We are told this morning that each of the major school districts in the county are in financial trouble. Last year, when Natomas was in trouble, the Sacramento Bee and County Superintendent David Gordon opined that the Board of Education was financially irresponsible. However, realistically, the economic troubles were caused by the state and national economic crisis. The state has provided schools with $18 billion less in state aid over the last three years- thus the local districts are going broke.
Note to Sacramento Bee. It wasn't the School Board, it was the economic crisis!
How did we get into this fix? Well, first was the economic collapse caused by the bankers and the real estate fraud artists. That took 13 Trillion from the economy crashing the U.S. and the international economy. That produced a dramatic drop in sales tax and property taxes and a California economic crisis. School funding reveals the nature of crisis. We have larger classes and fewer teachers. School reform has stopped- except for the politicians hot air. School funding makes up a total of 30% of the state budget. Any crisis in the state budget and any cuts in the state budget will make school budgets worse. The crisis will get worse.
Politicians and editorial writers 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.”says economist Dean Baker.
California will need to extend the current taxes to fund the schools and to repair the social safety net. Anti tax radicals and Republicans oppose any tax increases and they oppose allowing these issues to be placed on the ballot so the people can vote.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Organizing for Equity
Organizing for Equity. Can Parents Fill the Void?
By Michael B. Fabricant
At least since the civil rights movement, Americans have documented and decried—but done little to decrease—the achievement gap. This gulf, one of many that divide us by race and class, has festered in part because the larger question of inequitable investment in poor communities of color has long been neglected. Demonstration projects of various kinds have been tested in selected communities—but little has been made of the successes. Demonstration projects, if they work , are meant to be scaled up; however, amore ambitious, transformative investment in a cross section of poor communities across the nation has never been attempted.
The reticence to make such an investment has to do with the magnitude of resources required and a lack of political will. Presently, any call for such investment is undercut by both the recession and a political reluctance to tax even the wealthiest citizens. Income inequality in the United States is now at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the “top 10 percent of the income distribution has claimed almost two-thirds of the gain to overall incomes since 1979, with the top 1 percent alone claiming 38.7 percent of overall gains.”1 Child poverty is increasing, the middle class is disappearing, and the wealthy are becoming dramatically wealthier. In 1983, the net worth of the wealthiest 1 percent of households was 131 times greater than the median family net worth. By 2007, it was 181 times greater—and by 2009, it was 225 times greater.2 Such inequality is neither natural nor inevitable: the United States has the highest income disparity among Western industrialized nations.3
…Because the problems in our inner cities are not new, I see little reason to hope that any positive change will emerge from our nation’s elite policymaking circles. When it comes to public education, our leaders are far too insulated from the consequences of their choices. Those closest to the disasters of growing inequality, long-standing underinvestment, and new recession-related disinvestment in public education must organize a counterbalancing power to challenge present policymaking trends.
Read more; http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/spring2011/Fabricant.pdf
By Michael B. Fabricant
At least since the civil rights movement, Americans have documented and decried—but done little to decrease—the achievement gap. This gulf, one of many that divide us by race and class, has festered in part because the larger question of inequitable investment in poor communities of color has long been neglected. Demonstration projects of various kinds have been tested in selected communities—but little has been made of the successes. Demonstration projects, if they work , are meant to be scaled up; however, amore ambitious, transformative investment in a cross section of poor communities across the nation has never been attempted.
The reticence to make such an investment has to do with the magnitude of resources required and a lack of political will. Presently, any call for such investment is undercut by both the recession and a political reluctance to tax even the wealthiest citizens. Income inequality in the United States is now at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the “top 10 percent of the income distribution has claimed almost two-thirds of the gain to overall incomes since 1979, with the top 1 percent alone claiming 38.7 percent of overall gains.”1 Child poverty is increasing, the middle class is disappearing, and the wealthy are becoming dramatically wealthier. In 1983, the net worth of the wealthiest 1 percent of households was 131 times greater than the median family net worth. By 2007, it was 181 times greater—and by 2009, it was 225 times greater.2 Such inequality is neither natural nor inevitable: the United States has the highest income disparity among Western industrialized nations.3
…Because the problems in our inner cities are not new, I see little reason to hope that any positive change will emerge from our nation’s elite policymaking circles. When it comes to public education, our leaders are far too insulated from the consequences of their choices. Those closest to the disasters of growing inequality, long-standing underinvestment, and new recession-related disinvestment in public education must organize a counterbalancing power to challenge present policymaking trends.
