Hunger Strike Set to End War. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 375.

Hunger Strike Set to End War

Cindy Sheehan, Dick Gregory, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn and Hundreds More Launch Hunger Strike to End the Iraq War.

Hunger strikes have been used to change policy and social wrongs for hundreds of years. In early Ireland, where the tradition originated, hunger strikes were actually encoded in civic law. Fasters publicly denied themselves food on the doorstep of the person committing an injustice, because it was considered shameful for someone to come to harm in your home, especially for a crime you committed. That's why for the Troops Home Fast, we're headed to the offender's doorstep: the White House lawn!

Hunger strikes call attention to a grave issue, force change, and cause shame for wrongdoers and inspire others to take action.

The effectiveness of a hunger strike rests on the seriousness of the issue, and the gravity of putting one's body on the line. People have engaged in hunger strikes for an array of reasons; most notably to gain freedom, political participation, or to call attention to genocide. For our part, we are fasting to end the great suffering of war, bringing home the pain and injury of Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers.

SOLIDARITY ACTIONS

Ga. Library to Bring Back Spanish Fiction. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 374.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -- Faced with public protests, the public library board in a county with a large Hispanic population is expected to restore the funding it cut for Spanish-language fiction.

Trustees of the Gwinnett County Public Library will meet Wednesday to ratify the decision before the library's budget year begins July 1, officials said.
The board’s decision to cut $3,000 for Spanish translations of popular books at a meeting earlier this month received attention in newspapers across the country.
In the week following the news, board members have received letters and e-mails from as far away as California and New Zealand from writers, professors and editors.

Beni Dakar expresses concern about Gwinnett County:

What do the dates May 10, 1933 and June 12, 2006 have in common? They are both poignant dates for those who love books and democracy.

On May 10, 1933, the Nazis began their infamous ‘book burnings’ and set ablaze over 25,000 library books by Jewish intellectuals and other authors who threatened their misguided Aryan beliefs.

On June 12, 2006, the Gwinnett County library board decided to reduce to ashes the career of Jo Ann Pinder, Gwinnett County public library executive director, because her confidence and vision threatened the close-minded, meddling and misguided Gwinnett County library board.

Thomas G. Sticht Explores the Effectiveness of the Division of Adult Education and Literacy. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 373.

Has the U. S. Division of Adult Education and Literacy (DAEL)Improved Program Quality and Capacity in the Adult Education and Literacy System of the United States?

Tom Sticht.International Consultant in Adult Education.

The Division of Adult Education and Literacy (DAEL) is located in the
Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) in the U. S. Department of Education USED. The DAEL administers the state grants that are funded under Title 2: The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 and its revisions. The 3,000 or so programs funded under the WIA/Title 2 make up the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) of the United States. Speaking of the programs in this system, the DAEL web site states, "The Division provides assistance to states to improve program quality and capacity."

But how effective has this assistance been? Regarding the improvement of program "capacity," the DAEL has responsibility for advising the Bush administration, through the Secretary of Education’s offices and chain of command, on policies for the AELS, including funding levels for the WIA state grants. Significantly, since the beginning of the Bush administration, the President has never requested an increase in the state grant funding over what was in the previous year. Further, for fiscal year
2006 the administration requested a $375 million cut in the $575 million budget (using approximate numbers here) for the state grants, a two-thirds cut. Fortunately, adult literacy advocates mobilized and convinced the U.S. Congress to restore the funding to its previous year’s level. After that, the administration again asked for no more funding for the state grants for fiscal year 2007, and has sought to zero out the Even Start family literacy program. How does that improve the "capacity" of the AELS to serve what the administration says is the 90 million or so adults whose literacy skills are inadequate for our global competitiveness?

To meet accountability requirements of the WIA of 1998 the DAEL implemented the National Reporting System (NRS). Following the initiation of this information management system, enrollments in the AELS fell by some 1,000,000 students over the next six years. This is not indicative of improved capacity for the AELS.

Despite its national leadership role at the federal level, the DAEL has not defined what it means by program "quality" so it is not possible to make any determination as to whether or not the DAEL has made progress in improving program "quality". In this regard, the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has dropped the earlier ERIC system that provided educators access to thousands of reports that may have included valuable ideas to improve the "quality" of adult literacy education. Instead, in 2002 the IES implemented the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) "to provide educators, policymakers, researchers, and the public with a central and trusted source of scientific evidence of what works in education."

For the first three years of its existence the WWC promised that a report on what works in adult literacy education was forthcoming. But the report never appeared and the promise of a forthcoming report has been removed from the site. Apparently, then, the Department of Education’s own WWC has been unable to obtain information from DAEL to indicate that the DAEL has improved the "quality" of AELS programs to the point that convincing evidence for "what works" can be reported.

