During this year's Global Action Week (April 21-27) the Global Campaign for Education will focus its efforts to ensure that every child has a well-trained and well-supported teacher. It is estimated that we need 1.7 million more teachers - 1 million more in Africa alone. If governments and donors make concerted efforts to meet the promises they made in 2000, basic education for all could be achieved by 2015, according to new analysis by the Education for All Global Monitoring Report team. Learn more/take action.

We are entering a critical time for immigration reform. It is believed that the Senate Gang of 8 plans to introduce legislation around April 10. However, comprehensive immigration reform will not happen unless the voices in favor of justice for immigrants are heard above the voices for exclusion, deportation, and punishment. If you are in the Central Pacific Province, please consider joining/forming a local immigration group. Let us unite our voices in a persistent message that now is the time for comprehensive immigration reform. 

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On March 1 across-the-board federal budget cuts began to take effect, threatening many programs and services designed to help the poor and vulnerable, including education, Head Start, WIC, meals for seniors, housing assistance, unemployment insurance, and much more. Advocates call for cancelling sequestration and replacing it with a balanced package of tax and spending measures that do not increase poverty (or inequality) or exert such an immediate drag on the economy. Learn more. 

Think you know how wealth is distributed in America? Think again. This YouTube video shows that our perceptions of who has money and how much they have is quite skewed. The poor and middle class have a lot less than most people think, while the rich have a lot more. And the Top 1% are off the charts.

Wealth Inequality in America

The video, which has been viewed more than 5 million times, draws heavily on the wealth inequality work of professors at the Harvard and Duke business schools.

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According to Merriam-Webster, a tax is a charge imposed for public purposes. Too many people focus only on two words of that definition - charge imposed. Then the tax is seen as an imposition, as a negative. And, in some cases, it probably is. But the tax is for public purposes. It pays for police and firemen, for snow plows and postal workers, for roads and bridges, for public education, for health services, for public transportation, for parks and recreation centers among other things. If one can see taxes as an investment in those services, an investment in the health and vitality of one's community, perhaps the change in focus can lessen the negative perception. But this day should also remind us of our duty as citizens to be more mindful of how our investment is being used and abused. 'No taxation without representation' is a slogan for today as much as it was for the early colonists.

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No one wants to see a CLOSED sign on our national parks or a barred entrance to our national forests, but the massive 10-year budget cuts (sequestration) will gut funding for national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and other wild places that make America beautiful. These cuts are closing visitor centers and campgrounds, furloughing park rangers, and limiting access to hunting and fishing. If these cuts aren't reversed, entire parks, refuges, and forests could be closed completely. Learn more/take action.