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Next May 9 Teach-In Planning meeting:
TODAY! Saturday, April 25, 2:00 p.m.
OPEIU Local 3
1050 South Van Ness #201 (upstairs) -- between 21st St. & 22nd St.
May 9 Teach-In Demands:
- Money for jobs and social services, not for war
- Tax the rich/progressive taxation
- Single payer healthcare for all
- Pass the Employee Free Choice Act
- Immediate moratorium on foreclosures and evictions
- No more bailouts for Wall Street -- bail out working people
- Stop the ICE raids and deportations
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4/26/2009 SF Speak-out and Video With UE Chicago Republic Workers And Screening
Sunday April 26, 2006 2:00 PM
ILWU Local 34
2nd St and Embarcadero on the left side of AT&T Park
The UE Republic workers of Chicago who occupied their factory to demand their pay and compensation as a result of their factories closure will be speaking and screening a labor film of their occupation on Sunday April 26, 2009 at 2:00 PM in San Francisco at ILWU Local 34 next to AT&T at 2nd St & Embarcadero St. in San Francisco.
The meeting which is being hosted by ILWU Local 34 and also sponsored by Laborfest.net, UPWA.info, Transport Workers Solidarity Committee and other unions and organizations will be the first eye witness report of this important event which electrified the US labor movement. As a result of protests throughout the country including San Francisco at the Bank Of America, the workers won their demands. Bay area workers who are in struggle will also speak at this forum.
To endorse, support or to get more information about this labor solidarity event contact
(415)282-1908 or lvpsf@labornet.org
YouTube - Angry Laid-off Workers Occupy Factory in Chicago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNIQ1-ghsPs
http://www.ueunion.org/uerepublic.html
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April 28, 2009 SF Workers Memorial Day
Meeting At ILWU Local 34
http://www.transportworkers.org/node/1046
April 28, 2009 Workers Memorial Day
Speak-Out To Protect Health And Safety On The Job
Commemorate Workers Injured and Killed On the Job
Workers Memorial Day was established to commemorate and defend workers injured and killed on the job. This year, the California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day (CCWMD) will also focus on the need for health and safety protection, regulation and standards for new industries such as biotechnology and nanotechnology.
These industries are not properly regulated with strong health and safety standards. The CCWMD is calling for national Congressional hearings on these issues and also for the defense of injured workers who face a deregulated workers comp system in which seriously injured workers are not able to get proper healthcare and compensation. We need to get the insurance industry out of healthcare, so all workers can get healthcare.
The elimination of all doctors at Ca-Osha is another dangerous threat that threatens the health and safety of 17 million workers of California particularly those facing the use of new technology in the workplace. Many dangerous toxic sites in Northern California and around the country have been privatized and labeled "Brownfield" sites. Workers, veterans and community people have also been sickened by the failure to clean these sites.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
3:00 PM - Press Conference
At front of Pfizer Research Facility - 455 Mission Bay Boulevard South at 3rd St., SF, next to the New UCSF Biotech China Basin building.
7:00 PM Speak-Out
At ILWU Local 34 - 2nd St/Embarcadero on the left side of AT&T Park
Free Parking at ILUW Local 34
Speakers including: Shiela Davis, Executive Director Silicon Valley Toxic Coalition, Daniel Berman, author of Death on The Job, Becky McClain, injured Pfizer micro biologist, Dina Padilla injured Kaiser worker, Carl Bryant, NALC Local 214, Mike Daley, Iron Workers Local 377 on 9/11 NYC First Responders, also representatives from the ILWU and other unions, injured workers and their families.
California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day (CCWMD)
P.O. Box 720027, San Francisco, CA 94172
www.workersmemorialday.org
(415) 867-0628
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May Day Immigrant Rights Marches 2009
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/MayDay2009/
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Bail Out Working People -- NOT the Banks!
Join us on May 9 in San Francisco for a
TEACH-IN & MASS MOBILIZATION PLANNING MEETING
Without joining together for our common interests, we don't have the strength to change our government's priorities. We must begin to build a massive movement that will have the power to impact government policy and give people genuine hope for a better future.
Help organize a mass mobilization and ongoing action campaign around the following demands:
- No layoffs. Massive job-creation program.
- Tax the rich -- don't bail out the banks.
- Pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
- Single-payer healthcare for all.
