Tucson Occupiers discuss nest steps on Dec. 22, 2011 after their eviction from Veinte de Agosto Park. (Image Credit: Pamela Powers Hannley)

Although it has been nearly a week since Tucson Police evicted Occupy Tucson from their Veinte de Agosto Park encampment, Occupiers have not folded up their tents and disappeared into the night. They continue to meet, organize, protest, and solidify the movement for 99% and against corporate takeover of our country.

Tomorrow– Dec. 28– will be a busy day of action for Occupy Tucson and its supporters.

Community Food Drive

From 7 a.m. – 4 p.m., Occupiers will be accepting people and pet food donations at Veinte de Agosto (Congress and Church) or DeAnza Park (Stone and Speedway).

From the Occupy Tucson facebook page…

In support of Shaun McClusky’s upcoming “Take Care of Tucson” food drive to feed the hungry, Occupy Tucson announces a companion event to help him boost donations.

McClusky, who has called Occupy Tucson a “smelly stinky presence” and has said he hopes “TPD takes their unemployed asses to jail,” has been awarded permits by the City of Tucson to occupy Veinte de Agosto Park and De Anza Park on December 28.

McClusky is the founder of Rincon Ventures, a real estate company that acquires foreclosed homes at public auction. For the past several weeks, members of Occupy Tucson have been disrupting these auctions, held at the Pima County Courthouse. In November, Occupy activists held a competing event, auctioning off donut holes to the public. The boisterous presence of Occupy Tucson at these auctions has become an impediment to McClusky’s ability to do business.

So we are particularly pleased that Mr. McClusky is spearheading this community food drive, in that it demonstrates his solidarity with the hungry and homeless of our community, the segment of the 99 percent most severely impacted by corporate greed and corruption. Although Occupy Tucson does puzzle over the efficacy of evicting homeless people from their tents in order to make their lives better, we applaud McClusky’s good intentions and pledge to join him on December 28 to raise contributions for the four organizations he has designated as recipients: The Tucson Community Food Bank, the Humane Society, Cold Wet Noses, and the Hermitage Shelter.

Occupy Tucson invites its supporters to engage in a friendly hometown rivalry. Help us answer the question: which group of Occupiers will gather more food? Foreclosure profiteer Shaun McClusky, or the 99 percent?

Occupy Tucson urges our supporters to bring donations to Veinte de Agosto Park or De Anza Park from 7am to 4pm on December 28. Occupy Tucson activists will have a visible presence nearby to greet community members and accept donations.

Occupy the holidays!

Political Action Supporting Postal Workers

Following the food drive, Occupy Tucson, Jobs with Justice, and their supporters will gather at Veinte de Agosto Park at 4:30 p.m. for a rally to keep the Tucson Mail Processing Plant, which is threatened with closure. The rally will be from 4:30 – 5:15, followed by a march to the Leo Rich Theater, in the Tucson Convention Center complex, where there will be a 6 p.m. public hearing about the proposed closure. Closure of the Cherrybell facility will not only mean the loss of 400 good-paying jobs, it will mean dramatically reduced mail service for Tucson.

From Jobs with Justice and Tucson Area Local American Postal Workers Union…

The Postmaster General is considering eliminating Tucson’s postal sorting station at Cherrybell Stravenue.

This would mean all mail would be routed through Phoenix, even if it is going elsewhere in Tucson. It would also mean the end of overnight service from Tucson.

This proposal would cost the community approximately 400 (union) jobs, hurt local businesses that rely on the postal service, and harm seniors who receive Social Security checks and medication by mail. It would also put the kybash on those last-minute runs to Cherrybell Station to meet those midnight deadlines!

Tucson is the 33rd largest metro area in the country.

Even though the USPS has agreed to hold off until 5/15/12 for any more closures studies are continuing as well as public hearings. This is our only chance to make an impact. Even if you don’t want to go to the microphone we need to fill 511 seats.

Written comments can also be submitted (by post, not email!) to: Management,Consumer and Industry Contact, Arizona
District, P.O. Box, 21628, Phoenix, Arizona 85036-1628. [Emphasis added.]

Image credit: Pamela Powers Hannley

When old timers talk about Arizona’s economy, they often refer to the “5 C’s”– cotton, copper, cattle, citrus, and climate. The “5 C’s” built Arizona, but how relevant are they in today’s world of limited resources?

At least 4 of the 5 C’s come with a high environmental cost, since cotton, copper, cattle, and citrus all use more water than Arizona can afford to use. This practice has led to the destruction of desert rivers and streams. Three of the 5C’s– cotton, copper, and cattle– also have destroyed our state’s vegetation and desert ecosystem.

According to a recent article in the Arizona Daily Star, a 6th C has emerged as an important player (no pun intended) in the state’s economic development– casinos. In fiscal year 2011 (July 2010 – June 2011), casinos took in $1.7 billion. .

