Thursday, April 14, 2011

CHUCK SPEAKS!!!

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usattywatch.blogspot.com

 

 

 

MAILING ADDRESS

 

Chuck Turner 80641-038

SPC HAZELTON
P.O. BOX 2000
BRUCETON MILLSWV  26525

 

 

Chuck Speaks 4-5-11

Posted on by Admin

April 5, 2011  http://supportchuckturner.com

Transitions: 

Dear Supporters,  

Transitions in life are always difficult given the necessary changes that need to be made in order to adjust to the new realities. I am certainly going through a transition here at Hazelton and I know that the residents of District 7 are certainly going through a transition
with a new District 7 City Councilor.

Many have expressed concern regarding how Councilor Jackson’s approach to the issues facing us will effect the progress that we have been able to make during the last eleven years. From my perspective, the answer to that question is in the hands of the residents of the District 7, particularly the activists.

I ran for office with the specific intention of testing an organizing model of Council representation. Having watched Black Councilors since the late 60s struggle with a majority white, moderate to conservative City Council, I realized that my ability to effect change would rest heavily on organizing a base of power inside and outside of District 7.

Our history in Boston has shown that Black Councilors have been able to build alliances with their fellow Councilors in the past that enabled them to produce change. However, given the composition and relatively conservative Council perspective in 2000, I felt that it
was essential to have a base that could influence the thinking of the other Councilors.

I don’t minimize my ability to work effectively with my fellow Councilors which many doubted initially. However, I believe my success as a Councilor was heavily dependent on the office Terri and I financed in the community, the monthly D7 Roundtable meetings, and the political base that developed around these initiatives. I believe that my fellow Councilors had to respect that base, especially since many would be calling on the base in their own elective efforts.

Councilor Jackson will bring his own style, resources, relationships, and representational model to the District. While there will be similarities, there will also be differences. While i believe he shares many of my views, I also believe that there are issues where we may differ on approach if not goals.

However, what is critically important is for those who have worked with me to build a base of common interests around a variety of issues needs to continue to focus on those issues and demonstrate to Councilor Jackson, especially when he doesn’t share the same perspective, the support in the community and city for the directions we have forged over the last eleven years. It is this process that I believe will achieve an effective balance between our work over the last eleven years and the vision and work that Councilor Jackson will bring to the office.

The key to the effectiveness of this model will be the development of quarterly forums that bring together the organizational activists and residents of District 7 to dialogue with Councilor Jackson as well as our state representatives and state senator. Through this exchange he and the other D7 elected officials will have the opportunity to share their ideas and implementation strategies and receive the feedback from you the residents and activists. This is a process that I believe will create the accountability of our elected officials which is the goal of every community.

Do we have the capability of building and institutionalizing such a model? My unequivocal answer is Yes. During the special election process this year that resulted in Councilor Jackson’s election, there were a number of forums organized to enable the residents of our district to hear and question the candidates.

We have demonstrated not only this year but also in past years our ability to create pre-election forums. It is now time to institutionalize this process by having the forums continue after the election so that District 7 can have a process fostering the growth of
political accountability between our elected officials and our residents.

Later this week, I will review the key issues facing District 7 during the next 12 months that demand the attention of Councilor Jackson and our residents and activists.

The Struggle Continues, 

chuck     -  This entry was posted in Chuck Speaks, updates. Bookmark the permalink.

Chuck Speaks 4-11-11

Posted on by Admin

REFLECTIONS FROM BEHIND THE WALL:

April 11, 2011   http://supportchuckturner.com

Topic: Challenges Facing Councilor Jackson and the residents of District 7 during the next twelve months:

Dear Supporters,

In my last reflection, I outlined the need to initiate quarterly political forums as a means of fostering political accountability in District 7 between Councilor Jackson and our other elected officials and residents. In this reflection I will begin to discuss what I see as the key issues facing Councilor Jackson and the residents of District 7. Given the need to go into some detail, I will focus on one issue each week. I have chosen Education this week not only due to its importance but also to the fact that it needs to be a center of our attention during the budget discussions that will begin next week when the Mayor presents his budget to the City Council.

For the following eight weeks, I will focus on a different issue each week. Next week because of the timeliness of the issue, I will focus on the issue of the Summer Cultural Festivals in Franklin Park. Over the seven following weeks, I will reflect on: Land Distribution, Community Development, Implementation of the City’s Affirmative Action Plan,  Public Safety, Youth Unemployment, Community Centers, and Implementation of the City Boston Residency Program for Construction Jobs.

Note: One difficulty I have is that given my incarceration, I do not have access to documents that would help me be totally accurate with my data. So please excuse any errors that you find.

