Race and ethnicity in the United States Census – Pilant's Business Ethics Blog

I believe in public education and its importance. The data on charter schools would have long ago ended any other movement but it continues onward, heavily funded and pushed by opinion leaders across the nation. I can’t help but think we are once again being sold a bill of goods by the privatization crowd and the free market absolutists. No amount of information, no knowledge of history, no deviation from the idea that education is all about making money, will be allowed to stop the movement from turning all education from a public good to a private profit.

James Pilant

Teach for America recommendations: I stopped writing them, and my colleague should, too.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2013/10/teach_for_america_recommendations_i_stopped_writing_them_and_my_colleague.html

There is a movement rising in every city of this country that seeks true education reform—not the kind funded by billionaires, corporations, and hedge funds, and organized around their values. This movement consists of public school parents and students, veteran teachers, and ex-TFA corps members. It also consists of a national network of college students, such as those in Students United for Public Education, who talk about the damage TFA is inflicting on communities and public schools. These groups and others also acknowledge the relationship between the corporatization of higher education and the vast impact of corporate reform on our youngest and most needy children. It is these children who are harmed by the never-ending cycle of under-trained, uncertified, first- and second-year teachers that now populates disadvantaged schools, and by the data-obsessed approach to education that is enabled by these inexperienced teachers.

via Teach for America recommendations: I stopped writing them, and my colleague should, too..

From around the web.

From the web site, Erika Maren Steiger.

http://erikamarensteiger.com/2013/10/08/why-i-quit-and-why-teach-for-america-should-too/

I accepted that, and I was a dedicated alumna for about ten years. Then one day I got an email saying that TFA had decided that people who hadn’t finished their full two year commitment could no longer be counted as alumni. It was a bit insulting, that my ten years of talking them up and supporting them suddenly didn’t count, but now I’m glad, because I don’t want to be affiliated with them anymore.

TFA is no longer about filling a desperate need, where no qualified teachers can be found. Now the organization does what I refused to do. They take jobs away from people who are better qualified, more committed to teaching, and much more knowledgeable about the communities in which they teach.

I believe that most of the people involved in TFA have good intentions. I also believe that some TFA teachers may be better than some of the teachers they replace. On the whole, though, the organization is now doing more harm than good, and the people who run it seem to be wearing goggles, made from confidence in their own intelligence and virtue, that blind them to the detrimental effects of their work.

Maybe they don’t have to quit. Maybe they just need to find a way to restructure, so they can go back to filling an actual need. What I know is, when my attempts to help became a hindrance, I stepped out of the way. TFA needs to take off the we-are-saving-the-world goggles and do the same thing.

Why I’m calling on all university faculty to refuse to write letters of recommendation to TFA (emilyelizabethfountain.wordpress.com)

Indentured Servitude or Life as a Temp

The Expendables: How The Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/workers_n_3511161.html

Across America, temporary work has become a mainstay of the economy, leading to the proliferation of what researchers have begun to call “temp towns.” They are often dense Latino neighborhoods teeming with temp agencies. Or they are cities where it has become nearly impossible even for whites and African-Americans with vocational training to find factory and warehouse work without first being directed to a temp firm.

In June, the Labor Department reported that the nation had more temp workers than ever before: 2.7 million. Overall, almost one-fifth of the total job growth since the recession ended in mid-2009 has been in the temp sector, federal data shows. But according to the American Staffing Association, the temp industry’s trade group, the pool is even larger: Every year, a tenth of all U.S. workers finds a job at a staffing agency.

I strongly believe that we should hold companies responsible for the acts of their subcontractors. These workers are essential to the American economy but are treated little better than lab rats. This kind of indentured servitude while useful for settling agricultural colonies has fewer uses in the modern world except rank exploitation.

It’s hard to be middle class on these kinds of salary. I read a report the other day that this new generation now coming of age is much less likely to buy cars than the previous ones. What a surprise? There are fewer jobs and the jobs pay less. Of course, they won’t be buying as many cars, or anything else. We pay a lot for our low prices at these huge chain stores, perhaps too much.

James Pilant

From around the web.

From the web site, National Staffing Workers Alliance.

http://nationalstaffingworkersalliance.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/permanent-full-time-jobs-an-endangered-species-opseu/

The problems of temp/part-time/precarious work isn’t just a problem in
the U.S. our Canadian sisters and brothers are fighting the same fight.
The article below highlights how Government run Liquor Control Board of
Ontario (LCBO) used temp and part time workers and while the workers
struggle with low wages, the LCBO rakes in huge profits (sound
familiar?)

From the web site, Migrants Canada.

http://migrantscanada.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/launch-of-the-temporary-agency-worker-association/

Most of these workers are no longer on the margins of the economy, but
are central to the functioning of the economy. In most where house work,
day-labor in the agricultural sector, food processing, and in the
healthcare sector, agency workers are becoming the Norm. In fact, these
agencies are part of one of the fast growing industries in Québec;
according to Statistics Canada, in 2008 there were approximately 1200
placement agencies across the province, and the industry had an
estimated value of $1 billion.

From the web site, Flip Chart Fairy Tales.

http://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/part-time-and-temp-work-lifestyle-choice-or-hobsons-choice/

I suspect that similar forces are at work in the market for part-time professionals. A small number of highly marketable people are able to negotiate part-time contracts on very good rates. Some may have more than one part-time job, others may be working as non-exec directors. A few may be wealthy enough not to need to work full-time. Employers tend to be reluctant to employ part-timers in professional jobs so the very fact that people are in such positions may be an indication of their bargaining power.

As ever, skill levels and social factors, rather than types of employment contract, are the key determinants of pay. If you have highly marketable skills, good social support networks and/or affordable child-care and, crucially, powerful and well-placed contacts, you can make the flexible labour market work for you. If you haven’t, you can’t.

The higher up the social hierarchy you are, the more likely you are to be working on part-time or temporary contracts from choice and the more likely those contracts are to be highly lucrative. At the other extreme, part-time and temporary work is poorly paid, precarious and often all you can get. What is a lifestyle choice for some is Hobson’s choice for the rest.