Legislative Update on Removing Barriers to Employment - Action Alert - Please Act Now

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Public Policy and External Relations March 9, 2012 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Urgent SAFER FOUNDATION: ACTION ALERT    ___________________ LEGISLATIVE UPDATE REMOVING BARRIERS TO EMPLOYMENT    We are extremely pleased to announce the progress of two pieces of legislation we believe will diminish barriers to employment for thousands of citizens in the State of Illinois who have criminal records. HB 1210 (State Employment Application) and HB 5723 (Criminal ID - Felony Sealing) passed out of Illinois House of Representative committees this week in Springfield.    HB 1210 - State Employment Application  provides that an application for State employment may not contain any question as to whether the applicant was convicted of or placed on supervision for a non-violent criminal offense. This legislation passed out of the Judiciary II Criminal Law Committee on Wednesday, March 7, 2012.   HB 5723 - Criminal ID - Felony Sealing expands eligibility for the sealing of non-violent felony offense records, from the current number of just three eligible offenses. The most common offenses that would become eligible under this new legislation include: theft, forgery, retail theft, possession with intent, and burglary. This bill passed out of the State Government Administration Committee on Thursday, March 8, 2012.     We want to thank all of the sponsors of both legislative initiatives, especially the primary sponsor, Representative LaShawn Ford (D-8), for their commitment and tireless efforts to guide these initiatives to the floor of the Illinois General Assembly. We also thank all of the advocates, non-profits, employers, and individuals for your work and support of this legislation through your calls, emails, letters, and other contact made to our policymakers.   The next steps for the legislation are readings before the full body of the Illinois House of Representatives, where we are hopeful for concurrence and passage. Our real work is still in front of us, and we encourage all CARRE members to continue your support and advocacy of this legislation, which will reduce barriers to employment for people with criminal records in the State of Illinois.   We will continue to update you on the progress of this important legislation. If you have any questions, please contact Jon Kaplan or Veronica Cunningham at Safer Foundation,   (312) 922-2200. Follow Us on Twitter! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Follow @SaferFoundation on Twitter for more updates on criminal justice news and more information about the organization. We appreciate your support!  Public Policy and External Relations Contacts ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ B. Diane Williams, President / CEO Veronica Cunningham, Vice President, Public Policy and External Relations Jon Kaplan, Director, Marketing ans Communication Anthony Lowery, Director, Policy and Advocacy phone: 312-922-2200 www.saferfoundation.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Many articles refer to people with criminal records as "ex-offenders" or "offenders". While we appreciate all the positive press these issues receive, we are working to use other terms to describe our clients that do not carry such negative connotations. These terms include "people with criminal records" or "people reentering society".

ABC7 eNews

Top Stories

Friday, March 9, 2012

Beverly Marine's body returns to Chicago | VIDEO The body of a fallen Chicago Marine killed in Afghanistan arrived Friday morning at Midway and given military honors with a procession. Charges expected in fatal hit-and-run | VIDEO A 42-year-old man with a previous drunken-driving conviction is expected to be charged Friday for a hit-and-run that killed a corrections officer. Flight attendant's rant disrupts Chicago flight A flight to Chicago was delayed after a flight attendant reportedly went off about American Airline's bankruptcy as the plane taxied in Dallas. Illini's Bruce Weber fired after 9 seasons Illinois fired Bruce Weber on Friday, letting go of a fiery coach whose first three years with the Illini included a run to the national championship game before a long, lackluster slide the past six years that culminated with a 17-15 mark this season. 2 charged in dog-torture videos case A 22-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy have been arrested for allegedly filming themselves torturing dogs and puppies and posting the videos on the Internet. Exhibit highlights the art in food | VIDEO Sometimes, in certain restaurants, you might think the results on the plate resemble a work of art. The tables are turned, however, at the University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art. MORE STORIES Strange News Illinois may ban possession of shark fins DePaul student named Legoland master builder Illinois Senate declares Bungalow Week Ohio legislators require footwear in Statehouse Sheriff: Judge's stolen nameplate seen on Facebook Consumer Inventors selected for Chicago pitch-a-thon | VIDEO New iPad unveiled by Apple with sharper screen Astronaut launches Angry Birds in outer space Report: Gov't threatens to sue over e-book prices Consumer Reports: Fisker Karma broke down during testing Healthbeat Healthbeat Report: Lupus | VIDEO Report: More kids, teens smoking | VIDEO Regulators consider policy shift on some drugs Experts link sleep loss to increase in heart-attack risk Scientists: Fruit, veggies make your skin look healthier MOST POPULAR 1 dead in Waukegan shooting Hype bigger than solar storm -- so far Beverly Marine's body returns to Chicago Pittsburgh shooting at clinic kills staff member Healthbeat Report: Lupus All Most Popular

