Still chasing the dream

On the night of February 26 a neighborhood watch member George Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. Zimmeman claimed Martin, who was reportedly walking home from his father’s fiancé’s house, was acting suspicious. Martin’s supporters say he was a victim of racial profiling and that Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, is racist.

At a recent rally in Iowa City this week, high school junior Vanessa Jernagin told the Iowa City Press-Citizen that she feels a kinship with Martin. Jernagin says Martin “could have been my brother, he could have been one of my friends, he could have been me.”

That echo’s a sentiment uttered by none other than the President himself who stated that if he had a son “he would look like Trayvon.” What that is supposed to mean exactly has been the subject of some debate, but White House officials say it was not to inject race into the discussion.

Really? I’m not sure what else it could have meant, but ok.

So how about Miss Jernagin, how much could an Iowa City high school junior really know about a Florida teenager who was unknown here prior to his death. And yet she identifies with him some how? Why?

Perhaps it is because Trayvon Martin is being portrayed as the victim of racial profiling, a real issue that perhaps she has experienced herself. But was Martin a young man who was tragically killed because of the color of his skin or because of what he was doing? That is certainly how he has been portrayed up to this point. He was unarmed and simply walking home, defenders of Mr. Martin say, when he was singled out by an over-zealous, racist, armed, neighborhood watch volunteer who shot first and asked questions later.

The case has now attracted the usual cast of activists including Jesse Jackson and The Rev. Al Sharpton and with that we can be sure that any meaningful discussion will be lost in the usual inflamed rhetoric.

It’s clear that race is an important part of this debate and in any case where race is an issue, the facts themselves become secondary. Nothing beats a good sound bite.

I don’t know if George Zimmerman was justified in shooting Trayvon Martin. His attorneys claim, and a police report seem to corroborate, that he was involved in a fight with Mr. Martin, (his attorney says he was attacked) that resulted in a bloody nose and head for Zimmerman and ultimately Martins death. He claims Zimmerman called for help and none arrived. At this point none of that matters.

We’ve fallen back to our default positions on race and have broken out the usual arguments and sloganeering. It makes for gripping TV, but doesn’t do much for making real progress with race relations. 

In my lifetime, race relations have changed dramatically. I grew up in a time when black children in the small Texas town we briefly lived in went to a different swimming pool than I did. I was a kid, and didn’t really think about it. It was just the way it was. Now that sounds crazy.

Of course there is more to do, racial profiling does exist and it’s wrong. And there are still those that cling to extreme racist views. And sadly there are those who would never consider themselves to be racists but who occasionally use inappropriate terms, or tell those awkward jokes that make us cringe. Despite that I believe we have made remarkable strides. My kid’s attitudes towards race are far different than mine were at their age and, I hope, their kids will have different views than they do. Progress is slow, painfully slow sometimes. But we are making progress and I’m happy for that.

Dr Martin Luther King famously said he dreamed of a day when people would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. I don’t presume to know how Dr. King would have felt about Martin or Zimmerman, but I can’t help but wonder if he would be happy with the discussion we’re having where we replace character with caricatures.

State's education reform is neither bold nor radical 

There is an old saying that goes “Everyone talks about the weather but no one ever does anything about it.” It kind of reminds me of the latest debate in the statehouse over school reform. Every year it seems we engage in this exercise and a whole lot of dust is kicked up but not a whole lot gets done.

It seems to me that’s the case this year. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad has established school reform as one of his “top priorities” and urged lawmakers to be bold in their attempts to improve education.  Last week the House complied and passed a bill.

So what are these bold initiatives taken up by the House. Well the two most controversial call for tougher evaluations of teachers and administrators along with the radical idea of holding back third grades who are not reading at grade level.

Really. That’s what they came up with.

The changes to teacher and administrator evaluations would require annual evaluations rather than the three year schedule they are on now.  Teachers unions and others don’t like that, but in the real world people are evaluated in their jobs all the time and it’s not considered bold or radical.

The standards for the evaluation would be set by the state, although local districts could come up with their own method as long as the state approves.

Teachers that fail to meet the standard would be recommended for an “Intensive Assistance Program.”

Long gone are the days of teachers standing before a blackboard and teaching right out of a book. Today’s education methods, and in some cases subjects, are changing as fast as the technology they use. Blackboards have given way to interactive “white-boards” and Wikipedia has all but replaced the encyclopedia. There are ways now to reach out to students, ways to inspire students that educators never dreamed of just a few years ago.

That’s good and teachers need to stay on top of the current trends. But that doesn’t mean that there is no room for the one on one interaction with students. It can’t all be about computers and gadgets. In the end it comes down to how well a teacher can relate to students and how effectively they pass their knowledge on to them.

Helping teachers who are weak in those areas should be a priority and shouldn’t be considered an indictment of the teacher.  I don’t see it as “weeding out” bad teachers. I see it as making sure our teachers have the tools they need to be effective and they know how to use them. Improvement is good, it’s necessary and it should be done often.

