Daily Archives: April 11, 2021

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or onbangordailynews.com.

Dont believe everything you read on the internet. Particularly when it comes to tax policy.

President Joe Biden coupled his infrastructure plan with a proposed increase in the corporate tax rate. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 lowered the top federal statutory rate on corporations to 21 percent, down from 35 percent.

The White House suggests splitting the baby and increasing it to 28 percent.

Biden backed the policy at a press conference by claiming there is no evidence increasing corporate rates has any negative effects on the economy.

Hours later, his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seemingly refuted the president by calling for a global minimum tax. If the U.S. raises its tax rate while other countries stay put, it could have a negative effect on the economy.

This is very complex stuff. But, due to the meme-ification of our political dialogue, simplistic analysis gets a lot more likes. One picture rotating through left-leaning circles shows a line graph that drops from 35 percent, down to 21 percent, and then back up to 28 percent. The point is that 28 percent is less than 35 percent, so Bidens proposed increase cant be a problem.

Stop here.

If the basis of your opinion on corporate income tax rates can be adequately explained by a single line graph meme, you may want to sit out this debate.

Would it surprise you to learn that many right-leaning economists advocate for abolition of corporate taxes altogether? Probably not, right?

But what if I told you some of their colleagues leaning left concurred with the idea? A little more surprising?

On a good day, tax policy is complicated. While individuals are generally mobile within the United States, rarely do they renounce their citizenship and flee the country. They remain subject to Washingtons tax whims, despite the threats made Ill move to Canada if the other guy wins! leading up to an election.

Multinational corporations are different. If Apples California-based managers direct Estonian coders to develop software for iPhones assembled in China for sale in Brazil, how should they be taxed? And by whom?

Apple has an incentive to keep its tax bill as low as possible. So ensuring they earn income in places with lower tax rates is to their benefit. This is the exact problem that Secretary Yellen wants to address with her global tax.

Yet these perverse incentives work against Americans. Some of the opposition to Bidens proposed increase is based on the theory that businesses will merely raise prices to offset the new tax liability. That is not exactly right; prices are sticky and things do not adjust overnight.

But capital is mobile, and, as former Gov. Paul LePage was fond of saying, goes where it is welcome and stays where it is appreciated. Large corporations make new investment decisions based on their expected net financial return, which is greatly impacted by tax policy.

So, when pursuing growth, corporations include their tax bill in the math. And, with the U.S. system, the headline rate of Washington is only a part of the story; there is an additional 6 percent tax levied on average by the states. That 21 percent headline rate is more like 26 percent after deductions.

In 2016, the 35 percent rate was more like 39 percent. Which left us higher than every developed country in the world, save Columbia.

If we want corporations to invest in the United States, we should encourage them to do so. Abolition of the corporate tax can be coupled with eliminating the capital gains tax rate; shareholders will then shoulder a greater share of the tax burden. When individuals receive income in any form wages, gig-work, dividends it should be treated equally.

If Biden really wants an infrastructure bill, it has to be coupled with an increase in economic activity. That activity can, and should, be stimulated by encouraging our largest businesses to invest at home.

Broadband can be a critical piece of that effort, but you still shouldnt believe every meme you see on the internet.

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Want to improve the economy? Lower the corporate tax rate. - Bangor Daily News

by Matt TrinderIndustrial reporter

DELEGATES at the National Education Unions annual conference backed a motion today calling for the abolition of Ofsted and performance-based league tables.

Over threequarters (77 per cent) of the more than 10,000 school staffho responded to the unions State of Education survey, published to coincide with this weeks online event, said that reducing the role of the education inspectoratewas vital to help schools recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Respondents said that reducing the pressure ofaccountability measures such as Ofsted andleague tables that rank schools based on national exam resultswould enable themto focus on helpingstudents catch up on learning after school closures during the pandemic.

Regular full school inspections have been suspended sinceMarch 2020but they are set to resume in September.

NEU joint general secretary Dr Mary Bousted said that Ofsted was a blunt instrument and a wholly negative presence in schools.

As we emerge from a time of great challenge for the education system and all who work in it, there is no taste for the return of full inspections, she said.

We must focus on the needs of pupils and what schools and their staff judge to be the best approaches to rebuilding on-site learning.

We already knew that Ofsted was not fit for purpose. Inspections are crude snapshot assessments, conducted without much regard for local context.

We need to see a new, fair and reliable system of inspection which works with schools, gives them confidence to make changesand generates meaningful, accurate and reliable information.

Ofsted is a symbol of the dead hand of government, of its lack of trust in the profession, and must be abolished.

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Teachers call for abolition of Ofsted and league tables - Morning Star Online

The three winners of theJames Berry Poetry Prizewill each win 1,000, receive year-long mentoring and their debut book length collection will be published by Bloodaxe Books. The winning poets will be invited to take part in a James Berry Poetry Prize reading as part of theNCLA events series.

Devised by Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo with inclusivity specialist Dr Nathalie Teitler, the prize is the first national poetry prize to include both mentoring and book publication. It is named in honour of James Berry, OBE (1927-2017), one of the first black writers in Britain to receive wider recognition. He emigrated from Jamaica in 1948, and took a job with British Telecom, where he spent much of his working life until he was able to support himself from his writing. He rose to prominence in 1981 when he won the National Poetry Competition.