Although copper ($5.3 billion) and climate (AKA, tourism, $17.7 billion) have continued to be blockbuster sources of revenue, 2010 revenues from cattle ($637 million), cotton ($206), and citrus ($34) paled in comparison to gambling.

What is missing from this article about revenue is cost. What is the environmental cost of  copper, cattle, cotton, and citrus? What is the cost to the state in tax breaks and incentives to the copper industry or businesses related to tourism? If revenues of these businesses are so high, what are they paying to the state for the privilege of doing business here?

And what is the true cost of gambling? The Star article quotes expert sources who estimate that 75% of casino gamblers are Arizonans. Yes, the tribes made $1.7 billion on gambling, but that means that everyday citizens lost $1.7 billion on gambling.

The old saying is: gambling is a tax on people who are bad at math. Gambling can be highly addictive. Compulsive gamblers can lose everything… houses, jobs, families, lives.

Is this rise in gambling revenues a good sign for our state’s well being? I think not. It only shows the desperation of Arizonans trying to eek out a living however they can in a depressed state with few opportunities for the unemployed and undereducated.

Instead of relying on the 6 C’s, Arizona should move to an economy built on the 6 E’s — environmental sustainability, education, electronics (AKA technology), equity, excellence, and economic opportunity for all.

Occupy Tucson poster. (Image Credit: OccupyTucson.org)

Now in its third week, the Occupy Wall Street demonstration has inspired marches and/or live-ins in approximately 566 cities worldwide including Tucson. (When I originally wrote this story less than 24 hours ago, there were protests planned in 300 cities. The number cities has almost doubled in 12 hours.)

As the movement spread, the corporate media could no longer ignore it. The current corporate media story– also repeated on NPR [heavy sigh]– is that the reasons why people are occupying Wall Street or elsewhere are unclear. Except for a handful of progressives– like our own Congressman Raul Grijalva– politicians are not commenting on the Occupy movement at all– including President Obama [another heavy sigh]. How can the politicians go on their way and ignore the anger and frustration that is erupting around them? Political pundits from Amy Goodman to Ann Coulter to Tucson’s own Jon Justice are commenting. (I’m soooooo disappointed that Justice didn’t link to my video on his trash-talk blog post.)

For those of you who don’t know why the Occupy movement is growing or what all of these people are complaining about, I offer these compelling articles and photos from the Huffington Post.

‘We Are The 99 Percent’: Stories Of The Great Recession’s Victims (PHOTOS)

Candidate-Specific Super PACs Offer End Run For Maxed-Out Donors: Study

Eric Cantor Staffer Creating Leadership Super PAC

House GOP Targeting Title X In Push To Axe Family Planning Programs

New Trade Deal Would Benefit Big Pharma At AIDS Programs’ Expense

Follow the Money: Behind Europe’s Debt Crisis Lurks Another Giant Bailout of Wall Street

JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Accused Of Overcharging Military Veterans

Executive Pay Spiraling Upward As Corporations Race To Pay Their Bosses The Most

Are you thoroughly disgusted? You should be.

Upcoming from Occupy Tucson

October 9: The next Occupy Tucson General Assembly is Sunday, October 9 at noon at Viente de Agosto Park (AKA Pancho Villa Park) downtown.

October 15: The Occupy Tucson event begins on Saturday, October 15 at the same location.

For more information, check out the Occupy Tucson website or check out their facebook page.

Pima Community College has had a long egalitarian tradition of offering higher education to anyone who wanted it but that could change in 2012. During the summer, Pima announced its plans to eliminate its open enrollment policy.

The proposed changes to Pima College’s admissions policies will not only close the doors of opportunity to thousands of Arizona’s young people but also set up road blocks to attaining a higher education.

Currently, students entering Pima take placement exams to assess their skills and determine what level of math, reading, and writing classes they should take as entering freshmen. Students who don’t demonstrate the skills to succeed in college level courses right out of high school are placed in “developmental” (AKA remedial) for-credit classes.

According to Pima Community College Chancellor Roy Flores, writing in the Arizona Daily Star, only 5 percent of students who take remedial classes succeed in college.

Assuming lower level students are just wasting their time and money by trying college, Pima’s governing board proposes to institute an entrance exam which will determine who is admitted to Pima. In addition to passing the entrance exam, students must show proof of a high school education or a GED. Students who don’t pass the entrance exam will be offered remedial courses which non-credit and, therefore, not eligible for financial aid.

On the surface, these changes may seem minor, but if you are an unemployed or underemployed person who wants to better his life through higher education, the last thing you need is another roadblock to success and another bill.

The situation also begs the question of why so many Southern Arizona high school graduates place in remedial math, reading and/or writing and why so many of them don’t succeed in college after they take remedial classes. By citing the dismal 5 percent success rate as a reason not to offer open enrollment and remedial classes, Pima’s governing board is  dismissing lower-level students as deficient and not worth the investment– rather than turning the cold eye of evaluation on their high school education, the AIMES test (which attests to the students’ preparedness for college and life), or the remedial classes themselves.

