A chance to channel Margaret Mead

During the past week, I’ve attended two public meetings about the proposed Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) budget for the coming year. I don’t have a child in the schools—except insofar as we all do. So why was I there? First, because I’m an avid supporter of public education. We all have a stake in quality education for children, both for the sake of the kids themselves and because the future depends on it. And second, because I was outraged by this budget proposal.

As you may have heard or read in the newspaper, BVSD is facing the same sort of dilemma that many school districts are facing: so much to do, so little money to do it. In response to this dilemma, BVSD’s new-this-year superintendent, Dr. Bruce Messinger, has proposed a budget that, predictably and somewhat understandably, slashes programs to cover this deficit. What’s so very troubling is that the programs threatened with the deepest cuts are literacy programs and support for Title I schools, the schools that serve disadvantaged kids. In short, it appears that the budget is being balanced, as some have said, “on the backs of the neediest children.”

I am horrified and furious about this proposal. So I went to some meetings to listen and to speak my piece.

At these meetings and others, lots of folks, mostly parents and teachers, have spoken against this proposal, arguing from personal experience, from hard data, and from their hearts [read about some of these comments here and here]. I heard a woman who served for many years as a teacher and administrator in BVSD say that when she learned of this proposal, her first response was shame. She was ashamed that her beloved school district was considering a proposal that specifically and explicitly slashes funds for programs that serve kids who are already marginalized. Some parents were near tears as they described how these programs had helped their kids or other kids they knew and what they fear will be lost if these programs are cut. Teachers pleaded for reconsideration, describing case after case of individual children and whole schools that had turned around because of these programs. One mother, who moved here from New Orleans, begged that this moment not become her child’s next Katrina, where people she trust fail her, again.

The rationale for these cuts goes something like this: BVSD is doing a “reset.” The plan is to cut all “extra” programs until all schools have equal funding and then decide what’s worth restoring. Sort of like resetting the computer to factory settings and then reconsidering which programs to reinstall. 

I have three problems with this plan, all interrelated. First, we’re talking about children, families, and teachers here, not hardware and software. Ending educational programs, even if some are later reinstated, leaves at least some kids high and dry, some teachers without jobs, some families without the support systems they rely on for their kids. It leaves real people lost in the gap between what was and what might (or might not) be "reinstalled." You just can’t do that to children, their families, and their teachers and expect everything to “reset” on cue.

Second, based on my training in developmental psychology, one thing I know for sure is that children are sponges. They learn all sorts of things from the world around them, whether or not we intend for them to. For instance, they learn about the social world—about who belongs to which category (teacher vs. pupil, girl vs. boy, white vs. person of color, rich vs. poor, etc.), about who “should” like whom, and about how those groups rank in their particular social environment. In short, they learn about who is valued and who is not. And the lessons that they learn early on—not so much through direct teaching as through osmosis, just by watching and listening—are remarkably lasting. In part, they’re lasting precisely because they’re learned that way; they sort of get into your cells. So I’m thinking about what children might learn from cuts like these.

The third part is the issue of equity. I've mentioned before my involvement with the Boulder Valley Safe Schools Coalition, which works to make the schools welcoming and supportive for LGBT students, parents, and staff. But my commitment to equity extends far beyond LGBT issues and includes all marginalized groups. There are many differences among the groups who stand outside the mainstream for one reason or another. But there is stark similarity in the means by which those groups are kept out. Institutional structures that fail to recognize the distinctive needs of particular groups are among the most powerful—and often insidious—of those means.

The tagline on the BVSD logo is “Excellence and Equity.” I am stunned by the total absence of any concern for equity here. I learned long ago that “equitable” does not mean “identical.” A simple “reset” that makes all schools “equal” (i.e., identical) does not constitute an equitable adjustment. If we offer all children identical resources, we are unavoidably mistreating many of them. The reality is that poor kids, kids of color, kids whose second language is English, kids with learning deficits have distinctive needs, and these needs demand differential programming—equitable programming that recognizes their particular strengths and challenges. Some reassurances are now emerging that some of these programs will be reinstated … at least in part. But the “improved” funding for literacy programs is still about half what it was last year. And I still insist that is not OK. In his response to some of these critiques, Dr. Messinger even acknowledged that it is not OK, but (I imagined a shrug), there it is. As if meeting the needs of half of these kids or meeting them half as well would just have to do. 

