Way To Go, Mr. President

Hooray for President Obama!  He has finally made some bold moves to point up the failures of Congress while taking actions that support the broad middle class.  What’s more, he is finding ways to do this by Executive Order, acting in spite of an uncooperative Congress. 

Strangely enough, I spoke of the need for this kind of bold action at least a year ago when I wrote to the White House.  My latest call for such action, titled “Bold Action Is Imperative”, appeared on this Blog on June 12, 2011.  What I said then was “what Obama needs to do is to come up with a PLAN of bold steps touted with massive publicity that is unrelenting.”  I even suggested that parts of that Plan should be: the faster draw-down of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; a massive infrastructure/jobs bill; extension of unemployment benefits; and, an increase in tuition grants and loans for college students.  

I certainly can’t take credit for the President’s Plan, but I, for one, am grateful for his actions.  From some reports, he has more such actions up his sleeve, and I hope they include the use of already-appropriated, but unspent, funds that could legally be used for the creation of jobs or job-related activities.  I spoke here of such possibilities in my Blog of May 15, 2011, when I listed several areas of jobs that can be created and offered through the Corporation for National and Community Service, through the Labor Department and through OPM, the Job Corps, and the Veteran’s Administration, to name a few. 

What I would suggest is that the President’s staff should be culling through various departments and offices of the federal government (and talking with governors of states) to determine what unspent funds are available to be used for job creation and support (such as training).  Even with the government under a Continuing Resolution for FY2012, there are unspent funds available. 

Secondly, what about stimulus monies that have gone unspent in TARP, ARRA, and TANF?  Certainly at the end of 2010, we heard a great deal about such unspent funds, or at least of projects that were not “shovel-ready.”  There is no greater stimulus needed than jobs, job training, and incentives for job creation in the private sector. 

There have to be funds already authorized and appropriated that have gone unspent.  How about it, Mr. President?  Can you and your administrative staff find ways to use this money NOW for our greatest needs: job creation and job stimulus?  And, by the way, if Congress puts up a fuss because they want that unspent money to be cut from our budget deficit, tell them that the American people are suffering and there is no greater need right now than that of relief for the broad middle class!

Here are some recent examples of unspent funds that I have been able to find:

1)  Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) - apparently, not only are there carry-over funds available, but there is an Emergency Fund also available.  It seems likely that the Emergency funds can be used to subsidize employment.  Previously, carry-over funds could only be used to provide assistance (the ongoing basic needs payment, and supportive services such as transportation and child care to families not employed). Now jurisdictions (States, Territories, D.C., and Tribes) may use any unspent Federal TANF money from a prior fiscal year to provide any allowable TANF benefit, service, or activity – i.e., not just assistance

2)  Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) - 
This was originally meant by the Bush administration to relieve big banks from some of their toxic assets, so they could maintain liquidity and solvency.  In February 2009, President Obama’s administration proposed to use some of the unspent TARP money to aid small businesses (and to pay down the deficit).  The debacle that ensued ended up with Congress wanting to spend all money returned to the fund on the deficit.  Question is, is there any money leftover still from the TARP legislation, and if so, can it be used creatively to aid more middle class homeowners, small business owners, and unemployed workers? 

3)  American Recovery and Re-Investment Act (ARRA) - the $48.6 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, the $10 billion in additional Title I aid and the $11.3 billion in additional special education funds—were supposed to be spent by states by October 1, 2011 but an extension to spend has been granted.  According to a recent article by Michele McNeil, the states have $2.28 billion left to draw down between those three funds—a total that doesn't include smaller special education programs, such as the one for infants, Title I School Improvement Grants, and Race to the Top, which have a longer spending timeline.   Again, money is leftover, so is there any way to involve states with such money to hire additional teachers for special education, and construction workers to rehab rundown schools?

4)  Is there any unused or un-granted or wasted money that can be used toward job creation?  Here’s a thought for President Obama:  find a useless program in the Executive branch (like the outmoded RUS of DoA); offer to shut it down and use the saved money for job creation if Congress will agree to shut-down a useless office (like that of Chaplains) and do the same.  Quite seriously, the GAO Report of March 2011 on Opportunities to Reduce Duplication in Government Programs offered numerous examples of waste and duplication that could produce needed funds, not just for deficit reduction, but for job creation.

Here’s a thought: why not announce an evaluation of all government programs and contracts in order to find savings that can be used for job creation?  Let’s get serious about re-inventing government and, at the same time, use savings to create job opportunities. 

Unfortunately, the path that the President has chosen has its limits, both constitutionally and politically.  He can only get so far with Executive Orders because the Congress is not going to put up with that forever.  He is also limited in the scope of Executive power by the Constitution, which gave the lion’s share of central power to the Legislature and limited the scope of the Executive’s power.  Of course, the evolution of a so-called “Imperial Presidency” has helped to grow the President’s ability to act on his own.

So now that the President has found his BOLD side, let us not waste this opportunity.  Progressives should take this as their opportunity to make suggestions to the White House for ways to divert money into job creation without involving the do-nothing Congress.  Any thoughts out there?  Please share them at my e-mail address:  impublius2@hotmail.com.

A Vision for Healthcare - Part VI

What would be some of the savings from a single-payer health care system?  Well, first of all, it is estimated by the Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) that “the reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay. Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs to deal with the bureaucracy. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars.  Single-payer financing is the only way to recapture this wasted money. The potential savings on paperwork, more than $400 billion per year, are enough to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone without paying any more than we already do.”

Second, PNHP intends that National Health Insurance (NHI) would pay each hospital a monthly lump sum -a global budget - to cover operating expenses.  This amount would be negotiated yearly based on past expenditures, fiscal and clinical performance, projected changes in levels of services, wages and input costs, and proposed innovations.  Hospitals would not be allowed to bill for services covered by NHI, but equally important could not use any of their operating budget for expansion, profit, excessive executive incomes, marketing, or major capital purposes.  The latter would come from NHI funds and would be appropriated separately based on community needs.  Privately-owned hospitals would be converted to non-profits and their owners would be compensated for past investment.  These methods of payments to hospitals would shift the focus of administrators from the bottom line of profit and thus of lucrative services, and hopefully toward providing optimal care and services to meet patient needs.  This “global budgeting” would virtually eliminate billing, freeing substantial savings for enhanced clinical care.  Prohibiting use of operating funds for capital improvements would eliminate the primary financial incentive for excess interventions and services as well as its opposite (skimping on care) since neither strategy could result in institutional gain.

Third, the PHNP says NHI would include three payment options for physicians and other practitioners:  fee-for-service; salaried positions in institutions; salaried positions within group practices or HMOs.  Privately-funded HMOs and group practices would also be converted to non-profits.  Only institutions that actually deliver care could receive NHI payments, thus excluding many HMOs and groups that currently sub-contract services but don’t maintain clinical facilities.

Fee-for-service would include a negotiated binding fee schedule.  Payments would include only physicians and their support staff, but not reimbursement for costly office capital expenditures like MRI scanners. 

Institutions like hospitals, health centers, group practices, clinics, and home care agencies could elect to receive a “global budget” for delivery of care, as well as for education and preventative programs.

HMOs and other institutions could elect to be paid capitation premiums to cover all outpatient, physician, and medical home care.  Regulation of payments for capital expenditures would be similar to that for hospitals.

The three proposed payment options uncouple physician payment and other operating costs from capital purchases.  According to PNHP, this is necessary to minimize entrepreneurial enterprises, contain costs, and facilitate health planning.  The fee-for-service option would greatly reduce physician office overhead by simplifying billing to one payer.  It is also possible that there might need to be a cap on spending for program administration and reimbursement bureaucracy - perhaps 3% of total costs.  Global negotiated budgets for institutional providers would eliminate billing costs; at the same time providing a stable and predictable financial support.  It could also stimulate development of community prevention programs (e.g. smoking cessation). 

