May 21, 2019--Abortion

Some years ago I had responsibility for the Ford Foundation's work with rural schools.

In the Black Belt communities of Alabama, for example, we funded efforts at the K-12 level to prepare young people who wanted to remain in their hometowns to not just find work locally but to develop the entrepreneurial skills needed to create work opportunities for themselves and their neighbors. 

In one town high school students began a local newspaper that over a couple of years was full of news and local ads. Enough so that five decent-paying jobs were created and those who filled them were able to support themselves and remain in place.

At the community college level, through a multi-state program we called the Rural Community College Initiative (RCCI) we helped colleges and their community partners align courses of study with the needs of local employers while at the same time strengthening the institutions' academic offerings so that those who aspired to earn associate degrees before transferring to four-year colleges had the preparation they needed to complete bachelors degrees in increasing numbers.

Again in Alabama, in Monroeville, at Alabama Southern Community College, with Ford help, the college and its local affiliates saw many more students than in the past receive up-to-date training as well as transfer to four-year colleges.

(One sidebar--Monroeville was the home of Harper Lee and it was a great pleasure for me to have the chance to meet her and spend some time sitting with her on her back porch. Also exciting, she generously gave me a signed copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.)

In addition, while in Alabama, driving from town to town, it was apparent that something else was going on--a battle over abortion rights. 

A battle that culminated last week when the state legislature and governor passed the most draconian antichoice bill in the nation. If implemented it would effectively end the possibility of abortion in the state. 

Back in my day, driving around the Deep South in even stormy weather, at every clinic that offered abortions and women's health services, there was a demonstration underway. All by antiabortion activists.

Women seeking reproductive assistance who were assumed to be arriving for abortions had to run the gauntlet of protesters who shrieked at them, accusing them of being "baby killers."

This went on relentlessly for decades.

One thing I also noticed--little sign of prochoice activists. 

Recalling this, as reproductive rights are under serious attack--perhaps potentially by the newly reconstituted Supreme Court--where are all the passionate defenders of Roe v. Wade? Clearly not engaged in anything comparable. On the ground, all the action is with the so-called pro-life advocates.

I confess to being cynical, but are work and entertainments more important to liberals who support abortion rights but are not involved with marshaling resources to fight back?

Minimally, where are the monthly prochoice mass demonstrations? Again, are we too distracted to organize any?

I know if Roe v. Wade is modified or overturned in the federal courts, abortion supporters self-righteously will express outrage and seek on MSNBC or from the New York Times what to think and how, after it's too late, to respond. 

Distressing to say I do not expect to see many progressives actively engaged beyond a gesture at abortion or Planned Parenthood clinics to help make it easier for women seeking reproductive services.

Too many on the left are better at complaining than getting off their sofas and marching in the rain.

August 8, 2016--A Hillary Story

The Trump campaign, actually Trump himself is imploding.

He could get away during the GOP primary season with calling John McCain's heroism into question (it was written off by his people as refreshingly incorrect), but now in the general election he shot himself in both feet when he repeatedly made gratuitous and disparaging comments about the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, an American Muslim who in Iraq saved his comrades when he took the full blast of an insurgent's suicide bomb, giving up his life in the process.

This unforgivable transgression plus the good vibes that ultimately emanated from the Democratic convention has propelled Hillary to a commanding seven to 10 point lead. Political savants from Joe Scarborough to David Plouffe have pronounced the election effectively over. To them and others, the only remaining question is how big Hillary Clinton's landslide will be and will it be overwhelming enough to enable sufficient Democrats to ride her coattails and thereby retake the Senate and maybe even the House.

I suppose there is one other remaining question--whether or not WikiLeaks has more compromising Clinton emails and phone logs to dump into the news feed that are so damaging as to derail her candidacy.

Even if they do, we may be at a point not unlike where we were seven months ago when Trump boasted that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his people would still vote for him. Now, even if Hillary is conclusively shown to have knowingly passed along top-secret information, her people will still vote for her. As much as anything else to vote against Trump.

I am trying hard to get with the program--I will of course vote for her but still not with any enthusiasm. To me she is corrupt in significant ways and a cut-from-the mold establishment politician beholden to big-money special interests. This would make it hard for me to support her if she were running against . . .

But there's my problem--I can't come up with a plausible alternative. So Hillary for me it is.

