ARCHITECT OF PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

Gary K. Hart, charter school architect and former California education secretary, dies at 78

John Myers
Fri, January 28, 2022,

Former California Education Secretary Gary K. Hart died Thursday due to complications from pancreatic cancer. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Gary K. Hart, who served as California's education secretary under then-Gov. Gray Davis and championed the creation of charter schools while serving as a state legislator, died Thursday at his home near Sacramento.

Hart was 78. His family said he died from complications related to pancreatic cancer.

"Gary was widely respected and admired," Davis said on Friday. "In fact, I cannot recall a single person in Sacramento who ever said a critical word about Gary."

Though he compiled an expansive public service record on environmental protection and women's rights, Hart's signature policy expertise was education. A former high school teacher, Hart's interest in politics led him to run for seats in Congress and the Legislature — races he lost before ultimately winning an Assembly seat in 1974 representing Santa Barbara.

In 1982, he was elected to the state Senate in a district that stretched along the coast from Santa Barbara south toward Ventura and Los Angeles counties. He retired from the Legislature in 1994.

Hart's legislative career included a number of education overhauls, including efforts to require skills testing of teachers, graduation requirements for students and limits on the size of K-12 classes. But few achievements may be remembered longer than his 1992 bill to establish charter schools, campuses funded with taxpayer dollars but allowed greater flexibility in their operations than traditional neighborhood schools.

"I didn’t view it as something that was going to be earth-shaking or have the magnitude that it has," Hart said of his push for charter schools in a 2018 interview with the nonprofit organization EdSource.

The Democratic lawmaker's plan made California the second state in the nation to provide for the creation of charter schools. The 1992 law called for only a limited number of sites, a small change that Hart said in 2018 he hoped would mean "a lot more focus on quality" and innovation.

The original cap on the number of schools was lifted by state officials in 1996. A quarter-century after that change, there are more than 1,300 charter schools across California, providing instruction to more than 1 in every 10 schoolchildren in the state.

Hart deftly navigated opposition to the charter proposal from the California Teachers Assn., getting the bill through both houses and to the desk of then-Gov. Pete Wilson, who signed it into law.

While charter schools quickly grew in popularity, some sites were mired in controversy as criticism mounted about quality control and inconsistent educational standards. In a 2019 interview with The Times, Hart said it was probably a mistake to assume that local school boards would provide adequate oversight.

"If I had to do it all over again, I'm not sure granting chartering authority to school boards makes a lot of sense," Hart said. "It was a little bit of a pipe dream."

Davis selected Hart to serve as his secretary of education just weeks after winning the 1998 race for governor, having run a campaign in which he promised to make public school improvements the centerpiece of his administration. The two men were roommates at Stanford University and served together in the Assembly.

"Gary was my first and arguably most important appointment as governor," Davis said. "Education was and always will be my passion. We both believed that while only one student could be the best, every student could get better."

The education secretary post was not well defined, a role that potentially conflicted with that of a voter-elected superintendent of public instruction and the California State Board of Education. Hart, however, was widely praised for his work and helped Davis implement the state's first exit exam for high school seniors.

Hart left the job in 1999, having only promised the governor to serve for a year. He continued his work on education-related issues, including at the California State University Institute for Education Reform that he co-founded after his time in the Legislature. He remained in Sacramento with his wife, Cary, and their three daughters. In recent years, Hart served on the board of directors of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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WISCONSIN 

WHERE ASSAULT ON PUBLIC EDUCATION BEGAN

Republican lawmakers plan legislation to break up MPS, expand vouchers to all students in a proposal to overhaul K-12 education


Molly Beck,
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Fri, January 28, 2022, 

MADISON – Republican lawmakers plan to propose a sweeping package of legislation to overhaul K-12 education in Wisconsin that would break up the state's largest school district within two years and expand private-school vouchers to every student, regardless of family income.

The proposal is part of a package that expands taxpayer-funded alternatives to public schools, including increasing the number of charter schools and giving parents money to pay for additional learning opportunities outside of the normal school day, including college courses.

"These bills are in response to a number of issues parents and children are seeing as COVID-19 and failed school leadership are eliminating educational opportunities in our schools," Senate Education Committee chairwoman Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, said in an email to colleagues on Friday with summaries of each bill.

"Our package of bills promotes school performance transparency and accountability, as well as re-asserts parental choice and rights."

A spokesman for Darling did not respond to a request for an interview. A spokeswoman for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, a former state superintendent, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Milwaukee Public Schools would be dissolved by July 1, 2024, and replaced with four to eight smaller districts in the city, under a bill planned for proposal by Darling, Sen. Roger Roth, R-Appleton, and Rep. Robert Wittke, R-Racine.

The new plan for Milwaukee public school students would be created by a commission consisting of the governor and the mayor of Milwaukee, both of whom would make two appointments each to the commission, and the state superintendent of public instruction, according to Darling's summary of the expected legislation.

The commission must determine the number of new school districts and their boundaries, and submit recommendations for statutory changes to the state Legislature, no later than Oct. 1.
MPS president calls Republicans' plan 'a losing proposition'

Milwaukee School Board President Bob Peterson said the proposal would be a disastrous disruption for families who depend on MPS for education, meals and other support.