Also, writing in the Arizona Daily Star, Greg Hart, former head of adult education at Pima College, claims that Pima has known for a decade that their remedial classes are not serving the students but has refused to address the problem until now. Hart has a point. If only 5 percent of the students who take remedial classes succeed in college, those classes (which are supposed to bring students up to college level proficiency) are not working for the vast majority of students.

Why is Pima proposing to eliminate open enrollment and remedial education now? Money. You’ll remember that Arizona’s “Education Governor” Jan Brewer authorized a budget that slashed funding for all public education earlier this year. Community colleges– long an affordable bastion of equal opportunity– were hit particularly hard by Legislative budget cuts. With the new entrance procedures and the elimination of remedial classes, Pima will cut approximately 200 adjunct professor positions.

Several former PCC faculty, including some of the founders, have voiced strong opposition to the proposed elimination of open enrollment.

…a 1980 review of the “Pima College Story” reported that the college “wanted education to be within the reach of all adults who desired it, whether they had a high school diploma or not, whether they were 18 or 78.” Even more recently, a former administrator wrote that “I very strongly endorse the support of maintaining the open admissions policy at Pima Community College. That is why we always endorsed the phrase ‘community colleges democratized higher education for all those who wished to pursue post-secondary education.’ That is why community colleges have always been so successful. As we all know, our success is embodied in the open admissions policy.”

Hundreds of column inches have been devoted to saving, changing, or eliminating Mexican American Studies classes at Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). These classes, which affect 500-700 students per year, have been touted as a pathway to future success in college and in life. Elimination of open enrollment at Pima will close the doors of opportunity to thousands of students per year; minority and low-income students will be hit the hardest. Unfortunately, little attention has been given to PCC’s plans.

If you want to learn more about the elimination of open enrollment and/or want to voice your opinion, there are two public forums this week.

Today, Wednesday, September 14, City Council Members Regina Romero, Richard Fimbres, and Karin Ulich are sponsoring a forum at 6 p.m. in the Sunnyside High School auditorium, 1725 E. Bilby Rd. (Campbell Avenue/Bilby Road).

On Saturday, September 17, at 10 a.m., Pima College will be holding a public forum in the PCC West Campus Cafeteria, 2202 W. Anklam Rd. (Anklam/Greasewood, from St. Mary’s/Silverbell, go one mile west).

Arizona needs an educated work force. Our schools should be strengthened– not weaken. Opportunity should be broadened– not narrowed. Our K-12 schools, community colleges and universities should be re-tooled to meet the needs of the students and the society as a whole– not closed.

Pima Community College shouldn’t turn its back on lower-level students; it should help them succeed.

Each August Tucson– like college towns nationwide– sees a flurry of activity as students move back to town and scramble to find lodging.

In recent years, local mini-dorm developers have gone wild– buying up cheap houses (thanks to record foreclosures and a glut of houses for sale), unceremoniously leveling the said houses, and constructing mini-dorms– the scurge of Tucson’s University-area neighborhoods.

This year– with a 15.9 percent rental vacancy rate– Tucson is a renters’ market. For rent signs abound. Good for students and other renters. Not so good for landlords and mini-dorm developers.

Back in April, I pondered the fate of the mini-dorm market– given dramatic hikes in tuition at The University of Arizona. Tucson’s recent designation as the “sickest housing market in the US”, its recent designation as the most impoverished city in the Sunbelt, and its glut of unrented rentals make my question even more poignant: Will mini-dorms become empty monuments to greed?

How much you wanna bet that mini-dorm developers Michael Goodman and Richard Studwell try to sell these architectural behemoths to the city when they can’t rent them?

This graphic, based upon Department of Labor statistics, shows that overall middle class income has decreased with union membership.

According to Michael Moore, the beginning of the end was 30 years ago yesterday. On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers who had defied his back-to-work order. They had been on strike only two days. From Michael Moore’s The Day the Middle Class Died.

From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, “When did this all begin, America’s downward slide?” They say they’ve heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent’s income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how “lowly” your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.

Young people have heard of this mythical time — but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, “When did this all end?”, I say, “It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981.”

Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to “go for it” — to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.

And they’ve succeeded.

Thirty years of trickle down economics later…

Productivity is up, wages are in decline, union membership continues to decline, corporate profits are breaking records, unemployment and housing forclosures are ravishing the middle class, Americans are going bankrupt due to sky-rocketing medical costs, and income disparities between the richest 1 percent and the rest of us are ever-widening.

Meanwhile, Congress– owned by big business and paralyzed by ideology– fiddles while Rome burns.

