budget crisis, Education, Youth and students

Wolf’s Challenge: PA ‘One of the Worst’ in Funding Its Schools

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Schools, Parents Sue Pennsylvania Over ‘Educational Caste System’

 By Deirdre Fulton

Beaver County Blue via Common Dreams

Nov. 11, 2014 – Six school districts, seven parents, and two statewide associations sued [1] the commonwealth of Pennsylvania on Monday, claiming legislative leaders, state education officials, and the governor have failed to uphold the state’s constitutional obligation to provide a system of public education that gives all children the resources they need to meet state-imposed academic standards and "participate meaningfully in the economic, civic, and social life of their communities."

According to the complaint [2] (pdf), "state officials have adopted an irrational and inequitable school financing arrangement that drastically underfunds school districts across the Commonwealth and discriminates against children on the basis of the taxable property and household incomes in their districts."

"The disparity in education resources has created an educational caste system that the Commonwealth must eliminate." —Wade Henderson, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

As a result, the plaintiffs claim that hundreds of thousands of students throughout the state lack basic educational supports and services—functioning school libraries, up-to-date textbooks and curriculum materials, reasonable class sizes, guidance counselors, school nurses, vocational-ed and college prep classes, academic tutoring programs, and more.

"My child is in classes with too many other students and she has no access to tutoring services or support from paraprofessionals, but our elected officials still expect and require her to pass standardized tests," said [3] Jamela Millar, parent of 11-year-old K.M., a student in the William Penn School District. "How are kids supposed to pass the tests required to graduate high school, find a job and contribute to our economy if their schools are starving for resources?"

The state NAACP and the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools joined the suit on behalf of their members. Urban, suburban, and rural districts are represented among the plaintiffs. While the state-run Philadelphia School District did not join the legal action, two Philadelphia parents are part of the suit and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers issued a statement in support on Monday.

Continue reading Wolf’s Challenge: PA ‘One of the Worst’ in Funding Its Schools →

elections

Progressive Democrats Call for Executive Action on Wages

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Progressive Dems: Obama Should Push Economic Executive Actions After Midterm Losses

Posted: 11/10/2014 2:04 pm EST Updated: 4 hours ago
RAUL GRIJALVA
 WASHINGTON — Republican leaders have warned President Barack Obama that pursuing more executive actions after last week’s midterm drubbing would be like playing with fire. But Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on Monday that unilateral action by the president on economic issues is more necessary than ever.

“The president is in a pivotal position to go assertively with executive orders to create a political balance and an economic balance,” Grijalva told reporters on a conference call. “I’m one member that urges them to use that as a balancing tool and a leadership tool in these next two years.”

Grijalva and his fellow caucus co-chair, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), are putting their weight behind two proposals in particular: one executive order that would give federal contracting preference to firms that pay a living wage of $15 and provide basic benefits to workers, and another guaranteeing that contractors wouldn’t interfere with worker efforts to unionize. Branded as “More Than the Minimum,” the proposals are being pushed by Good Jobs Nation, a labor group backed by the Change to Win union federation, and other progressive allies.

Ellison and Grijalva, along with Good Jobs Nation, already have a couple of executive-action victories under their belts. They successfully pressured the White House to institute two executive actions that were signed by the president earlier this year — onesetting a minimum wage of $10.10 for federal contractors, and another that would effectively bar firms that have committed wage theft against their workers from receiving federal contracts.

Most of the president’s unilateral moves on the economy have been panned by congressional Republicans. After Democrats were trounced in elections around the country last week, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) warned Obama against formulating executive action on immigration reform, saying he was “going to burn himself if he continues down this path.”

Grijalva suggested that the president and fellow Democrats would burn themselves if they didn’t. The way for Democrats to regain power, the congressman argued, is by aggressively pursuing liberal economic policies that have broad support, like raising the minimum wage and extending sick leave to more workers. Despite the Republican gains, ballot initiatives based on those issues passed by wide margins last week, including in red states.

“The American people, I think, voted against the lack of an economic agenda for working families, against not having a clear vision of what we want and where the government should be in promoting income equality,” Grijalva said of the Democratic loss.

Under the proposal pushed by Grijalva on Monday, the White House would issue new guidelines that give preference to firms with higher labor standards in the federal procurement process. Such rules only apply to contracts involving federal money, rather than the private sector at large, but left-leaning administrations have often used procurement rules as a way to set standards in the broader economy.

Robert Borosage, co-director of the progressive Campaign for America’s Future, said on the call with Grijalva that Obama ought to continue promoting his wider agenda through his power of procurement rules.

