|
For
information, call 202 554 8519, or email
info@stopdcvouchers.org.
PRESS RELEASES
PRESS CLIPS
Press Clips
Secure Mom
Moms in Action (story featuring Lobbyline.com/SecureMom.com
co-founder), Washington Times, Lisa Rauschert, September 14,
2003.
What
Price Motherhood? Moms Rally To Demand Social Security
for Work As Caregivers
Stop D.C. Vouchers
The Wrong Choice for D.C.'s Children, Washington Post,
Steve O'Sullivan, Member, Stop D.C. Vouchers
Jared Ball show (guerilla radio for the people) 97.5 FM
Friday, September 26, 2003 (Guest: Melody Web)
Diane Rehm
show: School Vouchers, Monday, September 29, 2003 (Guest M. Webb,
director, Stop DC Vouchers)
Water For DC Kids
Lead in Water Fosters Worry in Washington DC, Chicago Tribune, April
12 2004
Letter to Editor from Melody Webb about WIC and tax rebates,
Washington Post, March 6th
Lead Fears Force DC to Expand Response, Washington Post, February 28
2004
PRESS RELEASES
March 3
Feb
Sept. 3
D.C. Democracy Community Condemns Voucher
Plan for DC.
Sept. 2
Call Congress Campaign to Stop DC Vouchers
July 17
Senate Voucher Proponents Hold DC
Appropriations Bill Hostage
July 15
Stop DC Vouchers Vows to Redouble Efforts in
face of House Vote to Endorse Vouchers
July 7
Stop DC Vouchers Applauds Expected DC Council
Resolution Opposing Vouchers
June 29
Davis' Voting Rights Plan a Smokescreen for Vouchers Push
June 24 DC
Parent-Led Group Denounces Davis' New Voucher Bill
May 1
Stop DC Vouchers Inaugurated
Jan 29
The Return of CareFirst to Children's - A New Paradigm for
Public Involvement
What Price Motherhood? Moms
rally to demand Social Security for work as caregivers
The Sunday Star-Ledger (NJ) ^ | 5/11/03 | Peggy
O'Crowley
Families honor their mothers
today with perfume, hanging plants, and dinners out. What many
of today's mothers want most, however, doesn't come from a
store. They want respect, financial recognition, and nothing
less than to change the way society looks at motherhood. And
they're not waiting for anyone to give it to them.
Call it a mothers' movement.
This month, mothers will
participate in a "virtual march" on Washington, D.C.,
e-mailing their Congress members to demand a Social Security
credit for the years they spend at home raising children.
They will be handing out
buttons that read "I'm a mother. I care. I work. I count,"
part of a campaign by Mothers & More, a national support
network for mothers, to redefine "work" to include unpaid
caregiving.
And like Cathy Haynes of
Plainfield, a member of the Central New Jersey Mothers' Center
who is home with three young sons, and Meredith Van Pelt of
Pennington, a mother of two and member of the Princeton
chapter of Mothers & More, women are talking to each other
about these issues.
"This is something we all deal
with, the lack of respect, the assumption that you don't have
anything to do or you're brain dead," said Haynes, a former
legal analyst.
"We talk about this regularly.
Mothers seem so overwhelmed," said Van Pelt, who works four
days a week.
"The problem of devaluing
mothers has to do with a broader cultural problem: We devalue
anything that doesn't have to do with cash ... If it's not
bottom-line oriented, we're not interested," said Enola Aird,
director of the Motherhood Project, a New York-based group of
mothers and activists who are exploring ways to redefine
motherhood.
Mothers banding together to
force social change isn't new. The 19th century temperance
movement sought to stop men from drinking and abusing wives
and children. The child labor movement protected youngsters
from working long hours in factories or mines. More recent
efforts have successfully cut down drunk driving rates,
prevented birth defects, supported schools. Three years ago,
hundreds of thousands of mothers converged on Washington for
the Million Mom March in support of gun control legislation.
But this may be the first time
mothers have rallied in support of themselves.
"Mothers have not been
active politically in their own interest, never as a group of
people doing the most important work in the economy who are
among the most neglected and overlooked," said Ann Crittenden,
a journalist who stayed home to raise her son.
"Motherhood is the single biggest reason for
poverty in old age."
Her book, "The Price of
Motherhood," that looked at the financial and career
sacrifices mothers make, galvanized many women and led
Crittenden to found a new mothers' group that focuses on
issues favorable to caregivers, including more financial
equity.
One of the reasons that the
time is ripe for mothers to advocate for themselves, she said,
is that mothers today are the most highly educated generation
of mothers in history.
"There's been a huge revolution
in the educational and professional accomplishment of women.
More and more are coming to motherhood after being equals and
they see a huge discrepancy, both socially and economically,
after being an accountant or an adminstrative assistant or a
nurse," she said. "Whatever else we were, we know the work
going on as a mother is just as important. The earlier
generations weren't sure."
MOTHERS, for Mothers Ought To
Have Equal Rights, has set up a new Web site funded by the
Long Island-based National Association of Mothers Centers,
Inc.. This is a consortium of 40 mothers's groups in 19
states, including three in New Jersey. MOTHERS is sponsoring
the "virtual march" to contact legislators. So far, several
thousand mothers have signed up online to get involved,
Crittenden said.
One of the fundamental issues
confronting at-home caregivers is the lack of Social Security
benefits at retirement for the years in which they are not in
the paid workforce. One of the core platform issues of Mothers
and other groups is a $16,000 Social Security credit that
would yield a $789 monthy payment at full retirement age of 67
for a worker born in 1969, with 35 qualifying years of
employment. The credit would count on the caregiver's work
record, not that of a spouse. Women who stay home with
children, but are divorced before 10 years of marriage, lose
any right to a spousal benefit at retirement.
The credit, good for up to five
years of caregiving, is half of the average American wage,
said Melody R. Webb, a Washington at-home mother of two and
founder of Securemom.org, a Web site dedicated to Social
Security reform for caregivers.
It's also the average wage of a
child-care worker in the United States, a group that is
notoriously low-paid -- yet more evidence that caregiving is
not valued in society, many advocates point out. "I have five
years of zero earnings and we know the work we do is much more
than zero," said Webb, a lawyer.
Mothers also are not eligible
for disability insurance, because that, too, is tied to paid
employment. "Mothers get injured or disabled like everyone
else. It's a real burden on a family when that happens," said
Margaret McLaughlin, the national manager for policy research
of Mothers and More, and a mother of two from Wyckoff.
Those proposals are attractive
to women like Haynes, who worked as a legal analyst until she
had her third son nearly a year ago. "My kids are happier,
it's more quality time, but it's just really scary. I worry
about our financial situation. You're pretty much putting your
life in someone else's hands," she said. Her husband, Kaliym
Islam, is a director of instructional technology for a Wall
Street firm.