Advertisement TODAY'S WEATHER OUTLOOK 40°F 25°F Breezy and cooler with sunshine Hour-by-Hour | 7 Day Forecast | Radar & Satellite TONIGHT ON ABC Lottery Results Your Daily Horoscope Solar flares, solar storm shake Earth's magnetic field A solar storm shook the Earth's magnetic field early Friday, but scientists said they had no reports of any problems with electrical systems. VIDEO: Jerry Taft envisions Northern Lights over Chicago PHOTOS: Solar storm could brew Northern Lights AP Explainer: What are the Northern Lights? Hype bigger than solar storm -- so far Solar storm headed toward Earth may disrupt power Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday morning It's time to spring forward again, and it may still seem as though it's early in the year. Operation Save-A-Life

SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS I'd like to receive the following newsletters from abc7chicago.com Sign up for news alerts

Daily Weather | Daily News | 190 North

Pat Robertson: Legalize Pot

Friday, March 09, 2012 THE BIG STORY, BY MATT TAYLOR Romney Early Vote Operation Looks A Lot Like Obama's Another item on the long list of Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney's violations of ideological orthodoxy: early voting. Demonized by the right and under assault from Tea Party-backed Republican governors, early voting has become a symbol of the Obama era, boosting minority and youth turnout to historic levels in 2008. But it's not clear the practice has historically benefited one party more than the other. READ MORE Send To A Friend >> MONEY When The GOP Cared About Money In Politics Last month, when House Democrats introduced the DISCLOSE 2012 Act to try to stop the secret flow of "dark money" into the electoral process, it marked an ironic moment. A decade ago, it was Republicans who were pushing for disclosure of donors to the nonprofit groups now pouring millions into political attack ads -- and House Democrats who opposed them. READ MORE Send To A Friend >> BOOK EXCERPT: JOHN NICHOLS The Wisconsin Uprising Only in the most crudely drawn Orwellian fantasy could the assaults on collective bargaining rights, civil service protections, public education and public services initiated by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in February of 2011 be imagined as the "streamlined" model of liberty that Walker and his adherents imagined. The models in play were those of billionaire campaign donors like the Koch Brothers and their American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporation-funded "bill mill" that had drawn up anti-union, anti-consumer, and, above all, anti-democracy legislation for pliant conservative legislators in Wisconsin, Ohio and states across the country to introduce and enact. READ MORE Send To A Friend >> FEATURED COLUMN: DAVID CAY JOHNSTON Obama's Hamburger Problem If President Barack Obama can persuade Congress to reduce the corporate income tax rate to 28 percent from 35 percent, he will move tax rates closer to what other modern countries charge. But his plan to treat "manufacturing" as a special category, with a 25 percent tax rate, brings us to what I call Obama's hamburger problem. The problem is how to define manufacturing. To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart on obscenity, I know manufacturing when I see it; I just don't know how to define it in tax law. READ MORE Send To A Friend >> TODAY IN STUPID Senator: Climate Change Is Impossible, Because 'God's Still Up There' Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), author of a book titled The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, is now claiming that climate change is impossible because "God's still up there." READ MORE Send To A Friend >> WAR ON DRUGS Pat Robertson: Legalize Pot Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says marijuana should be legalized and treated like alcohol because the government's war on drugs has failed. READ MORE Send To A Friend >> CARTOON OF THE DAY Send To A Friend >>

(c) 2012 Eastern Harbor Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
28 West 27th Street, Suite 502
New York, NY 10001

Important Article on New Jim Crow in New York Times; 3 Ways to Save Black Boys; Local School Council Extension; "Black Men of Honor" College Fair; National Plan to Educate Latino Students

