Coming Up!

By Catie Talarski

Have you put up your holiday decorations yet?  It’s about that time, folks.  While you are decorating… why not catch up on Where We Live podcasts?!  A close second: The newly released double CD  “Singin’ the Holidays with Dankosky & Hardman“.  A yule-time favorite, available for a pledge of $120.

Here’s the week,  November 29 to December 3:

MONDAY: Micro Loans

The micro-lending movement has won a Nobel Prize as a leading antipoverty strategy.  Now, in some places, it’s facing imminent collapse. The idea is simple.  Lenders make small loans to some of the poorest people in developing countries, with no collateral.  It’s been shown to spark innovation and lift people out of desperate circumstances.  But in parts of India, the promise of micro finance has taken an ugly turn – that looks an awful lot like the burst bubble of the US housing market.  Predatory lending, multiple borrowing, financial institutions looking out for shareholders first. Today, where we live, a look at what’s gone wrong with micro-finance globally, and what’s still going right.

TUESDAY: Continuing the Education Conversation

As we heard recently on the show, the movie “Waiting For Superman” has prompted national discussion about how to fix a broken education system.  Now, Where We Live is taking part in a local discussion about this important topic.  In collaboration with The New Haven Independent and WTNH, We’re taking part in a discussion with civic leaders and citizens of New Haven about School Reform.  Join the conversation about education.

WEDNESDAY: Our Oceans

We’re taking a look at the significance of a few of the world’s influential oceans today on the program.  Robert Kaplan joins us to discuss the Indian Ocean’s growing strategic importance and his book Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power.  We’ll also hear the long and complicated story of a body of water that has been at the center of western civilization – the Atlantic Ocean.

THURSDAY: Ben Barnes

Governor-elect Dan Malloy named one of the top aides from his mayoral administration for the crucial role of overseeing the budget.  Ben Barnes held three top jobs in Stamford, and as the new secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, will now be saddled with a 3.8 million dollar deficit.  Coming up, we begin a series of conversations with newly appointed top state officials.  Barnes joins us in studio.

FRIDAY: The Post Road

During its evolution from Indian trails to modern interstates, the Boston Post Road, a system of overland routes between New York City and Boston, has carried not just travelers and mail but the march of American history itself. Coming up, we’re joined by Eric Jaffe, author of The King’s Best Highway: The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route that Made America. He explores the progress of people and culture along the road through four centuries, from its earliest days as the King of England’s “best highway” to today.  We’ll visit New Haven where a man is walking the length of the post road, take a drive up in Stonington to uncover the old Post Road mile markers, and get an arborist’s tour of some of the trees planted by a group in Milford aiming to green some of the most commercially developed parts of the road.

Connecticut Loses Out Again In “Race To The Top”

by John Dankosky – Connecticut has failed in its second bid for federal education grant money under the Obama administration’s “Race To The Top” competition.  It’s encouraged states to revamp their education systems, and Connecticut did just that, creating a new teacher evaluation system, strengthening high school graduation requirements, allowing retired teachers to be rehired, and clearing a path for more charter schools.

The U.S. Department of Education told the state Tuesday it won’t be one of the 19 state finalists in the second round of the $4.3 billion initiative.

The law also gives parents a greater voice in how non-performing schools are managed.

The remaining $3.4 billion in the initiative will be awarded in September.  Governor Jodi Rell released this statement:

“This is a profoundly disappointing decision. We submitted a very strong application that offered a clear blueprint for achieving our goals. Our application was overwhelmingly backed by an extraordinary collaboration of government, education, businesses and local officials.

“This decision is an affront to all the dedicated individuals who worked long and hard to make our case. However, it cannot and will not lessen our commitment in providing the best education we can for our children.”

UPDATE:  This response from the Ned Lamont campaign

“A lack of gubernatorial leadership in Hartford has cost Connecticut yet another opportunity to take advantage of federal money to help prepare our kids to compete in the 21st century economy.