Other changes sought by MOTHER
include paid family leave; pay and benefits equity for
part-time workers, 60 percent of whom are mothers; reform in
divorce laws that financially favor the working partner, and
reform of tax laws that penalize married couples.
Many of their concerns echo
those of Mothers & More, which has 170 chapters and 7,500
members nationwide, including New Jersey. For the first time,
the organization is kicking off a campaign, Making Mothers
Count, to raise awareness of the importance of caregivers. One
of its goals is to assess the Bureau of Labor Statistics'
American Time Use Survey to learn more about caregivers, said
McLaughlin, a medical writer.
McLaughlin said the survey
data, due out next year, will be used by her organization to
come up with policy recommendations to change "a world
designed for our grandmothers' time." Mothers and More
emphasizes the trend among modern mothers to move in and out
of the workforce, taking time out to raise young children.
Even working mothers like Van
Pelt provide the lion's share of unpaid care in every family.
That will only increase, she believes, when many of today's
mothers find themselves taking care of elderly parents at the
same time as children. "We do have to give this more
consideration because it's just going to get worse," Van Pelt
said.
The proposals would benefit
working mothers, as well as at-home fathers. Crittenden and
others believe that's important because one of the aims of
these groups is to bridge the "mommy wars" between at-home
mothers and those in the paid work force.
Members of the Motherhood
Project found they had to work out those mommy wars themselves
when they first met several years ago, Enola Aird said. The
group held a symposium last fall on "maternal feminism," a
phrase that describes using women's power to advocate for the
values of caring and nurturing.
The group includes at-home
mothers and prominent working mothers like Marian Wright
Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, as well as
conservative and liberal mothers. The symposium featured Kim
Gancy, president of the National Organization for Women, and
economist and writer Sylvia Ann Hewlett, whose argument that
the workplace cheats women out of a chance to be mothers
prompted a storm of debate.
"To have Kim Gandy and Sylvia
Hewlett in concord was an important step because the media has
made so much of the mommy wars, that they're always at each
other's throats," said Aird, a mother of two and a lawyer.
The Motherhood Project, located
at the Institute for American Values, is preparing a study of
American mothers to get a sense of what is most important to
them, Aird said.
So far, the group has
identified two key issues beyond promoting the "mother world"
over the "money world." They include the influence of
commercial values on children and families and developing
reproductive technologies like cloning that might someday
alter the very essence of what it means to be a mother.
Not all mothers are in favor of
all of these ideas, of course. Many of them are unfeasible,
according to Nancy Pfotenhauer, an economist and president of
the Independent Women's Forum, a conservative Washington-based
think tank.
In Europe, where mothers get
paid maternity leaves and lots of time off, "you get high
unemployment and zero economic growth," said Pfotenhauer, a
mother herself.
The consequence for better pay
and benefits for part-time workers will be that companies will
hire fewer part-time workers, she predicted.
Advocates of a mothers'
movement acknowledged everything from gaining new Social
Security credits to recognition of the value of unpaid work
will be difficult. But this is just the beginning, they argue.
"We don't have all the answers
about what the solutions are," said Linda Lisi Juergens,
executive director of the National Associations of Mothers'
Centers. "We're saying, 'Hey look at this.' We support
caregiving in a Hallmark way, but what are we doing as a
society to value it?"
Staff writer Peggy O'Crowley
covers family issues. She can be reached at (973) 392-5810 or
e-mail her at
pocrowley@starledger.com.
March 3rd, 2004 -
Lead Contamination a Threat to all Residents
Group Argues That Arlington Delivers the Verdict: Lead
Contamination Is A Threat To All D.C. Residents,
Anything Other Than Universal Public Health Measures for All
Residents, Including Apartment Dwellers, Is Discriminatory
Washington, DC-- In the wake of reports that the source of
lead contamination in the city's water is likely
corrosion-causing chemicals, it is now clear that all
residents of D.C. are potentially at risk of high
lead levels in their water. Previously, WASA and D.C.
officials advised that the likeliest source of high lead
levels was city lead lines that are especially vulnerable to
corrosion and that serve older single family homes. Testing
done in Arlington County, Virginia, which purchases water
from D.C. and uses no lead service lines, has solidly
anchored the theory that the problem extends beyond homes
with lead service lines. The high lead levels found in
several Arlington residences that were recently tested shows
that any lead source in the water system of D.C. could be
leaching lead into the water, including copper pipes with
lead solder, fixtures with lead content, and other lead
plumbing. Arlington officials have issued an advisory to
all pregnant women and children under age 6 regarding
consumption of the city's tap water.
Water for D.C. Kids is mobilizing parents, particularly
low-income families, to pressure Mayor Anthony Williams to
immediately follow the call of this increasingly likely
explanation of the problem and to copy the example of
Arlington County by expanding its advisory to cover all, not
just lead service line, residences.
"The city's dilatory and limited set of public health
initiatives to address the problem so far have been built
around this lead service line premise, a shaky foundation
that is now sinking before our very eyes. Tragically, that
lead service line premise has under-estimated the risk
group, the scope of testing and the amount of assistance
needed for affected D.C. residents. Wake up, city leaders.
The city's fetuses, babies and children are paying for
your self-serving inadequate actions to protect the health
of D.C. citizens" says Webb.
The number of residents, particularly children, affected by
lead levels is unknown as is the cause of the contamination
problem. "From this day forward the clock is ticking on
the moral, if not legal liability, of D.C. leaders, who have
to see now the blinding mandate to do something and
something right now to preclude any further citizens'
exposure to lead."
Water for D.C. Kids is especially concerned about the impact
of the water emergency on the poor and apartment dwellers,
who are often the same. Webb believes that the findings in
Arlington are a watershed moment with far-reaching
implications for the public health actions by the Mayor of
Washington, D.C.. "The Arlington case has just firebombed
the floodgates. We now know that it is highly likely that
every single child under age 6, that every single pregnant
and nursing woman is likely at risk since each and every tap
in the city could be receiving water carried through either
lead pipes or lead components that may be leaching lead
because of chemicals being used to treat the city's' source
water. Arlington is taking this precaution and it is only
moral if not practical for the city to take the same step."
The group wants the Mayor to adopt a platform of strategies
to more aggressively protect the city's children from
lead-contaminated water by making healthy water alternatives
available to all children, including a free water and filter
program for participants in the city's Women Infant Children
program for indigent families as well as tax rebates for
expenses related to the water emergency. In light of the
findings in Arlington, Webb urges the Mayor to "issue the
same alert for all city residents that has been issued
for lead service line households. Do it and do it now."
