Gates wants Child Labor Laws changed for pay-to-graduate schools

[Bussardre@aol.com]

Dear Folks:
 
Below is a note I sent to a nationwide network that fights against  
year-round school.  It is in response to an article (which  follows) about child labor 
laws being changed to  accommodate a Chicago-based private school program I've 
written about  before in which kids go to work part of the week to pay for 
their private  school tuition. It is, no dbout, the Business Roundtable model 
for public  schools, and Bill Gates is funding the pilot program.  
Now there is a proposal before Congress  to change child labor laws so that 
public schools can do the same thing. This is  an incremental step to reversing 
ALL child labor laws and protections so we  can force 17 million public 
school kids age 14 to 18  into the workforce as  a way to compete in a global 
marketplace.
       The public hearings on this  proposal ends July 16. I urge all of you 
to write your lawmakers and urge  your friends and colleagues to do likewise.
 
---Billee Bussard
editor, _www.SummerMatters.com_ (http://www.SummerMatters.com) 
 
       
 
   
 
Folks, this article below is exactly what I told you more than two  years ago 
would be happening when I first stumbled across the Cristo Rey  school--when 
it was just one school, before Bill Gates got involved.
 
Incrementally, high school kids age 14 to 18 will be REQUIRED to pay for  
their own education through forced labor.  Changing the labor laws is a  
necessary step. Once that happens, the flood gates will open to allow 17 million  
low-wage workers ages 14 to 18 to be placed in grunt jobs that industry now  finds 
too costly to fill or keep filled.  And once again, a flood of  low-wage 
workers equivalent to the illegals in the United States, will be  entering the job 
market with the end result of further suppressing  wages nationwide. 
 
What a bonaza for the fast food industry which can't find low-wage workers  
fast enough.
 
And what a way to get the complacent, complient workforce you need to do  
these low-wage jobs. You don't work, you don't graduate.
 
Recall that this concept came from a poor South American country, where the  
only way kids could get ANY kind of education was to pay their own tuition to 
a  private Catholic school by working part of their school day.
Bill Gates wants to model American schools after a third world country.  
Amazing!  What does that really tell you about his values when he  wants our 
nation to devolve from a free public education system to one the  children will 
have to pay for themselves with child labor?
 
Once these provisions to skirt child labor laws pass through Congress, you  
will see an incremental implementation all across the country where the school  
calendar will be incrementally adjusted to a year-round calendar to assure  
industry has child laborers at its disposal year-round.
 
The article argues that this is a way for kids to pay for college.   But how 
much money will be left over if the kids are paying for their own  tuition. 
The article below says tuition is just $2,414 but an article written in  2003 
say costs had jumped in just a year and a half from $1,500 to $8,450.  These 
kids SHARE the equivalent of one 40-hour a week job--maybe with three or  four 
other kids.Their wages pay only 74 percent of the tuition. So  they don't get 
the whole $25,000 a company pays for one 40-hour week. If they  want to go to 
college, they will have to work a second job to save for it. (See  below  a 
segment in Chapter 8 of the book I have been working on with the  documentation.)
 
So much for time to study. So much for this being a way to improve  education.
 
This is a slippery slope that will undo everything we have done to fight to  
preserve the traditional shcool calendar. It will reverse child labor laws, it 
 will place vulnerable children in situations where they will be exploited,  
abused and compromised.  If they say anything about an employer making  
advances, they lose their job and don't graduate.  
 
Where are the red flags?  Where is the outrage?  We all need to  write our 
lawmakers NOW!
 
--Billee Bussard
 
Students  at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School pay for their own tuition, back 
then just  $1,500 a year and less than half of other Chicago Catholic High 
Schools at the  time, from the money they earn working one day of their school week 
at a variety  of Chicago businesses that contract with the school for student 
labor. In 1996,  Education Week reported that businesses paid the school 
$18,000 a year  for an equivalent full-time student laborer, a job that was split 
among five  students who showed up for a 9-to-5 workday on alternating days 
while taking  classes at the school four days.  Among the companies 
participating in 1996 were Chicago Magnificent Mile  employers such as Arthur Anderson, 
the Bozell World Wide advertising  agency, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and 
Refco, a private firm that provides  services on the floor  of the Board  of 
Trade.  The various job duties  for these students included running telephone 
orders to the “pits” on the  frantic floor of the Chicago Board of Trade._[1]_ 
(mip://04297308/default.html#_ftn1)  By 2003, there  were 90 companies paying 
the school $25,000 a year for the service of four  students to share a job, 
and  the  share of tuition costs for a student and his family had jumped to 
$8,450 a year.  Each student earned $6, 250, or about 74 percent of tuition 
costs._[2]_ (mip://04297308/default.html#_ftn2)   

