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Study: Parental unemployment adversely affects children

In 3rd world America: The economy affects the society of the future, moi said:

So what future have the Goldman Sucks, cash sluts, and credit crunch weasels along with we don’t care, we don’t have to Washington Georgetown and Chevy Chase set – you know, the “masters of the universe” left those on a race to get through college? Lila Shapiro has the excellent post, Trading Down: Laid-Off Americans Taking Pay Cuts and Increasingly Kissing Their Old Lives Goodbye at Huffington Post:

This government, both parties, has failed to promote the kind of economic development AND policy which creates livable wage jobs. That is why Mc Donalds is popular for more than its dollar menu. They are hiring people.

This economy must focus on job creation and job retention and yes, hope. Both for those racing through college and those who have paid their education and training dues. “You deserve a break today at Mc Donalds,” the only employer who seems to be hiring. https://drwilda.com/2011/11/22/3rd-world-america-the-economy-affects-the-society-of-the-future/

Nirvi Shah writes in the Education Week article, Parents’ Unemployment Affects Students at Home, School:

About 6.2 million children lived in families with unemployed parents in 2012, and that number rises to 12.1 million American children—about one in six—when including families with unemployed or underemployed parents during an average month of 2012. That’s a decrease from 2010, when the figure was about 13.5 million children, but a huge increase from 2007, when the number was 7.1 million children.

These children may especially feel the effects of their parents’ unemployment in their education, the report says:

One of the earliest signs that children are not doing well is their school performance. Several studies have documented lower math scores, poorer school attendance, and a higher risk of grade repetition or even suspension or expulsion among children whose parents have lost their jobs. …[P]arental job loss increases the chances a child will be held back in school by nearly 1 percentage point a year, or 15 percent.

But the effects of parental job loss can persist as children age: The report notes that low-income youth whose parents lose a job have lower rates of college attendance. Looking back at the recession of the 1980s, boys whose fathers lost jobs when manufacturing and other plants closed at that time grew into men who had annual earnings that were about 9 percent lower than similar men whose whose fathers did not lose those jobs. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rulesforengagement/2013/03/parents_unemployment_affects_students_at_home_school.html?intc=es

Here is the press release from First Focus:

For Kids, Jobless Benefits Miss the Mark
Press Release

March 25, 2013

Contact:
Madeline Daniels
(202) 999-4853 (office)

Washington – Federal benefits are largely failing to reach children affected by unemployment, according to a report released today by the bipartisan children’s advocacy organization First Focus.

“One in six children live with an unemployed or underemployed parent, so our leaders should be doing everything they can to prevent kids from falling through the cracks,” said First Focus president Bruce Lesley.

Unemployment from a Child’s Perspective, authored by Julia Isaacs of the Urban Institute, examined the reach of three federal initiatives designed to help the families of the unemployed; Unemployment Insurance (UI), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); and found:

UI reaches just 36 percent of children with at least one unemployed parent.

More than one fourth (29 percent) of children with unemployed parents have incomes limited enough to be eligible for and receive SNAP and/or TANF, but did not receive the larger UI benefits in the last year.

The remaining 35 percent of children impacted by parental unemployment do not receive any of these three benefits designed to support unemployed or low-income families.

Families experiencing long-term unemployment and the exhaustion of available federal unemployment benefits are particularly vulnerable to economic stress. This group has more than tripled since before the recession to 2.8 million children, or almost half of all children living with an unemployed parent. Poverty nearly tripled among parents who remained out of work for six months or longer.

While 9 percent of children experience parental unemployment overall, children from families of color are disproportionately impacted:

14 percent of African-American children live with at least one unemployed parent.

11 percent of Latino children live with at least one unemployed parent.

7 percent of Caucasian children live with at least one unemployed parent.

6 percent of Asian children live with at least one unemployed parent.

The analysis also shows that economic stress can have significant consequences for children. Job loss can have a negative impact on family dynamics through increased parental irritability, depression, and higher levels of family conflict. Family unemployment has a marked impact on children, including documented lower math scores, poorer school attendance, higher risk of grade repetition, and suspension/expulsion.

The report cites recent threats to federal funding for unemployment insurance, SNAP, and TANF. The federal budget resolution passed last week by the U.S. House of Representatives would make deep cuts to SNAP and other anti-poverty initiatives.

“This is an important reminder that kids are still recovering from the recession, and parents should expect their lawmakers to deliver a federal budget that invests in our children,” said Lesley.

Citation:

March 25, 2013

By Julia Isaacs, The Urban Institute

Download this Resource

Moi wrote in 3rd world America: Money changes everything:

The increased rate of poverty has profound implications if this society believes that ALL children have the right to a good basic education. Moi blogs about education issues so the reader could be perplexed sometimes because moi often writes about other things like nutrition, families, and personal responsibility issues. Why? The reader might ask? Because children will have the most success in school if they are ready to learn. Ready to learn includes proper nutrition for a healthy body and the optimum situation for children is a healthy family. Many of societies’ problems would be lessened if the goal was a healthy child in a healthy family. There is a lot of economic stress in the country now because of unemployment and underemployment. Children feel the stress of their parents and they worry about how stable their family and living situation is.

Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation wrote the informative Washington Post article, How to attack the growing educational gap between rich and poor:

In fact, research published by The Century Foundation and other organizations going back more than a decade shows that there are an array of strategies that can be highly effective in addressing the socioeconomic gaps in education:

* Pre-K programs. As Century’s Greg Anrig has noted, there is a wide body of research suggesting that well-designed pre-K programs in places like Oklahoma have yielded significant achievement gains for students. Likewise, forthcoming Century Foundation research by Jeanne Reid of Teachers College, Columbia University, suggests that allowing children to attend socioeconomically integrated (as opposed to high poverty) pre-K settings can have an important positive effect on learning.

* Socioeconomic Housing Integration. Inclusionary zoning laws that allow low-income and working-class parents and their children to live in low-poverty neighborhoods and attend low-poverty schools can have very positive effects on student achievement, as researcher David Rusk has long noted. A natural experiment in Montgomery County, Maryland, showed that low-income students randomly assigned to public housing units and allowed to attend schools in low-poverty neighborhoods scored at 0.4 of a standard deviation higher than those randomly assigned to higher-poverty neighborhoods and schools. According to the researcher, Heather Schwartz of the RAND Corporation, the initial sizable achievement gap between low-income and middle-class students in low-poverty neighborhoods and schools was cut in half in math and by one-third in reading over time.

* Socioeconomic School Integration. School districts that reduce concentrations of poverty in schools through public school choice have been able to significantly reduce the achievement and attainment gaps. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example, where a longstanding socioeconomic integration plan has allowed students to choose to attend mixed-income magnet schools, the graduation rate for African American, Latino, and low-income students is close to 90 percent, far exceeding the state average for these groups.

* College Affirmative Action for Low-Income Students. Research finds attending a selective college confers substantial benefits, and that many more low-income and working-class students could attend and succeed in selective colleges than currently do. Research by Anthony Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose of Georgetown University for the Century volume, America’s Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students in Higher Education , found that selective universities could increase their representation from the bottom socioeconomic half of the population from 10 percent to 38 percent, and overall graduation rates for all students would remain the same.

In addition to these ideas, Century Foundation research by Gordon MacInnes has highlighted promising programs to promote the performance of low-income students in New Jersey. Forthcoming research will suggest ways to revitalize organized labor, a development that could raise wages of workers and thereby have a positive impact on the educational outcomes of their children. We will also be exploring ways to strengthen community colleges as a vital institutions for social mobility.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-to-attack-the-growing-educational-gap-between-rich-and-poor/2012/02/10/gIQArDOg4Q_blog.html

There is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education. There is only what works to produce academic achievement in each population of children. That is why school choice is so important.