Read more; http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/spring2011/Fabricant.pdf
Monday, March 21, 2011
We can afford to re-hire teachers
If the U.S. can spend millions to bomb Libya (see below) then the government can spend millions to re-hire the thousands of teachers that have been laid off this year, and the tens of thousands scheduled for lay offs next year.
Leaders in the Tunisian Federation of Labor, themselves organizers of the mass mobilization that led to the overthrow the Tunisian Dictator called for support of the Libyan revolution and for support of Tunisian unions and the Egyptian Democracy Movement at a solidarity dinner held by the Sacramento Central Labor Council and the California Labor Federation in Sacramento on March 20, 2011. Delegates and members of community based organizations heard a direct report from the leaders of the labor side of the mass mobilizations. The Tunisian revolution was the first of the over 6 major revolutions presently changing the nature of politics and freedom in the Middle East. The success of the Tunisian revolution sparked the hopes and encouraged the other revolutions.
Labor unions in Tunisia were suppressed by the government for over two decades. These labor union leaders have been active in the resistance to the dictatorship for these decades.
As of today, the Libyan revolution is still being resisted by the armed forces of Colonel Gadafi with planes, tanks and guns. Non violent revolutions are shaking Yemen and Bahrain (where oil workers are on strike), among others. The revolutionary movement in Egypt has won initial success, by toppling the Murbarak dictatorship, but consolidation of the revolution is still precarious.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Libya- Eisenhower " every gun that is fired"
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eisenhower
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Teacher Unions Matter
By Tom Alves, SJTA Executive Director
Unions matter to this country. And teacher unions matter to public education. The panic that is piling up in Wisconsin and other Republican states over whether collective bargaining rights should exist is real. This is a concerted effort by political lackeys of powerful corporate interests (it’s easy to follow the money on this) to step on the throat of unions by framing the false message that collective bargaining is the culprit of the current economic woes. Corporate profiteers have created this diversion to take our eye off their own culpability for the 2008 crash and the subsequent greed of corporate leaders that profited from the federal bailout. The latest shiny ball-like distraction is that public sector pensions are the major cause of the current economic woes. This is manipulative messaging at its finest as it shifts one’s eye off the irresponsible behaviors of corporate leaders and drives a wedge between workers.
Practically speaking, white collar and public sector unionism is all that remains of a middle class movement that has fought to guarantee equity and fairness in the workplace for the past 100 years, that includes the forty-hour workweek, health care benefits, sick leave, safety requirements, and modest pensions. Only 12.3 percent of today’s workforce belongs to a union as opposed to nearly 35 percent in the 1950’s. This is not because workers don’t want unionized workplaces. As Philip Dine writes in his recent book, State of the Unions, polling reveals that 53 percent of non-union employees would belong to a union if they could. This loss is mostly due to manufacturing and production leaving the country — nearly three million jobs (mostly unionized) have been shipped overseas since 1998.
California will not escape this attack on collective bargaining rights. Ultra conservative forces are already planning to place an initiative on the 2012 ballot that will gut the collective bargaining law. Wealthy right-wingers and venture capitalists have targeted their deregulation attack on public education as they advocate for reforms that force school closures, more charters and takeovers by outside organizations, and overly simplistic and flawed assessment systems for accountability purposes.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Who will pay for the Great Recession ? You and I
President, Institute for America's Future
Who Gets Hit With the Tab for the Great Recession?
Wall Street excess and conservative deregulation (by law and lassitude) blew up the economy, causing the Great Recession. The bankers were bailed out. Working families took the hit from the downturn -- in lost jobs, lost savings, weakened pensions, declining home values, pay and benefit cuts.
The recession blew a large hole in public finances at every level. Tax revenues plummeted. Expenses -- from unemployment insurance to food stamps to public health -- rose. Public pension funds suffered investment losses. States and localities face severe deficits with a mandate to balance their budgets. At the federal level, the recession doubled the national debt, and drove deficits up to 10% of GDP (much of this the result of plummeting tax receipts).
