30 September, 2007
04 September, 2007
03 September, 2007
01 September, 2007
Photo of the Ocean by Karen B. Hunter
She took a series of shots of directly of the water which we were to place up on the walls of her apartment. I still have to blow them up properly but it's hard for me to finish projects, but I promise to do so. I hang onto the promises because they delay the sense of real time passage.
Karen B. Hunter. Nov. 23, 1951 - Sept 2. 2005.
29 August, 2007
24 August, 2007
Larry's notes on life with Bernie
1. Always let him wear himself out with a toy if that's what he wants to do.
2. Teach him that there is more fun to playing than just grabbing a toy and chewing it. Last night he learned to WAIT and WATCH and then CATCH the TOY as it goes by.
3. In general, I WATCH HIM while he plays and I hold my toy. If I don't hold my toy, he takes it. Mommy and I play later or as he gets tired.
4. He does get tired.
5. I really love him, but I miss Henry so much.
6. He's very sweet and he just wants love. He's pretty easy to love. I love to watch him play, eat and sleep. He's so cute. And he always wants to be with me. Always.
7. He's fun to run with. He's a great snooping partner, too. We spent an hour snooping on a couple of aunts on the windowsill and decided they were fun to watch and we'd just keep doing it till dinner.
8. He needs a lot of love. We want to give it to him.
9. He's getting fat.
2. Teach him that there is more fun to playing than just grabbing a toy and chewing it. Last night he learned to WAIT and WATCH and then CATCH the TOY as it goes by.
3. In general, I WATCH HIM while he plays and I hold my toy. If I don't hold my toy, he takes it. Mommy and I play later or as he gets tired.
4. He does get tired.
5. I really love him, but I miss Henry so much.
6. He's very sweet and he just wants love. He's pretty easy to love. I love to watch him play, eat and sleep. He's so cute. And he always wants to be with me. Always.
7. He's fun to run with. He's a great snooping partner, too. We spent an hour snooping on a couple of aunts on the windowsill and decided they were fun to watch and we'd just keep doing it till dinner.
8. He needs a lot of love. We want to give it to him.
9. He's getting fat.
22 August, 2007
The family that acts together
Well, folks, I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it...
At about 5:45, Bernie and Larry staged a fight to wake me up.
I was starting to wake up and I caught the two walking quietly out of the corner of my eye toward my bed. I was really sick so I had managed to get them to stop fighting over who would stay in bed with me by simply banishing all the healthy from my presence.
The two looked at each other. Larry took a step back. Bernie nodded. Larry made his usual, "Ack" = you've pissed me off noise, Bernie made his usual "Mrrreeoww"= I'm just a kitten who's going to sneak attack you in a minute. I woke up.
They got quiet WAY too quickly.
I looked at the clock. Indeed. 5:50. Close enough to 6:00am breakfast time.
I went to get their plates.
They followed me, POLITELY and IN TANDEM.
Oh yeah, they were just fighting...
Well, they get points for cleverness. Henry used to just paw my mouth or cuddle me, which Larry has done recently as well. Henry never needed to be clever because there were no games going on between him and me or anyone.
Directness takes time, however.
God, I miss you, Henry. So does Larry. So does Bernie. He can't find the ball after he kicks it so he can't practice for soccer by himself. And you know Larry can't. I practice with him and he is learning to kick the ball BACK TO ME and about TURNS and I know you are secretly helping him because he's not completely getting it with me. Keep working with him on your visits from cat heaven, man. And I am trying to remember how much Larry was like this when he was little like you said I should...
At about 5:45, Bernie and Larry staged a fight to wake me up.
I was starting to wake up and I caught the two walking quietly out of the corner of my eye toward my bed. I was really sick so I had managed to get them to stop fighting over who would stay in bed with me by simply banishing all the healthy from my presence.
The two looked at each other. Larry took a step back. Bernie nodded. Larry made his usual, "Ack" = you've pissed me off noise, Bernie made his usual "Mrrreeoww"= I'm just a kitten who's going to sneak attack you in a minute. I woke up.
They got quiet WAY too quickly.
I looked at the clock. Indeed. 5:50. Close enough to 6:00am breakfast time.
I went to get their plates.
They followed me, POLITELY and IN TANDEM.
Oh yeah, they were just fighting...
Well, they get points for cleverness. Henry used to just paw my mouth or cuddle me, which Larry has done recently as well. Henry never needed to be clever because there were no games going on between him and me or anyone.
Directness takes time, however.
God, I miss you, Henry. So does Larry. So does Bernie. He can't find the ball after he kicks it so he can't practice for soccer by himself. And you know Larry can't. I practice with him and he is learning to kick the ball BACK TO ME and about TURNS and I know you are secretly helping him because he's not completely getting it with me. Keep working with him on your visits from cat heaven, man. And I am trying to remember how much Larry was like this when he was little like you said I should...
19 August, 2007
Meet cousin Bernie
Well, we heard the awful news about Henry and the family over on the other side of the borough sent me with my suitcases to bring condolences and, um, they said, "a cheerful distraction" to the Kay household. I was roaming around for a while until this nice Veterninary technician found me and thankfully she just happened to be Henry's old technician! So, she cleaned me up (I did a LOT of roaming...I'm only 8 months old so I can't read) had me "fixed" (all I know is when I clean up things don't look the same) took all sorts of care of me then called up Henry and Larry's mommy and she came and got me. I'm moving in with them! What do you know? That's good because we don't have a roof over our heads on our side of town, just the suitcases, which I lost while roaming.
Larry is a great cousin and I want to be exactly like him--but I don't want to take all of his things--well maybe this blanket and that toy...he lets me have a lot of stuff and he never does more than swipe the air around me and mildly hiss at me. We spend a lot of time playing together and he sat with me on the big windowsill in the kitchen for hours yesterday talking to me about Henry. He misses him so much but he says I am very much of a distraction. In fact, he called me a "tornado" -- "in a good way" he said.
My new mommy says I'm a "little wizard" and also a "trickster". She likes to pet me and Larry at the same time to teach us not to be jealous of each other.
By the way, I'm named Bernie after the great actor Tony Curtis -- who was born Bernie Schwartz.
I'm home!
16 July, 2007
We lost Henry
Henry fell to hypertopiccardiomyopathy on Monday morning. July 16, 2007. I will put pictures up of our beautiful angel later. For now we are shaken.
