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"What a progressive cabinet might look like"

That's the title of a post on the Progressive Review's blog, Undernews. Most intriguing are these suggestions for Obama's Treasury Secretary:

Elizabeth Warren, Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, James Galbraith, Joseph Stiglitz

Wow!  Two Nobel Prize winners, a Harvard professor who showed that most personal bankruptcies result from people trying to pay off their medical bills, the son of John Kenneth Galbraith, and the favorite economist of one of  my favorite blogs .  All would be a decided improvement over the current head of Treasury.  Or Larry Summers.

Since the economy is the highest priority for Obama, he could do worse.  Much worse, in fact.  He could appoint someone who fears increasing the budget deficit.  Or adheres to the Republican notion that raising taxes stifles economic growth*.  Or argues against too MUCH regulation. 

None of the progressive names listed above have such qualms, Krugman in particular.  He argues that now is the time to spend, and the deficit be damned:

"But right now, increased government spending is just what the doctor ordered, and concerns about the budget deficit should be put on hold."

Closer to home, Chuck Sheketoff of the Oregon Center for Pubic Policy, argues that in this state where the economy is definitely taking a nosedive, officials shouldn't be hesitant to raise taxes** on the wealthiest Oregonians in order to ramp up public spending:

"...a 2001 study by two highly regarded economists -- Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Peter Orszag... ...concluded that during a recession, a better option than cuts to state services is a tax increase on the wealthy, who can cover the increases by reducing their savings rather than their spending."

Since Oregon, like most states is prohibited from running a budget deficit, the only two options in a down economy are to raise more revenue or cut state services.  The latter, says Sheketoff, would be disastrous for Oregon's already ailing economy:

"Slashing state services inevitably reduces the flow of dollars through the economy. When the state retrenches, it cuts payments to businesses and nonprofits that provide direct services. It pares back programs such as the Oregon Health Plan that bring matching federal dollars into the Oregon economy. All this happens as demand for many public services increases because of the recession. In other words, slashing state services aggravates the problem."

Maybe Sheketoff's name should be added to the progressive list of possible Treasury appointees.

* (Larry Beinhart debunks the Republican supply side theory that  tax cuts-are-good-for-the-economy with these historical facts.)

** (Sheketoff also argues for an increased corporate tax in a news release from OCPP.  "That where the money is," says Sheketoff.  Of course.  I've been arguing that for years.)

Leonard Pitts leaps to Rhee's defense

It's small wonder that the American public has such a low opinion of urban public schools --other than their own*-- when nationally syndicated opinion columnists with no expertise in education write stuff like this:

"Can we be honest here? D.C. public schools are not good enough for the Obama kids. Not because they are D.C. public schools, but because they are urban public schools.

"Public schools, particularly in urban areas, are largely failing our children."

Leonard Pitts then rushes to praise the "audacious" efforts of Michelle Rhee to reform DC schools by busting the teachers' union and making it easier for administrators to fire teachers who don't "perform".

That's reform?  According to Pitts it is.  In fact, it's common sense reform:

"You'd think it would be a no-brainer that people who don't perform get the ax and those who do get raises. Isn't that the way it works in most non-unionized professions?"

You'd think that it would also be a "no-brainer" to delve a little more deeply into the question that begs to be answered regarding schemes for rewarding good teachers and firing everyone else:

HOW does one IDENTIFY those teachers who "perform"?

The quick and easy answer is with student test scores.  But that would also be the wrong answer.  Teachers know that.  So do their unions, which exist to protect members from the depredations of the likes of Michelle Rhee.  

In his rush to pump out weekly --maybe twice or thrice weekly-- columns for national consumption, Pitts doesn't have the time to delve into such questions deeply.  Or even shallowly. 

After all, the question is a "no-brainer".  

* (In the 2008 Kappan poll on attitudes toward public schools, 72% of parents gave either an A or B grade to the local public school their oldest child attended.  When asked about schools nationally, only 22% gave the schools an A or a B grade.  Thank you Mr. Pitts.)

And then in Portland school politics...

Local school activist Margaret DeLacy,  in response to some back and forth over school district policy and keeping the public informed about what's really going on, had this to say:

"The last time I checked, Portland Public Schools spends $1.26 million for 11.8 F.T. E. positions in its public information office--almost 12 full time positions. Yet despite the glossy and often misleading press releases, parents and community groups keep feeling that they have been blind-sided by PPS.

