New Haven Independent

Posted by: report unbiased | May 24, 2007 8:50 PM

why is the NHI so anti-Newton? You call his campaign unclean, which is a lie. You refer to his campaign office as obscure, so what. Maybe you think he should set up in town hall. I would suggest NHI try to be fair. The mayor, and you know it has many skeltons in the closet. It has been suggested in this forum many times to look at deferral programs, to FOI certain departments, yet I never see anything. When did you sell out like the Register. Shame on you.

Posted by: robn | May 24, 2007 10:53 PM

I'm sorry...I've given Jim Newton a good listen and you know what...he's coming off as an amateur and a classic demagogue. He's already admitted that he doesn't have a clue about how the public election financing system works (right at the same moment he's about to solicit 10s of thousands of dollars from donors to run for office). A guy who couldn't do his homework about the election he's about to enter shouldn't be casting aspersions at the complex task of rebuilding our decrepit school system. My parents were teachers; there is no substitute for passionate teachers; but even the most passionate teacher can't overcome the evident and virulent poverty of worn out facilities. If the critics of the school rebuilding program want to cool it and take a breath fine...I'm paying NH taxes and am feeling quite the same pain caused by the aggressive rebuilding program. However, if you consider yourself the kind of person who wants stop building schools entirely, (or if you're the kind of person like Jim Newton who's making a big deal about the procedural issues of how fast schools are filled) you're going to have to fight people like me. I believe that good public schools can make a big difference in people's lives and they shouldn't be used as a weapon in an election cycle. Our city government isn't running as smoothly as I would like it to be, but big NEGATIVE to Jim Newton, who's grasping at straws for lack of substantive issues.

Posted by: TrueBlueCT | May 25, 2007 10:40 AM

C'mon Mr. Newton. You already have the 25% of voters who vote against the Mayor every cycle. (Well, you will have to share them with Ralph.)

But if you want to run a serious campaign, you're going to have to get constructive. What are your ideas on the campaign finance reforms which you have sadly rejected, and what are your ideas for improving the schools?

We all know the current nexus of power is far from perfect. But if you want to win, you've got to convince us that your team could really do a better job of managing the city!

So far you haven't given me a single reason to take your campaign seriously, let alone vote for you. And that's too bad....

Posted by: Martin | May 25, 2007 10:42 AM

Can you NHI do something on who Newton is? Has he run / managed something before? What's his background? Has he ever had to balance a budget? This would be valuable info for voters to have, whatver the results.

Also, is he in favor of the senior tax freeze? And, did he vote for DeStefano for governor against Rell? I would also love to know if he in favor of gay marriage. And finally, what does he think about the new federal immigration bill?

Posted by: Biased? | May 25, 2007 10:58 AM

Report Unbiased,

I think you are being unfair to the NHI. They have done two important things to Newton's benefit. First, they have covered all of his press conferences and using video have allowed his own words to speak for themselves. Second, he draws many of his substantive issues right from the NHI's articles. School construction article -- next day he's concerned about it. Immigrants get human dignity in form of an id -- NHI reports aggressively and favorably -- he announces he has a position on the municipal id, and will let us know soon what it is.

It is newsworthy if no one comes to his events, just as the NHI noted the low turnout for the first PERF event. The apparent level of support for either a city policy or a candidate is newsworthy. And he had to know that his choice to not use public financing would haunt him at the NHI. That being said, if he has a large event and the NHI were not to report that, I would agree that is biased.

Up until now I have tried to avoid being critical but one thing does bother me: the municipal ids are a matter of human dignity which apparently have broad support from the likes of DeStefano, Perez, Goldfield and Jackson-Brooks -- who don't always agree on things. I like that our city speaks so frequently with one voice on matters of social justice. I would have hoped that we would not be held in suspense wondering whether Newton is a member of our city's chorus for the human rights of all of our residents. Newton's choice to not speak clearly and immediately in defense of all of our residents does not bode well.

Posted by: Gary Doyens | May 25, 2007 11:08 AM

Rob: With all due respect to your "good listen" --I find it hard to believe there has been ample opportunity for such a decision at this time. I've certainly not read enough or heard enough from Newton to make such a decision this early in the campaign.

What I do know is that city taxes are driving families out of their homes, lowering our standard of living and hurting our families. I know the school board feels insufficiently motivated to attend their own meetings and I know the sitting mayor is even less disposed to direct and contribute to its oversight and leadership role by attending the same sessions. This is why I'm open to a Newton run.

