Still: more than 4 in 10 are still not sure, mistrust of government driving the lack of participation

A new national survey of public attitudes about the 2020 U.S. Census shows Americans are growing more willing to stand up and be counted, confirming a positive trend from other surveys, although serious concerns about how the data will be used ? and if it will be secure ? confront the Census Bureau’s outreach campaign on the eve of major operations.

The online survey found that 58 percent of respondents said they “definitely will participate” in the 2020 Census. That means more than 4 in 10 are still not sure, which is comparable to this point in advance of recent decennial counts in 2000 and 2010.

The survey found deep levels of general mistrust of government driving the lack of participation among manythat is undermining census participation. For example, 49 percent agreed with the statement …

… The government will do whatever it wants regardless of the data.

This sentiment was over 50 percent among Hispanics, African Americans, Muslimsand the youngest age group. The findings show the toughest motivational challenge for the Census Bureau is with the youngest Americans. Among those age 18-24, only 29 percent said they will participate, and for those 25-35, it was 52 percent, well below the national average. Despite the cynicism, the 2020 Census had one of the highest reputation scores, with 78 percent of respondents expressing a favorable view, compared to only 50 percent favorable for the Federal Government.

The survey was conducted by Quadrant Research for Article 1, a non-profit coalition of Census expertswho conducted the audience research to help craft a national unifying civic message to promote a full, complete and accurate count in 2020.

Summary …

The challenge for the 2020 Census is becoming clear: many people in the U.S. (more than 4 in 10 overall) aren’t yet fully committed to participating.

While this may not be abnormal in the lead-up to a decennial Census, there are significant headwinds to contend with in this particular climate ? most notably that the federal government is unpopular. There are significant doubts that the government actually uses the Census data to guide its actions. Furthermore, certain groups – Muslims, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Young Adults primarily – are especially concerned that the government will actively use their personal information for nefarious purposes.

This polling demonstrates a few key points necessary to overcome the skepticism, ensure broad participation, and get an accurate count – particularly among the most vulnerable groups:

• The Census Bureau must maintain a perception of independence from politics and the rest of the federal government in the lead up to the Census.
• To guard against any growing skepticism of the Bureau (given it is part of the federal government), outside groups like community and non-profit organizations can play a big role in convincing people to participate.
• It is imperative to communicate about the community-level benefits of an accurate Census in order to make it clear that the government does in fact use the data to make important decisions. (The Bureau’s media campaign intends to do this.)
• There is also clear value in supporting that message with a more emotional appeal –one that positions the Census as a source of empowerment for marginalized groups and truth about what America looks like.

Key Takeaways …

Read the Full Report here …

By California Black Media Staff

Landlords Are Hiking Rents Before Rent Control Law Takes Effect

Before a new rent control law Gov. Newsom signed in October goes into effect in January, some landlords around the state are trying trying to get ahead of the restrictions they see coming by slapping tenants now with double-digit rent increases and no-violation evictions.

AB 1482, the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, will the amount landlords can hike rents within one year to 5 percent, plus local inflation. It will also protect tenants who have rented a place for more than one year from no-violation evictions.

The law only exempts rented single family homes and condos that are not owned by corporations.

There are reports from all around the state about the sudden new rent increases and rise in evictions. According to a renter advocacy group “Tenants Together” about 36 cities – including Long Beach, Los Angeles, Pasadena and Stockton – have responded by passing local ordinances to prevent evictions or place temporary moratoriums on rent increases.

The good news is that once the law goes into effect next year, any rents raised since March 2019, the month the bill was referred to the Legislature, will drop back to what they were at the time. But evictions that happened in that same period will not be reversed.

“Tenants Together” says there are legal resources and vital information available to help Californians affected by rent hikes. Communities can also pressure their local governments to pass urgent ordinances against the practices.

Some landlords are pushing back, saying that this period before the signed bill becomes law allows them an 11^th-hour chance to bring the rent on their properties up to market prices and get rid of bad tenants.

Gov. Newsom Wants to Close One State Prison

Gov. Gavin Newsom said earlier this month that he wants to close at least one state prison in California – where there is a disproportionate number of African Americans serving sentences in the state penitentiary system the Department of Correction and rehabilitation mostly runs and costs taxpayers more than $15 billion a year.

Although African Americans only make up about 5.6 percent of California’s population, Black prisoners account for more than 28 percent of all inmates in state prison.

The governor has neither decided which prison he wants to close nor spelled out how he would go about doing it – taking into account  jobs, other local concerns, sentence reductions, etc., – but he says the issue is “personal” to him.

“I would like to see, in my lifetime and hopefully my tenure, that we shut down a state prison,” he said. “But you can’t do that flippantly. And you can’t do that without the support of the unions, support of these communities, the staff, and that requires an alternative that can meet everyone’s needs and desires.”

