Dear friends,
I used to spend all week saving up little scraps of good news for Tuesdays. The ratio of good to bad news has increased a bit (finally!). Still, I had to save this first story until after Biden was sworn in, because I was so anxious early last week. One of the thousands of officers of the National Guard who was called to secure the capitol for the inauguration was Jake Kohut, a music teacher from Virginia. Kohut didn’t want his students to have a substitute so he taught an early morning band class before his 12-hour shift and used a break (with some coverage from a friend) to teach band to his middle-schoolers. The photograph of him playing Ode to Joy on flute while teaching from inside a Humvee is worth a click. The transformational power of music is undeniable (as is the insanity of teachers).
Support Newport Festivals Foundation and Sonic Arts For All, which foster music education and provide music-making opportunities, instruments, and equipment to young people.
There is no justice without transformation. So, it’s time to celebrate and support the work of those with vision.
In between the insurrection and the inauguration, the Illinois legislature passed the Pre-Trial Fairness Act to end cash bail. The bill doesn’t take effect for two years, which may seem like a needless delay, but is actually a prescient move, especially considering some of the vocal opposition to the bill and the failure of legislative reforms elsewhere.
[Cook County State’s Attorney] Foxx said there’s time for Cook County to invest in services needed to monitor and assist a larger group that would remain free while awaiting trial. There’s a need for more pretrial probation officers to track defendants and more money for drug and mental health treatment, she said.
New York and California didn’t have a “sufficient ramp-up period” for their bail reforms, Foxx said. “No disrespect to New York, but the process was rushed.”
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has expressed support for the measure and we will be watching what happens to bail reform there.
The Brooklyn Community Bail Fund (BCBF) is calling on the new Administration to cap bail amounts — the median amount BCBF paid for a bond rose 40% between 2019 and 2020 — with some bonds as high as $50,000. BCBF is also lobbying for transparent policies or guidelines for judges setting bail in immigration courts, simplification of the processes to pay bonds, and a ban on unregulated private immigration bond companies.
Support Brooklyn Community Bail Fund.
Black organizers in Alabama have been rising early to greet fellow Amazon employees at traffic lights…before dawn. In this way, they gathered enough signed union cards to get the National Labor Relations Board to announce a vote on whether to unionize. This is big. The voting will start in February and continue through March, by mail.
The Alliance for Quality Education, which has been fighting the good fight to get equitable funding for schools, is hosting a push to Tax the Rich in NYS today from 4-6 PM. The work is to call constituents of those state legislators we need to move to support the Invest In Our New York Act.
Register for the Tax the Rich phone bank!
Educators and community members with vision are pushing for waivers for the testing mandated by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). In my work with student teachers during the pandemic, I have a window into the extraordinary challenges facing students and schools right now. Many young people cannot use their microphones during class because multiple household members are logged onto meetings and classes; the cacophony is real. Meanwhile, crises of housing and food insecurity are layered on top of the illness and loss of life due to the pandemic. Testing will not tell us anything we do not know about the inequities that young people face, nor is it a good use of limited resources.
If you are unable to attend tonight’s meeting about the potential waiver for mandated educational testing, please complete this survey to add your voice to the debate.
Register now for a national town hall this evening about suspending high stakes student testing, moderated by Congressman Jamaal Bowman.
Two more before you go….the Tubman $20s are coming and Biden is lifting the ban on transgender people serving in the military.
with love,
L