Progressive News, Opinion, and Analysis
It was a first for Providence. The mayor’s office live tweeted Angel Taveras’ State of the City speech last night. To mark the occasion, I collected some of the more interesting tweets from the speech, both from the mayor and some of the people who were following along at home and in the audience.
Everyone is certain to remember the controversy surrounding the 38 Studios $75 million loan guarantee deal. I, for one, was concerned about the tepid clawback provisions in the deal that would let 38 Studios off with a $400,000 fine if it didn’t create 400 jobs in the state. In any case, Kingdoms of Amalur was released this week, and it has been receiving stellar reviews from all over the country. Case in point is this glowing review from the New York Times.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning isn’t just good. It sings with infectious, engaging excellence. This is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be, what it wants to provide and what its players will enjoy. Then it delivers with confidence, style and, not least, fun in abundance. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is one of the finest action role-playing games yet made.
I am very excited to play this game (although it’s something I’ll have to do after the semester ends). And my hope is that the placement of 38 Studios downtown, and the co-location of Hasbro’s children’s video games division right next to it, could result (with some significant collaboration and organizing at the state level) a new business cluster in Rhode Island.
One of the most important things the state needs to remember is that cluster development takes a long time to form and grow – there are no quick fixes to the state’s economy. But the state can help in broader economic development trends by making strong connections among related and supporting businesses. For instance, while the packaging was designed by 38 Studios, it needed to be created. The manufacturing sector is still the 4th largest industry in Rhode Island, and it’s likely that there are plenty of manufacturers that have the capacity to produce the packaging. Likewise, the actual disks needed to be pressed. Was there a local disk maker that could have been used? Then there is the shipping and logistics, warehousing, etc., all of which is possible in RI with connections to air and rail freight.
I’m sure that all of these additional support businesses can be found locally in the state, keeping more of the wealth created by 38 Studios in Rhode Island. We have amazing artists and designers coming out of RISD every year. And it wasn’t an accident that New England Tech created a Video Game Design program. It would be nice to leverage these incredible assets to promote further economic development in the state, rather than just complaining about taxes and unemployment. Of course the patience and deliberation required for long-term growth runs counter to our political system and national culture of immediacy. Thinking about this as a 20 year strategy doesn’t come easy, but wouldn’t it be awesome if, in 2032, we can celebrate Rhode Island as the video game capital of America?
First, let me apologize that I’m not addressing this in the comments of the original post. I simply am not able to participate in the discussion on the threads. However, I am pleased to see the amount of intelligent discussion that took place.
In particular, there was some back-and-forth about unregulated capitalism, what constitutes it, etc. There is one very important point I want to stress on this. It’s the crux of my argument.
I made the point that I’m not trained as an economist. That wasn’t necessarily deference, but an indication of my point of view. I am not terribly concerned to argue about econometric models that may–or may not–describe, or even resemble reality.
I am approaching this from an historical perspective. I am not concerned with what the models tell us may happen; I want to know what happened when certain conditions were in place.
Unregulated capitalism did exist. In real life. It was how the markets operated from the mid-1800s until regulations cleaned it up in the 1930s. This means we have what is called a ‘natural experiment’, in which conditions are not modeled, but put in place.
So we don’t have to ask what the various schools of economics tell us what will, or might happen should unregulated capitalism occur. We’ve been there. We’ve done that. We tried it. It didn’t work.
The result was a welter of vertically-integrated monopolies, or near monopolies. I quoted a source that had a contemporary description of the situation that existed. Whole sectors of the economy were controlled by single companies headed up by a single individual. This was described as a good thing because it ended ‘wasteful competition.’
In the process the economy was subjected to cycle of boom and bust, the busts getting progressively worse, until we were hit with the Great Depression. At which point, we started regulating the markets, the first step being to prohibit monopolies.
Again, this is not theory. It’s what happened the first time. There is absolutely no reason to believe it won’t happen again should we deregulate even more than we have. Corporations are getting larger. Intel and Microsoft have no effective competition. Banks are so large that the failure of one can bring down the entire economy.
Since we did that, the economy grew, and the recessions that occurred were generally much shallower and of significantly shorter duration than what occurred before the 1930s. This was called the great moderation.
Then we started de-regulating. We kept de-regulating. Banking in particular was de-regulated to a degree not seen since, well, the 1920s. After which, they went off on a spree based not on sound market principles, but speculative fervor. The result was a crash that was the worst since, well, the 1930s.
This is not a coincidence.
Unregulated markets? We tried it once. It didn’t work.
History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. History tells a people where they’ve been and what they’ve been; where they are and what they are. History tells a people where they still must go and what they still must be. The relationship of history to the people is the same as the relationship of a mother to her child.
~ Dr. John Henrik ClarkeConscious memory is the prerequisite for human behavior.
~ Professor Greg Carr
As we sit in the middle of Black History Month I confess that I’ve spent the entirety of it thinking about the possibilities of how we might enter into a more progressive conversation on the topic of Black History. But please realize this month is not merely about the recognition of the achievements of African Americans, or a perfunctory gesture to insert Black faces in as missing chapters of American history. To be clear, most people, African Americans and people of non-color alike, tend to engage the month at equal levels of indifference. That said, for many, Black history in a US context, typically begins with the usual slavery narrative:
My claim is a small one: the moment you initiate a conversation on Black history with chattel slavery as the port of origin you are always already affirming a short range historical position which ensures that you will (re)fabricate a limiting (and limited) scope from which to view Black (African) history and future. I can best liken it to walking into a football game after halftime and thinking the third quarter kickoff was the beginning of the game.
Professor Greg Carr stresses three critical indexes rendered in the work of Dr. Theophile Obenga which assert that in order to exist with agency in the world a people must be skilled practitioners of their own history, historiography and historicity.
– History: meaning memory; how do you remember your identity as an individual and as a part of a group.
– Historiography: how do you write that memory; how do you construct it and pass it on from generation to generation.
– Historicity: a sense of yourself in time and space; what’s your vision for the future.
If we, as people of African ancestry, only remember ourselves as former slaves and never recall ourselves as the first constructors of highly advanced civilizations with great centers of learning (philosophy, science, mathematics, agriculture and medicine), then we are condemned to remain a people who are only free due to the so-called benevolence of an American president.
Hubert Harrison, a brilliant early twentieth century West Indian writer whose political work influenced figures such as Marcus Garvey and A. Philip Randolph, penned these words in an article from December of 1920…
When white people today talk of civilizing Africa and assert that the Africans are uncivilized [they] awaken in the minds of well-informed Africans a doubt as to whether white people know what is meant by the term. For, no matter how it may be defined, it is clear to the instructed that various “civilizations” not only have existed in Africa, but do exist there today, independently of that particular brand which white people are taking there in exchange for the untold millions of dollars which they are taking from there.
If by civilization we mean a stable society which supports itself and maintains a system of government and laws, industry and commerce, then the Hausas and Mandingoes, the people of the Ashanti and Dahomey, and the Yorubas of the Gold Coast had and have all these, and they are consequently civilized.”