MPS School Board President Bob Peterson

“It’s reminiscent of the previous failed attempts to take over the Milwaukee Public Schools and it’s destined to be a losing proposition,” Peterson said.

Peterson said a district that covers the full city allows for maximal flexibility for families to choose the type of school that best suits their children, even if it’s miles away, including Montessori schools, language immersion schools and other specialized schools.

“Implementing this plan would restrict heavily the choices that current families and students have as they choose schools they wish to go to,” Peterson said.

MPS administrators did not immediately reply to requests for comment from the Journal Sentinel.

State Superintendent Jill Underly, who oversees the state Department of Public Instruction, said the proposals were seeking to be divisive instead of addressing real needs.

"I welcome the legislature’s assistance in helping our schools reach our children and their complex needs, encourage authentic parental engagement, and stem the growing teacher shortage," Underly said in a statement.

"However, these proposals are a polarizing and disingenuous distraction from the real needs of students, families, and educators, and they do nothing to help our schools, which have suffered greatly during this pandemic. They do nothing to help public schools and instead will cause great harm.”

C.J. Szafir, director of the Institute for Reforming Government Action Fund, which lobbies lawmakers on legislation to expand private school vouchers and charter schools, said the bills would improve student achievement.

“Taxpayers spend billions every year on a public school system that gives more power to bureaucrats than to parents," said Szafir, who also is a board member for HOPE schools, a system of schools in the state's private school voucher program.

"By expanding school choice options, holding school districts accountable for unnecessarily closing schools over the pandemic, and finally breaking up the failed Milwaukee Public School district, these lawmakers are putting children and parents ahead of bureaucracy."
Adding charter schools in Wisconsin

Another measure in the package would require contracts with existing independent charter school authorizers to allow charter school governing boards to open additional schools if all charter schools operated by that board are in one of the top two performance categories in the state school accountability system.

A new statewide commission to authorize new independent charter schools would be created under another proposal. The commission would include the state superintendent, two appointees of the state superintendent who have served on the governing board of a charter school, two appointees each of the governor, Senate majority leader and Assembly speaker, and one appointee each of the minority leaders of both legislative houses. None of the appointees can be lawmakers.

Another bill would require the state school report cards be designed in a way that student growth may not be valued more than overall achievement when determining a school's overall score.

"This will ensure legislative input going forward and allow for the opportunity to develop a report card to more accurately show the current state of Education in Wisconsin," Darling said in the email to colleagues.
How parents could sue school officials under the 'Parental Bill of Rights'

The lawmakers are also proposing to create a "Parental Bill of Rights" that would allow parents to sue school officials if one of the rights were violated.

Under the legislation, those rights would be:


"The right to determine the religion of the child."


"The right to determine the type of school or educational setting the child attends."


"The right to determine medical care for the child, unless specified otherwise in law or court order."


"The right to review instructional materials and outlines used by the child's school."


"The right to request notice of when certain subjects will be taught or discussed in the child's classroom."


"The right to opt out of a class or instructional materials for reasons based on either religion or personal conviction."


"The right to visit the child at school during school hours, consistent with school policy, unless otherwise specified in law or court order."


"The right to engage with locally elected school board members of the school district in which the child is a student, including participating at regularly scheduled school board meetings."

Residents who live in school districts that did not hold in-person instruction for more than 10 days during the second half of the 2021-22 school year, which includes Milwaukee Public Schools, would receive a larger school property tax credit under another proposal.

The claimants adjusted gross income must be below $80,000 for a single resident and below $150,000 for a married couple to qualify.
Wisconsin lawmakers have previously tried to break up MPS

MPS break-ups have been proposed before.

In 2009, Republican former state lawmakers Ted Kanavas and Leah Vukmir proposed dissolving MPS and replacing it with eight smaller districts.

The same year, Democratic former Gov. Jim Doyle and Mayor Tom Barrett suggested taking away the school board’s power to appoint the superintendent and giving that power to the mayor. Neither moved forward.

In 2015, state lawmakers created an “Opportunity Schools” program that threatened to separate up to five struggling schools away from MPS if the district got a failing score on the state’s accountability reports.

Since then, MPS has avoided failing, though Darling’s proposal to change the accountability reports — by emphasizing performance over growth — could be harder on MPS. The program is still in place.

Going back farther, nearly 50 years ago Democratic state Rep. Dennis Conta proposed new metropolitan school districts that would have combined Milwaukee’s city and suburban schools as an economic and racial integration measure.

Peterson, the MPS board president, said Conta’s proposal came to mind when he saw Darling’s idea. But while Conta’s plan had the aim of addressing disparities, Peterson said Darling’s would do nothing to address the most significant problems facing MPS families.

“Our students and families face the lack of family sustaining jobs, affordable housing, and adequate health care,” Peterson said. “If the senator really wants to help out Milwaukee, perhaps she should also look at those issues.”

Rory Linnane of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Republican lawmakers plan legislation to break up MPS, expand vouchers

SEE

Privatization gets failing grade in Edmonton Public Schools

May 28, 1997 — Yet the contractors costs in four of the five schools were higher than the Board's own staff by an average of 10%. The fifth school contract bid ...

Assaulting Public Education in Canada: Privatization Plague ...

https://againstthecurrent.org › atc082

Eugene Plawiuk. “I have no intention of increasing funds to schools, they should be looking for corporate partnerships.” &#8212Gary Mar, Alberta Minister of ...

Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism: ...

https://books.google.ca › books

Peter McLaren, ‎Ramin Farahmandpur · 2005 · ‎Education

Eugene Plawiuk (1999) suggested that globalization driven by neoliberal economic policies seeks to “recreate public education in the corporate image, ...

Hidden privatisation in public education

.

by SJ Ball · 2007 · Cited by 841 — In both cases, the trend towards privatization of public education is hidden. It is camouflaged by the language of “educational reform”, or introduced.

66 pages

Public Education A Public Good - ERI

by B Froese-Germain · 2016 — The Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) believes strongly that public education must remain independent of privatization because it undermines educational ...

60 pages

Democrats have wanted to spend billions on pre-K for years. But a new study reveals possible flaws with those programs.



Nicole Goodkind

FORTUNE
Sat, January 29, 2022, 

The promise of universal pre-K is simple: three- and four-year-olds get access to free early education to ease the high cost of child care for families, prepare them for kindergarten, and give low-income children in particular the chance at a brighter academic future.

It’s no wonder Republican and Democratic voters, divided on nearly all policy initiatives, agree on the importance of pre-K. Nearly nine in 10 parents support the idea of optional public pre-K in the U.S., as do 8 in 10 of people without children, according to a recent survey. And about 70% of Americans agree that federal funds should be used to pay for these programs.

President Joe Biden has made the topic a rallying cry of his presidency. He put forth a $110 billion proposal for free, high-quality pre-K in his now flat-lined Build Back Better package. “Universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds is not just an investment in education, it’s an investment in the future of America,” he wrote on Twitter last year.

The idea of free childcare is particularly appealing to parents who have struggled to keep up with the rising cost of childcare in the U.S., which increased by more than 40% during the pandemic. The problem is that real-world data is puncturing these big dreams.

A new, multi-year study published this month by researchers at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody Research Institute issued a biggest blow to universal pre-K. It found that students who attended state-funded pre-K programs in Tennessee experienced “significantly negative effects” compared to the students who did not.

By third grade, the researchers began to see a surprising divergence between kids who had attended pre-K and those who hadn’t. By the end of sixth grade, the study found, students who attended voluntary pre-K programs were doing worse than their peers in academic achievement and discipline issues.

The study followed 2,990 low-income children in Tennessee schools to evaluate the long-term impact of the state’s public school-attached pre-K programs against a group of similarly low-income children who did not attend the programs. The control and test group also evaluated, through a series of interviews with participants, whether other factors like parental involvement were equal, the researchers said.

The negative outcomes for those Tennessee children might stem from public school pre-K programs taught using public school curriculum. Pre-K should not be kindergarten light, Dale Farran, director of Vanderbilt University’s Peabody Research Institute and one of the authors of the study, told Fortune. It should have an entirely unique curriculum that focuses on care and tending. If education officials put 20 small children in a classroom and tell them to stay quiet and still, it hurts them on a developmental level, according to Farran.

Still, Farran said she was shocked.

“We were all thinking that this study was going to be the first rigorous study that would validate pre-K,” she said. “And when the kids entered pre-K, the results looked good, they looked like other studies of pre-k. Kids were ahead on school readiness skills over those who didn’t attend, but by the end of kindergarten, those differences had gone away.”

Causation versus correlation

It took two years to get the most recent version of the study accepted, said Farran, because people had so much trouble accepting that students who attended pre-K could experience worse outcomes than students who had not.

“They made us go back and do robustness checks every which way from Sunday,” said Farran. The new study includes 26 supplementary tables to test all possible explanations for the divergence. But even with all of these control experiments, the results remained the same.

“If our results came out the other way, no one would ask us to explain them,” said Farran. “When a study doesn't work, then people rightfully ask you to explain why.”

Conclusions about the effectiveness of universal pre-k should not be drawn from one study, warned Beth Meloy, president of Meloy Child and Family Policy Solutions, which consults for the Early Learning and Care Division at the California Department of Education.

“We need to look into the context of these studies,” she told Fortune. “There are many factors that influence a child’s development and later academic achievement.” Softer social skills are often unaccounted for as well, she said. It’s hard to measure skills that pre-k might impart onto students like executive function or critical thinking.

The problem could also be Tennessee-specific. The quality of the program also really matters, said Meloy. If states don’t devote adequate funding to hire well-trained teachers, or design a curriculum that incorporates play and learning, the long-lasting impacts of pre-k could be skewed.

A May 2021 study by researchers at MIT’s Department of Economics found that there were numerous long-lasting benefits for pre-k students in Boston. The short-term impacts of preschool are evident in student behavior but not test scores. But in the long term, the researchers found that students who attended pre-k in Boston were 6% more likely to graduate high school than those who didn’t, 8.5% more likely to take the SAT, and 8.3% more likely to enroll in college immediately following high school graduation.

“As policymakers consider increased public investment in universal preschool, the research findings suggest that preschool can lead to long-term educational attainment gains through improvements in behavior,” the study concluded. Massachusetts’s public education system is ranked number two in the country. Tennessee, meanwhile ranks in the bottom five states for education funding and the bottom half for public education overall.

