Lingo still a barrier to relief
Times Union – August 7, 2013, by Jimmy Vielkind - Immigrant advocacy groups say it remains difficult to get access to government services in languages other than English — nearly two years after...
Times Union – August 7, 2013, by Jimmy Vielkind - Immigrant advocacy groups say it remains difficult to get access to government services in languages other than English — nearly two years after Gov. Andrew Cuomo decreed that written and oral interpretation would be available the state’s six most-spoken foreign languages.
Cuomo signed an executive order that took effect last October mandating state officials to offer language assistance for speakers of Spanish, French, Italian, French Creole, Russian and Chinese. But the order’s scope was necessarily limited to state agencies, even though state-funded services like food stamps, driver’s licenses and unemployment benefits are administered by New York City or other counties.
The groups — including Make the Road New York, the Center for Popular Democracy and the Center for the Elimination of Minority Health Disparities at the University at Albany — visited government offices and surveyed people with limited English proficiency to develop a measure of compliance. In a report released earlier this week, they found that less than half the people who needed language assistance were able to receive it.
According to Nisha Agarwal, deputy director of the Center for Popular Democracy, the survey found 63 percent of citizens using state-operated facilities that are explicitly covered by the order were not successful in their quest to gain language assistance.
“The governor’s team has been very engaged on implementation, and we’re sympathetic to the challenges of getting an entire state apparatus to change,” said Agarwal. “That said, the results are by no means satisfactory, and we were quite disappointed that the state took the position that county-run agencies for state services were not within the ambit of the order. We feel it’s a pretty big gap.”
The Cuomo administration responded by saying that all covered state agencies are in compliance with this executive order
“This report paints an inaccurate picture of reality by relying on visits to county-run agencies that by law fall outside the executive order,” said Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi. “Everyone should have the same access to their government, and we encourage counties to follow the state’s lead.”
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Why Is My Bank Teller Trying to Sell Me a Credit Card I Don't Want?
Mother Jones - April 9, 2015, by Josh Harkinson - Until recently, your typical banker was someone whose main job was to accept deposits, cash checks, and dispense basic financial advice. But now...
Mother Jones - April 9, 2015, by Josh Harkinson - Until recently, your typical banker was someone whose main job was to accept deposits, cash checks, and dispense basic financial advice. But now that job hardly exists anymore—at least not as we once knew it. Today's front-line bank workers—tellers, loan interviewers, and customer-service reps—earn far too little money to be considered "bankers" in the traditional sense of the word. And though they still collect and dispense money, their main job involves hawking credit cards and loans you probably don't need.
Many rank and file bank workers are seeing lower wages and more pressure to hawk financial products.Rank-and-file bank workers are both causes and symptoms of America's widening economic divide, says Aditi Sen, the author of Big Banks and the Dismantling of the Middle Class, a report released today by the Center for Popular Democracy. Based on union organizer interviews with hundreds of workers in the industry, Sen found that front-line bank workers often face quotas for hawking potentially exploitive financial products, often to low-income customers, even though the workers themselves barely qualify as middle class. "We can definitely see bank workers as part of the same continuum of issues facing all low-wage workers," she says.
Banks are, of course, notorious for squeezing profits from their employees and customers. In 2011, the Federal Reserve Board fined Wells Fargo $85 million for forcing workers to sell expensive subprime mortgages to prime borrowers. And in late 2013, a judge slapped Bank of America with a $1.27 billion penalty for its "Hustle Program," which rewarded employees for producing more loans and eliminating controls on the loans' quality.
Yet, by some accounts, these sorts of practices are getting worse. In a 2013 study by the union-backed Committee for Better Banks, 35 percent of low-level bank workers surveyed reported increased sales pressure since 2008, and nearly 38 percent stated that there was no real avenue in the workplace to oppose such practices. One HSBC bank employee, according to the study, reported that workers who failed to meet their sales goals had the difference taken out of their paychecks.
The increasing sales pressure comes at a time when the fortunes of the banks and their low-level workers have diverged widely. Bank profits and CEO pay have rebounded to near record levels while wages for front-line workers are stuck in the gutter.