What America means to an individual depends in large part on the historical perspective from which it has been introduced to them. And perhaps by now you’ve heard it mentioned in various mainstream media sources and talked about in numerous context, that is, Arizona’s new education law banning Ethnic Studies which went into effect this January, but will apparently be enforced as of 1 February. In this case, we see the deployment of a political, legal, and economic structure controlled by white political elites. But the fact that it is controlled by this political cohort should be subordinated to the fact that it exist and is maintained by thought norms which are American exceptionalist — that is to say, they are ideas which imagine the nation in a particularly narrow and ahistorical conception. The danger of this perception is not that it is reductionist, for clearly it is, but that it rebuffs attempts at expanding a democratic ethos. No proper understanding of our contemporary moment as a nation can be had unless we are willing to dig through the archives unafraid of what we shall find.
When most Americans think of Apple, they think of the hip commercials, the latest must have gadgets, and the industry leading innovation. What most do not realize is the untold story of how Apple has perfected stealing the seeds of American ingenuity and harvesting them under a complex system of third world slave labor. Throughout this article, keep in mind that Apple made a profit of $400,000 dollars per employee last year.
Apple made headlines this week when a New York Times article detailed Apples explanation for the companies lack of US manufacturing. Apple said that the issue goes much deeper than cheap labor and that American manufactures lacked the, “flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers.”
The true meaning of Apples statement only became evident when they cited a specific example clarifying what they meant. Last year, Apple ran into a last minute problem with the screen on one of its devices that caused the company to make a last minute adjustment in the manufacturing procedure.
Apple proudly admitted that 8000 employees at a Chinese manufacturing plant were quickly roused from their on-site plant dormitories, given a biscuit and cup of tea, and forced to go right into a 12 hours shift retrofitting the new screens.
If Apple wants to define “flexibility” as keeping workers in military like dormitories in which they are forced awake in the middle of the night to work a 12 hour shift on minimal food rations, than perhaps America cannot compete with that.
If one wishes to measure how Chinese workers truly feel about the working conditions they should look no further than the Foxconn plants in China. Apple uses the Chinese company Foxconn to manufacture a large portion of the Apple items bought in the US. In 2010, there were 14 successful suicide attempts at Foxconn when workers began jumping off the manufacturing building.
These suicides led 20 Chinese universities to launch an investigation and compile a report on the working conditions at Foxconn. The universities findings classified the conditions at the plants as comparable to a “labor camp.”
The idea of suicide being preferable to work became so widespread throughout the company that special netting was put around the roof of the building to keep workers from jumping to their deaths. In addition, workers were asked to take a anti-suicide pledge. Unfortunately Apple is not alone here. A few weeks ago, 300 employees that manufacture the Microsoft Xbox 360 threatened to commit mass suicide over working conditions.
Although Apple’s manufacturing practices are closer to the norm, rather than the exception when it comes to tech corporations, they deserve special scrutiny. Apple is quickly monopolizing the market of tablet and phone accessories. Most third party magazines, catalogues, and retailers that sell electronic accessories seem to be marketing accessories almost solely for Apple products today. Consequently, Apples business practices will likely be the practices emulated by the industry for market competitiveness.
Most disturbing though may be the uniquely deceptive way in which Apple products are marketed. Apple has successfully marketed its products as the must have items for generation Y. Sadly, when the young American unpacks his or her new I-Pad, they are unaware of the story behind how it actually was made.
On January 22, 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the landmark Roe v. Wade case. The decision ensured that the right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution permits a woman to choose whether to continue a pregnancy or to have a safe and legal abortion. This historic ruling recognizes that women and their families, not politicians, should have the right to make their own medical decisions.
Now, 39 years later, Planned Parenthood remains strongly in support of the Roe decision as it survives persistent attack from opponents. In 2011, elected officials at every level of government and in many states launched an unprecedented assault on women’s health care and the rights secured by Roe. Similarly, 2012 is expected to be a year of contentious battles. Extreme bills are likely to be introduced as lawmakers use women’s health as a diversion from the real problems facing Americans.
We’ve already seen bills designed to strip Planned Parenthood of public funding for family planning services. In Mississippi, voters defeated a ballot measure in November declaring a fertilized egg a person, language that could result in outlawing birth control, stem cell research, and In Vitro Fertilization, as well as abortion. Despite this failure, “personhood” legislation will be introduced in other states this year.
Here in Rhode Island, the health reform process nearly ground to a halt last spring over baseless claims that public dollars would pay for abortions within the health care exchange. Congress has clearly stated that federal dollars cannot cover abortion, and Rhode Island has the same longstanding policy with regard to state dollars. Women will benefit enormously from health care reform, and finally will have coverage for preventive care and the birth control methods that nearly all sexually active women use during their reproductive years. Using abortion politics as a roadblock to health reform is a threat to the health of all Rhode Islanders.
A majority of Americans support and respect the decision each woman must make about her own pregnancy. On Sunday January 22nd, let’s each mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v Wade by recommitting ourselves to protecting a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion.
Join Planned Parenthood’s online Since Roe campaign to remind Americans of the crucial difference the decision has made in women’s lives. Twitter supporters may use the hashtag #becauseofroe to provide their own reasons, and #roe for general tweets around the anniversary. We encourage friends of Planned Parenthood to join the Trust Women virtual march running from Jan. 20-27th: grab a sign and participate to show your support for the decision that’s made all the difference!
Over at The Nation, they have a list of Eleven Shocking Facts About Campaign Finance (and they’re not pretty):
The amount of independent expenditure and electioneering communication spending by outside groups has quadrupled since 2006. [Center for Responsive Politics]
The percentage of spending coming from groups that do not disclose their donors has risen from 1 percent to 47 percent since the 2006 mid-term elections. [Center for Responsive Politics]
Campaign receipts for members of the House of Representatives totaled $1.9 billion in 2010—up from $781 million in 1998. [Committee for Economic Development]
Outside groups spent more on political advertising in 2010 than party committees—for the first time in at least two decades. [Center for Responsive Politics]
A shocking 72 percent of political advertising by outside groups in 2010 came from sources that were prohibited from spending money in 2006. [Committee for Economic Development]
In 2004, 97.9 percent of outside groups disclosed their donors. In 2010, 34.0 percent did. [Committee for Economic Development]
In 2010, the US Chamber of Commerce spent $31,207,114 in electioneering communications. The contributions for which it disclosed the donors: $0. [Committee for Economic Development]
Only 26,783 Americans donated more than $10,000 to federal campaigns in 2010—or, about one in 10,000 Americans. Their donations accounted for 24.3 percent of total campaign donations. [Sunlight Foundation]
Average donation from that elite group was $28,913. (The median individual income in America is $26,364) [Sunlight Foundation]
Amount the Karl Rove–led Crossroads GPS says it will spend on the 2012 elections: $240 million. []
Amount that President Obama has raised from the financial sector already for his 2012 re-election:$15.6 million [Washington Post]
A highlight and discussion of some of the notable pieces of legislation going through the General Assembly this week.