You also incorrectly believe and state that those of us who are advocating restraint on taxes and spending are anti-school construction. We are not and I am not. Our schools were falling apart and were horribly old. We needed new schools. But new schools do not automatically translate into better student performance. If you have such information, I'd love to see it.

What I'm against are skyways to parks, nature centers and bathrooms that are unneeded but that added millions to the cost of that school. I'm against school construction that resembles monuments with soaring ceilings, two story atriums, custom stone, ironwork, artwork and the like that have nothing to do with education. I'm against the Super Tool for $1.5 million that provides a convenience for the BOE but that does nothing for kids who are failing. Any teacher, BOE staff member or school administrator who doesn't know what kid is not doing well, is a failure themselves. Super Tool won't fix that -- dismissing them will.

So build schools, but build them responsibly. Ask statewide taxpayers to help finance them through bonds, but be able to defend your projections and actually deliver on them. In these new schools, deliver on No Child -- and quit making excuses for poor performance as if Super Tool, new schools and the like, are the silver bullets to turn around sectors of problems in some of our public schools.

By the way, these "procedural errors" as you like to call them on how fast these schools are populated are not minor -- they are major and could end up costing the City of New Haven millions of dollars. If these "procedural erors" are duplicated at other schools or just several of them -- you could easily be looking at a liability of tens of millions that will be passed on to city residents. Since we have radically expanded the size of these schools and added such expensive design components -- I worry that it's not quite as easily dismissed as "procedural errors" and that higher, more unrealistic numbers were used to justify those huge costs.

And by the way, this school construction effort is not even close to original cost projections given to the state -- they're off by some 30% -- such a huge descrepancy that some lawmakers last year were calling for a "cease funding" order until an audit of these schools was completed.

Bottom Line: This is a substantial issue and how it is decided will affect our families for generations. It is no small matter and not easily dismissed.

Posted by: Robn | May 25, 2007 1:22 PM

Gary,

You're right that's it pretty early to judge a candidate, but please examine the facts. New Haven has a public financing system and, having had sufficient time to examine this system before entering the mayoral race, Mr. Newton is absolutely clueless about how it works. Don't take my word for it; he's on NHI video saying it himself. I find it astounding that a candidate entered this election without knowing how the system basically works. It doesn't inspire confidence in me that this candidate can run the city.

On the subject of schools, good facilities aren't a substitute for good teachers and I never wrote that they were. To expand upon what I wrote; good teachers can't teach under leaky roofs and in cold rooms with broken desks. That is the poverty of worn out facilities and it is indeed virulent. You want evidence, ask a teacher.

To your point that the new schools don't have to be palatial, I agree, but don't you agree that there should be a whiff of pride put into public buildings? I'm eager to hear more examples from you, but I'm not so sure that your examples are good ones. If the bridge you're referring to is the one at Barnard, do you really think that it's a big misjudgment to give kids in an environmental school a footbridge to an environmentally diverse wetland when otherwise they would have to cross a six lane high speed road; a road which has hosted some of New Haven's most notoriously deadly automobile accidents? Please.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | May 25, 2007 2:44 PM

Wake Up People Both Partys Are Crooked, One Is A Wolf And The Other Is A Fox. I Am Voting For The
TeleTubs!!!

Posted by: Jeff Klaus | May 25, 2007 2:49 PM

Robn,

New Haven lacks not for substantive issues.

Last night at the NAACP dinner, keynote speaker Tony Brown discussed among other things, the high correlation between academic achievement in high school, academic achievement in college, and earning higher income as an adult. In other words, education is the way out of poverty. Given that we know all kids can learn in the right environment, why are we not sufficiently inspired to make sure that great education happens every day for 8-9 hours in our schools?

Re teachers: Passion is necessary but not sufficient. Teachers need to be passionate AND effective. As you must obviously know, teaching is a really tough job. And I imagine that it's particularly tough working in city schools these days. Not everyone can be a great teacher. There are probably some inherent personal qualities that contribute to being a great teacher. But a teacher's effectiveness also has lots to do with the quality of their training and the support that they get from the principal and the district administration.