“We need a governor who will head down to Washington and fight for our share of the funding the Obama Administration has put on the table. As governor I’m going to get back on offense and take advantage of every opportunity to make life better for Connecticut families.”

Outing Campus Rapists on Facebook?

by Catie Talarski

Following up on our recent Where We Live episode exploring “Sexual Assault on Campus”.  To review:  One in five women who enter college will become a victim of rape or attempted rape before they graduate. These numbers are from a report funded by the Department of Justice. A subsequent nine-month investigation by the Center for Public Integrity shows that many victims never report the things that happen to them, and many who do end up feeling re-victimized by the process put in place to help them.

photo by Tostie14, Flickr Creative Commons

This blog post came to my attention via twitterverse from the feminist blog Feministing.  It was a response to another article on a college student who outed several boys on campus as rapists – through her Facebook status:

“ATTENTION WOMEN,” she wrote, before identifying two American university students by name and calling them rapists. She went on: “we should all be aware! Stay away at all costs. They are predators and will show no remorse for anyone. If you have been effected by either one of these sickos please feel free to talk to me. With enough help we can take them down!”

The article goes on to explore the tensions between the students trying to speak out about the campus sexual culture – and others (including a columnist for the student newspaper) who complain about the university’s “campus of victims”:

“Let’s get this straight: any woman who heads to an EI [fraternity] party as an anonymous onlooker, drinks five cups of the jungle juice, and walks back to a boy’s room with him is indicating that she wants sex, OK? To cry ‘date rape’ after you sober up the next morning and regret the incident is the equivalent of pulling a gun to someone’s head and then later claiming that you didn’t ever actually intend to pull the trigger.”

Another example of the fuzzy boundary that exists when it comes to sexual assault on campuses, often times promoted by an alcohol-fueled “hook-up” culture.

On a local note, UCONN Stamford Campus will be holding a conference on sexual assault on college campuses June 10th, 6-8PM.  We’ll post more information when we get it.

Tuesday’s Where We Live: Parent Power

Avon Budget Protest (JOHN WOIKE/HARTFORD COURANT / April 5, 2010) Parents and students, members of the Coalition of Citizens for Avon, march from the Avon Middle School to the High School for a town budget meeting Monday night. Thousands packed Rt167 enroute to the high school carrying signs and shouting support for the increase.

by John Dankosky – If Monday’s program about life in the suburbs brought anything into focus for me, it’s this: No matter how much smart growth advocates may push for densely settled urban centers, complete with world-class public transit, and a so-called “creative economy,” there’s a lot of reasons why people still love the suburbs.

Open spaces, fresh air, spacious lawns…and really good schools.  If author Joel Kotkin is right in his book, The Next Hundred Million, we’ll have to listen to the voices of suburbanites even more in the next 40 years, as suburbs outstrip the cities in growth.

That’s why last night’s events in Avon were so, well, shocking. It’s a district that prides itself on good schools – they’re a big reason many people moved to the town in the first place.  Now, facing the possibility of cuts to sports, languages and arts, a fairly sizable coalition of parents, teachers and students have banded together to support a hefty tax increase.

By my rough guess, more than one thousand residents marched from the middle school to the high school in advance of a budget hearing.  It’s a big twist on the kind of activist outrage we’ve been seeing around the country – staged by those who don’t want their taxes to go up.

On today’s show, we’ll talk about this movement in Avon, and about the “parent trigger” legislation, that would allow parents to vote to reconstitute a failing school.

Lamont: “I’m not a ‘head banger,’ I’m a respectful guy”

Ned Lamont - photo by Chion Wolf

by John Dankosky – Democratic candidate for Governor Ned Lamont talked about education, health care reform and transportation policy in an appearance on WNPR’s Where We Live today, as part of our Where We Vote series.

