The President Proposes to Make Community College Free for Responsible Students for 2 Years

David Hudson

January 08, 2015 
06:16 PM EST

This month, the President unveiled a new proposal: Make two years of community college free for responsible students across America.

In our growing global economy, Americans need to have more knowledge and more skills to compete -- by 2020, an estimated 35 percent of job openings will require at least a bachelor's degree, and 30 percent will require some college or an associate's degree. Students should be able to get the knowledge and the skills they need without taking on decades' worth of student debt.

The numbers:

If all 50 states choose to implement the President's new community college proposal, it could:
Save a full-time community college student $3,800 in tuition per year on average
Benefit roughly 9 million students each year

Under President Obama's new proposal, students would be able to earn the first half of a bachelor's degree, or earn the technical skills needed in the workforce -- all at no cost to them.

The requirements:

What students have to do: Students must attend community college at least half-time, maintain a 2.5 GPA, and make steady progress toward completing their program.
What community colleges have to do: Community colleges will be expected to offer programs that are either 1) academic programs that fully transfer credits to local public four-year colleges and universities, or 2) occupational training programs with high graduation rates and lead to in-demand degrees and certificates. Community colleges must also adopt promising and evidence-based institutional reforms to improve student outcomes.
What the federal government has to do: Federal funding will cover three-quarters of the average cost of community college. Participating states will be expected to contribute the remaining funds necessary to eliminate the tuition for eligible students.

Expanding technical training programs:

President Obama also proposed the new American Technical Training Fund, which will expand innovative, high-quality technical training programs across the country. Specifically, the fund will award programs that:

• Have strong employer partnerships and include work-based learning opportunities
• Provide accelerated training
• Accommodate part-time work

Read the full fact sheet of the President's proposal. 

via: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/01/08/president-proposes-make-community-college-free-responsible-students-2-years

A Fair Chance

Our nation is finally getting “smart on crime” after decades of policies like the War on Drugs. Today, we’re a nation where almost one in three adults—that’s 70 million people—has an arrest or conviction record.

That record has become a scarlet letter for job-seekers who can’t even get their foot in the door for an interview. Local communities have responded by adopting fair-chance hiring laws to ensure that people with records aren’t locked out of employment.

The movement is growing fast. More than 100 cities, counties, and states have adopted fair-chance hiring policies—42 in the past year alone. And that’s paving the way for action at the federal level. Here's how you can help.

Please SIGN THIS PETITION urging President Obama to take executive action to create a federal fair-chance hiring policy that covers federal agencies and contractors. There’s strong bipartisan support for opening up opportunity for millions of Americans unfairly shut out from the job market.

NELP’s new report, Advancing a Federal Fair-Chance Hiring Agenda, makes the case for reform and lays out a detailed plan. Read more about it in the Washington Post.

Over the coming months, NELP and our partners in this effort, All of Us or None and the PICO National Network, will be working to build pressure for presidential executive action, so that everyone has a fair chance at federal agency and contractor jobs. Thanks for your support!

—Maurice, Michelle, and the NELP team

Proposition 47 Community Forum

Proposition 47 Community Forum 

YOU’RE INVITED!

Prop 47 Community Forum: Progressives’ Role in Implementation

WHY: “Prop 47: We Support It, But It’s Complicated.”

WHEN: Sunday JANUARY 25, 2015 

1:00 – 5:30 pm 

WHERE: Golden Gate University School of Law

536 Mission Street in San Francisco, Room 2201 

(BART to Montgomery Street Station)

** 2.5 Hours MCLE credit for attorneys **

Panel discussions and breakout sessions, featuring: formerly incarcerated people, public defenders, legal service providers, advocates for prison abolition & civil rights 

• What’s the most comprehensive implementation model for Proposition 47 outreach? 
• Where do we go from here for large-scale criminal justice change? 
• How do we work with or around people who oppose change in our post-47 world? 
• How do we build the most inclusive movement we can for future success? 

1pm-2pm “Outreach & Implementation Models.” SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi, Alameda Public Defender Brendon Woods, Meredith Desautels of Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, Eliza Hersh of East Bay Community Law Center, Milena Blake from Californians for Safety & Justice. Moderator Alex Berliner of All Of Us Or None.

