Nation

Lyft Pledges $500K In Free Rides To Civil Rights Orgs, Bail Funds

Published

3 years ago

June 3, 2020

Rideshare app Lyft has pledged $500,000 in free rides to civil rights organizations in the wake of the death of George Floyd as protests and riots erupt across the country. Some of the organizations include National Urban League, NAACP, National Action Network, Black Women’s Roundtable and National Bail Fund Network.

“We want to take a moment to speak candidly about the tragedy that is enveloping our country right now. To our Black community members, we recognize your pain and feelings of fatigue over the injustices you face every day. The color of your skin should not impact how you are treated,” Lyft Co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer wrote in a joint email to customers.

“Acts of injustice against Black Americans — including George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Christian Cooper, and countless others — have created an inflection point. This is a call to action for each and every one of us to do better, to speak up, and to be part of the solution.”

The company’s program for donating rides, LyftUp, has been offered to customers during times of crisis. For example, free rides were offered to evacuate people in 2017’s Hurricane Harvey and 2018’s California Camp Fire.

The Co-founders added, “Systemic racism is deeply rooted in our society, and it’s important that Lyft supports organizations that fight it.”

“As part of our continued commitment to communities of color through LyftUp, our transportation access initiative, we’re providing $500,000 in ride credit to national civil rights organizations who have been working to facilitate essential transportation and equitable access during the recent crises (National Urban League, NAACP, National Action Network, Black Women’s Roundtable and National Bail Fund Network).”

In Minneapolis, the company will provide the ride credits to Lake Street Council members who are volunteering “with rebuilding efforts.”

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education

Parents, advocates call on leaders to step down after ZERO children pass math at 13 Baltimore state schools

Published

3 hours ago

September 27, 2023

Sara Carter Staff

How long will leaders who let our children down blame Covid-19 for their failures? Anger swept across Baltimore, Maryland, after not a single student passed their state math exams, and almost 75 percent testing at the lowest possible score.

The Daily Mail reports “The poor performances came in the latest round of Maryland‘s state testing, where 13 high schools in the city – a staggering 40 percent – failed to produce a single student with a ‘proficient’ score in math.” Baltimore City Schools not only received $1.6 billion last year from taxpayers, but the school district also received $799 million in Covid relief funding from the federal government.

“So, it’s not a funding issue. We’re getting plenty of funding,” said Jason Rodriguez, deputy director of Baltimore-based nonprofit People Empowered by the Struggle, to Fox Baltimore. “I don’t think money is the issue. I think accountability is the issue…This is educational homicide, there is no excuse for the failure, which has come after years of warnings over the city’s poor education standards,” added Rodriguez.

A bombshell study published this month by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) found that 16 million students were chronically absent during the pandemic. “The millions of students had missed more than 10 percent of schools days during the 2021-22 year, twice the number seen in previous years. More than eight in 10 public schools also reported stunted behavioral and social-emotional development in their students due to the pandemic, according to a May survey cited in the report.”

However, six years ago a similar report by Project Baltimore found that 13 schools in the city had zero students test ‘proficiently’ in math. An almost identical finding. “We’re still dealing with these same issues year after year,” Rodriguez continued. “It’s just scary to me and alarming to me because we know that what’s happening now, you know, it’s just opening up the floodgates to the school-to-prison pipeline. I’m beyond angry… This is why we’ve been calling for the resignation of the school CEO.”

Daily Mail notes that Rodriguez’s group has previously held rallies over the mounting educational crisis in the city, and in 2021 led calls for Baltimore City Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises to resign over low test scores and falling graduation rates.