His numerous books included two seminal anthologies of Caribbean-British poetry,Bluefoot Traveller(1976) andNews for Babylon(Chatto & Windus, 1981), andA Story I Am In: Selected Poems(Bloodaxe Books, 2011), drawing on five earlier collections includingWindrush Songs(2007), published to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.

James also inspired and helped younger poets who came after him, most notably Raymond Antrobus and Hannah Lowe, who returned the favour by giving him their personal support in his later years.

Newcastle University Chancellor and acclaimed poet Imtiaz Dharker welcomed the prize. I am thrilled with this initiative from Newcastle Universitys Centre for Literary Arts and Bloodaxe Books, she said. The James Berry Poetry Prize opens up a whole new avenue for poets of colour, with the chance of winning a precious year of mentoring and a debut collection published by Bloodaxe.

It just shows what is possible when people are intent on causing change. An idea devised by Bernardine Evaristo and Dr Nathalie Teitler was taken up enthusiastically by NCLA and Bloodaxe, who have always been committed to diversifying UK poetry, and will be carried forward with outstanding judges and mentors. This is a dream project that will rewrite the future for many poets.

Neil Astley, founder and editor ofBloodaxe Booksand a prize judge, said: We are delighted to be working with the NCLA on the James Berry Poetry Prize, the first award which offers both mentoring and first book publication not just to one but three emerging BAME poets. We will also benefit greatly from having experienced poets and educationalists of the calibre of Mona Arshi, Malika Booker, Mimi Khalvati, Theresa Muoz and Jacob Sam-La Rose as mentors or judges.

Award-winning poet and Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University,Sinad Morrissey, is one of the prize judges. The prize builds on the vital partnership already in place between Newcastle University and Bloodaxe Books: one of the most important publishers of poetry in the world, she said.

The shared commitment by NCLA and Bloodaxe to help diversify UK poetry through increased publication and performance opportunities will be greatly strengthened by the James Berry Poetry Prize, which will mentor and support emerging talent from previously underrepresented communities and change the landscape of UK poetry for generations to come.

Prize judgeJacob Sam-La Rose,said: The fact that my copy of James BerrysBluefoot Travellerwas sitting on my desk the day I first received details of the prize, completely coincidentally, felt like an auspicious sign. The investment in a legacy that celebrates and recognises new generations of writers from diverse backgrounds resonates with me, deeply.

Prize mentorMona Arshisaid: It really is a huge honour to be involved in the prize and I am delighted to be mentoring and helping to develop the work of a talented poet who will be chosen by the selection team. The prize provides a wonderful new opportunity for poets whose work is often underrepresented or sidelined and I am so pleased to see it in the world.

Sharing a commitment withBloodaxe Booksto diversify the UK poetry sector,NCLAhas already worked with Bloodaxe on other projects relating to the promotion of BAME writers, such asFreedom City,celebrating the 50th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King Jr being awarded an honorary doctorate by Newcastle University, including the publication of a celebratory anthology,The Mighty Stream: poems in celebration of Martin Luther King, andOut of Bounds, a national project promoting the work of BAME poets based around on another anthology co-published by Newcastle University with Bloodaxe.

The James Berry Poetry Prize was inspired by the success of the ten-yearComplete Worksmentoring scheme founded by Bernardine Evaristo and managed by Nathalie Teitler with funding fromArts Council England. This initiative saw the work of 30 new or emerging BAME poets showcased in three anthologies of ten poets co-published with Bloodaxe in 2010, 2014 and 2017. The Complete Works scheme was devised to redress the low proportion of publications by poets of colour in the UK identified in the Arts Councils Free Verse 2005 report on diversity in British poetry publishing which Bernardine Evaristo herself initiated.

Poets from the Complete Works series have gone on to make a big impact on the British poetry scene. They include two recent winners of the T.S. Eliot Prize, Roger Robinson (2019) and Sarah Howe (2016, also Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award); Mona Arshi, winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection (2016); Jay Bernard (2016) and Inua Ellams (2017), winners of the Ted Hughes Award; and Warsan Shire, who collaborated with Beyonc on her visual album, Lemonade in 2016, which featured many of Shires poems.

Jacob Sam-La Rose added: Much has been said about the work that needs to be done to broaden the range of voices and perspectives represented in poetry publishing in the UK; the work that both Nathalie Teitler and Bernardine Evaristo have done in this regard has been both essential and brilliant.

Building on the spirit and successes of The Complete Works, alongside Bloodaxes track record and standing, the James Berry Prize promises to be an initiative thats not just about acknowledgement but also transformative, meaningful development. Im looking forward to the whole process from the shortlisting (which will no doubt provide a far-reaching overview of the work thats being produced across the country from poets who are all too often underrepresented) to the work thats finally developed as a result.

The James Berry Poetry Prize is funded by Arts Council England and will also become a pilot for a scheme which Bloodaxe Books plans to develop as part of its Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation funding from 2022 under which three more emerging BAME poets will be mentored and published every two years. The judges for the inaugural prize are Neil Astley, Sinad Morrissey,Theresa Muoz, Jacob Sam-La Rose andDrNathalie Teitler,and the three mentors are Mona Arshi,Malika BookerandMimi Khalvati.