“President Obama has already established his authority over federal procurement,” Borosage said. “Now he can and should take another bold step. He can put the government on the side of working people and good employers, rather than favoring exploitative employers.”

elections

ILWU Slowdown Squeezes Maritime Owners

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Work Slowdown at Busiest U.S. Port Prompts Plea to Obama

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-06/pacific-shippers-say-longshore-slowdown-spreads-to-l-a-.html
Portside Date:
November 10, 2014
Author:
Lynn Doan
Date of Source:
Friday, November 7, 2014
Bloomberg

U.S. retailers appealed to President Barack Obama [1] to intervene in contract negotiations between West Coast dockworkers and maritime companies after a work slowdown spread to the nation’s largest container hub ahead of the holiday shopping season [2].

The National Retail Federation [3], the world’s largest retail trade association, asked Obama to step in and ensure that tensions between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, representing terminal operators and shipping lines, don’t “escalate to a complete shutdown of West Coast ports.”

Goods destined for holiday shoppers are being unloaded at 29 ports from San Diego [4] to Bellingham, Washington [5], by workers who have been without a contract since July 1. The maritime association said a slowdown that began in Seattle and Tacoma spread to Los Angeles [6] and Long Beach [7], the busiest port complex in the U.S. Those ports already face congestion from equipment shortages and rail delays.

“This is adding to the already substantial list of issues contributing to congestion,” Bruce Chan, associate transportation and logistics analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., said yesterday by telephone from Baltimore. “We’re OK as far as items on the shelves are concerned. What we’ll probably see is some cost pressure for shippers and retailers potentially filtering down to consumers.”

The maritime association says the longshore union refused to supply workers to operate so-called yard cranes that place cargo containers on trucks and railcars.

20,000 Dockworkers

The slowdown [8] came after the maritime association responded to a union proposal, Wade Gates, a San Francisco-based spokesman for the shippers, said yesterday by e-mail, without elaborating. Negotiations have been under way since May to replace a six-year contract that expired July 1.

Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the 20,000-member union in San Francisco, said the two sides met for negotiations yesterday and the day before.

“That’s the way to get the problem solved and the contract resolved so that everything can get back on track,” Merrilees said. “The problems in Southern California [9] with congestion and mismanagement go back months and years, and the industry needs to address those self-inflicted causes and not just point fingers at the union.”

‘Crisis Levels’

The retailers, joined by the Consumer Electronics Association [10] and Toy Industry Association, said in a letter to Obama that congestion at the ports has reached “crisis levels” and described the potential impact on businesses as catastrophic.

In 2002, President George W. Bush [11] invoked the Taft-Hartley Act to obtain a court order to reopen the ports after a 10-day lockout when contract talks broke down. Obama’s press office didn’t immediately respond to telephoned and e-mailed requests for comment.

The Port of Los Angeles accounted for 31.2 percent of tonnage entering the West Coast in 2013, while the neighboring Port of Long Beach accounted for 29.7 percent, according to a report [12] by the maritime association.

Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman for the Port of Los Angeles, declined yesterday to comment on the maritime group’s assertions. Art Wong, a spokesman for Long Beach, said the number of ships waiting to anchor at the port rose by two yesterday.

On Nov. 5, “we only had one ship waiting and, for a few days before that, we had none,” Wong said by telephone. “I don’t know if it’s related to this. I was hoping it was going to be just a one-day thing, until I saw this thing about a slowdown.”

 

elections

Minimum Wage Hike Passes in 4 Red States

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Unbundling the Democratic Agenda

BY | NOV. 6, 2014 5:53 PM EST |

 http://go.bloomberg.com/market-now/2014/11/06/unbundling-democratic-agenda/

Fast food workers on strike for a $15 an hour wage.

Is it a coincidence that all four states that voted to raise the minimum wage yesterday are Republican strongholds? At least one of those states (Arkansas) and most likely two (Alaska, where Mark Begich is behind but has not conceded) are replacing Democratic incumbents with Republican senators. Nebraska, where Republican Ben Sasse was elected to the Senate with 64.8 percent of the vote, and South Dakota are among the reddest states in the country.