08 July, 2007
07 July, 2007
06 July, 2007
from The Nation magazine: the NYC public school crisis
School's Outby LYNNELL HANCOCK[from the July 9, 2007 issue]
A knot of parents and teachers--some clutching children, others clutchingprotest fliers--huddled outside Hostos Community College one frosty eveninglast February. The forty or so Bronx residents had crisscrossed the boroughfor the rare chance to mix it up with the New York City schools chancellorin a public forum. A guard met them at the door. No more room, he said, leaving the agitatedparents, quite literally, out in the cold. They had hoped to hear Joel Kleinexplain why he was scrambling the school system's signals for the secondtime in five years. Inside the Grand Concourse annex, Klein was winding downhis pitch to the hundred or so in the audience who had made the cut. "We areenacting these reforms so we can make sure whatever your skin color,wherever you live, your kid will get the education he needs and deserves,"Klein shouted into the microphone. Klein may have appeared an awkward headmaster in his Wall Street suit, buthe was on familiar terrain, wrapping his arguments for corporate-styleschool overhaul in the ethos of civil rights. He is driven by the noblepledge to "finish the job that Brown v. Board of Education began." His pathto racial equity, however, employs the efficient tools of business--top- downdecisions, marketplace incentives and a belief in private sector solutionsto public school problems. Instruction is "data driven." Academic resultsare "granular." It is a technocratic vision of education, in sync withbig-moneyed foundations, at odds with most classroom teachers and manyparents. In the calculus of the moment, each of the city's 1,450 schools isconsidered an independent franchise. Like a bank outlet or a RadioShackstore, any given school is a "key unit" in Klein's new Department ofEducation. Schools are headed by branch managers, or principals, whose jobshave been reconfigured as CEOs rather than as educators. Principals areexpected to contract out for nearly every core service, from testing toprofessional development to their own support team. Quarterly returns flowout in the form of tests four times a year. Schools must compete with oneanother, at their peril. The lowest performers on the bell curve may besanctioned or shut down. Thomas Sobol, the former New York State education commissioner, believes thebattle lines have been drawn between democracy and corporatization. "Thearrogance, my God, of saying because we know how to run Kmart, we know howto educate children," said Sobol, professor emeritus at ColumbiaUniversity's Teachers College. "It represents a giant defeat of democracy." In Klein's view, "corporatization" and "privatization" are meaninglessphrases used to detract from the real revolution underfoot. "There isnothing less public about public schools," he insisted during a recentinterview at Department of Education headquarters. His reforms are aboutstrengthening the top in order to bring equity to the bottom. A lone publicemployee, Klein has nearly unfettered control of 1.1 million schoolchildrenand a $15.4 billion budget. "In the end it is my responsibility to say, Ithink this is the right policy," Klein said. "I need to be prepared to makethe tough service delivery decision. The mayor holds me accountable, and thecity holds the mayor accountable. We should not have 'shareddecision-making. ' That's what marks all unsuccessful school reforms." A lot is riding on Klein's record--including the political future of MayorMichael Bloomberg, which may include an independent run for President. Hewas the first mayor in thirty-three years to be authorized by the StateLegislature to directly pick his own chancellor and who has wagered hismayoralty on the fortunes of the city's schools. Urban school systems acrossthe nation are watching the radical overhaul in New York City. If the plansucceeds, it will mean a triumph for advocates of mayoral school takeoversand a boon for the new breed of CEO superintendents committed to businesssolutions for public schools. Mayoral control has already taken hold inChicago, Boston, Cleveland and, most recently, Washington-- whose mayorreplaced the school superintendent, at Klein's recommendation, with37-year-old education entrepreneur Michelle Rhee. If Klein's plan falters in New York, many will argue that the demise wasmade inevitable by keeping teachers, parents and communities at ayardstick's distance. No matter how competent and committed the players atthe top, public-sector reforms on this imposing scale may be doomed if thepeople most affected are left outside. It certainly felt that way at the Hostos forum, where a faint chant filteredthrough the closed windows into the room: "Let the parents in!" As ironywould have it, Klein's Bronx appearance was part of a five-borough missionto persuade the masses that the mayor's latest structural overhaul was thebest thing for every child. The Bronx parents inside weren't buying it. "Noscience. No history. Only tests," one mother bellowed, shaking her finger atthe chancellor. Applause thundered across the linoleum. "Welcome to theboogie-down, " another mother said, followed by more hoots and hollers."We're real here." She then criticized a recent citywide busing fiasco thatleft one of the chancellor's corporate consultants $16 million richer andscores of children wondering how they would get to school. Finally, a statuesque woman from the South Bronx took the microphone,choking back nerves. "I saw a guidance counselor pulling a kindergartenchild across the floor like an animal," began Rosa Villafane tentatively."The principal won't do anything. She's an empowerment principal," Villafanesaid, referring to one of the chancellor's key reforms that offers thecity's principals greater authority to make decisions in exchange for moreaccountability. "If she won't listen, where do I go?" The chancellor had a standard reply for her, the one he employed afternearly every appeal that night: "E-mail me," he said. "I'm accountable. " Hedid not follow up the offer with his e-mail address. He then slumped intohis chair, chin in hand, looking as if he wanted very much to be somewhereelse. A Harvard-trained litigator and former deputy White House counsel toPresident Clinton, Klein is many things, but he is not a man to boogie-downin the Bronx. Raised in a working-class family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn,Klein graduated from William Bryant High School in Queens, class of '63.That's where his connections to most children in New York's schools end.After graduating from law school in 1971 and launching his own DC law firm,he served as an assistant attorney general with the Justice Department,where he prosecuted the government's antitrust case against Microsoft. Hismost recent job was as CEO of the German-owned global media giantBertelsmann. It's an unlikely résumé for the head of the nation's largest public schoolsystem, but one with obvious appeal to the then- Republican mayor. Bloomberghad begun the systemwide makeover before Klein arrived by putting up a ForSale sign on the Soviet-style Board of Education headquarters at 110Livingston Street in Brooklyn, an address synonymous with bloatedbureaucracy. Redubbed the Department of Education, it moved its offices intothe elegantly appointed Tweed Courthouse in the shadow of City Hall. Oldfaces were replaced, while old ways of doing business were rapidly broughtunder tight, centralized control. As soon as Klein took over, he hired private consultants and installed acabinet of mostly noneducators making six-figure salaries. Fresh youngprincipals with minimal experience were brought in from outside New York toreplace the large number of those who left or were forced out. Thethirty-two old school districts were scrapped and refitted into ten regions.New Yorkers tend to love rat-a-tat changes. Few mourned the loss of abureaucracy everyone had derided. "I thought mayoral control was a good ideaat first," said Noreen Connell, head of Education Priorities Panel, aresearch and advocacy group. "It was good when they broke through thefacilities funding logjam." Klein and Bloomberg worked in tandem to cash in their corporate andcelebrity connections, hauling in piles of money and a star-studded cast.Caroline Kennedy was hired at a dollar a year to attract philanthropy moneyinto the administration. Former General Electric chair Jack Welch wasbrought onto the advisory board of the $70 million principal's academy totrain the new managers. Klein's former adversary Bill Gates ponied up $51million in 2003 to help create small schools. Gates's foundation would laterincrease its investment to more than $100 million. Next came "managedinstruction, " as Klein would call it, with standardized math and readingcurriculum, and the promise to create fifty charters and 150 small schools. But it became painfully clear early on that the public would have little tono role in the rapid changes in the classroom. Bloomberg entered there-election season in 2004 taking on the politically irresistible problem of"social promotion"-- the practice of moving kids up through the gradeswhether or not they had learned much. He tested third graders (later addingfourth and seventh graders) and held them back if they didn't make thegrade. The approach went before the new Panel for Educational Policy, athirteen-member appointed board that had replaced the old seven-member Boardof Education. Two Bloomberg appointees and a Staten Island borough presidentappointee were set to join the five parent members to vote against themeasure. The mayor swept in and replaced all three renegades on the eve ofthe vote, a move the tabloids dubbed the "Monday Night Massacre." Kleinstill counts "ending social promotion" as one of his administration' saccomplishments, citing increased numbers of score-based promotions asevidence. Contracting Out New Yorkers still seeking solutions to the woes of public schools weresorely tested on a bitter cold day in midwinter. On January 29 yellow schoolbuses barreled out of their garages onto new, reconfigured routes. No trialruns. Within hours, hollers could be heard from eastern Queens to the NorthBronx. Children as young as 5 were cut off from their usual bus routes andissued subway MetroCards. Others were left waiting on cold street cornersfor an hour or more, arriving late to school. Some children were sent acrosshectic Francis Lewis Boulevard in Queens to catch their bus. "No New York adult would cross Francis Lewis Boulevard," said Betsy Gotbaum,the city's public advocate. "They certainly wouldn't send their childrenacross it." The chaos was caused in large part by the financial consulting firm Alvarez& Marsal, an outfit the department hired without competitive bidding at $16million to find $200 million from the department's budget to divert directlyinto the schools. Its first order of business was to streamline the city'sschool bus routes. The net savings for all this grief: $5 million, far lessthan what was originally estimated. The head of an independent citywide parent group said the parents had warnedofficials about the impending debacle two months earlier. "They ignored us,as usual," said Tim Johnson, chair of the Chancellor's Parent AdvisoryCouncil. That debacle spotlighted a flurry of outside contracts signed by thisadministration, many of them without competitive bids. City comptrollerWilliam Thompson Jr. was alarmed to find that the Alvarez & Marsal contractallowed one consultant to charge the city as much as $450 an hour. Asubsequent investigation found that Klein's office had signed an estimated$270 million in outside no-bid contracts after Klein took the reins; severalcontracts had serious problems. Platform Learning, for example, was hiredfor $7.6 million to tutor city school kids over a five-year period. Afterthree years, Platform had earned more than $62 million, nine times itscontracted amount, with two years remaining. "There is no accountability, no oversight, no transparency in thisadministration, " Gotbaum said. "New Yorkers deserve better." The chancellorclaimed that $250 million had been redirected into the classroom. Thompson'soffice could find only $140 million