The Outpost Observer

It's time to listen to teachers on issues of education

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Thursday, September 9, 2010 

By John A. Ostenburg

Why is it that the last people listened to regarding problems in public education are the ones who deal with it on the front line day after day?

 

Chicago's Renaissance 2010 education plan came onto the charts back in 2004. Immediately, classroom teachers pointed out its many flaws. Were they listened to? Of course not. Instead, Mayor Richard M. Daley and now U.S. Secretary of Education -- then Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer -- Arne Duncan pushed ahead with a program that had come not from the educational community, but rather from the business community.

 

Lest anyone forget, that's the same business community that has demonstrated questionable wisdom in the world of finance, ultimately leading the United States into its current economic crisis.

 

When teachers voiced their outrage over some of the proposals contained in the Ren 2010 plan, they were accused by both politicians and the media of being concerned only with selfish interests. Newspaper editorials declared that teachers only were protecting their jobs, only were complaining because they wanted to duck accountability. CPS administrators said "bad" teachers were the problem in Chicago, and so they used Ren 2010 as a way to get rid of seasoned teachers, claiming that the complete "turn-around" of some schools was needed in order to give the students at those sites a quality education.

 

Of course, the Chicago Teachers Union argued to the contrary. "Teachers don't make the decisions that are causing failure in the Chicago Public Schools," then CTU President Marilyn Stewart said in an open letter to Arne Duncan in February 2006. "Rather, those decisions are made by the high-priced, non-educator, bureaucrats who work for you."

 

She could have ended that sentence with "such as you" instead of "for you," as Mr. Duncan himself is a non-educator bureaucrat, given that he's never been a classroom teacher or school-based administrator but rather moved right to the front of the line by being anointed first by Mayor Daley to become the CPS CEO, and then by President Barack Obama to be the nation's education secretary. In developing the Ren 2010 plan, he took direction from a study by the Commercial Club of Chicago, hardly a group of educators.

 

Operating from his Washington base, Mr. Duncan has continued to spread his erroneous gospel that schools will improve when (1) they are completely dismantled and then "turned-around," or (2) replaced by privately operated charter schools. The decision on schools to be turned-around or replaced is based on test scores. But the results of the Duncan experiment in Chicago seem to be showing some flaws in his gospel message.

 

Now along comes a couple of major news items that seem to indicate that the classroom teachers weren't so far off base as it seemed back when they were warning that Ren 2010 really wasn't addressing the true problems within public education, especially big-city public education. A recent analysis of Renaissance 2010 by Catalyst magazine makes clear that one of the cornerstones of Ren 2010 -- charter schools -- is showing no educational improvement over traditional schools. And now, on the heels of that study, CPS itself has issued a report card on its schools, asserting that 48 percent of its elementary schools and 68 percent of its high schools deserve a grade of "D" at best. This after six years of the Renaissance 2010 "reform."

 

The national trend that began in Chicago and has been replicated in other major U.S. cities -- most notably in Washington, D.C., under that city's school chief, Michelle Rhee -- is destined for dire consequences, according to one leading national education figure.

 

Dr. Diane Ravitch, author of the highly acclaimed The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education published earlier this year, makes the following observation about the future of American schools, given the current direction.

 

"The search for higher scores is likely to promote a significant narrowing of the curriculum, cheating, teaching to the test, and other negative outcomes," she recently wrote on an education blog. "To the extent that our students learn less history, science, civics, geography, foreign languages, and the arts, their education will be far worse than it is today."

 

Dr. Ravitch, it should be noted, is neither wild-eyed liberal philosopher who thrives on attacking the establishment, nor an entrenched corporate decision-maker such as those who designed Renaissance 2010. Instead, she's a highly regarded professor of education at New York University and served as an assistant secretary of education under former President George H. W. Bush.

 

The underlying premise of Ren 2010 and similar programs is that low test scores are caused by a deficient teaching staff. To prove the point, public school critics find one or two examples of poor teaching and then portray them in the media as the rule rather than the exception. A new documentary movie on public education, Waiting for Superman, illustrates this point in its use of a couple of examples of bad teaching -- one 12 years old -- without any mention of the quality teaching that's much more prevalent.

 

But here are some reality-check points.

 

(1) Where are so-called "bad" schools most often found? Clue: not in wealthy upper-class and middle-class neighborhoods. So what's the common denominator? Can you say "poverty"?

 

(2) Kids in poorer-performing schools often are the ones whose parents have the lowest levels of education themselves, who often have parents who barely have reached adulthood themselves, who often come to school hungry, who often do not have in-home educational enhancements such as computers, home libraries, etc. Is it any wonder they do less well in the classroom?

 

(3) Teachers of kids in poorer-performing schools often are exerting far more energy to achieve lesser results than are the teachers of kids in better-performing schools. The kids in the better-performing schools many times achieve on their own as much as they do under the tutelage of their instructors.

 

(4) Teachers of kids in poorer-performing schools often are the only stabilizing element in the lives of those children. Firing those teachers, and replacing them with someone brand new to the neighborhood, cannot be beneficial to the educational process.

 

(5) Effective community programs that help children escape the woes of poverty will prove a thousand times more successful at improving education than will the "turn-around" of their schools.

 

No one denies that problems exist within many of America's public schools today. Nor does anyone deny that improvements must be made if children in America are to learn at a level consistent with the demands of society for a well-educated workforce. The point of the argument is who decides what is the best approach to educating our young. Haven't we been leaving that decision to bureaucrats and politicians long enough? Don't we see sufficient evidence that their decisions have not proved effective?

 

Let's let teachers teach. And let's let them decide the best methods for achieving success in our schools. In every other profession, it's the professional who makes those kinds of decisions. Why are things so different in public education?

 

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He recently retired as the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Putting 'labor' back into the celebration of Labor Day

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Monday, September 6, 2010 

By John A. Ostenburg

For more than 125 years, Americans have observed Labor Day on the first Monday of September.

 

The observance began with a ceremony in New York in 1882 and soon spread across the nation, becoming a federal holiday in 1894. Today it is considered by many as representing the start of something: e.g., a number of school districts across the country begin classes on the day after Labor Day; the two major political parties traditionally have used Labor Day as an official kick-off for their campaigns; fall fashions are considered to be in vogue after Labor Day. By happenstance, a few people even use the day to talk about workers and their plight.

 

Throughout the rest of the world, working men and women are honored each year on May 1 -- International Workers' Day -- rather than on the first Monday of September. Ironically, the May 1 date was selected in observance of one of the most important American labor events ever to occur: the 1886 Haymarket Massacre that took place over a two-day period, May 4 and 5, on Chicago's Randolph Street a short distance from the Loop. In the U.S., May 1 passes with only a slight nod toward workers, even -- unfortunately -- within the ranks of organized labor itself.