Hard times are disrupting families https://drwilda.com/2011/12/11/hard-times-are-disrupting-families/

3rd world America: The link between poverty and education https://drwilda.com/2011/11/20/3rd-world-america-the-link-between-poverty-and-education/

3rd world America: Money changes everything https://drwilda.com/2012/02/11/3rd-world-america-money-changes-everything/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART© http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews © http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda © https://drwilda.com/

Tags: 3rd World America, business, Children and Poverty, current-events, economy, education, First Focus, For Kids, How to attack the growing educational gap between rich and poor, Jobless Benefits Miss the Mark, Parents' Unemployment Affects Students at Home, politics, Poverty, Poverty and Education, The Century Foundation, The Urban Institute, Trading Down: Laid-Off Americans Taking Pay Cuts and Increasingly Kissing Their Old Lives Goodbye, Unemployment, Unemployment from a Child’s Perspective

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Do you have to be a moron to be a person of faith: Saying ‘vagina’

27 Mar

Here’s today’s COMMENT FROM AN OLD FART: People of faith are admonished to “be in the world and not of it.” Does that mean that one has to lose the ability to think critically because one is a person of faith? Alexander Abad-Santos of the Atlantic Wire posted the article, A High-School Sex-Ed Teacher Is Being Punished for Saying the Word ‘Vagina’:

Tim McDaniel, an 18-year vetaran of the biology department at the public school in Dietrcich, Idaho, might have to figure out how to teach the miracle of life to his high-school students without saying the word “vagina” after a group of unhappy parents found the word offensive. Because now he’s kind of in big trouble for, you know, doing his job in the teen pregnancy capital of Idaho. According to what McDaniel told Boise’s Times-News, four parents at the school complained that he taught their children “the biology of an orgasm” and said the word “vagina” during his sex-education lesson to a room of sophomores. Yes, sophomores, some of whom have had vaginas for 14 to 15 years. It’s unclear whether the word “penis” was met with equal offense. But, apparently, allegations from (likely Mormon) parents also complain that McDaniel has shown the film an Inconvenient Truth in class, and according to a letter served to McDaniel by a quick to respond official from Idaho’s Department of Education:

[T]he allegations also include that he shared confidential student files with an individual other than their parents, showed a video clip in class depicting an infection of genital herpes, taught different forms of birth control and told inappropriate jokes in class.

Despite the letter from the upper levels of the state education system, the school superintendent tells the Times-News that upset parents won’t get Mr. McDaniels fired: “It is highly unlikely it would end with his dismissal… Maybe a letter of reprimand from the school board.” McDaniel is denying any wrongdoing, and the school’s slap on the wrist might indicate that McDaniel’s alleged transgressions might just be that — alleged. “I teach straight out of the textbook, I don’t include anything that the textbook doesn’t mention,” McDaniel tells the Times-News. “But I give every student the option not attend this class when I teach on the reproductive system if they don’t feel comfortable with the material.”

http://news.yahoo.com/high-school-sex-ed-teacher-being-punished-saying-214012946.html

Now, keep the discussion of the teacher in hot water for saying “vagina” in perspective when reading news about the number of sexually transmitted infections.

Terence P. Jeffrey writes in the article, CDC: 110,197,000 Venereal Infections in U.S.; Nation Creating New STIs Faster Than New Jobs or College Grads:

According to new data released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 19.7 million new venereal infections in the United States in 2008, bringing the total number of existing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. at that time to 110,197,000.

The 19.7 million new STIs in 2008 vastly outpaced the new jobs and college graduates created in the United States that year or any other year on record, according to government data. The competition was not close.

The STI study referenced by the CDC estimated that 50 percent of the new infections in 2008 occurred among people in the 15-to-24 age bracket. In fact, of the 19,738,800 total new STIs in the United States in 2008, 9,782,650 were among Americans in the 15-to-24 age bracket.

By contrast, there were 1,524,092 bachelor’s degrees awarded in the United States in the 2007-2008 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That means the total number of new STIs in 2008 outpaced the total number of new bachelor’s degrees by nearly 13 to 1, and the number of new STIs among Americans in the 15-to-24 age bracket outnumbered new bachelor’s degrees by more than 6 to 1. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-110197000-venereal-infections-us-nation-creating-new-stis-faster-new-jobs-or

Yes, there is obviously a question of values, but there is also a question of how to teach children of faith critical thinking skills so that they can engage the culture and not run from it.

Moi wrote in Critical thinking skills for kids are crucial: The lure of Superbowl alcohol ads:

The issue is whether children in a “captive” environment have the maturity and critical thinking skills to evaluate the information contained in the ads. Advertising is about creating a desire for the product, pushing a lifestyle which might make an individual more prone to purchase products to create that lifestyle, and promoting an image which might make an individual more prone to purchase products in pursuit of that image. Many girls and women have unrealistic body image expectations which can lead to eating disorders in the pursuit of a “super model” image. What the glossy magazines don’t tell young women is the dysfunctional lives of many “super models” which may involve both eating disorders and substance abuse. The magazines don’t point out that many “glamor girls” are air-brushed or photo-shopped and that they spend hours on professional make-up and professional hairstyling in addition to having a personal trainer and stylist. Many boys look at the buff bodies of the men in the ads and don’t realize that some use body enhancing drugs. In other words, when presented with any advertising, people must make a determination what to believe. It is easy for children to get derailed because of peer pressure in an all too permissive society. Parents and schools must teach children critical thinking skills and point out often that the picture presented in advertising is often as close to reality as the bedtime fairy tail. Reality does not often involve perfection, there are warts.

See, Admongo http://ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/admongo/html-version.shtml

and How to Help a Child With Critical Thinking Skills

http://www.livestrong.com/article/178182-how-to-help-a-child-with-critical-thinking-skills/#ixzz2Jlv5L6HR

The blog, Dad in the Middle has some great thoughts about teaching kids in the post, 22 Ways to Teach Kids HOW to Think And Not Just WHAT to Think:

So, how do we encourage our kids to think about God and analyze their faith even at a young age? How do we teach them the critical skill of questioning their faith and working through the answers? How do we teach the essential skills of critical analysis? Here are twenty-two ideas for elementary age kids:

Encourage questions….

Draw questions out of kids. So, we’ve seen that kids have plenty of questions, but there are a some kids who just don’t want to ask them. Whether they are shy or embarrassed or whatever the reason may be, as workers in Children’s Ministry we must establish the kind of environment that not only encourages questions but draws them out from those kids who are reluctant to ask them. Ask kids what is on their mind. Leave time for questions and answers. Call on kids who may be reluctant and ask them to give you a question. Have reluctant kids ask the children who are less reluctant what they learned that weekend.

Let kids know that it is OK to ask questions about God. Remind kids that our God is a big God, and he can take our questions. There is no question that catches God by surprise or changes his love for us….

Model asking questions in your life. Kids learn best by example. We must model asking hard questions about God and about our faith. We must share with them how we have worked through our own questions about God. We can even suggest questions for kids to think about.

Be prepared to answer their questions. When we’re working with kids to teach them how to think through their faith, it is critical that we be prepared. That means we must actively engage in the same kind of critical analysis in our own lives and in our own walks with God so that we can lead kids through the process.

Try to lead the child to an answer rather than just giving it to them. It is easy to just answer a question – especially if you’re in a hurry. It is harder, but much more edifying, to help a child work through their question prompting them when necessary…

Never minimize a child’s question. Sometimes kids ask questions which seem simple or trivial or which are an annoyance in the grand scheme of trying to teach your lesson. That said, you must never minimize their questions. The question was important enough to them to ask it, and you should treat it with the same level of importance in answering. If you don’t, you risk building a culture where the kids do not feel free to ask questions.

Try to figure out if there is a bigger question behind the question which was articulated. Another reason not to minimize any question is because the questions that children ask sometimes mask bigger questions which are on their minds….

Be willing to admit when you don’t know the answer. Kids are pretty astute. If you try to fake your way through an answer, one of two things will happen. You will either teach them some flawed theology that could stick with them and harm their spiritual journey, or they will see right through you and no longer trust you to answer their questions. If you don’t know the answer to a child’s question, use that as an opportunity to work through that question alongside the child. What a wonderful opportunity to teach them exactly what critical thinking and evaluation of a question looks like! Teach them how to brainstorm answers, and use the Bible to come up with the right answer.