"Obviously the level of trust is pretty low, and parents are having a hard time figuring out what is going on. Sending out a constant stream of spin does nothing to improve the district's credibility. In my view, it actually makes things worse, because parents feel they are being viewed as idiots. 

"So it seems to me that (1) a lot of the money we are spending on PR is being wasted and/or (2) PPS needs much better systems for communicating."

That's pretty much what I said about the Portland Public Schools PR machine in this post.

The current squabble is over district disposition of so-called "surplus property" --read "closed schools"-- and the public's right to weigh in.  Should we trust this superintendent --Carole Smith-- to do the right thing, or should the public's role be spelled out explicitly in board generated policy directives?

After Vicki Phillips, should ANY PPS superintendent be trusted?

Former* school activist and co-founder of the Neighborhood Schools Alliance, Ruth Adkins, now a member of the school board, is caught between defending district policy and advocating for a meaningful public role in determining that policy.  Ruth's activist voice is somewhat muffled by her allegiance to district leadership (and Carole Smith).  That's evident in this e-mail:

"[The City School Policy]  ... is really great - it actually strikes me as being very much in synch with where the district is headed & how it is working with the City and county to try to achieve shared goals, like providing equal access to quality education for all students, walkable neighborhoods with schools in the center, locating services in schools, getting arts back in education, etc."

Well, maybe the district is "headed" in that direction, but school activists aren't convinced.  And they won't be until the board takes meaningful action on the district transfer policy, which critics believe is the root of all inequity.

And maybe reopening some of that "surplus property" so that schools really are in the "center" of "walkable neighborhoods". 

(Thanks to the hard-working Lynn Schore for starting the argument.)

* (I say former because --and Ruth would probably agree-- it's almost impossible for an outspoken activist to get elected to public office.  Activist and politician are appellations rarely, if ever, attached to the same person.)

Michelle Rhee and D.C. school politics

From the blog of the Progressive Review:

"One of the worst ideas floating around Washington is to give some high federal position to Michelle Rhee, DC school chancellor. Rhee, who has accomplished little of substance, is the media protected product of an area business community that would like to undermine public education as much as possible."

"High federal position?"  Like Secretary of Education under Obama?  Bad idea, I agree. 

Rhee, as I've written, has promised substantial raises for teachers willing to give up tenure.  Bribed is a better word.  Undernews points out the problem with that:

"Sounds good until you realize the money is coming from unsecured grants from private foundations and Rhee could be gone in a short while, either through misguided promotion to the federal level or being dumped. In any case there's no tenure in the alternative to tenure."

In other Rhee news  from Undernews, Barack Obama thinks Rhee is "wonderful": 

"But the most disturbing name to get praised by Obama was DC's school superintendent Michelle Rhee, whom he described as 'wonderful.' Although she has gotten rave reviews from a knee jerk, uncurious national media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, she is in truth the Sarah Palin of public education, a superficially attractive character but grossly inexperienced character who covers up the reality of her incompetence - at least for the time being - with aggressive arrogance and a steady bombardment of bromides."

The "Sarah Palin of pubic education"?  Why didn't I think of that?

And nationally ...

Although rumors abound about Obama's choice for Secretary of Education, it's all speculation until at least after Thanksgiving.

That said, we do know that John Podesta heads Obama's transition team.  And Gerald Bracey says that Podesta "knows s...t" about education.

In a ceremony introducing a report --Leaders and Laggards-- produced jointly by the Center for American Progress and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Podesta repeated almost verbatim the misinformation school critics regularly trot out to discredit public education:

“It is unconscionable to me that there is not a single state in the country where a majority of 4th and 8th graders are proficient in math and reading.”

Bracey, in his latest Kappan report on the state of public education, says it's true that most American 4th and 8th graders are not "proficient" in reading and math.  BUT the same is true of just about every other country in the world, including those with the best international test scores.  In fact, by applying the same standards of proficiency, namely the National Assessment of Educational Progress,  Podesta would discover that there's

"...not a single country in the entire world where more than one-third of the students are proficient in reading, there are only six nations where a small majority of students are proficient in mathematics, and there are just one or two nations where a majority are proficient in science."

The problem, says Bracey, is that Podesta doesn't understand "proficiency".  Neither do the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, or current Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.  (Spellings has no background in education, let alone testing and measurement.)  Yet these are the people and organizations leading the charge for alternatives to public schools.

If they don't understand the data they use, why should anyone take them seriously?  More importantly, why should Barack Obama?