Moving California away from over-focusing on punishment to strengthening prevention programs, as well as providing rehabilitation and reintegration assistance for formerly incarcerated people, is his priority, said Newsom.

The state is investing $20 million in the 2019-20 budget to help formerly incarcerated people successfully reintegrate into their communities through the California Community Reinvestment Grant program.

Why You Should Be Paying Attention to Prop 13  

About 65 percent of Californians are happy with Prop 13, according to CalMatters.

It is a 1978 ballot measure that limits the amount of tax that can be applied to a home or commercial space to 2 percent of the property value a year and 1 percent of the same amount when it is sold.

But recently, there has been rising support among people around the state for revising parts of Prop 13 to allow larger tax increases on commercial properties, but not on homes.

If the more than 400 civic and political groups – as well as elected officials, activists and ordinary citizens – backing the proposal get their way, and the initiative gets placed on the 2020 ballot, it could play out to be one of the biggest political fights in the state next year.

Supporters of the “Schools and Community First” initiative say new tax revenues from commercial properties would generate around $12 billion in much-needed funding for public services and education around the state.

Gov. Recaps State Efforts to Fight Wildfires and Help People Affected PG&E Blackouts

Last week, Gov. Newsom recapped in detail the different ways the state mobilized resources to help Californians, including people with disabilities, in response to the recent wildfires and PG&E blackouts in October that affected more than a million people in at least 35 counties.

He said all state agencies –  concerned with everything from health and social services to business, transportation and public safety – joined hands with non-profits and private companies like AT&T, Adobe, Apple, Google, Facebook, and more, to help affected Californians who needed it most.

“Faced with the unprecedented decision by PG&E to leave millions of Californians without power, the State of California sprung into action to protect vulnerable residents,” said Gov. Newsom. “Our world-class emergency responders and emergency agencies battled on multiple fronts – dangerous fire conditions and Public Safety Power Shutoffs. Through prepositioning of firefighting assets and mobilizing emergency response systems, California was able to avoid the major loss of life that has occurred under similar conditions.”

The Governor said the state has also kicked off a $75 million program to help state and local governments provide assistance to their residents during shutoffs.A new website,  RESPONSE.CA.GOV, will also “serve as a one-stop portal for resources available to Californians impacted by wildfires and power shutoffs,” the governor’s office said. 

By Lou Yeboah

That’s right! Why? Because one day is not long enough to thank God for all that He’s given us. His blessings come daily. [Psalm 68:19] says, “Blessed be the Lord, Who DAILY loadeth us with benefits….” Every day God has new blessings for us, and every day ought to find us thanking Him. I tell you, we must never be guilty of allowing our thanks to wait until Thanksgiving to be expressed. We are to be thankful to the Lord EVERY DAY of our lives, because “Thanksgiving” is like breathing – how could we survive if we only breathed just once in a while? We can’t.

I want you to know that instead of setting aside only one day for Thanksgiving the Bible actually designated several times during the year for God’s people to celebrate His goodness and thank Him for His blessings!” Each year at the beginning of the harvest season, for example, God’s people were called to come together to give thanks for His goodness in supplying their needs. This festival took place in late spring, fifty days after the annual Passover celebration. As the harvest season ended in the fall, God’s people celebrated another time of thanksgiving, lasting seven days. Other times of thanksgiving during the year also recalled God’s mercy and goodness. But more than that, people were urged to remember God’s goodness EVERY DAY of the year—and that should be true for us as well.

So, as you prepare to go through the traditions of Thanksgiving, may you not get so caught up with the turkey and the trimmings that you forget about the God who gives us all things, and the Savior to whom we owe all our praise! Don’t just relegate Thanksgiving to one day a year—or make November the only month you count your blessings. Make it a lifestyle!  Continually thank God for all He has done for you.  As [1Thessalonians 5:16-18] says, “Rejoice ALWAYS; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Wishing you a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving!

By Charlene Muhammad | California Black Media

Even if you have people living with you who are not on your lease – or say your affordable housing application – you should still make sure they are counted during the 2020 Census, says Ditas Katague, director of the California Complete Count office.

“No enforcement agency, federal, local, or anything, can get that data,” she assures Californians. “It’s safe.”

Last week, Katague visited Los Angeles county, the hardest-to-count area in the United States and also a region in the state with census tracts where the most African Americans live. She was on a stop that was part of a statewide push to encourage all Californians to respond to next year’s census forms.

She sat with California Black Media writer Charlene Muhammad to talk more about the state’s  $187.3 million investment to get an accurate count of all Californians. Katague also shared details about what her office has been doing so far to achieve it, and she give some insights on why it has been so hard for census workers to get the African-American count right in the past.

