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October 30th, 2015

10/30/2015

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Since most citizens do not want these education reforms it is to our local labor and justice organizations we turn for organization and education against these reforms.  We know our national union and justice organization leadership are stacked with Clinton neo-liberal leaders----that does not mean our local unions follow this lead.  I have shouted for unions to break with these international unions tied to Clinton----the power of this consolidation is counter-productive if it leads down the road to International Economic Zone sweat shop labor conditions.

Look below where we see this happening all across the nation with the teacher's unions breaking from national leader Weingarten.




May 14, 2014
by edushyster2012


Spring Cleaning


A social justice movement is bringing sweeping change to teachers unions


When we last paid a call upon those nemeses of all things excellent, the teachers unions, we found them in a sad and sorry state. Exuding an odeur of mildew and mothballs, even their ability to stifle innovation and lower expectations seemed in doubt. But it turns out that whilst we were reading (every day and everywhere) about the unions’ demise, something rather unexpected, not to mention frankly exciting, has been happening within their ranks. In short: a social justice movement is bringing sweeping change to teacher unions. Will yours be next? 
No deal
The first stop on our rank-and-file takeover tour: Massachusetts, where this weekend, Barbara Madeloni, an unabashed critic of over testing and privatization disguised as reform, was elected president of the state’s largest teacher union, the 110,000 member Massachusetts Teachers Association. Madeloni, who ran as part of a union reform caucus called Educators for a Democratic Union, is calling for a three-year moratorium on high-stakes testing (including field testing), a full-throated defense of public education, alliances with parents and students and a frank acknowledgement of the state’s deep racial and economic divides. Above all, though, Madeloni represents a challenge to the insider deal-making for which the MTA has long been known. But why let me do all of the talking? Let’s hear a little of the message that not only won over delegates from the MTA’s 400 + locals but inspired 500 members to become first-time delegates just so that they could vote for Madeloni.
Time and again, bad policies and dehumanizing mandates are handed down and our union leadership does not ask us if they are right, but only how best to implement them.

Clean sweep
Massachusetts isn’t the only place to see big changes in a big union. In Los Angeles, a reform caucus known as Union Power swept elections this spring to take the helm of the 31,000 member UTLA, the second largest teacher union in the country. On Union Power’s agenda: transforming the UTLA into an active, organizing union that is integrally involved in the larger issues from which education is inseparable--like civil rights, housing, urban development and living wage jobs. And it isn’t just talk. Union power essentially won union power by treating the election as an organizing campaign, rallying members behind a call for the *schools L.A. students deserve.*
Chicagoland 
AP students will no doubt recognize that the UTLA upstarts were tipping their reform caucus caps to the Chicago Teachers Union. In 2012, the CTU released a white paper called *The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve* that laid out the union’s vision of education reform beginning with this sentence: Every student in CPS deserves to have the same quality education as the children of the wealthy. [Note: I am not actually an advanced student but am cribbing shamelessly from Micah Uetricht’s new book Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity, an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand the origins of the new union reform movement.] Suffice it to say that the similarly titled initiatives are not a coincidence. Both Union Power in L.A. and Educators for a Democratic Union in Massachusetts explicitly modeled their successful elections on the Caucus of Rank and File Educators or CORE, which took over the Chicago Teachers Union in 2010, emphasizing member engagement and partnership with community organizations.
Wave elections
Close readers of informational texts will note that Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, responding to word of the leadership change in Massachusetts, doesn’t exactly seem surprised by the news. That’s because activists within Lewis’ CORE caucus are helping to lead an effort to bring CORE’s same brand of grassroots, big picture change to teacher unions across the country. Under the auspices of the Network for Social Justice Unionism, dozens of social justice caucuses are forming within both NEA and AFT locals. What exactly is social justice unionism? I got a taste of it this spring while visiting Chicago, where seemingly any teacher you talk to can explain how school closures and *hyper accountability* relate to that city’s rapid gentrification, and parents, like those at two Chicago schools that boycotted the ISAT test this spring, see the union as a partner in the fight to keep neighborhood schools alive.
A new distribution center for Pearson Education.
Mass movement
Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts, things just got a whole lot more interesting in edu-land. Barbara Madeloni, or BMad as I call her, made headlines back in 2012 by taking on Pearson over a national licensure procedure requiring students training to be teachers to submit videos of themselves to Pearson rather than being assessed by professors or the classroom teachers with whom the students worked. Students in the high school teacher training program at UMass Amherst, which Madeloni ran, refused to send their videos to Pearson, a protest for which Madeloni would ultimately lose her job. Her new position as president of the Mass. Teachers Association puts her on a collision course with the state’s chief career and college readiness officer, Mitchell D. Chester. Regular readers may recall Chief Chester’s rather unusual dual role when it comes to the state’s new PARCC assessments. To Chester’s multiple hats--the fedora of excellence and the readiness beret—we can now add a third: a Pearson party hat. Last month Pearson landed a contract of *unprecedented scale* to administer, score and analyze the PARCC tests, including here in Massachusetts where field-testing of the tests recently resumed.


___________________________________________


Below you see what all US academics know-----these international PISA stats are comparing apples and oranges and pretending they are the same. Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons do this because these Chinese education structures are neo-liberal education structures and they are using these stats to drive the same neo-liberal reforms in the US.
The same goes for calling an Asian student applying to our US universities necessarily more qualified than an American student by test scores. Asian college grads are mostly from wealthy families that rise from juking the stats just as in US private schools. They are not necessarily brighter---the system measures are completely different.

What makes this worse for the American people is Obama and Clinton neo-liberals are dismantling all of our progressive Federal higher education funding laws to meet this global standard ------moving the US to dumb down its higher education by making community college job training certificates into degrees.  Obama says degree attainment is growing in the US------when all that has happened is the definition of what a degree is has been lowered.

MARYLAND LEADS IN LOWERING THE STANDARDS FOR WHAT A DEGREE IS ------BUT THEN, REPUBLICANS ALWAYS HAVE LOW-ACHIEVING EDUCATION POLICY ON THE MIND.  THAT'S WHY REAGAN/CLINTON TOOK THE RIGOR OUT OF OUR K-12 IN THE 1990s.

**************************************************************************
'The Shanghai educational system is held up as a model for the rest of the world on the basis of data on a subset of students that is not representative of the Shanghai student population as a whole'.


PISA Country Rankings Misleading



Brief highlights flaws in the use of international testing to drive educational policy 
Contact: William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Martin Carnoy, (650) 725-1254, carnoy@stanford.edu
 


BOULDER, CO (October 30, 2015) — For 15 years, journalists, advocates and policymakers have cited scores on international tests, such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), to conclude that American student achievement “lags woefully behind” other nations, threatening our future and suggesting an urgent need for education reform.
A brief published today by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder explores such policy analyses and claims around PISA as well as a second prominent international test, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).
In International Test Score Comparisons and Educational Policy: A Review of the Critiques, Stanford education professor Martin Carnoy focuses on four main critiques of analyses that use average PISA scores as a comparative measure of student achievement.
The ranking is misleading, Carnoy asserts, because:
  • Students in different countries have different levels of family—not just school—academic resources;
  • The larger gains reported on the TIMSS, which is adjusted for different levels of family academic resources, raise questions about the validity of using PISA results for international comparisons.
  • PISA test score error terms—the difference between measured achievement and actual achievement—are considerably larger than the testing agencies acknowledge, making the country rankings unstable.
  • The Shanghai educational system is held up as a model for the rest of the world on the basis of data on a subset of students that is not representative of the Shanghai student population as a whole.
Professor Carnoy also assesses the underlying social meaning and education policy value of international comparisons. First, he describes problems with claims that average national math scores are accurate predictors of future economic growth. Second, he explains that using scoring data in this manner has limited use for establishing education policy, due to the lack of causal inference analysis. This is the well-known “correlation is not causation” problem.
Third, there is a conflict of interest arising from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (which administers the PISA) and its member governments acting as a testing agency while simultaneously serving as data analyst and interpreter of results for policy purposes.
Fourth, Carnoy questions the usefulness of nation-level test score comparisons with regard to countries such as the United States with such diverse and complex education systems. The differences between states in the U.S. are so large that employing state-level test results over time to examine the impact of education policies would be more useful and interesting.
Despite such compelling critiques of international testing, Carnoy concludes that these tests will not go away, nor will they stop being wrongly applied to shape educational policy. However, he says, “there are changes that could be made to reduce misuse.” He concludes with five policy recommendations, including reporting test results by family academic resource subgroups of students with different levels of resources.
In a companion report released today by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), Carnoy and co-authors Emma García and Tatiana Khavenson provide detailed analyses explaining how and why comparisons using data at the level of U.S. states are more useful than comparing the U.S. with other countries for understanding and improving student performance.
Find International Test Score Comparisons and Educational Policy: A Review of the Critiques by Martin Carnoy on the web at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/international-test-scores.

____________________________________________

These education testing and evaluation policies are from the start trying to standardize what cannot be standardized------individual students in a public education system each having their own learning developmental characteristics.  Now, privatizers will tell you---that is why we need to create tiers and segregate according to ability---AND THAT IS WHAT DEREGULATING PUBLIC EDUCATION IS ABOUT.  The US has always had K-12 standardized testing once in elementary----again in middle------and finally in high school to give teachers an idea of progress and weaknesses.  So, what is this new regime really for?  In China, children are tested in pre-school and from that are tracked by government officials into the vocation of their choosing.  These children are tested constantly throughout China's K-12 and pressured to compete and push at every turn.  All of this pressure makes Chinese families use tons of their disposable income paying for all kinds of after-school corporate education help.. IT CREATES THE PLATFORM FOR SUPER-SIZING MORE AND MORE EDUCATION CORPORATIONS THAT TAKE ALL OF FEDERAL EDUCATION FUNDING FOR K-12.   That is the sole reason for these tests.


**********************************************************


PARCC and COMMON CORE are purely PR---propaganda

You see, drop the pesky *A,* which stands for Achieve, and the *CC*, which stands for Common Core, and you’re left with *PR,* as displayed in this handy informational assemblage of quotes, purporting to be from educators, parents and students, like Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester, *responding positively to their early experiences with the assessments.*


**********************************************************************

Below you see yet another corporate charter chain using corrupt and harmful practices just to push children and parents from schools called 'public' and that is how they claim to have higher achievement scores.  So, we as a society think bullying young children and undermining their dignity is the right way forward for American education?  REALLY????This is what ruthless Wall Street profiteering leads to----and this is only a preview----if left to take hold----our children will be wards of an autocratic state.  NYC corporate charter chain queen openly states----DO NOT BRING YOUR EXCUSES OF CIVIL RIGHTS INTO MY SCHOOLS.

Below you hear from PURE----Chicago's parent group against education privatization:



 PSAT for 4-8-14: Let Springfield know the truth about charter schools
PSAT for 4-15-14: Mark your calendars – MTAS forum April 29 »
No more discipline fees! Why now, Noble? I think I know.

More than two years after PURE first challenged the Noble Network of Charter Schools’ discipline fees, the franchise has decided to stop charging students for not buttoning a shirt button, sitting up straight, or tracking the teacher with their eyes.

It would be nice to think that Noble was making this change because they’ve finally realized that the policy was dehumanizing and financially harmful to families, and a big reason why a whole lot of students leave their schools.

But the most likely impetus behind this decision is to protect Bruce Rauner’s campaign for governor.

Rauner is already taking some heat over his education policies, which center on privatizing public education; Rauner brags about Noble, which named one of its high schools after him after he provided the school’s start-up funding. The Tribune ran a very unflattering front-page story about Noble’s discipline fees just a week ago. At their first face-to-face meeting three days ago, before the Illinois Education Association, Quinn said he wouldn’t “charterize” public education, a reference to Rauner’s version of school reform.

Of course, the discipline fees are not the only skeletons in Noble’s closet. There’s the equally oppressive staff incentive system, reports of Noble students attempting suicide, and the memo below from the Rauner Charter school itself that essentially bribes a student with his/her own year’s worth of credits to transfer out of Rauner.

People are also not likely to forget charges that Rauner clouted his own child into middle class, progressive Payton College Prep, which is about as far as you can get in CPS from the reform school model he touts for the children of the 99%.
- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=21239#sthash.CI7t0KYU.dpuf


________________________________________

IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT MARYLAND'S GOVERNOR O'MALLEY AND BALTIMORE'S SARBANES HAVE CONNECTED WITH THIS PENNSYLVANIA CHARTER GROUP.

THE POINT FOLKS IS WHY IS OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION BEING HANDLED BY LOBBYISTS AND COMMITTEES?


In Baltimore, the major education advocacy group, Baltimore Education Coalition BEC---is the Michelle Rhee of education privatization groups and a very neo-conservative Johns Hopkins connected non-profit.  When we have public meetings these meetings are generally filled with these charter Teach for America advocates.  Baltimore doesn't have one of these Philadelphia School Partnerships yet because unlike Philadelphia---Baltimore citizens have absolutely no voice-----Hopkins simply installs whatever policy it wants.

As we see below yet another education official called a Democrat is tied to a lobbying firm known to be connected with corporate education reform.  I listen as in Baltimore people try to pretend our new Baltimore City School Superintendent Thornton is not directly tied to corporate K-12 as well because he is.  So, we have Clinton neo-liberals appointing the most corporate of directors to these new committees that are then telling us they are working for the people and children.


PSP below sounds like Baltimore's BEC but more official and Philadelphia's Mayor Nutter is as raging a Wall Street mayor as Baltimore's Rawlings-Blake----WE DIDN'T KNOW THIS MAN HAD A CORPORATE MARKETING TEAM LOBBYING FOR HIM------keep in mind this is all tied to our local public schools where no citizen has a voice.


'Jerry Jordan, head of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said that PSP’s support for Green was probably a sign of charter-friendly policies to come. “When we look at their values and their positions on the conversion of schools to charter schools, and other corporate reform models, that certainly tells us where he probably will go,” Jordan said'.

PSP used lobbying firm to promote Green as SRC chairBy Bill Hangley Jr. on Feb 20, 2014 12:52 PM


Photo: Courtesy of Philadelphia School Partnership
Mark Gleason is executive director of the Philadelphia School Partnership.
As Bill Green takes the helm of the School Reform Commission, new details have emerged about the process that brought him to the job.

Officials at the Philadelphia School Partnership say that their hired consultants from one of the state's most influential lobbying firms, Wojdak & Associates, actively urged legislators in Harrisburg to support Green as SRC chair during the run-up to his approval by the state Senate. 

“Our advocacy around the SRC was that the city needed a leader who is focused on reform and has the skills and experience to be effective,” said Mark Gleason, the PSP’s executive director.
“Based on Bill Green’s vision and experience, we supported him as a candidate who could be a great SRC chair.”
Green, a Democrat nominated by Gov. Corbett, a Republican, says he was not aware of PSP’s effort on his behalf. “I didn’t realize anybody was being paid to lobby,” he said. “But … I’m happy for any support I got.”
Green strongly denied that PSP’s effort would give the organization any undue influence.

“The only people I owe for my position," Green said, "are the governor of Pennsylvania and 44 state senators" who voted to confirm him. “Nobody who’s seen my service in City Council would ever suggest that I do anything but what I believe in.”


PSP, a nonprofit group that uses philanthropic dollars to support school innovation, most frequently in charter schools, has long been on the record as supporting Green for the position, along with Corbett’s other SRC nominee, Farah Jimenez.


However, the fact that PSP’s lobbyists worked legislators on Green’s behalf was a surprise to city officials, union officials, and the head of the state’s largest charter school coalition, who did not learn of it until after Green’s confirmation. 

“We did not know PSP was using their lobbyist for this,” said Lori Shorr, head of Mayor Nutter’s office of education. “We did not use our lobbyist either for or against either of the governor’s appointees, nor have we ever used our lobbyist around SRC appointments.”


Jerry Jordan, head of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said that PSP’s support for Green was probably a sign of charter-friendly policies to come. “When we look at their values and their positions on the conversion of schools to charter schools, and other corporate reform models, that certainly tells us where he probably will go,” Jordan said.

Lawrence Jones, head of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, said he wasn’t sure what to make of the news. 

“There’s a lot of times where you have a candidate who’s endorsed by a group,” he said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that person is going to work exclusively for those who endorsed him.”

PSP and Green: Aligned on some policies, not all

Green said he doesn’t agree with all of PSP’s positions. But the new SRC chair and the nonprofit, many of whose major donors are staunch supporters of charter schools and vouchers, share some territory both philosophically and in terms of policy.


In the big picture, neither Green nor Gleason believes that it’s absolutely necessary to maintain a traditional, unionized school district.

Asked whether it would be possible to run an urban district without a unionized workforce, Green said, “If it’s less expensive to do so, we have to. ... I don’t have a preference for what delivery method a child gets an education in.”


Similarly, Gleason said charter operators could, in theory, run all the schools in Philadelphia – but that it’s more practical to try to accommodate the existing unionized system. “I think it’s possible to do it completely with charters,” Gleason said, “but I don’t think it’s the fastest way.”

When it comes to policy, Green and the PSP are closely aligned on at least one goal: the need for dramatic changes to the teachers’ contract that would allow union-staffed schools to replicate the practices of the best charter schools.

The union, both Green and Gleason maintain, must agree to allow principals to select their own staffs, extend the school day and year, and establish other building policies that wouldn’t be allowed under the current PFT contract.

Gleason said that PSP wants to see that contract resolved by April or May at the latest, so that the District can plan for next year – and thinks it would be appropriate for Green to use the SRC’s “special powers” to impose work rules.

“If [Superintendent] Bill Hite and his team don’t know how much money they have to spend until July 1st, they’re going to have to punt on a lot of big decisions until the following academic year,” Gleason said.


Green is less sure about the timetable – “I haven’t had enough of a briefing from Bill and the labor team to know,” he said – but he’s passionate on the subject of revising the contract and has said he’s willing to consider using the SRC’s “special powers” if an agreement can’t be reached.
The extent of those special powers, if invoked, would likely face a court challenge from the union. In the past, District officials have expressed doubts about their authority to impose terms on the teachers' union. In 2012, Pedro Ramos, then chair of the SRC, failed in a Harrisburg lobbying effort to expand the SRC's authority to unilaterally change union work rules.
Though Green and Gleason agree on the urgency of revising the teachers’ contract, they part ways on some important aspects of “turnaround” policies for struggling schools.

Gleason has said that charter turnarounds offer the best bang for the buck. In a recent op-ed in the Philadelphia Daily News, he wrote, “Dollar for dollar, it's the most efficient way to dramatically improve neighborhood schools.”

Green disagrees, saying that District-run turnarounds could be cheaper than charter-run turnarounds, and just as effective – but only, he said, if the union’s work rules are changed to allow more charter-like practices.

Reforms tied to funding

Green and Gleason also share some ideas on the basic strategic approach to the challenge of increasing state funding. Before demanding more from Harrisburg, both say Philadelphia must do more itself.

Gleason said one of his hopes is that Green and the SRC are able to convince City Council to adopt the extension of a 1 percent sales tax, approved by the legislature, which would send the District $120 million annually.

“The funding ball is squarely in City Council’s court,” Gleason said, adding that Harrisburg is unlikely to increase its own contribution until legislators see Council act.
(Council and the mayor are discussing putting aside half that money for pension reform and raising money for schools with a new cigarette tax, but Harrisburg has balked at that.)

Green, for his part, reiterated that revising the teachers’ contract is the linchpin of any strategy to increase funding. Harrisburg won’t budge, he said, until Philadelphia can show that it has a plan to allow District schools to replicate successful charter school policies, unfettered by union work rules.

In fact, asked about the many complaints that have emerged in the wake of the budget cuts – bare-bones staff, two-week waits to see counselors – Green said simply: “There’s not more money. There’s not more money. No more money is coming.”

The only way to get more funding, Green said, is for the union to agree to concessions on work rules and seniority.

“We have to be able to compete on a level playing field with [charter schools like] Mastery and ASPIRA,” Green said. “And until we can, there’s no point in asking for money, because there won’t be any. Until there is a competitive equivalency, in terms of what we can do [in schools], how are we going to convince people that the money will be put to good use? Especially in Harrisburg?”

One strategy he is not likely to follow is to start criticizing Corbett’s budgets.

“The governor is my appointing authority. I would not ever say or do anything publicly that would potentially harm him,” Green said. “I’m very grateful for the appointment.”

An agenda of his own

And if some of Green’s ideas match the PSP's, he chafes at the idea that he’s supporting their agenda.

“I came first,” laughed Green, who released his first education policy paper in 2010, the year PSP was founded.

He insists that he came by his education priorities honestly, through hard work. “They are based on a lot of research by my staff and others,” Green said. “They’re not something I invented around the kitchen table.”

Nonetheless, despite his reputation as an independent thinker, news that PSP put its time and money behind Green raised concerns for more than one observer.

“What this means is that the PSP, based on its money and political influence, pretty much can have their way with the SRC,” said Ron Whitehorne, a retired teacher and activist with the Philadelphia Coalition for Public Schools (PCAPS). “The elites call the shots, [and] parents, students, teachers and the community are left to protest.”

Walter Palmer, a pioneer of the city’s charter movement and head of one of its fastest-growing charter schools, said the question about PSP’s support for Green was “to what extent that will translate into them making decisions in closed meetings, where they will influence the superintendent, the charter school office, the SRC, [and] the Great Schools Compact.”

The advocacy group Parents United for Public Education said in an email that PSP’s “secretive” use of lobbyists was “troubling,” particularly because Green’s confirmation process included no opportunities for public comment or testimony.

“By hiring paid lobbyists, PSP gained access to legislators when that same voice was specifically denied to the public,” the group wrote. “That is a serious problem no matter how you look at it.”

But Parents United’s Helen Gym said that despite those concerns, she has been encouraged by some of the work the group has done with Green.

“He's been extremely receptive around our analyses of budgets,” Gym said. “I appreciate his independence on a number of issues. … It's too early to definitively say what type of SRC chair Bill Green will be and how he'll choose to exercise the authority he has.”

Helen Cunningham, a PSP board member, said the organization backed Green because of his political savvy and his strong ideas on policy and because he was the only qualified candidate who publicly expressed any interest in the job. PSP does not expect him to favor charters over traditional public schools, she said. “It is our expectation that he will be fair with all kinds of schools,” she said.

And Zack Stalberg, head of the watchdog group the Committee of Seventy and a longtime observer of the city’s political scene, cautioned against reading too much into the PSP’s support, citing Green’s independent streak and his commitment to effective policy.

“Beware of simplifying this,” Stalberg said. “Bill will do what he feels like doing. The Green family have never fit easily into anybody’s pocket.”



_____________________________________________
The American people and especially Democratic voters finally understood how captured US political parties were with the election of Obama. Not only did the US media withhold vital information about Obama's history and important affiliations during the 2008 elections that would have informed voters----but so too did the national Democratic Party and that happened because Clinton neo-liberals have complete control of our DNC.

What we would have seen is Obama in a Chicago that led the nation in installing all of this Race to the Top privatization and his roll in what media simply called community organizing. What we thought was progressive organizing and what was actually happening was corporate organizing for these corporate K-12 policies. Below you see how Chicago, after 10 years of this mess started a strong push against these education reforms----they are one of the strongest activists in the nation today. I encourage cities like Baltimore where absolutely know knowledge of these reforms is made public and no activism exists----well, very little----to follow PURE----Parents United for Responsible Education ----as parents having fought longer share their battles.

Below is a really long article about one city moving against what we all know to be Federal violations of Constitutional education rights and all cities should be moving this forward.
 

It is too long to format!


