People's World Weingarten: Schools are key in the fight to save democracy March 28, 2023 11:37 AM CDT BY MARK GRUENBERG Share Email Weingarten: Schools are key in the fight to save democracy Underfunding of public schools resulting in oversized classes is just one of many attacks on education that hurt democracy, according to AFT President Randi Weingarten. | alternet.org via Twitter WASHINGTON—Schools are key to democracy, but are beset by staff shortages, culture wars, underfunding, and political efforts to divide parents from teachers and destroy public schools, Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten says. In a major speech March 28 at the National Press Club, Weingarten declared “others are trying to drive a wedge in that connection” between teachers and parents and we, as a nation, “need to deepen it. “Our public schools shouldn’t be pawns for politicians’ ambitions and divisions…Public schools are cornerstones, but some are attacking them with sledgehammers. “It’s an extremist scheme by a very vocal minority. It’s limiting our effort to do what we need to do—educating 50 million children.” The often-outspoken New York City civics teacher didn’t hesitate to single out the foes of public schools, and therefore of the education that prepares kids to participate fully in democracy, by name. They included Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., Trump ideologue Steve Bannon—who said on his podcast school boards “should be the next target” –the right-wing Otis and Bradley Foundations and former Trump Education Secretary Elizabeth “Betsy” DeVos, whom AFT and other teachers unions opposed for that post in 2017. The foundations plus DeVos, who, though Weingarten didn’t say so, is part of the Amway fortune, “have poured millions in” to their drive to wreck public schools, the union leader said. Omitted, except by inference: The House Republican right-wingers who oppose public schools, among other institutions, and who call the tune for the new, narrow GOP majority there. Weingarten pledged AFT would keep fighting their planned budget cuts. The right-wingers’ larger agenda, she exclaimed, is to “destroy public education as we know it” and democracy with it, by crippling teachers’ ability to teach and students’ ability to collectively learn, especially about the U.S., its greatness and its flaws, its history and its multiculturalism and how to actively participate in a pluralistic nation. Weingarten spoke against a dismaying backdrop, as she elaborated, of 400,000 teachers—beset by such stresses, leaving the profession annually and of improvements in federal education funding—approved as anti-pandemic measures—under dual threat. Physical, professional and emotional conditions are so bad for teachers, Weingarten said, that “parents say they love their kids’ teachers, but they don’t want their kids to grow up to be teachers.” One threat is from the increasing numbers of states, all but a few Republican-run, who are diverting public taxpayer money, via vouchers, from public to private schools. Those 29 states and counting don’t include Florida, yet. Now they will. There, DeSantis, who has made public schools and teachers a particular target, signed legislation the day before diverting $4 billion in state aid away from public schools to private schools via vouchers. The other threat is the foes’ aim to destroy democracy by destroying trust in public schools, declared Weingarten. Their tactics include curriculum control, campaigning against teaching civil rights and “wokeness” and demonizing students of color and other students who are “different.” AFT President Randi Weingarten | Andrew Harnik/AP “It’s a hostile conservative agenda” against public schools, said AFT Executive Vice President Evelyn DeJesus, who preceded Weingarten to the podium. “Our public schools shouldn’t be pawns for politicians’ divisions and ambitions….A great nation chooses freedom, and opportunity and equality and democracy, and we are a great nation. We deserve no less,” Weingarten said. Public school foes also include Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, though Weingarten didn’t name him. Instead, she was preceded to the stage beforehand parents and teachers from the Houston Independent School District, which Abbott just seized control of, effective July 1. The three parents and teachers described the takeover, including a prior state seizure of one daughter’s elementary school. Student test scores declined and attention waned afterwards, the parent said. While Weingarten spent most of her speech describing the problems and pressures schools and democracy face, she also offered solutions, and they weren’t just about money, though that helps. They included making public schools wraparound centers where kids can not only learn but be in a safe and sheltered environment, complete with meals and social services. There’s another threat to that, too, said Weingarten: Gun violence. At the start of her speech, Weingarten asked for a minute of silence in memory of the three students and three staffers a shooter killed in Nashville the day before. She then reiterated AFT’s demand for further gun controls, notably a complete ban on assault weapons. She’s been on an anti-gun crusade since the Florida school massacre on Valentine’s Day 2018, killing 14 kids and three teachers, AFT members. Solutions also include innovative programs, many of them negotiated in union contracts, for things like paid parental leave community-wide—an initiative in Kansas City, Mo., that lets parents take time off to come to parent-teacher conferences. She cited other examples from districts urban and rural nationwide. “It’s not New York, it’s not L.A.,” Weingarten noted of the Kansas City innovations. And it also includes legal defense of students and teachers under assault from ideologues. So AFT has not only established a fund to pay for that, but it’s just established a toll-free hotline for pressured staffers, students and even parents to call: 1-888-873-7227. “It’s a place to call if you’ve been told to remove a book, or you can’t teach honestly and appropriately” or “told to ‘out’ vulnerable kids” or are “being targeted to score political points,” she said. The entire Weingarten speech, including remarks before it by the Houston parents and teachers and by a New York City teacher who was once one of Weingarten’s civics students, is on a video: https://www.facebook.com/AFTunion/videos/718733389979623. We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, please support great working-class and pro-people journalism by donating to People’s World. We are not neutral. Our mission is to be a voice for truth, democracy, the environment, and socialism. We believe in people before profits. So, we take sides. Yours! We are part of the pro-democracy media contesting the vast right-wing media propaganda ecosystem brainwashing tens of millions and putting democracy at risk. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader supported. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all. But we need your help. It takes money—a lot of it—to produce and cover unique stories you see in our pages. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. TAGS: democracy teachers unions CONTRIBUTOR Mark Gruenberg Mark Gruenberg Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but a holy terror when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners. El galardonado periodista Mark Gruenberg es el director de la oficina de People's World en Washington, D.C. También es editor del servicio de noticias sindicales Press Associates Inc. (PAI). 