Americans are weary from grinding recession and disenchanted [putting it mildly] with our out-of-touch government. After the recent debt ceiling fiasco and the shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to an ideological, anti-union battle, a full 14 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to a recent CNN poll. (A commentator on National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show quipped that the 14 percent who said they approved of Congress’ performance must not have understood the question.)

And why shouldn’t we feel disenfranchised by this corporate-controlled government? In poll after poll taken during the protracted debt/deficit battle, Americans said they favored a balanced approach to deficit reduction– one that decreased spending + increased revenues– but that’s not what we got in the end. What we got was a Tea Party dream, a deficit reduction deal based solely on cuts which will likely cost the US 1.8 million jobs. Congressional Teapublicans– including five from Arizona (Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Phil Gossar– even scared Wall Street and financial markets worldwide with their intransigence and extremism.

From Noam Chomsky’s America in Decline…

For the public, the primary domestic concern is unemployment. Under current circumstances, that crisis can be overcome only by a significant government stimulus, well beyond the recent one, which barely matched decline in state and local spending – though even that limited initiative probably saved millions of jobs.

For financial institutions the primary concern is the deficit. Therefore, only the deficit is under discussion. A large majority of the population favor addressing the deficit by taxing the very rich (72 percent, 27 percent opposed), reports a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Cutting health programs is opposed by overwhelming majorities (69 percent Medicaid, 78 percent Medicare). The likely outcome is therefore the opposite.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes surveyed how the public would eliminate the deficit. PIPA director Steven Kull writes, “Clearly both the administration and the Republican-led House (of Representatives) are out of step with the public’s values and priorities in regard to the budget.”

The survey illustrates the deep divide: “The biggest difference in spending is that the public favored deep cuts in defense spending, while the administration and the House propose modest increases. The public also favored more spending on job training, education and pollution control than did either the administration or the House.”

The final “compromise” – more accurately, capitulation to the far right – is the opposite throughout, and is almost certain to lead to slower growth and long-term harm to all but the rich and the corporations, which are enjoying record profits.

Is Tucson the new ‘Hooverville’?

Homeless shanty towns-- Hoovervilles-- sprang up during the Great Depression. (Photo Credit: Dorthea Lange for the Farm Security Administration.)

What has all of this got to do with life here in Tucson? Plenty. Two recent studies show that: 1) Tucson has the highest rate of poverty of any major city in the sunbelt and 2) Tucson has the “sickest” housing market in the US.

These statistics– coupled with Arizona’s Starve-the-Beast-Feed-the-Capitalists state government and Teapublican Congressional representatives–Gosar (CD1), Franks (CD2), Quayle (CD3, Schweikert (CD5), and Flake (CD6)– paint a pretty bleak future for the Old Pueblo.

What can we do about it? A few weeks ago at a City Council meeting, political activist Jim Hannley suggested that the Tucson Mayor and Council set up a citizens’ commission to study local poverty (Check out the video at about 3:16 minutes in part 2.) In 2007, then Tucson City Councilman Steve Leal’s office compiled a “Poverty and Urban Stress” report. With dozens of statistical graphics, the 90+ page document details poverty, educational attainment, crime, and other urban stress indicators citywide and by Council ward. At the time, the Arizona Daily Star lauded the report and the City Council agreed to revisit the report annually… but didn’t. That was 2007– before the market crash of 2008 and the ensuing recession. Obviously Tucson’s economy– as well as the state’s and the nation’s– has slid since the report was created.

Repeatedly, the Tucson City Council has bowed to local business interests, at the expense of citizens and workers. The City’s budget– like the state’s and the nation’s– has been cut by cutting jobs, thus worsening our economy by increasing unemployment.

It’s time for Tucson’s Mayor and Council to take the long view on our economy. Leal’s report should be updated and expanded to include multi-year trend data. After the update, a citizens’ commission focusing on poverty, the local economy, and jobs should be created to study the data and make recommendations based upon economic research and best practices from other cities.

As Tucson celebrates its 236th birthday this month, it’s time for Tucsonans to stop grumbling, to start fighting for economic and social justice, and to take a lesson from The Little Engine that Could: I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

It’s highly ironic that the current social and political battle over our nation’s debt and deficit is occurring this week with the 46th anniversary of the signing of Social Security Act of 1965 on Saturday, July 30.

After a long political battle dating from Harry Truman’s presidency to Lyndon Johnson’s, Johnson signed this legislation creating universal, single payer healthcare insurance for the nation’s elderly (Medicare) and indigent (Medicaid).

From The Nation…

With reporters and photographers surrounding them, Johnson took a place beside former President Harry Truman, who the sitting president thanked for “planting the seeds of compassion and duty which have today flowered into care for the sick and serenity for the fearful.” [Emphasis added.]