CALIFORNIA BLACK MEDIA (CBM):  What has your office done to reach out to Blacks in California – particularly to the the Black population here in Los Angeles?

DITAS KATAGUE (DK):  As you know, statewide, the money and the investment that both the governor and the legislature have made across the state have been unprecedented. 

That’s because California is the hardest-to-count state in the country. In fact, the City of L.A. is the hardest-to-count city and Los Angeles County is the hardest-to-count county in the hardest-to-count state. 

So, even though our efforts are unprecedented, these are the reasons that we need to do that level of outreach. The U.S. Census is actually a federal operation, and so here at the state level, we don’t control any of the actual counting.  We don’t design the form, but what we can control is reaching out, educating our Californians to make sure that they know how important it is to respond.

And to that end, we’ve divided the state. We’ve used data to really inform our partners on the ground about where they should be reaching out and to whom.  I’m up in Sacramento. Nobody wants to listen to me about why they should be filling out the form.  It’s really about getting the word out through trusted community partners on the ground, and really connecting with folks to say why is it so important and what an accurate count means for them on the ground.

CBM: L.A. – the hardest to count in the country!  I didn’t know that. What makes L.A. and the state the hardest-to-count places?

DK: Well, for Los Angeles County, one of the things is that it’s so very diverse.  In L.A. Unified School District, they speak over 200 languages. That is what makes our state so beautiful and so diverse, but it also makes it very hard to count. 

Now, when we talk about hard to count from the state level, we looked at the state and we took these14 variables and we came up with a hard-to-count index based on them.

(Those variables are: Percent of households without broadband subscriptions; percent of households that are non-family; percent of households that are renter occupied; percent of housing units that are vacant; percent of households that are crowded with more than 1.5 persons per room; percent of population that is foreign-born; percent of adults (25 or older) who are not high school graduates; percent of population with income below 150 percent of the poverty level; percent of households receiving public assistance; percent of persons (ages 16 or older) unemployed; percent of limited-English households; percent of persons who moved from outside a county in the past year; percent of population under 5; and percent of total housing units with three or more units in a multi-unit structure.)

What does that mean?  Well, that is really because the enumeration is address-based, so it’s where you are.  In order to be invited, you have to have an address, right? Think about the difficulty of counting people that are living in multi-unit apartments, or if they’re living with non-family members. So, say there is an apartment, and there are four of us living there, and we’re not related. Sometimes, one person will get the mail and the invitation to respond, and they’ll respond for themselves but forget the other three roommates.  So, it sort of compounds itself in terms of the difficulty to be counted.  And, of course, we have a lot of people who rent.  We have a lot of people here in Los Angeles that have limited English, or that are new to the country. We have a lot of folks who are scared, or just kind of don’t care, and so it’s not just one thing that makes folks hard to count. It’s a number of things if you kind of layer them on top of each other.

CBM: Why is the Census important for the Black community?

DK: It’s important for all our communities, of course, but particularly for the Black community.  I mean they have to know we exist for us to resist, right?  And if they don’t know we’re here, then we’ll be ignored. I say that both for the Black community and also for the Native American community.  My Native American folks up in Northern California, the way they look at it is to save their water, and that’s what really resonates with them, because if they don’t know you’re there, they’ll take the water.  That’s how they feel, so you have to think about that within your community. If people don’t understand how strong and how powerful our communities are, they don’t understand what kind of voice we could have and will have. So, it’s really about being seen. It’s about standing up. It’s about no longer being invisible for all of our communities.

CBM: What has been your outreach efforts in the community so far?

DK: We’ve divided the state into regions, and so here in Region 8 is the Los Angeles County area. We have a contractor – California Community Foundation – and they’ve really done a great job looking at the data and then identifying partners because they’ve been involved in L.A. a lot.  And they’ve been funding partners on the ground to talk about it right now.  This time around, we’re doing an education component. We’re also identifying what I call the grass-top leaders, so maybe not all the way down to the ground just yet, but folks that are leaders and movers and shakers in the community to let them know why it’s so important.

Then, as we move into Spring – from January and February to March of 2020 – that’s when the education starts to move in to motivate and activate. That’s when we want everyone on the ground – from high school students all the way to our elder folks – to understand and be ready to respond. So, the efforts we’re doing right now are focusing on the importance, and it’s really about two things. It’s about power and it’s about it’s about money. We talked a little about power, about being heard when it comes down to it. And it might be a little bit nerdy, but it’s our Congressional representation, too. So, we could lose a seat or two – very serious – if we’re not counted and they don’t know where we are. So, I already joke around that we don’t need Texas to be counted. They don’t need to answer (laughs), but I mean it’s because it’s a zero-sum game in terms of the way they divide up the seats. It all depends on the response of other folks. 