In an effort to feel better about her, and to convince a wavering very conservative friend to vote for her, the other morning over coffee I told him "my" Hillary story. As much to push him along as to convince myself she is better than I think she is.

The story goes back to 2005, when she was New York Senator Clinton and I was senior director for Education, Media, Arts and Culture at the Ford Foundation.

The foundation was funding a school-reform project in Roosevelt, Long Island, the state's lowest-performing school district. It is small with one high school and a feeder system of about a dozen elementary and middle schools. Academic performance was unacceptably low and thus progress from one level to another was such that only a few students graduated from high school and of them just four or five athletes each year entered college.

Our project was to work with all the schools and teachers in the district to bring about improved, coordinated instructional methods especially in reading, language skills, math, and science. We made an upfront commitment to parents and their children when they entered first grade that if they progressed satisfactorily from grade-to-grade and graduated from high school on time, four years of college scholarships would be waiting for each of them.

Senator Clinton learned about Project GRAD and contacted Ford, indicating that she believed in the effort and wanted to consider becoming involved. I suggested that she might want to visit Roosevelt's schools, to get a "before picture."

And so for the first time, the senator visited Roosevelt, a de facto segregated town that for decades had been where Long Island's wealthy townships, not wanting them in their midst, provided low cost housing for welfare recipients. Some said "dumped" them there. It was a godforsaken place with a  small, boarded-up downtown where it felt dangerous to wander.

On her first visit, Clinton, without entourage or press, spent nearly two hours in Roosevelt's schools. At the high school, the principal and I walked her about. She was mobbed in the hallways when classes changed and was eager to talk to and hug students who were drawn to her. She wanted to know what life was like in Roosevelt ("scary," I remember one sophomore girl saying) and in the high school ("going nowhere," one seemingly depressed one junior reported).

On the second floor, the corridors were quiet. It looked as if half the classrooms were not in use. "Why is that?" Clinton asked, "Classrooms on the first floor seem completely full."

The principal said that that was because the science labs were on the second floor.

"Don't the children take lab science?" the senator asked.

"Well, they do, but the labs here are not functional. They have no power, no running water, no gas for bunsen burners."

"But doesn't the state require that to earn an academic diploma students are required to take three years of lab science? Meaning that the lab component is required?"

"Yes, that's true but we have a way to deal with that," the principal, smiling said. "Once a week we bus our science students to one of the Great Neck high schools where they observe Great Neck students doing lab experiments. We certify this as fulfilling the lab requirement."

I could see that learning about this did not please the senator, but she remained silent.

Later that day, still thinking about how humiliating it must be for Roosevelt students to have to satisfy their lab requirements by observing white, affluent kids in Great Neck, she pulled me aside and with a heavy heart, said--"I want to be involved. I want to see if you can get Ford to expand its involvement. I'll help raise money for the college scholarships, but the next time I'm back here--and I will be back--I want to see those labs up and running. I want you, Steve, to get the money for that from the foundation."

"This is perfect," I said. "As the result of your involvement we will expand our commitment; but, I need to tell you, the foundation does not make grants to fund facilities. So Ford wouldn't be able to pay to fix the labs. Maybe we could . . ."

"I know the president of the foundation, and I'm willing to call him to see if in this case an exception might be made."

I stammered, "Whatever you say. You're the senator."

She gave me one of her signature laughs and said, "Don't worry. I won't get you in trouble with Frank."

As a result of her call, more money from Ford was forthcoming and I was able to add $100,000 to the grant to make the labs functional.

About six months later I received a call directly from Senator Clinton, "Steve. It's time for me to pay another visit to Roosevelt. Can you meet me there next Thursday? On the second floor," she paused for emphasis, "To check out the labs."

"Well, I . . ."

"At 2:00," she said and hung up.

The work on the laboratory renovations was behind schedule, as almost everything was in Roosevelt, so I called the mayor and district superintendent and told them the senator was coming in ten days and by then everything needed to be completed.

I held my breath but come a week from Thursday when we met at the high school, on the second floor, all was in working condition, including the bunsen burners. Senator Clinton told the beaming principal that when she comes back in the fall she expected to see all three labs in use.

They were.

And then eight months later, Hillary Clinton, again accompanied by just one aide and a Secret Service agent, returned to the high school to participate in the graduation ceremonies. After just a year and a half of Project GRAD the graduation rate had about doubled and nearly a third of the graduates were on their way to college with the scholarships that'd been set aside for them.

