RI AFL-CIO News

An excellent commentary piece by Philip Keefe, president of Local 580, SEIU in today's ProJo.

Pay particular attention to the disclaimer (editor's note) at the end of the article.

Our question would be, "how do we know, if they won't disclose?"

Journal is unfair on charities/pensions issue PHILIP KEEFE Regarding the Dec. 22 editorial “Punishing the poor”: We see that once again The Providence Journal has taken liberties with facts and has tried to denigrate labor unions and the actions of their workers.
Many of our members are social workers who have chosen a career serving the less fortunate. Our members have always contributed to organizations that provide housing. That generosity has been part of our union’s culture and will always be. Unions and their members give generously every year, in time and money, contributing to an assortment of charitable organizations. From toy collections to blood drives and health-screening events, state workers and unions make sure to help the less fortunate.
This generosity is rarely reported with any depth by those at The Journal. On the day the Rhode Island General Assembly voted on the pension-reform bill, Engage Rhode Island was at the State House lobbying for its passage of the same bill. Members of my union were there as well, assisting Adoption Rhode Island in a presentation for children who had been adopted through the state Department of Children, Youth and Families.
Unfortunately, the editorials published by The Journal are biased and rarely show both sides of the story. The Journal’s publisher is Howard Sutton, chairman emeritus of the board of Crossroads, a supporter of Engage Rhode Island and one of the nonprofit organizations being “punished” by the labor community. Journalistic integrity is severely lacking in the editorial section. The Society of Professional Journalists’ code states: “The duty of the journalist is to . . . seek truth and provide a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.”
Nonprofit organizations should remain unaffiliated with politics so as not to be affected by the inevitable repercussions of doing so. Any business or other organization that endorses Engage Rhode Island has declared itself in opposition to labor and the middle class. I have asked my members to avoid organizations that have done so, not any one specifically.
The union movement is responsible for and has always fought for a robust middle class. As part of the labor movement, our union was offended when certain nonprofits diverted their resources away from their proclaimed social mission in order to attack the earned benefits of middle-class workers while remaining silent on tax breaks received by the wealthiest of Rhode Island’s citizens and corporations.

Philip Keefe is president of Local 580 of the Service Employees International Union and vice president of the SEIU State Council.

Editor’s note: Neither the Providence Journal Co. nor Mr. Sutton or any other Journal executive has financially supported Engage Rhode Island.

A very good Op-Ed by Monica Teixeira de Sousa, a Cranston parent and law professor in today's ProJo.

Why to oppose Mayoral Academies

By MONICA TEIXEIRA de SOUSA

  Who stands to gain from mayoral academies? The short answer is that the most vulnerable among us surely stand to lose.
   In the current debate over whether Rhode Island should approve two mayor-controlled elementary charter schools in Providence, proponents have framed support for the Achievement First Mayoral Academies as providing socio-economically disadvantaged parents with a choice among schools to send their children.
   But this argument is misleading. While the charters may expand choices for some parents and their children, research and common sense tell us that the parents least likely to take advantage of an educational offering are the parents of those children most likely to need extra assistance.
   This is why legislatures across the country long ago saw fit to make education compulsory. The Rhode Island legislature agrees and recently voted to expand compulsory education to age 18. In so doing, it sought to restrict a student’s choice to drop out of school.
   Achievement First’s mission according to its Web site is to serve the most disadvantaged children. But the approach taken by Achievement First is to ask that those truly disadvantaged students self-select into their educational offering. That is, only children of parents who opt in would have their names entered into the lottery for apportioning seats in the two proposed charters. Thus not all children have an equal opportunity of being selected to attend one of the mayoral academies.
   Achievement First assumes that it’s helping the most disadvantaged students if it enrolls some significant number of students from low-income families. But all low-income families are not the same in the important ways that predict educational success. Some families are involved in their children’s education and/or have high academic expectations for them, and some do not.
   We know that parental involvement in a child’s education is one of the most powerful predictors of educational success. It is clear that a lottery system admissions process results in enrolling those students who have parents or guardians who are willing and able to take the affirmative step of placing their child’s name on the list.
   This seemingly small act is no small feat for many families who may be experiencing crippling problems such as illness, domestic violence, poverty and homelessness, among others. The children being raised in such circumstances and whose parents for whatever reason may not enter them into the lottery are denied any educational choice.
   The research shows that the parents most likely to take advantage of education choices are those parents comparatively advantaged in relation to other low-income parents, as well as those parents whose children are relatively high-achieving.
   Instead of aiding the truly disadvantaged, the two proposed charters would siphon the students with the most involved parents from public schools in Cranston, Warwick and North Providence. Because of the revised funding formula, which dictates that the amount of funding allotted per pupil in each municipality now follows the child to his or her parents’ school of choice, they will also drain fiscal resources from our public schools, while leaving the most vulnerable children to fend for themselves.
   If Achievement First were here to offer extra help to the most disadvantaged students, perhaps by using some of the money they spend on lobbying efforts to pay for academic and extra-curricular offerings or additional guidance counselors and social workers to aid our most vulnerable students, I would be more sympathetic to its cause.
   Instead of trying to find ways to provide the children who have the least with more, Achievement First and its supporters have devoted inordinate resources to depriving those children with the least of the little that they do have. Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist and the state Board of Regents have a duty to all Rhode Island children, not just the ones whose parents are able to advocate on their behalf.
   We shouldn’t confuse creating choice for some parents with equal opportunity for all children. I urge the Board of Regents to consider this application in light of what is best for the most vulnerable children in our state, and to remain firm in its original opposition to the application by Achievement First and the mayoral academies.
   Monica Teixeira de Sousa, a Cranston parent and graduate of the Pawtucket public schools, is a professor of law at New England Law — Boston, where she teaches education law.