Governor Scott Walker and a gaggle of Republican governors assault the right of workers to bargain collectively in states across the country. Teachers get laid off as school budgets are cut across the country. Colleges hike tuitions and shut down course offerings. Public workers face furloughs, layoff, cuts in health care and pension benefits. Congress is tied in knots about how much and what to cut. And Republican and bipartisan pressure to go after Social Security and Medicare is escalating.
We should be very clear about what unites these stories, for these struggles will say much about what kind of America emerges from the rubble of the Great Recession.
Who gets stuck with the bill for the Great Recession?
From the tea party Republican caucus to the Obama White House, leaders of both parties have moved from worrying about the recovery to worrying about how to pay for the costs of the Great Recession. With 25 million Americans in need of full time work, this is bipartisan folly. With Japan melting down, the Middle East erupting, energy and food prices soaring, housing prices and starts sinking, states and localities enacting brutal budget cuts, it is callously irresponsible, risking a double dip recession that will explode public deficits.
Stop the Republican effort to limit Finance Regulatory Reform
This is not a drill. This is an emergency.
Our financial system is being attacked in Congress, and if it collapses again because of reckless greed, working people will bear the brunt. CEO-backed politicians will raid our Social Security, our Medicare and our public services to bail out the fat cats. Take action now.
Tell your members of Congress: Deregulation leads to financial crises. Don't deregulate Wall Street and then rob working people to pay for the bailouts that will follow: [ http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1736 ].
In 2008, Big Banks and Wall Street CEOs created the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. As a result, 14 million Americans still are unemployed today.
But even though unemployment is high and our economic recovery is pathetically slow and fragile, corporations are lobbying furiously to undo the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
Many parts of this new Wall Street Reform Act--including a requirement that outrageous CEO pay be publicly compared with worker pay--haven't even gone into effect yet. But already, House Republicans are siding with corporate CEOs, trying to repeal the bill piece by piece.
What's the Big Bank/CEO/House Republican plan? Deregulate. And if the economy collapses again because of reckless greed, rob working Americans to pay for bailouts while the rich get richer.
Our financial system is being attacked in Congress, and if it collapses again because of reckless greed, working people will bear the brunt. CEO-backed politicians will raid our Social Security, our Medicare and our public services to bail out the fat cats. Take action now.
Tell your members of Congress: Deregulation leads to financial crises. Don't deregulate Wall Street and then rob working people to pay for the bailouts that will follow: [ http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1736 ].
In 2008, Big Banks and Wall Street CEOs created the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. As a result, 14 million Americans still are unemployed today.
But even though unemployment is high and our economic recovery is pathetically slow and fragile, corporations are lobbying furiously to undo the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
Many parts of this new Wall Street Reform Act--including a requirement that outrageous CEO pay be publicly compared with worker pay--haven't even gone into effect yet. But already, House Republicans are siding with corporate CEOs, trying to repeal the bill piece by piece.
What's the Big Bank/CEO/House Republican plan? Deregulate. And if the economy collapses again because of reckless greed, rob working Americans to pay for bailouts while the rich get richer.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Republicans- let the people vote
However, the extensions of present taxes required to prevent even worse cuts requires a vote of the people. And, to get that vote, the Legislature needs to place these items on the ballot- and that requires a 2/3 vote. The Democrats do not have the 2/3 votes needed. To get to the ballot, at least 2 Republicans in each chamber must vote to place the extensions on the ballot. They refuse.
Under the present cuts the U.C. and the CSU would each lose $500 million on top of the billions cut from prior years. And community college tuition would raise from $26 per unit to $36 per unit. If the extensions are not passed, these fee increases will grow dramatically in all three systems What kind of state cuts food aid to hungry pregnant women and children in the middle of an economic crisis—while giving a giant tax break to billionaires?
A partial solution is to allow the voters to vote on these cuts and the tax extensions.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
How Bill Gates misinterprets education data
How Bill Gates misinterprets ed facts
This was written by Richard Rothstein, a research associate at theEconomic Policy Institute, a non-profit created in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. This appeared on the institute's website.
By Richard Rothstein
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates authored an op-ed published in The Washington Post late last month, “How Teacher Development could Revolutionize our Schools,” proposing that American public schools should do a better job of evaluating the effectiveness of teachers, a goal with which none can disagree. But his specific prescriptions, and the urgency he attaches to them, are based on the misrepresentation of one fact, the misinterpretation of another and the demagogic presentation of a third. It is remarkable that someone associated with technology and progress should have such a careless disregard for accuracy when it comes to the education policy in which he is now so deeply involved.