I told this story the other morning to a very conservative friend, who, though rapidly becoming disenchanted with Donald Trump, was far from willing to even consider voting for Clinton.

But Rona asked him, "So what do you think?"

"This morning I learned a lot of new things about her." He was reluctant to speak Clinton's name. "I have a lot to think about."

August 27, 2014--Off the Hook

At the heart of Barack Obama's education reform initiative, Race to the Top, are various ways to hold school districts, administrators, and especially teachers accountable for student learning. This approach is actually an extension of George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind.

From day one, back in Bush's day, teachers unions offered lip service support for these efforts, feeling that though their main agenda is protecting teachers' jobs, even incompetent ones, they could not publicly oppose approaches designed to enhance student learning, especially those that address the achievement gap that separates minority students from more affluence white students.

But first with NCLB and more recently with Race, the unions quietly and increasingly more openly have been chipping away at the accountability provisions of both programs.

Most recently they have criticized the results of high-stakes academic achievement testing as the primary way to measure teacher performance, claiming that with the introduction of the new Common Core curriculum in nearly 40 states, a product of the National Governors Association, there has not been enough time for teachers to be orientated to carrying it out effectively.

Until just recently the Obama administration, led by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, has been holding the line, saying there in fact has been enough time for states and school districts to help teachers master the new content and the use of testing would continue to be used when evaluating individual schools and individual teachers.

This is quite a big deal because not only can there be consequences for low-performing teachers (they might not get tenure or, rare, even be let go) but also federal education dollars to states and districts are largely contingent on how schools and districts perform.

Under considerable pressure from teachers unions that historically have provided significant support for Democratic candidates, and because in June Duncan stepped into the current teacher tenure debate, offering his strong endorsement for a judge's decision to dramatically limit tenure in California, Duncan last week said that the DoE would allow another year to pass before using student test scores when evaluating teachers.

He said, "I believe testing issues are sucking the oxygen out of the room in a lot of schools" and thus teachers needed more time to adapt to the new standards and the tests pegged to those standards.

What he might have said is that oxygen is being sucked out of schools because students in unacceptable numbers are not learning and teachers and school administrators must be held accountable for that. Not in another year, but now.

May 28, 2014--Bedfellows

"Here's something else you won't believe." I was all agitated.

"What is it now?" Rona asked, immediately exasperated with me. It was still the three-day weekend and we had promised each other we would restrain ourselves from reading about or watching the news.

"You saw that Obama paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan where he spent . . ."

"Four hours," Rona completed my thought.

"To spend millions and millions to get him there so he could have a few pictures taken with the troops. What is really making me crazy is that while he was there some White House official released the names of those meeting with Obama and included the name of the head of the CIA there. The station chief. To 6,000 journalists."

"Can't anyone do anything right?" Rona was sounding even more exasperated.

"If Obama wanted to show support for the military on Memorial Day he should have gone to the VA hospital in Phoenix where screw-ups led to the deaths of maybe 40 veterans. To look into the issue himself and as a way of taking responsibility. But, no, there were better photo-ops available in Afghanistan. Where, by the way, the president refused to meet with Obama."

"You sound as if you're ready to join the Tea Party."

"No kidding. I understand their frustration and anger about the government. It's too big and much of it doesn't know how to get anything worthwhile done."

"More evidence of how wide discontent is with government, all government, are the results of this past weekend's elections across Europe."

"Yeah, where right-wing extremists who masqueraded as Populists won major victories. From England to France to Denmark and of course Greece."

"They are an unholy alliance. Half of them are out-of-the-closet anti-Semites and most of the rest are either neo-fascists, anti-European Union, anti-foreigner, or violently anti-immigrant."

"Very anti everything."

"Almost sounds like the situation in the U.S.," Rona said.

"We haven't seen too much anti-Semitism."

"Yet," Rona added.

"Touché. But look at this." I held up the first section of the Times. "Look at this other unholy alliance."

"Between?"

"Progressives and conservatives over their shared antipathy for the widespread movement in public education to bring a common curriculum to kids and, as part of that, to hold teachers accountable for how well their students do on standardized tests."

"I saw that. How teachers unions are opposing the so-called Common Core approach while our version of states-rights Populists are wanting to block any kind of federal role in public schooling. Especially any that Obama supports."

"Even though this movement didn't start with him but, ironically for these states-rightists, with governors and state legislators even in Red States.

