HIGHLIGHTS

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First, the Good News

1) National: After the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene, both government and non-governmental initiatives to respond have taken off. Nevertheless, FEMA funding is falling short and charities cannot fill the void. This is a moment that requires an immediate and urgent human response. We are moved by the many instances of neighbors caring for neighbors, strangers lending a hand, first responders risking their lives, and thousands of individuals across the nation, far from the storm, seeking ways to help. See the latest ITPI Newsletter for this fantastic living resource guide for folks directly affected and the resources in the newsletter for those who want to send money.

For perspective, we want to share the words of the musician Rhiannon Giddens, a daughter of North Carolina. In a post on social media, she wrote:

I’ve been trying to make it make sense but it just doesn’t. The mountains of North Carolina, places like Asheville, Swannanoa, Black Mountain, Boone, Chimney Rock, the list goes on; places and people I know well and have for over two decades…it’s just heartbreaking to see such damage from a hurricane in places miles and miles away from any coastline. To check Facebook every hour to read who has checked in safe. Once in a lifetime weather events are now every other year…hard not to see what our actions have reaped and to see the devastation they are leaving in their path for communities that will be rebuilding for years – if they even will be able to. My love goes to all affected by Helene but by itself it’s not too helpful.

And listen to Eric Church’s new Helene edit of Darkest Hour.

2) National: Good news on the employment front as the Labor Department reports that employers posted 8 million vacancies in August, up from 7.7 million in July. Government employment “increased by 31,000 jobs, lifted mostly by state and local government hiring. Social assistance payrolls rose by 27,000 jobs. Construction employment advanced by 25,000 positions, reflecting solid gains in nonresidential speciality trade contractor jobs.”

3) California: Bloomberg Law reports that “the hourly minimum wage in San Diego, California, will rise to $17.25 from $16.85 effective Jan. 1, 2025, according to the city’s Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement. The minimum wage will increase before 2025 if California’s Proposition 32 is passed on Nov. 5, the city said on its website. Proposition 32 would automatically raise California’s minimum wage to $17 for the remainder of 2024 and to $18 for 2025. Since San Diego law requires the local minimum wage to equal the federal or statewide rate if either is higher, the city’s minimum wage would be the statewide rate.”

4) National/Ohio: “It’s Totally Legal. It’s Growing Fast. It’s Taking Kids Out of School for Bible Education.” Sarah Stankorb reports in Slate on how a religious organization that blasts out on its homepage that it  is “on a mission to reach all 50 million public school students” “during school hours.”

“It was a dramatic faceoff. Hundreds of parents were visibly split at a Westerville, Ohio, school board meeting this week. Many were clad in red LifeWise Academy shirts to show their support for the school-day Bible program. Others wore black in opposition, and held “Parents AGAINST LifeWise” signs. Supporters and detractors poured in from outside the district, located in a Columbus suburb, curious whether Westerville’s decision would create a precedent. Dozens signed up to speak. According to LifeWise, nearly 300 Westerville students were enrolled in the program, which transports public school students off-campus for Bible instruction during the school day. (…) Other parents spoke about how kids who don’t attend the program—or who belong to other religions—feel left out, and argued that removal of students from the school day detracts from a focus on academics. A pastor talked about how her church had created many programs for youth before and after school, but said she thought that “a public school is not a place to recruit or to proselytize. It’s not a place where religious, cultural, or racial superiority should find a home.”

So what’s the good news? “After over two hours of public comment, school board members voted 4–0 (with one abstention) to rescind the policy that allowed for released time for religious instruction during the school day.” Watch the state legislature for a move to take this key tenet of democratic home rule away from communities that don’t want public schools to become Sunday schools.

5) National: . The Gamaliel Civil Rights of Immigrants Campaign is inviting people to sign on to a letter asking the Harris-Walz Campaign to commit to a meeting between Gamaliel CRI leaders and their immigration transition team.