Fourth, NHI will cover disabled Americans of all ages for all necessary nursing home and home care.  According to PNHP, a “local public agency in each community would determine eligibility and coordinate care.  Each agency would receive a single budgetary allotment to cover the full array of long term care services in its district.  The agency would contract with long-term care (not-for-profit) providers for the full range of needed services, eliminating the perverse incentives in the current system that often pays for expensive institutional care but not the home-based services that most patients would prefer.”  The program would encourage home and community-based services by supporting the 7 million unpaid caregivers that provide 70% of the care, and by supporting the expanded training of geriatric physicians, nurses and social workers who would assume leadership of this system.

Finally, NHI would pay for all medically necessary prescription drugs and medical supplies, based on a national formulary, established and updated by an expert panel.  The most important provision of this would be the negotiation by NHI with the drug and equipment manufacturers, based on costs (excluding extras like advertising and lobbying costs).  Suppliers would bill the NHI directly for any item in the formulary that is prescribed by a licensed practitioner.  Because of its single payer status, the NHI could exert substantial pressure on pharmaceutical companies and equipment manufacturers to lower prices, resulting in very substantial savings which is not happening under the current multiple private-payer system.

Of course, this single-payer system will have start-up and transition problems.  Surely it will not solve all problems; i.e. improvements in environmental and occupational health will not automatically follow; need for improvements in quality will remain; medical school problems of high tuition and lack of minority representation will continue; some physicians will still succumb to temptations to enhance their earnings by encouraging unneeded services.  However, a framework for addressing such problems will be in place. 

And, it’s better than the alternatives, including:  the current multiple-payer debacle; defined contribution schemes with lower-paid employees forced into skimpy plans; tax subsidies and vouchers; turning Medicaid over to states.

An article under the heading of the PNHP concludes:  “Incremental changes cannot solve these problems; further reliance on market-based strategies will exacerbate them.  What needs to be changed is the system itself.”

This change to a new system of health care insurance and delivery is still one of the most important steps we could take to save money and thus affect the national budget, to give relief to businesses, to cover all citizens with health insurance, and to literally bring relief to the pocket-books of millions thereby restoring confidence in our healthcare system and increasing the likelihood of better research and innovation than we have seen in a long time.

Dissent - part of the American Vision

Dissent is built into the foundation of the American nation (Declaration of Independence); it is woven into the fabric of our democracy (Constitution & Bill of Rights); it is the well-spring from which greater civil rights have been nurtured and realized (e.g. Women’s Rights movement, the Union movement and the Civil Rights movement).  Dissent is a 100% American tradition; a patriotic action; a legitimated form of redress of grievances with judicial affirmation.  It’s non-violent form is most acceptable, but it’s violent formulation cannot simply be eschewed when precipitated by dictatorial and tyrannical governmental means that attempt to destroy the very foundations upon which our democracy is built (the Revolutionary War).

Dissent is on my mind today because of two major happenings in our country: the “Occupation of Wall Street” protests throughout the nation and the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C.  They are both monuments to the place of non-violent dissent in the furthering of the American Ideal of rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; of the American Vision of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; of the American Dream of one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.  But, they are more than simple representations. 

The Martin Luther King Memorial reminds us vividly of the many people who put their lives on the line to protest American apartheid: the segregation of races in public facilities, particularly in schools and housing, the discrimination against people of color in jobs and wages, in banking, in living accommodations, in voting, in all manner of ways that were intended to keep “them in their place” which was always a lesser place; a place which targeted and maintained “them” as inferiors.   Such discrimination was the poisonous plant that grew out of the defiled soil of slavery.  Slavery of black people, and the elimination or herding of native Americans onto restricted reservations, were two stains upon the formation of our Republic because they influenced our Constitution,  public policy and the prejudices of our citizenry, for generations. 

Let us never forget that many people actually gave their lives in this great civil rights struggle, including Dr. King and so many of his followers.  I think today of the four young girls lost in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist church in Montgomery, of Viola Liuzzo the homemaker, of Jonathan Daniels the seminarian, of Michael Schwerner organizer, James Chaney apprentice, and Andrew Goodman student, of Medgar Evers army veteran and activist leader.  And, there are so many more….

I think today of one of my personal heroes, who put herself in jeopardy by going to St. Augustine, FL in the summer of 1964 to participate in a sit-in. The arrest of Mary Peabody-- the 72 year old mother of the governor of Massachusetts and wife of retired Episcopal Bishop, Malcolm Peabody-- for attempting to eat at the segregated Ponce de Leon Motor Lodge in an integrated group, made front page news across the country, and brought the civil rights movement in St. Augustine to the attention of the world.  If ever there was a woman who could be seen as a comfortable, white Protestant of patrician background, Mrs. Peabody was it.  But nothing could be farther from the truth: she was an activist involved in many endeavors (see more about Mary Parkman Peabody at oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch01116)

She was someone I was privileged to have known.  In fact, she and her retired husband lived just a few doors down from me at the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, MA.  Her husband, Malcolm Peabody, the former Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Central New York, under whom I began my quest to become a student at the seminary, was my Bishop for as long as I can remember, from my days as an acolyte in my local church to my acceptance at ETS.  The first summer after my first academic year at ETS was a busy one, but was made all the more bearable by the kind offer of their house for the summer for me and my new bride, which they kindly extended again during my second summer at ETS. 

Between those summer sojourns at Phillips Place, there was a snowstorm in the Boston area that was unrelenting, and that disrupted transportation and other services (most likely January 20, 1961).  As I was about to walk to God-knows-where, I walked by the Peabody home and there was a figure bundled up in a substantial hooded jacket, trying to shovel out their long walkway to the street.  I thought it was the Bishop, but when I got closer to ask if I could take over the shoveling, it turned out to be Mrs. Peabody who was determined she was going to dig them out, no matter what.  Upon my insistence that I would be glad to do the shoveling in thanks for their on-going generosity, she relented (I was careful not to say anything about age or gender!).  Let me tell you, that was the longest, toughest walkway I have ever shoveled, before or since!  I was exhausted at the end of it. 

Mrs. Peabody never shrank from a task; she was not satisfied until a difficult situation or problem was addressed with vigor, just as she did not shrink from the call to address the national injustice known as segregation; she viewed it as a duty.  She was nearing 70 when she tried to shovel that walk; she was 72 when she went to St. Augustine to stage a sit-in.  I’ll just bet you there were times when she influenced her Bishop husband and her Governor son on their commitments, their duty, and their responsibilities!  I write about her in this context because she clearly represents the heritage of our founding fathers (and mothers); she represents that ideal that we must address injustice; that we must dissent when government or public policy leads to tyranny or just plain discrimination. 

We are individually responsible for the health and well-being of the American Ideal, the American Vision, the American Dream.  The demonstrations reportedly now going on in over 190 cities throughout these United States are live protests in response to the dysfunctional nature of our government and of our economic system.  It is too early to say how significant these will be, but this we do know: these are not hippie demonstrations; they are not unorganized; they are not purposeless; they are not attempts to abrogate law and order. 

At our local “Occupation”, I saw many signs of what this protest is about. It‘s about:
- the threat of plutocracy or oligarchy to our democratic system: the 1% dictating policy and outcomes for the other 99%
- the inequality of our economic system: the advance of the profits and riches of the 1% versus the stagnation of the wages and benefits for the broad middle working class; and
- the use of governmental entities and legislation to ensure that this subsidization of the rich remains intact;
- the duty of the rich to pay their fair share in taxes and contributions to the nation’s welfare;
- the overwhelming need for American jobs;
- the tax breaks and policies and incentives that have favored large corporations and enabled them to do what they want, when they want;
- the unfavorable treatment of labor unions and their collective bargaining rights; their destruction;
- the destruction of our democratic system by the infusion of vast amounts of money into our politics in order to influence legislative and regulatory outcomes in favor of the 1%;
- overturning the unfortunate Supreme Court Citizens United decision which sees money in politics as unrestricted free speech for corporations as individuals;
- other concerns include: war, the environment, education costs.

