ARE You Registered? August 16, 2016 Click here to be sure. (I like this site even better if you happen to live in Florida — it needed only my name and date of birth to find me.) We need to win this election by the widest popular margin — both to show the rest of the world we’re not crazy . . . (so even votes in “safe” states like New York and California matter) . . . and to take back the Senate AND the House. Which we absolutely can do if it’s a landslide — and need to, so the country can move forward with what the Republicans have blocked but most Americans want: putting people to work in good jobs revitalizing our infrastructure! hiking the minimum wage! enacting the comprehensive immigration reform the Senate passed 68-32! imposing the universal background checks that even 74% of NRA members favor! allowing federal-student-loan borrowers to refinance at today’s low rates! And more. Speaking of which, if you have not yet been suitably impoverished, please click here. The markets hit record highs yesterday, triple their post-Bush low. Trump tells us Obama’s been a disaster, our future is bleak — and only he can fix it. Investors around the world, expecting Hillary to win, seem not to agree. Marissa H.: “I loved your story about the lobby renovation, and I’m so sorry you weren’t able to persuade them — $850,000 is an awful lot of money to update a lobby. Regarding Success Academies, though, I wonder if you could devote at least a little space to some of the criticisms of their approach. Even though Eva Moskowitz denies it, there have been credible reports that part of the secret to their success (undeniable for the children who stay) has been systematic efforts to push out children who can’t meet their rigid behavior standards. A Success Academy representative told Newshour’s John Merrow that 10 children of every 100 who start at Success leave within the first year. With an attrition rate that high, it’s not really fair to say that because they initially take all comers in a lottery, their results can be compared to the public schools at large. Beyond that, there’s the question of at what cost this comes. A while back you posted a Moskowitz editorial about a mentor of hers who made a big point of teaching children to track the speaker with their eyes at all times. I think it was meant to be inspiring, but I found it chilling. Yes, teaching children the skills of paying attention and interacting in a mature way is important. But don’t you sometimes look out the window for a moment when you’re thinking something through at a meeting? Should people who do that be forced to stay after school? Success punishes kids when they don’t keep their hands folded. Do you keep your hands folded all day? I’m a pediatrician in academic practice, and I flip my pen like a high school debater in meetings. My colleagues like me anyway. And how will these students do when they go to college and no longer have someone standing over them telling them exactly what to do every minute? That’s been an issue with previous high-discipline charters. ‘This American Life’ did a great story about this a while back, comparing the high-discipline schools to ones that emphasize adult-style group problem solving, and my impression after listening to it was that the high-discipline approach didn’t work as well in the very long term as you would think. I know you’re not a parent, but would you have wanted your nieces or nephews to be sent to schools that enforce these kinds of rigid discipline standards? My (white, middle class) kids are 8 and 12. They go to a Montessori school where the respect between students and teachers is relentlessly bilateral. It violates my sense of fairness to suggest that the best means children from disadvantaged backgrounds have to reach success is something so much less respectful. The Montessori method also has excellent test score data (and improved social skill outcomes, including in randomized lottery situations), but without the forced attrition and the automaton behavior expectations. I agree emphatically that the status of standard public education in many U.S. districts is a disgrace and that there is a moral imperative for immediate action. And I understand that for many parents the high-discipline approach is a good cultural fit, so I guess they should be free to choose it. But with none of these students having yet graduated and gone to college, I guess I feel like we should curb our enthusiasm and keep our options open for other, more humane approaches. I’m not necessarily trying to change your mind all the way, but I’d love to see some consideration of these questions in your column.” ☞ For sure. First, the Success attrition rate is around 10%, as you say, but, I’m told, 13% at regular public schools (many children don’t have permanent homes/families and move a lot) and much higher still in the “co-located” schools with which Success shares a building. So we’re actually pretty good at retaining kids/families. (Because they want to be there?) Second, the kids have a very varied day, doing chess, dance, five days per week of experimentally based science where they are not sitting and “tracking” the teacher with their eyes. Third, they get much more freedom in middle and high school (most of what our critics talk about is kindergarten through fourth grade). Third, I’m told you’re right: there are adjustment issues that come up in Middle and High School (well before college), as a result of the more disciplined elementary-school environment. But we are betting on Success, the kids, and a culture of constant improvement to address those issues. But fourth — and mainly — if you can’t read or do simple math, what will your future be? Weigh that negative against any others Success critics raise and, well, I think it’s not even close. There’s been loads of push-back from very smart, hugely well-meaning people (like you) — and Success is all for their coming up with alternatives. The more great choices parents have for their kids, the better. I think the facts will win in the end — imagine how much stronger the country would be if there were 4,100, not 41, inner-city schools producing these kinds of results, breaking the cycle of poverty for hundreds of thousands of kids each year.
