Monday's Musings: New Name, New Look But Same Old Neighborhood, Same Old Politics

I am not one much for looking down on new initiatives that aim to help others. In fact, it is usually quite the opposite, especially when it comes to education initiatives (one of my areas of academic interest). On Sunday, Kathleen McGrory wrote about the changes to Edison Senior High School in Miami in her article “Miami Edison Senior High Gets New Name, New Look.” A little background as to why these changes are so important and worthy of attention. Edison Senior High (aka Haiti High) is a school in one of Miami’s most economically disadvantaged areas, Liberty City, is predominately Haitian (the area is generally called Little Haiti), has made headlines for its deplorable performance on state exams (the FCAT—a grade of F in 7 of its 8 last performances) and tensions between students and staff recently culminated (or rather degraded into) in a riot.

McGrory reports that the new initiatives are aimed at adding that spark, providing that incentive, to get students to take education seriously. To use her words, “the challenge [is to] take one of the state’s lowest-performing schools and transform it into a place the county’s best students are clamoring to attend.” She is right to call such an ambitious goal a challenge. It is herculean task for even the most ambitious of us all. I applaud Miami-Dade County Public School officials for embarking upon such an arduous journey; they are surely to be commended.

One of the key changes to the school that may prove to be its more attractive and efficacious features, to students and teachers alike, is the internal restructuring of the curriculum, broadly defined. More specifically, Edison will now be structured like a university with four colleges within it where students get to choose the college that best fits the academic and extracurricular activities. I believe that this is important because it at once empowers students through their ability to choose and also matching teachers with students actually interested in the material being taught. The former should not be taken lightly; having control over one’s life, in this case, one aspect of one’s life, is empowering. The latter deserves equal credit as having engaged teachers with equally engaged teachers is something special.

However, as the old adage goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Again, I am not arguing against the program; I am simply being and arguing for others to be cautious of accepting such new initiatives blindly for in our zeal for progressive and promising projects, we can become shortsighted. The reason I go along this cautionary road specifically in the case of Edison and its changes is best explained using a car metaphor (bare with me). The oil is the lifeblood of the car; without it, you are not going far. The dirtier the oil, the worse the car runs until it finally breaks down. So far so good. Well, to me, the kids are the oil. The school, the car—literally and figuratively the engine of social (im)mobility. If the students only interacted with the school things would run smoothly (or at least smoother than they do now). The problem is that the oil—these students—must first run through the muck, the dirt, the filth that is the remains of Liberty City, a part of Miami that is poor, hostage to criminal activity, and still recovering from race riots of generations past. It goes without saying that this areas is also as political disenfranchised as it is economically. I am not making an argument against the individuals who attend Edison or live in this area. What I am saying in connecting the students, school, and community has been posited by many immigration and race scholars like Harvard Sociologist Mary Waters and Princeton Sociologist Alejandro Portes: the immediate location of these immigrant and native communities matter with respect to the students’ well-being and how they come to formulate their identities and their connection (or lack thereof) to schooling and mainstream routes to upward mobility.

Portes with his colleague Min Zhou argue that segmented assimilation occurs when immigrants are blocked from upward mobility by different barriers, whether they be political, language, social, cultural, or any combination of the above. In response to such barriers, subsequent generations of immigrants (the second generation) begin to identify with different subcultures—in the case of the Haitian population in Miami, poor, inner-city blacks who have experienced the effects of both interpersonal and structural racism. This is where I find such an initiative as an amazing step forward but one with the possibility to do more harm than good because it places all its resources in the school to the neglect of the community. The problem is that is that if this program does not succeed with amazing results, then cultural arguments will be everyone’s rationale for why things didn’t work: these people, the individuals and their cultural patterns at writ large, are somehow defective. The comment box for the article already presents itself as evidence for such a prediction. However, such attacks against the group would never take factors like the deleterious effects of residential segregation, the cumulative disadvantages of living in concentrated poverty, the racial politics of Miami with respect to its Cuban, Haitian, Black, and White citizenry, and the like into consideration.

The new name—Edison EduPlex—new look—paint job, planting trees, the works—and new “structure”—transforming the internal running of the school to mimic a university with four colleges within it—addresses structural problems of the school. However, by effectively placing the school in the spotlight and key component of the reform efforts to the detriment of a more critical assessment of the antithetical role the community can play when attempting to create initiatives of this kind, we may find ourselves with the same problem once the attraction of the newness wears off. Is this a recipe for change or one of another cycling of resources with mixed and inconclusive results?