December 8, 2010
Chicago Office
Office for Civil Rights
U.S. Department of Education
500 W. Madison Street, Suite 1475
Chicago, IL 60661
Discrimination Complaint under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Filed by: Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE)
39 S. La Salle Street, Suite 617 Chicago IL 60603
telephone 312/491-9101 pure@pureparents,org
on behalf of parent members of our organization
Against: the Chicago Public Schools
125 S. Clark Street
Chicago IL 60603
telephone 773/553-1600.
Parents United for Responsible Education (“PURE”) is a citywide non-profit membership organization
dedicated to improving the Chicago Public Schools. PURE is a resource for public school parents,
providing information, support, training, & advocacy, generally without charge. While there are many
groups working on school reform in Chicago, PURE has a special role in focusing on issues from the
parents' point of view. PURE's membership is multiracial, multi-cultural and economically diverse.
In 1999, PURE filed a discrimination complaint against the Chicago Public Schools (“CPS”) with the
U. S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) (Complaint #05001012), alleging
ongoing discrimination based on race, color, national origin, and sex resulting from its elementary
promotion policy (“the Policy”). OCR carried out an investigation and complaint resolution process
which resulted in several changes in the Policy by August of 2000. (PURE complaint. OCR resolution
letters, final 2000 policy- Attachments 1-3).
PURE has continued to monitor the Policy over the years, and has raised fresh complaints from time to
time, including one against the academic preparatory centers where CPS sent overage retained
elementary school students. These segregated centers were closed soon afterwards.
Unfortunately, ten years later, CPS continues to flunk thousands of children every year using the
Policy, despite the overwhelming evidence that such flunking does not work and disproportionately
harms African-American and Latino students. (Current Policy 09-1028-PO2, Attachment 4).
Six years ago, the Consortium on Chicago School Research published the major study, Ending Social
Promotion: The Effects of Retention.1 The Consortium did an exhaustive study of the Policy, using
state-of-the-art statistical methodologies. At the conclusion of this study, the Consortium recommended
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 2
that CPS stop retention immediately, stating,
“Did retaining these low-achieving students help? The answer to this question is decidedly no....If
an expensive policy is simply not working, as concluded in this report, it would make little
sense to invest more money in it rather than to redirect that money toward alternatives.”2
Although on notice that the Policy undermines academic achievement, increases by 26% the likelihood
that a retained student will drop out by age 173, and has a severe disparate impact against African-
American and Latino students, CPS has willfully persisted, imposing this injurious, discriminatory
Policy on a mass scale.
We have made every effort to work with CPS to ameliorate the bad effects of this policy, to no avail.
We file this complaint today because, as parents, we can no longer stand by silently while children
continue to be harmed. Furthermore, no school system should perpetuate policies that have been proven
to increase and even accelerate the student drop out rate, especially at a time of national commitment to
address this alarming situation. Finally, when we are experiencing a local, state and national economic
emergency which has resulted in the layoff of thousands of teachers, raised class sizes, and forced
cutbacks in other key school resources, there can be no excuse for a government entity to perpetuate a
wasteful, extravagant program that research has shown offers no benefit to the children it purports to
help. We estimate that the Policy costs CPS an average of at least $100,000,000 annually.
It is time to replace the CPS elementary promotion policy with one that works, is not harmful or
discriminatory, and will actually serve to improve teaching and learning. The remedies we propose will
not take CPS back to social promotion, which also did not work, but which was actually more effective
than retention. We believe it's time to move forward, cognizant of the mistakes of both social
promotion and retention. CPS must establish a policy that proactively addresses student's needs, instead
of retroactively punishing them.
CPS falls under the jurisdiction of the Office of Civil Rights because it receives federal education
funds.
Background of the Policy
Since 1996, CPS has flunked more than 100,000 3rd, 6th, and 8th grade students whose standardized test
scores were below a certain district-defined cut-off point on an annual, nationally-normed standardized
test. During the first years of the Policy, CPS used a specific cut score on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills
as the sole pass-fail barrier for students in these grades.
In 1999, PURE filed a discrimination complaint against the Policy with the U. S. Department of
Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR). As part of a resolution agreement with OCR, CPS added an
automatic review prior to summer school and a parent's right to request a review of any non-promotion
decision. The single cut score was replaced by a “score band.” Based on where the students' individual
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 3
reading and math scores fell in relationship to these score bands, classroom grades and attendance were
also considered as factors in the promotion decision. In subsequent years, these criteria and the way
they were used changed nearly every year. The current policy (09-1028-PO2) is based on student
scores on a narrow set of questions, called the SAT-10, which is embedded in the annual state reading
and mathematics compliance tests given to all 3rd through 8th grade students in Illinois.
What hasn't changed is the fact that thousands of students continue to be flunked every year.
The Wrong
I. PURE believes that the Policy harms and does not help students. Specifically, we believe:
· National research predicted the failure of the Policy; research in Chicago confirms the Policy's
failure and the damage it causes.
· Repeating a grade does not improve student learning. In fact, it results in weaker long-term
academic achievement.
· The Policy has made the dropout rate worse.
· Flunking causes emotional harm to children.
II. CPS has failed to fully implement several important agreements it made with OCR in the 1999
resolution, which has resulted in a lack of parent input into the retention decision, and a lack of
accountability for the Policy's discriminatory impact.
III. The policy has a disparate impact on African-American and Latino students.
IV. The Policy violates state and national assessment standards and federal legal and civil rights
principles. Rather than monitor carefully the impact of retention, as required by the Policy itself, CPS
has failed to “maintain all testing data by race and ethnicity of test-takers” in order to “annually review
this data...to ensure that there is no disparate impact based on race or ethnicity created by the operation
of the policy.” CPS also fails to make this information available to parents, as the Policy requires.
V. The cost of this failed Policy cannot be justified, especially in these tight economic times. Wasting
at least $100,000,000 annually cannot be justified when CPS is drastically cutting critical services to
students and laying off hundreds of teachers.
VI. The Policy is not justified by any compelling educational reason, and other, cost-effective
alternatives are available which do not have the same discriminatory impact and are more likely to
improve teaching and learning.
THE POLICY RESULTS IN SYSTEMIC VIOLATIONS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF
AFRICAN AMERICAN AND LATINO STUDENTS.
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 4
I. The policy harms and does not help students
As a matter of common sense, it might appear that the Policy helps children, giving them needed
opportunities to master material that eluded them in the regular course of study. Decades of research
show that this is a dangerous fallacy. Voluminous evidence proves the Chicago retention program to
have disastrous consequences. This program can easily be stopped, with immediate mitigation of the
damages it inflicts, and major savings to address the urgent needs of the school system. Instead of
repeating the same failed program over and over, CPS must heed the clear evidence of its need to
develop strategies that effectively address the educational challenges of its most severely at-risk
children.
National research predicted the failure of the Policy: More than 40 years of educational research has
found that flunking students is risky, can have harmful effects, and leads to higher dropout rates.
(D)ocumenting the real effects on children of retaining them a grade or more has been among the most
heavily researched topics in education over the past thirty years. The collective verdict from hundreds of
studies 'firmly indicates that retaining students...has negative effects on students' achievement in later
grades, has negative effects on student' attitudes toward school, their self-esteem and their social
adjustment; dramatically increases the likelihood that students will drop out of school; is
disproportionately applied to racial and ethnic minority students; and is strongly associated with
criminality and incarcerations during the students' adult years.' 4
(W)hat does research from across the country say about retention? This research indicates that few
practices have such negative effects. Researchers use a process called “meta-analysis” to combine data
from a number of studies on a particular topic, like retention. Meta-analysis indicates
that retention is either harmful or ineffective (Holmes, 1989). Students retained are a quarter of a
standard deviation worse off on educational outcome measures than comparable students who are
promoted. These negative effects are even stronger for academic achievement alone. When children of
the same age were compared, the retained group lost .45 standard deviation in achievement on average.
Evidence indicates that failing a grade is strongly tied to dropping out of school later. Being retained is
as strong as low achievement in determining whether a student drops out or graduates. For example, in
Austin, Texas, repeating a grade increased the chances of a white female dropping out by 17% and
increased an African American male's chances of dropping out by 38% (Grissom and Shepard, 1989).
This is a very powerful negative effect. 5
Research in Chicago confirms the Policy's failure and the damage it causes: The conclusion of the
Consortium on Chicago School Research in its landmark study, Ending Social Promotion, could not be
clearer:
Did retaining these low-achieving students help? The answer to this question is decidedly no. In the third
grade, there is no evidence that retention led to greater achievement growth two years after the
promotional gate, and in the sixth grade, we find significant evidence that retention was associated
with lower achievement growth.6 (emphasis added)
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 5
The Policy has made the dropout rate worse: The Consortium found that students CPS flunked were
25% more likely to drop out by age 17. A multi-year study of CPS's student promotion policy found
that flunking students increased their chances of dropping out by age 17 by 25%, and the chances of
their dropping out by age 19 by 29%. The study concluded that
students with very low achievement were even less likely to graduate than before the policy was
implemented....Racial gaps in school completion also grew after implementation of the (promotion)
gate....In addition, the very high dropout rates among students already old-for-grade who failed the
eighth grade test suggest that the combined effects of the gates at third, sixth, and eighth grade may be
more adverse than that of the single gate at the eighth grade. 7
Recent data from the State of Illinois school report cards show that African-American CPS students are
30% more likely to drop out, and Hispanic CPS students are 35% more likely to drop out than white
students (CPS dropout rates by race, 2003-2008, Attachment 5).
Flunking causes emotional harm to children: There is ample scientific evidence that flunking can
increase student stress levels and lower student self-esteem and sense of efficacy as learners.
As teachers and administrators are pressured to implement policies designed to "end social promotion,"
students are threatened with retention if they do not meet academic standards or perform above specified
percentiles on standardized tests. It is unclear if this threat is effective in motivating
students to work harder. However, this pressure may be increasing children's stress levels regarding
their academic achievement. Surveys of children's ratings of twenty stressful life events in the 1980s
showed that, by the time they were in 6th grade, children feared retention most after the loss of a parent
and going blind. When this study was replicated in 2001, 6th grade students rated grade retention as
the single most stressful life event, higher than the loss of a parent or going blind (Anderson,
Jimerson, & Whipple, 2002)(emphasis added). This finding is likely influenced by the pressures
imposed by standards-based testing programs that often rely on test scores to determine promotion and
graduation.
Analysis of multiple studies of retention indicate that retained students experience lower self esteem and
lower rates of school attendance, relative to promoted peers (Jimerson, 2001). Both of these factors are
further predictive of dropping out of school.8
In our 1999 OCR complaint9, we included the case of an African-American student who was retained.
His mother wrote that he
has experienced and sustained serious emotional distress because of these multiple retentions and the
extreme stress he now feels about taking the (test). He has been made to feel inferior and as if he is a
failure. He has cried, made up excuses not to go to school, felt extremely nervous, and dreaded the day
of the test. He is only in fourth grade, and had the rest of his schooling ahead of him, yet I am afraid that
with this test as a barrier, he has been and will continue to be denied the opportunity and support he
needs to be a motivated student, to be instructed in a high-quality curriculum, and to progress towards
graduation, college, and a successful career.
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 6
The parent of a Latina 14-year old CPS student wrote this:
My daughter was harmed by the district's promotion policy in several difference ways: (1) she was not
able to graduate with her friends, (2) she began to believe that she did not deserve to graduate with her
classmates despite her excellent grades and good attendance (3) she was deeply hurt because she was
well-known and respected by teachers and students alike for her intelligence, yet her (test) score in
reading meant that she would not be able to graduate from the 8th grade along with her friends, (4) she
did not sign up for the summer logic and science program at Daley College which she had participated in
last year because she was told she had to attend summer school to re-take the test in August, 1999. Also,
the experience left her with a permanent fear of having to go through a similar experience again during
her high school years. This fear was definitely a factor which played a role in (my daughter's) decision to
attend (a private school) rather than a CPS high school.
In its 2004 study of principal, teacher, and student response to the retention policy, the Consortium
found that “with the exception of high-risk eighth graders, there appeared to be declines in students'
sense of efficacy toward their schoolwork from 1997 to 2001.”10 More stories about the effects of highstakes
testing on students can be found in the chapter, “Crime and Punishment: How the Accountability
Machine Hurts Schoolchildren” in Peter Sacks' book, Standardized Minds.
II. CPS has failed to fully implement several important agreements it made with
OCR in the 1999 resolution, which has resulted in a lack of parent input into the retention decision,
and a lack of accountability for the policy's discriminatory impact.
Parents' right to request a review severely limited: The 1999 Policy revision included a parental right
to ask for a waiver of the summer school decision in June, and a review of a non-promotion decision
after summer school. A letter from OCR specified that CPS must make this information “absolutely
clear” to parents.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case. See the minimal information provided in the 2009-2010
School/Parent Guide to the Elementary School Promotion Policy (Attachment 6). Parents calling
PURE's office after having received a notice of mandatory summer summer school or retention report
that they were not aware of their right to an appeal or review, or are given conflicting information.
PURE has taken the initiative to offer a guide of sorts to parents for this process on our web site
(http://pureparents.org/index.php?blog/show/Help_for_parents), but we can't reach all of the affected
parents.
Furthermore, even when parents learn about their right, they have a very difficult time getting anyone
at CPS to listen. PURE has had to intervene for some parents just to get their telephone call returned.
Finally, even when parents are able to make contact with CPS, their input is essentially ignored. CPS
staff involved in reviewing the student's records generally do not meet face-to-face with the parent and
do not appear to take the parents' information into consideration (see, for example, Attachment 7).
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 7
Inadequate disparate impact report: As part of the 1999 resolution with OCR, CPS included this
clause in the Policy: “The district will maintain all testing data by race and ethnicity of test-takers and
shall annually review this data in regard to students who are promoted and retained pursuant to the
requirements of the policy in order to ensure that there is no disparate impact based upon race or
ethnicity created by the operation of the policy. All such data shall be made available to a parent upon
request." (emphasis added)
On February 12, 2009, PURE sent a FOIA request for this information. CPS failed to respond to our
request, despite the Policy's assurance that the report would be provided to parents upon request. We
finally turned to the Attorney General for help.
After the intervention of the Attorney General PURE finally received a brief report, “Promotion and
Retention Rate by Race and Year for Students Enrolled in Summer School 2002-2008” (Attachment
8). This report was apparently the full extent of information CPS collected in response to Section V of
the Policy.
After reviewing the report, we wrote a letter to CEO Huberman, expressing the following concerns
about the report:
 The report is incomplete in that it fails to include “all testing data” as required by the
policy.
 The data seems very clearly to reflect a disparate impact on African-American and
Latino students, whose retention rates are far higher than that of white or Asian students.
 The report includes no analysis of the data, which would seem to be essential in any
effort to ensure that there is no disparate impact.
Subsequent efforts to reach out to CPS officials fruitless: Mr. Huberman responded in a letter dated
June 23, 2009, that he felt the Policy “significantly supports a child's ability to succeed at the next
grade level” (Attachment 9). Mr. Huberman did invite PURE to submit any ideas for improving the
policy, which we did (Attachment 10, which incorporates all documents referenced therein).
We had a half-hour meeting with Mr. Huberman on November 10, 2009, to present our proposal in
person. He asked for more information about certain aspects of the proposal including non-graded
classrooms and Chicago's Child Parent Centers. We provided this information. We made a similar,
though brief (given the 2-minute rule) presentation to the Board of Education in 2009, and sent a
similar letter to former Chief Education Officer Barbara Eason-Watkins, requesting a meeting with her
on the subject before her retirement in June, 2010. We received no further communication from Mr.
Huberman, the Board, or Dr. Eason-Watkins.
We recently received a request for a meeting with two officials in the office of P-12 Management,
which oversees the Policy. We are pleased with this overture but skeptical that it will lead to timely or
significant Policy changes.
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 8
III. The Policy has a Discriminatory impact on African-American and Latino
students.
Our data reflect that the Policy results in educational decisions that have an adverse impact on African-
American and Latino students (Charts, Attachment 11).
According to the Chicago Public Schools report, “Promotion and Retention Rate by Race and Year for
Students Enrolled in Summer School 2002-2008,” African-American students were retained at a rate
five times that of white students, and Latino students were retained at a rate 2.2 times higher in 2008.
Our pie charts show that African-Americans constitute 48% of the CPS student population in 3rd, 6th
and 8th grades, but 68% of those required to attend summer school, and 74% of those retained. 40% of
all CPS 3rd, 6th, and 8th grade African-American students were required to attend summer school,
compared with only 7% of Asian and 12% of White students. 16% of all African-American 3rd, 6th and
8th grade students were retained, compared with only 2% of Asian students and 4% of white students.
Latino students were sent to summer school at a rate of 1.46 to 1 as compared with white students, and
were retained at a rate of 1.37 to the rate of retained white students.
According to 2008 State of Illinois school report cards, African-American students in Chicago were 1.3
times more likely to drop out than white students, and Hispanic students were 1.35 times more likely to
drop out.
IV. The Policy violates state and national assessment standards and federal legal
and civil rights standards
CPS uses student scores on the 3rd, 6th, and 8th grade reading and mathematics SAT-10 test, which is
embedded in the ISAT, to determine whether or not a student will be promoted. According to the test
makers themselves as well as state and federal education agencies, this practice is improper, violating
professional testing standards. The policy ignores better, sounder, less discriminatory means of
identifying students who need the most help.
The SAT-10 was not designed to determine student promotion status. Using a test for a purpose for
which it was not designed is considered an improper use by the test makers, the nationally-accepted
standards for the testing profession, the state of Illinois, and the U. S, Department of Education.
The test makers, Harcourt Assessment, state in their Guide for Organizational Planning,
Another misuse of standardized achievement test scores is making promotion and retention decisions for
individual students solely on the basis of these scores. This is an undesirable practice for a number of
reasons. Perhaps the most important reason is that national standardized achievement tests are not built
to serve this purpose...they cannot provide complete coverage of any local curriculum.11
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 9
In a letter written to PURE on May 11, 2009, Marcilene Dutton, Deputy General Counsel, Illinois State
Board of Education, stated:
Using ISAT scores as the basis for student promotion and retention is not an ISBE policy or practice.12
A January 27, 2009 e-mail from Judith Steinhauser, representing ISBE, to parent Wade Tillett, stated:
the purpose of ISAT, its reliability and validity authenticated by a staff of psychometricians, is to
calculate school accountability which is reported to the federal government as Adequate Yearly
Progress. It is not the intention of the state to use the test for anything else.
The USDE manual, “Taking Responsibility for Ending Social Promotion,” states:
When a statewide or districtwide test is being used to determine student promotion, the state or district
must be able to provide professionally acceptable evidence that the test is valid and reliable for the
purpose for which it is being used. If a state or district chooses to use a test as a principal criterion for
decisions about student promotion, the test must be designed for this use and there must be evidence that
it is appropriate to use the test as a sole or principal criterion.13
CPS improperly uses the SAT-10 as a sole criterion for making promotion decisions, a practice
opposed by the test maker, state officials, and national experts.
The makers of the SAT-10 state:
Achievement test scores may certainly enter into a promotion or retention decision. However, they
should be just one of the many factors considered and probably should receive less weight than factors
such as teacher observation, day-to-day classroom performance, maturity level, and attitude.14
The ISAT “professional practices” manual lists under “Prohibitions: Actions that must be avoided
when reporting test results”:
• No person or organization shall make a decision about a student or educator on the basis
of a single test. 15
The National Research Council, in their major study on student assessment, states this principle clearly:
(A)n educational decision that will have a major impact on a test taker should not be made solely or
automatically on the basis of a single test score. Other relevant information about the student’s
knowledge and skills should also be taken into account.16
Standard 13.7 of the Standards for Psychological and Educational Testing reads as follows:
In educational settings, a decision or characterization that will have a major impact on a student should
not be made on the basis of a single test score.17
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 10
The Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education prepared by the Joint Committee on Testing Practices calls on
test users to
Avoid using a single test score as the sole determinant of decisions about test takers. Interpret test scores
in conjunction with other information about individuals.18
CPS has established multiple barriers to promotion, while falsely contending that they are multiple
measures. After PURE filed a discrimination complaint against the policy in 1999, CPS began to
include classroom grades and attendance in the promotion decision. But instead of using these other
criteria as true multiple measures, which testing experts recommend, the policy uses them as multiple
barriers.
It is critical to understand the difference between multiple barriers and multiple measures. Under
multiple barriers, the student must meet all of several listed criteria. Under multiple measures, also
called multiples sources of evidence, the various measures are not used separately, but are combined,
and a decision is based on the evidence in its totality, not used separately. True multiple measures may,
for example, use a weighting system to reflect the proportionate usefulness of different assessments.
Alternatively, results may be added together using a point system to come up with a total number, or
one or more positive results may compensate for, or “outweigh,” a less positive outcome.
As noted above, the test makers themselves say that the test
should be just one of the many factors considered and probably should receive less weight than
factors such as teacher observation, day-to-day classroom performance, maturity level, and attitude19
(emphasis added)
In fact, in the CPS promotion policy, each measure operates as a single deciding factor, each of
which on its own can be used to retain the student. In other words, CPS students must meet the cut
scores on the district-wide assessment (DWA) and grade standards and attendance requirements, in
order to be promoted without attending summer school (if at all).
Test scores alone are explicitly used in several of the policy's high-stakes decisions. For example,
eighth-grade students are banned from graduation with their classmates if they do not meet all of these
measures. Students whose DWA scores were below the cut off point must pass one end-of-summerschool
test in order to be promoted to the next grade.
Other useful information such as student attendance, academic performance throughout the school year,
and faculty recommendations are readily available. These factors are indeed considered when a student
successfully exceeds the cut-off score, but then only in a negative sense; low attendance or a failing
grade will also bar that student from graduation or send him or her to summer school.
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 11
Stated simply, students can be hurt by their attendance and academic performance, but these measures
cannot help them. They are multiple barriers, not multiple measures, which means that each one of the
measures is a single high-stakes measure.
CPS does not follow its own requirements to monitor the effects of the Policy for any discriminatory
impact.
V. The cost of this failed Policy is not justified when CPS is drastically cutting
critical services to students and laying off teachers.
Flunking students results in an additional year of schooling. At the current CPS-estimated per-pupil
annual expenditure of some $11,000, CPS spent nearly $100 million to retain 9,000 children in 2008.
The current promotion policy generates other costs as well. Prof. House reported that “In Chicago the
summer schools cost $25 million in 1996, $34 million in 1997, and $42 million in 1998. Chicago's
extra teachers and after-school programs for retained elementary students cost at least $12 million.” 20
Of course, 10 years later, those estimates would have to be nearly doubled.
The Consortium expressed concern about this high cost:
In the end, the practice of retention is monetarily and academically costly. It involves investing in an
extra year of schooling. It makes students overage for grade, and as a result, increases the risk of school
dropout, an outcome with a substantial set of social costs. Instructionally, high-stakes testing leads to
substantial costs in time on test preparation, and it directs resources away from early intervention. If an
expensive policy is simply not working, as concluded in this report, it would make little sense to
invest more money in it rather than to redirect that money toward alternatives (emphasis added). 21
Yet, five years after this report as written, CPS continues to throw good money after bad, to the tune of
over $1 billion ($1,000,000,000) since the program began in 1996.
Enormous cost to society: The cost of failed education policies is even more mind-boggling. Cutting
the dropout rate in half would yield $45 billion annually in new federal tax revenues or cost savings,
according to the Columbia University cost-benefit report. The study breaks the savings down this way:
The average lifetime benefit in terms of additional taxes paid per expected high school graduate
is $139,100.
· The average lifetime public health savings per expected high school graduate (achieved
through reduction in Medicare and Medicaid costs) is $40,500. For black females, the
highest users of these programs, the figure is $62,700.
· The average lifetime crime-related cost reduction per expected high school graduate is
$26,600.
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 12
· Being a high school graduate is associated with a 40 percent lower probability of
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); a 1 percent lower probability of
receiving housing assistance; and a 19 percent lower probability of receiving food
stamps. For college graduates, the probability reductions are 62 percent, 35 percent and
54 percent. 22
To justify its practices under the Policy, with their severe disparate impact and their enormous costs –
both immediate and long-term – CPS bears a weighty burden. Its evidence does not suffice.
VI. The Policy is not justified by any compelling educational reason, and costeffective,
less discriminatory alternatives are available.
Some assert that standardized tests scores are the only “objective” measures of student progress, and so
are educationally necessary. Education experts disagree. In 2004, the Joint Organizational Statement on
NCLB was developed which is currently supported by 151 education, civil rights, and civic
organizations across the nation. The Joint Statement calls for the use of multiple measures which could
include classroom, school, district and state tests; extended writing samples; tasks, projects,
performances, and exhibitions; and selected samples of student classroom work, such as portfolios.
Gathering this rich information would enable states, communities, schools, parents, teachers and
students to know more about student learning and better improve schools. In addition, using such highquality
information could allow states to test less frequently, as many states did before NLCB.23
Student learning deficiencies are not identified or addressed soon enough; current interventions are
not effective.
Our children need more from CPS. Chicago's results on the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) have been mixed at best, and show that our schools are not doing enough, even in
comparison to other large urban school districts. The Consortium reports that many CPS students are so
far behind by the third grade that it is a huge task to help them catch up. They state that the average low
performing CPS student
started substantially behind the average CPS student in first grade, and the achievement gap for these
groups widened most significantly between first and third grade, before CPS's promotional policy took
effect. Waiting until third or sixth grade to identify these students and intervene seems a nonjudicious
use of resources. 24
They further recommend:
school systems must invest in developing effective early assessment, instruction, and intervention
approaches that identify students who are not moving forward and provide appropriate supports.25
In addition to improved assessment practices, other sound, effective alternatives to flunking and
high-stakes testing exist and could be implemented using the savings from ending retention.
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 13
There are many sound, research-based strategies for addressing our children's critical educational
needs. A good summary of these ideas can be found in the report, “North Carolina Early Grade
Retention in the Age of Accountability,” based on a review of research and of successful practices of
North Carolina schools with good records of low retention rates and high achievement levels:
· Start early.
· Implement interventions in the context of the regular classroom setting.
· Coordinate and communicate with teachers and staff.
· Involve parents.
· Provide after school support.
· Offer enriched summer activities, presenting review material in new ways.
· Emphasize literacy.
· Provide high-quality professional development to all staff on working with at-risk students.
· Connect with community resources.
· Provide “can-do” leadership. 26
A similar set of alternative strategies is offered by the Columbia University’s Center for Benefit-Cost
Studies of Education at Teachers College:
In general, the study’s authors identify several features that characterize effective school
interventions: small-size schools; personalization; high academic expectations; strong counseling;
parental engagement; extended time; and competent and appropriate personnel. They note that one
of the interventions, First Things First, has the largest economic benefits relative to costs and
combines all these features. Other interventions ….include Perry Preschool Project, Chicago Parent-
Center Program, class size reduction, and increasing teacher salaries.27
Unfortunately, despite the opposition of PURE and others over the years, CPS phased out the Child
Parent Centers, which had a strong track record of success giving low-income children of color a great
foundation for their education that persisted over time.28
PURE OCR complaint, 12/08/10, p. 14
Remedies we request
1. Because retention has not worked in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), and has
harmed children, PURE recommends that CPS stop flunking students.
2. Because single high-stakes test scores are not good indicators of student progress,
PURE recommends that CPS implement an accurate, sound assessment system using
high quality formative and summative assessments in all subjects, as well as other indicators to provide
evidence of improved student learning and school quality. These assessments must be based on state
standards and the local curriculum, assess higher-order thinking and other 21st century skills, and
provide multiple opportunities and approaches for students to demonstrate their learning. The primary
use of these assessments should be to improve instruction and enable teachers to better address each
student's strengths and needs.
3. Because too many children are not receiving the help they need, PURE recommends
that schools create a personal learning plan (PLP) for any child determined to be behind or at
risk of falling behind academically. CPS's role would be to assure that schools have adequate resources
to implement each PLP, that PLPs are being implemented, and that they are effective. Parents would be
involved in both the development of the PLP and its implementation. PLPs would be monitored at least
quarterly and adjusted as needed.
4. Because we are wasting between $100 and $200 million annually on flunking
students, PURE recommends that CPS redirect those resources toward:
· implementing high-quality early childhood education programs such as the now-defunct Child
Parent Centers,
· strengthening parent involvement,
· creating student Personal Learning Plans,
· implementing appropriate evaluations for special education services and increasing high-quality
special education services,
· expanding the use of teacher aides, augmenting supports for English language learns (CPS has
curtailed instruction for bilingual students),
· redesigning summer school programs so that they better meet students' needs,
· reducing class sizes in the most at-risk schools, retaining experienced teachers with demonstrated
ability to serve high-risk students, and
· replicating other proven programs and practices.
Julie Woestehoff date
PURE Executive Director


0 Comments

October 29th, 2015

10/29/2015

0 Comments

 
YOU SEE BOTH REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC VOTERS FIGHTING THIS KIND OF EDUCATION REFORM-----


The article below from back in 2011 shows deregulation of public schools with this bill allowing for corporate sponsorship of schools deemed 'public'.  These laws are unconstitutional as these kinds of private donations are not allowed by Federal law.  When Obama uses Executive Order to install a Federalism Act---he is telling Republican states like Louisiana to go ahead and do that and my Justice Department will not enforce these Federal education laws.  These Federal laws are still there---just being ignored.  So, Republicans moving to deregulate and corporatize the whole K-12 public school system are now moving forward against equal protection and access for all public schools with these laws having corporations become the major benefactor for schools called public.  BALTIMORE CITY AS A NEO-CONSERVATIVE CITY UNDER JOHNS HOPKINS allows the same policies as charter schools are allowed private and corporate donations and still be called 'public' 

WHICH IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL IF A MAYOR OF BALTIMORE CONTESTED THESE POLICIES.

Baltimore City Hall even allowed the national corporation Exelon 'donate' $1 million to one charter school----'public'-----in exchange for an illegal corporate tax break of $100 million.


Senate passes bill allowing corporate sponsorship of charter schools in exchange for student slots, board seats
By Bill Barrow, The Times-Picayune

on June 20, 2011 at 12:30 PM, updated June 20, 2011 at 12:53 PM




BATON ROUGE -- Over the objections of some public school advocates, the Louisiana Senate voted 22-16 Monday to allow corporations to sponsor charter schools in exchange for controlling up to half of the enrollment slots and half of the governing board seats.


File photoRep. Steve CarterHouse Bill 421 by Rep. Steve Carter, R-Baton Rouge, must return to the House, where the lower chamber is expected to approve only minor changes and send the bill on to Gov. Bobby Jindal, who announced his support for the measure in January. The House approved the bill 72-23 earlier in the session.
Chambers of commerce and other business lobbies pitched the bill as another incentive for business to come to Louisiana.
"This new business-charter school partnership legislation will help feed the pipeline of qualified workers for Louisiana businesses while creating important career opportunities for students," the governor said in a speech to business leaders earlier this year.
During floor debate, Sen. Julie Quinn, R-Metairie, called the bill "another tool in the toolbox" both for economic development and expanding educational opportunities, particularly families that cannot afford private school tuition.
Opposing senators decried the bill as another effort to chip away at public schools. Most of the outspoken opponents were Democrats, but Republican Buddy Shaw of Shreveport offered the most impassioned plea against the measure.
"You know what you're saying?" the retired public school principal said. "You're saying our public schools are not worth a damn! Let me tell you something, our public schools are worth something. They're not where we want them to be, but let's focus on that, and not on some business coming in."
New Orleans Democrats J.P. Morrell, Cynthia Willard-Lewis and Karen Carter Peterson described themselves as supportive of the charter school system that has blossomed in the city since Hurricane Katrina. But they said the measure goes too far in carving out seats from general admission.
"Public schools have to take everyone," Willard-Lewis said.

Sen. Mike Walsworth, R-West Monroe, replied in support of the bill, "Let's invite people into public education to help our kids. Let's invite business in as a partner to help our schools, help our teachers and, most of all, help our kids."
In order to qualify for enrollment preference and board influence, a corporate sponsor would have to either donate the land of which a school is built; provide at no cost the building or space the school occupies; or provide "major renovations to the existing school building or other capital improvements including major investments in technology." The bill defines qualifying renovations or investments as equal to at least 50 percent of the school's state appropriation under the minimum foundation program formula.
Florida has had a similar framework several years. Less than a half-dozen schools have been chartered there under a corporate partnership, according to Carter.
By a 15-20 vote, senators rejected an amendment that would have reduced to 25 percent the board seats and student slots that a sponsor could control. A similar amendment also failed in the House when the bill was in the lower chamber. In that debate, Minority Leader John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, said he didn't have a philosophical problem with the bill but said he had a problem "allowing them to do it on the cheap."
Echoing that argument, Willard-Lewis said the long-term effect is that the state will subsidize the education of the corporately selected students at a cost well beyond the firm's initial investment.
Peterson asked, "Where are the checks and balances" on a board effectively controlled by a single company? The charter would still have to be issued by a public school authority -- either state or local -- that retains oversight of charters. Those bodies also can pull charters they have issued.
Morrell wondered what would happen if a "porn shop or strip club ... or casino" wants to sponsor a school. Quinn chided Morrell for hyperbole, but answered, "I think we would welcome a business, casino or otherwise."
The bill continues a recent trend of the Legislature embracing policies that redirect tax dollars away from traditional public schools to charter programs, private school tuition scholarships and tax breaks for families that pay private school tuition. A separate bill this session, which now awaits Jindal's signature, would allow a household to deduct from their taxable income up to $5,000 in private school tuition and expenses per child.
_______________
Philadelphia and Baltimore have similar corporate education reforms occurring-----but you would not see a vote like this in support of protecting a community public school----Baltimore would simply have a public meeting that told parents the charter would be taking over.  This is how Wall Street education privatizers are taking advantage of citizens across the nation----in states or cities where Republican/neo-liberal control is strong---they simply ignore Federal public education laws assuming no one will fight this in Federal courts.