And that's not all. Nearly a quarter of bank workers surveyed in 2013 reported that their benefits had been cut since 2008, and 44 percent reported that their medical and life insurance was inadequate. A recent University of California-Berkeley study found that 31 percent of bank tellers' families rely on public assistance at an annual cost of $900 million to taxpayers.
There are several factors in all of these woes. Mergers and consolidation have led some retail banks to shutter branches and lay people off. Many banks have outsourced customer-service jobs to overseas call centers, and the rise of internet and smartphone banking has further slashed demand for flesh-and-blood tellers. In other words, it's basically the same mix of foreign and technological competition that has concentrated wealth and depressed middle-class wages throughout the economy. And it means that banks can get away with paying people less, and demanding more in return.
But now the Committee for Better Banks is trying to cultivate common cause between low-level bank workers and the customers they're forced to target. The interviews featured in the new report show that many bank workers strongly oppose the sales quotas as unfair and exploitive. For instance:
A teller at a top-five bank reports that she is subject to stringent individual goals on a daily basis: If she does not make three sales-points (selling someone a new checking, savings, or debit card account) each day in a month, she gets written up.
Customer service representatives at a call center for another major bank report that each individual has to make 40 percent of the sales of the top seller to avoid being written up. Selling credit cards counts more towards sales goals than helping someone open up a checking account or savings account, thereby crafting skewed incentives based on the profitability of a product sold, not on how well it matched the needs of a customer.
"There was one guy who had three credit cards and I ended up pushing a fourth on him, even though I knew that was not good for him.""A lot of time people would call and already have one, two, or three credit cards with us," says Liz, a member of the Committee for Better Banks who worked in a Bank of America call center for five years and did not want to give her last name. "They might have a situation where they are low on funds and we end up pushing another credit card on them. There was one guy who had three credit cards and I ended up pushing a fourth on him, even though I knew that was not good for him; he would just be in more debt. But if didn't, I would end up being put in a reprimand."
On Monday, members of the Committee for Better Banks will converge in Minnesota's Twin Cities to deliver a petition to bank offices demanding better pay and more stable work hours for rank-and-file workers, and an end to sales goals that "push unnecessary products on our customers."
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Fed’s Mester Calls Case for Gradual Rate Increases ‘Compelling’
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said there’s a “compelling” case for gradually raising interest rates, with the U.S. economy approaching the central bank’s targets on...
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said there’s a “compelling” case for gradually raising interest rates, with the U.S. economy approaching the central bank’s targets on employment and inflation.
“Policy has to be forward-looking,” Mester told reporters Thursday following a speech in Lexington, Kentucky. “If you have a forecast and inflation is moving up to your target and you’re at full employment, then it seems like a gradual increase from a very low interest rate is pretty compelling to me. Pre-emptiveness is important.”
She declined to say precisely when she believed rate increases would be necessary.
The policy-making Federal Open Market Committee will meet Sept. 20-21 to decide whether to lift the target range for its benchmark rate. Fed Chair Janet Yellen said last week the case for an increase had “strengthened in recent months.”
Investors see a roughly one-in-four probability that the Fed will act later this month, based on pricing in federal futures funds contracts.
Too Low for Too Long
Mester, who votes this year on the FOMC, said the Fed must take seriously the risk to financial stability caused by keeping rates low for too long, although she said she didn’t think the central bank was currently “behind the curve.” Nor did she see signs of financial instability already in the economy.
In her speech, Mester rejected the argument made to a number of Fed officials last week by a coalition of community activists that continued low interest rates are needed to extend the benefits of economic recovery to disadvantaged minorities.
“I do not believe that at this point in the business cycle, the current very low level of interest rates is an effective solution to these longer-run issues,” she said.
Eleven Fed governors and regional presidents, including Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, met with organizers from the Center for Popular Democracy’s “Fed Up” campaign on the sidelines of the annual policy retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, hosted by the Kansas City Fed.
The U.S. central bank has kept rates on hold through five meetings this year following a rate hike in December that was the first in nearly a decade.
By Christopher Condon
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Lael Brainard, a Fed governor in the political glare
In the middle of meetings of the world’s central banking elite in Wyoming’s Jackson Lake Lodge in August 2015, Lael Brainard sat down with activists who were denouncing calls for tighter monetary...
