Readers of this blog know that I’m a broken record when it comes to civics education–and also know that I am a huge fan of the We the People curriculum used by some (but not nearly enough) high school government teachers. In fact, my only complaint about We the People is that its use is entirely voluntary; when I become Emperor of the Whole World, I plan to make it mandatory…
Anyway, one of the ( distressingly few) things that Indiana does well is field teams in the annual We the People competition. I was honored to be a national judge last year, when Indiana had two teams in the top ten.
This year, Fishers High School won the state competition, and the team is preparing to compete for the national title. Part of that preparation is–you knew this was coming!–raising the money needed for the trip.
I’m pasting in the solicitation I received from one team member, whose justifiably proud parents are friends of mine. I’m going to send a contribution, and I encourage those of you who are reading this to do the same. This program–and these kids–deserve our wholehearted–whole wallet-ed?– support.
Here’s her email:
Dear Professor Kennedy,
At Fishers High School I’m part of the “We the People…” competition team, an academic team all about the Constitution and its application. After winning the State Championships held in Indianapolis, the FHS team has officially become Team Indiana as we prepare for the 27th Annual “We the People…” National Finals in Washington D.C. this April. It has been the greatest experience of my educational career so far and I really want it to continue! That is whyI am asking for your financial support in raising $1200 in the next two weeks so that I can get back to focusing on my studies in an effort to participate in the “We the People…” National finals.
On the team, I am part of the Unit 5 division which focuses on the Bill of Rights and when, if ever, limitations of rights are justified. I knew “We the People…” was going to be a rigorous class, especially during my senior year, but that it also had potential for great rewards. Throughout this season we have been busy researching, writing, and reaching out to local lawmakers, attorneys, and constitutional scholars to help with our studies. Our team is being recognized on the floor of the Indiana General Assembly and congratulated by the Governor of Indiana in February. I want to represent my family, school, and state to the best of my ability. That’s why I need financial support from people like you that greatly value education. If you are ready to make a tax deductible donation right now, simply click here http://www.gofundme.com/6emck8to donate in five minutes!
In order to be a part of this once in a lifetime experience, I need to raise $1200. Please help me by sponsoring a portion of my trip. Any contribution you could make would bring me that much closer to this experience and get me back to studying that much sooner. All donations are tax deductible and you will be sent a letter promptly from my school for your tax records.
There are two options for you to use to contribute:
1. Click on the link here http://www.gofundme.com/6emck8to contribute via check or credit card in as little as 5 minutes online
2. Mail a check made out to FHS We the Peopleteam and mail it to the following address:
Fishers High School
c/o Liz Paternoster
13000 Promise Road
Fishers, IN 46038
– Be sure to include my name in the memo line of the check so my teacher knows to put it towards my trip.
– Also, consider asking your employer if they participate in a matching program. This could double your donation!
Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or want to hear more about this really great learning opportunity. You can also email my teacher and coach at lpaternoster@hse.k12.in.us. Thank you for your consideration!
We all know about “win-win” situations. My husband recently pointed me to an article that epitomizes its opposite: a true “lose-lose.”
Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other silicon valley companies are heavily lobbying Congress to expand visas for foreign tech workers.
Over the objections of labour groups, these companies and their allies, including banks, IBM, Pfizer, and General Electric, have persuaded the US Senate to increase the yearly H-1B visas from 65,000 to 110,000, and as high as 300,000 under certain conditions. Foreign workers trained in science, technology and engineering are preferred to their US counterparts because, in the words of economist Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute, they are indentured “people who could not switch employers to improve their wages or working conditions…. Too many are paid at wages below the average for their occupation and location: over half of all H-1B guest workers [there are already 500,000 such workers] are certified for wages in the bottom quarter of the wage scale”.
Of course, bringing more workers from abroad reduces the opportunities available to America’s young scientists and engineers, many of whom, according to the article, are ” trying to find jobs commensurate with their skills.” Right now, out of the nine million Americans who have degrees in a science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) field, only three million have a job in their speciality.
Narrowing the job market for young Americans is one “lose.” The other is the brain drain on the countries from which we are importing talent.
While the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is stressing the need for developing countries to build up their “human capital”, back in the US, the corporate powers-that-be and their political allies are undermining this tenet of US foreign economic policy.
If “human capital” means anything in the poorer areas of Africa, South America and Asia, it means civil engineers, scientists, physicians, nurses, computer and communications specialists, logistical experts, architects and entrepreneurs. They all are in short supply in these regions that have already lost so many skilled people to the West.
So let me see if I have this right: Congress has acted to reduce the options available to American young people at the same time government agencies have been encouraging them to major in STEM disciplines, in order to steal needed human capital from poor countries that desperately need to keep that talent.
In a perfect world–at least my perfect world–a more equal global economy would be characterized by open borders like those in the EU, and young people would be free to take their talents wherever they wanted. We don’t have that world, however, and this cynical policy sure won’t usher it in.
Do any of the people we elect to Congress think about what they’re doing?
There’s an old song lyric that begins “Two different worlds..we live in two different worlds.” At the end of the song, the lovers turn those “two different worlds” into one.