For the last five years the DAEL has operated a National Reporting System (NRS) to obtain data from the 50 states and U. S. territories on the performance of the 3,000 or so programs that comprise the AELS. Recently the DAEL web site (www.ed.gov/offices/OVAE) posted a report called, "Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, Report to Congress on State Performance, Program Year 2003-2004".

Despite the fact that the NRS uses a true hodge-podge of standardized tests across the states and territories to measure learning gains in the AELS programs, the Program Year 2003-2004 report nonetheless averages data across the states and territories to show how learning gains have improved over the first four years that the DAEL has operated the NRS. Unfortunately, the data show little gain in the first two years and no improvement in the last two years. Indeed, in some states, such as
California, the largest state in the AELS, over the last three years cited in the DAEL/NRS report learning gains in adult basic education and adult secondary education combined actually went down, though there was a very small (2 percentage points) gain in learning in English as a second language.

In summary, though "The Division [DAEL] provides assistance to states to improve program quality and capacity" the existing data indicate that enrollments are down by over 25 percent, in inflation adjusted dollars per enrollment funding is down by some 30 percent since 1966 when the Adult Education Act was passed, the What Works Clearinghouse has found nothing to report about what works in adult literacy education from the DAEL, and the National Reporting System has reported little or no improvements in learning gains in the first four years that DAEL has reported on the
performance of the AELS to the Congress.

Earlier
(http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/private/aaace-nla/2006/004237.html) I reported that as of 2006 the U.S. government’s national research centers funded since 1990 to improve adult literacy education have presented no evidence indicating that they had actually improved adult literacy education in the United States. I also reported that the federal National Institute for Literacy has reported little evidence of any progress in the last decade and a half in its efforts to "strengthen and expand adult
literacy services" as tasked by the U. S. Congress (http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/private/aaace-nla/2006/004260.html).

Now, examination of the work of the Division of Adult Education and Literacy (DAEL) in the U. S. Department of Education suggests that it joins the national R & D centers and the National Institute for Literacy as federal initiatives that have been funded to improve the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) of the United States and have failed to provide substantial evidence that they have made significant progress toward or have actually accomplished this important mission.

The combined findings of this survey of failed federal efforts to improve the Adult Education and Literacy System suggests the need for a major, substantial review of the field of adult education and literacy and to understand what efforts are needed to better serve the needs of the millions of adults who each year seek to improve their education and literacy abilities through the services of the Adult Education and Literacy System of the United States.

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: Tsticht at aznet.net

Republicans Block Minimum Wage Increase. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 372.

Senate Republicans killed an effort to raise the minimum wage, but Democrats who backed the measure said they would try again, both in Congress and through ballot measures in several states.

The federal minimum wage has been $5.15 an hour since 1997. On a procedural measure Wednesday, senators voted 52 to 46 in favor of raising the wage to $7.25 in three steps, but 60 votes were needed to move the legislation forward.

See also: Congress Stiffs Low-Income Workers at The Hunger Homelessness and Poverty Task Force website.



Minimum Wage Map.

"We have people who live in the poorest circumstances working in luxury hotels." A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 371.

"Cancun is suffering very serious urban problems, along with a kind of polarization and social asymmetry," said Eduardo Torres Maldonado, author of a book about the development of Quintana Roo. "We have people who live in the poorest circumstances working in luxury hotels."

From Tropical Hell to Tourist Paradise: State Intervention and Tourist Entrepreneurship in the Mexican Carribbean (PhD dissertation, 1997. University of Texas-Austin).

Also:
Diacrónica del Caribe mexicano : una historia de Quintana Roo y Cancún / Eduardo Torres Maldonado, coordinador y editor ; Lorena Carega Viliesid ... [et al.] ; prólogo de Peter M. Ward ; presentación de Javier Rodríguez Piña
Imprint México : Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco, Unidad Azcapotzalco, 2000.


See: Tourism and Poverty Alleviation: Recommendations for Action

World Refugee Day. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 370.

Millions to mark World Refugee Day.

World Refugee Day Events in 2006.
World Refugee Day celebrations will take place all over the world. Select a country

9million

The State of the World's Refugees 2006
Human displacement in the new millennium

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country.

In more than five decades, the agency has helped an estimated 50 million people restart their lives.


Refugees by the Numbers.

Who Employs Your Custodial Staff? A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No.369.

The Service Employees International Union won the right to represent more than 400 janitors at the University of Miami on Thursday, creating the first union presence at the private school.

