Community Partnership Schools Forum

Shawn Naugle, Amy Ellis, Kylia Carswell, and Carol Lerner
 at the Community Partnership Schools Forum. 
photo courtesy Critical Times

In recent years, school privatizers have been addressing the needs of struggling schools by ...Wait For It... closing them down. In fact, Florida boasts the most privatized state school system in the nation and one of the lowest funded. Unfortunately, public school closures continue. Title 1 schools, which are those with large concentrations of low-income students, are most at risk of closure. However, there are alternatives. Protect our Public Schools Manasota (POPS) recently held a forum about one such alternative - Community Partnership Schools.

There are four core partners in a Community Partnership School and each partner commits to a long-term partnership in order to launch, advance and sustain the particular school. Core partners include -
1) a school district,
2) a health care and other wraparound services provider,
3) a university or college,
4) a community-based not-for-profit

In Manatee County, there are six schools that have received D grades from the State. Two of them  — Daughtrey and Rogers Garden-Bullock Elementary schools — are Title 1 schools.  They are both at risk of closing down or facing charter school takeovers. The Community Partnership School approach might preserve these neighborhood public schools and support the families they serve.

POPS founder, Carol Lerner, goes even further stating,

Every Title 1 public school in Florida should be transformed into a Community Partnership School. Rather than closing down or privatizing struggling schools, schools should be given the funding and the resources to help students thrive. A hungry child cannot learn. Full service community schools involve parents and the community and turn schools into learning hubs.

Read more in the latest Critical Times.

Did Money Win in 2018 Midterms?

Just how transparent is the campaign donation process? I was curious to see if I could pinpoint some specific donations. A good chunk of campaign donations flow in as dark money, which is hard to trace. On the other hand, many of us donate small amounts to the campaigns we care about. I headed over to followthemoney.org to locate my sweetheart's contributions. Amazingly, I found every single one of them since the 2010 election. Not only that, two of the chosen recipients had won their respective races.

Next I turned my gaze toward corporate political spending in Florida. To test the waters, I zeroed in on Mosaic Fertilizer, the phosphate mining company actively destroying sizeable tracts of land near me. I suspected that their greenwashing philanthropy and ads would be hard to trace. Perhaps. But

Candidates 2018 Pledge To Amend Results

Last month, Manasota MTA sent out a Pledge To Amend Candidate Questionnaire.  We asked candidates running for local, state, and federal offices where they stand regarding amending the U.S. Constitution to make clear that corporations and other artificial entities do not have Constitutional rights and that money is not speech.  If elected, how would they use their office to support the Movement to Amend the Constitution.

The results are in.  Drumroll please ...

U.S. House, District 16

• David Shapiro .. I support amending the U.S. Constitution
    Click to see responses

Florida State Senate, District 23

• Olivia Babis .. I support amending the U.S. Constitution
    Click to see responses

Florida State House, District 71

• Liv Coleman .. I support amending the U.S. Constitution
    Click to see responses

Florida State House, District 73

• Tracy Pratt .. I support amending the U.S. Constitution
    Click to see responses

Sarasota County Charter Review Board

• Mindy Simmons .. I support amending the U.S. Constitution
    Click to see responses
• Krista Lohr .. I support amending the U.S. Constitution
    Click to see responses

Manatee County Commission, District 2

• Dimitrie Denis .. I support amending the U.S. Constitution
    Click to see responses

2018 MTA Leadership Summit

After just a little thought, it becomes apparent that corporate rule impacts nearly every major issue of the day - from climate change to the opioid epidemic, from workers’ rights to gun violence, and on and on.  Frustration concerning the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision energized Lakewood Ranch resident, Jan Runci. She decided to attend the 2018 Move To Amend Leadership Summit in Washington D.C. and then lobbied Florida Senators, Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio concerning the We-the-People Amendment.


Jan reports -

I discovered Move To Amend (MTA) at a rally in Sarasota.  As I investigated the organization, I became aware of the Leadership Summit in DC.  When I couldn't find anyone to accompany me to the meeting, I decided to take the leap and go alone.   I am very glad I did.

Dark Money: The Movie

Keeping an eye out for the latest documentary thriller, Dark Money. This film looks at how the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has ruined a century of campaign finance regulation in the state of Montana.  You may recall that the Montana Supreme Court openly defied the Citizens United ruling, but was eventually superceded by the Supreme Court.  Here's the trailer for Dark Money:

Who's to blame for Florida's Coastal Slime?

Green algae along southwest Florida coast, Jason Pim, Facebook, 7/11/2018

Last September, Hurricane Irma churned up farm nutrients that lay at the bottom of Lake Okeechobee. These nutrients had accumulated over decades and were now floating more freely in the Lake. Then in May, it rained. It was one of the wettest Mays ever. Rising water levels put too much pressure on the dikes, and the Army Corp of Engineers decided to lower the water levels. Over the last couple of months, the Army Corps dumped billions of gallons of polluted lake water into the St. Lucie estuary to the east and the Caloosahatchee River to the west. And the green algae bloom is enormous.