Black In America 2: Africanism and Black Divisions by Class and Age

Many academics, public intellectuals, and fellow bloggers have now voiced their opinions about Black In America 2. Some have praised it as being better than last year while others have said that Black In America 2 and the number 2 had much more in common than CNN would like to admit. I am more on the side of it being better than last year but agree that it is still off the mark. One of the key differences that made it better than last year is that in the first segment (of which I will speak about further below) they grounded the discussion of the poorer students and the problems they face in the historical legacy of and lasting effects of the rapid deterioration of their neighborhood as well as urban decline. I may be giving Black In America 2 too much credit here because even this discussion was short and rather weak. If you are going to begin with such an opening, then structural forces—decline of jobs, residential segregation, and the like—must be put at the forefront and stated explicitly, not in passing. Nevertheless there were some, for lack of a better word, problems with it that stuck out to me beyond what has been talked about in other venues. I focus on two points that I felt slipped under the radar.

The first has to with the apparent Africanism in the first segment but also its place in larger society. Although highlighting the work of Malaak Compton-Rock giving to the community, they presented Journey for Change as a program not to expose inner-city youth to a different way of life per se, but rather to a poorer, more destitute way of life so that they can appreciate what (little) they have back home in Bushwick. I am sorry but if that is not a variation of Edward Said’s Orientalism I do not know what is. One point Said makes of the harmful effects of orientatlism is how “the Occident” began to see “the Orient” and conduct themselves toward the region itself and also those from that region.

I must stop here and say that I am an unapologetic Americanist, though one with humanist tendencies. Nevertheless, maybe because I am an Americanist, I do not jump on the bandwagon of those who go outside the United States to help those in need. If two houses are burning, which one do you put out first: your’s or your neighbor’s? I know that framing it this way makes it an either/or question without moral implications and as one that ignores present day politics and the history of colonialism and the like. However, the question remains that if there is a cancer threatening to destroy your body from the inside from the same mechanisms, through the same actions, and that of someone else, what do you do first?

The way in which it was framed also obscures the plight of blacks, Latinos, and some whites here in the United States. I am sorry, if you wanted to show them more extreme poverty than what they are used to, there are pockets here in the United States that are just as or even worse off economically. Both urban and rural. Let us not forget the work of Amartya Sen who found that even though one may live in a richer nation, one’s life expectancy and quality might be quite lower than those in poorer nations. If you wanted to show them the detrimental effects the AIDS virus has on communities, there are pockets in many Chocolate Cities that have as high or higher concentration of AIDS than many parts of Africa. I mean to speak honestly, the way in which they first introduced Journey for Change overshadowed the positive cultural, educational, and political aspects of the program. It was almost as if they used Africa—since there was so little (i.e. none) conversation about how Africa is more than just South Africa and that it was a heterogeneous place (another form of Africansim with roots in the theme of orientalism)—as a tool to shock, awe, and inspire. I am sorry, but this is both amoral and wrong. As those over at The Retort noted, Compton-Rock spoke as if this trip was to act as a panacea of social and academic ills. I am sorry, it doesn’t work like that.

Before I continue, I must say that I appreciate programs like this and those who invest time into them, the organizers, family, and students themselves. However, I stand with my previous criticism of this program.

The second aspect of the first segment that stuck with me was the lack of parallel between the ages of the low income black students from Connecticut and New York and middle class blacks. This may seem like a minor point but I do not believe it is; in fact, I think it highlights both some of the assumptions and prejudiced thoughts about blacks in America. If you notice, the poor blacks were middle and high school aged individuals. The middle class blacks were college aged or above. Remember, we only saw low-income older adults as parents with medical, mental health, or financial issues. Even though I too appreciated the awareness of racial issues of this year’s cohort of middle class interviewees, I was troubled by this age divide.

I think that parallel would have been stronger if they would have went to Exeter, Andover, St. Paul, Deerfield, and the other prep, day, and boarding school in the Northeast to see the experience of same aged middle class blacks at these predominately white institutions. Or, to flip it the other way, found some low-income college black college students to parallel those middle class blacks that spoke of their experiences. Believe it or not, poor blacks (and minorities for that matter) make it to both the Ivy and non-Ivy halls as well. Instead of a smorgasbord of black people and education, CNN, NOT SOLEDAD O’BRIEN ALONE, missed an opportunity for a richer and deeper glimpse inside Black America.

We missed another opportunity to access what it means to be black in America. Though I have to admit this year was a step forward rather than backward (though I admit that would have been hard even for Black In America). I do not know if what I have presented here is more of me responding more to what was in the show or the way it was presented. I am happy if it is both.