In the middle of meetings of the world’s central banking elite in Wyoming’s Jackson Lake Lodge in August 2015, Lael Brainard sat down with activists who were denouncing calls for tighter monetary policy amid America’s sluggish wage growth.
As the Federal Reserve Board member listened intently over the course of about an hour, protesters from New York ranging from fast-food employees to a worker on film sets talked about the difficulties of making ends meet on rock-bottom wages in a high-cost metropolis, recalls Shawn Sebastian, field director of the Fed Up coalition that arranged the meeting.
Ms Brainard’s decision to drop by carried a message. A fairly new member of the Board of Governors who had said relatively little about monetary policy, Ms Brainard was about to set out her stall as a vocal advocate of low interest rates at the Fed — based in part on the absence of wage growth.
Her steadfast calls for continued economic stimulus have burnished her credentials among pro-worker groups including Fed Up, which met a broader range of Fed officials at this year’s Jackson Hole gathering. They come amid speculation that she could be in line for a cabinet role if the Democrats hold the White House in November.
“When it comes to monetary policy, Lael Brainard is one of the strongest and loudest voices advocating for policies that working families across the US need,” says Mr Sebastian.
In Washington, Ms Brainard is being spoken of as one of the candidates for Treasury secretary in a Hillary Clinton administration — a move that would make her the first woman to head the department. At the same time she has become the target of Republican attacks because of her public support for the Clinton campaign and fury within the party over easy-money policies.
Early this year Ms Brainard donated $2,700 to the Clinton campaign, a decision described by former officials as a blunder for a sitting Fed governor during an election year — even if it is permissible under Fed rules. It increased the Fed’s political vulnerability at a time when it is a prime target for vituperative assaults on its independence by Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate.
The donation was the subject of sharp exchanges in Congress last month as Fed chair Janet Yellen was forced to reject claims by Republican representative Scott Garrett that the central bank is excessively cosy with the Democrats.
There are people who blather on and she is not one of them
Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Joe Biden
Ted Truman, a former Fed official who is a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says Ms Brainard’s donation was a personal mistake that “didn’t help the Fed at all”. He also argues that the issue pales in comparison with politically charged episodes in the past, such as the Nixon years when the Fed was leaned on heavily to keep rates low.
Ms Brainard’s forceful drive for easy monetary policy began two months after the 2015 Jackson Hole meetings, when she delivered a blunt speech that left some with the impression that she was at loggerheads with Ms Yellen. Ms Brainard warned against prematurely lifting rates amid slack in the labour market and subdued inflation — even as the chair was steering markets to expect a move by the end of the year.
Ms Brainard did not go on to formally dissent when Ms Yellen presided over a rate increase that December. Since then the two policymakers have appeared more closely aligned, with both recently arguing that the US recovery has further room to run before the central bank needs to increase rates again.
Ms Brainard has urged caution in part because of the risk that overseas shocks ricochet back to the US via highly integrated financial markets. This global focus builds on her work as the US’s top financial diplomat under former Treasury secretary Tim Geithner between 2010 and 2013, where in the gruelling post of undersecretary for international affairs she was a key US figure in discussions over the euro area debt crisis, as well as the broader global fallout from the financial crash.
Fed should not rush to raise rates, says Brainard
Already low expectations of a September increase fall further after policymaker’s cautious comments
One official who spoke with her regularly was George Papaconstantinou, Greece’s finance minister from 2009 to 2011. He recalls hearing from Ms Brainard two or three times a week during the febrile days of early 2010, as Europe dragged its feet over how to handle the Greek crisis and the US pushed for action. The calls were partly “therapy” for him and partly information-gathering by Ms Brainard so she had “a better sense of how close we were to the edge”. He says: “She clearly knew her stuff.”
Ms Brainard, who declined to comment for this article, developed her interest for global affairs in part on the back of her upbringing as a diplomat’s daughter, spending some of her childhood behind the iron curtain in Poland and East Germany. A former MIT economics professor, she has three children and is married to Kurt Campbell, a former top state department official.
A reserved individual, Ms Brainard left the Treasury with a mixed reputation among officials, some of whom found her unsupportive and distant. Others, including Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to vice-president Joe Biden, praise her straight-talking manner and clarity of thought. “There are people who blather on and she is not one of them,” he says.
When Washington observers size up potential Treasury secretaries, Ms Brainard’s name comes up alongside Gary Gensler, the former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook.
