Yesterday’s election results were a major step forward for inclusive, multi-racial democracy in America. The country voted in candidates who look like America: Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland, the first Native American congresswomen; Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first Muslim congresswomen; Ayanna Pressley, the first black member of Congress from Massachusetts; Jared Polis, the first openly gay governor; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest female member of Congress; and at least 98 women were elected to the House of Representatives.
In the lead up to this year’s midterm elections on Nov. 6 we’ve heard about how young adults, women and people of color are running for office in record numbers.
“For some 40 years now, the Supreme Court has been issuing decisions that make it difficult to regulate [money in politics],” Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies at Demos, told WhoWhatWhy. “Citizens United is the crowning achievement of that effort.”
Despite elite colleges’ efforts to diversify, they are still limited in their ability to serve as true engines of economic mobility, said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank.
“It does go against what we think higher education should be and it goes against our belief in a meritocracy,” he said. [...]
The American education system is defined by its decentralization; states, local areas, and schools wield considerable power over how students are educated, from preschool through college. But federal government's role in education is to still make sure American students have both a champion and a protector, an agency dedicated to the notion that when all students are able to thrive, our communities, our economy and our civic life become stronger.
This unfinished legacy is what makes the tenure of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education so tragic.
“When we’re talking about elite schools and, certainly, free medical schools, I don’t think that’s what’s going to be driving the policy process,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a think tank with operations in three cities including Boston that advocates for a diverse, expanded middle class and racial equality. [...]
Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, argues: “We cannot rely on states to fund education on their own or even allow for collective bargaining in many states. So I think that the federal government has to step in and provide some real financial leverage in order to raise the number of teachers, raise the job quality for teachers and raise, even if it’s nonteaching jobs, the positions that have been eliminated, particularly in two-year colleges but across the education system.”
Advocates and policymakers are frequently asked how they plan to pay for progressive policy investments. This memo provides guidance on how to respond.
Each Organization Independently Concluded That His Record Is a Threat to Racial Justice
New York, NY – Racial justice organizations are opposing the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as his record clearly demonstrates that he would be a threat to racial justice and hard-won civil rights achievements.
Several policy organizations have urged that institutions be held more accountable for the success of their students who get Pell Grants. [...]
Many who do enroll end up worse off than they started out, struggling to repay loans they took out to pay for educations they never finished; Pell recipients are nearly twice as likely as other students to borrow, the public-policy organization Demos says.
But the poll released this week suggests the debate is going on separately from how Americans experience student debt, said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. And indeed, there are many reasons why voters may be feeling anxious over student debt.
Union groups and other campaigners see such moves as an attack on their power to secure higher wages for workers. “[This is] an often low-paid and vulnerable workforce of predominantly women of color who do critical work helping seniors and people with disabilities with daily tasks,” said Amy Traub, the associate director of policy and research for Demos, a public policy organization that has published research on federal government wages. “These rules slash at workers’ ability to join together to improve their jobs”.
Rather than try to dismantle one of the few tools we have to keep this problem from getting worse, this administration should take a more nuanced and comprehensive approach toward making our campuses more reflective of our society, particularly for the most diverse generation of students ever.
Adding a question on citizenship status to the decennial census to which every household in the United States is required to respond is entirely unnecessary for the proper performance of the Census Bureau’s functions, and will greatly impair the quality, utility and clarity of the 2020 Census.
Both economic and racial justice are core progressive priorities, but too often we discuss them separately. On the contrary, racial and economic harms are intertwined, as are our desired solutions to them. Wealthy elites exploit racial fears to turn working people against each other and government; economic pain increases racial resentment and facilitates scapegoating, fueling support for punitive measures against people of color.