Entries to theJames Berry Poetry Prizeclose on 1 July.

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The James Berry Poetry Prize for emerging poets of colour - India Education Diary

ABOLITION 2021 Abolition Apostles is hosting four concerts across the next four Fridays to raise funds for a hospitality house for families and allies of people incarcerated at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary. Among the participating performers: Kronos Quartet, The War and Treaty, Boots Riley, Brandi Carlile, Sam Amidon, Adrianne Lenker, and Vijay Iyer. April 9-30. Stream via Noonchorus

A.Z. MADONNA

Classical

BOSTON BAROQUE The period instrument orchestra streams live from GBHs Frasier Studio with a special guest, soprano Amanda Forsythe, taking center stage for Handels Gloria and arias from Partenope. Also worth catching is Bachs Concerto for Two Violins, featuring concertmaster Christina Day Martinson and unmissable violinist-about-town Sarah Darling. April 10, 7 p.m. https://baroque.boston

A.Z. MADONNA

ARTS

Theater

BOSTON THEATER MARATHON XXIII: SPECIAL ZOOM EDITION Taking place online for the second year in a row due to the pandemic, this annual event will showcase 50 10-minute plays, all written by New England playwrights and presented by New England theater companies. The readings take place at noon Mondays through Saturdays, with one play per day, with a question-and-answer session after each reading. Presented by Boston Playwrights Theatre. Through May 28. Free, but audiences are encouraged to donate to participating theatre companies and/or to the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund. http://www.BostonPlaywrights.org

UNVEILED A digital presentation of a solo performance piece, written and performed by Rohina Malik and originally presented locally in 2018, in which five Muslim women recount their experiences of bigotry in post-9/11 America. Presented by New Repertory Theatre. Through April 18. Tickets $25. http://www.newrep.org/productions/unveiled-digital

DON AUCOIN

Dance

WHEN WE FELL The next big offering of New York City Ballets digital season is this world premiere by choreographer Kyle Abraham. Created during a three-week COVID-compliant residency, the work was filmed on the stage and Promenade of the David H. Koch Theater and features India Bradley, Jonathan Fahoury, Christopher Grant, Claire Kretzschmar, Lauren Lovette, Taylor Stanley, KJ Takahashi, and Sebastian Villarini-Velez. April 8, 8 p.m. premiere, available on demand through April 22. Free. http://www.nycballet.com and youtube.com/nycballet

KAREN CAMPBELL

Visual Arts

SONJA CLARK: HEAVENLY BOUND and MONUMENTAL CLOTH In 1865, the Confederate Armys ceremonial surrender to the Unionists took the form of a plain white dishrag with two slim red stripes on each end. (It was the only thing on hand, apparently.) It became known as the Confederate Flag of Truce, though its been lost to the ages as the more defiant (and racist) symbol of the Confederate Battle Flag stole the symbolic stage. Clark, who works in textiles bound in history, presents a pair of exhibitions that examine this symbolic schism in the evolution of a country tangled up in its slave-trading past and still very much at war with itself. Through Sept. 12. deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln. thetrustees.org/place/decordova/

MURRAY WHYTE

GREG MENCOFF: MEANINGFUL DUST The Boston-area minimalists sculptures may be spare, but theyre rich in metaphor. End Game (Wailing Wall), a wall-mounted grid of 100 white and black blocks, is influenced by Taoist iconography, sound patterns of non-Western music, and the holy site in Jerusalem. Square tubes in the center of each block refer to the cracks in the wall where worshipers insert their prayers. Through May 1. Howard Yezerski Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave. 617-262-0550, http://www.howardyezerski.com

CATE McQUAID

EVENTS

Comedy

FRIDAYS WITH FARRIS & FRIENDS Kathe Farris hosts this monthly Comedy Studio showcase, still virtual for now, featuring stand-up comedians Steph Dalwin, Kathy Lynch, Erik Escobar, Jules Biedrzycki, and an interview with illustrator Dave Biedrzycki, Juless father. April 9, 8 p.m. Free. http://www.thecomedystudio.com

BOSTONS BEST Laugh Boston continues to showcase homegrown headliners as it ventures into in-person shows again. This weekend, the lineup is Zach Brazao, Tooky Kavanagh, Chris Pennie, and Robbie Printz for two indoor, socially distanced shows. April 9-10, 7:30 p.m. $29. Laugh Boston, 425 Summer St., Boston. 617-725-2844, http://www.laughboston.com

COREY RODRIGUES The Boston comic has released a comedy special (part of the Unprotected Sets series on Epix) and stars in the new comedy short Rope-A-Dope from Tres Gatos TV. Now he will celebrate his first time headlining Giggles (under the tent) with support from some of the clubs regulars, Tony V (Friday) and Ken Rogerson (Saturday), plus Johnny Pizzi. April 9-10, 8:30 p.m. $25. Giggles Comedy Club, 517 Broadway, Saugus. 781-233-9950, http://www.princerestaurant.com

NICK A. ZAINO III

Family

FAMILY PUPPET COMEDY FESTIVAL At Puppet Showplace Theaters online performance series this weekend, expect fantastical puppets, new takes on old stories, and lots and lots of laughter. From Friday to Sunday, puppeteers from across the country will perform live over Zoom in a series of shows ideal for all ages. April 9-11. Free. http://www.puppetshowplace.org