What gives Ms Brainard’s claim potency is not only her international and domestic economic experience, but also the helpful absence of a stint on Wall Street in her curriculum vitae. For many Democrats, her very public campaign for low rates has only strengthened her qualifications for the post.
By Lael Brainard
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Charter Schools Struggling to Meet Academic Growth
Star Tribune - February 17, 2015, by Kim McGuire - Students in most Minnesota charter schools are failing to hit learning targets and are not achieving adequate academic growth,...
Star Tribune - February 17, 2015, by Kim McGuire - Students in most Minnesota charter schools are failing to hit learning targets and are not achieving adequate academic growth, according to a Star Tribune analysis of school performance data.
The analysis of 128 of the state’s 157 charter schools show that the gulf between the academic success of its white and minority students widened at nearly two-thirds of those schools last year. Slightly more than half of charter schools students were proficient in reading, dramatically worse than traditional public schools, where 72 percent were proficient.
Between 2011 and 2014, 20 charter schools failed every year to meet the state’s expectations for academic growth each year, signaling that some of Minnesota’s most vulnerable students had stagnated academically.
A top official with the Minnesota Department of Education says she is troubled by the data, which runs counter to “the public narrative” that charter schools are generally superior to public schools.
“We hear, as we should, about the highfliers and the schools that are beating the odds, but I think we need to pay even more attention to the schools that are persistently failing to meet expectations,” said Charlene Briner, the Minnesota Department of Education’s chief of staff. Charter school advocates strongly defend their performance. They say the vast majority of schools that aren’t showing enough improvement serve at-risk populations, students who are poor, homeless, with limited English proficiency, or are in danger of dropping out.
“Our students, they’re coming from different environments, both home and school, where they’ve never had the chance to be successful,” said April Harrison, executive director of LoveWorks Academy, a Minneapolis charter school that has the state’s lowest rating. “No one has ever taken the time to say, ‘What’s going on with you? How can I help you?’ That’s what we do.”
Minnesota is the birthplace of the charter school movement and a handful of schools have received national acclaim for their accomplishments, particularly when it comes to making strong academic gains with low-income students of color. But the new information is fueling critics who say the charter school experiment has failed to deliver on teaching innovation.
“Schools promised they were going to help turn around things for these very challenging student populations,” said Kyle Serrette, director of education for the New York City-based Center for Popular Democracy. “Now, here we are 20 years later and they’re realizing that they have the same troubles of public schools systems.”
More than half of schools analyzed from 2011 to 2014 were also failing to meet the department’s expectations for academic growth, the gains made from year to year in reading and math.
Of the 20 schools that failed to meet the state goals for improvement every year, Pillsbury United Communities is the authorizer for six of those schools: Dugsi Academy, LoveWorks Academy for Visual and Performing Arts, Connections Academy, Learning for Leadership Charter School, and the Minnesota Transitions Charter School’s elementary, Connections Academy and Virtual High School. Those schools also missed annual achievement gap targets.
Officials with the Urban Institute for Service and Learning, which oversees Pillsbury’s charters, say most of their schools cater to students at risk of dropping out, those who have been kicked out of other schools, and many who are learning to speak English.
“We intentionally work with students that most other people would really not want to work with,” said Antonio Cardona, director of the institute.
Two years ago, Pillsbury closed Quest Academy, a small St. Louis Park charter school that consistently failed to meet state performance goals.
Cardona said Pillsbury would consider closing more chronically low-performing schools, or more likely, adopt new turnaround strategies. They also want to add some high-performing schools to their portfolio so that some of their low-performing schools might be able to absorb successful teaching strategies.
At LoveWorks Academy in Minneapolis, about 85 percent of the school’s students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches. About 13 percent of its students were proficient in math and 12 percent are proficient in reading.
“What success means for me is our students are reaching the top,” Harrison said. “We are going to work until we get there.”
Some charter schools struggle with stability and finding qualified teachers who are the right fit. In one year, about 65 percent of LoveWorks’ teaching staff turned over. Some left on their own accord while others were not offered their job back.
“I think that’s why we’re seeing success now because we have a staff that’s willing to listen and learn and take the coaching,” said Jamar Smith, the school’s arts coordinator.
