Author: Robert I. Grundfest

I am a teacher, writer, voice-over artist and rationally opinionated observer of American and international society. While my job is to entertain and engage, my purpose is always to start a conversation.

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Domestic Policies Healthcare News Politics Teaparty

Cruz Missal

It’s not enough for Ted Cruz to be wrong, because he is. It’s not enough that he’s offensive, because he is. And it’s not enough that he’s a hypocrite, because he is. The worst part is that he has the whole package, and he’s terribly difficult to listen to. But Ted Cruz represents much more in our era of divided, extremist, conservative government: It’s the end of the line. When people like Ted Cruz make speeches that reference Nazi Germany and compare the present administration to it, you know that the GOP has gone gonzo overboard. This is not a governing party anymore–it’s a collection of conspiracy theorists who happened to win votes in gerrymandered districts and in states where the majority of uninsured people in the United States live, but who have convinced themselves that getting health insurance amounts to treason.

The conservative movement has reached its apogee and is now in its slow, painful, destructive decline. It will bring a good part of the country down with it, but the good news is that at its worst, it only controls the House of Representatives. If it shuts down the government next week, it will lose that in 2014 and if it runs an ultra-conservative in 2016, it will lose that election too.

I’ve heard many pundits and political science professors say that we live in a center-right leaning country, and at this time I’m inclined to believe it. The problem for the Republicans is that they are not center-right: They are far right and represent a minority of the country. Most people don’t want radical change of the sort that the far right is promoting. Many people oppose the health care law for good reason, but to say that it will drag down the economy and that it’s the death knell of our way of life is irresponsible and hyperbolic.

But I guess Ted Cruz had to happen. Even members of his own party are abandoning him. If the shutdown is to be avoided, Democrats in the House will need a bill to support. This is not good for John Boehner or any of the farther rightists.

But it’s the best thing to happen to the country in a while. Perhaps things are finally looking up.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

Categories
Education News Politics

Governor Disaster: Why Christie Could Lose Now and Will Lose in 2016

In case you missed it, there’s a terrific piece on Governor Christie in the New Jersey media. Written by columnist Tom Moran, it lays bare the basic fact that although Christie has benefited from disaster, he’s actually been a disaster as governor.

The basics:

Essentially, New Jersey has experienced failure at almost every level by which a politician is measured. And the one area where Christie got help from Democrats, on  a pension and benefits bill that weakened collective bargaining and will eventually force public workers from their jobs, the economic effects will be devastating. In fact, many teachers will be bringing home less money three years from now than they are today. I’ve done the calculations: My take-home income will be going down over the next three years despite my actually getting a small raise. If you’re a teacher and you want very bad news, input your salary and insurance premiums on this site. Do not have anything breakable nearby when you do.

But the issues go beyond the eventual devastation of a few hundred thousand people. There are millions of people in this state who cannot find jobs because of the governor’s lack of leadership and the property taxes he promised to lower have actually gone up. Why? In the leafy suburbs where I live and work (for now), the governor slashed aid to schools and municipalities. More money has come from Trenton in the past two years, but the rest of the missing money had to be made up by a rise in local property taxes. For this past year, the district in which I work received one dollar ($1) more in state aid than last year. Meanwhile, salaries, supplies, state mandated testing, public safety and public accommodations still had to be paid for, not to mention basic municipal services.

The net effect of all of this is that people are making less money, costs are rising, jobs are not forthcoming and the governor is against common sense items such as raising the minimum wage, recognizing marriage equality, but he is in favor of protecting the wealthy by not asking them to contribute a little more to alleviate the pain.

And for this, Christie has a 20 point lead in the polls.

That’s because many Democrats in New Jersey have sold their souls for the primary reason that they see Christie as their gravy train. Not for state money, mind you, but for personal gain and power. How else to measure the utter lack of support for Democratic candidate, Senator Barbara Buono?