Ask hypothetical questions. This encourages children to apply what they have learned. Give them age appropriate scenarios and ask them what they would do. If they’re wrong, don’t just tell them they’re wrong and move on. Encourage them to think through the issue and explain why they gave the answer they did. Encourage them to explore the other sides of the hypothetical question.

11. Ask questions where the answer is not always God or Jesus

Ask open-ended questions. Simple yes/no questions and factual questions serve a purpose, but in order to get kids thinking, it is important to ask open ended questions….

Encourage kids to consider other perspectives. Ask them how other people they know might handle a situation. Ask them what they would say if they had to defend the opposite position on an issue you are discussing. Ask them why they think some people don’t believe in God. Teaching kids to identify and think about potential issues in their way of thinking (right or wrong) helps them to critically analyze what they believe and to arrive at a considered opinion rather than leaping to a conclusion or basing there conclusion solely on feelings.

Encourage kids’ imaginations. Imagination spurs on the thought life. Encourage kids to draw pictures and make up stories. Show them a picture and ask them to tell you a story about. Help them if you must, but encourage them along the way to come up with their own story. In encouraging their imaginations, you are encouraging them to think and to think outside the box. You are encouraging them to pay attention to details. All of these skills are useful in learning how to think.

Ask kids what they think something means before you tell them. Read kids a Bible story and encourage them to tell you what they think it means. Offer the kids a scripture verse and ask them to explain it to you. All of these exercises move us from teaching kids what to think to teaching them how to think!

Teach kids to keep an open mind. Most kids, most people in fact, think they are right most of the time. It is important to teach kids how to keep an open mind. Once a child decides they are right and there is no reason to even entertain dissenting opinions, they have closed themselves off to thinking and analyzing their beliefs and positions critically. Truth is truth, and it can stand up to rigorous examination. There is no danger in keeping in an open mind. Ultimately we hope that our kids will have strong convictions and an open mind based on their own analysis of the evidence.

Teach children that there is right and wrong in the world. In the post-modern, relativistic world that we live in, and that kids are subjected to every day, it is important that they realize that there is such a thing as right and wrong. However, it is not enough just to tell them this truth, you must show them why it is true. We must teach them that truth exists because God exists and that the Bible is the revealed truth of God.

Work to move kids from the milk to the meat of Christianity….

Encourage children to talk about their doubts. Even kids have doubts. We must encourage kids to talk about them. Doubts left to fester can eventually undermine a child’s faith. Encourage kids to deal with their doubts quickly. Doubts are a great way to teach kids the art of how to think. If a child has a tragic event happen and doubts the love of God, ask them what they know about God’s love from the Bible. Point to examples of God’s love in their life. Point to examples of God’s love in helping you through difficult times.

Teach them to actively listen. In order to think critically, we must be able to listen to other people. This entails a lot more than just hearing. Encourage kids to not only repeat what you have said but to tell you what they think you meant. Teach kids to hear people out and think about what they are saying. Explain to kids that you can’t listen to what someone is saying when your using all of your brain power to come up with your response before they are even done….

Teach kids to love and to use their Bibles….

Encourage children to pray about their questions and their doubts. We must encourage kids to take their questions and their doubts to God in prayer. This may mean leaving a question hanging until the next week so that the child can pray about it. The next weekend, ask them if they have been praying about the question, and ask them what they have learned in their prayer time. Even with the skill of knowing how to think, it is important for kids to understand that God knows all and they should take their questions and their decisions to him.

Many thanks go out to a number of my personal friends and fellow workers who share the calling to minister to God’s children. Thanks for your input and your suggestions. http://waynestocks.com/2009/06/19/22-ways-to-teach-kids-how-to-think-and-not-just-what-to-think/

People of faith must be able to confront and challenge the culture when necessary. Yes, we may be “in the world and not of it,” but we are still in the world. One does not have to be a moron to be a person of faith.

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART© http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews © http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda © https://drwilda.com/

Tags: 000 Venereal Infections in U.S.; Nation Creating New STIs Faster Than New Jobs or College Grads, 197, 22 Ways to Teach Kids HOW to Think And Not Just WHAT to Think, A High-School Sex-Ed Teacher Is Being Punished for Saying the Word 'Vagina', CDC: 110, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, current-events, Dad in the Middle, different forms of birth control, People of Faith, politics, science, Sex Education, state education system

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Alert: important school case: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar

26 Mar

School Board News is reporting in the article, School boards encourage Supreme Court to protect employers from unnecessary lawsuits:

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) has filed an amicus brief in an employment case asking the U.S. Supreme Court not to hamper school districts’ abilities to discipline or fire employees.

In University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar to be heard on April 24, 2013, the Supreme Court will determine whether an employee can win a discrimination lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act if the employer had legitimate business reasons for taking the adverse action.

The case is particularly relevant to public schools, collectively the largest employer in the country. NSBA is asking the Supreme Court to rule that the employee must prove that the employer took adverse action solely out of retaliation for the employee’s prior complaint of discrimination, not because of other legitimate reasons, a standard known as the “but for” test. Under the lower court ruling in the case, an employer must prove that they would have taken the action regardless of any desire to punish the employee for making charges of discrimination. The case centers on an employee of the University of Texas medical school who alleged that the chair of his department blocked his attempt to get a job at a hospital in retaliation for a claim of discrimination the employee had lodged against a supervisor.

“It is important that schools have the ability to discipline or terminate staff for legitimate reasons without fear of costly lawsuits that shift funds away from the classroom,” said NSBA Executive Director Thomas J. Gentzel.

“The High Court should not permit anti-discrimination laws to be used as a shield by substandard employees seeking to invalidate legitimate employer action for poor performance,” said NSBA General Counsel Francisco M. Negrón, Jr. “This standard would result in many more lawsuits….

http://schoolboardnews.nsba.org/2013/03/nsbasupreme-court-to-protect-employers-from-unnecessary-lawsuits-in-university-of-texas-southwestern-medical-center-v-nassar/

Here is the brief on the case from Oyez Project:

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER v. NASSAR

Term:

2010-2019
- 2012

Location: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Facts of the Case

Dr. Naiel Nassar, who is of Middle Eastern descent, was hired by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) in 1995 to work at the Amelia Court Clinic (Clinic), which specializes in HIV/AIDS treatment. After three years there, he left to pursue additional training and returned in 2001 as an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases and Associate Medical Director of the Clinic. His immediate supervisor at the Clinic was Dr. Philip Keiser, whose supervisor at UTSW was Dr. Beth Levine. After being hired in 2004, Levine immediately began inquiring into Nassar’s productivity and billing practices. In 2005, after interviewing a candidate who was of Middle Eastern descent, Levine stated in Nassar’s presence, “Middle Easterners are lazy.” In 2006, after hiring the candidate, Levine made a similar statement in Keiser’s presence. Keiser informed Nassar of these comments as well as the fact that Levine scrutinized Nassar’s productivity more than any other doctor. Around this time, Nassar applied for a promotion that Levine actively undermined. In 2006, Nassar resigned from the UTSW faculty and cited Levine’s harassment and the creation of an unhealthy work environment in his resignation letter. Nassar resigned with the understanding that he would be offered a position at the Amelia Court Clinic unaffiliated with the UTSW, but the Clinic was forced to withdraw its offer after heavy opposition from the UTSW faculty, who have an agreement with the Clinic regarding positions to be filled by faculty doctors.

In 2008, Nassar sued UTSW under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and argued that UTSW had constructively discharged and retaliated against him. The jury found in favor of Nassar and awarded him back pay and compensatory damages. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding that there was sufficient evidence to support the retaliation claim but insufficient evidence to support the claim of constructive discharge.

Question

Does the retaliation provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 require a plaintiff to prove that an employer would not have taken an action but for the existence of an improper motive, or does the provision require only proof that the employer had mixed motives for taking an action?

Case Basics

Docket No.

12-484

Petitioner

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Respondent

Naiel Nassar

Granted

Friday, January 18, 2013

Argued

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Cite this Page

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER v. NASSAR. The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. 25 March 2013. <http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2012/2012_12_484>.