And it’s about money. People say “Oh!  It’s about $1,000 per person, per year!”  But what does that actually mean? The way I think about it when I talk to my 16-year-old daughter is: What if she, for a semester, didn’t have a chair to sit in, or a desk to sit at during her math class at this public high school? If they don’t know we’re here, if we forget children – and children 0-5 have often, in the past three decades, been missed for a number of reasons. A child that is born in 2020 will be in 5th grade in 2030, and if they’re missed, will they have a seat or will they have to sit on the ground?  So, in terms of money, it’s about health clinics. Will that health clinic be located close enough?  I always talk about how a friend’s dad had a stroke, and he had to travel 10 extra minutes to get to a hospital because there wasn’t one close enough, and those 10 minutes can make a difference between life and death or being disabled or being able to heal.  So, in terms of health care, in terms of schools, our education, in terms of traffic, everyday traffic, the roads are getting worse and worse, but if we don’t know, we’re unable to plan for how many people are going to have cars. It has everyday impact on our lives.

CBM:  Let’s talk more about the fear factor. For instance, in the Black community, you may have someone with Section 8 (housing assistance), or people who may have formerly incarcerated persons, still in the system, living in their homes. One big issue is the trust factor with the Black community.  People are like, “We’re not telling the government anything!”  How have you all been able to get your message to permeate that attitude?

DK: There’s been a lot of testing done, and so we’re well aware of that. And there are different trust issues for different communities. And so one of the things we’ve been looking at is if they’ve tried different messages. But, at the end of the day, people think everybody’s going to get stuff on their Facebook and WhatsApp. At the end of the day, for me, even if technology is really quick, it’s really that face-to-face, that person-to-person communication that is most important. That’s human nature and that doesn’t change. That’s why the investment that we put out there has been to make sure that people in the community, whether it be faith-based, whether it be service-based – your hair stylist, your nail technician – whether it be community members that you already deal with, or even your healthcare professional in your clinic. We want to go where people go already in the community and we want them to be trusted. A part of that is being able to tell people that there’s Title 13 that guarantees privacy. 

People are like, “Well, why do they need to know my name? Why do they need to know all this stuff?”  And I think about it and it seems kind of invasive, but they do keep it private. No enforcement agency, federal, local, or anything, can get that data, so it’s safe.

I view the Census as a snapshot in time, like those coffee table books, and if you’re not counted, you’re missed.  And then, to quote my favorite play “Hamilton,” “who will tell your story if you don’t?”  So it’s to up to us to rise up, to be counted, and to be able to put a stake in the ground to say “I’m here, and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be recognized and counted.”

By Naomi K. Bonman

The end of the year is one of glam and community excellence! On Friday, November 22, the NAACP San Bernardino Branch held its Freedom Fund Banquet at the Arrowhead Country Club in San Bernardino, California. Prior to that, the NAACP Riverside Branch held their 7th Annual Salute to Labor Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, October 15 at the Riverside Convention Center in Riverside, California.

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The 2019 NAACP Riverside Salute to Labor Honorees were: Ricardo Cisneros, Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO-Labor Leader of the Year; Terrance Bynum-IBEW #47-Labor Hall of Fame Award; and Joseph K. Kaplon-Wohlner Kaplon Culter Halford & Rosenfeld Law Office-Friends of Labor Coalition Award.

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Group awards were also given. The Outstanding Community Outreach Awards went to: Harold Acord-Moreno Valley Educators Association; Shani Dahl-Riverside Unified School District; Captain Joseph Reed-Riverside Fire Department; Seval Haley, Teamsters Local 1932; Teamsters Joint Council 42; and Teamsters Local 63. For other nominees, please view the photo below.

By Ana B. Ibarra | Special to California Black Media Partners

Russell Desmond received a letter a few weeks ago from the American Kidney Fund (AKF) that he said felt like “a smack on the face.”

The organization informed Desmond, who has kidney failure and needs dialysis three times a week, that it will no longer help him pay for his private health insurance plan – to the tune of about $800 a month.

“I am depressed about the whole situation,” said the 58-year-old Sacramento resident. “I have no clue what I’m going to do.”

Desmond has Medicare, but it doesn’t cover the entire cost of his care. So, with assistance from AKF, he pays for a private plan to cover the difference.

Now, the fund, which helps about 3,700 Californians pay their premiums and out-of-pocket costs, is threatening to pull out of California because of a new state law that is expected to cut into the dialysis industry’s profits – leaving patients like Desmond scrambling.

The letter portrayed the fund as helpless. “We are heartbroken at this outcome,” it read. “Ending assistance in California is the last thing we want to do.”

But supporters of the new law are calling the threat a scare tactic. State Assemblyman Jim Wood (D- Healdsburg), the author of AB-290, said there is nothing in the measure that prohibits the fund from continuing to provide financial assistance to patients.