These healthcare reforms were part of Johnson’s Great Society, which had two primary goals: to eliminate poverty and to eliminate racial injustice. After his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964, Johnson and his progressive Democratic Congress enacted forward-thinking reforms that were reminiscent of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and began the full-on War on Poverty, which reduced the poverty rate significantly over the subsequent 10 years. Many important Great Society programs– aimed at improving labor, healthcare, and education for poor and working class Americans– are still in existence: Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, student loans for college, work study, and Head Start. These programs were strengthened under Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

It is so sad how far we have fallen from this level of compassion. The programs of Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society– programs that have provided a social safety net for millions of Americans and wiped out many inequities of the past– are now facing a full-frontal attack by conservatives, bankrolled by big business.

Republican Congressmen would have you believe that the nation’s financial problems can be fixed by just cutting spending– specifically dramatically changing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (long-term spending) and dramatically cutting other discretionary (non-military) spending (ie, food stamps, children’s healthcare, food safety, pollution abatement, etc) which actually makes up less than 20 percent of the budget. Oh, yeah, and they want to protect oil subsidies, corporate tax loopholes (which allow multinational corporations like Bank of America to pay no taxes; tax loopholes for the rich; continue the Bush era tax cuts that they fought so hard for in December 2010; dismantle Social Security (so retirement funds for those under 50 can be gambled on the stock market); and offer more tax cuts (more trickle down economics).

At a time of high unemployment, high gasoline costs, high food prices, escalating college education tuition, skyrocketing healthcare expenses, a disintigrating social safety net, and soaring corporate profits– Republicans want workers, the elderly, and the indigent to “tighten their belts” to protect the profits and tax breaks of corporate jet owners, big oil, big pharma, big insurance, and Wall Street gamblers and corporate execs everywhere.

From the Associated Press (via the Arizona Daily Star)…

Two years after economists say the Great Recession ended, the recovery has been the weakest and most lopsided of any since the 1930s.

After previous recessions, people in all income groups tended to benefit. This time, ordinary Americans are struggling with job insecurity, too much debt and pay raises that haven’t kept up with prices at the grocery store and gas station. The economy’s meager gains are going mostly to the wealthiest.

Workers’ wages and benefits make up 57.5 percent of the economy, an all-time low. Until the mid-2000s, that figure had been remarkably stable – about 64 percent through boom and bust alike.

Executive pay is included in this figure, but rank-and-file workers are far more dependent on regular wages and benefits. A big chunk of the economy’s gains has gone to investors in the form of higher corporate profits.

“The spoils have really gone to capital, to the shareholders,” says David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff + Associates in Toronto.

Corporate profits are up by almost half since the recession ended in June 2009. In the first two years after the recessions of 1991 and 2001, profits rose 11 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

And an Associated Press analysis found that the typical CEO of a major company earned $9 million last year, up a fourth from 2009.

Driven by higher profits, the Dow Jones industrial average has staged a breathtaking 90 percent rally since bottoming at 6,547 on March 9, 2009. Those stock market gains go disproportionately to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, who own more than 80 percent of outstanding stock, according to an analysis by Edward Wolff, an economist at Bard College.

But if the Great Recession is long gone from Wall Street and corporate boardrooms, it lingers on Main Street:

• Unemployment has never been so high – 9.1 percent – this long after any recession since World War II. At the same point after the previous three recessions, unemployment averaged just 6.8 percent.

• The average worker’s hourly wages, after accounting for inflation, were 1.6 percent lower in May than a year earlier. Rising gasoline and food prices have devoured any pay raises for most Americans.

• The jobs that are being created pay less than the ones that vanished in the recession. Higher-paying jobs in the private sector, the ones that pay roughly $19 to $31 an hour, made up 40 percent of the jobs lost from January 2008 to February 2010 but only 27 percent of the jobs created since then.

Hard times have made Americans more dependent than ever on social programs, which accounted for a record 18 percent of personal income in the last three months of 2010 before coming down a bit this year. Almost 45 million Americans are on food stamps, another record…

Federal Reserve numbers crunched by Haver Analytics suggest that Americans have a long way to go before their finances will be strong enough to support robust spending: Despite cutting what they owe the past three years, the average household’s debts equal 119 percent of annual after-tax income. At the same point after the 1981-82 recession, debts were at 66 percent; after the 1990-91 recession, 85 percent; and after the 2001 recession, 114 percent. [Emphasis added.]

At a time when Americans can least afford it and the income gap between the richest 1 percent and the rest of us is larger than the Grand Canyon, Republicans are asking for even further financial sacrifices from Main Street Americans AND they are willing to throw the world into financial crisis as they cling to their trickle down ideology of protecting the rich while casting the rest of us aside. If they want to “fix” Social Security, they should put Americans back to work at good-paying jobs. According to 2009 figures from the US Census, 14.3 percent of Americans (and 20.7 percent of American children) are living in poverty; 43 million Americans– the largest number ever.

What can you do about it?

