Miguel Viveiros reports from Oakland, CA:
Watching the election via internet at Mama Buzz Cafe on Telegraph (near 23rd Street,) Miguel told me via phone at the time Obama's victory was announced: There are fireworks going off on the street. Police are lining Telegraph Avenuce, a main street through downtown Oakland. People are partying hard in downtown, Oakland until 4AM. Go Oakland! We won!
Jessica Martinez reports from San Francisco, CA:
I was in sf during the elections. i'm still registered there and had a dr's appointment the day before. everyone was screaming in the streets and honking their horns. i was at a house in the tenderloin so i started banging pots outside the window. i didn't think i'd be that excited because Obama was kind of annoying me with his talking in circles all the time. But when it was actually announced, i felt so proud and emotional. I got greedy and hoped proposition 8 (defining marriage between a man and woman) would fail but it passed, just barely. Nevertheless, the fact that in his acceptance speech, Obama thanked people of different races, "gays and straits", disabled and non-disabled, made me really excited. So even if he does end up just talking, at least he's talking about gays and disabled people, I've never heard a president thank those groups. Another thing I became aware of as I watched his speech was how young he is, especially in comparison to the other candidate. He really seems to have the energy and determination to work for what he believes in. And when he talked about a 106 year old black woman who, in her lifetime, couldn't vote because she was black and a woman, and now is seeing a black person become prez, i thought that these reforms just take time. a loooonng time.
Sara Bernard comments from S.F. Bay Area:
I was in SF at a friends house, but certainly things were crazy in SF and in berkeley and generally there were loads of tears and cheers and jumping up and down -- happy to be an american, for the first time in a looooooonnnng time -- what an awesome awesome win!!!!!!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Election Day Report: Midwest
Anthony Nikolchev reports from Chicago...Indiana (?) :
A man in Indiana said to me, "John McCain can't win. He's an asshole. Sure, he fought for the country, but my brother and I fought in Vietnam and we don't think we deserve to be president." He also said all this through his electrolarynx.
More soon...
A man in Indiana said to me, "John McCain can't win. He's an asshole. Sure, he fought for the country, but my brother and I fought in Vietnam and we don't think we deserve to be president." He also said all this through his electrolarynx.
More soon...
Election Day Precinct Report: East Coast (Thank you President Obama! )
At Public School 72 in East Harlem, New York it was a remarkable scene. Today families walked, hand-in-hand, through the front doors. Mothers and daughters. Fathers and sons. Smiling. Laughing. All taking part in the most historic election in recent history.
Sonia Carballo walked out from the polling place with her daughter, Cristina. Carballo said, since they were little she always toolk her three daughters to her polling place. “I always told my girls that voting gives them the right to say something,” she said. Cristina, in her mid-twenties, nodded. She said, “by voting you can change the world.”
Today they voted for Obama. “He has a better understanding of us because he came from the same place we did,” Cristina said, referring to Obama’s age, race and upbringing. Carballo also brought her 11 year-old daughter and was returning later that evening with her 18 year-old daughter. “She is so excited to vote for the first time and I want to be here,” Carballo said.
Librado Acosta voted for the first time today as well. Acosta and his father, Librado Acosta, went to the polls together. They voted Obama with the hope he would help improve the economy. Librado said, “We need a fresh face in the White House to get the change we want.”
Alexander Ramos, a door clerk at the polling place, said one of the voting machines, #25, broke down a few times today. “People still voted, they just used paper ballots,” said Ramos. When asked if the votes would be counted, he said, “I hope so.” Within two hours at least two people angrily ran out of the polling place due to broken machines. One of these people, a man who said he would not talk because he was in a hurry to get to another polling place, called his situation, “very frustrating.”
“There were a lot more people than past elections,” said Yvette Nunez, a Republican Inspector at the polling place. Nunez, 54, has been working at the polls as a paid inspector since she was 18 years old. A registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, Nunez voted for Obama today because she thinks he will bring needed change to the economy.
To view this article with picture on NYU's Pavement Piece's website go to the following link:
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/pavement/in/election-day-precinct-report-east-harlem-precinct/
To view my short video on a group in East Harlem who chose not to vote on November 4th:
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/pavement/in/harlem/no-vote-harlem/
Sonia Carballo walked out from the polling place with her daughter, Cristina. Carballo said, since they were little she always toolk her three daughters to her polling place. “I always told my girls that voting gives them the right to say something,” she said. Cristina, in her mid-twenties, nodded. She said, “by voting you can change the world.”