6) Tennessee: These are challenging times in Tennessee, but there is also some good news to pass on. They are “shrinking the public-private pay gap for state workers.” Molly Bloom reports in Route Fifty, “The old theory was, ‘We’re going to accept a low market pay, but we’ll have above-market benefits,’ Yap said. ‘We changed the philosophy to say, “Okay, we’re going to have competitive pay to market … and we want to retain our above-market benefits.” After the first year of what the state called “compensation modernization,’ turnover dropped and the number of people applying for state jobs increased by more than half, according to state data. ”

7) Texas: Good news from Texas Republicans? Well at least two of them have shown the courage to publish an op-ed in The Houston Chronicle denouncing the fiscal starving of the Lone Star State’s public schools and begging lawmakers to properly fund them. The quiet part, which they tiptoe around, is Gov. Abbott’s promise to try and pass a massive vouchers program that would crush public education funding for years. The vote will depend on how many supporters of public education of both parties get elected next month. If Democrats are able to flip some key districts Abbott could be stymied again.

They write, “according to the LBB’s comparison of constant dollars (which takes into account the effect of the significant inflation that has occurred since the 2019-20 school year), Texas public schools currently receive around $9,074 per student in the 2024-25 school year. That represents an 18% decrease in inflation-adjusted funding at a time when our public school leaders and teachers are trying to do the critical job of helping our students recover academically from the dramatic impact of COVID.”

8) International/European Union: Last week, “1,000 essential workers – cleaners, security guards and food service employees – from nine European countries rallied in Brussels, demanding that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen act to improve pay and conditions for millions of workers through procurement reform. Workers, trade union leaders and members of the European Parliament condemned the ‘race to the bottom’ caused by the EU’s current procurement rules, which prioritise the lowest price at the expense of workers’ well-being.”

“UNI Europa research shows that half of all public tenders across the EU are awarded solely based on the lowest price, often due to procurement rules. These rules overlook the social costs to communities and undermine Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s promise of quality jobs, quality services and increasing collective bargaining coverage to ‘support fair wages, good working conditions, training and fair job transitions for workers.’”

ITPI has released the report Harnessing the Power of Procurement that looks at the issue from a U.S. perspective and in a recent brief took a deeper dive into the importance of applying a cost benefit analysis to contracting decision.

Education

9) National: Education Week has a major article on tax credit schemes that support school privatization. “Most of the biggest recent developments in the world of private school choice have centered around education savings accounts, a twist on the private school voucher that parents can spend on tuition, fees, and a wide range of other costs tied to their students’ learning outside the traditional public school system. But close to two dozen states also operate smaller-scale private school choice programs that rarely draw attention on the same scale. These programs, known broadly as ‘tax-credit scholarships,’ typically target smaller populations of students and offer fewer dollars per child than vouchers and ESAs. ‘They seek to accomplish the same thing that school vouchers do, but without the direct government funding,’ said Patrick Wolf, a professor of education policy and school choice at the University of Arkansas.”

The author concludes, “Longtime observers of the private school choice movement believe the push for tax-credit scholarships is waning, in favor of a bigger focus on vouchers and [Education Savings Accounts]. The latter offer more money to families and more flexibility on how they can be spent. (…) Even so, federal lawmakers haven’t completely lost interest. The House Ways and Means Committee recently advanced a proposal to offer federal tax credits nationwide for donors to scholarship-granting organizations that support private school students. Project 2025, the conservative federal policy agenda crafted in large part by allies of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and officials from his first administration, calls for a nationwide federal tax-credit scholarship policy as well. The capital gains loophole Davis has pointed out would be a feature of the proposal as currently written.” [Sub required]

10) National/New Book: Laura Pappano, author of Parent Activism, Partisan Politics, and the Battle for Public Education, joined Sasha Lilley, host of KPFA’s Against the Grain, to discuss right-wing efforts to destroy public education. “Public schools have long been a battleground for the right. But since the Covid pandemic, the right has had the wind at its back, enlarging its ranks with parents frustrated by school closings and masking mandates. Education journalist Laura Pappano discusses how the far right has sowed panic over library books, gender neutral bathrooms, and the supposed teaching of Critical Race Theory—not just to take over school boards, but to cast doubt on the value of public education itself.” [Audio, about 50 minutes]