The early stages of Lamont’s run for Governor have been marked by an emphasis on job creation, given what he calls the state’s “dead last” ranking in creating new jobs.  He says that for small businesses, the cost of health care is one of the biggest problems.  So, he supports creating a health care pooling system, that he says would bring down costs for municipal governments.

“I got 169 towns, and they’re all paying retail.  They’re all paying retail, because they don’t get together, there’s no group purchasing,” Lamont told me.

“If I as a governor could create a pool, and they’d be able to buy into that pool and we get some group purchasing, we could dramatically bring down the cost of their health insurance, and still provide a top-quality program for state employees.”

Lamont criticized state officials for not “hustling” to bring in transportation funds from the federal government, but also said the state goes after federal money for projects – like the New Britain to Hartford busway – without an integrated strategy.  He wants to put that project on “pause.”

“One of the reasons we’ve been losing is we’ve sorta been throwing ideas down there (to Washington) hoping somebody wants to fund them,” Lamont said.  ”I worry that end of this stimulus, we’re going to shake our head and say ‘where did the money go?’ Did we make good long-term investments, or did we just throw it at shovel-ready projects?”

“I want us to focus our transportation infrastructure around a strategic plan,” Lamont told me.   And that means rail in the state’s most populated corridors.  ”Where we think the economic future of the state is going to be, and make sure that workers and jobs are better co-located.  I-95, all the way up the knowledge corridor there from Hartford down to New Haven.  Those should be real priorities.”  He also said Connecticut wasn’t aggressive enough in going after “Race to the Top” money for education reform.

“Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, they  all got their application in on time.  They didn’t leave any questions blank.  They won, and their young people are going to be better for it.  And, Connecticut lost.”

Lamont praised education reform efforts in New Haven as a model for the rest of the state.  In talking about how he would solve budget problems, and get the state’s various constituencies - labor and business, legislators and executive branch workers – on the same page, he reiterated his campaign call:

“I’m ready to go up to Hartford and bang some heads.”

When asked whose heads, exactly, would be banged…Lamont demurred.  ”Look, I’m not a ‘head banger,’ I’m a respectful guy.”

• Listen for the full interview on WNPR.org.

The Inspiring Dr. James Comer

by John Dankosky - I’ve been privileged to meet many people in my career who are real visionaries.  They seem to all be set apart by an ironclad belief in their ideas, and intellect that allows them to think of things others don’t.  Dr. James Comer is one of those people.

Dr. James Comer

Friday’s Where We Live marked just the latest in a series of conversations we’ve had over the years, since our education reporter Diane Orson introduced us.  His ideas about school reform and child development seem to provide the perfect road map toward a post-”No Child Left Behind” education system.  He’s been talking about this for more than 40 years, but this Bush Administration policy shift, aimed at creating “accountability” through rigorous testing gave him the perfect talking point.  You can hear him explaining this to NPR’s Tavis Smiley back in 2004.

Development means getting kids ready to learn, not just focusing on their “achievement.”  In fact, we agreed that the so-called “achievement gap” for black students might better be described as a “development gap” – bridged by training schools and teachers to pay attention to the entire child.  (We tackled this idea earlier this month on a “Bridging the Gap” edition of Where We Live.)

And, as much as he values the idea of investment in early childhood education, he told me it’s not an “inoculation” against bad educational outcomes.  Comer says we have to try harder, think more deeply, and pay attention to the way kids learn.

James Comer told me he’s going to keep working at this…but admits that at 75, he’s not sure how much real educational change he’ll get to see.  Here’s to helping him celebrate a centennial in a world where the gap is closed, and America’s kids are globally competitive and always ready to learn.

(One more link to a 1997 interview)

Tuesday’s Where We Live: Racing to the Top

by John Dankosky – Tuesday January 19th is a big deadline for educators in the state.  The bell’s ringing on round one of the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top” education funding plan.  As part of the overall stimulus package, the Education Department is handing out $4.35-billion to states, in a competitive process that the administration hopes will spark innovation in teaching and close pervasive achievement gaps.

