This blog on Texas education contains posts on higher education, as well as preK-12 policy accountability, testing, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues at both the state and national level. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
Here's an earlier piece that cites a study by Dr. Raul Hinojosa at UCLA on just how much Trump's border wall is going to cost U.S. taxpayers.
The study Duro Contra el Muro: Analysis of Costs and Impacts of Migratory Control Policies in the US
by Dr. Raul Hinojosa of the North American Integration and Development
Center (NAID Center) concluded that the US border with Mexico has been
stable for years due to a combination of US enforcement spending,
declining US labor demand, and demographic decline in Mexico.
This political move also of course seriously places U.S.-Mexico relations in jeopardy, let alone its people. Let's get informed and let's challenge our representatives in Congress on just how foolhardy this is, let alone hateful—such that it's already getting termed by pundits as "A Cold War with Mexico." Surreal, but true.
Angela Valenzuela c/s
William C. Velásquez Institute
For Immediate Release More Information: Tricia Gonzales, 210-240-9546
Antonio Gonzalez 323-849-4496
Study: US Already Spent $250 Billion in Border Security
Building Border Wall Unnecessary
(Mexico
City, August 31, 2016) "Over the last generation the US has spent
nearly $250 billion dollars in border enforcement through various
federal laws and annual budget appropriations. Immigration from Mexico
has been net zero or negative since 2007. The notion that immigration
reform needs to include more border enforcement spending is contrary to
the facts. In real terms this element of America's broken immigration
system has been solved," said Antonio Gonzalez, WCVI President at a
press conference in Mexico City on August 30th.
The study Duro Contra el Muro: Analysis of Costs and Impacts of Migratory Control Policies in the US
by Dr. Raul Hinojosa of the North American Integration and Development
Center (NAID Center) concluded that the US border with Mexico has been
stable for years due to a combination of US enforcement spending,
declining US labor demand, and demographic decline in Mexico.
Hinojosa
remarked at the Mexico City press conference "that massive US border
enforcement spending has reached absurd heights. US taxpayers are now
spending $45,000 for each border apprehension of an unauthorized
immigrant compared to slightly more than $1,100 per immigrant in 1992.
Today on average each border guard captures 1.6 immigrants per month,
compared to about one per day 1992.
"The
US government is already wasting tax-payers money on border enforcement.
And proposals from Presidential Candidate Trump and the bipartisan
Senate Comprehensive Immigration Reform proposal S744 of 2014 -which
contained the so called 'border-surge program' would waste tens of
billions more."
"Now more than ever the 9 million unregistered Mexican Americans
need to register and vote in the upcoming US elections to send a
message to Congress and the President that they oppose building a wall
and increased border enforcement. Mexican Americans want legalization
for the millions of undocumented workers in our country that have toiled
for decades in our fields, restaurants, and factories without basic
human and civil rights. They deserve justice," concluded Gonzalez who is
also President of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project
(SVREP).
See the links below or go to www.wcvi.org for a copy of the study in English or Spanish.
This piece written by Masha Gessen on the very heels of the presidential election offers the following wisdom based on her having spent
much of her career writing about Vladimir Putin’s Russia and on the topic of autocracy. I learned about her, by the way, from one of our country's leading conservative columnist George F. Will who came out yesterday evening on MSNBC and who calls Trump a "con artist" and "clown act." He is today officially a "former republican." I strongly encourage you to see the show in its entirety here: The GOP's conversion to a 'political sociopath'
Here are the rules followed with one of Gessen's comments that resonates with me this morning.
Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality. Rule #3: Institutions will not save you. Rule #4: Be outraged. Rule #5: Don’t make compromises. Rule #6: Remember the future.
Those who argue for cooperation will make the case, much as
President Obama did in his speech, that cooperation is essential for the
future. They will be willfully ignoring the corrupting touch of
autocracy, from which the future must be protected. (my italics)
Forewarned is forearmed. Let's unceasingly challenge not only autocracy but also those like Trump, Bannon, and his cabinet that embodies it. George F. Will inspires great hope, by the way who forecasts that things will change by next summer. You may follow his column in the Washington Post here. Angela Valenzuela c/s
Andrew Kelly TPX/ReutersProtesters outside Trump Tower the day after the election, New York City, November 9, 2016
“Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost.
We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will
say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our
political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger
than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has
made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend
otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the
institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.”
That, or something like that, is what Hillary Clinton should have said on Wednesday. Instead, she said, resignedly,
We must accept this result and then look to the future.
Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and
the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful
transfer of power. We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also
enshrines the rule of law; the principle [that] we are all equal in
rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and
cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.
Hours later, President Barack Obama was even more conciliatory:
We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and
leading the country. The peaceful transition of power is one of the
hallmarks of our democracy. And over the next few months, we are going
to show that to the world….We have to remember that we’re actually all
on one team.
The president added, “The point, though, is that we all go
forward with a presumption of good faith in our fellow citizens, because
that presumption of good faith is essential to a vibrant and
functioning democracy.” As if Donald Trump had not conned his way into
hours of free press coverage, as though he had released (and paid) his
taxes, or not brazenly denigrated our system of government, from the
courts and Congress, to the election process itself—as if, in other
words, he had not won the election precisely by acting in bad faith.