"We are not in good hands," says Bracey, "when it comes to the selection of the new secretary of education if Podesta has anything to say about it."

We can only hope that he doesn't.

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The best thing Obama can do if he truly supports public schools is to follow the example of Jimmy Carter and Mrs. Pritchard (the ficitional British Prime Minister in Masterpiece Theater's The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard).  Both enrolled their daughters in  local public schools, NOT the hoity-toity Georgetown Day or Sidwell Friends or whatever the London equivalent might be.

On the other hand, DC Public Schools are run by the intolerable Michelle Rhee.  Rhee herself has been mentioned as a possible choice for Sec. of Ed.  

And then there's music

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, Mike Bell reminds us that music also suffers when funding for public education declines.  For poor kids, anyway.

"The money gap goes much deeper in our high schools than the wages of a physical trainer in football programs. You can see very clearly how large the gap is by watching our neighborhood parades in the spring and summer. Some high school bands proudly march by with $50,000 in uniforms and instruments while some schools have a $100 second-hand boom box and $50 worth of T-shirts."

Reminds me of what I wrote two years ago about instrumental music all but disappearing from Portland's high schools as a consequence of Measure 5 and the failure of the state legislature to "muster the will" to replace money lost to schools with the property tax limitation.  In that post the main villain was school choice and the resulting depopulation of Portland's poorest schools. 

School choice might be of less consequence were more money available for schools generally.  But we'd ultimately still witness the same glaring inequities in parent involvement and school demographics that are so apparent today in Portland.

When all the "good" kids and their parents are allowed to congregate in a handful of desirable schools, bad things happen.  Even with adequate funding. 

Private wealth, public squalor

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith famously claimed an inverse relationship between the public good and the growth of private wealth.  Without government intervention, meaning  "massive public investment... to improve social goods in spheres where the private sector [is] unwilling to invest", the amalgamation of great private wealth inevitably results in what Galbraith called "public squalor"*. 

I can think of no better test of that thesis than the effect on public schools of Oregon's 1990 property tax limitation, Measure 5.   In its remarkable series on the disparity between the ability of rich and poor schools to field successful football teams, the Oregonian fingers Measure 5 as the culprit:

"Measure 5, the statewide property-tax cap that voters passed in 1990, slashed extracurricular spending by an inflation-adjusted average of 30 percent in 10 school districts with prominent football teams. Wealthier communities are better equipped to fill the gap, especially in the flagship sport of football... ."

Measure 5 did more than cut funds for sports.  Academic programs have been affected as well.  According to an analysis done by Oregon State University's Bruce Weber, overall funding for public education declined as Measure 5 was phased in:

"Indeed, in 1993-1994, total school operating revenues declined 5
percent because increases in state aid were not large enough to offset
declines in school property taxes. ...

"...Oregon's tax burden will shrink as Measure 5 completes its five-year phase-in, from its current level of 11.5 percent of income (placing Oregon around the middle
in a ranking of the fifty states) to its projected 10.3 percent in1996 (placing Oregon around 40th in this ranking)."

Wealthier school districts --Lake Oswego, for example, with a student poverty rate of about 4% and a median household income of over $100,000-- can afford, through foundations and other fund raising efforts, to provide first rate facilities and other amenities to help its sports programs succeed.  Portland's Benson Tech --with a poverty rate of 57%-- cannot. 

Football is simply a metaphor for the inability of schools in poor communities to provide adequate educational programs to its students.  That's what happens when people decide they can no longer afford to pay the taxes that support public education. Who suffers?

Poor kids. 

There are those who dispute the notion that public education promotes the public, or common, good.  They object to the government "monopoly" on education.  They promote school choice and charter schools.  They advocate a greater market influence in deciding how schools are run.  They argue that parents should decide which schools are fit for their children to attend.  In the end, through the magic of the marketplace, we'll be left with only strong schools. 

I'm not one of those.  I believe as a society we're obligated to nurture the least capable among us.  That's especially true in public education.  Either we provide all our children with equitable educational opportunities, or we end up with two drastically different systems --a Lake Oswego for the fortunate, a Benson for the less fortunate.

I call that a stark example of private wealth living side by side with public squalor.