Below you see what is happening in communities fighting for strong public schools and against this corporate charter takeover.  WE NEED BALTIMORE CITIZENS STEPPING INTO THIS FIGHT!  All Baltimore City Hall and Maryland Assembly pols push these corporatization laws for neo-conservative Johns Hopkins


*****************************************************************


'Principal Ximena Carreño was likewise exhilarated.

“It’s a big thing,” she said, beaming. “For me, it’s like, I don’t know, a miracle. The community was with us, all the time. I’m very tired – but I’m so happy. So happy.”

ASPIRA officials left quickly after the vote was counted'.


Now they say they have to fight for the funding/resources this public school should have!



Muñoz-Marín parents vote decisively to keep school within the District


By Bill Hangley Jr. on Jun 6, 2014 09:56 AM


Photo: Bill Hangley Jr.
The principal of Muñoz-Marín, Ximena Carreño (in black), celebrates the results of Thursday's vote.

Updated | 3:50 p.m.: Superintendent William Hite announced that Muñoz-Marín will remain a traditional District school, saying, “Parents and guardians have chosen a path for their school and we are going to support their choice and quickly move forward with the very important work of improving outcomes for students at Muñoz Marín.”


A long, lively day of voting at Muñoz-Marín School in North Philadelphia ended with a decisive victory for the school’s current administration, with parents rejecting a proposed match with a charter provider, ASPIRA, and electing to remain under District management.
“It’s 223 for traditional public school and 70 for ASPIRA,” spokesperson Fernando Gallard announced at 7:45 Thursday night to a roar of delight from the school’s jubilant supporters and staff.


In a separate vote Thursday, parents on Muñoz-Marín’s School Advisory Council also voted to reject ASPIRA, 11-0.
“We were right. And we won,” shouted Vivian Rodriguez, a retired teacher and vocal supporter of the school, as Muñoz-Marín supporters danced and chanted around her. “You know what 11-0 means? That means, ‘in your face!’”
Principal Ximena Carreño was likewise exhilarated.
“It’s a big thing,” she said, beaming. “For me, it’s like, I don’t know, a miracle. The community was with us, all the time. I’m very tired – but I’m so happy. So happy.”
ASPIRA officials left quickly after the vote was counted. The provider had not been optimistic going in, but CEO Alfredo Calderon said he felt they had done the best they could. “We’re OK,” Calderon said before the vote. “We’re comfortable with the job we did.”
Heidi Gold of the League of Women Voters, which oversaw the vote, said that the balloting went off without a hitch. “A perfect day,” she said, with only a few minor issues, such as the occasional ineligible voter or missing ID.
The League also oversaw the SAC vote, which was equally trouble-free -- unlike last month’s SAC vote at Steel Elementary. At Steel, District officials didn’t report the number of eligible SAC voters until the last minute, resulting in some SAC members being turned away. District officials also monitored the vote themselves without outside observers, and their alleged mishandling of the votes triggered grievances from Steel supporters.
In contrast, at Muñoz-Marín, District officials determined SAC voting eligibility days ago, allowing SAC president Maria Cruz to make sure that all the eligible voters were present. Gold said the SAC vote went thoroughly by the book: “You could have heard a pin drop in there,” she said.
About one-third of 1,000 eligible voters cast ballots – “better than most Philadelphia elections,” said one teacher with a smile.
The scene was a lively one, with supporters for both sides bustling about and chatting with voters, passing cars honking horns, and parents sporting “I Voted” stickers as they headed home.
The school’s support included union organizers and volunteers from the Philadelphia Coalition for Public Schools (PCAPS). ASPIRA had staff and supporters of its own on hand.
And unlike the scene at Steel, election day at Muñoz-Marín featured an active showing of local politicians, all supporting the school’s current administration.
A sound truck provided by Leslie Acosta, the District’s Democratic nominee for the General Assembly (virtually assured of victory in November), drove through the neighborhood all day, urging residents to “get out and vote! Let’s keep this school public!” She and her father, Ralph, a longtime activist and former state senator, were on hand to press the pro-public message, as was local ward leader Carlos Matos.
The polls closed at 7 p.m., and the ballot-counting began.
It wasn’t long before a burst of cheers came from the building, where word of the SAC vote had just leaked out. Inside, Muñoz-Marín supporters began to dance and chant while waiting for Gallard to provide the final tally. At 7:45 p.m. he made the official announcement, triggering a fresh round of cheers and delight from the parents, staff, and school supporters crowded in Muñoz-Marín’s front hall.
None was happier than Cruz, the SAC president, who had been accused by ASPIRA of personally blocking its efforts to get SAC members eligible to vote. ASPIRA filed a written complaint about Cruz just days before the election.
That complaint did not result in any response from the District, and in the end, it appears that almost all SAC members became eligible and voted. “I fought for the parents!” she shouted, hugging friends and supporters in delight.
The two-month campaign, which grew increasingly contentious as election day neared, was not without its cost for the winning side.
Principal Carreño thinks she’ll probably lose some teachers next year, because site-selection deadlines required them to start looking for new jobs before knowing Muñoz-Marín's fate. Her already-overworked staff was stressed by the process, she said. And her plans for school improvements will take money that’s yet to be found.
But for now, Carreño said, she’ll get some rest, and then get started on the next chapter. “The Marín family,” she promised, “will be working together to get better and better and better.”

_______________
I showed yesterday the laws that will be pushed to deregulate state public education rules barring a charter from crossing county lines---public schools are tied to a county administration after all. At the same time Wall Street is developing the structure for a separate charter school board that at first acts as a dual structure with our public school board---but then will replace that public structure. It calls itself as usual----a non-profit. See how everything that is public is pushed to corporate non-profit. NYC is Wall Street is Mayor Bloomberg is Baltimore's Johns Hopkins. So, Baltimore City already has a corporate school board that has almost no connection to what a public school board is about. This shows what will be coming to your neck of the woods as K-12 privatizers move to replace the entire concept of public school boards if national charter chains are allowed to take hold.


NYC Charter Schools Governance and Board Development
Guidebook
Introduction
Charter schools were originally established to provide an alternative to ineffective and
underperforming public schools, especially in underprivileged urban areas. They have grown to
become an innovative and increasingly popular option in public education and have helped inject
several new ideas into the New York public school system, as well as nationwide.
Charter schools are public schools with substantial freedom from state and local regulations.
Instead, they operate by the terms of a five-year "charter" or performance contract to meet specific
goals for academic performance. However, the school’s charter can be revoked if agreed-upon
academic results are not attained.


The Importance of Charter School Boards


Unlike traditional public schools, charter schools are governed by a not-for-profit board of directors,
with legal responsibility to ensure that the school operates efficiently, effectively and in accordance
with the school’s charter, mission, vision and contracted performance goals.
Like most nonprofits, charter schools need a board of directors to help them become a fiscally
sound, thriving and continually improving school that will be around for the long term.
Creating an initial board of directors is an important step in establishing the direction and future
success of a charter school. And as the governance structure and list of board members must be
included in the charter school application process, the initial school board must be determined well
before the school is scheduled to open.
This NYC Charter Schools Governance and Board Development Guidebook, prepared by the
New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, builds upon the best practices of nonprofit,
charter and private school governance training and resources to provide helpful information to
create and sustain an effective charter school board.

About the NYC Center for Charter School Excellence
The Center is an independent, not-for-profit organization, launched in 2004 as a partnership between
New York City and the philanthropic community, with generous support from The Robertson Foundation,
the Robin Hood Foundation, The Pumpkin Foundation and The Clark Foundation.
The mission of the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence is to stimulate the supply of
high quality charter schools and support ongoing student excellence in all NYC charter schools,
impacting the effectiveness of public education. As an independent nonprofit, the Charter Center is
an advocate, bridge and catalyst for the achievement of academic and operational success and
sustainability of all NYC charter schools for each young person.


__________________________________________
Below you see what must be one of the most Republican corporate structures for education privatization outside of NYC-----Indianapolis with a mayor sponsored national charter chain and school board.  This mayor is pure Chamber of Commerce.

In Baltimore we had Baltimore City Council members open their own charters which were used simply to funnel underserved families out of Enterprise Zones and then closed.  BAltimore is no less corporate and has the Baltimore Development Corporation working as hard as this Indiana Economic Development Corporation to make a corporate market of K-12.

I'M SEEING A LOT OF PEOPLE FROM INDIANA IN BALTIMORE!


Meanwhile you see below the citizens of Indiana voted by wide margins a State Superintendent that supports strong public schools----what does this Republican governor and mayor do?  Build a separate education agency to undermine this elected state education official.



“Such a move would infuriate educators and others across the state and worsen what has been a toxic period in state education policy. It would be a slap in the face to voters who elected a Democratic superintendent in 2012',

Indiana: GOP War Against Glenda Ritz
By dianeravitch
November 19, 2014 //
Matthew Tully of the Indianapolis Star calls on Republicans to stop their war against state Superintendent Glenda Ritz. Ritz was elected in 2012, handiy beating incumbent Tony Bennett despite his 10-1 spending advantage. Since her election, the Republican Governor Mike Pence and Legislature and state board have done everything possible to undercut Ritz. Pence even created a rival education agency to bypass Ritz and the state education department.

Now the Governor and Legislature want to abolish her office, nullify the election, and turn the position into a gubernatorial appointment.

Indianapolis Charter School Board
  • Former Lt. Gov. John Mutz – ChairmanFor more than three decades, Mr. Mutz has been an Indiana leader committed to furthering the interests of the state and its residents. Mr. Mutz is a two-term lieutenant governor for the state of Indiana, former president of Lilly Endowment, former chairman of the Indianapolis Department of Waterworks Board and former president of PSI Energy, Indiana's largest electric utility. He also sits on the boards of five corporations in Central Indiana and on the Indiana Economic Development Corporation Board. In addition to Mr. Mutz's terms as lieutenant governor, he also served as a state representative and state senator.
Vision

Through the authorization of high-performing charter schools, the Indianapolis Charter School Board will help make Indianapolis a city where all students in every neighborhood have access to a high-quality education.
RoleIC 20-24-2.3 gives the Indianapolis Charter School Board the authority to grant or reject charter applications submitted to the Mayor of Indianapolis.  Members of the Board believe that high-quality charter schools provide important educational options for students in our city.
Term of ServiceBoard members serve four year renewable terms at the pleasure of their respective appointee.
Board Size and CompositionThe Board consists of nine members, six of whom are appointed by the Mayor of Indianapolis and three of whom are appointed by the President of the City-County Council.
Board MeetingsFind the Board’s meeting schedule here.

*********************************************************

Mayor-Sponsored Charter Schools

The Indianapolis Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation (OEI) is presently responsible for the authorization and oversight of 38 Mayor-sponsored charter schools. View map of our schools here.
Andrew J. Brown Academy
Avondale Meadows Academy
Christel House Academy – South
Christel House Academy – West
Christel House DORS – South
Christel House DORS – West
Charles A. Tindley Accelerated School
Damar Charter Academy
Enlace Academy
Excel Center – Decatur
Excel Center – Franklin Road
Excel Center – Lafayette Square
Excel Center – Meadows
Excel Center – Michigan Street
Excel Center – University Heights
Herron High School
Hope Academy
Indiana College Preparatory School
Indianapolis Lighthouse Charter School
Indianapolis Lighthouse Charter School – East
Indiana Math and Science Academy – North
Indiana Math and Science Academy – South
Indiana Math and Science Academy – West
Indianapolis Metropolitan High School
Irvington Community Elementary School
Irvington Community Middle School
Irvington Preparatory Academy
KIPP Indianapolis College Preparatory
KIPP Indy Unite Elementary
Marion Academy
Paramount School of Excellence
Southeast Neighborhood School of Excellence (SENSE)
Tindley Collegiate Academy
Tindley Genesis Academy
Tindley Preparatory Academy
Tindley Rennaissance Academy
Tindley Summit Academy
Vision Academy @ Riverside

0 Comments

October 28th, 2015

10/28/2015

0 Comments

 
Looking at what legislation the American people can expect from a global corporate Congress and state assembly you have only to look at Republican think tanks like Fordham.  Here in Baltimore, neo-conservative Johns Hopkins is partnered with Fordham in writing all Baltimore education policy.
Using International Economic Zone neo-liberalism as a segue to this education reform I want to remind people that the neo-conservative Texas Bush family are the ones bringing International Economic Zone policy to the US.  This is why Texas went from DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS----to TEXAS IS A MESS.  George Bush made Texas a developing world state and Jeb Bush did the same to Florida.  Both are now ranked at the bottom in the nation for all measures---especially education.  Texas decades ago had citizens shouting against the power of development corporations just as with neo-conservative Johns Hopkins and Baltimore.  One thing that is common in Texas is the word 'sweat shop' as Texas is majority immigrant working in International Economic Zone sweatshops.  Meanwhile, Texas citizens are the major export as they are sent all over the nation working as migrant labor for those global corporations.  Johns Hopkins and Baltimore has lots of Texas ex-pat tradesmen.
The point is this---if you allow these enslaving policies to expand as has happened these few decades of global neo-liberal/neo-con economics----it comes home to roost.  Below you see a Texas mother describing conditions for her daughter in kindergarten as 'sweat shop' because----these education reforms are geared to condition the American people to those neo-liberal hyper-competitive work-all-the-time policies.  If you are going to be the small percentage of people in high-paying administrative jobs---then you are connected to the office all the time.  If you are going to be a sweat shop factory worker then you will work 15-18 hours a day---and that is for what 'sweat-shop' kindergarten is about.

So, white voters both Republican and Democrats are the loudest against this as neo-liberalism moves from exploiting immigrant labor to the American people.


'Thanks for your article on what I’m calling “sweat shop” kindergartens. My great granddaughter is in one in Klein District (Houston TX)'.


‘Sweat shop’ kindergarten: ‘It’s maddening’


By Valerie Strauss June 8, 2014

(2011 photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)Last week I published some kindergarten schedules from school district Web sites that showed just how much kindergarten has changed in recent years as the drive to push curriculum down through the grades has gathered steam. Rather than learn through structured play, which is how experts say young children learn best, 5- and 6-year-olds are being asked to sit doing math, reading and writing for hours at a time, sometimes with no recess or a very short one. Some teachers have dispensed with snacks during half-day kindergarten because there just isn’t any time. Many kindergartners take home homework every day.
Here are some of the reactions to that post. This first one came via e-mail by a longtime educator:
Thanks for your article on what I’m calling “sweat shop” kindergartens. My great granddaughter is in one in Klein District (Houston TX).
The kids sit all day at desks doing work sheets and have home work in reading and math nightly. There is no kindergarten play area inside or outside of the room. No recess, and a brief lunch period in which the children may not talk. Phys ed is twice a week for 30 minutes.
Our little one was six in January but there are kids in the class who were barely five in September as the year started. Some fall asleep and others are behavior problems. There is little communication to parents and the parents are not permitted in the classrooms. Ironically the school is an open space school so during testing week the kindergarten children had to be very quiet to avoid distracting the test takers.
[Our great granddaughter] is conforming but when she comes home she literally runs around in circles or bounces on the backyard trampoline.
And they still call it kindergarten!
And here are some of the comments on the original post. The last one comes from an early childhood educator who was the lead writer of a 2009 report called “Crisis in the Kindergarten,” which I mentioned in my June 2 piece.
aed3
6/2/2014 6:31 PM EST
It isn’t normal for any young child, boy or girl, to have to sit in a chair most of the day.


lmnop1
6/2/2014 1:13 PM EST
I am a teacher and work with Kindergarten students. The biggest downfall to Kindergarten as I see it is that academics have to start on day 1 so there will be time to get through the curriculum and complete the mandated assessments. Many of the students have never been in a classroom before and need to learn how to be a member of the class before they can be ready to learn academic concepts. If a student takes the first 3 or 4 months of school to learn how to actually be in school, then they miss the 3-4 months of instruction and it’s very difficult to catch up. In my opinion, the first marking period (at least) should be focused on social skills and how to behave in school. My students get to have free choice centers once a week if they’re lucky. The day is so jam-packed and so much time has to be spent on teaching behavior and social skills. Teachers are under so much pressure that they feel they cannot take the time needed to teach any skills other than academic ones. The people making the education policy have almost never even set foot inside a classroom, but the teachers are continuosly ignored when we voice our concerns. We are told that we’re just not doing enough or doing it correctly. It is beyond frustrating when we see students struggling and we know the reasons why but pressure from above prevents us from being able to address the problems. I used to love my job but now I completely resent the people with decision-making power and how that trickles down to the children. It’s maddening.
 MidwestPragmatic
6/2/2014 12:56 PM EST
These schedule do not accommodate active children. Since more boys are more active than girls (overall), these schedules will have an undue impact on boys relative to girls. This strikes me as illegally discriminatory and is something that the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) should focus on.
Right now, the OCR is focusing on the disparate impact of disciplinary measures taken against children of color relative to other children. Will these stringent kindergarten schedules make this issue worse? I believe so.
There are some researchers who believe that kids from some cultures have more active learning style than others. How will this impact these children? — not in a good way, I’m sure.


CrunchyMama
6/2/2014 12:03 PM EST
Where’s the MCPS [Montgomery County Public Schools] schedule? The math blocks I see here [on the original post] are piddling in comparison with the 90-minute blocks in math I’ve seen subbing in MCPS.
So yes, I would absolutely believe these Kindergarten schedules. After seeing Kindergarteners regularly falling apart in their classrooms and in my music classes because they don’t have enough time to just “be” or to be 5YO, I’m not at all surprised.
Horrible horrible horrible. Utterly inhumane, utterly inappropriate developmentally, utterly UNSUPPORTED by ANY research — and yet we persist. And we do it the next several years despite Early Childhood encompassing birth thru 8YO. In a typical elementary school without pre-K, FOUR YEARS of the 6 encompassed from K-5 should fall under Early Childhood, and be correspondingly restructured to be more developmentally appropriate.


HuongThao
6/2/2014 10:40 AM EST
Here’s one thing I don’t get, though — students in Asia (who routinely outperform our students) are subjected to much more academic-intensive Kindergarten curriculae.
I’m all for more play in Kindergarten, I just don’t know if the link being made in this article is causative or correlative.


aed3
6/2/2014 11:07 AM EST
They outperform in test-taking. Also, by the time they are tested in higher grades, many of the lower performers have been weeded out.
Check the May 26th article on why Shanghai is dropping out of PISA.


EddieFromWellfleet
6/2/2014 9:50 AM EST
I’m the lead author of “Crisis in the Kindergarten,” the study that Valerie cites at the beginning of this [June 2] column. That report came out in 2009, and things have gotten worse since then.
I’ve spent a lot of time recently substituting in the local schools, and I’ve become convinced that a big part of the problem is a subtle but profound kind of sexism. Almost all kindergarten teachers are women and almost all the people who are making education policy are men. The teachers are routinely ignored by those in power. For example, the committees that wrote the Common Core standards for kindergarten did not include a single kindergarten teacher or even anyone with a background in child development or early childhood education.
The more experienced kindergarten teachers who I meet are universally horrified by what is being done to children, but feel completely powerless to do anything about it. A great many of them have already quit teaching or are planning to do so soon. Many of the younger teachers don’t quite understand what the problem is because they themselves have grown up deprived of play and they have bought in to the idea that academic kindergarten is the way to go. But they are completely at a loss for what to do when the children in their classrooms collapse or melt down in frustration and despair because the demands being made of them are so far beyond their developmental capacity.
What’s the solution? I don’t know. But I urge every father of a kindergartner to take a day off from work and spend it in his child’s classroom, then go back to work and start some conversations about what is happening in our schools.
Ed Miller
Wellfleet, Mass.
ed@ed-at-large.com

______________________________________________
BELOW YOU SEE WHAT WILL ALLOW ALL CITIZENS TO ENJOY 'SWEAT SHOP' KINDERGARTEN POLICIES.

I spoke earlier of attending a public meeting on charter schools in Baltimore and had people running for cover when I outed neo-conservative Johns Hopkins and its CEO NYC Mayor Bloomberg as using Baltimore as a platform for building these national Wall Street charter chains that will install these neo-liberal education policies found in Asia for decades.  Below you see the Hopkins' think tank partner----the Fordham Institute telling us what the next move for education privatizers will be-----

DEREGULATING PUBLIC SCHOOL STRUCTURES MEANS CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE NOT ONLY IN OUR COMMUNITIES AND CITY-----THEY BECOME BRANCHES MOVING INTO OTHER COUNTIES ACROSS THE STATE AND THEY HAVE A SEPARATE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD ALL WHILE BEING DEEMED PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

I have shouted for several years Baltimore was this platform for all Maryland as we saw neo-conservative Governor  Larry Hogan making his first move bringing national charter chain structures to Baltimore. Now, we all know Maryland Assembly is one big global corporate tribunal group----and even as they are posing progressive on keeping charters at bay-----they are feeding this Baltimore City platform...so, those progressive public school policies will disappear as soon as Baltimore is ready to expand its charter chains----and that will be less than a decade if allowed to continue.  KNOW WHO HATES IT MOST?  THE PARENTS IN UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES HAVING THESE CHARTERS SHOVED ONTO THEM.

ALL OF BALTIMORE CITY POLS PUSH NEO-CONSERVATIVE JOHNS HOPKINS AND ITS PRIVATIZATION SCHEME---DEREGULATING AND MAKING CORPORATE MARKETS OF EVERYTHING IN THE CITY.


Parents in affluent Democratic Montgomery County don't want this----neither do parents in conservative Republican Calvert County----liking community charters but not global Wall Street charter chains pushing neo-liberal education.

Using inter-district charter schools as a tool for regional school integration
Clara Allen
October 07, 2015
Since the civil rights era, the United States has struggled with how best to integrate schools—and today is no different, as concerns mount over signs of school re-segregation. This report by the Century Foundation’s Halley Potter argues that charter schools might have a role to play, by using their “flexibility, funding, and political viability” to solve various integration problems.
Charter schools can prove helpful in at least five ways: available funding, the ability to enroll children across district lines, program and curricular autonomy, independent leadership and management, and battle-hardened political effectiveness. As integration programs continue to struggle against political barriers (frequently about funding), school choice leaders could prove to be valuable allies.
Two examples of successful and charter-backed inter-district integration are the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies and Connecticut’s Interdistrict School for Arts and Communication (ISAAC). The Mayoral Academy schools draw their students from four districts, two urban and two suburban, which encompass a broad socioeconomic range. The schools use a weighted lottery system to ensure that they admit an equal number of students from the urban and suburban areas and that at least half of their enrolled students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Not only has the school fostered a diverse and accepting environment—it has narrowed the achievement gap.
Likewise, ISAAC admits students from a socioeconomically diverse collection of twenty school districts and uses similar techniques of weighted admission to ensure that all districts are fairly represented in the student population. In 2014, the school was recognized by Connecticut Voices for Children as one of the only charter schools to meet their high standards for integration.
Unfortunately, these two examples exceptions. The report argues that, too often, myriad obstacles stand between charter schools and integration. State law sometimes prohibits out-of-district enrollment. Elsewhere, impediments like limitations on weighted lotteries and a lack of transportation funding combine to make charters an infrequent tool for desegregation.
Potter views these obstacles as surmountable. The report includes recommendations for state and federal governments, charter authorizers, and communities. She advises lawmakers to rethink and clarify the vague or lenient laws mentioned above, which will give charters more flexibility and, in some cases, more funding. And authorizers and community members should not only give priority to creating schools with integration-centric missions, but also make efforts to continually foster the diversity within schools.
In the end, the report makes a convincing argument that charters can facilitate integration across districts. But myriad obstacles mean that any such trek will be lengthy and politically challenging.
SOURCE: Halley Potter, “Charters Without Borders: Using Inter-District Charter Schools as a Tool for Regional School Integration,” the Century Foundation (September 2015).

______________________________________________

Maryland has an anti-Common Core group that tends to be led by conservative Republicans-----we appreciate this voice although it takes a socially conservative voice in relaying lots of anti-Muslim and socialist commentary.  Cities like Baltimore where the voice should be loudest filled with social Democrats fighting for equal opportunity and access and freedom of thought and parent control----are silenced from this debate by a very neo-conservative and neo-liberal education agenda.

I like to read voices of parents from across the nation because this is a broad and powerful movement media has silenced and it is from all categories of American citizens.

As we see below----the same emphasis on hyper-competition and engagement at all times to moving work forward---in this case school work.  It has no educational value----it simply is geared to take away from a first world democratic society the ability to think independently and to build social structures ----we don't want time away from the STEM that is our lives!

The US has a vast history of progressive education research all showing that these policies are very, very, very bad for learning so this is all indoctrination to International Economic Zone hyper-neo-liberalism.


Rushing through lunch to accommodate rigor has consequences.

7-YEAR-OLD BROOKLYN GIRL ON LIFE SUPPORT AFTER CHOKING ON LUNCH AT SCHOOL
http://abc7ny.com/1052966/
Our hearts go out to this family. No one should have to endure this suffering.
Common core didn’t “cause” this horrible tragedy. However, the idea of rigor that cuts a child’s lunch period to twenty minutes, less time than adults at a paying job get for their lunch, is partly to blame. These parents say this child was rushed to eat daily. So many children are coming home now with half or more of their lunches, saying they had “no time to finish”. Lining up to buy lunch is also taking up half the eating time, and cleaning up as well. Where are the child rights groups?

“Rigor, grit, and tenacity” alone, did not cause this to happen. It was a tragic accident. But, the negatively changed educational landscape and culture of ridiculous expectations for young children is going to lead to consequences.
What has happened to lunch and recess? Younger children often fumble with their lunch boxes and take longer to unpack, eat, and clean up. Special needs children are out of luck entirely. The twenty minutes they get under the new guidelines of “rigor” and focus on test prep and scores, is UNHEALTHY.
They also rush out for their scant recess, as most are told, ‘here is your twenty minutes to eat and get fresh air, use it as you wish.’
Children do not necessarily have the proper judgement to meter their time appropriately. Healthy eating habits, and socialization and exercise have become mutually exclusive.
One New York parent writes:
“Because of teaching to the test and the constant drilling of lessons, there is no time for recess, down time, breaks or anything else except for during their lunch period. So between lining up, waiting in line for lunch, and being forced to go out for recess they have almost no time to eat. (And) my oldest had a 9:45 am lunch period!! How exactly is that considered lunch!!”
These accidents may increase due to this unrealistic expectation of young children. We will also likely see a rise in childhood obesity, due to sitting all day for test prep.
We cannot blame common core for what happened to this poor, poor child. What we can say, is that the culture of rushing children to shove more “rigor” into their day than what is expected of adults, is an accident waiting to happen.
And with all the money being poured into Pearson, why does any school not have choking procedure trained lunch staff?
Another parent writes;
“It does relate to budgets and not having enough money to pay staffing. There should be more adults to assist kids.. Gd forbid a 6 year old drop their tray on the way out.. the wait is even longer because there is nobody there to clean up. But do we added on two or three lunch aides or keep a music or gym teacher? Decisions decisions.”
There is this:
5 Reasons the Common Core Is Ruining Childhood.
“Inadequate time to socialize: You know what’s really taken a hit in recent years? Recess. Some schools don’t have it at all. Recess is when kids truly practice social skills. They take turns. They negotiate. They initiate friendships. They learn to cope with disappointment. Sometimes they work together. Sometimes they don’t. But either way, they learn to work it out. But not if they don’t have recess.
Poor eating habits and insufficient exercise: You can’t turn on the TV or open a magazine without hearing about obesity in America these days. It’s a problem. And yet, a school lunch is often 15-20 minutes long, forcing kids to wolf down food before the bell rings. So much for listening to hunger cues and chatting with friends — there is no time for that.”
See more:
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4153698.

The incredible Shrinking Lunch:
“Many school districts, feeling the intense pressure created by standardized testing, continue to shortchange students when it comes to giving them adequate time to eat.”
“RW: Kids who aren’t given adequate time to eat lunch, often go hungry. School lunchrooms can be among the most unpleasant places to spend one’s time for a variety of reasons. Kids are often herded into the cafeteria like cattle, refused water from the nearby fountain, told to not socialize, and subjected to whistles, flashing lights–in often congested and windowless environments. Sound like fun?
Adding insult to injury is that many kids will have seven minutes or less to consume their lunch, making for garbage bins filled with uneaten food and rumbling tummies headed back to their classrooms. I have a vision that all schools will provide adequate time for students to consume their meals while socializing in a pleasant environment that is conducive to a pleasant and satisfying eating experience. When students are nourished, they are better able to perform well in school–and in life.”

