A day in the life of an inner-city middle school principal

Ever wonder what it is really like to run a public middle school in the inner city. Jonathan Mahler of the New York Times has writtenan excellent account of the job of Ramon Gonzalez, principal of a public middle school in the South Bronx.

In certain respects, 223 is a monument to Klein’s success: empower the right principals to run their own schools and watch them bloom. Thanks to Klein, González has been able to avoid having teachers foisted on him on the basis of seniority. He has been able to create his own curriculums, micromanage his students’ days (within the narrow confines of the teachers’ union contract, anyway) and spend his annual budget of $4 million on the personnel, programs and materials he deems most likely to help his kids. And yet even as school reform made it possible for González to succeed, as the movement rolls inexorably forward, it also seems in many ways set up to make him fail. The grading system imposed by Klein that has bestowed three consecutive A’s on González is based in part on how well 223 does on state tests. But the school's relative success on these tests and other measures also disqualifies him from additional state resources earmarked for failing schools. The ever-growing number of charter schools, often privately subsidized and rarely bound by union rules, that Klein unleashed on the city skims off the neighborhood’s more ambitious, motivated families. And every year, as failing schools are shut down around González, a steady stream of children with poor intellectual habits and little family support continues to arrive at 223. González wouldn’t want it any other way — he takes pride in his school’s duty to educate all comers — but the endless flow of underperforming students drags down test scores, demoralizes teachers and makes the already daunting challenge of transforming 223 into a successful school, not just a relatively successful one, that much more difficult.

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The media ignores The People’s Budget

The "People's Budget has been proposed by the 80 member Congressional Progressive Caucus, the largest caucus within the U.S. House of Representatives. The co-chair, of that caucus, Democratic Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, appeared on Democracy Now, perplexed that his budget, which is well supported by large numbers of Americans, is being ignored by the mainstream media.

We cut military spending in a significant way. The key to that, getting us out of Afghanistan and out of Iraq. And we take care—we deal with healthcare by reintroducing the public option, which could save up to $68 billion a year from providing a competitive choice for the American people. We didn’t do this on a lark. We have tracked every public opinion poll. And the American people want gas and oil subsidies to be cut. They want the rich and the corporations to pay taxes. They want military spending cut. And so, as we listen to the American people, our budget reflects that listening and really deserves a voice and deserves some attention.
Let's mark this lack of attention to a populist budget another exhibit demonstrating the the national media caters strongly to big businesses that purchase advertising and to the affluent customers to whom those ads are often aimed. Can you imagine the outcome of the following question if put on a national referendum: "Should the United States remove its military from Iraq and Afghanistan and redirected the many billions of dollars we are spending in those countries to benefit Americans at home?" Or how about this one: "Should the United States continue paying gas and oil companies tens of billion dollars in tax subsidies?"

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Racist Reflex or ?

A 21 year-old man was released without charges after being arrested near the Delmar Loop MetroLink in St. Louis on Saturday. The police officer who arrested the 21-year-old experienced a minor head injury. The St. Louis Dispatch and KMOV report that the officer was breaking up a fight that allegedly drew a crowd of between 50 and 100 people, including many teenagers. In response to the “incident” and complaints that teens who are “not from University City,” are “wandering,” “roaming” and “brushing up against customers,” along the Delmar Loop, a Tuesday meeting was called between Delmar Loop business owners, representatives from Mayor Slay’s office, University City officials and representatives of Washington University. (Washington University’s Office of General Counsel denied any involvement in this meeting). Several proposals emerged from the meeting. These include “lowering the city’s curfew to 6 p.m.,” rounding up teenagers to “let them sit in a paddy wagon for three hours,” adding a police substation to process them and “closing the Loop’s MetroLink station early on Fridays and Saturdays.” To curb the influx of “unruly” young adults, the University City manager promised “active enforcement of all ordinances.”

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Joseph Stiglitz discusses media conflicts

Economist Joseph Stiglitz spoke at the National Conference for Media Reform this past weekend, focusing in on some of the many of the conflicts that are inherent to news media. I videotaped his presentation (see below). The most obvious conflict is between wrongdoers (e.g., banks) who are actively hiding their wrongdoing from news reporters. For example, the Federal Reserve had been hiding the fact that it used U.S. tax dollars to bail out foreign banks, a fact that was recently revealed. But there are many other types of conflicts. For example, accurate information is a public good. Unfortunately, there is not a strong incentive for producing accurate and essential information, "because everyone benefits from this." Exacerbating this problem is the fact that there are strong private incentives for distorting information (e.g., by financial institutions or the ). The upshot is that we hear ridiculous claims by those positioned to benefit from that false information (e.g., that the economic stimulus was necessary and effective). Here's another conflict: Much of the "news" is a byproduct of advertising. This creates a conflict of interest because the "new" provider will try inevitably attempt to be sensitive to the economic needs of the advertisers. This bias is far more dangerous when it shows up in newspapers than when private parties issue their own press releases, where we all expect such information to be biased. Another problem is that those who want information to be promulgated will be inclined to spin the information as necessary in return for the willingness of a news provider to provide coverage. When I heard Stiglitz state this, I thought of the tendency of news providers to enhance the conflict of their stories in order to make them more "newsworthy." Here's another conflict: Some reporters are owned by certain politicians. If they fail to provide coverage that satisfies the politician, they will get cut off from future information. Here's yet another conflict. Everyone wants to be a cheerleader. Reporters tend to report good news. They want to hear that everything is OK, and that the stock market is going up up up. Hence, that is too often the way the news is spun, regardless of the facts on the ground.

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