Florida's coasts are now under the dual onslaught of toxic green algae and red tide blooms. Beaches

Update on Florida's Efforts to Privatize Public Education

The assault on Florida public education continues unabated in 2018, both by the Florida Legislature and the Florida Constitution Revision Commission.

Last year, HB7069 was signed into Florida law. This bill was more of a package of laws, including the expansion of vouchers, allowing for Schools of Hope to replace low performing public schools, and requiring capital outlays to charter schools. These statutory changes were not without consequence locally.  With more favorable conditions for charter schools, Academica’s Pinecrest Academy is applying for charter school status in Sarasota County. The Miami Herald analyzed Academica back in 2011, and the amount of state dollars flowing to this private company was staggering even then. At that time, Academica had 44 schools in South Florida. They now list over 110 schools in Florida.In Manatee County, Daughtrey and Oneco elementary schools may be threatened with Schools of Hope corporate charter school takeovers, if they don't improve their school grades next year.

This funneling of millions of tax dollars to private and corporate charter schools accelerated in 2018 with HB 7055. HB 7055 will

March For Our Lives & the NRA

The Corporations-Are-NOT-People banner stood out at the Sarasota March For Our Lives. Last Saturday, Sarasota students raised their collective voices to make preventing gun violence a high priority. How corporations have intervened in the gun debate is up for debate. Is the National Rifle Association (NRA) a big player in our state and national legislatures? And who provides the largest chunk of NRA funding - is it millions of individual members or a handful of gun manufacturers? The answers are more complex than you might think.  To start with, there are six non-profits that make up the NRA. And it just gets more complicated from there.

The Scourge of Unfettered Corporations

The Sarasota/Bradenton Nation Group provides a local forum for political commentary and activities that hope to shape and inform public discourse and political outcomes in line with the Nation Magazine. Sarasota resident, Bob Goldschmidt recently presented "The Scourge of Unfettered Corporations" to The Nation Group. Sarasota is fortunate to have many local people willing to stand up and speak out about corporate power as it is exercised in the United States today. Bob laid out his thoughtful perspective, paying close attention to the issues of employee wages, automation, the impacts of information technology, corporate media, and the downsides of monopolistic corporations.

Bob held one pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma, up for detailed scrutiny. The beginning of the opioid crisis can be traced back to the release of OxyContin, which is Purdue Pharma’s best-selling drug. The nationwide overdose epidemic has hit Manatee County especially hard. Back in December, the city of Palmetto joined municipalities across the state in potentially filing a lawsuit against big pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors for their alleged role in the current opioid epidemic that has killed an estimated 200,000 Americans in the past few years. Last month, perhaps in response to lawsuits, Purdue Pharma announced it will stop marketing its painkillers to doctors. Bob's talk delves a bit into the historical context of the growth of Purdue Pharma.

The Q&A following Bob's talk was animated, but not included in the video.

End Corporate Rule: Legalize Democracy

March for Democracy

People loved signing the oversized 28th Amendment at the March For Demcracy. Thank you Jaime Canfield for inspiring the crowd!

Ending Corporate Rule & Building a REAL Democracy Movement

On Martin Luther King Day, George Friday treated Sarasota to her inspirational stories and ideas. George is one of the co-founders of Move To Amend and shared her clear vision of just how insidious corporations are in our day-to-day lives. She has worked tirelessly over the years to build movements for justice and peace. Her good news is that we can all join in and we will be successful, but only if we strive for authentic, diverse, and democratic participation. We all get to participate and we all have a role. George spoke about the strategic use of privilege. If I have white privilege, then it is up to me to point out racism and attempt to dismantle it. If I am wealthy, then it is up to me to use it help those who are in poverty. If I have more education and knowledge, then it is up to me to spread that information and to make sure that it is accessible to those who may not have the same level of education. And remember to be easy on yourself - to take time for forgiveness, comfort, and joy.

Martin Luther King Day and the Very, Very Tall Amendment

The 22 foot tall banner of a 28th Amendment to the Constitution was an eye-catcher on Martin Luther King Day.  The 37th annual Sarasota MLK Day Celebration, presented by the MLK Celebration Committee in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee and Temple Emanu-El featured several events honoring King’s life and legacy. Following the MLK Memorial Breakfast, many joined in the march to MLK Park, where Manasota MTA had set up the larger-than-life Constitutional Amendment proclaiming that

  1) Money is Property, Not Speech

  2) A Corporation Is Not a Person

Many folks agreed and signed the imposing document that was as tall as the nearby palm trees.