“AKF has simply made a conscious decision, without merit, to leave the state despite the many accommodations I made by amending the bill in the Senate to ensure that it can continue to operate in California,” Wood said in a written statement.

What’s behind this dispute, critics of AKF Say, is the tight relationship between the fund and the companies that provide dialysis, which filters the blood of people whose kidneys are no longer doing the job.

People on dialysis usually qualify for Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people 65 and older, and those with kidney failure and certain disabilities. If they’re low income, they may also qualify for Medicaid, which is called Medi-Cal in California.

But dialysis companies can get higher reimbursements from private insurers than from public coverage. And one way to keep dialysis patients on private insurance is by giving them financial assistance from AKF, which helps nearly 75,000 low-income dialysis patients across the country.

The fund gets most of its money from DaVita and Fresenius Medical Care, the two largest dialysis companies in the country. The fund does not disclose its donors, but an independent audit of its finances conducted by the accounting firm CliftonLarsenAllen, LLP,  reveals that 82 percent of its funding in 2018 – nearly $250 million –  came from two companies.

Insurance plans, consumer advocacy groups and unions have accused AKF of helping dialysis providers steer patients into private insurance plans in exchange for donations from the dialysis industry. Wood said his bill is intended to discourage that practice.

 AKF CEO LaVarne Burton denied the accusations and said her group plays no role in patients’ coverage choices.

Starting in 2022, the new law will limit the private-insurance reimbursement rate that dialysis companies receive for patients who get assistance from groups such as AKF to the rate that Medicare pays. The rate change won’t apply to patients who are currently receiving assistance as long as they keep the same health plans. The bill will also address a similar dynamic in drug treatment programs.

To determine which patients receive financial aid, the law will require third-party groups to disclose patients’ names to health insurers starting July 1, 2020.

These disclosure requirements are spurring AKF’s decision to leave, Burton said. She argues that they conflict with federal rules and violate patient privacy.

“AKF has no choice but to leave or seek legal relief,” Burton said.

In mid-October, the fund started sending letters to its financial aid recipients in California warning of its departure. And Nov. 1, it joined two dialysis patients in filing suit against the state, asking a U.S. District Court to rule the law unconstitutional.

Gov. Gavin Newsom cautioned against such actions when he signed the bill, and urged “both opponents and supporters to put patients first.”

But as the threats and legal battle play out, patients are caught “squarely in the middle,” said Bonnie Burns, a consultant with California Health Advocates, a Medicare advocacy group.

Their options may be limited, she said. Those who don’t work won’t have access to employer-sponsored coverage to make up the difference. And in California, Medicare recipients under age 65 are not eligible to purchase supplemental insurance known as Medigap.

The state Department of Managed Health Care offers a fact sheet for affected patients, directing them to programs such as Covered California and Medi-Cal.  

Paige Hosler, vice president of insurance management at DaVita, said insurance counselors and social workers at the company’s clinics are working with patients to find other options. “We will continue to treat all patients, regardless of insurance status,” she said.

Hosler noted that some patients may qualify for DaVita’s charity care program. 

Dialysis companies have been at the center of recent legislative and ballot-box battles, and have spent big to defend their bottom lines. Last year, they poured a record-breaking $111 million into a campaign to defeat Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that would have capped their profits. The measure failed. 

The industry also spent about $2.5 million in California on lobbying and campaign contributions in the first half of this year to oppose Wood’s measure. 

Desmond said he understands why lawmakers targeted the dialysis industry but can’t fathom why they did so at the expense of patients.

Desmond was laid off from his job as a computer programmer in Massachusetts in 2009 and moved to California to join his brother. One year later, he was diagnosed with kidney failure.

He lives off his Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, which come to about $2,000 a month after his Medicare premiums are deducted. Medicare pays for 80 percent of his care.

He also qualifies for Medi-Cal coverage that comes with high out-of-pocket costs, so he relies instead on a private Aetna insurance plan to cover the remaining 20 percent.  The American Kidney Fund has been paying the premiums for his private plan since 2015. 

“What they did is take away our life raft and left us to drown,” he said of lawmakers.

Brian Carroll, 40, of Sacramento, has been on dialysis for five years. He moved back in with his parents in 2016 because, he said, dialysis left him too weak to work. 

“I am now completely depending on other people,” Carroll said. AKF pays the $270 monthly premium for his private insurance plan that covers what Medicare doesn’t.

“That’s an entire month of groceries and gas for me,” he said. 

Carroll said he supported Proposition 8, even though dialysis companies argued that it would force them to cut back services and shut down clinics.

In this current situation, he’s not sure whom to blame – the lawmakers, who passed the law with no back-up plan for patients, or the fund, which is essentially holding patients hostage.