Center for American Progress Report: Mayoral control of schools

24 Mar

As more and more question the effectiveness of the current school structure, some mayors have assumed control of their city schools. Frederick M. Hess writes in the American Enterprise Institute article, Assessing the Case for Mayoral Control of Urban Schools:

Are elected school boards equal to the challenges of twenty-first-century urban school governance? Eli Broad, founder of the Broad Prize for Urban Education, believes in “mayoral control of school boards or . . . no school board at all.”[1] Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, has called school boards “an aberration, an anachronism, an educational sinkhole,” urging, “put this dysfunctional arrangement out of its misery.”[2]

Aberration or not, the nation’s nearly fifteen thousand school boards are still charged with providing the leadership, policy direction, and oversight to drive school improvement. Nationally, 96 percent of districts have elected boards, including more than two-thirds of the twenty-five largest districts.[3] After decades of largely ineffectual reform, however, it is far from clear that school boards are equal to the challenge. The most popular alternative is replacing today’s boards with some form of mayoral control. Cities with a variation of this arrangement today include Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. The take-no-prisoners leadership styles of school chancellors in New York City and Washington, D.C., have drawn particular interest.

Where It All Began

The irony is that today’s school boards took their contemporary shape about a century ago, when Progressive Era reformers launched a concerted effort to expunge “politics” from schooling in the name of efficiency, equity, and accountability. As James Cibulka, president of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, has noted, K–12 governance was “designed by political Progressives early in the twentieth century to give professional educators authority and insulate them from political abuses.”[4] Consequently, even strong mayors had little influence over the local schools.

Early nineteenth-century school boards had been local and informal, justified by the presumption that they kept schools connected to their neighborhoods. By the dawn of the twentieth century, however, Progressives–in language that sounds more than a little familiar–thought it necessary to “clean out” boards plagued by patronage and politics. In 1885, Boston reformer John Philbrick asserted that “unscrupulous politicians” had seized “every opportunity to sacrifice the interests of the schools to the purposes of the political machine.”[5]

As the twentieth century dawned, Progressives worked to streamline boards and render them more professional and accountable. University of Chicago political scientist William Howell explains: “The order of the day put rational control and expertise in the service of objectivity and efficiency; the result was the birth of the civil service, the exaltation of meritocracy and modernity, and the rise of Taylorism, the scientific management of industries and businesses.”[6] Seeking to insulate board politics from rough-and-tumble state and national elections, Progressives moved board elections “off-cycle” and made them nonpartisan.

Efforts to separate education from politics gave rise to concerns that school systems were not apolitical but rather consumed by undisciplined, petty, and ineffectual politics. Assessing Progressive Era reforms more than thirty years ago, historian Charles Beard observed, “Cities change from one [approach] to the other in the hope–usually vain–of taking the school affairs out of the spoils system.”[7]

Today, reformers worry that excising politics from school governance has also removed coherence and accountability. One popular solution: put the politics back in education by handing control of the schools to the mayor or empowering mayors to appoint local school boards. This is primarily debated in the nation’s large, urban school systems–those cities where educational challenges are more daunting, politics are especially complex, and the need for coherence is particularly pressing. Is it a promising idea? What does the research suggest? http://www.aei.org/article/education/assessing-the-case-for-mayoral-control-of-urban-schools/

The Center for American Progress has completed the report, Mayoral Governance and Student Achievement: How Mayor-Led Districts Are Improving School and Student Performance by Kenneth K. Wong and Francis X. Shen

Here is a summary of the Center for American Progress Report about mayoral control:

Top 5 Things to Know About Mayoral Control of Schools

By Juliana Herman | March 22, 2013

In many cities across America, it’s not just schools that are failing—it’s the entire school district as well. Huge numbers—if not the majority—of students throughout these districts are not reading at grade level and lack basic math skills.

This is a problem greater than any one school. In response, some cities have shaken up the way their school districts are run, giving greater control to their mayors and implementing what is called “mayoral control” of schools. School districts are traditionally controlled by a locally elected school board, which makes decisions about how schools are run, including hiring and firing the school superintendent. Mayoral control, however, is a shift in the power structure wherein mayors are given a greater degree of authority over schools. Often, though not always, mayors are given the power to appoint members who will replace some or all members of the elected school board.

The move to mayoral control is one element in the larger discussion about who should run our schools, but it is also a significant and potentially impactful alternative to the traditional structure—and it comes at a time when schools and students are desperate for alternatives.

The Center for American Progress recently released a new report analyzing the impact of mayoral control. The report, titled “Mayoral Governance and Student Achievement: How Mayor-led Districts Are Improving School and Student Performance” by Kenneth K. Wong and Francis X. Shen, looks at the impact of mayoral control on resource management and student achievement in 11 different school districts across the country.

Based on CAP’s new report, here are the top five things to know about mayoral control of schools:

It’s been done all across the country in cities of all sizes

Some variation of mayoral control has been implemented in a geographically diverse range of urban cities, from New York City to Indianapolis to Los Angeles and many places in between. These cities have different student populations, structures, and histories, but empowering the mayor to make at least some of the decisions about schools has been tried in all of them….

Mayoral control comes in many shapes and sizes

Despite what the name might imply, there is no “one and only” type of mayoral control. Different cities have taken different approaches, and new formats are still being invented. There is a lot of room for variation depending on local priorities, decisions, cultures, and any number of other factors. The term “mayoral control” simply signifies that the mayor has more power now than he or she did before. What that means in practice is up to the city or state in question.

There are, however, a few common forms or degrees of control. Some cities have given their mayor the power to appoint the entire school board and the CEO, or superintendent, of the school district. Examples of where this has happened include Washington, D.C., and Chicago. In New York City the mayor appoints the CEO and the majority—though not the entirety—of the board. Together, these three cities have “very high” degrees of mayoral control. Cities that empower the mayor to appoint at least the majority of the school board, but give the boards the authority to appoint the CEOs, fall into the high degree of control classification. This category—also the most common—includes Boston, Massachusetts; Cleveland, Ohio; Hartford, Connecticut; New Haven, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; Trenton, New Jersey; and Yonkers, New York. Even within this category, there is variation: The mayors of Boston, Cleveland, and Providence must choose their board appointees from a list of nominees….

Mayor-led districts may use resources more strategically

There is evidence that districts operating under mayoral control may spend their money differently, more strategically, and with a greater focus on the classroom than districts governed by elected boards. For starters, mayoral-led districts have more resources per student overall than similar city districts, though the cause of this is hard to identify definitively. On average, districts under mayoral control also focus on teachers: A greater percentage of their total staff is teachers, producing lower student-to-teacher ratios. Relative to the largest city districts, mayor-led districts have less central office staff and administrators as a percent of their total staff. This prioritization on teaching and learning might be an important factor in contributing to higher student achievement…,

Mayor-controlled districts have seen increases in student achievement

Although other factors are important, the ultimate measure of any change in our education system is whether it improves student learning and achievement. In Boston, Chicago, New York City, Washington, D.C., and other cities, mayoral control is associated with just that. Students saw improvements—in some cases significant improvements—on both state assessments and on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test administered nationally to fourth and eighth graders. Looking at the National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, for example, the percentage of Bostonian fourth graders proficient in math went from 12 percent to 33 percent—an increase of 21 percentage points—under mayoral control. Similarly, the percentage of fourth graders in Washington, D.C. that were proficient in reading went from 10 percent to 20 percent—an increase of 10 percentage points—after the city moved to mayoral control….

It doesn’t work everywhere, but it can be a catalyst for reform

Mayoral control was less successful in cities such as Cleveland, Ohio, and Yonkers, New York. In Cleveland student achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress improved just slightly, if at all, and the gap between the average among large cities and the district’s achievement widened—not narrowed—for almost every grade, subject, and student population. This is exactly the opposite of closing the achievement gap. To be clear, it’s impossible to know why achievement stagnated in these cities, and certainly numerous factors other than mayoral control are involved. But it is important to recognize that mayoral control may not be the right solution for all districts….

Conclusion

Mayoral control of schools can be effective. Mayor-controlled districts have seen improved student achievement across all subjects and student groups. Moving to a mayor-led district can also help spur innovation and advancement. In cities with lagging student achievement, getting more engagement from mayors or increasing their authority over schools could be part of the solution. But voters and policymakers should be sure to design a variation of mayoral control that works for their city and consider the possibility that a different “shake up” strategy might be a better fit.