Re facilities: It's not an either/or situation between good facilities or good education. That's a false choice. Of course we shouldn't have decrepit buildings. But it's not inappropriate for Newton, or anyone else to ask about the relationship between one of the most ambitious school construction projects in the entire country and the district's academic outcomes. Besides re-making the school buildings, it's unclear how this administration is re-making the school environments. In the last five years, can you find any data to suggest that NHPS is making any substantial progress towards closing the achievement gap? If not, towards what end was the massive public investment in new buildings made?

Posted by: Wjay | May 25, 2007 3:45 PM

I don't believe that public financing is such a noble idea.In fact the issue was not even offered to the public for a hearing. Currently, public financing is experimental in New Haven only. To be the fifth poorest city in the nation, New Haven pols enjoy giving away money we DO NOT have. Fact two is: both Hillary Clinton and Obama, both have thus far refused public financing. There must be some logict to that approach, that Rob does not see. At this time there is only $200,000 available in the fund, with primarys and general election to follow, that fund could evaporate, with four persons in the race. So, slow you roll Rob, public financing may not be the savior your looking for. More importantly, I for one do not want my money going to finance a political campaign that encompasses only one party. Oh yea & the Green Party.

In as much as the Barnard School, and the bridge to the swamp is concerned, it appears to me to have environmental restrictions on it's use. Tell me, when have you seen Barnard students use any thing other than the basketball court, and by the way,they have one inside as well.

Posted by: Robn | May 25, 2007 4:53 PM

Jeff K,

"Besides re-making the school buildings, it's unclear how this administration is re-making the school environments."

Well put Jeff. That is THE question and I'm with you in agressively asking for an answer.

Posted by: Gary Doyens | May 25, 2007 10:34 PM

It's ironic that everybody thinks the public financing system is such a good thing that candidates should feel compelled to live within it. It's certainly good for the mayor -- he has the Demo machine behind him, he's got a lot of the churches in his pocket by supporting their neighborhood programs - some with city money, he provides patronage jobs too many to mention (watch for Henry Hernandez to be named as CEO of the Tweed Airport Authority which is in the works now over the objection of several authority members); he controls the NH BOA via the fact that he controls all the boards that hire so many of them (HANH, BOE) or they work for non-profits that get city money, plus he's got the bully pulpit.

On top of that, the mayor has just come off a campaign in which he raised millions including substantial sums from contractors doing business with the city. Look at his first fundraiser -- a bunch of city employees and union people who he used against YNHH while awarding them a lucrative five year contract -- nearly unheard of in union land.

The only person who will get hurt by Newton abiding by public financing is Newton. Under this plan DeStefano wins because it limits Newton's spending. Why should Newton know about public financing if his view is, he will try to raise the money necessary to defeat a guy who has a lock on everything? I don't care..and if DeStefano felt so strongly about it...he certainly could have applied some of the theory behind it to his own run for governor, which he clearly did not.

As for the schools -- wasn't it Beecher that just opened with custom artwork in the yard, ceiling that reminded people of waves and glass atrium? Hardly necessary just for starters.

It's great to have an environmental school and no, you don't have to have a skywalk to go to the wetlands. Kids have been walking across Ella Grasso for how many years? Did we really need it? Did we need a separate nature center? It couldn't have been incorporated into the main school building that was doubled in size? Come on...if it was your personal money at stake, and not taxpayers in general, you would think differently I'm sure. When was the last time a school kid was hit on that corner? There may be car accidents, most of which are not at that corner, but further down...I can't think of time when a child's been hit there.

Whiff of pride? Sure....let the whiff start with a well built, reasonable school -- let it move to the principal and all the way down to the janitor. You know..when I visit Edgewood School -- one of the first to be redone -- I look around. It is not fancy. There is no indoor pool, no soaring atrium, no artwork in the yard. It is a basic school. The gym serves as the cafeteria and the auditorium too. The school is well run and students excel. The facility is spotless. The janitor, Mr. Izzy makes sure of that.

Contrast that to Wexler where I just went to meeting. It has a soaring atrium...and an auditorium. It's also a new school. The place was dirty, the auditorium chairs were broken, the painted floor needed repainting; the trash can outside was overturned - the debris from a trash fire was still there, garbage was all over the side of the building and grass needed to be mowed.
Yes..there needs to be a whiff of pride..but a new school doesn't seem to cut it there. Last year, in Fairhaven, at a brand new magnet school, they didn't have a working copy machine -- when it was working, it didn't have paper.