Yet all four voted to raise their minimum wage, three of them by margins that could fairly be described as overwhelming. Moreover, they raised those minimum wages a lot, to levels that more liberal states would envy. One useful way to look at it is to consider not only the new minimum wage numbers, but place them in a national context by adjusting them withgovernment data on the cost of living:

Alaska, January 2016 minimum: $9.75
adjusted for cost of living: $9.10
Arkansas, January 2017 minimum: $8.50
adjusted for cost of living: $9.70
Nebraska, January 2016 minimum: $9.00
adjusted for cost of living: $9.99
South Dakota, January 2015 minimum: $8.50
adjusted for cost of living: $9.64

For comparison, the $10.00 an hour minimum wage that is set to kick in for California comes to $8.86 adjusted for local prices. In other words, Nebraska — Nebraska — will have the highest real minimum wage in the country. The National Employment Law Project, a supporter of the initiative, estimates the $1.75 an hour minimum wage boost will directly affect 143,000 workers in a state of 1.9 million and raise total wages by $117 million a year.

Two lessons might drawn here. The obvious: There may be support out there in more liberal states for substantially higher minimums. If $9.00 can pass in Nebraska, it’s worth asking if, say, $11.25 — roughly the same in real-dollar terms — or even higher can pass in California.

The less obvious lesson: Political parties in a losing position can succeed by unbundling their policies and try to pass the most marketable parts of their agenda without the legislature.
By and large, political agendas are sold like cable packages, as a big take-it-or-leave-it raft of policies. Much as with the cable packages, the customers (ie. voters) take them while gnashing their teeth and complaining that there are no other options.

In this case, Democrats, seeing no market for the full party package have had to take a good look at the policies they are selling and pitch thee most attractive ones a la carte via ballot initiatives. By definition all ballot initiatives take issues directly to the voters. What’s different here from marijuana or gun control votes is that, despite the support of a few Republicans like Mitt Romney, the minimum wage is a central Democratic issue, and the campaigns were financed mainly by the party’s core contributors.

In Nebraska $600,000 of the $1.2 million cost of the minimum wage initiative (big h/t to the indispensable Ballotpedia) was underwritten by Dick Holland, who’s been called the Nebraska Democratic Party’s “most generous and dependable contributor.” In Arkansas thebiggest contributor was the Interfaith Alliance, a consortium of Democratic-leaning religious groups.

The reddest states are the places where the Democrats have the most incentive to unbundle their policies and sell them through ballot initiatives, and so they’ve wound up passing aggressive increases in the minimum wage. This is not a totally new phenomenon — for many years Republicans in California went directly to voters with tax cuts. What’s new is just how effective it has proven to be. Fully 65 percent of Arkansas voters and 59 percent of Nebraska voters marked the ballot for higher minimum wages. So what percent may vote for other especially palatable slices of the Democratic agenda, like expanded health care for poor children? We may get to find out in 2016.

Aliquippa, Organizing, Poverty, safety net

Beaver County Aid Providers Experience Tough Decisions During Poverty Simulation

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Poverty Simulation

A poverty simulation experience presented by Aliquippa Weed and Seed, in conjunction with the Franklin Center’s Disproportionate Minority Contact Project, was held Friday at the Church in the Round. The simulation experience is designed to help participants begin to understand what it might be like to live in a typical low-income family trying to survive month to month. Here, the Rev. Marvin C. Moreland calls to be let out of "jail" during the simulation.

By Daveen Rae Kurutz

Beaver County Times

Nov. 4, 2014 ALIQUIPPA — Food, medicine or utilities.

It’s one of several stressful choices low-income families have to make each month. Keeping a budget in balance when necessary costs — such as housing, transportation and food — require almost all income is just one stressor that leaves people frustrated and looking for help.

That’s the situation several dozen Beaver County-area human-service providers found themselves in last week during a poverty simulation conducted by Aliquippa Weed and Seed and the Franklin Center of Beaver County. The program put participants in the shoes of a family living in poverty.

Participants were assigned to family roles — parents, children and grandparents — and given a budget and a series of responsibilities as part of Missouri’s Community Action Poverty Simulation.

“The whole idea is for human-service providers to have an idea what their clients go through,” said Jonathan Pettis, executive director at the Franklin Center. “They can take the lessons they learned back to their agencies. It’s really powerful.”

The simulation included representatives from Children and Youth Services, county Behavioral Health Services, Uncommon Grounds and other human-service organizations; members of the clergy; and officials from Aliquippa, Midland, Baden and the Blackhawk School District.

Groups were given different scenarios that low-income families regularly experience. Some families had absentee fathers or included children being raised by their grandparents. Other families struggled with divorce, affording college and teen pregnancy.

“The needs are very great,” said Abigail Young, virtual visitation coordinator for Trails Ministries Inc. in Beaver Falls, a faith-based re-entry ministry that works with incarcerated individuals and their families. “There is so much we all can do.”

