According to a recent poll released by In the Public Interest and the Center for Popular Democracy, the privatization of public education through charter schools that operate with little transparency or public oversight isn’t so popular:
- Overwhelming majorities, as high as 92%, back proposals to strengthen transparency and accountability, improve teacher training and qualifications, implement anti-fraud measures, ensure high-need students are served, and make sure neighborhood public schools are not adversely affected.
- 92% of voters support requiring companies and organizations that manage charter schools to open board meetings to parents and the public.
- 90% of voters support requiring companies and organizations that manage charter schools to release to parents and the public how they spend taxpayer money.
- “School choice” ranks last in a list of the biggest concerns voters have for K-12 education, with only 8% listing it as a concern.
- Far more popular than “school choice” or unaccountable charter schools is the concept of community schools, which serve as community hubs, ensuring that every student and their family gets the opportunity to succeed no matter what zip code they live in.
● Life in the only industrialized country without paid maternity leave. (That’s the United States. Life is bad.)
● Chamber of Commerce sues Seattle over allowing Uber drivers to unionize.
● TPP’s lack of currency rules is a fatal flaw for U.S. workers.
● How 401(k)s have failed most American workers.
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● Gawker continues to be a pioneer in unionizing digital media:
The union representing the editorial staff at Gawker Media has announced that it has successfully bargained the first union contract at a digital media company – an innovative three-year deal that sets minimum pay levels and gives Gawker’s 99 union members a 3% across-the-board raise each year.
Lowell Peterson, executive director of the Writers Guild of America East, the union representing Gawker’s workers, said the deal was far different from traditional television or newspaper contracts. He said it includes an unusual provision on editorial independence: “Any decision on editorial content has to be made by the editorial side – not by business decisions or advertisers.”
● House Republicans backed off of privatizing air traffic control.
● The lawyers who are fighting for the same rights as janitors.
● Massachusetts: Where are the missing women?
Education
● Why John King should be rejected as secretary of education.
● Are publicly funded charter schools accountable to parents and taxpayers? Apparently not.