Here is a terrific, personable, dynamic, focused, humanistic candidate who is on the right side of the issues that New Jersey cares about. She stands up for women’s health in the face of Christie’s cuts to Planned Parenthood, supports marriage equality and has a plan to get the economy moving again. I saw Buono and her running mate, Milly Silva, speak at an event last week and I can say from personal experience that these are two highly intelligent, articulate people who act the opposite of the volatile, bullying, inappropriate antics of the present occupant in Trenton.

But the Democrats are split and President Obama is nowhere to be found. Still, Christie is only polling at 50%. Yes, he’s ahead, but if the left can get its act together and highlight what Moran has written, this race could get closer.

Which then brings us to Christie’s dream of a 2016 presidential run. If he wins with  close to 50% of the vote, he can’t claim a mandate as a crossover candidate. Further, he won’t get much anything else done with a Democratic legislature. Where does that leave him? To bloviate and fuss about what he would do if he had the means, and that will force him to move farther to the right. The problem is that any right-wing opponent will only have to play the video of Obama and Christie at the shore after Sandy and the magic will seep out of his campaign. Along the way, he’ll also hurt himself by saying things that sound great to his supporters when you see them on YouTube, but will not play well at all with those who want a responsible adult as their leader.

Mark my words: Chris Christie will never be President of the United States. Let’s also try to make sure he isn’t reelected. We can’t afford even two more years of his misrule.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

Categories
Politics Syria

Diplomacy Gets Syrias

One of the criticisms of President Obama’s plan to strike Syria was that once a country unleashes weapons on another, the consequences are unpredictable and uncontrollable.

The same could be said for diplomacy.

Obama’s speech last night was certainly different from the one he planned to give when he announced his intention to speak to the nation late last week. He now confronts an offer by the Russians to mediate a deal whereby Syria would put its chemical weapons program under international control in exchange for a promise not to employ military measures. The president is doing exactly what he should be doing in response to this offer. His plan faced almost certain defeat in Congress and now he’s found a diplomatice way out.

Many news outlets are saying that the president and John Kerry have bungled this issue and seem to be lurching from one bad plan to another. I disagree. Obama has always said that his main issue is with Assad’s chemical weapons program, whose existence, by the way, the Syrians didn’t acknowledge until the past two days. That’s enough to convince me that they actually launched the attack.

So without doing much but issuing a threat, the president has won an important victory. That the Russians leapt on Kerry’s offer of international oversight is more evidence that they were concerned that American missile strikes would be devastating to their standing in the world and would unmask them as supporting Assad’s August chemical attack. The Security Council, stuck between doing the wrong thing and doing nothing, has sprung to life. And all because the American president did what American presidents are supposed to do: lead.

It’s clear to me that this diplomatic plan will bear fruit because the other option is unacceptable to most everyone else. The US, though, will not give up the right to use their military and honestly, I think the Russians know this. The best deal they can get is to forestall strikes while international monitors take control of Assad’s previously phantom chemical stockpiles.

Done well, this will be another example of American-led diplomacy. And it should put to rest any talk about America’s decline in the world. We still have the power to force other regimes to change their behavior.

For more, go towww.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

Categories
Barack Obama Foreign Policies Politics

Strike Syria

I know that this is not the popular choice, given our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the record, I supported strikes in Afghanistan as necessary to weaken terrorists, and certainly opposed the Iraq War as based on faulty intelligence and a desire by President Bush to avenge Saddam’s attempt to assassinate his father.

Syria, however, is different. Here we have a dictator who, as far as we know (key), has unleashed chemical weapons on his people. This is unacceptable, and to stand by and do nothing is also unacceptable. History has taught us that if you give rulers an inch they will take many kilometers. So it is with Assad. If we do nothing it will strengthen the hands of Iran and Russia, and will embolden other rulers who are threatened by insurgencies to use chemical and biological weapons should they want to.