in savings, and no evidence that any ofit had ended up in schools. "At a time when Tweed is demanding moreaccountability from our superintendents, our principals and our teachers,"Thompson said, "we are demanding accountability from them." The chancellor disputes his critics, saying his administration provides moreinformation and transparency than any in the past. Still, the busing crisiscrystallized into public disenchantment with many of the vaunted reforms. Size Matters One of the most promising reforms was the creation of new, small highschools. New York already was home to one of the first small-schoolmovements in the nation, promising democratic, grassroots antidotes tolarge, factory-size institutions. So it was fitting, even thrilling, whenthe new chancellor embraced small schools as a linchpin of hisrevitalization plans. Variety and innovation were encouraged. But in a short time, critics say, the Department of Education turned themission on its head. An astonishing 200 schools were launched in five years,with more than $100 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda GatesFoundation. Some of them are, without question, excellent environments.Overall, however, the movement has become a mass production of top-down,privately subsidized schools, said Michelle Fine, a City University of NewYork education professor, that have little to do with their socialjustice-minded ancestors. Quality has been sacrificed for speed. To counter these charges, the administration cites comparisons between thesmall schools and the large ones they replaced. For example, the large SouthBronx High School had a 48 percent graduation rate in 2001; five yearslater, three small schools that replaced it averaged an 83 percentgraduation rate. Evander Childs High School in the Bronx graduated just 31percent of its students in 2002, compared with 93 percent in 2006 for BronxAerospace, a small Junior ROTC replacement school. But these small schools were admitting students who were more likely tosucceed, according to a survey of the first fifteen small schools conductedby the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). Their entering ninth graders hadhigher state test scores than those at large schools. The schools also hadfar fewer special-education students and non-English speakers and in somecases more money per student. The union found that Bronx Aerospace had halfthe number of special-education kids, nearly four times fewerEnglish-language learners and spent about $5,000 more per pupil than itshost school, Evander Childs. Moreover, a recent study by the New York Immigration Coalition and Advocatesfor Children found that non-English speakers are not given "full andequitable access" to the small schools. Small schools were allowed to exemptspecial-education and English-language learners from their first twostart-up years. New incentives are in place to help the small schools servea fraction of these high-needs kids. But large concentrations of these twopopulations have been shuffled into the remaining large, ill-equipped highschools. The Citywide Council on High Schools has filed a discriminationcase with the US Education Department's Office of Civil Rights. In the end, the small-school initiative exhibited the contradictions of thisadministration. "They are mass-producing unique schools," said Leo Casey, atop UFT official, "and destroying them in the bargain." Totalitarian Testing Nothing has more impact on education than attempts to measure it. Generally,educators believe teacher-generated assessments work best as an organic partof classroom curriculum. CEOs believe company-produced tests administered ona centralized schedule create a more equitable education. "Data collectionis part of instruction, " Klein told the City Council education committeelast January, when questioned on the hours of instruction time lost to testpreparation and paperwork (up to two days a week, according to a 2005 UFTteacher survey). Klein's metaphors tell their own story. The chancellor sometimes refers tochildren as cars in a shop, a collection of malfunctions to be adjusted.Teachers need to "look under the hood," he says, to figure out the originsof the pings. The diagnostic information is then made available in piecharts and color bar graphs, child by child, as the year rolls along. "You get granular information this way about a child's strengths andweaknesses," said James Liebman, Klein's chief accountability officer and aColumbia University civil rights law professor. "And you get instant returnon the data. We are providing a lot more tools to give teachers the capacityto look at a child and see what they are doing." The 2001 federal No Child Left Behind Act emphasizes state standardizedtests to measure each child's level of proficiency. The city's systemratchets up that process, measuring each child's growth from one year to thenext rather than his or her ability to hit or miss a single standardstarget. In may be fairer to use multiple instruments, but it requiresmillions of dollars and an army of additional tests. Liebman has designed "progress reports," issuing a grade of A through F foreach school in areas of environment, performance and progress--with 85percent of this information deriving from state standardized tests. "Qualityreviews" are conducted yearly by a team of evaluators hired by a Britishcompany, Cambridge Education, which charges $16 million a year. The teamvisits schools to see how well they are using all the data to improvelearning. A new "robust" IBM data-management system called ARIS will keeptrack of every grain of information collected on each child. Cost: $80million. The most controversial policy is something called periodic assessments,popular with business models. These are standardized tests, on top of theonce-a-year state tests, given to kids every few weeks for additionalfeedback. The administration had already signed up Princeton Review (ownedby Bertelsmann) as part of its $21 million contract to administer math andreading tests for grades three through eight, three times a year. Thatcommitment was scrapped. CTB/McGraw-Hill was hired as a replacement, for $80million over five years. Starting this fall, the tests will be ramped up tofive times a year. High school students will be added to the cycle fourtimes a year. In June Klein appointed Harvard economist Roland Fryer as thedepartment's "chief equality officer." Fryer's main proposal offers cashpayouts to students for perfect scores on the McGraw-Hill tests--$25 tofourth graders and $50 to seventh graders. Principals who agree to thisexperiment will receive $5,000 for their schools. Statistical disputes aside, the basic disagreement is over what constitutesan educated child. Is it someone who can demonstrate "grains" of isolatedskills or someone who has the capacity to think and explore with a sense ofwonder and depth? So far, the grains have the upper hand. "Thisadministration is preparing children to do these small tasks, strippingeducation down to its parched bones," said Tom Sobol. "The soul of educationis left at the door." The public is losing faith in the New York schools revolution. In March aQuinnipiac University opinion poll found that 58 percent of those surveyedlonged for an independent elected board at the helm rather than the mayor.Klein's surprise announcement of a new overhaul last winter--a sort ofdecentralization in drag, with tighter control at the top over moreempowered principals at the bottom--triggered even more outrage. "There isno evidence that your first reforms improved kids' learning," chided avisibly peeved City Council education chair Robert Jackson in January. The truth is, the evidence is mixed at best. Klein points to improvedacademic achievement, higher graduation rates and a greater number ofhigh-quality school choices since the mayor took over in 2002. He claimsthat 60 percent of ninth graders graduated four years later in 2006, an 18percent hike. During the same period, math scores rose 20 percentage points,meaning that 57 percent of students in third through eighth grades met orexceeded standards. Reading scores rose 10 percent, to 51 percent. Thisspring an eight-point hike in math scores across the grades, to 65 percent,meeting standards, and a 5 point rise in reading scores, to 42 percent foreighth graders, was cause for celebration- -even though reading scores forthird and fourth graders dropped an average of four points. But the numbers are hotly contested. Diane Ravitch, a former educationofficial in the George Bush Sr. White House, questions why the chancellorcounts 2002 as his starting point, when the initiatives did not kick inuntil January 2003. Test scores can be volatile instruments. The recenteighth-grade reading scores were up all across New York State this year byeight points, from 49 to 57 percent, an indication that the test itself waslikely easier. The graduation rate is another bugaboo: The state calculatesa 50 percent graduation rate for the city (not 60 percent), because itfigures GEDs, English-language learners and special-education diplomasdifferently from the city. Overall, the radical overhaul seems to haveproduced modest improvement rather than landmark progress. "Their gains arerespectable, not historic," Ravitch told a packed crowd at St. John'sUniversity last March. Perhaps the most notable development has been the mobilization of opponentsfrom among disparate city groups. An overflow crowd of 1,000 angry NewYorkers descended on Manhattan's St. Vartan's Cathedral in late February toprotest the latest round of changes. It was a rare coalition of forces,angry enough to set aside their individual agendas to unite against theDepartment of Education. Here were City Council members, elected officials,activist groups like ACORN, the Working Families Party, labor unions, animmigrant coalition and citywide parent groups. The most powerful group, and the one that gave this assembly itsinstitutional clout, was the UFT, which has more than 100,000 members. Itslegendary statewide political power was forged in the 1960s by black andLatino community groups battling for control of the schools. In recent yearsthe union had made peace with its past, creating real ties to parent groups.In many ways Klein and Bloomberg helped create this assembly by cutting offchannels once used routinely by the too-powerful union to influence policy.The effect was to alienate both teachers and parents, pushing them together."No administration has been as hostile to the union as this one," said theUFT's Casey. The mayor's response to this historic show of unity has been to dismiss itas a small collection of parents influenced by powerful self-interestedgroups. But he may be ignoring this group of pols and parents at his peril.Rumblings that February night at Hostos called for an end to mayoralcontrol. The measure is up for renewal by the New York State Legislature in2009. Few New Yorkers have any appetite for returning to the old school boarddays. But most would like to see some democratic checks and balances builtinto what has become a two-man show. An independent elected board couldoversee budget, contracts and policy decisions, and the selection of futurechancellors. The input of seasoned educators is needed again at the highestdecision-making levels. Regional boards could help return a sense ofcommunity to the city's schools. At the classroom level, school-based teamsof teachers and parents should be given some real clout. As for testing,department officials would do well to emulate the Republican state ofNebraska, which has invested in teacher-created assessments (now threatenedby new legislation) that do not choke curriculums. Americans tend to hold only a few big ideas sacred. One of them is thepromise that its unique public school system can offer every child a crackat the American dream. Ironically, the top-down corporate solutions popularwith CEO superintendents like Klein wrest control from the people they claimto serve. "Public schools are the cornerstone of our democracy," said IrvingHamer Jr., Manhattan representative on the last Board of Education. "If welet them quietly slip through the public's hands, we are breaking thecovenant of civic participation in this country."