Call your Congressional Representatives today and tell them to vote to:

• raise the debt ceiling (and stop the grandstanding),
• raise revenues (by cutting military spending, eliminating corporate loopholes that allow them to avoid paying taxes, eliminate Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, etc.),
• protect the programs that benefit millions of Americans: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment, college tuition grants, etc.
• solve the deficit problem by putting Americans back to work.

Here are the numbers:
CD8 Gabrielle Giffords: 520-881-3588 (local) or 202-225-2542 (DC)
CD7 Raul Grijalva: 520-622-6788 (local) or 202-225-2435 (DC)

CD6 Jeff Flake from Mesa (We need to lean on this guy who wants to be our next Senator.):
480-833-0092 (in Mesa) or 202-225-2635 (DC)

Senator Jon Kyl 520-575-8633 (local) or 202-224-4521 (DC)
Senator John McCain 520-670-6334 (local) or 202-224-2245 (DC)

What else can you do?

Progressive Democrats of America’s Tucson Chapter is holding a demonstration to show support for protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on Saturday, July 30 from 10 a.m. – noon at the corner of Speedway and Campbell.

In an editorial this past Saturday, the Arizona Daily Star took aim at Mexican American Studies (MAS) Program Director Sean Arce for canceling the annual Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) Mexican American Students Awards Ceremony, a 10-year tradition.

Thanks to information provided to them by MAS supporters, just a few days earlier, the Star broke the story of the TUSD personnel action against Arce for canceling the event. Apparently, Arce took it upon himself to cancel the long-standing tradition to honor all Mexican American students without consulting his supervisor, Assistant Superintendent Lupita Cavazos-Garcia. In May, Cavazos-Garcia met with him, encouraged him to have the event on May 21, and offered resources. From the Star…

The following morning Cavazos-Garcia emailed Arce asking if he had secured a location [for the ceremony]. Arce responded with four reasons the district shouldn’t reschedule and noted that he would be in California that weekend speaking about Mexican American Studies at a conference [which was actually a Save Ethnic Studies fundraising event].

The reasons cited were: the certificates of recognition already had been sent out to students; the Mexican American Studies Department wouldn’t be able to put in the effort required to put on the ceremony; any attempt to reschedule would be interpreted as halfhearted and disingenuous; and dozens of parents of Mexican American Studies students were extremely upset because of developments surrounding the program, so rather than allow for an escalation of a delicate situation, he believed that it was best to let cooler heads prevail.

Arce disobeyed his supervisor’s direct request, and this, in turn, led to official disciplinary action against him.

The Star’s Saturday editorial strongly supported Cavazos-Garcia’s action, and so do I.

So it’s puzzling why the program director, Sean Arce, would unilaterally decide to scrap the traditional end-of-the-year awards ceremony that honors the achievements of Latino students. He has been reprimanded for the decision, and we believe rightly so, because canceling the celebration robbed the community of the chance to come together and celebrate the hard work and well-deserved honors the kids have earned.

If the true purpose of the Mexican American Studies program is, as its literature states, to lift students up through education, to help them forge strong community bonds and develop pride in themselves and their roots, then they should have the opportunity to do that.

If the Mexican American Studies program exists to further the political and academic careers of the adults involved, then they should be upfront about those goals. Canceling the awards ceremony takes the focus away from the kids, and puts it on the adults, where it doesn’t belong…

Caught in the middle are the tens of thousands of students in TUSD schools who are in need of a good education that will prepare them for college or work and make sure they have a sense of belonging.

A relatively small percentage of high school students find this connection in the MAS classes, but the need is much greater.

So it is distressing that Arce, the MAS program director, took it upon himself to cancel an event that affected a large number of students – not only kids who take the MAS classes, but all Latino kids.

I think the Star’s editorial writer was spot on. I think using the right-wing’s approval or disapproval of the ceremony as an excuse not to hold it is lame. High school graduation is a major right of passage for students and their parents. Arce’s action diminished their experience; the disciplinary action is wholly justified.

As the result of the 2010 US Census, Arizona and other states are in the midst of redistricting.

On Monday, the Arizona Daily Star printed a relatively routine article about how little the Pima County supervisors’ districts will likely change in the future– Redistricting likely to shift supervisor areas slightly. If you didn’t read the jump text on this article, you would have missed some interesting facts about voter registration and the county redistricting committee.

The five-member panel tasked with the chore [county-level redistricting] – each member an appointee of one of the sitting supervisors – confronted a choice last week, when it gathered for its second meeting to begin redrawing lines.

The first option: Members could start with a blank slate, essentially using the county’s population center at Park Avenue and 18th Street as a starting point, and continue until the county was sliced into five shapes.

Or they could keep the lines essentially the way they are, with little modification.
On a 3-2 vote, with the Republican appointees on the losing end, they voted to keep the lines the way they are.

Much of the discussion boiled down to race, since, as a consequence of historical discrimination, the U.S. Justice Department has to OK all electoral changes that affect minority voting.