I understand both the reticence and frothy opposition: It’s expensive at a time when we should be spending money on our problems here at home. We should not be involved in nation building or getting involved in other countries’ civil wars. Syria is not a threat to the United States. Pinpoint strikes will do nothing to ally Assad from doing more. Missile strikes would only be the beginning, with boots on the ground to follow. The United States should not have to solve all of the world’s problems. Once you use the military, you can’t control the consequences.

There are remedies to this. Congress can pass a resolution that limits the president to using missiles only and does not authorize any combat troops. This can be a one-time event. We can get the UN to support those things too. As for the more philosophical objections, if we don’t know what the effects of a missile strike will be, do we really know what the effects of not calling out Assad on chemical weapons will be? Do we really know that strikes will have little effect? And by the way, Syria is potentially a threat to the United States because a victory by Assad strengthens the extremists who have struck us before. Let’s try to think long-term for a change. Assad uses chemical weapons today. Do terrorists use them tomorrow?

Contrast this with what we do know if we don’t strike. Assad will use chemical weapons again, perhaps on Israel, as will other dictators. The United States will look weak and ineffectual, as will the UN and the president. Those consequences are not acceptable.

The Allies ignored the Armenian genocide, decided to do little but stand in their legislative chambers in response to the Holocaust, allowed Cambodia to degenerate into chaos and killing, virtually ignored Rwanda, and only got itself unstuck in the Balkans out of shame. Now we are confronted by another catastrophe, and it is within our power to at least do something rather than shrug our shoulders.

We need to strike Syria.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

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Education teaching

The High Schoolization Of College

Last week, President Obama made a series of speeches about making higher education affordable, which of course would be a great idea if we really had a socialist system and the government could tell schools what to charge. The problem is that we have a quasi-meritocracy with a bit of market capitalism mixed in, and that’s created the idea that expensive colleges must be good and really expensive colleges must be terrific. Meanwhile, the competitive and not-so-competitive schools that scoop up most American teenagers are considered second-tier and many of the students who attend don’t have the financial wherewithal or the intellectual stamina to stay in them.

Of course, this is not going to change any time soon because the Republicans in Congress won’t approve anything Obama wants and there isn’t enough money for the federal Government to get more involved in college financing. What’s really needed is a radical restructuring of higher education where all truly gifted students can attend schools that will challenge them and all other students who want to go to college can find affordable financing to do so. College is still a great investment, but the division between the have and have-nots is beginning to mirror larger society, which will in turn solidify the status quo.

But the president didn’t stop there. He is also proposing a rating system to rank colleges and universities by…wait for it…quantitative data that will separate schools by how much money their graduates make and how successful the schools are at making their students employable, cost and the advanced degrees graduates earn.

Let’s see…where have I heard of a system that attempts to use quantifiable data like, for example, test scores, to rank school and educators. Oh yeah; the public K-12 schools. It’s a terrible idea for them and it’s a terrible idea for colleges.

The reason it’s so bad is that the president’s proposal, and the philosophy behind it, succumbs to the erroneous idea that the purpose of attending college is to find a job. If you accept that, then measuring college’s performance by how many employable graduates it turns out makes sense. But that’s not the purpose of college and it’s a mistake to believe that it is.

A university education is an exercise in academic exploration, of ideas, of research, of trying to find truth and beauty and a sense of who you are. It is available so that a young person can have access to people who have studied a topic or subject so thoroughly that they have something nuanced to say about it and can analyze it at a deep level. It’s there so you can take a course in something that you want to learn about, rather than what you think you have to learn. It’s an exploration. It’s difficult. Unsettling. Motivating.

But it’s not job training. There’s no such thing as a readily employable English, Philosophy, Communications or Media Ecology major. You need to apply your knowledge. And to be considered an educated person, you really do need to know about more than just finance or accounting or marine biology, though they might get you a high paying job down the road. I’ll concede that an engineering or acting student has employable knowledge and skills, but even they will need to learn a great deal on the job. So when the president wants to tie all of this data to how successful a college is, I see that as bunk. What a job pays is in many ways out of a graduate’s hands. Many people would like an advanced degree but can’t afford the money, time or both.

