Tuesday, July 31, 2007

In Illinois, Obama Proved Pragmatic and Shrewd

A very flattering article about Sen. Obama in today's NYT that documents a very impressive record when he was a state legislator in Illinois:

By the time he left Springfield in 2004, he had built not only the connections necessary to win election to the United States Senate but a record not inconsistent with his lofty rhetoric of consensus building and bipartisanship.

“He came with a huge dose of practicality,” said Paul L. Williams, a lobbyist in Springfield and former state representative who is a supporter of Mr. Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Williams characterized Mr. Obama’s attitude as, “O.K., that makes sense and sounds great, as I’d like to go to the moon, but right now I’ve only got enough gas to go this far.”

With the assistance of Senator Jones, Mr. Obama helped deliver what is said to have been the first significant campaign finance reform law in Illinois in 25 years. He brought law enforcement groups around to back legislation requiring that homicide interrogations be taped and helped bring about passage of the state’s first racial-profiling law. He was a chief sponsor of a law enhancing tax credits for the working poor, played a central role in negotiations over welfare reform and successfully pushed for increasing child care subsidies.

“I learned that if you’re willing to listen to people, it’s possible to bridge a lot of the differences that dominate the national political debate,” Mr. Obama said in an interview on Friday. “I pretty quickly got to form relationships with Republicans, with individuals from rural parts of the state, and we had a lot in common.”

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The Long Run

In Illinois, Obama Proved Pragmatic and Shrewd

Published: July 30, 2007

There was something improbable about the new guy from Chicago via Honolulu and Jakarta, Indonesia, the one with the Harvard law degree and the job teaching constitutional law, turning up in Springfield, Ill., in January 1997 among the housewives, ex-mayors and occasional soybean farmer serving in the State Senate.

Monday, July 30, 2007

My mom met Obama

My mom met Obama for the first time last Thursday (one of the benefits of being in New Hampshire for a month) and shares my enthusiasm for him.  Here's her report:
Yesterday was Obama's day at Lake Sunapee and he is a very impressive person.  He looks as if he is at least 25, but luckily seems to be very wise -- almost deja vu in remembering seeing John Kennedy hold forth at my university when he was seeking the nomination in 1961.  He has charisma plus and a gift for speaking to crowds that seems personal.
 
I attended the public presentation in Sunapee Harbor where about 300 people waited in the pouring rain for more than an hour beyond the announced time.  Seemingly, no one had more than two day's notice and I don't think that it was well publicized -- the Gordon's didn't even know until I called an hour ahead of the event.  By the way, seemingly no buttons or bumper stickers offered, just free ice cream (advance teams take notice).  However, everyone agreed that it was well worth the wait and the weather.  He was exceptionally well informed as was evidenced not only by his prepared remarks which were well crafted for the type of audience and location, but also by his responses to the impromptu questions.  The main themes were health care for all equivalent to what he gets as a US senator; quality education, especially for low economic areas, attention to teaching foreign languages, and much higher pay for teachers with elements for merit pay and working in tough schools; re-vamping of Social Security to ensure a basic safety net for the upcoming baby boomers; and of course, a phased withdrawal from Iraq.  He was confident that all of these initiatives could be paid for through greater efficiencies, especially with energy (fuel efficient cars) and cessation of the war.  He stayed for an hour and a half with at least an hour mingling with the audience and talking with people on a one-on-one basis.  The "Secret Service" was not so secret as they all were the same size with crew cuts, cords coming out their ears, black coats and talking to their watches.  I hope that there were more in the crowd that blended into the New Hampshire woodsy types.  They must go nuts with all the people pressing around the candidates and amazingly, there was no effort to search people or their bags.  The paper said that Obama was the first candidate to get Secret Service protection because he was the first to draw huge crowds. 
 
Then, in the early evening, I attended the expensive reception for Obama [she thinks $500 is expensive -- she hasn't been to NYC!] that was held at the lake home of Susan Mayer, a 77-year-old who is a very spirited supporter. I think that her son and daughter-in-law, who are from Illinois and long time Obama supporters, co-hosted the event.  There were about 150 people there and Obama gave essentially the same speech, but spent more time fielding questions, and again, spent about a half hour talking to people one by one.  I managed to use my elbows to get through the crowd and told him that I lived in Kenya and was "Whitney Tilson's mom" and he did recognize the name.  I then said that, although the domestic problems needed attention, I thought that the most important part of his presidency was going to be reconciling the US with the Muslim world and regaining the global respect that Bush has squandered.  He said he agreed and said that he thought his own background would hold him in good stead for that effort.  It was a very quick response, but I don't think that it was a canned "yes" to the  assertion because I saw and heard him engaging with other people and on several occasions, he either gently took issue, offered more information or agreed by elaborating on the person's idea.  He would be a wonderful teacher and, I think, help Americans to understand issues and make difficult decisions.
 
So, I wrote him another check for $500 and wildly hope that he may succeed.  As people keep questioning his "experience," my response now is that I am glad he does not have the kind of experience that those Republicans in charge brought with them to Washington.  It would be wonderful to have someone who could think clearly without the excess baggage of cynicism and willingness to do and say anything that the focus-group-mongers dictate in order to be elected.  It also might help with repairing relations with the rest of the world if he was certifiably not part of the Iraq war mafia and was not committed to doing anything to keep the oil flowing.
 
In sum, I think he would be a great president and am very grateful to Whit for "introducing" us to him many months ago.  I will be meeting a guy who is helping to organize Americans who live overseas in support of Obama.  I have my fingers crossed.

Brothers and Sisters

This line in Maureen Dowd's column captures why I worry that if Hillary's the nominee, the Democrats just might lose an election that would otherwise be impossible to lose...
“We are spending billions on this war, and yet veterans and their children are practically getting nothing. I’m no longer a Republican. I’m an American, and I will cast my vote for the person I believe will start the process to get out of Iraq — unless, of course, it’s Hillary.”
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Brothers and Sisters
Published: July 25, 2007

Washington

W.’s odyssey is one of the oddest in history, a black sheep who leapt above expectations and then crashed back down. It must be a crushing burden for President Bush to have wrought the opposite of what he intended in so many profound ways.

For me, one of the most amazing reversals brought about by W.’s reign of error is this: He may have turned my sister into a Democrat.

Obama's Camp Sees Big Value in Small Donors

Obama and his team have been very smart in cultivating small donors.  They really matter!

Of the $33 million Mr. Obama raised in the second quarter, about a third consisted of donations of less than $200 — more than the $10 million raised in $2,300 checks from big donors. Mrs. Clinton, in contrast, raised $2.3 million in donations of less than $200. She brought in $12.3 million — out of $21.5 million in the quarter — in $2,300 checks, from donors prohibited from giving again to her primary campaign. Both candidates now have about the same amount of cash to spend on the primary.

Mr. Obama’s roster of 258,000 donors has exceeded the national mailing list that Mrs. Clinton accumulated through her two Senate races and Bill Clinton’s two runs for the White House. None of the other primary candidates in either party has claimed more than 100,000 individual donors.

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Obama’s Camp Sees Big Value in Small Donors

Published: July 17, 2007
 
WASHINGTON, July 16 — Senator Barack Obama was the guest of honor at a dinner at the luxurious Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco this spring with a few hundred lawyers, executives and investors. The guests drank a boutique beer with Mr. Obama’s face on the label and contributed more than $1 million in $2,300 checks to support his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Just moments before he arrived, Mr. Obama had said goodbye to a less exclusive crowd of 10,000 that had gathered to hear him speak across the bay in Oakland. They paid nothing to hear him, but spent $40,000 on Obama T-shirts, baseball caps, buttons and other knickknacks. And the Obama campaign registered each of the purchasers as one of the record 258,000 contributors it signed up in the first six months of the year.