There have been other studies that find the benefits of pre-K diminish quickly after children enter kindergarten, but those tend to focus exclusively on test scores or grades as a metric.

“The reality is that learning programs that aren't designed to meet children at their developmental level and provide the kind of activities to scaffold the learning children need at any given age do have the potential to not support a child’s growth and development,” said Meloy.

A different 2014 study that Farran worked on found that there was a “great variation” in the quality scores of classrooms across Tennessee, and that 85% of classrooms scored below the level of “good” quality. In another New York Times’ op-ed, Farran said that pre-k classrooms in Tennessee lack a “coherent vision” and leave teachers to “their own devices” to figure out how to guide their students.

Still, Farran told Fortune that she believes policymakers are relying too much on the concept of pre-k as a way to cure educational disparities that stem from wealth inequality in the U.S.

Policymakers, she said, think they’ve “got this magic bullet: We're going to cure poverty. we're going to cure the achievement gap, we're going to have more retention in school, and fewer Special Education referrals if we just add nine months of pre K at five and a half hours a day.”

Unfortunately, added Farran, magic bullets don’t exist.

Universal pre-K? These roadblocks could keep Biden's preschool plan from truly going nationwide

Universal pre-K? These roadblocks could keep Biden's preschool plan from truly going nationwideUS president Joe Biden talks to students during a visit to a pre-k classroom at East End elementary school in North Plainfield, New Jersey to promote his build back better agenda on October 25, 2021.

Joey Garrison
Sat, January 29, 2022

WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden looks to revive his stalled social-spending plan, he is doubling down on "universal pre-K" as a transformational initiative that he won't abandon.

"We want to have the best-educated workforce," Biden said Wednesday at a White House event with businesses executives designed to boost his Build Back Better agenda. "And that's why universal pre-K is going to mean so much."

But even if it passes, some Republicans at the state level told USA TODAY they would be reluctant to participate in the program. That could be a big problem because Biden's plan relies on state participation and matching dollars that would total billions of dollars from local coffers.

Biden has promised that all three- and four-year-olds will have access to free high-quality preschool if his $1.75 trillion package passes. Yet GOP resistance at the state-level threatens to undercut a proposal that advocates say could transform early childhood education in the U.S.

"I'm a very big advocate for pre-K, but I'm not a big advocate of federal programs such as this," said Tennessee state Rep. Mark White, a Republican who chairs the legislature's Education Committee. "I've seen too much in the past where you lose accountability and there's a lot of waste" with big federal programs like that.

"It would not receive a majority of support" in the Tennessee legislature, White predicted.

The Congressional Budget Office's review of Biden's pre-K proposal estimated only 60% of U.S. children would live in states that take part in the pre-K program, meaning 40% would be in states that opt out.

More: 'Starting from scratch'? Which parts of Biden's social spending plan can survive, which will get scrapped

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 26: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with private sector CEOs in the State Dining Room of the White House on January 26, 2022 in Washington, DC. Chief executives from the automotive and technology sectors were involved in the meeting to discuss the administration's $1.75 trillion Build Back Better spending legislation.

How would Biden's pre-K plan work?

Biden's signature Build Back Better proposal, which includes a spate of climate and social policy provisions, stalled in Congress in December after the White House failed to win the support of moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

The president wants to pursue a scaled-back version with some provisions stripped out. It's unclear what a future package will include, but Biden has made it clear he wants the pre-K component, which seeks to extend two years of free public preschool to a projected 6 million children, to stay in. The pre-K proposal is in addition to $276 billion Biden has proposed for subsidized childcare.

During a news conference earlier this month, the president pointed to Manchin's support of the early childhood education proposal and claimed it's among the issues on which Americans "overwhelmingly agree with me."

More: Biden's new Build Back Better strategy: 5 takeaways from his long (and feisty) press conference

The president has proposed $109 billion to expand prekindergarten over the next six years. The federal government would provide grants to participating states for the first three years, through 2024, with the allocations determined by state poverty levels among children under 6 years old. Washington would cover 95% of a state's costs in 2025, but the federal share would decrease to 80% in 2026 and 64% in 2027. The program would expire in 2028 unless Congress were to extend it.

States would be required to submit plans for preschool programs that meet federal quality standards, prioritize communities in poverty, offer pay that matches elementary school teachers and satisfy other federal criteria. The state proposals would be vetted by the federal Department of Education.

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'You have to dance their dance'

The structure mirrors other federal policies that have relied on state buy-in to receive federal dollars, with mixed results.

While Republican governors have embraced money for roads and bridges in Biden's $1.2 trillion infrastructure law, several Republican governors turned down enhanced unemployment benefits during the pandemic. Some states were also slow to spend federal emergency rental assistance.

"Absolutely, the Republican, conservative governors are going to have a lot of caution in considering whether or not to participate in this because it's really a federal takeover of pre-K," said Rachel Greszler, a research fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation. The financial burden would fall on states if a future Congress doesn't extend the program, she argued. "They're left to foot the entire bill, or else cut off access to all these people who are now used to having that program."

During the Obama administration, a slew of Republican governors turned down federal money to expand Medicare under the Affordable Care Act. Twelve states continue to decline the extra funds that would come with Medicaid expansion.

