reform. Other nations which produce superior performance test far less and attach far lower stakes to those tests.