“What I do know is that you can’t just leave dialysis patients like this,” Carroll said. “It’s cruel.”

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This story was produced by Kaiser Health News (KHN), which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

By Joe W. Bowers Jr. | California Black Media

EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK—ENN— When California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced the English language arts and math results of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) test last month, we found out that African-American students’ scores lagged behind the much higher marks their White, Asian and Hispanic peers obtained. 

Statewide, just over 40 percent of all public school students met or exceeded standards in math and 51 percent were proficient in English.

Of those numbers, only 21 percent of African-American students were proficient in math, compared with 74 percent of Asian-American students, 54 percent of White students, and 29 percent of Hispanic students. In English, only 33 percent of African-American students were proficient. Compare that with 77 percent of Asian-American students, 64 percent of White students, and 41 percent of Hispanic students. Five years ago, California adopted the CAASPP assessment tests. Each year since then, our African-American student scores have ranked at the bottom of the results of all racial subgroups in the state. During that time, the achievement gap between Black students and their White and Asian peers has seen only marginal improvement, while getting wider between our children and their Hispanic counterparts.

The achievement gap between African-American and White students was first acknowledged over fifty years ago in a 1966 federal government study called the Coleman Report. The United States Congress commissioned the report after it passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Since then, education researchers and practitioners have been hard at work trying to identify the causes and propose what can be done to address it. Despite decades of education reform efforts and billions of dollars spent in federal, state and local funding, the achievement gap persists.

Ronald Edmonds, the late Harvard education researcher, said 40 years ago, “We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”

To Edmonds and education experts like him, closing the achievement gap is absolutely solvable. The fact that little progress has been made to narrow it can be attributed more to the absence of political will than to any lack of social science research on the problem. The social factors that contribute to the achievement gap and the actions necessary to close it have been well studied, but public policymakers tend to avoid or overlook the data and recommendations that could cost them any  political capital. For example, in 2013 California revamped education funding to provide extra money for school districts with large numbers of “high-needs” students, mostly  kids from poor families or foster children and “English-learners.” The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) pushed expenditure decisions down from the state to local school districts because Gov. Jerry Brown and the legislature believed that those closest to the day-to-day operation of schools were best suited to identify what their students needed and would work best for them.

However, this has proven to not be the case, particularly when it comes to the performance of Black students in California. When the California Department of Education first introduced the new public education finance system in 2013, some lawmakers warned that the LCFF did not provide mechanisms to adequately track how local school officials would spend funds. Gov. Brown and groups representing school districts shot down attempts by legislators like Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) to address that concern. This month, California State Auditor Elaine Howle announced that her office’s recent examination of LCFF spending found that the system lacked sufficient oversight and accounting controls, confirming Weber’s reservations. Realizing that there has been very little progress toward closing the achievement gap despite the state having redirected billions of dollars to help solve it, may finally force lawmakers to now consider passing the kind of legislation Weber initially proposed.

Edmonds, who was African American, made the observation that progress toward resolving the achievement gap might not happen as quickly as it could because of how White policymakers viewed the issue. He did not question their sincerity about solving it, but was concerned about how they would approach it given biases they might have.

The former dean of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, Andy Porter, who is white, validated Edmonds’ concerns when he made this statement, “I would like to see the achievement gap closed, but not at the expense of my kids. I think everybody feels that way.”

It is hard to assess how much the attitude Porter expressed, and the unstated biases of others like him, may have stalled progress toward closing the achievement gap, or if they have had any effect at all. But, in California right now, there is a unique opportunity if leaders in Education grow the political will to develop effective policy toward closing the achievement gap for African-American students in our state, even if attitudes like Porter’s continue to exist within – and wield influence on – our education system. 

Today our key Education Leaders in California are African American. They are Tony Thurmond, State Superintendent of Public Instruction; Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, President of the State Board of Education; E. Toby Boyd, President, California Teachers Association; Margaret Fortune, Board Chair, California Charter School Association; and Emma Turner, President, California School Board Association. We need these leaders to come together to propose a functioning system that will guide those working hard to achieve results for African-American students in our state. Working with legislators like Dr. Weber, we will begin to close the achievement gap.

“There has never been a time in the life of the American public school when we have not known all we needed to in order to teach all those whom we chose to teach.” – Ronald Edmonds

It’s time to take gloves off on a very crucial Census in 2020

Judging from the flat and barely noticeable national conversation on the critical importance of needed mass Black participation in the Census, it’s business as usual from various community organizations who are rolling out campaigns eleventh hour.

The problem is that not only have these campaigns failed to achive an urgent, fevered pitch, but the messaging has not been crafted in such a way that makes the conversation relatable to the broader Black audience which needs all hands on deck for this exercise. Response to the urgency of the Census should be done in a way reminiscent of mass Black-oriented marketing successes such as Marvel’s Black Panther film and the first release of the Popeye’s franchise chicken sandwich.

