A Question

Watching the news–and what passes for news–it’s hard not to wonder whether we’ve stumbled into an alternate university. The GOP is once again threatening to shut down the government, this time, apparently, over their insistence that funds spent for disaster relief be offset by other budget cuts. We still hear politicians insist that “austerity” will create jobs–despite a broad consensus among economists to the contrary, and despite the last jobs report which showed that private sector hiring gains were entirely offset by government layoffs.

You would think that the people who are trumpeting the need for cost reductions might be looking at long-standing boondoggles and expensive programs that are demonstrably failing to achieve their goals. I’ve written before about the monumentally expensive failure that is the drug war. Senator Lugar has long advocated cuts to agricultural subsidies (I’d start with the sugar subsidy that benefits a few well-connected producers while increasing costs to consumers)–there are plenty of places where we really could make significant cuts without damaging our already threadbare social safety net. (We might consider invading fewer countries…)

And I won’t even try to comprehend the mind-set that insists that “shared” sacrifices are those that fall exclusively on the people most likely to be hurt by them, so that millionaires and billionaires can be protected from returning to the historically low rates during the Clinton Administration. If Congress really believes that protecting millionaires’ pocketbooks leads to job creation, that they are protecting people who will invest in new jobs, why not raise their rates, but give them a generous tax credit for every job they create?

I could go on, but so could most of you reading this. We seem to live in a world where logic based upon credible information has become a very rare commodity.

So here is my question: what should reasonable people living in an unreasonable age do?

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And Now For Something Different……

A couple of old friends who read this blog have expressed surprise that I seem so gloomy (I’ve always been an optimist–not a Dr. Pangloss, but a believer in the common sense and good will of most people). So today I’m going to focus on one of the many good things that are happening around the world, despite our toxic politics.

While governments around the globe continue to dither about environmental policies, nonprofits are introducing bold new techniques that will not only ameliorate environmental degradation, but will cut the costs of delivering services in poor countries and neighborhoods. I found this one particularly impressive.

Now if we could just be that innovative in reforming our politics……..

The Tortoise and the Hare

Okay–this isn’t a very good analogy, but it’s the best I can come up with on a rainy Monday morning.

Today’s Star editorial–with which I strongly agree–reminded me of Eric Hoffer’s observation that the true measure of a civilization isn’t what it builds, but how well it maintains what it builds. Maintenance requires the skills of the tortoise–a steady, persistent attention to what needs to be done. Not flashy, like the hare, but reliable.

The editorial contrasted the money and energy being expended on Georgia Street upgrades for the Super Bowl with past projects like Pan Am Plaza that are now suffering from neglect.  Not too long ago, I commented here about the deplorable condition of the canal–another expensive and important amenity that is suffering from deferred maintenance, despite the fact that it is heavily used.

We are heading into political season, and we’ll hear a lot from candidates about their new ideas and bold plans. We need to hear from them about their intentions to polish existing jewels, and how they will propose to maintain what taxpayers have already built. To put it bluntly, I’m much less interested in building a faux Chinatown than I am in repairing the deteriorating bridges along the canal.

It’s not glamorous, but I’m with Hoffer–it’s the real test of leadership.

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Threshold Questions

In this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Joe Nocera has the sort of superficially thoughtful opinion piece that increasingly characterizes America’s “chattering classes.”

The essay is a defense of for-profit colleges. Nocera acknowledges the obvious: such colleges enroll only 12% of the nation’s college students, but gobble up 25% of all federal student aid; fewer than half of their students graduate; and some 47% of those who were paying back their student loans in 2009 had defaulted by 2010. Despite these statistics, and numerous lawsuits over unethical recruitment practices, Nocera asserts that “The country really can’t afford to put [for-profit colleges] out of business.”

Why? Nocera says that education is increasingly critical to the ability to get a decent job, and that for-profit schools educate poor, working class students who might otherwise not be able to attend any college.

Think about the assumptions built into that argument.

