There's No Such Thing as a 'Low-Skilled Worker'

I hate the term, "low-skilled" to describe the millions of workers who have built and maintained this country and who are largely Black, Latino, female, and immigrant.

So-called low-skilled workers tend to be lower-paid, have fewer rights, and have less recourse to unions and other enforcement bodies. For example, foreign-born “low”-skilled workers are typically tied to an employer and cannot leave without invalidating their visa. They have also historically been used as a reserve army of unemployed workers to hold down wages and break strikes. 

Wealthy countries like the U.S. depend on migration and immigration for essential labor and economic stability. Yet when deciding who is allowed to enter the country, most use a simple dichotomy based on educational attainment: “high” and “low” skilled. 

Under the Trump administration and now with Biden and the Democrats in power, closing the southern border and abusing and deporting millions of immigrant workers and their families has led to devastating cuts in available low-paid laborers forcing restaurants and other businesses, eg. in agriculture and food production, that rely on immigrant labor to close once again.

The rhetoric around skills is typically based on a dichotomy between “high” and “low”: “high” being associated with university degrees and “low” with manual labor. But, these characteristics do not come close to describing a person’s comprehensive skill set; they are just the easiest to evaluate based on the standards and prevailing norms of capitalist society. 

The pandemic and the growth of the so-called "gig economy" have exacerbated the divisions between "high" and "low" skilled with the latter being pushed onto the front lines and in harm's way as they deliver the goods and services need to keep a faltering economy on its feet.

Now, as the resurgent pandemic enters a new stage, millions of unemployed workers have come under attack for their unwillingness to forego unemployment insurance to take crappy, dangerous, and low-paying jobs and are being pushed off unemployment insurance and anti-eviction protection as an act of government coercion. 

Last week, Biden oversaw the ending of extended unemployment benefits in an attempt to force workers back on the job. Meanwhile, mega-corporations like Amazon have been forced to raise basic wages above the prevailing minimum in order to maintain their competitive edge, entice workers to work under otherwise intolerable conditions, and undermine union drives. 

Bloomberg reports that much to their chagrin, for the third month in a row, wages for the "low-skilled: have risen faster than for the "high-skilled". In the previous history of the survey, which now goes back almost 25 years, this had only ever happened in two months, in early 2010. Wage growth for the "low-skilled" is also exceeding that for the "high-skilled" by the most on record. 

In this opinion piece, Bloomberg's John Authers warns that this wage growth is potentially bad for inflation. 

"Wage growth for the lowest skilled is the fastest since August 2008 (not coincidentally, the month before the Lehman bankruptcy), and that could easily lead to higher prices." 

"More interestingly still," writes Authers, "it does suggest a shift in the balance of power between labor and capital. This isn’t as yet a deep-seated or well-established trend, of course. But if it continues it could rattle a lot of assumptions, and alleviate a lot of social tension."

Authers fails to mention that while millions of people struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic, many of the companies hit hardest in 2020 showered their executives with riches. Chief executives of big companies now make, on average, 320 times as much as their typical worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos managed to add $13,000,000,000 to his wealth in a single day during a pandemic?

No, this widening wealth gap won't "alleviate social tension". Rather, it should provide new rich opportunities for struggling labor unions to expand their shrinking base by organizing the unorganized so-called "low-skilled". 

*Also, see Teri Gerstein's piece in the New York Times: "Other People’s Rotten Jobs Are Bad for Them. And for You." 

Double win in GA could provide resources needed for a safe national school-reopening campaign

What a great double victory in GA! I stayed up most of the night watching the results come in like any good political junkie would. Now I'm trying to unwind and crank out a blog post before grabbing some badly-needed shut-eye. 

Wins for John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, against tough odds, open up new possibilities for Biden to transcend his "bi-partisan" fantasy and advance a progressive agenda that begins to undo much of the damage from the Trump era. As of this writing, Warnock has been declared the winner while Ossoff's lead of 16,370 votes is now greater than that of Joe Biden's over Donald Trump in Georgia (11,779 votes). 

I'm imagining with glee how DT must be beating up on his white supremacist toadies Loeffler and Perdue, over losing to a Jewish liberal and the Black preacher from Dr. King's old Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Thanks and some dough should go out to all the organizers on the ground throughout the state, led of course by Stacey Abrams and her statewide political organization as well as many union brothers and sisters from around the country (including Chicago) and the multi-racial movement of the poor and civil rights groups who have been plowing the Georgian political fields for decades. 

That progressive agenda includes real federal pandemic relief (immediately including $2,000 checks), rent, and debt-relief for those working, unemployed and poor families in greatest need and aggressively leading the war against COVID. 

