January 31, 2014

Let’s be a better society than one that murders horrible criminals

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Though it is by no means certain that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be executed if convicted of crimes relating to the Boston Marathon bombing last year, the Justice Department confirmed yesterday that the United States would seek the death penalty.

According to the New York Times:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who had the final say on whether to authorize prosecutors to seek the death penalty, has said he personally opposes capital punishment. But he has authorized its use many times.

“The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision,” Mr. Holder said in a statement released by the Justice Department.

Mr. Holder has said he opposes the death penalty because the legal system is imperfect and he worries that innocent people might be put to death.

The trouble with opposing the death penalty is that there is little public sympathy for the kinds of villains that commit the terrible crimes the death penalty is reserved for. The crimes Tsarnaev is accused of beggar description. He and his brother allegedly terrorized a city, maimed and injured hundreds, and killed four people, including a child. Calling him a monster would be easy, it is much harder to call him a human being.

The arguments for executing Tsarnaev boil down, I believe, to one: It feels right, and is emotionally satisfying. A simple case like this allows us to give vent to our most God-inspired Old Testament style inclinations.

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot…

(Exodus 21:24)

John DePetro wants Tsarnaev dead. He howls for a retributive justice that seems completely out of place with his holier-than-thou declarations of fealty to the Catholic Church, whose savior recommended “turning the other cheek” and ultimately faced the death penalty himself. Does John DePetro think Jesus would be in favor of executing Tsarnaev?

I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.

(Matthew 25:40)

The Bible can always be mined to find support for whatever anyone is trying to prove at any given time of course, so those who would impose the death penalty need to come up with secular and rational (as opposed to reasons grounded in sectarian religion or emotionality) to carry the day.

Executing prisoners is not cheaper than imprisoning them for life, it is more expensive. This idea places ts a dollar value on human life that should give us all pause. Making it cheaper to execute criminals might encourage our society to execute more criminals. Why put a person in jail for thirty years if we can execute them and save money? Why put a person in jail for ten years or even one year if execution saves money?

Economic concerns cannot prevail when considering justice, especially not in a country as rich as ours. We are not in a lifeboat conserving scarce resources and debating about who should be thrown overboard. We have the means to incarcerate Tsarnaev for life, where he can do no harm.

I sometimes think about Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for the terrible Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. His execution in June 2001 prevented him from witnessing the change in our country following the September 11 attacks, or the collapse of the racist anti-government movement he saw himself as part of when he committed his crimes. McVeigh never learned how pointless his actions were. We, as a society, were never given a chance to show that our way was better, because we took our vengeance on McVeigh and traded mercy and compassion for a moment of emotional gratification.

I think we can be better than that, and move beyond the death penalty altogether.

January 31, 2014

How to make college affordable: Pay It Forward, Pay It Back coming to RI?

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Almost unnoticed by RI media (save for education reporter Linda Borg in The Journal) is H7201, which would create a “Pay It Forward, Pay It Back” pilot program for funding tuition to colleges. The idea has found traction in the lefty blogosphere (notably by Matt Bruenig of Demos’ PolicyShop) and has been piloted by the State of Oregon. It’s relatively simple. The state sets up an initial pool of money to fund tuition for students at a select higher education institution in the state. That pool covers the costs of their tuition for their time in college. When the students graduate, they then pay back a proportion of their income over a set number of years.

This whole style of paying for college called “income-based repayment (IBR)”. Pay It Forward, Pay It Back gets around the typical student debt relief problem that ultimately subsidizes the educations of the well-off. It’s no secret that wealthier people are far more likely to gain a college education, and they disproportionately make up college graduates. Any broad-based tax that reduced student debt burdens would ultimately have poor people paying for the wealthy to receive higher education, furthering the achievement gaps between the wealthy and the poor.

Pay It Forward, Pay It Back neatly defeats this problem. If you make a lot of money after you graduate, your repayments will basically subsidize the costs of students who didn’t make much. Those repayments happen for a set number of years, long enough that even if you start off paying just a few hundred in your first year out, within in a few years you could be paying thousands.

Theoretically, if this program succeeds, the State of Rhode Island could guarantee every single child who is born in the state a college degree, assuming they get accepted.

Are there problems with this bill? Yes, for one thing, it requires that students graduate within four years for a bachelor’s or two years for an associate’s; while saying nothing about those who drop-out. This may be because it is simply a pilot, but drop-outs and those who take five years (perhaps because of a double major) could simply make payments for less or more time, respectively.