 

The Haymarket tragedy occurred because three elements suddenly were juxtaposed: (1) laborers were demanding fair treatment in the workplace and a decent wage for their on-the-job performance, (2) their employers were unwilling to provide either, and (3) political bosses sided with the economically powerful rather than the struggling worker. I suspect I'm not alone in thinking that something close to similar conditions may be present in our nation today.

 

Today's problem situation is less based on wages and working conditions than on the fact that so few jobs are available for the large number of potential workers who are seeking them. While economic studies are showing that American businesses are on a financial upswing as a result of the stimulus that the federal government has provided, those same studies also show that the improved businesses are being extremely reluctant to create more jobs for American workers. Too many Washington politicians are turning their heads and refusing to confront this dichotomy.

 

Financial giants Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America are advertising jobs that are available in overseas markets, most notably in China. Each of those institutions received stimulus dollars. While it is understandable that these U.S. businesses and others might have the need for overseas employees, shouldn't they have certain obligations for creating jobs here at home first, considering that they survived economic ruin because taxpayers bailed them out?

 

As part of his Labor Day message, President Barack Obama proposed some new incentives to encourage business to engage in more research and development in order to move into new areas of manufacturing that will increase the potential for more American jobs. While that's a very good carrot, I think lots of Americans are wondering, "But what about the stick?" What are the President and Congress prepared to do if those businesses take the government's money, do the research and development that's being urged, but then create the new jobs in overseas markets, where costs may be lower and their profit margins thereby greater?

 

While I don't suspect that unemployed Americans are contemplating the kind of protests that resulted in the Haymarket event, or the Pullman strike and demonstration of 1894, or anything else quite so volatile, I do believe the current anti-government environment that's being fostered by our economic conditions is the kind of fodder that nurtures anarchy. It's most likely to materialize first in the defeat of a number of incumbents in the coming mid-term elections, but it could develop into broader protests if angry unemployed Americans begin to think the electoral process isn't working to their advantage.

 

Any new programs that Washington is considering as a means of assisting business need to include some specific and clear consequences for anyone who takes the money but then fails to produce returns. The President needs to be clear on this point. Full and total accountability must be the order of the day. Anything less is an insult to the nation's taxpayers, especially those who are out of work.

 

Revolutions, even when they are less than successful, destabilize governments. Each time anarchy emerges, no matter how limited it might be, it challenges the solid foundation upon which the common good is based. Yet, sometimes segments of the public seem so disenfranchised that they see no avenue for correction other than to attack the system by whatever means may be available. I fear much of the current unrest that's being generated by right-wing extremists can have influence over ever larger segments of the current American population that in better times would send the extremists packing. Politicians who ride on the backs of the extremists for personal political gain may be causing greater threats to our national fabric than would any outside terrorists.

 

The bottom line is this: America needs to wake up and give more attention to its average citizen, the every-day worker whose only desire is to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow and thus to provide for his or her family. President Obama and members of both parties in the Congress had better awaken to this reality and begin to collaborate on programs that truly are of benefit to workers.

 

Talking about the creation of jobs isn't the answer. Criticizing someone's else's plan for the creation of jobs isn't the answer. The answer is the creation of jobs!

 

When that finally happens, we'll have lots more happy celebrants on Labor Day, regardless of whether it's observed on the first Monday of September of the first day of May. The time of the celebration is irrelevant; it's the reason for the celebration that matters.

 

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He recently retired as the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Maybe it's time to really 'give peace a chance'

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Sunday, September 5, 2010 

By John A. Ostenburg

Recently I had the opportunity to hear a lecture by Kathy Kelly, coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Her announced topic was "U.S. Drone Warfare in Pakistan and Afghanistan," but actually her talk covered a much wider scope of things. Really, her presentation should have been promoted with the old John Lennon song title, "Give Peace a Chance."

 

A longtime peace activist and currently one of the Creech 14 -- fourteen protesters arrested in Spring 2009 for trespassing on government property at the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada -- Ms. Kelly has spent lots of time in mideast war zones and has a first-hand knowledge of the devastating effects that modern combat techniques have on the wellbeing of native populations. As she points out, many of the victims of conflict in the mideast are so undereducated as not to understand even remotely what is happening to them, or why.

 

That, she said, is the reason the U.S. and its allies are making so little progress in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, and in other areas with large rural populations that live in truly primitive conditions: because our government policy is predicated on the notion that the population wants us fighting there in order to bring about democratic governments. In fact, she maintains, the population has no idea of what "democracy" means but does have a clear understanding that missiles and bombs sent into their homes by "the great satan" are killing their mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins, and neighbors. She said key advisors to U.S. military leadership have exposed this dilemma time and again, but the Defense Department personal and the generals seem powerless in stopping actions that they themselves have initiated. They're like gamblers who keep chasing their losses, confident that the next throw of the dice or spin of the roulette wheel will make it all well again (my analogy, not hers).

 

The use of drones is particularly problematic, according to Ms. Kelly, because they seem to diminish accountability on the part of those who activate them. She compared the military personnel who deploy the drones, operating from a location thousands of miles away, to youngsters engaged in computer combat who use their joysticks to eliminate or compromise an opponent in some virtual combat scenario. Almost as confirmation of that opinion, an audience member said her own youngsters believe drones are beneficial weapons of warfare because they minimize the potential that they might be drafted into actual combat. Ms. Kelly said that may be true, but it doesn't justify the thousands of deaths that occur -- often to innocent victims and not to enemy combat troops -- as a result of the drones being used in seek and destroy missions by U.S. forces operating from their remote locations.

 

It was in protest to the use of drones that Ms. Kelly and her thirteen compatriots crossed into the property of Creech AFB on April 10, 2009. They said they desired to engage in conversation with the Air Force personnel on the base who actually operate the Predator and Reaper drone missiles that are used in combat in the war zones of Afghanistan and adjacent regions. Instead of being given that opportunity, they were arrested for illegally entering government property. They are scheduled for trial in Clark County, Nevada, on September 14.

 

In part, Ms. Kelly's talk before a group of 100 or more at St. Irenaeus Church in Park Forest was intended to help raise funds for the defense of the Creech 14. Equally as important to her, however, was her goal of convincing her audience and anyone to whom they might in turn reach out, that somebody needs to do something about war and violence. Ms. Kelly made the argument that world peace can be effected if a sufficient number of people get behind the effort. She pointed to the civil rights movement in the United States as an example of how a prevailing national attitude was changed as a result of hard work on the part of a number of dedicated proponents of equality for all races. She told her audience that she sincerely believes the same is possible as regards world peace.