2:15-3:30 ”Building An Inclusive Movement.” Lenore Anderson of Californians for Safety & Justice, Prof. Cynthia Chandler of Golden Gate University, Manuel La Fontaine of All Of Us Or None, Laura Magnani of American Friends Service Committee, Natasha Minsker of American Civil Liberties Union, Lynne Lyman of Drug Policy Alliance. Moderator Dorsey Nunn of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.

3:45-4:45 BREAKOUT SESSION “Cultivating A Network Of Unlikely Allies,” with facilitator Gopal Dayaneni of Progressive Communicators Network.

3:45-4:45 BREAKOUT SESSION “Next Steps Towards Change,” with facilitator Harriette Davis of All Of Us Or None.

4:45-5:30 Wrap-up & light refreshments

Law Enforcement, Health Advocates, and Members of Congress Push to Reduce the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jails

WASHINGTON, DC—Not long ago, Paton Blough stood before a class of law enforcement officers to teach them effective ways to intervene with people with mental health needs. It’s a topic Blough knows all too well: He’s been arrested six times, in each instance while experiencing a mental health crisis. He remembers one arresting officer who wanted to help him.

“If there would have been an opportunity to take me some place besides an ER or a jail, he would’ve loved to have taken it,” Paton told a crowded room during a Capitol Hill briefing last week. “We’ve got to get behind these programs that prevent problems, improve lives and save us money while making the communities safer.”

Programs that can help reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in jails, ranging from police training to certified peer support, are the basis for a new wave of national efforts highlighted Tuesday as Congressional leaders joined the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and the National Association of Counties (NACo) to discuss potential federal reforms and a new national initiative driven by the two organizations.

The briefing, which featured remarks from U.S. Sen. Al Franken (MN-D) and U.S. Rep. Rich Nugent (R-FL), underscored bipartisan commitment to prioritize this issue for the 114th Congress, highlighted successful local efforts, and introduced a new national initiative emphasizing state-local collaboration and targeted action on the ground level.

“This is a moral issue and an economics issue,” said Sen. Franken. “When we use our jails to warehouse people with mental illnesses, we burden the judicial system, the public health system, our law enforcement offices, and the taxpayers. In confronting this problem, we know that some of the most innovative solutions come from our local communities. It’s our job to make sure they’re properly supported.”

Rep. Nugent added: “Senator Franken and I are probably a couple of odd fellows because on most of instances we won’t agree. But on this one we do agree, and this is where bipartisanship really has to come together. We have the ability to change where we go forward … This is one area that the federal government can actually make an impact on the people we represent, a typically unrepresented population.”

NACo and the CSG Justice Center, together with other leaders in behavioral health and criminal justice, also discussed plans for an unprecedented effort to lower the number of people with mental illnesses in jails by improving access to effective mental health and co-occurring substance use treatment, strengthening criminal justice collaborations with behavioral health stakeholders, and advancing public safety goals.

“Counties are working to reduce the number of people with behavioral health and substance abuse needs in jails across the country,” said NACo Executive Director Matthew Chase. “This cutting-edge initiative will help counties focus on results and take their efforts to the next level. It will support action-oriented, comprehensive strategies to provide needed services in appropriate settings.”

The problem is clear: Jails in this country have replaced in-patient mental health facilities as the largest institutional treatment provider for adults with mental illnesses. Each year, more than 2 million people with serious mental illnesses are booked into jails, as well as millions more coping with less serious mental illnesses that jails are required to address. The majority of these individuals also have co-occurring substance use disorders, increasing their chances of staying longer in jail and being reincarcerated following their release.

The centerpiece of the initiative is a “Call to Action,” in which county leaders commit to a concrete, multi-step planning and implementation process that is supported by state policymakers, behavioral health and criminal justice practitioners, and other stakeholders to help achieve measurable results. The Call to Action will be launched in spring 2015.

John Wetzel, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and a member of the CSG Justice Center’s Board of Directors, provided closing remarks at the event, where he urged public officials and other stakeholders to “step up and do the right thing” regarding individuals and offenders with mental illnesses.