This is a big deal for schools – but the process is fairly convoluted.  That’s why we’ll be joined by state Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan, Mary Loftus Levine, Director of Policy and Professional Practice at the Connecticut Education Association, and our own education reporter Diane Orson to sort things out.  If you haven’t been following the “race” so far, here are some points of interest…and questions I’ll be looking to ask:

1. Connecticut spends more than $8-billion annually on education, counting state, local and federal sources.  Can a program that’s devoting about half of that to the entire country really make a difference?  Connecticut’s applying for about $175-million, the top end of what the state would be eligible for.

2. Bigger states, like New York, can apply for more funding (up to $700-million) but the program’s preference for charter schools is causing some political fighting, jeopardizing the application.  This line from the Wall Street Journal article sums it up:

The federal guidelines for the funding application say states would win “high points” if the state has no charter-school cap or a cap that is equal to at least 10% of the state’s schools.

Teachers unions and the state legislature there don’t like that provision, or the push toward merit pay for teachers.  Concerns like this threaten the funding applications in Florida and Minnesota as well, according to Education Week. So far, we’ve gotten the impression that Connecticut teachers have been asked “to the table” as part of the state’s application, and are working with the state – we’ll find out more Tuesday.

3.  So, how much money might a local district get?  Well, it depends on the size of the district, and how “disadvantaged” it is.  As Grace Meritt writes in the Courant:

Hartford, for example, would get $14.8 million. West Hartford would get a relatively small lump sum of $170,000 in each of the four years.

Prompting a West Hartford school official to call their potential take “diddly-squat.”  So far, 120 of the 187 districts have signed on – some, like Suffield, say their allocation won’t be worth the effort.  For Hartford and Bridgeport it seems like this could be a windfall, but the CEA tells us that Bridgeport teachers didn’t sign on, because “the grant could bring a merit pay system for teachers in the state, and link teacher evaluation to student performance.”

4.  Okay, we’re “racing” now…I thought nobody was going to be “left behind.”   The Bush administration policy called “No Child Left Behind” was lauded for it’s basic vision, but slammed as an unattainable “unfunded mandate” that punished schools, and codified a “teach to the test” method abhorred by educators.  Now, President Obama has a different kind of “accountability” mandate.  He’s giving states a carrot, and hoping they’ll chase it.  But, will the chase result in the kind of educational changes needed in many poor districts, or will this stimulus funding be used to prop up states’ education programs as they struggle to come out of the recession?

Do you have questions for the commissioner, state teachers or for us?  Leave a comment here, call in Tuesday morning 9-10 a.m. ET at 860-275-7266 or email wherewelive@wnpr.org.

Tuesday’s Where We Live: The Achievement Gap

by John Dankosky - A group of Connecticut lawmakers started an initiative back in November aimed at closing the state’s worst-in-the-nation achievement gap between white students and minority students.

Today we’ll take a look at that plan, as the state gets ready to compete for federal “race to the top” funding.   But, more importantly, we’ll talk about whether “achievement” is the right gap to be filling.  In a Hartford Courant story about Middletown’s plans to address the issue, there’s an increased focus on early learning – an attempt to close a gap opens up early in life:

Early childhood education helps children acquire the linguistic, reading and social skills they need starting in kindergarten, experts said. Low-income parents often can’t afford such programs, and as a result, their children suffer academically.

“Without these skills in place, they really start off behind their peers,” said Christine Fahey, the school district’s school readiness coordinator. “We know that, typically, they just don’t catch up.”

Other experts say it’s an “opportunity gap” brought on by poverty; some worry about an “expectation gap” opened up by parents who are not engaged in their children’s education.   Realistically, it’s also a “demographics gap” that occurs when our suburban white students far outperform their peers nationwide.

As one parent asked me, “Do we want to be Mississsippi?” where students of all races perform poorly?  Join the conversation today at 9am ET.