11) National: Where do Trump and Harris stand on education? Ohio Capital Journal has a summary. “‘By increasing access to school choice, empowering parents to have a voice in their child’s education, and supporting good teachers, President Trump will improve academic excellence for all students,’ Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary, said in a statement to States Newsroom. (…) The Democrats’ platform opposes ‘the use of private-school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education,’ adding that “public tax dollars should never be used to discriminate.” Harris said at the Democratic National Convention in August that “we are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools.”

12) National: The federal government has announced grants totaling over $400 million to state and private entities that fund charter schools.

13) National/Arizona: School vouchers are one example of the stakes in legislative elections. “If Arizona Democrats win the Legislature, they could change [the] school voucher system,” NPR reports. “The November election in Arizona could determine whether a rapidly expanding school voucher program is reined in by the Legislature. That’s the goal Democrats have—if they can get a majority. In 40 of the 50 U.S. states, the same political party controls both the governor’s mansion and legislative chambers. That one-party rule means state policies don’t gridlock the way Congress often does. One state with split government is Arizona. If Democrats can win the legislature, they could change Arizona’s school voucher system. From member station KJZZ in Phoenix, Wayne Schutsky reports.”

14) Kentucky: Private school vouchers are on the ballot. Nicholas Brake. an assistant professor at Western Kentucky University and former superintendent of the Owensboro Independent Schools, weighs in:

“This fall the national push for education vouchers comes to Kentucky. Voters face a choice on the ballot in November about Amendment 2, which would allow the General Assembly to spend public money on private schools. Do not be fooled; there is a lot of misinformation and deception in the ads supporting this amendment. If passed with a ‘YES’ vote, the legislature can write a blank check to private schools at the expense of public schools. In other words, no guardrails. Rural communities stand to lose the most, as over half of the private schools in Kentucky are in only three counties (Jefferson, Fayette, and Kenton). Nearly half of Kentucky’s counties have zero private schools. Take all the politics out of the issue, this is an investment decision about public education. I have served as a teacher, superintendent, and an economic development professional, working with businesses interested in investing in the state. Voters should know the track record of similar programs from other states. They deplete educational resources in rural areas with mixed results and a hefty price tag. From a strictly economic development perspective, a ‘yes’ vote will drain resources from rural communities and send those dollars to the largest counties in the state.”

15) Ohio: After facing significant political and legal pressure, the Columbus school system will begin offering busing to about 100 charter school students. “Yost’s office previously said that once a student challenges the school’s decision, CCS must immediately resume transportation to that student while their challenge is ongoing. ‘Under Ohio law, if we fail to transport these students during the mediation process, the Ohio Department of Education may order us to pay compensation to these families,’ the district wrote in the letter. In order to bus the students, the district said there will be five new routes added and adjustments to 33 current routes. Those adjustments could change pickup or drop-off times to more than 1,100 students, according to the district.”

16) Oklahoma/National: The State Education Department is seeking bids for 55,000 classroom Bibles. Rather oddly, Oklahoma Watch delves deeply into the controversy as it relates to the RFP process and possible favoritism toward Trump supporters, but inserts the sentence “separation of church and state concerns aside” then ignores that issue in its detailed 1,600 word article. But others are concerned. “Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, and Freedom From Religion Foundation are requesting that the Oklahoma State Department of Education provide all records of expenditures during the current fiscal year related to the provision of Bibles for Oklahoma public-school classrooms, including communications, contracts, invoices, receipts and payment records. The organizations have asked for a response by Oct. 17, 2024. (…) ‘Oklahoma taxpayers should not be forced to bankroll Superintendent Walters’ Christian Nationalist agenda,’ said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United. ‘His latest scheme—to mandate use of the Bible in Oklahoma public school curriculum – is a transparent, unlawful effort to indoctrinate and religiously coerce public school students. Not on our watch. Public schools are not Sunday schools.’ Americans United urges any Oklahoma public-school teachers and parents who want to learn more about what they can do to fight Walters’ unlawful and unauthorized Bible-instruction directives to contact AU at americansunited@au.org.”