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New York Sen. Jessica Ramos, D-East Elmhurst, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)Patrick Chapman, 27, prepares for customers Thursday, March 2, 2023, at The Golden Scoop, an Overland Park, Kan., ice cream and coffee shop that employs workers with developmental disabilities, paying them more than minimum wage. But some disabled workers employed at so-called sheltered workshops are earning far less than minimum wage, an issue that has captured the attention of lawmakers in the state. Disability rights advocates say the practice is discriminatory and more than a dozen states have banned such wages. (AP Photo/Heather Hollingsworth)Patrick Chapman, 27, prepares for customers Thursday, March 2, 2023, at The Golden Scoop, an Overland Park, Kan., ice cream and coffee shop that employs workers with developmental disabilities, paying them more than minimum wage. But some disabled workers employed at so-called sheltered workshops are earning far less than minimum wage, an issue that has captured the attention of lawmakers in the state. Disability rights advocates say the practice is discriminatory and more than a dozen states have banned such wages. (AP Photo/Heather Hollingsworth)New York Sen. Jessica Ramos, D-East Elmhurst, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)New York Sen. Iwen Chu, D-New York, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)Health aid Tara Murphy stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)Supporters document protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)The New York state Capitol is seen, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)New York Sen. Jessica Ramos, D-East Elmhurst, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)New York Sen. Jessica Ramos, D-East Elmhurst, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)Rosemarry Rivera, of Citizen Action of New York, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)Tal Frieden, Campaign Coordinator for Raise UP NY, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)New York Sen. Jessica Ramos, D-East Elmhurst, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)New York Sen. Iwen Chu, D-New York, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)New York Sen. Iwen Chu, D-New York, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink) 1 / 15 Minimum Wage States New York Sen. Jessica Ramos, D-East Elmhurst, stands with protesters urging lawmakers to raise New York's minimum wage during a rally at the state Capitol, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink) ASSOCIATED PRESS ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Just years after labor activists persuaded a handful of states to raise their minimum wage to $15 per hour, workers initially thrilled with the pay bump are finding their hard-won gains erased by inflation. New York City resident Anthony Rivera, 20, who sorts packages at a United Parcel Service facility in Brooklyn, said he had to take a second job at a grocery store after his food costs soared. “I was sitting at $15 an hour at UPS, and when it came to paying bills and buying groceries, it was starting to become not enough,” he said. “That led me to no other option than to pick up another job.” New York, California and Massachusetts are among states where pro-labor forces are now pushing proposals that, if approved, would boost minimum wages to $20 or more in the coming years. Inflation has meant that something that cost $15 in 2012 — when labor activists adopted the “Fight for $15” slogan in a push for wage hikes — would probably cost almost $20 today, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But opponents to the wage hikes say they can be detrimental to small businesses, which already took a major hit during the coronavirus pandemic. Cindy Lee, the owner of a bowling alley in Endicott, New York, said she's struggling to pay off loans taken out during the pandemic that kept her business afloat. “All this cost all at once is just going to kill us. I definitely will have to cut corners somewhere with employees if wages are raised,” said Lee, adding that she'd also have to increase prices on bowling, food and liquor. The federal minimum wage in the United States has stayed at $7.25 per hour since 2009, but states and some localities are free to set higher amounts. Thirty states have chosen to do so. Over the past decade, labor groups held out $15 as the target that would let low-paid workers sustain themselves within the 40-hour workweek. A growing number of states across the political spectrum have passed legislation that will take their minimum wage above that amount in the next few years, including Florida, Nebraska and Illinois. Eleven states have phased in wage increases of $5 or more within the past decade. Yet those gains were almost immediately tempered. Inflation in the United States hit a new 40-year high last summer after prices for basic necessities like gas and food soared. Supply chain issues resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, combined with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, have disrupted gas and food supplies, sending those prices skyward. Labor activists are pressing for a new round of wage increases even as the old ones are still being phased in. A bill in New York would raise the state’s minimum wage to $21.25 by 2026, and then adjust it each year going forward for inflation. Right now, minimum wage workers in New York City get paid $15, while the rest of the state is at $14.20. In Massachusetts, one bill proposes to raise the wage every year until it hits $20 in 2027, up from $15 now. And in California, where the minimum wage is currently $15.50 for all workers, legislation signed in September would have set the state on a path to raise wages for fast-food workers to $22 per hour. The law was met with heavy opposition from restaurant industry groups who led a successful effort to force it into a referendum vote in 2024. Backers of a proposed wage increase in New York say they hope it will pass as part of the state budget, which is expected to be finalized in early April. “You can't tell us that after the pandemic, that $15 is going to still be enough for us to keep food on our tables,” said state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Democrat who represents parts of Queens, said at a rally in Albany. “That's why we want $21.25, nothing less. The price of everything is going up except for wages.” In her executive budget proposal, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, proposed tying minimum wage increases to inflation, but with a cap on how much wages could rise in any one year. Barry Nicholson, the owner of four retail businesses in Corning, a city by the Finger Lakes in New York, said a wage increase to $21.25 would be “a smack in the face to small businesses.” “There is just no way I could handle that," said Nicholson, who owns two UPS stores, and women's accessories and modern home furnishings stores. “When you look at retail hospitality, we live and die by a couple of points at the end of the day. We’re not the big corporations everyone talks about.” ___ Maysoon Khan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Maysoon Khan on Twitter.

