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In Charter School Fight, Urban League and National Action Network Ask NAACP: “Did You See The Numbers?”
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lack civil rights groups in California are knuckled up in a battle of principles as the state Assembly and Senate prepare to vote on a set of three charter school bills this week. The state chapters of the National Urban League (NUL) and the National Action Network (NAN) have teamed up to oppose the bills. They say the proposals amount to a “step backward” for African-American charter school parents and their children. While the California chapter of the NAACP has publicly expressed its support for all three pieces of legislation; two of them in the Assembly - AB 1505 and AB 1506 - and one in the Senate, SB 756. Members of the California chapter of the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, came to the State Capitol Monday to lobby the legislature on several issues, including the charter school bills. If passed, the laws would put a moratorium on authorizing any new charter schools in the state for the next five years. Critics of the law say they would also significantly restrict the operations and roll back some legal rights the taxpayer-funded independent public schools currently have. “I ask my friends at the NAACP, ‘did you see the numbers?’” Dr. Tecoy Porter, president of the Sacramento chapter of the NAN, told California Black Media. For both the NUL and the NAN, they
say, their difference of opinion with the NAACP boils down to one fact: Black students across California are failing in the state’s district public schools at rates that should cause national concern. Advocates say many of the schools on the frontline that have begun to help Black students improve their literacy, score higher on state standardized tests, and prepare for college and jobs, are charter schools. “African-American children are not doing well in California public schools. There is a severe and persistent Black achievement gap throughout the state of California in both English Language arts and math,” the NAN and the NUL wrote in an open letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, which the organizations shared with California Black Media. “Seven out of eight African-American public school students are enrolled in district run schools,” the letter to the governor continued. “Many African-American parents respond to this failure by choos-
TANU HENRY California Black Media
ing to send their kids to public charter schools.” This week, local leaders of both the NAN and the NUL are requesting a meeting with Gov. Newsom to share their concerns about the bills. In California, about 80 percent of Black students score below the state standard in math and 68 percent fail to meet the English Language Arts requirement. African-American children are also next to the lowest performing sub-group in the state, scoring only above students with disabilities. Last month, the Assembly passed another charter school bill, AB 1507. It required charter schools to be physically located in the boundaries of the school district that licenses it. Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), who is African American and a member of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC), sponsored that bill, along with the other two bills his colleagues will hear this week. Other sponsors of the charter school bills are Assemblymembers Patrick O’Donnell (D-Los Angeles) and Christy Smith (D-Santa Clarita). Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) sponsored the Senate bill. O’Donnell, who is chair of the Assembly Education committee, shelved another bill Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), chair of the CLBC, introduced. That bill would have designated lowest performing subgroup stuCharter school debate continued to page 25
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas Appointed Chair of New Homelessness Task Force In early May, San Francisco announced that their homeless population had increased by 17% over two years. Several counties including Alameda, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside also saw double-digit percent increases in their own homeless populations since 2017 further underscoring California’s homeless crisis. Recognizing the escalating issue, Governor Gavin Newsom announced the formation of a new task force aimed at implementing new programs and getting people off California’s streets. The task force, officially named the Homeless and Supportive Housing Advisory Task, will be co-chaired by Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. The announcement came from Governor Newsom after he toured downtown Oakland’s Henry Robinson Multi-Service Center—a converted hotel that now houses hundreds of homeless individuals every year. The task force will be working with local and regional governments throughout California to identify programs like the Henry Robinson Multi-Service Center and propose ways to implement them statewide, Newsom said. The task force will also provide Newsom with an annual report that outlines the work it performed to help guide the creation of plans to address homelessness. Previously, Newsom had announced a revised budget proposal that included $1 billion directly towards solving homelessness.
