San Diego Raise the Wage Campaign Begins Door to Door Campaign

Advocates for an increase in the local minimum wage are wisely ignoring mutterings from the Chamber of Commerce ilk about a muted opposition response to an upcoming referendum.

This June San Diegans will be voting to increase San Diego’s minimum wage to $11.50 per hour and allow workers to earn up to five sick days per year. The increase of the minimum wage to $11.50 would be phased in through 2017 with indexing to inflation starting on January 1, 2019:

• $10.50 – June, 8, 2016
• $11.50 – January 1, 2017

Consultant Jason Roe has been taking time out from his busy schedule advising the presidential campaign of Senator Marco Rubio (folding in 3…2…1…) to make the rounds of local media saying there’s a lack of funding for a defense of corporate welfare and repeating misinformation about who would be impacted by an increase in the minimum wage.

Raise the Wage San Diego, the coalition of faith, community and labor groups supporting the increased passed by the city council, will begin canvassing Saturday morning, meeting up at the North Park Community Park (4044 Idaho) starting at 9am. (Link for more information.)

The reality is that poverty wages and the high cost of living in San Diego are forcing families to make choices no one should have to make – like whether pay the rent, keep the lights on or put food on the table. At the new California minimum wage of $10/hour, a full-time worker earning minimum wage is paid just $400/week or $20,800 for an entire year of full-time work. That’s not enough to get by in high-cost San Diego, especially if you have a family.

Increasing the minimum wage will make a huge difference in the lives of more than 170,000 hard-working San Diegans – enough people to fill every seat in Petco Park four times over!

The San Diego Minimum Wage and Earned Sick Days measure on the ballot in June is the same policy the San Diego City Council passed almost two years ago. Mayor Kevin Faulconer vetoed the City Council’s increase and joined with out-of-town hotel and restaurant interests to mount a deceptive signature gathering campaign to “referend” the measure and place it on the June 2016 ballot.

Meanwhile, …

Looking for Teachers in all the Wrong Places

NBC7 reported on local school districts desperately seeking classroom help.

At the beginning of this school year, many districts scrambled to start school with enough teachers, according to the report. This upcoming school year, the state is anticipating a shortage of 22,000 teachers.

Over the next ten years, anticipated retirements are expected to open up 100,000 jobs statewide.

The NBC7 story fails to place the teachers shortage in context, ignoring the relentless drumbeat of denigration of the profession by those whose ultimate aim is to privatize public education.

College students don’t want to become teachers because the job sucks: it typically doesn’t pay enough to cover the cost of student loans, the profession has become a political football, and they’re expected to teach to the test rather than help students learn.

Washington Post education writer Valerie Strauss turned to Stephen Mucher, who directs the Bard College Master of Arts Teaching Program in Los Angeles, for an explanation of the teacher shortage:

But finding candidates to fill this role, especially good candidates, may be more difficult than policymakers are willing to admit. Despite their clear interest in public service, the students I meet betray little enthusiasm for teaching as it now exists. And I see even less indication that major trends in public education—standardization, the proliferation of testing, the elimination of tenure and seniority, and expansion of school choice—have made teaching any more attractive as a career option. Prospective teachers, much like the young educators already working in schools, are especially skeptical of accountability measures that tie a teacher’s job security or pay grade to student test scores. And many are bothered by the way teachers are blamed for much broader social problems.

As a result, today’s college students, including those currently marching on campus, are significantly less likely than their parents to see teaching as a viable way to become agents of social change. Of all age groups, voters 18-29 are the most pessimistic about the teaching profession. Only 24 percent are “very likely” to encourage a friend or family member to become a K-12 teacher today.