It's time to talk with your custodial staff. In former times custodial staff had civil service or government positions. Since the wave of privatization workers have lost rights and wages.

In "Disposable Workers: Today's Reserve Army of Labor," Magdoff and Magdoff state:

Part of the explanation for the meager support for those consigned by the capitalist system to the reserve army of labor is an ideologically-driven notion that has taken deep root among the U.S. population. The problems of the poor, according to this view, are mainly due to their own failings—they are lazy or just haven't had the foresight to get a good education, or had children when they were too young. This perverse logic, that an essential component of the economic system—produced and continually reproduced by capitalism—is somehow the fault of the least powerful, is also internalized by the poor themselves. Even if the myth were true, it would still be immoral to deny adequate shelter, food, and healthcare to the children of such "deficient" parents, or to the "failed" individuals themselves, for that matter. Racism also plays its part, with the misperception among many whites that welfare is a program mainly for minorities.

The AFSCME Privitization Update is a fine source for monitoring privitization.

The Fallout from Falling US Wages. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 368.

The Fallout from Falling US Wages
by Rick Wolff

MRZine (Monthly Review) - June 12, 2006


Real wages in the US rose during every decade from 1830
to 1970. Then this central feature of US capitalism
stopped as the figures below show:

Source: Labor Research Associates of New York based on
data from the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics; wages expressed in constant 1982 dollars.

1964 $302.52
1974 314.94
1984 279.22
1994 259.97
2004 277.57

No comparable steady rise in real wages has occurred
since. The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics indicate real weekly wages declined again
over the last year (2005-2006). American workers'
reactions to this downtrend in real wages have
profoundly shaped the nation's economy and society for
the last thirty years.

Stagnant or falling real wages undermine workers' basic
expectations of rising levels of consumption. Those
expectations had become key parts of what it meant to
be "an American." Rising consumption has long
functioned as the evidence of success in achieving the
American dream. When, after the mid-1970s, real wages
no longer allowed for rising consumption, wage-earners
turned, with growing urgency, toward other ways and
means to maintain rising consumption . This delayed the
inevitable, a falling standard of living, but at great
economic and social cost.....
[read entire article]

Bush's recent loss of public approval may signal the
limits to the last twenty-five years of economic change
and policy. A vast outrage may arise among Americans
who "forget" their beliefs in and complicity with
policies that are now becoming exposed as failures and
who will insist that they were duped and mislead. Then
the political pendulum can swing as far toward
government economic intervention as before it swung the
other way. Such shifts have, after all, happened many
times in the past. "Economic science" may yet again be
reformulated in Keynesian or "socialist" terms to
justify such shifts (note Latin America's recent
dramatic moves away from its extreme neo-liberal
policies after the1970s).

The key questions for many now are (1) how much longer
can the combination of real wage decline, rising work
effort, debt, and family stress, and deepening social
inequalities continue; (2) what might enable Bush & Co.
nonetheless to continue the economic direction they
champion; and (3) how fast and how far will the
backlash proceed if they cannot do so? For socialists,
the key political question is different. When private
capitalism a la Bush hits its crisis, will the chief
socialist response be (as it mostly was after 1929) to
support a government intervention aimed to save the
system by making it more worker-friendly for a while
till the crisis passes? Or will they demand far more
basic economic change?

[Rick Wolff is Professor of Economics at University of
Massachusetts at Amherst. He is the author of many
books and articles, including (with Stephen Resnick)
Class Theory and History: Capitalism and Communism in
the U.S.S.R. (Routledge, 2002).]
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wolff120606.html

Diversity Fair at Annual Conference and Diversity in Higher Education. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No, 367.

2006 9th Annual Diversity Fair
Celebrating Examples of Diversity in
Adult and Family Literacy Services
in Libraries

ALA Annual Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana
Saturday, June 24, 2006
3–5p.m. in the Exhibits Area

Presentations at the ALA/OLOS Diversity Fair are certain to be viable for AMERICAN ACADEMIC--An Annual Publication from the American Federation of Teachers

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Theme: Diversity and Higher Education

American Academic, the annual higher education policy journal of the American Federation of Teachers, announces a call for proposals to be included in its 2007 issue. The 2007 theme is "Diversity and Higher Education." We will also be considering articles not related to diversity, yet still of interest to the higher education community.

Often in higher education when we talk about race, gender, and class issues, we tend to focus on the student body. However, the challenges we face for the recruitment, retention and professional advancement of a diverse corps of faculty and staff are just as vital. What are the facts about diversity of race, gender and class in the academic workforce? Is higher education where it should be? If not, how can further advances be made?

