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Build a Wall… or Build a Floor? Clearly the Wall is Unnecessary… But a Floor for Earnings is an Emergency
Reverend William Barber and Dr. Liz Theodoris, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, wrote a compelling op ed piece for the Guardian declaring that poverty, not the threat of an invasion by Spanish speakers, is the real emergency in our nation. The essay is full of chilling statistics illustrating the widespread poverty in our nation and the crumbling infrastructure that has resulted from decades of underfunding by governments at all levels… and by both parties! Here are some examples:
And the fact is, it’s not just the Republican party that has ignored these issues. Poverty has increased by 60% since the Rev Dr Martin Luther King launched the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, under both Democratic and Republican administrations.We can no longer accept the same political discourse that for the past 50 years has refused to mention poverty nor can we accept politicians enacting policies that prey on the poor. It’s time to talk about the real emergencies plaguing our nation and the real moral issues of our day – the lack of health care, living wage jobs, clean water and sanitation, the militarization of our communities, the attack on indigenous sovereignty….
This is the time to take on the lies of the enablers. When people say poverty is caused by laziness, race, or lack of moral character, we must expose these lies.
In today’s America, the real emergency is that a quarter of a million people die from poverty each year while our political system refuses to use the great wealth of this nation to lift the load of poverty.
Democrats should validate the fact that 250,000 people die from poverty each year, and hammer that fact home during this debate. One way they could do so is to declare that when they have the opportunity to do so, hopefully after the 2020 election, whoever is elected President as a Democrat will declare a national emergency and divert funds earmarked for wars abroad to deal with the decades-long emergency of poverty. Such a declaration would shine a spotlight on this shameful reality.
Meanwhile in NYC, the Mayor Acknowledges Problems With His Signature Program BUT Does Not See Closure as a Solution
In addition to the story about the Chicago mayoral race that glossed over the impact of school closures, today’s NYTimes featured an article by Elizabeth Shapiro on the “failure” of Mayor de Blasio’s $773,000,000 Renewal Program. The article describes the inability of any urban school system to find a way to “fix broken schools” and details some of the factors that caused 25% of the renewal schools to close while a similar percentage of those schools improved enough to be removed from the list.
One of the factors that contributed to the inability to turn “renewal” schools around was the fact that the “renewal school” label scared off parents who exercised choice… thereby leaving the “renewal schools” populated by parents who were less invested in assuring the success of their children. It’s no surprise that “renewal schools” were seldom chosen by parents who engaged in the choice process, but it is a surprise that “reformers” failed to see that this would be a predictable consequence of the system, a consequence that led to even more intractability of “fixing” the “renewal” schools.
One thing is clear about Mayor de Blasio: he is NOT backing down from his position that school closures is the answer. Here’s the closing sentence from the article:
“The era of closing schools has come to an end,” the mayor said.
Thankfully, Mr. de Blasio does not have the ethos of the impatient neoliberal reformers who seek the favor of billionaire venture capitalists at the expense of the struggling middle class residents in the city.
In Chicago, Black Families Leave, White Families Arrive, NYTimes Wonders Why. The Answer? The Degradation of Public Schools
Today’s NYTimes has a lengthy analysis of the forthcoming mayoral election written by Monica Davis headlined: “Chicago, Seeking a New Mayor, Sees Many Black Residents Voting With Their Feet“. The reasons given for this outmigration are myriad, with the best synopsis offered in this paragraph:
“People are frustrated and they’re saying, ‘We’ve just had enough. No more mayors for the 1 percent. This city belongs to all of us, not just the people who live in the Gold Coast,’” Sharon Fairley, a former federal prosecutor who also led an agency that oversees Chicago police, said of the hurdles facing the next mayor. “The biggest challenge that anyone coming into this position now is facing is generating a feeling of inclusiveness.”
One of the actions that undoubtedly contributes to the disenfranchisement of African American was the mayor’s decision to close 50 neighborhood schools and compel children to board buses to attend schools in parts of town where they felt unwelcome. They felt unwelcome not because the schools were predominantly white or middle class, but because the schools were often in neighborhoods where different gangs controlled the streets and where it was impossible for parents to regularly monitor their children’s performance.
Nothing reinforces a lack of inclusiveness like closing a neighborhood school, shunting children to a distant school where they are unwelcome, and stripping the schools of elective programs and support services. Yet the school closure issue barely registered in the lengthy article, warranting only these two passing comments:
Downtown Chicago is booming, its skyline dotted with construction cranes. Yet residents only a few miles to the south and west still wrestle with entrenched gang violence, miserable job prospects and shuttered schools — some of the still-being-identified forces, experts say, that are pushing black Chicagoans to pack up and get out.
Before his announcement, he was facing a wide field of people who said they would challenge him, as well as criticism over a tenure that included conflicts over police conduct, street violence and the closings of schools on the city’s South and West Sides. And Mr. Emanuel’s policies have remained a focal point for criticism from some who now hope to succeed him.
If you want to send a message to voters and residents that they don’t matter and that the political leaders are looking out for the 1% at the expense of everyone else; underfund schools and close those that are underperforming…. and that formula for reform is precisely what is generating a feeling of despair and a lack of inclusiveness in our nation today.
Vote even if you think it doesn’t matter…. and be grateful you still can!
Network Schools - Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for 