Since he got into the race, Mr. Obama has hopscotched from big-ticket to big-crowd events across the country, trying to turn the early excitement about his candidacy into campaign cash and a national political organization.

Friday, July 27, 2007

A must-read: MAYOR BLOOMBERG ADDRESSES NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE ANNUAL CONFERENCE

STOP THE PRESSES!!!!  This is a must-read!
 
This speech by Mayor Bloomberg is absolutely brilliant and spot on.  The fact that he's a Democrat (regardless of what he officially calls himself) serves to further underscore how utterly lame the Democratic presidential contenders' speeches were to the NEA a couple of weeks ago.  Oh, how I long for the day when one of them has the guts -- and wisdom -- to give a speech on education like this one!
 
You're probably scratching your head, saying: "What do you mean by wisdom?  Wouldn't it be political suicide for any Democrat to say even 10% of this to the NEA?"
 
This is indeed true for Hillary -- she's the prohibitive favorite and doesn't need to take any risks, at least given today's polls.  Unless something significant changes, she can put it on cruise control, coast to the nomination and then run to the center.  Thus, if I were her political advisor, I'd have told her to give the exact speech to the NEA that she did -- pander like crazy and only stick a toe in the water on reform (kudos for briefly mentioning her support of charter schools) and then quickly pull it out (caveats on no financial harm to the school district).
 
But I don't know what the other candidates are thinking.  The only strategy I think will beat Hillary is to use jujitsu to take advantage of her greatest strength -- but also greatest weakness: that she (and her husband) own the machinery of the Democratic Party and are unlikely to rock the boat.  (In fairness, I think Hillary is more of a centrist and reformer than people give her credit for, but it will be very hard for her to shake the perception that she's owned by special interests in the party.)
 
So the other candidates, facing the strong likelihood that Hillary's gonna steamroll them, need to take some risks and show that they're different and have courage by tackling some entrenched interests in their own party.  What better issue to do this than education?  More and more people understand that the system needs reform and who could argue with the ideas Mayor Bloomberg highlights below?  Who's going to criticize raising teacher salaries 43% if it's accompanied by accountability and reform?  Who (other than hard-core unionistas) thinks teachers shouldn't be evaluated, like everyone else in the country?  And who would oppose using these evaluations when making tenure, promotion or pay decisions?  And who thinks it should be nearly impossible to fire an ineffective teacher?
 
There's even a model in place for the candidates seeking to beat Hillary: her husband!  He was an obscure former governor of Arkansas running 5th in the polls, but was able to position himself as a New Democrat in part by embracing welfare reform and rode it all the way to the White House.
 
The parallels between welfare reform then and education reform now are striking: in both cases, they are emormous governmental systems that low-income minorities are especially dependent on -- but are increasingly screwed by.  In both cases, the systems initially worked reasonably well, but over time morphed into ever larger, unwieldy, unaccountable, bureaucratic and politicized monstrosities, with powerful, well-organized, well-funded, deeply entrenched interest groups defending the status quo. 
 
Both issues are owned by the Democratic Party, but as the systems' failures became more widespread and well known, Republicans became more and more vocal in calling for reform -- and began to gain real political mileage from it.  Meanwhile, the entrenched interests wove themselves deeply into the Democratic Party and turned the party into the primary defender of the increasing indefensible status quo, even as the systems did increasing harm to the most loyal -- and vulnerable -- constituents of the party.
 
Republicans calling for reform were dismissed as having bad ideas (sometimes true), caring about the issue only for political gain rather than really caring about poor people/kids (also sometimes true) and/or attacking poor people or teachers, while Democrats who embraced reform were villified and called pawns of Republicans.
 
But one day, a very smart Democratic politician came along and said that embracing welfare reform -- in some ways, stealing the Republicans' best ideas -- was both the right thing to do and the politically smart thing to do -- both for himself and the party.  Think about it -- who gets credit for welfare reform: Bill Clinton or the Republicans who were pounding on this issue long before he was?  And note that the Democratic Party is no longer losing voters by being typecast as the party defender welfare queens.
 
So when will one of the Democratic contenders wake up and smell the coffee?  I'm not holding my breath based on what I heard from the NEA convention -- maybe we'll have to wait another four or eight years -- but the optimist in me says it's still very early so stay tuned...
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MAYOR BLOOMBERG ADDRESSES NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE ANNUAL CONFERENCE

 

The following is the text of Mayor Bloomberg’s speech as prepared. Please check against delivery.

 

Good afternoon.  Thank you, Marc, for the invitation to join you here today.  And I also want to thank Darwin Davis, president of the New York Urban League, for all his good work back home.  His predecessor, Dennis Walcott, is my Deputy Mayor for Education and Community Development, and back when I was first running for Mayor in 2001, I met Dennis on the campaign trail and I borrowed – Dennis might say ‘stole’ – his New York Urban League pin. And I’ve been wearing it ever since.

 

It’s an honor to be here to help kick-off the National Urban League’s annual conference.  The Urban League has been going strong for 96 years, which makes it two years younger than my mother. And almost as energetic. But for all the energy and vitality of this organization, and for all the people who live in cities in this country, and for all the votes that we cast on Election Day, you would think that the federal government would zero in on issues the League concerns itself with, and take bold action. You would think.

 

 But when it comes to the most important issues that nearly all cities face – crime, housing, poverty, the environment – Washington is dragging its feet – and in some cases, walking backwards. That’s why, more and more cities – many of them Urban League cities – have been taking the lead on these national issues, and nowhere is that more true than in the case of education.

 

Next year is the 25th Anniversary of the publication of ‘A Nation at Risk,’ the landmark study that showed how American students were falling behind students in other nations – and the consequences we would face if it continued. Well, it did continue – and it got worse.  Much worse. Today, our schools are further behind than they were 25 years ago –even though we’ve doubled education spending over the last several decades. If you did that with your 401(K) or your pension fund, you’d work for the rest of your life and die broke!

 

In many cities, including New York, the money was squandered by politicians and special interests who protected their own jobs first, and worried about classroom learning second.  A generation of students paid a terrible price, and let’s face facts:  No group of children paid more than African-Americans.

 

Today, black and Latino 12th graders – who should be reading college catalogs – are reading at the same level as white 8th graders. And a shockingly high percentage of black and Latino 4th graders – who should be reading Harry Potter – cannot even read a simple children’s book.  This is not only not acceptable – it’s shameful.  Whitney Young Jr. must be turning over in his grave!

 

Here we are in the greatest country on earth – home of the best universities in the world.  Is this really the best we can do?  No way.  We’re better than that.  But let me tell you something. Let me tell you exactly who’s at fault: Us.  That’s right.  We are the ones to blame. And here’s why: Politicians have pandered to us by selling us on the idea that all we need is more money and smaller classes – and we’ve bought it.  They’ve given us cheap platitudes and slogans instead of real solutions – and we’ve bought it. Whoever’s in power, they’ve pointed fingers at the other party when nothing improves – and we have bought it!

 

If we want to truly improve the education our children receive, and fulfill the promise of the Civil Rights movement, we have to stand up and tell them: ‘No more!’ No more pandering to special interests. No more fear of the tough issues. And no more excuses for failure. We’re not buying it!

