Monday, November 27, 2006

Draft: Writings on the Wall

The nation’s lowest income earners can soon expect a pay raise for the first time in years. In the meantime, they have been effectively taking a pay cut as inflation and rising consumer costs have reduced the value of the relatively stable minimum wage. As the newly minted Democratic Party Congress works to lead the charge to raise the minimum wage at the federal level, they will find that many states and localities have beaten them to the punch. The majority of residents in the United States now live in areas that require higher minimum wages than the federal government’s minimum wage.[1]

Opponents of a higher minimum wage argue that the cost of such a proposal outweighs the benefit that low income families would receive. They point to studies such as Joseph J. Sabia’s “The Effect of Minimum Wage Increases on Retail and Small Business Employment” for the Employment Policy Institute that show that a “10 percent increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 0.9 to 1.1 percent decline in retail employment and a 0.8 to 1.2 percent reduction in small business employment.”[2] However, these concerns have not deterred voters and politicians alike from calling for minimum wage increases throughout the nation.

Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois told the HPR that “Local `livable wage' campaigns and the recent ballot initiatives help Democrats and Republicans to understand that the American people are serious about raising the minimum wage.” An example of one of these successful campaigns can be found in Santa Fe, New Mexico, home to the nation’s highest minimum wage. Passing the Living Wage Ordinance wasn’t an easy task and the first attempt in 2000 failed. However, Mayor David Coss told the HPR that through a “powerful coalition of labor groups, the faith community, some small businesses and the immigrant community,” the issue “became a really great movement,” and the resolution was inevitably passed by the City Council in 2003 with 7 votes in support, 1 opposed. The Santa Fe Living Wage Ordinance increased the minimum wage to $8.50 beginning in 2004, and $9.50 in 2006.

Of the arguments that moved Santa Fe toward passing the Minimum Wage Ordinance, Mayor Coss added that “when employers don’t pay a living wage, then the community as a whole subsidizes that need.” After the first year the living wage ordinance went into effect in Santa Fe, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families caseload declined 9%. “Most effective was the organizing of the community, and the education of the community. We framed the issue as a moral question, and the faith community spoke very powerfully about the dignity of work.” Mayor Coss concluded by stating that, “If anything, raising the minimum wage has helped the economy and helped working families,” which shows us that “economic development in Santa Fe, or anywhere, does not require poverty.”

Elsewhere, even more dramatic steps have been taken. Through Proposition L, San Francisco not only raised the minimum wage to $8.50 in 2004, but indexed it with the local Consumer Price Index to preserve its value. The current minimum wage, effective January 1, 2007, is worth $9.14 an hour. In an interview with the HPR, Aaron Peskin, president of the local Board of Supervisors, attributed the 2003 passage of Proposition L to San Francisco’s high cost of living, the static condition of the state minimum wage and “a national minimum wage so anemic as to be virtually meaningless.” Proposition L passed resoundingly in 2003 with 60% of the vote, in spite of fierce local opposition from organizations such as the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.

Aaron Peskin told the HPR that, “Contrary to the fears of naysayers at the time, San Francisco’s economy has grown by leaps and bounds.” Peskin acknowledges that “this fact does not mean causation,” but emphasizes that the threatened “negative economic impacts have not been realized at all.” This finding has been corroborated by researchers at the UC Berkeley’s Institute of Industrial Relations, which found that the new policy did not affect employment growth in local businesses, but that fulltime employment increased and job tenure improved, health insurance coverage remained stable, and that the policy did not spur business closures.[3] Unfortunately for those dining out, they did find that relative to other restaurants east of the San Francisco Bay, the price of menu items increased approximately 3% more.

As the movement to increase the federal minimum wage comes to fruition, it has ultimately been up to each individual state and locality to decide whether or not to enact higher minimum wage laws. But it is probably because so many states and localities have decided to enact higher minimum wages that politicians on the national level are finding it easier to support minimum wage increases. Representative Jackson also came to this conclusion when he told the HPR that "Most change in Washington comes when the grassroots gets active. In fact,” he added, “it's almost impossible to move anything through Congress until the grassroots gets active.”