It must also include a massive program of relief for public school systems ravaged under Betsy DeVos and her predecessors, as well as support for a national reopening of schools on the scale of the Marshall Plan. This federal initiative needs to be put in place apart from or alongside current hit-or-miss efforts by local school boards, many of which have been marked by confusion and division at a time when trust, clarity, and unity in the community are necessary prereqs. 

The key to a safe, full-scale reopening is prioritizing teachers and school staff for vaccination. They should be classified nationally as essential workers with schools used centers for vaccine distribution and community health education.

I'll be talking more about reopening our schools tonight at 10 ET on the Rick Smith Show. Tune in at thericksmithshow.com. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Frederick Douglass on the Lincoln statue 

“The negro here, though rising, is still on his knees and nude. What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man.” -- 1876 Letter

President Trump

“Now we have tested almost 40 million people. By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless.”  -- Guardian

Mayor Quinton Lucas

“Systemic racism doesn’t just evidence itself in the criminal justice system,” said Quinton Lucas, who is the third Black mayor of Kansas City, Mo., which is in a state where 40 percent of those infected are Black or Latino even though those groups make up just 16 percent of the state’s population. -- The fullest look yet at Corona inequality (NYT)

Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi 

“We seem to have a president that has given the green light to the racists to come out of the woodwork and start attacking Asians,” said state Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates), who represents Torrance, the scene of some the most widely viewed hate episodes recorded on video. -- L.A. Times

Steve Hotze, Houston GOP powerbroker 
Hotze left a voicemail with TX Gov. Abbott's chief of staff with the incendiary instruction, "Shoot to kill."

 "I want to make sure that he has National Guard down here and they have the order to shoot to kill if any of these son-of-a-bitch people start rioting like they have in Dallas, start tearing down businesses — shoot to kill the son of a bitches. That’s the only way you restore order. Kill 'em. Thank you." -- Texas Tribune

Your reminder that America's richest 1 percent now own half the value of the U.S. stock market. The richest 10 percent own 92 percent.

So when Trump says the stock market is the economy, know who he's really talking about.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 5, 2020

'Opening-up' the economy

The economy is always "open", says Jeff Bezos. 

econ·​o·​my / plural economies

noun
An economy is a system of making and trading things of value. It is usually divided into goods (physical things) and services (things done by people). It assumes there is a medium of exchange, which in the modern world is a system of finance. This makes trade possible.

In this time of Corona, pundits and politicians talk about the economy like it's a door that can be opened or shut or a light that can be turned on or off with the flip of a switch. Small but aggressive groups of "open-up" protestors, whipped up by D.T. and right-wing demagogues (some armed) are storming statehouses demanding that governors and local officials "turn the economy back on."

In Chicago, Lightfoot haters are on a roll. I'm still looking for the source and context for this quote.

Of course. The “economy” is always “open.” It’s the pandemic vectors that are temporarily closed. Thanks for that @chicagosmayor and @GovPritzker You’ve saved lots of lives. Let the MAGAs howl.

— Mike Klonsky (@mikeklonsky) May 26, 2020

Yes, the mayor is correct. The pandemic hasn't "closed" the economy. Just ask Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or Jeff Bezos.

America’s billionaires saw their fortunes soar by $434 billion during the U.S. lockdown between mid-March and mid-May, according to a new report.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg had the biggest gains, with Bezos adding $34.6 billion to his wealth and Zuckerberg adding $25 billion, according to the report from Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies’ Program for Inequality.

What Mayor Lightfoot, Gov. Pritzker, and local officials around the country have done is closed the businesses and public places that are potential corona sources.

The numbers prove them right on this.

All in this together? Not in IL

Right-wing, anti-stay-at-home protest in Chicago as COVID-19 cases top 96K with over 4K deaths in IL.

ALL IN THIS TOGETHER? -- IL Republican leaders are using the pandemic as an excuse to try and knock Gov. Pritzker's proposed graduated income tax amendment off the November ballot. Instead of a tax increase that would affect only those making over $250,000/year, Repugs are pushing their own amendment to allow cuts in public-sector pensions.

Their efforts to shift the tax burden for the state's impending budget crisis away from the wealthiest and onto the backs of retirees have little chance of succeeding in Springfield. And they know that another try at diminishing public workers' pensions would once again fail to meet the constitutional test in the courts.

Their only hope is to use the issues to rally downstate anti-taxers and jump on the backs of the current right-wing, anti-Pritzker early-opening protests in order to keep down-ticket Republican pols from going down with Trump's ship in November.