"I am always very skeptical when the federal government gets involved because of all the strings that come attached to it," Indiana state GOP Rep. Robert Behning, chairman of the Indiana House Education Committee, said of Biden's pre-K plan.

"You have to dance their dance to get it," he said, adding there would be "definite concern" among other Indiana Republicans as well.

Arizona state Sen. Paul Boyer, a Republican and chairman of the state's Senate Education Committee, said he would hesitate to take federal pre-K money that would "lock in future legislative bodies with being on the hook" for spending down the road. He said other Republican lawmakers in Arizona would probably have similar concerns.

"If the feds would like to give that to us as a block grant program, I will gladly take it. But if there are strings attached for future legislatures, then no, I can't accept it."
Plan would 'radically alter' access to pre-K, advocates say

An estimated 59% of 3- and 4-year-olds attended pre-K in 2019 (either public or private), according to the National Household Education Survey, but that was before the pandemic, which forced many preschools to temporarily close. About 1 million preschool students were de-enrolled when COVID-19 forced school closures and shutdowns.

More: 'A huge lift': Biden's bet on child care is closer to reality but could it boost expenses for some?

Forty-four states and the District of Columbia offer some sort of public pre-K program, but only D.C. "even comes close" to providing a true universal program, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research. More than 5 million preschool age children lacked access to publicly funded pre-K in the 2019-2020 school year, including 2.5 million children living at 200% or less of the federal poverty level.

"We have been close to dead in the water in terms of increasing preschool participation over the last 20 years," said Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the NIEER, which is located at Rutgers University. He called Biden's pre-K proposal the "the kind of significant policy change that could radically alter the pace at which preschool is extended to the children who currently don't participate, and that's about half of the kids in poverty."

The Build Back Better bill would also offer grants to local school districts or Head Start centers for pre-K expansion if their state opts out – but that could create a hodgepodge of programs across each state and fall short of Biden's goal of universal pre-K.

Still, Barnett predicted participation wouldn't be an issue, arguing one of the advantages of pre-K is "it's not a Republican or Democrat issue." He pointed to states with strong pre-K programs led Republican governors, such as Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and West Virginia.

"These are some of the better states in terms of pre-K policies. A number of them won't have to change anything," Barnett said, adding that governors in these states could take the federal funds to improve programs they're already doing. "Why wouldn't they do that? It's something they're already doing. It's not asking them to do something they object to. They won't have to change their policies."

Biden administration officials have also made that argument and expressed optimism that states will want to participate. The White House emphasized states would be charged with defining and implementing the quality standards for preschools and that states and localities currently cover 90% of K-12 public school costs, a greater share than Biden has proposed for pre-K.

Preschool currently costs families more than $8,000 a year on average, according to the White House, which has framed the pre-K and preschool plans as critical to enable parents to work. The U.S. ranks 35th out of 37 economies on access to early childhood education, relative to gross domestic product.

"We think Republican governors will have some explaining to do if they decide not to participate in the program," said Carmel Martin, deputy director for economic mobility in Biden's Domestic Policy Council. "It has broad public support across the political spectrum."

More: Biden, Democrats head into 2022 midterms with feistier message and slightly better polls. Is it enough?

Many governors reluctant to weigh in

Some Republicans are more open to the idea, yet wary of further straining the existing teacher workforce

"There's always an appetite for more because we do not have enough slots available in our schools for pre-K, and we'd love to have more," said Arkansas state Rep. Bruce Cozart, who chairs the state's House Education Committee.

He said he would explore boosting Arkansas' early childhood education program, called Arkansas Better Chance, or ABC, if the president's legislation passes. But he raised concerns about federal funds one day depleting, putting the added slots for kids at risk. He also said Arkansas' supply of teachers to accommodate a rapid pre-K expansion isn't enough.

"Until we can get more teachers, more workers to run those places, it's kind of hard to add those pre-K slots in."

Most Republican governors contacted by USA TODAY were reluctant to weigh in on Biden's pre-K proposal.

Through spokespeople, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey declined to take a position on the plan. Some said they had policies not to discuss pending legislation before it becomes law. The offices of Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson were among those that did respond to requests for comment.

More: As voting rights push fizzles, Biden's failure to unite his own party looms again

A spokeswoman for Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a frequent critic of Biden, did not rule out expanding pre-K with federal dollars. But DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw warned "against a one-size-fits-all, top-down approach that prioritizes checking a box rather than meeting students’ and families’ unique needs." She said 71% of 4-year-olds in Florida are served through the state's existing, voluntary pre-K program

"Biden’s campaign promise of 'free universal pre-K' sounds appealing, and can work (as Florida’s success demonstrates)," Pushaw said in an email, "but snappy slogans do not always translate to good policy."

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a moderate Republican in a Democratic-leaning state, has perhaps been the most outspoken GOP governor in publicly endorsing Biden's pre-K plan, calling it "strong and needed" in a series of tweets in December.

Rasheed Malik, director of early childhood policy at the progressive-leaning Center for American Progress, said he believes state lawmakers, including Republicans, will ultimately expand pre-K through Biden's plan, if Congress approves it, because their constituents will demand they do.

He said criticism from Republican state lawmakers right now is not necessarily "reflective of what they will do." He noted Republican governors have tapped funds made available through Biden's American Rescue Plan, which passed Congress last spring, even after some criticized it.