Water for D.C. Kids advises the Mayor to acknowledge that
anything other than maximum precautions for the poor and
apartment dwellers could be deemed environmental racism, due
to the as-yet unaddressed needs of the poor and apartment
dwellers. Ella William, an Anacostia, Southeast Washington
resident stated "I knew it. I knew it. I never believed
them about the problem being only with houses because a lot
of these apartment buildings are really old. As a
grandmother with an eight month old grandson and 5
months-pregnant daughter living with me in my apartment, I
am angry that we all could be getting poisoned but WASA
won't give us water test kits and the city won't give us
free filters. But they are giving the filters to people in
houses. How can they do that?"
Webb states that she is getting inquiries from tenants
questioning WASA's right to withhold from tenants water
testing kits and results. Webb states that tenants are
being forced to trust the assurances of their landlords.
"The city is doing an abysmal job of informing the public of
its rights and getting out all of the pertinent information
for assessing risk and allaying fears. Where is the public
information campaign required by federal regulations when
this level of lead contamination is reached?"
The group is calling for a number of measures, including the
following:
1. D.C. families with pregnant women and young children are
outraged about the city's underestimation of the potential
risk group. and urges the city to spare the health of its
children and limit the city's legal liability by immediately
taking comprehensive health precautions based on the new
evidence that the majority of D.C. residents could be
affected by the lead corrosion caused by the city's
chemically treated water.
2. Families want a universal set of public health
precautions that extend to every single pregnant woman and
child under the age of 6 who resides in the District of
Columbia. These include children free bottled water, free
filters, and taxpayer rebates for families. The city must
immediately make available to all residents who need
it free NSF certified filters, free bottled water.
The city needs to provide immediately water testing kits
to all households in the District of Columbia and all
faculties serving children, pregnant and nursing women
as well as other vulnerable populations -- that includes
those outside the previously designated risk
categories: such as multi-unit apartment buildings.
3. Families want a far-reaching public outreach effort
to educate all families with pregnant women and children
about services and programs, as well as their rights as
tenants to information about the lead content of their
water.
4. Families want each and every household in the city,
as well as all licensed child care facilities and
institutions serving children, to be provided with water
testing kits and to have results revealed summarily.
5. Families want the city to affirmatively assist all
residences in identifying potential sources of lead
contamination within their property lines, and in their
home plumbing and fixtures. Families want the city to
institute a program to assist homeowners and landlords
in financing the cost of identifying and replacing such
lead components and plumbing.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
February 27th, 2004
- Initial Press Release from Water for DC Kids
D.C. Parents' Group Asks Mayor For Public
Health Precautions
to Protect City's Children, Especially the
Indigent, From Lead- Contaminated Water
Washington,
DC--Water for D.C. Kids is mobilizing parents to pressure
Mayor Anthony Williams to adopt a platform of strategies to
more aggressively protect the city's children from
lead-contaminated water by making healthy water alternatives
available to all children, including a free water and filter
program for participants in the city's Women Infant Children
program for indigent families.
Water samples
drawn from some 4,000 D.C. residences last summer exceed the
lead limit of 15 ppb, an actionable threshold level
established by the United States Environmental Protection
Agency. Reports indicate that D.C. Water and Sewer
Authority has been aware of the problem of elevated lead
levels since as early as 2002; however, WASA failed to
notify those personally affected and the public at large of
the problem. Pregnant women and children under age 6 in
lead-line serviced homes are advised not to drink unfiltered
water.
The number
of residents, particularly children, affected by lead levels
is unknown as is the cause of the contamination
problem. "While experts seek answers, parents and
caregivers want clean water alternatives now for all of
D.C.'s children, as a matter of justice since we don't know
who all is affected", stated Melody Webb, whose efforts are
particularly concerned with the plight of the impoverished.
The group is especially
focused on the impact upon infants and children, since they
are at highest risk of poisoning from exposure to high lead
levels in water, especially when coupled with exposure to
other forms of lead. The group expressed grave
disappointment in the city's delayed testing of the
schools. The Mayor, in tandem with WASA's inaction, failed
to demand immediate testing of city schools, with the result
that lead testing in the city's public schools occurred only
last weekend. Compare that to the Catholic Archbishop, who
quickly moved to shut down fountains and begin testing.
The group calls government action to-date inadequate.
Melody Webb, a lawyer heading the group, expressed outrage
toward the mayor for failing to take public health
precautions to address the problem while efforts are made to
determine the cause of the problem. "Aren't all the city's
children at risk since each and every tap in the city could
be receiving water carried through either lead pipes or lead
components that may be leaching lead because of chemicals
being used to treat the city's' filthy source water-- the
Potomac River? If there is a chance, any chance at all, that
we are feeding lethal tap water to our children -- the Mayor
ought to aggressively test the city's children and (through
sampling or otherwise) every single source of drinking water
in the city, particularly those servicing infants, children
and pregnant women" said Webb.
Davonyah Smith, a Southeast
Washington residents stated "As a single mother with
children aged 7, 8 and 10 in the city's public schools, I
find it a struggle to buy bottled water for them to drink at
home and at school. The city needs to give free water or
filters to people who can't afford it until they figure out
what is going on".
The group is calling for a
number of measures, including the following:
1. D.C. families with pregnant women and young children are
outraged about this filtering of information by WASA and
D.C. elected officials regarding the threat posed by this
water emergency that we are facing. We want the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but the truth about the risks that
we face.
2. Families want a comprehensive set of public health
precautions that extend to every single pregnant woman and
child under the age of 6 who resides in the District of
Columbia. These include children free bottled water, free
filters, and taxpayer rebates for families.
3. Families want a far-reaching public education effort to
inform all families with pregnant women and children, in
particular the indigent.
4. Families want each and every household in the city, as
well as all licensed child care facilities and institutions
serving children, to be
provided with water testing kits and to have results
revealed summarily.
5. Families want the city to affirmatively assist all
residences in identifying potential sources of lead
contamination within their property lines, and in their home
plumbing and fixtures. Families want the city to institute
a program to assist homeowners and landlords in financing
the cost of replacing such lead components and plumbing.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
October 27:
Congress Dismisses Will of American People and Pushes
Vouchers
News From Stop D.C.
Vouchers
Melody Webb, an attorney and DCPS parent who heads
Stop D.C. Vouchers, issued the following statement after
reports that conservative leaders in the Senate plan an
endrun around the democratic process to institute a
taxpayer funded private school voucher program for D.C.
Key conservative members of the Senate have made known
their intentions for a high-stakes gamble to force
vouchers. A voucher program in D.C. would presage
federally funded voucher schemes across the nation.