 

While I agree with Ms. Kelly in principle, that the sincere and consistent efforts of even a handful eventually can reap genuine rewards, I also am inclined to believe that it is extremely difficult to control the behaviors of any individuals -- or even nations -- who have hatred in their hearts. Turning the cheek is a personal act that any one of us can take (I might even say, should take), but those charged with the responsibility of protecting the public at large face additional responsibilities that reach beyond that. As Christians, Ms. Kelly and her compatriots do well to imitate the actions of Jesus Christ in how he showed love for those who extended ill toward him; however, even Jesus took up the whip to expel the money-changers in the Temple because of the social ill they were spreading.

 

As such, I find it difficult to accept that absolute pacifism is enough to effect the kind of change that Ms. Kelly would like to see. Lest we forget, law enforcement also was a necessary component of the changes that ultimately brought major controls on racial hatred in the 1960s and 1970s. People had to be arrested, sentenced, and sent to jail; federal officers often had to engage in strong tactics in order to bring the wrongdoers to their knees. And -- even with all the combined efforts of peaceful protest and effective law enforcement -- things today are far from perfect and the ugly head of racism still rises all too often and spews its hateful venom.

 

So, from my perspective, it is legitimate for the U.S. to seek to curtail hateful acts by Al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban. But I also believe the methods we employ in our efforts at self-protection must likewise be legitimate.

 

The "just war" theory has its roots in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and lays out various particulars that create justification for why a nation might go to war. Actions that have lasting and serious harmful effects and for which all other means of finding solution have been exhausted -- for example, the extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime in Germany -- generally are regarded as legitimate reason for going to war. However, as theologians point out, the tactics of war that are used by the parties engaging in a "just war" must not be even more harmful than what is intended to be corrected. Use of the atom bomb in the Pacific theater during World War II raises some questions for me in that regard. Likewise the use of drone missiles and scatter bombs in the conflicts of today.

 

Over the past 15 years, a gentleman named Greg Mortenson has been establishing schools in remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to bring education to children -- especially young girls -- who otherwise probably never would learn to read or write. He has documented his work in a highly acclaimed book, Three Cups of Tea, and recently wrote a second volume on his work, Stones Into Schools. He established the Central Asia Institute after he encountered difficulty in a mountain-climbing expedition in Afghanistan and then received kind treatment from locals. As a "thank you" for the local people's kindness, he decided -- against great odds -- to bring schooling to the children of the region.

 

Mr. Mortenson says the cost of educating one child in Afghanistan or Pakistan is approximately $1 per month. By contrast, I've read that the cost of one drone missile is about $100,000. While I believe that the U.S. needs to take every necessary step to assure that our nation is protected against attacks by terrorists, I can't help but think that we'd have a lot more luck in fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda by putting more of our tax dollars into Mr. Mortenson's efforts to improve the life for locals than we will have by continuing to pour funds into more drone missiles to destroy what little quality of life those residents may otherwise enjoy.

 

Maybe doing so would be a better avenue for giving world peace a chance.

 

 

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He recently retired as the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Congressman 'Tip' O'Neill had it right: all politics indeed is local

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Tuesday, December 29, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

When you’re the mayor of a small town in a state that has produced two of the giants of American politics, your stature as a voice to be heard on matters of governance suffers from an innate and justified questioning of its authenticity.

 

I grew up in Springfield, Illinois – the city of Abraham Lincoln – and have experienced politics and governing in the same local arenas that nurtured Barack Obama. But aside from those two anecdotal ties to my state’s pair of most respected favorite sons, I really have had very limited exposure to the complicated workings of public policy that range all the way from confronting state secession to settling international crises.

 

Yet, I have a very distinct feeling that the most fundamental aspects of governing are those found at community meetings where I very often have to defend some local policy decision. In the summer of 2009, such local meetings nearly derailed health-care coverage for millions of American citizens who desperately need it. To a great extent, that happened because the elected leaders – congressmen and senators – who were conducting those sessions were playing the same role that small-town mayors and councilpersons play week-in and week-out, but they didn’t quite know how to handle it the way we do. Unfortunately, for many of those Washington-based officials, dealing with angry citizens in a face-to-face session was a bit overwhelming. The result was a lot of tails wagging a whole bunch of dogs.

 

From my perspective, the best lesson to learn from the late U.S. Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill’s admonition that “all politics is local,” is the importance of dealing with citizens at the local level. I know Speaker O’Neill was preaching the importance of winning votes at the local level when he made his oft-quoted statement, but the significance of his words is much greater. The voices of citizens at the local level give rise to comments that don’t carry the same lofty platitudes that are contained in the statements and questions that come from citizens who participate in the public debates held among candidates for president, U.S. senate, or congress. That’s why the senators and congressmen who suddenly were attacked at the various health-care town hall meetings were so unprepared for what they received.

 

In true local settings, citizens aren’t at all concerned about how they might look on television reports. They’re not all that concerned about whose feelings they might hurt. They’re not even all that concerned about the total accuracy of what they might be saying. They perceive, maybe even unconsciously, that no one is making any kind of public record of what is happening and so they let all their feelings – and especially their anger – flow out in an uncontrolled way. When they do that, a contagion often spreads through the entire audience, with others jumping on the bandwagon with their comments about how the system has failed. What happens is exactly what happened in the health-care town hall meetings.

 

When small-town mayors and councilpersons experience this type of circumstance, they generally know at least some of the folks in the audience on a personal basis. Maybe some are neighbors, or fellow workers at a local business or industry, or have kids who attend the same school. That personal acquaintance gives the local official the opportunity to say, “Now listen, Joe, you know that last statement isn’t true.” Many times that’s all it takes to defuse an otherwise volatile situation. That approach didn’t seem to be an avenue open to the officials holding the health-care meetings and, as a result, things just degenerated into shouting matches.

 

I happen to believe that local meetings are government at its finest. Yet I also recognize that uncontrolled local meetings can lead to nothing short of anarchy. They can be the hotbed for demagogues. They can create totally false impressions of public sentiment by being overrun by the loudest voices, even though those voices might not be representative of the true sentiment of the group as a whole. That’s where local leadership becomes so important. Someone needs to moderate the discussions in such a way that that the process isn’t shanghaied by a few whose purpose is nothing short of advancing their own narrow agenda. Again, that’s what happened with the health-care meetings.

 

Now, I don’t purport to be any more of a master of this process of moderating than might be anyone else, but I’m at least aware of the potential of what could occur and thus go into meetings with local residents prepared for the worst while praying for the best. I think that’s an attitude I share with lots of my fellow local officials. The art to stopping snowball effects from taking place is to recognize the significance of how much snow that initially tiny little ball will collect as it rolls down the slippery slope.  That’s what compels one to jump in front of things and stop the decline before too much momentum is gained.