 

That’s the approach we’ve taken in New York – and when I came into office in 2002, we certainly had our work cut out for us.  The school system – with 1.1 million students – was the ultimate case study in mismanagement:  Everyone had power, but no one was in charge.  And so the system was defined by paralysis, patronage, and corruption. We began our reforms by getting to the root of the problem:  Winning control of the school system and abolishing the broken Board of Education. We re-directed money away from the bureaucracy directly into the classroom. And we significantly cut the cost of school construction.

 

We expanded the school week by 150 minutes – which is about 15 extra days a year. We put parent coordinators in every school, so that parents would always have someone to turn to, 24-7 – instead of turning to the politicians, who could care less if you’re not one of their supporters. We improved safety and discipline, which is a hallmark of any good school – and we’ve enforced the ban on electronic devices like PDAs, iPods, and cell phones. You come to school to learn, not to play games or send text messages!

 

To encourage more students to start preparing for college, we’ve begun paying the fee for all 10th and 11th graders to take the PSAT, which has allowed us to substantially increase the number of black and Latino students who take the test. We’ve doubled the number of charter schools.  And we’ve broken up large failing high schools into smaller schools, where students get more individual attention.

 

Graduation rates have gone from less than 40% at the old, large high schools, to more than 70% at the new small high schools. And across New York City, over the past four years, graduation rates have gone up about 20%. Test scores in grades 3-8 have gone up 10 points in reading, and more than 20 points in Math – and improvements among black and Latino kids in Math have been at double the rate of white and Asian kids.

 

We still have a long way to go, but we’re finally making real progress – and we’re not letting up. We’re continuing to tackle the tough challenges and address the historic inequities – and let me give you two quick examples.

 

First, for decades, school funding formulas have favored some schools over others – because of politics, of course. We’re putting an end to that, by revamping the formula so that it’s based on the number of children who attend a school and their diverse needs.  That’s just basic fairness!  No one can argue with the principle of it, but there was no shortage of politicians and special interests who called for more study, and endless delay.  But our children can’t afford to wait – and in New York City, we’re not going to wait.

 

Second, we’ve expanded Advanced Placement courses and gifted and talented programs to communities that never had them.  The absence of these enrichment programs from schools serving black and Latino students was a perfect example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

 

We have to expect the best from the best students – of every race.

 

And we have to expect success from every single student – and hold schools and teachers accountable for helping them achieve it. Accountability, like funding fairness, is a basic idea that everyone agrees with – in principle.  But once again, when the rubber hits the road, too many politicians fall off the wagon.

 

Let me give you an example. For decades, New York City tolerated the practice of social promotion – where students are promoted even if they haven’t learned what they need to succeed in the next grade.  This doomed children to fall further and further behind.  So we said, ‘No more!’ We announced that we would enforce minimum standards, and to help struggling students, we would offer extra-help after school and on Saturdays.

 

Parents know that setting expectations – and enforcing the rules – is essential.  It’s no different in our schools. And yet most elected officials, union leaders, and even some editorial boards fought us tooth and nail.  They wanted more delays and studies – anything but action.

 

But we didn’t bend to politics – that’s not leadership.  And when the new promotion standards proved successful, and more students met them, the establishment came around.

 

That experience shows how real change requires the guts – and the independence – to challenge the entrenched interests. And the fact is, the only way we’re going to change the current situation is if we’re willing to take on a subject that too many politicians are afraid of:  Finding ways to hold not only students, but also teachers and principals accountable for classroom learning and getting the most effective teachers and principals into the schools that need them most.

 

All the research says that the single most important factor in determining a child’s classroom success is – not class size or funding levels – but teacher effectiveness. Studies have shown that if our most effective teachers taught in our lowest performing schools, we could close the achievement gap. But instead, we have a situation where the highest performing students get the most effective teachers and principals – while the most needy students are stuck with the least effective ones. And I don’t have to tell you, it’s black and Latino students who pay the heaviest price.

 

Getting effective teachers into the schools that need them most is the next frontier of education reform – one that we’ve been afraid to face for too long. And, I believe, it is the great unfinished business of the work that Thurgood Marshall and so many others began all those years ago.  How do we do it?  Well, I think it begins with a very simple idea: Treat teachers like the professionals they are. Let me explain what I mean by that.

 

I think we would all agree that in all of our cities, most teachers and principals do amazing work – and that they make a big difference. I went to public schools growing up, and I remember certain teachers – like Mr. Lally, my high school history teacher – really making the subject come alive.

 

The teachers I meet across New York City are smart. Hard-working, inspiring, and they’re passionate about the kids. We need a system that keeps these special individuals in city schools.  Respects their hard work and unleashes their talents where their talents are needed most.

 

Many of you in this room work or have worked in the private sector.  You know how to attract and retain the best people.  Make them feel respected. And get the most out of them. You pay them more. You give them incentives to take on the toughest challenges and succeed. And you hold them accountable for results.  And those who don’t perform up to standard – you let go.  That’s Management 101, and it’s the way we treat all professionals – except in our schools.

 

In most school systems, teachers experience low pay, lockstep pay scales, no recognition of talent, no incentives for success and no accountability for failure. This kind of employment system didn’t work in the Soviet Union, and it’s time for us to recognize that it’s not working in our schools.

 

In New York City, we’ve worked to confront this reality – and to ensure there is an effective teacher in every classroom – by taking several important steps toward treating teachers and principals like the professionals they are.

 

First, we’ve raised teacher salaries by 43%, which helps us attract the best and brightest.  Now, senior teachers can make more than $100,000. Second, to drive the most effective teachers to the schools that need them most, we negotiated with the teachers union to create a lead teacher program, which pays some of our best teachers an extra $10,000 to teach in our lowest performing schools. We’re offering an even more generous incentive program to principals: $25,000 to take over low performing schools. And third, we’re also offering a $15,000 signing bonus to Math and Science teachers – because more and more Math and Science majors are opting for high-paying private sector jobs, leaving the schools with severe shortages in these critical subjects.

 

These three financial incentives – combined with all of our other reforms – have helped us to dramatically increase the number of job applicants, and our retention rates. Critics of bonuses say that educators aren’t in it for the money. That’s true.  But we can’t expect them to make career decisions based purely on altruism.  They have families to feed and kids to put through college!

 

So let’s stop pretending that offering teachers financial incentives somehow diminishes their motives.  It’s ridiculous! We should be offering teachers and principals incentives not only to take the toughest assignments, and to fill special needs, but also to get the best possible results from their students.

 

In New York, the contract we just negotiated and signed with the principals union offers all principals up to a $25,000 bonus for meeting performance targets. We’d love to give a similar deal to teachers – but so far, we have not been able to convince the union to accept it.

 

I understand their concerns – it’s not easy to evaluate teacher effectiveness, and standardized tests don’t present the full picture. But if we put sophisticated data on student achievement together with principal and peer evaluations, there’s no reason why we can’t create a fair review process.

 

In New York, we’re building the most sophisticated achievement data system in the nation, which will allow us to focus on how well individual students are learning. And it will allow us to begin grading every single New York City public school – all 1,400 of them – from A to F, beginning this fall.  That means that parents will be able to see how their child’s school is doing – and compare it others.

 

Principals and teachers will be trained to use the data to identify each student’s needs and to improve outcomes. Information technology has revolutionized the private sector, but the public sector is just starting to catch up. We ought to remember the words of the management leader who said, In God we trust.  Everyone else bring data.