It’s also couched in the “workforce development” language of the skills gap, which is big on Smith Hill right now, even though the gap is fictitious. Another problem is that instead of being for all degrees, it will only be for select courses of study in an attempt to provide workers to state employers; so future English majors don’t expect to reap the benefits any time soon. Presumably education degrees won’t be targeted, despite our rhetoric to have better-trained teachers.

But how you sell the bill is less importance than its existence. Hopefully a Sub A will expand this bill to be far more ambitious with a focus on the students rather than their potential employers who may not even hire these people when they graduate.

The lead sponsor is Speaker Gordon Fox himself, and the press release also credits Rep. Joseph McNamara as House Health, Education and Welfare Committee Chairman. For those saying there’s no ambition in Rhode Island or a dearth of leadership, this is a bill which should give you hope.

January 31, 2014

Common Core will change the game for the worse

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The Common Core State Standards were hailed as the next game changer in education. Unfortunately, the way it is going, they may ruin the game, not just change it.

Students, especially in urban areas, are extremely mobile – and certainly educated adults are – so what is wrong with having a common set of standards whether you are in South Kingstown, RI or Tacoma, Washington? Set realistic standards, let local educators decide the best way to meet those standards, and trust teachers to be creative and motivational in helping students reach them.

Instead of widespread support, opposition grows over concerns, and rightly so. Parents across the country, including Rhode Island, are pushing back, in the belief we are dumbing down education. (A description I very much dislike but understand their meaning.) The goal now is to teach to a future test, PARCC, and the concern is growing that creative teaching and learning will disappear.

We have already seen cuts in programs across the country as the test becomes more important than anything else. It is supposed to guarantee that students are college and work ready. Obviously these are worthwhile ultimate goals, but what about the entire education experience: arts, music, sports, history, etc.? Parents have a reason to be nervous.

Educators are angry, not necessarily about the standards but about how they are being implemented much too quickly. Anecdotal evidence abounds about the confusion and wasted hours preparing for Common Core and PARCC. Teachers recently spent three months working on lessons and tests to only be given a new set of rules which required them to do much of the work over.

There is a constant stream here and around the country of “clarifying” documents changing what teachers had already spent hours developing. Confusion abounds. Elementary educators are preparing lesson plans the night before to teach to a new curriculum the next day because of rapid changes and lack of advance information.

Some states have started to slow down and put off implementation and testing until the change is complete and everyone is on the same page. This cannot be about testing companies making millions and corporations trying to control curriculum and education. It should be about high expectations where resources are available to reach them, and an education system that provides every student with the preparation to be what he/she wants, whether doctor, teacher, firefighter or poet.

Narrowing curriculum for a test and doing only half a job of it welcomes failure. If students and teachers are going to be evaluated with this system, it needs to be done correctly. Conservatives and local politicians are opposed as well, although I might disagree with some of their motives. The bottom line is that local control and decision-making have been removed

I started off by saying that we should set standards but trust our teachers to develop how we get there. To prove my point, all the so-called experts (most who have never taught) point to the success of Finland. Its secret? Teachers are trusted to do their jobs – and guess what, it works! Common Core and PARCC are edicts from on high and the truth is local educators are left scrambling without support and resources.

The cost to implement PARCC will be staggering. The commissioner says we will be ready, but local school officials tell me a different story. Think about this: Los Angeles intends to spend $1 billion on iPads for the Common Core Technology Project, to help prepare for the standards. The tests will be online so I assume they will be used for that as well. Where is this money coming from and at the expense of what other programs? I am all for students using technology but with all this profit at stake you can easily see why the technology industry is behind this movement.

Supporters of quick implementation say it is just the usual suspects who are complaining, but they shouldn’t ignore parents, teachers and administrators who voice serious issues and concerns.

“The Common Core standards emphasize critical thinking and reasoning. It is time for public officials to demonstrate critical thinking and stop the rush to implementation and do some serious field-testing. It is time to fix the standards that don’t work in real classrooms with real students.” (From CNN Opinion by Diane Ravitch, 11/25/2013.)

Calling something a game changer is just one of the many phrases the ed reformers like to throw around. It sounds hip and important, but if you really want to be a game changer you would set high attainable standards and give educators the resources and trust needed to get there, not rush through something half-baked because corporations and test companies want it.

This is not a game – these are real classrooms with real students, and when parents, teachers and administrators, i.e. those directly involved, say there are problems, it might be time to listen, learn and act.

Then and only then will Common Core have a chance, and not be just another fad for which we spent billions and did nothing to close the achievement gap. It seems an easy choice. For once, let us as a society act on the side of students and educators and not the side of power and money.