By Richard Rothstein
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates authored an op-ed published in The Washington Post late last month, “How Teacher Development could Revolutionize our Schools,” proposing that American public schools should do a better job of evaluating the effectiveness of teachers, a goal with which none can disagree. But his specific prescriptions, and the urgency he attaches to them, are based on the misrepresentation of one fact, the misinterpretation of another and the demagogic presentation of a third. It is remarkable that someone associated with technology and progress should have such a careless disregard for accuracy when it comes to the education policy in which he is now so deeply involved.
Gates’ most important factual claim is that “over the past four decades, the per-student cost of running our K-12 schools has more than doubled, while our student achievement has remained virtually flat.” And, he adds, “spending has climbed, but our percentage of college graduates has dropped compared with other countries.” Let’s examine these factual claims:
Bill Gates says: "Our student achievement has remained virtually flat."
The only longitudinal measure of student achievement that is available to Bill Gates or anyone else is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP provides trends for 4th, 8th, and 12th graders, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and poverty, since about 1980 in basic skills in math and reading (called the “Long Term Trend NAEP”) and since about 1990 for 4th and 8th graders in slightly more sophisticated math and reading skills (called the “Main NAEP”).[*]
On these exams, American students have improved substantially, in some cases phenomenally. In general, the improvements have been greatest for African-American students, and among these, for the most disadvantaged. The improvements have been greatest for both black and white 4th and 8th graders in math. Improvements have been less great but still substantial for black 4th and 8th graders in reading and for black 12th graders in both math and reading. Improvements have been modest for whites in 12th grade math and at all three grade levels in reading.
Teachers given pink slips
FISCAL EMERGENCY INFORMATION REQUEST
I am writing today to ask for your help with compiling information about the number of pink slips and lay-off notices being issued, and the program cuts being proposed, by the Local Education Agencies in your jurisdiction.
As you know, should the state budget resolution require an all-cuts solution, our schools could face an additional $4.5 billion in cuts—a dire situation for our schools already facing a state of fiscal emergency. Are most of your districts producing layoff and program reduction plans based on the “all-cuts” budget assumption? I think it is vital for the public to know the full impacts of the worst-case budget scenario.
Given the urgency we face, I ask you to share the pink slip, layoff notice, and program cut information with me as soon as it becomes available to you. I am interested in learning specific information about the pinks slips issued to certificated staff and lay-off notices given to non-certificated staff. The program and funding details of the cuts being proposed will be more difficult to share, but I would appreciate any level of detail you may be able to provide.
Save Our Schools March
On Friday, March 18, Rethinking Schools editors Bob Peterson and Stan Karp will be featured in a 90-minute web "teach-in" designed to build this summer's Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action. The webinar begins at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central/5pm Pacific time and is open to the first 100 people who sign up here:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RethinkingSchoolsWebinar
This event is part of a series of web discussions with supporters of the National Call to Action leading to coordinated events around the country and a march in Washington, D.C. on July 30. The July events are built around four demands:
- Equitable funding for all public school communities
- End to high stakes testing for student, teacher, and school evaluation
- Curriculum developed for and by local school communities
- Teacher and community leadership in forming public education policies
For more info, visit the SOS March web site, www.saveourschoolsmarch.org
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Dear President Obama
(Letter from a teacher)
I mean this with all respect. I’m on my knees here, and there’s a knife in my back, and the prints on it kinda match yours. I think you don’t get it.
Your Race to the Top is killing the wrong guys. You’re hitting the good guys with friendly fire. I’m teaching in a barrio in California. I had 32 kids in my class last year. I love them to tears. They’re 5th graders. That means they’re 10 years old, mostly. Six of them were 11 because they were retained. Five more were in special education, and two more should have been. I stopped using the word “parents” with my kids because so many of them don’t have them. Amanda’s mom died in October. She lives with her 30-year-old brother. (A thousand blessings on him.) Seven kids live with their “Grams,” six with their dads. A few rotate between parents. So “parents” is out as a descriptor.
Here’s the kicker: Fifty percent of my students have set foot in a jail or prison to visit a family member.