“Prisons were not designed to treat individuals with mental disorders, but the courts send these offenders to us and we must do everything possible to provide them with appropriate mental health services,” Wetzel said. “But in addition to these efforts, society in general needs to address this issue and seriously consider mental health courts and diversionary programs to ensure treatment for this segment of our population that does not include sending them to prison.”




via: http://csgjusticecenter.org/mental-health/posts/law-enforcement-health-advocates-and-members-of-congress-push-to-reduce-the-number-of-people-with-mental-illness-in-jails/

A breakdown of the governor's budget

Here's a breakdown of Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1:

K-12, COMMUNITY COLLEGES: Would get $7.4 billion more this fiscal year and next. For next year, Brown proposes a 7.9 percent increase in school spending. K-12 per-pupil spending would grow by $306, to $9,667. Much of the infusion will pay off what the state already owes schools, part of the "wall of debt" that Brown pledged to dismantle.

UC AND CSU: The two state university systems would each receive a 4 percent increase -- $120 million each -- as long as they don't raise tuition.

SOCIAL SERVICES: The state will spend an extra $800 million on Medi-Cal because of a 2.1 percent increase in enrollment. Brown would also spend $483 million to eliminate a 7 percent cut to the hours of care In-Home Supportive Services recipients receive each month.

COURTS: Would receive about a $180 million boost, the second consecutive year the judiciary got a dose of good news after years of cutbacks in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The bulk of the increase is headed to the state's 58 trial courts, which will receive about $2.7 billion of the judiciary's $3.47 billion budget.

PRISONS: Spending on the California prison system would increase by 1.7 percent, raising the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to $10.1 billion. Prison reform groups expressed disappointment in the governor's decision to increase spending on incarceration.

TRANSPORTATION: The state Transportation Agency would get $15.8 billion. Brown has said he wants to fix California's crumbling roads, highways and bridges, but his budget proposal includes no plan for covering the $66 billion cost of those repairs.

PARKS AND ENVIRONMENT: Brown proposed spending $532 million on new water projects, funded by the Proposition 1 water bond approved by voters in November. Projects include recycled water, conservation and watershed improvement. The governor also proposed $20 million in new money for deferred maintenance at state parks; $1 billion from prior bonds to fund new flood-control projects; and $1 billion from the state's cap-and-trade program to fund high-speed rail, urban transit, building efficiency and other programs to reduce greenhouse gases.

via: http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_27292946/breakdown-governors-budget

Join us, statewide budget action day!

Join us Friday!

Throughout the state we are rallying to  "tear down the wall of poverty" for California's most vulnerable! Find a location near you and join us!

San Francisco

350 McAllister St.

When: 12:30 PM

Contact: Pete Woiwode, 510-504-9552

pete@communitychange.org

Sacramento

Capitol Room TBD

When: 11:00 am or following Governor Brown's statement

Contact: TBD

San Jose

1381 South First St. 95110

When: 10:00 AM

Contact: Pete Woiwode, 510-504-9552

pete@communitychange.org

Fresno

2550 Mariposa Mall 93721

When:10:00 AM

Contact: Rose Aguste

raguste@healthaccess.org

Los Angeles

300 S. Spring Street 90013

When: 12:00 PM following budget release

Contact: Aurora Garcia, 562-519-3106

agarcia@communitychange.org

San Bernardino

300 N. D Street 92418

When: 11:00 AM

Contact: Maribel Nunez, 562-569-4051

mnunez@communitychange.org

California bill would create third-party oversight of police shootings

Police officers who fatally shoot suspects would be subject to an outside review under California legislation being introduced by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento.

The bill follows a number of intensely scrutinized police killings, both the deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York, which drew national attention, and the case of an Army veteran, Parminder Singh Shergill, felled by police bullets in Lodi.

“There’s been an appetite for this on a national level and locally as well,” said McCarty. “The overarching issue is, who should investigate police shootings where a fatality is the outcome?”

Leaving that matter in the hands of local district attorneys, who typically have close ties to the police departments whose officers they are investigating, is not ideal, McCarty said. The San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office cleared the officers who shot down Shergill of any criminal wrongdoing.

“Many times DAs run for office and have such high links with the local law enforcement, and work with them on a daily basis, that enough people ask the question: ‘Should they distance themselves when they actually have to review an officer-involved shooting?’” McCarty said.

Under McCarty’s Assembly Bill 86, a law enforcement panel, likely within the California Department of Justice, would study each case of a California police officer shooting someone and issue a recommendation. The goal would not be issuing indictments but ensuring the community trusts that fatalities are thoroughly reviewed, McCarty said.

