Broad Foundation—reactionary and right-wing, the WRONG direction for Portland

From our Feb. 20, 2006 press release

• Established in 1999, the Broad (rhymes with "Load") Foundation began as a $400 million venue for Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad. Education News calls Broad a "philanthropist with privatization lesson plans."
• Broad attempts to reform urban public schools through corporate-trained leadership, using mayoral and school board take-overs.
• A major Broad treatise is entitled: "Public Education Needs: A – More Money. B – Better Teachers. C - Privatization."
• Seeking to "reform" K-12 education, Broad supports creating a workforce of so-called "knowledge workers." (The charge of Portland Public Schools is to create knowledgeable citizens — not corporate drones.)
• The Broad Foundation promotes charter schools. Broad-trained School Board members recently approved two new charter schools.
• Laura Bush's previous press secretary, Noelia Rodriguez, is Chief of Staff to Broad, and serves as Director of External Affairs for the Broad Foundation.
• Broad's "heroes" and "leading lights" include President Bush's first-term Secretary of Education Rod Paige. This is the man who referred to the national teachers union as “terrorists.”

Outsourcing PPS Custodians

While the custodian firing fiasco (penny-wise, pound-foolish) predates Superintendent Phillips' tenure, NSA's specific concerns with the current status of the situation include:

1. Not doing the right thing and rehiring the custodians after the Oregon Supreme Court said to do so.
2. Spending money on outside legal counsel for reconsideration of the Supreme Court ruling -- attempting to get it overturned -- when every dime we have should be spent on teachers.
3. Not including in PPS's $57 million shortfall the back wages and restitution owed the custodians, making the shortfall number look smaller than it is.
4. Setting a bad example for PPS students and the State, by not abiding by the law of the land. (Below is a recent LTE on this theme that ran in the Portland Tribune from the Carpenters Local President.)

School board sets bad example for kids

We sure hope that Portland public-school students don’t read the paper or pay attention to current events. Why? Because their school board members aren’t setting an example for any of them to emulate.
The Oregon Supreme Court has said that the former board had illegally fired the custodians and owes them back wages as restitution. What does the current board say? Reconsider. We can’t afford to do the right thing here. We can’t afford to be responsible. We can, however, afford to spend money on attorneys to fight our government.
Our local union followed this issue closely when the illegal terminations were done. We attended board meetings and offered our support to the workers involved. We sent letters to the board members at the time, noting that two dissenting members knew the terminations would be wrong and voted against the action.
Do we currently have any board members who value family-wage jobs and agree to abide by the law of the land?

Bruce R. Dennis
President, Carpenters Local 247
North Portland

Here is background information about the the original firing. We are with the unions on this all the way.

Article re custodian outsourcing decision: http://www.nwlaborpress.org/2002/7-19-02SEIU.html

Also check out testimony by an SEIU organizer at the March 03 meeting of the state Boiler Board re how the PPS schools are not safe because PHC employees are not properly trained on the boilers.
http://oregonbcd.org/boards/pdfs/boiler/03/030403m.pdf
Contains this quote:

Each displaced Civil Service custodian had extensive training and experience before they were put in charge of the operation of school boilers. All head and assistant custodians and many helpers received an exhaustive and thorough one-week course in heating and ventilation systems and were mentored by others with many years of boiler operation experience. THE LOSS OF THIS TRAINED AND
EXPERIENCED WORKFORCE HAS PUT THE PORTLAND PUBLIC
SCHOOLS IN DANGER.

Jefferson Redesign Process

Are Corporations Paying their Fair Share?

Income Tax Burden Has Shifted from Corporations to Individuals, Especially the Poor:

“Oregon’s state corporate income tax has dropped to very low levels, both as a share of the economy and as a share of all income taxes paid in Oregon… In the 1973-75 budget cycle, corporations paid 18.5% of all income taxes. In the upcoming 2005-07 budget cycle, corporations are expected to pay just 4.6 percent of Oregon’s income taxes. By 2009-11, corporations are expected to pay just 4.4 percent of Oregon income taxes.”…“Over the current decade, as corporate income taxes fall by $192 million, personal income tax revenues are projected to grow another $4 billion.”…“As the tax burden has shifted from corporations to individual taxpayers, low-income taxpayers have been the hardest hit with increases.” – Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP), Corporate Tax Dodge, 2005

“In 2002, Portland General Electric (PGE) and Louisiana Pacific both paid the minimum amount in state corporate income taxes - $10. That same year both companies also gave their CEOs substantial pay raises. PGE increased CEO Peggy Fowler’s total compensation by $211,000 to $979,000 in 2002.” “PacifiCorp…also paid the minimum in 2002.” “In 2000, more than half of all Oregon corporations with known payrolls over $2 million paid Oregon just $10 in income taxes.” - OCPP, Time to Raise the Corporate Minimum Tax, 2004 [bold not in original]

Property Tax Burden Has Shifted from Businesses to Individual Homeowners:

“In the late 1960s, homeowners paid about 28% of the total property tax bill in Oregon while business including landlords paid 72%... Measure 5 was supposed to provide tax relief for Oregon homeowners. However, the biggest beneficiaries of the new law turned out to be large businesses and, in particular, out of state landowners… The current share of property taxes paid by homeowners has been estimated at over 60%.” - Oregon’s Future, Winter 2005, "Education Funding in Oregon: How we got into this mess, and how to get out,"

Some Corporations Collect Taxes from Their Customers that They Never Pay:

“Portland city commissioners have forwarded a 14-page letter to PGE asking for more financial information… The letter says PGE collected $700 million in taxes but only 11 million of that actually went to governmental authorities.” - OPB News, February 2, 2006, Portland Asks PGE for Additional Financial Information [bold not in original]

