Tag: Wave

So far in 2019 strikes have broken out in Los Angeles and Oakland in California, Denver in Colorado and in Virginia and West Virginia, notching up notable wins in terms of pay raises and better working conditions. Kappier explained classrooms in Oakland’s school district are too large, her history textbooks are outdated, schools in the district don’t have nurses, adequate staffing of counselors, no librarians, and music and art programs are non-existent at some schools in the district. The issues facing public schools in Oakland are similar to other school districts across America where teachers led a 30-year high in strikes in 2018. A common theme of these walkouts is drastic declines in public funding schools, where many states have not replenished cuts made to public education during the 2008 economic recession. Leachman co-authored a November 2017 report that found 29 states were funding less per student in 2015 than they were in 2008. Last week, teachers in West Virginia went out on strike again for two days to protest a bill being pushed in the state senate that would tie teacher pay raises to funding for charter schools. “The issue last year was mainly over benefits. “At the school I’m at, the students are lucky enough to have one parent. “That translates to a classroom where kids don’t have a lot of prospects, they don’t have a lot of hope and it’s very difficult in terms of teaching them because a lot of their basic needs are not met.” Around 31,000 teachers in Los Angeles started off 2019’s strike wave in the nation’s second largest school district, walking out for seven days before settling on an agreement that included a pay raise, increase of support staff, and a plan to reduce class sizes to mandated caps. So the only reason to allow a strike is to test the strength of the union.

Indeed, much like Virginia’s gubernatorial contest from last year, Democrats won big in highly educated urban/suburban areas up and down the ballot. And what we are seeing is a further realignment of our politics — with urban/suburban going Democratic, and with rural and red areas going more Republican. Also, how important is party in this realignment? The uncalled House races (14) The uncalled Senate races (3) Dems left gains on the table With CT-GOV still undecided (though Democrat Ned Lamont is ahead here), Democrats will have gained a net seven governorships: Illinois, Kansas, New Mexico, Michigan, Maine, Nevada and Wisconsin. In 2016, it went 63 percent to 33 percent for Clinton. Last night, it went 60 percent to 40 percent for Gillum. And of the 30 House seats picked up by Democrats so far (for a net of 28), 19 were won by women. Bill Clinton ran against a sitting speaker of the House to win re-election in 1996.

After many protests and dismay at the missed opportunity to elect the first female President, a record number of women channeled their discontent to run for office and lead political campaigns towards the 2018 midterm elections. The midterm elections show that women can run and win at any stage of life with common-sense policies. Here are some of my favorite front-runners in the women’s wave, just five women of many breaking ceilings as firsts in their state: Sharice Davids (D-KS) - First Native American woman elected to Congress and Kansas’ first-ever LGBT representative to Congress With roughly 53% of the state vote, Davids will be the first Native American woman elected to Congress and Kansas’s first openly gay Congressional representative. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) - First Somali-American and first Muslim woman elected to Congress Ilhan Omar first made headlines as the first female Muslim lawmaker in the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2016. She is a Somali-American immigrant and won her first race unseating a forty-four year incumbent Democrat. Omar made history again this midterm cycle as the first female Muslim elected to Congress, replacing Keith Ellison who left the seat to run (unsuccessfully) for Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Letitia (Tish) James (D - NY) - First woman and first African-American to serve as New York State Attorney General Tish James made history as the first woman and African-America to win the seat of Attorney General in the State of New York. A lawyer, former City Councilwoman, and native New Yorker, she won her seat for New York State Attorney General with roughly 63% of the state vote. Marsha Blackburn (R - TN) - First woman to represent Tennessee in Congress Marsha Blackburn won her first statewide race this cycle and will be the first woman ever to represent Tennessee in Congress.

A record number of women are running for the U.S. House, Senate and state legislatures this year – more than any other election in U.S. history. But in the two years before the 2018 midterm election, amid marches for women’s rights and the growing #MeToo movement, something shifted in a field that has historically paved an easier path for men: “Women are running whether or not Democrats and Republicans invite them to,” said Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, a political science professor at the University of Southern California. “It’s a sea change.” A record 3,379 women have won nomination for state legislatures across the country, breaking 2016’s record of 2,649, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. And 235 women won nominations in U.S. House races, breaking the previous 2016 record of 167. Twenty-two women won major-party nominations for U.S. Senate, breaking the record of 18 set in 2012. According to David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report – a nonpartisan group that analyzes campaigns and elections – women have won 43 percent of Democratic House primary races, and Republican women have won 13 percent of their party’s primaries. 26 for representation of women in the state legislature (25 percent) compared with the proportion of women in the state (50 percent). Hill, a law professor, had accused Thomas of sexual harassment. She’s expected to become the first black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts; no Republican candidate is running against her. “We’re not going to see 240 years of women’s underrepresentation in politics end in one election cycle,” Walsh said.