And yet one super has a nonsense fix;
“I wish there were a happy ending to this story. But after listening sympathetically to our concerns, the superintendent issued a new policy: henceforth, the kids would have “no less than fifteen minutes” to eat — which in practice has meant that kids still sometimes end up with only ten minutes. Oh, and kids would no longer be made to wear their winter clothes to lunch — the time for getting dressed would be taken out of their recess instead. Meanwhile, the superintendent argued that the best solution would be to lengthen the school day.”
How pathetic is this cop out solution? Add time to the school day? This has been the Duncan dream all along. More time for rigor and test prep for these babies. Less time with families and for healthy extra curricular activities. More school to accommodate more test prep with an age inappropriate curriculum cannot be the go to response. Parents and educators MUST fight for better.

http://www.thelunchtray.com/the-too-short-school-lunch-period-what-can-parents-do/

This is an unspeakable tragedy. Please keep this child and family in your thoughts.
While education DEFORM is not entirely to blame, this new culture of rushing these kids through their days that should be magical learning experiences, is wrong. The Deformers are simultaneously placing unreasonable expectations on minors, and adding insult to injury by providing inadequate staff, which is a recipe for disaster. We must return to respect for children and childhood.
We must fight for child rights and return to reason. We must take back our schools.

#bringbackcommonsense

______________________________________________
It is Johns Hopkins pushing all of these privatized policies and their School of Education pushing teaching schools to promote these policies AND IT IS JOHNS HOPKINS THAT FAILS AGAIN!

Maryland has always had one of the weakest MSA tests in the nation---it is why Maryland gets the higher test scores and ranks high. Common Core will lower these standardized test scores for this reason alone. Half of Maryland students had scores that fell but Baltimore City had the largest declines----even as administrators juked the stats by taking the weakest students out of school the day of these tests. Baltimore City schools have almost eliminated liberal arts and humanities just to teach to math and reading and after several years of Alonzo touting his policies were working---we see again all that was false.
Baltimore City needs to stop and assess if these drops in achievement are because of student ability OR BECAUSE OF THE EDUCATION POLICIES OF TEACH TO THE TEST AND EDUCATION PRIVATIZATION MOVING TO CANNED ONLINE LESSONS. Baltimore City has an appointed school board filled with corporate and education privatization board members with a very corporate Superintendent in Alonzo and now Thornton installing the most corporate of education reforms. THIS IS TO WHAT WE NEED TO LOOK.
'Baltimore City, which had the state's largest declines in math, also had the worst scores in the state in both reading and math'.


Why I'm pulling my kid out of PARCC
April 3, 2015 Baltimore Sun

We don't need PARCC to know if our kids are learning.
While my 3rd grader doesn't mind taking tests, I am one of the many parents in Maryland refusing PARCC on behalf of their children ("The problem with PARCC: Children should not be leaving standardized tests in tears," March 25). That's because the state-mandated administration of high-stakes tests negatively impacts my child's education every single day. In Baltimore City, 15 percent of all instruction time has been taken away from our children to accommodate testing this year. Even worse, many of the remaining instruction hours are focused on a narrowed curriculum bent on ensuring good test results. Teachers are handcuffed by testing requirements, severely limiting how much they can adapt lessons to the unique needs of their individual classrooms.
Data collected over the past 10 years shows that high-stakes tests like PARCC do not improve learning. In fact, learning progress has stagnated since these types of tests were instituted under No Child Left Behind (National Research Council study, Hout & Elliott, 2011). If not effective at advancing student results, why invest in these tests when we already have many tools in place to assess student progress? On top of the regular assessments teachers conduct in the classroom, all Baltimore City students receive district-mandated quarterly assessments. For state level assessments, there are bi-annual National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests.
If, as some claim, the PARCC tests are meant to inform a more rigorous curriculum, that data could easily be obtained by testing a sample of students anonymously at well-spaced intervals. Such an approach would be cheaper and less disruptive than testing every child every year. Yearly PARCC assessments for every student seem more ideally suited to generating data for annual performance reviews of individual teachers and schools — with firings and school closings the logical outcome for "underperformers." In other words, PARCC will serve as a metrics sledgehammer, further dismantling the foundation of a public school system already deprived of resources by state budget cuts and funding diverted to charter schools.
Parents do not need to tolerate a system of over-testing that makes it harder for our children to learn, create and grow in their classrooms. Refusing PARCC to protect our students against the damages of high-stakes testing is the right of every parent in Maryland — and our lawmakers should introduce opt-out legislation that makes the process more reasonable. To strengthen our schools, we should demand investment in methods proven to advance learning progress, such as smaller class sizes, because our kids — and our schools — are so much more than just test scores.
Brita Jenquin, Baltimore
__________________________________________

I wanted to share this for my Baltimore friends who do not have the luxury of having education policy discussions with opposing views----we are simply told the money will be used this way. The elementary school in my area was gearing up for this pre-K funding with a small play area for these children when all of a sudden----this plan changed and all funding ended up going to corporate non-profits and for-profit pre-K in Baltimore. Again, public schools that could have absorbed that funding to classrooms again have separate entities handling children moving into public K classrooms. This is important because these youngsters are at the age where learning skill development is critical and when you have no oversight and accountability of all these deregulated private pre-K schools---you will see inequity.
Hawaii had this Constitutional fight last year----you can hear in this video the powerful voices behind the corporate policies against the public school teachers as the only voice for NO.

Hawaii State Funding for Private Early Childhood Education Programs, Amendment 4 (2014)





Amendment 4

Click here for the latest news on U.S. ballot measures
Quick stats
Type:Constitutional amendment
Constitution:Hawaii Constitution
Referred by:Hawaii Legislature
Topic:Education
Status:Defeated



The Hawaii State Funding for Private Early Childhood Education Programs, Amendment 4 was on the November 4, 2014 ballot in Hawaii as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment, where it was defeated.

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October 27th, 2015

10/27/2015

0 Comments

 
I'll be back Wednesday with education policy----I am in conferences all day today!!!!




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October 26th, 2015

10/26/2015

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"If you want to get the feeling of where Clinton neo-liberalism takes women in the US American TV is a good start.  After the 2008 economic crash and the neo-liberal/neo-con outing as part of this massive Wall Street looting of America and the world----we saw a distinctive movement towards US TV shows depicting neo-liberal values----the dark anti-heroes breaking all the moral, ethical, and legal rules to make decisions shown to be always right-----or the caddy, self-obsessed reality shows were everyone is made to clueless----and finally the Survival series where people band together to undermine other people any way they can.  THIS IS NEO-LIBERAL CONDITIONING FOR AMERICAN SOCIETY.

I watch two TV shows while I eat dinner these days-----the Rifleman and later Two Broke Girls.  These depict Rule of Law and doing right over self-interest vs Hillary's guide to startup success.  Two Broke Girls show the effects Hillary neo-liberalism seeks to push onto a once first world woman----these two women state all the time they are only about themselves----have no way of relating to needs of others----ready to break all rules of moral, ethical, and legal standards to advance their cupcake startup----and of course they are both brought to selling or giving themselves sexually to advance this.  An episode of Two Broke Girls cannot have less than 3 mentions of penis----5 mentions of sex as the answer to all disappointments----and glorifies living in a dumpster as being hip.  Now, after a decade of Three Men in Malibu creating the image of women as tramps and leeches-----we have exactly what neo-liberalism thinks of women.

As a women's rights activist I am not a prude---but the movement these few decades to soaring domestic abuse, rape, bullying, sexting by minors all encompasses the breakdown with the rights of women in the US and around the world brought by neo-liberalism.......profiting at any cost anyway you can.

The 1960s was about moving women away from being a sexual object and advance the image of women as a professional and today women are the ones losing most employment and the growth of black market prostitution and sex trade is soaring.



Black Unemployment Crisis: Loss Of Government Jobs Hurts African Americans Hardest

Posted: 06/07/2011 7:26 am EDT Updated: 08/07/2011 5:12 am EDT


10 Men Making Waves For Women In Tech


Posted Oct 8, 2014 by Ruthe Farmer (@ruthef)On September 20, UN Women announced the HeForShe campaign, an effort to invite men and boys to join in advocating for gender equality.


Where have all the women's jobs gone?By Tami Luhby @CNNMoney April 20, 2012: 6:12 AM ET

women held more than 92% of the jobs lost under President Obama.



Moms 'opting in' to work find doors shut
By Kelly Wallace, CNN


Updated 3:41 PM ET, Tue August 13, 2013


Women opt back into the workforce
I remember exactly how taken aback I felt back in 2003 when I read the now infamous story called "The Opt-Out Revolution" in the "New York Times Magazine" by Lisa Belkin. The article profiled highly educated, professional women who were leaving their high-profile career positions to be home with their kids.
"What?" "How could they do that?" "Aren't they throwing their great educations and careers away?"
Those were just some of the questions I asked about a move I totally did not get.
Three years later, I had my first daughter and immediately realized not only that I had no business passing judgment on those "opt-out" women a few years earlier but that they were making a difficult choice (a choice we should note most women don't have the privilege of making, but still a tough one). They were choosing to focus on raising their kids because juggling their children and a hard-charging career just wasn't working.
As a new mom who at first couldn't imagine leaving my infant for an hour to get a haircut, let alone for 10 to 12 hours a day, I understood some of what might have been motivating their decisions.
Since then, as a working mom of two girls, the work-life balance conundrum has become a personal passion. I moved my career in a direction that allowed me to focus full-time on this issue and others affecting women and moms, and also have more time for my family.
Two of my biggest pet peeves continue to be why companies don't do more to help women and men, moms and dads, balance work and family, and why corporate America doesn't recognize the potential of moms looking to return to the workforce and make it easier for them to get back in.
Both issues were illuminated in last weekend's "New York Times Magazine," with an updated story, ten years after the first article set off a nationwide debate. The article titled "The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In" profiled women who left their jobs and were now trying to return to the workforce.
Kuae Kelch Mattox, a former NBC News producer and one of the three women profiled in the first "New York Times" story, has been looking "in earnest" for a paying job for two to three years.
Since leaving the workforce in 2000, she raised three children, became president of the PTA and took on a non-paid position as president of Mocha Moms, a non-profit for moms of color who have chosen not to work full-time outside of the home to devote more time to raising their families. But when it comes to that experience, most people she's encountered in interviews "don't get it at all," she said.
"I think one of the hugest problems for stay-at-home moms, particularly those who volunteered for a period of time, is helping companies and corporations understand our value now," she said from her Montclair, New Jersey, home.

"I have not lost any brain cells. What I knew back then when I worked for these companies, I haven't lost," she added. "The only thing that has happened is I've gained additional experience and additional expertise and additional knowledge, which to me should be completely appealing to the employer, but unfortunately it's the reverse."
Mattox said her nonprofit recently conducted a survey of its members, asking the stay-at-home moms whether they were thinking about going back to work. 38.3% said they wanted to return but were having difficulty getting back in and an "overwhelming" 53.7% cited resistance to hiring because of their stay-at-home status, said Mattox.
"The stigma, it is still there," she said. "It is deeply and firmly entrenched, and it's got to go away."
No question the 2007 downturn, followed by a recession, high unemployment and declining consumer confidence made the challenge for moms who want to get back in much greater. They're now competing with women and men who are also out of work but who have more current experience.
I was curious what Lisa Belkin, now a senior columnist for The Huffington Post covering work and family, thought a decade after writing the article that she said she still gets asked about today. I invited her for coffee and learned she's encouraged by what she's seen over the past 10 years.
"There's been progress; there's been change," she said.
The women who opted out helped pave the way for much of the flexibility in the workforce that we see today, she told me at a Greenwich Village café. Belkin remembered a law partner who once told her his business invested $100,000 in training and time for every attorney employed by the firm, a losing investment when moms opt out. "That's $100,00 walking out the door," he told her. So businesses like his decided to figure out how to keep them through job flexibility and leave policies.
"It costs so much to train them. You want to retain them. That's true of any business, so that women were willing to leave meant that a lot of these places had to figure out how to keep them," said Belkin, a mom of two. "I think that's at the root of whatever flexibility we see today."
But it just feels like progress isn't coming fast enough, I said in response, especially when it comes to helping women like Mattox opt back in.
"The workplace isn't what it was," said Belkin. Women might have expected they could get back in based on their skill set or because they were so valuable in their professions, she said. "But so are an awful lot of people who have been laid off the past five years whose experience is more recent."
Perhaps the biggest lesson from the women who opted out and are having trouble getting back in is "not always having an eye" on their return, said Belkin.
"All of them saw it as a pause, not a stop, but if you want to come back, you have to plan for that when you leave," she said. "You can't just hope it's going to happen or you are certainly not going to be as successful if you just hope it's going to happen."
Mattox said, looking back, she probably should have done more to pave the way for her eventual return to the workforce.
"I would have been more aggressive, and I would have been more active," said the mom of three, whose kids are 10, 13 and 16. "I think I would have felt a greater sense of urgency to get back."
"Clearly it's taking longer than it used to," she added.
Dorothy Liu, one of my roommates in college and mom to a soon to be 10-year-old, founded a company, VELAtrio Consulting, more than 10 years ago with two other moms who also moved off the corporate track seeking better work-life balance.
A key focus of their business is mentoring women back into the workplace, which is why something Liu wrote on Facebook about moms trying to opt back in really got my attention.
"These are former 'chiefs' who are (OK) being one of the rank and file, have a proven track record and are experienced enough to not fall prey to office politics and other nonsense," she wrote. "Unfortunately, no one seems to have cracked the code on tapping into this incredible resource."
Maybe someone will, and hopefully soon.


_________________________________________

The more immigrants migrate to the US as their nations devolve into chaos----these two decades see what has happened over decades in Asia-----women being abducted and forced into prostitution.  They follow the immigrant workers taken to International Economic Zones and as the US starts this policy this is growing.  In Baltimore in just a few years we are seeing this growth in sex trafficing.

It is not only immigrant women facing this growing symptom of Clinton/Obama/Bush neo-liberal/neo-conservatism----American women are now pushed more and more into black market prostitution. 

NEO-LIBERALISM IS ABOUT DEGRADING WOMEN----AND BILL AND HILLARY ARE THE FACE OF THIS WORLDWIDE---IT IS A DISGRACE FOR ANY WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION TO SUPPORT HILLARY.



Hispanic And Latino Brothels, Prostitution Rising in American Cities
By Carlos Garcia (staff@latinpost.com)
First Posted: Apr 07, 2014 05:42 PM EDT
A female police officer posing as a prostitute opens her coat for a driver who stopped for her on Holt Boulevard, known to sex workers throughout southern California as "the track," during a major prostitution sting operation in 2004 in Pomona, California. (Photo : Getty)

A recent study commissioned by the Justice Department and conducted by the Urban Institute think tank that investigated the sex trade in eight big American cities: Miami, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Denver, Kansas City, San Diego, and Seattle. One major revelation found out in the study was that Hispanic prostitutes and pimps are a growing part of the sex trade. The overall national demand for sex work does not appear to be in a state of growth, with industry earnings shrinking by as much as 37 percent in five of the major American cities, grossing a mere $40 million annually compared to the $32 billion figure that accounts for the human sex trade worldwide.


Most men prefer real girlfriends, according to The Economist, which explains the decline in wages for sex workers over the years: "The demand for sex probably does not change much over time, but other things do. A century ago, when sexual mores were stricter, prostitution was more common and better paid (see table). Men's demand for commercial sex was higher because the non-commercial sort was harder to obtain -- there was no premarital hook-up culture. Women were attracted to prostitution in part because their other job opportunities were so meagre. And they commanded high wages partly because the social stigma was so great -- without high pay, it was not worth enduring it," the March print edition reports.
The recent data has found that in cities such as Miami, for example, brothels are primarily operated by Hispanic or Latino men and women. One of the officers who was interviewed says, "What we've been seeing in the last one [investigation] we did is a lot of the girls were doing it voluntarily at that point, [but] had been trafficked [smuggled and then trafficked] in seven, eight years ago. They paid their debt off and they stayed down there. They know how to make money now so they do it voluntarily. They're much older now, not very attractive, it's kinda like this is all they got."
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The women and girls involved are typically from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Minors are also sex trafficked with many of them being voluntarily involved but at one point were smuggled to the United States at a young age and forced to work in the underground commercial sex trade (UCSE) in order to pay off their smuggling debts. Much of the trafficking takes place through individual families with connections to coyotes, or smugglers, rather than organized crime syndicates, although Mexican cartels help to facilitate the smuggling of women and children from Mexico. Migrant farmworkers comprise most of the client base for Latino brothels, and Law enforcement officials estimate some brothels serve upwards of 80 customers daily and typically charge $25 for 15 minutes.
Aside from brothels, the human sex trade in major American cities also includes internet-based trafficking and erotic massage parlors in addition to street-based prostitution. Street-based prostitution, which has the lowest prices, is in decline as girls increasingly ply their trade in strip clubs and massage parlors or the internet, which are all safer compared to the streets. Websites such as Craigslist, Backpage, and Eros that advertise commercial sex are typically more expensive than brothels or street-based commercial sex, but less expensive that escort services. Websites advertising escort services offer more high-end prices, from $600 to $1000 per hour, and attract wealthier clients.
Looking at San Diego as an example, street and internet based prostitution is primarily run by African American males aged 16-22, half of whom are involved in gangs. Street prices range from $40 for a hand job, $60-80 for oral sex, and $80-120 for "full service." Internet prices range from $120-140 for a half hour and $200 for an hour. Escort services are mainly independent operators who are mainly women. Prices range from $150-500 to show up, plus an additional several hundred to several thousand for sex acts. In the case of an escort agency, there will be a 60-40 or 80-20 split between the girl and her agency. The erotic massage parlors are run by Asians, primarily Chinese and charged $60 for a nonsexual massage and $60-120 per sex act. Workers keep $10 from the massage, tips, and what they earn through sex acts. Brothels are run by Latino men, especially migrant camp brothels, which are closed to the public and charge $20-80 in cash for a variety of sex acts.
ADVERTISINGOne San Diego law enforcement officer explained that rarely has law enforcement in San Diego found Hispanic gangs involved in the underground commercial sex trade: "The majority of our drug trafficking and weapons trafficking deal with Hispanic street gangs and cartel and then they distribute it out to everybody else. With the prostitution and the human trafficking, it's predominantly black gangs. Hispanics, it's kind of I know it's going to occur, but generally it's sex trafficking, rapes, things like that are taboo within the Hispanic street gangs as the rules put for them by the prison gangs because the prison gangs dictate to the street gangs the rules."
San Diego's large number of migrant camps and proximity to Mexico makes it a large market for underground commercial sex activities. The brothels are designed to keep the workers in the fields happy and johns pay $20 to $80 in cash for a variety of sex acts, according to law enforcement officials. "It's like having sex in a PE-room, and up the road from there it was girls' underwear, condoms, beer bottles, so you can just picture how this looks, with everybody lined up -- no shame. But I think the money is there. Obviously it's there or it wouldn't be around as long as it has been. The money that they ask for per service is less but they deal more of it."
The 348 page study was conducted by Meredith Dank (PhD), P. Mitchell Downey, Cybele Kotonias, Deborah Mayer, Colleen Owens, and Laura Pacifici of the Urban Institute. Non-Urban Institute researchers in the study included Bilal Khan (PhD) of John Jay College and Lilly Yu of Rice University. The study is titled "Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities" and was supported by Award No. 2010-IJ-CX-1674, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice.
According to VOXXI, most clients hold a misconception that women in sex rings participate voluntarily and enjoy the work they do. Clients aren't aware of the fact that women in sex rings are coached to fake orgasms and do whatever it takes to please the client and by not doing so they expose themselves to being hurt or having their families targeted.
"According to research from the University of Portland, the average male in the United States who visits a prostitute is usually likely to have served in the military, only slightly less likely to be married and white, and only slightly more likely to have a full-time job and be more sexually liberal," Gillette writes.
"Despite the common assumption that men who pay for sex are looking to dominate or hurt a woman, data suggests this is not the case; most men paying for sex truly believe a prostitute wants or desires sex on a level incomparable to most other women -- including wives and significant others."


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Oh, it's not Bill and Hillary's fault breaking Glass Steagall and pushing global markets killed the US economy and job market all while Bill and Hillary dismantled Federal programs to support the tens of millions of Americans they left in poverty. It's not their fault that they ran as progressive social democrats having no intention of serving as anything other than right wing global wealth and profit corporate pols.

Neo-liberal economics in Latin American since Reagan Clinton created the systemic chaos in these nations we see today along with the degradation of human life.  It caused the mass migration of immigrants to the US just to create more economic tension for US citizens fighting already for re-employment.  This lying, cheating, and stealing to win any way you can----profits at any cost neo-liberalism is BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON AND NOW OBAMA.

Sure----the Republicans are as bad-----NEO-LIBERALISM IS A FAR RIGHT ECONOMIC POLICY FOR GOODNESS SAKE---so the solution is getting these global corporate pols out of our people's Democratic Party by running REAL social Democrats in all primary elections.




100,000 Children Are Forced Into Prostitution Each Year


by Marina Fang - Guest Contributor Jul 9, 2013 4:00pm  ThinkProgress

At least 100,000 children are used as prostitutes each year as part of the $9.8 billion U.S. sex trafficking industry, according to a new report from anti-trafficking group Shared Hope International.

Child sex trafficking has long been an acknowledged problem. According to the Department of Justice, forty percent of all human trafficking cases opened for investigation between January 2008 and June 2010 were for the sexual trafficking of a child. Victims on average are between the ages of 12 and 14, although some can be as young as nine, as estimated by ECPAT USA (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes), an anti-trafficking organization. But as the State Department recently condemned Russia and China for exceedingly high rates of human trafficking and harboring sex slaves, the report is a reminder that sex slavery and human trafficking is a domestic problem as well.
The report, presented during a hearing before the the Senate Caucus to End Human Trafficking and the Congressional Caucus for Victims’ Rights on Monday, flagged the varying and severe rehabilitation needs of these sex trafficking victims, who can be denied care for anything ranging from special health needs, drug addiction, to severe mental health diagnosis and/or suicidal symptoms. Sex trafficking victims can be particularly vulnerable, since traffickers tend to target those who already have a history of abuse.
Of particular concern are male and transgender victims. None of the 43 organizations surveyed by SHI provide services specifically for male victims:
None of the organizations that responded to the National Colloquium Provider Survey provide specialized services exclusively for male victims of DMST; 36% provide services for females only. Fifty-eight percent of responding organizations could provide services to males, females and transgender youth. Six percent stated they could provide services to male and female youth but did not indicate they serve transgender youth. The survey results did not reveal exactly how many programs offer residential services for males and transgender youth, but the clear majority of programs provide treatment specifically for female victims.
Panelists also discussed the importance of empowering survivors and instilling in them a sense of autonomy and personal freedom. Victims of sex slavery are subject to an immense amount of control and oppression, and sex traffickers “use violence, threats, lies, false promises, debt bondage, or other forms of control and manipulation to keep victims involved in the sex industry.”

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MAKING EQUAL RIGHTS, WOMEN'S RIGHTS, LABOR RIGHTS, AND RIGHTS OF DISABLED-------POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IS WHERE NEO-LIBERALS TOOK THE US.

The breakdown in the social fabric of America started as what were Equal Protection laws became known as political correctness. What were protections to help women, people of color, and the disabled obtain an equal opportunity and access to employment was attacked and given this label of 'correctness'. Neo-liberalism hates equal rights and protections as it is Republican and it takes away from corporate power and profits to bring all citizens into the process of employment. This is from were the Social Darwinist movement came----only the strong survive-----it is all neo-liberal and very much who the Clinton's and now Obama are. It does not take a rocket scientist to see the growth in the US of school bullying and this breakdown of social democratic Constitutional rights to equal rights and protections. Add to this the hyper-competitive environment neo-liberalism places in the workplace and now with these education privatization and you again see bullying soar. This is not new-----these hyper-competitive neo-liberal economic policies have had all these bullying/win at all cost behaviors in Asia for decades harming large sectors of children/students. ....................

AND THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF WOMEN BACKING HILLARY BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN COULD CARE LESS WITH A NEO-LIBERAL NATIONAL DIRECTOR!



Bullied to Death in America's Schools
  • By JIM DUBREUIL
  • EAMON MCNIFF
Oct. 15, 2010  ABC News


Courtesy the Long Family
WATCH

Bullied to Death in America's Schools

Fat. Gay. Or just different from the crowd. These are the reasons children are being bullied -- sometimes to death -- in America's schools, with at least 14 students committing suicide in the past year alone.
Intensified by the inescapable reach of the Internet, bullying has spun out of control. It allegedly triggered the suicides of Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi and Massachusetts high school student Phoebe Prince, two stories that rocketed the bullying epidemic into the national spotlight. An epidemic that causes 160,000 children a day to stay home from school because they are afraid of being bullied, according to the U.S. Department of Education.


Play
Bullied To Death: Victims' Stories

ABC News' "20/20" anchor and Chief Law and Justice Correspondent Chris Cuomo spoke with some of the shattered families who are trying to figure out why more wasn't done to save their children and asked experts how to stop this unsettling trend.Watch "Bullied to Death" on a special two-hour edition of "20/20" Friday at 9/8c
On October 17th, 2009, 17-year-old Tyler Long had had enough. After years of alleged bullying at the hands of classmates in his Murray County, Ga., school system, Tyler had gone from a fun-loving child to what his parents say was just a shell of the boy they once knew.
"They took his pride from him," said his father, David Long. "He was a hollow person."
Tyler had Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism that his parents say left him with unique personality traits unpopular with his classmates. His mother, Tina Long, said Tyler was very rule oriented as a result of Asperger's and frequently reminded his classmates of the regulations they were violating.
"If someone was talking in class, I know that he would say, 'You know we're not supposed to be talking. That's the rule,'" Tina said.
His parents said that irritated his classmates, that Tyler was different to them and thus a target.
"They would take his things from him, spit in his food, call him 'gay, faggot'," Long said. "One day to the next, it was continuous harassment from the other kids in the classroom."
His parents said they complained to school authorities about the pattern of bullying early on, but no action was taken.
"'Boys will be boys'," was the response Long said he got from school officials. "'How can I stop every kid from saying things that shouldn't be said? What do you want me to do Mr. and Mrs. Long? I've done all I can.'"
CLICK HERE for information on what to do if you think your child is being bullied or is a bully




Suicide of Bullied Teen Mocked by ClassmatesOne morning, two months into his junior year of high school, Tyler Long changed out of his pajamas and into his favorite T-shirt and jeans. He strapped a belt around his neck and hanged himself from the top shelf in his bedroom closet.
"I stepped into the room and I found Tyler in the closet," his father recalled, his voice shaking with emotion. "I rushed over, picked Tyler up and tried to relieve pressure from his neck. I started screaming for (my wife). I couldn't get the belt off his neck. (Tyler's younger brother) brought me a knife and I cut the belt off his neck. We laid him down. We checked to see if he was alive. But it was too late."
Tyler's parents have filed a lawsuit against the school, saying officials ignored the bullying that tormented their son.
Surprisingly, rather than take action the school refused even to have such much as a moment of silence in Tyler's honor, his parents said.
Perhaps even more shocking was the revelation that Tyler's death was openly mocked in school by the bullies and other classmates, according to Lee Hirsch, a documentary filmmaker who has spent the last year examining bullying in America.
"Other students, including some of the bullies, wore nooses around their necks after they learned of his death, to school, and got away with it," said Hirsch.
ABC News asked school authorities for an interview but they declined.
"We prefer to do our talking in court," an attorney for the Murray County School District, who would not give his name, told a producer from 20/20 when approached outside a hearing on the case.
Victims of bullying like the Longs who find no relief on a local level have few options at the federal level either, said Kevin Jennings, the U.S. Department of Education's Safe School Czar.
"When it's harassment based on sex or race or ability, we can intervene. But on other issues, there actually is no national policy or no national law," said Jennings.
Rampant as bullying is in American schools, at least one school is specifically designed to give safe haven to victims of bullying and to outlaw the cycle of aggression. It's the Alliance School, a public charter school for about 180 middle and high school students in Milwaukee's inner city.