A knot of parents and teachers--some clutching children, others clutchingprotest fliers--huddled outside Hostos Community College one frosty eveninglast February. The forty or so Bronx residents had crisscrossed the boroughfor the rare chance to mix it up with the New York City schools chancellorin a public forum. A guard met them at the door. No more room, he said, leaving the agitatedparents, quite literally, out in the cold. They had hoped to hear Joel Kleinexplain why he was scrambling the school system's signals for the secondtime in five years. Inside the Grand Concourse annex, Klein was winding downhis pitch to the hundred or so in the audience who had made the cut. "We areenacting these reforms so we can make sure whatever your skin color,wherever you live, your kid will get the education he needs and deserves,"Klein shouted into the microphone. Klein may have appeared an awkward headmaster in his Wall Street suit, buthe was on familiar terrain, wrapping his arguments for corporate-styleschool overhaul in the ethos of civil rights. He is driven by the noblepledge to "finish the job that Brown v. Board of Education began." His pathto racial equity, however, employs the efficient tools of business--top- downdecisions, marketplace incentives and a belief in private sector solutionsto public school problems. Instruction is "data driven." Academic resultsare "granular." It is a technocratic vision of education, in sync withbig-moneyed foundations, at odds with most classroom teachers and manyparents. In the calculus of the moment, each of the city's 1,450 schools isconsidered an independent franchise. Like a bank outlet or a RadioShackstore, any given school is a "key unit" in Klein's new Department ofEducation. Schools are headed by branch managers, or principals, whose jobshave been reconfigured as CEOs rather than as educators. Principals areexpected to contract out for nearly every core service, from testing toprofessional development to their own support team. Quarterly returns flowout in the form of tests four times a year. Schools must compete with oneanother, at their peril. The lowest performers on the bell curve may besanctioned or shut down. Thomas Sobol, the former New York State education commissioner, believes thebattle lines have been drawn between democracy and corporatization. "Thearrogance, my God, of saying because we know how to run Kmart, we know howto educate children," said Sobol, professor emeritus at ColumbiaUniversity's Teachers College. "It represents a giant defeat of democracy." In Klein's view, "corporatization" and "privatization" are meaninglessphrases used to detract from the real revolution underfoot. "There isnothing less public about public schools," he insisted during a recentinterview at Department of Education headquarters. His reforms are aboutstrengthening the top in order to bring equity to the bottom. A lone publicemployee, Klein has nearly unfettered control of 1.1 million schoolchildrenand a $15.4 billion budget. "In the end it is my responsibility to say, Ithink this is the right policy," Klein said. "I need to be prepared to makethe tough service delivery decision. The mayor holds me accountable, and thecity holds the mayor accountable. We should not have 'shareddecision-making. ' That's what marks all unsuccessful school reforms." A lot is riding on Klein's record--including the political future of MayorMichael Bloomberg, which may include an independent run for President. Hewas the first mayor in thirty-three years to be authorized by the StateLegislature to directly pick his own chancellor and who has wagered hismayoralty on the fortunes of the city's schools. Urban school systems acrossthe nation are watching the radical overhaul in New York City. If the plansucceeds, it will mean a triumph for advocates of mayoral school takeoversand a boon for the new breed of CEO superintendents committed to businesssolutions for public schools. Mayoral control has already taken hold inChicago, Boston, Cleveland and, most recently, Washington-- whose mayorreplaced the school superintendent, at Klein's recommendation, with37-year-old education entrepreneur Michelle Rhee. If Klein's plan falters in New York, many will argue that the demise wasmade inevitable by keeping teachers, parents and communities at ayardstick's distance. No matter how competent and committed the players atthe top, public-sector reforms on this imposing scale may be doomed if thepeople most affected are left outside. It certainly felt that way at the Hostos forum, where a faint chant filteredthrough the closed windows into the room: "Let the parents in!" As ironywould have it, Klein's Bronx appearance was part of a five-borough missionto persuade the masses that the mayor's latest structural overhaul was thebest thing for every child. The Bronx parents inside weren't buying it. "Noscience. No history. Only tests," one mother bellowed, shaking her finger atthe chancellor. Applause thundered across the linoleum. "Welcome to theboogie-down, " another mother said, followed by more hoots and hollers."We're real here." She then criticized a recent citywide busing fiasco thatleft one of the chancellor's corporate consultants $16 million richer andscores of children wondering how they would get to school. Finally, a statuesque woman from the South Bronx took the microphone,choking back nerves. "I saw a guidance counselor pulling a kindergartenchild across the floor like an animal," began Rosa Villafane tentatively."The principal won't do anything. She's an empowerment principal," Villafanesaid, referring to one of the chancellor's key reforms that offers thecity's principals greater authority to make decisions in exchange for moreaccountability. "If she won't listen, where do I go?" The chancellor had a standard reply for her, the one he employed afternearly every appeal that night: "E-mail me," he said. "I'm accountable. " Hedid not follow up the offer with his e-mail address. He then slumped intohis chair, chin in hand, looking as if he wanted very much to be somewhereelse. A Harvard-trained litigator and former deputy White House counsel toPresident Clinton, Klein is many things, but he is not a man to boogie-downin the Bronx. Raised in a working-class family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn,Klein graduated from William Bryant High School in Queens, class of '63.That's where his connections to most children in New York's schools end.After graduating from law school in 1971 and launching his own DC law firm,he served as an assistant attorney general with the Justice Department,where he prosecuted the government's antitrust case against Microsoft. Hismost recent job was as CEO of the German-owned global media giantBertelsmann. It's an unlikely résumé for the head of the nation's largest public schoolsystem, but one with obvious appeal to the then- Republican mayor. Bloomberghad begun the systemwide makeover before Klein arrived by putting up a ForSale sign on the Soviet-style Board of Education headquarters at 110Livingston Street in Brooklyn, an address synonymous with bloatedbureaucracy. Redubbed the Department of Education, it moved its offices intothe elegantly appointed Tweed Courthouse in the shadow of City Hall. Oldfaces were replaced, while old ways of doing business were rapidly broughtunder tight, centralized control. As soon as Klein took over, he hired private consultants and installed acabinet of mostly noneducators making six-figure salaries. Fresh youngprincipals with minimal experience were brought in from outside New York toreplace the large number of those who left or were forced out. Thethirty-two old school districts were scrapped and refitted into ten regions.New Yorkers tend to love rat-a-tat changes. Few mourned the loss of abureaucracy everyone had derided. "I thought mayoral control was a good ideaat first," said Noreen Connell, head of Education Priorities Panel, aresearch and advocacy group. "It was good when they broke through thefacilities funding logjam." Klein and Bloomberg worked in tandem to cash in their corporate andcelebrity connections, hauling in piles of money and a star-studded cast.Caroline Kennedy was hired at a dollar a year to attract philanthropy moneyinto the administration. Former General Electric chair Jack Welch wasbrought onto the advisory board of the $70 million principal's academy totrain the new managers. Klein's former adversary Bill Gates ponied up $51million in 2003 to help create small schools. Gates's foundation would laterincrease its investment to more than $100 million. Next came "managedinstruction, " as Klein would call it, with standardized math and readingcurriculum, and the promise to create fifty charters and 150 small schools. But it became painfully clear early on that the public would have little tono role in the rapid changes in the classroom. Bloomberg entered there-election season in 2004 taking on the politically irresistible problem of"social promotion"-- the practice of moving kids up through the gradeswhether or not they had learned much. He tested third graders (later addingfourth and seventh graders) and held them back if they didn't make thegrade. The approach went before the new Panel for Educational Policy, athirteen-member appointed board that had replaced the old seven-member Boardof Education. Two Bloomberg appointees and a Staten Island borough