And what of students who don’t belong in college? The default attitude now is that everyone should go, but that’s also bunk. We’ve dismantled the system we used to have that recognized that some jobs do not require a college education. We’ve even begun this in high school, where many districts have stopped offering actual job training classes because they don’t feed the everyone-goes-to-college beast. Then when the students who would benefit from those programs find that college isn’t for them and they have no discernible job skills, society suffers.

The president should find other means to boost education and job skills without turning universities into glorified high schools, where students ad parents have unreasonable expectations of what they’re paying for.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

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Education

The Common Core Follies

You know it’s late August because the school stories are coming fast and furious. And speaking of furious, how about the reaction to the Common Core standards that are supposed to prepare our schoolchildren for work and college? In New York, where the scores declined in the debut year for the standards, the knives came out to excise the Common Core and implement…well, that wasn’t clear. Teachers, parents and administrators from both sides of the political spectrum were worried about what the test score said about what students learned, and a few were so angry that they threatened charges.

This points to the problem inherent in using test scores to evaluate…anybody. Teachers didn’t have the time, or the training, to fully implement the standards into their lessons. Students didn’t have time to learn the material and were tested on material they didn’t learn in a format that was alien to many of them. It was also the first year of the tests, and in most first years, scores drop.

The assumption, though, is that the Common Core standards are testable, or at least worthy of teaching. Why is it that every student has to go to college, or be college-ready? Clearly, and it is crystal clear to educators, not all students will go to college, and many who are there won’t finish because higher education is not for them. I understand that this is educational heresy and that I am swimming in dangerous waters. After all, the classes that I teach are considered college preparatory. My standards are based on the assumption that students should be analytical learners who can write coherently and synthesize what they’ve learned. In that sense, the Common Core has caught up to me. But unlike the Core, I understand that not all students will reach readiness by the time they graduate from high school and that many of them will not succeed in an institution of higher learning. So, in a sense, I am preparing them for something they will not use. That’s a waste of time and resources.

In addition, the tests will be administered on computers and only computers, the assumption being that all students have the same competency with technology. What of students who don’t (and I know of plenty of them)? What happens when it is the technology itself, and not the student’s knowledge, that is the problem? And what happens when it is the school district’s inability to purchase technology equipment or schedule adequate rooms or provide quiet places for testing that is part of the problem? These concerns have been waved off by some states, including New Jersey where I have been the wavee. How does that help evaluate students and teachers.

The Common Core Standards, like other previous attempts at measuring student growth, are devoted to the essential education problem: that of trying to have every student master the same material by the same date and to be evaluated in the same way at the same time. When are we going to realize that this has not worked and will not work adequately in the future? It’s even more vital that we get this right now, because teachers’ jobs are on the line. Politicians don’t understand this. Teachers do, but unfortunately, we are being shut out of the system for reasons that have nothing to do with pedagogy and everything to do with union politics and the unending search for those terrible teachers we keep hearing about.

There will be more about the Common Core in the school year to come, but keep in mind that any lockstep program is going to have problems. We are experience the latest one.

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Domestic Policies Healthcare News Politics Wisconsin Union Bashing

The State of the Unions

There’s been a lot of talk recently about workers. You know, the people who do the work in this country and who expect to be paid a livable wage while earning a little respect from employers and customers. The problem is that somewhere along the way, the conservative revolution has been glorifying the wealthy while bashing the people who actually create the wealth. I’m not saying anything new, but a spate of reports have caught my eye and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if present trends continue, we could have another revolution, but this one will be messy.

First up are those pesky fast food workers, you know, the ones who serve the most meals in the country. They are holding one-day walkouts to protest the unlivable minimum wage, $7.25 an hour or about $30,000 per year if full time, that many of them can’t really live on. Add in the lack of health care benfits and you have the fixin’s of a major problem. Since many of the jobs being created these days are not full time, more people are earning a wage that doesn’t support even a minimal existence.