Similar refrains were heard from various members of the
liberal commentariat, with Tom Friedman vowing, “I am not going to try
to make my president fail,” to Nick Kristof calling on “the
approximately 52 percent majority of voters who supported someone other
than Donald Trump” to “give president Trump a chance.” Even the
politicians who have in the past appealed to the less-establishment part
of the Democratic electorate sounded the conciliatory note. Senator
Elizabeth Warren promised to “put aside our differences.” Senator Bernie
Sanders was only slightly more cautious, vowing to try to find the good
in Trump: “To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing
policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I
and other progressives are prepared to work with him.”
However well-intentioned, this talk assumes that Trump is
prepared to find common ground with his many opponents, respect the
institutions of government, and repudiate almost everything he has stood
for during the campaign. In short, it is treating him as a “normal”
politician. There has until now been little evidence that he can be one.
More dangerously, Clinton’s and Obama’s very civil passages,
which ended in applause lines, seemed to close off alternative
responses to his minority victory. (It was hard not to be reminded of
Neville Chamberlain’s statement, that “We should seek by all means in
our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to
remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will.”)
Both Clinton’s and Obama’s phrases about the peaceful transfer of power
concealed the omission of a call to action. The protesters who took to
the streets of New York, Los Angeles, and other American cities on
Wednesday night did so not because of Clinton’s speech but in spite of
it. One of the falsehoods in the Clinton speech was the implied
equivalency between civil resistance and insurgency. This is an
autocrat’s favorite con, the explanation for the violent suppression of
peaceful protests the world over.
The second falsehood is the pretense that America is
starting from scratch and its president-elect is a tabula rasa. Or we
are: “we owe him an open mind.” It was as though Donald Trump had not,
in the course of his campaign, promised to deport US citizens, promised
to create a system of surveillance targeted specifically at Muslim
Americans, promised to build a wall on the border with Mexico, advocated
war crimes, endorsed torture, and repeatedly threatened to jail Hillary
Clinton herself. It was as though those statements and many more could
be written off as so much campaign hyperbole and now that the campaign
was over, Trump would be eager to become a regular, rule-abiding
politician of the pre-Trump era.
But Trump is anything but a regular politician and this has
been anything but a regular election. Trump will be only the fourth
candidate in history and the second in more than a century to win the
presidency after losing the popular vote. He is also probably the first
candidate in history to win the presidency despite having been shown
repeatedly by the national media to be a chronic liar, sexual predator,
serial tax-avoider, and race-baiter who has attracted the likes of the
Ku Klux Klan. Most important, Trump is the first candidate in memory who
ran not for president but for autocrat—and won.
I have lived in autocracies most of my life, and have spent
much of my career writing about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I have learned a
few rules for surviving in an autocracy and salvaging your sanity and
self-respect. It might be worth considering them now: Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He
means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others
claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach
for a rationalization. This will happen often: humans seem to have
evolved to practice denial when confronted publicly with the
unacceptable. Back in the 1930s, The New York Times assured its
readers that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was all posture. More recently, the
same newspaper made a telling choice between two statements made by
Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov following a police crackdown on
protesters in Moscow: “The police acted mildly—I would have liked them to act more harshly” rather than those protesters’ “liver should have been spread all over the pavement.”
Perhaps the journalists could not believe their ears. But they
should—both in the Russian case, and in the American one. For all the
admiration Trump has expressed for Putin, the two men are very
different; if anything, there is even more reason to listen to
everything Trump has said. He has no political establishment into which
to fold himself following the campaign, and therefore no reason to shed
his campaign rhetoric. On the contrary: it is now the establishment that
is rushing to accommodate him—from the president, who met with him at
the White House on Thursday, to the leaders of the Republican Party, who
are discarding their long-held scruples to embrace his radical positions.
He has received the support he needed to win, and the
adulation he craves, precisely because of his outrageous threats. Trump
rally crowds have chanted “Lock her up!” They, and he, meant every word.
If Trump does not go after Hillary Clinton on his first day in office,
if he instead focuses, as his acceptance speech indicated he might, on
the unifying project of investing in infrastructure (which, not
coincidentally, would provide an instant opportunity to reward his
cronies and himself), it will be foolish to breathe a sigh of relief.
Trump has made his plans clear, and he has made a compact with his
voters to carry them out. These plans include not only dismantling
legislation such as Obamacare but also doing away with judicial
restraint—and, yes, punishing opponents.
To begin jailing his political opponents, or just one
opponent, Trump will begin by trying to capture members of the judicial
system. Observers and even activists functioning in the normal-election
mode are fixated on the Supreme Court as the site of the highest-risk
impending Trump appointment. There is little doubt that Trump will
appoint someone who will cause the Court to veer to the right; there is
also the risk that it might be someone who will wreak havoc with the
very culture of the high court. And since Trump plans to use the
judicial system to carry out his political vendettas, his pick for
attorney general will be no less important. Imagine former New York
Mayor Rudy Giuliani or New Jersey Governor Chris Christie going after
Hillary Clinton on orders from President Trump; quite aside from their
approach to issues such as the Geneva Conventions, the use of police
powers, criminal justice reforms, and other urgent concerns. Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.