When mass dissent raises complicated issues and questions that must be addressed and answered by our governmental and societal leaders, it is important for us to remember its place in our history, and to respond accordingly.  The narrow response of law and order borders on oppression; the response of personal attacks represents elitism, and the response of indifference speaks to nothing less than irresponsibility.  Reasoned and reasonable dissent requires a positive response from our government and our people for it is the life-blood that keeps renewing and strengthening our exceptional democracy.  To be intent on oppression of every form of dissent is to be on the side of anti-democratic responses that betray American values, and that deny this important thread of our heritage.  

Purposeful dissent is part of My Vision for America.  It is woven into the fabric of our Democratic Republic; it is part of what makes us great, for many of its forms and manifestations have advanced us toward our Ideal, our Vision, our Dream.  We as a nation can never accept the status quo as all there is meant to be, for we know that there is greater freedom, broader rights, and stronger justice toward which we must strive.  We are a nation of strivers who believe, with Martin Luther King, Jr. that we have a Dream to be realized. That is why we are called to let freedom ring; to keep hope alive; to pledge ourselves to liberty and justice for all.  It is why we revere Lincoln’s words in the Gettysburg Address that call us to look beyond ourselves and our failings to a greater cause:

“It is for us the living… to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced… to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

My Vision for America -- Part IV

As we have said, education is a primary key to America’s future.  Friedman and Mandelbaum in their book, “That Used to be Us” go even further by declaring that “Today…more than ever before, our national security depends on the quality of our educational system.”  They connect education quality to economic growth which is the key to national power and influence in today’s flattening world.  They quote President Obama on this same subject: “the country that out-educates us today will out-compete us tomorrow.”  This is why Friedman and Mandlebaum have concluded: “Today, what matters is not how your local school ranks in its county or state but how America’s schools rank in the world.”

We have explored one of the six areas in which they say our schools must improve, i.e. the need to have excellent teachers and principals.  To that, I have added my own thoughts for improvement.  It is now time to explore the other five areas, but first I offer once again my own Purpose Statement for Public Education which I believe must overlay all that I say about education reform.

“To involve an entire community of educators (administrators, teachers, students, parents, volunteers and other interested citizens) in the teaching of traditional and foundational curricula (history, English, mathematics, science, language, technology);  in the drawing out of experiential learnings (through the arts, simulated games, business internships and problem-solving) and in the discovery of skills, talents, concepts, beliefs, values and verities, in order to produce accomplished individuals, informed citizens, critical and independent thinkers, lifetime learners, cultural literates, world-class workers and competitors, and compassionate human beings willing to advocate for the welfare of the human family.”

The second area of improvement must be parents who are more involved and demanding of what will pass as quality education.  This also speaks to the third necessity of having students who come to school prepared to learn.

This must start before parents actually have children in school.  It starts with excellent pre-natal care.  It starts with as small a thing as playing classical music when a child is still in the womb.  It starts with reading to children at very early ages.  It starts with parents teaching the alphabet and letter sounds and the recognizing of objects and body parts.  It starts with an attitude on the part of parents that children can start discovering and learning as soon as they exit the womb.  Parents have a responsibility from the moment of conception to find out, to discover, to research how they can be educators for their children.  That means that society needs to be more focused on helping parents to realize this goal.  We need school districts concentrating on how they can assist parents of pre-school age children.  If public schools are to become community centers of learning, we need districts to provide home visitors who can teach appropriate education skills to parents.    

When their children are in schools, parents need to be more like Chinese parents, like Amy Chua who wrote “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” who issued a wake-up call to American parents.  As she said in her book, “Studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children.  The Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future…arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.” 

While there may be a fine line between such involvement and “making your kid neurotic”, in general, Friedman and Mandelbaum believe that Chua has two things quite right: the need to hold children to the highest standards that push them out of their comfort zones, and the need to be involved in their schooling.”  Trophies for everyone is a travesty on standard-setting.  Rewarding kids simply for effort is short-sighted;  they should be rewarded for excellence, and American parents especially need to learn this.

Clearly, parents need to be involved in the life of the school community.  A PTA of the past is not adequate.  We need parent mentors and teachers in the classrooms.  We need parent organizations who become advisers to their districts and their school systems.  We need parent representatives who will meet with other parents and express their frustrations, ideas and opinions to the system overseers.  In other words, parents must organize to push for policies, standards and actions that will challenge their schools and their children while also caring about their futures.
   
A fourth need is for politicians who push to raise educational standards.  Politicians need to understand what we have already said: that education is the key to our economy and our position in the world.  Politicians must themselves become educators and learners.  As a whole, they themselves are inadequately prepared to be either.  They need to become better informed on what is going on in schools throughout this country, and throughout the world.  Perhaps an education “junket” to understand best practices in education would be a better use of tax dollars than some of the “vacations” that some politicians have disguised in the past as “learning experiences.”
 
Politicians, especially governors, cannot be content with the standards they set under “No Child Left Behind” legislation.  Some states set standards that were blatantly inferior so that students could pass the tests.  Some governors have now laid off teachers and administrators and shortened the school week or day, in order to save money.  Was this action based on educational criteria, or simply on the need to cut spending?  In my opinion, they are sabotaging the long-term growth and competitiveness of their students, their citizens, their economies, and their states.  Governors need to raise standards, fund best practices, test against personal education goals and against other countries, connect education with real jobs through internships, increase education hours, push community service as learning, and invest heavily in teacher and administrator training.  That’s a beginning.

Finally, we need neighbors ready to invest in schools even though their children are not there, and business leaders committed to raising educational standards in their communities.

We cannot make enough progress in our public schools unless neighbors appreciate, and involve themselves with, the schools in their neighborhood.  After all, the status of their schools greatly affects the whole neighborhood.  A good neighborhood school draws concerned and competent families and therefore the economy of a neighborhood may depend a great deal on the health of their schools.  Go to board of education meetings, organize to demand better education, join with parents in their efforts, but most of all, become involved in the schools as volunteers, as mentors, as classroom aides; in whatever role will enhance the status of that school as a healthy learning community.

Business leaders have a unique opportunity to influence the education and development of students and their schools.  But, where are the business leaders?  Increasingly, they are less interested in the big picture that includes educational endeavors, than in their narrow concern for profitability.   With all the money they spend on lobbying for their own interests, could they not devote some of their lobbying toward improvement of education in this country?  It’s really in their short-term and long-term interest to be more active in influencing legislation which will support higher education standards, top-notch technical schools, world-famous teacher training academies, school re-construction, and classroom resources.  Why isn’t there a coalition of leading companies intent on doing this? 

Why aren’t Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Verizon, etc. joining together to make sure that every public school has high-speed broadband communications capability, has powerful laptops for every student, and desktops for every classroom and lab?  I don’t know the definitive answer, but emphasize that it is imperative for the future economy.

There are some good examples of internships for high school students in local businesses and some corporations.  That kind of on-the-job experience is vital for students of all kinds, but it is currently just a trickle.  Business leaders need to be in the schools and classrooms as well, giving presentations on how businesses operate, what they expect from employees, and how to go about getting interviews and jobs, and even internships, with their companies.

Business leaders need to push politicians, not only about the quality of American education, but they need to push for immigration policies that will attract talent to this country in high-skill jobs.  A view that restricts such immigration, or that restricts education and careers for foreign students, is again short-sighted in terms of our economic health and growth.  Business leaders need to come out of the shadows of corporate greed and get involved in producing an education system that will benefit us all.

Friedman and Mandelbaum have a conclusion worth your consideration: “we simply cannot escape the fact that we as a society have some catching up to do in education generally.  When you are trying to catch up, you have to work harder, focus on the fundamentals, and get everyone to pitch in.  Give us a country where everyone feels that he or she has a real stake in improving education…and we promise you the best teachers will become even better, the average ones will improve, and the worst ones will truly stick out.”

My Vision for America–Part III

Discussion of education reform is going on right now somewhere near you because many in this country are concerned about the education of our children and grandchildren, and millions of these people are quite worried. 