So what to do? In DC, the City Council voted to require Wal-mart to pay its employees at least $12.50 per hour in all of its city stores. Wal-mart was considering building six stores in DC, but now that they actually have to pay a livable wage, they’re threatening not to build three of them. This wage would also apply to other big box stores. Keep in mind that Wal-mart makes billions of dollars a year, as do other retailers such as Home Depot and Target, and they all pay their executives millions of dollars in salaries. But of course, they couldn’t lower some of those high paying jobs just a little bit to cover the hourly workers. That would send the wrong message. Like, we care about our employees.

And it’s not just in the United States. Amazon is currently finding that European governments (those darn socialists!) are pushing back against Amazon’s attitude towards unions and the right to organize. Amazon is going to lose this battle, just as Google lost the privacy battle over its mapping service that also scooped up private information. In Europe, they take privacy and union rights seriously and that’s complicating big American businesses who are used to allies on the right allowing companies to bust unions and pay people very little (while telling workers that they should be happy to just have a job).

I am certainly not advocating fighting in the streets, but over time, as people find it difficult, if not impossible, to earn a living wage, and politicians turn a blind eye to them, then what other recourse will people have? Social media and elections will help, but gerrymandered Congressional districts almost ensure that anti-worker politicians will continue to be reelected. The gap between wealthy and not wealthy in this country is as large as it’s ever been, and that, in part, is why the economy is not growing a robustly as it should. Let’s solve this problem before more people become desperate.

And yes, that’s a warning.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

Categories
New Jersey News Politics

Christie Unbound

If the thought of Chris Christie being reelected makes you feel woozy, then imagine him reelected and with a Republican majority in the Senate, if not the state legislature. My apologies if you’ve re-tasted your breakfast. The thought of that possibility is just as noxious to me, especially when it comes to education.

Consider: With a majority in both houses, Christie would get a vouchers bill, end seniority in the public workforce, and cut funding to districts that need to make up for low incomes and a dearth of jobs (remember jobs? His first term was supposed to be all bout jobs.).

It’s all laid out in this article, and it reads like a right wing wishlist.

Most educators understand that the Governor would love to make public schools into private schools complete with no unions, lower pay and no job security. That private schools can skim the best students from the admissions list, do not have to administer state tests (this makes absolutely no sense), and have endowments from their wealthy alumni/donors does not seem to make a difference to Christie or his minions. They seem to think that if you repeal all of the rules and strip away bargaining rights then schools will miraculously improve, and so will teachers. After all, we love low pay and high-cost benefits that we have to pay for.

Further, with a Republican Senate, Christie can get two more conservative judges on the state Supreme Court where the school funding formula, indeed all spending on education, would be up for revision, rescission and reassignment. Yes, the suburban districts do need to have all of the funding that was taken from them in Christie’s first year returned to them with interest, but the government still needs to fully fund the urban districts that desperately need help. More revenue from top wage earners would be out of the question, so a second term would simply exacerbate the already large differences between the well-off and the rest of New Jersey under Christie II.

And just in case you thought that he is a New Jersey brand of Republicans, please think again. Chris Christie wants to be president in the worst way. He’s already had his stomach surgery so he can slim down in time for the 2015 money/policy push, and he’s become involved in the GOP’s foreign policy debates in a big way, opposing what he sees as a misguided attempt by the libertarians to ease our diligent anti-terrorism policies.

You can look for more right-wing promises on domestic issues too, many of which will be field tested in New Jersey for maximum national exposure. He’s certainly on the wrong side of the marriage equality issue, but not if you’re a conservative. A referendum might get that done in NJ, but it will also give Christie the opportunity to say that the voters took the issue out of his hands.

There’s enough to be wary of in a second Christie administration. That’s why it’s imperative that all progressives come out and vote in November and make sure they vote on the down ticket offices too. The man is serious about implementing his hard right agenda; it’s high time we played serious too.