 

I was happy to hear that Senator Obama recently became the first Democratic presidential candidate to offer at least modest support for the idea of bonus pay for teachers. Right now, we pay teachers solely based on longevity and education credits – even though the evidence shows that education credits have precious little to do with actual student learning.  Just think about it: Why should a good teacher with a Master’s degree whose students make huge strides earn less than a mediocre teacher with a Ph.D whose students make no progress? That makes no sense!

 

Focusing on how well students are actually learning will also allow us to take two other critical steps: reforming the tenure process, which right now is almost automatic. And reforming the process by which teachers can be fired, which right now is almost impossible.

 

When a teacher is up for tenure, too often the questions are: Did he come to work every day? Did he cover the curriculum?  Do people like him?  But the one question that really matters isn’t asked: Are his students learning as much as they should? Most times, the answer is ‘yes.’  But if the answer is no, that teacher should not receive tenure.

 

And when a tenured teacher’s students are not learning, principals, after a reasonable appeals process, should have the authority to let that teacher go. Right now, that appeals process is anything but reasonable.  It’s a nightmare.  That’s why many principals don’t even bother with it – and once again, it’s our children who suffer.

 

In New York City, we’ve begun taking the first steps toward tenure reform by requiring principals to evaluate each tenure-track teacher, so that tenure is earned by those who deserve it, and not granted as a right to those who don’t. But to inject some sanity into the process of firing bad teachers and to pay bonuses to highly effective teachers, we need buy-in from the unions.  That hasn’t been easy in New York – or anywhere else.  And I’ll be honest: I’m not sure we’re going to get there without support from the federal government.

 

So I’d like to offer you an idea, and I hope you’ll bring it back to your communities: When ‘No Child Left Behind’ comes up for re-authorization, there will be many things that need fixing – including its lack of funding. Politicians love to talk about this lack of funding – because it’s easy.  But they don’t want to talk about the hard part: How do we ensure that any new money actually results in higher student achievement?

 

I believe that as part of the next version of NCLB, the federal government should commit to a significant increase in new federal funding, including for higher teacher salaries – but cities and states could only receive it if they began implementing the reforms I’ve outlined today:  Bonus pay for effective teachers and principals, and for those that serve in the toughest schools.  As well as tenure reform and accountability systems, including a streamlined process for firing ineffective teachers.

 

If we do that, in a few short years, we could have the most effective teachers working in the schools that need them most.  More high-quality math and science teachers.  More of the best and brightest working in City schools – and fewer failing teachers hurting our children’s future. Then, we can stop talking about closing the achievement gap between races, and actually close it.

 

We can stop talking about our students catching up to the rest of the world, and actually have them catch up. And we can stop talking about the equal opportunity of the Civil Rights movement, and actually make it a reality. We can do all of this – if all of you help take the lead.

 

Marc, you and all your affiliates represent the vanguard of change.  The status quo is just not acceptable. There are no second class kids – why should there be second class schools?!  Why should we go along with a system that is helping to relegate our children to failure, or jail, or death?  We have to say ‘No more!’ – and we have to start giving our children the opportunity and support that is theirs by right.

 

The last generation fought and died for them to have that right – but it’s up to us to deliver it. Let’s get to work.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

In a Volatile City, a Stern Line on Race and Politics

Guiliani's not a racist -- he's just an insensitive, emotionally impaired, tone-deaf jackass.  The contrast between him and Bloomberg could not be greater...

With New York pitched into deep recession, its descent hastened by crack and racial disturbances, a campaign riven by race seemed inevitable. “There were people in his camp pushing him hard to tie race to crime,” said Fred Siegel, a historian at Cooper Union who once advised Mr. Giuliani. “I don’t know if this was moral or practical, but Giuliani was having none of it,” Mr. Siegal recalled. “He was insistent that crime was about behavior, not race.”

Still, Mr. Giuliani took a fateful step that would for years prompt questions about his racial sensitivities. In September 1992, he spoke to a rally of police officers protesting Mr. Dinkins’s proposal for a civilian board to review police misconduct.

It was a rowdy, often threatening, crowd. Hundreds of white off-duty officers drank heavily, and a few waved signs like “Dump the Washroom Attendant,” a reference to Mr. Dinkins. A block away from City Hall, Mr. Giuliani gave a fiery address, twice calling Mr. Dinkins’s proposal “bullshit.” The crowd cheered. Mr. Giuliani was jubilant.

“If you’re acculturated to like cops, you don’t necessarily see 10,000 white guys who don’t vote in the city, don’t write political checks and love you for the wrong reason,” an aide said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is working with the Giuliani presidential campaign.

Mr. Dinkins has not forgotten that sea of angry cops. “Rudy was out there inciting white cops to riot,” Mr. Dinkins said in a recent interview.

Mr. Giuliani said he never saw racist signs. “One of the reasons those police officers might have lost control is that we have a mayor who invites riots,” he said at the time. The Giuliani campaign later conducted a “vulnerability study” to identify their candidate’s weaknesses in 1993. This study, obtained by Wayne Barrett, author of “Rudy!” — an investigative biography — offers an unsparing critique: “Giuliani’s shrieking performance at the cop rally may be his greatest political liability this year. Giuliani has yet to admonish those who attacked the mayor with racist code words on signs and banners. Why not?”

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The Long Run

In a Volatile City, a Stern Line on Race and Politics

Published: July 22, 2007

Those were grim days for race relations in New York City, the early 1990s. There were nearly 2,000 murders each year, blacks and whites died in high-profile racial killings, and a riot held a divided Brooklyn neighborhood in thrall for three dangerous nights.

On Jan. 9, 1994, another match landed in this tinderbox: a caller reported a burglary at a Harlem mosque. The police ran in, and Nation of Islam guards threw punches and broke an officer’s nose.

The mosque’s minister, accompanied by the Rev. Al Sharpton, drove downtown to register their outrage with the police commissioner, a street theater ritual grudgingly tolerated by past mayors.

Except the new mayor — Rudolph W. Giuliani, fresh off his November victory over the city’s first black mayor, David N. Dinkins — decreed that no one would meet with Mr. Sharpton. No more antics, no more provocations.

“I’ve taken a golden opportunity to act like a sensible mayor rather than a mayor who will be moved in any direction,” he said. “I’m an observer of the last 10 years of this city, and I hope to God we don’t continue in that direction.”

More than any other Republican running for president, Mr. Giuliani has confronted the question of race, that most torturous of American legacies.

Monday, July 16, 2007

A Voice Raised in Chicago

Kudos to Obama (and Herbert) for drawing attention to this invisible tragedy.  One thing I know for sure: if our schools were doing a better job educating inner-city kids, this wouldn't be happening to such a degree.
 

Here are some scary statistics for you:

-         52% of males who fail to finish high school father a child out of wedlock

-         82% of America's prisoners are high school dropouts

-         80% of prison inmates are functionally illiterate

-         52% of African-American men who fail to finish high school end up in prison at some point in their lives

--------------------------
July 17, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

A Voice Raised in Chicago

Senator Barack Obama took his presidential campaign to Chicago Sunday, where he addressed an agonizing issue that has been largely overlooked by the national media — the murder of dozens of the city’s public school students since last September.

Speaking to an overflow crowd of worshipers at the Vernon Park Church of God, Mr. Obama, a resident of Chicago, said:

“I asked to come here because I wanted to talk with you about the spate of violence that’s been robbing the city’s children of their future. In this last school year, 32 Chicago public school students were killed, and even more since the school year ended. This past week alone, two teens were shot in a South Side schoolyard.”