Success In New York And Moron Village — But Not Miami Beach August 12, 2016August 24, 2016 The latest Success Academy report card’s out. Among the schools’ 4,231 test-takers (61% African-American, 26% Hispanic), 94% passed the New York State math test and 82% passed English — compared with just 36% and 38% city-wide. Reports Success founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz: This means that our schools rank in the top 1% of all New York State schools in math and the top 1.5% in English. In fact, all of the state’s top five schools in math are Success Academies, as are two of the top five in English. Our scholars outperformed such affluent suburbs as Scarsdale and many of the city’s selective gifted and talented programs. And I am especially proud of our most vulnerable scholars: 79% of our students with disabilities passed math and 52% passed English (compared with 11% and 9% citywide); 60% of our English Language Learners passed English and 90% passed math (compared with 4% and 13% citywide).the US In a city where hundreds of thousands of children are trapped in failing schools, our results reflect the determination and hard work of the entire Success community – our faculty and staff, our parents and families, and our steadfast supporters. When our scholars achieve at these high academic levels, we know that they are on the path that leads to all of life’s possibilities. This is what we strive for … every day … and for every child. I’ve been writing about Success for a long time now. (For example, here and here.) Imagine how much better America will be once there are 4,100 such schools in the country’s most challenged neighborhoods instead of just 41. They cost no more than regular public schools, yet the results are spectacular. And by breaking the cycle of poverty, will have tremendous “knock-on” effects for generations to come. And will raise income tax revenues while lowering safety net expenditures and criminal justice costs. I get giddy thinking about this. On a much (much!) smaller scale, I got word this week that my fourth BuildOn school has been completed, this one in Southern Mali, in the unfortunately named Moron Village. “Moron” is Bamanakan for . . . oh, look at that: Google Translate doesn’t do Bamanakan. I’ll get back to you. The first school structure ever in this village of 2,000, it has three classrooms and two gender-specific latrines; desks, seats, and permanent chalkboards. It broke ground February 23 and was completed on May 13. Students began attending two weeks later. I have a photo. They look happy. Like my other three schools, this one will be named The Allard K. Lowenstein School, with a plaque in English and Bamanakan that reads: “He lived to make the world better. Now it’s your turn.” (Al was a friend and inspiration to many, including, obviously, me.) My four are among the more than 1,000 schools BuildOn has erected in impoverished parts of the world — none more challenging than Mali. “Our work in Mali is extremely difficult,” BuildOn founder Jim Ziolkowski wrote me, “but even more important because of the presence of Al Qaeda. They have a foothold there but it is shrinking. Education defeats terrorism every time.” Because the labor is supplied free by the local villagers — a combined 2,682 volunteer workdays on this latest one — and the schools are small and simple, it costs a donor only about what it costs to build a nice in-ground swimming pool here in the U.S. As I already have one of those, I face no tough choice — pool? school? Pool? School? How to decide? But that brings me to Miami Beach, where the news — at least in this regard — is not as good for me as it is in Harlem, with Success Academy, or Moron Village, with the opening of this new school. BACKGROUND: I have a small condo in a well-run 20-year-old high rise — gorgeous Italian-marble lobby, concierge desk, security