Today they voted for Obama. “He has a better understanding of us because he came from the same place we did,” Cristina said, referring to Obama’s age, race and upbringing. Carballo also brought her 11 year-old daughter and was returning later that evening with her 18 year-old daughter. “She is so excited to vote for the first time and I want to be here,” Carballo said.
Librado Acosta voted for the first time today as well. Acosta and his father, Librado Acosta, went to the polls together. They voted Obama with the hope he would help improve the economy. Librado said, “We need a fresh face in the White House to get the change we want.”
Alexander Ramos, a door clerk at the polling place, said one of the voting machines, #25, broke down a few times today. “People still voted, they just used paper ballots,” said Ramos. When asked if the votes would be counted, he said, “I hope so.” Within two hours at least two people angrily ran out of the polling place due to broken machines. One of these people, a man who said he would not talk because he was in a hurry to get to another polling place, called his situation, “very frustrating.”
“There were a lot more people than past elections,” said Yvette Nunez, a Republican Inspector at the polling place. Nunez, 54, has been working at the polls as a paid inspector since she was 18 years old. A registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, Nunez voted for Obama today because she thinks he will bring needed change to the economy.
To view this article with picture on NYU's Pavement Piece's website go to the following link:
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/pavement/in/election-day-precinct-report-east-harlem-precinct/
To view my short video on a group in East Harlem who chose not to vote on November 4th:
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/pavement/in/harlem/no-vote-harlem/
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Beating odds, graduating high school and beyond
In East Harlem, a neighborhood where half its residents never graduate high school, The Young Women’s Leadership School (TYWLS) has a graduation rate of 95-100%.Founded in 1996 as the first school supported by The Women's Leadership Foundation (TLF), TYWLS public school currently serves 425 girls in grades 6-12.
Ann Rubenstein Tisch, a broadcast journalist and founder of TWL Foundation, believes that single-sex education is an important way to address a major crisis of confidence that strikes young adolescent girls.
"It seems to be where the unraveling begins, right out of elementary school," said Tisch.
According to Assistant Principle Drew Higginbotham, 88% of students in the class of 2009 will be first in their families to attend college. According to the school's website, small classes, emphasis on writing, discussion and debate and a dedicated faculty make TWYLS successful.
TWYLS's impressive graduation rate is also a result of the school's focus on college readiness. A full time college counselor meets weekly with students starting in their junior years and the TWL foundation supports student trips to tour colleges and universities.
The 65 young women getting diplomas in June are working to secure post graduation plans. Many of the 12th graders completed CUNY applications earlier this month. Teachers and administration focus the remainder of fall semester on helping students apply to SUNY campuses, liberal arts colleges and Ivy League schools.
While Higginbotham said some stay in East Harlem, three seniors, working side-by-side in the administration office after school, spoke of their excitement about experiencing life beyond their neighborhood.
Senior Shavon Olin applied to schools as far as California. She said she wants to go to college “because I don’t want minimum wage jobs. I want a career and money. Also, it’s the easiest way out of the community I live.”
Monday, April 2, 2007
Small memories, big effects
Who knows an educator or mother of a young child? Today's post is a desperate plea to people who care for our little ones.
Last week findings from a $200 million study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development were made public- think how that money could have been used IN schools! The study looks at the effects of child care to children's development from infants through high school; the researchers' "subjects" are currently in 6th grade. The observed youth compare in socio-economic status but vary in years spent in child care programs.
One finding released last week is that children who spend 4 years in child care prior to kindergarten are more likely to have behavioral problems up through at least the 6th grade when compared to children who spend two or fewer years in child care. However, the study shows that the difference in behavior between children based on years of child care is extremely small (less than 1 point difference) and the author of the study admits that the child care centers attended for four years were, on average, of lower quality than the centers attended for 1 or 2 years. The assumption from some that child care is hurting your child has NOT been proven, but the effects of environment to a young child does make a difference in that child's development.