The great divide

A PIPE DREAM. 'All in this together.' (Chicago alley mural)

“They’re pumping gas. They’re stopping at grocery stores,” said Kim Langdon, 48, of Ashland, N.Y.  “If they’re infected and they don’t know it, they’re putting everyone at risk.”

Rich New Yorkers are fleeing the city and headed for second homes upstate to avoid the densely packed NYC, which has become the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis. But NYT reports that upstate locals don't want 'em.

People with second homes in the Catskills region of New York are being warned to stay away in venom-laced Facebook posts and blunt messages from county officials. Boardwalks and beaches in some Jersey Shore towns are barricaded and residents are urging the closure of coastal access bridges to outsiders. In the Hamptons, the famous playground for the rich on the East End of Long Island, locals are angry that an onslaught of visitors has emptied out grocery store shelves.

At least they're not blaming the Chinese.

In Illinois, right-wing pols like NRA puppet and state Rep. Brad Halbrook, calling themselves the New Illinois Movement, are using the issue of early-opening to play off white downstaters against Chicagoans, are pushing to force Chicago to "secede" from the state. They know full well that won't happen. Without Chicago, the state economy, especially their own,  wouldn't exist. But it's a desperate, demagogic (racist) move to salvage some votes and keep down-ticket Republicans from going down with the Trump ship in November.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is suffering worse joblessness than other countries. Almost three million more Americans filed for jobless benefits last week. The total over the past two months is now 36.5 million.

And joblessness in this country usually means no health insurance. And no health insurance usually means sick people who can't afford to see a doctor to treat injuries or illnesses and make them even more susceptible to COVID.

More from David Leonhardt at the Times:

What’s striking is that the countries with the smallest increases in unemployment have something in common. Their governments have put in place sweeping programs that directly pay companies to retain their workers. The details differ. Australia, Denmark and New Zealand created new programs. France and Germany expanded existing programs. But all of them have tried to maintain the connection between employer and employee even as much of the economy is temporarily shut down.

An even better plan would be for universal health care and a guaranteed basic income so that workers wouldn't have to make the impossible choice about work vs. health in the time of Corona.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

San Juan Mayor Says 'No One' in Puerto Rico Has Received a COVID-19 Stimulus Check

Shia Kapos

It was an insurgence but "it's not quite" a Council War.

"There are multiple divisions in this Council. It's not pro or anti mayor," former Ald. Dick Simpson told Playbook. He would know. He was there for the 1980s Council Wars. "Mayor Lightfoot has the majority and is likely to keep the majority." --  -- IL Playbook

Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Biden

“I'd be fooling myself if I thought Joe Biden would embrace Medicare for All. But I do think there’s room for him to move much more than he has so far,” said Jayapal, who is the lead author of the House’s single-payer bill and co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. -- Politico

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum 

President Trump is a "psychological coward" and is "heading toward a historic political defeat — one that will likely take the Republican Senate down with him." -- MSNBC

Tyson Foods board chairman John Tyson

"The food supply chain is breaking." -- CNN

V.P. Mike Pence (Note to myself: Revisit this quote on June 1)

 “I believe by early June we’re going to see our nation largely past this epidemic...I think honestly, if you look at the trends today, that I think by Memorial Day weekend we will have this coronavirus epidemic behind us,”  -- Bloomberg

Robert Reich 

The Covid-19 pandemic is putting the deepening class divide in America into stark relief. Four new classes are emerging: The remotes, the essentials, the unpaid, and the forgotten. -- Guardian

Ilhan Omar & Leah Hunt-Hendrix

Now is not the time for retrenchment into isolationism. It is time to reimagine what it means to lead, and how we might work together as a global community. -- Guardian

San Juan Mayor, Carmen Yulin Cruz

'No One' in Puerto Rico Has Received a COVID-19 Stimulus Check. “The problem is that the support goes to the higher levels of government, and doesn’t reach the people that it’s supposed to reach.” -- Time

Dems being played by Trump. Now they're echoing his attacks on Bernie.

Bernie Sanders got more young voters in New Hampshire than everyone else combined/

Bernie Sanders Is The Front-Runner For Democratic Nomination. The democratic socialist is assembling a broad coalition of voters. -- Huffpost 

"I don't understand how Bernie is considered a frontrunner' after New Hampshire primary." -- Chuck Todd, MSNBC

Donald Trump is still the tail wagging the Democratic dog. His every tweet has Dems running from pillar to post in shock-and-awe.