- Affordable housing for all. Tenants' rights. Moratorium on foreclosures & evictions.
- Funding for jobs and for social services & infrastructure, not for war.
- Stop the ICE raids and deportations. Legalization for all!
Speakers:
- Art Pulaski, Secretary-Treasurer, California Federation of Labor;
- N'tanya Lee, Executive Director, Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth;
- Mark Dudzic, National Organizer, Labor for Single Payer Healthcare Campaign (Washington, D.C.);
- Rosie Martinez, SEIU Local 721 (Los Angeles);
- Steve Williams, Executive Director, POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights);
- Conny Ford, Vice President, San Francisco Labor Council;
- Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local 10;
- Jack Rasmus, Professor of economics St. Mary's College and Santa Clara Univ.;
- Alan Benjamin, Executive Committee, San Francisco Labor Council and Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign;
- Student representative, City College of San Francisco, Mission Campus.
ALSO:
Extended remarks from Bay Area labor and community leaders -- and ample time for dialogue among teach-in participants.
AND:
Spoken Word performance by YOUNG PLAYAZ
SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2009 - 1 to 5 p.m.
(registration begins at 12:30 p.m.)
Plumbers Hall,
1621 Market St. @ Franklin St.
San Francisco
Initiated by the San Francisco Labor Council, South Bay Labor Council, and Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign
(list of dozens of teach-in endorsers in formation)
Donations will be requested at door to defray cost of renting the hall, printing leaflets and posters, and copying teach-in packets for all participants. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
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Call for May 9 Teach-In:
Bail Out Working People, NOT the Banks!
The severity of the economic crisis we are currently facing is predicted to rival the magnitude of the Great Depression. Some say it could be even worse. Over 6 million jobs have already been eliminated since the current recession began. Millions of working people have lost their homes to foreclosures and evictions, and many more homes are in or near default, while housing remains unaffordable to millions of people. The ranks of those without health insurance continue to grow. But even these statistics fail to reflect the growing insecurity and stress of working people across the country as we wonder when we, too, might be next.
Meanwhile, the federal government has showered billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars on financial institutions in the form of bailouts. In other words, working people, who are bearing the brunt of the crisis, are being required to shoulder an additional burden. Our tax dollars are being funneled to the very financial institutions and wealthy investors whose reckless gambling in pursuit of unbridled profit was responsible for driving the economy over the cliff. They have refused to say what they've done with trillions. Worse still, to emphasize their contempt for public opinion, these priests of high finance have spent some of the bailout money on huge bonuses, office decorations and the purchase of more CEO jets.
In response to this unprecedented crisis, many organizations have emerged that are addressing specific issues. Some are fighting foreclosures. Others are fighting for a single-payer healthcare system that would guarantee health coverage for everyone. Still others are pressing for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which, if passed, will greatly facilitate the ability to form unions.
Although our problems take many forms, most of them stem from a single source. During the past three decades, the inequality in wealth has surged to historic proportions not seen since the 1920s. The hourly wage of working people has actually declined, forcing many additional family members into the workforce just to make ends meet. Aggressive campaigns by employers have created additional barriers to unionizing, resulting in a sharp decline in the percentage of unionized workers. Without unions, workers have not had the means to struggle successfully for higher wages, healthcare coverage, pensions and other benefits.
Given these conditions, can there be any wonder that we have a housing crisis and a healthcare crisis? And during this same period, the taxes on corporations and on the rich in general have dramatically declined, thereby accelerating the accumulation of unprecedented wealth, on the one hand, and the decline of tax dollars for public infrastructure and services, on the other.
In order to have any chance of altering these trends, given the magnitude of the crisis we confront and the forces we're up against, we need to come together, unite all our separate organizations and mount a collective struggle around our common concerns. Without joining together for our common interests, we don't have the strength to change our government's priorities. Only in this way can we begin to build a massive movement that will have the power to impact government policy and give people genuine hope for a better future.
We working people constitute the vast majority of the population. We need to ensure that our society operates in the interests of the majority. But we can only succeed if we stand together in solidarity with each other's demands and struggles.
The goal of the May 9 teach-in is to inspire other teach-ins. It is aimed at organizing massive Solidarity DAYS OF ACTION in support of our common demands. By bringing huge numbers of people together in common actions, people will realize through their own experience that they do not stand alone, and they will gain the confidence that by uniting we can begin to exercise real power.