Many news stations, including ABC, NBC, FOX, NY Times, and Slate, jumped on this finding as a good time to rag on child care and even, eh-hem, direct some of the blame towards working mothers. Slate's article, "Bad Mommies, Does Day Care Ruin your Kids," has a catchy title but its main point is that raising kids is a woman's career and should be done in the home. Slate's article in its title alone plays on the paranoia of many mothers who work; that they do not spend adequate time with their children and hurt their children for life (but to be fair to Slate, the next day a Slate article entitled "The Kids are Alright," written by senior editor Emily Bazelon calls "Bad Mommies"'s author William Saletan out on his ignorance towards childrearing as a woman's role and since last week "Bad Mommies" appears to have been removed from Slate's pages, but if you find a copy please post!)
While not all news surrounding the report blame mommies for not staying at home (where are the daddies?,) my disappointment deepened irregardless when I found no major publication that took the study release as a way to look beyond good vs. bad child care, and acknowledge the basis for a $200 million study on child care. What is more important than debating the state of our child care is to realize that child care is not going anywhere. Minimum wage in the U.S. has not increased in proportion with today's cost of living. One reason for this is that minimum wage and the poverty level is measured by obtaining the household cost for food and then multiplying it by certain variables. Genetics has allowed us to mass produce food so the price of food has not increased during the past twenty years as much as cost of rent or cost of child care. Thus the national measure of a living wage is not accurate. Inflation of living costs disproportionate to increase in American wages means that more parents need to work full time to support their families. Working twice as hard as the generation prior just to remain middle class leaves no parent to be at home with young children. So let's face our situation today and invest in making child care beneficial to our children's growth!
I lived in North Carolina for part of last year and they have a wonderful statewide star-rating system of child care centers. It is not mandatory for a center to post its number of stars, ranging from 1 as bad to 5 as excellent, but there is serious pressure from families who are aware of the importance of the star system from seeing it on commercials and posters around town. California does not have statewide standards that translate into a comprehensible 5 star-rating scale. Don't you think it is important for more states to have standards for their child care centers so that parents of young children know who to trust their children to while at work?
What are your top 5 criteria in selecting a good child care program for your toddler-aged child? See mine below.
1. 1 adult per 7 students.
2. Child care worker's salary adequate to a living wage.
3. Basic early education training mandatory for all staff.
4. At least one healthy meal offered per day.
5. Sanitary conditions and safe play toys.
Last week findings from a $200 million study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development were made public- think how that money could have been used IN schools! The study looks at the effects of child care to children's development from infants through high school; the researchers' "subjects" are currently in 6th grade. The observed youth compare in socio-economic status but vary in years spent in child care programs.
One finding released last week is that children who spend 4 years in child care prior to kindergarten are more likely to have behavioral problems up through at least the 6th grade when compared to children who spend two or fewer years in child care. However, the study shows that the difference in behavior between children based on years of child care is extremely small (less than 1 point difference) and the author of the study admits that the child care centers attended for four years were, on average, of lower quality than the centers attended for 1 or 2 years. The assumption from some that child care is hurting your child has NOT been proven, but the effects of environment to a young child does make a difference in that child's development.
Many news stations, including ABC, NBC, FOX, NY Times, and Slate, jumped on this finding as a good time to rag on child care and even, eh-hem, direct some of the blame towards working mothers. Slate's article, "Bad Mommies, Does Day Care Ruin your Kids," has a catchy title but its main point is that raising kids is a woman's career and should be done in the home. Slate's article in its title alone plays on the paranoia of many mothers who work; that they do not spend adequate time with their children and hurt their children for life (but to be fair to Slate, the next day a Slate article entitled "The Kids are Alright," written by senior editor Emily Bazelon calls "Bad Mommies"'s author William Saletan out on his ignorance towards childrearing as a woman's role and since last week "Bad Mommies" appears to have been removed from Slate's pages, but if you find a copy please post!)
While not all news surrounding the report blame mommies for not staying at home (where are the daddies?,) my disappointment deepened irregardless when I found no major publication that took the study release as a way to look beyond good vs. bad child care, and acknowledge the basis for a $200 million study on child care. What is more important than debating the state of our child care is to realize that child care is not going anywhere. Minimum wage in the U.S. has not increased in proportion with today's cost of living. One reason for this is that minimum wage and the poverty level is measured by obtaining the household cost for food and then multiplying it by certain variables. Genetics has allowed us to mass produce food so the price of food has not increased during the past twenty years as much as cost of rent or cost of child care. Thus the national measure of a living wage is not accurate. Inflation of living costs disproportionate to increase in American wages means that more parents need to work full time to support their families. Working twice as hard as the generation prior just to remain middle class leaves no parent to be at home with young children. So let's face our situation today and invest in making child care beneficial to our children's growth!