Whether it was calling nazi thugs in Charlottesville "fine people"; or ICE agents raiding communities and separating thousands of immigrant children from their parents on the southern border; or now, the Stone sentencing outrage. Each outrage was going to be the big thing that would break Republicans away by, in the words of Chuck Schumer, putting them in touch with their "better angels."

When the needle didn't budge, they turned to impeachment, certain that the Ukraine quid-pro-quo scandal would resonate with disenchanted swing voters and peel off a section of Republicans. It was also hoped that the impeachment trial would boost the campaign of their chosen one, Joe Biden, while keeping their progressive opposition, Sanders, and Warren, out of the media spotlight.

It didn't. They didn't.

The good news, at least from my perspective, is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says that she is jumping back off the impeachment train-to-nowhere and will be refocusing the party away from the Ukraine shitshow (which probably hurt Biden as much or more than it did Trump) and on to "economic issues." Up til now, Dems have conceded them to Trump.

According to Politico:

To further underscore that point, Pelosi hosted a special speaker’s meeting on Tuesday with a top Obama economics adviser to explain to Democrats why the economy isn’t actually as strong as Trump claims and how they can message that to voters.

 “I’m glad that we’re shifting and pivoting to something else. Every time I poll in my area, it’s always the same thing: education, health care and the economy,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who is facing a fierce primary challenger from the left in his sprawling south Texas district.

 “Impeachment didn’t move the needle ... so continuing to focus on that target, you’re not going to convince anyone at this point,” said Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin, who represents a Trump-district. Kind said Trump’s real problem is in states that are key to his reelection, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where some haven’t benefited from the president’s economic good fortune.

But the risk for Pelosi and the DNC is that a focus on the economy and the environment will strengthen Bernie Sanders, who they currently see as a greater threat to their power than they do Trump himself.

Yes, you read me right. Despite recognition of the fact by both camps that without party unity, it will be impossible to beat Trump in November, party leaders and media allies are doing everything possible to make post-primary unity impossible.

First, they have become an echo for Republican red baiters. Check out one of their media faves, Chris Matthews, raising the specter of Bernie's commie assassination squads.

Leading up to Sanders’s win this week in New Hampshire, Matthews truly lost it, implying that Sanders would cheer on his public execution: “I have an attitude towards [Fidel] Castro,” Matthews explained. “I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering, okay?” -- Vice

Second, they have targeted Sanders' young activist base harder than Sanders himself, calling his supporters "Bernie Bros" and "a mob." This, even knowing that without these young activists, the party has little chance of pulling off the kind of mobilization necessary to win in November.

DNC surrogate & AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten has been leading the attack on the Sanders activists often referring to them as a "mob." Here she retweets this post by Kurt Bardella, a media strategist who previously worked as a spokesperson for Breitbart News:

Virtual lynch mobs are not something people of color or women — or anyone — should have to just live with.

Third, they are using their control of the party apparatus to tilt things in favor of their chosen candidate(s) and diminishing Sanders' primary victories in their media spin. Think Iowa and Chuck Todd's quote at the top of this column.

But here's the thing...Without young voters and a huge turnout of voters of color, a Democratic win is virtually impossible. The votes in Iowa and NH show that Bernie has the youth vote behind him. He got more young voters in New Hampshire than everyone else combined. Those are the foot soldiers every presidential campaign needs to turn out the vote.

They may not be enough to assure a win in November. But the Democrats sure can't win without them.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Students from Chicago High School for the Arts cheer striking teachers.

Carlene Carpenter, Chicago charter school teacher

“We’ve been bargaining since last summer, and the process has been insulting to educators,” said Carlene Carpenter, a social studies teacher at the Latino Youth High School (LYHS), which is affiliated with the Youth Connection Charter School network. “If charter operators really cared about education, we wouldn’t be here today.” -- In These Times

Gov. J.B. Pritzker to Black United Fund of IL

 “We are taking a major step forward to legalize adult use cannabis and to celebrate the fact that Illinois is going to have the most equity-centric law in the nation. For the many individuals and families whose lives have been changed, indeed hurt, because the nation’s war on drugs discriminated against people of color, this day belongs to you, too." -- Sun-Times

Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center

“Hate groups and hate activity run pretty deep in southern California, and have for a very long time. This activity is deeply rooted in Orange county and northern San Diego." -- Guardian

Brooke Binkowski

[San Diego synagogue shooter] may have acted by himself, but as history and his Internet trail show, he was in no way a lone wolf. -- Washington Post

Calvin Ramsay, N.Y.U. student

“Food was a major obstacle,” he said, “especially in Manhattan.” Mr. Ramsay said that he will need to borrow about $40,000 more to graduate, but he is unwilling to take on more debt to do so. “Why do I need to go into debt,” he said, “to eat?” -- Tuition or dinner, NYT 

Jack Kelly, executive recruiter

I contend that the gig economy is dampening compensation growth. There is a huge trend glamorizing the gig economy. Articles extol the virtues of having a side hustle, taking control of your career, working when you want to work and other wonderful tales of success. The reality is that college-educated people who can’t find suitable jobs are now working for Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Instacart, DoorDash, Grubhub, TaskRabbit, temp work at corporations, assignments through Upworks and Fivver and seasonal jobs at Amazon warehouses. -- Forbes

Derby metaphor for 2016 election in unmistakeable.