I repeat, the tagline is “Excellence and Equity.” The two are inseparable. Our treatment of people is part of children's education, just as the formal curriculum is. When we diminish precisely those programs that serve this particular set of children, we teach all children something: equity matters until there’s a budget crunch; then, not so much. 

To these particular children and their families, we’re saying, “When push comes to shove, when budgets come to the bottom line, your needs are expendable.” How else can they understand the fact that the proposed cuts slice away at programming intended to help them succeed in school—and, I might add, in life? And to everyone else—including the kids and the adults who may seem to be unaffected by these cuts—we’re saying, “When the going gets rough, you can just look the other way. As long as you are personally safe, it’s not your worry.” What an awful lesson for our schools to teach us.

I’m not totally oblivious to the budgetary dilemmas facing BVSD. Finding the money to continue providing excellent education and also to reimburse teachers at an honorable level is a daunting task. I don’t pretend to know the details of that process or the answers to those dilemmas. However, I find it impossible to believe that no better options can be found to balance the budget than to cut programs that serve the students who most need BVSD’s full support.

So, I have to wonder why these particular programs were targeted. Here is my (no longer secret) fear: The children who are directly hurt by cuts like these represent families and communities who make up a relatively small, mostly invisible, and not very powerful portion of the BVSD community. My fear is that these are simply the “easiest” places to cut, the “low-hanging fruit,” precisely because the groups most greatly impacted are less visible, less powerful, and less outspoken than other groups might be.

The budget shortfall is around 2% of BVSD’s overall budget. There simply have to be better ways to deal with this than selectively cutting these particular programs. How about cutting funding for interscholastic athletics? How about reconsidering the administrative structure? How about an across-the-board 2% cut in all programs?

I honestly don’t know the answers. But a lot of folks are working on this budget, and they all serve at the pleasure of the public. Enough noise from “out here” may just echo enough “in there” to trigger some re-examination of priorities. Of what this community stands for—or hopes to stand for. Of the meaning of “Excellence and Equity.”

Please add your voice to the mix. Email the BVSD school board, email Dr. Messinger, write a letter to the Daily Camera. While you're at it, write to your state representatives and senators, since part of the problem is that Colorado’s state funding for education is pitifully low (use this interactive map to find them). Help make some noise. We may or may not change what they do, but we can sure make them aware that this particular approach is not all right with us. Heck, maybe it will make a difference. As Margaret Mead famously said,

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Volunteer travel log: San Francisco

My last entry in my volunteer travel log, which seems like a long time ago, had us leaving Michigan, headed for San Francisco. Now there’s a change—in scenery, in culture, in pace, in essence! 

San Francisco is a vibrant city with lots of culture, great small movie theaters, the ocean on one side and the bay on the other, streetcars, and Fisherman’s Wharf. But it’s a city. It’s crowded, congested, noisy, and hurried, and there are far too few parking places. Long-time residents say that when you go out for dinner in San Francisco, you find a parking place and then look around for a restaurant. SF is geographically small—7.5 miles square—which makes it an easy city to walk (if you don’t mind the hills). I walked more miles in the year we spent here than I have since my mega-hiking days some years ago.

Coming from the political work I’d been doing elsewhere, it's not too surprising that my first foray into San Francisco volunteering was in LGBT politics. No particular anti-LGBT politics were afoot at the time (this was before the courts declared same-sex marriage legal and then Prop 8 then rescinded that right). But the local LGBT-rights group was very active anyway. I loved this idea: there were other issues of oppression happening in the state, and if we were committed to equality, we should be working for other groups’ equality, as well. So Equality California (EQCA, for short) was working hard on other issues. I joined up for the usual tasks of street corner voter ID, phone banks, and door-to-door campaigning. As a fundamentally shy person, I hate these activities. But organizers who are far wiser and more experienced that I am say these things work. So I devoted an afternoon a week to the street stuff and supervised a phone bank one evening a week. EQCA's work contributed to some great successes at the ballot box and forged alliances with other groups who stood by us when our turn came to be the targets. A good start to being involved in SF.