Just like traditional public schools, the highest-performing charter schools tend to serve students from more affluent families, the analysis shows.
There are some notable exceptions, many of which are noted annually in the Star Tribune’s “Beating the Odds” list, which is a ranking of high-performing schools that serve a large number of poor students. For years, that list has been dominated by charter schools.
“These are schools that have fully utilized the charter school model to do what needs to be done,” Sweeney said. “If a program isn’t working, if a schedule needs to be changed, they have the flexibility to turn on a dime.”
New Millennium Academy, a Minneapolis charter school that serves mostly Hmong students, has hit the state’s benchmarks for improvement every year from 2011 to 2014. In 2013, it was designated a Celebration school, one of the state’s top school designations.
Amy Erickson, the school’s director of teaching and learning, said the school’s improvement is due to a focused effort to help its students who are learning to speak English — about 85 percent of New Millennium’s enrollment.
Among the ways the school has done that is through data-driven instruction. New Millennium tests its students about every six weeks to see how they’re doing. Those who need extra help receive it in small groups.
“Many of our parents don’t read or write English,” said Yee Yang, the school’s executive director. “So we have meetings where we just talk about the importance of education. We want to make sure they’re focused on that, too.”
In recent years, Minnesota has increased its scrutiny of charter schools, particularly organizations that authorize them. Starting in 2015, the state will begin evaluating authorizers. An unsatisfactory rating means an authorizer would lose the ability to create new schools.
The legislative effort has revealed a rift between differing charter groups.
Charter School Partners is supporting legislation that would make it easier for authorizers to close schools that perform poorly.
“We think it’s an inoculation for our charter community,” said Brian Sweeney, Charter School Partners’ director of public affairs.
The Minnesota Association of Charter Schools, which represents about half the state’s charter schools, will oppose any legislative efforts that give authorizers more authority to close low-performing schools.
“It’s the teachers and principals who have a much more direct impact on student achievement,” said Eugene Piccolo, the association’s director. “Not the authorizers.”
Instead, the association is throwing its efforts behind legislative proposals it believes might help level the financial playing field between charters and traditional public schools.
A recent report commissioned by Charter School Partners shows that Minneapolis Public Schools receives about 31 percent more in funding per pupil than the average Minneapolis charter school. St. Paul Public Schools receives about 24 percent more per pupil.
Charter school supporters say the model continues to evolve.
“Twenty years ago when charters began in Minnesota, it was 1,000 flowers blooming. Let’s experiment. Let’s innovate. Let’s see what works” Sweeney said. “Nobody ever thought it was to have schools last forever that are failing. So there’s a national move to improve the sector and I think we need to do that here in Minnesota.”
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Restaurant group preps for fight against Ariz. minimum wage boost
Restaurant group preps for fight against Ariz. minimum wage boost
PHOENIX -- The head of the state's restaurant industry is gearing up to convince voters to quash an initiative that would boost the state's minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
Steve Chucri...
PHOENIX -- The head of the state's restaurant industry is gearing up to convince voters to quash an initiative that would boost the state's minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant and Hospitality Association, said Wednesday the campaign against the measure will be based on showing them how much wages in Arizona have gone up since voters enacted the first minimum wage law in 2006.
Prior to that, Arizona employers had to pay only what was mandated in federal law, which was $5.15 an hour. The ballot measure pushed that to $6.75, with a requirement for annual adjustments based on inflation.
That has pushed the current state minimum to $8.05.
"The public will say, 'Enough's enough,'" Chucri said. And he said polls done for the industry in the spring show people believe that $12 is "too much."
The comments come as Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families is planning to submit its petitions for the $12 wage plus required paid leave today to the secretary of state's office.
Spokeswoman Suzanne Wilson said organizers have collected more than 250,000 signatures. That is 100,000 more than are needed to qualify for the ballot.
But Chucri said he's not convinced his organization will even have to fight the battle in November. He questioned whether petition circulators, both volunteer and paid, were careful to ensure that those who signed are qualified to vote in the state.
Arizona has become the latest battleground over what can be considered a living wage.
Several states have enacted their own laws, often through legislation. Most recently, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a measure that will take that state's minimum, now $10 an hour, up to $15 by 2022 for large employers; small companies will get another year to comply.