The Kentucky Derby decision was not a good one. It was a rough & tumble race on a wet and sloppy track, actually, a beautiful thing to watch. Only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur. The best horse did NOT win the Kentucky Derby - not even close!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2019

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Trump economic adviser, Larry Kudlow on damaging effects of Trump tariffs: "Don’t blame President Trump" 

Robert Reich

America doesn’t have a jobs crisis. It has a good jobs crisis. -- Guardian

Noam Chomsky

Taking children away from their parents, sending them off somewhere, losing track of them, you know, it’s hard to think of a more brutal and sadistic policy. -- Democracy Now

Rebecca Solnit

"This is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It’s also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both.” -- Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities 

 Arthur Jones -- IL GOP nominee for Congress

"There’s more to me than being a denier of the Holocaust." -- Tribune

Lori Lightfoot, Chicago mayoral candidate

 Asked about Emanuel’s contention that the gun-pointing issue was not mentioned in either the Justice or task force report, she responded: “So what? If there’s a need, there’s a need." -- Tribune

The moral courage meter in Springfield just got a big, powerful boost. Congrats to Celina Villanueva. She embodies the courage and sense of community that’s so urgently needed in our politics. Wishing her all the best as she takes on her next, new adventure. pic.twitter.com/S34sQXTZiu

— Ra Joy (@Ra_Joy) July 29, 2018

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

UIC Prof. Josh Radinsky 

"We're getting the (CReATE) band back together... Vouchers or vouchers by any other name is just onc way of minimizing choices. They call it 'school choice' but it's actually forced choice and lack of choices." -- Hitting Left

UIC Prof. David Stovall

"We're conflating test taking with learning and if you remove thousands of the poorest students who are are struggling, why wouldn't you have an increase (in CPS test scores)? -- Hitting Left

Gloria Ladson-Billings, new president of the National Academy of Education

 "For kids, it's the 'so what' question, and we typically don't have good answers for them. Our answer typically is, 'You're going to need this next year,' and kids figure out by 4th or 5th grade that we're lying." -- EdWeek  

Judge Roy Moore tells Hannity

I don't remember ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother. -- Real Clear Politics

Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler

“Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.” -- ShareBlue Media 

Report...

 “Our wealthiest 400 now have more wealth combined than the bottom 64% of the US population, an estimated 80m households or 204 million people,” the report says. “That’s more people than the population of Canada and Mexico combined.” -- Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett are wealthier than poorest half of US

Letter: Say no to vouchers

Not only does it allow individuals to take money meant for public funding and put it in their private little piggy bank, but it will ultimately put a greater burden on the rest of us to come up with more money to fund our school system. -- Wayne Fuller, Concord Monitor 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Juanita Irizarry, director of Friends of the Park on Hitting Left. Listen to podcast n iTunes. 

Donna Brazile

“I want to talk about the arrogance and isolation of the Clinton campaign and the cult of Robby Mook, who felt fresh but turned up stale, in a campaign haunted by ghosts and lacking in enthusiasm, focus, and heart....Three titanic egos – Barack, Hillary, and Debbie – had stripped the party to a shell for their own purposes.” -- Hacks

Mark H. Haefele, Chief Investment Officer at UBS

“Investors have never felt less secure, even though we are eight years into a bull market." -- New York Times 

Bernie Sanders

 I can’t tell any one person what to do, but I will say this: despair is not an option. Now more than ever, we need you to fight back. -- Boston Review

Mehdi Hasan

We bomb them, they bomb us. They bomb us, we bomb them. Will it ever end? -- The Intercept 

Donald Trump

 According to the Japan Times, diplomatic sources confirm that with a Monday meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looming, our very lucid leader has set low expectations with complaints that “he could not understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the missiles.” -- Gizmodo

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King." -- RNC Chairman Reince Priebus

Thom Hartman

With so-called “unregulated free markets,” the rich become super-rich, while grinding poverty spreads among working people like a heroin epidemic. This further polarizes the nation, both economically and politically, which, perversely, further cements the power of the oligarchs. -- Salon

Donald Trump

"Let it be an arms race...We will outmatch them at every pass... and outlast them all.”-- CBS News

Rahm Emanuel

 “Golf memo for Potus.” -- Rahm emails reveal secret golf course planning 

Delia Arreola, Noble Charter Exec. Asst. 