- Join us and help build a movement.
- Together we can prevail.
- An Injury to One Is an Injury to All!
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ATTEND THE JULY 10 NATIONAL ASSEMBLY CONFERENCE IN PITTSBURGH!
REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE and DOWNLOAD PRINTABLE BROCHURE (8.5 X 14) at:
https://natassembly.org/Home_Page.html
In the aftermath of the March 21 and April 3-4 demonstrations, a number of critical questions must be addressed by the antiwar movement: What next for the movement? Where do we go from here? How can we broaden the movement and win new forces to our cause? How can we help ensure that our next demonstrations are larger than the ones organized in March and April and that the ones organized after those will be even larger?
We who are supporters of the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations believe these questions can best be answered by convening a national antiwar conference open to all peace activists who will have the opportunity to share their ideas and proposals, be part of a broad ranging discussion and debate, and help make decisions based on one person, one vote.
Such a conference will be held at La Roche College in Pittsburgh on July 10-12, 2009.
The National Assembly was established nearly a year ago at a national conference attended by over 400 people, including top leaders of the antiwar movement as well as activists from many states. One of the main decisions that conference made was to do everything possible to unite the movement in urgently needed visible street actions.
Now we look to the July conference, which will provide a forum for dealing with crucial issues as Washington escalates its wars, occupations, bombing attacks, sanctions, threats and illegal interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere. We need your ideas, your input and your presence to help make this conference a success. Please join us in Pittsburgh on July 10-12. Bring all the troops home now!
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Courage to Resist
Resister to be courts-martialed Tuesday
Cliff Cornell was denied sanctuary in Canada; will face general courts-martial Tuesday, April 28 at Ft. Stewart, Georgia. Donate to Cliff's legal defense here:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=25410
--56 people have given $2,270 of Cliff's $3,000 legal expenses thusfar.
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EMERGENCY UPDATE: Bad news for Troy Davis
ANOTHER INNOCENT MAN ON DEATH ROW
Amnesty International USA
alerts@takeaction.amnestyusa.org
Dear Readers,
It's not the end of the road for Troy Davis, but the news is not good.
Yesterday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Troy Davis' bid for a new trial. In a 2-1 vote, the court cited technical reasons to reject Davis' petition for a hearing.
But all hope is not lost. Troy has 30 days to file another petition with the US Supreme Court.
Troy and his lawyers are doing everything they can to fight this decision from the inside. It is up to us to turn up the pressure on the outside. Even if you've taken action before, keep flooding Governor Perdue's office with emails demanding justice for Troy. And pass the action on to everyone you know. There is power in numbers and when you stand behind Troy Davis, you make the fight for justice even stronger!
We can't thank you enough.
In solidarity,
Sue, Brian, Jessie, and the rest of the Death Penalty Campaign team
P.S. Save the date - National Day of Solidarity for Troy Davis coming in May. We'll be in touch soon to let you know how you can support Troy in your own community!
To send a message to Governor Perdue:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=12168
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Please spread the message where ever you will be during the next weeks!
Thank you so much,
Annette in Heidelberg - Germany
German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia
Dear co-strugglers for Mumia,
This is our call for action - sign the online-petition to the Justices of the US Supreme Court.
We launched it at the beginning of March in Germany and Austria - and it is growing fast now.
It was already signed by Noam Chomsky, Frances Goldin, Robert Meeropol, Harold Wilson, Colin Firth, Anthony Arnove, Marc Taylor, Julia Wright, Pam Africa, Veronica Jones and so many others.
The updated letter with the 3500th signature was sent to the Justices this Easter Monday, April 13.
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/supreme/petition.html
Support Mumia in this most dangerous state of his life.
Please spread it as far as you can! Post it, send it around, use all your powerful means of creating news and attention.
German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.inprisonmywholelife.com
www.mumia-hoerbuch.de
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Sign Petition:
Reinstate Anti-War Opinion Editor
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/reinstate-anti-war-opinion-editor
To The Recorder Staff--
It has come to our attention that on Tuesday, March 10, 2009, Central Connecticut State University's newspaper The Recorder's Opinion Editor, student Marissa Blaszko, was fired from her position for an alleged conflict of interest. The Recorder's editor-in-chief called Marissa into a private meeting and presented her with an ultimatum to quit campus activism or resign her position with the student newspaper. Marissa refused to make a choice. She was later locked out of the office and fired.
