GEORGIA FAILS THE PEOPLE

THE GEORGIA HOUSE AND SENATE FAIL THE PEOPLE....or at least the non-wealthy people..

This morning elementary students Bill Pongnon,
Keira Bruce, Deborah Ault, Molly Ault, and

Daniel Ault spent their morning at the state capitol. They were there to deliver an important message to every senator in Georgia.

Their message was clear; make our education a priority, don't cut the HOPE scholarship.

Over the past six months thousands of Georgians from all over the state have signed postcard sized report cards. The report cards give the Georgia House and Senate all F's when it comes to prioritizing public education and the needs of Georgia children. When had constituents in every district sign cards. Young Daniel and Bill did most of the delivering, and they had the opportunity to tell law makers what they thought about cuts to HOPE.

After making our rounds at the Senate offices we made our way toward the gold dome, where the Senate was in session, but not before stopping by a student rally against the cuts to HOPE. All of us were greeted with cheers from the crowd and were invited to speak. Bill told the enthusiastic crowd what we had been doing with our morning, letting the Senate know that they are failing us, and demanding that they make us a priority. Molly, the youngest of our crew belted into the megaphone, "Save our schools, save HOPE!"

Then it was time to go confront more members of the Senate. When we showed up the Senate was on recess, so we got to roam around the room that the Senate meeting in and hand delivers failing grades to each senators desk, and we got to personally hand out a few to senators that were still milling around. After a few minutes we were confronted and asked to leave the room, but not before completing our task.

When the senators sat down at their desks after lunch the first thing they saw on their desks were failing grades signed by their local constituents. Those grades lay on their desks, along with AFSC HOPE talking points, as the debate on the fate of the HOPE scholarship began.

We decided to stick around for the debate, along with about 70 or so college students and activists. Every five or six minutes a small group of students would drop a banner urging the senate not to dismantle HOPE. It was clear that the senate was just not used to that sort of thing. Police overreacted jumping over folks to escort students out. At one point a group of students stood up and chanted "Kill the Bill, Kill the Bill", and one officer overzealously yanked one of them. The student yelled, "take your hands off me", at which point police tackled the young man and arrested him. Most of the students were physically escorted out of the building.

It's 6pm right now and we just got word the HB 326 passed in the senate after much debate. Despite the fact that several sound alternatives we presented that would have saved the HOPE scholarship for ALL Georgia youth. Today the senate passed a bill that creates what some would call a , "reverse robin hood" dynamic in the state.

Senator Forte said, “What we are doing today will result in fewer students being able to complete a degree.”

“It is the symbolic standing in the schoolhouse door,” he said. “Forty or fifty years ago, it was a literal standing in the door preventing some children from getting an education. But when we pass this bill, I believe we will be standing in the door of many children who would otherwise get a college education.”

Other Senators, Like Sen. Jackson of Savannah, focused their attack on the Georgia Lottery stating, “Why are we allowing this public corporation to operate out of control and not be under the proper oversight of this General Assembly? Where is the oversight? No one seems to be outraged but our students in the gallery and they have a right to be and I thank you for our civil disobedience.”

It is a fact that the Georgia Lottery owes millions and millions of dollars to the HOPE Education fund, a dept that most senators are apparently ok with, in fact all signs point to the Georgia Lottery never even being asked to pay that which they owe Georgia's children.

Today's historic decision by the Georgia senate made a few things crystal clear.

1. Most in the house, senate, and governors office have knowingly created a new scholarship in place of HOPE that will, by design, price out low income folks.

2. Most is the house, senate, and governors office are more than okay with using a proven culturally bias test(the SAT) to keep non-white students from having access to the HOPE scholarship.

3. Most in the house, senate, and governors offices are not bothered by the fact that low income folks put an astronomically higher percentage of their income into the Georgia lottery system yet upper middle class white kids will receive an overwhelming amount of the profits.

The question many are asking now; where do we go from here?