Juliana Herman is an Education Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress.

To speak with our experts on this topic, please contact:

Print: Katie Peters (economy, education, and health care)
202.741.6285 or kpeters1@americanprogress.org

Syracuse 2020 offers the concise pros and cons of mayoral school control:

MAYORAL CONTROL OF SCHOOLS

PROS

Promote gains in accountability and efficiency through increased testing and control of personnel operations

Clear goals and accountability resting with the mayor as opposed to boards with differing positions.

Better coordination with other agencies in terms of child welfare, safety, public health, recreation, job training, economic development and overall community development strategies

Ability to hire chief executive officers from outside of educational systems

Increased fiscal stability

More political participation because of broader voter participation in elections

Promotes the idea of a progressive community

Potential for gaining political capital

CONS

Business approach does not recognize differences in public personnel and public service systems

Mayor’s power is diluted through necessary delegation of authority,

Schools are intense people centered organizations quite unlike treating sewage and collecting garbage.

Too reliant on idiosyncrasies of individual mayor

Better public oversight due to open board meetings

Results of mayoral control are unimpressive when matched to NAEP tests

Results of outside CEO’s uneven

http://www.syracuse2020.org/…/MAYORAL%20CONTROL%20OF%20SC…

Moi wrote about school superintendents in Life expectancy of a superintendent: A lot of bullets and little glory:

Just about anyone in education has a tough job these days, from the building staff to the superintendent. There is pressure to perform in an environment of declining resources. Lately, the job of superintendent of large urban school districts has been characterized by turnover. Thomas E. Glass in The History of the Urban Superintendent writes:

The twenty-first century finds one-third of America’s public school children attending one of ten large urban (large-city) school districts. By 2020 approximately one-half of public school enrollment will be clustered in twenty districts. The educational stewardship of a majority of the nations youth rests uncomfortably on the shoulders of a very few large-city school superintendents. Their success and the success of their districts may very well determine the future of American democracy.

Urban districts are typically considered to be those located in the inner core of metropolitan areas having enrollments of more than 25,000 students. The research and literature about large-city school districts portray conditions of poverty, chronic academic underachievement, dropouts, crime, unstable school boards, reform policy churn, and high superintendent turnover.

The typical tenure of a superintendent in the largest large-city districts is two to three years. This brief tenure makes it unlikely a superintendent can develop and implement reform programs that can result in higher academic achievement–let alone re-build crumbling schools buildings, secure private sector assistance, and build a working relationship with the city’s political structure.

The large-city superintendency is a position defined by high expectations, intense stress, inadequate resources, and often a highly unstable politicized board of education.
Read more: Superintendent of Large-City School Systems – History of the Urban Superintendent, The Profession, School Boards,

Characteristics of the Large-City Superintendent http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2470/Superintendent-Large-City-School-Systems.html#ixzz0p6HySmU0

See, District Administration’s article, Superintendent Staying Power http://www.districtadministration.com/article/superintendent-staying-power

There is no one-size-fits all in education, there should be a variety of options.

See:

Ravitch: Mayoral control means zero accountability http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/education-secretary-duncan/ravitch-mayoral-control-means.html

Resist Mayoral Control http://communityeducationtaskforce.rocus.org/?page_id=2

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Tags: American Enterprise Institute, Assessing the Case for Mayoral Control of Urban Schools, Center for American Progress, current-events, education, frederick m hess, Mayoral Control of Schools, National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, political progressives, politics, School Administration, Top 5 Things to Know About Mayoral Control of Schools

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Important case about copyright: Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons

23 Mar

Jennifer Howard reports in the Chronicle of Higher Education article, In Win for Libraries Over Publishers, Supreme Court Upholds Reselling of Foreign Books:

If you’re the legal owner of a copy of a book or other work copyrighted under U.S. law, the Supreme Court says you have the right to resell or give it away, even if it was made overseas. http://chronicle.com/article/In-Win-for-Libraries-Over/137999/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

The Scotus Blog has a brief of the case:

Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Docket No. Op. Below Argument Opinion Vote Author Term

11-697 2d Cir. Oct 29, 2012
Tr.Aud. Mar 19, 2013 6-3 Breyer OT 2012

Holding: The “first sale” doctrine, which allows the owner of a copyrighted work to sell or otherwise dispose of that copy as he wishes, applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made abroad.

Judgment: Reversed and remaned, 6-3, in an opinion by Justice Breyer on March 19, 2013. Justice Kagan filed a concurring opinion in which Justice Alito joined. Justice Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Kennedy joined, and in which Justice Scalia joined except as to Parts III and V–B–1.

SCOTUSblog Coverage

· Opinion analysis: Justices reject publisher’s claims in gray-market copyright case

· Argument recap: Justices skeptical of publisher’s position in gray-market copyright case

· Argument preview: Court tries again on copyright importation problem

· Is the new economy driving the Court’s docket?

· Orders: One new grant, on copyright

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/kirtsaeng-v-john-wiley-sons-inc/

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
11-697	2d Cir.	Oct 29, 2012 Tr.Aud.	Mar 19, 2013	6-3	Breyer	OT 2012

Here is the defense of the Association of American Publishers, Understanding Kirtsaeng v. Wiley http://www.publishers.org/kirtsaeng-faq/

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Tags: Book reseller, Chronicle of Higher Education, Copyright, current-events, In Win for Libraries Over Publishers, Inc, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, politics, Supreme Court Upholds Reselling of Foreign Books, The Scotus Blog

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A comment about the American Academy of Pediatrics statement on gay marriage: Is it time to get government out of marriage

21 Mar

Here’s today’s COMMENT FROM AN OLD FART: The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement regarding their position on civil marriage:

American Academy of Pediatrics Supports Same Gender Civil Marriage

3/21/2013

For Release: March 21, 2013

Article Body

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) supports civil marriage for same-gender couples – as well as full adoption and foster care rights for all parents, regardless of sexual orientation – as the best way to guarantee benefits and security for their children.

The AAP policy statement, “Promoting the Well-Being of Children Whose Parents Are Gay or Lesbian,” and an accompanying technical report will be published in the April 2013 Pediatrics (published online March 21).

“Children thrive in families that are stable and that provide permanent security, and the way we do that is through marriage,” said Benjamin Siegel, MD, FAAP, chair of the AAP Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, and a co-author of the policy statement. “The AAP believes there should be equal opportunity for every couple to access the economic stability and federal supports provided to married couples to raise children.”

In a previous policy statement published in 2002 and reaffirmed in 2010, the AAP supported second-parent adoption by partners of the same sex as a way to protect children’s right to maintain relationships with both parents, eligibility for health benefits and financial security. The 2013 policy statement and accompanying technical report adds recommendations in support of civil marriage for same-gender couples; adoption by single parents, co-parents or second parents regardless of sexual orientation; and foster care placement regardless of sexual orientation.

“The AAP has long been an advocate for all children, and this updated policy reflects a natural progression in the Academy’s support for families,” said Ellen Perrin, MD, FAAP, co-author of the policy statement. “If a child has two loving and capable parents who choose to create a permanent bond, it’s in the best interest of their children that legal institutions allow them to do so.”

A great deal of scientific research documents there is no cause-and-effect relationship between parents’ sexual orientation and children’s well-being, according to the AAP policy. In fact, many studies attest to the normal development of children of same-gender couples when the child is wanted, the parents have a commitment to shared parenting, and the parents have strong social and economic support. Critical factors that affect the normal development and mental health of children are parental stress, economic and social stability, community resources, discrimination, and children’s exposure to toxic stressors at home or in their communities — not the sexual orientation of their parents.

According to the policy statement, the AAP “supports pediatricians advocating for public policies that help all children and their parents, regardless of sexual orientation, build and maintain strong, stable, and healthy families that are able to meet the needs of their children.”

# # #

The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 60,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults. For more information, visit www.aap.org.