17) Wyoming: Even the smallest towns in America are concerned that charter schools are a magic carpet for right wing politics coming in from outside to indoctrinate their kids. The town of Alpine (pop. 1,220) is wrestling with the issue of a public land lease for a charter school.  “While there has been broad, longstanding support in Alpine for a new public school, even a charter, not all residents support the application from American Preparatory Academy Charter School. Residents have questioned the school’s right-wing political bent, as the organization’s founders have generated controversy with disparaging comments in the past about immigrants and the LGTBQ community. ‘I stand before you and ask you to press pause and breathe,’ said Jordan Kurt Mason, a resident of Alpine and public educator who serves on the Alpine Education Committee, a community group formed to explore a school in Alpine. ‘The current proposal of using our very limited town land for the American Preparatory Charter School seems to have some serious questions without great solutions.’ The proposed school would be the first American Preparatory Academy in Wyoming, joining seven campuses in Utah. The organization had one school in Nevada but lost its contract.”

“At a community meeting Sept. 11 at the Alpine Civic Center, Kurt Mason cited APA’s stated opposition to teaching about race, promoting diversity and fostering social learning. ‘These three are dog whistles to a far-right political stance, and I am a firm believer that politics has no place in education,’ he said. Over the last two weeks, hundreds of residents have shown up to public meetings and hearings to say Alpine deserves a new public school.”

Infrastructure

18) National/Think Tanks: Early planning can curb costs and climate stress on neglected infrastructure, says the Pew Charitable Trust’s Fatima Yousofi and Mollie Mills. “Fortunately for state and local officials facing these daunting costs, estimates suggest that adapting critical infrastructure to the consequences of climate change, such as by implementing green infrastructure, such as rain gardens and permeable pavement, or relocating vulnerable assets, could reduce damage from climate-related extreme weather events—and the associated costs—by up to a third. To help governments make cost-effective investments in adaptation and resilience, The Pew Charitable Trusts published a brief, Climate Change Poses Risks to Neglected Public Transportation and Water Systems, that examines the risks to the nation’s transportation and water infrastructure from a changing climate and chronic underfunding. The brief draws on examples from proactive governments and recommendations from resilience and capital planning experts to outline a framework for assessing vulnerabilities and managing adaptation needs.”

19) National: Dennis Enright, founding principal of NW Financial and a keen analyst of public asset privatization issues—who often wasn’t afraid, unlike many of his colleagues—to blow the whistle on a bad deal for the public—has died at the age of 76. [Sub required]

20) California: California kids are sweltering in schools with no air conditioning. “An estimated 1 in 5 schools has no air conditioning and another 10% need repair. Underfunded schools struggle to keep classrooms cool as heat waves intensify. ‘It’s a hot mess,’ one teacher says.” CalMatters reports that “Voters in November will be asked to approve a $10 billion school infrastructure bond to fund repairs and upgrades of buildings at K-12 schools and community colleges, including air conditioning systems. Gov. Gavin Newsom last month vetoed a bill that would have created a master plan for climate-resilient schools, including an assessment of when air conditioning systems were last modernized. State officials currently do not collect data on air conditioning in schools.”

Helene Special Section

21) North Carolina: A sad disaster has hit the wonderful arts community in Asheville. The Arts District, decades in the making, is in ruins after Helene. “More than 300 artists called the district home and its riverside vitality helped cement Asheville’s reputation as a cultural outpost, one worth settling near or venturing to as old warehouses and mills were converted into centers for both creative expression and economic growth. ‘There is nothing like the River Arts District in the United States and maybe even the world,’ said Jeffrey Burroughs, president of River Arts District Artists, a support group. ‘It’s spaces where artists are in control of their businesses, their lives.’ But much of the district was washed out by the floodwaters of Hurricane Helene. Buildings were swept away. Some galleries no longer exist. Creative works—some birthed decades ago—have been damaged and destroyed. Mud reigns. ‘It’s heartbreaking,’ said Judi Jetson, founder and chair of Local Cloth, a nonprofit network of fiber artists, educators and enthusiasts. ‘We have 3 or 4 inches of mud inside the building and on most of our items. We’re trying to rescue whatever we can and people will take it home and wash them. The problem is a lot of us don’t have water, even at home, and nobody has electricity.’”