Asian-Americans in Massachusetts have run for mayor (Sam Yoon, Boston), and some have even won (Lisa Wong, Fitchburg). But Congress? Just take a look at the Democratic field in the Third District: Three out of the 10 candidates are Asian-Americans — Beej Das, Dan Koh, and Bopha Malone. The Third is a sprawling district northwest of Boston, encompassing 37 cities and towns, including Lowell, home to the nation’s second-largest Cambodian-American community. In 2010, a trio of Asian-Americans won state representative races: Democrats Tackey Chan of Quincy and Paul Schmid of Westport and Republican Donald Wong of Saugus. More have since joined their ranks on Beacon Hill: Republican Keiko Orrall of Lakeville and Democrat Rady Mom of Lowell. Then there’s Republican state Senator Dean Tran of Fitchburg, who won a special election last year. And if you need proof we may have reached a critical mass, how about this: In one Lowell race, there are two Cambodian-American candidates — Sam Meas and Rithy Uong — who are running against Cambodian-American incumbent state representative Mom. “Growing up, I never imagined that I would one day meet an elected official, much less see someone like me be in politics and involved in politics,” said Wu, who is supporting Koh in his congressional bid. “It’s a watershed moment for our community to have three very qualified candidates running for Congress,” said Wing, a Boston political organizer and fund-raiser who is backing Koh.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democrats are fighting to beat back Republican gains across the Midwest as the 2018 primary season roars through Wisconsin and Minnesota, two states where President Donald Trump's appeal among working-class voters threatens to upend decadeslong political trends this fall and beyond. At the same time, accusations of domestic violence involving the Democratic National Committee's second-in-command could undermine any blue wave in Minnesota, a state still healing from scandal. All but 10 states will have picked their candidates for November's general election by the time all votes are counted in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont and Connecticut. Democrats appear particularly motivated in Wisconsin, where eight candidates have lined up for the chance to take on Republican Gov. Once a target of Trump criticism, Walker gained the president's endorsement in a tweet Monday night calling him "a tremendous Governor who has done incredible things for that Great State." "By attacking Wisconsin workers to cover for failed economic policy, President Trump took a page right out of Scott Walker's playbook," said Mahlon Mitchell, one of the candidates and the head of the state firefighters union. Neither candidate was an early Trump supporter, and Vukmir has struggled to explain footage recently unearthed from 2016 in which she calls Trump "offensive to everyone." His replacement, Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, is on Tuesday's ballot as she seeks her first full term. He's the leading Republican candidate in the high-profile race to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Pawlenty has since said he voted for Trump and supports his agenda.

"And we're going to do it in Michigan." He is one of many Arab and Muslim candidates seeking office with left-wing talking points and populist energy. "The future of this party is working people," Ocasio-Cortez said of Democrats at the Detroit event on Saturday. I’m proud to endorse @AbdulElSayed for Governor of Michigan. We are actually on the opposite end of that Two Arab-American women who are Muslim are running for US Congress in separate districts in Michigan. On Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez appeared to back the two women at a rally in Dearborn to encourage Muslims to vote. I need you to knock those doors and send us all, so that 2018 isn't the year that we elect our first Muslim woman to Congress, it's that we get our first class of Muslim women to Congress." That's why people like Abdul and Rashida are resonating with people who are outside our community. If El-Sayed wins on 7 August, he would face one of three Republicans running in the opposite primaries, including the Trump-backed Michigan attorney general. "In fact, the Muslim candidates are the ones who are centring the constitution as the foundation of what they're running on, and dignity and respect for all people," Sarsour, who has been campaigning for Muslim candidates in Michigan, told MEE.

President Emmanuel Macron has announced plans to bring back national service to France, which mainly consists of learning how to wave a white flag and surrendering. French national service was scrapped in 1996 after the country declared that it had perfected the act of surrendering. ‘Not a single country on this planet could surrender as quickly and as gracefully as us,’ said President Macron. But a lack of practice has caused France to lose its edge in the art of surrender. There are growing concerns that the French youth have become so weak that their slender arms are no longer strong enough to lift and wave a white flag. ‘How are countries to know we’ve quit when they can’t even see our white national flag?’ said Macron. French teenagers will now be forced to spend six months learning how to wave a white flag, drop to their knees, and beg for mercy. ‘All critical components of the French way of life,’ said the president.

How is the future of student mobility likely to shift? In my article, Three Waves of International Student Mobility, I analyse the trends from the lens of three overlapping waves shaped by key events impacting future trends. During this wave, many institutions were motivated to attract international students for research and reputation – and were willing and able to provide funding and scholarships to lure global talent. Towards the end of Wave I, several countries including the UK, Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland gained at the expense of the US. According to OECD, there was a “greater interest in recruiting foreign students as tertiary institutions increasingly rely on revenues from foreign tuition fees which are often higher than for national students”. The narrative of Wave I of “attracting global talent” changed to “recruiting international students” in Wave II. This time, neither universities nor governments in many destination countries had the resources to offer financial support to international students. Gideon Rachman noted in The Economist “The resurgence of the nationalist style in politics became evident in 2014...A widespread disillusion with political and business elites, after years of disappointing economic growth, is a common factor that underpins resurgent nationalism across the globe.” Anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies triggered concerns of finding post-graduation career opportunities among many prospective international students considering study in the UK and the US. The third wave also indicates a trend towards increasing competition to attract international students, which would result in a slower pace of growth of international enrolment in the US and the UK. Higher education institutions that aim to be globally competitive in attracting international students must pivot to a goal of innovating to attract the best-fit international students and delivering on the promise of value for money.