Consider the financial markets this week, which, having tanked
overnight, rebounded following the Clinton and Obama speeches.
Confronted with political volatility, the markets become suckers for
calming rhetoric from authority figures. So do people. Panic can be
neutralized by falsely reassuring words about how the world as we know
it has not ended. It is a fact that the world did not end on November 8
nor at any previous time in history. Yet history has seen many
catastrophes, and most of them unfolded over time. That time included
periods of relative calm. One of my favorite thinkers, the Jewish
historian Simon Dubnow, breathed a sigh of relief in early October 1939:
he had moved from Berlin to Latvia, and he wrote to his friends that he
was certain that the tiny country wedged between two tyrannies would
retain its sovereignty and Dubnow himself would be safe. Shortly after
that, Latvia was occupied by the Soviets, then by the Germans, then by
the Soviets again—but by that time Dubnow had been killed. Dubnow was
well aware that he was living through a catastrophic period in
history—it’s just that he thought he had managed to find a pocket of
normality within it. Rule #3: Institutions will not save you.
It took Putin a year to take over the Russian media and four years to
dismantle its electoral system; the judiciary collapsed unnoticed. The
capture of institutions in Turkey has been carried out even faster, by a
man once celebrated as the democrat to lead Turkey into the EU. Poland
has in less than a year undone half of a quarter century’s
accomplishments in building a constitutional democracy.
Of course, the United States has much stronger institutions
than Germany did in the 1930s, or Russia does today. Both Clinton and
Obama in their speeches stressed the importance and strength of these
institutions. The problem, however, is that many of these institutions
are enshrined in political culture rather than in law, and all of
them—including the ones enshrined in law—depend on the good faith of all
actors to fulfill their purpose and uphold the Constitution.
The national press is likely to be among the first
institutional victims of Trumpism. There is no law that requires the
presidential administration to hold daily briefings, none that
guarantees media access to the White House. Many journalists may soon
face a dilemma long familiar to those of us who have worked under
autocracies: fall in line or forfeit access. There is no good solution
(even if there is a right answer), for journalism is difficult and
sometimes impossible without access to information.
The power of the investigative press—whose adherence to fact
has already been severely challenged by the conspiracy-minded,
lie-spinning Trump campaign—will grow weaker. The world will grow
murkier. Even in the unlikely event that some mainstream media outlets
decide to declare themselves in opposition to the current government, or
even simply to report its abuses and failings, the president will get
to frame many issues. Coverage, and thinking, will drift in a Trumpian
direction, just as it did during the campaign—when, for example, the
candidates argued, in essence, whether Muslim Americans bear collective
responsibility for acts of terrorism or can redeem themselves by
becoming the “eyes and ears” of law enforcement. Thus was xenophobia
further normalized, paving the way for Trump to make good on his
promises to track American Muslims and ban Muslims from entering the
United States. Rule #4: Be outraged. If you
follow Rule #1 and believe what the autocrat-elect is saying, you will
not be surprised. But in the face of the impulse to normalize, it is
essential to maintain one’s capacity for shock. This will lead people to
call you unreasonable and hysterical, and to accuse you of
overreacting. It is no fun to be the only hysterical person in the room.
Prepare yourself.
Despite losing the popular vote, Trump has secured as much
power as any American leader in recent history. The Republican Party
controls both houses of Congress. There is a vacancy on the Supreme
Court. The country is at war abroad and has been in a state of
mobilization for fifteen years. This means not only that Trump will be
able to move fast but also that he will become accustomed to an
unusually high level of political support. He will want to maintain and
increase it—his ideal is the totalitarian-level popularity numbers of
Vladimir Putin—and the way to achieve that is through mobilization.
There will be more wars, abroad and at home. Rule #5: Don’t make compromises.
Like Ted Cruz, who made the journey from calling Trump “utterly amoral”
and a “pathological liar” to endorsing him in late September to praising
his win as an “amazing victory for the American worker,” Republican
politicians have fallen into line. Conservative pundits who broke ranks
during the campaign will return to the fold. Democrats in Congress will
begin to make the case for cooperation, for the sake of getting anything
done—or at least, they will say, minimizing the damage. Nongovernmental
organizations, many of which are reeling at the moment, faced with a
transition period in which there is no opening for their input, will
grasp at chances to work with the new administration. This will be
fruitless—damage cannot be minimized, much less reversed, when
mobilization is the goal—but worse, it will be soul-destroying. In an
autocracy, politics as the art of the possible is in fact utterly
amoral. Those who argue for cooperation will make the case, much as
President Obama did in his speech, that cooperation is essential for the
future. They will be willfully ignoring the corrupting touch of
autocracy, from which the future must be protected. Rule #6: Remember the future.
Nothing lasts forever. Donald Trump certainly will not, and Trumpism, to
the extent that it is centered on Trump’s persona, will not either.
Failure to imagine the future may have lost the Democrats this election.