This causes moi to ask whether it is time for government to get out of the business of marriage and only sanction civil unions for everyone. The government would define a valid civil union and the contractual benefits which flow from that union would be defined by government. Marriage would be defined by various religious institutions and they are free to marry whom they choose. Marriage would then be a two-step process of civil union and whatever ‘blessing’ ceremony the community of faith allowed.

This country is headed for another confrontation over the meaning of religious freedom and the guarantees of the FIRST AMENDMENT. Whether one agrees or not, some religious groups have a theological basis for defining marriage as an institution between one man and one woman. They are not going to change. So, the question is whether society wants to be tolerant and pragmatic or to punish those who are not politically correct. Moi has a Hallelujah moment for some in the gay community and their supporters – tolerance is different from acceptance. If the goal is to get everyone to accept a definition of marriage other than one man and one woman, you will fail. If the tactic is to demonize religious folk, call them bigots, prevent certain denominations from offering adoption services and foster care as well as go after church tax exemption, this can be done at great cost to the culture and society. Isn’t it time for a pragmatic approach?

Too often we forget that the principal purpose of the metaphorical wall of separation between church and state was always to prevent governmental interference with a religion’s decisions about what its own theology requires. . . . To be consistent with the Founders’ vision and coherent in modern religiously pluralistic America, the religion clauses [in the United States Constitution] should be read to help avoid tyranny — that is, to sustain and nurture the religions as independent centers of power. . . . To do that, the clauses must be interpreted to do more than protect the religions against explicit discrimination.

Stephen Carter

The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion

Moi discussed the secularist view in The great cultural divide: Many of us will never be secularists:

There are many folks who simply just don’t get that there are many people of faith. This faith group is of a variety of religions and a variety of theologies. Some “liberal” strands of faith have no theology or interpret their theology in line with contemporary social thought. They see religion as part of a wider social movement. For this group, there are no fixed theological positions because the emphasis of their faith is “social justice” however that is defined. Many in this secularist religion group simply do not understand that many of faith have a fixed theological perspective on religion. They feel that theology does not change because the cultural context has changed. In this group there are eternal positions because they are very cognizant of an eternal life. Moi thought the many attempts to persuade her by providing lists of people who support a particular position were laughable. People who made the lists or who thought because this prominent person or that prominent person supported a position would make moi and many others jump on board were clueless. What they did not realize is that moi and others, to paraphrase the old Righteous Brothers song “believe in forever.” It doesn’t matter how many people, whether they are prominent or not believe something, that doesn’t change the theological perspective. Many of these proponents do not believe in the Bible, that it is a stupid little book that only morons follow. Moi suggests that these secularists spend some time digesting the book of Daniel. People of a non-secularist faith are not morons and really don’t want to be treated as such. So, the question is how do various groups operate in the society were all have to live. http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/the-great-cultural-divide-many-of-us-will-never-be-secularists/

As the character, Margo Channing said in All About Eve: Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night! .

There should civil unions for society which establish the contractual relationships and government benefits of a union. Marriage should be defined by theological entities.

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Tags: aap policy statement, academy of pediatrics, american academy of pediatrics, American Academy of Pediatrics Supports Same Gender Civil Marriage, current-events, Definition of Marriage, First Amendment, Freedom of Religion, Gay Marriage, Marriage, politics, science, Secularists, society, The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion

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Reflections on PC: Morons, progressives, and the U.S. Constitution

15 Mar

Here’s today’s COMMENT FROM AN OLD FART: Mayor Bloomberg of New York City has announced that he plans to appeal a court decision overturning his soda ban. David McLaughlin, Chris Dolmetsch and Henry Goldman report in the Bloomberg News article, New York City Appeals Soda Size Ban Court Defeat:

New York City challenged a ruling throwing out Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to restrict sales of large-size soda drinks, calling the decision by a state court judge “contrary to law.”

In a five-page notice of appeal, the city said it would fight the March 11 ruling by New York Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling before the court’s appellate division in Manhattan. Tingling barred the ban from becoming law yesterday, saying it had too many loopholes and violated the jurisdiction of New York’s City Council.

“We are moving forward immediately with our appeal,” said Michael A. Cardozo, corporation counsel of the city’s law department. “We believe the judge was wrong in rejecting this important public health initiative. We also feel he took an unduly narrow view of the Board of Health’s powers.”

The city’s Board of Health in September approved the plan to cap the size of sugary soft drinks sold in restaurants, movie theaters, stadiums and arenas at 16 ounces (473 milliliters) a cup. In October, groups representing beverage makers, restaurants and theaters asked the court to quash the regulation as “unprecedented interference” with consumer choice. Tingling issued a permanent injunction barring the city from implementing the plan.

“The loopholes in this rule effectively defeat the stated purpose,” Tingling wrote. “It is arbitrary and capricious because it applies to some but not all food establishments in the city, it excludes other beverages that have significantly higher concentrations of sugar sweeteners.”

City Overreached

The plaintiffs said the city had overreached and ignored the rights of New Yorkers to make their own choices. The plan is “grossly unfair” to small businesses such as street-food vendors and pizzerias because convenience and grocery stores can still sell the larger sizes, lawyers for the plaintiffs said.

The city argued it’s trying to stem an epidemic of obesity driven by consumption of sugary beverages, which is rising because food establishments sell ever-larger portions. Under the rule, consumers are free to buy an unlimited number of smaller drinks and get refills.

Bloomberg is the majority owner of Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg News….

The case is New York Statewide Coalition of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce v. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 653584-2012, New York State Supreme Court, New York County (Manhattan).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-12/new-york-city-files-notice-of-appeal-over-soda-size-case.html

All, moi can say is really. There is no doubt that sugary drinks are bad, but so are other conditions which cause harm, Probably, those who over-consume sugar by choice are morons, but the trend appears to be that we only condemn the morons that WE do not like.

A case is point is the level of single parent births in communities of color. Child Trends and DataBank reports the following in the article, Births to Unmarried Women:

Importance

Children born to unmarried mothers are more likely to grow up in a single-parent household, experience instability in living arrangements, live in poverty, and have socio-emotional problems.^1,2,3,4 As these children reach adolescence, they are more likely to have low educational attainment, engage in sex at a younger age, and have a birth outside of marriage.^5,6,7,8 As young adults, children born outside of marriage are more likely to be idle (neither in school nor employed), have lower occupational status and income, and have more troubled marriages and more divorces than those born to married parents.⁹

Women who give birth outside of marriage tend to be more disadvantaged than their married counterparts, both before and after the birth. Unmarried mothers generally have lower incomes, lower education levels, and are more likely to be dependent on welfare assistance compared with married mothers.^10,11,12,13 Women who have a nonmarital birth also tend to fare worse than childless single women; for example, they have reduced marriage prospects compared with single women without children.^14,15

A majority of unmarried births now occur to cohabiting parents.¹⁶ Between 2006 and 2010, 58 percent of unmarried births were to cohabiting parents: in 2002, the proportion was 40 percent.¹⁷ Children born to cohabiting parents are more likely to see their parents eventually marry than are those born to non-co-residential parents.¹⁸ Nevertheless, children born to cohabiting parents experience higher levels of socioeconomic disadvantage, and fare worse across a range of behavioral and emotional outcomes than those born to married parents….¹⁹

Differences by Race and Hispanic Origin²⁰

There are large differences by race and Hispanic origin in the share of births to unmarried women, with non-Hispanic white women and Asian or Pacific Islander women much less likely than women in other groups to have a nonmarital birth. In 2011 (preliminary estimates), 72 percent of all births to black women, 66 percent to American Indian or Alaskan native women, and 53 percent to Hispanic women occurred outside of marriage, compared with 29 percent for white women, and 17 percent for Asian or Pacific Islander women. (Appendix 1) However, the difference between black and white women in the percentage of births that are nonmarital has been shrinking consistently since 1980, while the difference between white and Hispanic women has been widening. (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Percentage of Births that were to Unmarried Women, by Race & Hispanic Origin, 1960-2011

http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/?q=node/196

This is a problem which never should have been swept under the carpet and if the chattering classes, politicians, and elite can’t see the magnitude of this problem, they are not just brain dead, they are flat-liners. There must be a new women’s movement, this time it doesn’t involve the “me first” philosophy of the social “progressives” or the elite who in order to validate their own particular life choices espouse philosophies that are dangerous or even poisonous to those who have fewer economic resources. This movement must urge women of color to be responsible for their reproductive choices. They cannot have children without having the resources both financial and having a committed partner. For all the talk of genocide involving the response and aftermath of “Katrina,” the real genocide is self-inflicted.