Sunday, July 15, 2007

More on Clarence Thomas

The email exchange I had with a friend about Clarence Thomas, not surprisingly, elicited some strong opinions on both sides -- see below.
 
Let me make clear that I don't doubt he's a perfectly nice guy to have a beer with and I applaud the work he does personally to help disadvantaged kids.  I also have a great deal of respect for what he's overcome in his life and am not suggesting that his success is due solely to racial preferences -- most credit is due to his own smarts, hard work, good decisions and good fortune.  (As a jurist however, I think he's a radical activist who's out of touch with reality and has little respect for precedent -- in short, precisely the type of jurist he and other conservatives rail against.  Talk about hypocrisy!)
 
As for his views on racial preferences, I don't think he's necessarily a hypocrite for benefitting from racial preferences numerous times to reach the pinnacle in his profession and then opposing those very preferences.  But the apparent massive contradiction does impose an obligation on him to explain himself -- which he has utterly failed to do.  (And I'm not applying a double standard to him -- I would feel similarly if a white Supreme Court justice had benefitted from a legacy policy to get into Harvard and then later ruled that such policies were unconstitutional.)
 
In my earlier email, I suggested that Thomas wouldn't be a hypocrite if he'd said when offer the nomination to the Supreme Court:
I appreciate the offer Mr. President, but you and I both know that there are other vastly more experienced, accomplished and distinguished jurists with equally reliable conservative credentials. It would not be fair or consistent with my beliefs for me to leap over at least 100 such men and women simply because I'm black.
I wouldn't really expect Thomas -- or anyone -- to say that, in part because we're all human, but also because every successful person got to where they are thanks to various types of preferences and/or good fortune that they had nothing to do with.  Look at me: I don't for an instant deny that whatever success I've had is largely due to the fact that I've been the beneficiary of every conceivable type of good fortune imaginable: I was born in the U.S., into a happy marriage and loving family, had great parenting by very well educated parents, never wanted for anything important, attended great schools, etc.  In fact, because I've been the beneficiary of such good fortune, I feel that I have a special obligation to try to do some good in the world and give other people the same opportunities I've had.
 
I suspect nearly every candidate for the Supreme Court has a story of good fortune similar to mine, so Thomas might rightly have accepted the Supreme Court nomination by saying to himself: "I know that I'm getting a special preference here because of my race, but everyone else on the short list has had enormous good fortune that I never had, in some cases overt preferences like admission to a into top college in part because their parents went there -- not to mention the huge advantages white males have in our society.  Thus, the racial preference I'm getting is just leveling the playing field a bit."
 
Fair enough -- but then why wouldn't Thomas support similar programs for other minorities so their playing field might be leveled a bit as well?
 
Even if he didn't, I wouldn't say Thomas was a hypocrite (though I'd certainly disagree with him), if he merely said something like this:
Yes, I benefitted from racial preferences.  In fact, I likely wouldn't have gotten into the college (Holy Cross) or law school (Yale) that I did, nor would I have been nominated to the Supreme Court were it not for my race.  That being said, I oppose racial preferences for two reasons:
 
1) I believe they are an unconstitutional form of reverse discrimination and my job as a Supreme Court justice is to interpret and apply the Constitution impartially, regardless of my own personal experience; and
 
2) While I benefitted from such programs, I think they do more harm than good, stigmatizing the supposed beneficiaries and putting them in situations in which they're over their heads, etc.
Thomas is saying 1) and 2) -- what's missing is the first part, acknowledging how much he benefitted from such programs.  That's why I think he's a hypocrite.  He appears to think, "I got to where I am without the benefit of racial preferences, so why don't other minorities stop complaining, suck it up, work harder and play by the rules and then they too will achieve success like me?"  From someone who benefitted so much from racial preferences, this is the height of hypocrisy.
 
Without further ado, here are some of the comments I received:
 
1) From Josh Porter:
I have to agree to disagree here. I had the fortunate experience, in the spring of 2002, to spend an entire afternoon with the Hon. Clarence Thomas. I was spending a semester in Washington through a program at my alma mater, Holy Cross, and Mr. Thomas -- being a fellow Crusader alum himself -- makes sure to meet with the students interning in Washington for a few hours every semester (!). The afternoon was one of the most memorable, surreal experiences of my four years at school. (First, I must add, he was just an overall great guy to spend an afternoon with, and his deep, bellowing laugh is simply unforgettable!) 
 
It's funny reading that e-mail exchange below, because there was something he said to us that speaks directly to what you're talking about. One of my fellow interns and friends, a black student, asked Thomas if he ever feels hypocritical with his politics, given (just as you said) that he is the product of social programs that helped him to that seat in the first place. To paraphrase, Thomas said something along the lines of, 'don't you think it would be more hypocritical of me to rule from this bench on something I don't truly believe in, simply because it would be paying back to those who help put me here?' He went on to say, on affirmative action, that he doesn't believe it does a black student (or employee, etc.) any good to put him in a position where he's in over his head, just so he can 'keep up' with other white people in his situation. He may not have the skill set to compete with his new peers, and that's not doing anyone any good. 
 
Now, whether you agree with that or not is not the issue here, neither is whether Thomas himself is the result of that. That's what he believes. So wouldn't he be more of a hypocrite to go against that belief, in the name of not "pulling up the ladder" behind him?
I asked: "Did he acknowledge that his race got him to where he is? That's my main beef with him."  Josh replied:

He DID acknowledge that certain programs got him to where he is (he mentioned that he may not have gotten into Holy Cross), but, interestingly, said that there were many times when he felt like he was in way over his head. So in a way, he's a product of these programs, knows it, and STILL thinks they're not good. Again, whether you agree or not, it is an interesting perspective.

This comment appears to undermine my point above, but it's one thing to say something off the record to a group of students and another to say it publicly.  Can anyone point to an instance in which he publicly talked whether he thinks he benefitted from racial preferences (or not)?
 
2) From Eric Osberg (VP and Treasurer of the Fordham Foundation):
You veer into dangerous territory when you try mind-reading, especially when you put your money on the line! (Your quote below: “I would bet my last dollar that he refuses to allow the thought to ever enter his head that he wouldn't be where he was were it not for precisely the kind of racial preferences that he so passionately tries to eliminate -- the cognitive dissonance would be too great to bear.”) 

The Washington Post had an interesting review of the recent book about Thomas, Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas. The reviewer writes:

The book's main flaw is its failure to give us more of one particular Thomas: Justice Thomas. For a biography of a jurist, Supreme Discomfort is surprisingly short on Thomas's legal decisions and philosophy. For instance, Merida and Fletcher repeatedly mention that Thomas benefited from affirmative action during his rise only to oppose it when in power. But Thomas explained that seeming inconsistency in a 2003 dissent criticizing governmental affirmative action. In Grutter v. Bollinger, he argued that affirmative action stigmatizes all blacks, who are either promoted above their abilities or subjected to the unfair suspicion that they would not be where they are absent a racial preference. Regardless of the category into which Thomas would put himself, this response suggests how even beneficiaries of affirmative action can oppose it without hypocrisy.

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902911.html)

I haven’t yet read the book, but I’m pretty sure this review isn’t the first time I’ve read that Thomas has thought a great deal about how affirmative action and his own race have affected his career. And it’s certainly a stretch for anyone to write that one’s “limited public comments” can “suggest” what’s going on in a person’s head.