The editor-in-chief told Marissa that she was being fired for her prominence in campus activism and her membership in the Youth for Socialist Action club, and not based on her job performance. It was explained to her that editors are forbidden to participate in campus protests against the Iraq war, or bring to campus the author of a new book on the frame-up of journalist and death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal.
We declare as invalid any internal code or policy of The Recorder which presumes to grant its editor-in-chief the authority to purge the staff of such political convictions and activities as he or she finds disagreeable. Such an absurd claim to power contradicts every official policy of the University, every civil liberties egal precedent of the past 40 years, not to mention the animating spirit of our state and federal constitutions.
We consider Marissa's firing and any internal policy which its perpetrators would produce in an attempt to justify it as a subversion of basic democratic rights. Under no circumstances does an employer ever have the right to fire an employee for legally exercising her constitutional rights.
We demand Marissa's immediate and unconditional reinstatement to her position at The Recorder, along with a reaffirmation from the newspaper editors that it will not tolerate discrimination against its staff on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, sexual preference, personal views or affiliations, or any other conditions established by the law.
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Global Economy Called Worst Since 1945
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
April 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/economy/23outlook.html?ref=world
2) After Losing Freedom, Some Immigrants Face Loss of Custody of Their Children
By GINGER THOMPSON
April 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us/23children.html?ref=world
3) Study Cites Dire Economic Impact of Poor Schools
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
April 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/nyregion/23klein.html?ref=us
4) Rice gave early 'waterboarding green light'
by Michael Mathes
Thu Apr 23, 7:28 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090423/ts_alt_afp/usattacksmilitaryjusticecongresszubaydah
5) Unemployment in Spain Hits 17.4%
By VICTORIA BURNETT
April 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/business/global/25euecon.html?ref=business
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1) Global Economy Called Worst Since 1945
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
April 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/economy/23outlook.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON - The global economy will most likely contract this year for the first time since World War II, and the recovery will take longer than expected, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday.
The I.M.F. projected a 1.3 percent decline in global economic activity for 2009, down sharply even from the modest 0.5 percent growth it had projected in January. In the United States, still the "epicenter" of the crisis, according to the fund, economic contraction would be even greater, at 2.8 percent this year, with zero growth for 2010.
Separately, the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, cautioned against expecting a quick recovery, underscoring the complications of the world's increasingly interwoven economies and financial systems.
"Never before in modern times has so much of the world been simultaneously hit by a confluence of economic and financial turmoil such as we are now living through," he said in a speech before the Economic Club of Washington.
The international fund said that it expected global growth to resume in 2010, but only at a 1.9 percent rate, notably sluggish compared with past recoveries. In normal times, growth would be closer to 4 percent.
"The recovery may actually be slower than usual, leading to a slow decrease in unemployment," said Olivier Blanchard, director of the I.M.F.'s research department, at a news conference at the fund's headquarters in Washington. "Our forecasts imply that unemployment will crest only at the end of 2010."
Mr. Blanchard, in unveiling the World Economic Outlook, said that the United States unemployment rate was likely to peak around 10 percent. It is currently 8.5 percent, after months of relentless job losses. The International Labor Organization has estimated that world unemployment could rise to 7 percent this year, up from about 6 percent in 2008.
"The current outlook is exceptionally uncertain," said the executive summary of the I.M.F. report, "with risks still weighing to the downside."
The report was issued as finance ministers and central bankers from around the world were beginning to gather in Washington for the spring meetings of the I.M.F. and the World Bank. On the sidelines of those meetings, officials of the Group of 7 industrialized nations and the Group of 20, an expanded group that also includes the major emerging economies, will meet for continued discussions on the economic crisis.
Even among the details of a largely cautionary report, I.M.F. officials saw some signs of hope, largely because of the forceful fiscal steps and other measures taken by the United States, some European governments, and also by China.
Mr. Blanchard said that the fiscal responses of several major countries had made "a gigantic difference."
"If there had been no fiscal stimulus across the world, world growth in 2009 would be 1.5 to 2 percent less," he said. "We would be in the middle of something very close to a depression."