The first (and in my mind, the most pernicious) is the conflation of education and certification. One of the thorniest issues in higher education today revolves around that tension. Parents understandably want their children to emerge from college with a marketable skill, but if that is all they emerge with—if students do not graduate with a deeper appreciation of the importance of history, culture, literature, science and philosophy—then they have attended a trade school, not an educational institution.

The second assumption Nocera makes is that kids from poor and working-class families are prevented from attending state-supported and nonprofit colleges and universities. He is only half right; poor students with poor academic credentials do have trouble accessing institutions of higher education, but not simply because they are poor. Colleges and universities that are genuinely engaged in education must have standards; allowing students to enroll who clearly do not have the wherewithal to succeed not only diminishes the classroom experience for more prepared students, it is manifestly unfair to those who are admitted despite being doomed to fail.

At IUPUI, we talk about these issues a lot. We recognize that poor students often have poor records because they attended substandard schools, and we try to fashion admission standards that allow us to separate academic potential from past performance. We schedule courses so that students with full-time jobs can attend, and we offer a wide variety of support mechanisms for students facing fiscal, emotional and physical challenges. But at the end of the day, we are in the “business” of providing education. We are not a trade school, and we aren’t going to rip off both students and taxpayers by admitting anyone who can qualify for a government loan.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were driving to Costco, and I noticed the number of billboards advertising “colleges” I’d never heard of. They all trumpeted the same message: come to XYZ and get a credential that will get you a good job in less time.

Nocera says we need for-profit colleges, and just need to tweak government regulations to reduce incentives for them to cheat.

I say beware of easy answers to the wrong questions.

The question isn’t: do we need for-profit colleges? The questions (plural) are: how do we define “college education”? How do we provide job skills training to those who cannot benefit from—or don’t want—an academic program?  How do we improve K-12 education so that being poor does not doom children to a second or third rate elementary education that makes it difficult to get into college?

And along the way, can we encourage a decent respect for academic excellence and the life of the mind?

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Tell Me a Story

There’s a fair amount of research that confirms what most of us know–humans are hard-wired to respond more emotionally to individual stories of hardship than to news of large-scale tragedies. We may sympathize and even send contributions when we hear of famine in Africa, for example, but we are much more likely to empathize and offer help when we hear the story of one person’s suffering, or one family’s struggle.  Any PR person will confirm that the best way to get public attention for a cause is to tell a story.

Last night, my husband and I heard a story. We were at Lambda Legal’s annual fundraising dinner, and the speaker was Zach Wahls, the 19-year old whose testimony to the Iowa legislature went viral on You Tube last year. (If you missed it, you can watch it here.) The Iowa legislature was proposing to amend the state constitution to reverse the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision that the state must recognize same-sex marriages, a decision allowing Zach’s two moms to finally marry.

Zach is obviously a young man with a bright future–assured beyond his years, comfortable speaking to a large crowd, and able to convey both humor and passion. Above all, he seemed real–a bright kid who simply got fed up with politicians using his family as a wedge issue,  butting into his family’s life to score political points.

He began by answering the questions he says he most frequently gets. To the question “Are you gay?” (he’s not) he responds with another question: “Does a fork turn into a spoon because they occupy the same drawer?” To questions about growing up without a father figure to provide a role model, he concedes there are differences. “When you are raised by two moms, you learn to put the toilet seat down, and to ask for directions.”

Listening to Zach tell his story, I thought again about the surprisingly rapid cultural change we’ve experienced just in my lifetime. When I was Zach’s age, no one even discussed homosexuality. The word “gay” meant happy, and no one had ever heard the term GLBT. When Stonewall set off the gay-rights movement, gays were still reviled. The goal was basic civil rights, and protection from harassment. Today, a significant portion of the population lives in states that recognize same-sex marriage, and although there are still plenty of issues and lots of bigotry, full equality is just a matter of time.

I think this unusually swift change was a result of the decision to encourage people to “come out” and tell their stories. The efforts of Lambda, the ACLU, and numerous other civil liberties groups would have been less effective without those stories.

Zach’s story was compelling, but there are so many others. We need to listen to them.

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