My next project, and the one I was most invested in here, was a totally new undertaking for me: teaching literacy to English-speaking adults. I heard about a training offered by Project Read, a literacy program at the SF library, and spent several weeks learning how to do this work. I had completed their training and was between learners when I decided to pursue an additional volunteer position that unexpectedly gave me a chance to put the training to good use.

There’s this program in SF called Delancey Street. It is sort of a half-way house for people coming out of prison or off the streets. They can choose to come here instead of other places of incarceration. This program is entirely run by the residents/inmates. In fact, residents designed, built, and are responsible for all maintenance of the block-sized residence hall where they all live. 

They run a restaurant in one corner of that building and a coffee shop in another. They perform all the duties required to operate these facilities—planning, ordering, cooking, serving, cleaning up, book-keeping … everything. They also have a moving business and do all the jobs required to run that business, from truck maintenance to booking jobs and record keeping to pick-up and delivery. At the holidays, they run Christmas tree lots, and residents do everything needed for those, too. Their income from these businesses helps to fund the program. The residents can’t leave except by earning the privilege and with supervision, but their days are filled with the things that fill working folks’ days on the “outside.”

The Delancey Street building with the Bay Bridge in the background

When I learned about this program (by visiting the restaurant with my partner, who knew the story), I was so impressed by the idea, that I decided I wanted to volunteer there. I met with the woman in charge and discovered that volunteering there wouldn't be so easy to arrange. They have no volunteers because the residents do everything. The one thing they were interested in was someone to teach a literacy class. Bingo! A perfect fit! So, for the rest of our time there, I did a weekly literacy class with a group of guys earning their way back into free society.

Both the teaching and the interpersonal parts of the task were challenging. These were guys who had grown up with minimal reading and writing ability. Their spoken language was fine, but they couldn’t read instructions for their work, couldn’t write a letter to the child they hadn’t see for years, couldn’t answer a letter from an old friend who had tracked them down, were concerned about getting out because there would be no one to translate the signs, the menus, the newspaper, and the instructions, on one to help them write letters (or emails), complete forms—all the things that make life in a print-laden world possible. On top of that, they had had minimal contact with people other than their fellow residents (and before that, fellow prisoners), and they were not very attuned to everyday social graces. Also, they had had virtually no contact with women. Boundaries were a huge issue here.

Challenges and all, this was a great experience. It felt really worthwhile and kept me thinking hard about how to be helpful. The classes were wrapped in a lot of laughter, like about the confusing maze of rules in English. And they brought many very gratifying moments, like helping that guy write a letter to his daughter. I don't know how much it helped because I had no contact with any of them outside class. Well, except for one letter, probably a result of my failure to be totally clear about that boundary thing. But that was quickly handled, and the rest was pure satisfaction.

I also did a couple of rather short-term volunteer gigs during that year. I worked for a while in the LGBTQ history archives, sorting and filing boxes and boxes of old documents, newspapers, flyers, and assorted memorabilia from decades of LGBTQ life in the city. This was a fascinating job just for the exposure to these old records. On the fun side, I learned (but was not at all surprised?) that there was a very active women’s touch football league in the 60s and 70s. On a more somber note, I also sorted through records from the 1980s, early in the AIDS epidemic. San Francisco (along with NYC) was ground zero for that disease in this country, and the impact on this city was immeasurable and tragic.

For a short period toward the end of our SF time, I volunteered with the health department, working at street fairs (of which there are many in SF) to disseminate safer sex information and provide free HIV and hepatitis testing. This felt like an excellent service to provide. It was also a pretty fascinating introduction to communities I usually wouldn’t encounter. Expanded my horizons, for sure!

And then, after a year of “sharking for parking,” in a friend’s words, we were off again. The next move brought us home to Colorado. For me, it was truly coming home—to the place of my childhood and virtually all of my adult life. To the mountains, the open, complicated skies, and the smell of rain (I never knew that rain doesn’t smell like this everywhere).

And then, the process of finding my place started all over again.