WINDSOCKS At this Earth Day celebration hosted by The Umbrella Arts Center, participants will learn how to create windsocks colorful hanging triangles which signal important weather changes. This outdoor workshop includes all necessary supplies and an opportunity for participants to hang their windsocks at the center. April 10, 1 p.m. $5-$10. The Umbrella Arts Center, 40 Stow St., Concord. theumbrellaarts.org

NATACHI ONWUAMAEGBU

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Whats happening in the arts world - The Boston Globe

When Maos Red Guards first got to work in China, they defaced statues before they tore them down. It was common to find a statue of Buddha, for example, with new signs saying: Destroy the old world! Establish a new world! Boris Johnsons government isnt keen on statue removal, but it is offering a compromise. Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, has adopted a policy of retain and explain, whereby the statue remains but with a plaque giving more historical context. Explanation, it is assumed, can only be good.

Yet you only have to look at the single case where retain and explain has been deployed to see what we could be in for. Edinburgh City Council has had its planning application approved to attach a plaque to the Melville Monument in St Andrew Square commemorating Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty. The contention is whether he delayed the abolition of the slave trade by inserting the word gradual into the 1792 motion on the issue.

A reasonable interpretation of his addition is that it ensured the Acts passage. You might think Dundass record of advocacy for a transported slave, by which he proved Scots law would not uphold the institution, would be worth taking into account. Not according to the wise men of Edinburgh City Council. Their revision says Dundas was instrumental in deferring abolition. It concludes with a gross distortion: In 2020 this was dedicated to the memory of more than half a million Africans whose enslavement was a consequence of Henry Dundass actions.

Given that the council didnt commission a historian to draft the wording, but turned to Sir Geoff Palmer, a scientist and an anti-Dundas human rights activist, the outcome is hardly surprising. The danger of retain and explain, however, is not just the capacity for historical illiteracy. It is the very premise that it is necessary to expose some supposed moral flaw in those depicted in our statues.

The purpose of a statue is to celebrate someone in respect of specific public achievements. Churchills statue in Parliament Square is only there because he defeated European fascism. His character faults, or indeed the rest of his long and exceptional parliamentary career, are irrelevant. Statues have never been testaments of unblemished character, should such a thing exist.

If we are to get into the habit of writing statements of penitence in the name of context, almost no one from history would escape. For example, Haringey Council recently renamed Albert Road Recreation Ground in Muswell Hill after the anti--apartheid revolutionary Oliver Tambo, whose statue already stands in the park. Should there not be a plaque explaining that the African National Congress president authorised the Church Street bombing atrocity, which killed many innocent (black) civilians? Should it not memorialise the victims of uMkhonto we Sizwes practice of neck-lacing, whereby alleged collaborators with the apartheid regime had a car tyre forced over their head and arms, were drenched in petrol and then set ablaze?

I raise these questions not to doubt the legitimacy of the anti-apartheid struggle but to show how difficult it is for retain and explain to fulfil its purpose. We are asking too much of our civic monuments to educate us. Anyone who wishes to learn about slavery should go to a library or Elmina Castle. The base of a statue does not have space for a full historical account. At best, plaques restrict the life of the figure to a narrow frame. At worst, they deliberately mislead.

Britains curatorial class have convinced themselves that the public desires radical change. A survey in Leeds suggests otherwise. Of the 813 people (of a population of 792,525) who bothered to respond to the City Councils statues review, 90 per cent wanted no action at all. Yet Historic England is all for retain and explain. The chairman, Sir Laurie Magnus, who has a touch of Sir Desmond Glazebrook, repeats the mantra on every platform.

I suspect many of our public servants are simply guided by the fear of being accused of defending the indefensible: namely that one supports slavery or racism. I suppose if you are a director or trustee of an older generation, particularly a white male, you must feel like Indiana Jones with the walls closing in. Your own staff might wish to see you squished. Tacituss without anger or zeal approach to history is old hat. Likewise is custodianship in the age of audience management. The culture industry now resembles a political lobby group.

If you think I am overstating the case, look at the museums. Glasgows Hunterian has employed an incredibly titled Curator of Discomfort. Londons Natural History Museum claims Darwins voyage on HMS Beaglewas a colonialist scientific expedition. The folk at Kew Gardens, who appear to have been inhaling their plants, are going to reword their display boards to address any exploitative or racist legacies. The Museums Association itself campaigns for social and climate justice.

Who is all this justice for? The Labour mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, has claimed material inequality led to the toppling of Edward Colstons statue last year. I doubt that. To believe artefacts with colonial or slave trade associations reproduce violence today requires subjecting oneself to hours of bad scholarship or workshops. The poor do not have that privilege. Such are the luxuries of an elite mob. And if democracy has any real meaning, it is surely the ability of the majority to laugh at their foolish ideas. But now these fads permeate schools, universities, museums, galleries, civil service, councils; in short, every civic and cultural institution. The joke isnt funny any more.