I have referred in my recent blogs on education to a current  book written by Thomas Friedman and Steven Mandelbaum titled:  “That Used to Be Us”.  Once again, I will take that book as a launching pad, exploring one of six items that the authors say is needed to bring America to where we need to be related to both the economy and education.  But first, I must again put this discussion into the context of my evolving Purpose Statement for public education which I continue to amend:

“To involve an entire community of educators (administrators, teachers, students, parents, volunteers and other interested citizens) in the teaching of traditional and foundational curricula (history, English, mathematics, science, language, technology);  in the drawing out of experiential learnings (through the arts, simulated games, and problem-solving) and in the discovery of skills, talents, concepts, beliefs, values and verities, in order to produce accomplished individuals, informed citizens, critical and independent thinkers, lifetime learners, cultural literates, world-class workers and competitors, and compassionate human beings willing to advocate for the welfare of the human family.”

The first and primary need is for  better teachers and better principals.  According to research, the most decisive factor in student achievement is excellent teaching, and yet many of our teachers are poorly educated.  Unfortunately, we have not made great strides in developing excellent teachers.  Friedman and Mandelbaum suggest a first step might be a new National Academy, modeled after our military academies.  In my opinion, regional academies might be more practical and more accessible. 

However, I think we must start at a wholly different point:  in high school (maybe Junior High), current teachers and administrators must make a conscious effort to identify young people who are, or could potentially be, in the top 10% of their class; who may already be tutoring or mentoring their peers; who may already demonstrate some passion for teaching.  Current teachers and administrators need to start identifying these students early on and engage in leading them toward a teaching career, perhaps by visiting their families, or having them teach a class, having them visit other schools and teachers, showing them some results of good teaching by relating success stories of students, or having them actually meet with the persons who have become successful because of excellent teaching.  While their target should be those in the top 10%, the recruiting teachers should always be on the look-out for potential teachers below that level who can be tutored or mentored into the top 10% , and who have that passion for teaching that can also be nurtured.  Current teachers must become recruiters, tutors and mentors for potential teachers. 

In order to have this first step mean anything, however, there must be some other criteria in place:

--  How many of you have ever heard of a famous school of education at a college or university?  Schools of education at various universities and colleges must advertise and promote themselves more vociferously; they must become schools of excellence as well known as the Wharton School of Business, or MIT, or West Point, or the Duke Medical Center.  Maybe they could become regional academies with names that are known throughout the world.  After all, prestige is a strong incentive. 

I strongly believe that these schools must, above all, be the instigators of change in the teaching profession.  It is simply not enough to train teachers in the history of education theory, child development,  or the mechanics of teaching in a classroom.  Teachers must be trained to be facilitators: they must understand group process, they must have an understanding of how to use new technologies to advance learning, they must have an understanding of counseling techniques, they must know how to work with a team of educators including student peer-teachers and volunteers; they must have instruction in experiential learning, in the scientific method, in the facilitation of learning through use of unexplored or additional resources; they must know how to involve parents, businesses, and citizens in the education process and in the education community.  This is not your grandparents’ world.  This is a new world we are living in, and new methods of approaching it must be part of every educator’s repertoire.

--  Students must be able to see the teaching profession as one of the top five career choices.  One way to do this, of course, is to have the beginning salary for teachers reflect the salaries of other professions in an area.  We cannot recruit, let alone maintain, excellent teachers if we do not make salaries commensurate with excellence!  Until excellent teachers can be provided with salaries that engender prestige, status, success, and passionate commitment to that profession from the community, we can forget about making substantial progress in public education.  How do we pay for it?  Anyway we can.  If we can afford to pay professional athletes six-figure salaries for playing games, we can find a way to pay our teachers prestigious salaries.  I have suggested previously that school boards need to explore ways to obtain operating expenses for education; a small  education levy on everyone is one way to do it.  Is that asking too much?  Not if the future of this country rests so clearly on the excellence of our teachers!

--  Recognition of excellent teachers must be part of every district’s operation.  School boards should be in charge of providing that recognition on an on-going basis.  It should include ceremonies, bonuses, awards, plaques, national recognition, every possible way to bring excellence in teaching before the public and to laud our teachers for what they are doing.

--  One form of recognition and the producing of passion for teaching is the on-going development of teaching excellence.  We need teachers exchanging classes with other teachers in their own schools as well as in other schools, we need teacher-to-teacher mentoring programs, we need regional and national institutes for teachers, we need new ways to upgrade skills.    Without this kind of professional development strategy in place, we cannot expect excellent teachers to grow beyond their current skill-level. 

--  We also need established career ladders for teachers and principals who are identified as highly effective.  Too many excellent teachers leave our schools because they can’t see a future beyond where they started.  We need “mentor teachers”, “teacher coaches”, “senior teachers” -- new levels for people who have become experts, specialists, and tutors who can help other teachers be all they can be.  Friedman and Mandelbaum remind us that China has four levels of proficiency in their teaching profession, and in order to move up a level, teachers must demonstrate their excellence to a private review board.   

What about administrators?  Much of what we have said about teachers can also be said about training of principals: prestigious academies, appropriate salaries, professional development, recognition, etc.  After all, it is clear that entire schools can be affected by a good or bad principal.  But one thing I envision is that every principal must have some sort of teaching experience in their background.  It doesn’t necessarily need to be in a public school,  but every principal needs some understanding of the types of challenges which every teacher faces.  If we are going to ask principals to oversee a budget, to develop and supervise teachers, and to deal with the community’s concerns, we must give principals more ability to construct their budgets, to choose (and to un-choose!) their own teachers, and to be supported by their boards of education in their community roles.  According to one expert, great principals attract great teachers, but terrible principals drive out great teachers.

--  In the case of both teachers and principals, there needs to be a fair and unbiased evaluation of their performance. Probably at least 50% of every teacher’s and principal’s performance evaluation should be based on student growth, but “growth” must be evaluated on criteria that include skills and attitudes that go beyond grades alone, as related to criteria mentioned in the above Purpose Statement.  Teachers and principals should also have a say on what is included in evaluation criteria and instruments that are utilized.  Evaluations like this should provide the criteria for reductions in force: based on effectiveness, not tenure.  Anyone rated “ineffective” for 2-3 years should lose their jobs. 

In my opinion, evaluation by students of their teachers and their principals must be included.  Leaving students out of on-going evaluation leaves a gap that cannot be filled by anyone else.  Students know when they are being short-changed.  Students can be fair, especially if the evaluation instrument is well-constructed (with student and teacher input) by a contracted group or by a local board with expert help. 

A final word on evaluation:
According to the President of the AFT, a key question is how teachers are evaluated.  She said: “We need evaluation systems based on multiple measures of both teacher practice and what students are learning.”  I would agree wholeheartedly, but would add that “learning” should be more than grades on tests, as indicated in the above Purpose Statement.  Some of the most important “learnings” never show up on tests, like values learned, social skills acquired, caring attitudes gained, community involvement demonstrated.  If student growth was evaluated based on an Individual Education Plan for each pupil, instead of on criteria imposed by higher authorities, there would open-up a whole new method of performance evaluation related to learning and growth, and a whole new methodology for building and re-formulating curricula, peer mentoring, intervention from parents, community involvement, etc.

There are six items to consider and we have just skimmed the surface of one: the need for better teachers and better principals.  Next time, I hope to say a bit about my Vision for Education in the following five areas also mentioned by Friedman and Mandelbaum:

Parents who are more involved
Politicians who push to raise educational standards
Neighbors ready to invest in schools even though their children are not there
Business leaders committed to raising educational standards in their communities
Students who come to school prepared to learn

Vision for America–Part II

Following-up on my last Blog, it is important to continue to advocate for communal nurturing of children and youth.  Most important to that end is undoubtedly our educational system.  In order to discuss a Vision of education for the future, we need to see where we currently stand in this crucial area.  To that end, I turn to Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum whose latest book,  “That used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back”, provides us with some statistics about our current system.