Both the choice to consume sugary drinks and to have children out of wedlock are defined as personal choices. Bloomberg and others won’t touch this issue with a hundred foot pole. Why? Too many of their electorate would be pissed for a variety of reasons and they don’t want to chance their wrath. Scholastic News has a concise description of why the Bill of Rights was added to the U.S. Constitution in the article Bill of Rights:

The debate over the need for a bill of rights was sparked by a proposal made by a dissenting minority in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention. Some delegates believed that guarantees of certain basic rights and liberties were missing from the proposed Constitution. They called for a number of amendments that would secure a wide range of liberties, such as the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech and press, and protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Majorities in the ratifying conventions of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina also called for numerous amendments to the proposed Constitution. Although the substance of these recommended amendments differed from state to state, most contained provisions that would limit the powers of the new federal (national) government and protect the people from inconsistent and oppressive rule. http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/constitution_day/background/index.asp?article=billofrights

So, a behavior that statistically is more damaging than consuming sugary drinks is never condemned. The child born to a single poor mother is usually condemned to follow her into a life of poverty. Yet, the same rigor of dissuasion is not applied to young impressionable women who are becoming single mothers in large numbers as is applied to regular Coke or Pepsi addicts. Personal choice is involved, some of the snarky could categorize the personal choice as moronic in both cases. Government intervention is seen as the antidote in the case of sugary drinks, but not single motherhood. Why? Because we like to pick the morons we want government to control. The fact of the matter is that government control is just as bad in the case of sugary drinks as it would be in regulating a individual’s reproductive choice. The folks like Mayor Bloomberg who want government to control some behavior really don’t want to confront the difficult, for them, political choice of promoting individual personal values and responsibility. It is much easier to legislate a illusory solution. So, the ruling elite will continue to focus on obesity, which is a major health issue, while a disaster bigger than “Katrina” and “Sandy “ sweeps across the country with disastrous results.

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Tags: Bill of Rights, Births to Unmarried Women, Child Trends and DataBank, Comment from An Old Fart, current-events, Dr Wilda, Mayor Bloomberg, New York City, New York City Appeals Soda Size Ban Court Defeat, politics, Scholastic News, u s constitution

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The 03/01/13 Joy Jar

28 Feb

Moi was watching the news and wondering if the ‘Sequester” is all heat and definitely no light. The news chronicled how across-the-board cuts would affect a variety of people. One women who was profiled lives in public housing and takes a variety of medications. The housing manager said that long term cuts would mean that fewer people could apply for housing as housing would be cut back. There would be quite a bit of deferred maintenance. Maybe the reason that the ‘leaders’ are holding onto their ideology is because so few of them are affected by the worst that could happen. Ideology and principles have their place, but ideology simply in pursuit of votes is nothing to glory in. We have entered a period of the permanent political campaign which leaves the well-being of the populace out of the calculation. There are very few statesmen or stateswomen. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is that elusive person, the statesman.

“The difference is that a statesman thinks he belongs to the State, and a politician thinks the State belongs to him”

Unknown

“A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.”

James Freeman Clarke

A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth”

Adlai E. Stevenson

“What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.” Aristotle

“The man who is dishonest as a statesman would be a dishonest man in any station” Thomas Jefferson

“A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement” Abba Eban

Tags: adlai e stevenson, current-events, Dr Wilda, elusive person, james freeman clarke, Joy Jar, politics, Statesman

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Porn: Iceland knows it when they see it and they want none of it

17 Feb

Here’s today’s COMMENT FROM AN OLD FART: Thank goodness for the U.S. Consitution which not only defines rights for Americans, but sets limits on government. Peter Lattman writes in the WSJ article, The Origins of Justice Stewart’s “I Know It When I See It”:

The Law Blog unabashedly loves Fred Shapiro, the Yale Law School librarian and the author of the indispensable “The Yale Book of Quotations.” In a column in the Yale alumni magazine earlier this year, he listed some of the most famous quotations by Yale alumni. Among them was the characterization of pornography by Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart (pictured): “I know it when I see it” (Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964).

We also love Ray Lamontagne (Yale Law ’64), who sent Shapiro a letter after he read his column:

You might be interested to know that the Potter Stewart quote was actually provided to him by his law clerk, Alan Novak ’55, ’63 LLB. Justice Stewart was a great justice and I do not want to take anything away from him. But he was stuck on how to describe pornography, and Novak said to him, “Mr. Justice, you will know it when you see it.” The justice agreed, and Novak included that remark in the draft of the opinion. Whichever way you might want to attribute the quote, it came from a Yalie. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/09/27/the-origins-of-justice-stewarts-i-know-it-when-i-see-it/

The government of Iceland “knows it when it sees it” and is taking steps to ban what it considers to be obscene. There is some evidence that sustained exposure to porn desensitizes one to valuing women and could support impulses toward violence against women.

A concise explanation of the issue of porn and violence against women can be found in Robert Jensen’s Pornography and Sexual Violence:

Implications for Policies and Practice

Debates about pornography up until the late 1970s were dominated by moral and legal arguments made in a framework that pitted religious conservatives who support traditional sexual mores against liberal defenders of sexual freedom. The feminist critique of pornography, growing out of the anti-rape and anti-violence movement, rejected that dichotomy and introduced a harm-based, civil-rights approach to the question ( Dworkin, 1988; MacKinnon, 1987). Rooted in the real-world experiences of women sharing stories through a grassroots movement, the feminist critique highlighted pornography’s harms to the women and children:

used in the production of pornography;

who have pornography forced on them;

who are sexually assaulted by men who use pornography; and

living in a culture in which pornography reinforces and sexualizes women’s subordinate status.

From this perspective, instead of focusing exclusively on narrow questions of causation, we can see that pornography’s impacts on the lives of all women and children — and especially those who have experienced violence and sexual violation — can be important. For example, if a woman is raped by a man she is dating who has in the past tried to force her to use pornography with him, the question of whether or not his pornography consumption was a causal factor in the rape may not be the most important issue. Instead, it would be important to examine how pornography was one component of a pattern of abuse in the relationship. This suggests that advocates in domestic and sexual violence work should ask survivors about the role of pornography in the abuse perpetrated against them.

While boys have long found ways to obtain pornography even though it is illegal to sell such material to minors, their access to hard-core pornography in the age of the Internet and VCR/DVD player has become steadily easier. And at the same time that pornography has become more mainstream, the mainstream media have become more pornographic. So, not only are men exposed to more — and more extreme — pornography at younger ages, but so are girls, with effects on their conception of their own sexuality.

It is also important to recognize that pornography is but one aspect of a huge sex industry, which includes not only mass-media sex but phone sex, strip clubs, massage parlors, escort services, street prostitution, and sex tourism. And sexuality — especially women’s sexuality — is used in increasingly more explicit ways to sell products of all kinds in advertising and marketing. This leads to what may be the most crucial question about pornography: What kind of human feeling, empathy, and intimate connections are possible in a world in which bodies are used so routinely in the process of selling and also are for sale virtually everywhere we turn? The implications of that are potentially dramatic, not only in the realm of sexual and domestic violence, but also in those areas of our lives that we want to believe are untouched by the domination/submission dynamic of patriarchy ( Jensen, 1997). Pornography is important not only for the specific effects it has on an individual man’s behavior, but for its role in shaping our conceptions of the body, gender, sexuality, and intimacy.

People who raise critical questions about pornography and the sex industry often are accused of being prudish, anti-sex, or repressive, but just the opposite is true. Such questions are crucial not only to the struggle to end sexual and domestic violence, but also to the task of building a healthy sexual culture. Activists in the anti-violence and anti-pornography movements have been at the forefront of that task. http://www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/arpornography/arpornography.html

The government looked at the evidence and decided to act.