Dowden is a rare breed of culture secretary who wants institutions to consider their remit. His department is still drawing up the guidelines on retain and explain. A museum curator I spoke to a member of its decolonisation working group and anti-racism taskforce thinks the policy is a compromise that will satisfy nobody. So if Dowden would like to please the majority and wont ditch retain and explain these guidelines should at the very least force institutions to follow an academically robust process to prevent curatorial independence being used as a cover for political activism. If not, taxpayer money should be withheld. Such conditions wouldnt need legislation. Otherwise, retain and explain is doomed to be another Tory policy where to accommodate is to capitulate.

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The misguided plan to 'retain and explain' statues - Spectator.co.uk

When the pandemic struck, the floor was promptly ripped out from under working musicians. With the closure of venues and touring off the table, the bleak reality of declining recording revenue which has nose-dived in the streaming era began to sink in as artists faced an uncertain future.

Although the recording industry has always been a predatory and exploitative force (especially to non white people and women), the inequalities within music have become more acute since the onset of COVID-19. According to The American Prospect, "Spotify has outperformed Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix , and Google between January 2020 and January 2021," boosting CEO Daniel Ek's net worth to $5.3 billion, and leaving musicians who earn a paltry $0.00348 per stream without a foothold.

As musician Damon Krukowski told the Prospect's David Dayen, "Last year, the COVID year, [my band] Galaxie 500 had 8.5 million streams on Spotify. We also released a 2,000-copy, limited-edition LP. They raised the same amount of money. Neither is enough to live on." Krukowski told Dayen that he added up the amount of monthly streams that would amount to each band member earning $15 an hour from Spotify. The number was 650,000. According to MIT, the living wage in Boston, where Krukowski's band is based, is $19.17 an hour.

Streaming companies' rapid devaluation of recorded music has been a long-term project. As music piracy took off in the late 90s and early 2000s, the music industry created a narrative that such platforms were stealing from artists, despite the fact that many indie musicians owed their careers to piracy. One North Carolina State University study even suggested the piracy boosted album sales. Krukowski told Dayen that his band was able to reach people through piracy and sell out shows in countries that they could never reach through traditional channels.

The Recording Industry Association of America worked tooth and nail to sue pirate sites like Napster and Kazaa out of business and mounted a counterrevolution to piracy that would eventually evolve into streaming. Of course the modus operandi of the tech industry is to "innovate" via consolidation, new technology and legal justifications that works to funnel wealth upwards to investors while devaluing labor. According to Rolling Stone, "65% of Spotify was owned by just six parties," including the company's founders and Wall St. firms like Morgan Stanley. Other owners include the major record companies, who, according to music writer Liz Pelly, use their leverage to promote their artists on the site at the expense of those with fewer resources.

As Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, a musician and organizer from Providence, Rhode Island, told me in a phone interview, "Streaming has simply seen an exaggeration of the trend of more and more resources being directed to an ever smaller number of people in the music industry." Pelly noted in The Baffler magazine that "a study released by Citigroup showed that in 2017, only approximately 12% of the music industry's revenue went to artists, which speaks to the financial precariousness faced by many musicians."

DeFrancesco spoke to the similarities between Spotify and other tech companies. "What's happening at Spotify is very similar to what we've seen happen in other industries, like with rideshare companies. ...The companies themselves say, 'Oh, we can't pay people more, we're actually operating at a loss,' but it's this confusing array of venture capitalist firms who are investing in these companies and artificially propping them up to create monopolies to drive down prices and to drive up competition, making it increasingly difficult for workers to mount in opposition."

But with COVID, everything changed.

"Things were growing more and more unequal in our industry, and the pandemic pushed everything over the edge and allowed music workers the time to start talking to one another," DeFrancesco said. Once off the road and grounded at home, DeFrancesco and other musicians began sharing their stories over Zoom about industry practices, streaming rates, and other issues facing artists.

From there, the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) was born. Today, the group has 25 steering committee members and 80 subcommittee members that work on a myriad of issues facing artists such as labels, venues, immigration and police abolition. The group's mission statement states: "UMAW has mobilized thousands of music workers to take part in our first actions around the COVID crisis, and we will continue to organize around issues such as demanding fairer deals from streaming services, ensuring musicians receive the royalties they are owed, establishing more just relationships with labels, and creating safer guidelines for venues."

On March 15, masked-up musicians and their allies took to Spotify offices all over the world to hand deliver their demands to the streaming giant as part of the group's Justice at Spotify campaign. They called for a raise to a penny-per-stream (approximately three times the current rate), the adaptation of a user-centric payment model that pays musicians proportionally to the amount of streams they receive, transparency about contracts and the removal of payola, proper attribution credits for work on recordings, and an end to "legal battles intended to further impoverish artists." Nearly 28,000 signed onto the demands that were delivered in 15 cities around the world including in New York, Berlin, So Paulo, London, and Nashville, highlighting the Swedish company's role in global music distribution and labor exploitation.

As soon as the campaign took off, Spotify quickly launched a website called Loud & Clear, which was designed to offer transparency about the company, or act as a PR smokescreen, depending on who you ask. As UMAW retorted, "This website answers none of our demands and even further obfuscates transparency. The company simply deflects blame onto others for systems it has itself built and provided no further information on their per-stream rate."

DeFrancesco told me that although the company didn't mention UMAW's campaign directly, "the fact that they felt the need to [create the website] and move to the steps that we see a lot of companies do when confronted is telling. They moved from just ignoring protest to beginning to lash out back at the activists and workers. That means we are making inroads."