Education aid advance bill passes Assembly, becomes law – The General Assembly approved and the governor signed legislation requested by the East Providence Budget Commission to allow the city to receive its state education aid early to prevent it from running out of cash this week. The legislation (2012-H 7052, 2012-S 2016) was sponsored by the chairmen of the House and Senate Finance Committees, Rep. Helio Melo (D-Dist. 64, East Providence) and Sen. Daniel Da Ponte (D-Dist. 14, East Providence, Pawtucket). Strange how the state is required to pass emergency legislation releasing education funds early to the city of East Providence after cutting education funding and aid to cities and towns by about $200 million over the past 5 years.
House committee hears bill to adjust auto valuation process – The House Municipal Government Committee heard testimony on legislation that would revise the motor vehicle valuation process that is used to set municipal auto excise taxes. Sponsored by Rep. Joseph M. McNamara (D-Dist. 19, Warwick, Cranston), the bill (2012-H 7098) would use an assessment method based on the trade-in value of a car, rather than the “clean retail value” now being used. An all-too-predictable backlash caused by the state eliminating the motor vehicle tax reimbursements to cities and towns, which then put cities and towns on the hook to raise the revenue (through motor vehicle taxes).
East Bay legislators to fight any tolls on Mount Hope, Sakonnet River bridges Rep. Raymond E. Gallison Jr. (D-Dist. 69, Bristol, Portsmouth), Rep. John G. Edwards (D-Dist. 70, Tiverton, Portsmouth) and Sen. Walter S. Felag Jr. (D-Dist. 10,Warren, Bristol, Tiverton) introduced bills (2012-H 7130, 2012-S 2092,2012-H 7036, 2012-S 2093) to prevent the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority from instituting tolls on the Mount Hope and Sakonnet River bridges. RITBA postponed a vote on tolls scheduled this week until Feb. 8 while the Department of Transportation works on alternative funding proposals. I can understand why people of the island wouldn’t want to pay tolls.
Aquidneck delegation sponsors bill for scenic tour, transportation tax exemption – Legislation has been submitted in the Senate to restore the sales tax exemption on scenic tour and transportation services. Sponsored by President of the Senate M. Teresa Paiva (D-Dist. 13, Newport,Jamestown), the bipartisan legislation (2012-S 2049) has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee. What the state should be doing is eliminating all the tax exemptions and lowering the sales tax rate. Same goes for income taxes, eliminate the myriad tax deductions and loopholes, and lower the overall rate (although the state should have more than 3 income tax brackets).
Bill introduced to allow Neumont University to launch R.I. campus – House Majority Leader Nicholas A. Mattiello (D-Dist. 15, Cranston) and Sen. Hanna M. Gallo (D-Dist. 27, Cranston) have introduced legislation (2012-H 7168, 2012-S 2075) to allow Neumont University, a private computer-science university with a campus of about 330 students in Utah, to apply to the Board of Governors for Higher Education to establish a second campus in Providence. Beware of for-profit educational institutions. They’re not all evil, but there is a huge incentive to falsify records to boost attendance, and to cut corners on the quality of education.
‘Katie’s Law’ bills again introduced in Assembly – Legislation has been introduced in the General Assembly again this year to require that a DNA sample be collected from suspects arrested for any crime of violence. The bills (2012-H 7056, 2012-S 2061) are modeled after “Katie’s Law,” which has been enacted in 24 other states. Sponsors are Rep. Brian Patrick Kennedy (D-Dist. 38, Hopkinton, Westerly) and Sen. David E. Bates (R-Dist. 32, Barrington, Bristol). Collecting DNA from suspects?
Bill would prohibit political contributions from vendors with state contracts – Rep. Michael M. Marcello (D-Dist. 41, Scituate, Cranston) has introduced legislation (2012-H 7093) to prohibit any vendor who has a contract with the state worth more than $5,000 or who has a bid on a state contract worth more than $5,000 from making contributions to any political committees established to promote the candidacy of an officeholder responsible for awarding contracts or any declared candidates for that office. We should move toward publicly funded elections.
(RHODE ISLAND, MASSACHUSETTS) – If I were to describe some of the events I have coming up as political, I’m sure someone would ask me, “hey Reza, what is political about an event featuring spoken word poetry and world rhythms?” This is the type of question I love to answer, though, sadly, few seem to find the courage to ask it. Still, I think I want to spend a little time breaking it down for you.
Now, I hate to make this sound clichéd or ultra familiar in terms of the African-American experience, but, really, it’s not clichéd; the transatlantic slave trade and American chattel slavery is where it begins. Remember, this was (is?) a system and a series of policies that made reading and using native languages illegal; made breaking up families, forced breeding, and forced sterilization standard during different periods; and made identity and self-determination a muddled concept at best. Family stories, national heroes, indigenous recipes – banned, marginalized, or high-jacked. From these conditions, a people fought onward and moved forward, often in the form of Negro spirituals, blues music, and later hip hop. In essence, if personhood, pride, and goal-setting could not be achieved through homeownership, the right to vote, or access to living wages, then it was through music, oral storytelling, and creating new (creole) sounds within which people of African-descent found courage and voice.
Today, we see challenges and struggles such as low high school graduation rates, exorbitant prison/probation rates, and disparities in healthcare access, treatment, and mortality rates – again, caused or condoned by this country and state’s systems and leaders. Therefore it is in the tradition of our ancestors, activists, and cultural rebels before us that “The Rhythm Heard Round the World” event happening tonight is, in fact, a political gathering. There will be new spaces, new sounds, and new ways to communicate our stories and build community – strategies we are forced to return to again and again; a recipe that calls for a dash of politics and a sprinkle of art.
That is one of the reasons I’m so excited about another event I have coming up: Soul Rebels Unite: An Empower Communities Event and Reggae Bashment. Don’t tell me that a genre of music known for a song called “Legalize It” is not a place to discuss or engage in political conversations. As I’ve explained to some: it is one thing to perform about smoking weed; it is another thing to write and sing a song asking people to mobilize, advocate and change laws. This song, for instance, alongside others about unifying as a people to fight illegitimate governance are the subjects that make up the content of the reggae songs that launched the international appeal the genre has today.
So as I get ready to go out to do this musical-political work that I’m regularly engaged in, I ask those working on political and social change to take a peek at the events I have listed, and reconsider your stance about who and where you will or will not engage audiences. Try analyzing things similarly to how I did above – tracing the historical perspective to trends we see today. For the event on Saturday with Girls Rock! RI and Sojourner House, remember how long before women were granted the right to vote, observe the lack of women holding office today, and investigate the dismal number of women making decisions within the entertainment and communications fields. Then tell me that there is no room for art in politics or no reason to mix the two topics.
If you still feel that same way – well, as Mr. T used to say, I pity the fool. If you’re open, or just want to debate me, I hope you’ll join me over the next few days.