--today, in 8 other nations, young adults are more likely to have college degrees than in the U.S.  Only 42% of young adults in the U.S. have earned at least an associate’s degree; in South Korea that percentage is 58

--about 1 in 4 -- 25% -- high school students in the U.S. drops out or fails to graduate on time; that’s almost one million students leaving schools, and high school dropouts today are pretty much condemned to poverty and social failure

--75% of young Americans, between the ages of 17 to 24, are unable to enlist in the military today because they failed to graduate from high school or don‘t score high enough on the enlistment test, have a criminal record, or are physically unfit; this failure of our under-performing education system creates a national security burden, according to General Wesley Clark and Major General James Kelly

--College entrance exams suggest that just one quarter of graduating high school seniors are ready for college; 40% of incoming freshmen at community colleges have to take at least one remedial class during their first semester

--young Americans today have almost identical college completion rates as their parents; in other words, there has been no improvement in a generation

--by 2018, the U.S. economy will need about 27 million more college-educated workers, but at current graduation rates, the Center on Education and the Workforce predicts we will come up about 3 million short

--figures that emerge from challenged areas are bleak:  a study in Detroit found that 47% of adult Detroit residents - about 200,000 people -- are functionally illiterate; about half that number have their high school diplomas or a GED

--a 2004 study of 120 American corporations concluded that a third of the employees in blue chip companies wrote poorly and that businesses were spending as much as $3.1 billion annually on remedial training

In earlier blogs (see 9/26/10 and 10/6/10), I indicated some other shortcomings of our American education system which I won’t repeat here, except to say that many countries posted higher scores on the PISA (international tests) than did American students.  Friedman comments:

“We don’t think of education as an investment in national growth and national security because throughout our history it has been a localized, decentralized issue, not a national one.  Today, however, what matters is not how your local school ranks in its county or state but how America’s schools rank in the world.”

“To prosper, America has to educate its young people up to and beyond the new levels of technology.  Not only does everyone today need more education to build the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that are now necessary for any good job; students also need better education.  We define ‘better education’ as an education that nurtures young people to be creative creators and creative servers.  That is, we need our education system not only to strengthen everyone’s basics -- reading, writing and arithmetic-- but to teach and inspire all Americans to start something new, to add something extra, or to adapt something old in whatever job they are doing.  With the world getting more hyper-connected all the time, maintaining the American dream will require learning, working, producing, relearning, and innovating twice as hard, twice as fast, twice as often, and twice as much.”

In a past blog (10/22/10), I spoke about the “purpose of national public education” and concluded with a preliminary statement of purpose for public education that reflects what Friedman advocates.  With some slight revision, it went like this:

“To involve an entire community of teacher-learners (administrators, teachers, students, parents, volunteers and other interested citizens) in the teaching of traditional and foundational curricula (history, English, mathematics, science, language, technology); additionally, drawing out experiential learnings (through the arts, simulated games, and problem-solving) and discovering talents, concepts, beliefs, values and verities, in order to produce accomplished individuals, informed citizens, critical and independent thinkers, lifetime learners, cultural literates, world-class workers and competitors, and compassionate human beings willing to advocate for the welfare of the human family.”

My Vision for American education, then, starts with the necessity of a national purpose feeding into local strategies for public education.  National government, and the States, must act on this or we shall continue to fall behind.  My Vision includes a national dialogue and debate on this subject, to be led by the White House, culminating in a national White House Conference on Education that defines both the purpose and the strategy for public education in the 21st century.  I see a year-long period leading up to this Conference that would engage students, teachers, administrators, educators of teachers and ordinary citizens as delegates to state-wide and regional conferences leading up to the national conference.  This way, problems could be identified, broken down into issues and then fed into the national conference.  This is a massive undertaking similar to the White House Conference on Aging in 1981.  It would take much organization and targeting of the aspects that would go into the definition of purpose and strategy.  It would hopefully galvanize the country to focus on education as our “sputnik moment” in this century.

Secondly, since my Vision includes a national purpose for public education, it is important to look carefully and critically at the role of local school boards.

Out of the many tasks that have been delegated to school boards by the states, or which have accrued to them over time, three overlapping and somewhat contradictory responsibilities can be identified. First, the board is a policymaking entity and an elected body with a legislative and representative function.  Second, the board is an administrative agency that provides for the operation of the local school system and is ultimately accountable for the system's operation; an executive function. Third,  it has been granted some quasi-judicial powers, allowing it to investigate, render appeal decisions, and even hold hearings.

I do not for a second believe that we will ever see the national government replacing local school boards or state departments of education, but I do believe we need to see certain changes locally:

Policy-making should remain an important area in which school boards function; however, certain areas should become advisory only, such as in relation to the district's budget; performance indicators, and pupil assessment systems; curricular frameworks and standards for student achievement.  All of these require expert construction and execution, but they also require advisory input from the elected representatives of the people.

Policy-making should begin with the articulation of a shared vision and mission for the school district, taking into consideration state mandates and federal mandates, followed by the establishment of  goals and strategic objectives. Evaluating operations and analyzing gaps between current outcomes and desired outcomes should then lead to the development and implementation of strategic plans for the accomplishment of key objectives.  This must be an on-going process, and it must include the evaluation of each particular district in relation to schools in other countries.  School boards should be able to develop a Vision statement of what a competitive, world-class education consists, and should not shy away from making that the basis of policy for their district!

All hiring and firing of teachers should be placed in the hands of principals and superintendents, with school boards acting as appeal mechanisms.  All school boards must include representation from students and parents.  All school boards must come up with ways to engender broader monetary support than simply by property owner taxation and federal and state support:  all citizens need to pay perhaps through a small value-added tax dedicated to education support; corporations and businesses and foundations must also donate substantially.

Finally, what we mean by quality education must include the following, in my opinion:

-- an emphasis on science and math beginning in Kindergarten
-- art & music as part of curriculum beginning in Kindergarten and continuing through all levels
-- reading skills begin in Kindergarten, but there must be a pre-K emphasis on reading, especially in the home
-- one-on-one mentoring beginning in Kindergarten; some mentors should follow child through other grades
-- K-6 must put emphasis on training and skill development, but must especially concentrate on training in creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking, use of technology, resilience, team functioning, innovation, collaboration and cooperation

And, we cannot ignore: 

--school buildings must be rehabilitated especially in poorer districts, so that learning environments are clean and inviting
--schools that are dangerous, badly staffed, educationally indifferent, and under-funded should either be reformed, closed, or made into a new configuration under new management, such as a charter school or specialized academy
--we have to raise the standards for all students, and emphasize that “average” is no longer acceptable. 
--we need more routes to good jobs, not just through college; we need high-quality vocational training
-- drop-outs must be reduced; one possibility: require community or national service for anyone dropping out of high school and include a required educational component
--everyone needs post-secondary education; high school education today needs to prepare graduates to attend a university, two-year college, or vocational college without remedial courses being necessary
--everyone in college must be prepared for the next step, which is to become a life-time learner with future personal educational goals defined before graduation

We can no longer tolerate average achievement, or getting-by, or dropping-out.  According to Tom Friedman, there are six things necessary to produce what the country needs: better teachers and better principals; parents who are more involved and more demanding of their children’s education; politicians who push to raise educational standards, not dumb them down; neighbors who are ready to invest in schools even though their children do not attend; business leaders committed to raising standards in their communities; students who come to school prepared to learn.  More on this next time.

MY VISION FOR AMERICA–Part I

In my last Blog, I asked: what is your Vision for America?  In line with that inquiry, I am submitting a start to  my own Vision.  I hope it will be a catalyst for others to consider what they also envision.  At any rate,  I have found it to be a worthwhile endeavor, forcing me to think beyond the day-to-day political debates that have become increasingly negative, partisan and arrogant; debates often lacking in, or stretching, the truth in an attempt to bamboozle the listening audience. 

To be fair, I would have to say that my Vision for America is rooted in my personal experiences, modified by many things, such as age, geography, other people and cultures as well as study, and some ability to understand what it might be like to walk in others’ shoes.  I cannot make claim, therefore, to great prescience or revelatory Vision, but only to my own unique, and yet somewhat communal, sense of what makes America great.  I suppose there are those whose experience is richer and more vast than mine, who could rightly claim that I am somewhat naïve or biased or idealistic.  I accept such criticism, but object only to the extent that we are all suspect in certain aspects of our opinions, simply because no one can claim a perfect vision or a perfect set of experiences upon which to draw, to reflect, and to opine.