Resistance to this decision is unlikely to disappear, in fact, this openly racist Bill is likely to wake up a lot of working class families and push those most effected by the decision into the streets, one way or another.

One final note in this post for all the students that fought today, I personally feel honored to be in your presence today. Perhaps for some our work has just begun, and should it come time to walk off the campus and into the street, or into the jail cell, may I have the courage to walk with you. Georgia can't afford the precedent that was set today by our elected officials. We can not allow those who have no regard for non-white, non-wealthy Georgians to make decisions for all all.

I also would like to thank those in the Georgia house and senate that stood with us and fought for working families. Folks like Vincent Fort, Nan Orrack, Jason Carter, Lester Jackson, Emmanuel Jones and others. Thanks for standing up in the face of this ugly tide.

We'll Keep Moving!
Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Georgia House and Senate Receive Failing Grade

Months ago a national call went out to mobilize in every city across the Country in defense of public education. The Georgia Students for Public Higher Education(http://gsphe.tk/ ) answered the call and began organizing actions around the state. Around the same time the AFSC and Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition sponsored, "Be The Change" youth convergence participants chose to mobilize around education as well.

With 4 billion rerouted from k-12 schools, and dramatic increases in fees and tuition for public university students, youth are literally fighting for their future, a future that if unchecked will see public education become unaffordable, even non-existent.

Students from Athens, Atlanta, Augusta, Kennesaw, and Milledgeville have all been organizing actions in defense of public education.
In Atlanta students worked hard to create a report card to present to the Georgia House and Senate. Sadly the students were forced to give the state failing grades in all subjects. But not all hope is lost for Georgia! The state has been given a grace period to bring their grades up to passing during the next legislative session and we're all hoping that they're up for the challenge.

Students made it clear that this is a fight that has just begun. We are sure to face more budget cuts and bad legislation if we don't turn up the volume. It has been said that we are facing a crisis of resources but many see through that claim. The invisible hand of the market did not magically make all those resources disappear. It's a time to start asking questions. When the government asks for money to build new weapons, fight new wars, or erect new prisons it always rains cash as if there was an endless supply, yet when hard times hit education is the first thing to take a cut. The economic cost of war in truly coming home to roost in a way that everyday people are feeling. We are not in a crisis of resources, it's a crisis of priorities, and only a real re-prioritizing of our national budget is going to save our future. Like it or not, another world is happening, and we must work together to ensure that it's a shared vision that places priority on the things that matter most to everyday people.





Organizations that helped mobilize folks for the Atlanta demonstration:

Georgia Students For Public Higher Education
http://gsphe.tk/

Georgia Latino Alliance For Human Rights
http://www.glahr.org/

Georgia Peace & Justice Coalition:
www.georgiapeace.org

Student Career Alternatives Program
www.scapatl.org

Progressive Student Alliance at Georgia State
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44855426564


Other Media Stories on the action:
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/higher-education-rally-held-in-atlanta-100710





Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

AFSC will not back down, stakes too high

Many remember our battle with the the Georgia Senate Defense and Veteran's Affairs Committee over our Resolution that addressed the unethical, often illegal military recruitment of children in the Georgia school system. That battle climaxed with a pretty contentious hearing that featured testimony from students, teachers, parents, former military recruiters, combat veterans, even the officer in charge of National Guard recruitment showed up. The end result of that hearing was rather interesting. As a result of all the statewide support our campaign built, not one Senator would second a motion to kill the resolution. In fact several Republican Senators found parts of the resolution that they agreed with and one of our opponents on the committee said he was in favor of a standardized statewide opt out system.