fobs for the elevators — my friends, knowing how cheap I am, could not believe it when I first moved in. (And yes: it has a pool. Who lives like this? I count my blessings quarter-hourly.) Around comes a notice two winters ago that the board has solicited bids to spiff up the lobby and entryway. There is nothing wrong with the lobby. Okay, it looks a little Romanesque — the columns may be more to your grandmother’s liking than to yours — but, hey: it’s a large, gorgeous, spotless, well-functioning space. Why spend $50,000 or $100,000 to “fix” it? Was the condo board simply . . . bored? So I asked around and found out that, no, it wasn’t going to be $50,000 or $100,000 divvied up among us 140 unit-owners — it was going to be $850,000! And they were going to jackhammer out all that beautiful imported Italian marble! And replace it with different beautiful imported marble — and fix the columns and in other ways modernize and improve it because, I was told, our real estate values would go up if the lobby and entryway looked better. I don’t want my real estate values to go up. Why would I? I’m not selling; and higher real estate values mean higher property taxes each year. I had just gotten the report on my previous new school — also in Mali — which like the first two in Nicaragua had cost me $32,000 each (less the value of the tax-deduction). And so it was the “pool? school?” dilemma all over again, lacking only a synonym for “school” that rhymes with “lobby.” (A writer’s life is not an easy one.) I went to the condo board chairman, a wealthy Republican, and suggested that instead of $850,000 to spiff the lobby we build 28 schools instead. Or spend $100,000 to spiff the lobby (surely we could do something nice with $100,000) and build 25. After all, I argued (respectfully, buying him an iced tea and hoping, because he told me he had recently given $2 million to his place of worship, he might also want to build a school on his own*), there would be months of inconvenience while the work was being done. He said, no, it would be swell, and the condo owners had voted for it. (Don’t get me started on how railroaded that was.) And the inconvenience would be minimal. So — not being entirely surprised — I reverted to Plan B. I proposed that I be allowed to send each unit holder a note like this: We’re about to spend $850,000 to modernize our entry. It’s going to be beautiful! But as I posted on the bulletin board before the vote, for the same money we could build 28 schools in poor countries and change the lives of tens of thousands of children — and thus THEIR children’s children, as well. So let’s do both! Imagine knowing, every time we entered the building, that by matching our assessment with an equal contribution to BuildOn, we’d improved so many lives. A beautiful new lobby and 28 new schools, Realistically, not everyone will choose to chip in. I get that. Then again, some may choose to do even more! And if we only raise enough to build a dozen schools instead of 28? Pretty awesome, too. So WHATEVER you can afford to contribute will have high impact: all the labor is local volunteer from the community itself. Thanks in advance for your (tax-deductible!) generosity. Your Enthusiastic Neighbor He said no. The good news is that after nearly a year of demolition and delayed marble delivery and the disabled security system and no lobby at all — just a narrow passageway bounded by plywood that’s been depressing and inconvenient and really kind of awful for a year — it’s almost done! So for someone living in the building for 10 years, only 10% of it was a living hell (lobby-wise) in order to spend $850,000 to spiff it up. I called a friend in the building just now to ask how it was looking. “It’s okay,” he said. “Kind of Trumpian, with lots of shininess. It looks as though it should be done this fall.” Moron Village, indeed. *He did not.