School Requirement: Respect for Differences Among ClassmatesAt Alliance, respect for individual differences is part of the culture and required behavior. Teachers are trained to intervene immediately in conflicts. What is accepted at other schools, such as "kids being kids," is not tolerated at Alliance.
"I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere," said Emiliano Luno, 14, who came to Alliance after he was bullied so intensely at his previous school for being gay that he was on the verge of dropping out of school.
"Teachers had no understanding whatsoever. All they would do is yell at you and I dreaded every single day," Emiliano said.
Now, at Alliance, when he walks into a classroom with pink hair, fellow students say, "Wow, you look great."
Alliance boasts high attendance, few drop-outs and less of the drama associated with adolescence.
"It doesn't matter who you are, or how you look, or what you believe," said Tina Owen, the Alliance School's lead teacher and founder. "It's about getting a great education and learning to work with all sorts of people who are very different from yourself."
However simply separating bullied students from the bullies may not be the solution, according to Jennings.He says equipping teachers in all schools with the tools to combat and stop bullying in it's tracks before it gets too out of control is badly needed.
"Most of them don't know what to do and a lot of them get paralyzed. They don't know what to say. They're afraid if they do intervene, there's gonna be angry parents at the school and that the principal's not gonna support them," Jennings said about teachers.
For the Long family October 16th will mark the last time they saw Tyler alive. Although it may be too late for their son they hope by sharing his story, and their pain, it may inspire others to bring about real change in our nation's schools that may save another child.
"I feel Tyler everyday. There's not a day that goes by that I don't feel him. It hurts. But until something is done, I'm sure other parents will go though the same thing. It needs to change," David Long said.



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The Clintons in the 1990s used Executive Order to install the Republican policy of Federalism Act just to make the statement ----we will not enforce Federal laws especially those of Equal Protection----labor, women, civil rights, disability rights. She and Bill spent their entire career dismantling all New Deal and War on Poverty programs----sending the most women and children into poverty in US history. Their global market neo-liberalism with its global economic zones that enslave citizens around the world for corporate profit has led to large numbers of women and children forced into these sweat shops----sex trafficing around the world is tied to immigrants being moved from their nations to these international economic zones. If NARAL or the National Organization of Women think the American women voters are so uninformed as to vote for Hillary just because she is a woman-----these Clinton neo-liberal national directors need to take a hike. American women are not only about reproductive rights -----we are about the rights of all Americans and the protection of women, children, and families.
Clinton neo-liberals have reduced the Democratic base of labor and justice to having black citizens fighting against police brutality and killing------having labor reduced to fighting for organizing rights while members are pushed to poverty----and now women are supposed to be allowed only the fight for reproductive rights.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 12, 2015
NARAL Pro-Choice America On Hillary Clinton

Statement of Ilyse Hogue, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America:
"Secretary Clinton is and has always been steadfast in her commitment to building a culture of equality for women starting with a woman's right to choose her own destiny. From setting up one of the first rape crisis hotlines in the South when she was a young lawyer to being an unwavering advocate in the Senate to her incredible work through the State Department to empower women and girls, Secretary Clinton defines what being a champion looks like on these issues. She is exactly the kind of leader we need to continue to move our country forward, and we are excited to see her jump into this race. We know that the rights we fight to protect and expand everyday at NARAL Pro-Choice America are more than safe in Secretary Clinton's hands."


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October 24th, 2015

10/24/2015

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I will finish with tax policy by bringing people back to why we pay taxes.  Social capitalists feel we the people pay taxes so these revenues can be sent back into our communities to make a better life for all citizens.  Social programs are safety nets----not lifelong careers that are dispensed with oversight and accountability to assure funds are meeting people's needs.

Republicans and Clinton/Obama Wall Street global neo-liberals see taxes as ways to boost corporate profit whether through subsidy----allowing more power and control-----or as a way to keep any new business competition at bay.  That is it---any tax revenue that goes to better people's lives is a missed opportunity at profit.  This is why these few decades of Reagan/Clinton and Bush/Obama have taken the people deeper into poverty as taxes, fees, and fines grow.  THAT IS REPUBLICAN ECONOMIC POLICY FOLKS---WE KNOW THEY WILL DO THAT WHEN THEY CONTROL POLITICS.

I was in bed last night as a couple walked under my window----it was a black couple arguing over protecting municipal jobs.  The woman was shouting she didn't care if all municipal jobs were swept away----she is obviously for the coming economic crash taking Baltimore into bankruptcy.  The man was shouting to protect these jobs.  Who will be hurt most if the public sector disappears and the Wall Street scheme of International Economic Zones is installed?  BLACK WOMEN.

Like all public sector services and programs----when they are dismantled and become about nepotism---they become corrupt and dysfunctional and no one will like them.  Maryland has done a great job making all remaining public sector dysfunctional as Baltimore has forever.  I didn't hear that black woman shouting to fix the public sector---in Baltimore this social capitalism voice is silent.  I think because neo-conservatives like Johns Hopkins have strong propaganda machines making all this stagnation and lifelong safety net careers look like it comes from Democrats.

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A PUBLIC SECTOR----ALL TAXES WE PAY WILL SUBSIDIZE CORPORATE PROFIT AT OUR EXPENSE.  YOUR VOICE IN GOVERNMENT IS THE PUBLIC SECTOR!


One thing Republicans love to do is pretend all those poor people are getting all the taxes we pay in social programs when, as in Baltimore it is the rich in a city that steal most of Federal , state, and local funds designated for the poor.  Republicans are selling the notion to the poor that it is a lack of integrity to take social services as handouts while they suck all that revenue for their own personal profit. 

I talk about Republican states and cities because Maryland and especially Baltimore are really Republican ----Baltimore is neo-conservative.  All across the nation Republican states milked social services to enrich a few while telling the poor to buck up----BOOTSTRAPS

Most Red States Take More Money From Washington Than They Put In

Even as Republicans gripe about deficit spending, their states get 30 cents more federal spending per tax dollar than their Democratic neighbors.—By Dave Gilson
| Thu Feb. 16, 2012 7:00 AM EST

States receiving the most federal funding per tax dollar paid:
1. New Mexico: $2.63
2. West Virginia: $2.57
3. Mississippi: $2.47
4. District of Colombia: $2.41
5. Hawaii: $2.38
6. Alabama: $2.03
7. Alaska: $1.93
8. Montana: $1.92
9. South Carolina: $1.92
10. Maine: $1.78
It's no secret: The federal budget is expanding faster than tax revenues, a trend that's been fueled by the rapid growth of entitlement programs and exacerbated by the recession. As a recent New York Times article documents, even as fiscally conservative lawmakers complain about deficit spending, their constituents don't want to give up the Social Security checks, Medicare benefits, and earned income tax credits that provide a safety net for the struggling middle class.
This gap between political perception and fiscal reality is also reflected in the distribution of tax dollars at the state level: Most politically "red" states are financially in the red when it comes to how much money they receive from Washington compared with what their residents pay in taxes.
A look at 2010 Census and IRS data reveals that the 50 states and the District of Columbia, on average, received $1.29 in federal spending for every federal tax dollar they paid. That means that some states are getting a lot more than they put in, and vice versa. The states that contributed more in taxes than they got back in spending were more likely to have voted for Obama in 2008 and were more likely to be largely urban. (There are some clear exceptions: For instance, New Mexico, a rural, Democratic state, gets more federal money per tax dollar than any other state.)
These three interactive maps break down the split between the spenders and lenders. Click on any state for more detailed data, including each state's per capita ratio of spending received versus taxes paid and where it ranked when the Tax Foundation ran the 2005 numbers.




Red states were more likely to get a bigger cut of federal spending. Of the 22 states that went to McCain in 2008, 86 percent received more federal spending than they paid in taxes in 2010. In contrast, 55 percent of the states that went to Obama received more federal spending than they paid in taxes. Republican states, on average, received $1.46 in federal spending for every tax dollar paid; Democratic states, on average, received $1.16.




This red-blue split may be partly explained by the difference between urban and rural states. Red states are more likely to be rural, and rural states were more likely to receive more federal spending than they paid in taxes in 2010. Among predominantly rural states, 81 percent received more federal spending than they paid in taxes. In contrast, 44 percent of urban states received more federal spending than they paid in taxes. Rural states, on average, received $1.40 in federal spending for every tax dollar paid; urban states, on average, received $1.10. (Rural states are defined as states whose urban population rate is below the national average of 79 percent.)




Note: Data has been adjusted to be deficit neutral using the method described by the Tax Foundation in its earlier analysis of federal spending versus federal taxes paid.
Sources: IRS (state tax data), Tax Foundation (2005 rank of spending vs. taxes), US Census (federal spending, urban/rural)

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If you have over 500,000 citizens unemployed or in poverty as Baltimore does----you lose vital tax base yet Republicans love that dynamic because they can control the distribution of social services but are afraid of citizens and the freedoms a middle-class wage brings.  All of that missing tax base just to keep people poor -----killing the local economy for decades.

REMEMBER, CLINTON/OBAMA NEO-LIBERALS ARE REPUBLICANS AND NOW STATES ONCE CALLED BLUE----ARE JUST AS STAGNANT AND IMPOVERISHED.

Allowing all of this global economic policy to continue with International Economic Zones and all of government controlled by global corporations will make this tax dynamic far worse.  Rebuilding a local economy heightens the tax base that then goes back to the communities now growing.

This is what I wanted to tell the couple under my window last night----stop the craziness of government corruption and corporate fraud is say to the municipal employee fighting for his job.  Stop the privatization and Wall Street policies that are killing our communities i shout to the women no caring if all municipal jobs wash away.


It’s a Fact: Republican Run Red States Have America’s Highest Poverty Rates

by 3DogsBarking Posted April 10, 2014


It is difficult for reasonable Americans to comprehend why voters in the South continue electing Republicans that campaign on perpetuating living conditions most Americans consider unacceptable. It is not because they believe all Americans live in poverty and love it, or that they are unaware their miserable plight is unavoidable. Most likely they are willing to live in poverty and ill-health with no chance of escaping because they are angry the rest of the nation will not tolerate their bigotry and hate; their only recourse is electing Republicans to legislate America into one big red state mired in bigotry, religion, guns, and deep poverty.

According to The Department of Agriculture’s measure of poverty, every red state from Arizona to South Carolina has the highest poverty rates in America; between 17.9% and 22.8%. The so-called bible belt is America’s poverty belt including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, nearly one in four children trapped in Southern red states live in dire poverty and parents of those children elect Republicans to make those despicable statistics uniform across America. Part and parcel of conditions driving the South’s poverty is low wages that voters elect Republicans to perpetuate across America.

Southern states are hostile to organized labor, five states have no state minimum wage, most are “right to work for less” states, and the 10 states with the lowest average incomes are in the former Confederacy including Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma according to the Equality of Economic Opportunity Project. Republicans in Congress promote policies that create poverty across the South and red state voters elect them anyway to subject the entire nation to low wages and the poverty they engender.


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BALTIMORE HAS HUGE ECONOMIC POTENTIAL IN ITS CITIZENS AND LOCATION AND CAN OPERATE INDEPENDENT OF FEDERAL AND STATE REVENUE IF IT DEVELOPS A LOCAL ECONOMY---AND THIS WILL LOWER OVERALL TAXATION!



Below you see from where the City of Baltimore receives most of the revenue not coming from Federal and state funds----with unemployment from 35-50%----you will not see income tax high on this list.  If more revenue is needed---the city turns to raising the rates, fees, or fines on citizens to boost government coffers while the corporate tax subsidy soars.

As Clinton/Obama neo-liberals work with Republicans to end Federal public Trusts, service, and programs---that Federal and state funding will dry----with the global corporate tax-free zone that is the International Economic Zone-----that revenue source will dry.

Federal funding is now being allocated right to global corporations awarded government contracts so very little are hitting Baltimore City coffers.

So, the massive debt with the reduced revenue sources will send Baltimore to bankruptcy this coming economic crash.  If we have a Wall Street global corporate city council and mayor-----they will embrace this bankruptcy and hand all control of development and public policy to global corporations coming into the International Economic Zone.  If Baltimore has a social democratic city council and mayor---they will reject bond fraud and bankruptcy and immediately push building a local, domestic economy. 

WE MUST CREATE LOCAL ECONOMIES ESPECIALLY IN CITIES DESIGNATED INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ZONES TO REBUILD A SMALL BUSINESS FULL EMPLOYMENT WITH A STRONG TAX REVENUE BASE.


City taxes, fees projected to fall short of expectations

But budget director believes spending plan can be balanced


March 15, 2011|By Julie Scharper, The Baltimore Sun


The package of taxes and fees crafted by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and City Council members to meet a budget deficit last year is estimated to fall short of projected revenues by nearly $17 million — more than a third of the income that it was expected to generate — city finance officials said Tuesday.
The city will receive $12 million less in income tax than officials had projected — most likely due to unemployment, officials said -- and a controversial bottle tax is predicted to generate $1 million less than officials had expected, city budget director Andrew W. Kleine told council members at a hearing.
But Kleine said the drop in revenue will likely be offset by savings in other areas of the budget, particularly a hiring freeze that has left many positions open.
"I'm not ringing any alarm bells," said Kleine. "We're going to be able to balance the general fund budget."
Rawlings-Blake raised parking fees and fines, slashed a discount for early property tax payments and boosted taxes on hotel stays, energy use and cell phone and land lines last year as part of an effort to generate $48 million in new revenue to help plug the city's $121 million budget gap.
Kleine attributed the drop in income tax revenue in part to rising gas prices. Councilwoman Belinda Conaway, who chairs the budget committee, questioned him about Rawlings-Blake's support for a higher state gas tax.
"In the short term, higher gas prices could reduce employment," Kleine said. But he added that the higher gas tax was necessary for the state's long-term financial health.
While higher parking meter fees are projected to bring in slightly more revenue than initial projections, increased parking taxes and parking fines are expected to fall substantially short. Kleine said parking appears to have decreased in Downtown Baltimore lots due to roadwork. The city is finishing $4.2 million in road projects to prepare for the Baltimore Grand Prix in September.
Two fees proposed by council members missed projections by a wide margin. Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young pushed increases in the fines for public drunkenness, urination, spitting and other nuisance crimes, but the initiative is predicted to bring a little more than a quarter of the $220,000 projected.
Councilman Robert W. Curran pushed through fees for the video slot machines found in bars and convenience stores. Kleine said revenue figures were not available for the tax because the first payment was not due to the city until Feb.1. Only 600 of the devices have been registered with the city — far less than the 1,650 officials had predicted.
"They're hiding them. They're cheating us," said Curran. "If they don't want to give us $5 a day [in taxes], the hell with them. Let's go after them."
But Kleine said the Finance Department would focus enforcement efforts first on collecting the bottle tax. The collections unit has hired a consultant to scan through beverage distributors' records to determine if they have been paying the 2-cents-per-bottle tariff, Kleine said. Collections agents will begin visiting retailers on Wednesday to study records, Kleine said.
Finance officials say the city is facing an $80 million deficit in the coming budget year. Rawlings-Blake is set to unveil her budget proposal on March 30.

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We just watched as Clinton neo-liberals and Obama sent our Federal Medicare and Medicaid to privatization and dismantlement and guess whose money filled those funds-----decades of payroll taxes paid by the very people now being sent to preventative care only.  As the middle-class declines and more and more of the tax revenue falls on the working poor-----I would shout to what are the 99% of Americans to make sure that if you are paying all of the taxes you control government and public policy for using those taxes.

As we rebuild Baltimore City with what will be working class and middle-class jobs we must have Baltimore City Hall filled with pols that want to use that revenue for the communities from which it came.  We know that the goal of global pols and International Economic Zones is the opposite-----we will not be citizens controlling public policy----we will be milked with taxation to maximize profits----and we will work in third world conditions.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE MUST CONTROL PUBLIC POLICY IN ORDER TO SEE TAXES SENT TO THEIR COMMUNITIES AND TO DO THAT THEY MUST GET RID OF GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS-----ALL MARYLAND POLS ARE GLOBAL CORPORATE.

'The loss to the government on account of SEZ is incredible. In 2004 – 2005, the government already incurred a loss of Rs. 41,000 crores – a staggering 72% of customs revenues and 23% of total indirect tax revenue of any kind. The Finance Ministry estimates that Rs. 1.75 lakh crores will be lost over the next five years.

These capital driven enclaves have all the bearings of impending economic crisis and the concomitant political and legal turmoil. SEZs are not simply about land-based displacement-inducing projects driven by the nexus of capital and state. It is also about the replacement of democracy by governance by corporations, the new form of governance by capital supplanting people. It is also about growth with inequity, and social and environmental injustice. It is also about democratization of control over and governance of resources by people in response, as a matter of right and struggle'.


6,000 tea workers face eviction threat due to establishment of a special economic zone in Habiganj
August 20, 2015 by ILC Asia
SOURCE: Kapaeeng Foundation
Recently the government of Bangladesh undertook plan to acquire 500 acres of land belonging to tea workers for establishment of Bangladesh Economic Zones in Chunarughat upazila under Habiganj district. Around 6,000 tea workers belong to indigenous Santal community have been living on this land for generations. They will be uprooted from their ancestral land if the government plan is implemented.
Tea workers alleged that they get only Taka 69 (US$ 0.80) per day for their job. Even after that, they have been living happily because they have land to cultivate and reside in. But, as president of Chandpur Tea Garden Panchayet Committee Sadhan Santal said, there is a conspiracy to grab their ancestral land in the name of building a special economic zone.
It is worth mentioning that around 6,000 Santals are dependent on 500 acres of land of Chunarughat upazila for living and cultivation. Among them, around 1,100 Santals work at the Chandpur Tea Garden. The Santal labourers claimed that their predecessors made the land cutting hills and forests 150-200 years ago. There is a graveyard of their forefathers. They cannot give away their ancestral land.
In a discussion on “Human Rights of Tea Garden Workers and Their Socio-Economic Development” jointly organised by Indigenous Social Development Organisation and Tea Garden Workers on 2 August 2015 at National Press Club in Dhaka, the workers of Chandpur Tea Garden in Habiganj threatened that they would rather die than give up their ancestral land chosen for setting up a special economic zone. (This report has been prepared based on information collected through Kapaeeng’s networks and news of The Daily Star titled ‘Tea workers won’t give ancestral land’ published on 3 August 2015.)
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October 23rd, 2015

10/23/2015

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LOOK AT THE TITLE OF THIS ARTICLE----'THE BLUE STATES' TAX THE POOR MORE-----these are not BLUE states folks----they are right-of -center neo-liberal states.  If they were BLUE----Democrats would be controlling policy.



Think to yourself-----if the middle-class is disappearing and will take a big blow this coming economic crash-----if the middle-class have for the past century been the heaviest taxed group -----and if corporations are paying less, less, less-----who will fill all that tax revenue? THE WORKING POOR. That is what this coming corporate tax reform is about. We will watch global neo-liberals pretending to fight for child and earned income credits that protect the working class from higher tax rates-----but we know Clinton/Obama neo-liberals will go with Republicans and gut these credits to pay for lower corporate tax rate.

Developing nations always soak the poor and family businesses with taxation. This is to what the American Revolution was directed-----ever higher taxes from a global corporate tribunal---the Queen and East India Corporation. Well, Trans Pacific Trade Pact and International Economic Zone policies take the US back to colonial status.

Look where taxation is going locally and think how that will soar with the coming economic crash.


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“There has been a groundswell of poorly thought-out proposals to hike taxes on poor people at the state level,” Gardner said. “The good news is that a lot of states have zeroed in on these [good proposals].”



GovBeat

The state that taxes the poor the most is… a blue one



By Niraj Chokshi September 21, 2013

(Credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg)
The state that easily handed President Obama a victory last November while passing voter-approved referendums legalizing same-sex marriage and marijuana consumption also happens to have the nation’s highest tax burden on the poor.
Poor families in Washington state pay 16.9 percent of their total income in state and local taxes, more than any other state in the nation, according to a new report from the nonprofit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which advocates for progressive tax policies.
Washington takes the top spot by a sizable lead. For the poor in Illinois, 13.8 percent of their income goes to paying state and local taxes. In Florida, those taxes eat up 13.3 percent of the income of the poor. The share in Hawaii is 13 percent, followed by Arizona at 12.9 percent.
(Source: ITEP)Tax policy can do a lot of things—spur good economic activity and discourage the bad—but ITEP argues it can also be used to fight poverty.
“Any time when one in six americans are living in poverty it’s important to ask what our public policies can do to make that better,” says ITEP Executive Director Matt Gardner. “It’s important to remember that state tax codes can play a role in mitigating poverty as well.”
New Census data released on Thursday showed that while poverty rates showed no change in 43 states last year, they remained high. Even in the best-performing states, such as New Hampshire, Alaska and Maryland, a tenth of the population still lives in poverty. The rate was highest in Mississippi, where nearly a fourth of the state—24 percent—were living in poverty last year.
ITEP argues that states can implement and expand four simple, effective tax strategies to ease the tax burden on states’ poorest residents. Some 26 states have enacted a state Earned Income Tax Credit based on the federal version, which ITEP encourages states to expand or consider implementing. Eighteen states have “true” property tax “circuit breakers,” which are designed to offset the burden of property taxes that are high relative to income. Other targeted low-income credits and child-related credits would also reduce the burden on the poor, ITEP argues.
“There has been a groundswell of poorly thought-out proposals to hike taxes on poor people at the state level,” Gardner said. “The good news is that a lot of states have zeroed in on these [good proposals].”
While ITEP criticized states across the board for increasing the tax burden on the poor over time, the report cites three states that have done relatively well. Vermont, for example, is home to one of the least regressive tax systems in the nation, ITEP finds. Delaware’s system isn’t very progressive, but its reliance on income taxes and low use of consumption taxes created a system that’s “only slightly regressive overall.” And New York and the District of Columbia have “close-to-flat” tax systems.


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AS THE MIDDLE-CLASS IS ELIMINATED---THEY BECOME THE LOW-INCOME WORKER JUST AS ALL LOW-WAGE TAX PROTECTIONS ARE ELIMINATED BY GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS. 
Below you see the tax advantages Republicans have been trying for decades to end-----it is yet another War on Poverty progressive policy that Clinton/Obama neo-liberals are killing as fast as Republicans....BECAUSE NEO-LIBERALS ARE REPUBLICANS.  Clinton and Obama have championed the end of all New Deal and War on Poverty and these progressive tax credits will be on the list during this corporate tax reform push these coming months.  You will hear Clinton neo-liberals protest and pretend they are all about protecting low-income families----but they are the ones partnered with Republicans in all wealth and corporate tax evasion----AND SOMEONE MUST CREATE THIS REVENUE.

In Maryland we have seen Erhlich to O'Malley raising taxes, fees, and fines continuously while giving copious tax breaks to corporations----corporate subsidy----and allowing widespread corporate fraud.  The rise in taxation on the working class is directly tied to this dismantling of taxes at the top.  O'Malley and Maryland's global corporate neo-liberals will say they are being forced to raise taxes at state and local level because of the austerity at the Federal level----AND THIS IS TRUE----but you can tell when this is just an excuse from a pol looking to be one of those Clinton/Obama neo-liberals giving Wall Street and corporations everything they want.  Baltimore is tax-starved because of corporate tax-free zones, corporations allowed to use independent contractor and call themselves non-profits and that is not done because of Federal policy---

We already see where the poor are now pulling most of the revenue burden as taxes rise on utilities, property taxes only in specific areas of Baltimore----and this will soar after this coming economic crash and planned push of Baltimore into bankruptcy.  Much of these tax policies are meant to move people out of communities for development----but for those thinking this is the only purpose----THE UPPER-MIDDLE CLASS WILL BECOME THE NEXT SOURCE TO SOAK.

This is a long article but glance through to see the next War on Poverty policy that Clinton/Obama  neo-liberals will join Republicans to end and think how a low-income family will find that money from an already too low wage.  This hits immigrant families as well.


It is the conservative Democratic and Republican voters who will be harmed as much as the Democratic base and they will be the ones shouting while it is Republican policy to heavily tax the poor.



EITC and Child Tax Credit Promote Work, Reduce Poverty, and Support Children’s Development, Research Finds

UPDATED
October 1, 2015
BY
Chuck Marr, Chye-Ching Huang, Arloc Sherman, and Brandon DeBot

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC), which go to millions of low- and moderate-income working families each year, provide work, income, educational, and health benefits to its recipients and their children, a substantial body of research shows.  In addition, recent ground-breaking research suggests the income from these tax credits leads to benefits at virtually every stage of life.  For instance, research indicates that children in families receiving the tax credits do better in school, are likelier to attend college, and can be expected to earn more as adults.
 Numerous studies show that working-family tax credits boost work effort.  The EITC expansions of the 1990s contributed as much to the subsequent increases in work among single mothers and female heads of households as the welfare changes of that period, extensive research has found.  Women who benefited from those EITC expansions also experienced higher wage growth in subsequent years than otherwise-similar women who didn’t benefit.  And, by boosting the employment and earnings of working-age women, the EITC boosts the size of the Social Security retirement benefits they ultimately will receive. 
In addition, the research shows that by boosting the employment of single mothers, the EITC reduces the number of female-headed households receiving cash welfare assistance.  As the University of California’s Hilary Hoynes writes, the EITC “may ultimately be judged one of the most successful labor market innovations in U.S. history.”  The CTC is newer and has not been studied to the same extent, but it shares key design features with the EITC:  it is available only to working families and phases in as earnings increase.
The EITC may also improve the health of infants and mothers, research indicates.  Infants born to mothers who could receive the largest EITC increases in the 1990s had the greatest improvements in such birth indicators as low-weight births and premature births.  As one researcher notes, “income transfers to pregnant women through a work-conditional tax subsidy substantially improves the health of their new born children.”  Similarly, mothers who received the largest EITC increases in the 1990s had greater improvements in their own health indicators. 
Moreover, research suggests that income from the EITC and CTC leads to improved educational outcomes for young children in low-income households.  For each $1,000 increase in annual income over two to five years, children’s school performance improves on a variety of measures, including academic test scores.  A credit that’s worth about $3,000 (in 2005 dollars) during a child’s early years may boost his or her achievement by the equivalent of about two extra months of schooling.
The credits’ success in boosting work effort and earnings extends into the next generation, the new research indicates.  Children whose families receive more income from refundable tax credits do better in school, are likelier to attend college, and likely earn more as adults; they also are likelier to avoid the early onset of disabilities and other illnesses associated with child poverty, which further enhances their earnings ability as adults, some research suggests.
Finally, the EITC and CTC greatly reduce poverty for working families.  These working-family tax credits lifted 9.4 million people out of poverty in 2013, including 5 million children, and made 22 million other people less poor.  And by encouraging work, the EITC and CTC have an additional anti-poverty effect not counted in these figures.  Recent research on EITC’s effects on single mothers’ employment shows that counting the employment-boosting effect of the EITC nearly doubles its anti-poverty effect for these families.  These anti-poverty effects are particularly important since large numbers of Americans work for low wages, the minimum wage’s purchasing power is substantially lower than in the 1960s and 1970s, and job growth thus far in the economic recovery has been disproportionately concentrated in low-wage occupations. 
As economists Austin Nichols and Jesse Rothstein summarize in a recent review of the literature on the EITC:
Researchers have documented beneficial effects on poverty, on consumption, on health, and on children’s academic outcomes.  The magnitude of these effects is large: Millions of families are brought above the poverty line, and estimates of the effects on children indicate that this may have extremely important effects on the intergenerational transmission of poverty as well.  Taking all of the evidence together, the EITC appears to benefit recipients — and especially their children — substantially.



How the EITC and CTC Work


The EITC, a federal tax credit for low- and moderate-income working families and individuals, is designed to encourage and reward work, offset federal payroll and income taxes, and raise living standards.  To claim the credit, a taxpayer must have earnings from a job.  The EITC is “refundable,” meaning that if it exceeds a low-wage worker’s federal income tax liability, the Internal Revenue Service refunds the balance to the taxpayer.
The EITC’s primary recipients are working parents with children, though a small EITC is available to working adults without dependent children.  The credit rises with earned income until reaching a maximum (which varies by the number of qualified children) and then phases out as income rises further.  For 2015, the phase-outs begin at about $18,810 for single filers with children and about $23,630 for married filers with children, and the average size of the credit is likely to be close to its 2013 value of $3,074 for a family with children and $281 for a family without children. Twenty-six states plus the District of Columbia also offer a state EITC, typically set at a percentage of the federal EITC.
The CTC, which provides taxpayers up to $1,000 for each dependent child under age 17, is designed to help families offset the costs of raising children.  Unlike the EITC, the CTC not only helps low- and moderate-income families but extends to middle-income and most upper-middle-income families as well, because it phases out at higher income levels than the EITC.
Like the EITC, the CTC increases with earnings, but unlike the EITC, the first $3,000 in earnings do not count when determining the CTC.  Families receive a refund equal to 15 percent of their earnings above $3,000, up to the credit’s full $1,000-per-child value.  For example, a mother with two children who works full time at the federal minimum wage — earning $14,500 in 2015 — will receive a refund of $1,725 (15 percent of $11,500).  This refundable part of the CTC, called the Additional Child Tax Credit, is particularly beneficial to lower-wage workers.
The CTC is newer than the EITC and has not been studied to the same extent, but like the EITC it is available only to working families and phases in as earnings increase.  Research strongly suggests that low-income families do not understand how much of their tax refund comes from the EITC or the CTC, but they do understand that if they work they can qualify for significant tax-based benefits.Moreover, research shows that boosting working families’ incomes is associated with improvements in children’s educational (and other) outcomes, strongly suggesting that both credits improve opportunities for children.
Encouraging Work

The EITC significantly increases recipients’ work effort, according to substantial research over the past two decades.  (As noted, the CTC shares key design features with the EITC, suggesting that it may also have positive work effects.)
The EITC is particularly effective at encouraging work among single mothers working for low wages.  It is considered among the most effective policies for increasing the work and earnings of female-headed families.
Single mothers are the group most likely to be eligible for the EITC because they tend to have low earnings and qualifying children.  As Figure 1 shows, single mothers experienced a marked increase in paid employment following the EITC expansions of the early 1990s, relative to married women and single women without children.  Economic studies controlling for other policy and economic changes during this period also found that the most significant gains in employment attributable to the EITC occurred among mothers with young children and mothers with low education.  In their literature review, Nichols and Rothstein note “essentially all authors agree that the EITC expansion led to sizeable increases in single mothers’ employment rates, concentrated among less-skilled women and among those with more than one qualifying child.”