They offered no vision of the future to counterbalance Trump’s
all-too-familiar white-populist vision of an imaginary past. They had
also long ignored the strange and outdated institutions of American
democracy that call out for reform—like the electoral college, which has
now cost the Democratic Party two elections in which Republicans won
with the minority of the popular vote. That should not be normal. But
resistance—stubborn, uncompromising, outraged—should be.
Very proud of our AISD School Board and Superintendent Paul Cruz for adopting a resolution in support of the district's immigrant & refugee families.
Angela Valenzuela @AISDProud Posted: 9:41 p.m. Monday, February 20, 2017 The Austin school board Monday night unanimously approved 9-0 a resolution in support of undocumented students. The resolution includes language stating that: “all students are entitled to a public education regardless of their immigration status or the status of their parents,” “schools
and classrooms are safe, welcoming and inclusive places for all
students and all families, regardless of their immigration status,” and
the district will “strive to create the safest possible environments
for its students and employees, providing them the foundation needed to
learn, thrive, seek assistance and information, and reach each child’s
potential in an education-focused environment, free of insecurity and
fear, for all its employees, students and their families, regardless of
immigration status.” Multiple other Texas school districts, including Houston and San Antonio, have passed similar resolutions. “We are choosing as a district to be a light,” said
Trustee Jayme Mathias, “to be a light and to stand on the side of our
immigrant students and employees and families in proclaiming our schools
to be places where we want all of our students and all of our employees
and all of our families to feel safe.” Prior to the vote, and
earlier in the evening during a press conference, Superintendent Paul
Cruz did not specifically mention immigrants, refugees or undocumented
immigrants, but instead emphasized Austin schools as safe and fully
supports “all students.” “To reassure the Austin community, we are
all committed to educating all of our students, all of our youngsters,”
Cruz said. “We all know, and this board knows, our kids depend on us
and we’re here for them. We were here for them yesterday, we’re here for
them today and we’re going to be here for them tomorrow, as well. This
is about an Austin community who really cares and supports for our kids.
And AISD is one of those organizations that supports our kids in the
most meaningful ways. “I want to reiterate that our board, our
staff members, our teachers, our principals, our partners are coming
together to figure out the best way to support our students and our
families. We all know that diversity is our strength and we take care of
each other.” Federal law requires school districts to educate students, regardless of their immigration status. But since June, when Austin valedictorian Mayte Lara received backlash
for declaring in a tweet that she was an “undocumented” immigrant, the
labor group Education Austin and others have lobbied the school board to
pass a resolution declaring support for the students. More recently, on
Wednesday, led by labor group Education Austin, various community
leaders — including three school board members and two politicians —
called on the Austin district to take a stronger stand for undocumented students. On Thursday, more than 20,000 Austin district students — nearly one in four — missed school on a “Day without Immigrants.”
It’s unclear how many of those students were absent because of the
national movement, which encouraged supporters to not go to work or
school to demonstrate how much immigrants contribute to business and
society. In the days prior, some parents who are immigrants kept their children home from school out of fear
they would be targeted by immigration enforcement officials. Others
told teachers they were withdrawing their children from school. “We
recognize the fear in our communities,” said board President Kendall
Pace. “We also recognize community engagement and trust building is
tantamount to our collective success. We share the concerns and wanted
to make a statement tonight reaffirming our commitment to our
communities and our students.” Education Austin in recent weeks
stepped up outreach efforts, providing its 3,000 members with various
documents, including a flier titled, “What to do if ICE comes to your door,” referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Members of the group also offered training to nearly 250 educators on immigration laws and rights,
and have met with immigrants on campuses to explain their rights and
what to do if immigration enforcement officials try to question them. “Austin
ISD is a safe place for all of our students,” Cruz said regarding
families keeping their children home out of fear. “We are here to
educate all of our kids. Our teachers want to see our students every
single day. We want to make sure we’re taking care of them.”
Interesting story on Ecuador by Mark Weisbrot. Large increases in government spending together with responsible fiscal policies and a successful fending off of powerful bank interests have all made a difference—not to mention President Rafael Correa's leadership.
Even Noam Chomsky comments below on this "pink tide" in politics of national sovereignty and democracy despite Washington's preference of eliminating all leftist governments in Latin America.
The proof will be in the pudding in an upcoming election this Sunday for president and national assembly.
In a shift supported and
welcomed in Washington, Latin America has been moving to the right in
the last year or so. Three of South America’s largest economies—Brazil,
Argentina, and Peru—now have right-wing presidents with close ties to
Washington and its foreign policy. The standard “Washington Consensus”
narrative, while ignoring any US role in the region, sees the left
governments that were elected in South America over the past couple
decades as having ridden a commodities boom to populist victories, with
handouts to the poor and unsustainable spending. When that boom
collapsed, the story goes, so did the finances of left governments and
therefore their political fortunes.
But this is a highly exaggerated and self-serving
narrative. Ecuador is a good example of how a left government achieved
success over the past decade through positive and creative changes in
economic policy, as well as financial, institutional, and regulatory
reform.
The details are also worth looking at because Ecuador’s
experience shows that much of the rhetoric about how “globalization”
restricts the choices of governments to those that please international
investors is also exaggerated. It turns out that even a relatively
small, middle-income developing country can adopt workable alternative
policy options—if people can elect a government that is independent and
responsible enough to use them.