presidentappointee were set to join the five parent members to vote against themeasure. The mayor swept in and replaced all three renegades on the eve ofthe vote, a move the tabloids dubbed the "Monday Night Massacre." Kleinstill counts "ending social promotion" as one of his administration' saccomplishments, citing increased numbers of score-based promotions asevidence. Contracting Out New Yorkers still seeking solutions to the woes of public schools weresorely tested on a bitter cold day in midwinter. On January 29 yellow schoolbuses barreled out of their garages onto new, reconfigured routes. No trialruns. Within hours, hollers could be heard from eastern Queens to the NorthBronx. Children as young as 5 were cut off from their usual bus routes andissued subway MetroCards. Others were left waiting on cold street cornersfor an hour or more, arriving late to school. Some children were sent acrosshectic Francis Lewis Boulevard in Queens to catch their bus. "No New York adult would cross Francis Lewis Boulevard," said Betsy Gotbaum,the city's public advocate. "They certainly wouldn't send their childrenacross it." The chaos was caused in large part by the financial consulting firm Alvarez& Marsal, an outfit the department hired without competitive bidding at $16million to find $200 million from the department's budget to divert directlyinto the schools. Its first order of business was to streamline the city'sschool bus routes. The net savings for all this grief: $5 million, far lessthan what was originally estimated. The head of an independent citywide parent group said the parents had warnedofficials about the impending debacle two months earlier. "They ignored us,as usual," said Tim Johnson, chair of the Chancellor's Parent AdvisoryCouncil. That debacle spotlighted a flurry of outside contracts signed by thisadministration, many of them without competitive bids. City comptrollerWilliam Thompson Jr. was alarmed to find that the Alvarez & Marsal contractallowed one consultant to charge the city as much as $450 an hour. Asubsequent investigation found that Klein's office had signed an estimated$270 million in outside no-bid contracts after Klein took the reins; severalcontracts had serious problems. Platform Learning, for example, was hiredfor $7.6 million to tutor city school kids over a five-year period. Afterthree years, Platform had earned more than $62 million, nine times itscontracted amount, with two years remaining. "There is no accountability, no oversight, no transparency in thisadministration, " Gotbaum said. "New Yorkers deserve better." The chancellorclaimed that $250 million had been redirected into the classroom. Thompson'soffice could find only $140 million in savings, and no evidence that any ofit had ended up in schools. "At a time when Tweed is demanding moreaccountability from our superintendents, our principals and our teachers,"Thompson said, "we are demanding accountability from them." The chancellor disputes his critics, saying his administration provides moreinformation and transparency than any in the past. Still, the busing crisiscrystallized into public disenchantment with many of the vaunted reforms. Size Matters One of the most promising reforms was the creation of new, small highschools. New York already was home to one of the first small-schoolmovements in the nation, promising democratic, grassroots antidotes tolarge, factory-size institutions. So it was fitting, even thrilling, whenthe new chancellor embraced small schools as a linchpin of hisrevitalization plans. Variety and innovation were encouraged. But in a short time, critics say, the Department of Education turned themission on its head. An astonishing 200 schools were launched in five years,with more than $100 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda GatesFoundation. Some of them are, without question, excellent environments.Overall, however, the movement has become a mass production of top-down,privately subsidized schools, said Michelle Fine, a City University of NewYork education professor, that have little to do with their socialjustice-minded ancestors. Quality has been sacrificed for speed. To counter these charges, the administration cites comparisons between thesmall schools and the large ones they replaced. For example, the large SouthBronx High School had a 48 percent graduation rate in 2001; five yearslater, three small schools that replaced it averaged an 83 percentgraduation rate. Evander Childs High School in the Bronx graduated just 31percent of its students in 2002, compared with 93 percent in 2006 for BronxAerospace, a small Junior ROTC replacement school. But these small schools were admitting students who were more likely tosucceed, according to a survey of the first fifteen small schools conductedby the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). Their entering ninth graders hadhigher state test scores than those at large schools. The schools also hadfar fewer special-education students and non-English speakers and in somecases more money per student. The union found that Bronx Aerospace had halfthe number of special-education kids, nearly four times fewerEnglish-language learners and spent about $5,000 more per pupil than itshost school, Evander Childs. Moreover, a recent study by the New York Immigration Coalition and Advocatesfor Children found that non-English speakers are not given "full andequitable access" to the small schools. Small schools were allowed to exemptspecial-education and English-language learners from their first twostart-up years. New incentives are in place to help the small schools servea fraction of these high-needs kids. But large concentrations of these twopopulations have been shuffled into the remaining large, ill-equipped highschools. The Citywide Council on High Schools has filed a discriminationcase with the US Education Department's Office of Civil Rights. In the end, the small-school initiative exhibited the contradictions of thisadministration. "They are mass-producing unique schools," said Leo Casey, atop UFT official, "and destroying them in the bargain." Totalitarian Testing Nothing has more impact on education than attempts to measure it. Generally,educators believe teacher-generated assessments work best as an organic partof classroom curriculum. CEOs believe company-produced tests administered ona centralized schedule create a more equitable education. "Data collectionis part of instruction, " Klein told the City Council education committeelast January, when questioned on the hours of instruction time lost to testpreparation and paperwork (up to two days a week, according to a 2005 UFTteacher survey). Klein's metaphors tell their own story. The chancellor sometimes refers tochildren as cars in a shop, a collection of malfunctions to be adjusted.Teachers need to "look under the hood," he says, to figure out the originsof the pings. The diagnostic information is then made available in piecharts and color bar graphs, child by child, as the year rolls along. "You get granular information this way about a child's strengths andweaknesses," said James Liebman, Klein's chief accountability officer and aColumbia University civil rights law professor. "And you get instant returnon the data. We are providing a lot more tools to give teachers the capacityto look at a child and see what they are doing." The 2001 federal No Child Left Behind Act emphasizes state standardizedtests to measure each child's level of proficiency. The city's systemratchets up that process, measuring each child's growth from one year to thenext rather than his or her ability to hit or miss a single standardstarget. In may be fairer to use multiple instruments, but it requiresmillions of dollars and an army of additional tests. Liebman has designed "progress reports," issuing a grade of A through F foreach school in areas of environment, performance and progress--with 85percent of this information deriving from state standardized tests. "Qualityreviews" are conducted yearly by a team of evaluators hired by a Britishcompany, Cambridge Education, which charges $16 million a year. The teamvisits schools to see how well they are using all the data to improvelearning. A new "robust" IBM data-management system called ARIS will keeptrack of every grain of information collected on each child. Cost: $80million. The most controversial policy is something called periodic assessments,popular with business models. These are standardized tests, on top of theonce-a-year state tests, given to kids every few weeks for additionalfeedback. The administration had already signed up Princeton Review (ownedby Bertelsmann) as part of its $21 million contract to administer math andreading tests for grades three through eight, three times a year. Thatcommitment was scrapped. CTB/McGraw-Hill was hired as a replacement, for $80million over five years. Starting this fall, the tests will be ramped up tofive times a year. High school students will be added to the cycle fourtimes a year. In June Klein appointed Harvard economist Roland Fryer as thedepartment's "chief equality officer." Fryer's main proposal offers cashpayouts to students for perfect scores on the McGraw-Hill tests--$25 tofourth graders and $50 to seventh graders. Principals who agree to thisexperiment will receive $5,000 for their schools. Statistical disputes aside, the basic disagreement