After much discussion with Azadeh Shahshahani, Senator Orrock, and Stephanie Stuckey Bennfield it became clear that the thing to do was to keep the momentum up, stay on the offensive on the issue. Senator Orrock re-worded the resolution, focusing solely on the privacy issue, advocating for a statewide standardized opt out system, and we wanted to get it assigned to the more reasonable education committee where it belonged in the first place. A few weeks ago the Bill was introduced in the House and Senate by Senator Orrock and Representative Bennfield.
Here's a copy of the Bill:
http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/search/sb528.htm

Well yesterday at 4pm I was informed that the Education Committee was going to have a hearing on the Bill at 8:30am! My initial thought was, We're not gonna be able to get anyone there....but we got to try anyway. Caitlin Barrow and I immediately started working the phone and putting out appeals for folks to call members of the Senate Education Committee in support of SB 528 and to try to come to the hearing in the morning.

We ended up getting several immediate responses from our e-mail appeal, and I know that as I type there are folks all over the state that are calling their Senators. We had one very passionate Henry county Father who wanted to testify on the matter, he sent us his typed testimony and said he planned on coming to the hearing. Here is an excerpt of Roger Mill's testimony,:
"My son attended a high school in Henry County and my daughter will attend one there in a few years. We are a private family. Our telephone number is unlisted. We do not appreciate receiving unsolicited mail. We do not distribute our email address to anyone other than those from whom we wish to hear. Basically, our family values the space that privacy provides.

We do not like a situation of having no alternative but being subjected to unsolicited promotions of things that are not important to us and that includes military recruitment. We can turn off the television and we can put your phone number on a “do not call” list, so why should it be made hard to say no to military recruiters?

Unsolicited military recruitment materials started arriving in our home. I discovered that my address and telephone number had been released to them by Henry County Schools. The school system did not send a notice home like it routinely does for every single field trip or when teaching controversial matters. It did not have a point of contact for parents to learn more. The school system did not have an opt-out form. I would eventually have to learn myself and subsequently put my request in writing and send it to the Superintendent. I did, and the solicitation eventually stopped, but the problem continues for others."

When I showed up in room 310 of the Coverdale Legislative Office Building there was already several folks who had come out to support the Bill or testify in favor of the Bill. Among those who had come to lend their vocal support was none other then Sally Sullivan, who represents the PTA of Georgia. All in all thirteen people came to the hearing as a result of our last minute ask. Not bad for that kinda notice on a raining Tuesday morning!

I noticed while I was signing up our folks to testify that the overwhelming number of folks that had sign-up to testify in regards to a purposed Bill were there to speak in favor of SB 528.

When the hearing began Senator Weber, the Committee chair, said that the hearing would be cut short and they would likely not hear from most people in the room. This was very bad news, as SB 528 was the last of several Bills on the agenda. As we suspected the meeting adjourned before SB 528 was discussed. After the session adjourned I confronted Senator Weber and he was very apologetic claiming that most of the Committee members had to make other Committee meetings. of course I questioned why the hearing was scheduled in the first place if all the agenda items weren't going to get he attention they deserved. So with our crew present I asked him to commit to us to accept the Bill into the Education Committee next legislative session and to give us a fair hearing, devoted solely to this issue, with plenty of notice. He agreed.

Here at AFSC we believe that the consequence of joining any branch of the military are just to great to allow little known recruitment policies that target minors and low income folk to prevail. Parents should play an important roll in this discourse, especially when the end result of the recruitment process could put these teenagers on a battlefield. A standardized statewide military recruitment opt out system in our school system should have been implemented years ago.

Azadeh Shahshahani of the ACLU Georgia stated, "As it stands, many parents and students in Georgia are not being adequately notified of their right to make a request that students' contact information not be released to military recruiters without prior parental consent. As such, Georgia schools might be in violation of some provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the No Child Left Behind Act. We hope that by passage of this legislation next year, the Georgia legislature would address thus problem and ensure that all schools in Georgia have an adequate notification process in place."