I lived in North Carolina for part of last year and they have a wonderful statewide star-rating system of child care centers. It is not mandatory for a center to post its number of stars, ranging from 1 as bad to 5 as excellent, but there is serious pressure from families who are aware of the importance of the star system from seeing it on commercials and posters around town. California does not have statewide standards that translate into a comprehensible 5 star-rating scale. Don't you think it is important for more states to have standards for their child care centers so that parents of young children know who to trust their children to while at work?
What are your top 5 criteria in selecting a good child care program for your toddler-aged child? See mine below.
1. 1 adult per 7 students.
2. Child care worker's salary adequate to a living wage.
3. Basic early education training mandatory for all staff.
4. At least one healthy meal offered per day.
5. Sanitary conditions and safe play toys.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Business and education, how long will they last?
Today I found out that some students from University of California at Berkeley won a 24-hour contest to redesign the failing budget system of Oakland Unified School District (OUSD.) The local news showed video footage of the event, and it looked promising. The contestants who gathered with the purpose of making positive change in Oakland schools were business graduate students from all over the country, some who had not stepped on any elementary, middle, or high school grounds since they were students in grade school 15 years ago.
Footage of the competition showed people laughing, sharing knowledge, and young people looked motivated to make a difference using their expertise in business and economics. The winners of the competition are from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Hip-hip-hooray, I think...I hope Berkeley makes us proud and maximizes effectiveness in allocating the sytems's limited funds. I did not get the impression that these students would actually implement the program for free, but rather that they provided the school system with a new design.
I will check in with the progress in a few months and see whether the school is able or willing to implement the winning design and how the funding for this is possible. Can business fall in love with education, and vice versa? Should I believe in this union? Can business support education without putting the integrity of good education at risk at the point when an opportunity arises to make more money? Will education hold its ground and remain confident in what it knows best- academic and human enlightenment? With business comes competition and profit.
I think business students can teach public schools a lot and help them sustain, but I also fear the revival of Coke vending machines in every hallway and daily newscasts in classrooms that begin with 5 minutes of mandatory commercial viewing. A world of opportunity becomes possible when business-minded thinkers take a crack at saving our country's neglected schools; but the inevitable question, for those seriously invested, becomes, how will they make a profit?
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Are you special?
Last weekend I read an article about a private high school in Colorado that specializes in snowboarding. The tuition is around $30,000 per year and the school provides its students with training to become pro boarders. The first question that pops into my mind is, does the pro snowboarder world have space for the number of students this private Colorado high school trains each year? If not, then what's the point of the school other than to make money and say "dude" a lot? My initial image of the school described in the article is of spoiled, self-righteous teenagers who are out of touch with reality and think that they are, literally, too cool for school. Okay, maybe I have watched "The O.C" or "Laguna Beach" two many times. But I have to ask, whose parents in their right minds would pay $30,000 per year to send their child to a high school with a curriculum that lays out the option for students to spend half of each school day snowboarding?
I must also admit, however, that I could not stop daydreaming about the Colorado snowboarding school; those kids must be having the time of their lives! The school boasts about excellent academics so why not be inspired by the breathtaking scenery and top off strong academics with daily lessons in a sport that you love? And then I started to examine possible benefits of such a school. I snowboard and played soccer then volleyball from K-10th grade. I strongly believe in the power of sports to build character, self-estyeem and humbleness. Most athletes, like actors, take risks to improve their technique and experience physical and emotional vulnerability. Also, being part of a team is a powerful way to experience important life lessons about tolerance, indurance, responsibility, loyalty and relationships. It is possible that just as many or more students snowboarding in Colorado's exclusive terrain will grow to be socially responsible citizens as in any public school. Maybe the students in the article are more enlightened than the average high school-er because the students in the article were not only privileged in terms of dollars spent on their high school education but privileged to go to a school that revolves learning opportunities, time and expertise around what their students love.