The 2007 issue of American Academic, AFT’s higher education journal, plans to address these issues. Some of the questions or topics we hope to address include:

* Retaining and mentoring a diverse corps of faculty and staff
* Gender equity across ranks and within disciplines
* The role of minority-serving institutions in higher education systems
* Diversity and the stratified academic workforce
* The union’s responsibility

Deadline for Proposals: November 10, 2006

Proposal should include a cover page with: title of the proposed paper, author and affiliation, and telephone/e-mail contact information.

Proposals should be no longer than three double-spaced pages plus references. Please submit proposals to AFT Higher Education at americanacademic@aft.org. For more information, contact the AFT Higher Education staff at 202/879-4426 or 800/238-1133 x4426.

The American Federation of Teachers represents over 1.3 million members, including over 130,000 faculty and professional staff at colleges and universities around the country.

Union Organizing Resources by Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Employees. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 366.

Indianapolis-Marion County Employees Seek a Union and they have organized resources that will assist others in establishing the need for unions.
Look at Indylibraryunion.org
Examples:

Tired of seeing our branches turned more and more every day into “McLibraries?” So are we. This article from Library Journal illustrates how employees of the Free Library of Philadelphia worked with their union to slow this unwise trend.

Check out this announcement to learn about AFSCME’s excellent track record in helping library workers in other systems secure better working conditions and pay. This is what having a union can do for us.

Making Technology Relevant to Nonprofit and Social Change Groups. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 365.

On Saturday, June 17, 2006 over 200 individuals from community-based organizations throughout the Northeast will come together for the 7th Annual Grassroots Use of Technology Conference. Sponsored by Organizers' Collaborative (OC) and the CTC Vista Project at UMASS Boston, this national conference will provide valuable training and information to nonprofit professionals and activists on how they can best use technology to effect social change. This year's conference theme is Making Technology Relevant to Nonprofit and Social Change Groups, with a focus on helping community organizations to better serve their constituents.

Democrats Try to Save Poverty Survey. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 363.

Democrats Try to Save Poverty Survey
Bush's Elimination of Income Survey Avoids Awareness of Poverty Levels

The Bush administration has proposed cutting the Survey of Income and Program Participation. It is the government's only survey that repeatedly questions thousands of people over time about how income changes affect their poverty status, health coverage and use of government services.

Social Determinants of Health. A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 362.

The Commission on Social Determinants of Health: Tackling the Social Roots of Health Inequities.


Public Library of Science:

The greatest share of health problems is attributable to the social conditions in which people live and work, referred to as the social determinants of health (SDH)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has created the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH). The CSDH was formally launched in March 2005 and will operate until May 2008. Its goal is to strengthen health equity. It aims to do so by catalyzing policy and institutional change to address SDH within countries, among institutions working in global health, and within WHO itself.

Immigrant Rights / Civil Rights Movement! A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. No. 361.

Immigrant Rights / Civil Rights Movement!
National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference
Friday - Sunday July 28-30, 2006
American University.Washington, DC.

The success of May 1st's "A Day Without Immigrants" has been an historical turning point for the immigrant rights movement.

At this point it is vitally important for the immigrant rights movement to keep the momentum going, and there is an urgent need for national meetings in which community/grassroots immigrant activists can meet face-to-face to discuss how to build a new national, broad-based, immigrant rights/civil rights movement, and to set a 6-9 month national strategy for this movement.

Why? despite our massive actions across the street, on Thursday, May 25, the U.S. Senate voted 62-36 to approved a bipartisan immigration 'reform' bill (S. 2611), calling for increase border security, guest worker program, more immigration enforcement, and the immigrant legalization program.

Although the bill includes some positive provisions that would reduce the backlog in family-based immigration, as well as AgJobs, DREAM Act, and a legalization program; however, a quick analysis from Immigrant Legal Resource Center point out that the positive provisions in the bill have been fatally compromised by the negative measures included in the bill. Such as: militarization of the border, more government power to deport immigrants, flawed and unrealistic legalization program, and guest worker program as a new kind of 'slave labor.' (see below)

Even worse, when the Senate bill meet with the House bill (HR 4437, passed last December) at the conference committee to draft the final bill (could be before or after the November election), it'll not get better, but will get worse--where the positive provisions on the Senate bill may disappear, but the worse part of the bill will be kept.

Therefore, We should expect our struggle will be still long and difficult, and we need to prepare for a long campaign to defeat the racist anti-immigrant bills, and the institutionalized racist government anti-immigrant policies.

--read more.