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Domestic Policies Healthcare News Politics

The Endgame

Here’s what’s clear: the success of President Obama’s second term will come down to the next few months of 2013 and early 2014 in the form of immigration reform, the success of the health care law, and the rising economy. There probably will be no grand bargain on the debt (thank heavens), tax reform is a long way off, and the Republicans don’t believe enough in real science to have a discussion about energy and the environment. So we’ll have to be happy from small victories.

The health care law is the most important. The GOP has staked its past, present and future on the law’s failure, (and has threatened to shut down the government rather than accept it) but that’s probably not going to happen. Will there be problems? You bet, and the right wing will loudly report each and every example of someone who has to pay more, or accept coverage that they don’t need or want, or how doctors and hospitals are suffering, but in the end, the law will cover more people and result in a healthier society.

It might even result in more people finding less costly insurance through the exchanges than through their employers. That would be a tremendous coup because then businesses will be relieved of the pressure of covering their employees and people will not have to stay in terrible jobs simply for the benefits. I don’t see this happening quickly, but if the market (you remember the market. This is a law all about the market.) makes it less expensive to buy from the exchanges, then that’s what people will do. betting against health insurance is a losing proposition.

Immigration reform will probably not pass the House in its Senate version, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that a more comprehensive bill than the House purports to disdain will come out of the legislature. The Republicans can talk tough, but I do think that they see the electoral graffiti on the wall and understand that passing nothing will do them great harm. Perhaps the gerrymandered districts will allow them to keep the House, but that’s a flimsy wall to hide behind for a party that’s lost the popular vote in all but one national election since 1992.

The Republican Party is clueless, but it’s not, you know, clueless.

During the past presidential election cycle, I wrote repeatedly that the conservative wave was crashing and that the GOP would become dangerously radical. I hate to say that I was right, but we are now living in the extremist bubble and it’s not going to pop for another two or four years. During that time we can look forward to more attempts at voter suppression, curbs on reproductive rights and a call to eliminate or severely cut back on social programs such as food stamps, unemployment compensation and Medicare. If the Democrats can hold the line against the tide, they can slowly turn the country back in a less dangerous direction. Then we can truly address the problems we have in a pragmatic, sensible manner.

Until then, we’ll be playing defense.

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Domestic Policies News Politics

So Much Done. So Much More To Do.

If you follow the news every minute (used to be every day), you’d think that Obama’s presidency has been a grand failure. After all, he didn’t save the world, or make friends with the terrorists and turn them into democrats or make the economy zoom along at a 5% growth rate or clean the air or any number of things that he either promised to do or was expected to do when he took office in 2009.

Instead, he faced some of the most extreme opposition of any president and really only accomplished most of his agenda when he Democrats controlled both houses of Congress by filibuster-proof (in the Senate) majorities. I’d also like to take this opportunity to remind people that many other presidents faced concerted opposition including Theodore Roosevelt (from his own party), Woodrow Wilson, FDR (from the Supreme Court and Congress), JFK, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. That any president can get things done under our constitution is a monumental accomplishment, but somehow we as a country manage to move forward.

So it is today. The Senate has thawed some over the past two months and recently avoided internal chaos with the approval of a good number of Obama appointments. Of course, the GOP is now facing buyers remorse on that compromise, but only because they got, well, nothing out of the deal. And it looks like the stars might not align on immigration reform because the House, always extreme on the right or left, will not consider a comprehensive bill. In fact, the House is so busy voting to repeal the health care law that there’s precious little time for anything else.

In this environment, it’s useful to remind everyone just how much Barack Obama has accomplished in just over a term. Those accomplishments are listed in this article, and should be required reading of anyone who says we’ve done nothing since 2008.