 

The goal should not be to quell public dissent, if indeed dissent is in order (as it very often is!); the goal should be to make sure an honest and forthright exchange takes place. I’m a great proponent of public policy that is developed from the head and not the heart; that means thoughtful public policy rather than policy born from emotional outbursts. It is incumbent upon the local leader in group-settings to make sure emotions don’t gerrymander the process; little of real value can be accomplished if it that occurs.

 

I recently had the occasion to meet with a group of citizens of a new subdivision in my town whose property assessments are literally off the charts. As a result, their taxes are greater, in some cases, than their mortgage payments. Taken together – taxes plus mortgage – the total dollar amount exceeds what many can afford to pay. Because of the high taxes, which are totally out of balance with what they were told at the time they made their purchase, some are facing the potential of losing their homes. It was not a pretty setting. The residents came to the meeting angry with municipal government because they believed we were responsible for setting both their tax rates and their assessments. At a couple of points during the session it looked as though the entire meeting hall was going to turn into a battle-zone. Fortunately, however, a little straight-talk kept the emotions in check, allowed most of the people in the room to gain a better understanding of the process, and ultimately resulted in residents who are eager to work with their local officials to bring about true and meaningful tax reform. Meanwhile, we – the elected officials – are working with them to find some ways of minimizing the negative impact of those tax bills.

 

I relate this story only to illustrate that even the most volatile of situations can proceed in the proper direction if the effort is made to set the record straight. At one point in the meeting, I had to raise my voice in response to voices that were raised against me. However, my voice was able to convey factual information, whereas a few of the loudest against me were speaking only from emotional perspectives. Even they ultimately came to see that the problem is greater than what local government can correct. They came to recognize, as many of the rest of us already had, that solutions come from clear thinking and not from shouting matches. Chaos never has as its intent to settle a dispute; it has as its intent to inflame a dispute. Therefore, ask yourself what the real motive is of those who would generate chaos at every turn.

 

The town hall meetings on health care didn’t need to turn into the messes that they ended up being. Many of the speakers at those gatherings had legitimate concerns and questions. Unfortunately, they were overpowered by a handful whose only intent was to stop anything at all from happening. The chaos-makers had a game-plan that had nothing whatsoever to do with health-care reform. Their game-plan was to stop health-care reform. Sadly, the elected officials who were present and should have shown the intestinal fortitude to suppress emotional outbursts and control the direction of the meetings at best didn’t know how to handle the situation, or at worst simply chose not to. As a result, all across the nation an inaccurate image of massive opposition to health-care reform took center stage. That in turn led to lots of amendments to the bills that were under consideration in congress and as a result all Americans will benefit from this legislation a little less than they should.

 

I have to think that a good part of the true leadership ability of both Abraham Lincoln, whose mastery of wit led him often to settle disputes before they got out of hand, and of community-organizer Barack Obama, who himself was able to deal with town hall meetings without any disruption whatsoever, is rooted in a local government approach to national policy-making. Both men seem possessed of a fundamental understanding of human behavior and know-how to deal with it positively rather than react to it negatively. It’s too bad so many members of congress – those who were over-run by their own town hall meeting audiences – don’t possess the same leadership style. If they did, we might have a much better health-care reform bill emerge from Washington than what we’re likely to receive.

 

The people’s voice always must be heard and must be listened to. However, when a handful dominate an assembly, it’s not “the people’s voice” that’s being heard; rather it is the voice only of the handful. And why, I ask, should the opinion of a handful ever be allowed to overpower the voice of the majority? 

 

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Local government performs four very basic but important roles

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Saturday, October 24, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

Some time ago, I was asked what local government actually does. Giving the question some thought, I came up with the following response.

 

Local government performs four basic tasks: (1) assuring that citizens respect the rights of one another; (2) providing essential services required to meet public needs; (3) managing the various operations that are necessary for the public good; and (4) providing funding for the various operations that the public requires.

 

The first of these four – assuring that citizens respect the rights of one another – is the fundamental basis of governing. Elected officials are charged with the responsibility of creating ordinances that are intended to maintain a balance between the rights of the individual and the common wellbeing of the citizens as a whole. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once noted that “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins,” and that is the basic premise for law in a civil society. Every individual has a wide range of personal rights and options, but none of those rights or options allows him or her to infringe on the rights and options of fellow citizens. As a result, laws are enacted based on a common denominator of what is best for the greatest number of individuals, while at the same time guarding and protecting the personal freedoms of every individual as guaranteed by our constitutional government.

 

Maintaining that balance is not an easy task and is probably one of the most difficult jobs that the elected official faces. Special interests continually emerge and advocate for one course of action or another, based on the firm and solid beliefs of the individuals who support those interests. Often citizens find it difficult to understand why their special interests cannot be codified into law; they sometimes are so personally committed to the ideals behind their interests that they cannot recognize the potential negative impact such principles might have on others who do not share the same ideals.

 

When government begins to act on personal interest more than the general interest, disaster is right around the corner. So, elected officials must be very circumspect in their decisions and in the ordinances that they enact. Governing is not an easy task, but it is a necessary one. Not everyone always will be pleased with the laws that are established, but hopefully no one ever will be hindered by them.

 

The second task of government – providing essential services required to meet public needs – is easier for most citizens to understand. Most people get it that the services of policemen and firefighters are needed in order to preserve the common good. Most people also understand that streets have to be maintained, that water and sewer services need to be provided, and that parks and recreational facilities are part of the quality of life that communities offer.

 

The problem is not that citizens don’t understand these needs, or that they’re not grateful that they are available 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, 52-weeks-a-year; the problem, rather, is that most people don’t realize that taxes are needed to support these vital services. Lots of citizens complain about high taxes without ever considering that the many services provided by government actually come at far less a price than do the services of various private businesses.

 

In part, the lack of appreciation for what the tax dollars actually provide comes from the fact that most citizens don’t need all the services of government on a continuing basis. Gratefully, relatively few citizens need police, fire, or paramedic protection more than a few times in their entire lives, yet those are items that take the biggest portion of local tax dollars to maintain. A large part of what taxes pay for is the availability of those services when they are needed.

 

The third role of government – managing the various operations that are necessary for the public good – is the same as management in any business or corporate enterprise. Someone needs to provide direction to staff members and to oversee various operations. Municipal government is a major business, with millions of dollars being collected and spent in the average community. Proper management assures that the dollars spent on those operations produce effective results.

 

Additionally, municipal managers maintain on-going contact with the public to assure that services provided in fact are meeting the needs of the citizens. Government managers are troubleshooters, always looking for things that need to be improved, that need to be addressed for the first time, or possibly even eliminated because they’re no longer needed. Good management is an essential part of any operation, and local government is no different.