UMAW plans to keep building their union. "The only way to counter the power of these major companies and venture capitalists is to build an opposing worker power," DeFrancesco said.

"With new tech solutions, we're just going to replicate the same power inequities, unless we actually organize power. So you know, we need to get musicians together and organized so we can, like the rest of the labor movement, demand power and resources from the people who own the means of production, which is these monopoly tech companies. This way we can build a political force so that we can lobby for regulation and get public resources to arts workers like they have in other industrialized countries."

Will Meyer is a freelance writer and co-editor of The Shoestring in western Massachusetts. His writing has appeared in The Baffler, The New Republic, CJR, and many other publications. Find him on Twitter@willinabucket.

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Musicians deserve a raise too, and they're right to organize against Spotify's exploitative practices - Business Insider

The call to defund the police has become a rallying cry as civil unrest erupted across the country following the brutal murder of George Floyd by police last May. Floyd was a Black man and his name is one more added to a long list of victims of police violence. As a result, attention has shifted to the question of whether or not the criminal justice system is deeply flawed.

There are misconceptions of what it means to defund the police and how that would ultimately affect the community.

Many mistake the word defund for abolition, which are two separate ideas. I think that first and foremost, its very important to establish and to first take into consideration that theres a difference between defunding the police and abolishing the police, Carolina Mendez said.

Mendez is a fourth-year political science student at California State University, Fullerton, where she also serves as the president and founder of the College Progressives and vice president of the College Democrats.

So, while abolition is focused on entirely getting rid of these departments, defunding centers on reallocating funds [to] other resources and agencies that respond to crises in the community, Mendez said. In many cases, police respond to nonviolent or noncriminal situations where other agencies may be better equipped to respond so thats what motivates our call for defunding the police.

When asked why this is a change that needs to take place, Mendez explained the importance of addressing the systemic root of the issue.

If our youth had access to properly-funded after-school activities, whether that be tutoring or sports, or any programs, really, that seek to enrich their lives, they would not be subjected to engage in the violence on our streets that endanger them; the very essence of this movement is addressing the systemic inadequacies that currently exist, Mendez said.

Mike Rodriguez is a Fullerton resident, public school teacher, and serves on the central committee for the Democratic Party of Orange County. He has been one of the activists leading the movement known as Justice for Hector. Hector Hernandez was a Fullerton resident killed by police in front of his home last May.

Protestors march outside City Hall onMarch 16 at a protest about the police killing of Hector Hernandez. Photo by Grace Widyatmadja.

In the last decade, the City of Fullerton hasnt had the best record when it comes to police violence, Rodriguez said. [Hernandez] was the third person of color in that calendar year who was killed by Fullerton police.

Rodriguez thinks that a large part of this problem is that those who police our communities have weapons. Police did little to de-escalate the situation with Hernandez and barked orders at him to put his hands up with which Hernandez complied.

If they [police] wouldve followed all of the protocols, then you wouldnt have two boys who [are] without a father today and neighbors without a beloved member of their community, Rodriguez said. Weve got to think about where our values are. Where are our values as people of the City of Fullerton and how do we budget those values? How do we see our values reflected in our citys budget? Because if people of color and homeless people continue being killed and we see that theres no wrongdoing being done then thats an issue.

Mendez said. Urging our City Council to reevaluate their budget priorities, as many others in the nation actively are doing and have done, is at the center of this movement, Mendez said.

In Fullertons 2020-21 budget, the police receive 47% of the Citys general fund.

This movement to defund the police centers heavily on communities reflecting on how their city budgets are prioritized. Cities across the country like Baltimore, Portland, and Hartford have approved reallocation of police funding to other services. Portland City Council cut $15 million from their police and reallocated $5 million to a program that assists first responders in addressing calls related to homelessness. Mendez also said that no serious deterioration of these departments was reported and no increase in crime occurred.

If anything, these communities actually benefited because more money was going directly to the programs that would enrich their lives and collective well-being, Mendez said.

Eugene, Oregon implemented a program called Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS), a mobile crisis intervention program that provides support to the Eugene Police Department by handling calls having to do with social services. They provide initial contact and support for people who are intoxicated, mentally ill, or disoriented.

The City of Fullerton is planning to develop a program similar to CAHOOTS called Project HOPE (Homeless Outreach and Proactive Engagement). Rather than having police officers intervene in cases of homelessness, this program would call on a mental health worker or ambulance to respond to the situation at hand.

Police should be the last resort. They shouldnt be the first call when it comes to homeless people on private property or when it comes to calls about drug usage or anything like that. They should be the last resort, Rodriguez said.

The call to defund the police is one met with reluctance because of the preconceived notion that it seeks to get rid of police departments entirely. American society has only ever known dependence on police for public safety, so the apprehension about implementation of this change is understandable.

My hope is one that I share with many people in our City and all over the country, is that were able to work towards healthy, safe, and sustainable communities. That begins with investing funds into programs that seek to get us there, Mendez said.

Defunding the police isnt just a catchy slogan that the youth likes to reference and it shouldnt be mischaracterized as such. Its a very real call to action thats informed by our individual experiences that needs to be heard.