Education:

a) Budget:

Next week the Mayor will deliver his Budget to the Council. While I don’t know what the amount will be for education, given the cutbacks in state funds to Boston, I imagine that its level will raise questions regarding its inability to handle critical needs. Obviously, Councilor Jackson, parents, and educational activists need to put pressure on the Mayor to assure that resources are identified to meet unmet critical needs. However, while the Mayor must be held accountable, we have to keep pressure on the state administration and legislature which has cut funds severely over the last ten years. In 2000, when I entered the Council 28% of the City budget was supplied by the state, last year, the percentage of state support fell to 18%.  In other words the state has cut its support to Boston by one third over the last ten years, with the severest impact on education. If we don’t reverse this trend, we will be in a major financial crisis by 2020 that will critically impact not only our children future but also the well being of all Bostonians.

b) Transportation Component of the Budget:

Since Councilor Yancey has been the only steadfast Council member opposing neighborhood schools, this years budget debate will again see the Councilors the $30 million dollars that enables the Choice Program to operate. They will mislead by saying that the elimination of bussing will provide the $75 million dollar for investment in other areas of the budget. They will not acknowledge that the busing of special needs children which they support costs $31 million dollars.

During my eleven years on the Council, I have maintained that there is no difference between support for transportation for children with special needs and support for providing more educational opportunities for children of color through the Choice Program and its necessary transportation. They are both mitigation programs. The transportation of children with special needs was designed to alleviate the difficulties that they experience.

The Choice program was designed to alleviate the problems resulting from the conscious underfunding of schools in communities of color by previous School Committees as well as the difficulties that followed Judge Garrity’s decision that led to over 70 schools in the communities of color being closed in order to have the bussing program operate as a one way program bussing children of color out of their community. I believe that Councilor Jackson, parents, and educational activists need to demand that the Choice program and the necessary transportation to be maintained until the schools in the communities of color are demonstrating the same level of achievement as those throughout the city. Yes there is a cost for maintaining both programs. However, in both cases, the children need and deserve the mitigation.

c) Achievement Gap:

This is also a critically important issue effecting a significant percentage of our 55.000 students. Simply defined the term achievement gap means that the academic performance of English Language Learners, Special Needs Students, and Black and Latino males is consistency below standards. The Superintendent Johnson and her staff have designed initiatives to address each of the aspects of the achievement gap. Yet performance is not yet trending upward. It is critically important that Councilor Jackson, parents, and our educational activists closely monitor the results of the various initiatives in order to keep the pressure on the administration to improve its practice and process. A lack of improvement in these areas means that we are failing a significant percentage of our city’s children, particularly those most in need.

d) Fairness in the Closing of Schools:

Over the last ten years, the majority of school closing have impacted schools within District 7 and 4. Since I was removed,18 additional schools have been closed, again primarily effecting schools with D7 and D4. The administration argues that given the reduction in students in the system, there are too many open seats to afford keeping all our schools open. In response, our activists question the fairness of the disproportionate impact on District 7 and 4. The Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts have raised these concerns with the US Department of Education through an official complaint filed by the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights. I believe that Councilor Jackson, as well as parents and activists need to stand shoulder to shoulder with BEAM demand fairness.

e) Increasing the Percentage of Teachers of Color:

Federal Judge Garrity’s 1975 decree integrating Boston schools required that the teaching staff have a minimum of 25% Black teachers and a minimum of 10% of Latino, Asian, African, and Cape Verdean teachers. In both areas there are serious concerns. The percentage of Black teachers was slightly over 25% when I joined the Council in 2000. However around the middle of the decade the percentage began to drop and is now hovering around 23%. While the percentage for other teachers of color has increased, there is still a significant imbalance since Latino, Asian, African, and Cape Verdean students comprise from 35 to 40% of the student population.

Since I had been told by many that the state teacher certification test was a major obstacle to increasing the percentages, approximately three years ago I tried to hold a hearing with state and city officials on the issue. However, I was told by state education officials who oversee the administration of the test that they were told by their lawyers to not come to the hearing because of a law suit that had been filed challenging the test. When the suit was withdrawn, I again requested that the state officials come to a hearing.Unbelievably they still said no.

Finally, I was able to raise the issue with the Governor and six months later received a call saying that the officials would come. Unfortunately, Mayor Menino and the Council removed me before I could call the hearing. I believe it is essential that this issue, which receives too little public attention, becomes a major priority for Councilor Jackson as well as parents and activists. I believe that a hearing is critically needed as quickly as possible to question what the state and city are doing to overcome this obstacle. I think we send a very bad message to all the children in a system that is 85% of color when less than half of the teachers are of color.

f) Charter Schools:

This is a very complex issue that I plan to focus on in a full reflection in June. However, as I highlight issues of critical concern, I can not ignore this issue, particularly at budget time. I
support educational innovation and i can appreciate the desire of parents, particularly parents of color, to have more educational options available for their children. At the same time, I think that we all have a responsibility to guard against the destruction of our system of public education.

We must remember that public education is a relatively new practice in this country. In fact, it grew out of the movement to educate children of color in the South after the Civil War. We also have to remember that there are private schools throughout the country supported by the rich and powerful of this country that want access to public funds for the private settings in which they have chosen to educate their children. We must not allow charter school movement to be used as Trojan horse for those who want to have public resources for their private institutions.