While saying that "there is light at the end of this long tunnel," he cautioned against seeing, in mixed economic data, reason for complacency. "The need for strong policies on both the macro and especially the financial fronts is as acute as ever," he said.
Mr. Geithner said that only 17 of the 182 economies followed by the I.M.F. are expected to grow at faster rates this year than last, and 30 of the 34 advanced economies are expected to shrink, amid a collapse in world trade that "will likely be the worst since the end of World War II."
Even as globalization speeds the flow of economic benefits in good times, he said, "now we are learning that in times of contraction, globalization transmits trouble with enormous speed and force, affecting economies around the world - the relatively strong as well as the more vulnerable."
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2) After Losing Freedom, Some Immigrants Face Loss of Custody of Their Children
By GINGER THOMPSON
April 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us/23children.html?ref=world
CARTHAGE, Mo. - When immigration agents raided a poultry processing plant near here two years ago, they had no idea a little American boy named Carlos would be swept up in the operation.
One of the 136 illegal immigrants detained in the raid was Carlos's mother, Encarnación Bail Romero, a Guatemalan. A year and a half after she went to jail, a county court terminated Ms. Bail's rights to her child on grounds of abandonment. Carlos, now 2, was adopted by a local couple.
In his decree, Judge David C. Dally of Circuit Court in Jasper County said the couple made a comfortable living, had rearranged their lives and work schedules to provide Carlos a stable home, and had support from their extended family. By contrast, Judge Dally said, Ms. Bail had little to offer.
"The only certainties in the biological mother's future," he wrote, "is that she will remain incarcerated until next year, and that she will be deported thereafter."
It is unclear how many children share Carlos's predicament. But lawyers and advocates for immigrants say that cases like his are popping up across the country as crackdowns against illegal immigrants thrust local courts into transnational custody battles and leave thousands of children in limbo.
"The struggle in these cases is there's no winner," said Christopher Huck, an immigration lawyer in Washington State.
He said that in many cases, what state courts want to do "conflicts with what federal immigration agencies are supposed to do."
"Then things spiral out of control," Mr. Huck added, "and it ends up in these real unfortunate situations."
Next month, the Nebraska Supreme Court is scheduled to hear an appeal by Maria Luis, a Guatemalan whose rights to her American-born son and daughter were terminated after she was detained in April 2005 on charges of falsely identifying herself to a police officer. She was later deported.
And in South Carolina, a Circuit Court judge has been working with officials in Guatemala to find a way to send the baby girl of a Guatemalan couple, Martin de Leon Perez and his wife, Lucia, detained on charges of drinking in public, to relatives in their country so the couple does not lose custody before their expected deportation.
Patricia Ravenhorst, a South Carolina lawyer who handles immigration cases, said she had tried "to get our judges not to be intimidated by the notion of crossing an international border."
"I've asked them, 'What would we do if the child had relatives in New Jersey?' " Ms. Ravenhorst said. "We'd coordinate with the State of New Jersey. So why can't we do the same for a child with relatives in the highlands of Guatemala?"
Dora Schriro, an adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said the agency was looking for ways to deal with family separations as it prepared new immigration enforcement guidelines. In visits to detention centers across the country, Ms. Schriro said, she had heard accounts of parents losing contact or custody of their children.
Child welfare laws differ from state to state. In the Missouri case, Carlos's adoptive parents were awarded custody last year by Judge Dally after they privately petitioned the court and he terminated Ms. Bail's rights to Carlos.
In February, immigration authorities suspended Ms. Bail's deportation order so she could file suit to recover custody. Ms. Bail's lawyer, John de Leon, of Miami, said his client had not been informed about the adoption proceedings in her native Spanish, and had no real legal representation until it was too late.
The lawyer for Carlos's adoptive parents, Joseph L. Hensley, said his clients had waited more than a year for Ms. Bail to demonstrate her commitment to Carlos, but the judge found that she had made no attempt to contact the baby or send financial support for him while she was incarcerated. The couple asked not to be named to protect Carlos's privacy.
Ms. Bail came to the United States in 2005, and Carlos was born a year later. In May 2007, she was detained in a raid on George's Processing plant in Butterfield, near Carthage in southwestern Missouri.