Priorities.

That hasn’t happened, yet. The scheduled 2020 Census promises to – once again – dramatically decrease the official Black population in the United States. The consequences of this are both enormous and fatally dangerous to Black communities nationwide. This is, clearly, by design and reflects a centuries-long, ongoing and nefarious effort by the federal government to actively diminish and “disappear” the presence of Black people in the United States through any means at their disposal. Indeed, the Census has been weaponized in such a way. Take a look at undercount trends since 1950.

We know the Census Bureau won’t take any major steps towards rectifying or correcting undercounts because it never has. In fact, it’s more involved in underfunding itself or looking for creative ways to streamline its mandated responsibility as opposed to doing it fully and comprehensively.

That burden of increased Census participation will fall on us.

This cannot be business as usual on the part of Black grassroots and community advocate infrastructure which includes large organizations such as the National Urban League, the NAACP and the National Action Network to name a few. Black churches should be mobilizing congregations every Sunday while every effort is made to reach every visible and/or known Black person in every venue including schools, barbershops, hair salons, nail places, parks, sports games, concerts, and through urban radio. That effort should coincide with or be attached to aggressive voter mobilization efforts. Instead, the Census conversation and campaign effort seems very grasstops at the moment; it’s a box checked off by social network groups, fraternities and sororities looking for community service points.

But, we can’t be cute about this. No stone should be left unturned. Every creative effort should be made to ensure every Black person possible is answering the 10-question Census, by 1) mailed questionnaire, by 2) phone or 3) online. Every effort should be made to ensure households know when to look out for their unique identifier in the mail, the ID they’ll need to take the Census online, which will look this

… and to not consider if junk mail.

Yet, there are no visible signs of anything ambitious or a tipping point national moment where the public is freaking out over predicted mass undercounts of Black persons – and, yes, we should be freaking out about it.

Here are several key points to push when having that Census conversation:

Don’t Make Yourself Invisible

That’s pretty much what an undercount amounts to: making Black people disappear. And if you want the federal government, in collusion with state and local governments who rely on this “authoritative” data to consider you as not existing then, go ahead, be our guest and don’t take the Census. While we keep saying the national Black population is 13 percent, it’s really 15 percent or more.

The Census Bureau itself, in a casual “our bad” mea culpa, admitted to undercounts back in 2010 after the last decennial exercise …

Notice how the Black undercount was the most significant compared to all other racial groups?

Indeed, notice the states with the highest concentrations of Black residents are projected to experience the most drastic medium-to-high risk undercounts, according to the Urban Institute graphic below …

Fewer Black People = Less Political Representation

Don’t let obscure or very academic terms used to describe important elements of the Census put you to sleep. Stay alert. When you’re not counted in the Census, your community loses the 1) “apportionment” game – which means you lose Members of Congress to represent you in the Congress. Fewer members of Congress means you not only lose representation, but you just lost out on a chance at federal resources, responsiveness and money. In addition, you also lose the 2) “redistricting” game – which means the Congressional, state legislator or local lawmaker district you live in not only loses clout, but the fewer Black people counted in it means the lawmaker is conveniently less inclined to take you seriously … because, once again, he/she is under the official impression that, well, “there’s not that many of them living in my district, anyway.”

Your Community Will Get Fewer to No Federal Dollars

The last 2010 Census determined how nearly $700 billion in federal funds would get distributed to communities for everything from schools, roads, Medicaid, school lunches, grants and more. This 2020 Census raises that stake to $900 billion – and that doesn’t even include the appropriation of billions of dollars more policymakers will determine based on existing Census data. These are the top 10 federal programs most reliant on federal dollars from the 2010 Census, according to the Tax Policy Center …

Undercounts Exacerbate “Gentrification,” the Affordable Living Crisis and Food Insecurity

Lots of people are upset about “gentrification” and the displacement of urban Black populations that happens as a result of higher rents, escalating housing prices and bad schools – but, no one is talking about participating fully in the Census as a strategy to help solve that.

It’s simple: the fewer Black people counted in a community gives landlords, real estate developers, employers, grocery stores, mass transit agencies and school districts a variety of excuses to make living standards that much harder for economically distressed and already strapped Black populations …

• Rents are systematically raised because the impression, based on Census data, is that more middle-class White professionals who can afford higher rent have moved in.
• Housing prices spike up and homes become unaffordable because, well, there is less of the financially-distressed population in that geographic space.
• Businesses rely on Census data, as well, among one of several research tools to determine if it’s feasible for them to set up shop in a community. Fewer businesses in a community mean fewer market options and fewer jobs for people living in that community – meaning residents have to travel farther to get to a job. But, then …
• Mass transit agencies cut bus routes and other services if they believe (or use the Census data to believe) they are fewer people in a community to service.
• Grocery stores won’t build if it’s perceived the market conditions aren’t ideal, based on Census data, hence the expansion of food deserts leading to food insecurity … and, well, more “dollar stores” with unhealthy, cheap carcinogenic food to buy.
• School districts are slow to invest in, renovate or improve neighborhood schools if Census data show fewer families and children to service.

