BROOKS HOFFECKER JANU RAMAKRISHNA BRANDON HILL EVELYN GALVAN May 1, 2009 Inside this issue: Newsletter Mission 1 About GYLI 1 Waking up Wal- Marts 2-4 Prayer in Schools 5-7 About GYLI The goal of GYLI is to nurture collaborative leadership for global communities and to assist schools in their missions to inspire socially responsible young people ( Mission ). The GYLI program consists of three institutes during the summer and LLPs during the school year. All of the institutes are experiential, hands-on, and transformative ( Mission ). Both the students and the teachers learn about global pluralism and diversity, Native American traditions, environmental awareness, school community partnerships, and many other topics. Works Cited "Mission and Vision." Global Youth Leadership Institute. GYLI. 22 Nov. 2008 <http://www.gyli.org>. Email comments to gyli2010@gmail.com Newsletter Mission LLPs are leadership learning plans. These plans, put together by the students and teachers from each school, take what is learnt at the institutes and apply the knowledge to tackle a school issue. At DCDS there are 3 GYLI teams. This newsletter, part of the LLP of the GYLI team of 2010, uses the material learnt at Institutes I and II to raise awareness in the DCDS community of international conflicts, solutions, and diverse perspectives. Our team hopes that you, the DCDS community, will help us to spread the word and open up our school to the issues of the world.
Page 2 Waking up Wal-Mart: The Company s Response towards Criticism of their Healthcare Plan and the Communities Responsibility to help them Change By Janu Ramakrishna During these difficult economic times, corporate America has been slow to react. American taxpayers struggle to pick up the slack of rising healthcare and other insurance costs by subsidizing extra fees, infrastructure funds and tax breaks. However, large industrial titans are taking too long to implement fair changes within their companies. The efforts of the well-known Wal-Mart need to be acknowledged and even commended. In 2005 Wal-Mart Stores were relentlessly criticized for failing to provide affordable health care to employees. Wal-Mart knew its health costs were spiraling upward out of control, said M. Susan Chambers, [a] senior executive,but [the company] was surprised to discover that its critics had a point (Abelson). According to the 2005 national rankings, Wal-Mart had the highest total number of workers without company healthcare insurance and [was] the number one abuser of taxpayer funded public health care (Wake-up Wal-Mart). Wal-Mart, the highest employer of American citizens and America s largest company as of 2009, was taking a short-cut in order to increase profit. The company took advantage of the American taxpayer to avoid paying for the health care that their employees had a right to. The Miami Herald Editorial commented in 2005 that Wal-Mart offers insurance, but aggressively shifts the cost onto its employees. The low-wage workers then pass up the unaffordable coverage and turn to the states. If this isn't exactly company policy, it is at least company philosophy. CEO Lee Scott, at the company's recent ''summit'' for the media, even described it. He said some state health programs are 'so lucrative that, in fact, it's hard to be competitive with them and certainly extraordinarily expensive to be competitive with them (United Food and Commercial Workers ). The staggering figure that finally woke Wal-Mart up was that approximately half of the children of Wal-Mart employees are uninsured or dependent on Medicaid. For the nation's overall labor force, that portion is one-third (Abelson). The current generation of middle class America was being cheated out of their rightful health care, but The company took advantage of the American taxpayer to avoid paying for the health care that their employees had a right to.
Page 3 Change does not mean that Wal-Mart is off the hook their children were being denied even the basic rights to health coverage. Many of the Wal-Mart employees could not afford isolated healthcare for themselves, so how do they pay for the healthcare of their children as well? Abelson, a writer for the New York Times, stated that many of the company's 1.3 million employees are drawn from the most vulnerable part of the national labor pool: people who can find only lowpaying jobs, who frequently cannot afford health coverage (Abelson). Wal-Mart s realization that their employees, as Abelson said, cannot afford health coverage motivated the company to finally change their health plan. Leading corporate America with the spirit of change, Wal-Mart reinvented their health care plan in January 2009. Wal-Mart Employees now have 50 ways of customizing their health care coverage options a substantial increase from last year, when most associates had only nine choices. All Wal-Mart employees will have deductibles (up to $2000 in the case of the cheapest plan), but employees will also receive a health-care credit of $100, $250 or $500 ( Wal-Mart Health Plan ). Now, Wal-Mart is a more appealing place to work for blue collar America because it takes into consideration the pressing economic times and offers affordable healthcare plans. However, this change does not mean that Wal-Mart is off the hook. The New York Times stated that "as clever and strategic as it is Wal-Mart's strategy is not a solution to our long-term problem (Wendland). Wal-Mart still needs to address the choice coverage of medical procedures, lengthy waiting period for an average Wal-Mart full-time worker to qualify for healthcare, and the additional charges, such as standard services including office visit co-pays, emergency room visits and ambulance services, per-event deductibles, and pharmacy co-pays [that] are not applied toward the standard deductible ( Wal-Mart Health Plan ). As members of the working America we need to ensure that Wal-Mart does not take advantage of our fellow citizens. While DCDS is not exactly teeming with Wal-Mart employees, we still should play our part in encouraging Wal-Mart to further change. Wal-Mart Watch, an activist group dedicated to bridg[ing] the gap between ordinary citizens and community organizations concerned about Wal-Mart's unchecked growth and negative impact on soci-