***
1) “The Rhythm Heard Round the World”
A Night Of Spoken Word Poetry, World Rhythms & An Open Mic
Thursday, January 19, 2012
7:30 – 10:00 PM
Roots Cultural Center
276 Westminster Street
Providence, RI
Price: $5.00
Presented by VenusSings.com, Isis Storm & Funda Fest 14, the event features Singer-Songwriter and Recording Artist, The Dubber; Pecussionist Kera Washington and Bassist Joanna Maria of the band, Zili Misik and performers from the women’s art collective, Isis Storm. The event also includes talent from the RI Black Storytellers’ Funda Fest.
To sign up ahead of time for the open mic, email singsvenus@gmail.com or leave a comment here.
FB EVENT / MORE INFO: https://www.facebook.com/events/243212192414449/
————————————-
2) VenusSings.com, rhymeCulture, Isis Storm & La Soul Renaissance Present
Soul Rebels Unite:
An Empower Communities Event and Reggae Bashment
Friday, January 20, 2012
Black Watch Pub
266 Dartmouth Street
New Bedford, MA
Confirmed Artists:
Tem Blessed & Blest Energy ft. the Empress, aka Cita-Light ~ Isis Storm ~ The Dubber ~ King-I ~ Erik Andrade ~ The AS220 Criss Cross Orchestra ~ DJ Blade Mon ~ Rebel International ~ and more.
12-2 PM:
Empower Communities Youth Workshop with YouthBuild New Bedford
7-9PM:
“People of Culture Mixer and Marketplace” with local, regional and national activists, entrepreneurs, poets and musicians
9PM-2AM:
Hip Hop and Reggae Performances, DJ’s, and Sound Systems. PLUS album release party for “Re-Energized” by Tem Blessed & Blest Energy ft. the Empress, aka Cita-Light.
FB EVENT / MORE INFO: https://www.facebook.com/events/224041467674515/
————————————-
3) GIRLS ROCK THE SOJOURNER HOUSE: A JOINT BENEFIT FOR:
Girls Rock Camp Alliance & Sojourner House
And A Gathering for Empowerment
Saturday, January 21, 2012
7:00 PM – 1:00 AM
Roots Cultural Center
276 Westminster Street
Providence, RI
FEATURING:
-> Me Jane
-> Simple Etiquette
-> The Bookmarks
-> 5th Elament (CO-FOUNDER OF ISIS STORM)
-> ROUTE .44
-> JERI AND THE JEEPSTERS
FB EVENT / MORE INFO:
https://www.facebook.com/events/226863584050679/
As the mother of a smart and lively five-year old daughter (and of two 6-month old boys,) I never cease to be amazed at the barrage of sexist commentary she’s assaulted with. Statements along the lines of: “What a beautiful little girl you are”, “I love your shoes”, and my favorite “Are you learning to shop just like mommy?” I often throw in a “she’s also a very smart girl,” but people just look at me blankly as though it’s a forgotten asset. When she was a baby, people frequently assumed she was a boy if she wasn’t dressed in an obvious “girly” color. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Pink, pretty and princesses dominate the little girl landscape. Although my twin boys are certainly told how cute they are, it’s rare that anyone comments on their clothing unless it’s to tease them about a possibly “girlish” color or style (after they’ve first assumed that they are girls.) So what is the effect of this “nurture” by society on our children?
For one thing, women are still largely under represented in leadership positions around the world. Out of 180 countries worldwide, only 27 have elected women presidents, and only 25 have appointed women prime ministers. Of the members of national parliaments worldwide, less than 19 percent are women.[i] In the U.S., in 2011, women made up 46.7% of the labor force but comprised only 14.1% of executive positions and only 16% of board seats in Fortune 500 companies.[ii] This lack of representation starts with sexism in childhood.
A recent example of this is Lego’s new line, specifically targeted at girls, called “Ladyfigs.” LadyFigs are a curvy, make-up and miniskirt wearing new figurine line that requires almost no construction – the antithesis to Lego, which is intended to help kids build spatial, mathematical and fine motor skills. It’s a line of stereotyped chicks – a beautician, a socialite, an animal lover, a popstar and a geek thrown in for good measure. What kind of role models are these to aspire to? It’s caused a lot of outrage amongst men and women alike who deplore the blatant sexism – both obvious and implied (girls can’t build) – of the new line. The debate has sparked multiple high profile editorials pushing back against the “princess culture” and a change.org petition that now has nearly 50,000 signatures. Unfortunately, Lego knows that there’s a real market for it’s new line and, for now, it’s holding its ground. So who’s right? What is Lego saying by marketing these toys? What is the effect of this “nurture?”
There’s a girls t-shirt I love that reads: “Future President, Not Princess.” It’s a gutsy statement that should be a given. When will it be?
[i] Statistics from the Women in Public Service Project
With the recent announcement that Loughlin has decided not to run for Congress, I’ve been putting some thought into the upcoming CD1 race between Cicilline and Doherty. It seems that the campaign has gotten slightly more difficult for Cicilline, but I don’t see it nearly as much of an uphill battle as some others do. Granted, Doherty will no longer be subject to a primary campaign, but I just couldn’t imagine Loughlin and Doherty being involved in a significantly hostile and antagonistic primary campaign, despite their previous barbs. The main advantage for Cicilline would have been the Republicans spending their money fighting each other.
Also, even though there has been some speculation about Gemma and Segal jumping in, I can’t imagine either of them being candidates this year, so I think Cicilline won’t have to go through a primary fight either. Let’s review the circumstances leading up to the 2010 election to explain why:
Some may say this proves that Segal and Gemma have plenty of time to announce, but the situation this time around is different. CD1 is no longer an open seat; now it is occupied by Rep. David Cicilline. While Gemma or Segal are still wildcards, and could possibly announce, any Democrat who wants to run a strong challenge against Cicilline probably should be in the race by now. This is why I think the race will be between Cicilline and Doherty.
And I think Cicilline wins. Here’s why:
Cicilline’s message will be (and should be): vote for me so Republicans don’t have another seat in the House from which to advocate the destruction of the lives of middle-class Americans. I know that is hyperbolic, that was my intention, especially considering Obama using the legacy of Republican intransigence as the perfect weapon against Republicans. Judging by the post Rep. Cicilline submitted to the blog, Standing Together for Progressive Values, he has laid out his main key campaign themes for the election season:
In contrast, Doherty and the Republican and Conservative groups that will be supporting him will look back on Cicilline’s experience as Mayor of Providence (since he is a freshman Congressman in the minority party, there are no accomplishments in Congress to scrutinize). They’ll bring up the financial problems facing Providence (ignoring the rest of the country) and blame it all on Cicilline. But this has already been covered and discussed to death after he was elected, and I’m not sure how much airtime rehashing this theme will get.
Moreover, all we have to do is look to Central Falls, East Providence, West Warwick, and to some extent Pawtucket, and realize that Cicilline didn’t cause all these other problems either. The financial collapse that has destroyed budgets all over the country, and the notable decisions made at the State House to defund cities and town (including Providence), were all far beyond the control of Cicilline. Also, in spite of what one might think about the way Mayor Angel Taveras handled the “Category 5 Hurricane” Providence faced last year, he handled it. I don’t believe there will be the same crisis mode environment this year, and Taveras’s decisions will have largely mollified the degree of panic and anger that was being directed at Cicilline last year, to Cicilline’s benefit. Politically speaking, it happened too soon for it to be as compelling an issue in November as Doherty and his supporters would like.