Other research has found that EITC expansions between 1984 and 1996 accounted for more than half of the large increase in employment among single mothers during that period.  The EITC expansions of the 1990s “appear to be the most important single factor in explaining why female family heads increased their employment over 1993-1999,” University of Chicago economist Jeffrey Grogger has concluded.  Those expansions, he found, actually had a larger effect in increasing employment among single mothers than the 1996 welfare law.  (See Figure 2.)  In addition, women who were eligible to benefit the most from those EITC expansions apparently had higher wage growth in later years than other similarly situated women.
By boosting employment among single mothers, the EITC also reduces cash welfare caseloads significantly.  The EITC expansions of the 1990s induced more than a half a million families to move from cash welfare assistance to work, research shows.  In fact, Grogger’s research found those EITC expansions likely contributed about as much to the fall between 1993 and 1999 in the number of female-headed households receiving cash welfare assistance as time limits and other welfare reform changes.

Moreover, by boosting the employment and earnings of working-age women, the EITC also boosts their Social Security retirement benefits, which are based on a person’s work history.  Higher Social Security benefits, in turn, reduce the extent and severity of poverty among seniors.
There is little evidence that when EITC benefits phase down as a family’s income rises above certain levels, workers substantially reduce their work hours. Instead, research shows, the EITC has a powerful effect in inducing many more workers to enter the labor force and go to work.


Improving Infant and Maternal Health

The EITC may improve the health of infants and mothers, research finds.  Research looking at the EITC’s effects on maternal health found that women who were eligible for the largest EITC expansion in the 1990s experienced significant improvement in a variety of health indicators, including reduced mental stress, compared to similar women who would not have been eligible for the expansion.
Researchers at the University of California at Davis compared changes in birth outcomes for mothers who likely received the largest increases in their EITCs under the expansions of the 1990s and mothers who likely received the smallest increases.  They found that infants born to mothers who likely received the largest increases had the greatest improvements in a number of birth indicators, such as fewer low-weight births and premature births. Also, mothers who likely received the largest increases were likelier to receive prenatal care, including care before the critical third trimester, and to smoke and drink less during pregnancy.  Changes in health insurance coverage did not seem to be a primary explanation for these improved health outcomes.
Other studies have also found strong associations between EITC expansions and improvements in birth weight and indicated that mothers receiving the EITC were less likely to smoke during pregnancy than similarly situated mothers who did not receive it.


Boosting Children’s School Achievement and College Attendance Rates

Income support from the EITC and CTC has been linked to better academic achievement for elementary and middle-school students. Studies have found that children in low-income families that receive larger state or federal EITCs tend to score better on tests of reading and (particularly) math, compared with children from largely similar families not targeted for large credit expansions.  They also are more likely to finish high school and go on to college.
In addition, larger tax refunds make college more affordable for low-income families with high-school seniors and are associated with significant increases in their college attendance.
A recent working paper examining data from before and after changes to federal and state EITCs finds that children receiving larger EITCs tend to do better academically in both the short and long term.  Receipt of larger EITCs is linked to:
  • Higher test scores, particularly in math.  Larger EITCs are linked to improved test scores in the year of receipt for both elementary and middle-school students.
  • Higher high-school graduation rates.  Children who qualify for a larger EITC in childhood are more likely to graduate high school or complete a General Educational Development (GED) degree.
  • Higher college attendance rates.  The larger the EITC a child’s family receives, the more likely he or she will enter college by age 19 or 20.
The size of these effects is noteworthy.  The paper estimates that a child in a family eligible for the largest EITC expansion in the early 1990s would have a 4.8 percentage-point higher probability of completing one or more years of college by age 19 — an improvement comparable to the effect of major educational interventions such as reducing classroom size.  Moreover, the findings show that the academic benefits of larger EITCs extend to children of all ages and racial and ethnic groups, with some suggestive evidence that the benefits are slightly larger for minority children and boys.
This paper adds to an already substantial body of evidence that the EITC and CTC boost school performance:
  • Researchers who analyzed data for grades 3-8 from a large urban school district and the corresponding U.S. tax records for families in the district linked additional income from the EITC and CTC with significant increases in students’ test scores.
  • Likewise, researchers who studied nearly two decades of data on mothers and their children concluded that students with additional income from the EITC had higher combined math and reading test scores by large magnitudes.
Research not directly on the tax credits also suggests that income-boosting policies like the EITC and CTC improve school performance.  Researchers analyzing ten anti-poverty and welfare-to-work experiments found a consistent pattern of better school results for low-income children in programs that provided more income.  Each $1,000 increase (in 2001 dollars) in annual income — the equivalent of a full CTC for one child — for two to five years led to modest but statistically significant increases in young children’s school performance on a number of measures, including test scores.  The researchers noted that their results have important implications for policies that link increases in income to increases in employment, like the EITC and CTC.

The working-family tax credits can also improve a low-income child’s chances of attending college by making it more affordable.  A recent paper finds that college enrollment rates tend to rise with family earnings up to the earnings level where a family qualifies for the maximum EITC (the EITC “kink point”), at which point both enrollment rates and the size of a family’s EITC level off.  (See Figure 3, reproduced from the study.)  This striking relationship, the researchers conclude, is evidence that, for a high-school senior whose family almost or just qualifies for the maximum EITC, a $1,000 increase in tax refunds received in the spring increases college enrollment rates the next fall by roughly 10 percent.
The study’s authors suggest that receiving the EITC in the spring before college helps cash-strapped families afford college:  “[T]he tax refunds that we study may effectively alleviate credit constrain[t]s for families with high-school seniors, allowing youths from these families to attend college.”  They also find that both federal and state EITCs increase college enrollment, noting, “[T]he enrollment response is larger in states that offer tax refunds tied to federal refundable credits.”
Nichols and Rothstein conclude from their review of the literature: “Taking all of the estimates together, there is robust evidence of quite large effects of the EITC on children’s academic achievement and attainment, with potentially important consequences for later-life outcomes.”


Boosting Work Effort and Earnings When Children Reach Adulthood

Not only do the EITC and CTC boost the work effort of parents, particularly single mothers, but the benefits extend to the next generation, recent research suggests.
Because higher family income from working-family tax credits is associated with higher skills, children in the family likely earn more as adults.  In fact, researchers projected that each dollar of income through tax credits may increase the real value of the child’s future earnings by more than one dollar.
For young children raised in low-income families, even slight increases in family income — regardless of the source — are associated with more work and higher earnings in adulthood, relative to children raised in otherwise similar circumstances.  For children in low-income families, an extra $3,000 in annual family income (in 2005 dollars) between their prenatal year and fifth birthday is associated with an average 17 percent increase in annual earnings and an additional 135 hours of work when they become adults, compared to similar children whose families do not receive the added income, researchers have found.  (See Figure 4.)
One reason for poorer children’s lower work effort and earnings, according to an emerging field of research, may be that they are more likely to experience poor health as children, which in some cases carries into adulthood.  Thus, children in households that receive slightly higher incomes appear likelier to avoid the early onset of disabilities and other illnesses associated with child poverty, which apparently helps them earn more as adults.
In short, studies indicate that young children in low-income families that receive income support (which could include the EITC and CTC) perform better in school, on average.  They also are likely to be born healthier and to grow up to work more and earn more.  “When analyzing the costs and benefits of policies such as the Earned Income or Child Tax Credit,” researchers from Harvard and Columbia University advised, “policymakers should carefully consider the potential impacts of these programs on future generations.”
Reducing Poverty

The EITC and CTC reduce current poverty and inequality in at least two ways (1) by supplementing the wages of low-paid poor or near-poor workers; and (2) by encouraging work.

Many Americans work for low wages.  For example, the food-preparation sector (cooks, servers, dishwashers, and the like), which employs more than 12 million people and accounts for about one in every 11 jobs, provided a median wage of only $9.20 an hour in 2014.  A full-time, year-round worker at that wage level would have annual earnings of $18,400 — or less than 80 percent of the poverty line for a two-adult, two-child family.
For many workers, working substantial hours is not enough to lift them out of poverty.  The recent recession and slow recovery have aggravated the situation.  The share of workers paid below-poverty wages (hourly wages too low to support a family of four at the poverty line even with full-time, year-round work) rose from 25.5 percent in 2009 to 28 percent in 2012.  While mid-wage jobs made up 60 percent of the jobs lost during the recession, they made up only 22 percent of the jobs gained during the recovery, according to an analysis by the National Employment Law Project that goes through the first quarter of 2012.  Lower-wage jobs, in contrast, represented 21 percent of the jobs lost during the recession but 58 percent of jobs gained during the recovery.
The share of Americans earning low wages may keep growing even as labor market conditions improve.  “Good jobs are not disappearing for everyone, but . . . they are largely disappearing for less-educated workers,” Urban Institute economist Harry Holzer and his coauthors from the National Science Foundation, the University of Chicago, and the Treasury Department have written.
Meanwhile, policymakers have let the minimum wage erode substantially.  At $7.25 an hour in 2015, the federal minimum wage is 24 percent below its 1968 level, after adjusting for inflation.  The minimum wage and EITC are both important policies that help low-wage workers make ends meet, and both should be strengthened.  They are also complementary: they function best when both are strong because each helps fill gaps that the other can’t fully address on its own, and neither is sufficient by itself.

 In addition, the median or typical wage paid for half of the ten occupations that the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects to generate the most new jobs over the 2012-2022 period — home health aides, food preparers, personal care aides, retail salespersons, and janitors and cleaners — was below a poverty-level wage in 2012.
By supplementing the earnings of low-paid workers, the EITC and CTC lifted 9.4 million people out of poverty in 2013 and made 22 million others less poor (see Figure 5).  (These figures are based on the federal government’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, which many analysts favor because it counts non-cash public benefits and refundable tax credit payments as income.)  These working-family tax credits lifted 5 million children out of poverty, more than any other program.
These figures do not count a second way that the EITC and CTC may reduce poverty — by encouraging work.  When the income gains from the increase in employment the EITC generates are taken into account, the EITC’s impact in reducing poverty significantly increases, University of California economist Hoynes and the Treasury Department’s Ankur Patel find in recent research.  Analyzing the 1990s EITC expansions for single mothers aged 24-48 who lack a college degree, Hoynes and Patel find that when the EITC’s employment and earnings effects are taken into account, the number of people in such families that the EITC lifts out of poverty nearly doubled.
 Hoynes and Patel examined these families, not EITC beneficiaries as a whole, so they could not similarly calculate the extent to which the EITC’s employment and related earnings effects increase the overall number of people the EITC lifts out of poverty.  But based on the anti-poverty impacts they find with respect to the mothers and children they examined, they provide a rough estimate that the standard estimate of the total number of people the EITC lifts out of poverty may understate the true number by “as much as 50 percent.”
Further, the emerging research discussed above suggests that by improving children’s health and educational outcomes, and by leading to higher earnings as adults, the working-family tax credits also may reduce poverty in the next generation.  
Each of these factors also reduces inequality by boosting the after-tax income of low-wage workers relative to high-income earners.
Additionally, as noted above, 26 states and the District of Columbia have built on the success of the federal credits by offering their own EITCs, which further reduce poverty and inequality.


How Families Use Their Tax Credits
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC), also known as the working-family tax credits, represent a substantial share of many families’ annual budgets.  Because the tax credits are delivered in a lump sum once a year at tax time, they not only help families pay routine bills, but also make major purchases, such as a car to get to work or security deposit on a new apartment, that they’re often not able to make otherwise.  Research suggests that families receiving the EITC typically spend their tax refunds on these expenses and paying current bills, as well as paying down debt and building assets.a 
 
One major study conducted a short survey and in-depth follow-up interview of 194 families that received an EITC of at least $1,000 in tax year 2006 to discern how families actually used their refunds.  The study found that the families spent roughly half of EITC refunds on current consumption, such as groceries, child expenses, and furniture.b  They spent the other half paying off past-due bills and debt, and for “asset-building” such as savings, education, or home ownership and home repairs.  Nearly two-thirds of families spent part of their refunds on expenses related to raising children, and about one-third made car purchases or repairs.
 
These findings, particularly for major expenses, are consistent with expenditure patterns and self-reported use of tax refunds.  For example, two Chicago Federal Reserve Bank economists found that EITC recipients were devoting a sizable share of their tax refunds to large expenses over 1997 to 2006.c  They found that households likely to be eligible for the EITC spent more on durable goods in February — presumably after they’d received their tax refunds (including the EITC) — than in other months, and also relative to other households that were not likely to receive the EITC.  EITC-eligible households were particularly likely to purchase vehicles in February.  Similarly, various other surveys of EITC recipients have found that most intend to use their refunds to invest in economic and social mobility, such as savings for improved housing or children’s education and car or other transportation expenses that are vital for employment opportunities, as well as making ends meet in the short term.d
 



Providing a Short-Term Safety Net



The latest research, which covers years before the Great Recession and an EITC expansion, shows that the EITC provides ongoing income support for some low-wage workers but helps even more workers meet a temporary need. “The EITC,” researchers found, “acts as a short-term safety net to many taxpayers who claim the EITC for short periods during shocks to income or family structure” — a child’s birth, for instance, or one spouse’s loss of income — after which their earnings grow again.
Some 61 percent of those who received the EITC between 1989 and 2006 did so for only a year or two at a time.  (See Figure 6.)  About half of all taxpayers with children used the EITC at least once during that 18-year period.  With its broad but temporary reach, the EITC provides critical income insurance for working families that face hardship or must care for newborns or very young children.
In addition, low-income households pay substantial taxes.  Most state and local tax systems are regressive, meaning that low-income families pay a larger share of their incomes in these taxes than more affluent households do.  The bottom fifth of households paid an average of 10.9 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes in 2012, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), compared to 9.4 percent for the middle fifth and 5.4 percent for the top 1 percent.  (ITEP also found that in most states, families in the bottom income fifth paid a larger share of their incomes in state and local income, property, sales, and excise taxes than families in the top end of the distribution.)  Also, some EITC recipients pay significant federal income taxes over time, even though they may receive more in EITC benefits in a given year than they pay in federal income taxes in that year.
Conclusion


Recent ground-breaking research suggests that the EITC and CTC help families at virtually every stage of life.  In addition to the credits’ well-established benefits of encouraging work and reducing poverty, recent research suggests that starting from infancy — when higher tax credits are linked to more prenatal care, less maternal stress, and signs of better infant health — children who benefit from tax credit expansions have been found to do better throughout childhood and have higher odds of finishing high school and thus going on to college.  The education and skill gains associated with the CTC and EITC likely keep paying off for many years through higher earnings and employment, researchers say.  This growing body of research highlights the positive long-term benefits of the working-family tax credits for millions of families.



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AND BALTIMORE'S POLS FOR CITY COUNCIL AND MAYOR ARE STILL ALL TIED TO WALL STREET ECONOMIC POLICY THAT CAUSES ALL THESE PROBLEMS.
Maryland has dismantled Federal and state tax offices that used to be easily accessible to the public for tax advice and replaced them with predatory private tax corporations that are simply pay-day lenders of the tax business. If Maryland was a functioning Democratic state---it would have computers identify which families are eligible for which tax breaks and services and then have a system to notify people through the mail when they are eligible and not filing---A REMINDER. Maryland and Baltimore has made sure it does not have this reminder and Baltimore citizens often never use any of these War on Poverty tax benefits. Baltimore, where the most citizens would be eligible has absolutely nothing as a reminder---and that is because Baltimore is neo-conservative, not Democratic. I'm sure other southern Republican states have done the same. Obama and Clinton neo-liberals in Congress want all these low-wage tax credits disappear. There are not only at the Federal level----as you see, it is at state level too. See why O'Malley loaded the state with bond-leverage debt? The state and city will be 'forced' to end these credits because of lack of revenue.
Maryland Earned Income Tax Credit

If you qualify for the federal earned income tax credit and claim it on your federal return, you may be entitled to a Maryland earned income tax credit on the state return equal to 50% of the federal tax credit. The Maryland earned income tax credit (EITC) will either reduce or eliminate the amount of the state and local income tax that you owe.
For tax year 2014, the earned income tax credit is allowed if you meet the following conditions:
  • You have three or more qualifying children and you earn less than $46,227 ($51,567 if married filing jointly).
  • You have two qualifying children and you earn less than $43,038 ($48,378 if married filing jointly).
  • You have one qualifying child and you earn less than $37,870 ($43,210 if married filing jointly).
  • You do not have a qualifying child and you earn less than $14,340 ($19,680 if married filing jointly).
To calculate the amount of your tax credit, complete the State Earned Income Credit Worksheet included in Instruction 18 of the Maryland tax booklet.
You may qualify for the Maryland earned income tax credit even if you're not required to file a Maryland tax return. However, you must file a return to claim the state tax credit, using Form 502  (or Form 505 or Form 515 if you are a nonresident).
Refundable Earned Income Tax CreditIf the earned income tax credit exceeds your Maryland tax liability, you may be entitled to a refund. Complete the Refundable Earned Income Credit Worksheet in Instruction 21 of the tax booklet.
The refundable earned income credit is calculated as 25% of your federal earned income credit, less your state income tax liability. If this amount is zero or less, no refund is due. The refundable amount of the credit may not be carried forward to any other tax year.
Local Earned Income Tax CreditIf you are a Maryland resident who qualifies for the state earned income credit, you may also qualify for a local earned income tax credit. Complete the Local Earned Income Credit Worksheet included in Instruction 19 of the tax booklet. The unused local income tax credit may not be refunded or carried forward to any other tax year.


_______________________________________________
Below you see what this writer politely calls 'irony'.  Obama created myRA to tax the lowest wage earners under the guise of a savings account.  Raise your hand if you think NOW is the time to create yet another revenue source in the US Treasury to be looted? 

INDEED, THESE FUNDS ARE A TAX ON THE POOR AND WILL BE LOOTED AS OUR SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST WAS.
'So here's the irony: The myRA will actually have the working poor financing the government's deficit spending. By creating accounts that invest in a government pool, it's yet another way for the Treasury to raise funds without having to sell bonds in the public markets'.

Obama and Clinton neo-liberals allowed Social Security to be gutted of funding with these US Treasury bond leverage frauds--and the trillions of other Wall Street frauds and since the middle-class payroll tax deductions are dwindling----they are now going to tax the poor with myRA.  They pretend this will be a voluntary deduction but it will look just like a payroll deduction that instead of going into a public Trust----will go right to a criminal stock market.


Remember, they are imploding the US Treasury bond funds and need new revenue sources.



My, oh myRA, what a misguided bureaucratic mess this will be
Scott Hanson, Special to CNBC.com
Wednesday, 12 Feb 2014 | 7:00 AM ETCNBC.com



Join the

Barack Obama's newly created retirement account (myRA) will do very little to help the working poor and will quickly become another bloated bureaucratic system that wastes billions of taxpayer dollars.
The myRA (which stands for My Retirement Account) plan will authorize the Department of the Treasury to create a new type of savings plan for those workers who do not have access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan. Deposits into myRA are not tax deductible, but instead grow tax-deferred and come out tax-free upon retirement.


While at first glance this looks similar to a Roth individual retirement account (IRA), the mechanics of the myRA plan are decidedly different.
Rather than having savers choose from a variety of investments available in the marketplace, myRA establishes a fund that invests in a government-managed program guaranteed by taxpayers.
(Read more: Roth IRA conversion and state income tax)
The fund would be similar to the Thrift Savings Plan Government Securities Investment fund, which is already available to federal workers.
So here's the irony: The myRA will actually have the working poor financing the government's deficit spending. By creating accounts that invest in a government pool, it's yet another way for the Treasury to raise funds without having to sell bonds in the public markets.
While this may not have been the original intention behind its creation, it's an important consequence nonetheless.

The president said in his State of the Union address that this program "guarantees a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in." Yet just last year, the guaranteed fund within the government's Thrift Savings Plan earned about 1.5 percent, which is hardly the type of return that will help a person grow his or her retirement plan.
Besides, the U.S. government already has a program in place that pays the working poor to put money into retirement accounts. Depending upon income, taxpayers match 50 cents on the dollar for every dollar that is contributed to an IRA or employer-sponsored retirement plan. That's right. Just like large employers that offer a company match on 401(k) deposits, so, too, does the government offer a match for low-income savers.
The Retirement Savings Contribution Credit, also called the Saver's Credit, isn't exactly a match that is deposited into a retirement account. Rather, it comes in the form of a credit on one's income-tax return.
The credit, which phases down over time from 50 percent to 10 percent, is available for single filers with adjusted gross incomes of up to $30,000 and for married couples with incomes up to $60,000. The credit is limited to $1,000 per individual, but it's not a refundable credit, meaning that it only offsets a person's federal income-tax liability.

This is of nominal value to those who pay little or no income tax.
The Saver's Credit was designed to encourage the working poor to save for retirement, but from every study that I've seen, it hasn't made a dent in the savings rates. It's extremely difficult to imagine that the creation of yet another government program is going to move the savings needle in a positive direction.

"Isn't it time to admit that government programs simply are not the answer? A new government plan that offers a whopping 1.5 percent return is not going to entice anyone to save more."Because of competing needs and desires, not to mention emergency expenditures, it's not easy to save for retirement. This, of course, is particularly true for people with low incomes. A middle-class family may elect to pare back a family vacation in order to prepare for the future, but for the working poor, saving for retirement is next to impossible.
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't Social Security created to be the stopgap that helped seniors who didn't have retirement savings?
Given that we still have a large percentage of poor retirees in spite of this gigantic government system, isn't it time to admit that government programs simply are not the answer?


A new government plan that offers a whopping 1.5 percent return is not going to entice anyone to save more. No one who is struggling to make ends meet will make the decision to go without getting the kids new shoes so they can put a few dollars into a myRA plan.



0 Comments

October 21st, 2015

10/21/2015

0 Comments

 
DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN BECAUSE ALL THIS WEALTH AND PROFIT AND WALL STREET MANIPULATION IS REPUBLICAN POLICY--

If you follow financial news and read about the workings of Wall Street and the FED after the 2008 economic crash----you knew then that Wall Street tried to sell off the American Stock Exchange but no one around the world wanted it.  These Rating Agencies like Moody's, and Standard and Poor were supposed to be taken to bankruptcy and dismantled for fraud. Yet, they lived on for one last grand Wall Street fraud-----the bond market and stock market fraud targeting the last of the middle-class-----people with pensions and owning stocks.

The stock scheme I spoke of yesterday----loading America's largest corporations with debt from stock buybacks and then passing all that debt to shareholders to blow out their wealth assets will ultimately lead to the implosion of the US stock market.  If your goal is to take the US to third world colonial status with only international economic zones operating under a global corporate tribunal of the world's 300 richest men----you won't need a stock market.  So, the American people who think their stock and bond portfolio rebounded these several years under Obama will be wiped cleaner than under Bush----the neo-con/neo-liberal KNOCK OUT.  Wall Street is in the process of establishing the stock exchange in developing nations just to steal all of those citizens' wealth over these few decades.


Below you see one story that beat the crowd.  It is true the New York Post is not a bastion of journalism----but it is the Rupert Murdoch of Manhattan scoops----and we see what is REAL journalism.  This article places the shut-down next year which without coincidence is when the massive economic crash from the bond market and stock market fraud will hit.  This doesn't mean Wall Street is out of business---it simply means all stock manipulations will be handled overseas.

LET'S SEE----DO I BELIEVE THE PRESIDENT OF THE NYSE?  REALLY??

Major financial news journals will not report this because they do not want a mass exodus of main street investors----where would all that corporate debt and tax evasion go if not to taking all of main street's stock and bond assets?


To look at this locally-------look at the Wall Stret Baltimore Development Corporation board to see MECU and SECU invested in all this fraud as with financial firms tying local consumers to these bad deals and making sure no one knows of this coming crash and bad investments.  Baltimore local media does the same as its morning shows with all its local investment advice is silent on what is really happening.  This is how main street gets roped and doped every time by Wall Street.

IF YOU HAVE INVESTMENTS LOOK AT THIS AND GET YOUR ASSETS OUT NOW----ALSO, THINK ABOUT HOW THE ENTIRE SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE TRUST FUNDS ARE TIED TO US TREASURIES ALL INVESTED IN THIS MESS.


I like the writer's use of 'window dressing' in describing all of the Obama and Clinton neo-liberal Dodd-Frank reform posing-----as Trans Pacific Trade Pact seeks to make it illegal to regulate world banks.


Big Board trading floor not closing: NYSE boss


CNBC
@CNBC


NYSE President Tom Farley tells CNBC there's no truth to reports about a sale of the exchange or closing down the trading floor.
"We are continuing to improve the business, but the floor is a very important part of it," he said in a " Squawk Box " interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Asked where the New York Post got its story, Farley said, "Bad reporting."

The Post reported last month that signs pointed to a sale of the NYSE by Intercontinental Exchange and the possible closure of the Big Board's trading floor.

The newspaper did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
*********************************************************
Signs point to New York Stock Exchange going up for sale

By John Aidan Byrne
December 28, 2014 | 3:45am  New York Post
Modal TriggerPhoto: Reuters

The New York Stock Exchange is back in play — and it may be sold lock, “stock” and building as soon as next year, The Post has learned.
Big Board owner Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is laying the groundwork. The latest all-out drive to make it more profitable, powered by better and faster technology — and a regulatory overhaul to regain market share — is pure window dressing, according to analysts and knowledgeable exchange watchers.
This window-dressing could presage the once unthinkable: the closure of the Big Board’s iconic trading floor.
“There is only one move, and that is a sale or spinoff of the NYSE,” said Jim Osman, chief executive of the Edge Consulting Group in London, a research firm that specializes in spinoffs and special situations.
Osman, speaking to The Post in the wake of the NYSE’s latest plans to slash trading fees and punch high-speed competitors and dark pools in the gut, said the rationale made sense now that ICE has divested most of its stake in Euronext.
The Atlanta-based ICE, led by Jeffrey Sprecher, retained the prized international derivatives portion of Euro-next. That prompted Osman to conclude the next step could see it parting company with the Big Board’s equities franchise in lower Manhattan.
“We believe post-divestiture of the European business, it might now look to divest NYSE — the cash equities exchange — considering the fact that its core interest area [is] the [London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange] business that provides a duopoly for ICE in the European derivatives market along with [rival] Deutsche Boerse’s Eurex platform,” according to Osman.
Despite efforts to fortify the NYSE’s struggling stock-trading business, Osman’s view gained traction last week. The exchange’s latest multimillion-dollar renovation to spruce up its famous neoclassical building fronted by Corinthian columns is also seen as more pre-sale window dressing.
The exchange is making more money today as management cuts costs. But its low-margin stock-trading business, with a 20 percent market share — down from 80 percent a decade ago — is propped up by listing fees and a data business.
Diego Perfumo, an exchange analyst at Equity Research Desk in Greenwich, Conn., is now holding firm to the NYSE sale prediction he made in 2013 after ICE’s $8.2 billion takeover of NYSE Euronext.
Perfumo says the NYSE’s latest proposal to slash Wall Street banks’ trading costs by a huge 80 percent in exchange for more of their stock trades could ultimately boost the price ICE is offered. “Honestly, they are going to be looking for more value — and the value, if the NYSE is sold, will be reflected in the acquisition price,” he said.
Timing of this sale? “I would say within a year, you will know how this game is going to play out, that’s my guess,” said ICE investor Thomas Caldwell, chairman of Caldwell Securities, once one of the largest owners of the NYSE prior to its transformation into a public company in 2006.
Other analysts think a sale could take longer to play out. “ICE might turn around and sell the NYSE at a better price,” Caldwell added. “I like what he is doing. Sprecher is a brawler, an entrepreneur, and not part of the New York establishment.”