22) North Carolina: The hurricane has also hammered the tourism industry. “While the immediate destruction from Hurricane Helene has subsided, the storm’s economic aftershocks have only just begun. At stake is western North Carolina’s tourism industry, which brings in nearly $7.7 billion in visitor dollars each year, according to 2023 estimates—about a fifth of the state’s total. For now, the massive infrastructure damage to the region through flooding, mudslides, and toppled trees has ground that spending to a halt. Workers are left without stable income while business owners wonder whether they can afford to reopen once it becomes safe to. The existential question for local businesses and workers: How long until tourists can return?”

23) North Carolina: After Helene’s deluge, Asheville’s water crisis has no end in sight. “Helene knocked out huge pipes at the city’s largest reservoir that carried water to the rest of its system, as well as a redundant pipe intended to keep water flowing if the primary pipes were washed away.

The backup measures were installed to prevent a repeat of 2004, when storm damage caused an outage. There is also extensive damage to parts of the 1,000 miles of pipe that carry water to the system’s 155,000 residential and commercial users, Mr. Woody said. Asheville’s predicament illustrates a challenge that local governments across the country face as climate change results in more extreme weather: Previous efforts to make public services less vulnerable to severe weather may not be enough, and more resilient systems could cost plenty.”

Public Services

24) National: In spite of widespread criticism of Medicare Advantage plans, which critics see as a form of privatization, Stat News reports that the Medicare Advantage “market” is about to grow even larger next year. “Health insurance companies will still offer older adults a lot of plan choices with low, or completely free, premiums. That’s why the federal government expects enrollment in the $500 billion Medicare Advantage program to grow once again in 2025 — a stark contrast from insurers’ cries that modest payment reforms would damage them and seniors’ options.

However, insurers have made important but subtle tweaks to next year’s plans that will force millions of members to shell out more for their prescription drugs and overall medical care than they do currently. Medicare Advantage plans have faced dwindling profits this year as more of their members sought out care. Now, they are paring back certain benefits or shifting costs to unsuspecting beneficiaries to capture back those profits.” To the Stat editors: Is that the correct usage of the noun “beneficiaries”? Just curious.

25) Arizona: This November, Coconino County voters will decide whether to approve Proposition 482, which “proposes a permanent base adjustment to the county’s expenditure limit without adding new taxes or increasing property or other existing taxes. If approved, Prop. 482 will allow the county to spend revenues that have already been approved by voters but can’t be spent because of the expenditure limit. The county is asking for a permanent base adjustment to its expenditure limit to sustain the level of services it provides today. The county provides essential services to residents, including law enforcement, road maintenance and road improvement projects, disaster response, elections, health and many other services that impact residents every day – all while having the lowest primary property tax rate in Arizona.”

26) California: Writing in the Calexico Chronicle, attorney Carlos Acuña has some reflections on what we’ve lost in the field of mental health and public need through privatization. “Privatizing or hijacking for‑profit the means that psychologist Abraham Maslow described as essential for personal survival (and/or cultural survival) does nothing more than create a parasitic, rent‑seeking class in perpetuity, with the cartel‑like power to set prices to accommodate shareholder demand for increased profits. How feudal.”

27) Maryland: The Baltimore Sun reports that “nearly one in five Baltimore sanitation workers did not have city health insurance, according to an inspector general report published Tuesday. One worker learned they were uninsured when they were hospitalized. (…) Those employees make up about 18% of the bureau’s 741 workers. That number includes people who had waived their insurance to use outside providers. Investigators spoke to 46 of the 136 who were affected, according to Cumming. Two learned they were within the time window of starting their city employment to sign up for health insurance. And only two people knew about their eligibility for a credit waiver, which can be either $650 or $2,500 depending on their eligibility, per an agreement between the city and AFSCME Local 44, a union representing DPW workers.”