"When the rubber meets the road, I really truly believe that a whole lot more states are going to work with these funds in ways that serve the families of their state," Malik said. "And if they don't, there's gonna be a lot of really upset families and businesses."

Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden's universal pre-K: Roadblocks exist for national preschool plan

Congresswoman Cori Bush’s Car Shot Up In St. Louis, Blue Lives Matter Spokesman Has ‘Vile’ Response: ‘We Need the Lawmakers to be Victims’

Nicole Duncan-Smith
Sat, January 29, 2022

Missouri’s first Black congresswoman’s car was littered with bullets last weekend while it was parked in St. Louis. Despite sources believing she was not the intended target of the gunplay, the politician continues to receive a great outpouring of support from the community.

NBC News states while U.S. House Rep. Cori Bush was not in the car when it was shot up, nor was she injured, but she is still shaken.

Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., attends a news conference on the FIX Clemency Act outside the U.S. Capitol on Friday, December 10, 2021. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“Like far too many of us in St. Louis, experiencing gun violence is all too familiar,” Bush said in a statement released on Twitter. “Thankfully no one was harmed. But any act of gun violence shakes your soul.”

The progressive steered the conversation from herself and drew attention to a much larger issue.

“No one should have to fear for their safety here in St. Louis, and that is exactly why our movement is working every day to invest in our communities, eradicate the root causes of gun violence, and keep every neighborhood safe,” she continued.

A source close to her says that it is believed the shooting, allegedly on the morning of Jan. 22, was not intended for the congresswoman but the incident is disturbing. The representative also says that there was evidence that other vehicles were tampered with over the weekend in the same area of the shooting.

One guest on Fox News described the incident as what he claimed is natural consequence of the defund the police position he claims is held by Democrats. New York Police Sgt. Joseph Imperatrice, founder of Blue Lives Matter NYC, told the anchor last week, “The harsh truth is we need the lawmakers to be victims.”

During a segment called “American’s Crime Crisis,” another comment made on air was, “Of course, we would never wish any harm whatsoever on any American, let alone a politician we disagreed with. BUT…”

Congressman Jamal Bowman, the representative from the Bronx, stood up for his colleague and blasted the right-leaning Fox mouthers, saying, “This is vile and disgusting.”

“We are thankful that Cori is safe and unharmed. That’s the only thing that needs to be said. You all can sit there and continue to be mad and hateful. She’ll keep doing the people’s work with love and conviction,” he tweeted.

He was not the only one grateful that she was safe.

Former Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner also used her social media platform to support Bush, writing, “I love you and I am so sorry you, your family and team have to endure this just because you speak for justice.” It is unclear if Turner believes the gunshots were meant for the congresswoman or if she was providing sisterly support after various right-wingers and white supremacists as well as other groups attacked her.

Comedian Kathy Griffin tweeted in response to the shooting, “Oh my God, Congresswoman! Glad to hear you are unharmed, but so sorry you had to go through this traumatic experience.”

This is not the first time that Bush has had her car violated. In 2020, her car was shot up. She shared the story on Twitter.

She tweeted on Jun. 10, 2020, “My car took the bullets. I am safe. When I say that I am the people I serve, it’s not a slogan! A bullet went through my door handle on one side of the car, another went through my tire on the other side. I’m committed to taking us from ‘surviving St. Louis’ to ‘living it.’”

After becoming a leader for prison reform and police violence eradication in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, the minister and nurse was so moved by the Michael Brown slaying that she could not sit still, shortly afterward became a political voice. The activist then lived just six minutes from where Brown, an 18-year-old Black teen, was killed.

Corporate landlords like Blackstone are riding this inflationary wave all the way to the bank

REUTERS/MIKE BLAKE

The landlord of this rental home, Blackstone, Inc. definitely doesn't live on-site.

FROM OUR OBSESSION
Rethinking cities
Cities have to accommodate more people, lessen their environmental footprint, and become more equitable.


By Camille Squires
QUARTZ
Cities reporter
Published January 29, 2022


Blackstone, one of the biggest corporate landlords in the US, reported its highest earnings year on record on Jan. 27, largely on the strength of rising rents in its real estate portfolio. Blackstone reported $1.4 billion in net income in the fourth quarter, and $5.9 billion for the year, nearly six times what they made the previous year.

That premium reflects the changing ways Americans live, work, and shop during the pandemic. Since 2019, more Americans have been looking for larger homes and buying more online. That’s spurred demand for warehouses and logistics facilities, as well as put pressure on residential rents.

Institutional investors like Blackstone, now valued $84 billion, have ratcheted up their assets in the sector. Much of Blackstone’s recent growth has been driven by the firm’s real estate holdings from residential to commercial buildings, especially warehouses.

On the Jan. 27 call with investors, Blackstone’s executives explained rents for real estate sectors in their portfolio had risen as much as two to three times faster than the overall inflation rate. Relatively short leases on their properties have allowed them to raise prices quickly, capturing more value from renters, even as the inflation rate in the US economy topped 7%. Blackstone’s property portfolio includes everything from massive data centers and industrial warehouses to apartments and single-family homes, mostly throughout the southern and western US. It’s leading a wave of institutional investors buying up homes in the suburbs.