There are two districts currently that have a majority of minority residents. In District 2, represented by Ramón Valadez, minority voters make up 66 percent of its population. In District 5, represented by Richard Elías, minority voters make up 63 percent.

Elías appointee Augustine Romero, the former director of the Tucson Unified School District’s embattled Ethnic Studies program, said it made sense to stick more or less with the current configuration, since the Justice Department already signed off on it. Any redrawing of the lines based on some goal of statistical neutrality, he warned, could have the effect of disempowering minority voters.

But Supervisor Ray Carroll’s Republican appointee, Robert Fee, argued that putting race foremost may violate equal protection, urging his colleagues to instead let the district lines fall as they may. [Emphasis added.]

So, Pima County Supervisor and Mexican American Studies (MAS) Community Advisory Board Member Richard Elias appointed Director of Student Equity and Ethnic Studies Godfather and co-creator Augie Romero to the Pima County redistricting committee.

Elias has been an outspoken supporter of the No Compromise stance on the MAS reorganization plan– showing up at Tucson Unified School Board Meetings and giving fiery pro-MAS speeches like the one he delivered on May Day in Spanish. In turn, Augie Romero votes to protect Elias’ seat on the Pima County Board of Supervisors but he made the original motion to keep the boundaries basically the same as they are. I don’t know how this looks to you, but it sure looks like a classic case of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine,” and I don’t like it.

The larger question is: Why have a sham Pima County redistricting committee made up of five friends of the five Pima County Supervisors? Obviously, as Mark Evans pointed out a few weeks ago, the committee’s structure has been rigged to secure the incumbents’ seats on the Board of Supervisors. Is democracy being served?

In the spirit of full disclosure, I usually agree with Elias’ politics– especially his pro-union stances– but I have been sorely disappointed with the lack of leadership from him and Tucson City Councilwoman Regina Romero (also an MAS Community Advisory Board member) on the MAS reorganization debate and the divisive nature of the rhetoric (1, 2) that has been tearing our community apart recently.

I don’t care if Richard Elias and Regina Romero personally support the No Compromise stance. As Latino leaders in this community they should rise above their personal opinions and show some leadership by working to bring all stakeholders to the table for civil discourse– rather than taking sides.

This week thousands of Arizona high school seniors will don caps and gowns and receive their high school diplomas, while others who successfully completed 12 years of schooling but failed the state’s infamous AIMS test will be left feeling dejected and betrayed by our failing public education system. How can students pass all 12 grades and not pass the high-stakes test? What happens to these students now? These are but a few symptoms of Arizona’s broken educational system.

Perhaps also reflecting on graduation day and the state’s failing school system, the Arizona Republic recently published an editorial on education reform: 5 vital ways to reform K-12 education.

The five suggestions read like a right-wing wish list: 1) competition; 2) high expectations; 3) quality teachers; 4) intelligent use of technology; and 5) private sector involvement. Not surprisingly, the editorial was written by Craig R. Barrett, former CEO of Intel and current president and chairman of BASIS, a system of charter high schools.

So, Barrett’s solution to education? Treat it like a business– build in market competition, push for excellence, use technology wisely, and hire quality employees (ie, teachers). In my opinion, there are multiple problems with applying a business model to education– unless of course you are in the business of education, like Barrett and the hundreds of other businessmen who are financially and ideologically invested charter schools.

What has been left off of Barrett’s list is just as interesting as what is on his list: parental involvement, the importance of early childhood education, teacher salaries, class sizes, teaching methods, tutoring for struggling students, English language assistance for students who grew up speaking other languages, poverty and unemployment, and– the big kicker– the crushing influence of Arizona’s right wing Legislature, who offers devastating, bold-faced cuts to public education while incentivizing privatization and profiteering in education. Heavy sigh.

Barrett’s first three paragraphs solicited a loud “duh” from me.

To carry out any discussion of K-12 education reform, you have to focus on both the numbers and the history. The numbers are pretty simple – and pretty devastating. About 30 percent of Arizona kids do not graduate from high school, and of the 70 percent who do graduate, about half do not have an education of sufficient quality to succeed in college.

Of the 35 percent of the total who are so-called college-ready, about a third require some remediation to be able to take college-level math, science and English; and, eventually, only about 25 percent of all kids earn a college degree.

This places Arizona in the bottom half of the United States, which has fallen from No. 1 among countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), insofar as college completion rates, to its current position of No. 13…

The common-sense solutions outlined in all these documents parallel what we find in today’s high-performing education systems around the world. The simplified interpretation is that you need high expectations, great teachers who know their subject material, and some tension or feedback loops in the system to help struggling students, teachers and administrators.

The last paragraph above is capitalist’s spin on education. The biggest problem with education in the US is that we are allowing weak-willed politicians and hard-nosed businessmen to devalue the public education system, while glorifying the for-profit charter school system.