So let us begin at the beginning.  I was born into a family that wanted me and who were supported in their desires and ambitions by rather large extended families and relatives on both paternal and maternal sides.  That familial support was enhanced by their many friends and acquaintances who cared about them and me.  It is perhaps not too quaint to say that I was very fortunate to be born to parents who had experiences and backgrounds that prepared them in some mysterious and primal way for parenthood, and for understanding how very important is the concept of family and familial relationships we develop with friends and neighbors and co-workers.  Hillary Clinton was right after all: it does take a community to raise a child.

I believe we are a nation that puts great store in those concepts.  We care about families; we care about each other; we care about strangers in need.  We care about our communities, and people volunteer to aid their communities, and others, to make our communities more caring and more cohesive.  We organize, we belong, we advocate in ways that some other countries envy.  Although we claim a “rugged individualism” from our forefathers and mothers, we also take pride in our ability to “come together” to care for one another, especially in times of trouble and catastrophe.

My Vision for America in this 21st century would, therefore, have to include right off the importance of the way we begin life, the importance of family, as well as the importance of communal relationships.  Where do we begin in order to enhance these concepts?

There are some who believe that life begins at conception, and they want an America in which abortion is outlawed.  While my own view is that life is precious and must be protected, and that abortion is most often repugnant, I know from personal experience that abortion must remain a viable choice in order to protect other lives.  In my opinion,  the right-to-life principle applied only to a fetus is a limiting and limited concept of life, because it leaves out all the others involved in that one life.  We have in our backgrounds a concept of the rightness of the sacrifice of one life to save many lives, and a principle of seeking the greatest good for the greatest number.  In some cases, I believe that the difficult choice to abort a fetus must be made in order to protect the lives of those already living: the mother, existing children.  It is too easy to suggest that mothers and fathers and children must sacrifice their lives for an unborn child with horrendous defects.  It is perhaps not just easy, but insensitive and glib to suggest that everyone should be able to live with whatever is visited upon them (such as rape or incest or certain death of a mother in childbirth), in order to maintain the life of a fetus above all. 

On the other hand, one cannot say with any conviction that abortion is desirable as an easy solution for someone’s selfish reasons.  The idea of abortion on demand should be abhorrent to everyone.  Therefore, it must be clear that America as a nation should not advocate abortion, but must allow it as a choice in certain circumstances.   

So what is my vision for America in terms of this very controversial question?  My vision is that America will first of all, reach back beyond abortion to care for the children and youth of our nation in a way that will help them learn reverence for all life along with how to make difficult life-affecting decisions.  It would help for us to have the kind of sex education that would assist children not just in understanding their bodies, but  understanding all sides of issues such as contraception, abortion, and choice. At the same time, we must provide training in understanding how to make good decisions and solve problems that we face in this area.

Preliminarily, my Vision for America includes the idea of pre-natal care for all: i.e. every mother-to-be must have access to pre-natal care either freely delivered or at a reasonable cost for those who can pay.  Yes, that means more neighborhood clinics.  Yes, that means more doctors trained as ob-gyns.  Yes, that may mean either a government option for healthcare, or a mandate to private health insurance providers to include this benefit in all plans. 

Secondly, we need a (healthcare) plan that backs up our need for community involvement in raising children.  Not every mother, couple, or family has all it takes to nurture babies, raise children, or prepare teenagers for adult life.  My Vision for America sees a much greater role for mentors, for personal advocates, for independent living trainers, for foster grandparents, for tutors, for personal counselors and companions.  This mentoring needs to be made available to parents facing the birth of a first child and also to the children who are born.  We need more aides who will go into the homes of pregnant women to assist in pre-natal preparation and care, and more aides on birthing floors of hospitals, and aides who will follow the young family into their homes to make sure they start off positively and well with that new baby.  We need trainers to train in baby care and nurturing.  It would then be the parent’s choice to utilize or not utilize this service.

We need mentors and tutors and counselors available to children in every class room in this country.   We especially need classroom aides, and mentors, and foster grandparents, and volunteers who will give much needed individual attention and help to students who need such involvement.  But we also need parent tutors who will go into homes and teach parents how to teach their children.  Yes, we need this kind of interaction, of teaching life lessons, of advocating for children, of developing relationships upon which one can depend for positive feedback and encouragement.  We must have a Vision that emphasizes the real importance of children, not a false rhetoric about how important we think they are.

In the end, all kinds of health and educational services must be free to single mothers and mothers in poverty or with special needs; as well as to children for their needs.  We are not talking welfare here -- getting something for nothing -- we are as a society making investments in the lives of children and parents for future rewards for us all.  This is the short-sightedness of people who advocate the cutting of programs that help people: they see such aid only in terms of spending and providing welfare to people who they believe should take personal responsibility for themselves.  They do not understand the positive outcomes for society as a whole; for the health of the entire commonweal.   We are not talking welfare here; we are talking about protection, safety, training, growth and happiness for our parents and our children.  To do less is to continue along a path of neglect and half-measures for our families and their children.  The Vision here is of responsibility for one another; an active interdependence that enhances society and our cherished values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

What is Your Vision for America?

This piece is inspired by a writer that I much admire.  In my humble opinion, he is one of our best, if not the very best, analytical  writers of our times.  He brings together past history and present events along with the thoughts and actions of individuals in a way that gives astounding insight into the world as it is, and as it is going to be.  I speak of none other than Thomas L. Friedman, author of “The World is Flat 3.0”, and more recently, of “That Used To Be Us.”  Tom has gotten me thinking about what politicians are doing to destroy our chances of being “all that we can be” in terms of scientific discovery, innovation and economic development.  In my estimation, our current crop of politicos not only has little idea of what “American exceptionalism” means in this new “flat” world -- a world in which more people and nations can plug-in, connect and collaborate with more equal power than ever before—but too often do exactly the opposite of what we need to live up to that  claim. 

Friedman says: “I insist that wealth in the age of flatness will increasingly gravitate to those countries who get three basic things right: the infrastructure to connect efficiently and speedily as possible with the flat world platform, the right education programs and knowledge skills to empower more…people to innovate and do value-added work on that platform, and…the right governance -- that is, the right tax policies, the right investment and trade laws, the right support for research, the right intellectual property laws, and, most of all, the right inspirational leadership -- to enhance and manage the flow with the flat world.” (emphasis added).

One basic -- the right governance -- is about all that politicians can talk about these days.  Republicans -- Tea partiers and  libertarians alike -- believe that the right governance is to have as little government intervention as possible, to go back to a time when government was smaller and less intrusive, to cut programs of government that they say are out-of-control, and to reduce spending.  Unfortunately, what they are talking about has little to do with the crisis that is brewing in this country:  the failure to deal decisively with the gaps that exist in science, education and governance.

As Friedman indicates, America was lucky to be the only economy standing after World War II, and we were also fortunate to have little or no competition for forty years afterward.  That gave us “a huge head of steam but also bred a culture of complacency” that really took hold in the 1990s when there was a profound tendency to extol consumption over hard work and investment, immediate gratification over long-term thinking and sacrifice.  “When we got hit with 9/11, it was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to summon the nation to sacrifice, to address some of its pressing fiscal, energy, science, and education shortfalls -- all the things that we had let slide.  But our president [Bush] did not summon us to sacrifice.  He summoned us to go shopping.”

And today, what do many of the politicians in Washington, and elsewhere, want us to focus on?  Certainly not on science, education, infrastructure and informed management of government, but on the following:

-- The government-hating crowd is leading us astray at a time when we need a strong central government that can call us to sacrifice, to innovate, to build and re-build, and to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in this new world.  The manufactured problems of government intrusiveness and failures is exactly what we don’t need right now.  What we do need is increased collaboration of government with business, labor, educational institutions, and programs of national significance that will re-build our crumbling infrastructure once again into the best in the world. 