Young, two of her co-workers and another participant played the roles of the Zuppot family — grandparents “Zola” and “Zeke” and children “Zenobia” and “Zander” — who struggled for four weeks in poverty.

Week One

A cashier at the local grocery store, Zola is the breadwinner for the family. Her husband has limited mobility and has to stay at home unless someone can help him travel.

The family was not able to buy food this week. There weren’t enough transportation passes to get Zola to work, the market and the Paycheck Advance office. When she did make it to cash her check, the office closed before workers could cash the check.

“Even when this family has cash, they can’t get where they need to go,” said Lola Thomas, a family coach with Trails Ministries who portrayed Zeke.

Week Two

The family still can’t buy food. Zola never made it to work after she and Zeke visited an interfaith service where workers gave them all-day transportation passes that they used to get to the bank to cash Zola’s paycheck and Zeke’s disability check.

Continue reading Beaver County Aid Providers Experience Tough Decisions During Poverty Simulation →

Democrats, elections, GOP, Racism

Lesson from History: 150 Years Back, Elections Mattered, Too, Only Then the GOP Was Progressive

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1864, Lincoln vs. McClellan: How Allegheny County voted

A pivotal presidential contest in the thick of the Civil War, the election was hotly contested in Pittsburgh. Note the role of the ‘Wide Awakes,’ the Insurgent Youth of the time.

20141102hoabelincoln001local Cartoon of Abe Lincoln and Gen. George McClellan prior to 1864 election. Illustration in Harper's Weekly, June 25, 1864.

Cartoon of Abe Lincoln and Gen. George McClellan prior to 1864 election. Illustration in Harper’s Weekly, June 25, 1864.

Voting rites in 1864: messy and unfair, but rough justice

By Len Barcousky

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Nov 2, 2014 – While the editors at Pittsburgh’s Gazette and Post disagreed on almost every issue, the rival newspapers were united on one topic: the importance of the presidential election of 1864.

“The hour has come,” The Pittsburgh Daily Gazette told voters on Nov. 8, election day. “The decisive blow must be struck today.”

“The main issue … is no less than the preservation of our country and with it the preservation of our liberties,” The Daily Pittsburgh Post opined.

Despite worrisome results in congressional elections a month earlier that showed Republican gains, Democrats in southwestern Pennsylvania were counting on a win in the presidential contest.

The Post was the city’s pre-eminent Democratic newspaper, and its editor, James P. Barr expressed confidence.

Six days before the election “the Democracy of Washington, Beaver and Allegheny counties, with their wives, children and sweethearts, turned out en masse to vindicate the Union and the Constitution,” the Post reported Nov. 4. The mass meeting was held in Clinton, Findlay Township.

The march of Democratic supporters, led by Allegheny County delegations from Moon, Crescent, North Fayette and Findlay, “took three-quarters of an hour to pass,” the newspaper said. “The States were represented by a wagon filled with young girls, appropriately clad and adorned, drawn by 35 horses ridden by lads uniformly clothed …”

Why 35 horses and riders? The Union, until the admission of Nevada on Oct. 31, 1864, had 35 states.

Continue reading Lesson from History: 150 Years Back, Elections Mattered, Too, Only Then the GOP Was Progressive →

Green Energy, Green Jobs, Infrastructure, NAACP, safety net, trade unions, Voting Rights

‘Moral Mondays’ Launched in Western PA

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Protesters Rally for Officials to ‘Do the Right Thing’

People gather at the Beaver County Courthouse to raise awareness of several social and economic issues.

By Kirstin Kennedy

Beaver County Times

Oct 28, 2014 – BEAVER — Everyone knows the First Amendment gives citizens the right to assemble. Few regularly exercise it.

But that wasn’t the case Monday evening on the steps of the Beaver County Courthouse, when over 30 people gathered with signs and chants.

Willie Sallis, president of the NAACP in Beaver County, said he helped to gather the protest to pressure elected officials to "just do the right thing."

"What is the moral thing to do? … That’s what we’re trying to keep alive with the union and the civil rights leaders," he said. Sallis paired with several other organizations — including members of local labor unions — for the rally, with the hope of raising awareness of several social and economic issues.

Inspired by a recent lecture given locally by the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, Sallis dubbed the rally Moral Monday.

"What’s the right thing to do for the poor?" Sallis said. "What’s the right thing to do for health benefits? What’s the right thing to do when it comes to jobs? What’s the right thing to do when it comes to minimum wages? All we’re saying is, ‘Look, do the right thing.’"

On the courthouse lawn, participants chanted, "Keep it fair; we care."