Page 4 ety, encourages communities to pool together resources to fight for the rights of Wal-Mart employees that are often overlooked (Wal-Mart Watch). Another public organization set on changing Wal-Mart s ways is Wake-Up Wal-Mart. This group suggests adopting a Wal-Mart. By adopting a specific Wal-Mart store in our community, we will take a leading role in helping build community coalitions around all 3,700 Wal-Mart stores in the country (Wake-Up Wal-Mart). Actions, such as those proposed by Wal-Mart Watch and Wake-Up Wal-Mart, are those that educate the community on why Wal-Mart needs to continue on its path of positive change and plant the seeds of change by inciting rallies and community unification. Wal-Mart has made an effort to change their flawed healthcare plan, and while their endeavor should be congratulated, the company still has a ways to go before it gives its employees a healthcare plan that fully recognizes worker rights. Works Cited Abelson, Reed. Wal-Mart s Health Care Struggle Is Corporate America s, Too. The New York Times. 9 Mar. 2009 <http://www.nytimes.com//////health.html? pagewanted=1&_r=2>. Fortune 500 Our Annual Ranking of America s Largest Corporations. CNN Money. CNN. 28 Nov. 2008 <http://money.cnn.com/////.html>. United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Wal-Mart Watch Responds to Wal-Mart s Release of 2008 Health Care Enrollment Numbers. Wal-Mart Watch. 22 Jan. 2008. Wal-Mart Watch. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://walmartwatch.com/// wal_mart_watch_responds_to_wal_marts_release_of_2008_health_care_enrollment />. Wal-Mart Health Plan. Healthcare Economist. 9 Mar. 2009 <http://healthcareeconomist.com/2007///mart-health-plan/>. Wal-Mart Watch. About Wal-Mart Watch. Wal-Mart Watch. Wal-Mart Watch. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://walmartwatch.com>. Wendland, Joel. The Wal-Mart Health Care Crisis. Political Affairs Magazine. 26 Feb. 2006. Political Affairs. 27 Nov. 2008 <http://www.politicalaffairs.net////>.
Page 5 Prayer in Schools By: Brandon Hill Our school is home to many different cultures, ethnicities, and religions. Even though our school is very diverse, we rarely encounter religious and ethnic conflict. However this issue often appears in public schools. While our school has no religious affiliation, many public schools are faced with the challenge of satisfying two opposing sides that are either against or in support of organized prayer in schools. Both sides have valid points to their beliefs, which is why this issue has caused much controversy. And still to this day, a clear solution has not been reached that will satisfy both sides. Below are the positions of both sides of the issue over organized prayer in schools. Pro Position Prayer will allow people to have a stronger connection to themselves and others, allowing them to make better decisions in their lives. Supporters of organized school prayer say that the United States was founded on Christian values in which prayer played a central role in guiding the nation s destiny ( School ). Therefore, our country should continue to follow the beliefs that guided our nation to become what it is today. Although those against organized prayer believe in a separation of church and state, the idea of separation of church and state were never intended by the founding fathers, which is why this phrase is not seen in the constitution ( School ). Congress even contradicts its own beliefs, for even though they agree with separation of church and state, Congress prays at the opening of every session; federal officials and witnesses take their oaths upon a bible; In God We Trust is stamped on our national currency; and Moses and the Ten Commandments are featured prominently in the Supreme Court building ( School ). All of these examples contradict the government s current policy on religion. Organized prayer in schools does not mean the government is establishing a religion any more than do other practices common in the U.S. such as the employment of Congressional chaplains, government recognition of holidays with religious significance such as Christmas or the proclamation of National Days of Prayer ( Prayer ). Organized prayer would only be recognition of a religion, not a sign of endorsement by the government. Ever since organized school prayer was disallowed in public schools, the nation has experienced a steady decline in morals. Statistics such as divorce rates, teen pregnancy, violent crime, and drug use have steadily increased in the nation ( School ). Prayer advocates believe the banning of school prayer and the rising of the nation s problem are intertwined, and that the only solution is to bring prayer back into public schools. Prayer will allow people to have a stronger connection to themselves and others, allowing them to make better decisions in their lives. Since public school prayer was banned in the 1960s, the public has negatively viewed the court ruling and believes it should return. National polls repeatedly show that the majority of the nation supports organized prayer in schools ( School ). Because of this, supporters argue that to forbid the majority to pray because the minority objects is not only undemocratic, but unfair to the American people ( School ). But it is not only parents who disagree with banning prayer in schools, but the students themselves. In a national poll conducted by The Gallup Organization, 84% of teenagers