From Democracy Now… interview with two educators…

Karen Lewis [president of the Chicago Teachers' Union]: The problem is the system is obviously broken. I don’t think anybody will argue with that, that the system is broken. It is—it has not basically changed since the 1900s—1800s, for that matter. And as a result, it has never been able to absorb real innovation. And the problem is it’s just a lot easier to test, test, test children. Our curriculum has narrowed in Chicago. If you look at the average day for an elementary school kid, it’s reading, reading, reading, reading, reading, reading, math, math, math, reading, reading, reading, reading, math. I mean, kids are bored to tears. They’re hating school at an early age. There’s no joy. There’s no passion. And the results show that. They’re very indicative of that.

Well, the problem is that the whole idea of the business model doesn’t work in education. In the business model, you can select how you want to do something. You have an opportunity to innovate in a way that discriminates. It’s very easy to do. Whereas in a public school system, where we do not select our children—we take whoever comes to the door—what we need is actually more resources and more support for the people that are there and the work that’s being done. However, again, Arne Duncan [US Secretary of Education], Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein—I don’t know about Joel Klein—none of these people are superintendents. You have to have, again, credentials for that. These are business folks. Look, the business model took this country to the brink of Armageddon in 2008. And yet, we want to follow a failed business model and imprint that on top of public education? No. And these things are not innovative. What they are is they’re terrorism. They’re “my way or the highway.” And they’re still not producing, quote-unquote, “results.”

Nobody disagrees with accountability. That’s not the issue. The issue is, what do you use? We still know that high-stakes testing basically tell us more about a student’s socioeconomic status than it does anything else. And until we’re honest about that and want to deal with the fact that we have neighborhoods in our cities and across the nation that have been under-resourced, have been devalued for decades, and for some reason or other, the schools are supposed to fix all that and change that. [Emphasis added.]

In their efforts to reform education, people like Barrett and Duncan ignore a little country called Finland. For years, Finland’s students and its public education system has been ranked #1 worldwide.

Somehow, Finland succeeded in having the world’s best education system– without the help of CEOs, business models, charter schools, privatization, or meddling politicians. How is Finland’s educational system different from Arizona’s? (How much time do you have?)

From the Toronto Globe and Mail…

Finnish children do not begin primary school until they are seven years old. But from the age of eight months, all children have access to free, full-day daycare and kindergarten. Finland has had universal access to daycare in place since 1990, and of all preschool since 1996.

Primary-school teachers all have master’s degrees, and the profession is one of the most revered in Finnish society.

“We see it as the right of the child to have daycare and preschool,” explained Eeva Penttila, head of international relations for Helsinki’s education department. “It’s not a place where you dump your child when you’re working. It’s a place for your child to play and learn and make friends. Good parents put their children in daycare. It’s not related to socio-economic class.”

Yesterday, former Ontario deputy education minister Charles Pascal released a long-awaited report that called for an overhaul of the province’s early-childhood education, which he described as a “fragmented patchwork of supports,” and the introduction of full-day kindergarten for four- and five-year-olds. Elementary schools would be converted into learning hubs with after-school programs and include classes for parents on nutrition and health. The goal is to provide students with a mixed program that would increase literacy, graduate rates and postsecondary participation. [Emphasis added.]

From the BBC World News…

The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.

A tactic used in virtually every lesson is the provision of an additional teacher who helps those who struggle in a particular subject.

This video from the BBC offers a great overview of the Finnish system. According to the reporter, Finnish students spend the least number of hours in the classroom of any students in the developed world but receive the highest scores? How does that happen? Besides the fact that the Fins have “a culture that values education”, their classrooms have multiple well-trained teachers. While one teacher is working with most of the students, one or two other teachers are working one-on-one with struggling students.

The BBC reporter ends his story by saying that Finland has “relaxed schools– free from politicians– in which no one is left behind.”

This last sentence is particularly biting– not only because it takes a jab at the United States’ wrong-headed No Child Left Behind program initiated by President George W. Bush, but because our system does leave children behind and then punishes them by not granting diplomas when they don’t pass a test at the end of 12 years.

I was talking with a Tucson second grade teacher at a party on Saturday night. She said that she had a little girl who– at the end of second grade– was having trouble recognizing letters. She said her heart breaks for that little girl because she needs individual attention, but with 30+ seven-year-olds in her class, she can’t give it to her. Reading proficiency by the end of third grade is a benchmark for success in the US. Sadly, without intense individualized help, this little girl will be written off by Arizona’s schools at age 8. We Arizonans have failed this little girl and thousands more like her.

This is a travesty. How can one of the world’s richest countries treat its children with such disregard? How can our country– and particularly our state– continue to devalue education and work to de-professionalize the teaching profession and hope to succeed? Our politicians are slaves to the capitalist ideology that values market forces– even when highly inappropriate– and are too weak-willed to fight for increased funding for public education. How can we compete in a global economy when our heads are stuck firmly in the sand?