-- The deficit-hawks are losing sight of where our tax dollars need to go in order to re-build our competitiveness.  Yes, of course, we need to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, but where have you seen any meaningful criteria assigned to those categories?  Is it wasteful to spend money to repair and renovate our public school buildings so that children have an inspiring atmosphere in which to work?  In some cases yes; in some cases no.  The problem is, we fail to define parameters for knowing what is wasteful.  More to the point, politicians have failed to define for us the areas in which we need to invest, and why such investment is important to our future.  Take for instance, cuts to the NASA space programs; we have defined where we can cut, but not where we need to invest.  What NASA programs should be strengthened or begun because they can increase our scientific skills and innovation as a country?  Has anyone even asked that question?

-- And what about education: how have the politicians and leaders of this country dealt with that?  Well, first there was “No Child Left Behind” which touched just one aspect of our educational spectrum, that of accountability, testing, grading.  What a colossal misappropriation of time and energy and dollars!  At a time when we should be setting challenging goals for training students in math, science and engineering, we are instead focusing on test scores!  In a time when we should be training students in critical problem-solving, in flexibility, in creative thinking, in human interactions that are critically needed in this flat world, we are worried about schools that fail to test well!

--Lately, we have the Obama administration’s attempt to “race to the top.”  But the definition of that race, the elements of it, the goals and purposes, remain murky at best and are unknown to the average American without whose commitment no progress will be made toward a lasting and meaningful reform of public education.

-- At this time, when the skills and commitments needed in order to compete in this new world of technological innovation are critical to our future as a country, we cannot be eliminating programs and supports that are needed in advancing those competencies.  We cannot afford to cut back on Pell grants; we cannot afford to shorten the school week or school days; we cannot afford the laying off of thousands of teachers as though they are expendable and as though it will not weaken our public school system; we cannot talk about the elimination of the Department of Education; we cannot afford a curriculum that eliminates subjects like art & music that add to the creativity which is essential to living in a world of global competition; nor can we ignore or question scientific method and conclusions and substitute someone’s mythical ideas about creation or how humans got here in the first place.

-- And where are we on energy?  Republicans think tax breaks for oil companies, drilling in Alaska and off-shore, hydro-fracking for natural gas in the Marcellus shale, and using clean coal and atomic power will solve our energy problems.  They are, once again, leading us in the wrong direction, and spending money on 20th century concepts that will not solve one of our major 21st century problems.  We need innovation, and cut-backs on research and development to help solve a budget deficit will not bring innovation and new industry like energy-efficient homes and factories, electric cars and alternative fuel sources. 

-- We are probably no better off when it comes to infrastructure building and re-building.  Will President Obama’s new jobs plan bring some real activity in this area; will we invest in better school buildings, faster trains, safer bridges, roads, and airports?  It’s anybody’s guess, but the deadlock in Congress does not bode well for addressing the overwhelming needs we have in these last two areas.

Friedman made the point about 9/11 being an opportunity to call the nation to sacrifice and to address some of the gaps in education, science, energy, and governance that are becoming critical in this new age.  But, we have dithered, and governance has turned into rhetoric without depth, into talking points made without walking points enacted, into opposing without reasoning, into ideologies about principles with minimal ethical content, into government-hating when we desperately need governance reform.

I would only add, that we have lost Vision.  We know that we are spending too much, both individually and as a government, but still, we have great resources.  We know that we have a tremendous capacity to assess and address whatever problems we may face.  We are an exceptional nation, but saying we are exceptional is entirely different from actually demonstrating our talents, our resolve, our innovative spirit, our ability to recover from set-backs, our tremendous capacity to succeed. 

What we need right now is a Vision of where we need to be as a nation in the future.  Obama has tried to define it in certain areas like education and energy and healthcare, but has failed to present a vision like John F. Kennedy did when he called for us to place a man on the moon in ten years.  No one else has come forward to offer a real vision of the future.  Conservative politicians have, in fact, a vision of moving backward -- they want to return to the past as a way to confront the future, which is absolutely sophomoric and oxymoronic.

The ancient questions-- Who are we?  Why are we here at this time? Where are we going? -- are questions we must address once again in our never-ending mission to be a nation that leads and that heals the world.  We need someone to come forward who will tell us who we are as a people; to show us what purpose we have as individuals and a people at this time in history, and finally, we desperately need someone to tell us where we need to be as a nation in the rest of the 21st century.  If the world is as flattened as Friedman claims, perhaps the answers will come, not from political leaders, but from individuals who are plugged-in and collaborating with each other by electronic means.  What is your Vision for America?

RE-BUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM

The time has come to use this BLOG to present something that is not of my making.  It is something I had a small part in.  I was one of the 25,000 people who came together in small groups throughout this country in early July to rank ten top priorities for action that could hopefully help to rebuild the American Dream.  My group met in a small city near my home.  It was a group of 15 persons dedicated to an endeavor that began under the aegis of about 80 progressive organizations.  We met for several hours to share our concerns and issues and then to rate the issues as we thought best.  I am happy to report that our group reflected most of the top ten choices that ended up as part of the Contract.

What follows is the Contract for the American Dream as it is found on the internet address included at the bottom of this entry.

“I HAVE A DREAM. IT IS A DREAM DEEPLY ROOTED IN THE AMERICAN DREAM.”
– Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963 March on Washington
 
“We, the American people, promise to defend and advance a simple ideal: liberty and justice... for all. Americans who are willing to work hard and play by the rules should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity and give their kids a better life. Every one of us – rich, poor or in-between, regardless of skin color or birthplace, no matter their sexual orientation or gender – has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That is our covenant, our compact, our contract with one another. It is a promise we can fulfill – but only by working together.

Today, the American Dream is under threat. Our veterans are coming home to few jobs and little hope on the home front.  Our young people are graduating off a cliff, burdened by heavy debt, into the worst job market in half a century. The big banks that American taxpayers bailed out won’t cut homeowners a break. Our firefighters, nurses, cops and teachers – America’s everyday heroes – are being thrown out onto the street.

We believe: AMERICA IS NOT BROKE. America is rich – still the wealthiest nation ever. But too many at the top are grabbing the gains. No person or corporation should be allowed to take from America while giving little or nothing back. The superrich who got tax breaks and bailouts should now pay full taxes – and help create jobs here, not overseas. Those who do well in America should do well by America.

AMERICANS NEED JOBS, NOT CUTS. Many of our best workers are sitting idle, while the work of rebuilding America goes undone. Together, we must rebuild our country, reinvest in our people and jump-start the industries of the future. Millions of jobless Americans would love the opportunity to become working, tax-paying members of their communities again. We have a jobs crisis, not a deficit crisis.

To produce this Contract for the American Dream, 131,203 Americans came together online and in their communities. We wrote and rated 25,904 ideas. Together, we identified the 10 most critical steps to get our economy back on track and restore the American Dream:

1. INVEST IN AMERICA’S INFRASTRUCTURE.
Rebuild our crumbling bridges, dams, levees, ports, water and sewer lines, railways, roads and public transit. We must invest in high-speed Internet and a modern, energy-saving electric grid.  These investments will create good jobs and rebuild America. To help finance these projects, we need national and state infrastructure banks.

2. CREATE 21ST-CENTURY ENERGY JOBS.
We should invest in American businesses that can power our country with innovative technologies like wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal systems, hybrid and electric cars, and next-generation batteries. And we should put Americans to work making our homes and buildings energy efficient. We can create good, green jobs in America, address the climate crisis, and build
the clean energy economy.

3. INVEST IN PUBLIC EDUCATION. We should
provide universal access to early childhood education, make school funding equitable, invest in high-quality teachers, and build safe, well-equipped school buildings for our students. A high-quality education system, from universal preschool to vocational training and affordable higher education, is critical for our future and can create badly needed jobs now.