"But don't expect these coalitions to hold together," Rona said, "At the moment they're in bed with each other. In America, as soon they together get rid of the Common Core and teacher accountability, they'll resume fighting amongst themselves. And don't forget, most of the conservatives who have joined with the teachers unions are the very same folks who have been agitating to get rid of teachers unions altogether."

"And in some places like Wisconsin, they've succeeded."

"So expect them to be at each other's throats before too long. But in the meantime . . ."

I winked, "I'll have something to keep me agitated."

"Which you love."

March 27, 2014--We Can Never Go Back to Before

In response to a number of recent blogs in which I wrote about our public education system, guest blogger Sharon has a number of interesting perceptions and recommendations--

The March 25 blog, "Chem Lab," brought to mind my reaction to a sound byte I recently heard. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel briefly stated his goal is to make sure that every child in Chicago is college ready.

I'm not sure that's the right goal, unless he also meant community college and even then . . .

Here I cite an observation from a long-time teacher in Maine who from her experience concluded that most of the kids she encountered were just "average." Yes, there were kids who wanted help figuring out how they might be the first ones in their family to go to college, but unlike the hyper-competitive era we now live in, most of these kids aspirations and aptitudes were more modest.

So I thought, wouldn't a better goal for the Mayor and other leaders be to prepare these children for skills that would make them ready for the realities of today's job market?

And for some (many) this doesn't mean a B.A. with graduate school to follow. The cost alone is increasingly prohibitive.

Of course the larger challenge is to remove the "second best" stigma, a perception that I admit I've been guilty of.

Senior year of high school I chose not to take physics or calculus and instead took fashion design and merchandising courses and guiltily, since I was an academic track kid, made off with the top awards in both areas at graduation. In those days NYC high schools had academic, commercial and general tracks.

I really loved those classes, although no more than history, but a lot more than math and science. I got applications for FIT and Parsons but at 16, I got the message from friends and teachers that this would waste my academic promise and didn't apply.

But after a B.A. and graduate education in history, there were few openings for history professors then and for the next 20 years. Although still an advocate for a liberal arts education, given the economic realities of today (my first apartment's rent was $235 a month so paying back my loans wasn't tough) I wonder if my career path would have been clearer if I had completed the other applications and was accepted.

Relating training and education with employability and quality of life, I've encountered many small business owners: car repair, salon owners, restauranteurs, contractors, etc. living very comfortable lives without college degrees.

Yet I was especially surprised to read recently the comments of a young German woman noting that her college-bound friends didn't get why she would want to participate in a factory-based apprenticeship. These long-existing successful programs in Germany are now being considered in the U.S. as a possible answer to the skills gap and unemployment. Yet even in Germany peer and perhaps parental pushback exists.

Although I think the unequal deployment of resources is wrong morally and philosophically, sadly I think even if you could wave a magic wand and bring all facilities up to code, I don't believe it would change much. Not unlike the impact of technology and globalization on the economy, these forces too have made our traditional education structures obsolete. Many on the right and left are still thinking (or wishing) we could go back to before, at least the parts that seemed to work.

Instead of applying limited resources to buildings maybe there needs to be more channels for access and financial support to rescue kids from under-performing schools who do want to go to college and beyond as early as possible. I've seen a few very gifted and privileged kids who fell behind out of boredom when they were sent to schools with under-achieving children.

This brings to mind my last year of high school and my first and only experience with a teacher who couldn't control the class, who didn't want to be there, the shape of the things to come. I learned nothing. And this in a public school that produced senators and a Supreme Court justice. A few years later, but before metal detectors, kids were afraid to go to the bathroom.

Perhaps opportunity of access and a better fit for aspiration, drive, and ability would provide better results, rather than zip code and financial support. Danger and disruption to learning not only take place in failing schools. Bullying takes place in schools where kids have every advantage--one child was threatened that his house would be burned down if he told. Other children have told me they want to avoid a hyper-competitive atmosphere where there are a few suicides each year. The difference between them and the kids at Roosevelt is their parents can more easily remove them from the situation.

One of the reasons charter schools are popular is parents and students who care enough see them not only as a way out of their struggling public schools but a refuge from the scary kids who go there who are impeding their children’s progress and safety.

Creating a pathway for teachers who can spot and rescue the academically inclined kids and another for those who may not be so inclined, but are motivated and teachable, and getting them into more appropriate schools might be a start. It’s such a waste that bullies in better equipped schools get to squander their advantages while others have to enter lotteries to get their motivated kids into a better situation.