Voucher proponents in the
Senate could remove vouchers from the D.C. appropriations
bill, present the D.C. budget bill for passage to the
entire Senate and reinsert the voucher legislation for a
$13 million voucher plan during the House and Senate
conference on the D.C. appropriations bill to gain
backdoor approval of vouchers. Supporters could also seek
to gain voucher passage by attaching the entire D.C.
budget bill and the voucher add-on to a larger omnibus
federal budget bill. This would require voucher opponents
in the Senate to filibuster a major federal spending bill
in order to stop the passage of vouchers for D.C.
"Having
failed to gain majority support among their colleagues in
the Senate for foisting school vouchers on disenfranchised
D.C. residents, who don't want them, members of the
Senate nonetheless press on with the voucher agenda,
preparing to resort to underhanded parliamentary practices
to secure the passage of vouchers.
In
doing so, members of the Senate would use the finest
example of democracy in the world as a battering ram to
beat down the residents of Washington, D.C. and to ignore
the will of the majority of the Senate whose constituents
do not want to support a first-ever federal subsidy of a
private school vouchers scheme.
While purporting
to cultivate the goodwill of allies new and old abroad to
promote democracy around the world, the U.S. Senate at the
same time would abuse our hallowed national legislative
process for the sake of an unpopular unproven $13 million
plan that would ill serve the few while damaging the
school system that serves the many. By most estimates,
the voucher plan would only give participating students
access to parochial schools, the only schools whose
tuition could be covered by the up to $7500 proposed
voucher credit.
For
shame, that members of the Senate would cut off their
noses to spite their faces, besmirching the Senate's
legislative process -- all for the agenda of a small
minority in Congress that are hell-bent on religious
education for poor, minority children of the District of
Columbia.
The
question remains, how low are members of the Senate
willing to go? Forcing a filibuster of a
voucher-containing federal spending bill that interrupts
critical services and programs for millions of Americans
may be it.
Majorities of
D.C. residents and elected officials do not want
vouchers. Apparently, neither do the majority of the
American people. The House committee that passed vouchers
did so by a one vote margin when a key voucher opponent
was absent, the full House had to pass vouchers, again by
a one vote margin, during a scheduled presidential
candidates debate attended by numerous voucher opponents
who missed the vote.
Now,
after a long and unsuccessful campaign to pass vouchers
before the full Senate, voucher proponents there are
resorting to trickery unbecoming of the Senate.
We
can stop this last ditch measure to betray the will of the
American people by writing, calling and emailing our own
members of Congress and by targeting members of the Senate
Appropriations committee. Stopping vouchers is about
saving public education for the children of the city and
listening to the will of D.C. residents and the American
people.
Please start calling
your Senators now on (202)224-3121 or (202)225-3121. For
more information, or to send an email in addition to
calling, visit
www.stopdcvouchers.org. We thank valiant supporters
for their courageous efforts so far. This is likely our
last stand. Let's fight the good fight and put an end
to the war against public education in D.C. and thereby,
the nation, right now!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 30,
2003
Contact: Melody Webb
202-276-9253
Stop D.C. Vouchers Applauds Temporary Halt of School
Voucher Legislation,
Urges Vigilance and Readiness
to Resume the Fight!
Washington, D.C.-- Melody
Webb, an attorney and director of Stop D.C. Vouchers,
issued the following statement after the Senate's Tuesday
debate on school voucher legislation for D.C., S. 1583,
resulted in what many are calling a 'retreat' from the
voucher legislation attached to the D.C. Fiscal Year 2004
budget bill.
As they were debating an $87
billion spending plan for Iraq, the Senate finally came to
realize that pushing school vouchers in D.C. was an abuse of
their duty to represent issues in the national
interest. Today is a day of hope, real hope for the goal of
real reform of public education in Washington, D.C.
through the appropriate channel of local, democratic
decision-making.
We thank members of the
public and of the Senate. Supporters of democracy and
public education have staved off the school voucher plan in
the Senate for the time being. Through its vigorous defense
of public education as the bastion of equal opportunity for
the most disadvantaged, the Senate has kept alive the hope
that all of D.C.'s children can continue to benefit from
reforms already underway. We are grateful that the United
States Senate has beat back with a stick the attempts to rip
apart the mangled flesh of home rule to which D.C. residents
still cling. The Senate has halted attempts to suck out the
life-blood of public education: a voucher plan that would
drain away funding for needed school reform.
We applaud the Senate and
urge American citizens to remain vigilant regarding
this voucher legislation as it may rear its head in
the federal budget bill in the coming days. Be prepared to
go back to the drawing board to tell your Senators again to
'stop D.C. vouchers' and to get back to the nation's
business, leaving local education policy to local D.C.
officials. Stand ready to resume the fight. Stay tuned...
#############################
=================================================================================
Sept 3,
D.C. Democracy Activists Denounce Voucher Plan for D.C.
Urge Community and Congress
To Oppose Voucher Legislation Where Vote Scheduled
This Week in the U.S. House
and U.S. Senate
Washington, DC-- Leaders of the
diverse movement for full self governance and voting rights
for D.C. today in a joint letter denounced the voucher plan in
Congress and urged Congressional members in the House and the
Senate to vote against legislation to institute the proposal.
Anise Jenkins, president of the
activist group Stand Up! for Democracy in D.C. Coalition,
stated "We fully support and praise congressional leaders in
the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives who are
standing up for D.C.'s right to make its own education policy
according to the will of the residents of D.C. and the
principals of self governance and full democracy. The voucher
plan being pushed by ideologues in Congress exemplifies an
abrogation of local decision and policy making."
"We stand on the brink of a watershed moment in the history of
public education. Congressional leadership must step up
to the plate and discharge its duty to protect the most
vulnerable by fighting for public education, not abandoning
public education in favor of a voucher white elephant.
When 2,000 students leave my children's school system for
vouchers, $20 million will walk away with them. If this
voucher bill is passed, it will be the first time that federal
money will be used for a voucher scheme, and it will become
the justification for federal funding of private schools
across the country" said Melody Webb, a D.C.P.S. parent
speaking on behalf of Stop D.C. Vouchers and the Leave D.C.
Alone D.C. Democracy campaign.
"As residents and organizations that work on behalf of full
democracy for Washington, D.C., we fight for the rights of the
most disenfranchised citizens of this country, on a platform
of full voting representation in the U.S. House and U.S.
Senate, as well as full self governance for Washington, D.C..
We now want to express our outraged opposition to the
congressional plan under consideration to institute
a taxpayer-funded, private school voucher program for
Washington, D.C., " stated Michele Tingling Clemmons, a
D.C. Public Schools parent speaking on behalf of D.C.
Statehood Green Party and the Gray Panthers of Metropolitan
Washington.