4. OFFER MEDICARE FOR ALL. We should expand
Medicare so it’s available to all Americans, and reform it to
provide even more cost-effective, quality care. The Affordable Care Act is a good start and we must implement it – but it’s not enough. We can save trillions of dollars by joining every other industrialized country – paying much less for health care while getting the same or better results.

5. MAKE WORK PAY. Americans have a right to fair
minimum and living wages, to organize and collectively bargain, to enjoy equal opportunity and to earn equal pay for equal work.  Corporate assaults on these rights bring down wages and benefits for all of us. They must be outlawed.

6. SECURE SOCIAL SECURITY. Keep Social Security
sound, and strengthen the retirement, disability, and survivors’ protections Americans earn through their hard work. Pay for it by removing the cap on the Social Security tax, so that upper income people pay into Social Security on all they make, just like the rest of us.

7. RETURN TO FAIRER TAX RATES. End, once and
for all, the Bush-era tax giveaways for the rich, which the rest of us – or our kids – must pay eventually. Also, we must outlaw corporate tax havens and tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas.  Lastly, with millionaires and billionaires taking a growing share of our country’s wealth, we should add new tax brackets for those
making more than $1 million each year.

8. END THE WARS AND INVEST AT HOME.
Our troops have done everything that’s been asked of them, and it’s time to bring them home to good jobs here. We’re sending $3 billion each week overseas that we should be investing to rebuild America.

9. TAX WALL STREET SPECULATION. A tiny fee of
1/20th of 1% on each Wall Street trade would raise tens of billions of dollars annually with little impact on actual
investment. This would reduce speculation, “flash trading,” and outrageous bankers’ bonuses – and we’d have a lot more money to spend on Main Street job creation.

10. STRENGTHEN DEMOCRACY. We need clean,
fair elections – where no one’s right to vote can be taken away, and where money doesn’t buy you your own member of Congress. We must ban anonymous political influence, slam shut the lobbyists’ revolving door in D.C. and publicly finance elections. Immigrants who want to join in our democracy deserve a clear path to citizenship. We must stop giving corporations the rights of people when it comes to our elections. And we must ensure our judiciary’s respect for the Constitution. Together, we
will reclaim our democracy to get our country back on track.”

Having read this Contract, it is my hope that you will go to the site address below and either sign your name, or commit yourself to work for its principles and actions.  Almost 296,000 have already signed.

HTTP://CONTRACT.REBUILDTHEDREAM.COM

Wake to Reality Now or Regret It Later!

In my last BLOG, I discussed the way things will be if the Republican Right-wing radicals take over all branches of the federal government, particularly in relation to our veterans.  A certain hypocrisy and perverseness will become the order of the day, as Republican right-wingers, in contrast to their anti-government stance, make use of the power and machinery of that very government they so oppose, to force upon others their own agenda and philosophy.

For all that they will do to diminish the role of government in certain areas -- entitlements and social welfare programs, in particular -- the Right Wing will counter that very concept by using the machinery of government to interfere and intervene in ordinary people’s lives: to influence the thinking and direction of social policy; to take from the poor and middle class to give to the rich, and to enhance their ascendancy and dominance over the affairs of this nation. 

Look at another brief example of right-wing hypocrisy and perverseness: the use of the power and mechanisms of national government to impose the religious outlook of a minority upon the majority.  Yes, I am talking about the bent of right-wingers toward the theology/philosophy of Christian Evangelicals.  Republicans hate government intervention in social issues -- like civil rights, affirmative action, equal pay for women, a broad safety net for the poor --that have roots in other religious traditions and tenets.  But, what do the radical Republicans want to impose upon the average citizen through legislation and regulation?

--prayer in schools;
--no choice on abortion;
--avowing homosexuality as a choice that is sinful, according to scripture, and that must be renounced or punished;
--declaring God on the side of the USA no matter what;
--a suspicion bordering on rejection of science, especially in terms of evolution and climate control;
--Creationism must be taught in schools;
--entire curricula will be re-written to reflect evangelical points of view;
--a secular government is an abomination; (evangelical) Christianity should pervade all aspects of government;
--a push toward dominionism: “that Christians have a God-given right to rule all earthly institutions. Originating among some of America’s most radical theocrats, it’s long had an influence on religious-right education and political organizing… Think of it like political Islamism, which shapes the activism of a number of antagonistic fundamentalist movements, from Sunni Wahhabis in the Arab world to Shiite fundamentalists in Iran.”
(www.thedailybeast.org).  Bachmann and Perry both have ties to this fringe group.

If that doesn’t disturb you, then perhaps you need to understand that the radical Right will use government power and authority to diminish and minimize the role of government in your life.  In other words:

--no more Post Office; get your mail some other way;
--impotent labor unions; they will destroy them or reduce them to non-entities;
--no more protections for workers; no more bargaining rights
--minimal regulation of businesses, banks, corporations, mortgage lenders, wall street firms, etc..
--diminution or destruction of consumer protection programs and/or agencies like the E(nvironmental) P(rotection) A(gency), FEMA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency;
--the decrease of investment in science will result in less research for making life better for all.  The NASA budget has already been reduced, and reductions in the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, and the National Institutes of Health will all affect scientific inquiry, innovations, and new protections for the citizenry;
--reduction in first responder grants to FEMA raises the question as to whether that agency will be there in adequate force when natural disasters strike (which could be anywhere, just like Hurricane Irene!);
--job-training programs will be cut and consolidated across 12 agencies which means that they will inadequately train for special needs and requirements, so don’t count on job training programs being helpful in your search for a new job or career!
--Community Development Funds to rehab houses in low-income neighborhoods, the Public Housing Capital Fund depended on for repairs to public housing, and the HOPE IV program that aims to revamp severely distressed public housing, are all on the chopping block, so look out if you are one of millions who can’t afford other than public housing;
--add to this attack on low-income persons who live in public housing: cuts in the WIC program that provides food and formula for low-income families, cuts in the federal COPS program that helps local police develop crime-fighting strategies and technologies, or millions in cuts from programs that help juveniles avoid the criminal justice system, and you have a recipe for disaster, especially in low-income communities;
--and what do you think will happen to the high-speed rail under those cut-thirsty Republicans, or to the rest of our infrastructure?
--public education is going to be headed toward demolition with an emphasis on charter schools, billions of cuts to school districts with needy students, cuts in Title I grants, and inevitable cutting away of Head Start, as well as the destruction of the federal Department of Education;
--and then there’s health care:  destruction of Medicare and Medicaid, and repeal of the recent health care Act would be inevitable, but there’s more: diminishment of community health centers, cuts in grants to states to enroll more children in the CHIP program, and of course the phase-out of funding for Planned Parenthood.

Is this the kind of nation you really want?  If not, stop being bamboozled by the radical Right-wing, and wake up to reality.  There is existing legislation proposed, or already passed, in the House of Representatives that will force their particular views on the majority, implement draconian cuts to national government structure and many more of its programs, within a very short period of time.    

The Republican Master Plan is to move this country “Back(ward) to the Future” by imposing immediate austerity measures.  If voters put Republicans in control of all branches of  the federal government in 2012, we will quickly become a nation similar to what we were in the early 20th century (or even the late 19th century) because of their backward-trending (“regressive”) actions, described above.

That was a time when efforts by religious communities and other non-profit organizations were all that were available to take care of the poor, the homeless, the sick, orphans, widows and the elderly because government-sponsored programs were inadequate or non-existent.  Those past efforts by humanitarian agencies were commendable, but too many social needs and problems were not addressed, large numbers of people fell through the cracks, and many lives were adversely affected. While non-profits still have a vital role to play, their efforts will be entirely insufficient given the expanding needs in this century.

The negative stance of Republicans toward government aid programs will essentially shred the social safety net, forcing millions of fellow citizens into uncertain and inadequate situations.  That policy was not sufficient in by-gone days, and it definitely won’t work now!  National problems involving our most vulnerable citizens require strong federal solutions, not negative and inadequate responses! 

Don’t allow a minority of radical conservatives to force their distorted views on the rest of us!  Challenge their policies now or regret it later!