“Hello!! Happy early xmas!!!” Arreola wrote to the principal and vice principal of her school. “I have the list of rising 8th graders for the fall and wanted to send it your way so we can hit the ground running on recruitment for next year’s freshman class. Enjoy!!” -- Sun-Times

Rockette Phoebe Pearl

“Finding out that it has been decided for us that Rockettes will be performing at the Presidential inauguration makes me feel embarrassed and disappointed ... I am speaking for just myself but please know that after we found out this news, we have been performing with tears in our eyes and heavy hearts #notmypresident.” -- CBS News

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Brandon Victor Dixon (Aaron Burr)

“We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir." --  Hamilton cast to Mike Pence

Alt-Right leader, Richard B. Spencer

“I do think we have a psychic connection, or you can say a deeper connection, with Donald Trump in a way that we simply do not have with most Republicans.” -- New York Times

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Trump election

"This is who we are. If you understand the history of this country, this is nothing new so we should not be shocked. If we look at 250 years of slavery, you look at Frederick Douglas during reconstruction seeing it overturned, you look at Ida B Wells going south to document lynching, and all the violence we always suffer. Then you would know it is the same country and we just need go get up in the morning and get ready to fight.” -- At NCTE

John McCain (Store this one away for future reference)

 “I don’t give a damn what the president of the United States wants to do or anybody else wants to do. We will not waterboard. We will not do it...What does it say about America if we’re going to inflict torture on people?”  -- Halifax international security forum

New Dem Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sanders

“I’m not going to point fingers looking back. I think that is divisive. But Bernie makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways.” -- Huffington Post

 Dr. Martin Luther King on resistance (1963)

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. --  Letter from Birmingham City Jail

On issues of racism and bigotry, let me be very clear, there is no compromise. pic.twitter.com/anCFrunzGO

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 20, 2016

Rauner's game plan. Hold budget hostage until schools forced into bankruptcy.

Soon after announcing his support for Donald Trump, Gov. Rauner doubled down on his strategy for taking over Chicago's public school system.

Yesterday, Rauner repeated his call for CPS to go into bankruptcy. And his refusal to release a captive state budget, combined with a so-far weak Democratic Party response, makes that scenario a possibility. Remember, the Democrats have a veto-proof majority in both houses but Boss Madigan hasn't been able to keep his troops in line. Let's see if sellout Rep. Ken Dunkin's loss to Juliana Stratton will send the proper message to straying Rauner Democrats.

Rauner insists that Chicago schools focus on "reorganizing their debts and their contracts under court supervision" — which of course defines the bankruptcy process.

"The only other option is massive tax hikes in the City of Chicago on homeowners and small-business owners," Rauner said. "And I'm talking massive tax hikes. That would be tragic."

Some in the union are downplaying the possibility of a forced bankruptcy and state takeover, insisting that the big banks, who would be forced to take a hit, wouldn't allow it.

"I’m sure the governor’s friends in the banking industry won’t let that happen, given the lucrative debt owed these institutions by our school district," union spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin said. 

I wouldn't bank on that.

Bankruptcy could lead to a state takeover and Republican control over the state's largest school system, including its $5 billion budget, jobs and contracts. The banksters would be the first to be paid off. It would also allow the governor to fulfill his dream of voiding union contracts and finally busting the teachers union completely. It's the same strategy that Republican govs Walker, Kasich, Christie and Snyder have used successfully in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey and Michigan.

It's all based on what Naomi Klein called, The Shock Doctrine. The strategy is all about exploiting crises to push through controversial exploitative policies or in this case, a complete power shift (coup d'etat) while voters are either too emotionally and physically distracted by disasters or upheavals to mount an effective resistance or, as in the case of Michigan, have there voting rights stripped.

As Bruce Rauner's long-time pal, Rahm Emanuel used to say,

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

The legislature needs to bail out the state's public school system through a reasonable debt restructuring process (not forced bankruptcy) and new revenue with the wealthiest paying their fair share.

But an appropriate response to Rauner-ism is militant resistance on the part of the unions, the threatened service agencies, and state universities, and a show of broad community support for public education. It can't mean just waiting passively for Madigan to do something.