is over what constitutesan educated child. Is it someone who can demonstrate "grains" of isolatedskills or someone who has the capacity to think and explore with a sense ofwonder and depth? So far, the grains have the upper hand. "Thisadministration is preparing children to do these small tasks, strippingeducation down to its parched bones," said Tom Sobol. "The soul of educationis left at the door." The public is losing faith in the New York schools revolution. In March aQuinnipiac University opinion poll found that 58 percent of those surveyedlonged for an independent elected board at the helm rather than the mayor.Klein's surprise announcement of a new overhaul last winter--a sort ofdecentralization in drag, with tighter control at the top over moreempowered principals at the bottom--triggered even more outrage. "There isno evidence that your first reforms improved kids' learning," chided avisibly peeved City Council education chair Robert Jackson in January. The truth is, the evidence is mixed at best. Klein points to improvedacademic achievement, higher graduation rates and a greater number ofhigh-quality school choices since the mayor took over in 2002. He claimsthat 60 percent of ninth graders graduated four years later in 2006, an 18percent hike. During the same period, math scores rose 20 percentage points,meaning that 57 percent of students in third through eighth grades met orexceeded standards. Reading scores rose 10 percent, to 51 percent. Thisspring an eight-point hike in math scores across the grades, to 65 percent,meeting standards, and a 5 point rise in reading scores, to 42 percent foreighth graders, was cause for celebration- -even though reading scores forthird and fourth graders dropped an average of four points. But the numbers are hotly contested. Diane Ravitch, a former educationofficial in the George Bush Sr. White House, questions why the chancellorcounts 2002 as his starting point, when the initiatives did not kick inuntil January 2003. Test scores can be volatile instruments. The recenteighth-grade reading scores were up all across New York State this year byeight points, from 49 to 57 percent, an indication that the test itself waslikely easier. The graduation rate is another bugaboo: The state calculatesa 50 percent graduation rate for the city (not 60 percent), because itfigures GEDs, English-language learners and special-education diplomasdifferently from the city. Overall, the radical overhaul seems to haveproduced modest improvement rather than landmark progress. "Their gains arerespectable, not historic," Ravitch told a packed crowd at St. John'sUniversity last March. Perhaps the most notable development has been the mobilization of opponentsfrom among disparate city groups. An overflow crowd of 1,000 angry NewYorkers descended on Manhattan's St. Vartan's Cathedral in late February toprotest the latest round of changes. It was a rare coalition of forces,angry enough to set aside their individual agendas to unite against theDepartment of Education. Here were City Council members, elected officials,activist groups like ACORN, the Working Families Party, labor unions, animmigrant coalition and citywide parent groups. The most powerful group, and the one that gave this assembly itsinstitutional clout, was the UFT, which has more than 100,000 members. Itslegendary statewide political power was forged in the 1960s by black andLatino community groups battling for control of the schools. In recent yearsthe union had made peace with its past, creating real ties to parent groups.In many ways Klein and Bloomberg helped create this assembly by cutting offchannels once used routinely by the too-powerful union to influence policy.The effect was to alienate both teachers and parents, pushing them together."No administration has been as hostile to the union as this one," said theUFT's Casey. The mayor's response to this historic show of unity has been to dismiss itas a small collection of parents influenced by powerful self-interestedgroups. But he may be ignoring this group of pols and parents at his peril.Rumblings that February night at Hostos called for an end to mayoralcontrol. The measure is up for renewal by the New York State Legislature in2009. Few New Yorkers have any appetite for returning to the old school boarddays. But most would like to see some democratic checks and balances builtinto what has become a two-man show. An independent elected board couldoversee budget, contracts and policy decisions, and the selection of futurechancellors. The input of seasoned educators is needed again at the highestdecision-making levels. Regional boards could help return a sense ofcommunity to the city's schools. At the classroom level, school-based teamsof teachers and parents should be given some real clout. As for testing,department officials would do well to emulate the Republican state ofNebraska, which has invested in teacher-created assessments (now threatenedby new legislation) that do not choke curriculums. Americans tend to hold only a few big ideas sacred. One of them is thepromise that its unique public school system can offer every child a crackat the American dream. Ironically, the top-down corporate solutions popularwith CEO superintendents like Klein wrest control from the people they claimto serve. "Public schools are the cornerstone of our democracy," said IrvingHamer Jr., Manhattan representative on the last Board of Education. "If welet them quietly slip through the public's hands, we are breaking thecovenant of civic participation in this country."
Why not Bloomberg?
In times of frustration, novelty is tempting. That is no reason for our country to grasp at a third party candidate like an attractive, non-fat chocolate. In other words, I am begging my fellow Americans not to fall for the potential third party candidacy of Mike Bloomberg.
First, he is in the process of disposing of New York City's public schools. We are testing and failing more tests than ever. Our class sizes remain the same or bigger, our services are outsourced to various for-profit companies. We may not succeed at educating our students, but we will make some publishers of standardized tests richer than ever. Meanwhile, we have turned our curricula into test prep.
Ask any teacher or student at a private school how much they prepare for a test or if an exam dictates what they would learn and they will be horrified by the question. I know because I asked a friend who teaches as at a prestigious school and she reprimanded me. Of course, I know better than to teach to a test. But, I don't work in a system which does. I work for a system which is attempting to pretend it gets results, as if student success can be measured in the same way as profit. Even profit doesn't tell a whole story. It tells you what you have, but not necessarily what you need and how equipped you are for future changes in a market. So too, student success on simple exam tasks doesn't predict their ability to apply what they have learned in a complex world. Of course, our students are not succeeding on these tests, so this is a moot point.
Yes, Mike Bloomberg rides the subways. Fortunately for him, he doesn't ride one of the many lines which has had service reduced like mine has because he doesn't live out in the outer boroughs of New York. Just as with schools, he has a simplistic solution to a problem whose depth he doesn't begin to understand.
In New York City, Mike Bloomberg has proven that he may say the right things, but provides perfunctory, superficial solutions to problems. On a national scale, this behavior might be devastating.
First, he is in the process of disposing of New York City's public schools. We are testing and failing more tests than ever. Our class sizes remain the same or bigger, our services are outsourced to various for-profit companies. We may not succeed at educating our students, but we will make some publishers of standardized tests richer than ever. Meanwhile, we have turned our curricula into test prep.
Ask any teacher or student at a private school how much they prepare for a test or if an exam dictates what they would learn and they will be horrified by the question. I know because I asked a friend who teaches as at a prestigious school and she reprimanded me. Of course, I know better than to teach to a test. But, I don't work in a system which does. I work for a system which is attempting to pretend it gets results, as if student success can be measured in the same way as profit. Even profit doesn't tell a whole story. It tells you what you have, but not necessarily what you need and how equipped you are for future changes in a market. So too, student success on simple exam tasks doesn't predict their ability to apply what they have learned in a complex world. Of course, our students are not succeeding on these tests, so this is a moot point.
Yes, Mike Bloomberg rides the subways. Fortunately for him, he doesn't ride one of the many lines which has had service reduced like mine has because he doesn't live out in the outer boroughs of New York. Just as with schools, he has a simplistic solution to a problem whose depth he doesn't begin to understand.
In New York City, Mike Bloomberg has proven that he may say the right things, but provides perfunctory, superficial solutions to problems. On a national scale, this behavior might be devastating.