 

Finally, one of the most important roles of local government – providing funding for the various operations that the public requires – assures that adequate taxes are collected and are spent wisely. To a great extent, costs drive just about everything else in government. Budgets are built on careful analysis of what citizens expect their government to do, and then taxes are collected to meet the various activities identified in the budgetary process. It’s the responsibility of the elected officials to prioritize the needs proportionate to the available revenue to pay for them.

 

In my municipality, for example, building the budget is a nearly year-long process, with goal-setting as the principal component. Citizen input is sought in various ways as a backdrop to the subsequent activity of setting goals. Once goals are identified, an analysis is done of how much revenue will be needed to meet those goals. That revenue then is divided into the various cost-center activities that will assure the fulfillment of the desires of the citizens.

 

People often are critical of government because it is slow and sometimes less efficient than it should be. Additionally, not everyone always gets from government the things that he or she thinks are most important. Yet, I think any careful analysis of most government operations will find that things flow fairly well, given all the complexities involved. It’s hard to satisfy all the people all the time, especially when revenues available to do so are limited. However, if elected officials are doing what they should be doing, then everyone is going to be satisfied at least most of the time.

 

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Americans don't understand plight of Central America workers

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Friday, October 23, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

A dockworkers strike in Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, on October 21 resulted in a tour ship of the Holland America line not being allowed to dock or disembark any of its passengers for sightseeing visits.

 

Although officials of the cruise line – including both the captain and his on-ship staff and executives at the line’s Seattle office – made attempts to negotiate with government authorities to allow the ship to engage in its pre-scheduled stop to the port, no solution was found. The ship’s captain announced to the passengers that government officials feared for the safety of any persons who might attempt to cross the strikers’ picket line, and that they also feared for the security of the ship itself if it were allowed to dock. In fact, they refused for the ship even to remain anchored in the bay adjacent to the Puerto Limon pier.

 

As a union official who was on board the ms Zuiderdam, I found myself siding with the striking workers. After all, they have been engaged in a major labor dispute for quite some time now as the government of Costa Rica has attempted to privatize the docking operations. The workers fear that they would lose salary and major benefits if that were to happen, especially since that’s already been the case in one other Central America port. They also are seeking an adequate wage that will provide some level of security in the future, given the tendency by management to find private alternatives for handing the work that the strikers normally perform.

 

Of course, it wasn’t just the cruise ship that was prevented from docking. The striking workers also made sure that cargo vessels were allowed neither to be loaded with materials to be shipped out or to be unloaded with items that were coming into the country. Dockworkers themselves traditionally perform the work of removing items from cargo ships. Colleagues who secure the ship’s anchoring ropes to the pier refused to cross the picket line to dock the Holland America vessel.

 

Strikes are one of the few ways that workers have to actually flex their muscles. By not allowing ships to dock, the strikers were sending a strong message to their bosses: “If you want the commerce that comes from these ships visiting our harbors, you need to provide for the security of your employees who make those stops possible.” It’s the same message that strikers give to management when other labor disputes reach the highpoint of a work stoppage: “If we’re going to do the work, you must honor our demands.”

 

I can’t say, however, that many of my fellow passengers on the 10-day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to the Panama Canal and back – with various scheduled stops along the way, including the one to Puerto Limon – were as understanding of the workers’ plight as was I. Grumbling was commonplace aboard the ship, as angry Americans (a handful of passengers were from other countries too, but I didn’t hear any of them complaining the way the U.S. citizens did) insisted that the strikers were doing harm to themselves because keeping the ship out of harbor meant the loss of thousands and thousands of tourists’ dollars.

 

I was particularly taken by the outrage expressed by one older gentleman who was wearing a tee-shirt adorned with the image of a cross and some words of scripture. He told everyone within hearing distance in the elevator we all were riding that the workers were selfish and should give more consideration to all the people they were inconveniencing by their work stoppage.

 

Well, excuse me, Mr. Christian, but when I was a Catholic seminarian some years ago, I remember reading a passage from the Holy Bible that said the worker deserves his wage. Does your Bible say something different?

 

In many regards, life in Costa Rica seems to be pleasant enough. For example, the country has no standing army and universal health care is available to all. Nonetheless, conditions for workers are not all rosy. At the same time the dockworkers were striking in Puerto Limon, school teachers and taxi drivers also were on strike. Costa Rica is a rather small country to have so much worker unrest. Obviously, workers are less than happy with the conditions under which they labor.

 

It’s not easy for most Americans to accept the reality that workers in many countries – especially in Central America and South America – truly are victimized by their employers. The International Labor Communications Association, for example, regularly issues news reports about beatings and killings of labor leaders in those countries as thugs engaged by powerful management bosses use brutal intimidation to force employees to accept low-paying jobs, long work hours, and meager benefits.

 

Sadly, many of the financial figures behind the companies that engage in those tactics are Americans who are driven by a desire for wider and wider profit margins on their investments. They argue that they are giving work to people who otherwise would be unemployed. As such, in their minds, they are justified to be paying the workers so little, because even a little is better than nothing at all.

 

Members of American labor unions need to show support for their brothers and sisters in countries where workers are not treated so well. They need to educate themselves about the conditions faced by workers in countries such as Costa Rica, and then they need to raise their voices in angry protest over the inequality from which unionists in other countries suffer. Certainly workers don’t deserve the majority of the revenue resulting from various business enterprises, but they do deserve their fair share.

 

Workers must support one another, no matter what the setting may be. Solidarity for all must mean for ALL in order to be more than just an empty slogan.

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Some 'unfunded mandates' are bad, but many others are okay

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Monday, September 28, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

A common complaint among lots of municipal officials is that the state or federal government many times imposes mandates that the local officials then must implement. It becomes especially problematic when costs associated with putting the state or federal measures in place require local funding, which means that municipal taxes increase because of something that elected officials at a higher level have decided is important.

 

While I agree with my fellow elected officials that “unfunded mandates” are a problem, I also recognize that higher levels of government sometimes have to mandate things because folks at the lower levels have ignored the need to do something.

 

In the 1960s, for example, the federal government had to require the various states to provide for the civil rights of all their citizens because many of the states themselves chose not to do so on their own. Were there costs involved in that process? Indeed. Were the various states required to meet those costs? Yes. But was the federal government supposed to foot the bill just because it made the states do what they should have been doing in the first place? I don’t think so.

 

Likewise, over the last few years, many states – including Illinois – have put smoking bans in place. Local governments have been charged with the responsibility of implementing those bans, which in turn has required the expenditure of local tax dollars. But is it the state’s responsibility to come up with the funds to support laws that are for the common good of all the citizens? Given the fact that it costs the taxpayers more to pay taxes at the state level and then have them funneled through the bureaucracy and eventually back to implementing local standards, I don’t think so.

