Fund for Campus Democratic Activism

The American Prospect lauds Governor Blagojevich's Universal preschool plan:

Preschool has shown some truly remarkable benefits for the poorest children, greatly reducing grade repetition and diverting many of the developmentally delayed from the special ed track to the mainstream within just a couple years. That gets into a cost-benefit as well, since the special education curriculum is far more costly than the standard classes, and holding kids back requires a whole extra year of spending. Add in enhanced occupational freedom for mothers who don't have to watch their kids during the day and you've got a pretty solid progressive policy plank.

read about it here

Children born into extreme poverty have a much better chance of succeeding in school if they receive a structured, high-quality preschool education.

"This research shows we can reduce the numbers of kids falling behind and dropping out of school. These are real numbers that tell us what a difference we could make, right here in our state, if every child started school having had the benefit of preschool. "Simply put, preschool works."

(cross-posted at rocketrichards.blogspot.com)

The American Prospect and TPM Cafe blogger, union activist and Progressive Populist columnist Nathan Newman focus on the progressive legislation Governor Blagojevich has signed into law the last few years. Its actually quite impressive and worth national attention. We should be proud of our elected officials. Illinois is leading the way!

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009164

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/26622

here are some of the highlights (from Newman's column)

This is just an examples of how Illinois has been quietly emerging as a national font of progressive ideas and legislation. Folks wonder what the progressive agenda should look like, but what's been enacted in Illinois in recent years should give you pretty good guidance. From labor rights to health care, the state has been chartering out new innovations.

To give just a few other examples:

• A new health care program for children was enacted that extended coverage for 250,000 previously uninsured children of working and middle class parents.
• To protect patient care and ease the burden on overworked nurses, the state banned mandatory overtime for nurses in the state.
• The state raised the minimum wage to $6.50 per hour a few years ago.
• Victims of sexual or domestic violence were guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave to recover.
• "Sexual orientation" was added to the state civil rights law, protecting gays and lesbians from employment discrimination.
• Corporate accountability was increased through a whisteblower law that protects employees from firing or other retaliation if they disclose information to law enforcement agencies about potentially illegal activity by the company..
• Limited english speakers were protected in their rights to talk in Spanish or other languages to fellow workers under an amendment to the Illinois Human Rights Act to combat abusive "English-only" rules in the workplace.
• Illinois passed legislation to crack down on abusive and unsafe working conditions in the day labor industry, improving the lives of 300,000 day laborers in the state.
• Protected union rights by providing unemployment insurance benefits when companies unilaterally lock out workers during a contract dispute.
• Blagojevich signed an executive order helping day care workers unionize, leading to unionization and better working conditions for 49,000 child care workers in the state.

(cross-posted at rocketrichards.blogspot.com)

Wednesday, March 29th is the next day to come to Springfield during the day, check out the House and Senate in session (www.ilga.gov), and then at night, go to Floyd's Thirst Parlor downtown to mix it up with other young Dems from around the state.

Please -- spread the word!

Tonight (Wednesday) we're having our legislative mixer for college Democrats and friends from around the state. It's at Floyd's Thirst Bar. There is no cover. Everyone is welcome.

And if you're new to state governing, here is the page for the Illinois Senate Higher Education Committee. They are meeting tomorrow. Anyone can go and watch them -- so if you can, you should check it out.