At this point, with your support, we believe the ground work has been done to pass this bill in the next legislative session. This would be a big step for Georgia Youth. I'd like to asked you to take action now by doing one of two things:

1. Make a tax deductible contribution to AFSC Atlanta! There is no doubt that we will likely need to bring on someone to take on the role that Caitlin has this year. Tracking and working around these Bills takes a lot of staff time and I'm just stretched to thin to take it on by my self. Your contribution would go towards the hiring of a temporary legislative staff person. Make sure checks are made out to AFSC and sent to:
Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee
189a sams st
Decatur, Ga
30030
mark, "Legislative Action" in the subject line.

2. Call members of the Education Committee and ask them to support SB 528! It's to late in the session to get it passed this year, but most on the committee will remain on it next year, and It's a great time to soften the field for next years campaign!! Education Committee members are supposed to represent the whole state, so it's okay if you call a member that doesn't represent your district, but it's extra special if your Senator is on the committee. Here's a link to Education Committee members:
http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/senate/education.php.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Senate Hearing on Military Recruitment Resolution 955

There's been a ton of work that has gone into the effort to introduce SR 955 (http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/fulltext/sr955.htm),educate folks on the realities of military recruitment in Georgia high schools, why it's an important measure, and to develop constituent support in rural Georgia. Right from the get go SR 955 has had the deck staked against it.Those of us that spent time putting the resolution together where rather perplexed that upon it's introduction it was assigned to the more harsh "Veterans, Military, and Homeland Security" Senate committee despite the fact that it clearly belonged in the, "Education and Youth" committee.
Caitlin Barrow spent countless hours calling and emailing folks/organizations around the state and asking them to sign petitions, call their Senators, and come out to the Senate hearing. Here at the AFSC we fielded dozens of media inquiries and took calls from parents,students, clergy, veterans, and educators all over the state that volunteered to come to the Senate hearing and share their stories of inappropriate behavior by military recruiters.
AFSC was very lucky to have the support of Senator Nan Orrock on Representative Stephanie Stuckey Benfield who both sponsored the resolution, along with other Georgia polititians. We also never would have been able to get SR 955 introduced without the hard work of Azedah Shahshahani with the ACLU of Georgia who drafted the original version of the resolution and organized a dozen conference call on the matter.
Despite all the effort that went into preparing, despite that the resolution made sound sense, we all expected the SR 955 to be easily defeated. To everyone's surprise, it did not.
After hearing testimony from John Zientowski(Vietnam combat Veteran), Doug Ament(Iraq war veteran, former UN peace keeper, and global security advisor), Chris Raissi( Iraq war veteran, former Marine Corps recruiter), Susan Keith(Dekalb mother), Andy Fritz( recent high school graduate from Mcdonough), and others the Chairman of the Senate committee said he had heard enough from supporters and wanted to hear from representative from the Georgia National Guard. Two uniformed men proceeded to claim to the Senate committee that they will not even speak to minors about military service with out a signed permission slip from a parent, a claim we know to be false.
After several committee members made comments that came across as demeaning towards constituents that came from all over the state to attend the hearing Senator Jack Murphy made a motion to kill SR 955. When the committee chairperson asked for a second, to our shock, the room got very quiet. Most of the Senators were just stairing at each other. Senator Jim Butterworth, who had shown signs of not supporting the resolution, broke the silence. He said that he believed that there were things about the resolution that he did agree with. Republican Senator Bill Jackson then chimed in stating, "I don't like these wars we're in, I think they're garbage. I can't support this resolution, but I think we have to do something about all these upset parents." There was then a motion to table the resolution and the meeting was adjourned.
After the meeting was over senator Jack Murphy agreed that some sort of standardized Opt Out system would be something he would feel comfortable urging the department of Education to adopt.The standardized Opt Out system that we could life with would be the Opt Out forms being sent to parents at the beginning of the school year behind the emergency contact forms that are mandatory. This would be considered a major victory for young people and parents across the state.
After a debriefing session with Senator Nan Orrock it become clear that we were going to get a standardized Opt out system in Georgia, and that's a pretty good start.
We've come along way, thanks to the effort, support, and donations of so many people, yet we still have a long way to go. Hang in there with us, our future may depend on it!