Two additional thoughts:
Next Thursday, on January 19th, at 6:30pm, members of the RIPTA board will be at Direct Actions for Rights & Equality (DARE), answering calls to reinstate two employees who were unjustly fired last month. The fundamental question is: are people with criminal histories are sentenced to a life of unemployment? Even the New York Times has noted that nearly a third of Americans are arrested by the age of 23, but more importantly, the EEOC has long declared that a blanket policy of discrimination violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Can RIPTA fire employees after the media highlights their criminal records? They may, but it may come with a cost. The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) allowed three people into their training program who had records, and all of the felonies were over five years old. Two passed the training and made it to be drivers. Not an incident was reported until the media decided to do a fear tactic story, about who was driving folks around.
Within four days of the story, RIPTA Chairman of the Board, Thom Deller (who has his own controversies over a long and peculiar government career) announced that the two drivers are not on the road. The bus drivers union, meanwhile, held a “No-Confidence” vote of the RIPTA CEO Charles Odimgbe. Union President John Harrington says “We believe in second chances, but there was a lack of good judgment hiring those individuals…” And therein lies the rub: when will it be good judgment?
Over 10% of Providence residents, for example, are actively on probation or parole. Far more than 25% of the city has a criminal record. Over 50% of Black men in Providence have criminal records. These records range from petty to serious, recent to distant, with each subsequent charge being enhanced both in name and punishment. Ultimately, petty crimes for those with extensive histories result in major prison sentences. In general: those who have no felonies over the past five years have been faring well. At what point are they employable?
It is poor public safety policy to take a cross-section of any community and say you are not allowed to work. It is a sign of poor leadership if a community stands by as a bulk of the workforce is labeled “persona non grata,” and there is no pathway back into society. What is the message the legislators and the RIPTA Board are sending? The one I hear is “We don’t care where you look for work, just don’t look for work around here.” This translates into, we don’t care how you feed and house yourself, just go away. Yet there is no place else to go… except prison.
What is the message being heard by millions of people across the country who have criminal convictions? By tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders not lucky enough to work for an aunt or uncle? That message is clear: Don’t bother looking for work. Don’t bother getting an education. Don’t bother obeying the rules. Personally, I do not like that message one bit, yet I have heard it loudly for quite some time. It means more people quitting after ten rejections in their job search, when perhaps the eleventh application would have paid off. It means more drug sales. More breaking into businesses late at night looking for a means to eat and sleep. It means that people I care about are likely to end up on either end of a gun. It means someone I know may carjack someone else I know, with one mother in a visiting room and the other at a funeral.
It is unfortunate to read statements by the bus drivers’ union that fail to support the workers. Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday is January 15th. A national holiday for a man once vilified by the American government. MLK famously led a bus boycott that resulted in a full integration of the drivers, and a change in the “Back of the Bus” policy. With RIPTA already poised for further cuts, would they like a boycott by the people with criminal records and their family members? Are such customers only good enough to buy a ride, but not good enough to work there? A boycott of any scale and sustainability would possibly eliminate RIPTA altogether, and might be easy to do with one of the highest fares in the country.
From the days of “No Irish Need Apply” to Jim Crow segregation, courts and lawmakers have ultimately responded to a public that demands a right to regulate its own communities. Title VII is just one avenue to attack systemic discrimination that links racial disparity with the effects of our current criminal justice system. The people are on the rise in this regard. Whether it is the recent victory in Detroit to “Ban the Box” on job applications, or Gov. Cuomo’s ability to extract millions from companies who discriminate based on criminal records, it is becoming more expensive to hold the Puritan line of a chosen people ruling over the outcasts.
A coalition of groups, led by DARE and RI Community of Addiction and Recovery Efforts (RICARES), will be pursuing legislation this year that has received growing support to Ban the Box, including Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, House Judiciary Chair Edie Ajello, House Labor Chair Anastasia Williams, Minority Leader Brian Newberry, and Republican Rep. Mike Chippendale. Representative Scott Slater has been the primary sponsor of a bipartisan bill to address this very issue. Ironically, the legislation is designed to give people a chance in the application process, to prove themselves as the two RIPTA employees did. Only courage and wisdom of administrators can keep people employed once a negative portrayal comes out in the media.
Public transportation is primarily used by the poor and people of color; people who are highly policed and often know quite a few with a blemish on their record. It is a shame to see elected and appointed leaders publicly state their assumptions that having a criminal record equates to being a bad person, a bad worker, or a danger to strangers. To have no judgment process, no filter, is to say that all people without criminal records are equal. They are all of the same intelligence, same work ethic, same moral standard, and should be awarded or punished all the same. Those who paint broad strokes are clearly ignorant, because they certainly do not have enough experience with the huge percentage of America who have been arrested and processed through our criminal justice system. Ignorance may get people elected, but it shouldn’t keep them in power.
My friend Matt from the Harvard Kennedy School has a blog post up about a disturbing situation at a Mitt Romney campaign event he was attending, which, in my opinion, is emblematic of a larger trend of slowly taking away the rights and freedoms of people to speak out in dissent. We see this occurring more and more at public and campaign events: private police details, people being denied entry, cordoned off “free speech” zones, etc. It is as if political candidates and public officials are moving towards the “Minority Report” model to prevent outbursts at events such as politically motivated signs, public mic checks, or monopolizing limited question and answer time with particular questions by preventing those who may (but likely won’t) be engaging in such activity from the opportunity to attend. I suppose it is a symptom of the 24/7 news cycle, the democratization of information, and the ease with which even the most mundane political “controversies” can be blown out of proportion and manipulated for partisan ends.
Here are some snippets of his article.
I’d been in New Hampshire for the past several days to follow the campaign and see some of the candidates in-person. Yesterday morning, I was chatting up a Romney campaign staffer before an event at the Gilchrist Manufacturing Company in Hudson, NH, when a police officer approached. Sir, we have to ask you to leave the premises.
—
I asked another question or two, and the cop had had enough: “You’re under arrest.” He took my things, handcuffed me behind my back, searched me, and tucked me into a nearby cruiser. A few minutes later, an officer removed me from the cruiser and had me lean up against another police car and spread my legs for a second search. Two or three TV crews had their cameras trained on us; I felt ashamed in a wholly unfamiliar way. I wanted to look directly at the cameras and explain what had happened, but I feared the police officers’ reaction.
—
It was clear to me that the two officers had no interest in discussing what the law actually said, or what my rights actually entailed. I was paperwork, and they wanted to get it over with. I kept asking questions, and at one point, one of them opened up the New Hampshire legal code and read me the definition of disorderly conduct. He read the words dully, as if they were just syllables, with no interest at all in what they meant.
Read the whole post here.