Do you and your secretary of education, Arne Duncan, understand the significance of that? I’m afraid not. It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty. We don’t teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities. It’s called the ZIP Code Quandary. If the kids live in a wealthy ZIP code, they have high scores; if they live in a ZIP code that’s entombed with poverty, guess how they do?
I mean this with all respect. I’m on my knees here, and there’s a knife in my back, and the prints on it kinda match yours. I think you don’t get it.
Your Race to the Top is killing the wrong guys. You’re hitting the good guys with friendly fire. I’m teaching in a barrio in California. I had 32 kids in my class last year. I love them to tears. They’re 5th graders. That means they’re 10 years old, mostly. Six of them were 11 because they were retained. Five more were in special education, and two more should have been. I stopped using the word “parents” with my kids because so many of them don’t have them. Amanda’s mom died in October. She lives with her 30-year-old brother. (A thousand blessings on him.) Seven kids live with their “Grams,” six with their dads. A few rotate between parents. So “parents” is out as a descriptor.
Here’s the kicker: Fifty percent of my students have set foot in a jail or prison to visit a family member.
Do you and your secretary of education, Arne Duncan, understand the significance of that? I’m afraid not. It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty. We don’t teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities. It’s called the ZIP Code Quandary. If the kids live in a wealthy ZIP code, they have high scores; if they live in a ZIP code that’s entombed with poverty, guess how they do?
Save Our Schools Now.mov
Published on Tuesday, March 8, 2011 by RobertReich.org
The Birth of the People’s Party?
Look at the outrage in Madison, Wisconsin. Look at the crowds in DesMoines, Iowa. Look at the demonstrations in Indiana and Ohio and elsewhere around America.
Hear what they’re saying: Stop attacking unions. Stop making scapegoats out of public employees. Stop protecting the super-rich from paying their fair share of the taxes needed to keep our schools running.
Stop gutting the working middle class.
Are we finally seeing average Americans stand up and demand a fair shake in an economy now grotesquely tilted toward the wealthy and the privileged? Are Americans beginning to awake to the fact that our economy now delivers a larger share of total income to the very top than at any time in living memory? That big corporations are making more money and creating more jobs abroad than in the United States?
That this concentration of income and wealth has so corrupted politics that corporations can extort whatever they want from the government — tax breaks, loan guarantees, subsidies — while the super-rich can take most of their income as capital gains (taxed at 15 percent), and the rest at the lowest top rate in 25 years? And that because of this our kids are crowded into classrooms, our streets and highways and bridges are falling apart, and our healthcare bills are out of control?
Friday, March 11, 2011
Then they came for the trade unionists
On this day, it behooves us to remember the words of Martin Niemoller. "First they came for the communists," he wrote, "and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me." I am a trade unionist, and Wednesday in Wisconsin, they came for me. They came for you. They came for every working person in America, and their intent could not be more clear.
William Rivers Pitt
William Rivers Pitt
Cut head start while giving tax subsidies to big oil ?
Robert Creamer
Earth to Boehner... come in! When you look carefully at Republican Speaker John Boehner's spending proposal for the rest of 2011 you'd think these guys must have been hanging out on one of those newly-discovered exo-planets on the outer edger of our solar system.
The Republican proposal, HR1, actually proposes cuts in the Head Start program that would mean:
- 218,000 children from low income families will lose Head Start/Early Head Start services;
- 16,000 Head Start/Early Head Start classrooms will close;
- 55,000 Head Start/Early Head Start teachers and staff will lose their jobs;
- 150,000 low-income families and their children will lose assistance in paying for child care.
They say they need to make these cuts because we must "tighten our belts" to cut spending because "America is broke." But at the very same time they voted to cut Head Start, the Republicans voted tocontinue $4 billion worth of subsidies to Big Oil. That's right, they want to continue to hand over $4 billion of the taxpayers' money to companies like Exxon-Mobil, the most profitable company in human history.
These subsidies are suppose to provide an incentive for them to produce more oil -- as if the price of oil that closed yesterday at $105.02 per barrel does not do the trick.