The D.C. voucher proposal was tabled before the summer recess
of Congress and is expected to come up for a vote in the House
of Representatives on September 4th. The Senate version
of the bill failed to leave the Senate Appropriations
committee. The voucher plan, which passed Rep. Tom
Davis' (R- Va.) Government Reform committee by a margin of
only one vote, has been presented in the Senate as a 'rider'
attached to the D.C. Appropriations bill, a popular vehicle
for Congress to get passed their own legislative proposals
that are unpopular with D.C. residents. Included with the
voucher plan in the Appropriations bill are several other
objectionable amendments that are opposed by D.C. elected
officials and residents.
Voucher opponents are urged to call select members of the U.S.
House of Representatives and the United States Senate in an
effort to prevent a voucher plan.
=================================================================================
Sept 2,
Local D.C. Parent-led Group Launches 'Call Congress
Campaign' to Stop D.C. Vouchers in U.S. House, U.S. Senate
Washington,
DC- Stop D.C. Vouchers today launched their 'Call Congress
Now! Campaign' to mobilize local D.C. residents and supporters
from across the country to stop an unpopular congressional
plan to institute school vouchers for 2,000 children in D.C.
The legislation for D.C. vouchers is scheduled for a vote on
the floor of the House this week.
Headed by
D.C.P.S. parent and graduate Melody Webb, Stop D.C. Vouchers
has been working since the Spring to thwart vouchers for D.C..
Webb, an attorney and public education reformer, stated "the
time is now for public education supporters like no other time
to step forward and be counted, raising their voices in
protest against this first step toward the destruction of
public education in America as we know it. Today D.C.,
tomorrow - the rest of the urban minority public school
districts around the country. We stand on the brink of a
watershed moment in the history of public education.
Public school parents and supporters must act now! If
this voucher bill is passed, it will be the first time that
federal money will be used for a voucher scheme, and it will
become the justification for federal funding of private
schools across the country."
The D.C. voucher proposal was tabled before the summer recess
of Congress and is expected to come up for a vote in the House
of Representatives on September 4th. The Senate version
of the bill failed to leave the Senate Appropriations
committee. The voucher plan, which passed Rep. Tom
Davis' (R- Va.) Government Reform committee by a margin of
only one vote, has been presented in the Senate as a 'rider'
attached to the D.C. Appropriations bill, a popular vehicle
for Congress to get passed their own legislative proposals
that are unpopular with D.C. residents. Included with the
voucher plan in the Appropriations bill are several other
objectionable amendments that are opposed by D.C. elected
officials and residents.
Voucher opponents are urged to call select members of the U.S.
House of Representatives and the United States Senate in an
effort to prevent a voucher plan.
July 17, Senate Voucher Proponents Hold
the D.C. Appropriations Bill Hostage to Get School Vouchers
Passed
Washington, DC-Stop D.C.
Vouchers expresses outrage toward Senate ideologues who today
used a school voucher amendment to hold the D.C. budget bill
hostage. The Senate Appropriations Committee said that the
bill will not come up again for a vote until late next week.
The voucher plan, which
originates with Rep. Tom Davis' Government Reform committee,
has been presented in the Senate as a 'rider' attached to the
D.C. Appropriations bill, a popular vehicle for Congress to
get passed their own legislative proposals that are unpopular
with D.C. residents. Included with the voucher plan in the
Appropriations bill are several other objectionable amendments
that are opposed by D.C. elected officials and residents.
"As was predicted, the voucher
legislation came up as an add-on to D.C.'s budget bill.
This is how it always goes. They blackmail the city's
neediest residents who depend on the budget for critical
services to extract their own legislative agenda. The
plan is to hold up approval of D.C.'s locally funded-budget,
until voucher opponents cry 'uncle,' and give in" states Webb,
a District of Columbia Public Schools parent and graduate and
director of Stop D.C. Vouchers, an effort mobilizing
pro-public education advocates to fight the voucher push.
Webb also runs 'Leave D.C. Alone', an initiative to draw
attention to the congressional riders attached to D.C.'s
congressionally reviewed budget.
"The plan is to push this voucher initiative through under the
threat of delaying services for D.C.'s children, mentally ill
and elderly. Certain members of Congress repeatedly
stoop to tying up our much needed locally raised dollars to
get their way in D.C.. It's despicable; it's un-American that
we can not spend our own locally raised tax dollars as we wish
until Congress says. It is telling: if the conservatives
pushing this voucher plan really cared about D.C.'s children,
they would give their parents full democratic rights to run
the school system without congressional interference so
that public education can get the support that it needs. This
is why we need not only a single vote in Congress, not only
two Senators and a Congressman, but full democracy - self
governance and representation in Congress - so that we are no
longer vehicles for this ideological agenda of some members of
Congress." states Webb.
"Hooray for the Senate for taking a stand against vouchers.
The Senate should not be forced to choose between vouchers (or
any other nefarious riders) and smooth passage of D.C.'s
budget. The Senate is our hope, where because we have no
representation, we must call upon members like Senator Mary
Landrieu to stave off this voucher plan. We look to the
Senate for a reasoned and responsive approach to what
residents of D.C. are saying about vouchers. In
accordance with what we really want, the Senate should say no
to this voucher plan and allow the D.C. budget bill to pass
through Congress" says Melody Webb.
Voucher opponents are urged to
call the following members of the Senate Appropriations
Committee to oppose a voucher program for D.C. by supporting
ALL amendments against vouchers in the D.C. Appropriations
bill: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) (224-5824), Sen. Conrad
Burns (R-Mt.) at 224-2644, Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.) at
224-5721 Sen. Ben Campbell (R-Co) at 224-5852 and Sen Arlen
Specter (R-PA) (202-224-4254).
Stop D.C. Vouchers Applauds The Expected Cropp-Fenty
Resolution Opposing Vouchers
Group Urges Residents to
Continue the 250 email/petition push and Flood Council with
Calls Supporting No Deal To Swap Voucher Approval for Public
Schools Funding
Washington, D.C.
-- Staff in the offices of both D.C. Council Chair Linda
Cropp (D- At large) and Councilmember Adrian Fenty (D-
Ward 4) today indicated that the two Councilmembers are
expected tomorrow, Tuesday, July 8, to co-introduce an
anti-voucher sense-of-the-council resolution in the
Council's final legislative session of the year. Stop
D.C. Vouchers applauds this move by the Council.
"This is
democracy in action and given the congressional mark-up of
the voucher bill this week, it is a sound strategic move
that should leave Congress in no doubt as to how Washington,
D.C. residents feel about school vouchers. Rep.
Davis, by pushing this voucher bill, is ignoring D.C.'s 1981
referendum against vouchers and ignoring the polls of
late 2002 that reflect D.C. residents' opposition to
vouchers. if and when the Council voices the will of
the people by approving the Cropp-Fenty resolution - Mr.