Continue reading ‘Moral Mondays’ Launched in Western PA →

2014 Election, Infrastructure, Right Wing

Time to Narrow the Target: It’s Not ‘Washington,’ It’s Rightwing Republicans

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Ideology and Investment

By Paul Krugman
New York Times Opinion

Oct 26, 2014 – America used to be a country that built for the future. Sometimes the government built directly: Public projects, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, provided the backbone for economic growth. Sometimes it provided incentives to the private sector, like land grants to spur railroad construction. Either way, there was broad support for spending that would make us richer.

But nowadays we simply won’t invest, even when the need is obvious and the timing couldn’t be better. And don’t tell me that the problem is “political dysfunction” or some other weasel phrase that diffuses the blame. Our inability to invest doesn’t reflect something wrong with “Washington”; it reflects the destructive ideology that has taken over the Republican Party.

Some background: More than seven years have passed since the housing bubble burst, and ever since, America has been awash in savings — or more accurately, desired savings — with nowhere to go. Borrowing to buy homes has recovered a bit, but remains low. Corporations are earning huge profits, but are reluctant to invest in the face of weak consumer demand, so they’re accumulating cash or buying back their own stock. Banks are holding almost $2.7 trillion in excess reserves — funds they could lend out, but choose instead to leave idle.

And the mismatch between desired saving and the willingness to invest has kept the economy depressed. Remember, your spending is my income and my spending is your income, so if everyone tries to spend less at the same time, everyone’s income falls.

Continue reading Time to Narrow the Target: It’s Not ‘Washington,’ It’s Rightwing Republicans →

2014 Election, Democrats, Infrastructure

Wolf Highlights Inland Port Infrastructure for PA Job Potential

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Tom Wolfe holds election rally at Aliquippa Elks Lodge

Tom Wolf, right, shakes hands with Beaver County commissioner Joe Spanik before an election rally on Sunday, October 26, 2014, at the Aliquippa Elks Lodge on Brodhead Road in Aliquippa.

By David Taube

Beaver County Times

Oct 26, 2014 HOPEWELL TWP. — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf visited Beaver County again on Sunday, calling the election a chance for voters to say what they are not and what they could be.

The York County businessman echoed a recent campaign statement that Pennsylvania’s job creation was the worst in the country since 2011, based on federal data, suggesting the state could capitalize on its port access as one economic possibility. He also repeatedly stated that residents shouldn’t take polls too seriously.

Speaking to 60-plus people at Aliquippa Elks Lodge 1221 on Sunday, he said the upcoming election is a chance to move Pennsylvania and the country in the right direction.

“If you want to look at Pennsylvania over the last four years, it’s really a clinical test of the last 40 years,” Wolf said. “What we’ve been told over the last 40 years is ‘The real world is an unfair place. Let that 1 percent take over, and they’re going to show us wonderful things.’

“It hasn’t worked,” he said.

Wolf has visited Aliquippa or Hopewell Township several times in the last few months, and Aliquippa Mayor Dwan Walker said Wolf’s third visit on Sunday meant he was now family. He visited Aliquippa Elementary School on Aug. 25 and the Aliquippa Junior-Senior High School on Oct. 13.

Continue reading Wolf Highlights Inland Port Infrastructure for PA Job Potential →

NAACP, PDA, Poverty, safety net, Solidarity, Voting Rights

Oct 27: ‘Moral Monday’ Rally at the Courthouse Monday Evening!

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From Tina Shannon:

Friends,

Monday, October 27th, is a big day for Beaver County.

It’s the day we’ll have our first Moral Monday rally at the Beaver County Court House.

At 6:00 PM we’ll all gather on the steps of the Court House in Beaver to announce our intentions. We intend to follow our moral compass & use our energy to address the issues facing Beaver County & Pennsylvania.

Public education is under attack. It’s harder than ever to make a living because unions are under attack too. There aren’t enough jobs. Our very water is being threatened because of cuts to the agencies that are supposed to protect it. Inequality is at an all time high, with our brothers & sisters in the African American community suffering the worst. We intend to gather people together & address these issues & other issues that hurt our beloved community.

Please please join us. It’s the beginning of coming together. It’s the beginning of reaching out. It’s the beginning of standing & listening to each other & finding the way forward.

With love & solidarity,

Tina Shannon, 12th CD Progressive Democrats of America
Read more on Moral Mondays:

http://www.thenation.com/article/180491/how-moral-mondays-fusion-coalition-taking-north-carolina-back#
Activists to Watch: Rev. Dr. William J. Barber | BillMoyers.com