Michelle Obama to Headline 25th Anniversary ESSENCE Festival of Culture
Senate Approves Bill That Addresses Maternal Looming Showdown In Mortality, Three Times Higher In Black Women Supreme Court Over he California Senate has approved abject poverty. Black women who are a plan confronting the higher rate non-smokers have worse birthing outAbortion
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L.A. FocusJune 2019
of California Black women dying during childbirth than women of other racial and ethnic groups. Senators on a unanimous, 37-0 vote sent to the Assembly Senate Bill 464, the Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act, by Sen. Holly J. Mitchell. SB 464 would reduce pregnancy-related preventable deaths and associated health disparities by addressing implicit bias among perinatal health providers. SB 464 would establish a training program to help medical professionals identify and correct unconscious or conscious biases and misinformation. The program will also address personal, interpersonal, institutional, structural and cultural barriers to health care access. The bill confronts a profound injustice, unknown to many Californians, that has baffled health professionals until recently. In California, the rate of maternal mortality has decreased 55 percent since 2006. For women of color, however, and particularly Black women, the maternal mortality rate remains three to four times higher than white women do. Although Black women make up only 5 percent of the birth cohort in California, they comprise 21 percent of pregnancy-related deaths. Studies have concluded that disparity is not explained by socioeconomic status, access to prenatal care, education level and general physical health. Middle- to high-income Black mothers have worse birthing outcomes than white women do do in
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comes than white women who smoke a cigarette every day. Evidence points to implicit bias as one of the causes for the disparities seen between Black women’s maternal mortality numbers and those of other ethnicities. According to the California Birth Equity collaborative, an initiative at Stanford University’s California Maternal Quality of Care Collaborative, increasing evidence points to racism, within and across multiple levels, and not race, as a key cause of these disparities. A 2016 study by University of Virginia researchers found that white medical students believed biological myths about racial differences in patients, including that Black patients have less sensitive nerve endings, are able to tolerate more pain, and have thicker skin than their white counterparts. SB 464 is supported by a broad coalition from throughout the state, including women’s rights groups, community activists, academics, reproductive rights organizations, and advocates for children and women of color. “California has a responsibility to ensure that all its residents can have safe and dignified pregnancy and childbirth,” Mitchell said. “By preparing perinatal medical providers to better care for mothers in some of the most vulnerable moments in their lives, this bill will preserve lives so that childbirth becomes a joyful moment for all mothers and not a life-threatening event for Black mothers.”
eorgia and Alabama gained national attention after they passed restrictive abortion laws that were quickly met with outrage from activists. In Alabama, the law seeks to prohibit abortions at every stage of pregnancy thus making the state the first to pass an outright ban on abortion. In Georgia, the state passed a bill that bans abortions after six weeks when doctors can start to detect a fetal heartbeat. The two states were not the only only ones to introduce new bills, this year alone, 11 states have passed 16 bills that restrict abortions and challenge the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion. The Alabama and Georgia bills, aside from their shared goal to ban abortion in various ways, share another thing: challenges against the measures are certain to land in federal appeals courts and later, the Supreme Court. The 11th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals has previously seen anti-abortion bills and in the past, they have upheld the Roe v. Wade precedent. Alabama’s law is currently being challenged in a lawsuit the seeks to strike it down before it takes effect on Nov. 15. Georgia’s law will likely see a similar challenge before it takes effect next year. “The lawsuit is coming soon,” assured Sean Young who works as the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.
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Abortion laws continued to page 25
The 25th Anniversary of ESSENCE’s Festival of Culture is coming to New Orleans July 4-7 and the former first lady, Michelle Obama, will be headlining the event. Obama will be joining a line up that includes Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliot, H.E.R and Teyana Taylor. In the announcement, CEO of Essence Communications, Michelle Ebanks, stated that “We are indescribably thrilled and honored to have ‘Forever First Lady’ Michelle Obama as a part of our 25th Anniversary ESSENCE Festival, which will mark our most exciting and extensive programming to date.” The extensive program is clear when you look at the over 80 performers scheduled to perform in addition to more than 10 venues across New Orleans that the festival will span. Her appearance will follow a successful soldout book tour across the country. “As inspiring and aspirational as it is relatable, Mrs. Obama’s story – told on her own terms – is a remarkable example and celebration of everyday Black women who accomplish extraordinary things, who confront challenges with courage and truth, and who remind us that all things are possible when we support one another,” Ebanks added. “Over 25 years, the Festival has done just that – becoming a cultural home for millions of Black women to honor, celebrate and engage each other in service and sisterhood, laughter and love, and empowerment and community.”