"No Excuses"

“No Excuses”—a simple phrase scrawled across the front pages of the Huffington Post and the New York Times politics section this morning—has proven to be the salient takeaway from President Obama’s speech to the NAACP last night. Unfortunately, the most salient takeaway is not always the intended takeaway, nor is it always the most important takeaway.

Yes, Obama urged black parents to take responsibility for their children. He told them to “[put] away the Xbox and [put] our kids to bed at a reasonable hour.” He noted that every black kid can’t become the next Lebron James, or the next Lil Wayne—“even if they might think they’ve got a pretty jump shot or a pretty good flow.” And yes, he did deride excessive excuses for black underachievement.

But Obama’s message--grounded in sound analysis of racial inequality--was much more profound than these simple sound bites suggest.

Obama correctly noted that there is less discrimination in America today than ever before. Sure, black and brown folks are still getting kicked out of swimming pools—but they aren’t being told to sit in the back of the bus anymore. A new racism built on euphemisms and proxies persists, but overt discrimination is becoming less and less socially acceptable.

Obama went on to detail the extent of structural inequalities that have emerged from past discrimination, specifically citing their pernicious effects on the racial achievement gap. While discrimination remains omnipresent, it is structural inequalities that matter most in determining the life chances and opportunities for folks of color. It almost seems lost in the headlines that Obama’s discussion of personal responsibility occurred only after laying out the root of inequality: unequal access to healthcare, unequal schools, unequal access to quality housing, and unequal rates of incarceration.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates and G.D. at Postbourgie point out, the rhetoric of “no excuses” is common banter heard in black churches, dinner tables and barbershops across the country. The idea is not to absolve racism, discrimination, or structural inequities from blame; rather, it’s a battle cry to work that much harder in the face of profound disadvantage. It's a declaration, a statement of perseverance—a “We Shall Overcome” for the 21st Century. Structural forces are responsible for inequality, but we are culpable for our reactions as we confront this disadvantage. As Adam Serwer notes, Obama's speech was “far more nuanced…than media narratives about race ever seem to acknowledge.”

Above my desk I have a small computer printout of the phrase “Just Shut Up and Do It.” These were the wise words of encouragement my high school football coaches gave me anytime I felt the need to complain about, well, anything: when I broke my finger during a pre-season scrimmage, when I got illegally chop-blocked in pursuit of a tailback, when I threw up after a particularly intense conditioning session, or when I was convinced there was no possible way I could squat 250 pounds. Each excuse I gave was met with a simple rebuttal: “Shut up, and do it.” It didn’t matter if our rival’s tight end kept holding me each time the ball came to my side of the field, nor did it matter that I was the most undersized outside linebacker to ever grace New York State Class AA football. I had to rise up against my disadvantage. I had to shut my mouth, and do it.

After a tough practice or a long game, when my eyes were bloodshot from yelling and my head pounded from throwing my body into players three times my size, the coaches often pulled me aside to praise my determination and willpower. Their tone would be noticeably different; less expletives, more words of encouragement. They knew I was undersized. They knew how much punishment my body could take. But they also knew the formidable foes I would have to face. Excuses mattered little on Friday nights, under the stadium lights and in the eyes of the community.

The rhetoric of “no excuses” has dominated the coverage of Obama’s speech to the NAACP. But there was more to the speech—and more to the rhetoric itself—that shouldn’t get lost in the shuffle. Obama exhibited a tremendous grasp of the causes of inequality, a refreshing departure from our past President’s woeful ignorance. Our task now is to listen to the whole message, and resist getting caught up in the sound bites.

Battling the Financial Crisis: Students not Salaries. Really?

“Salaries and perks not students” should be the slogan for all Amherst faculty members during these troubled, financial times. The reality, however, is that there is a group of faculty who seem to be reversing this mantra.

Amherst College has been one of the front runners in admission and financial aid policies for the last decade. It was the first and/or one of the firsts to go need blind for students whose families make below certain income levels and to offer “no loan” packages to students who come from families who earn less than certain amounts of money. Amherst made history yet again the past two years with two major announcements: No loans to all students and need-blind admissions for international students. It does all this with (before the crisis) an almost two billion dollar endowment. Again, Amherst has been a front-runner in admissions and financial aid. Harvard, with the largest endowment (fifteen times larger than Amherst’s) Yale coming in “close” behind, do not operate under the same principles though their packages are substantially better than other institutions. In fact, only Princeton, Davidson, and now Williams are, I think, the only schools that are now true “no loan institutions.”