“Whether or not there would be a subsequent criminal action regarding that, that’s totally a different conversation,” McCarty said. “I’m just talking about the investigation.”

Some prosecutors could welcome the opportunity to “quell any appearance of a conflict,” said California District Attorneys Association CEO Mark Zahner. But he disputed the notion that district attorneys handle cases involving police officers differently from others.

“A county prosecutor’s job is to investigate criminal conduct within their jurisdiction, and they all take that very seriously,” Zahner said. “To them it doesn’t matter if a suspect is a cop, a police officer, a sheriff – they feel it is their obligation to a community to prosecute a case like that.”

via: sacbee.com

2015 State Budget Release Press Conference & Rally

Join us this Friday, January 9, 2015

11:00 am - 1:00 pm

at

San Bernardino City Hall 

300 N. D Street

San Bernardino, CA 92418 

DMV prepares to issue driver's licenses to people who are here illegally

By PATRICK MCGREEVY
December 11, 2014

Just weeks before California begins to issue driver's licenses to people in the country illegally, the Department of Motor Vehicles has opened four new offices and hired more than 900 additional staffers to help handle the expected flood of applicants.

State officials expect that 1.4 million immigrants who are not lawfully in the country will apply for specially marked licenses during the first three years beginning Jan. 2. An extra $141 million has been budgeted to handle the applications.

"We've been getting ready for over a year," said DMV spokesman Armando Botello. "We are definitely ready."

The agency has opened new offices in Granada Hills; the Orange County city of Stanton; Lompoc, a town in Santa Barbara County; and San Jose.

Applicants can make appointments at any DMV office at https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv or by calling 800-777-0133. The four new offices also accommodate people without appointments.

The DMV is offering extended Saturday hours by appointment for all new license applicants at up to 60 field offices starting Jan. 3. A list of those offices will be made available on the agency's website.

Immigrants were allowed to make appointments for the new year starting Nov. 12. In the 21/2 weeks after that date, 378,891 people made appointments — more than twice the number during the same period last year, according to a DMV spokeswoman.

More than half of the new appointments were for people seeking their first driver's license from the state.

"People are really excited about it," said Rita Medina, a policy advocate for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Noting that 71% of people who applied for a new driver authorization card in Nevada this year failed the written exam in the first three days of the program, the coalition is offering classes to help applicants pass the test in California, Medina said.

Applicants will have to complete a form and provide documents to verify their identities and show that they reside in California. They will also be required to provide a thumb print, pass vision and written tests and schedule a behind-the-wheel driving test.

The fee for a license is $33, and those who register a vehicle will have to show proof of insurance, which can be obtained through the California Low Cost Auto Insurance program under a state law passed this year.

The special licenses will look like other California licenses but have the words "federal limits apply" on the front and, "This card is not acceptable for official federal purposes," on the back. They cannot be used as identification to board an airplane, for example.

Immigrant-rights advocates fought to minimize the design differences for fear that landlords, merchants and others who may be presented with the cards might discriminate against those they can see are in the country illegally.

The law allowing the special licenses was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in October 2013. "No longer are undocumented people in the shadows," Brown said then.

Most Republicans in the Legislature had voted against the measure.

"We heard from Californians with a variety of concerns around this new law, including costs to taxpayers for the program that have been estimated in the millions just to get it started in January," Amanda Fulkerson, a spokeswoman for the Assembly Republican Caucus, said this week.

Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville), chairman of the California Legislative Latino Caucus and the measure's author, has argued from the beginning that it would make California roads safer by requiring immigrants who are already driving to pass written and road-skill tests.

"Our state is getting ready to offer these families a chance to get to work, a chance to bring their children to school and a chance at making it to the hospital during medical emergencies by allowing undocumented Californians to earn a driver's license," Alejo said this week.

In New Mexico, Gov. Susana Martinez has sought for years to repeal a 2003 law allowing driver's licenses to be issued to residents without regard to immigration status. She has maintained that immigrants from other states have poured into New Mexico to obtain licenses fraudulently.

California officials say they have safeguards in place here to prevent fraud, including the requirement that immigrants document their residency. In addition, the special licenses will have the same high-tech features that have protected regular licenses from counterfeit and altering since 2010.

Those include images visible only under ultraviolet light and special laser perforations.

More information on the license requirement and study materials is available on the DMV website.

via: http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-immigrant-licenses-20141211-story.html