 

As I recall from my high school geometry, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line; as applied to taxes, that rule means that the least amount of taxes are required for projects that are funded at the level where they are implemented, rather than tax dollars going to Springfield or Washington and then eventually finding their way back to local government.

 

Over the last several years, lots of mandates have come down regarding environmental issues. The federal government has required the states to do certain things and the states in turn have required cities, towns, and villages to meet certain standards, many times with various expensive price-tags associated with them. The end result, however, has been protection of our planet, and improvement in the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink.

 

Frankly, I welcome the standards that have been set by higher levels of government on matters such as this. Federal and state officials often have resources at their disposal that allow them to see a problem much more comprehensively than we could do at the local level. And – in the final analysis – if what they are requiring us to do is in the public’s best interest, and if it will be paid for by taxpayers anyway, what difference does it make whether those taxes are collected locally, statewide, or federally?

 

Now, I don’t mean to suggest by my remarks that I think elected officials at the federal or state levels are smarter than are local officials. Nothing could be further from my true opinion. All I’m arguing is that blanket opposition to “unfunded mandates,” without careful consideration of everything that’s involved in each individual one of them, is nothing more than a knee-jerk and illogical response. Some mandates are bad, and some are good. Effective policymakers examine each one on its own merits rather than hide behind some cliché-ish objection to all of them.

 

For example, I think, personally, that some state legislation that has been passed requiring local governments to provide extra benefits – e.g., special pension benefits – for public employees statewide in certain groupings – i.e., firefighters and police officers – is a one-size-fits-all approach that’s not particularly beneficial to the public at large, especially since it’s not the state that pays for those benefits but rather the local units of government. To my way of thinking, that’s a mandate that oversteps the authority of state lawmakers. After all, they already have imposed legislation that requires collective bargaining with public employees who desire to unionize and engage in such. So why undermine that process by then also taking some things off the table as items that can be bargained?

 

I believe strongly in the right of public employees to unionize and to engage in the collective bargaining process. I believe they have the right to go to the negotiating table with their list of demands and to barter with management over which ones ultimately make their way into a mutually-agreed-upon contract. I believe they have the right to strike if they cannot convince management by any other means that they deserve better consideration than they are receiving.

 

When the state jumps into the process by requiring certain definitive benefits for all employees, even if they are benefits that the employees in a particular municipality may not be seeking, then the collective bargaining process is thrown awry. The tax dollars that are being used to fund the mandate might have been used for something that the public employees thought more important, but the opportunity to bargain the mandated items is not an option because the state has made their guarantee a requirement. It’s hard for me to understand how that’s in the best interest of the employee or anyone else.

 

So my message to legislators – federal or state – is not to stop the mandates, but rather to be more circumspect in which mandates ultimately are passed down. Don’t pass on a mandate just because you want to curry the favor of a particular group, or just because you want to pass on to someone else the responsibility for raising taxes to fund a needed action. Rather, give thoughtful review to each situation to decide what in fact is in the best interest of all parties involved, and then act accordingly.

 

And my message to my fellow local officials is similar. Don’t oppose all mandates just because you like to rail about “unfunded mandates.” Rather, you too should give thoughtful review to each situation to decide what is in all parties’ best interest, and then act to ensure that.

So, do you think I’m a utopian? Or just a fool?

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Democrats need to step up and offer support for President Obama

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

Why do Democrats let the Republicans get away with so much?

Nearly every problem that the current administration of President Barack Obama is facing is the result of something that occurred during the time that former President George W. Bush was in office. Yet, the Republicans continually jump on every reform effort that the Obama administration puts forth and in response the Democrats are silent instead of shouting from the rooftops: "But YOU caused it!"

Yes, health care reform is costly. Yes, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are losing propositions. Yes, the U.S. economy is in the dumps. Yes, schools need more money. Yes, U.S. prestige around the world isn't very high at the moment. But are any of these problems the fault of Barack Obama?

It's true that health care reform has been a need going back to the turn of the century but Republicans have been on the wrong side of the issue for decades. Don't forget, they did everything possible to prevent such programs as Medicare and Medicaid from becoming reality. After Democratic-controlled legislatures passed these measures under the leadership of a Democratic-controlled White House, the GOP naysayers warned of a drastic socialistic takeover of the nation as a result.

How ironic that it's the same naysayers who today are claiming to want protection for Medicare against the (once-again!) "socialistic" reforms that Mr. Obama is asking for.

Remember the proposed health care reforms of the Clinton administration? Those efforts were sabotaged by GOP opponents working in concert with the insurance industry. Despite the crocodile-tears shed by the imaginary characters of Harry and Louise in expensive television commercials sponsored by the Health Insurance Association of America, the Clinton reform proposals would have helped avoid much of the crisis the nation currently is facing regarding health care. Instead, insurance costs have escalated since the Clinton administration (which means during the "W" years) and the only beneficiaries have been (1) the insurance companies themselves whose profits have soared, and (2) the anti-reform members of Congress whose rewards have been hugh campaign contributions from those same firms.

Now comes forward Barack Obama with proposals to improve health care for all Americans, to cut costs for health insurance, to assure that all Americans can afford to live a healthy lifestyle, and who's on the other side once again? The Republicans.

And the Democrats are silent.

And don't get me started about our nation's current involvement in international conflicts.

Whose idea was it to invade Iraq under the false claim that Saddam Hussein had hidden weapons of mass destruction? Under whose administration was Osama Bin Laden allowed to escape into the mountains of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, pulling behind him the life-support system needed to offset his kidney problems. Universally it's accepted that these two military endeavors by the U.S. are costly failures. Yet, efforts by the Obama administration to halt the hemorrhaging of U.S. dollars into the sands and rocks of those two countries is met by GOP criticism that he's soft on terrorists.

If Dick Cheney is so hot on fighting terrorists, maybe President Obama should issue him a uniform, a rifle, and a commission and send him to the front lines. Maybe -- just maybe -- Mr. Cheney might be able to shoot Mr. Osama in the face. That's if he can convince the terrorist to be his hunting partner.

How outrageous that Dick Cheney -- known for his silent back-room maneuvering during W's presidency -- now takes to weekly television shows to assume self-appointed national leadership status. Could his real motive be to discount any potential future evidence that might come forward about his hand in lots of illegal moves while he served as vice president?

And yet, the Democrats are silent.

The economy? Republicans like to say Mr. Obama is failing in his economic recovery efforts of a mere eight months, with no mention of the reality that it took George W. Bush eight years to get us in the mess we presently face. Has anyone taken a look at the statistics lately? The U.S. surplus for Fiscal Year 2000 -- the year Mr. W. was elected as president -- was $230 billion. For Mr. Bush's last year in office, the deficit was $482 billion. That's a loss of $712 billion in eight years. And why exactly is that the fault of the Obama administration?