20 June, 2007
Where has all the corn gone?
In a conversation this afternoon, my therapist remarked that the price of corn is going up because we are not producing enough to use as fuel and food. I couldn't believe it. Coincidentally, this evening I read the speech below on truthout.com. Get this: we're subsidizing the exportation of corn to Mexico, killing their farms and raising domestic prices at the same time!
Unauthorized Immigration By Doris "Granny D" Haddock t r u t h o u t Remarks
Wednesday 13 June 2007
Remarks in New Hampshire over the weekend at the "Democracy Fest," sponsored by Democracy for America.
Thank you.
It is normally expected that, when given an opportunity to speak, I will talk about campaign finance reform and, more specifically, about how the public financing of campaigns can cut the threads of the big-money puppet show.
But today I would like to talk about unauthorized immigration, which has nothing to do with the big-money corruption of our political system, except for everything.
Unauthorized immigration seems to be a big issue right now with our Republican candidates, as they are well-known to be the "law and order party." That, after all, is why they are insisting that Scooter Libby pay the full price for his perjuries and obstructions of justice. They are for law and order, with the normal exceptions of the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution, especially its Bill of Rights. But we know what they mean: When they say they are for law and order, they are talking mostly about keeping down the uppity poor folk. They are certainly not talking about the big corporations, hotel companies, agribusiness giants and retailers who employ millions of unauthorized immigrants but who make up for that sin many times over with their large campaign donations.
But I do not come here to talk about corrupting campaign donations and the need for public campaign financing. I come to talk of unauthorized immigration and a little about corn and something about tortillas. I call it unauthorized immigration, not illegal, because I don't want to use words that confuse my Republican friends.
By the way, in saying that Republicans are very interested in the immigration issue, I do not mean to imply that it is less important for any of us.
If you will look around the grocery store check-out lines and notice the widening measurements of our fellow citizens, we can certainly see for ourselves the problem of having too much cheap labor around to do all our yardwork and housework for us. By my calculations, the roughly three billion pounds of extra weight now being carried on the hips of working-age American citizens is roughly equivalent to the combined weight of the unauthorized immigrants now in our communities. The math is clear and persuasive. Cheap labor is bad for everybody.
But why are so many people risking their lives to come into our country now? When did this big rush begin?
It began when Mr. Clinton approved NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Agreement - and when he militarized our southern border at the same time. Prior to these combined actions, families crossed the border very commonly and casually, especially during harvest seasons. After harvest, they would go home to Mexico or Central America because that's where they lived with their families in quite happy communities.
When the border was militarized, it became too risky to go back and forth. So they stayed.
Why did Mr. Clinton militarize the border? He did so because NAFTA was about to pull the rug out from under Mexico's small family farms. We flooded Mexico with cheap corn - exports that we now subsidize to the tune of some $25 billion a year. Congress gives that money of ours to a handful of agribusiness giants. Of course, I am not here to tell you why Congress does that, and what might be done to stop it, such as with the public financing of campaigns. But they do it, and Mexican family farmers cannot compete.
In the years since NAFTA was signed, half of Mexico's small farms have failed. The only kind of farming that can now compete in Mexico is big agribusiness, which does not employ as many people. Tortillas in Mexico now contain two-thirds imported corn, and they are three times as expensive at retail level than before NAFTA. The people have less money, and the cost of food is rising. We have done that. Our precious senators and congressmen and their corporate cronies have enforced that raw and cruel exploitation in our names.
The result of undermining Mexican farms, as Clinton expected, was a rising flood of poor people moving from rural areas into Mexico's big cities, which have become so poor and overcrowded that all one can do is dream of going north across the border.
Now, if any Democratic candidates for president would like to show a little courage and intelligence, let them address the real cause of our flood of unauthorized immigrants. Will Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama or Mr. Edwards or any of the other candidates face down the agri-gangsters who are behind this problem? Probably they will not, so long as Iowa has a major primary.
Let me say that I am not ranting and raving in the least about these new Americans. When Mexico owned Texas and everything west of Texas, and when Mexico cut off migration across its borders into Texas, our people kept coming anyway - crossing illegally in search of opportunities for their families. When Mexico got upset by this, we trumped up false reasons for a war, and we illegally took those lands. If that wasn't enough law and order for you, we also conducted unfettered genocide against the region's native people. So let's not stand on any moral high ground regarding that southern border.
The people coming across the border today, with the usual exceptions, are family people with an incredible work ethic. Personally, I welcome them. I congratulate them for their courage and their dedication to their families. I want them to stay and become citizens, or, if some prefer, to return to their homeland at a time when there is international justice and a decent chance for prosperity at home.
I regret what the political corruption of our system has done to their farms and their communities back home. It is not the people's fault - it is the fault of corrupt leaders of both parties and both nations. We must speak this truth to these powerful people, even to those presidential candidates whom we otherwise admire.
So, candidates Clinton, Edwards, Obama and the rest: Do you understand the reasons why immigration numbers are growing? Are you smart enough to understand the situation? Are you brave enough to do something - to even say something - about it? Or is the truth too big for you?
All of us in this room have a duty to be good citizens and good Democrats. And that means we must ask the toughest questions, so that the interests of the people - the people of our nation and of the world - will be served. Isn't that what we're here for?
And do you see why I do not need to harp on campaign finance reform, to cut the puppet strings that allow these cruelties to continue? I didn't have to say a word about that, because you understand it. You understand what must be done in regard to the public financing of federal and state campaigns. And that only begins the reforms we require in this challenging new age.
Thank you.
-------
Unauthorized Immigration By Doris "Granny D" Haddock t r u t h o u t Remarks
Wednesday 13 June 2007
Remarks in New Hampshire over the weekend at the "Democracy Fest," sponsored by Democracy for America.
Thank you.
It is normally expected that, when given an opportunity to speak, I will talk about campaign finance reform and, more specifically, about how the public financing of campaigns can cut the threads of the big-money puppet show.
But today I would like to talk about unauthorized immigration, which has nothing to do with the big-money corruption of our political system, except for everything.
Unauthorized immigration seems to be a big issue right now with our Republican candidates, as they are well-known to be the "law and order party." That, after all, is why they are insisting that Scooter Libby pay the full price for his perjuries and obstructions of justice. They are for law and order, with the normal exceptions of the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution, especially its Bill of Rights. But we know what they mean: When they say they are for law and order, they are talking mostly about keeping down the uppity poor folk. They are certainly not talking about the big corporations, hotel companies, agribusiness giants and retailers who employ millions of unauthorized immigrants but who make up for that sin many times over with their large campaign donations.
But I do not come here to talk about corrupting campaign donations and the need for public campaign financing. I come to talk of unauthorized immigration and a little about corn and something about tortillas. I call it unauthorized immigration, not illegal, because I don't want to use words that confuse my Republican friends.
By the way, in saying that Republicans are very interested in the immigration issue, I do not mean to imply that it is less important for any of us.
If you will look around the grocery store check-out lines and notice the widening measurements of our fellow citizens, we can certainly see for ourselves the problem of having too much cheap labor around to do all our yardwork and housework for us. By my calculations, the roughly three billion pounds of extra weight now being carried on the hips of working-age American citizens is roughly equivalent to the combined weight of the unauthorized immigrants now in our communities. The math is clear and persuasive. Cheap labor is bad for everybody.
But why are so many people risking their lives to come into our country now? When did this big rush begin?
It began when Mr. Clinton approved NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Agreement - and when he militarized our southern border at the same time. Prior to these combined actions, families crossed the border very commonly and casually, especially during harvest seasons. After harvest, they would go home to Mexico or Central America because that's where they lived with their families in quite happy communities.
When the border was militarized, it became too risky to go back and forth. So they stayed.
Why did Mr. Clinton militarize the border? He did so because NAFTA was about to pull the rug out from under Mexico's small family farms. We flooded Mexico with cheap corn - exports that we now subsidize to the tune of some $25 billion a year. Congress gives that money of ours to a handful of agribusiness giants. Of course, I am not here to tell you why Congress does that, and what might be done to stop it, such as with the public financing of campaigns. But they do it, and Mexican family farmers cannot compete.