Immigration authorities quickly released several workers who had small children. But authorities said Ms. Bail was ineligible to be freed because she was charged with using false identification. Such charges were part of a crackdown by the Bush administration, which punished illegal immigrants by forcing them to serve out sentences before being deported.
When Ms. Bail went to jail, Carlos, then 6 months old, was sent to stay with two aunts who remembered him as having a voracious appetite and crying constantly. But they also said he had a severe rash and had not received all of his vaccinations.
The women - each with three children of their own, no legal status, tiny apartments and little money - said the baby was too much to handle. So when a local teachers' aide offered to find someone to take care of Carlos, the women agreed.
Then in September 2007, Ms. Bail said, the aide visited her in jail to say that an American couple was interested in adopting her son. The couple had land and a beautiful house, Ms. Bail recalled being told, and had become very fond of Carlos.
"My parents were poor, and they never gave me to anyone," Ms. Bail recalled. "I was not going to give my son to anyone either."
An adoption petition arrived at the jail a few weeks later. Ms. Bail, who cannot read Spanish, much less English, said she had a cellmate from Mexico translate. With the help of a guard and an English-speaking Guatemalan visitor, Ms. Bail wrote a response to the court.
"I do not want my son to be adopted by anyone," she scrawled on a sheet of notebook paper on Oct. 28, 2007. "I would prefer that he be placed in foster care until I am not in jail any longer. I would like to have visitation with my son."
For the next 10 months, she said, she had no communication with the court. During that time, Judge Dally appointed a lawyer for Ms. Bail, but later removed him from the case after he pleaded guilty to charges of domestic violence.
Mr. Hensley, the lawyer for Carlos's adoptive parents, said he had sent a letter to Ms. Bail to tell her that his clients were caring for her son, as did the court, but both letters were returned unopened. "We afforded her more due process than most people get who speak English," Mr. Hensley said.
Ms. Bail said she had asked the public defender who was representing her in the identity theft case to help her determine Carlos's whereabouts, but the lawyer told her she handled only criminal matters. "I went to court six times, and six times I asked for help to find my son," she said. "But no one helped me."
Ms. Bail got a Spanish-speaking lawyer, Aldo Dominguez, to represent her in the custody case only last June. By the time he reached her two months later - she had been transferred to a prison in West Virginia - it was too late to make her case to Judge Dally, Mr. Dominguez said.
"Her lifestyle, that of smuggling herself into the country illegally and committing crimes in this country, is not a lifestyle that can provide stability for a child," the judge wrote in his decision. "A child cannot be educated in this way, always in hiding or on the run."
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3) Study Cites Dire Economic Impact of Poor Schools
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
April 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/nyregion/23klein.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The lagging performance of American schoolchildren, particularly among poor and minority students, has had a negative economic impact on the country that exceeds that of the current recession, according to a report released on Wednesday.
The study, conducted by the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, pointed to bleak disparities in test scores on four fronts: between black and Hispanic children and white children; between poor and wealthy students; between Americans and students abroad; and between students of similar backgrounds educated in different parts of the country.
The report concluded that if those achievement gaps were closed, the yearly gross domestic product of the United States would be trillions of dollars higher, or $3 billion to $5 billion more per day.
This was the second report on education issues by the firm's social sector office, which said it was not commissioned by any government, business or other institution. Starting in fall 2008, the researchers reviewed federal and international tests and interviewed education researchers and economists.
In New York City, an analysis of 2007 federal test scores for fourth graders showed strikingly stratified achievement levels: While 6 percent of white students in city schools scored below a base achievement level on math, 31 percent of black students and 26 percent of Hispanic students did. In reading, 48 percent of black students and 49 percent of Hispanic students failed to reach that base level, but 19 percent of white students did.
The New York City schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, who introduced the findings at the National Press Club in Washington, said the study vindicated the idea that the root cause of test-score disparities was not poverty or family circumstances, but subpar teachers and principals. He pointed to an analysis in the report showing low-income black fourth graders from the city outperformed students in all other major urban districts on reading (they came in second in math).
"Schools can be the game changer," he said. "We are able to get very, very different results with the same children."
On Tuesday, Mr. Klein was in Albany attempting to persuade legislators to leave control of the city's schools in the hands of the mayor, a governance model adopted by the state in 2002 that is due to expire in June. A crucial measurement of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's seven years at the helm will be Mr. Klein's progress in narrowing the achievement gap in a city where 32 percent of students are black and 40 percent are Hispanic.