Davis and Congress will have to pay attention and drop their
incessant push for school vouchers in D.C. Three
cheers for the real representatives of the people -
Councilmembers Cropp and Fenty" stated Melody Webb, a DCPS
parent who runs Stop D.C. Vouchers, a grass-roots and online
effort to organize residents to fight the attempted
institution of vouchers in D.C.. Ms. Webb is an attorney who
works to reform the D.C. public schools.
Stop D.C.
Vouchers urges officials to reject any deals that are
offered to grant funds for public schools in exchange for
city official's support of any taxpayer-funded private
school tuition grants plan by Congress. Recent news
reports indicate that Councilmember Chavous (D - Ward 7),
one of three local officials publicly on record in support
of vouchers, will support an anti-voucher resolution in the
Council. However, Councilmember Chavous is expected to
oppose vouchers only for as long as Congress fails to
include in its plan dollars for the city's public
traditional and charter schools. "There should be no
quid pro quo. City officials must do right by our
children and reject any deal that includes vouchers.
If vouchers are bad in a voucher-only plan; then they are
bad in a voucher plus public school funding scheme.
Bad is bad. Period." stated Ms. Webb.
Representative
Tom Davis' (R- Virginia - 11th) Government Reform Committee
is expected to hold a mark-up to revise the school voucher
bill, HR-2556, on Thursday, July 10 in the Rayburn House
Office Building. A time has not yet been announced.
For more information on the time and date, please contact
Mr. Davis Government Reform Committee at (202) 225-5074.
Those who are able are urged to attend the congressional
mark-up of the voucher bill.
Using
stopdcvouchers.org, D.C. residents and public education
supporters all over the country have submitted over 250
emails and petition signatures combined showing their
determination to keep a voucher plan out of D.C.
Stop D.C.
Vouchers is advising residents and pro-public
education advocates to flood the City Council with support
for the anti-voucher resolution by either calling, writing,
faxing or dropping by the offices of their Councilmembers.
They are also urged to continue to use the website
www.stopdcvouchers.org to register their opposition to
vouchers. Those who can are urged to try to attend the July
8 Council legislative session at 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue,
where the vote on the anti-voucher resolution is expected to
occur sometime between late morning on and late afternoon on
Tuesday July 8. The Council session can be viewed
live online at
www.dccouncil.us ; click on "agenda available today".
June 24, D.C. PARENTS DENOUNCE REP.
TOM DAVIS' NEW VOUCHER BILL:
The New Plan Will Destroy, Not Expand School Choice, Leaving
80,000 Children Behind and Underserved by the New Federal No
Child Left Behind Law
Washington, D.C.---Stop D.C. Vouchers opposes the
newest congressional plan, sponsored by Rep. Tom Davis
(R-VA-11), to create a publicly funded private school
voucher program in D.C. D.C. offers choice through
transformation programs, magnet schools and 42 charter
schools in D.C. and these choices are already inadequately
funded to meet the accountability mandates required by the
Bush No Child Left Behind law.
“Where is the fiscal impact analysis? For every 30
students taken from the system, critical staff and local and
federal funds will be lost. The voucher plan will draw
sorely needed dollars away from the choices in our system
now and curtail, not enhance choice in our public schools.
Meeting the accountability mandates of the NCLB law by some
estimates will cost approximately $9 million, which puts
improvements in public schools in direct competition with
this new voucher plan whose estimated cost is roughly the
same as the NCLB mandate. If D.C. can not adequately
fund the NCLB mandates such as improving teacher training,
and raising student achievement, schools will not improve
and students will lose. Just at the proposal stage
alone we see that the goal is to force out public schools,
not encourage them to improve. D.C. students will become
the casualties of a crusade to impose vouchers at all costs"
said Melody Webb, leader of Stop D.C. Vouchers, a D.C.
parent-led initiative started by the D.C.P.S. parent who
is a D.C. attorney and DCPS graduate mobilizing supporters
of public schools who oppose vouchers in D.C..
Stop D.C. Vouchers is part of an overall strategy of
community education that is spreading its message across the
country, largely via its information-packed website.
The initiative has successfully targeted and helped draw
attention to vouchers in D.C. via an earlier version of a
House bill that was sponsored by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz-6).
Linking the voucher proposal to D.C.'s unique relationship
with Congress, Stop D.C. Vouchers has enabled local and
national citizens to send emails and sign a petition online
to protest Congress' actions, which exploit the
congressional oversight role over D.C. to impose vouchers on
a city that has rejected them. The site can be found
at
www.stopdcvouchers.org
The introduction of this new Davis plan signals the death of
an earlier bill, HR- 684, which was sponsored by Rep. Jeff
Flake (R-Ariz-6) and which was vigorously opposed by
pro-public school advocates. Stop D.C. Vouchers helped
kill the Flake bill. "We are happy that our efforts
contributed to the demise of the 108th Congress’ first
voucher bill for D.C., which was offered up by Flake. The
Flake plan is off, but like a hydra headed monster the
voucher proponents in Congress have grown a scarier more
powerful head for its voucher-for-D.C. efforts - in the form
of Davis' new-and-improved plan."
This legislation is a voucher-only proposal. Davis’
plan includes no money for the system of traditional and
charter schools in D.C. that need them. Numerous
reports in recent weeks indicated that promises were made of
funds for D.C. schools to the Democratic Mayor Williams, who
bucked conventional wisdom to seek a deal with Bush
Administration officials wherein he would support the
voucher plan as part of a three sector approach of support
for public and charter schools. "Now our Mayor has egg on
his face. The students of D.C. are twice wronged -
first by having precious funds drained away from their
public schools for vouchers, and second by suffering another
failed promise of additional resources for those same public
schools." Melody Webb stated.
"With Tom Davis at the helm of this legislation, it will
take a massive outcry by residents of D.C. and by concerned
citizens across the nation to put an end to this
impending train wreck" says Melody Webb. Representative
Davis holds the powerful position of chairman of the U.S.
House Government Reform Committee, and has unilateral
control over legislation concerning D.C. in Congress.
(The D.C. subcommittee was abolished last year, ending
the panel which historically had given D.C. residents
recourse to sympathetic Democrats and moderate Republicans
against intermeddling legislation traditionally offered by
conservative Republicans.) "Mr. Davis' star is rising
in Congress, and if he ushers in the long-held plan by the
Republican Party to get vouchers in D.C. he can write his
own ticket within the Republican Party. It is a shame
that he is riding to glory within the party on the backs of
the 80,000 D.C. children that his legislation will leave
behind."