* (In an interview with The Progressive, Galbraith explained his juxtaposition of "public squalor" and "private affluence" this way:

"There's no question that in my lifetime, the contrast between what I called private affluence and public squalor has become very much greater. What do we worry about? We worry about our schools. We worry about our public recreational facilities. We worry about our law enforcement and our public housing. All of the things that bear upon our standard of living are in the public sector. We don't worry about the supply of automobiles. We don't even worry about the supply of foods. Things that come from the private sector are in abundant supply; things that depend on the public sector are widely a problem. We're a world, as I said in The Affluent Society, of filthy streets and clean houses, poor schools and expensive television. I consider that contrast to be one of my most successful arguments."

More Obama

I still remain cautiously optimistic about the Obama presidency.  But as I wrote yesterday, with the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff, the prospects for "change" in American foreign policy have significantly dimmed.

I'm not the only one who thinks that way.  Paul Craig Roberts writes in CounterPunch that change may well have ended with Obama's election.  He says that "...Obama’s advisers are drawn from the same gang of Washington thugs and Wall Street banksters as Bush’s."  In addition to Emanuel, Roberts points to Richard Holbrooke, Dennis Ross, and Madeleine Albright, Clintonistas all, with suspect foreign policy resumes. 

Obama's team of economic advisers are largely blasts from the Clinton past as well.  Obama leans heavily on former Clinton Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, both of whom favored deregulation and pushed stock derivatives.  It has been argued convincingly that deregulation let the markets run wild, and that derivatives, in a sense stock side bets, turned the stock exchanges into glorified gambling casinos. 

The creation of investment banks and the growth of stock derivatives bear prime responsibility for the collapse of the American economy.

As I wrote a couple of days ago, the change that Obama represents must come from the bottom up through grass roots mobilization.  Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! put it this way:

"The Obama campaign benefited from the participation of millions. They and millions more see that the current direction of the country is not sustainable. From the global economic meltdown to war, we have to find a new way. This is a rare moment when party lines are breaking down. Yet if Obama buckles to the corporate lobbyists, how will his passionate supporters pressure him?"

How indeed?  That's the question that has yet to be answered.

Bad choice: Rahm Emanuel, son of an Israeli "terrorist"

It's true. 

Rahm Emanuel's father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, was a member of the militant Zionist group Irgun, which "...carried out numerous terrorist attacks on Palestinian civilians, including the bombing of the King David Hotel."

So perhaps Rahm Emanuel is not the wisest choice Barack Obama could have offered up as his chief of staff.  As Obama's gatekeeper, Emanuel is sure to have enormous influence on Obama's stance toward Israel and the Palestinians.  That's what Emanuel's father thinks anyway:

"Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."

No, Rahm Emanuel is certainly no Arab "floor cleaner", but his presence in the Oval Office is sure to inflame Arab --and world-- resentment against U.S. foreign policy.  Consider:

• In 2006, Emanuel "... promoted pro-war and pro-business center-right candidates against anti-war and pro-labor candidates in the primaries... ."

• "Emanuel was a major supporter of the Iraq War resolution that authorized the invasion of Iraq."  He was, in fact the ONLY  member of the Illinois Congressional delegation to do so.

• He acknowledged to Tim Russert that the war in Iraq was for "oil and empire", not national security.

• He's been a "passionate supporter" of more money for the Pentagon, including for the unproven (and provocative) missile defense system.

Rahm Emanuel is a staunch Zionist to boot, which undoubtedly has a lot to do with all of the above.   

Obama's first pick was the hawkish Joe Biden.  The choice of Rahm Emanuel further undermines Obama's claim to be the "anti-war" candidate.

The prospect of Emanuel whispering daily into Obama's ear cannot be reassuring to those who supported Obama for his "new", more conciliatory approach to foreign policy. 

Now that the election is over...

Much has been written about about the importance of grass roots organizing to hold Barack Obama to account for the "change" he has promised.  When Obama said in effect, "I can't do this without you", he was talking presumably about something more than just getting elected.  He implied, or so it seems, that his millions of supporters would somehow have a role, beyond the election, in changing the world.

The question is, how?

Here are some starting points, beginnng with the Nader-inspired November5.org:

November 5. 2008 from Tarek Milleron on Vimeo.

Two other efforts are also underway, the first asking for (or demanding) a just foreign policy beginning with withdrawal of troops from Iraq and engaging in diplomacy with Iran. The site allows you to customize your own message to the President-elect.

The second is a petition asking Obama to avoid putting "foxes in charge of the henhouse" in appointing a Treasury Secretary.  The fox in question is former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.  ( Read the full petition here.)

These are modest actions to be sure.  The alternative is to sit with your fingers crossed and hope for the best,