The second part of the bill that has received a lot of criticism requires that students who are not reading at grade level by the third grade be held back a year. Honestly I didn’t know they couldn’t already do that. When I was in school being held back was real, so was summer school.

There are of course critics on both sides, all of whom wave the studies supporting their views. But it seems pretty simple to me. Education is like building a brick wall, the wall gets higher only as long as the rows below are strong. If they are not the wall will crumble.

If a child has not mastered the skill they need to move on, it’s doing a disservice to that child to pass them on and expect them to catch up. Some have argued that holding students back is a blow to their self-esteem that they will never truly recover from and will lead to higher drop out rates.

Baloney. No one is traumatized by anything that happened in the third grade. They get over it. On the other hand couldn’t you make a case that it is more damaging to pass a student along who doesn’t have the skills to advance? Each year the hill they have to climb gets steeper and steeper while their motivation to climb it wanes with each passing year.  Failure builds upon failure.  And is it fair to ask teachers several years down the road to try and fix that problem?

Not all students learn at the same rate but I think it’s important to give every student a fair shot, and if that means holding them back a year until they are ready to move on then that’s what we should do.

In the end I don’t necessarily think any of these proposals are all that bold. Cutting summer vacation down to four weeks, a move that studies have shown helps students retain and build on what they’ve learned over the previous 180 days, would be a bold, and maybe worthwhile discussion. I’m sure there are a lot more interesting, truly bold ideas out there.  But taking common sense issues and labeling them bold or radical, and then arguing about them as if they truly were, seems to be a waste of time to me - and a prime reason why things will never truly change.

This bill isn’t bold or radical, but it does make sense and it should be passed.

Everything I needed to know 

about politics I learned in the sixth grade

When I was in the sixth grade, Craig Comer ran for student body president. For some reason he asked me to be his campaign manager, which in the sixth grade means you help paint signs and hang them around school. It was quite an honor.

Craig was a good-looking, athletic kid who was popular with everyone. He was running against a girl who was less popular, a little nerdier and probably a lot smarter.

The big event in a sixth grade election is the day when the candidates make a brief speech before the student body outlining their platforms. It’s really the whole ball of wax, my clever signs not-withstanding.

My guy’s speech was great, he stared by “promising” a long list of obviously impossible reforms, soda pop in the water fountains, ice cream for lunch, longer recesses, that sort of thing. He ended by admitting that he couldn’t really deliver those things but he would work to be the best student body president he could be and make Fallbrook Street Elementary School the best elementary school in all of Fallbrook California.

I know the girl spoke, but for the life of me I can’t remember a word of it and in the end the popular kid, who promised nothing, won in a landslide.

Too be fair, I’m sure Craig Comer did a wonderful job as student body president, his administration was scandal free as I recall and the Fallbrook Street Elementary was pretty darn awesome during that time.

So I was thinking about all of this recently because, as you may know, there is an election going on across the country and judging by the coverage on the national news programs it must be quite entertaining. Every morning the talking heads have some new debate, comment or miss-step, of  some such to spend  hours nattering on about. But it’s almost never about issues is it?

Quick, can you tell me what specific plan ANY candidate has to “fix” the economy?

What is the specific plan for Afghanistan, or for that matter Syria? How about health care? We know what they are against – generally. And what they are for – generally. But that’s as far as we get.

Take the Iowa caucuses, which were pretty cool, and I love that the candidates visit a town the size of Atlantic. We are fortunate in that we actually get to meet these people, shake their hands and look them in the eye. But in the end do we really end up knowing anything about them, or what they really plan to do. Are their speeches really any different than the one Craig Comer made so many years ago before his sixth grade audience.

The problem is once you lay out specifics, you are committed and then subject to the commentary and criticism from an increasingly divided public and yes, media.

Solutions to political problems aren’t like math problems where if you follow the steps and use the right numbers the answer is indisputable. Political problems require solutions that are open to debate. Which is good, but debate requires thought and consideration. It seems there isn’t much room for that in our political process. Specifics get you into trouble and therefore must be avoided at all costs.

So instead we have a national media obsessed with the horse race rather than the substance of the issues. We don’t hear about the ideas discussed at a debate, we hear about the bungled sentence or the out-of-touch comment. If none of that takes root, you can always fall back on Rush Limbaugh or demand that candidate defend or refute a comment someone else has made.

Worst case scenario, you are hauled before the court of Matt Lauer for a public chastising while the talking heads from both parties line up to dazzle us with spin.

It’s all very entertaining, to some I suppose, but it doesn’t  do much to help the public make an informed choice.

Without that information, without thoughtful discussion, the public is left to making decisions based either on the national medias inane coverage or the spin of partisan hacks. It’s no wonder our nation is becoming more divided by the day. It’s just easier to support the party than to take the time to understand the issues and make an informed choice. You’re wrong , I’m right.

So I guess my sixth-grade friend was right all along. The secret to winning an election is simple, promise them nothing, look good, and try not to say anything about anything.