The U.K.’s Telegraph reported in the article, Iceland considers pornography ban:

The government is considering introducing internet filters, such as those used to block China off form the worldwide web, in order to stop Icelanders downloading or viewing pornography on the internet.

The unprecedented censorship is justified by fears about damaging effects of the internet on children and women.

Ogmundur Jonasson, Iceland’s interior minister, is drafting legislation to stop the access of online pornographic images and videos by young people through computers, games consoles and smartphones.

“We have to be able to discuss a ban on violent pornography, which we all agree has a very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime,” he said.

Methods under consideration include blocking access to pornographic website addresses and making it illegal to use Icelandic credit cards to access pay-per-view pornography….

The proposed control over online access, that mirrors attempt in dictatorships such as China to restrict the internet, is justified as a defence of vulnerable women and children.

“Iceland is taking a very progressive approach that no other democratic country has tried,” said Professor Gail Dines, an expert on pornography and speaker at a recent conference at Reykjavik University. “It is looking a pornography from a new position – from the perspective of the harm it does to the women who appear in it and as a violation of their civil rights.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/iceland/9866949/Iceland-considers-pornography-ban.html?fb

Iceland will use “government action” to control porn.

The U.S. Constitution does not prohibit all action against pornography, but unlimited government action like the actions contemplated by Iceland would be prohibited. The Center for Law and Justice summarizes Constitutional principles in Pornography on the Internet & in the Community:

Pornography and the First Amendment

Since 1973, the Supreme Court held (as a general rule) that the First Amendment protects pornography under the principle of freedom of speech. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 27 (1973). This article discusses four major exceptions to this general rule, together with the ACLJ’s position on each.

Adult Obscenity (“hard-core” pornography)

The Supreme Court has declared time and again that “obscenity” is not protected by the Constitution. See, e.g., Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 484-85 (1957), Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413, 418 (1966). Before 1973, obscenity and pornography were virtually synonymous. Id. In 1957, the Supreme Court said that the test for obscenity was “whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.” Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 at 489 (1957).

But in 1973, the Supreme Court retreated from previous case law, and limited the government’s regulatory abilities to so-called “hard core” pornography. Miller, 413 U.S. at 27. In doing so, the Court adopted a new three-part test for obscenity, limiting the regulation of obscenity to “works which depict or describe sexual conduct,” Miller, 413 U.S. at 24 (emphasis supplied). Before 1973, the definition of “obscenity” allowed government to freely regulate pornography dealing with “sexual matters” (such as nudity), Memoirs, 383 U.S. at 418, and not just “sexual conduct.”

ACLJ’s position. The ACLJ firmly advocates a change in the definition of “obscenity,” which would allow lawmakers to freely address the threat that pornography poses to their communities. The Supreme Court adopted its 1973 definition, seemingly because it nobly desired an expansive interpretation of the First Amendment, while cutting out only the forms of pornography that harm society. See Miller, 413 U.S. at 27-28. However, empirical evidence since then has strongly proven that pornography in general leads to violence and to the degradation of communities.¹⁰ As a result, it cannot be doubted that the Supreme Court’s newer, relaxed definition of obscenity has harmed society.

Child Pornography

The ban on child pornography has been upheld by the Supreme Court, which defines child pornography as “sexually explicit visual portrayals that feature children.” United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 288 (2008). The Court has further said that proscription of child pornography does not violate the First Amendment, “even [if the] material … does not qualify as obscenity.” Id….

Separating Pornography from Children

Although the Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment protects “non-obscene” pornography, it has allowed governments to make pornography inaccessible to children. In 1978, the Supreme Court noted that “the government’s interest in the well-being of its youth and in supporting parents’ claim to authority in their own household justified the regulation of otherwise protected expression.” FCC v. Pacifica, 438 U.S. 726, 749-50 (1978) (internal quotations omitted). Furthermore, the government’s compelling interest in protecting children from pornography holds firm, even if that material is not obscene for adults. Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 634-35 (1968); Denver Area Educ. Telecomm. Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U.S. 727, 755 (1996). Such restrictions are especially appropriate over the airwaves, because “[p]atently offensive, indecent material presented over the airwaves confronts the citizen, not only in public, but also in the privacy of the home, where the individual’s right to be left alone plainly outweighs the First Amendment rights of an intruder.” Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 748. The Court also found it significant that radio is “uniquely accessible to children.” Id. at 749.

ACLJ’s position. Even more so than radio broadcasts, Internet pornography is “uniquely accessible to children” and “confronts the citizen … in the privacy of the home, where the individual’s right to be left alone plainly outweighs the First Amendment rights of an intruder.” Id. at 748-49. As a result, Congress has the clear, Constitutional authority to regulate the Internet to ensure that parents can protect their children from its greatest dangers. ACLJ further supports a plan requiring pornographic websites to end with a “dot xxx” domain,¹¹ so that pornographic websites can be more easily identified and filtered before they are visited.

Pornography and Local Zoning Laws

The United States Supreme Court has upheld zoning ordinances that keep pornographic businesses from being concentrated in a specific area, or that keep them away from schools, parks, religious institutions, and residential areas. Renton v. Playtime Theaters, 475 U.S. 41, 44 (1986), City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., 535 U.S. 425, 430 (2002). Such ordinances are valid if they meet three criteria. First, the ordinance must not infringe on pornographic “speech,” but must rather regulate the “time, place, and manner” of the business. Id. at 47. Second, the ordinance must not be aimed at restricting the content of the pornographic “speech,” but rather the secondary, harmful effects that such businesses have on the surrounding community. Id.¹² Finally, the ordinance must be “designed to serve a substantial governmental interest,” and they must “not unreasonably limit alternative avenues of communication.” Id.

ACLJ’s position. Because of pornography’s unique effects on neighborhoods and local crime, local communities have an important role to play in preventing its harmful effects. ACLJ urges all municipalities to adopt zoning ordinances that curb the effects of pornographic businesses.

Conclusion

Pornography is more than just a private issue. Over the past few decades, it has become a cultural crisis, with severe effects on society that are grossly underestimated. Even if banning pornography altogether might be impracticable, ACLJ believes that lawmakers and communities should not be restrained in their efforts to address this issue. ACLJ urges lawmakers to take advantage of the various options still available to them in combating the effects of this industry. http://aclj.org/pornography/pornography-on-the-internet-in-the-community

The culture seems to be sexualizing children at an ever younger age and it becomes more difficult for parents and guardians to allow children to just remain, well children, for a bit longer. Still, parents and guardians must do their part to make sure children are in safe and secure environments. As the Center for Law and Justice argues, there can be a case made for reasonable restrictions on porn which are Constitutionally permissible. The type of restrictions contemplated in Iceland would be considered “unconstitutional government action” in the U.S.

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

Tags: Constitutional principles in Pornography on the Internet & in the Community, current-events, First Amendment, fred shapiro, Iceland, Iceland considers pornography ban, justice potter stewart, Obscenity, politics, Porn, Pornography and Sexual Violence, sexual mores, Sexualization, Sexualization of Women, society, supreme court justice, The Center for Law and Justice, The Origins of Justice Stewart’s “I Know It When I See It”, U.S. Consitution, violence against women, wsj article, yale alumni magazine, yale law school

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Categories Dr Wilda

The 02/12/13 Joy Jar

11 Feb

Even if local news is often summarized as ‘if it bleeds, it leads,’ moi still watches local news and national news as well. PBS is a great source of intelligent opinion. Additionally, moi reads current event articles from across the political spectrum. The news might sometimes make one want to stick their head in the sand, but knowing is better than not knowing. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the news.

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
Edward R. Murrow

“You totally need to watch the news.”
“Can’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s too depressing.”
“Right, because hanging with dead people isn’t.”
Darynda Jones, Third Grave Dead Ahead

“A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.”
Arthur Miller

“The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.”
Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.”
George Orwell, Why I Write

“Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.”
Criss Jami

“News is only the first rough draft of history.”
Alan Barth

Tags: current-events, Dr Wilda, government, Joy Jar, media, News, politics, Positive Affirmation

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Porn: Iceland knows it when they see it and they want none of it

The 02/12/13 Joy Jar

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