[1] http://pewresearch.org/obdeck/?ObDeckID=18

[2] http://www.epionline.org/studies/sabia_05-2006.pdf

[3] http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/01/02_livingwage.shtml

Monday, November 13, 2006

First Harvard Article

Hey all, thanks for remaining so supportive and helpful! I can't believe I have my first college article under my belt... well, at least half of one. They ended up calling it the "Golden Laboratory", which I guess makes a lot of sense since it's about two Californian school districts (and one of them is in the wonderful city with the Golden Gate, and both are in the Golden State), but I still can't help but think about usurping their prerogatives as editors to choose our titles. I suppose I can get over it. But geez! The Golden Laboratory?! And also, it seems like an additional 10% of my words were cut off because of space restrictions, which is still OK, but I also feel that it is important to note that there is still a lot of controversy and disagreement within the San Francisco school district, and perhaps the impression from the article (after the editors' edited it) paints too rosy a picture. But that's okay, it's all for a great city.

The more detailed rough draft concerning SFUSD can be found here. Oh, and the official picture for the article's pretty bad too. It's supposed to be the San Andreas fault and it's supposed to represent... you know. Needless to say it wasn't my idea, so for my blog, I stole their cover art, which I was surprised to find was...... San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge!! (THAT was the pic that I wanted for the article. :sigh:, but wow, SF on the cover of the HPR).

Golden Laboratory

California’s experiments with education reform
BY AUDREY KIM AND JASON WONG

Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis famously noted in 1932 that thanks to America’s federalist system, “a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” The state of California has never been shy about taking Brandeis up on his offer. Most recently, California’s two iconic cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have attempted to take leading roles in the effort to revitalize American schools, with each city taking a very different approach to the problem.

The City of Angels
The political power struggle over Los Angeles schools has just begun. Spurred to action by Los Angeles Unified School District’s astronomically high dropout rate, which exceeds 50 percent for black and Latino students, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently proposed state legislation that would transfer powers currently held by elected school board members to one superintendent appointed by the mayor. The reasoning behind this bill was identical to that which had been used previously in New York, Chicago and Boston: linking the mayor’s reputation to school district performance would create new accountability and produce real results.

Not surprisingly, the Los Angeles School Board bristled at the mayor’s foray into their jurisdiction, launching a campaign claiming that Villaraigosa was meddling in education for political purposes. These claims are probably not entirely unfounded: Villaraigosa is widely considered to be the frontrunner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2010. A big win on education could help him cement that status. On the other hand, the mayor’s defenders are right to point out that Villaragosa has plenty of other good reasons to care deeply about schools, notably his own experience as a high-school dropout.

Regardless of the mayor’s sincerity, though, the electoral stakes of school reform have politicized the process and left its progress uncertain. Lawsuits about the constitutionality of the mayor’s bill are still pending. The school board recently appointed retired Navy Vice Admiral David Brewer as its new superintendent without consulting Villaraigosa. At present, a four-month legislative battle has led only to increasing animosity between education-related interest groups in Los Angeles, with students left in the lurch.

An Educational Treat
A few hours’ drive up the 101, San Francisco and its divergent approach to education provide a useful comparison to Los Angeles’s experience. With solid test scores and a strong upward academic trend, the San Francisco Unified School District and its leaders have found their reforms studied throughout the nation. One of these lauded reforms is the so-called Weighted Student Formula, which allocates school funding based on the special needs of individual students.

The creation of WSF and other novel policies has been aided by San Francisco’s methods of school management. Unlike Los Angeles, district governance in San Francisco typically involves a high level of community participation that includes many different stakeholders. Each school supports a School Site Council that includes school administrators, teachers, faculty, parents, and even students. Without such inclusive decision-making, it is doubtful that the Unified School District could have undertaken its experimental new initiatives. With parental participation and community representation on a regular and voluntary basis, the school district received an added boost to its own efforts for school reform. The changes seem to be paying off, as districtwide test scores have gone up.

District councils and committees also help educate budding activists, volunteers, and politicians. One candidate for school board, Bayard Fong, who has served on a School Site Council, told the HPR in an interview: “It helped me to be in the culture of thinking about all of these key issues, and to make schools better in San Francisco.” Within a few years, his PTA has grown from involving only eight regular members to a current membership of 90.

Striking a Balance
At a time when school districts are finding themselves under increasingly strict supervision, San Francisco and Los Angeles have found ways to stand out among the crowd. Los Angeles’s approach has been much more dependent on mayoral leadership, which has bred some controversy, while San Francisco’s has emphasized consensus and community participation. But in their fundamentally different political environments, both cities have tried to strike the delicate balance between autonomy, community, and oversight that makes for a successful public school district.

Copyright Harvard Political Review, 2006. All rights reserved.