I replied:

I'm not arguing, as many of my Democratic brethern do, that he's a hypocrite for opposing racial preferences -- I'm arguing he's a hypocrite for not acknowledging that he benefited from these preferences and then opposing them. Can you point me to a single instance in which he's done so?

He replied:

I suppose you're right on that point -- the few public comments I could find make clear that he doesn't wish to call himself a beneficiary of affirmative action.

But I do think you're being unfair to Thomas, whether or not you're definitionally correct in using the word "hypocrite." I'm probably not going to persuade you of that, given that the other (good) arguments below didn't persuade you! But to be forced to demean oneself and one's accomplishments, by qualifying them, in order to be taken seriously is a bit of a catch-22.

More importantly, I think the background of a justice and his personal policy preferences (whatever they are) should be irrelevant to the decision at hand, which should be based on the constitution and the law.

And justices should be evaluated accordingly. I believe he has a clearly articulated constitutional rationale for his affirmative action decisions, and I don't think he should be forced to reconcile it with his own background or even his policy views -- doing so veers into the "courts as policymaker" territory that we are trying to avoid when we complain about activist judges.

So I don't see the merit in the "nuance" you seek, in which Thomas would have to explain how he reconciles his constitutional views with his personal opinions, his race, his biography, etc. Good judges spend their careers trying to suppress those extraneous factors, to focus solely on the law in their decisions, so I don't see why we should encourage any such co-mingling -- other than that it might be intellectually interesting for us as observers.

To which I replied:
Fair points, but Thomas himself uses his own experiences to justify his views, as you pointed out in your first email: he noted how he's observed blacks at schools over their heads, suffering from others' viewing them as
charity cases, etc. to rationalize that affir action does more harm than good.

You don't really think judges simply impartially apply the law, blocking out their personal feelings, political views and life experiences, do you?
Finally, he replied:
I think they should try to, and we should encourage rather than undermine it.  Though you're right, I'm sure, that it's impossible for any of them to keep to that stardard all the time. (And I'm sure that some try harder than others.)

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Great to see Obama supporting Genarlow Wilson!

Great to see Obama supporting Genarlow Wilson!

Obama derided President Bush's commutation of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison term, noting black men routinely serve time.

"We know we have more work to do when Scooter Libby gets no prison time and a 21-year-old honor student, who hadn't even committed a felony, gets 10 years in prison," Obama said.

Aides said Obama was referring to Genarlow Wilson, a Georgia man serving a 10-year prison sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. A judge last month ordered Wilson to be freed, but prosecutors are blocking the order.

----------------------
Obama Draws Cheers at NAACP Convention
Jul 12 07:25 PM US/Eastern
By DAVID RUNK
Associated Press Writer
 

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Is Clarence Thomas an enormous hypocrite?

In one of my recent emails about the Supreme Court's recent decisions to ban the desegregation programs in Seattle and Louisville, I called Clarence Thomas "the world's biggest hypocrite" for "pulling the ladder up behind him."
 
As I expected, some disagreed with me and  I thought one discussion was provocative enough to share (see below).
 
(Note that in the interests of keeping this email short, I won't go into another area of enormous hypocrisy by Thomas (and conservatives in general): they decry activist, liberal judges who legislate from the bench when they don't like the rulings, but do precisely this when they're in the majority, as this Op Ed in the NYT points out:

The other disturbing aspect of the new conservative judicial activism is its dishonesty. The conservative justices claim to support “judicial modesty,” but reviews of the court’s rulings over the last few years show that they have actually voted more often to overturn laws passed by Congress — the ultimate act of judicial activism — than has the liberal bloc.

It is time to admit that all judges are activists for their vision of the law. Once that is done, the focus can shift to where it should be: on whose vision is more faithful to the Constitution, and better for the nation.

-------------------------
My friend:
Dear Whitney,

        As a friend, a collaborator on school choice, and an avid reader of your e-mails, I was more than disappointed in your recent comment on Clarence Thomas.  I have no trouble with your disagreeing with him, but rather with the shallow, limousine liberal comment that he is “the world’s biggest hypocrite.”

        My dictionary defines hypocrite as “A person who pretends to have principles, beliefs, etc that he does not actually possess.”  Apparently you “know” that Judge Thomas does not truly believe that the Constitution means what he and four Justices ruled that it means regarding racial discrimination.  You brand him a hypocrite because he presumably benefited from reverse discrimination (probably from a private versus public source) and therefore could not possibly believe the Constitution prohibits governmental discrimination by race.

        What intellectual arrogance on your part, Whitney.  The man took an oath to interpret the Constitution as he reads it, not as he might wish it were written.  My Irish forbearers, too, were discriminated against, but I believe Judge Thomas’ reading of the Constitution is correct.  Does that make me a hypocrite?  Am I trying, in your words, to “pull up the ladder” behind me?  From our shared efforts you know that is not true.  Nor is it true of Judge Thomas, who, to my certain knowledge, spends time personally helping needy minority kids.

        Sadly, Whitney, your comment was not worthy of you.

My reply:
 
I expected some flak from that comment -- and wouldn't have made it if I wasn't prepared to stand behind it.
 
Hypocrite has some slightly different meanings.  I didn't mean it in the way you defined it: as someone who pretends to have beliefs he really doesn't have.  To me, that's someone who is false or simply a liar.  I don't accuse Clarence Thomas of this: I agree with you that he really believes what he says he believes.
 
I'll also concede that he's not literally "the world's biggest hypocrite" -- if pressed and given enough time, I could probably think of a bigger one.  But he's still an enormous hypocrite in my book.  Allow me to explain:
 
I use the word as defined by Wikipedia: "Hypocrisy is the act of condemning another person, where the stated basis for the criticism is the breach of a rule which also applies to the critic."  Using this definition, Thomas is the embodiment of hypocrisy to condemn racial preferences, yet occupy one of the most powerful seats in the world largely because of racial preferences.  C'mon, is there anyone who could argue with a straight face that Thomas would have been among even the top 100 nominees for the Supreme Court were it not for his race!?  Bush needed an African-American to replace Thurgood Marshall and wanted someone who was very conservative -- that sure narrows the field down, doesn't it?
 
If Thomas were truly honest and wanted to demonstrate his intellectual and moral integrity (rather than his hypocrisy), he would have turned down the nomination, saying something like "I appreciate the offer Mr. President, but you and I both know that there are other vastly more experienced, accomplished and distinguished jurists with equally reliable conservative credentials.  It would not be fair or consistent with my beliefs for me to leap over at least 100 such men and women simply because I'm black."  Now that I would respect! 
 
But I'm quite certain that the thought never crossed his mind because I would bet my last dollar that he refuses to allow the thought to ever enter his head that he wouldn't be where he was were it not for precisely the kind of racial preferences that he so passionately tries to eliminate -- the cognitive dissonance would be too great to bear.  So instead, he tells himself what everyone knows is a huge lie -- that he was truly the most qualified person at every step in his educational and legal career -- and behaves accordingly.
 