The results
for the decade of left government in Ecuador (2007-16) include a 38
percent reduction in poverty and a 47 percent reduction in extreme
poverty. Social spending as a percentage of GDP doubled, including large
increases in spending on education and healthcare. Educational
enrollment increased sharply for ages 17 and under, and spending on
higher education as a percent of GDP became the highest in Latin
America. Average annual growth of income per capita was much higher than
in the prior 26 years (1.5 versus 0.6 percent), and inequality was
considerably reduced.
Public investment as a percent of GDP more than doubled,
and the results were widely appreciated in new roads, hospitals,
schools, and access to electricity.
Rafael Correa was elected president of Ecuador in 2006
and took office in January of 2007. A former economy minister who was
trained in the United States, he set out to fix some of the structural
and institutional problems that had kept Ecuador from advancing. Policy
was handicapped by the fact that Ecuador had adopted the US dollar as
its currency in 2000. This meant that the government couldn’t influence
its exchange rate and was limited in how much it could use monetary
policy. And it reduced the Central Bank’s ability to act as a lender of
last resort to the banking system.
This meant that the government had to be more efficient
and creative, and exert more control over the financial system. In 2008,
a new constitution was approved in a referendum, and the central
bank—which was previously “independent” and mandated to focus on low
inflation—was now made part of the government’s economic team. This was
very important in coordinating economic policy. The conventional wisdom
among most economists—and a pillar of neoliberalism—is that central
banks should be independent of elected officials. In practice, this
usually means that they are unaccountable to the public, but not so
independent of powerful financial interests.
A new law in 2009 required that banks in Ecuador bring 45
percent of their liquid assets back into the country; this requirement
increased to 60 percent in 2012, and the actual level was more than 80
percent by 2015. These and other reforms that kept dollars in the
country were essential to overcoming the new government’s first serious
challenge: the world financial crisis of 2008 and world recession of
2009. Ecuador was one of the hardest-hit countries in the hemisphere,
since oil prices collapsed and the government depended on oil for the
majority of its revenue. Another major source of dollars,
remittances—mostly money sent home by Ecuadorians working abroad—also
collapsed during the recession. This double shock could have caused a
prolonged recession or depression, but it didn’t, thanks to large
increases in government spending and a large stimulus in 2009. The
recession lasted just three quarters, costing about 1.3 percent of GDP.
The next big economic shock was the much more prolonged
collapse in oil prices that began in the third quarter of 2014. This
time, the government was even more creative: In addition to some
expansionary fiscal policy (i.e., running bigger budget deficits), the
central bank actually engaged in quantitative easing, much as the US
Federal Reserve did in response to the recession. Ecuador’s central bank
created billions of dollars that it lent to the government for spending
(and also to state-owned banks). This was unexpected for a government
that did not even have its own currency, but it proved to be very
helpful in the recovery.
The most important decision in bringing about Ecuador’s
current economic recovery was also perhaps the most unorthodox: The
government imposed a variety of tariffs on imports under the World Trade
Organization’s provision for emergency balance-of-payments safeguards.
This reduction of imports in 2015-16 added about 7.6 percentage points
to GDP during those years. This counteracted spending cuts that the
government had to make as revenues crashed.
The government of Correa and his party (Alianza PAIS) was
thus able to achieve considerable economic and social progress, despite
two recessions caused by serious external shocks. Contrary to the
Washington narrative, this depended on major institutional reforms,
financial regulation, and smart policy choices, many of which went
against the conventional neoliberal wisdom.
Of course it helped that the president himself has a PhD in
economics and knew what he was doing, and that he had a serious
commitment to progressive governance from the beginning. Still, Correa’s
government had to fight powerful entrenched interests, including the
bankers who owned most of the television media when he took office. A
referendum in 2011 prohibited banks from owning media (and vice versa),
and that helped to reduce their stranglehold on public debate. But the
media have remained a powerful and politicized right-wing force, as in
other countries with left governments—e.g. Brazil, where the major media
led a successful effort last year to remove Workers’ Party President
Dilma Rousseff from office—despite the lack of any impeachable offense.
The government’s legacy will be tested in an election
this Sunday for president and national assembly. The candidate of
Correa’s party is LenÃn Moreno, who is well known for his national and
international activism for disability rights (he himself has been in a
wheelchair since he was shot in a robbery in 1998). Moreno, who is
popular with his party and the public and promises to expand upon the
economic and social gains of the past decade, is leading in the polls. Why does this election matter? As Noam Chomsky pointed out
last month: “During this century, Latin America, for the first time in
500 years, has freed itself from Western imperialism. Last century,
that’s the United States.” The “pink tide” is also a rare event in world
history: citizens in developing countries winning economic and social
progress through democratic elections (very few of the development
success stories of the 20th century or even more recently, e.g. China,
have been electoral democracies). From 2002 to 2014, the poverty rate
for Latin America dropped from 43.9 to 28.2 percent, after rising over
the previous two decades.