There has to be substantive progress on closing the gap, on meeting no child and a general improvement in overall educational excellence. My experience in the NHPS is that it is found in the people, the administrators and teachers who care -- teaching in a facility that is reasonable, practical and respects the taxpayers who foot the bills. There are such schools -- Edgewood is one of them and it would be good if others modeled themselves after it. It would be good for everybody and make us all proud.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | May 25, 2007 11:04 PM

Jeff Klaus
You Said That at The Naacp Dinner That Tony Brown
Dissussed The High Correlation Between Academic
Achievement In High School, Academic Achievement In College And Earning Higher Income As Adults and That Education Is The Way Out Of Poverty. Jeff
You Should Read The National Urban League The State Of Black American 2007 Report and You will See That Even With High Education That African-Americans Are Still Behind There White Coworks
Economically.Tony Brown Also Failed To Speak About
How These Students Are Comming Out In College In
Debt With Student Loans. Education In This Country
Is Run By The Corporatist, Look At The New York system In Which the Chancelor Who Degree Is In Finance was Give A Wavier Because He Did not Have
A Degree In Education. Jeff The Reason Why You Have Poverty Is That This System Must Have Poverty
To Keep The Up Class Rich, Ask you Self If The Naacp Was About Helping The Poor Than why Do They
Charge Seventyfive Dollars To Get In. Last I Wonder How Much Mr. Brown Was Payed?

Posted by: robn | May 26, 2007 9:39 AM

Jim Newton should have known how the public election financing works before he announced his entry into the race; not knowing is amateurish.

Public financing is good becuase it takes away the opportunity for special interests to buy an election. It also keeps incumbents focussed on their job, not focussed on collecting contributions. The cost of public financing is small compared to the cost of corruption and absentee incumbents.

Posted by: Jeff Klaus | May 26, 2007 10:58 AM

THREEFIFTHS, I've got to disagree with some of what you said. I just took one comment from Tony Brown. But he actually did mention student loan debt and the impact of wealth as a pre-requsite for becoming even wealthier.
The other comment that I will tackle is about the NYC schools chancellor. The fact that he does not have a education degree is a POSITIVE. Joel Klein is absolutely visionary, and whether or not he has time to be successful before Bloomberg's term runs out, he has set in motion the beginning of the boldest school reform program we have ever seen. THREEFIFTHS, please read what he says about kids, students, education. He doesn't point fingers at, or blame "the families" for not raising their children to work hard. He doesn't cry for more money. He doesn't blame family poverty for lack of student performance. He fights the against the anti-student, anti-family, and yes, anti-teacher philosophies and strategies of the United Federation of Teachers. And he doesn't make excuses for failure. All he does is point out how his system continuously fails children, and yet he works tirelessly to fix that reality. And last week, we are beginning to see the results of his efforts with the hopeful progress in 8th grade test scores.
The rhetoric, and his actions are remarkable. Contrast his words and actions with what we see in the New Haven district. The comparison could not be more stark. The man is a genuine hero to all the low income children and their families who have been systematically denied a quality education for generations.
He may be a corporatist, but if he had come out of a typical ed. school environment, he wouldn't be a reformer, he's be a run of the mill school supt. Most Ed. schools are part of the problem. To be "certified" does not mean "qualified".

Posted by: robn | May 26, 2007 1:51 PM

Since everybody is so grumbly about school construction and since there are some not so veiled accusations being thrown around about quid pro quos, I thought I'd refresh the conversation with a some facts. At the bottom of my message there are links to detailed breakdowns of campaign contributions during the last governors race. Rell and DeStefano raised about the same amount of money. DeStefano got more than Rell from the Construction industry and Rell got more than DeStefano from the Finance/Insurance Industries and from Civil Servants and General Business.

Don't know what it all means except to say again...and this is all public data; not vague allusions to suitcases of cash exchanged in dark alleys...maybe the people who build buildings like building buildings and maybe they supported DeStefano because DeStefano supported building buildings...which we needed because our particular buildings were falling apart. In effect, DeStefano did what he had to do to rebuild the schools and the Constructors acted in their own self interest in a perfectly legal and ethical manner.