And the Democrats are silent.

No Child Left Behind left all the funding behind. Democrats gave their support to Mr. Bush's educational reform efforts with the hope that this was one area where he might make a difference. The teachers' unions also supported the initial concepts. But it was a shell game. With no funds to support its requirements on school districts and teachers across the country, NCLB was a colossal failure. But the Obama administration's efforts to make reforms such as NCLB meaningful are criticized by the GOP as merely "throwing money at a problem."

And the Democrats remain silent.

The image of the U.S. abroad is one of an arrogant giant unmindful and uncaring about the feelings of the rest of the world. To a large extent, foreign hatred of the U.S. is the cause of many terrorist acts against us. President Obama has sought to mend fences. The Republicans criticize him for doing so. Some even go so far as to claim his efforts to establish an improved presence in the eyes of the rest of the world are due to the erroneous claim that he's not really a U.S. citizen and therefore shouldn't be president anyway. Despite proof upon proof, the right-wing "birthers" insist that the president wasn't born in the U.S. and is a usurper.

And the Democrats are silent.

I remember as a kid that I once had to write 1,000 times that "Silence is golden; speech is silver." It was in response to my nun-teacher's objection to my speaking out in class on something that she thought was best left unsaid. I fear that too many Democrats had that same nun in class at some time in their past and that they took her admonition a little too seriously.

It's time to get "silver," Democrats!

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

For labor, after health care reform, next goal is passing EFCA

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Thursday, September 3, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

Organized labor in America has two major goals during the coming year: (1) to see health care reform enacted by the Congress of the United States, and (2) to see the same body pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). 

Anyone in the nation who is not up on the current debate over health care and insurance, must have his/her head stuck firmly in the sand.  Although lots of folks seem to lack a comprehensive knowledge of what actually is being debated in Washington, few can be accused of not at least knowing that a debate is going on.

As a result of special interest groups that are more interested in stopping any reform of health care coverage  than in promoting it, the public's knowledge of what is being argued in the halls of government is clouded by false accusations of death panels, socialized medicine, cuts in Medicare, and the like. When folks turn on the television for the evening news, they see video reports of shouting protesters at town hall meetings alleging that President Barack Obama is akin to Adolph Hitler for evening suggesting that the American health care system has problems. The protesters have been convinced by someone that the President wants to force them either to see doctors not of their choosing or to go without medical care at all. Never mind that what he actually wants to do is reduce health insurance costs so each American will be able to afford to see the doctor of his or her choice in future years.

The AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions are working diligently to set the record straight on health care reform. Labor leaders realize that some of the citizens who have been stirred to protest because of the misinformation that's being spread by the insurance industry and other special interests are retired union members. Many of them have seen their pensions disappear in recent years because of the collapse of companies that formerly employed them, and now they're being bombarded with propaganda that says their Medicare also is going to go away as a result of the President's reform efforts. Organized labor has a major task ahead of it in reversing the negative course on which many of its own members have erroneously embarked.

Labor also is putting the heat on legislators it has supported over the years and making it clear that health insurance reform is an issue that will decide what kind of future support will be forthcoming. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka -- destined to take over top leadership of the organization from retiring President John Sweeney at the AFL-CIO convention in September -- wrote on the Huffington Post blog recently that he intends to put the full force of labor behind only those candidates who show the courage to support a public option as part of insurance reform. "If you’re going to have health insurance reform, you must have a public option in it," he told lawmakers. "If you don’t, don’t expect us to support you."

If the timetable that the White House and congressional leaders currently are holding up in fact is followed, the health care issue should be decided -- one way or another -- no later than mid-fall. That's when the major push for passage of EFCA should be hitting federal lawmakers full force.

At present, companies completely control the process on how workers can form a union. Even if 100 percent of the workers at a given company have signed cards indicating their desire to organize, the company can refuse to recognize that action and insist instead that a secret-ballot election be held. What too often happens in the interim period between the employees' request to form a union and the election that has been scheduled by management is that pressure is put on a number of the workers -- including threats that they will lose their jobs or benefits -- as a means of influencing the outcome to the vote.

If EFCA were enacted, the National Labor Relations Board would be required to recognize the will of workers when more than 50 percent of them signed cards indicating their desire to organize (a process often referred to as "card-check"). According to the AFL-CIO, surveys have shown that as many as 60 million Americans desire to form unions in their workplaces but presently do not have an opportunity. Organized labor maintains that EFCA will provide those workers with the opportunity they are seeking.

While EFCA is being fought-out on the national level, a Chicago-based organizing campaign among workers is a good example of how companies will spend great sums of money in an effort to stop unionization.

Recently teachers at three Chicago charter schools signed cards to organize as a union. They maintained that they could use card-check as a means of organizing because it is permitted under the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act (IELRA). Because the legislation that established charter schools in Illinois refers to them as public schools, and because proponents of that legislation back in 1995 indicated in legislative debate that the charter schools would be under the IELRA, they thought they had a firm case. However, the companies that run the charter schools argued differently; they insisted that they are private employers -- even though they receive public funds for their operation -- and thus are under the jurisdiction of the NLRB where card-check currently is not permitted. The employers insisted, therefore, that a secret-ballot election was necessary in order to trigger unionization of the teachers.

Fortunately the election that was held a few weeks later overwhelmingly ratified the position previously illustrated by card-check and the teachers presently are negotiating their first contract with their employer. However, in the few weeks before the election, management was able to peel off some of the strongest supporters of the unionization effort by offering special employment deals. They also spent large sums of money on anti-union attorneys in an effort to deny their workers the right to negotiate for salaries and benefits.

If EFCA were in place, the card-check would have been recognized and negotiations on a contract could have begun immediately, without pitting some workers against others and without wasting dollars.

President Obama long has been a supporter of EFCA and has indicated that he will sign the legislation into law if it reaches his desk. The AFL-CIO says that it currently has survey results that show nearly 73 percent of the public in support of EFCA and it thus hopes that will be sufficient to convince a suitable number of legislators to vote for the bill.

Both health care reform and EFCA are important worker issues.

The current process whereby health insurance is a component of employment in most circumstances is problematic for workers because the constant increases in insurance costs eat into any potential salary increases that might otherwise be forthcoming. Furthermore, with the current economic downturn, many workers are losing jobs and thus losing health insurance coverage also. Without genuine reform, the current run-away costs for health care will force increasingly larger numbers of the middle class into the lower class in the years ahead. Meanwhile those presently in the lower economic bracket will see even more devastating conditions than they already experience. The goal of American public policy should be to left up those who are in poverty rather than to push more citizens to that level. Therefore, maintaining the status quo on health care is not an option.

