Three action alerts:

1) Call Congress to end funding for Afghanistan
2) Send an email your senators regarding financial reform
3) Call/ email State assembly members and ask them to oppose S.B. 191, which creates unfair evaluations of teachers and burdens local school districts with these evaluations without state funding.

SEE DETAILS BELOW.

Two events:

Boulder Move to Amend will meet on Wednesday, May 12 at 7 p.m. at RMPJC. Move to Amend seeks to amend the U.S. Constitution to reverse corporate personhood and the notion that money is free speech. Location of RMPJC: 3970 Broadway, Suite 105. From Quince and Broadway, go east on Quince and turn right into the second driveway. You’ll see RMPJC in front of you.

The south-east Denver Metro area circulator training for the publicly funded elections ballot intitative (#53) will be held Thursday, May 13 at 7 PM at:
The New York Deli, 7105 East Hampden Avenue Denver, CO 80224-3013
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**National Call-in Days on Afghanistan ? May 11-14

No Money for Afghanistan escalation! Stop the Attack on Kandahar!

This month, Congress will decide whether to fund continued escalation of the war, even as the Obama administration faces a turning point in Afghanistan strategy.

Congress has been asked to approve by the end of May a $33 billion supplemental request to pay for the 30,000 additional troops President Obama ordered to Afghanistan in December and who are now starting to arrive for the offensive. Congress must take a stand and refuse to fund the war.

Contact your Representative and Senator Mark Udall and Michael Bennet and ask them to vote against the Afghanistan Supplemental appropriation. Also, ask them to co-sponsor the McGovern-Feingold bill (HR 5015, S.3197) requiring the President to provide a plan and timetable for “the safe, orderly and expeditious redeployment of US troops from Afghanistan.”

Please call your Senators MIchael Bennet and Mark Udall and your House member today and ask them to vote against escalating the Afghanistan war.

Senator Michael Bennet

Phone: 303-455-7600 Toll-free: 866-455-9866 Fax: 303-455-8851
Phone: (202) 224-5852 Fax: 202-228-5036

Senator Mark Udall

Phone: (202) 224-5941 Fax: (202) 224-6471
Phone: (303) 650-7820 Fax: (303) 650-7827

Also call your representatvie:
Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121
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SEND AN EMAIL TO YOUR SENATORS FOR STRONG FINANCIAL REFORM AT

The Senate is debating financial reform, and will likely do so only for a few more days.

Last week Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet voted against Senator Sherrod Brown’s amendment to the financial reform bill, which would have limited the size and leverage of the big banks. These are the banks that brought our country to virtual collapse and then got bailed out by the American taxpayer. Express your disappointment in their vote and ask them to change their position and support breaking up the banks.

Here’s what Heather Booth, Executive Director, Americans for Financial Reform had to say about defeat of the amendment:

“The defeat of this amendment was a win for the biggest banks. Its passage would have addressed a fundamental problem that led to this crisis, and we applaud Senators Brown, Kaufman and their co-sponsors and all those who stood with them. This amendment would have greatly strengthened the bill, but the underlying bill remains strong. What last night’s vote did show was the big banks will stop at nothing to defeat or weaken this legislation The big banks will use all their might and power to undermine real consumer protection and gut states rights that protect their residents from abusive and illegal lending. They will seek loopholes in reining in the casino economy. They will try to continue gambling with our money, and oppose separating risky speculation from commercial banking. They will oppose real protections for investors and accountability for corporate governance. They do not want accountability. As we did this week, next week when debate and votes continue on this bill, we will fight day and night to pass strong financial reform legislation.”

Wall Street is still working day and night to weaken the reforms. They’ve got a few favorite suggestions that they’re peddling hard in the Senate, aiming to weaken the agency which will oversee consumer financial products like mortgages, credit cards, payday loans and bank accounts. Can you contact the Senate to make sure Wall Street doesn’t win at:

Here are a two key items on the industry’s wish list:

Exemptions for auto dealers and payday lenders, so they won’t be subject to the consumer protection agency. Auto dealers who make loans are lenders, clear and simple. They don’t deserve special treatment; they should be subject to the Consumer Financial Protect Bureau. Same goes for payday lenders and anyone else who makes loans.

Fewer cops on the consumer protection beat. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be most effective if it works in tandem with states and Attorneys General. These state level “cops” often spot predatory lending before regulators in Washington, since they’re closer to the communities they serve. States should be allowed to add additional protections for consumers, and Attorneys General should be allowed to enforce the rules. But the banks want to weaken consumer protection by stopping the states from taking these steps. We’re closer than ever to seeing the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Now, let’s make sure that it is created with all the tools it needs to protect us from exploding interest rates and tricks and traps in the fine print in every type of loan, from car financing to payday loans and beyond. Go here to contact the Senate!

More info at http://ourfinancialsecurity.org/.
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OPPOSE S.B. 191 , STATE LEGISLATION FOR UNFUNDED IRRESPONSIBLE TEACHER EVALUATIONS. CALL AND EMAIL TARGETTED LEGISLATORS. PLEASE ACT TODAY! TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

SB 191 passed out of the Appropriations Committee yesterday on a 7-6 vote and is headed for the floor of the House. Right now it looks like SB 191 may be passed. This bill strips due process from teachers, is a big step in the privatization of public education, and essentially destroys the teachers union.

Contacting these members of the House should be a top priority.

Please make contact these legislators by calling and sending an email .

D Rep. Jeanne Labuda 303-866-2966 jeanne.labuda.house@state.co.us

D Rep. Mark Ferrandino 303-866-2911 mferrandino@yahoo.com

D Rep. Daniel Kagan 303-866-2921 repkagan@gmail.com

D Rep. Lois Court 303-866-2967 lois.court.house@state.co.us

D Rep. Beth McCann 303-866-2959 beth.mccann.house@state.co.us

The bill is an irresponsible, unfunded mandate. Teachers want a fair, credible evaluation system, but this bill does not provide fairness OR funding for all of its demands.

1. Schools already are in a financial crisis. Districts are being forced to cut programs. Cost estimates from the state’s recent Race to the Top application reach almost $80 million just to implement part of what’s proposed, and Sen. Evie Hudak estimates that a new evaluation system would cost $140 million.

2. Where is the funding? The Legislature is forcing districts to pay for SB 191 while committing only a trivial sum from the state. Districts cannot shoulder this financial burden – it’s impossible AND comes on top of other unfunded mandates.

3. How are we testing this? CSAPs are not given every year of a student’s schooling, nor do they assess learning in every subject. The state already spends way too much on these tests, and the legislature is working to phase them out. So the districts are supposed to do it on their own?

4. It is a simplistic approach to a complex problem. The Governor’s Council on Educator Effectiveness already is working to come up with a thoughtful solution. This bill largely ignores that work and gives unprecedented power to administrators to dismiss teachers simply because they do not fit a given “instructional model.”

5. There is no student or parent accountability. Teachers stand to lose their jobs if students do poorly on tests that mean almost nothing to the student. They do not need to pass the tests to graduate. Their grades are not affected. They have little incentive to try at all, much less do their best.

6. Districts could expect to land in lawsuit limbo. Even if each district can develop an assessment that covers every subject in every year without busting its budget, it is rather difficult to make sure that teachers are being compared equitably, without other factors interfering. Even with a program developed by experts, it would not be difficult for a fired teacher to find a statistician who would challenge the validity of the tests in court.
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Carolyn Bninski
RMPJC
303-444-6981×2

Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?-Martin Luther King

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