In the last quarter of 2010, Exxon-Mobil's profits surged 53% to $9.25 billion on the strength of rising oil prices and increased demand for petroleum products. That means Exxon-Mobil is earning profit at a rate of about $37 billion per year.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Oppose attacks on union workers - Wisconsin and California
Brothers and sisters,
Last night in Madison, Wis., in the dead of night, Senate Republicans rammed through a bill that strips Wisconsinites of the collective bargaining rights their parents and grandparents bargained for, marched for, went on strike for and sometimes even died for.
This assault on workers' freedom will not stand.
As the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO said last night:
"Scott Walker and the Republicans' ideological war on the middle class and working families is now indisputable, and their willingness to shred 50 years of labor peace, bipartisanship and Wisconsin's democratic process to pass a bill that 74 percent of Wisconsinites oppose is beyond reprehensible."
What we saw in the dead of night in Wisconsin wasn't democracy. It was back-door deal-making, partisan politics taken to the limit. That isn't worthy of America. And working Americans simply won't stand for it. Not in Wisconsin, and not anywhere.
Brothers and sisters, it's time to turn outrage into action.
Take action now: Tell your CA state legislators that what happened in Wisconsin last night is unacceptable in any state: [http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1691 ].
Cruel budget cuts to Texas Schools.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2011-03-11/save-our-schools/
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Save Ethnic Studies in Arizona
For the past four years, Arizona Superintendent of Public Schools,
Tom Horne, and the Arizona State Legislature have relentlessly attacked the Tucson Unified School District’s (TUSD) Mexican American Studies Department (MASD). Tom Horne and the Arizona State Legislature have accused that Mexican American Studies classes are: “promoting the overthrow of the United States Government; promoting resentment toward a race or class of people; designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group; and advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals ”
This past May 11, 2010, AZ Governor Jan Brewer, signed into law AZ HB 2281, the anti-Ethnic Studies law, which will in effect eliminate TUSD’s MASD on December 31, 2010. A major provision of the law calls for a 10% withholding of the State of Arizona’s monthly allotment to TUSD if MASD continues to teach Chicano Studies classes. Speakers for the teachers, Sean Arce and Curtis Acosta said after exhausting our efforts through lobbying, community activism, and public relations, we are left with no other option than to
file a federal injunction in the Federal District Court in Arizona to stop AZ HB 2281. They are (photo: Curtis Acosta) currently suing the state and the school district.
The Ethnic Studies program in Tucson was developed with the input of university students, community members and local teachers. Together they developed a Mexican American studies curriculum focusing on culturally relevant and historically relevant materials to overcome the persistent high drop out rates and the lack of college going by Raza students. This program has become the largest Mexican American studies program at a high school level in the U.S. And, it is under attack by Republicans in Arizona.
The program is the focus of a soon to be released film, “Precious Knowledge.” Teachers from the school program are available for speaking opportunities around the nation. The two speakers at the Sacramento event –Sean Arce and Curtis Acosta- were clear, articulate, knowledgeable, inspiring and engaging.
What the Republican budget cuts propose
At the national level the Republican budget would:
1. Destroy 700,000 jobs, according to an independent economic analysis.
2. Zero out federal funding for National Public Radio and public television.
3. Cut $1.3 billion from community health centers—which will deprive more than 3 million low-income people of health care over the next few months.
4. Cut nearly a billion dollars in food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children.
5. Kick more than 200,000 children out of pre-school by cutting funds for Head Start.
6. Force states to fire 65,000 teachers and aides, dramatically increasing class sizes, thanks to education cuts.
7. Cut some or all financial aid for 9.4 million low- and middle-income college students.
8. Slash $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, a cut that experts say would "send shockwaves" through cancer research, likely result in cuts to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's research, and cause job losses.
9. End the only federal family planning program, including cutting all federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood to support cancer screenings and other women's health care.
10. Send 10,000 low-income veterans into homelessness by cutting in half the number of veterans who get housing vouchers this year.
Monday, March 07, 2011
How Public School Budget Cuts Herald the End of Equality in the U.S.
How Public School Budget Cuts Herald the End of Equality in the United States
By Mark Naison
Throughout the United States, the nation’s public school system is being savaged by budget cuts that will make a mockery of federal legislation designed to reduce the achievement gap between children in low-income and high-income districts.