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What They Mean When They Say Defund the Police - Fullerton Observer

The pandemic has abruptly changed the lives of both students and faculty here at The University of Akron. After writing an article last fall about how students were feeling about the transition to online learning, I wanted to give the faculty a chance to showcase how they have innovated within the shift.

Daniela Jauk Ph.D., a second-year Assistant Professor in the Departments of Sociology and Criminal Justice and Akron alumnus, says that the most challenging part of the shift was and still is, the trauma we all carry of not being able to connect personally and the sickness and deaths we are confronted within both the media and personal environments, as well as, translating compassion and a democratic learning environment into virtual learning spaces.

When it came to innovating her teaching style, Jauk says she has amped up compassion, starting each class by relaying to students that we cannot ignore the external and internal pressures; we need to show up for each other and grant each other some slack.

Jauk has chosen to work with no or flexible deadlines and has even created new assignments, such as integrating creative and art assignments into the sociology classrooms to create space for joy and creative, inspirational engagement.

She has also used community partner Prison Abolition Prisoner Support to connect students in her Intro to Criminal Justice class with incarcerated pen pals to learn about the criminal justice system through the lens behind the bars with the purpose to humanize incarcerated individuals and debunk myths and sensationalist media portrayals, she continued.

Jauk always encourages students to remember to take digital detoxes when taking online courses and emphasized her compassion for students who must maintain jobs, have had COVID-19, have lost someone to COVID-19, and still manage to show up for classes.

And of course, she appreciates the kindness of her students, Hats down to these resilient spirits and perseverant achievers, who still manage to be kind in their communication with instructors, who are of course humans too, in the same pandemic.

Dr. Adel Alhalawani, Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, joined The University of Akron in fall 2019. The most challenging aspect of converting to online learning for Alhalawani was, engaging with students virtually and incorporating class group work and activities.

To adapt to online learning, I explored different options such as using a smart screen, distance learning classrooms, different video conferencing applications and student feedback on what would work best for them, Alhalawani continued, distance learning classrooms worked really well, especially for my dual-delivery classes and student feedback and discussions allowed me to think outside the box.

His advice to students that plan to continue taking online courses as restrictions loosen is to resist all distractions that prevent them from learning. Alhalawani urges students to communicate with their instructors and dont be afraid to ask them for more engagement activities.

Some tools that I implemented to help students stay engaged were having cameras turned on during classes, offering one-on-one meetings and utilizing breakout rooms for group work, he continued.

Alhalawani says one of the things that stood out to him was his students adaptability to online learning and their honesty with him to help come up with solutions for some of the problems they face in class.

Dr. Alexa Fox, Assistant Professor in the Department of Marketing, started teaching at UA in 2017 and is a two-time alumnus as well. Fox says that the most challenging aspect of transitioning to online learning was the struggle to set appropriate expectations.

Much of the content in my courses lends itself to an online environment quite nicely but striving to meet student expectations as all classes on campus navigated uncharted waters posed a unique challenge, Fox says. Overall, I think UA faculty rose to the occasion, finishing out a most unique academic year as effectively as possible.

Fox provided an example of her online innovation by explaining the midterm project her students do in her Social Media Marketing class.

Students conduct a critical analysis of a social media marketing trend that is impacting the marketing field and deliver their insights as a written blog post and then as a discussion during a live stream event hosted on the Department of Marketings Facebook page, she explained. While the live stream event has typically been filmed in-person in the Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing TV studio, the event was adjusted for the new online format of the class. I worked with MONSTERS Unlimited, a local creative agency to make this happen so that students could still have a unique and dynamic experience engaging project.

Fox emphasized pride in how her students still delivered high-quality trend assessments to the audience and shared useful insights about whether or not the social media marketing trend they studied was worth getting behind.

Dr. Heather Braun has been teaching in the English Department of The University of Akron since the fall of 2013. For Braun, the biggest challenge has been reading the room, by assessing the moods and specific needs of a class. She shared she has been recently trying to reframe this, realizing that she sees more faces online since everyone would be wearing a mask if her classes were in person.

Letting go of the expectation that online learning will be the same as in-person learning has also helped me stay curious and be more forgiving of myself, she added.

When it comes to innovation, Braun starts by meeting students where they are, recognizing that theyre all living full and complex lives.

Connecting with students as individuals and giving them opportunities to connect with each otherin breakout rooms, online chats, virtual discussion boards, or just a fun activitydecreases their anxiety and increases how well they work together and engage in the class, she continued.

Braun has had to rethink how she creates shared relevance with her students and with the course material by showing how it connects to their lives and experiences outside of the classroom. She encourages students that plan to continue online learning to make the effort by contributing to every class in hopes that students feel more seen and like a part of a community that supports them.

One of the biggest things that have stood out to Braun was a recent situation with a student.

She shared the challenge of leading a group online and which activities she had tried that worked well, so I invited her to design and lead an activity for our class. Not only did doing this give her confidence to create improved iterations for her student organization, but it also encouraged others in our class to give feedback and help her improve and expand on her ideas.

Braun emphasized that she is especially proud of how her students have moved beyond the limitations of this moment to ask for help, learn new skills, be vulnerable and creative and help others feel less alone.

Students and faculty have both experienced an unprecedented time throughout the course of the pandemic. Here at The Buchtelite, we want to extend a round of applause to our faculty as they faced challenges head on and created a safe learning environment for all students at The University of Akron.

