Winning Progressive

For this weekend’s reading list we have articles on the Chicago teachers strike, charter schools, tax rates and economic growth, social mobility, and taxpayer subsidies to professional sports teams.

Two Visions For Chicago’s Schools – education expert Diane Ravitch details the differences at stake in the Chicago teacher’s strike between the education “reformers’” strategy of charter schools, testing, and busting teacher’s unions, and teacher’s efforts to strengthen our public education system.  For an explanation from a Chicago teacher of why he is striking, check out this article.

Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945 – a study by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service finds no correlation between the top marginal income tax rate or the capital gains tax rate and economic growth, but finds that the top tax rates are correlated with income inequality.

Promoting Social Mobility - a forum debating whether early childhood intervention can help reduce economic inequality and, if so, the best methods and programs for achieving such results.

Charter Schools: Finding Out the Facts – an overview of research regarding the performance of charter schools, which finds mixed results and that, on the whole, charter schools perform no better than the public school system.

In Stadium Building Spree, U.S. Taxpayers Lose $4 Billion – an accounting of how tax free municipal bonds used to finance the construction of a rash of new professional sports stadiums will cost U.S. taxpayers $4 billion while the value of professional teams has doubled over the past decade.

For this weekend’s reading list, we have articles on public support for cuts to military spending, the growing number of children in foster care after their parents were deported, the continued strength of Social Security, how public-private partnerships on infrastructure projects are too often a rip off of taxpayers, and the continued privatization of education in Philadelphia and other urban school districts.

If you have any feedback on any of these articles, or would like to recommend an article for next weekend’s reading list, please let us know in the comments section below or at the Winning Progressive Facebook page.

Public Overwhelmingly Supports Large Defense Spending Cuts – An in-depth survey of public opinion shows that the public favors cutting an average of $103 billion per year from military spending, which is far larger than either political party is currently proposing.

Shattered Families – a report on how there are currently at least 5,100 children in foster care in the US because their parents have been deported, and how increasingly aggressive deportation efforts could increase that number to 20,000 within five years.

What the 2012 Trustee’s Report Shows About Social Security – an in-depth review of the Social Security Board of Trustee’s 2012 report on the status of Social Security.  The report confirms that Social Security remains fully solvent until 2033, would be able to continue paying 75% of benefits after that, and can remain fully solvent until for the next 75 years with only relatively minor changes.

The Wall Street Racket Looting Your City, One Block At a Time – how the “public-private partnerships” that are frequently used to finance infrastructure projects are far too often end up sapping away needed public resources so that the private investors can continue to profit.

The Remaking of Philadelphia Public Schools: Privatization or Bust – a critical look at the City of Philadelphia’s plan to close 64 of its public schools over the next five years and to funnel at least 40% of the system’s students into charter schools, which seems to be part of a growing privatization of education in urban school districts.

For this weekend’s reading list, we have articles on the courageousness of the House Progressive Caucus budget proposal, the importance of the moral vision set forth in President Obama’s recent budget speech, why we should rename Earth Day, how charter schools unload the students with the most needs onto public schools, and new aggressive enforcement of our nation’s labor laws.

If you have any feedback on these articles, or would like to recommend an article for next week’s reading list, please let us know at the Winning Progressive Facebook page.

The Courageous Progressive Caucus Budget – the Economist’s Democracy in America blog notes that the House Progressive Caucus’s budget proposal – which eliminates the deficit by 2021 with military spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy, is the truly courageous budget proposal.

Obama Returns to His Moral Vision: Democrats Read Carefully! - George Lakoff praises President Obama’s focus on explaining the moral vision behind progressivism in his recent The Country We Believe In speech on the budget.

Let’s Rename Earth Day – A somewhat humorous suggestion at Climate Progress that we rename Earth Day to something that better reflects the fact that environmentalism is about protecting the ability of the planet to sustain human life, not just about protecting the Earth.

Stacking the Odds in Favor of Charter Schools – a story from Ben Joravsky at the Chicago Reader about how it is unfair to compare the performance of charter schools to neighborhood public schools because the charter schools unload the students with the most needs and problems onto the public schools.

Labor Case Board Against Boeing Points to Fights to Come – a NYT article about how Lafe Solomon, the acting general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board, is aggressively enforcing our nation’s labor laws, which are supposed to protect worker’s rights to collectively bargain over their wages, benefits, and working conditions.

For this weekend’s reading list, we have articles on Rep. Ryan’s proposal to inflict economic pain on our country, the causes and solutions to the 2008 financial meltdown, the efforts of one principal in New York City to improve his public school, a personal story on how the Republicans’ desire to abolish Medicare would impact people, and the protests in Yemen.

If you have any feedback on these articles, or would like to recommend an article for next weekend’s reading list, please let us know at the Winning Progressive Facebook page.

Paul Ryan and the New Politics of Sadism – a post at the Esquire political blog about how Rep. Ryan’s Path to Poverty budget proposal is just the latest example of how “compassionate conservatism” has been replaced in the Republican Party by a conservatism that too often amounts to little more than trying to inflict pain on people and groups that Republicans don’t like.

The Wall Street Leviathan – A review by Jeff Madrik in the New York Review of Books about the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, the Inside Job, and other writings on the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, how the Dodd-Frank Act took important steps toward reforming Wall Street, and how further regulation is needed to avoid another financial meltdown.

The Fragile Success of School Reform in the Bronx – An article by Jonathan Mahler in the New York Times Sunday Magazine about how a principal has substantially improved a public school in the Bronx without turning it into a charter school, busting the teachers’ union, or engaging in the other types of “reforms” that are so popular among wealthy foundations and others in the school reform movement.

GOP Wants to Kill Me (and You) – a post by Steven D at Booman Tribune about how the Republicans’ proposal to abolish Medicare would impact that author and his spouse, both of whom are dealing with major health issues.

After the Uprising – an article in the New Yorker by Dexter Filkins about protests against Ali Abdullah Saleh, the dictator who runs Yemen, and the hopes for democracy and fears of anarchy that could result from such protests.

For this weekend’s reading list, we have stories on the economic and political impacts of the decline of labor unions, how billionaire philanthropists have undermined public schools, why none of the financiers who caused the economic collapse of 2008 have gone to prison, and the role that density plays in restoring cities.

If you have any feedback on the articles below, or would like to recommend something for next weekend’s reading list, let us know at the Winning Progressive Facebook page.

Plutocracy Now: What Wisconsin Is Really About – Kevin Drum’s excellent piece in Mother Jones about how the decline of labor unions has undermined the middle class and policy that favors the middle class.

Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools – an essay by Joanne Barkan in Dissent Magazine about how the Gates Foundation and a handful of other large foundations have popularized a series of ill-conceived educational reforms that have undermined public schools while not really benefiting students.

Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail? – Matt Taibbi’s investigation in Rolling Stone about how federal regulators and prosecutors have been allowing the banksters that caused the financial meltdown of 2008 to get off with slaps on the wrist, rather than sending the banksters to jail.

How Skyscrapers Can Save the City – Edward Glaeser’s essay in The Atlantic about the importance of increasing density by building taller buildings as a strategy for saving and restoring our cities.