In Detroit, the school district has been told by the state to close half of its schools to close a $347 million deficit, leading to high school classes that could contain as many as sixty students. Providence, RI just handed out pink slips to its nearly 2,000 teachers to reduce its deficit (although, in an astonishing feat of creative accounting, most—but not all—of the teachers are expected to be rehired); and Austin, TX may do the same in a response to a ten percent reduction in state funding. And in thousands of school districts throughout the country, teachers are being fired, sports and arts programs are being shut down, AP classes are being cancelled, and class size is going through the roof while state and local governments radically cut education funding to balance their budgets.
Make no mistake about it, these budget cuts will have a disproportionate effect in the poorest school districts, where parents depend on schools to impart skills which, because of educational background or language issues, they often lack. You cut arts and science programs in a upper-middle-class school district, parents will compensate by finding private tutors or funding additional classes through the PTA. In poor neighborhoods, once such programs are gone, they are gone for good. You can squeeze the teachers in poor districts all you want to produce magical results on test days; as opportunities to give students individual attention and special training in arts and science disappear, the test score gap will grow wider, the dropout rate will increase, and college admission from such districts will plummet.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Teacher Layoff plans in Los Angeles
NYT. Jennifer Medina.
LOS ANGELES — Last year, when the school district here handed out thousands of layoff notices, Samuel Gompers Middle School in South Central stood to lose half of its roughly 150 teachers. Now, with the district planning to lay off as many as 4,500 teachers under what school leaders call a doomsday budget, the school could have been even worse off.
With districts in California likely to issue as many as 30,000 layoff notices to teachers in the next two weeks — state law sets a March 15 deadline for the notices to go out — and school systems across the country facing huge budget cuts, the battle here will be closely watched. And parents and advocates in other cities could file similar lawsuits.
In many ways, some advocates see the battle between politicians and unions leaders as a distraction. More important, they say, is the fact that after years of budget cuts the students who have the greatest need for stability in school have become the least likely to have it.
“It is really cynical for the political vultures to make this about a victory against the unions,” said Michelle Fine, a professor at the City University of New York who testified for the plaintiffs as an expert witness in the case. “This is really just about how we distribute the pain. The remedy itself is very sad.”
But under a court ruling, not a single teacher at the school would be let go. Instead, Gompers and 44 other schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District would be exempt from any layoffs at all.
The ruling, which ratified a settlement agreed to by plaintiffs and the school district, is being appealed by the teachers’ union. And even as it plays out in a state where schools are facing the prospect of devastating layoffs, it could have implications for districts across the country facing similar cuts. The lawsuit has the support of, among others, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, who once worked for the teachers’ union here.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Save Ethnic Studies Tour
For the past four years, Arizona Superintendent of Public Schools,
Tom Horne, and the Arizona State Legislature have relentlessly attacked the Tucson Unified School District’s (TUSD) Mexican American Studies Department (MASD). Tom Horne and the Arizona State Legislature have accused that Mexican American Studies classes are: “promoting the overthrow of the United States Government; promoting resentment toward a race or class of people; designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group; and advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals ”
Tues. March 8. University Union. Sac State. 12 Noon. Orchard Suite.
6 PM. Sol Collective. Sacramento
This past May 11, 2010, AZ Governor Jan Brewer, signed into law AZ HB 2281, the anti-Ethnic Studies law, which will in effect eliminate TUSD’s MASD on December 31, 2010. A major provision of the law calls for a 10% withholding of the State of Arizona’s monthly allotment to TUSD if MASD continues to teach Chicano Studies classes. After exhausting our efforts through lobbying, community activism, and public relations, we are left with no other option than to file a federal injunction in the Federal District Court in Arizona to stop AZ HB 2281.
Friday, March 04, 2011
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Oppose the Right Wing/Republican assault on students, unions, and the California Dream
Oppose the Right Wing/Republican assault on students, unions, and the California Dream.
Students are needed to build a resistance!
The nation, including California, is suffering a severe recession. In this crisis we need to rebuild the promise of California. That promise is a good job for all, the opportunity to have a rewarding career, a decent life, and the chance for a good education. The budget cut mania does not promote good jobs nor rewarding careers. It only digs the hole deeper. Cutting k-12 and higher education makes the state economy worse.
The economic crisis has already forced the cutting of higher education, of k-12 education, and of social welfare systems.