Adding a few more independent voices in last week's state rep elections would have been a good start. The planned CTU action on April 1st seems like a good next step. Passage of the Elected School Board bill would be another.

If CPS is to be taken over (out of the hands of an autocratic mayor), it should be done through the election of a representative school board, not by Rauner's maneuverings.

On MLK Day, time to talk about inequality in America and schools

Chicago State students march to save their school from closure. 

 "Inequality is inevitable; the vast inequality of America today isn’t." -- Paul Krugman in today's NYT. 

Krugman even tips his hat to Pres. Obama for raising the tax rate on top earners and pushing through his health care reform. Not only didn't the sky fall, as conservatives predicted, but over the past six years, we've had the best job growth since the 1990s.

But job growth is only a small part of the struggle for equality, especially when that growth is accompanied by flattening or shrinking real wages, union-busting, and the re-creation of a two-tier school system through privatization and charteriztion, and limited access to higher education.

Case in point -- the imminent closure of predominantly-black Chicago State Univ. as a result of Gov. Rauner's austerity program and his holding hostage the state education budget.

What Krugman doesn't mention is that Obama's job recovery has been far less beneficial to African-Americans whose unemployment rate is still high and has long been double the rate for whites.

Dr. King in Chicago in the '60s.

King Day -- I'm going to the Martin Luther King breakfast this morning. No, not the one the mayor is throwing in hopes of shoring up his dwindling support in the African-American community. That one is being boycotted. No photo-ops for Rahm with black leaders today, following the release of another video showing unarmed teen being gunned down by a Chicago cop.

I'll be at the one sponsored by the Chicago Teachers Union with CTU Pres. Karen Lewis Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, a religious scholar and leader of protests in Ferguson, Mo. doing the keynoting.

Also today -- CPS students will embark on a “education equality” march from the Thompson Center in the Loop to Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen. Along the route, students plan to march past CPS offices and the home of Chicago Board of Education President and retired Com-Ed CEO Frank Clark, calling on Rauner, state lawmakers and local pols to avoid deep budget cuts and layoffs at CPS schools this year.

Happy birthday, MLK.

"Joining The Boycott" I officially WILL NOT be attending the Mayor's MLK Breakfast and I pray that all my Pastoral Friends do the same.

— Corey Brooks (@CoreyBBrooks) January 12, 2016

Goodhart's Law of unintended consequences

Goodhart's law is named after the banker who originated it, Charles Goodhart. Its most popular formulation is: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

In other words: “When you put a lot of weight on one measure, people will try to do well on that measure,” says Jonah Rockoff of Columbia. “Some things they do will be good, in line with the objectives. Others will amount to cheating or gaming the system.”

What are the consequences of grading teachers by the test? Economics writer Eduardo Porter's NYT piece refers to Goodhart's Law in the context of using high-stakes, standardized tests to grade teachers.

Luis Garicano at the London School of Economics calls it the Heisenberg Principle of incentive design, after the defining uncertainty of quantum physics: A performance metric is only useful as a performance metric as long as it isn’t used as a performance metric.

Porter quotes Randi Weingarten:

“People who claim to be market-based reformers want to sell the theory that there is a direct correlation between test scores, the effort of teachers and the success of children,” said Randi Weingarten, who heads the American Federation of Teachers. “It just ignores everything else that goes into learning.”

I only wish that Randi would have remembered that when she signed on to Arne Duncan's call for more and earlier national high-stakes testing. AFT’s position is detailed in a joint statement issued with the Center for American Progress, a Democratic Party aligned think tank.

“We propose to keep annual tests so parents have valid information about their children’s progress but want to ensure that any school accountability a system has a broader array of indicators that fully captures how our children are learning,” said CAP President Neera Tanden.

Randi and CAP's assumption here is that tests like the PARCC can really provide "valid information" even with Goodhart's Law in play.

Porter says:

Teachers argue there is no way they could isolate the impact of teaching itself from other factors affecting children’s learning, particularly such things as the family background of the students, the impact of poverty, racial segregation, even class size.   

As usual, the teachers are right.

Porter wimps out at the end of his piece, quoting rabid testing proponent and former NYC Chancellor Joel Klein who calls for reliance on so-called "value-added scores" in order "to penalize or reward teachers". Porter, like Weingarten, calls for grading teachers on student test scores along with "other measures." That is the current approach in most districts these days.

But even with the mixed-measures approach, the high-stakes tests when used to determine teachers' and administrators' salaries have more power than any of the softer measures of student/teacher performance and therefore are really all that counts. The unintended consequences include gaming the system and teaching to the tests. It also ignores the role that poverty and other out-of-school factors play on measurable student/teacher performance.