We’ve had financial and bank reform, health care reform, the saving of the automobile industry, and avoided a depression. But there’s more and any thinking American should know that. So take a look and understand that our government was built to act slowly. That works both for and against us, but it is how the framers constructed the system. We will have more landmark legislation over the next three and a half years. Some of it will be incomplete and need revision in a few years. Some of it will become part of the fabric of American life.

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Domestic Policies News Politics trayvon martin

Trayvon

A young African-American man is dead. He was armed only with Skittles and a hoodie, which now qualifies as dangerous. He reacted when a self-styled and armed neighborhood watchman bothered him for little reason other than he seemed to be threatened that an African-American male was walking the gated premises. The laws of Florida allow armed people to shoot first and ask questions later.

This was the recipe for travesty, and I’m sure it won’t be the last time it happens.

For all of the talk about having an African-American president, we are not a post-racial society. Race plays an important, and in this case an explosive role in our civic culture. President Obama has shied away from invoking race where it is an issue and, in my mind, he hasn’t done enough to focus Americans on the continuing injustice that colors our system. He should be speaking out more and letting America know that we have much work to do to achieve equality in society and fairness under the law.

Now there’s talk that the Department of Justice ought to file civil rights charges against George Zimmerman. Perhaps, like OJ Simpson, that will provide the family with closure and provide for some kind of punishment. There’s also talk of plots against Mr. Zimmerman and I truly hope that he remains safe. Violence should not beget more violence.

What truly needs to happen is that laws like Florida’s that allow people to legally acquire firearms and use them preemptively must be stricken from the books. How many innocent people need to die before we do that?

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Categories
Education Teacher

A Visiting Scholar

I have a violet lanyard, and attached to it is a violet ID card from New York University. At the bottom, under my picture, it says, “Visiting Scholar.” Yes, friends, it’s summer and time for all good teachers, at some point in their careers, to be called a Visiting Scholar.

My entrée to this august realm is courtesy of a Great Society law that created the National Endowment for the Humanities, a publicly funded entity whose sole mission is to encourage and support the study and research of the…well, humanities. You know the humanities. They were the subjects in high school and college that promised never to get you a job or a girl/boyfriend or a terrific pile of money. You took them because the education system said that you had to. Languages, literature, philosophy, religion, music, history. They were good for the soul and nourishment for the brain. The Bran Flakes of the curriculum. The subjects that are now threatened because of budget cuts and low enrollment. The basis of our civilization and the cornerstone of our national political and cultural life.

Those Humanities. You remember them.

Anyway, I am a Visiting Scholar (because my lanyard says so) in a seminar called, Eastern Europe in Modern European History at NYU which runs for three weeks and is lead by a fact and analysis machine named Dr. Larry Wolff. There are 15 other Visiting Scholars from across the country and we’re here because of a competitive process that the NEH used to choose us.

It’s terrific. I’ve been there a week and I’m already a better teacher than I was at the end of June. I have materials I can share with my students. I have more knowledge for myself. I have perspective. But I also have the intangibles that come from being among other teachers; judgement, support and camaraderie. A representative came from the NEH to observe us this past week and I engaged him in conversation about how wonderful this seminar is so far. He remarked that he understood what many politicians are pushing and that he supported us as scholars and teachers and leaders and educators and all of the things we’d love to hear from politicians, but we don’t because they don’t understand. It’s nice to know that we have people like him on our side.

I’ve read the bunkum from right wing think tanks that say that these kinds of programs don’t make teachers better or that they cost too much and there’s no objective way of measuring how much students actually gain from having teachers participate. This shows just how anti-intellectual the non-reformers are and it further exposes their agenda that wants to further cut outstanding programs like this so that we can save money and give a buck and a quarter back to every taxpayer.

Don’t you believe any of that. This is what education should be and I’m proud to be a part of a government program that recognizes how important all of us Visiting Scholars are to our students. I’m looking forward to the rest of the seminar.

And I’m going to hang my violet ID badge up in my classroom this fall. My students should know that their teacher is a scholar.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

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