In politics these days, Republicans and Democrats also live in different worlds–but they show little or no interest in merging them, or finding common ground.
Take the issue of personal responsibility, for example. (Invoking the importance of encouraging individual responsibility is the GOP’s standard reason for opposing virtually all government social programs.)
Here’s my question: how do Republicans who want to reduce the size of government until it is “small enough to drown in a bathtub” propose that citizens “take responsibility” for things like the recent West Virginia chemical spill? How, precisely, are individuals supposed to assume responsibility for things like the purity of their drinking water, or for the air they breathe, or the safety of the food they purchase and consume?
Even Republicans who concede that government has a role to play in these matters, however, will insist that individuals are personally responsible for their own economic status.
If you believe that poor people are poor because they don’t work hard (and rich people are rich because they do)– a belief shared by most Republicans, according to a recent poll– do you also blame poor people for failing to take “personal responsibility” for a lack of available jobs? What additional “personal responsibility” should be exhibited by the millions of working poor–the folks working 40 or more hours a week at jobs that don’t pay them enough to get by?
Today’s Republicans and Democrats do live in two different worlds. The Republican world is tantalizingly simple: a place where virtue is rewarded with success in the best Calvinist tradition–a world where those who work hard, attend church and marry someone of the opposite gender will prosper.
Democrats and Independents occupy a messier reality, where luck and privilege explain the gap between the haves and have nots more often than diligence and talent, and where simple explanations–however comforting– rarely tell the whole story.
In the Republican reality, government is unnecessary; in the reality inhabited by everyone else, it’s essential.
There are many ways to view America’s contentious education wars. My own interpretation is that–at its most basic–the conflict is between those who want to improve existing public schools and those who want to turn education over to the private sector.
There are lots of nuances to both approaches, of course, and ancillary arguments about high-stakes testing, teacher accountability, etc., tend to obscure the public/private issue. I’m too old and tired to suit up for that battle, but I will share one caution that both camps should be willing to heed.
If we are going to spend public money on Charter Schools–which remain public schools, even when they are managed by private, for-profit companies–let alone vouchers, we have an obligation to both children and taxpayers to monitor what those schools are teaching, and to ensure that their curricula are both academically sound and constitutionally compliant. A recent report from Texas should not only illuminate the problem–it also (as one of my graduate students said after reading the article) should make our flesh crawl.
When public-school students enrolled in Texas’ largest charter program open their biology workbooks, they will read that the fossil record is “sketchy.” That evolution is “dogma” and an “unproved theory” with no experimental basis. They will be told that leading scientists dispute the mechanisms of evolution and the age of the Earth. These are all lies.
The more than 17,000 students in the Responsive Education Solutions charter system will learn in their history classes that some residents of the Philippines were “pagans in various levels of civilization.” They’ll read in a history textbook that feminism forced women to turn to the government as a “surrogate husband.”
And that’s just the opening paragraphs from Slate’s devastating investigation of Responsive Education Solutions–a company which proposes to open four charters in Indiana next year. One of those, being conducted through an affiliate, has been authorized by Mayor Ballard’s office and will open in Indianapolis.
You need to click through to read the entire article. It’s appalling.
Here are a couple of questions for critics of our public schools: if you don’t trust “government schools” to educate children, why do you trust government officials with no particular expertise in education to select and monitor the private companies providing those educations? What safeguards against cronyism and ideology do you propose, and how will you ensure that those safeguards are in place?
Accountability isn’t just for teachers and public school administrators, and it isn’t limited to results on standardized tests.
Arguments about morality have been hurled from both directions in the fight over HJR3. Those who want to place the ban on same-sex marriage in the state’s constitution argue that (their version of) biblical morality demands it; those of us on the other side–religious and not– define morality in terms of how we treat other people, and find HJR3 lacking.
There’s another “moral” question involved, however, and it is less often noted.
You might think of HJR 3 itself as a moral test being administered to Indiana legislators.
I have a good friend who is a lobbyist. He’s over at the statehouse every day, and–like all lobbyists–engages in constant conversations with Indiana lawmakers. He tells me that a fair number of those who can be counted on to vote for HJR3 know it is the wrong thing to do. They will admit–privately–that it will hurt Indiana, hurt children being raised in GLBT families, that it is bad public policy, and even that it is morally wrong.
But they “have to” vote for it because they represent conservative areas of the state. Because they might face a primary challenge if they vote their minds and consciences. Because it would be awkward explaining a “no” vote to their constituents.
My friend finds this understandable, if regrettable. I find it despicable.
Sometimes, life gives us hard choices. We’ve all found ourselves in situations where we have to choose between doing what we know is the right thing and doing the easy, self-serving thing. How we act in those situations is the true test of character and morality.
Some of our legislators are truly homophobic. Others believe, for whatever reason, that gay citizens are not entitled to equal rights. They’re wrong, and most of them probably realize that they’re on the wrong side of history. But they’re voting their beliefs, however benighted I may consider those beliefs.
The truly contemptible lawmakers are the ones who know better, the ones unwilling to do what they know is right because doing so might entail some personal cost.