28) New Jersey/National: Serges Demefack, the coordinator of the Black Immigrant Justice Program of AFSC’s New Jersey Immigrant Rights Program, says we need to safeguard immigrant rights and their access to public services. “Time and again, we’ve seen people in New Jersey seek social services only to be reported by local government staff to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The chilling effect on immigrant communities. As an immigrant rights organizer for the past eight years, I know that immigrant communities in New Jersey and across the nation live in constant fear of seeking help from government agencies. The fear of being reported to federal immigration authorities often discourages individuals from seeking essential services and getting the help they need.

This shouldn’t be the case. No one should fear seeking social services due to their immigration status. Yet over the years, AFSC’s immigration attorneys and organizers have helped many people for whom routine interactions with police or government agencies resulted in detention and deportation. The consequences are devastating. Children are separated from their parents. Families lose their homes and businesses. People are deported back to dangerous conditions from which they had fled.

Introducing the Immigrant Trust Act. A coalition of New Jersey-based immigrant rights organizations, including AFSC, is trying to change that. On Sept. 26, we introduced a bill known as the Immigrant Trust Act (ITA). The bill (S 3672) would provide critical privacy protections, ensuring that New Jerseyans can safely access public services—like health care and education—without fear of deportation.”

29) International/Canada: CUPE reports that a giant Trojan Horse visited Queen’s Park in protest of the privatization of hospital services. “The metaphor was deployed by CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, OCHU-CUPE, and the Ontario Health Coalition, who are asking that the Ford government cancel plans to privatize surgeries and instead make investments in public hospitals.

A reference to Greek mythology, ‘the Trojan Horse represents a gift, which, if accepted, threatens the recipient,’ said Michael Hurley, president of OCHU-CUPE. ‘The false promise here is that privatizing surgeries is a solution to long waits. In fact, privatization redirects money and staff from public hospitals to private, for-profit clinics. As a result, wait-times in the public system get longer as staff shortages lead to service closures. Meanwhile, these private clinics charge out-of-pocket costs, which are unaffordable for most people. Ultimately, they will reduce access based on need, lengthen wait times and weaken our public hospital system.’”

All the Rest

30) National: The campaign to unionize Amazon is gaining momentum, Inequality.org reports. But the fight goes on. “over the last few months, the Teamsters have quietly made significant gains in their campaign to represent the warehouse workers and delivery drivers that make the vast package network tick. That second category of workers has been the site of one of the biggest breakthroughs for the Teamsters. Amazon has long maintained that it does not need to negotiate with workers it contracts through delivery service providers (DSPs) to get packages to customers’ homes despite dictating the terms and conditions of their employment. The National Labor Relations Board ruled this summer that Amazon is a joint employer of those delivery drivers, setting the stage for subcontracted workers around the country to join the Teamsters. That finding was made in a case brought by workers hired through Battle-Tested Strategies to distribute packages from Amazon’s Palmdale, California, facility. When the 84 workers became the first group of Amazon delivery drivers to form a union in April 2023, Amazon unceremoniously ended its contract with the subcontractor, effectively terminating their jobs. Following that ruling, hundreds of drivers across the eight subcontractors at Amazon’s Queens, New York, distribution center have announced majority internal support for unionizing. The workers are demanding to be recognized as one collective bargaining unit.”

31) National: Prominent South African apartheid-era immigrant Elon Musk campaigned this weekend with Trump, who whipped up the crowd as usual, with racist salvos against immigrants supposedly mooching off Americans by sucking up public services. In a possibly related case, a few weeks ago CNBC reported that Musk scorns subsidies while Tesla still lobbies for U.S. benefits. Rapid deportation?

PHOTO: Audrey Buff

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