“[A] lawsuit against PacifiCorp by Meek and Williams alleges that PacifiCorp overcharged customers while adding a Multnomah County income tax surcharge to its county customers’ bills.”…“In April 2005 the company refunded three years’ worth of overcharges, spanning 2002 to 2004, to customers. But Meek says…Multnomah County residents may [still] be owed about $6 million. In court documents, PacifiCorp defended its partial refund of overcharges as sufficient, saying that to do more would be impractical. As PacifiCorp executive Bernard Bottomly wrote in an affidavit, “it would have been expensive, burdensome and inherently inaccurate to refund overcollections to former customers. Meek says the question not covered in his lawsuit is whether PacifiCorp overcharged Oregonians for state and federal taxes.”…“The conservative National Federation of Independent Businesses sided with Meek, saying in an alert on its Web site that PacifiCorp and its parent company ScottishPower, “collected between $70-$80 million in income taxes from customers per year. It is unclear how much of this amount, was paid to taxing authorities.…The alert added that MidAmerican, which is in the process of purchasing PacifiCorp, wants ‘to continue the practice of charging customers in their rates for taxes they never will pay to units of government.’” – Portland Tribune, February 7, 2006, Different Utility, Similar Allegations [bold not in original]

Corporations Should be Required to Disclose how much They Pay in Taxes:

“The long-term decline in corporate income taxes is primarily because corporations have won a number of tax breaks, and because corporations have grown aggressive about employing abusive tax shelters that lawmakers never enacted or intended to allow.’…“Corporate use of abusive tax shelters has exploded. A study by the Multistate Tax Commission estimated the impact on Oregon at between $66 million and $94 million for fiscal year 2001.” – OCPP, Corporate Tax Dodge, 2005

“Because corporate tax records are exempt from disclosure under Oregon’s public records laws, the Oregon Department of Revenue cannot tell us which Oregon firms have used…tax avoidance schemes.”…“According to the Wall Street Journal, Bank of America transferred nearly $9 billion in assets to its subsidiary in Nevada until the bank dissolved the arrangement after the Securities and Exchange Commission and revenue officials in California began questioning its legitimacy. The technique allowed Bank of America to shelter more than $750 million in income, according to the Journal. Bank of America does substantial business in Oregon. The taxes on some of that $750 million would have helped pay for schools, roads, healthcare, and other state services that help make doing business in this state profitable.” - OCPP CenterPoints, September 2003 [bold not in original]

Increased Corporate Taxes Would NOT Threaten Jobs for Oregonians:

“Oregon has the lowest business tax burden in the country, according to a new study written by the accounting firm Ernst & Young and published by the Council on State Taxation (COST)…. Studies by the Pennsylvania Economy League and the Utah State Tax Commission confirm Oregon’s low business tax burden.” - OCPP Issue Brief, 1/23/04

“A comprehensive new analysis of research on the factors influencing business location decisions shows that state-level tax cuts have little impact on economic growth, but that public services are vital for creation… Since state and local taxes only account for less than one percent of the cost of doing business, almost every other factor, including public services, plays a larger role in location decisions than do taxes.” - OCPP, News release March 23, 2004

Oregon education facts

http://www.nea.org/goodnews/or01.html#ESR

Public School Revenue Raised Is Among the Worst In Nation:
Oregon ranks near the bottom of all states--45th out of 50--in the per capita revenue raised for public education.

Public School Spending Has Declined:
Public education spending per pupil has declined in Oregon. Since 2000, per pupil spending in constant dollars has declined by 3%.

Student/Teacher Ratio Is Getting Worse:
The number of students for every teacher is getting larger in Oregon and, as a result, students are getting less individual attention. The number of students per public school teacher has increased by 13% since 1990.

Student/Teacher Ratio Is Among the Highest in the Nation:
Oregon ranks near the bottom (48 of 50) in the number of students for each teacher.

Class Sizes Are Among the Largest in the Nation:
With an average of 24 students per class, Oregon has the 2nd largest average elementary school class size in the nation.

There Need to Be Limits on Class Size
Oregon has neither a class size reduction program nor any legal limit on public school class sizes.

Schools Need Major Repairs:
Sixty-three percent (63%) of Oregon's schools have at least one inadequate building feature (e.g., roofs, plumbing, electric wiring), and 84% have at least one unsatisfactory environmental condition (e.g., poor air quality, poor heating, too much noise).

Schools Closures exacerbate declining student enrollment, and result in lost state funds

The Edwards Example

Since the 2003 proposal to close Edwards, NSA conservatively estimates there are 53 children of Edwards families who will not attend PPS schools, most of whom left because of the threat of closure or actual closure. Many of the parents of these families were highly involved in the school, including a PTA president, PTA vice president, four school foundation members, a site council member, and the before-school Spanish program coordinator.

Losing 53 students from PPS translates to an ongoing financial loss of $265,000/year to the district from just one school closure.

Close portables, not schools

The Portland school district has closed multiple schools over the last decade, supposedly due to declining student enrollment. But, if PPS has too much building space, why aren't they closing down portable classrooms that are in use across the district?

According to PPS data from June 2005 there are 103 classrooms in portable buildings across the district, and according to district staff "most were added in the height of the baby boom, when schools
needed extra classrooms."

Since the baby boom is over and student population is declining, the first logical step would be to discontinue the use of many of the
portables to bring classroom space back in line with student
enrollment.

Some neighborhoods need their portable classrooms, such as Forest Park which doesn't have a large enough school for the new development in the neighborhood. But until the district addresses the issue of widespread portable classroom use, their claim that declining enrollment is forcing school closures remains suspect.

Some students whose neighborhood schools were closed last year are now sitting in portable classrooms in their newly assigned "neighborhood" schools.