All of these gains—national sovereignty, social
progress, democracy—are proving tough to hang on to as progressive
forces in the region face a slowing world and regional economy; a
resurgent right that still controls most of their countries’ wealth,
income, and media; and in some cases their own economic mistakes.
And if all that weren’t enough, there is Washington, which for the past
16 years has had a simple strategy: Get rid of all the left governments
that we can get rid of, and make sure they never come back. (See e.g., here, here, here, here, and here.) Nobody is expecting anything better from the new US regime.
It may not get a lot of media attention here, but
supporters and opponents of Latin America’s moves toward independence
and progressive government in the 21st century will be following this
election.
This is related to my earlier post that is highly critical of efforts underway to undermine Dr. Tony Baez' race for MPS school board in an upcoming April 4th election. Tony is a brilliant, passionate, experienced, and beloved local leader of the Milwaukee community who more than merits this post.
Instead of the unknown that the PAC is supporting (see previous post), Tony will best represent the community and its agenda for great public schools. Here are a few details about him that help show why he's not only a great candidate, but the best one:
Dr. Tony Báez is the former Executive Director of Centro Hispano Milwaukee (aka Council for the Spanish Speaking, Inc.), the oldest Hispanic community-based nonprofit organization in the city. During his years with the organization, he created the Dual Language Bilingual Enrichment Conference and the Educating and Graduating Latino Students National Conference; and he instituted dual language Head Start centers in the city.
Dr. Báez has extensive knowledge of colleges and universities. He is a former Provost and Chief Academic Officer of the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) in Wisconsin, one of the largest urban technical colleges in the U.S. During his years at MATC, he also served as Assistant to the President, Director of Research, Planning and Development, Associate Dean of Pre-College and Adult Education Programs, and Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He also served 3 years as Vice-President and Dean of Faculty at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, New York’s City University of New York.
Vouchers and voucher-friendly boards are the ultimate goal by the business PAC opposing Dr. Baez as evidenced by their support of an unknown who is also inexperienced in local education politics (see previous post). This undue influence by the neoliberal elite in local elections is a bad trend nationwide which is why we should all consider contributing to Tony's campaign at ActBlue.
Angela Valenzuela
@BaezforMilwaukee
WHY DR. TONY BAEZ IS A CANDIDATE FOR THE FOR SCHOOL BOARD
District #6 has been a model for multilingualism in the city and the nation.
In addition to important work to ensure public schools of excellence,
to advocate for safety and the health of children and staff, and to
promote education that safeguards and connects children to our
environment, I want to help expand the definition of educational
equality to include learning in and graduating with more languages than
English.
We need to expand dual language education to all
children. There are many benefits in the acquisition of another
language. This helps children to bridge the achievement gap—a gap that
must no longer be measured by standardized tests that are mislabeling
our children, our teachers, and our schools. The “old” definition of
equality fails to see bilingualism as a strategy to attain more
equality.
We must all work for a better community that
appreciates diversity, rejects racism and appreciates educators as
valuable members of our community. Community partners, families and
parents must be truly involved in supporting their children and their
schools. We must strive for excellence in our schools, together!
**********************
POR QUÉ LANZO MI CANDIDATURA PARA MIEMBRO DE LA MESA DIRECTRIZ DE LAS ESCUELAS PÚBLICAS DE MILWAUKEE
El Distrito #6 de las escuelas públicas de Milwaukee ha sido un modelo para el multilinguismo en la ciudad y la nación.
Juntos, debemos luchar por una comunidad que aprecia la diversidad,
rechaza el racismo, y aprecia a los educadores como miembros valiosos en
nuestra comunidad. La colaboración entre miembros de la comunidad, las
families y padres y nuestras y escuelas debe llevar a un mejor apoyo al
aprendizaje.
School board races shouldn't be that expensive to be in one but with the influence of neoliberal, conservative PAC money in local races such as what is occurring in the current school board member race in Milwuakee, Wisconsin, they are making it very hard to compete as a representative and authentic leader of the grassroots community.
The posited ultimate goal by the business PAC as discussed by the author, Dominique Paul Noth below, is to have school board members friendly to vouchers. You can help challenge this agenda by contributing Dr. Tony Baez' MPS board race by contributing to his campaign at ActBlue.
By Dominique Paul Noth The MMAC is a curious trade organization – since many businesses don’t know what they really trade in. Ostensibly representing business interests as the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce
it has a freewheeling political arm that does a lot of things its 1,800
member companies don’t know about and whose opinions individual members
of these businesses don’t always share, as many have told me.
Would members remain proud if they knew what the political arm was up to?