As for the Celantano flap. It most certainly IS a procedural issue. Last minute Federal and State oreders that special ed students couldn't be at this school temporarily dropped the student population and the city is now trying to refill those spaces. http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2007/05/acting_on_a_whi.php

Rell Contributions
http://www.followthemoney.org/database/StateGlance/candidate.phtml?si=20067&p=12&c=415475#geography

DeStefano Contributions
http://www.followthemoney.org/database/StateGlance/candidate.phtml?si=20067&p=12&c=415467#geography

Posted by: not about education | May 26, 2007 6:38 PM

I believe now it can be seen that Newtonm is not quetioning the need for good schools and accountable education standards, but instead is questioning whether the constuction program was used by the mayor to get money from companies involved in the contracts, which it was...The mayor needs to be held accountable. Why Mr. Bass did you go aftyer Mr. Altieri for getting a BOE pension while also being the mayor financial czar? Do you think Mr. Mayo had no idea of the conflict? Why are you so weak on that. Bu the way, as you write about Fair Haven, isn't that the same neoighborhood you gave up on and moved out of. Answer or will you hide. Also where was te article about illegal use of fedaeral money by an organization that owns many properties along Elm St. You seem to only report the things you want to be known. What happened to impartial reporting. While you attacked Altieri, why did you not attack the mayor and Mayo? They both knew about the pension being paid while a $90,000 contarct was always OK'd? I expect this comment to be excluded as I have noticed you do with many comments that you don't like. Newton may ot be the best. The goal of this election needs to be to get the current coruot administration out. That will allow good people to work to help New Haven without the threat of retaliation. You must know the power since as I have mention at he start of this comment NHI has sold out.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | May 27, 2007 11:28 PM

Jeff Klaus
Then Please Tell Me What You Do Agree With in My Posting, Did You Read The Urban League Report 2007 Which Gives Data And Not Excuse On Education
And Poverty. I Come From New York and Know Mr. Klein, Check His Bio And See The Corporatist Friends Of His Starting With One On Biggest
Corporatist Mayor Bloomberg who By The Way refuse
To Pay The Medical Benfits To Victims Of Nine eleven.Again Check The Data And You Will See That
Allo Of This Education Means Nothing If you Cannot
Find Work. So Please Read That Report And Let Me
Know What You Think. Are You A Member Of The Cato
Institute, Beacuse You sound A Lot like Them.

Posted by: Jeff Klaus | May 28, 2007 5:46 PM

Threefifths, Urban League does NOT say that African-americans have high education relative to whites. They say that African Americans never attain it!

Urban League among others does say that a longer school day is necessary and that we need better teachers (and mentors) in front of African american boys in particular.

I'm not a member of Cato. Just someone who believes sincerely that for most people, education is the way to personal economic stability. You can't land a decent job these days if you can't read or write.

Our elected leaders (and candidates) should be yelling from the rooftops that african-americans and latinos are not being given an equal education, a right which is theirs under law.

What if a government agency like the Social Security Administration announced that it was only going to pay retired people who live in Newhallville only 60% of what they rightfully had earned, and yet in Westville or East Rock, retirees who lived there would get 100% of what they had earned. How fast would there be a well deserved protest?

Well, that's what's happening in public education today. If you are poor, your kids receive only a fraction of the quality of education that wealthier kids receive. And because Connecticut's population is so segregated between cities and suburbs, that gap turns out to be based on the color of your skin.

Jim Newton and anyone else who wants to run for Mayor, Governor, or President should speak out about education, the most important issue there is for all of us.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | May 29, 2007 9:46 AM

Jeff Klaus
The Urban League Also Stated In This Report Which
you May Have Missed That Even When African American Have High Education Due To Institutional
Racism That They Still Lack In Pay Behind There
White Co Workers. I Know People Who Have High Education And Are Driving Cabs and Are Working In
Lowes. This Jeff Like It Or Not Is A Problem That
Is Made To Keep The Corporatist Rich And In Power!!Education Is A Corporatist Control Business
Jeff You Can Not Even Land A Decent Job With High
Education Due To The Fact That Over Six Millon Jobs Have Left This Country To Go Over Seas.Also
I Was Reading Article That The B.A. And B.S. Degrees In The Next Ten Years Will Be Nothing But
Toilet Paper And The Masters Degree Will Soon Also
Be Nothing But Toilet Paper This Is Due to The Fact That To Many People Will Have These Degrees
And Not A Enough Jobs To Go Around.As Far As The Elected Leaders Yelling From The RoofTops Jeff These Elected Leaders Are Nothing More Than Political Prostitutes Who Work For There Corporatist Pimps, They Take There Orders From Them, This Is Why I Am My Own Leader.Bottom Line
Jeff This Is Why I Say That This Crooked System
Is About The Dollars And Not About The People. Last as Howard Zinn And Noam Chomsky Said as Long
As We Have Class Structure You Will Have These Problems. Bottom Line The Rich Get Richer And The
Middle Class Is Geting Poor And I say This Because
The Middle Class Is Your New Breed Of The Poor And
This Is Even With There High Education.