While state test scores have shown improvement since Mr. Klein took office, eighth-grade scores on federal math and reading tests, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, have not shown significant increases since 2002.
In an interview after the speech here, Mr. Klein said he would be the first to acknowledge that the city was not where it needed to be in closing the gap, particularly in middle schools. But, he added, there have been signs of progress among younger students, and he believed the city's four-year graduation rates - 69 percent for white students, 47 percent for black students and 43 percent for Hispanic students - could reach state averages within five or six years.
He said it would require a focus on finding ways to recruit high-quality teachers.
Nationally, the gap in test performance between white and Hispanic students grows by 41 percent from Grade 4 through 12, and between white and black students it grows 22 percent, the report said. Students educated in different regions also showed marked variation in test performance, despite having similar demographic backgrounds. In Texas, for instance, schools are given about $1,000 less per student than California schools, but Texas children are on average one to two years of learning ahead of their counterparts in California.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, Mr. Klein's partner in leading an alliance that is attempting to electrify the cause of making radical changes in education, criticized those who opposed their efforts.
"There are no sacred cows in this," Mr. Sharpton said to the audience of 200 education leaders at the press club.
Arne Duncan, the federal secretary of education, told the audience that the report showed the need for robust data systems to track student and teacher performance; for alignment of American standards with those in other countries; and for incentives to keep good teachers and principals.
"In many situations, our schools are perpetuating poverty and are perpetuating social failure," he said, adding that the federal education bureaucracy had often hindered past efforts.
He expressed support for the idea of radically restructuring the bottom 1 percent of schools in the country, possibly by closing and reconstituting them.
The writers of the study pointed to signs of optimism amid the dreary numbers. Byron G. Auguste, the director of the social sector office at McKinsey, which produced the study, said there was evidence that two dozen countries over the past two decades had significantly overhauled their educational systems and closed achievement gaps. He also pointed to high-performing systems in the United States, like those in Massachusetts and Texas. The trick, he said, would be to share effective strategies.
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4) Rice gave early 'waterboarding green light'
by Michael Mathes
Thu Apr 23, 7:28 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090423/ts_alt_afp/usattacksmilitaryjusticecongresszubaydah
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The CIA first sought in May 2002 to use harsh interrogation techniques including waterboarding on terror suspects, and was given key early approval by then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, a US Senate intelligence document said.
The agency got the green light to use the near-drowning technique on July 26, 2002, when attorney general John Ashcroft concluded "that the use of waterboarding was lawful," the Senate Intelligence Committee said in a detailed timeline of the "war on terrorism" interrogations released Wednesday.
Nine days earlier, the panel said, citing Central Intelligence Agency records, Rice had met with then-director George Tenet and "advised that the CIA could proceed with its proposed interrogation of Abu Zubaydah," the agency's first high-value Al-Qaeda detainee, pending Justice Department approval.
Rice's nod is believed to be the earliest known approval by a senior official in the administration of George W. Bush of the intelligence technique which current Attorney General Eric Holder has decried as "torture."
The Senate panel narrative is the most comprehensive declassified chronology to date of the Bush administration's support for the highly controversial tactics.
According to the Senate narrative, Rice was among at least half a dozen top Bush officials, including vice president Dick Cheney, who were in 2002 or 2003 debating, approving or reaffirming the legality of the interrogation practices used on Zubaydah and two other terror suspects.
After a July 2003 meeting in which Tenet briefed Rice, Cheney, Ashcroft, then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and others on the use of waterboarding and other interrogation methods, "the principals reaffirmed that the CIA program was lawful and reflected administration policy," according to the panel report.
The revelations come amid a raging controversy over whether President Barack Obama would seek prosecutions of Bush officials who devised legal cover for the interrogation tactics.
Last week Obama blew the lid on harsh CIA terror interrogations approved by Bush by releasing four so-called "torture memos" prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that detailed the tactics, including waterboarding as well as the use of insects and sleep deprivation.
Obama said operatives who carried out the interrogations would not be prosecuted, saying they acted on orders and were defending their country.
The CIA had asked to be able to waterboard Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian whose real name is Zayn Al Abidin Muhammad Husayn, fearing he was withholding information about "imminent" terrorist attacks, the panel said.