When asked about the fairness of 'imposing' the legislation
on D.C. residents, Mr. Davis responds that the voucher plan
is not mandatory. Because the plan was not sought
through the legislative process by D.C. residents or
leaders, and in fact was rejected by them, this voucher plan
clearly imposes the will of Congress on that of D.C.
citizens. In a 1981 referendum, a majority of
D.C. voters opposed the implementation of vouchers. In
2002, a Zogby International poll confirmed this result.
Residents of the District lack voting rights in Congress and
the Senate and also are subject to fiscal and legislative
oversight by Congress. D.C. voters have already
clearly rejected vouchers but in another instance
of bullying, Congress is imposing its will on the citizens
of D.C. by pushing this plan.
In addition, on their face, vouchers are a bad idea. A GAO
report has found that vouchers do not lead to significant
academic gains for students who use them to attend private
schools. In fact, a 2003 Cleveland study found that
students remaining in public school performed better than
voucher school students. Vouchers destroy public
accountability for academic achievement, which is the
cornerstone of the Bush Administration's NCLB education
reform, under which schools must face penalties for not
meeting approved standards for teacher training, performance
reporting and student testing. Vouchers leave private
schools unaccountable for protecting the civil rights of
bilingual, disabled, gay and lesbian students (and
staff). "We won't know how private schools spend tax dollars
or even if they are doing what they claim to for our
children. And what happens when a student develops
disabilities? Private schools are free to expel them"
stated Doreen Hodges, a Ward 8 parent of a disabled
child working with Stop D.C. Vouchers. Private
schools surveyed have indicated that they would not
participate in a voucher plan that required them to meet
such standards.
Rep. Davis suggests that his voucher plan is a panacea to
the challenges faced by the whole school systems, saying
that this is "about offering an alternative for students and
parents". D.C. already offers extensive choice through
charter, transformation and magnet schools, and public funds
should be invested not in a highly experimental plan for
2000 children that has been proven a failure, but in these
schools that already exist and have high demand for the sake
of the other 78,000 in the system of public schools.
In another development, Theodore McCarrick, the Catholic
Archbishop of Washington, has announced his desire for
Davis' voucher-only bill to include dollars for public
schools. "The Catholic Archdiocese may mean well,
but he supports vouchers, which makes his statement
hypocritical. To fund vouchers in and of itself is to
take away precious resources from the already financially
ailing public schools that are seeing after-school programs
cut, can't buy adequate textbooks, maintain crumbling
facilities, nor in many cases satisfy the most basic of
infrastructure needs. The current voucher plan
means funding needed to prop up Catholic schools, and
throwing a few crumbs one time- this year - at the public
schools will amount to nothing when year-after-year public
schools have to compete with the never-ending drain on
public resources that vouchers will become once they are
implemented. The Cardinal's position on vouchers is the
height of injustice. In the District there are 6000
slots in the parochial schools. However 1400 of those
slots are vacant. So vouchers help to maintain the viability
of those Catholic schools. So vouchers really are a
benefit to Catholic schools" stated Raymond Blanks, a
Ward 6 parent-activist and educator working with Ms. Webb.
|
|
Families honor their mothers today with perfume, hanging
plants, and dinners
out. What many of today's mothers want most, however, doesn't
come from a
store. They want respect, financial recognition, and nothing
less than to
change the way society looks at motherhood. And they're not
waiting for
anyone to give it to them.
Call it a mothers' movement.
This month, mothers will participate in a "virtual march" on
Washington,
D.C., e-mailing their Congress members to demand a Social
Security credit
for the years they spend at home raising children.
They will be handing out buttons that read "I'm a mother. I
care. I work. I
count," part of a campaign by Mothers & More, a national
support network for
mothers, to redefine "work" to include unpaid caregiving.
And like Cathy Haynes of Plainfield, a member of the Central
New Jersey
Mothers' Center who is home with three young sons, and
Meredith Van Pelt of
Pennington, a mother of two and member of the Princeton
chapter of Mothers &
More, women are talking to each other about these issues.
"This is something we all deal with, the lack of respect, the
assumption
that you don't have anything to do or you're brain dead," said
Haynes, a
former legal analyst.
"We talk about this regularly. Mothers seem so overwhelmed,"
said Van Pelt,
who works four days a week.
"The problem of devaluing mothers has to do with a broader
cultural problem:
We devalue anything that doesn't have to do with cash ... If
it's not
bottom-line oriented, we're not interested," said Enola Aird,
director of
the Motherhood Project, a New York-based group of mothers and
activists who
are exploring ways to redefine motherhood.
Mothers banding together to force social change isn't new. The
19th century
temperance movement sought to stop men from drinking and
abusing wives and
children. The child labor movement protected youngsters from
working long
hours in factories or mines. More recent efforts have
successfully cut down
drunk driving rates, prevented birth defects, supported
schools. Three years
ago, hundreds of thousands of mothers converged on Washington
for the
Million Mom March in support of gun control legislation.
But this may be the first time mothers have rallied in support
of
themselves.
"Mothers have not been active politically in their own
interest, never as a
group of people doing the most important work in the economy
who are among
the most neglected and overlooked," said Ann Crittenden, a
journalist who
stayed home to raise her son. "Motherhood is the single
biggest reason for
poverty in old age."
Her book, "The Price of Motherhood," that looked at the
financial and career
sacrifices mothers make, galvanized many women and led
Crittenden to found a
new mothers' group that focuses on issues favorable to
caregivers, including
more financial equity.
One of the reasons that the time is ripe for mothers to
advocate for
themselves, she said, is that mothers today are the most
highly educated
generation of mothers in history.
"There's been a huge revolution in the educational and
professional
accomplishment of women. More and more are coming to
motherhood after being
equals and they see a huge discrepancy, both socially and
economically,
after being an accountant or an adminstrative assistant or a
nurse," she
said. "Whatever else we were, we know the work going on as a
mother is just
as important. The earlier generations weren't sure."
MOTHERS, for Mothers Ought To Have Equal Rights, has set up a
new Web site
funded by the Long Island-based National Association of
Mothers Centers,
Inc.. This is a consortium of 40 mothers's groups in 19
states, including
three in New Jersey. MOTHERS is sponsoring the "virtual march"
to contact
legislators. So far, several thousand mothers have signed up
online to get
involved, Crittenden said.
One of the fundamental issues confronting at-home caregivers
is the lack of
Social Security benefits at retirement for the years in which
they are not
in the paid workforce. One of the core platform issues of
Mothers and other
groups is a $16,000 Social Security credit that would yield a
$789 monthy
payment at full retirement age of 67 for a worker born in
1969, with 35
qualifying years of employment. The credit would count on the
caregiver's
work record, not that of a spouse. Women who stay home with
children, but
are divorced before 10 years of marriage, lose any right to a
spousal
benefit at retirement.