High-stakes, standardized testing is part of the problem. Not part of the solution. It shouldn't be used, even in combination with other more valid measures, to grade teachers.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Strawberry Mansion High in North Philadelphia is one of 37 schools the school had slated for closing. 

Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite 

"Alarming. "This diagram suggests that children who are most in need of resources are receiving the fewest amount of resources." -- Philly Public Schools Notebook

Cassie Creswell, More Than A Score board member

“The state must administer the test but that doesn’t mean the kid has to take it. On a legal basis, the parent should have the right to refuse for the kids.” -- Sun-Times

Rev. Barber

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber

"When you look at Moral Monday and our movement, you see North Carolina and America in all of its beauty." --  NC Civil Rights Leader Questioned About Being Featured in Campaign Attack Ads

Danny Glover

 “Harry was a kind of bridge between the blacklist and the actors who were beginning to speak out.” -- Harry Belafonte Receives Humanitarian Oscar

Richard Berman, right-wing media guru

“I get up every morning and I try to figure out how to screw with the labor unions — that’s my offense,” Mr. Berman said in his speech to the Western Energy Alliance. “I am just trying to figure out how I am going to reduce their brand.” -- N.Y. Times

NYT Editorial

The economy is not working for those who rely on paychecks to make a living, which is to say, almost everyone. Steady gains in the October jobs report, while welcome, do not change that basic fact. -- Job Growth, But No Raises

Want to improve student learning? Raise the minimum wage

An increase in the minimum wage was one of the key demands of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom 

There's already an abundance of research showing the link between poverty and measurable student learning outcomes. One of the best ways to help students and improve learning outcomes would be to raise the minimum wage to one that's livable.

A new study coming out of the Leadership Conference Education Fund and Peter Edelman's Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, makes the connection between the current struggle to increase the minimum wage to the historic movement for civil and human rights. A doubling of the current minimum wage would not only help lift millions of families out of poverty, it would also boost the entire economy while improving government balance sheets. According to the study:

...the choice by policymakers to keep the minimum wage low has been an important factor contributing to the dramatic and troubling rise in income inequality since the 1970s. For all these reasons and more, the civil rights community has a crucial role to play in the coming months and years in the fight to raise the minimum wage.

If you want to make the case for a $15/hour minimum wage you won't find a better resource than the bibliography at the back of  Improving Wages, Improving Lives: Why raising the minimum wage 
is a civil and human rights issue.

At Monday night's meeting (Progress Illinois)

While we're on the topic of Civil Rights...U.S. Department of Education officials heard first-hand stories about the impact public school closings and consolidations are having in Chicago at a South Side community meeting held Monday night with parents, students and their supporters.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is currently looking into a complaint filed by education activists alleging "racially discriminatory" school actions and closings in Chicago. Organizers with the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) and the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School spearheaded the town hall meeting, held at First Unitarian Church of Chicago in Hyde Park. The discussion was designed to allow education department reps to hear directly from the people affected by the school actions cited in the complaint.

DEASY STAYS, FOR NOW -- I'm not sure what happened at last night's school board meeting in L.A. but what I'm hearing is not good. L.A. Times ed reporter Howard Blume tweets:

L.A. school board fires 4 teachers & zero superintendents Tues night. Deasy stays for now despite intrigue of long closed meeting.
— Howard Blume (@howardblume) October 15, 2014

Byrd-Bennett's Folly

WHO BESIDES THE MAYOR and BBB thought this was a good idea? 

When CPS officials first announced the plan to borrow two months' worth of revenue from the 2015-16 school year to pay for 2014-15 expenses, Catalyst reported on the plan with skepticism and incredulity. Now the Tribune does the same:

The money grab would be a "bridge," they said, to "help us get to structural reforms." Among other hopes, they were hoping state lawmakers would save the district money by reforming public pensions.

What looked like a bad idea in April no longer looks merely bad. It looks like an all but certain path to financial catastrophe for Chicago's public schools — a catastrophe conveniently postponed until after the 2015 city elections.

With the latest version of pension theft apparently off the table, it seems the mayor's team would rather privatize, sell-off piece by piece or put the school district financially under water than raise property taxes before the 2015 election and ultimately implement a progressive revenue and taxing structure that would make their corporate patrons pay their fair share.

As budget expert Rod Estvan writes in the comment section of the Catalyst piece:

CPS and the city will also have to look at other methods of increasing revenues, including some suggested by the Chicago Teachers Union.

But to do that, we will need a new team in place. Karen? Bob? Toni?