If
you look at its roster, the absence of many local “people friendly”
businesses is quite notable, since people friendly and neighborhoods are
not normal definitions of its activities. But what was more revealing
to me was how many actual members did not know they have a hyper-active
political lobbying arm and actually a political conduit that members pay
for to fund candidates that supposedly speak in their name. You decide
if this is what you want represented. An
interesting game has emerged, at least from my perspective. The Betsy
DeVos voucher school political arm, American Federation for Children,
has become famous, or is that notorious?, for dipping its money rich
fingers into races for the state legislature, especially whenever there
is a strong advocate for good public schools to oppose. That’s
a bit unlike the MMAC, which sometimes supports ideas the general
public might also accept – after all, despite the myths, even liberal
commentators are not anti-business – but trod a bit more carefully in
Milwaukee related legislative affairs (such as worrying how some
Milwaukee businesses would react if it became too public that MMAC was actively backing Waukesha’s intention to siphon Lake Michigan water). DeVos
as new education secretary will probably have to withdraw from more
visible roles in solicitation, but the AFC is expected to march on with
her family money. Before
his first election as state senator years ago, AFC used a series of
flyers mailed to households (the cost being the entire budget of many
other legislative races). It was trying to paint Chris Larson as a
shoplifter because of a youthful dalliance that he had openly discussed
before. In
other races they hijacked public domain photos of anti-voucher public
figures to appear in brochures for pro-voucher candidates, to fool
voters about who was supporting them. Their
money and campaign methods have been wielded in rural communities
against noted figures of firm community reputation who deserved
re-election, such as Mandy Wright for the Assembly 85th District. They
won against her in a close election in 2016 where many think their money
made the difference. But usually they have hit a brick wall – IF the community becomes aware of their dealings. Outside
money can become a horror to the local community when made aware of it,
especially in things like school board races where the public still
believes it decides. Almost
as if an organized “I’ll wash your back if you wash mine” agreement
existed, MMAC has dipped hard into AFC territory – Milwaukee school
board races. The rationale is they want more students to be educated to
their business needs. Some of it may be sincere to make sure students
know about business – even over what they know about the arts or
civics. But much of it is based on the theory that, rather than paying
for specialized education themselves, just let the taxpayers do it.
Tony Evers posing with other education names at a recent fund raiser. From left: Doug Armstrong, running for Whitefish Bay school board, Evers, retired US Sen. Herb Kohl and Larry Miller of MPS board.
The
MMAC Conduit has dumped $10,000 against Tony Evers in the race for
State Superintendent of Schools (primary Feb. 21). The money may now be
needed as a protective barrier around John Humphries -- not so much
against Evers (that comes later) but to keep the right-wing public from
choosing a fellow GOP candidate in a nonpartisan race. There
has been a self-destructive campaign war between Humphries and Lowell
Holtz, also hungry for voucher money. Humphries and Holtz are hurling accusations against each other
about who originated a devious plan to seize control of Madison and
Milwaukee public schools – in fact, even more urban districts that are
making notable advances under highly educated and talented women. The $10,000 may now give Humphries the ad cushion to make it easier for fence sitters to vault to his side. But
now MMAC is mucking in two of the four Milwaukee school board races
that are on the ballot April 4 and are old-time AFC playgrounds. There
are some intriguing connections back to the Evers race, which is
statewide on both Feb. 21 and April 4.
Tony Baez doesn't face MPS election till April 4, but MMAC money against him is already there.
While
Tony Baez in MPS South Side District 6 is a remarkably experienced
school leader and civil rights activist, suddenly on February 10 the
MMAC dropped $3,950 behind his opponent. Now that amount of money in a
school board race is really remarkably rich to help an unknown,
especially when you add in the other business interests that have bulged
the coffer against Baez to $7,900. I have covered entire school board
races that ran on just two or three thousand. Such
early MMAC money suggests Wisconsin should brace itself for far more by
April 4, probably again timed too late for most news outlets and TV
stations to even be aware of the game, as was true with the Evers money
dump. The
main thing besides money against Baez is the beneficiary’s name —
Jonatan Zuniga. Here's a largely unknown opponent who has a Latino
sounding name in a district rich in Hispanic households that have been a
long-time target for voucher school and religious school come-hithers. Take
a moment to consider how insulted Latinos should feel having a Latino
sounding name being the main claim to recognition and backing. A PhD Dr.
Joseph won that same district four years ago because of credentials.
Her photo and her first name, Tatiana, revealed her heritage, but she
was already mightily well-known as a UWM professor and a champion of
children, Latino and others. This
time we seem to have the cynical assumption that every Hispanic knows
or identifies with every other Hispanic and will vote for the name. The
public has to hope the Hispanic voters are smarter than Trump, who
recently committed the same faux pas that the African American community
learned long ago to laugh about, the assumption “that every black
person must know every other black person” as Rep. Elijah Cummings
joked. This came after Trump asked a black reporter to introduce him to
the Black Caucus (they are not really black; the group represents many
minorities, including Latinos). It also came as Trump made up a story
about Cummings being too scared to meet with him, quickly exposed as a
lie. Dr.
(as in highly educated) Baez is a proven and tested quantity and has
until April 4 to make that clear to district voters, who like personal
encounters more than the flyers money can buy. An articulate veteran of
community service and helper of low income families, Baez is also
endorsed by state Supt. Tony Evers (more on that race in a moment, but
trust me, it all ties together). The
MMAC contributions may reveal a lot more about Zuniga that his resume
does -- it should be a warning signal to constituents of school district
6, because this business trade group doesn’t give something without
expecting something back. MMAC
has been supportive of voucher schools and religious education –
nothing wrong in that by itself. But since the state funding formula
robs public schools to finance religious schools with taxpayer money
whether they belong to that religion or not, the whole exercise is
rather shifty. MMAC should be fighting hard for a better formula but
instead they are fighting to shift representation of education money to
business interests they expect will be more receptive to their wishes. Similarly
over in District 4, Annie Woodward has been a veteran of public
service, moving to the school board after retiring as a mental health
and service professional at Milwaukee County Health and Human Services.