As you know, I have mixed feelings about racial preferences (for example, see this email on affirmative action I sent around a few months ago: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/03/colleges-regroup-after-voters-ban-race.html), so I can understand how a reasonable person -- even one who had benefitted from racial preferences -- might oppose them.  But I just think it's sort of obscene for Thomas, whose climb up a long ladder to reach the absolute pinnacle as probably the most powerful African American in the country was facilitated by racial preferences, to energetically try to make it much harder for others similarly situated as he was to climb the same ladder.
His response:
Your argument is that Judge Thomas, having not declined the President's nomination, is forever prohibited from ruling on a Constitutional issue in the manner he believes to be correct; ie that he must violate his sacred oath.  That is leaning on a very weak read to brand him a hypocrite.
My response:
 
It is the definition of hypocrisy to benefit from something and then condemn it.  For example, to use three examples that I suspect will resonate with you, it is hypocritical for: a) well-heeled environmentalists to fly around in private jets, which produce exponentially more pollution per passenger than commerical aircraft; b) residents of Nantucket who profess to be concerned about global warming to oppose the proposed wind farm off the coast because it might have a tiny impact on the view from their mansions and, in an example I'm certain you'll agree with; c) politicians who can afford (and exercise) parental choice to choose the school they think is best for their children to then oppose giving other parents the same fundamental right. 
 
That last one really burns me up -- and why I'm not a hypocrite for sending my three daughters to private school: I believe in -- and fight for -- the right of all parents to make the same choices my wife and I made.
 
As for Thomas, I'm not saying he should have turned down the position on the Supreme Court when it was offered, nor that he has to embrace every racial preference program.  A good start would be to acknowledge how much he's benefitted from such programs -- both public and private -- and to make some attempt to have a nuanced view of a complex and difficult issue.
 
PS--I trust you saw the article below on this topic, where we learn -- surprise! -- that Thomas was accepted at Yale Law School under an affirmative action program and -- double surprise! -- refuses to acknowledge this.
Justice Thomas was himself admitted to Yale Law School under a set-aside program for minority applicants, although his limited public comments on the subject suggest he has resisted accepting that he was given special treatment.
---------------------
Last Term’s Winner at the Supreme Court: Judicial Activism
Published: July 9, 2007

The Supreme Court told Seattle and Louisville, and hundreds more cities and counties, last month that they have to scrap their integration programs. There is a word for judges who invoke the Constitution to tell democratically elected officials how to do their jobs: activist.

President Bush, who created the court’s conservative majority when he appointed Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, campaigned against activist judges, and promised to nominate judges who would “interpret the law, not try to make law.” Largely because of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, the court has just completed one of its most activist terms in years.

The individuals and groups that have been railing against judicial activism should be outraged. They are not, though, because their criticism has always been of “liberal activist judges.” Now we have conservative ones, who use their judicial power on behalf of employers who mistreat their workers, tobacco companies, and whites who do not want to be made to go to school with blacks.

-----------------------

Justice Secures His Place as a Critic of Integration

Published: July 9, 2007

WASHINGTON, July 8 — When Justice Clarence Thomas provided a pivotal vote last month as the Supreme Court struck down school integration plans in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle, he suggested the concept of integration was inherently demeaning to black children because it implied they needed to mix with whites to achieve excellence.

His comments, including his description of people who promote integration as faddish theorists, demonstrated anew his place as the most influential black voice criticizing the value of integration and affirmative action plans. But as Justice Thomas is also the most intensely scrutinized personality on the court, his comments inevitably raise questions about much his legal views are shaped by the difficulties of his own experience with race and education.

Justice Thomas’s recent opinion on integration has provided fresh material for the rich debate about him among black scholars for whom he has been a fascinating and vexing subject since he was narrowly confirmed to the court in 1991. The renewed discussion also comes at the same time as the publication of a critical biography and not long before his own memoir is set for publication in October.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

More on Obama and his speech to the NEA

Obama's speech to the NEA last week has rightly been scrutinized and triggered an editorial in the WSJ on Monday and an Op Ed by Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post today (both below).
 
1) Regarding the WSJ editorial, it blasted Obama, in some ways fairly -- his speech, like every other Democrat's, lacked real courage -- but in some ways not.  For example, this is just wrong: "It's remarkable, though, how cynical his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination has already become."  It's true that he was not bold in his call for education reform when speaking to the NEA, but how's that cynical?
 
I think the word they're looking for is hypocrite.  I can certainly see how someone could argue that Obama (so far anyway) has been a hypocrite because, as Marcus notes, he:
sneers at "slogans without substance," as he told the delegates, and presents himself as being above tired ideological divides.
Yet, the WSJ would argue that he's not been particularly bold on any issue and has not taken on a single entrenched interest within the Democratic Party
 
I think it's premature to conclude that Obama's a hypocrite and no different from the other Democrats (at least I hope so -- while I'm a committed Democrat, I think my party is wrong on plenty of issues, most notably education reform, and I'm not interested in supporting any Democrat who toes the party line on everything), but at least this would be a critique that reasonable people could debateBut cynical?  I doubt there's a cynical bone in Obama's body.  In fact, I'd argue that the WSJ editorial page is a lot more cynical than Obama, so they've got some real chutzpah.
 
Also, I don't know what they're talking about here: "Bill Clinton would have attacked this in 1992 as Old Democratic thinking."  I'm not aware that Clinton did much of anything on education reform in 1992 (or any other time), though I did hear that he was an early champion of charter schools (if someone can fill me in whether this was just empty rhetoric or whether he deserves real credit for the rise of the charter school movement, I'd appreciate it).  Clinton deserves enormous credit for moving enough Democrats to get welfare reform passed, but sadly he didn't do the same for education reform.
 
As I noted in a recent email:
Someday, I have to believe, some Democrat will come to the same realization that Bill Clinton did on welfare reform when he was an obscure Arkansas governor running 5th in the presidential primary polls: that taking on the entrenched status quo that owns the Democratic Party is not only morally right but politically brilliant -- and, like Clinton, ride the issue into the White House.
 
I'm not holding my breath for it to happen this Presidential cycle -- unless Bloomberg runs -- but it will happen!
As for the general thrust of the WSJ editorial -- that Obama pretty much toed the NEA line -- it's hard to argue with that.  The only even slightly bold thing he said was about merit pay, but as the editorial points out, he quickly watered it down by saying the teachers union can develop the merit pay system and Obama also attacked testing as a way to determine merit.  It's hard to imagine such a system being worth bupkis ["chutzpah" and "bupkis" in the same email -- I'm really trying to build cred with my Jewish brothers and sisters! ;-)  By the way, I had to look up bupkis to be sure of the spelling and learned that it literally means "goat shit" in Yiddish!  LOL!].

Merit pay was a minor item in an overflowing gift basket to the teachers unions, and besides, was presented as part of a plan for "finally raising salaries across the board." Maybe compensation will be bumped up because of merit, but it will be bumped up for everyone regardless: Mr. Obama called current teacher salaries "morally unacceptable." He believes the problem with American education is that the schools haven't been given "the resources and the support" they need. He plans to plow "billions of new dollars into the teaching profession."

While there are certainly areas in which teachers are underpaid across the board, the much bigger problem in this country is how teachers are paid.  For more on this topic, see my slides at: http://www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/Teacherpay.pdf

I'm adamantly opposed to paying teachers more if the extra money is simply poured into the current broken system, in which there's lockstep pay, with everything driven by seniority.  As Newark proves (the highest-paid teachers in the country, at $77,000/year on average), this does not result in higher teacher quality.  But, you will find no greater champion of higher teacher pay than me if it's accompanied by a sensible compensation system that attracts and rewards (both financially and in other ways) top performers.

Does Obama really think that across the board teacher pay increases will move the needle one iota on overall student achievement or closing the achievement gap (I have seen no evidence to support this, and there are tons of case studies to the contrary), or is he just saying what he felt he had to say in front of that audience?  I'm assuming the latter: I can more easily forgive pandering (after all, the NEA is enormously powerful and he's a politician!) than being so ill-informed on such an important issue.
 