 
____________________________________

_[1]_ (mip://04297308/default.html#_ftnref1)   Archer, Jenn ((December 11, 
1996). “A Working Experiment: Roman Catholic school  tires out jobs-for-tuition 
program in Chicago neighborhood,”  Education Week, pp  24-28
 
_[2]_ (mip://04297308/default.html#_ftnref2)   Matheny, Ruth A (Nov/Dec. 
2003) “Corporate Internship,”  Today’s Catholic Teacher, retrieved  Sept. 7 at: 
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3924/is_200311/ai_n9306707.


 
 
----Billee Bussard
 
 
In a message dated 6/9/2007 11:38:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
DBSinFLA@aol.com writes:

Child-Labor Proposal Eyes Private Model
Under the Cristo Rey-style  model that the federal government has proposed, 
students could work up to  eight hours a day during some school days.

_http://enews.edweek.org/GoNow/a15864a167265a153425426a13_ 
(http://enews.edweek.org/GoNow/a15864a167265a153425426a13) 

Education  Week

Published in Print: June 6, 2007

Child-Labor Proposal Eyes  Private Model






By Scott J. Cech  

_Proposed child-labor-rule  changes_ 
(http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/CL/CL_NPRM.pdf)  —the most ambitious in 30 years—would carve out a permanent  exemption 
to U.S. Department of Labor regulations for the _work-study  program run by a 
national network of Roman Catholic high schools_ 
(http://www.cristorey.net/cwsp/documents/Cristo_Rey_Work_Study_Program_description.pdf)  .  

The program is a requirement of the Chicago-based _Cristo Rey Network_ 
(http://www.cristoreynetwork.org/) , which now has  12 high schools around the 
country targeting low-income, mostly minority  students in grades 9-12 with their 
sights set on college. 

Under the  Cristo Rey-style model that the department has proposed, students 
in any  qualifying public or private school could work up to eight hours a day 
during  some school days—more than double the time now permitted for 14- and  
15-year-olds. 

As the proposal is now worded, “academically oriented”  14- and 15-year-olds 
could work for up to 18 hours in some weeks. Students in  department-approved 
programs would still have to attend classes for at least  the minimum number 
of hours required by their states. 

“It does not  jeopardize their health or education,” said Arthur M. 
Kerschner Jr., the  department’s child-labor and special-employment team leader, 
referring to the  plan. “In fact, we think it helps their education.” 

Cristo Rey  students pay some of their tuition—$2,414 per year, on average—
by working up  to eight hours a day on some school days at one of the 
network-screened banks  or law firms that contract with the schools. The teenagers 
rotate in teams of  four to collectively fill one 40-hour-per-week job slot, and 
the network’s  school calendar stretches over 10 months to accommodate all the 
hours.  

As the Labor Department’s proposed rule changes note, the  2,800-student 
Cristo Rey Network has an impressive track record. According to  the network, 92 
percent of the class of 2006 graduated, and 99 percent of  graduates were 
accepted at a college. 

“We have found [the work-study  program] motivates young people to go on to 
college,” said Jeff Thielman,  Cristo Rey’s vice president for development and 
new initiatives. “They go to  work and see lawyers and other professional 
people and they say, ‘That could  be me if I play my cards right.’ ” 

But not everyone thinks it’s a fair  deal. “Even if 100 percent graduate, it 
wouldn’t ameliorate my concerns,” said  Jeffrey F. Newman, the president and 
executive director of the _National Child Labor Committee_ 
(http://www.nationalchildlabor.org/) ,  a New York City-based nonprofit organization chartered 
by Congress in 1907 to  protect children’s education and safety. 

Mr. Newman wants to avoid any  return to the kind of large-scale employment 
of poor children prevalent in the  19th and early 20th centuries. 

“It is of considerable concern to me as  a child-labor-exploitation expert 
that certain groups would be separated out  from other groups because of their 
academic rigor, even as we recognize the  need for financial help as college 
costs balloon,” Mr. Newman added. “That’s a  very dangerous precedent to set.” 



Under the Radar  


Existing federal regulations allow young teenagers to  get a 
school-supervised taste of the working world through a long-standing  program that offers 
states waivers of regular child-labor rules. 

But  the _Work Experience and  Career Exploration Program_ 
(http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/wecep.asp) , which has been in place since 1969, is 
aimed  at students with blue-collar goals who are at risk of dropping out, 
according  to Mr. Kerschner. And even under its allowances, 14- and 15-year-olds can 
work  only three hours per day on school days. 