EcoRI reported while we were gone that Save The Bay has delivered a letter to the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) about “persistent violations of the federal Clean Water Act by Rhode Island Recycled Metals.”
“The scrap metals recycling industry is growing rapidly along the Providence waterfront — and with it a serious and ongoing threat to the Providence River,” [Save The Bay director Jonathon] Stone wrote in the letter. A lack of enforcement and regulation “sets bad precedent and sends a message to other businesses on the water that’s [sic] it’s OK to illegally discharge in Rhode Island.”
Some of you will remember the earlier promises of a green industrial future for Providence’s hospital adjacent waterfront… wind turbines, short-sea shipping, frolicking puppies (OK, not the puppies). Those promises were used by lobbyists to torpedo zoning changes that would have allowed for non-industrial uses to be mixed in with the few existing businesses. With higher density uses no longer in consideration, what we’ve seen instead is the proliferation of waterfront junkyards, to date the only new businesses to relocate to that section of the waterfront and a far cry from the green-washed promises of the polluting special interests.
Of particular concern for residents is the continued lack of action from the city and state.
“In the 18 months since the first violation was reported nothing has been done to fix the problems, [Stone] said. “I think one of the interesting questions is why DEM and CRMC haven’t enforced their own permits? I don’t have an answer to that”…
Save The Bay is calling for construction of a drainage system, a concrete pad for heavy equipment, and a fully enclosed plastic cover to control dust and keep rain off the scrap piles. The environmental group also expressed concern about the lack of public information about a temporary dredging permit for dismantling the aforementioned submarine that has “mushroomed” into other uses. [my emphasis]
Recall that the Mayor Taveras championed his role in bringing in these industrial uses, calling one earlier this year “a very welcome addition to Providence’s working waterfront” (note – working waterfront is the lobbyist preferred term for the polluting special interests). But with this news and with the exposed “Mt. Taveras” scrap pile at Sims Metal Management growing every day, one has to wonder why these environmental questions and the health of local residents weren’t first and foremost among the city’s concerns.
I want to thank you for your ongoing support of and commitment to teaching and learning opportunities for all of Providence’s residents. And I invite you to learn more about YouthBuild Providence and ask that you lend your vision to our pioneering educational program for out of school youth as we transition toward a diploma granting institution.
What we are embarking on as a community is quite remarkable. Other states are already looking to Rhode Island and YouthBuild Providence as a model. Too many students age out of our public schools after a personal crisis. We are taking a stand by saying that young adults who have left school for whatever reason and want to return to the classroom should not be excluded from a brighter future. We are re-engaging drop outs by exposing them to new worlds, developing their identities as scholars, and sparking their engagement as citizens.
I am pleased to share that our students attended the preview performance of “It’s a Wonderful Life” at Trinity Repertory Theater. YouthBuild students gave the performance a five star rating.
We are building an ongoing relationship with Trinity Rep. A few weeks ago, on a service learning day, our students toured the theater. As we were leaving the building, one of the students spotted actress Annie Scurria and introduced herself. It was a sweet and inspiring moment. Our student and Ms. Scurria had a second chance to speak on December 9. After a standing ovation for their performance, the company actors met with our students in the lobby. It made our night.
Attending local performances has proven to be a vibrant educational tool. After seeing two shows, we have had dynamic conversations about what community means, and about questions of history, representation, and authenticity. You can see the impact first hand in student Ervin Figueroa’s video:
Our students are asking for more theater opportunities, which is a request we can’t deny. During our spring semester, YouthBuild will host a local playwright and retired theater teacher who will develop one act plays with our students.
We are proud to include Rhode Island’s Future as a friend and partner in the fight against anti-intellectualism, low expectations, and poverty.
P.S. YouthBuild Providence relies on individual donors to sustain our theater arts program. Bring history and literature to life, consider making an online gift to the Balcony Fund.
A friend of mine just had a tragedy in the family—his grandmother passed away. It has been difficult for him, but the good news is that his grandmother lived a rich, full, and happy life and died surrounded by a large and loving family.
But talking to my friend really got me thinking about some of the major assumptions that inform public policy in this country, particularly the idea that America is a meritocracy. My friend’s grandmother was a very wealthy woman, and she left her grandchildren each with substantial trust funds (and by substantial, I mean substantial — as in as much money as I will ever make in my entire life if I continue in the non-profit/community organizing field).
We might think that a nation as deadset against “free handouts” as ours would try to restrict this most extravagant of free handouts. But the reality is quite the opposite — the United States greatly subsidizes these kinds of handouts by taxing capital gains and estates at a far lower rate than any other industrialized nation in the world. What we say in this country, in effect, is that it’s more important to ensure that a friend of mine on one end of the socioeconomic spectrum get wealth he did not actually work for than, for example, another harder-working friend of mine be provided with bus passes so that he can get to school every morning without having to walk nearly three miles through the winter chill.
It’s just hard for me to understand how folks can claim that legitimate social services designed to help those constrained by structures of inequality will create dependence and a lack of initiative, but the ability to live comfortably the rest of one’s life without doing a lick of work is alright as long as its restricted to those who are already greatly privileged. If anyone can explain to me how that can possibly make sense, I’m willing to listen. Until then, I will remain confused.
Bari Katz, the co-founder and former Director of Student Life at the Achievement First Crown Heights High School, has written on Achievement First’s model, describing both its strengths and what she described as its fundamental flaw. If you have given any thought to the Achievement First debate, please take a moment to read her words:
“Would I send my child to this school?” This is a question I asked myself every day while working at Achievement First and helping to build their first high school in Brooklyn, NY in 2009 and 2010. I served as the Director of Student Life at Achievement First Crown Heights High School (now called AF Brooklyn High School), which entailed developing and managing all after-school and summer enrichment programs, building the advisory system for both college skills and character development, counseling students, and organizing and leading community events each week to contribute to school culture. As a member of the founding team, I was involved in almost every aspect of the school, from hiring, to behavior management, to building systems for school culture and discipline, to working with others in the Achievement First network to find and implement best practices for our new school.
There are many things to say about my time at Achievement First; some of them personal opinion, some experiences shared among many. Let’s start with some of the things AF does really well. AF hires incredible teachers. Walking through the halls of almost any AF school, you will find hard-working, dedicated and passionate educators in front of our children. The principles behind a longer school day are right on—to keep kids off the streets and out of trouble, and in classrooms getting extra academic time to support their achievement. Systems and data are both priorities, from my experience, in the AF network. For example, every behavior management system we tried at the high school in our first year was systematized in a way that ideally would have allowed every adult in the building to enforce these norms. Also, data-driven instruction is the driving force I would argue behind teacher development. Teachers and their coaches (usually a senior member of the school leadership team) work with both daily and long-term assessment data to improve lesson plans and increase student achievement.
While the strengths I mentioned above are real, the underlying approach to youth and community development are, in my opinion and experience, fundamentally flawed. This has a detrimental impact on the students and families in Achievement First schools, specifically in high schools.