2) I think Marcus's analysis is more balanced.  She points out the pandering:
Barack Obama has the teachers cheering. The National Education Association is meeting here, and Obama-- like the Democratic candidates who have spoken before him -- is telling the crowd everything it wants to hear.

He's "committed to fixing and improving our public schools instead of abandoning them and passing out vouchers." Washington "left common sense behind when they passed No Child Left Behind." Teacher pay must be raised "across the board."

And his silence on accountability and removing ineffective teachers:
Last year, in "The Audacity of Hope," Obama endorsed higher pay for teachers, with "just one catch" -- they "need to become more accountable for their performance -- and school districts need to have greater ability to get rid of ineffective teachers." Today, the talk is all pay, little catch, though the Obama campaign promises more details later.
And his shift on NCLB:

Or compare and contrast Obama in October 2005 and Obama now on No Child Left Behind.

"It may not be popular to say in Democratic circles, but there were good elements to this bill -- its emphasis on the achievement gap, raising standards and accountability," Obama said then. "Yes, it's a moral outrage that this administration hasn't come through with the funding. . . . But to wage war against the entire law for that reason is not an education policy, and Democrats need to realize that."

Obama today acknowledges that "high standards and accountability, in the abstract, are right," then launches into the standard attack he once decried.

"Don't tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of the year preparing him to fill in a few bubbles on a standardized test," he says.

Yet she also rightly credits him for the courage it took to talk about merit pay.  While this seems like the most benign, obvious step to reformers like us, there's still enormous resistance to it within the longshoreman's union (ooops, I mean the teachers union).  Listen to this nonsense:
But for the teachers, Obama's words are fingernails on a chalkboard. They fall silent, except for scattered boos, as he mentions a modest new program in Minnesota.

"If you look between the lines on the answer, it wouldn't be the answer we were looking for," says Rhonda Wesolowski, president of New Hampshire's NEA affiliate. "He's going to have to come a long way off of that position with us," says California Teachers Association Vice President Dean Vogel.

And those were the polite ones, who were otherwise impressed with Obama. "I can't imagine if he were informed he would come before 10,000 people and say what he said," says New Jersey Education Association President Joyce Powell.

So, kudos to Obama for being willing to talk about merit pay, but he could have done so much more.  Here are two concrete examples of where I think he could have established more credibility as a genuine education reformer, without meaningfully antagonizing the NEA:
  • On the topic of spending, why couldn't he have at least said something like, "We need to spend more money, but we also need to spend it smarter because more money in the absence of meaningful reform isn't likely to have the maximum benefit for children."?  He wouldn't have even had to say what he meant by "meaningful reform"!
  • On NCLB, why couldn't he have said something like: "NCLB needs to be improved and funded properly, but I applaud the fact that it's played a critical role in focusing our nation's attention of the unacceptable achievement gap."?
I agree with Marcus's comparison to the others, though I find it hard to get excited about Obama being slightly less lame than the others:
Still, Obama may be what passes for brave among a fainthearted bunch. Of all the Democratic candidates who came here to pay homage to the NEA -- the sole Republican was former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee-- Obama was the only one to deviate significantly from the union line.

Not Hillary Clinton, who tangled with the Arkansas teachers union when she oversaw education reforms that included mandatory testing for new teachers.

Not John Edwards, who bemoans the "two public school systems in America -- one for the wealthy, one for everybody else," but isn't willing to acknowledge how No Child could help bridge that gap.

Not Chris Dodd, who issued a press release zinging merit pay.

Big kudos to Marcus for highlighting the great ideas being proposed by Democrats:

There are plenty of good ideas for a Democratic candidate who doesn't mind incurring the NEA's wrath.

The Democratic-oriented Hamilton Project has proposed assessing teachers after their first two years in the classroom and weeding out those at the bottom.

Strong American Schools, a nonpartisan group that has launched a $60 million effort to bring education issues to the forefront in the 2008 campaign, is pushing more rigorous education standards, more time in school for students and higher pay for better-performing teachers.

The Education Trust and the Aspen Institute have thoughtful proposals to improve No Child Left Behind, not gut it.

And the biggest kudos of all for this conclusion:

But so far, anyway, the Democrats who would be president are happy to propose more spending on education but are reluctant to impose any demands in return -- in other words, they are happy to sound like the same old Democratic Party, permissive and beholden.

Yes, teachers are an important Democratic constituency, but aren't parents Democratic voters, too -- parents who might welcome a message about accountability and expectations? If, that is, one of the candidates were willing to deliver it.

In summary, while this speech could have been so much more, a) the other Democrats were worse; b) when he's not in front of the NEA, he supports charter schools, accountability and removing ineffective teachers and, even in front of the NEA, he is now publicly out there in favor of merit pay.  Yes, these are baby steps, but they are important first steps for a Democrat and, as Confucius rightly said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"; and c) call me naive, but I still think there's a good chance that Obama will take bolder steps on education in the future.  He clearly understands this issue -- he saw the terrible failures of Chicago's inner-city schools and the resulting devastation up close for many years as a community activist -- and cares a lot about it.
 
I certainly appreciate the awful dilemma he faces: I think he gets the joke and understands how tepid his "reform" plans are today, but it's not reasonable to expect him to commit political suicide.  The onus is on us to change the political dynamics in the Democratic Party so that it's not political suicide to say and do the right thing.
 
Has his speech made me question my support for him?  Yes, it caused me to go back and reread my original email on why I support him (www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/Obama), in which I wrote:

I am convinced that he is the real deal.  Why?  I think he:

  

1)           Is highly intelligent;

 

2)           Is a good listener and thinker and makes good decisions (which is not the same as being smart; see below);

 

3)           Has a fundamental decency and empathy;

 

4)           Has high integrity and is honest (with others and, more importantly, with himself);

 

5)           Quickly admits his mistakes and fixes them;

 

6)           Is not beholden to anyone;

 

7)           Has the courage to say and do what he thinks is right;

 

8)           Is, at his core, a moderate;

 

9)           Tries his best to bring people together and appeal to common interests (and is very good at this);

 

10)      Understands the enormous challenges facing our nation; and

 

11)      Has a sound approach to thinking about these problems (although admittedly he's been light on the specifics).

His speech has provided some disconfirming evidence regarding 6) and 7), which is something I'm monitoring closely, but I continue to supprt Obama because I still agree with him on most other issues.  (Despite my passion for education reform, I'm not a single-issue guy -- if I were, I'd be a Republican!)  I like the way he thinks and his non-divisive style, I think he offers the best hope to rebuild the tattered relationship between the U.S. and nearly every other country in the world and, most importantly, I think he's the most electable Democrat in the general election
-----------------------

Obama's School Uniform
July 9, 2007; Page A14

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118393660803960395.html

In March Barack Obama declared that his "main opponent in this race isn't other candidates -- it's cynicism." It's remarkable, though, how cynical his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination has already become. The conflict between appearance and reality was distilled to its essence in a speech delivered on Thursday before the National Education Association's annual convention.

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From Barack Obama, Two Dangerous Words

By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, July 11, 2007; A15

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071001304_pf.html

PHILADELPHIA -- Barack Obama has the teachers cheering. The National Education Association is meeting here, and Obama-- like the Democratic candidates who have spoken before him -- is telling the crowd everything it wants to hear.