Hawaii: Scolded for Furlough Fridays

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After Hawaii decided to cut 17 instructional days from its public school calendar, Education Secretary Arne Duncan criticized the move on the first of the state’s furlough Fridays. “All states are under financial pressure, but none are cutting this much learning time from their school year,” Duncan wrote in a Honolulu Advertiser oped Friday. “It’s inconceivable to me that this is the best solution for Hawaii.”

For parents, child care was also a burden. Reported Mary Vorsino in the Honolulu Advertiser on Saturday:

The furlough days have left Hawaii with the shortest school calendar in the nation and drawn the ire of some parents, who have been left scrambling to secure child care or forced to take vacation days to stay home with children. Yesterday, hundreds of kids went to hastily set up furlough Friday day care programs across the state…

Many parents leaving their children at day care centers said the financial strain of paying for such programs in order to deal with the furloughs has been tough. Child care providers added that the lower-than-expected turnout at day care programs is probably because people are already struggling in the economic downturn. They said turnout will likely increase as the furlough plan progresses.

To read more about Hawaii’s furlough Fridays, check out additional coverage on the MoJo blog.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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