Forum : The American Way of Poverty

And, Bernie campaign.

The American Way of Poverty ;

How the Other Half Still Lives

Author.  Sasha Abramsky. Speaking at the 7^thannual  Progressive Forum.

March 17, 2016.  3 PM.  Folsom Hall 1063. 

Sasha Abramsky is a widely published journalist, who specializes in social justice and poverty reporting. His work has appeared in the Nation, the American Prospect, Salon, Slate, the New Yorker online, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, the New York Times, the Village Voice, and many other publications both in the US and the UK.

The Abramsky lecture will be followed by speakers from a number  of local organizations encouraging the student vote in 2016. 

Duane Campbell, (DSA) The Left and the Sanders Campaign.  Student Votes Matter; Presentations by student activists and others.  Free.

Sponsors:  Sacramento Progressive Alliance, Campus Progressive Alliance,  Democratic Socialists of America, California Faculty Association,

We Must Talk About Race to Fix Economic Inequality

American Way of Poverty

American Way of Poverty: The American Way of Poverty ; How the Other Half Still Lives Author.   Sasha Abramsky. Speaking at the 7 th annual   Progressive For...

Education and the presidential primaries

Jeff Bryant 

Numerous observers have noticed K-12 education has finally gotten some meaningful attention in the presidential primary debate – at least in the Democratic Party.

The subject had been virtually a no show in the contest until the debate in Detroit, earlier this month. It finally arose when, according to a transcript, a Detroit parent asked the candidates about the poor conditions in her child’s school.

First to respond was Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who questioned, rhetorically, why we “can’t come up with the money to make sure that Detroit has good and qualified teachers” and “somehow we can not make sure that there are summer programs … and after school programs” for children?

“We have got to change our national priorities,” he said. “We’re not going to give tax breaks to the wealthy. We’re going to ask them to start paying their fair share of taxes so we can raise the money to make sure that every child in this country, in Detroit, in Vermont, gets the quality education that he or she deserves.”

When the question pivoted to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she proposed to “reinstate a program we did have during the 1990’s where the federal government provided funding to repair and modernize public schools … to force the Governor and the state to return the schools to the people of Detroit … [and] to set-up inside the Department of Education, for want of a better term, kind of an education SWAT team, if you will. Where we’ve got qualified people, teachers, principals, maybe folks who are retired, maybe folks who are active, but all of whom are willing to come and help.”

Whether you agree with the candidates’ responses or not, the subject – the conditions of struggling schools in Detroit and elsewhere – is what urgently needs to be addressed by the candidates.

Unfortunately, both in that particular debate – as well as in the larger debate among all the candidates in the primary – the attention often veers away from the issue of adequate and equitable resources for schools to a host of other distractions.

Something Rotten In The State Of Michigan

antiracismdsa: Tenemos Familias | Bernie Sanders

antiracismdsa: Tenemos Familias | Bernie Sanders: Many of these workers can not vote. It is up to us to vote for them. If you cannot vote, you can still campaign for candidates and assis...

The American Way of Poverty

The American Way of Poverty ;

How the Other Half Still Lives

Author.  Sasha Abramsky. Speaking at the 7^thannual  Progressive Forum.

CSU-Sacramento 

March 17, 2016.  3 PM.  Folsom Hall 1050. 

Sasha Abramsky is a widely published journalist, who specializes in social justice and poverty reporting. His work has appeared in the Nation, the American Prospect, Salon, Slate, the New Yorker online, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, the New York Times, the Village Voice, and many other publications both in the US and the UK.

The Abramsky lecture will be followed by speakers from a number  of local organizations encouraging the student vote in 2016. 

Duane Campbell, (DSA) The Left and the Sanders Campaign.  Student Votes Matter; Presentations by student activists and others.  Free.

Sponsors:  Sacramento Progressive Alliance, Campus Progressive Alliance,  Democratic Socialists of America, California Faculty Association,

Sanders Wins Michigan

SACRAMENTO PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE: Sanders Wins Michigan: The results are in and we were just declared the winner in a very important state for our campaign: Michigan. That’s a maj...

California Educators Appeal Vergara Lawsuit

Civil Rights Icon Dolores Huerta Joins Educators and Community Supporters in Urging Court to Overturn Flawed Decision for the Sake of All Students

LOS ANGELES — Attorneys representing more than 400,000 members of the California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers appeared in the California Court of Appeal today in downtown Los Angeles, to ask that the June 2014 ruling in the deceptive and meritless Vergara v. State of California be overturned for the sake of California’s six million students. 

At a press conference before arguments were presented to the Court, Attorney Michael Rubin laid out the case for reversing the faulty opinion of Judge Rolf M. Treu. Appearing with Rubin were longtime union and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta, southern California elementary school teacher Gaby Ibarra, and Martha Sanchez, a concerned parent who believes current laws work best for students.

Stating that Judge Treu’s decision striking down five California Education Code provisions “is without support in law or fact,” the speakers predicted that Treu’s numerous errors will be clearly visible to the appeals court, and the earlier Superior Court judgment will be overturned. Treu’s decision was stayed pending appeal. But if upheld, it would cause great harm to public education.

Dolores Huerta refutes claims by anti teacher union group

Samuel et al,
I am extremely disheartened and disappointed in the way you misrepresented the facts in order to get me to align with your organization and in particular the Vergara v. State of California lawsuit. I am now very much aware of your agenda and it is in direct conflict with my beliefs that every child deserves a quality teacher who understands our students’ issues while maintaining their job protections.
Having carefully reviewed the facts, I do NOT support the Vergara v. State of California lawsuit. That is why, effective immediately, I demand that you cease the use of my name and image on your website, studentsmatter.org, and all collateral digital platforms and materials.
Additionally, I will not sign on to the opinion editorial that you wrote and asked me to sign as author.
All my life I have worked to fight discrimination, uphold the rights of workers and improve social and economic conditions for our students and their families. I am not going to stop now by aligning myself with an organization that blatantly misrepresents the facts and pushes an agenda to strip workers of their rights for the financial gain of its backers.
Respectfully, Dolores Huerta 
See link below. 

Dolores Huerta Forces Anti-Teacher Lawsuit Backers to Remove Her Name From 'Vergara' Website - CAPITAL & MAIN

Dolores Huerta Forces Anti-Teacher Lawsuit Backers to Remove Her Name From 'Vergara' Website - CAPITAL & MAIN

Students of Color Are Much More Likely to Attend High-Poverty Schools - The Atlantic

Students of Color Are Much More Likely to Attend High-Poverty Schools - The Atlantic

Why Are There Now Millions of Socialists in the U.S.?

Harold Meyerson,

In 1906 German sociologist Werner Sombart wrote an essay entitled Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? that sought to explain why the US, alone among industrialized democracies, had not developed a major socialist movement.

Today, however, we need to pose a different question: why are there socialists in the United States? In this nation that has long been resistant to socialism’s call, who are all these people who now suddenly deem themselves socialists? Where did they come from? What do they mean by socialism?

Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign has made clear that many Democrats are inclined to vote for a candidate who proclaims himself a democratic socialist, but even more dramatic and consequential are the many Democrats who say they’re socialists themselves. In a poll on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, more than 40% of likely Democratic caucus attendees said they were socialists. In a Boston Globe poll on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, 31% of New Hampshire Democratic voters called themselves socialists; among voters under 35, just over half did. And in late February, a Bloomberg poll of likely voters in the Democratic primary in South Carolina – South Carolina! – showed that 39% described themselves as socialists.