Posted by: Thanks for showing us | May 29, 2007 12:50 PM

Thanks for givng the link to contributions. if loked at you will see that construction gave $440,000 to DeStefano and only $57,000 to Rell, almost a 700% difference. I think that supports the idea that DeStefano used school construction as a money maker. It is even more suspect when you consider that contributions were made in the name of firms and that individuals from those firms gave as well. Yes builders build, especially when they are getting top dollar. The idea is that the schools were built to far exceed the needs of teaching and are over improvements, and as the point has been made how have the new buildings helped inprove performance? Celantano School is outrageous for the intended use.

Posted by: Jeff Klaus | May 29, 2007 2:04 PM

Threefifths, Too much conspiracy theory.

Jobs have left our country because other countries have lower costs and provide equivalent or better value in lots of manufacturing sectors.

Also, I'm not so sure that we will see undergrad/post-grad degree inflation to the extent that you predict. More people in general are coming to our country for higher education, which means more degrees will be issued. But admissions are getting more stringent as well. So the result is that we should be seeing more folks who are educated. And with continued global innovation, we will see new industries start to spring up and many college grads will find themselves gainfully employed. The problem is that lots of the demand for U.S. colleges is coming from abroad. African Americans are not increasing college enrollment fast enough and many are falling further and further behind. This is our main problem.

I may have my differences with Mayor Destefano's policies with regards to education, but take it from this corporatist - the man is no corporatist!

I agree with your bottom line comment. It IS about dollars. But what else is new? It always has been and will continue to be for a very, very long time. The rich ARE getting richer - no doubt. But opportunities are abundant for ANY smart kid, rich or poor, coming out of college or grad. school. The smarter the kid, the better the school, the better the opportunity.

With apologies to Zinn and Chomsky, the rich do not derive benefit from having a permanent lower class. We are not in the feudal ages anymore. It's not a zero sum game.

Back to education...we have to create a public education system that manages to lift lots more people up. While our system is not built like that right now in New Haven, I believe that it absolutely could be. Instead of less than 30% of our minority students attaining proficiency, we could possibly double that number to 60% in 5 to 7 years if the right strategies were undertaken starting now. But so far, I haven't seen the will in New Haven. I guess the good news is that while we sit on the sidelines in the Elm City, we can at least watch places like New York and Hartford try to make some real changes.

Posted by: In the Hood | May 29, 2007 4:16 PM

Jeff,
Whose is (are) the "we" sitting at the sidelines?

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | May 29, 2007 7:54 PM

Jeff Klaus
Too Much Conspiracy Theory, Show Me Proof That what I Have Said Is A Conspiracy Theory. Ask The People Of West Haven With All That High Education
Why The Corporatist Company Bayer Is Pulling Out Of West Haven. Due To This Pulling I Know Someone
Who Has A MBA That worked There And He Is Now Cutting Keys at Lowes Hardware Department!! Would
You Call Institutional Racism a Conspiracy Theory.
I Had The Chance To Meet Ms. Roberts Who Also Has
A MBA She Sued Texaco On The Grounds Of Pay And Racism Jeff You Rember This Case In Which The African-American Was Call Black Jelly Beans In a Jar.I Have Her Phone Number If You Would Like To Talk To Her.Ask The Workers at Winchester What Happen to There Jobs.Jeff You Stated That Jobs Have Left This Country Because Other Countrys Have
Lower Cost And Provide Equivalent Or Better Lots Of Manufacturing Sectors. Jeff If This Is The Case
Then Why Is It When I Call Customer Service In These Good Old Countrys That Have Low Cost And Provide Equivalent Or Better Value How Come They
Do Not Speak Good English!!! One Guy It Took Him One Hour To Get My Name Right And Two Hours To Get
My Problem Solved, Has That Happen To You Jeff I Bet It Has To People On This Website.No Jeff
Wake Up This Is About Under Cutting Labor.What These Corporatist Should Do Is Pay The Young People Of This Country To Do These Jobs Not
Send the jobs OverSeas. Jeff Read lou Dobbs Book
War On The Middle class. You Also Stated That Most
People That Come From Other Countrys For High Education This Is True but These Same People Are The Ones Who Sit On The Side Line And Do Not Get Involed In Any Social Movement. If You Ask Them
About Dr. King And The Movement They Do Not Care.
Also A Lot Of Them There Country Pays For Them To Come So They Do Not Have To Worry About Loans To
Pay Back!! As Far As King John I Agree With Mr, Gary Doyens. Jeff You Also Speak About The New York School System did You Know That When Governer
Pataki Was In Office The Money From The State Lottery Was Used In The Upstate Schools And The City Schools Never Got One Dime Of The Money,The
City Council Had To Sue Him to get The Money Which
Came To Ten Millon Dollars Which the City Council
Is Still Waiting To Collect. Thank You For You Time And Leting Me Know That You Are A Corporatist
Or Is That Just A Conspiracy Theory.