The credit, good for up to five years of caregiving, is half
of the average
American wage, said Melody R. Webb, a Washington at-home
mother of two and
founder of Securemom.org, a Web site dedicated to Social
Security reform for
caregivers.
It's also the average wage of a child-care worker in the
United States, a
group that is notoriously low-paid -- yet more evidence that
caregiving is
not valued in society, many advocates point out. "I have five
years of zero
earnings and we know the work we do is much more than zero,"
said Webb, a
lawyer.
Mothers also are not eligible for disability insurance,
because that, too,
is tied to paid employment. "Mothers get injured or disabled
like everyone
else. It's a real burden on a family when that happens," said
Margaret
McLaughlin, the national manager for policy research of
Mothers and More,
and a mother of two from Wyckoff.
Those proposals are attractive to women like Haynes, who
worked as a legal
analyst until she had her third son nearly a year ago. "My
kids are happier,
it's more quality time, but it's just really scary. I worry
about our
financial situation. You're pretty much putting your life in
someone else's
hands," she said. Her husband, Kaliym Islam, is a director of
instructional
technology for a Wall Street firm.
Other changes sought by MOTHER include paid family leave; pay
and benefits
equity for part-time workers, 60 percent of whom are mothers;
reform in
divorce laws that financially favor the working partner, and
reform of tax
laws that penalize married couples.
Many of their concerns echo those of Mothers & More, which has
170 chapters
and 7,500 members nationwide, including New Jersey. For the
first time, the
organization is kicking off a campaign, Making Mothers Count,
to raise
awareness of the importance of caregivers. One of its goals is
to assess the
Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey to learn
more about
caregivers, said McLaughlin, a medical writer.
McLaughlin said the survey data, due out next year, will be
used by her
organization to come up with policy recommendations to change
"a world
designed for our grandmothers' time." Mothers and More
emphasizes the trend
among modern mothers to move in and out of the workforce,
taking time out to
raise young children.
Even working mothers like Van Pelt provide the lion's share of
unpaid care
in every family. That will only increase, she believes, when
many of today's
mothers find themselves taking care of elderly parents at the
same time as
children. "We do have to give this more consideration because
it's just
going to get worse," Van Pelt said.
The proposals would benefit working mothers, as well as
at-home fathers.
Crittenden and others believe that's important because one of
the aims of
these groups is to bridge the "mommy wars" between at-home
mothers and those
in the paid work force.
Members of the Motherhood Project found they had to work out
those mommy
wars themselves when they first met several years ago, Enola
Aird said. The
group held a symposium last fall on "maternal feminism," a
phrase that
describes using women's power to advocate for the values of
caring and
nurturing.
The group includes at-home mothers and prominent working
mothers like Marian
Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, as
well as
conservative and liberal mothers. The symposium featured Kim
Gancy,
president of the National Organization for Women, and
economist and writer
Sylvia Ann Hewlett, whose argument that the workplace cheats
women out of a
chance to be mothers prompted a storm of debate.
"To have Kim Gandy and Sylvia Hewlett in concord was an
important step
because the media has made so much of the mommy wars, that
they're always at
each other's throats," said Aird, a mother of two and a
lawyer.
The Motherhood Project, located at the Institute for American
Values, is
preparing a study of American mothers to get a sense of what
is most
important to them, Aird said.
So far, the group has identified two key issues beyond
promoting the "mother
world" over the "money world." They include the influence of
commercial
values on children and families and developing reproductive
technologies
like cloning that might someday alter the very essence of what
it means to
be a mother.
Not all mothers are in favor of all of these ideas, of course.
Many of them
are unfeasible, according to Nancy Pfotenhauer, an economist
and president
of the Independent Women's Forum, a conservative
Washington-based think
tank.
In Europe, where mothers get paid maternity leaves and lots of
time off,
"you get high unemployment and zero economic growth," said
Pfotenhauer, a
mother herself.
The consequence for better pay and benefits for part-time
workers will be
that companies will hire fewer part-time workers, she
predicted.
Advocates of a mothers' movement acknowledged everything from
gaining new
Social Security credits to recognition of the value of unpaid
work will be
difficult. But this is just the beginning, they argue.
"We don't have all the answers about what the solutions are,"
said Linda
Lisi Juergens, executive director of the National Associations
of Mothers'
Centers. "We're saying, 'Hey look at this.' We support
caregiving in a
Hallmark way, but what are we doing as a society to value it?"
Staff writer Peggy O'Crowley covers family issues. She can be
reached at
(973)392-5810 or e-mail her at
pocrowley@starledger.com.
The Washington Times
May 15, 2003 Thursday, Final Edition
HEADLINE: Voucher vituperation
BYLINE: THE WASHINGTON TIMES
I am deeply disappointed with Deborah Simmons' column, "It's
not easy
being Eleanor" [Op-Ed, Friday]. It fallaciously attacks
Eleanor Holmes Norton,
the District's congressional representative, shamefully using
racially
charged language.
Our Coalition for Accountable Public Schools held the news
conference on
May 1 at the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High
School. We
naturally sought the participation of Mrs. Norton because she
opposes vouchers for
the same reason that the coalition and a majority of D.C.
residents and
officials have opposed them: because they funnel desperately
needed
public money to unaccountable private schools.
There is no basis to Mrs. Simmons' charge that Mrs. Norton
"denied
entry," a la Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, to voucher advocates.
She was not in a
position to do so, and we had no policy to keep anyone out of
the news
conference. Quite the contrary, as Mrs. Norton has stated that
she went
over to where these advocates were gathered and had a pleasant
conversation
with them. They did not tell her or those of us organizing the
news
conference that they had been denied entry or that they
desired to enter. The four
or five advocates present outside the academy stood
comfortably holding
their signs, even helpfully directing me and my sister to the
appropriate
entrance to the academy.
When Mrs. Norton was later informed that the pro-voucher group
believed
that it had been prevented from entering the building, she
wrote that this
was neither her intent nor the coalition's and, with our
permission, invited
the group to the next event that was held by the coalition, a
May 6 rally at
the Wilson Building.
I am saddened that this baseless assault on Mrs. Norton might
divert
attention away from the real injustice that public dollars and
hopes may
be expended on private school vouchers, an experiment already
proven
ineffective at obtaining achievement gains for our children.
Mrs. Norton is a proud black woman who grew up during the
civil rights
movement, administered the nation's equal opportunity laws and
fights
every day in Congress for the rights of D.C. residents and all
Americans. She
deserves better than Mrs. Simmons' personal racial attack, and
we
deserve better than to have to read it.
MELODY WEBB
Director
StopDCVouchers.org
Washington
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