The problem now is that now that the financial belt has to be squeezed a little tighter because of the economic climate, people are, if I may use a phrase from home, showing their true colors. As with other schools, Amherst has enacted a number of financial restrictions to save money. For instance, they are in a pseudo-hiring freeze and there will be no raises for faculty or staff this year. These latter two actions are actually quite common for institutions today. I leaned that both President Tony Marx and Dean of Faculty Greg Call reduced their personal salaries until better financial times. The negative side, however, does not come from draconian, top down measures to save money like cutting departments or laying off large number of workers, rather the worst response has been that of a group of faculty members.

To save their money they want to, one may say, roll back time. More specifically, instead of exploring more options, according to some, they want to reduce the moneys dedicated to admission and financial aid, the two departments that make Amherst what it is today, the two departments that keeps Amherst in the news more so than any other, the two departments that uphold the alma mater, terras irradient, more so than any other. This group of faculty wants to restructure how financial aid is done, not universally, but in a targeted manner.

I quote a student who alerted the student body to these suggestions and who has rallied other students to stand against, not this group of faculty, but their recommendations and suggestions:

“In response to the ABC report, which recommended only small changes to financial aid targets, a group of faculty members have circulated [a] letter [sic] amongst themselves to suggest to the Trustees that we end need-blind financial aid for international students, stop recruiting in areas with high aid-eligible students (a.k.a. poor students), and start giving out loans. Although they preach sharing the sacrifice throughout the Amherst community, they don't voice any sacrifice they are willing to make."

Some may consider the latter move racist. I do not necessarily (but reserve the right to revisit this). However, I would be mistaken if I do no state explicitly that such a policy change would have disproportionate effects on minority students who are, just like the rest of the population, disproportionately from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than their white peers, and low-income white students who seem always to be left out of these conversations. With respect to minority students, blacks in particular, this is not mere posturing as in thier book Black Wealth/White Wealth, Sociologists Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro, studying the sociology of wealth, has shown that even blacks and whites with comparable levels of education and incomes have different levels of wealth with blacks being disadvantaged because of historical and current racial policies. Naturally, this disparity is even more evident the lower one goes down the socioeconomic ladder. Latinos face similar obstacles as well and low-income whites, again, are absent from many of these discusions though both groups do slighlty better than low-income blacks. What I argue, as has been done before, is that such a “nonracial,” economic policy change would surely decrease the number of minority student you attract to your school. To not send admissions officers to disadvantaged areas, to those areas where students, despite being socially isolated, manage to make it, but still host information sessions at Choate, Exeter, Andover and the like will have racial ramifications. Of this, I have no doubt. Again, the intent, I believe, is not racist but the effect will be, with the blunt of the impact being absorbed by those economically disadvantaged minority and white students.

The faculty should ask themselves would Amherst still lead the country in being home to students from Questbridge, arguably the best enrichment program in the nation that helps students get into top colleges without having them leave thier neighborhoods? Would Amherst still lead the nation in Pell Grant recipients? Although focusing on Amherst and recruiting students from disadvantaged populations, this is a much larger problem. We have seen how, because of budget cuts, schools seem to be the most affected. I wrote about the financial times and the changing role of summer schools. But that spoke elementary, middle, and high school education. This related issue is that of the next step: acquiring the credentials needed to acquire middle class jobs (those this is not guaranteed anymore given that the BA is the new high school diploma). Amherst is less than 2000 students but it has the endowment of a much larger institution. The question this raises is what are other, less endowed schools doing whose financial aid and admission policies are not as generous?

With respect to the reversal of the need-blind admission for international students, (as above with respect to the issue of class and race) I am hesitant to come down on either side of labeling such a claim xenophobic. “Xenophobic,” like racist, is a loaded term and labeling this suggestion as xenophobic is complicated. I withhold judgment until conversations, discussions, or debates are held. My lack of familiarity with international issues and tensions with respect to international students and colleges are restraining my judgment. Thoughts are welcome.

Nevertheless, this matter brings up an interesting question. Should many of these elite institutions with very large endowments, that are need-blind for U.S. citizens and residents, remain need-aware for international students? Although this would cost slightly more, it is possible. Unfortunately, this was not even on the table before many of these institutions suffered due to the crisis. In this shrinking and increasingly globalized world, can we afford to keep international students at bay, especially when we preach attaining global perspectives and send students abroad? Should these institutions really show favoritism for U.S. citizens and residents? These are questions that most schools will probably not wrestle with for some time.