The majority of my students at AF Crown Heights High School were fed in from AF Crown Heights Middle School, with approximately 10% being accepted off the wait list. Almost all of my students had relatively positive experiences at the AF middle school, due largely in part to their principal and teaching staff. When they arrived at high school, it became apparent to them and their families very quickly that this was a different AF than they had known before. As the Director of Student Life, I too became frustrated early on with the philosophy of youth development the school administrators (backed strongly by the AF network) were implementing.
I believe, especially at the high school level, that there must be a balance between structure and flexibility, between rules and independence, and between thinking inside a predetermined box and creative thought. Unfortunately, I witnessed time and time again students being pushed to “fall in line” with the rigid behavior system (sitting up perfectly straight in class; not wearing any jewelry or headbands for girls; having a closed bottle of anything other than water on their desk; making eye contact 100% of the time when being addressed by an adult; etc.). Rules are important. However, these examples are a few of many that AF labeled as character development, which I disagree with.
Character development for high school students is about having the opportunity to make one’s own choices and sometimes fail, but being able to meaningfully learn from those mistakes.Character at AF was defined as “doing the right thing when no one is looking.” However, because of the extreme emphasis on these small behavioral “infractions” to the system, there was a culture of conformity rather than critical thinking that was created. This resulted in students superficially following the rules but feeling like they had to hide their true selves while at school. We often saw students get in trouble for losing their temper because they felt so repressed by the culture of the building, which AF labeled as a character flaw on the part of the student.
In addition to being developmentally inappropriate for the age of our students, the school system was oppressive in other ways. I would receive phone calls from parents and families on a daily basis because they felt disrespected by AF leadership. Many parents felt the rules in the school were over the top and not beneficial to the “college preparatory mission” of the school. Many parents were called up to the school on a regular basis to have meetings with school administrators to address student discipline issues, often times even for minor infractions. Usually, students were not allowed to attend academic classes until these parent meetings happened (students in this situation would sit alone in a classroom or in the main office all day and independently do work assigned by their teachers even though they often couldn’t complete the work because they hadn’t received the lesson for the day. Perhaps because their shoes were 98% black instead of 100% black. For instance). Parents reported feeling devalued, disrespected, and frustrated by AF’s condescending approach to family involvement.
This leads me to my second concern about Achievement First’s proposed expansion. AF works in low-income communities of color in urban areas in New Haven, CT and Brooklyn, NY. From my experience, the mentality by many at the head of the organization and by association many of the school leaders as well, is one of disregard for the indigenous community they are entering. Rather than becoming a part of the neighborhoods in which they operate, AF most often runs schools that end up isolating the community in the surrounding area. Instead of valuing the parent and family contributions of their student body, many AF schools underestimate the power and capability of the families they are supposed to be serving. I always got the feeling that “we” were there to “fix a problem.” “We” were there to “save these kids.” The message to our students was often, “if you don’t do things ‘our’ way, you will never be successful in the ‘real world.’” As an organization working to serve urban populations, this kind of cultural insensitivity and sense of superiority are deeply harmful to the students, the families and the communities in which AF operates schools.
This is not about me. And I don’t want it to be about my experience. I left AF after my kids finished their ninth grade year for many reasons. I still speak to my kids and their families on a regular basis. When I left, half of the founding team left as well. By the start of the school’s second year, the 10th grade class (my kids) was down to a group of approximately 45-50. This year, the third year of the school, the founding class is down to around 35-40 students. This is the same trend in the AF high school in New Haven, which has graduated less than 30 kids the last two years (which they call a 100% graduation rate). I wanted to make sure that the voices of the families I’ve worked with for the last several years from AF Brooklyn High School were represented in this statement. They all asked me to keep their names confidential as they did not want their kids, some of whom still attend AF Brooklyn High School, to be penalized in any way for their speaking out.
From a family member who still has a child in Achievement First:
“The focus is always on discipline and consequences. It makes the kids not want to go to school. Even the really good students don’t want to go to school. My experience is probably way better than another parent’s because my daughter is academically and socially sound. But I’ve sat and chatted with so many parents and know the horror stories are more the norm than not. If we had to rely just on Achievement First to get my daughter what she needed for college, it would never happen. They’re setting the kids up for failure.”
From a parent who pulled her daughter out of AF:
“The AF teachers are dedicated to the success of the students and the school. Public schools are difficult because achievement is not always the focus. Charter schools are good for lower grades because it gives kids the discipline they need. But my daughter gained a sense of purpose from the great teachers and mentors at AF, and the fact that she knew everyone had one goal which was for her to succeed. But at the upper grades AF is training the kids to do what they want them to do and AF won’t relinquish control. They’re supposed to be allowed to use what they know, to let their budding minds grow. They aren’t allowed to think for themselves. AF is an experiment to see what ‘kids who wouldn’t have a chance otherwise’ can do if they follow the AF model. They push the discipline too much. But you can’t run an experiment on the backs of the children who are really trying. Our children are not getting what they’re supposed to get.”
From a parent whose daughter still attends Achievement First:
“All of the good counselors and teachers are leaving or have already left because they feel trapped and confined. The children are caged—they treat the children like it’s a boot camp. The good kids are made to feel like they’re bad kids and in prison. The kids are just hanging on to get out and move on with their lives. As a parent who speaks her mind and stands up for my daughter’s education, they shut me down and now they don’t even talk to me anymore. They are disrespectful and mistrusting of the parents like we’re crazy.I think it’s a race thing. These people come from all over the place to hold back our kids. The people who really love our kids do not get the time of day to do things for our kids. There are teachers who would do anything for these kids but they get brainwashed or they leave. They don’t want the children to associate with the teachers who really love them because it undermines their control.”
I’ll say the same thing to anyone reading this statement as I said to everyone I worked with at Achievement First: If you wouldn’t send your kid here, then it’s not good enough.
Bari L. Katz
Not in the slightest – we keep electing them into office!
In the weeks since I’ve announced my candidacy for Providence’s State Representative District 8 (Federal Hill, Olneyville), I have fielded a lot of questions from friends, family and neighbors. One that keeps popping up, along with “are you nuts?” and “what do state reps even do?” is the one about my age: “aren’t you too young for that?”
Anyone who has worked with me knows I love a good spreadsheet. So I put one together on this question. I’m likely missing several examples of people under 35 elected to the RI General Assembly, but the list was more inclusive than I expected, and is certainly enough to prove a point – Rhode Island likes them young.
And at a glance, it even seems fairly representative of the larger General Assembly in terms of male/female and Providence/Northern RI/West Bay/East Bay.
I’d be interested to see someone else continue asking questions: are young people elected more or less often than their older peers? Who is the youngest person to successfully challenge an RI incumbent legislator? And of course, there’s all the data on the other end of the spectrum. In 2009 when I was around the State House a lot as a volunteer lobbyist for Fair Elections, Representative Peter Martin would joke with me that he was the oldest freshman that year, at 67 years old. What does the historical competition for that honor look like?
I was saddened to hear of the death of Judge Robert L. Carter yesterday, at the age of 94. The passing of this great generation of civil rights reformers (Fred Shuttlesworth and Derrick Bell are gone too) was of course inevitable — Dr. King would be in his 80s, if he were still with us. But studying their words and work, one is reminded of just how limited our visions of justice are these days.