The US saw significant, rapid rent increases in 2021 driven by surges in demand set off by the pandemic. In some cities, median asking rents went up 30% or more within the year. That has put pressure on some individual renters struggling to afford rent hikes, but it’s helped bring in massive profits for corporate landlords like Blackstone that own the real estate.

In remarks during the shareholders on Jan. 27, Blackstone president. and COO Jonathan Gray said, “In my 30-year career, I’ve never seen real estate fundamentals in the sectors where we are focused as strong as they are today.”
Blackstone’s banner year

Real estate has become Blackstone’s most lucrative business. Led by its Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust, the firm owns more than 3,000 properties, including some 950 million square feet of logistics real estate space. It also made a huge investment in single-family rental homes in July 2021 when it acquired Home Partners America, and its more than 18,000 single-family rental homes.

These investments have paid off—nearly half of Blackstone’s earnings for the year came from real estate, the most of any one sector of the business. In buying strategically in rental housing and logistics in particular, Blackstone has set itself up to dominate in two areas that have seen rapidly-growing demand; logistics companies like Amazon hunger for more space to expand e-commerce supply chains, and American families looking for single-family homes but unable to buy. A September 2021 report of Blackstone’s real estate holdings shows that nearly all of its residential and industrial rentals had occupancy rates above 90%.

Why the rent is so high

Even though demand for new home construction is rising, the inventory is not. New home construction has lagged behind population growth for years in the US. The construction industry has been hampered by labor shortages, material cost increases, and delays during the pandemic. The insufficient supply of affordable for-sale housing pushes more people into the rental market, keeping demand high.

Rental prices, especially for units with two bedrooms or more, soared in 2021. The latest national rent report from online rental platform Apartment List found rents rose 18% last year. The pandemic also set off huge swings in demand in rental markets, as people initially left cities en masse and rents decreased, then returned, creating a new wave of demand.

But much of this increase can be attributed to consumer price inflation as the US economy recovers from the impacts of the pandemic. As inflation rises and demand for rentals stays high, property owners are incentivized to raise rents. Commercial landlords like Blackstone have the opportunity to do so when leases turn over quickly, raising the value of what Gray called “short-duration hard assets.”

It’s possible these conditions will change. The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates as expected in 2022 helping curb inflation and cool off the rental market benefiting landlords.

THE TEA PARTY BECAME THE TRUMP PARTY

LA barbershop nails it: Electing Obama 'just really released a lot of hatred and racism'
Tom Boggioni
January 29, 2022

Barack Obama and Donald Trump

In interviews at Tolliver's Barber Shop in South L.A., regulars agreed that the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 plunged the Republican Party into a paroxysm of anger that metastasized and led to the election of Donald Trump as the Republican Party became more unabashedly racist.

According to LA Times columnist Steve Lopez, a visit to Tolliver's Barber Shop revealed Black voters who are equally bitter, angry and dismayed as they watch the GOP try to roll back voting rights -- and they tie the genesis of the anti-democratic movement to a knee-jerk reaction to Obama becoming the first Black president.

According to owner Laurence Tolliver, he recalled that he remarked "It’s a glorious day" on the day he cast his vote for Obama but, as Lopez wrote, "More than 13 years later, that road has taken a sharp turn, back into the past."

"We haven’t yet seen a move to reinstate the poll tax. Not yet, anyway. But Joe Biden’s sound defeat of President Trump in 2020 unleashed unhinged claims that the election was stolen, and more than a dozen states have since enacted voting rules expected to suppress minority votes," the LA Times columnist wrote before adding, "Last week, I met with the Tollivers and some of the longtime customers at the barbershop. The language was as sharp as Tolliver’s shears. The tone was a bitter blend of heartbreak, rage and resignation that the nation’s most reprehensible sins may never be buried."

Tolliver explained about his vote for Obama stating, "I was just so happy for America, and I said we had finally turned the corner,” before lamenting, “And as happy as I was then, I’m just as saddened, disheartened and discouraged by the acts going on now to suppress or deny the vote.”

Filling in the blanks, his wife Bernadette chimed in, "It just really released a lot of hatred and racism.”

Reacting to a viral video of an LA teen taunting a Black basketball player by calling him “a monkey” and asking “who let him out of his chains?” in nearby Laguna Beach, barbershop regular Nate Thibodeaux pinned the blame on Trump for making racism a central element of his appeal to his rabid fans.

“Trump actually fueled the fire there. I don’t know what the answers are, but it seems like it gets worse instead of better,” he remarked.

Mike Washington added that he believes the Republican party has been hijacked, adding, "It’s become the poster boy for Jim Crow.”

Barbershop regular William Taylor offered, "Our ancestors have given too much for us to lose the right to vote,” which led to the Rev. Ron Simmons of West Angeles Church of God adding that the attempts at voter suppression will only inspire more to turn out.

“I don’t think they’re going to be able to suppress the vote,” Simmons predicted “Because of everything going on now, people will get out there and vote.”

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Commentary: Columnist says California should abolish parenthood in the name of equity


Joe Mathews
Fri, January 28, 2022, 11:54 AM·3 min read

If California is ever going to achieve true equity, the state must require parents to give away their children.

Today’s Californians often hold up equity — the goal of a just society completely free from bias — as our greatest value. Gov. Gavin Newsom makes decisions through “an equity lens.” Institutions from dance ensembles to tech companies have publicly pledged themselves to equity.