We hope to soon add video footage of the hearing shot by Artemis productions so check back.

Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

AFSC/ACLU Press Conference Introducing Resolution Designed to Protect Minors From Deceptive Military Recruitment Practices.

On Thursday January 28th The American Friends Service Committee and The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia held a joint press conference at the State Capitol to mark the introduction of a resolution that would protect children under 17 from direct contact from military recruiters. The Resolution is the culmination of months of work that began when Azadeh Shahshahani of the ACLU offered to work with AFSC during our campaign to halt the Dekalb Marine Corps Institute project, which would have been a publicly funded Marine Corps themed School run by the Marines and funded by recruitment dollars.
After the successful campaign we began looking at the state of military recruitment in Georgia and came to some troubling conclusions.
Our concerns continue to grow over the racial and economic inequities in military recruitments.Low income recruits continue to fill the majority of boots on the front line, many will also end up filling up homeless shelters as a results of the wounds of war(1/3 of homeless people are veterans).More troubling is the continued reports of deceptive military recruitment practices used on children,often times under 17 years old, in our public school system. Every year the army experience convoys rolls through middle schools all over Georgia, and the rest of the country, to demonstrate how exciting and fun war can be. In their army recruitment pitches combat is relegated to nothing more then a video game.
In our high schools military recruiters enjoy as much access to students as they want, often times parading themselves as career counselors who are only there to help young people with their futures. The recruitment pitch that kids are given often includes promises of college cash, jobs skills training, top notch lifetime benefits, seeing the world, and some kids are even told they will likely not see combat. What young people are getting from military service is usually very different then the picture painted by recruiters. Veterans make 15% less then their non-veteran counter parts, 1/3 of female vets report being sexually assaulted while on duty, only 1/5 of vets every get a four year degree, modern veterans have the highest suicide rate in recorded history, and the enlistment contract binds you but not the military-they can breach the contract as they please.
So this is at the core of our support of the resolution. Children under 17 should have no direct contact with recruiters or military recruitment tools including the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery(ASVAB) and the army experience. Recruiters should not have access to minors, especially without parental consent. Under the "no child left behind" act high schools must release private contact information of all 11th and 12th grade students or face losing their federal funding, this is a pretty scary concept. Often times parents and students are unaware that they have the option to protect their information from falling into the hands of recruiters. This resolution urges school districts to step up their efforts to provide every parent with a form that would enable them to remove their child's info from the hands of military recruiters."
We believe that students, parents, and teachers have the right to have a realistic picture of what military service and military benefits actually looks like before on the front end of the recruitment process.
Chris Raissi, an Iraq war veteran and former Marine Corps recruiter, spoke at the press conference stating, "I think the resolution is very reasonable. Recruiters are trained to work everyone in a high school, from freshmen to seniors. From my experience, the schools don't give any notification to the parents about dissemination of student's personal information to recruiters. If Parents ignore their phone calls, recruiters are trained to track down every kid on the list, either at school or at home."
Azadeh Shahshahani of the ACLU and the sponsors of the resolution in both the Georgia House(Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield) and the Georgia Senate( Senator Nan Orrock) all spoke in support of the resolution at the press conference. The resolution was assigned a number in the Georgia House(HR 1219) and the Georgia Senate (SR 955), and you can expect a lot of organizing around the state on this important resolution.

To read a full copy of the resolution go to:
http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2009_10/fulltext/hr1219.

YOU CAN HELP NOW!

To support the resolution call your Representative and urge him to support HR 1219, if he's a Georgia Representative and SR955 if they are your Senator. To find out who your Representatives are in the house and senate are go to the VoteSmart website - http://www.votesmart.org/ - in the upper left-hand corner there is a field where you can enter your 5-digit zip code.



Tim Franzen
AFSC