-U.S. President Joe Biden would veto a Republican energy legislation package if it were to pass Congress, citing cost increases that the legislation could lead to, the White House said on Monday.

By Kanishka Singh, Katharine Jackson and Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden would veto a Republican energy legislation package if it were to pass Congress, citing cost increases that the legislation could lead to, the White House said on Monday. "H.R. 1 (Lower Energy Costs Act) would double the cost of energy efficiency upgrades that families need to reduce household bills and would repeal the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that will cut energy costs and boost economic development in rural and urban communities across the country," the White House said. "Therefore, if presented to the president in its current form, he would veto it." Republicans plan to bring the legislation to the floor of the House of Representatives, where they hold a slim majority, for a vote this week, Representative Elise Stefanik, who chairs the House Republican Conference, said on Monday. The bill would codify into a law a Trump administration rule that sought limits on reviews and public input on fossil fuel projects and road building, weakening the fundamental conservation law the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Even if the bill were to pass in the House, it would face a test in its path to clear the Senate where Biden's fellow Democrats hold a narrow majority. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said the House bill is "dead on arrival" in the Senate. But many senators want more moderate permitting legislation to expand the electricity transmission system and rapid build out of renewable power. Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat, last week outlined progressive priorities for a permitting bill that include historic levels of funding for environmental justice programs and NEPA implementation. ClearView Energy Partners, a nonpartisan research group, said the House bill could set up a conversation between the House and Senate on compromise legislation that could be included in a wider bill later this year such as one lifting the debt ceiling or a measure on defense policy. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh, Katharine Jackson and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Andrea Ricci and David Gregorio)

There’s no such thing as reverse “racism “; Black anger at racism is righteous indignation

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2023/02/only-white-people-can-end-racism-and.html

http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2023/03/lecture-2-on-race-in-most-categories_27.html