The committee did not wade into the growing controversy over whether so-called "enhanced interrogation" methods used on Zubaydah -- who was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002 -- yielded solid information.
US forces captured Zubaydah in a late March 2002 firefight in Pakistan, tended to his serious injuries, and began to question him, according to the timeline.
The agency asked senior officials in Washington, including Rice, in mid-May 2002 to discuss the possibility of using methods, including waterboarding, that were rougher than traditional interrogation methods.
The CIA made the request because it "believed that Abu Zubaydah was withholding imminent threat information during the initial interrogation sessions."
The US Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel orally advised the CIA on July 26, 2002, "that the use of waterboarding was lawful," a finding it put in writing on August 1, 2002, the timeline said.
A US congressman, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, spoke out Thursday in an opinion piece against Obama's decision to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, saying "members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002."
"We believed it was something that had to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks (of 2001) to keep our nation safe," Republican Hoekstra wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
"After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses."
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5) Unemployment in Spain Hits 17.4%
By VICTORIA BURNETT
April 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/business/global/25euecon.html?ref=business
MADRID — The number of unemployed people in Spain rose to a record four million in the first quarter as the economy continued to shed jobs created over the last decade by inexpensive credit and a real estate bubble.
The Spanish unemployment rate climbed to 17.4 percent, from 13.9 percent in the final quarter of 2008, or more than twice the European Union average, the National Statistics Institute said Friday. The 802,800 increase in the ranks of the jobless was the largest quarterly increase in more than 30 years.
“These figures are bad and worse than expected,” the finance minister, Elena Salgado, said. The sharp quarterly increase was a sign of “how severe and how deep the crisis is,” she said.
Spain’s grim employment news came as Britain’s national statistics office on Friday reported a 1.9 percent drop in gross domestic product in the first quarter from a year earlier, the largest quarterly decline in output recorded since 1979.
It was the third successive quarter of economic contraction in the British economy and cast doubt on projections last week by Alistair Darling, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, that the economy would start to recover by 2010 after shrinking 3.5 percent this year.
“These figures make his forecasts very difficult to achieve,” said James Knightley, a senior economist for ING in London. He said he expected the British economy to shrink 4 to 4.5 percent this year and predicted that Britain’s broad-based decline, with a steep 6.2 percent drop in manufacturing, would be reflected across Europe and the United States.
Amid the gloom from Britain and Spain, data from Germany offered a bright spot Friday, suggesting that confidence in the economy might be turning the corner. The Ifo Institute in Munich said corporate sentiment rose in April to its highest level in five months. The business climate index, based on a poll of around 7,000 companies, rose to 83.7, from 82.2 in March, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced a plan to spend more than 1 billion euros ($1.32 billion), on youth job initiatives in a move to counter a potentially explosive rise in unemployment among people under 25, Reuters reported on Friday.
In Spain, Ms. Salgado said she expected unemployment to rise more slowly in the coming months as government employment programs took effect. The government has announced stimulus measures of about 71 billion euros this year in an effort to replace jobs lost in construction and help businesses get credit.
But economic analysts said the government’s optimism had little credibility given the consistent discrepancy between its projections and the economic reality. The labor minister, Celestino Corbacho, predicted in January that unemployment would not reach four million, while the central bank this month said it would reach a maximum of 17.1 percent this year.
Debate continued this last week in Spain — and elsewhere — about how much the government could afford to stretch its budget deficit to stimulate the economy and cover the costs of supporting the unemployed.
The Bank of Spain has warned of little room for additional spending, with Spain’s public sector deficit on track to hit 8.3 percent of G.D.P. this year and its ratio of debt-to-G.D.P. set to reach 50 percent. The bank’s governor, Miguel Fernández Ordóñez has said that the social security system could go into deficit this year.
But José Antonio Herce, chief economist at Analistas Financieros Internacionales, a financial consultancy, said new stimulus packages were needed.
“There is a little margin to spend more, and what margin there is should be exhausted on productive infrastructure that will help the economy in the long term,” he said, adding that there was room to increase Spain’s budget deficit by about two more points of G.D.P. “What we need next is for the government to produce a clear plan which explains to the taxpayer how it is going to fix this mess — going all the way through till 2019.”
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