I write this post not to bash Amherst or the thoughts of this group of faculty members. Amherst is my alma mater and has opened many doors for me. As I was quoted saying before, it allowed me to rewrite the narrative of my life. However, during these times I propose that we all pay closer attention to the ways in which our alma maters—and colleges more generally—are slimming down their expenditures from their endowments and speak out against policies that will disproportionately disadvantage (in this case in admissions and financial aid) already disadvantaged populations.

Teach for America, Teacher Corps, and (Dis)Trust(?)

I would like to say that this is not a dig at those who dedicate part of their lives serving the most disadvantaged as teachers in some of the most destitute schools that are almost universally situated in impoverished, inner-city neighborhoods. I commend those individuals who opt to serve as educators via the "teaching/teacher corp" programs across the county. I received a phone call today from a friend who is with a number of Amherst alumni and current students who have chosen such a path; they are now enduring both the long days of teaching summer school and Mississippi's sweltering heat. With that said, however, this post expands upon a question that has stayed with me since my graduate seminar, Social Structure and Culture in the Study of Race and Urban Poverty (which has helped me crystallize my thoughts on a number of issues), with Sociologist William Julius Wilson this past semester: what are the unintended consequences of these programs on the populations which they were created to serve and empower?

My co-blogger, Jeremy, was in the class as well and we had some pretty heated discussions about some of the books we read as this survey course touched on topics on urban poverty from cultural continuities and the lasting impact of slavery (Orlando Patterson's Rituals of Blood) to the underground economy of poor neighborhoods (Sudhir Venkatesh's Off the Books). The one book that spawned the lasting thought that pushed me to write this post that I just cannot shake is Columbia University scholar Kathryn Neckerman's Schools Betrayed: Roots of Failure in Inner-City Education. In Schools Betrayed, Neckerman, analyzing historical data on Chicago public schools from 1920 – 1960, aims to highlight the ways in which schools themselves—taken as individual institutions—were betrayed by intermediary actors—school board officials alongside education policies drafted at the state level but carried out blindly by local actors. She shows that these race-neutral policies enacted did not have race-neutral outcomes: the dovetailing of school policy and ecological conditions sowed the seeds for the then and present-day deplorable conditions of inner-city schools. The installment of tracking or dual time programs in schools, for examples, were not race-based but the implementation of such policies had negative effects on students' academic preparation and future employment prospects, especially Black students because of the schools they attended.

Ok, so why do I bring up Teach for America, The Mississippi Teacher Corp, and the many others across the nation? It was because of Neckerman's particular analysis of the impact of teacher placement on the students, family, school, and community as a whole. Of the policies that she outlines, I believe that one of the most detrimental consequences from these policy changes was that which caused teachers to cycle in and out of certain classrooms and certain schools, principally those which served predominately Black and low-income communities. Trust is an understated factor in schooling. And the way in which policy was carried out severely weakened the trust between teacher and student, teacher and parent, teacher and school, and even the trust between teachers themselves. In other words, after these teachers "did their time," they could transfer to "better" schools and leave their troubles (and the troubled) behind. This is what made me think of the present state of programs like Teach for America and other like organizations. To put it bluntly, this book made me further question the efficacy of programs like Teach for America and the like: the inexperienced teachers (inexperienced with respect to years of teaching experience not intellect or drive), short-term contracts, and location of placement. Some point to the cultural differences between college students and those from inner-city schools. I believe that, although one barrier to be sure, it would be a bit short-sighted to stop there. As I stated above, the cycling of new faces in the classroom via these programs is what concerns me the most.

Clearly there are many success stories for those on the rosters of such organizations. The teacher of the year for Miami-Dade Public Schools is a Teach for America placement. For continued excellence, let us not forget the Teach for America alumni who started the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools where economically disadvantaged students are performing on par with their middle class counterparts. But while we celebrate the success, we must not forget the number of people who stop after a month, a week, or those who make it only one day. I do not have the statistics on this; I just have anecdotal evidence from my interviews with Teach for America representatives before I was offered a position in Miami (I did not accept the position because similar thoughts passed through my mind then).

I bring up this point to caution us to think of the consequences of the short term contracts of Teach for America and like organizations. These programs are so appealing to college students, some of whom use Teach for America as life "pit stops" or use such programs to pad resumes or "give back" without exactly knowing the lion's den they about to enter into. Nevertheless, the students in the schools see eager faces one moment and then look around the next and that face is gone. I am not saying that we are better without these programs. Surely Not! I just do not want to be ignorant of the disappointment of being let down when that the legal contract ends or when that "social" contract runs its course. But, the question becomes, what's the alternative? I would appreciate any comments on the issue brought up here or any thoughts on such programs.