Chucri said part of the campaign against the ballot measure will be to remind voters here that Arizona already has a minimum wage that's higher than what federal law requires.
And that same law requires annual revision. Chucri pointed out that has meant a boost every year except for two when the rate of inflation was too small for even a nickel more, the bare minimum adjustment.
The difference, though, is not great: That $8.05 an hour is just 80 cents more than the federal minimum.
What Chucri also faces is that $8.05, assuming it's a family's sole source of income, translates out to $16,744 a year.
For a single person, the federal government considers anything below $11,880 a year to be living in poverty. That figure is $16,020 for a family of two and $20,160 for a family of three.
That's part of what has driven similar living wage efforts elsewhere in the country. But Chucri said the idea of a $12 minimum won't sell here.
"That is too high of a wage for a place like Arizona,'' he said.
Chucri said part of the campaign against the ballot measure will be the argument that higher wages mean fewer jobs.
"Restaurateurs are going to survive,'' he said. But what they will do, Chucri said, is simply hire fewer people.
He pointed out the push toward automation already is underway.
At Panera Bread, customers place their orders through computer screens and then can pick up what they want. And even at more traditional sit-down place like Applebee's, orders can be placed through tablets at each table.
Chucri conceded, though, that is happening even in places where the minimum wage is not going up. What approval of this measure would do, he said, is hasten the day.
"I don't think it's a matter of 'if,' '' Chucri said. "It's a matter of 'when.' ''
He would not say how much his group and other business organizations intend to spend to kill the measure.
The most recent campaign finance reports show campaign organizers have raised more than $342,000. Virtually all of that comes from Living United for Change in Arizona. But Tomas Robles, former executive director of LUCHA, said much of that is from a grant to the organization from The Center for Popular Democracy, an organization involved in efforts to establish a $15 minimum wage nationally.
Another $25,000 came from The Fairness Project which has its own efforts to push higher minimum wages on a state-by-state basis.
By Howard Fischer
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Hundreds march on Capitol Hill to call for a DACA replacement
The Trump administration's decision to end the DACA program means thousands of undocumented individuals are on the verge of being deported, despite having lived in the US for years. On Wednesday,...
The Trump administration's decision to end the DACA program means thousands of undocumented individuals are on the verge of being deported, despite having lived in the US for years. On Wednesday, protesters took to DC to call for the DREAM Act, which would build on DACA, creating a multi-phase process that would lead to permanent residency.
Read the full article here.
Philadelphia Hopes to Become Next Major City to Pass Fair Workweek Legislation
Philadelphia Hopes to Become Next Major City to Pass Fair Workweek Legislation
It is part of a larger, nationwide effort that has already been introduced in San Francisco, Seattle and New York. Those cities passed similar legislation after increasing their minimum wage....
It is part of a larger, nationwide effort that has already been introduced in San Francisco, Seattle and New York. Those cities passed similar legislation after increasing their minimum wage. Adding fair workweek standards was the logical next step, according to Rachel Deutsch, senior staff attorney for worker justice at the Center for Popular Democracy. “Some companies are stuck in this philosophy that labor is the most malleable cost,” she said. “But there has been a ton of data that shows there are hidden costs to this business model that treat workers as disposable.”
Read the full article here.
Charters’ exorbitant fees hinder efforts to obtain public info
Public records requests made to 10 publicly funded Boston charter schools have been thwarted by demands for fees totaling $91,440 from seven of the schools, according to Russ Davis, director of...
Public records requests made to 10 publicly funded Boston charter schools have been thwarted by demands for fees totaling $91,440 from seven of the schools, according to Russ Davis, director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice and a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance.
The requests for information were made on behalf of the MEJA, a coalition of labor, faith and social justice organizations, and concerned whether information on parents of charter school students was provided to two pro-charter advocacy organizations.
“The demands for absurdly high fees to comply with our requests underscore an appalling lack of transparency on the part of these publicly funded Commonwealth charter schools,” said Davis.
This issue underscores problems that would be addressed in a public records access bill that Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo told the State House News Service may come to the floor for a vote next week.
Kyle Serrette, the director of education justice campaigns at the Center for Popular Democracy, who has issued similar requests to both public school districts and to charter schools in other states, said that schools typically charge very little or no money to respond to public information requests.