Too often I hear people complain, myself included, that their primary education was or is too general. We learn to write; we learn a little about the civil war in 4th, 6th, and 11th grade; we learn a little bit about lots of types of math; we learn a little bit about lots of types of sciences; we sit through several choppy classes on how our government works and every so often we read a good book. Scratching the surface of a subject is not enough to understand our world. Learning about a particluar matter well enough to experience all the ups and downs, ins and outs, failures and triumphs and suprises of doing and spending time and focus is what changes us forever and teaches us about ourselves.
I want to go full circle and return to a word I used in the first sentence of this post, specializes. Why not specialize all schools? Why not teach students to follow through with ideas, thoughtfully approach an issue, and understand what they bring to the table as individuals. Confidence and enjoyment come with knowing a subject well, whether it be cooking potato soup or changing your state laws on carbon emissions. I think most public school systems are so afraid of limiting their students that they risk teaching nothing meaningful. Standards are often one dimensional. We emphasize product and not process; general and not specialized.
If you are a high school student and have a passion, even if it is not a big one, why can't adults help you excel at it and explore its potential? Why, in public schools, can't half a school day be spent in general academics and the other half spent learning about something we are naturally curious about? Maybe more schools should be divided by areas of interest rather than residential districts. If you end up not pursuing the interest beyond high school, at least you will have learned crucial life lessons along the way. Even though the government treats us like a number, we must not forget that we are people with unique interests and inclinations. Why is specializing at an early age only reserved for the rich and eccentric, or technical schools where the academics suffer, what about the rest of us?
As ususal, my post ends with an assignment: if you or someone you know goes to any high school that costs close to $30,000 per year please post a comment about what makes your experience in school so special. I am not going to insult you; as someone who may want to open her own school one day, I am seriously curious about the kind of education and life experience you are receiving.
I must also admit, however, that I could not stop daydreaming about the Colorado snowboarding school; those kids must be having the time of their lives! The school boasts about excellent academics so why not be inspired by the breathtaking scenery and top off strong academics with daily lessons in a sport that you love? And then I started to examine possible benefits of such a school. I snowboard and played soccer then volleyball from K-10th grade. I strongly believe in the power of sports to build character, self-estyeem and humbleness. Most athletes, like actors, take risks to improve their technique and experience physical and emotional vulnerability. Also, being part of a team is a powerful way to experience important life lessons about tolerance, indurance, responsibility, loyalty and relationships. It is possible that just as many or more students snowboarding in Colorado's exclusive terrain will grow to be socially responsible citizens as in any public school. Maybe the students in the article are more enlightened than the average high school-er because the students in the article were not only privileged in terms of dollars spent on their high school education but privileged to go to a school that revolves learning opportunities, time and expertise around what their students love.
Too often I hear people complain, myself included, that their primary education was or is too general. We learn to write; we learn a little about the civil war in 4th, 6th, and 11th grade; we learn a little bit about lots of types of math; we learn a little bit about lots of types of sciences; we sit through several choppy classes on how our government works and every so often we read a good book. Scratching the surface of a subject is not enough to understand our world. Learning about a particluar matter well enough to experience all the ups and downs, ins and outs, failures and triumphs and suprises of doing and spending time and focus is what changes us forever and teaches us about ourselves.
I want to go full circle and return to a word I used in the first sentence of this post, specializes. Why not specialize all schools? Why not teach students to follow through with ideas, thoughtfully approach an issue, and understand what they bring to the table as individuals. Confidence and enjoyment come with knowing a subject well, whether it be cooking potato soup or changing your state laws on carbon emissions. I think most public school systems are so afraid of limiting their students that they risk teaching nothing meaningful. Standards are often one dimensional. We emphasize product and not process; general and not specialized.
If you are a high school student and have a passion, even if it is not a big one, why can't adults help you excel at it and explore its potential? Why, in public schools, can't half a school day be spent in general academics and the other half spent learning about something we are naturally curious about? Maybe more schools should be divided by areas of interest rather than residential districts. If you end up not pursuing the interest beyond high school, at least you will have learned crucial life lessons along the way. Even though the government treats us like a number, we must not forget that we are people with unique interests and inclinations. Why is specializing at an early age only reserved for the rich and eccentric, or technical schools where the academics suffer, what about the rest of us?
As ususal, my post ends with an assignment: if you or someone you know goes to any high school that costs close to $30,000 per year please post a comment about what makes your experience in school so special. I am not going to insult you; as someone who may want to open her own school one day, I am seriously curious about the kind of education and life experience you are receiving.
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