_____________________________________________
Below you see the same tax reform language used by Reagan------then Clinton-----as neo-liberals pushing corporate friendly tax reform while posing progressive.  Same phrases----same mentioning of the middle-class and small business----and no intention of protecting either.

The Trans Pacific Trade Pact is written such that taxing global corporations operating in the US will not be allowed.  Since almost all corporations after this coming crash will be global--not headquartered in the US----these taxes will be paid only by US small/regional businesses.

I have shown time and again that US global corporations have paid no corporate tax under Obama and in fact have negative tax bills which means subsidy from corporate tax breaks.  We know that a global corporate tribunal will keep raising and raising taxes and fees on its colonial outposts----so the tax laws Obama and Clinton neo-liberals and neo-cons are gearing towards this---neo-cons will insist more and more of the social tax breaks like Earned Income and child deductions are eliminated to pay for the cuts to corporate tax rates.  Clinton neo-liberals will pretend that global corporations are throwing their offshore taxes of trillions into a US infrastructure building that will simply all go back to these global corporations with tons of taxpayer subsidy as they are awarded all infrastructure contracts.

What does that mean for main street?  It means that global corporations will take the bulk of all government infrastructure jobs paid for with US taxpayer money with these global corporations owning all this infrastructure and subcontract to smaller US businesses that will pay more and more of these taxes.  Each time a Republican tax reform includes closing loopholes in exchange for lower rates----and main street will lose all those socially progressive tax breaks that have kept taxation low for the working class.  There will be no middle-class.

THE LOOPHOLES COME BACK STRONGER THAN EVER.  THEY SIMPLY NEED TO WRITE NEW LOOPHOLES.


This report presents the President’s Framework for business tax reform.


In laying out this Framework, the President recognizes that tax reform will take time, require work on a bipartisan basis, and benefit from additional feedback from stakeholders and experts. To start that process, this report outlines what the President believes should be five key elements of business tax reform.
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S FIVE ELEMENTS OF BUSINESS TAX REFORM


I.Eliminate dozens of tax loopholes and subsidies, broaden the base and cut the corporate tax rate to spur growth in America:

The Framework would eliminate dozens of different tax expenditures and fundamentally reform the business tax base to reduce distortions that hurt productivity and growth. It would reinvest these savings to lower the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, putting the United States in line with major competitor countries and encouraging greater investment in America.


II.Strengthen American manufacturing and innovation:

The Framework would refocus the manufacturing deduction and use the savings to reduce the effective rate on manufacturing to no more than 25 percent, while encouraging greater research and development and the production of clean energy.



III.Strengthen the international tax system, including establishing a new minimum tax on foreign earnings, to encourage domestic investment:

Our tax system should not give companies an incentive to locate production overseas or engage in accounting games to shift profits abroad, eroding the U.S. tax base. Introducing a minimum tax on foreign earnings would help address these problems and discourage a global race to the bottom in tax rates.


IV.Simplify and cut taxes for America’s small businesses:

Tax reform should make tax filing simpler for small businesses and entrepreneurs so that they can focus on growing their businesses rather than filling out tax returns.

V.Restore fiscal responsibility and not add a dime to the deficit:

Business tax reform should be fully paid for and lead to greater fiscal responsibility than our current business tax system by either eliminating or making permanent and fully paying for temporary tax provisions now in the tax code.

_____________________________________________

Now, knowing that the goal of the FED's policy with the help of Obama and a super-majority of 'Democrats'-----oh, I mean neo-liberals-----was to implode the US stock and bond market and doing a Bain's Capital on US corporations having much of American investments-----how does taxing the rich with capital gains taxes come into play except as a progressive posing policy?  There will be no taxing the rich---they simply say that.  Who are those middle-class Obama receiving a redistribution of wealth?  Remember, this was Obama's mantra during the 2008 election and the only distribution of wealth under Obama was to the richest 300 men in Wall Street.  Look below to see Obama claiming a bank tax when his Trans Pacific Treade Pact states no such tax will be allowed.  THEY ARE OPENLY LYING.

So, global pols are still using all of that progressive talk having absolutely no intentions of doing anything with taxes other than creating a net that will move taxation to small business and working class.  All of the progressive social taxes will be eliminated----a flat tax no doubt will be assigned to small business under making things easier----but that tax will grow and grow.


OBAMA AS WITH BUSH CLEANED THE US TREASURY DRY WITH WALL STREET FRAUD KILLING EVERY SOCIAL TRUST AND PROGRAM SO DO WE REALLY THINK HE NOW WANTS TAX SUBSIDIES FOR LOW-INCOME????


Neo-liberals want what Republicans want----to maximize profits for the richest corporations by moving all taxation to the workers and small businesses.

The tax reform gap between Obama and the GOP is widening


President Obama laid out his vision for the tax code. He's using a 'middle-class economics' agenda aimed at raising taxes on capital gains on high-income groups and redistribute the money from rich to working-class households. While, Republicans want to cut tax rates mostly. Will there be a middle ground? 
By Howard Gleckman, TaxVox January 21, 2015




In his state of the union address, President Obama laid out his vision for the tax code. Earlier in the day, in a speech to the Chamber of Commerce, Senate Finance Committee chair Orrin Hatch (R-UT) described his. They are not only on different planets. They inhabit different galaxies.

Obama wants to raise capital gains taxes on high-income investors, cap the size of tax-preferred retirement savings accounts, and impose a new tax on big banks. He’d use the money to create or expand tax subsidies or boost direct spending on families with kids, low-income workers, those who want to go to college, and those without access to job-based retirement savings.
Hatch isn’t having much of it. He wants to use tax reform to promote savings and investment.  He rejects tax hikes on businesses. And he’s opposed to using the code to “pick winners and losers.”

In the past, Republicans have backed variations on some of Obama’s ideas. Former House Ways & Means Committee chair Dave Camp proposed a bank tax as part of his reform plan. GOP senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mike Lee (R-UT) have proposed their own expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. And Democrats, including Obama, have backed the ideas of simplicity and neutrality.


Looked at through this prism, there are places where the two sides could deal.
You could say (if you were more optimistic than I) that the two sides are merely staking out their negotiating positions before they move to middle ground. You could say that.
But look at the bigger picture. Republicans want to cut tax rates, encourage more savings and investment, and guarantee that a post-reform tax code does not raise more money than the current version. Obama wants to raise rates on some investment income, and generate additional revenue that could be spent on new government programs. Other than that….
Obama’s individual tax plan is more of a modest tweak than a full blown rewrite of the code, and goes against the grain of the standard cut-rates-and-broaden-the base design. Not only does it boost some rates, but it narrows the tax base by adding new targeted tax preferences.
Post-Camp, Republicans have avoided specifics. Hatch has assigned bipartisan working groups to develop ideas for reform and he’s unlikely to have much to say about details before they finish their work in May.
Since his elevation to Ways & Means Committee chair, Rep. Paul Ryan has said almost nothing in public about his own specific ideas for reform.
But it isn’t hard to see where the two parties are headed. Obama does not want an anodyne debate over tax reform. Rather, he’s using reform rhetoric to support a "middle-class economics"agenda aimed at using the tax code to redistribute some income from the rich to working-class households. For their part, Republicans want to use reform talk as a framework for a business-oriented growth agenda leavened by some targeted breaks for working families.
Is there a middle ground in all this? Sure there is. But neither party seems inclined to go there. In fact, the more they talk, the more apart they seem.

________________________________________________

WAKE UP FOLKS-----IF GLOBAL POLS AND OBAMA ARE WORKING AS HARD AS THEY CAN TO CREATE TAX-FREE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ZONES---WE KNOW THEY DO NOT INTEND TO TAX GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.

Below you see an article from a global economic summit that is working on a global corporate tax reform that would create policy that makes global corporations pay taxes to the nations owed.  That means US global corporations would pay taxes in the US under these rules.  Note, it is the US that is abstaining from any movement towards corporate tax reform that holds US global corporations accountable to pay taxes.  THIS IS HAPPENING AS OBAMA AND CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS PRETEND THEY ARE INSTALLING THESE VERY KINDS OF LAWS IN THE US.

What US neo-liberals are doing is exactly what Republicans have as policy----keep allowing corporations to pay nothing.
 Neo-liberals and neo-cons want only to eliminate all the social deductions protecting the working class since they are killing the middle-class and that tax base.


This is how you know these global pols are doing nothing they say except install international economic zones that are TAX FREE!!!!!
******************************************************************************************


'How BEPS Proposes to Stop Profit Shifting

The initiative has already been endorsed by the G20 and nearly 50 governments around the world have indicated that they will agree to the new set of rules and integrate them into their tax codes. There have been some notable hold-outs, however. Among them: the United States and dozens of multinational corporations who have said they’re just not ready for the new reforms'.




Taxes
The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets
Oct 6, 2015 @ 09:10 AM

Many Companies Not Ready For Global Tax Reform
Joe Harpaz



A monumental proposal for global tax reform will be presented at the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Lima, Peru, later this week. That’s when the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will present its final Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project guidelines, a set of tax reform proposals designed to clamp down on tax avoidance among multinational corporations.
How BEPS Proposes to Stop Profit Shifting
The initiative has already been endorsed by the G20 and nearly 50 governments around the world have indicated that they will agree to the new set of rules and integrate them into their tax codes. There have been some notable hold-outs, however. Among them: the United States and dozens of multinational corporations who have said they’re just not ready for the new reforms.
To understand the current discord around BEPS, and gain some insight into whether or not it will soon become the new normal of global tax code, we must first look at the base tenets of the project.
At its core, BEPS was conceived to stop multinational companies from shifting their profits into low tax jurisdictions. For example, it is possible and perfectly legal under current tax laws, for a product that is sold in the U.S., which contains intellectual property and components that are domiciled in Ireland, to be claimed as profit in Ireland. In this example, that can be the difference between the company paying a 35% corporate tax rate in the U.S. or a 12.5% corporate tax rate in Ireland.
To stop this, the BEPS Project has introduced the concept of country-by-country reporting, which would require companies to declare the amount of revenue, profit and tax paid in each country, along with details on total employment, capital and assets used in each location. This would provide tax authorities with complete transparency into profit generated in each tax regime, and would eliminate any vagaries around where exactly the profits on goods sold can be claimed.
Resistance to BEPS
For the most part, tax authorities around the world are supportive of BEPS because, if it works, it could increase their tax revenues. As I wrote in May, some countries – notably the UK and Australia – have already begun to propose laws that preempt several of the BEPS ideals.  More recently Spain, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Singapore and China also announced BEPS-like initiatives.


_____________________________________________
Citizens in Baltimore and other US designated International Economic Zones know one thing for sure-----THESE ZONES HAVE NO INTENTION OF HAVING GLOBAL CORPORATIONS THAT PAY TAXES---IT IS A TAX SUBSIDY ZONE.
We need to remember this as we listen to these global pols pretend to be creating tax policy that is small business and people-friendly. These massive global campuses will suck all economic activity from US cities and surrounding areas and will pay no taxes. Meanwhile, our local and regional businesses will be at a disadvantage in trying to export and they will be the one tax base for our local economy. This is why we will see taxation on small business and people rise more and more and more.
When you keep those global corporations out of a city's economy by refusing to allow Wall Street to build these International Economic Zones-----then taxation is spread across all business sectors creating a broad tax base that can be lowered----LOWERED. So, Obama and Clinton neo-liberals along with Republicans are all about maximizing global corporate profits and they will go with HIGHER AND HIGHER taxation policy.
PLEASE STOP ALLOWING GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS TO WIN ELECTIONS----BE ENGAGED IN POLITICS AND BE THE REAL PROGRESSIVE SOCIAL DEMOCRAT WANTING A LOCAL, DOMESTIC ECONOMY FOR LOWER TAXES.
Notice International Economic Zones are for developing nations only-----and now they are attaching them to US cities. Miami-----Houston-----and Silicon Valley are the oldest established IEZ.
*************************************************************************************
International Free Trade Zone

June 29, 2010• International Trade• by EconomyWatch
Free Trade Zone, popularly known as FTZ, is an area where goods may be traded without any barriers imposed by customs authorities like quotas and tariffs. Free Trade Zone (FTZ) is a special designated area within a country where normal trade barriers like quotas, tariffs are removed and the bureaucratic necessities are narrowed in order to attract new business and foreign investments.
Free trade zones are developed in places that are geographically advantageous for trade. Places near international airports, seaports, and the like are preferred for developing free trade zones.

The Free Trade Zone can be defined as a labor-intensive manufacturing hub, which involves the import of components and raw materials, and the produced goods are exported to different countries.
The Free trade zones are located in the developing countries. Outsourcing the zone to the FTZ operator minimizes the bureaucracy and the businesses established in that zone may be given tax benefits. One of the main purposes of the free trade zones is to develop the economy of that location by providing more job opportunities, business options, manufacturing options, etc.


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October 20th, 2015

10/20/2015

0 Comments

 
The US Constitution places the FED's mission as creating full employment and a stable economy.  Since Reagan/Clinton with Greenspan and now Bernanke/Yellen and neo-liberal economics---the FED goal has been to move all wealth to the top and consolidate power to a few global corporations. 

THIS IS ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND IF WE HAD REAL DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS IN OFFICE---THEY WOULD BE FIGHTING TO REMOVE THESE FED CHIEFS.

People may find tax policy boring----and people not owning stocks and bonds may think none of these policies affect them---but it is the working class and low-wage workers killed as much as middle-class by these policies so it is good to understand public policy.  The FED created the conditions yet again for large US corporations to be pushed to bankruptcy with all this corporate stock buy-back debt with the goal being the few largest global corporations will get the assets of these remaining US corporations ----go private----and headquarter overseas to become the foreign corporations coming back to the US under Trans Pacific Trade Pact to operate as FOXCONN global corporations ignoring all US Constitutional law and citizens having rights.



Below you see The Atlantic saying the same thing I shouted 5 years ago----only they are doing it right before the 2016 election.  They were silent through the 2010, 2012, 2014 elections while knowing the same thing.



Stock Buybacks Are Killing the American Economy



Profits once flowed to higher wages or increased investment. Now, they enrich a small number of shareholders.

Traders work in a booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, July 3, 2012. Richard Drew/AP
  • Nick Hanauer
  • Feb 8, 2015
President Obama should be lauded for using his State of the Union address to champion policies that would benefit the struggling middle class, ranging from higher wages to child care to paid sick leave. “It’s the right thing to do,” affirmed the president. And it is. But in appealing to Americans’ innate sense of justice and fairness, the president unfortunately missed an opportunity to draw an important connection between rising income inequality and stagnant economic growth.
As economic power has shifted from workers to owners over the past 40 years, corporate profit’s take of the U.S. economy has doubled—from an average of 6 percent of GDP during America’s post-war economic heyday to more than 12 percent today. Yet despite this extra $1 trillion a year in corporate profits, job growth remains anemic, wages are flat, and our nation can no longer seem to afford even its most basic needs. A $3.6 trillion budget shortfall has left many roads, bridges, dams, and other public infrastructure in disrepair. Federal spending on economically crucial research and development has plummeted 40 percent, from 1.25 percent of GDP in 1977 to only 0.75 percent today. Adjusted for inflation, public university tuition—once mostly covered by the states—has more than doubled over the past 30 years, burying recent graduates under $1.2 trillion in student debt. Many public schools and our police and fire departments are dangerously underfunded.


Where did all this money go?
The answer is as simple as it is surprising: Much of it went to stock buybacks—more than $6.9 trillion of them since 2004, according to data compiled by Mustafa Erdem Sakinç of The Academic-Industry Research Network. Over the past decade, the companies that make up the S&P 500 have spent an astounding 54 percent of profits on stock buybacks. Last year alone, U.S. corporations spent about $700 billion, or roughly 4 percent of GDP, to prop up their share prices by repurchasing their own stock.
In the past, this money flowed through the broader economy in the form of higher wages or increased investments in plants and equipment. But today, these buybacks drain trillions of dollars of windfall profits out of the real economy and into a paper-asset bubble, inflating share prices while producing nothing of tangible value. Corporate managers have always felt pressure to grow earnings per share, or EPS, but where once their only option was the hard work of actually growing earnings by selling better products and services, they can now simply manipulate their EPS by reducing the number of shares outstanding.


So what’s changed? Before 1982, when John Shad, a former Wall Street CEO in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission loosened regulations that define stock manipulation, corporate managers avoided stock buybacks out of fear of prosecution. That rule change, combined with a shift toward stock-based compensation for top executives, has essentially created a gigantic game of financial “keep away,” with CEOs and shareholders tossing a $700-billion ball back and forth over the heads of American workers, whose wages as a share of GDP have fallen in almost exact proportion to profit’s rise.
To be clear: I’ve done stock buybacks too. We all do it. In this era of short-term-focused activist investors, it is nearly impossible to avoid. So at least part of the solution to our current epidemic of business disinvestment must be to discourage this sort of stock manipulation by going back to the pre-1982 rules.
Shareholders aren't providing capital to the corporate sector, they're extracting it.This practice is not only unfair to the American middle class, but is also demonstrably harmful to both individual companies and the American economy as a whole. In a recent white paper titled “The World’s Dumbest Idea,” GMO asset allocation manager James Montier strongly challenges the 40-year obsession with “shareholder value maximization,” or SVM, documenting the many ways that stock buybacks and excessive dividends have reduced business investment and boosted inequality. Almost all investment carried out by firms is financed by retained earnings, Montier points out, so the diversion of cash flow to stock buybacks has inevitably resulted in lower rates of business investment. Defenders of SVM argue that investors efficiently reallocate the profits they reap from repurchased shares by investing the proceeds into more promising enterprises. But Montier shows that since the 1980s, public corporations have actually bought back more equity than they’ve issued, representing a net negative equity flow. Shareholders aren’t providing capital to the corporate sector, they’re extracting it.
Meanwhile, the shift toward stock-based compensation helped drive the rise of the 1 percent by inflating the ratio of CEO-to-worker compensation from twenty-to-one in 1965 to about 300-to-one today. Labor’s steadily falling share of GDP has inevitably depressed consumer demand, resulting in slower economic growth. A new study from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development finds that rising inequality knocked six points off U.S. GDP growth between 1990 and 2010 alone.
It is mathematically impossible to make the public- and private-sector investments necessary to sustain America’s global economic competitiveness while flushing away 4 percent of GDP year after year. That is why the federal government must reorient its policies from promoting personal enrichment to promoting national growth. These policies should limit stock buybacks and raise the marginal rate on dividends while providing real incentives to boost investment in R&D, worker training, and business expansion.
If business leaders hope to maintain broad public support for business, they must acknowledge that the purpose of the corporation is not to enrich the few, but to benefit the many. Once America’s CEOs refocus on growing their companies rather than growing their share prices, shareholder value will take care of itself and all Americans will share in the benefits of a renewed era of economic growth.

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Obama's IRS has these several years not collected hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate domestic taxes which will stay with these corporations as they are sent to bankruptcy.  Not only will these corporations be loaded with stock-buy-back debt---they will be loaded with delinquent corporate tax debt and who will have to pay that debt?  THE MAIN STREET SHAREHOLDERS THESE CORPORATIONS MADE OF THEIR EMPLOYEES----POSING AS BENEVOLENT.  They are really simply loading their 'former' employees with tons of debt to drive them to poverty as the executives join the few global corporations grabbing all the assets.


'First of all, share buybacks reduce the number of shares outstanding. Once a company purchases its shares, it often cancels them or keeps them as treasury shares and reduces the number of shares outstanding, in the process.
Moreover, buybacks reduce the assets on the balance sheet (remember cash is an asset)'.
Watch out, however, if a company is merely using buybacks to prop up ratios, provide short-term relief to an ailing stock price or to get out from under excessive dilution.

Below you see the Washington Post misleading readers as they knew back then the goal of selling all these stock buybacks and how it would hurt these employees!  Remember, these national news media are no longer journalists---they are now corporate state media as in China and Russia.


Business

Companies turning again to stock buybacks to reward shareholders




By Jia Lynn Yang December 15, 2013
Washington Post


Battered by months of dis­appointing sales, networking giant Cisco needed a way to give its shareholders a pick-me-up. So the San Jose-based firm did what has become routine for many big U.S. companies in a slow-growing economy: It announced last month that it was buying back shares of its stock.

The amount authorized to be spent was $15 billion, surpassing the $10 billion in net income the company earned last year. It’s also 21 / 2 times what Cisco spent on research and development, and it comes as the company lays off 5 percent of its workforce, or 4,000 employees.

This is what U.S. multinationals do now with their cash. Rather than tout big new investments, raise worker wages or hire more employees, companies are more likely to set aside funds to reward shareholders — a trend that took a dip during the recession but has roared back during the recovery.
The 30 companies listed on the Dow Jones industrial average have authorized $211 billion in buybacks in 2013, according to data from ­Birinyi Associates, helping to lift the benchmark stock index to heights not seen since the tech boom of the late 1990s. By comparison, the amount is nearly three times what the group spent on research and development last year, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.
Why spend so much on stock repurchasing? When the number of shares outstanding falls, the value of each one goes up, instantly rewarding shareholders.
View Graphic

How companies use stock buybacks


The repurchase also lifts earnings per share, an important number closely watched by investors — and by corporate boards in determining executive pay. Of the 30 companies making up the Dow index, all but four list earnings per share in their public documents as a metric used to determine executive pay.

Ultimately, analysts say, when companies spend money on buybacks rather than investment, they’re signaling low hopes for economic growth.
“Corporate profits are very high, but corporations are not expecting a huge burst of growth,” said Ben Inker, co-head of asset allocation at GMO, an investment-management firm. “Given that they’re not expecting a lot of growth, there isn’t a lot of reason to invest. So they’re finding ways of getting money back to shareholders.”
The types of companies that authorize buybacks transcend industry. Among the Dow 30, more than half have approved stock buybacks this year, essentially earmarking money for repurchases that can take place over years. Home Depot authorized $17 billion in February; Goldman Sachs signed off on $10.8 billion in April; Pfizer greenlighted $10 billion in June; and Wal-Mart authorized $15 billion in June.
The announcements often come on top of ongoing share repurchases that outpace spending on research and development. AT&T, for instance, has spent $11.1 billion this year buying back shares, compared with the $1.3 billion it spent last year on research and development. Pfizer has used $11.5 billion to repurchase shares; the pharmaceutical company logged $7.9 billion in research last year.
Cisco spokeswoman Kristin Carvell said the company has not announced a time frame for completing the $15 billion buyback, so evaluating the size of the authorization next to annual net income is “not necessarily a direct comparison.”

She rejected the idea that the company is authorizing buybacks because it doesn’t see investment opportunities. Carvell said Cisco is able to do both — return cash to shareholders and make investments. Carvell also said that the recent layoffs were done not to cut operational costs but rather to allow the company to invest in “key growth areas.”
Cisco announced its buyback authorization the same day it released disappointing quarterly earnings. The bad news outweighed the repurchase declaration and sent the stock down 11 percent.
In the past three decades, the stock buyback has become a standard move in the playbook of corporate America, echoing a growing fixation on maximizing shareholder value.
The rise of share buybacks reflects a belief that a company’s primary purpose is to return value to shareholders, even though that principle is not codified by U.S. statute.
Helping to fuel the stock market’s meteoric rise is the Federal Reserve’s stimulus program designed to lower borrowing costs. Companies are taking advantage, often by borrowing money at low rates to repurchase shares, although it’s unclear how much of the debt is being used to pay for buybacks.
“It somehow feels scarier if they borrowed the money to buy back stock than if they had some investment opportunities,” Inker said. “That somehow seems more sustainable than just levering up to reduce the share count.”
Some analysts say companies are better off repurchasing shares than pouring money into investments promising dubious payoffs, especially in a slow-
growing economy. But others argue that the rise of the share buyback is encouraging executives to make decisions that aren’t always good for their firms or for the economy, rewarding companies for finding quick ways to please shareholders rather than innovating and planning for long-term growth.

“It’s not just the money,” William Lazonick, a professor of economics and director of the Center for Industrial Competitiveness at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, said of buybacks. “It changes the strategy of the company. It undermines innovation.”
Share buybacks weren’t always a fixture in corporate America. In 1985, only 52 stock repurchases were authorized, according to Birinyi Associates. This year there have been 885.
Buybacks at all companies this year are on track to reach $754 billion, shy of the $863 billion record set in 2007 but far above the 2009 low during the recession.
Lazonick traces the rise of buybacks to a rule passed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1982 that gave “safe harbor” to corporations repurchasing large parcels of stock — a way to protect them from charges of price ma­nipu­la­tion.
“It’s systemic,” Lazonick said. “One company does it, everybody feels compelled to do it. Otherwise their stock price will lag behind.”
Another factor, experts say, is that executive pay is increasingly tied to movements in the stock market as corporate boards try to tie pay to performance. And often, the compensation itself comes in the form of stock.
The use of restricted stock grants to pay executives hit an all-time high in 2012, according to research firm Equilar, with 93 percent of Standard & Poor’s Composite 1500 companies granting restricted stock to employees, compared with 80 percent in 2007.
But some corporate governance experts question why pay is so closely tied to share prices and metrics such as earnings per share, which executives can so easily alter in the short term.
Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, likened stock-based pay to professional football players being allowed to bet on the games they play in: They have too much control over the outcome.
“In football, they have this absolute rule, which is if you’re ever caught betting on football if you’re a player or manager, you get punted out for life,” Martin said. “In the world of business, it’s a different rule.”
As the stock market has surged back to pre-recession levels, executive pay has shot back up as well. Equilar found that chief executives’ compensation is “growing at levels last seen prior to the recession,” according to its 2013 report on CEO pay strategies. Meanwhile, average worker pay has remained stagnant since before the crisis.
And pressure is growing, often from activist investors, for firms to return even more value to shareholders. Carl Icahn, for instance, has been loudly pressing Apple to do a buyback of as much as $150 billion, although he recently scaled back his request.
Companies can take years to complete the process. This year, the companies in the Dow 30 have executed $132 billion worth of buybacks. Lazonick has calculated that over the past decade, companies in the S&P 500-stock index have spent just over half of their net income executing buybacks.
Still, lawmakers have rarely taken notice. In the summer of 2008, when gasoline prices spiked, a handful of Democrats on Capitol Hill, including Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), blasted oil companies for announcing buybacks while customers paid more at the pump.
“What’s shocking is that Big Oil is plowing these profits into stock buybacks instead of increasing production or investing in alternative energy,” Schumer said in a statement at the time.

No substantive policy action on buybacks followed. Yet the way firms deploy their capital — along with what executives are paid — has broad ramifications for the economy.
“Executives get paid for what other companies are doing or what the sentiments of investors are, something that has nothing to do with their business plans,” said Keith Johnson, former legal counsel to Wisconsin’s public pension fund. “It’s just a really bad way to run an economy. It perverts the allocation of capital.”
For firms, repurchasing shares has become something to boast about to shareholders — proof that executives are looking out for them.
“We have a financial priority to return value to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases,” Jeff Davis, treasurer and executive vice president of Wal-Mart, said on an earnings call with analysts last month. Davis reported that the company spent $1.7 billion on repurchasing shares in the most recent quarter. Of the $15 billion approved by the firm to be spent this way, Davis added, there was still room for billions more.
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If you look below at the corporations leading this effort you will see the US corporations that are positioning themselves to this global consolidation and privatized stock ----all of the BRAVO of rising corporate stock prices these several years was not REAL GDP----it was simply all this stock buyback to make these corporations which all expanding overseas---loaded with debt here in the US.  Look who these benevolent global corporations are leaving much of this stock buyback to-----they placed it in employee stock plans.  Want to guess which corporations are failing to pay their domestic taxes for several years?  YOU BETCHA----THESE CORPORATIONS BELOW.

The plan is to implode these US corporations with debt as they expand and reorganize overseas and multi-national corporations all while the US economic falls into the deepest of recessions from this coming economic crash from -----BOND MARKET FRAUD.  This will create a great depression/recession with mass unemployment and impoverishment as the Congress jeeps using AUSTERITY to dismantle all New Deal and War on Poverty programs that would protect US citizens.  So, in this coming decade you will hear these same Clinton/Obama neo-liberals we leave in office pretending to fight for the American people but pretending all this government debt must be met with huge local, state, and national privatization of all government assets to GUESS WHO?  THESE FEW REALLY RICH GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.