Posted by: Jeff Klaus | May 29, 2007 10:07 PM

The "we" is everybody who has a vested interest in the success of the city's school system, which would mean every single citizen in greater New Haven and beyond.

And we are sitting on the proverbial sidelines because we allow our elected leaders and their appointees to preside over failure year after year after year without taking the steps necessary to get better results.

We have gotten so used to failure in the district (and in most urban districts) that it is something that we have come to expect. And furthermore we are told that we shouldn't even dream of significantly better results in urban education unless we find the solution to poverty first. After all, as the well-oiled myth goes, the schools can't make up for the disfunction in the neighborhoods or at home. How can we expect teachers to teach when the parents don't send their kids to school prepared to learn?

Well, of course we should strive to encourage parents to support their kid's education - to the best of their ability. But if that job turns out to be too hard (I think it is), that shouldn't let the rest of us off the hook! We allow "poverty" to be an excuse for not providing all children with a decent education.

I am not saying that poverty doesn't provide a whole host of extremely difficult challenges for educators. It is not easy to overcome chaos and crime, hunger, lack of role models, etc. But even if we acknowledge the challenge before us, the fact is that we just aren't trying hard enough, not by a long shot. There are plenty of promising interventions that are not tried because they might run afoul of the politics.

For instance, why don't we insist on increasing the school day by 2 hours? Why don't we change the school calendar to go deep into the summer for all students? Why do we tolerate the ludicrous notion of a "tenure" system for public school teachers? Why don't we provide incentives for the best teachers to teach in our most troubled schools? Why don't we develop high quality instructors and instruction in every class? Why don't we create system with high quality school choice for parents? The answer is that there is no good answer. The truth is that we value the narrow interests of the adults in the system over the interests of African-American and Latino children from low income households, their families, and all taxpayers.

The next time someone tells you that we will never solve our urban education problems until we solve poverty, tell them that they have it backwards. Tell them that we will never break the cycle of urban poverty UNTIL we provide high quality education for all children.

Posted by: ann | May 30, 2007 5:03 PM

Here's what I did for my child. We are "white" and I sent her to a New Haven urban high school. She was one of maybe 10 "whites" in the whole school. I come from a family who didn't believe in public education. We all went to private schools which cost lots of $$$$. I was a single mother for a lot of years. I stayed on my daughter's back to make sure she took advantage of all the FREE programs that urban schools have to offer. I worked full time but made sure that she got to school. Did you know they even give kids bus passes in case they don't have a ride to school? Free!! I never paid for a field trip. My child got a great education from teachers who had PHD's and very qualified. My child did well, not because she was "white", but because I was a good parent. Parents need to be parents whether they are black, white, green, yellow or purple. I HATE it when people use color as a crutch. My daughter now attends a local University. She is doing great and I am still a big part of her life. Still making sure that she will develope into a human being with integrity. It's not about color. It's about good values instilled by the person who is playing the parent role in a child's life.

I also believe it's time for change in NH. Mr. Newton is the man for the job. Maybe he will be able to get some funding for parenting classes. It breaks my heart when I drive down Howard Ave. and see little kids waiting alone on street corners for their school bus. It breaks my heart to know that school feeds them breakfast instead of breakfast at home. I worked around my kids schedule. More parents should do the same.