EFCA also is important to workers for many reasons, but especially because of the change currently underway within the American employment structure. When unionization began to become prevalent on the U.S. landscape it was because of the conditions so many families suffered during the Great Depression. Perhaps things will not reach those levels, but the Great Recession currently underway is changing the way millions of Americans are living because they either are unemployed or are underemployed. As the U.S. economy regains its former strength, new job openings will be on the horizon and millions of individuals will be seeking to be hired. If we have learned anything from history, it is that management will not share willingly with its employees the profits that are realized. Collective bargaining, therefore, will be a necessary ingredient in re-establishing a solid working class that is paid adequately and enjoys the benefits that it deserves.

Health care insurance reform and EFCA: two very important goals for organized labor in 2009.

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

High school dropouts a major issue in U.S. education system

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Wednesday, September 2, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

On any given day, 7,000 high school students will stop going to school -- permanently. That number mounts to 1.2 million students who each year constitute a new graduating class of "dropouts."

In his book, Raising the Grade, former West Virginia Governor Bob Wise -- also a former congressman and now the president of the Alliance for Excellent Education -- notes that every day "Before the last school bus pulls away from the westernmost school in Hawaii, almost 7,000 students will have dropped out of high school, effectively disappearing into a social and economic netherworld where there are few good opportunities and many bad outcomes."

Fifty years ago, students could drop out of high school and still find a good job. Today, that's almost an impossibility. Certainly a handful of exceptions will find worthwhile employment in family businesses or in a small number of areas where sheer talent is the principal criterion, such as art or music, but the vast majority will struggle for years to come in the effort to find an adequate income.

Instead, members of the dropout population most likely will move from job to job without the benefits of health insurance, pension, paid vacations and the like. Many will turn to unsavory endeavors and eventually find themselves imprisoned. Their inability to provide adequate lifestyles for their family members often will result in succeeding generations that also will struggle to gain a foothold in society.

In today's world, stopping the educational process at the time one receives a high school diploma in itself is hardly the best course for gaining meaningful employment. Increasingly, some level of post-secondary education is becoming a necessity for successfully fulfilling the new technological requirements of virtually all employment fields. Lots of high school dropouts eventually realize this reality and seek to gain a GED certificate as an equivalent to a high school diploma; they then move on to a community college or even a university to play catch-up on their education. While an advisable course for those who have dropped out, the far better course would have been to stay in school in the first place.

The challenge for educators is to make high school appear meaningful for students at the time they are still in the classroom. The vast majority of dropouts confess later in life that they erred in leaving school; it's a major task for educators to make those individuals aware at the time of decision-making that staying in school offers far greater possibilities than does leaving.

Organizations such as Governor Wise's Alliance attack the problem from a global perspective by analyzing the impact that high school dropouts have on the nation as a whole. For example, the Alliance has statistical data that shows an additional $335 billion in salaries would have been part of the national economy in years to come if just the dropouts from the Class of 2009 had stayed in school. The Alliance report, "The High Cost of High School Dropouts: What the Nation Pays for Inadequate High Schools," provides extensive research on the various ways in which the economic condition of the nation is adversely affected by the large number of students who fail to complete their secondary educations.

Over the years, career education has been put forward as the best possible answer for the dropout problem. Educators have felt that they could keep kids in school if it could be demonstrated to them that the learning they were receiving would be a direct pathway to employment. Today, however, with statistics that show the average worker changing jobs approximately seven times during his/her working lifespan, training for just one career path could end up more of a detriment than an advantage. As a result, career education is not as appealing as it once was, since the guarantee of permanent employment no longer is as effective a selling point.

However, if the career path onto which students are directed could be shown as one where the employment potential will increase rather than decrease, then perhaps students would have a higher level of interest in traveling down it. One place where this appears to be the case is in training for technological positions in job classifications related to the "greening" of the nation. Given the current projections on the impact that global warming will have on the climate, jobs in both high-tech and low-tech energy-related industries appear destined to be good marketplaces for the job-seekers of tomorrow. Given the right training today, many high school students in career curricula programs could find themselves job-ready upon graduation.

In Chicago, the effort to provide that kind of future-oriented career education can be found at Austin Polytechnical Academy, a high school in the Chicago Public Schools system that's operated by the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council (CMRC). Austin Polytech benefits from the coalition of organized labor, the business community, government officials, educational leaders, and community organizations that has been put together under the CMRC umbrella. The school is designed to help fulfill the CMRC mission of making the Chicago region a hotbed for the kind of manufacturing that is necessary for a more energy-efficient future.

Because of its success, Austin Polytech has received wide acclaim, even from President Barack Obama, and CMRC officials now are preparing for an expansion of the concept into more schools, some even beginning in the lower grades as a better preparation for student success at the secondary level. And while the emphasis at Austin Polytech may be on manufacturing, its curriculum is focused both on the student who may be desiring to become employed immediately upon graduation and on the one who intends to go on for a college education that will enhance his or her technological understanding. In either case, the students are able to visualize how what they are learning in the classrooms of Austin Polytech will position them for success in the future.

Meanwhile, though, general education at the secondary level needs an even greater shot-in-the-arm than what simply will be provided by re-focusing the emphasis for career education. Frankly the major problems that result in high dropout rates have been festering for a long, long time prior to the actual act of a student turning his back on the schoolhouse door. Many of these future dropouts have become disenchanted with education while still in the elementary grades. For some reason, they begin dreaming of the earliest possible date when they can say "good-bye" to the classroom for good.

And what could be some of the reasons behind that kind of thinking? I'd like to posit that the current preoccupation with tests and test scores may be a major one. When testing -- rather than learning -- becomes the projected outcome of education, failure is bound to result. Testing ideally is simply a measurement of what a student has learned, so the teacher then can work to fill in the gap and take the student beyond his or her current level of achievement. The current emphasis on testing, by contrast, instead labels a student as a "success" or a "failure" based on his or her test score. In this latter case, testing no longer is an educational tool; rather it has gained the status of being the educational outcome. For those who do well on the test, that may be no big deal; for those who do poorly, however, it's a solid reason to begin hating school. This is especially true when politicians and national media continually harp about the "failing" American education system. Who really wants to continue being a part of a "failing" anything?

Increasing meaningful technical education and decreasing the emphasis on testing throughout the school system may not be the perfect solution to all the problems that lead to high dropout rates, but I believe they may be two effective steps in that direction. And -- what the heck! -- even one step in the right direction is a lot better than no steps.

I think we can take our cue from Governor Wise. "The ultimate goal of school transformation is to promote a support environment in which students can acquire the knowledge and skills they need," he notes, adding, "There are many ways to accomplish this."

So let's just decide on one or two ways and get the process moving.

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.