Page 6 believed that some form of prayer that does not recognize a single religion should be allowed in school (Ott). The poll showed that students agreed that a moment of silence to allow students to pray if they wanted to should be conducted in schools (Ott). In our country where democracy is important in almost everything political, it should be the people, not the government, who decides if organized prayer should be in school. Opposing Position Those against organized school prayer in schools contend that it would be abusing the First Amendment and would undermine its religious freedom clauses (School ). They believe prayer is a religious exercise, so if the government supported it, that would be establishing a state religion, and be therefore unconstitutional (School ). They also see organized school prayer as a violation of the Free Exercise Clause because of exposing students to prayer against their will or forcing them to absent themselves to avoid hearing prayers (School ). In their view, supporters of organized prayer are misinterpreting the First Amendment and the Free Exercise Clause. Making organized school prayer a law would be unnecessary, for students are already allowed to express their religious views in school already. Public schools are not hostile to students if they express their religion, and the First Amendment protects their freedom of religion wherever they are (School ). Religious events are allowed in schools as long as the government does not play a part in it, and it does not disrupt the education going on within the school ( School ). If students really cared about praying in their religion, they would find a way to do so even if it is not organized. It should be the students, not the government, who dictate when and where they can express their religion. Also, if school prayer were allowed in schools, it would have to apply to so many different religions so that it would almost be generic. The prayers would not spiritually strengthen anyone in their religion, but instead the prayers would become a term called henotheism -a polite acknowledgement of a deity without qualities; God as a generic drug ( Let ). It should be the students, not the government, who dictate when and where they can express their religion. Those who oppose school prayer argue that it will cause tensions to arise between those of different religions. Those of minority religions may feel left out or uncomfortable praying among those with different beliefs, while other students may feel forced to pray so that they will fit in, or to avoid the disdain of the teachers and peers they may face for not praying (School ). Moreover, students who follow no religion will not feel comfortable during the prayer, eventually leading to a dislike of the religious prayers ( School ). Opponents of organized school prayer argue that banning organized prayer is not the cause for moral decline in the nation, and that bringing to back will not improve it either. They believe the nation s moral decline is attributed to the country s social problems to poverty, inequality, and lack of opportunity, all of which prayer cannot solve ( School ). They also point out that organized prayer in school coexisted with the Jim Crow laws of the South, prejudice against women in education and employment, and deep racism ( School ). Also implying that ending school prayer was the
BROOKS HOFFECKER JANU RAMAKRISHNA BRANDON HILL EVELYN GALVAN cause in increase of pregnancies and crime is incorrect, for correlation does not imply causation. So they cannot assume ending school prayer caused those things, for there are many other reasons that could have caused those things. Even though the term separation of church and state is not written in the U.S. Constitution, it is an accepted principle of American law ( Prayer ). This has been used to keep any interference between the two powers and to prevent any practices of either to come into conflict with personal beliefs. My Solution to the Problem Email comments to gyli2010@gmail.com The battle continues between those that support and those who oppose organized prayer in schools. I agree that the government should not play a role in organizing school prayer, and believe that the people should decide for themselves whether organized prayer appears in public schools. With a public vote, the opposing sides would have to concede to the results, since it would reflect the majority of peoples opinions. Our country emphasizes democracy, so I do not think it is fair for government to ban prayer in school without a public consensus on the issue. If in fact the majority of people in our nation support organized school prayer, then I see no reason why this should not be proposed as a law in every state to be voted upon. I agree with one of the students interviewed by The Gallup Organization when he said, I think that time to reflect is OK, but you shouldn t force prayer students should have the option (Ott). But what do you think? Is it fair for organized prayer to be allowed or disallowed in schools? Who do you think our school should side with on this issue? Works Cited Let Us Pray. National Review 46.24 (1994): 16. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI. 10 Dec. 2008 <http:// search.ebscohost.com/>. Ott, Bryant. School Prayer: Teen Support Hinges on Type. Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing (July 2005): 1+. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI. 10 Dec. 2008 <http://search.ebscohost.com/>. Prayer In Public Schools. All About History. 6 Nov. 2008 <http:// www.allabouthistory.org/ prayer-in-public-school.htm>. School Prayer - The Issue. 2008. 26 Oct. 2008 <http://www.itvs.org/ schoolprayer/ story.html>.