Making Progress; Moving Forward! New Jim Crow Featured in New York Times 3 Ways To Save Black Boys Concerned Chrisitan Men Feed and Mentor 300 Boys Black Men of Honor College Fair Latinos Launch Bold Educational Initiative Links: The Black Star Project's website: blackstarproject.org Black Star Jounral: blackstarjournal.org Become a Member: Click Here Event Calendar: Click Here Like us on Facebook:   Michelle Alexander, featured in the New York Times, arrives in Nebraska to promote social justice movement Saturday, March 10, 2010    People in Omaha, Lincoln, North Platte and Grand Island, Nebraska;  Sioux City, Des Moines, Davenport and Iowa City, Iowa; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Minneapolis and Rochester, Minnesota; St. Joseph and Kansas City, Missouri; Overland Park, Topeka and Kansas City, Kansas; Cheyenne, Wyoming; and Denver, Colorado are encouraged to attend this event.     Quotes below from New York Times article, March 7, 2012    "Everyone in the African-American community had been seeing exactly what she is talking about but couldn't put it into words," said Phillip Jackson, executive director of the Black Star Project, an educational advocacy group in Chicago.   and   "It's easy to be completely unaware that this vast new system of racial and social control has emerged," Professor Michelle Alexander said. "Unlike in Jim Crow days, there were no 'Whites Only' signs. This system is out of sight, out of mind."   Read More...   Information to Register for Nebraska Event    3 Ways to Save America's Black Boys   By Mike Green  March 8, 2012   Here are three ways to save America's Black boys: Change their language Invest in their creativity Mentor them into the mainstream   Read More... Concerned Christian Men Mentor and Feed 300 Boys with Monthly Man/Boy Breakfast The Concerned Christian Men (CCM) was founded in October 1996 by George D. Glenn, a Harvard-educated native Chicagoan (graduate of Senn High School). CCM's initial and continuing focus has been to provide strong "Black Male" leadership and guidance to young Black boys living on the South Side of Chicago to assist them in becoming positive, contributing members of their communities. CCM's Flagship activity is the monthly Man-Boy Breakfast that over 29,000 men and boys have attended since 1996 (140 breakfasts). Since April 2002 the breakfasts are held at Simeon Career Academy, a state-of-the-art vocational and academic high school. We average over 300 men and boys for our Man-Boy breakfasts.   Read More... .  Create A "Black Men of Honor" College Fair in Your City by Calling 773.285.9600 Read More... In Chicago, New Deadline to Run For Your Local School Council Is March 23, 2012   What Research Says:   Researchers Karen Smith Conway, professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire, and her colleague Andrew Houtenville, senior research associate at New Editions Consulting, found that parental involvement has a strong, positive effect on student achievement.  "Parental effort is consistently associated with higher levels of achievement, and the magnitude of the effect of parental effort is substantial. We found that schools would need to increase per-pupil spending by more than $1,000 in order to achieve the same results that are gained with parental involvement," Conway said.   Nomination forms are due in schools Friday, March 23, 2012, 3:00pm.   Please call 773.553.1400 for more information.    . One of the best options for educating Black students in America -- Saturday University     Please call 773.285.9600 to learn how to start a Saturday University in your city.  We have 15 free Saturday Universities operating in and around Chicago.  Please call 773.285.9600 to register your child for free academic enhancement or for more information about Saturday University.   Read More... Black students face tougher discipline in Chicago and the U.S.    By ROSALIND ROSSI AND ART GOLAB  March 6, 2012   African American students receive disproportionately harsher discipline than non-minorities in schools nationwide - and especially in Chicago, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday.   Although African American students represented 45 percent of the Chicago Public School enrollment in 2009-2010, 76 percent of students receiving at least one out-of-school suspension that year were black, new federal data from the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights showed.   That means CPS's African American students were five times as likely to be suspended as their white peers, relative to their presence in the overall student population. That's the third-highest black-white suspension ratio among 20 big-city districts examined, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of the federal data indicated.   Read More... And See 20 Largest City Comparison for Discipline  . 'Policing Chicago Schools': Report Suggests In-School Officers Put Teens On Road To Prison   CHICAGO - As Chicago Public Schools have become increasingly dependent on the police department to control student behavior on school grounds, a disproportionately high number of black juveniles are being thrust into the criminal justice system too early and too easily, according to data from a new report issued Wednesday by the Chicago youth advocacy group Project NIA.   Read More... .   Black Students Three Times More Likely to Be Retained than White Students    By Caralee J. Adams, Erik W. Robelen and Nirvi Shah    Original data analysis was conducted by Michele McNeil and Ms. Shah.   March 6, 2012   New nationwide data collected by the U.S. Department of Education's civil rights office reveal stark racial and ethnic disparities in student retentions, with black and Hispanic students far more likely than white students to repeat a grade, especially in elementary and middle school.   The contrast is especially strong for African-Americans. In the most extreme case, more than half of all 4th graders retained at the end of the 2009-10 academic year-56 percent-were black, according to the data, which account for about 85 percent of the nation's public school population. In 3rd grade, 49 percent of those held back were black.   In all, nearly 1 million students, or 2.3 percent of those enrolled, were retained across K-12, the data show. Black students were nearly three times as likely as white students to be retained, when combining all grade levels. Hispanic students were twice as likely to be held back.   Read More... Latinos Launch Bold Education Initiative! Where Is the Bold, Black Education Initiative?   Chicago-The United States Hispanic Leadership Institute (USHLI) today announced the launch of its 2012 Student Leadership Series, the boldest initiative in the Latino community that will challenge over 40,000 students in 40 cities in 30 states to stay in school, improve their academic performance, graduate, and pursue post-secondary education or training.  Walmart, furthering their commitment to providing educational opportunities to diverse communities across the country, serves as the Title Sponsor of the Student Leadership Series.   Over 3,000 high school students, teachers and counselors, as well as recruiters representing vocational and technical schools, community colleges, and 4-year academic institutions are expected to attend the launch, which will feature former NASA astronaut Dr. Jose Hernandez.   Read More...

Texas HS apologizes for students chanting 'USA!'

Texas HS apologizes for students chanting 'USA!':



Racism is alive and well in America. The white students here who chanted "USA" after a basketball victory over a Hispanic school come from families and friends who practice a separation of the races. We have to look at where this incident happened, the great State of Texas. Governor Rick Perry's politics, policies, and beliefs promote practices of racism and racial divide. This school should apologize.