What caused this crisis ? It was caused by the greed and avarice of the financial class and aided by the politicians of both major political parties. The major banks and corporations looted the economy creating an international meltdown. Now, they have been rewarded with bail out money. The crisis was not caused by students, teachers, public employees nor recipients of social security. We already suffer from cuts in parks, in universities, in nurses, libraries and police and fire protection.
The continuing economic decline has had a devastating impact on the California budget- and the budgets of 42 other states. Revenues have continued to plunge and legislatures have been forced to make a series of deep cuts to virtually all of the state's programs, including the university systems. Finance capital stole the future of many in this generation.
For this year Governor Brown proposes a budget with $14 billion in more cuts. In addition, the Governor proposes ballot initiatives for June to extend the current tax rates for five more years. Republicans are trying to keep these initiatives off the ballot. If these taxes are not extended, the total cut to the budget will be some $26 billion dollars. The Governor’s current budget proposal would reduce the state general funds allocated to the CSU to $2.29 billion in 2011/12, 12.5% less than the 2010/11 budget act –this on top of over $4 billion in prior years’ cuts. If the taxes are not extended, these cuts would at least double and tuition would increase by up to 50%. These cuts would be devastating for students and working families.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Public employees pensions
Pulitzer Prize winning tax reporter, David Cay Johnston, has written a brilliant piece for tax.comexposing the truth about who really pays for the pension and benefits for public employees in Wisconsin.
http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/02/25/the-wisconsin-lie-exposed-taxpayers-actually-contribute-nothing-to-public-employee-pensionsGov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to “contribute more” to their pension and health insurance plans. Accepting Gov. Walker’ s assertions as fact, and failing to check, creates the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not. Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’ s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.
Support Teachers in Wisconsin
As NEA members, we all have a big stake in stopping Governor Scott Walker's attempt to slash the benefits and take away the labor rights of teachers here in Wisconsin. He's made it clear that he hopes to be in the vanguard of a national movement to undermine collective bargaining.
For my wife Heather and me, the stakes are as personal as they can get. We're both teachers here in Sun Prairie, and, if Walker's plan doesn't get blocked, we'll be looking at a $13,200 pay cut. I don’t have to tell you how scary and disheartening that is for a family with two young children.
But what galls me the most is that this attack comes specifically because we are teachers. Our out-of-control governor is going after K-12 teachers, higher education faculty and staff, nurses, and public service workers. We all have to band together – because if it succeeds in Wisconsin, Governor Walker's strategy will be repeated in state after state. Already, the governors of Ohio, Indiana, Idaho, Florida and New Jersey are going after teachers. That's why we need your immediate PAC support to keep the pressure on.
Help the NEA Fund fight to protect public education and defend our right to collective bargaining.
Heather and I are doing our part to take a stand against Governor Walker’s dangerous proposals. I've been working the phones, mobilizing colleagues in the Wisconsin Education Association Council to call and email their legislators, and to attend rallies at the statehouse.
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Politicians (Particularly in Texas) Leave the Children Behind
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Will 2011 be the year of fiscal austerity? At the federal level, it’s still not clear: Republicans are demanding draconian spending cuts, but we don’t yet know how far they’re willing to go in a showdown with President Obama. At the state and local level, however, there’s no doubt about it: big spending cuts are coming.
And who will bear the brunt of these cuts? America’s children.
Now, politicians — and especially, in my experience, conservative politicians — always claim to be deeply concerned about the nation’s children. Back during the 2000 campaign, then-candidate George W. Bush, touting the “Texas miracle” of dramatically lower dropout rates, declared that he wanted to be the “education president.” Today, advocates of big spending cuts often claim that their greatest concern is the burden of debt our children will face.
In practice, however, when advocates of lower spending get a chance to put their ideas into practice, the burden always seems to fall disproportionately on those very children they claim to hold so dear.
Consider, as a case in point, what’s happening in Texas, which more and more seems to be where America’s political future happens first.
Texas likes to portray itself as a model of small government, and indeed it is. Taxes are low, at least if you’re in the upper part of the income distribution (taxes on the bottom 40 percent of the population are actually above the national average). Government spending is also low. And to be fair, low taxes may be one reason for the state’s rapid population growth, although low housing prices are surely much more important.
But here’s the thing: While low spending may sound good in the abstract, what it amounts to in practice is low spending on children, who account directly or indirectly for a large part of government outlays at the state and local level.
And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.
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