I had the great privilege of spending a week with Carter a few years ago, as a participant in an NEH seminar on civil rights up at Harvard. He was sharp, passionate and inspiring, as he regaled us with story after story about his legal work with Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and walked us through his informative memoir, “A Matter of Law.” If I remember correctly, I was a bit combative in some of our exchanges. Carter insisted on the transformative potential of school desegregation cases in the urban North, which he constantly pushed from within the NAACP in the mid/late 60s. I argued that the real issue was metropolitan housing segregation, and that a focus on the cities alone would achieve nothing more than tokenism, resistance, and white flight. He countered by emphasizing, rightly, the value of setting legal precedents. This was, after all, how the Brown decision was achieved in 1954: a long, slow walk through the court system. It was particularly important to get the courts to focus on impact, not intent, in the application of constitutional doctrine to segregation in the North. Once that was achieved, things could open up in much more transformative ways.
As background for my home ownership book, I’ve been doing some research on civil rights, the law and housing policy from the mid-60s to the mid-70s, and I’m in a much better position now to make sense of what Carter was trying to tell me — and of his legacy. During this all-too-brief period, there was a possibility (albeit a thin one) that the nation might finally confront the pattern of metropolitan inequality and segregation (by race and class) that had emerged in the wake of World War II. Real discussions of the necessity of ‘opening up the suburbs’ were taking place, not only within the civil rights and fair housing movements, but also within the Johnson administration, the courts, and even in the early days of Nixon’s first term (George Romney, Secretary of HUD, characterized suburbia as a ‘white noose’ around the neck of urban America). Most parties to this discussion recognized that both access to employment and to quality public education hinged on whether American metropolitan areas could be restructured. In other words, the future of the American opportunity structure was at stake — but time was of the essence. The nation was on the cusp of a massive expansion in suburban development (and of home ownership), but the shape which our social geography would take was still somewhat plastic. The intellectual, judicial and policy tools were there to trace direct connections between social geography and opportunity, and to expand civil rights jurisprudence beyond the limited individualistic ontology that had previously defined it.
And Carter was right there, at the forefront. Unfortunately for all of us, this brief window of opportunity to unwind metropolitan inequality had slammed shut by the mid-70s. There were small victories and experiments at the local and state level, here and there; the Mount Laurel decision, by the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1975, for example. But my argument about the ‘window’ is mostly aimed at the federal level.
Nixon gets some of the blame, as much because of his racial demagoguery as his urban and housing policies. His Supreme Court appointments get a lot of it, too. The San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973) and Milliken v. Bradley (1974) decisions carved a direct path to the urban school crisis we presently confront. Despite occasional exceptions at the state level, federal courts also continued to limit the reach of constitutional claims against exclusionary zoning, rendering fair housing law a dead letter in much of the country. Suburban white America captured the lion’s share of the responsibility, and retains it today. While the Republican Party has become the unapologetic champion of white suburban privilege (see this recent piece by Daniel Denvir, on urban issues in today’s GOP), the Democrats refuse to see what even George Romney (let alone Robert L. Carter) saw 40 years ago: that racial and class segregation is a recipe for disaster for the country.
Thanks, Mr. Carter, and rest in peace. That window is still closed, sadly. But it is surely cracked. And that, as Leonard Cohen once wrote, is how the light gets in.
As it turns out, Monty Python was right: Finland isn’t just a great place for snack lunch in the hall…
It really does have it all: social democracy, smoked fish, and a public school system that American reformers are beginning to notice. Too bad they are noticing the wrong thing.
As many of you know, Finland is all the rage in education reform circles these days, particularly among those who don’t think that teacher unions and school governance are the primary problems facing American public schools. Finnish school children have done very well on international tests in recent years (far better than the middling U.S.), prompting a wave of visits to Scandinavia by American politicians and educators, and speaking tours by Finns here.
Most of the discussion has revolved around their model for the professionalization of teachers — kind of like Denver’s experiment on steroids — and on their lack of emphasis on standardized high-stakes testing and rote learning. All teachers in Finland must earn masters’ degrees from competitive graduate programs, are paid like professionals, and given responsibilities for curriculum and assessment that vastly exceed those of American teachers in the post-NCLB era.
The curriculum, meanwhile, de-emphasizes competition and tracking, and tends to be much more focused on creative play and vocational preparation than one generally finds in American schools (particularly urban ones). According to a recent article by Samuel Abrams in The New Republic, Finnish schools provide students with far more recess than their American counterparts — 75 minutes a day at the elementary level, compared to an average of 27 minutes in the U.S. They also mandate lots of arts and crafts, and more learning by doing.
American school reformers seem to see what they want to see in the Finnish success story. Liberals (if I can use that word in this context) point to their investment in early childhood education and parental leave policies, as well as the teacher autonomy discussed above. Conservatives point to the ability of Finnish schools to get high achievement out of students despite large class sizes, and regardless of background. If they can do it, they argue, why can’t our teachers? Of course, the ‘blame-the-teachers’ mantra is somewhat undermined by the fact that Finnish teachers are unionized at even higher levels than American teachers are, and also have tenure.
It is also undermined by the fact that levels of inequality and child poverty in the U.S. vastly exceed Finland’s — a critical point.
Anu Partanan, a Finnish journalist, published a thoughtful short piece in the Atlantic Monthly in late December 2011 on K-12 education in her country. The takeaway: most American observers have really missed (ignored) what’s at the core of Finnish school reform — equity.
Dissatisfied with the quality of Finnish public education at the end of the 1960s, in 1971 a government commission concluded that economic modernization could only take place if schools were improved. According to Abrams, Finland committed to reducing class size, boosting teacher pay, and requiring much more rigorous training for teachers.
While the US has focused primarily on ‘excellence’ since 1980 (based in part on the mistaken assumption that we had veered too far in the direction of equity since the mid-50s), Finland launched a concentrated effort to use public education to counteract inequality. It did this, based on the belief that equity would lead to excellence, and enable resource-poor Finland to compete in an increasingly globalized and post-industrial economy. This effort was supported by relevant social policies too.
Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education’s Center for International Mobility and author of the new book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?, told Partanan that the “main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.” At its core, Sahlberg says, this means that “schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.”
While Partanan may not be an experienced observer of American politics and society, she is almost certainly correct that the way that American ‘reformers’ are viewing Finland’s success — ignoring the equity goals that are at the heart of it — demonstrates a kind of willful blindness to what is fundamentally wrong with the opportunity structure in the US, and how it undermines both the quality and distribution of public education.
The money quote:
“It is possible to create equality. And perhaps even more important — as a challenge to the American way of thinking about education reform — Finland’s experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.
The problem facing education in America isn’t the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.”
It is unfortunate that so many of the moderates and liberals who formerly served as voices for equality of opportunity in public schools in the U.S. have fairly tripped over themselves — and others — to leap onto the bandwagon of ‘reform’ as its presently understood.