Helping The Blind To See; Triply Offensive August 11, 2016 This short video will inspire the sighted — what a time to be alive! — and could really improve the lives of the blind. The Orcam is not completely cheap — $2,500 or $3,500 — but, for those who need it, would seem to be a bargain. Policy is not, at this stage, what people are concerned about with Trump — he is, as so many Republicans have said or signaled, simply unfit to be President. But I can’t resist pointing out Trump’s triply offensive promise Monday to eliminate the estate tax: “No family will have to pay the death tax. American workers have paid taxes their whole lives. It’s just plain wrong and most people agree with that. We will repeal it.” First off, it’s grossly misleading — basically a lie. A scare tactic. Right now, no family has to pay the tax — 99.8% of estates, or some number like that, escape any taxation. The two-tenths of a per cent that do is essentially a rounding error. And it’s a rounding error that does not apply to “American workers,” none of whom, by the common understanding of “workers,” earns enough to amass an estate of more than $5.4 million. And it’s only to the extent one’s (or one’s and one’s spouse’s) estate exceeds $5.4 million (or $10.8 million (with a simple by-pass trust) that even a dime of estate tax is due. So it’s just bogus. And that’s offensive. Second, the people within that tiny rounding error it would most benefit are billionheirs — like the Trumps* — who already arguably have it better than they should, given the way Republicans have swung the pendulum ever further in favor of the ultra-wealthy these past 35 years. And that’s offensive. Finally, it’s just bad policy, both morally and in terms of economic productivity. As explained here, for example. And would hurt all the nonprofit organizations that rely in part on bequests.** Offense #3. *Although I suspect they’re mere millionheirs, all his bragging notwithstanding. **With the estate tax deduction for charitable gifts gone, the after-tax cost of giving would double. And when you double the cost of doing something, people do less of it.
The Letter August 9, 2016 Fifty top Republican security experts — including Bush’s CIA Director and Homeland Security chief — say that Trump would be “the most reckless President in American history” and have publicly declared that none of them will vote for him. You have to read their letter. You have to send it — respectfully — to anyone you know still in Trump’s camp. And gently point out that there is no equivalent letter on the other side. No 50 — or 5, or so far as I know even 1 — top Democratic security expert who’s crossed the aisle to issue some similarly dire warning about Hillary. Yes, there was a snarling Rudy Giuliani on ABC’s “This Week” this past Sunday morning to support Trump as being completely fit to be Commander-in-Chief. But he is the same Rudolph Giuliani who appointed Bernard Kerik to head New York’s police department and supported his appointment to head the Department of Homeland Security. (The appointment was withdrawn and Mr. Kerik served three years in prison.) The same Rudolph Giuliani who overrode expert objections to site New York’s emergency command center in the World Trade Center. (It was destroyed two years later in the attack.) Certainly there are some good things to say about Giuliani (and Kerik). But I find the logic of those 50 Republican security experts far more compelling than the vitriol Mr. Giuliani offered on “This Week.” (Benghazi — again? Despite all the Republican-led investigations that found nothing? The emails, again? Secretary Clinton agrees there were errors in judgment; but it’s not the nightmare the Republicans would have you believe —click here.) Read the letter. It is compelling — and chilling. And can I say one more thing? The stock market sits at a record high. And what is the stock market, after all, but a barometer of investor expectations for the future. Trump tells us Obama is the worst president in history, that unemployment (4.9%) is off-the-charts high (42%) . . . and on and on. (Our military is a disaster; we have stupid, stupid leaders; his steaks and airline and university were enormous successes.) But the stock market — which presumably expects Trump to lose — is triple its post-Bus low and seems to expect a bright future. Our Founding Fathers were really well-educated, serious men: eloquent, thoughtful, and courteous. (“Your obedient servant,” and all that.) George H.W., Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al and Tipper Gore, Mitt Romney, Mike Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, former Bush CIA chief Michael Hayden, Michelle and Barack Obama — these are serious, well-educated, courteous, immensely talented people. Can you imagine any of them doing this? The stock market seems to think we will not elect him. Fifty patriotic Republicans hope the stock market is right. Read the letter.