In the years since NAFTA was signed, half of Mexico's small farms have failed. The only kind of farming that can now compete in Mexico is big agribusiness, which does not employ as many people. Tortillas in Mexico now contain two-thirds imported corn, and they are three times as expensive at retail level than before NAFTA. The people have less money, and the cost of food is rising. We have done that. Our precious senators and congressmen and their corporate cronies have enforced that raw and cruel exploitation in our names.
The result of undermining Mexican farms, as Clinton expected, was a rising flood of poor people moving from rural areas into Mexico's big cities, which have become so poor and overcrowded that all one can do is dream of going north across the border.
Now, if any Democratic candidates for president would like to show a little courage and intelligence, let them address the real cause of our flood of unauthorized immigrants. Will Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama or Mr. Edwards or any of the other candidates face down the agri-gangsters who are behind this problem? Probably they will not, so long as Iowa has a major primary.
Let me say that I am not ranting and raving in the least about these new Americans. When Mexico owned Texas and everything west of Texas, and when Mexico cut off migration across its borders into Texas, our people kept coming anyway - crossing illegally in search of opportunities for their families. When Mexico got upset by this, we trumped up false reasons for a war, and we illegally took those lands. If that wasn't enough law and order for you, we also conducted unfettered genocide against the region's native people. So let's not stand on any moral high ground regarding that southern border.
The people coming across the border today, with the usual exceptions, are family people with an incredible work ethic. Personally, I welcome them. I congratulate them for their courage and their dedication to their families. I want them to stay and become citizens, or, if some prefer, to return to their homeland at a time when there is international justice and a decent chance for prosperity at home.
I regret what the political corruption of our system has done to their farms and their communities back home. It is not the people's fault - it is the fault of corrupt leaders of both parties and both nations. We must speak this truth to these powerful people, even to those presidential candidates whom we otherwise admire.
So, candidates Clinton, Edwards, Obama and the rest: Do you understand the reasons why immigration numbers are growing? Are you smart enough to understand the situation? Are you brave enough to do something - to even say something - about it? Or is the truth too big for you?
All of us in this room have a duty to be good citizens and good Democrats. And that means we must ask the toughest questions, so that the interests of the people - the people of our nation and of the world - will be served. Isn't that what we're here for?
And do you see why I do not need to harp on campaign finance reform, to cut the puppet strings that allow these cruelties to continue? I didn't have to say a word about that, because you understand it. You understand what must be done in regard to the public financing of federal and state campaigns. And that only begins the reforms we require in this challenging new age.
Thank you.
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18 June, 2007
Of large, gruff men with big frames and bad habits
I don't remember a time in my life when I was not in love with some very large man. Somehow, no matter where I was, I found him. When I was about five, it was Jack Klugman on THE ODD COUPLE. When I was seven, Klugman was rivaled by Dave Madden as Reuben Kincaid on THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY. When I was 11, it was the baritone Sherrill Milnes. Although I caught him at the end of his career, there was still enough color and sensitivity in his voice mixed with the football player's frame to get my undivided attention.
The objects of my affection weren't always far away. I'll spare those close to me who have been subject to my affection the embarassment of being named, but they are well aware of who they are.
It's an odd love. At once, I want to be the large man and to be all over him. People have seen me mimic all kinds of tics -- Sherrill Milnes has a lot of them. The romantic poses, the effusive face and that insuperable chest that comes in the room minutes before he does. He also still has a flat Midwestern "A" and he's been married several times. Sometimes I feign the accent.
I grew up without a father, so the obvious rationale for why this happened to me was "looking-for-daddy-itis." Plus, my mother was eternally looking for a stand-in for the man who was supposed to tell her how wonderful she looked and to hold the doors for her. So, there I was, the kid who wanted to be and be taken by Sherrill Milnes escorting the woman who wanted to be every character played by Gwen Verdon. We were a funny pair, especially because I am, to this day, nearly a half foot shorter than she is, and a good foot wider both because of weight and a relatively large frame.
What I wanted, and still want, was much more than a father. I wanted the security that these men had in their largeness. I wanted the big hands, the shoulders -- the wide face.
And I have no idea what I would do without these shadows to follow, to this day.
The objects of my affection weren't always far away. I'll spare those close to me who have been subject to my affection the embarassment of being named, but they are well aware of who they are.
It's an odd love. At once, I want to be the large man and to be all over him. People have seen me mimic all kinds of tics -- Sherrill Milnes has a lot of them. The romantic poses, the effusive face and that insuperable chest that comes in the room minutes before he does. He also still has a flat Midwestern "A" and he's been married several times. Sometimes I feign the accent.
I grew up without a father, so the obvious rationale for why this happened to me was "looking-for-daddy-itis." Plus, my mother was eternally looking for a stand-in for the man who was supposed to tell her how wonderful she looked and to hold the doors for her. So, there I was, the kid who wanted to be and be taken by Sherrill Milnes escorting the woman who wanted to be every character played by Gwen Verdon. We were a funny pair, especially because I am, to this day, nearly a half foot shorter than she is, and a good foot wider both because of weight and a relatively large frame.
What I wanted, and still want, was much more than a father. I wanted the security that these men had in their largeness. I wanted the big hands, the shoulders -- the wide face.
And I have no idea what I would do without these shadows to follow, to this day.
16 June, 2007
Shameful mix of politics and sports
Politics and sports are always blended, but it's shameful, to me anyway, when promos go to the wrong people.
Apparently, Rudy Giuliani and George Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees are good friends. And apparently, either to be jocular, or to seem straight, on 3/20/2007 Suzyn Waldman offered Giuliani an open opportunity to get on mic on Yankees broadcasts whenever he is on the campaign trail in a city in which the team is visiting. You can read about this on http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/?p=9539
In the reign of foolishness of Mike Bloomberg, even I sometimes hark back to the days of Giuliani, who was not as effective at destroying the schools -- though he started the ball rolling. But, Giuliani was a tyrant, nonetheless, who did nothing to make this city a better place. It may not seem that way from a closet in Westchester where some anonymous person/partner can watch one's dogs, but for those of us not hiding in a forest, the devastation is immediately palpable. And how dare anyone basically give a national microphone to a presidential candidate so easily -- she not only virtually endorsed Giuliani, but she gave him a free platform on which to campaign!
I am still grateful for the precision of the descriptions of the game that Waldman and her radio partner Sterling usually provide. I will hope that Giuliani doesn't take Waldman up on her offer. I've sent the broadcasters an email, for whatever that's worth. For now, I'll be listening to the opposing team's radio teams -- until there is an explanation or an apology. No one should just gladhand Yankee air time to a presidential candidate.
I'm disappointed. As you know from my previous posts, I found the the radio broadcasts on WCBS fun.
Apparently, Rudy Giuliani and George Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees are good friends. And apparently, either to be jocular, or to seem straight, on 3/20/2007 Suzyn Waldman offered Giuliani an open opportunity to get on mic on Yankees broadcasts whenever he is on the campaign trail in a city in which the team is visiting. You can read about this on http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/?p=9539
In the reign of foolishness of Mike Bloomberg, even I sometimes hark back to the days of Giuliani, who was not as effective at destroying the schools -- though he started the ball rolling. But, Giuliani was a tyrant, nonetheless, who did nothing to make this city a better place. It may not seem that way from a closet in Westchester where some anonymous person/partner can watch one's dogs, but for those of us not hiding in a forest, the devastation is immediately palpable. And how dare anyone basically give a national microphone to a presidential candidate so easily -- she not only virtually endorsed Giuliani, but she gave him a free platform on which to campaign!
I am still grateful for the precision of the descriptions of the game that Waldman and her radio partner Sterling usually provide. I will hope that Giuliani doesn't take Waldman up on her offer. I've sent the broadcasters an email, for whatever that's worth. For now, I'll be listening to the opposing team's radio teams -- until there is an explanation or an apology. No one should just gladhand Yankee air time to a presidential candidate.
I'm disappointed. As you know from my previous posts, I found the the radio broadcasts on WCBS fun.
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