For several election cycles since, she has been a champion of what you
would expect from an MPS board member – vibrant healthy public schools
that may need better management but also need intelligent use of better
money. Her
opponent, Aisha Carr, has received $3,450 – nearly as much as Zuniga –
from MMAC and added money from the same business interests. Her
brochure and website emphasize
her survival as a single mother, her support of Black Lives Matter and
her work as a teacher, saying nothing of her stand on issues, voucher
schools, funding formula or anything substantial she wants to
accomplish. (Recall there are some prominent Democrats who also support
vouchers, such as Lena Taylor and Jason Fields, and they have a sturdy
opposition from their constituents and educators over that.) In
sum, Carr is also black in a predominately black district, a single
mother which always sounds like a hard-knock life, and more photogenic
(i.e. younger) than Woodward. So mostly her campaign is a hope that
black voters will swallow “change” without meaning. It seems to have
happened in some places on November 8 -- change to anything or anyone
who hasn’t been in the trenches struggling. Woodward has been there,
and that shouldn’t be a negative. But
why should we worry about April 4 school board elections now? Shouldn’t
we just go out and vote Tuesday? As election sites remind us, no more
than two candidates are running for any of the MPS seats, so there is no
need for a primary this time around. To
look a little further into April 4, there is genuine competition for
East Side District 5 between a veteran I have long admired, Larry
Miller, and newcomer Kahri Phelps Okoro, who has a construction company
background. There is also an open seat for District 8 between two
candidates who both have strong progressive credentials, Joey Balistreri
and Paula Phillips. Interesting how quality and ideology in these races
did not tempt the MMAC, while Zuniga and Carr did. That
MMAC money jives with the right-wing effort to defeat Evers, who is
likely to move forward Feb. 21 (probably against Humphries). But
the MMAC Conduit had scant money to offer at the end of 2016. Then
suddenly this PAC (Political Action Committee) got $20,000 at the end of
January – in one big gift on the same day it forwarded $10,000 to the
Humphries campaign!
The
$20,000 to the conduit came from Agustin Ramirez, the retired chairman
of Waukesha’s Husco International and a respected businessman and
philanthropist with a special interest in Christian schools. In fact, he
pushed through City Hall and is self-funding the building of St.
Augustine Preparatory Academy, located at 2607 S. 5th Street, where some
city fathers once dreamed of building soccer fields. Enrolling
students this February with the intention of opening three grades for
the 2017-2018 school year and growing into a facility serving 2,000 K-12
“primarily Hispanic students,” the school has only told the public it
would be “private.” It has told the applicants much more. It is
accepting applications through the city and state voucher school
programs.
(The
state program inflates levels of family income far beyond what
taxpayers long expected to be their contribution to voucher schools,
ranging up to $75,647. Simply add $7,696 to your taxpayer cost for each
family member up to eight accepted by these schools, which still don’t
face the same accountability standards as public schools.) Perhaps
after the building, this is not quite the philanthropic largesse
Ramirez originally promoted. (I would be accused of sarcasm if I also
suggested the school will discover a far lower percentage of Hispanic
special needs students in the Hispanic population compared with the high
percentage in the general population absorbed by the public schools --
voucher schools do have a habit of somehow not seeing or finding such
students.) The
school would be located in the school district that Baez and Zuniga are
vying for April 4 – and bingo, that seems where the MMAC and Ramirez‘s
generosity connect. If you’re running a voucher school wouldn’t you
want a more pliable MPS board?
MMAC lobbyist Steve Baas.
The MMAC conduit did not have the money on hand to contribute to these school races until Ramirez stepped in. Steve
Baas, the MMAC’s senior vice president of governmental affairs and
public policy (in other words, lobbying mouthpiece), has stated
forcefully that his group's PAC does not make donations at the request
of individual donors and simply “reaches out” to all its business
members for contributions. Wonder if he has a bridge to Brooklyn for sale.
About the
author: Noth has been a professional journalist since the 1960s, first
as national, international and local news copy editor at The Milwaukee
Journal, then as an editor for its original Green Sheet, also for
almost two decades the paper’s film and drama critic. He also created
its Friday Weekend section and ran Sunday TV Screen magazine and Lively
Arts as he became the newspaper’s senior feature editor. He was tapped
by the publishers of the combining Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for
special projects and as first online news producer before voluntarily
departing in the mid-1990s to run online news seminars and write on
public affairs and Internet and consumer news. From 2002 to 2013 he ran
the Milwaukee Labor Press as editor. It served as the Midwest’s largest
home-delivered labor newspaper, with archives at milwaukeelabor.org. In
that role he won top awards yearly until the paper stopped publishing
in 2013. His investigative pieces and extensive commentaries are now
published by several news outlets as well as his culture and politics
outlets known as Dom's Domain. He also reviews theater for
urbanmilwaukee.com.
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