Source: https://thebenote.com/

By Lou Yeboah

Listen, nobody told you to go do what you did. You knew better but you wanted to prove to your homeboys that you were down. Now you crying woof? Well ain’t no need of crying now. You should have cried before you did what you did. Stop your crying!

You know my mama used to tell me that I was a hard headed kid. That was her way of telling me that I was stubborn. And she was right, I’ve learned a number of hard lessons in life because I did things my way. When we are young, we see ourselves as masters of our own future. We tend to be impatient with advice from others older and more experienced than us. We naively think that everything will go smoothly and easily. But one of the realities of life is that sooner or later we will run into things that are neither of our choosing nor to our liking. Many times, we learn lessons the hard way. So many lessons come from mistakes, poor choices and, dare I say it, sin. 

The problem I earnestly believe is that we do not know how powerful sin is.  We do not know, we have no idea, it’s a term we toss around and we talk about it in a gleeful tone.  But let me say something to you, we have under estimated its power, its grip, and its hold on us.  I submit to you, that we have been bamboozled, fooled, brain washed, and beguiled. Sin is a cruel taskmaster. It robs one of much and provides him with nothing. And like the old saying says, “Sin always takes you farther than you want to go, keeps you longer than you want to stay, and costs you more than you are willing to pay.” It is extremely important that we understand sin and its all-consuming power.

You know, the Bible – God’s Word always deals with realities. Among these is the fact that we get things wrong and do stupid things. Another is the fact that troubles will often come into our lives whether we go looking for them or not. I tell you, life is hard, but GOD IS GOOD! He doesn’t give us what we deserve because of our stubborness, or our pride. I want you to know that just like God tried ever so gently to reason with Cain, He is ever so gently trying to reason with us. Know that there is no substitute for self-control and alertness when it comes to sin. God says, sin is standing at the door desiring to come in as master. Because sin is not satisfied with living in one room in your heart. It wants full run of the house. It wants in the closets, attics and basements and the whole nine yards. Sin is not satisfied until it completely masters the whole of your life. You better know that you know.

Some of the hardest life lessons repeat themselves over and over again, and it’s on each and every one of us to be reflective enough to witness them happening in the moment — so that this time around, a different decision can be made. Making the same mistakes over and over can be costly in more ways than one. Grasp the lessons life is trying to teach you. And know that God is reaching out to you again to give you another chance to repent.  God will forgive you and restore you again. But if you continue to disobey and live in sin, God’s anger will descend on you like king Manasseh. That could be fatal. Don’t take God’s grace for granted. Galatians 6:7-8 tells us: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Listen, as the quote says, “Life is a school, learn your lesson quickly so that you would not have to repeat it!”

EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK—ENN— The family of the late Queen Wyteria Ophelia Arrington Musgrove wishes to acknowledge the many expressions of sympathy and gestures of kindness shown to us following our sad loss.

On behalf of the Arrington family we would like to send out a note of great appreciation, gratitude, admiration, and thanks to our many friends, neighbors and well-wishers who visited our home, telephoned, travelled long distance, sent floral tributes, cards and messages of condolences, and who attended the wake, service and burial and who provided emotional and practical support for us doing our difficult time. Thank you for the outstanding loyalty and participation on November 4th 2019, while laying to rest our Queen Wyteria Ophelia Arrington Musgrove, we are truly grateful.

As it would be impossible to thank everyone individually, please accept this acknowledgement as an expression of our deepest gratitude for the respect that you showed the family and the honor you gave us in this time of need. Celebrating the life of Wyteria would not have been complete without you.  Many thanks, the family of Wyteria.

A special word of thanks to Dr. and Mrs. Raymond Turner, Temple Missionary Baptist Church; Pastor, Dr. Joshua and Mrs. Beckley, Ecclesia Christian Fellowship; Pastor Harrison J. and Ursula Carolina , Evangelist Jerry Musgrove, Pastor Nathaniel Newman, Pastor David McKenzie, Reverend Church Esters Jr., Ms. Karen Sanderlin, Ms. Dyanna Montgomery, Brandie Lee, The Celebration Mass Choir, LaSalle Lewis (Marissa Watkins), Soul Winners, Brandie Lee and Katrina Patterson, Tillman Riverside Mortuary, and Montecito Memorial Park and Mortuary for their kindness and respect shown at all times.