The National School Boards  Association hasn’t taken a position on the 
proposed rule changes, but Lisa E.  Soronen, a senior staff attorney for the 
Alexandria, Va.-based group, sees  some promise in the idea. “If you want to save for 
college,” she said, “you  can’t get there doing that three hours a day.” 

Ironically, and  apparently inadvertently, Cristo Rey operated its work-study 
program in  violation of those Labor Department limits for about a decade. 
According to  school and government officials, the fast-growing nonprofit 
network came to  the department’s attention in 2003, when someone pointed out that 
one of its  schools was sending its students to work for whole school days. 

Around  the same time, Cristo Rey officials came to the department, asking 
what they  could do to comply with the law. 

Rather than have the Labor  Department’s enforcement branch crack down on a 
work-study program that seemed  to be helping students, Mr. Kerschner recalled, 
“we said, ‘Let’s put [the  program] in the regs so other schools can take 
advantage of it.’ ”  



Pilot Agreement 

The Cristo Rey  Network last year signed an unusual pilot agreement with the 
department that  allows its work-study program to operate outside of the usual 
rules until next  year. That’s when the rule changes, if approved by U.S. 
Secretary of Labor  Elaine L. Chao and the White House Office of Management and 
Budget, would take  effect. The proposal’s 90-day public-comment period ends 
July 16. 

The  network, which started with one school in Chicago in 1996 and 
incorporated as  a nonprofit network in 2003, has expanded rapidly with significant help 
from  the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To date, the _Seattle-based  
philanthropy has awarded the network_ 
(http://www.gatesfoundation.org/UnitedStates/Education/TransformingHighSchools/Schools/Announcements/Announce-061101.htm)  
nearly $16 million—most of it  specifically for increasing the number of 
Cristo Rey schools. (Gates also  helps fund an annual Education Week report on 
issues related to high  school graduation and college and workforce readiness.) 

The Cassin  Educational Initiative Foundation, a Newton, Mass.-based 
philanthropy with a  history of grants to Catholic schools, has also been a major 
funder, awarding  Cristo Rey schools $12 million since 2000. 

The network now operates  schools in Cambridge, Mass.; Chicago; Cleveland; 
Denver; Kansas City, Mo.;  Lawrence, Mass.; Los Angeles; New York City; 
Portland, Ore.; Sacramento,  Calif.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Waukegan, Ill. 

It plans to open seven more  schools this August, and hopes three more will 
be ready by 2008. 

It’s  unclear how many other schools might take advantage of a Cristo 
Rey-style  work-study program. The Labor Department proposal doesn’t spell out what 
would  qualify students as “academically oriented,” except requiring that they 
be  “enrolled in a college-preparatory program.” Schools would have to get 
their  programs approved by eligible students’ parents, their school, and the  
department under the new rules, however, and assign a teacher-coordinator to  
supervise the students. 

“I don’t see that there’s going to be a big  demand for this,” Mr. 
Kerschner said. 

Mr. Thielman, the Cristo Rey  official, doubts that the work-study model 
could be completely replicated in  public schools, where students aren’t under 
pressure to make school tuition  payments. 

“Their ability to go to school does not depend on how they  do their job,” 
he said. “It would be trickier in the public sector. Not  impossible, but 
trickier.” 

Vol. 26, Issue 39, Pages 1,21_ Back to Top  _ 
(http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/06/06/#top) 


June 9, 2007 |_ Receive RSS _ (http://www.edweek.org/ew/rss_feeds.html)  
Most  Viewed Stories


1_  “Cristo Rey Schools Receive $6 Million to Expand Network,”_ 
(http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/11/08/11briefs-2.h26.html)  November 8,  2006._  “
Foundations' Gift to Help Expand 'Cristo Rey' Model,”_ 
(http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2003/05/28/38diploma.h22.html)  May 28, 2003._ “Private  Schools,”
_ (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2002/02/27/24priv.h21.html)  February 
27, 2002._ “A  Working Experiment,”_ 
(http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1996/12/11/15crist1.h16.html)  December 11, 1996. 
For more stories on this topic  see our _Federal_ 
(http://www.edweek.org/ew/news/federal/)  news page. 
For  background, previous stories, and Web links, read _Private  Schooling_ 
(http://www.edweek.org/rc/issues/private-schooling/) . 
c Schools _View All Top  Jobs_ 
(http://www.agentk-12.org/JobSeekerX/ViewAllSpecialJobs.asp) _ About Top  Jobs_ 
(http://www.agentk-12.org/ak12_info/enhancements.htm) 




************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.