And with increasing income inequality where a few people own five houses and many can't even afford rent, I return to a comment made by Steven Zwerling’s dad, "What does happiness have to do with anything?"

We may have come to the end of a brief golden period where many of us sought careers that would be satisfying and not just a means to provide food, clothing and shelter. Maybe future generations who aren't technology whizzes for now will need to refocus on education and training commensurate with their potential before they have the luxury of a career path to happiness. And society needs a way to identify the children who can and want education and or training and make sure they are not penalized by where they live.

Thinking everyone wants to or can succeed on a path to college or better circumstances for all is thinking for another time. And what will become of the bullies and disaffected? There's a job waiting for them on Wall Street . . . .

December 4, 2013--Requiring Math

There was a report in yesterday's New York Times about how American school children in mathematics continue to slip behind students in other countries.

At one time our kids scored at the highest levels on international tests. Last year they slipped behind students in Ireland and Poland and in previous years saw themselves coming in well behind those in China, Japan, South Korea, and Finland.

The United States came in 36th while Latvia was 28th, Slovenia 21st, and Liechtenstein 8th.

While worrying about this, I recalled a board meeting I went to some years ago of one of America's leading education reform organizations. It was a bluechip board and included, among others, two former Secretaries of Education.

The discussion turned to ways to improve math instruction, especially for low-income students. There was a promising approach being developed in Houston called Move It Math. An educator from there made a presentation about what made this approach promising and how there was gathering evidence that students befitted from its methods.

I didn't have much to say, not knowing all that much about math instruction. But after a time, I requested the floor and asked why we require all children to take math in elementary, middle, and high schools and often in college. "Why must everyone take algebra?" I wondered, acknowledging this was a heretical thought since years and years of math had been a universal requirement for decades.

"Why geometry and trigonometry? What's the case for that?" I asked. "Particularly when this seems to be so difficult for so many students and that struggle--frequently unsuccessful--turns them off to other parts of the curriculum."

There was more than a moment of silence. I thought because the others in the room were wondering how to metaphorically pat me on the head without offending me so they could get back to a serious discussion about ways in which to improve math instruction.

Finally, surprising me since I had not until that moment had such a thought, the dean of a noted school of education said, perhaps surprising herself as well, "This is worth considering." All heads around the table swung in her direction.

"How much of this makes education sense as opposed to giving in to the math industry."

"Math industry?" a nationally-known professor of educational history asked with considerable sarcasm.

"You should know all about that," the dean replied. "How years ago organized groups of math instructors and advocates from organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, founded, I think, in about 1920, how they fought hard to get as much math as possible included in the core curriculum. And how, among other things, by having such a central place in what was required of students more power and jobs accrued to those in what I just called the math industry. And I'll stand my that."

Around the table a few heads began to nod.

"And let's not forget that this focus on math--and science--swelled, in reality became  a nation obsession after 1957 when Russia launched Sputnik. As part of our effort to win the Cold War."

"If we didn't require so much math, how much should be required?" a midwestern university president asked. "I'm assuming that no one here is saying that no arithmetic or mathematics should be required. If we want to talk about this seriously we need to address that. Also, we need to discuss national needs. How important is math to the viability of the American economy because, let's be frank, to justify public support for education (and not just for mathematics) we need to be able to make the case that what we are now seditiously considering," he smiled at that, "among other things, must be in the best economic interest of America in a globalizing world."

"I can see," I jumped back in, "requiring basic arithmetic and computational skills--those proven to be necessary to functioning as a citizen: how to keep track of one's finances, be an informed citizen and voter, things of that sort. And I can see introducing everyone to mathematical reasoning and elementary algebra so, among other things, those with math talent will be challenged and interested and also to let educators know the math capacities and gifts of their students so that those with mathematical inclinations can be discovered and encouraged to pursue more math more seriously."

I continued, "This are very preliminary thoughts. Admittedly I do not really know what I am talking about when it comes to the details of mathematics education and methodologies," there was considerable playful nodding when I acknowledged that, "but rather step-back questions to see if what we are requiring makes sense and is not just being driven by tradition and, in some cases," I looked toward the dean, "organizational self-interest."

"We need to come back to that," the board chair was eager to move on, and we did.

Some years later, contemplating the full meaning of the Program for International Student Assessment scores, I wonder if it might be time to get back to that discussion.