But their promises are no match for the power of parents.

Fathers and mothers with greater wealth and education are more likely to transfer these advantages to their children, compounding privilege over generations. As a result, children of less advantaged parents face an uphill struggle, social mobility has stalled, and democracy has been corrupted. More Californians are abandoning the dream; a recent Public Policy Institute of California poll found declining belief in the notion that you can get ahead through hard work.

My solution — making raising your own children illegal — is simple, and while we wait for the legislation to pass, we can act now: The rich and poor should trade kids, and homeowners might swap children with their homeless neighbors.

Now, I recognize that some naysayers will dismiss such a policy as ghastly, even totalitarian. But my proposal is quite modest, a fusion of traditional philosophy and today’s most common political obsessions.

In his “Republic,” Plato adopted Socrates’ sage advice — that children “be possessed in common, so that no parent will know his own offspring or any child his parents” — in order to defeat nepotism, and create citizens loyal not to their sons but to society.

Today, a policy of universal orphanhood aligns with powerful social trends that point to less interest in family. Californians are slower to marry, and are having fewer children; our birth rate is at an all-time low.

My proposal also should be politically unifying, fitting hand-in-glove with the most cherished policies of progressives and Trumpians alike.

The left’s introduction of anti-racism and gender identity in schools faces a bitter backlash from parents. Ending parenthood would end the backlash, helping dismantle white supremacy and outdated gender norms. Democrats also would have the opportunity to build a new pillar of the safety net — a child-raising system called “Foster Care for All.”

Over on the right, Republicans are happy to jettison parents’ rights in pursuit of their greatest passions, like violating migrant rights. Once you’ve gone so far as to take immigrant children from their parents and put them in border concentration camps, it’s a short walk to separating all Americans from their progeny.

Universal orphanhood also dovetails nicely with the pro-life campaign to end abortion rights. In fact, a suggestion from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, during a recent case that could overturn Roe, inspired this column. She posited that abortion rights are no longer necessary because all 50 states now have “safe haven” laws allowing women to turn their babies over to authorities after birth. My proposal would merely make mandatory such handovers of babies to the state.

Perhaps such coercion sounds dystopian. But just imagine the solidarity that universal orphanhood would create. Wouldn’t children, raised in one system, find it easier to collaborate on global problems?

Now, I don’t expect universal support for universal orphanhood. A few contrarians might argue that pursuing your own conception of family is fundamental to freedom.

They also may suggest that people don’t really want to start or finish at the same point in life.

They may even say that what we really desire is what the title orphan of the musical “Annie” demanded: “I didn’t want to be just another orphan, Mr. Warbucks. I wanted to believe I was special.”

But don’t pay those critics any mind. Because they just can’t see how our relentless pursuit of equity might birth a brave new world.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.

Spotify's communications chief reportedly told employees that Joe Rogan episodes 'didn't meet the threshold for removal'


Sarah Jackson
Sat, January 29, 2022

Vivian Zink/Syfy/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

Spotify's communications chief reportedly told employees that episodes of Joe Rogan's podcast "didn't meet the threshold for removal."

The Verge published a list of Spotify's internal company content policies around healthcare Friday.

The controversy prompted singers Neil Young and Joni Mitchell to pull their music over Rogan's COVID-19 misinformation.

Leaked internal messages from Spotify offer a glimpse into the company's decision to keep airing Joe Rogan's podcast, which has come under fire for promoting COVID-19 misinformation.

The Verge reported Friday that Dustee Jenkins, Spotify's head of global communications and public relations, broached the subject with concerned employees in an internal Slack channel.

Jenkins told them the company reviewed multiple episodes of podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience" but concluded they "didn't meet the threshold for removal," according to leaked screenshots of her message that were viewed by The Verge.

"We apply our policies consistently and objectively," Jenkins wrote. "They are not influenced by the media cycle, calls from any one individual or from external partners. It doesn't mean I personally agree with this content. But I trust our policies and the rationale behind them."

The Verge also published Spotify's internal content guidelines pertaining to healthcare. They prohibit behavior such as denying that COVID-19 exists, suggesting that mask-wearing causes life-threatening physical harm, and "promoting or suggesting that vaccines are designed to cause death," according to the news site.

"What Spotify hasn't done is move fast enough to share these policies externally, and are working to address that as soon as possible," Jenkins wrote.

Earlier this week, "Heart of Gold" artist Neil Young demanded Spotify remove his music from its platform over COVID-19 misinformation, saying, "Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them." Young delivered an ultimatum, adding, "They can have Rogan or Young. Not both."

Spotify announced a few days later that it will pull Young's music catalog from its platform.

"We regret Neil's decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon," the company told The Wall Street Journal. "We want all the world's music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators."

Joni Mitchell announced Friday that she'll also be pulling her music from Spotify over "lies that are costing people their lives."

Earlier this month, 270 scientists, healthcare workers, and educators signed an open letter calling on Spotify to stop the spread of misinformation on its platform following an episode of Rogan's podcast in which he interviewed a doctor who baselessly claimed Americans were "hypnotized" into wearing masks and getting COVID-19 vaccines because of what he calls "mass formation psychosis." Psychology experts have said there is no such phenomenon.

Spotify did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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