“Exorbitant requests for fees like this by large school companies limit transparency and reduce public trust in these schools,” Serrette said.
MATCH Charter Public Middle School demanded the most for the information: $36,015 (click here to see letter). Roxbury Preparatory Charter School quoted the second-highest fee estimate, $12,500. To date, Boston Renaissance Charter Public School and Boston Preparatory Charter Public School have failed to respond.
UP Academy Dorchester, an in-district Horace Mann charter school, was the only one to respond with the information requested, providing its student records policy free of charge and stating that it has not engaged in any of the actions for which information was requested.
“These fee estimates from seven of the eight schools that responded are exorbitant and beyond our capacity to pay,” said Davis. “These charges violate the spirit and letter of our public records law.”
The MEJA requests were made in an attempt to determine the relationship between these Boston charter schools and two charter advocacy organizations —Families for Excellent Schools and the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. Specifically, the coalition is trying to determine whether the schools had any contracts with these groups, any policies related to providing outside groups with contact information for students’ families, and any record of providing these two outside groups with that contact information.
“We were concerned about reports that the charter schools may have been giving these corporate-backed, pro-charter organizations parent contact information so that parents could be enlisted to lobby on behalf of the charter school agenda,” said Davis. “If that has been going on, we believe the public has a right to know. Charter schools are publicly funded. We do not believe that public funds should be used to persuade parents to lobby on behalf of the private charter school industry.”
Families for Excellent Schools is a New York-based organization that supports Unify Boston and Great Schools Massachusetts, both of which are pro-charter advocacy groups. FES has received millions of dollars from corporate foundation groups, including the Broad Foundations and the Walton Family Foundation.
This chart indicates when the charter schools queried responded to the request for information, which was made in a letter dated Aug. 20, 2015. It also lists the fee estimate from each school and the name of the law firm, if any, that responded to the request.
School Response Date Records Produced Fee Estimate Firm Boston Collegiate Charter 21-Aug-15 $7,250 Krokidas & Bluestein KIPP Academy Boston Elementary and Middle 28-Aug-15 $9,560 Krokidas & Bluestein Brooke Roslindale Charter 28-Aug-15 $7,500 Krokidas & Bluestein Neighborhood House Charter 28-Aug-15 $8,615 Krokidas & Bluestein Excel Academy - East Boston 28-Aug-15 $10,000 Krokidas & Bluestein UP Academy Charter - Horace Mann 01-Sep-15 04-Sep-15 $0 None Roxbury Preparatory Charter 22-Sep-15 $12,500 None Match Charter Public Middle 25-Sep-15 $36,015 Krokidas & Bluestein Boston Renaissance Charter Public Boston Preparatory Charter Public
Excerpts from guidance from the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office on what fees may be charged for providing public records:
“In the interest of open government, all records custodians are strongly urged to waive the fees associated with access to public records, but are not required to do so under the law.” “A records custodian may charge and recover a fee for the time he or she spends searching, redacting, photocopying and refiling a record. The hourly rate may not be greater than the prorated hourly wage of the lowest paid employee who is capable of performing the task. A records custodian may not recover fees associated with record organization.”Public Records Request made by the service Muckrock on behalf of MEJA on Aug. 20.
Dear Records Officer:
Pursuant to Massachusetts Public Records Act § 66-10 et seq., I am writing to request the following records:
Copies of all communication, including email, between your organization and Families for Excellent Schools, a/k/a Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy, or any agent thereof, inclusive of all attachments and memoranda. For purposes of manageability, you may limit this request to only those communications from the previous 24 months. Copies of all communication, including email, between your organization and Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, or any agent thereof, inclusive of all attachments and memoranda. For purposes of manageability, you may limit this request to only those communications from the previous 24 months. Copies of any contracts between your organization and Families for Excellent Schools, Inc., and/or Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy, Inc., if applicable. Copies of any contracts between your organization and Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, if applicable. Copies of any policies relating to the transmission of student records to a third party, promulgated since 2012, including revisions. Copies of any school policies relating specifically to the disclosure of student “directory information” to third parties promulgated since 2012, including revisions. Copies of any parental notifications regarding transmission of student information to Families for Excellent Schools, Inc., and/or Families for Excellent School Advocacy, Inc., if applicable. Copies of any parental notifications regarding transmission of student information to Massachusetts Charter Public School Association if applicable. Documentation of any payments made to Families for Excellent Schools, Inc. and/or Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy Inc. in the previous two years, if applicable. Documentation of any payments made to Massachusetts Charter Public School Association in the previous two years, if applicable.Source: Massachusetts Teachers Association
One More Day of Protests Planned in St. Louis Area
New York Times - October 13, 2014, by Minica Davey and Alan Blinder - After demonstrations that varied from choreographed marches to tense late-night encounters with law enforcement agents,...