THIS IS HOW THE US IS BROUGHT DOWN TO THE SAME DEVELOPED NATION STATUS WITH INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ZONES CONTROLLED BY A GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL AND COURT---NO MORE US CONSTITUTION OR US NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY----WE ARE A COLONIAL ENTITY TO THESE NEO-CONS AND NEO-LIBERALS.


Ten Companies Buying Back Huge Amounts of Their Own Stock


By Lee Jackson August 5, 2013 8:30 am EDT  24/7 Wall Street

Companies can return capital to shareholders in many ways. Dividends are one of the favored methods. So is retiring outstanding debt, as it decreases the amount of capital needed for debt service. Another one of the top ways is for a company to buy back its own stock. This has a twofold effect. First, it obviously can be a positive for the stock price, and secondly it also takes some of the float out of the market. Many companies repurchase stock for their employee stocks plans.
We looked through the data from FactSet and other top research firms and found 10 companies buying back more than $1 billion of their own shares. Like insider buying, it makes sense for investors. If the companies want to own their stock, you may want to as well.


CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS)
kicks off the list with a sizable $6 billion buyback in place. The company is also in the middle of a high-profile fight with Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) over fees and its programming has been temporarily dropped in the New York, Los Angeles and Dallas. The Thomson/First Call price target for this top entertainment name is $60. Investors are paid a small 0.9% dividend.

Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL)

is an oil services name in the process of a $3.3 billion buyback. The company recently pled guilty to destroying evidence in the Gulf of Mexico’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. The buyback and the settlement may give the stock the momentum it needs. The consensus price target for the stock is at $54, and investors are paid a 1.1% dividend.

Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC)

as mentioned, is in the big fight with CBS. It also just announced a plan to buy back $4 billion more of its stock. Takeout and merger rumors also are swirling around this top stock to buy. The consensus price target is at $120, and shareholders are paid a 2.2% dividend.


Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR)

announced in June a plan to repurchase $1 billion in stock, and it added a $1 billion additional amount when it announced preliminary earnings on July 23. The consensus price for this top tech name is $22.


Maxim Integrated Products Inc. (NASDAQ: MXIM)


is buying back stock and consistently raising its dividend. The company engages in designing, developing, manufacturing and marketing various linear and mixed-signal integrated circuits worldwide. The consensus price objective for the stock is $30, and the company pays a solid 3.7% dividend.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C)
received approval in the late spring for a $1.2 billion repurchase program. The company also posted outstanding second-quarter earnings and appears to be hitting on all cylinders, both in the United States and around the world. The consensus price target for the stock is at $60, and investors get a tiny 0.1% dividend.

Priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN)


has been on fire and seems destined to join the $1,000 stock price club. The company announced in May a $1 billion stock buyback program, and it also had tremendous second-quarter earnings. The consensus target for this top travel name is $945.


Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK)

replaced its head of research in April and is betting big on new medicines to treat cancer and Alzheimer’s, though those therapies are still years away from being available to patients. The company also announced a $5 billion buyback of its stock in May. The consensus price target for the drug giant is $52. Investors receive a solid 3.5% dividend.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) seems to have an exciting array of new products to spring on its legions of followers. From the iPhone 5s or 6, enhancements in Apple TV, to a possible iWatch, Wall Street may be in for a surprise. The company sold $17 billion in bonds in late April to help finance what ultimately may be a total of $60 billion in share buybacks by the end of 2015. The consensus price target for the iconic tech stock is $525, and investors receive a 2.8% dividend.


Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT)

announced a $15 billion share repurchase plan at its shareholder meeting back in June. The $15 billion program replaces the current $15 billion share repurchase program begun in 2011. About $712 million is left under that program. The consensus price target for the nation’s largest retailer is $81.50. Investors are paid a 2.4% dividend.
It is important to remember that just because a company is buying back its stock does not mean that it will trade higher. Some major corporations with huge stock floats like Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) have had multibillion dollar buyback programs for years. Anyway you look at it though, a company that consistently buys back stock has the potential for a solid future.
By Lee Jackson


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It was Congress who passed these tax laws that gave tax breaks to shareholders who tied themselves to these employee stock plans and it was Congress that then watched as US global corporations created the conditions for these corporations to do a BAINS CAPITAL on all these main street stock holders and allow the massive corporate debt from stock buybacks and failure to pay corporate domestic taxes.  These Obama and Clinton neo-liberals have known since 2010 that the FED and US corporations were planning to kill the American worker yet again.  So, look at these employee stock plans tied to your corporations and GET OUT OF THEM.  National labor union leaders know these stock plans are meant to harm union workers.

What happens to the working class and low-wage earners not tied to stocks and bonds-----THESE CORPORATE BANKRUPTCIES WILL TAKE DOWN ALL KINDS OF SMALLER BUSINESSES THAT HIRE LOW-WAGE WORKERS AND THEY TOO WILL BECOME UNEMPLOYED.

Meanwhile, in cities like Baltimore slated as an International Economic Zone-----the unemployment of citizens grows and grows as immigrant labor increases until these FOXCONN global corporate campuses are built----ready for the same conditions in Baltimore as they had overseas with citizens impoverished and desperate.  THAT IS WHAT WALL STREET'S BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT, JOHNS HOPKINS, AND THEIR POLS ARE WORKING TOWARD.


Are companies stabbing their employees in the buyback?

By Anora Mahmudova
Published: May 11, 2015 2:42 p.m. ET

S&P 500 companies spent over $2 trillion on buybacks since 2009

Reuters
Buybacks might be one reason wages haven’t risen more.

By AnoraMahmudova


Large U.S. corporations spent more than $2 trillion buying back their own shares from 2009 through the end of last year.
That is money that didn't go into the economy in the form of rising wages or investment in innovation or the creation of new jobs. Indeed, stagnant paychecks are one consequence of the rising tide of corporate buybacks, according to William Lazonick, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
So who has benefited from the trillions in corporate stock buybacks? The stock market and top executives who are paid in company shares, according to Lazonick, who is also the co-director of the UMass Center for Industrial Competitiveness.
Opinion: How the stock market destroyed the middle class
The S&P 500 index SPX, -0.25%  has risen more than 200% since the beginning of this bull market in early 2009.

Earnings per share have increased 87%, while revenues per share rose by only 22% over the same period. That is a 17% annualized rate for EPS growth, but 4% annualized growth in revenues.
According to an April 28 Morgan Stanley research note, earnings per share for the S&P 500 have grown by around only 3.3% since 2012, excluding buybacks.
The money pouring in from corporate coffers to scoop up shares has even offset continuous outflows from equity funds during the same period.
In 2014, S&P 500 companies spent a record $940 billion to pay dividends and buy back shares, an amount equivalent to more than 90% of corporate yearly profits, according to FactSet.
Over the years, companies have justified such repurchases by pointing to a dearth of good options to fetch attractive returns. But one hard-to-ignore result is that buybacks have boosted earnings per share, essentially by trimming the companies’ shares outstanding.
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Below is a really long article that everyone involved in these retirement stock plans should read.  The bad and ugly are at the end of this article.  This shows how Congress passed tax laws deliberately to move people into yet another retirement plan all with the goal of blowing it up with policies like this FED buyback scheme.

IF WE KNOW IT IS DELIBERATE-----WILLFUL----AND DONE WITH MALICE WE CAN CALL IT FRAUD AND PUBLIC MALFEASANCE.

This is why it is critical to not fall for the idea that all this globalization has gone too far----IT HAS NOT----we can reverse this easy peasy by simply running in Democratic primaries as social Democrats against Clinton/Obama neo-liberals.  THEN WE SIMPLY VOID ALL THIS AND BRING BACK THE FRAUD.

Look when the worst of these laws came into play-----the Clinton Administration.  They deliberately sought to move all American retirement into plans they then imploded to leave no wealth for the people.  For those not knowing, almost all US corporations are S corporations.


S corporation ESOPMost private US companies operating as an ESOP are structured as S corporation ESOPs (S ESOPs). The United States Congress established S ESOPs in 1998, to encourage and expand retirement savings by giving millions more American workers the opportunity to have equity in the companies where they work.




Institutional Retirement and Trust Wells Fargo

A look at the good, the bad, and the ugly
of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)


are unique among
retirement plans. An ESOP merges the tax benefits of a qualified
retirement plan with corporate finance, and aligns employees’
retirement benefits with corporate goals. This combination of
tax-favored employee and corporate benefits is complex, but with
planning and an expert team of advisors, it can be a win-win
scenario for both employees and employers.

Why have an ESOP?
An ESOP can be the solution to a number of employer concerns.
It can:
• provide employees with a stock-based benefit plan;
• provide tax-favored corporate financing;
• provide a means for business perpetuation (e.g., when there is
no buyer for a departing owner);
• provide a market for thinly traded stock;
• provide special tax advantages for shareholders selling stock in
a closely held C corporation;
• make an S corporation non taxable;
• provide liquidity for estates of business owners;
• provide an anti-takeover device by keeping company stock in
“friendly” hands; and
• make dividends deductible at the corporate level.




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October 19th, 2015

10/19/2015

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This week I will talk tax policy-------this time at the national level.  Obama has one more agenda item after he pushes Trans Pacific Trade Pact-----and that is bringing US corporate taxes down to nothing.  They have been nothing unofficially through his terms as the IRS under Obama has overlooked corporate domestic tax collection to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. 

OBAMA WORKS FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS NOT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AS A CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL.


Below you see how long a state or Federal government has to recover unpaid taxes----and look-----if failure to pay involves fraud----which tax evasion is-----there is no limit.  This is what all social Democrats from Bernie Sanders down to state and local pols should be shouting to bring revenue back to communities and public services, education, and programs.

DID YOU KNOW YOUR BALTIMORE CITY COUNCIL AND MAYOR CAN AUDIT AS THESE STATE COMPTROLLERS REFUSE TO -----LOTS OF LOSSES FROM BALTIMORE'S COFFERS FOR THESE CORPORATE TAX EVASIONS.



MARYLAND IS GROUND ZERO FOR TAXES NOT PAID BY CORPORATIONS AND THE RICH-----VIA THE MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE COMPTROLLERS.



When assessed - there is a different statute of limitation on collection - see here - http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/6502
(a) Length of period Where the assessment of any tax imposed by this title has been made within the period of limitation properly applicable thereto, such tax may be collected by levy or by a proceeding in court, but only if the levy is made or the proceeding begun-
(1) within 10 years after the assessment of the tax, or...


So
The statute of limitation on assessment is 3 years after the tax return was filed.
It is 6 years - if omitted income is more than 25%.
No statute of limitation if the tax return was not filed or in case of fraud.
The statute of limitation on collection is 10 years after the tax was assessed.
Let me know if you need any help.

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I read a TIME MAGAZINE article that places the IRS evasion on workers evading taxes----that's a corporate magazine for you.  If employees are evading taxes they are probably doing so because they have been illegally categorized as independent contractors by corporations evading taxes.

Obama has an IRS that is said to fall to collect hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes from corporations and the rich and the same is happening state level since there is no Federal oversight of tax payment that is not focused on small business and individual taxes.  This is huge folks and it happens as Bush neo-cons and Clinton/Obama neo-liberals fake austerity debates over national debt created by corporate fraud.  Congress cuts funding of IRS to allow for even fewer IRS audits while all government watchdogs point to the fact that simply collecting these taxes would pay for all the IRS employees 10 times over.  Don't think they are forgiving the 99%----it is the richest paying nothing and then getting all tax revenue WE THE PEOPLE pay.


'A good chunk of the evasion, the GAO concluded, was committed by individuals with “substantial personal assets” including multi-million-dollar homes and “luxury cars.” One passport recipient bought a house for $2 million and another property for $1.5 million despite owing $1 million in federal taxes'.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ALLOW CORPORATE POLS CONTROL GOVERNMENT.  WHO IS HURT MOST?  REPUBLICAN SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS AND UNDER THE TABLE INDIVIDUALS THE IRS NOW AUDITS SINCE CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PAYING.

IRS Funding Cut Days Before Report Shows $330 Billion In Uncollected Taxes


Posted: 04/11/2011 6:03 pm EDT Updated: 06/11/2011 5:12 am EDT   Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- As part of the budget deal hashed out on Friday evening, lawmakers agreed that no additional federal funds would be used to hire new IRS agents.
Then on Monday, the Government Accountability Office publicly released a study showing that, as of the end of fiscal year 2010, roughly $330 billion in federal taxes had never been paid -- an amount that, if collected, would represent nearly nine times the amount of savings as the budget itself.
The dual developments aren’t shocking. Despite evidence that a single dollar spent on enforcing the tax code could result in up to ten dollars in revenue, politicians, naturally, are reluctant to align themselves with tax collectors. And yet, the sacrificing of funds for IRS agents in the continuing resolution deal underscores a particular problem that seems bound to confront fiscally conscious lawmakers.
“Cutting back on IRS enforcement could easily cost the treasury much more in revenue than it saves,” said Chuck Marr, Director of Federal Tax Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The GAO report, which looks specifically at the issue of passport holders who have failed to pay their full share of taxes, underscores Marr’s point. Titled “Federal Tax Collection: Potential for Using Passport Issuance to Increase Collection of Unpaid Taxes,” the study labels poor enforcement of tax laws and the tax code as a “high-risk” hole in government policy. In fiscal year 2008, passports were issued to about 16 million individuals. Of those, more than 224,000 owed more than $5.8 billion in unpaid federal taxes.
A good chunk of the evasion, the GAO concluded, was committed by individuals with “substantial personal assets” including multi-million-dollar homes and “luxury cars.” One passport recipient bought a house for $2 million and another property for $1.5 million despite owing $1 million in federal taxes.
“If you look, you can find records of most capital gains income,” said Rob Shapiro, former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce. “People deposit it in their bank accounts or the institutions may issue reports if it is capital gains on stock transactions. So it is not hard to pick it up if you have the manpower to look for it. And again, given that the salary of an IRS agent is at least as high as the average salary in America, the fact that there is a ten-to-one ratio for the returns on auditing tells you that [tax evasion] is coming from the high-income brackets.”
Regardless of who the worst evaders are, the GAO concludes that “IRS enforcement of federal tax laws is vital,” not just to pinpoint the offenders but to promote “broader compliance.” And what do the study’s authors cite as a compelling reason to beef up IRS functions? A “federal deficit” that “continue[s] to mount.”
Indeed, several close observers of the budget debate have wondered exactly how lawmakers can shudder at going after tax evasion while simultaneously preaching fiscal responsibility on the stump. Marr, for one, noted that Congress has already disbanded a tax reporting provision in the president’s health care reform law that would have resulted in stronger compliance. That was scuttled for politically obvious reasons: the paperwork it placed on small businesses was deemed well beyond burdensome. But the decision to deny funding for more IRS agents doesn’t have such an easy-to-distill an explanation.
“Hiring more IRS agents would have allowed the Obama administration to enforce its agenda, insofar as its agenda is to make sure that people don't cheat on their taxes,” wrote Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic.
Obama has made buffing up the IRS a relative hush-hush plank of his tax reform agenda. Upon entering office he advocated for more funds for the agency, and as part of his 2012 budget, he proposed a 9.4 percent increase so that it could hire roughly 5100 new employees. The proposal, which pivoted off of previous studies that reached similar conclusions as the GAO's, was met with somewhat frenzied pushback from conservative circles -- the specter of black-suited tax collectors roaming the streets undoubtedly on the mind. And almost immediately, the suggested increase in IRS funds became a target of cut-happy legislators.

_______________________________________________
Bains Capital economic policy has for decades allowed for the gutting of a healthy corporation's assets with the intention of throwing that corporation into bankruptcy.  This is being super-sized as US corporations that are now global are shedding all connections with US shareholders.  The goal is to end public listings on the stock exchange and they are ready to send corporations into bankruptcy with this coming economic crash.

This will kill pension investors and it will kill all shareholders that are not the wealthy Wall Street investment firms already protecting themselves against this.  We are hearing already of what this article states-------corporations are deliberately not paying taxes or things like water bills as in Baltimore just to leave these liabilities to shareholders.  There goes any stock earnings you made on these corporations.

Who are now modeled after Wall Street banks heavy into these investments especially in their own corporations? UNION MEMBERS.


WAKE UP FOLKS-----NATIONAL UNION LEADERS KNOW THIS AS DO ALL CLINTON/OBAMA NEO-LIBERALS!

Tagging shareholder with back taxes!!!!!!  Lying, cheating, and stealing to the end!

US CORPORATIONS WILL INCORPORATE IN NATIONS OVERSEAS AND WILL SEND US CORPORATIONS INTO BANKRUPTCY WITH THIS ECONOMIC CRASH. TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT ALLOWS FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS TO PAY TAXES AS THEY DO OVERSEAS.

Remember, all US corporations have been doing these Obama years is using free money from the FED to merge and acquire global corporations and they have lots of debt-----just to leave their shareholders!
US companies file for bankruptcy at high rate in first quarter
By Tom Hals, Reuters

...
Posted April 15, 2015, at 6:51 a.m.
'Therefore, when a company goes out of business, any person who is responsible for paying the taxes should consult an attorney before paying other creditors, if there are outstanding taxes owed to the IRS'.

Below you see the state of US corporations-----the global corporations used these buybacks to create an elite, small group of the wealthiest shareholders and will go private soon.  The US corporations using buybacks for shareholders like employees----will be the ones to go bankrupt.....and with that corporate taxes and debt from FED zero interest loans.  Below you see two -----General Motors and Lowe's that announced a few years ago they were near bankruptcy.

April 14, 2015 9:58 am
DownloadUS companies unleash share buyback bingeEric Platt in London

An ageing US equity bull run retains one major source of buyers these days — the large companies that dominate the share market including Apple, Intel, IBM and now General Electric.
No matter the muted interest on the part of US investors, companies are increasingly upping their purchasing power, helping maintain a bull market run that over the past six years has left equities looking richly priced.
Buybacks have been a popular way to boost shareholder value for several decades and help companies offset equity options granted to employees. But in the current environment of sluggish economic growth, the rising tide of buybacks and dividends being paid out worries some observers, as it suggests corporations are less optimistic about future prospects and see a paucity of long-term investment opportunities.
Strategists have debated the degree to which buybacks have accelerated the current bull run, with several noting the downturn in Europe would have probably pushed sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and other institutional investors into US stocks.
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“It’s not a zero sum game and it doesn’t have to be,” says David Lefkowitz, an equity strategist with UBS Wealth Management. “The flows are not necessarily indicative of how much support corporate buybacks are lending to the bull market. If that goes away, I wouldn’t necessarily be concerned about a downside in equities.”
With investors expecting a big reduction in quarterly earnings growth compared with a year ago, the return of cash shows no sign of abating, with GE announcing last week it would return a massive $90bn over the next three years.
Now the market stands on the cusp of seeing a record of more than $1tn returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock repurchases this year — with this activity supporting equity prices and valuations as the benchmark index hovers less than 1 per cent from a record high.
Qualcomm, Lowes, General Motors and Simon Property have initiated or authorised multibillion-dollar increases to share buyback programmes in the past two months, while the financial sector cleared a key hurdle in early March when the Federal Reserve gave a green light to dividend increases and repurchase plans from the country’s largest banks. Citigroup, American Express and JPMorgan led a group of nearly two dozen financials that committed as much as $50bn to buybacks over the next five quarters.
Attention has now shifted to Apple, the exemplar of share repurchases, which is expected to announce changes to its multiyear $130bn programme in late April. Those repurchases are “crucial” to valuations and earnings growth, Orrin Sharp-Pierson of BNP Paribas says, a point echoed by Goldman Sachs.
“There is still a very clear preference to receive buybacks as an investor. You get this sense of perpetual synthetic growth, which investors appreciate in the presence of little underlying growth,” he says. “And you get a boost to secondary demand — the stock effect creating the additional bid for equities has been really quite important.”
Retail investors have been absent from buying US equities, joining institutions looking to Europe and Asia for growth opportunities. Investors have pulled $18bn from exchange traded funds invested in US stocks since the year began, compared with $11bn that has flowed to ETFs investing in European and Asian equities, according to data provider Markit.
Tobias Levkovich, a strategist with Citi, notes that over the past decade, S&P 500 companies have repurchased $4tn worth of shares — in part to offset stock options offered to employees — while domestic investors have added less than $100bn to the mix.
“The lack of US retail investor interest in stocks has been stunning and equity market tops usually consist of overly aggressive individual investor interest in the asset class,” says Mr Levkovich.
The pace of companies buying back their own shares now accounts for more than 2 per cent of overall equity volumes in the US and contributed 2.3 per cent to earnings growth for the S&P 500 last year, according to strategists with JPMorgan. That figure, the brokerage says, will probably accelerate this year as a slide in the dollar and oil cut into earnings gains from underlying operations.
The returns have made valuations more palatable for the S&P 500 — the index trades at 17.8 times 2015 expected earnings, above its 10-year average — as analysts ready for two quarters of earnings declines. Companies on the US blue-chip index offer a dividend yield of 2 per cent, just above the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury.
US multinationals steadily increasing returns to shareholders have in turn found stronger buyer interest. Both the S&P 500 buyback and S&P 500 dividend aristocrats indices have outperformed their namesake over the past 12 months, with the former outpacing the broader blue-chip index by nearly 650 basis points.
“With rates expected to remain low, search for yield to continue, and a cautious investor base, shareholder-friendly companies with attractive total yields and strong cash flow generation should benefit from the current market environment,” says Dubravko Lakos-Bujas, a strategist with JPMorgan.



______________________________________________
This is what we know.  After the great looting of the US by Wall Street leading to the Great Depression FDR used the tax code to recover the fraud from the rich and corporations.  That is why taxes were placed at 90%.  Fast forward to the exact situation and we have having to listen to global corporate pols pretend to be working on legitimate corporate tax reform.  Those nasty Republicans trying to take away child tax credits making those Clinton neo-liberals compromise to lower and lower corporate taxes! 

We have to listen as well at LEW----Clinton Administration player connected with all of the financial dealings that gave us this systemically criminal Wall Street and the evasion of all taxes by the rich and corporations.  Now, he is supposedly the people's protector as Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal - in - chief.  So, which is worse----Republicans or neo-liberals and we all know----THEY ARE THE SAME. 

LEW STATES ONCE AGAIN NEO-LIBERALS ARE RAISING TAXES ON THE RICH AND CREATING NEW TAXES FOR INTERNATIONAL CORPORATIONS----ONLY, TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT WILL NOT ALLOW THAT......

The goal for this reform is to pretend they are making global corporations pay to bring back taxes owed to the US on overseas profits while ending with them not only keeping all those taxes but getting subsidies in the hundreds of billions of dollars.  THAT IS THE GOAL FOR GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS.

First, they have to pretend to fend off attacks on that child credit that will have nothing to do with American families brought to poverty as the middle-class disappears.


Politics | Tue Feb 3, 2015 11:52am EST
Related: Politics

Obama administration pushes business tax reform in Congress


WASHINGTON
| By Jason Lange  Reuters



U.S. President Barack Obama makes a point with his finger as he delivers remarks at the House Democratic Issues Conference in Pennsylvania, January 29, 2015.
Reuters/Larry DowningWASHINGTON The Obama administration on Tuesday said it saw room for compromise with Congress on a potential overhaul of the business tax code, but a top Republican lawmaker said the two sides remained at loggerheads over taxes on small companies.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew appeared before lawmakers to explain a White House budget proposal that would raise taxes on the wealthy and create new taxes on international companies to increase spending in areas like highways and education.
Much of that agenda has little chance of approval in this Congress, whose Republican majority is generally opposed to tax increases. But Lew said business tax reform was an area ripe for a bipartisan deal.
"I believe, as does the president, that there is plenty of opportunity for bipartisan cooperation, ... starting with business tax reform," Lew said in testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee.Paul Ryan, the Republican who chairs the committee, said the administration's budget proposals to simplify tax filing were "a step in the right direction."
He also said there was room for compromise on a measure to extend tax credits to low-income childless adults.
But Ryan said the administration's proposals would not do enough to help small companies, particularly those that pay taxes through their owners' individual returns.
"It just doesn't cut it," Ryan said.
The Obama administration proposes lowering corporate tax rates by eliminating a range of deductions, but it does not want to reduce rates for companies that pay via individual returns, a class of businesses known as "pass throughs."
Ryan did not say Republican support for business tax reform hinged on lower rates for pass throughs, but he said any deal must carve out more benefits for this group.
"This committee is not going to leave them behind," Ryan said.

_______________________________________________

Raise your hand if you understand Trans Pacific Trade Pact is about nations being unable to pass law that takes away from corporate profit and it allows global corporations to follow laws in nations it is headquartered.  Right now there are very few US global corporations that are really American.  If TPP is passed those that are are simply going to headquarter in nations having no corporate tax code-----

As Obama and Clinton neo-liberals pretend to have US global corporations put skin in the game of corporate tax reform------with Republicans shouting for ever lower corporate taxes-----we all know Trans Pacific Trade Pact will have global corporations paying whatever tax rate they do where they are headquartered.....so it is no surprise that US corporations are going out of business in record numbers----and this will be super-sized after the coming economic crash----all with the goal of merging restructuring with headquarters overseas.

All Obama and Clinton neo-liberals are doing is finding an excuse to bring trillions of dollars of corporate profits sitting offshore without paying taxes---under the guise of making global corporations pay their fair share in infrastructure building.  All Federal, state, and local infrastructure funding will of course go right back to those global corporations.


Below you see Robert Reich----Clinton neo-liberal cheerleader that pretends to feel the American people's pain as is Paul Krugman----suggesting that the shareholders need to pay corporate taxes.....you will never hear Reich suggest reinstating anti-trust and monopoly laws to bring US global corporations back to regional corporations WHICH IS THE REAL ANSWER.  Those regional corporations would pay corporate taxes.

Think first, that the wealthiest shareholders do not pay taxes.  So, this policy would again move yet another tax responsibility to main street.  It wouldn't last long as public listings IPOs will not last much longer. 


FOR SOMEONE FEELING OUR PAIN ROBERT REICH MISSED FDR'S SOLUTION FOR RECOVERING MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD LEADING TO THE GREAT DEPRESSION------A CORPORATE AND WEALTH TAX RATE OF 90%.


Mon Aug 25, 2014 at 11:28 AM PDT
Eliminate corporate tax, seriouslybykos


GE is sitting on over $100 billion in profits overseas, afraid to pay US taxes on that haul.
I'll let Robert Reich make the argument.
It's time we eliminated the corporate income tax and made up the shortfall by increasing capital gains taxes. Here's the logic: First, the corporate income tax favors big companies that are able to shift their income abroad and engage in other tax-avoidance activities, while harming small companies that can't do any of this and therefore suffer a competitive disadvantage. Yet small companies are the engines of job growth in America.
Second, the people who actually pay the corporate income tax should properly be the company's shareholders, who are the legal owners of the company and who benefit from increases in its income. But in many cases, depending on the structure of the market, a significant share of the actual burden of paying the corporate income tax is often borne instead by employees in the form of lower wages, or consumers in the form of higher prices.

Pretty simple. Right now, large American companies are slow to repatriate profits made overseas, because they are not taxed on those profits until they do so. As a result, you have companies like GE and Apple with over $100 billion parked offshore. Overall, U.S. companies are sitting on an estimated $2.1 trillion in offshored profits.
Eliminating the corporate tax would remove the disincentive for those companies to bring that money home, creating one hell of a stimulus package for the country.
However, this isn't about free money for the corporatists. Fact is, the big companies are good at avoiding taxes by playing offshore finance games, while small businesses end up paying higher tax rates. Aside from the matter of fairness, it's poor economics, as those small businesses—the driver of most job creation in our economy—could use that tax money to invest in new employees and equipment.
But of course, this isn't an effort to starve government, it's to move the tax burden on those who can actually afford it—tax capital gains at the same levels (if not higher!) than regular income. Tax financial transactions, such as stock trades. Put the burden on the shareholders, not on the companies themselves. If those shareholders want to avoid the extra tax burden, then they can spend excess profits on new staff, on new equipment, on higher salaries for their employees. And if they'd rather bleed their employees dry with substandard wages to hoard profits, well then, they can pay for it on the capital gains side.
The real job creators get to create jobs, those sitting pretty on profits get to pay the taxes. Seems like a great deal to me.


Update: More:
For example, a tax of $1 on every $400 of stocks traded (0.25%; one-quarter of one percent) and $1 on every $800 of currency and debt trading including derivatives (0.125%, one-eighth of one percent). This fee (tax) would have raised between $750 billion and $1.2 trillion during each of the past five years (2005 – 2009).
The entire amount raised by the federal corporate income tax, in 2010, was $198 billion. A financial transaction tax, even a tiny one, wouldn't just make up the lost revenue from lost business taxes, it would dramatically surpass them.





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    Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.

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