To be more specific each time a charter school is approved by the state, resources are taken from the funds available to the city in which the student lives. In addition, despite the fact that charter schools in general do not recruit or maintain English language learners, children with special needs, or students who need significant support, they receive an allotment from the state based on the assumption that their student body includes English language learners, children with special needs, and those black and Latin male students needing significant assistance. If this process is allowed to continue unchecked, in a decade we could have a strong charter school system while the public system has fewer and fewer resources to educate the children with the greatest need. This would lead to the institutionalization of a two tiered system which is rapidly growing in this country.

g) Maintenance of our School Buildings:

While the public is very aware of many of the difficulties if not crises facing our children in the public school system, I’m afraid that they are not aware that our school infrastructure is literally crumbling around our children, teachers, and administrators as we speak. This is not to say that Mayor Menino and his administration are not attempting to do as much as possible to remedy the situation; however, they are dealing with deferred maintenance decisions that they and past administrations have made that have created a deficit in our school repair and improvement budget of $500 million dollars which is equivalent to a half a billion dollars. Last year the administration’s initial budget proposed cutting half of the
maintenance staff while they agreed to pay the highest paid workers in the City, the fire people, for drug testing.

I know that to say that the school buildings are crumbling around our children are harsh words, but I think they are accurate. Lets look at the facts:

A) The administration during my eleven years on the Council has taken the position that it can only invest an average of $35 million dollars out of a total capital repair budget of $100 million dollars a year.

B) The state is making a minimal investment in assisting the repair of school infrastructures across the state. I don’t believe the state has invested any money in Boston schools during the last four years. They now have agreed to provide money for repair of two to three schools, which is helpful but woefully inadequate.

C) Despite the declaration of support for the improvement of public school education, the Obama administration did not put one dollar school infrastructure funding into the $800 billion dollar stimulus package.

I don’t understand the perspective of the Obama administration. They know that the cities and towns of America don’t have the resources to make the necessary repairs. National estimates are that it would take over $200 billion dollars to make public schools of this country safe for our children. Yet not one dime of the stimulus package was directed toward this crisis. I am convinced that the President is deeply committed to the welfare of our children but why is he silent and action-less on this issue. He knows that our children can’t be educated if the environment in which the children, teachers, administrators are working is toxic.

I am focusing on the Federal government rather than city and state government as I discuss how to resolve this problem since I know that we don’t have the resources at the state and local level. I too have to take a share of the responsibility. I was able to bring some attention to the problem without much help from the press; passed two ordinance focused on the issue; worked with the Asthma Coalition and the Massachusetts Committee on Safety and Health in their efforts to build a Coalition focused on Healthy Schools. However, I didn’t try to organize the parents to demand action at every level. I believe that the only answer is for parents and activists to stand up and demand that our political leaders stop being hypocrites and take responsibility for providing safe environments for the education of our children.

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About Chuck - Chuck’s History of Community Service

Chuck Turner has been a community organizer and civil rights activist in Boston, Massachusetts since 1966. Referred to as one of the best-known agitators in the city, he was elected to the Boston City Council in 1999. Turner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1941. He was raised by an aunt, Mamie K. Faulkner, and a grandmother, Laura Troy Knight. His grandfather, Doctor Charles Henry Turner, was a pioneering animal behavior biologist, while his father, Darwin Turner, was a pharmacist.

Turner graduated from Harvard University in 1963 with his B.A. degree in government. He then spent a year in Washington, DC, reporting for The Afro-American Newspaper. He then moved north, first to New York, then to Hartford, where he joined the influential civil rights group, the Northern Student Movement.

In 1966, he returned to the Boston area, joining the South End Neighborhood Action Program (SNAP) where he worked with families who were losing their homes to gentrification. Turner formed a community action group which pressured local government to provide trash clean-up in black neighborhoods and he led demonstrations which highlighted how inadequately city inspectors enforced building codes in public housing for the poor.

A former leader of the United Community Construction Workers and one-time chair of the Boston Jobs Coalition, Turner spent several years crusading against job discrimination in the city. He campaigned for increased hiring of blacks on city construction jobs. In 1991, unsatisfied with the mayor’s enforcement of fair employment practices, Turner led a four-hour sit-in at the mayor’s office which resulted in a number of key concessions being made.

He has also used his activism strategies and leadership skills to spearhead other community efforts. He played a leading role in a successful campaign to prevent the city from building a highway through predominantly black neighborhoods. Turner has also chaired the Southwest Corridor Land Development Corporation.

As a Boston city council member, Turner has continued his defense of civil and human rights. He authored an ordinance protecting transgendered people from discrimination. He successfully led an effort to protect the affirmative action guidelines of Massachusetts when Governor Mitt Romney sought to change them. And, as chairman of the Education Committee, he has rallied against educational inequality in the Boston public schools.


--From an interview by The HistoryMakers on March 25, 2005.

 


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