Jobs August 5, 2016 Mitt Romney tantalized voters with the prospect of getting the unemployment rate down to 6% by January 2017. Instead, we reelected Barack Obama and — despite the Republican Congress’s refusal to put Americans back to work revitalizing our infrastructure — have enjoyed 76 consecutive months of private sector job growth, with the unemployment today reported at 4.9%. And wages are finally even beginning to climb a bit. Donald Trump . . . who suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder* . . . calls the economy (and our military) disasters, even though both are the strongest in the world. “Roughly an hour before the U.S. government’s release of the monthly employment report,” Bloomberg notes, “the Republican presidential nominee announced a team of economic advisers to help carry his message forward that the economy is deteriorating and needs another rescue.” Trump says he would bring millions of 50-cent-an-hour jobs back from China and — even though he opposes a higher minimum wage — somehow transform them into high-paying jobs. How? It makes absolutely no sense. It is a complete fantasy. And judging from the polls, people seem to be catching on. Joe Kennedy sent his son that famous telegram about not wanting to pay for a landslide. Well, we DO want to pay for a landslide: to reassure the world America has not lost her mind; and to take back Congress, so we can finally do the things the public wants — revitalize our infrastructure, hike the minimum wage, enact comprehensive immigration reform, require universal background checks, confront climate change, make it easier — not harder — to vote. Click here. *An “enduring pattern of grandiose beliefs and arrogant behavior together with an overwhelming need for admiration and a lack of empathy for (and even exploitation of) others . . . excessive self-love, egocentrism, grandiosity, exhibitionism, excessive needs for attention, and sensitivity to criticism.” — International Classification of Diseases (h/t Linda Stasi)
Trump Exposes Trump August 4, 2016August 3, 2016 Was the Convention only last week? Khizr Khan was so powerful — as were Michelle, Bernie, Bill — Hillary herself — and so many others (did you see Reverend Barber?). But really, this clip of Trump may be all we need to have shown. Just under six minutes. With prominent Republicans now vowing to vote for Hillary, it has sparked more than one Facebook post paraphrasing Hamilton. You know the song where he’s deciding between presidential candidates Jefferson and Burr? “I have never agreed with Jefferson once. We have fought on like seventy-five different fronts. But when all is said and all is done, Jefferson has beliefs. Burr” — Trump — “has none.” The difference of course being that Burr hid whatever beliefs he had out of an abundance of caution and decorum, whereas Trump, the loosest of loose cannons, fires off contradictory pronouncements left and right out of an abundance of thuggish self-regard. He may even be a little crazy, Argues Linda Stasi in yesterday’s Daily News: . . . Donald’s suffering from what I call dangerous dictator disorder, but what the shrinks call narcissistic personality disorder. Truth be told, however, The Donald’s not actually “suffering” from this malady, he’s reveling in it. . . . Certified clinical psychologist Dr. Larry Arann pointed out that the International Classification of Diseases definition of narcissistic personality disorder, and it reads like Trump’s résumé. It is defined as an “enduring pattern of grandiose beliefs and arrogant behavior together with an overwhelming need for admiration and a lack of empathy for (and even exploitation of) others . . . excessive self-love, egocentrism, grandiosity, exhibitionism, excessive needs for attention, and sensitivity to criticism.” Ya think? . . . Meanwhile, according to Joe Scarborough, a Republican, Trump asked a foreign policy adviser three times in the course of an hour’s briefing, “If we have nukes, why can’t we use them?” Click here.
Helped By Hillary / Stiffed By Trump August 3, 2016August 2, 2016 There’s so much she’s already done, so many lives she’s fought to improve — not least the 8 million children she got covered by health insurance. Eight million. Who has Trump helped? And why has he been sued so much? Not least for fraud? He stiffs people left and right . . . like a prominent lawyer and a prominent accountant that a friend of mine knows. (“Can you get them to come forward?” I ask. “Nah — you know how cautious people like that are.”) But at this point, what clients would they lose by speaking up? Certainly not “establishment” Republican clients. Here is the latest Republican to defect: Top Jeb Bush adviser leaves GOP, will vote for Clinton if Florida close. Oh, and here’s a Republican Congressman voting for Hillary. Here‘s a lawyer who did find the courage to come forward. (“Donald Trump Hired Me As An Attorney. Please Don’t Support Him For President.”) Read this one — fun! (And what about his autobiographer, Tony Schwartz, who wrote The Art of the Deal? If he could, he says he’d re-title it The Sociopath.) Here he is on his relationship with Putin — three minutes of Trump contradicting himself. (And here: Trump And Putin. Yes, It’s Really A Thing.) Here is Warren Buffett challenging Trump to release his tax returns. As always with Buffett: an enlightening perspective. Here is “How The Stupid Party Created Donald Trump.” So much to read! So much to watch! Save the world: click here.