Education is an important issue and nowhere more so than in Kansas City

There’s no better way to start your week than with a party!

Join hundreds of students, teachers, parents, and neighbors in the beautiful Sprint Festival Plaza of Union Station in Kansas City as we commemorate National School Choice Week 2013. People of all ages are welcome! Join us as we celebrate the great schools of choice that are working for our children, and help us raise awareness of the need for even better educational options for all kids in Missouri.

Kansas City is one of 14 stops along the route of the National School Choice Week ‘Special,’ a cross-country, whistle-stop train tour supporting school choice.

National School Choice Week Event

Education is an important issue and nowhere more so than in Kansas City.

For decades, those with means have expressed school choice with their feet, moving across the state line or contributing to the city's thriving private school community. It is in recognition of this--and the need for greater parental choice that the Show-Me Institute has partnered with National School Choice Week.

Where: Sprint Festival Plaza at Union Station

When: Monday, January 28 from 4:30PM to 6:30PM

Speakers include:

· James Shuls, Show-Me Institute
· Vonelle Middleton, CEO, Hope Academy Charter School of Kansas City
· Douglas Thaman, Executive Director, Missouri Charter Public Schools Association
· Joe Trippi, FOX News Contributor and Democratic Strategist
· Lisa Graham Keegan, Education Reform Pioneer
· Lisa Snell, Education Director, Reason Foundation
· Andrew Campanella, National School Choice Week President

Surgery kept Gilbert Guerrero from personally receiving the 23rd Evelyn Wasserstrom Award Sunday afternoon. It did not stop others from praising his work.

 

Surgery kept Gilbert Guerrero from personally receiving the 23rd Evelyn Wasserstrom Award Sunday afternoon. It did not stop others from praising his work.

The founder and superintendent of the Alta Vista Charter School gained recognition for more than two decades as a mentor, educator, dreamer and doer, said Uzziel Pecina, who accepted the award on Guerrero’s behalf.

“Gilbert always believed that education is a civil rights issue,” Pecina said during the presentation at the Community Christian Church in Kansas City.

Pecina credited Guerrero for his own success, for example, in earning a doctorate degree in education that he dedicated to his late father and to Guerrero.

The award presentation was one of a number of area celebrations this week to commemorate the work of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

In Raytown on Sunday, Mayor David Bower congratulated finalists of an “MLK Today” essay contest as part of the city’s 16th annual MLK celebration. The event included performances by Maxine “Queen Mother” McFarlane, Bryan Austin and Hawaiian dance groups.
The Wasserstrom award presentation was the third in a weeklong schedule of events by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City. The organization created the award to honor Wasserstrom, who was director of the Kansas City branch of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, shortly after her death in 1984.

Sunday’s events included presentation of the award by the SCLC of Greater Kansas City and the Jewish Community Relations Bureau/American Jewish Committee.

Guerrero acted on his dream 22 years ago to start a Latino education program that became Alta Vista, a college preparation charter school, said Juan Rangel, director of the Institute for Workforce Innovation-Community Engagement at Metropolitan Community College and a prior recipient of the Wasserstrom Award. Guerrero fought to correct a 50 percent drop-out rate among Hispanic students locally.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/01/15/4009329/wasserstrom-award-honors-founder.html#storylink=cpy

UN rings alarm over conditions of domestic workers

By JOHN HEILPRIN

Associated Press

At least 52.6 million people worldwide are employed as domestic workers, most of them women vulnerable to abuse and without adequate legal protection, the U.N. said Wednesday in its first snapshot of the often invisible workforce that cares for other people's families and households.
The sum is roughly equivalent to all the workers employed in countries such as Mexico, Nigeria or Vietnam, said the U.N.'s International Labor Organization in Geneva. It completed the survey in conjunction with an international accord for equal treatment between domestic and general workers that will come into force in September.

The research found that 83 percent of all domestic workers were women, many of them vulnerable to exploitation, physical and sexual violence and other abuses because of their lack of knowledge of local languages and laws or because they are often paid a flat fee that does not reflect hours worked.
"From caring for children, to caring for elderly and persons with disabilities, to performing a wide range of household tasks, domestic workers are an indispensable part of the social fabric," Sandra Polaski, the ILO's deputy director-general, told reporters in Geneva.

The agency also found that 90 percent of the domestic workers are not covered by general labor protections to the same extent as workers in the mainstream economy. Some 30 percent were completely excluded from all national labor laws.

The U.N. warned that the number of domestic workers is likely to be tens of millions higher than the official figure of 52.6 million due to underreporting by countries and a lack of information.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/01/09/4001360/un-at-least-52-million-domestic.html#storylink=cpy

President Barack Obama will push for immigration reform within the next few weeks

President Barack Obama will push for immigration reform within the next few weeks, according to Fox News Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry.

On America's Newsroom on Fox, Henry said that Obama is well aware that he can become a lame duck president "pretty quickly."

Obama made an initial pledge just a week after being re-elected.

"We need to seize the moment, my expectation is that we get a bill introduced and we begin the process in Congress very soon after my inauguration," Obama said on November 14th.
But skeptics point out that Obama pledged to get immigration reform done by the end of his first year in office in 2008 and failed.

"The White House privately believes they have a much different political climate now, they think they have a better shot of getting this done," Henry said on America's Newsroom on Thursday.

A political climate that now includes overwhelming Latino support for Obama and the sudden realization of the Latino sleeping giant awakened in November. Fox News exit polls show that 71 percent of Latino voters chose Obama, compared with just 27 percent who picked his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. That marks the widest gap in Latino support between two presidential candidates in history.

Senior administration officials privately said to Henry that they believe the bill will have to have some key elements to the deal in order to win over Republican support.
Provisions added by the White House to a potential immigration reform bill to shore up Republican support include:

- Stronger border security
- Penalties for purposely hiring undocumented workers
- Pathway to legal status after paying back taxes and any possible fines
- Requirement to learn English
Unable to secure immigration reform in his first term, Obama has used his own power to help undocumented immigrants.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2013/01/03/obama-plans-to-push-immigration-reform-by-end-january/#ixzz2GyJZ7e5O