New York Times - October 13, 2014, by Minica Davey and Alan Blinder - After demonstrations that varied from choreographed marches to tense late-night encounters with law enforcement agents, protesters said they expected a series of acts of civil disobedience around the region on Monday, the last of four days of organized protest that has drawn throngs of people to the St. Louis area over questions about police conduct.
Leaders for the protests provided few details of their plans, except to say they would be employing a strategy used by demonstrators in North Carolina, who last year began staging weekly protests known as “Moral Mondays” in response to actions by the state government, which was newly controlled by Republicans. Those protests in Raleigh, the state capital, resulted in hundreds of arrests and served as a template for similar, smaller demonstrations across the South. The website for what organizers here have called a “Weekend of Resistance” said simply, “We’ll be hosting a series of actions throughout the Ferguson and St. Louis area.”
It is an area on edge after more than two months of demonstrations that began in Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb where an unarmed black teenager was fatally shot by a white police officer in August. In recent days, the displays of anger have spread to the city of St. Louis, where protesters have appeared at the symphony hall, outside playoff games for the St. Louis Cardinals and near the neighborhood where another black teenager was killed last week by a white off-duty police officer.
Early Sunday morning, tensions mounted between the police, dressed in riot gear, and a group of demonstrators who held a sit-in at the entrance of a St. Louis convenience store and refused to move. Seventeen people were arrested on accusations of unlawful assembly, pepper spray was used by some officers, and D. Samuel Dotson III, the city’s police chief, said he had seen a rock thrown at an officer and heard of other rocks being hurled.
Although some protesters spoke of plans for nonviolent demonstrations on Monday, organizers warned that frustrations had intensified because of the police response on Sunday morning. “Instead of de-escalating rising tensions in the city, Chief Dotson’s comments are inciting anger and making matters worse,” the organizers of many of the protests said in a statement early Sunday. The demonstrators, they said, “showed the best of our democracy, and the St. Louis police demonstrated the worst of their out-of-control law enforcement agency. The police brutalized peaceful people protesting their brutality.”
One question seemed to eclipse all other concerns here, among the protesters and the police alike: What will happen when a grand jury considering charges against Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot Michael Brown, 18, on Aug. 9, returns its decision, perhaps next month?
“It may clearly be a flash point,” the Rev. Osagyefo Sekou said of the possibility that Officer Wilson would not be prosecuted. “People are going to be angry. There are definitely going to be protests.” In an interview before he spoke at a rally Sunday night, he added, “But this is part of a long struggle. It is part of a long struggle against police brutality.”
Chief Dotson, who walked amid the crowd during some of the weekend demonstrations and defended the police handling of the standoff early Sunday, was unwilling to make predictions. “I don’t have a crystal ball,” he said in an interview on Sunday afternoon. “We hope that the community recognizes that the process works.”
Preparing for Monday’s events, several dozen demonstrators sat in a church sanctuary on Sunday morning for what amounted to a tutorial on tactics of civil disobedience. Lisa Fithian, an experienced activist from Austin, Tex., pressed audience members to call out the reasons they were there. She heard responses like “anger” and “solidarity” from a crowd that included people from the American Federation of Teachers and St. Louis’s Coalition of Artists for Peace.
In a parking lot outside the church, Ms. Fithian spoke about breathing deeply to stay calm, especially as the authorities close in on a demonstration. She talked of remaining aware of where the police officers were posted along nearby streets. She explained possible responses by the authorities to an array of actions by a protester being taken into custody. She demonstrated the mechanics of going limp.
“It’s really essential to practice it,” she said. The crowd eventually returned to the sanctuary, where journalists were asked to leave. The organizers said they would be planning specifics of the protests.
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