Thank you, faculty!

Continued here:

UA Faculty Shifts to Online Education in Innovative Ways due to COVID-19 - The Buchtelite

Effective teachers can transform the lives of students and their families. Research by Harvards Raj Chetty shows a single great teacher can increase the total lifetime earnings of a typical classroom of students by more than a million dollars. Thats life changing.

But being a great teacher is hard, even in nonpandemic times. From inadequate classroom resources to a lack of professional support, the stress and strain of teaching was already driving nearly half of new teachers from the classroom in their first five years. In our new pandemic era, educators are feeling even more taxed.

The challenge is especially acute in our high-poverty, under-funded public schools where teacher tenure is lowest. Black and brown students are twice as likely to attend one of these schools than their white peers. As nearly 80 percent of teachers are white and more than half of public school students are nonwhite, our newest educators often find themselves in a very different cultural context for the first time.

The result is our teaching workforce as a whole often grossly underestimates Black and brown students academic abilities and fails to cope with what teachers perceive as problem behavior. This culture shock and racial bias drives many teachers out of schools that educate Black and brown children to lower-poverty, whiter schools.

Many teachers are clearly not adequately prepared to teach Black and brown students. Our students are paying the price for the failures of our teacher-preparation programs. Changes to these programs that result in better education for Black and brown students are long overdue.

The solution is threefold for our teacher-preparation programs:

1. Engender cultural fluency and understanding. Teacher-preparation programs and their faculties have proven time and time again to be something short of truly culturally responsive to Black and brown communities. The heights of tenured teaching posts are too far removed from the lived experiences of Black and brown students.

The result is a pipeline of new teachers inadequately prepared to serve Black and brown students. In a 2018 study from researchers at Temple University, fully 62 percent of newly graduated aspiring teachers said they feel unprepared to work in an urban classroom.

Those who prepare our future teachers must be more assertive in addressing their own shortcomings and acknowledge when they dont have a particular sphere of understanding, knowledge, and skillsand then work to acquire them.

2. Equip teachers with the skills and knowledge to help Black and brown students actually learn, not just speak woke. It is not enough to be able to speak of liberation; our teachers must be able to provide students with the tools to actually secure it. Performative wokeness, where appearing anti-racist to others is a more important goal than being anti-racist, should not be an exercise perfected in education schools. Unfortunately, it seems to be the primary occupation of many who enjoy tenure in them. When the teachers of teachers are more enamored with virtue signalingcreating a perception in others that they get racism than embracing meaningful accountability for their students and the success of the students their students go on to teach, we are lost.

Whether by ignorance or arrogance, those in the ivory tower seem to have forgotten the wisdom that Maya Angelou articulated: Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery. Indeed, many in academia are uninterested in either acknowledging or learning about how their class content and pedagogy reinforce inequity.

3. Commit to diversifying faculty, student bodies, and syllabi. Teacher colleges need to commit to diversifying their courses, professors, and students. Some graduates and organizations like National Council on Teacher Quality and TNTP (where I, in full disclosure, serve on the board) are working with teacher-college alums organizing for a more diverse teacher-preparation program at their alma mater. We need much more than this, however.

Teacher-prep syllabi should be informed by the aspirations and goals of the Black and brown communities, not just by what professors wrote their latest book about. Teacher-preparation programs should embrace accountability for the impact, or lack thereof, of the students who graduate from their programs. The point of preparing teachers, after all, is for them to teach well.

We should also look to the programs that are effectively preparing more of our Black and brown teachers. We need new investments in historically Black colleges and universities generally and their schools of education in particular. Given the transformative role that teachers of color can play in the lives of all students, such an investment would redound to the benefit of our entire education system.

Instead of bashing alternative-certification programs, traditional programs should draw lessons from their experiences and effectiveness. These programs essentially level the playing field with aspiring teachers from traditional four-year programs and graduate more Black and brown aspiring teachers than all non-HBCUs combined.

Some predominantly white institutions are waking up to this need. The Center for Black Educator Development, which I founded and lead, is partnering with organizations and a group of teacher colleges to improve the cultural competency of their faculty and academic offerings. This is hard but vital work for these institutions. They should be applauded.

States can use their accreditation authority to drive productive reforms. This past summer, the Pennsylvania state board of education passed new regulations to require teacher-prep programs to implement an education that is culturally relevant and sustaining, including through trauma-informed approaches to instruction, cultural awareness, and the ability to address any factors that inhibit equitable access for all Pennsylvanias students.

The Biden administration is also well-positioned to lead on this issue. They can start by bringing a much-needed dose of public transparency to teacher prep. As it stands, we know too little of how well programs and institutions are recruiting and preparing Black and brown teachers.

At the last, there is little standing in our way and much to be gained in creating better-prepared and more culturally competent new teachers. Teacher retention and efficacy will improve. Student achievement will rise. More people, especially those from diverse backgrounds, are likely to be interested in teaching, and the profession as a whole will be elevated.

More than anything, though, this work can improve the lives of our students and the broader well-being of our public school communities.

These should be the baseline goals of any institution claiming to be committed to the equitable education of our students.

Read more from the original source:

Far Too Many Educators Aren't Prepared to Teach Black and Brown Students (Opinion) - Education Week