Thinking About Flint: No Words, A Guest Post

I've been thinking about the Flint water situation for a while. Actually I wrote about the importance of investigative journalism and its relationship to Flint back in October of 2015 . (Congratulations to Curt Guyette for winning the Michigan Press Association award of Journalist of the Year.)

Other than that I have not been sure what to say (that hasn't been said already). Luckily  my friend Beverly Davidson wrote a very powerful piece on her blog, and she has agreed to let me cross-post it. Thank you!

[If you want to make a donation, Dr. Mona Hana-Attisha is suggesting the Community Foundation of Greater Flint.  Bev volunteered with Crossing Water.]

No Words, by Beverly Davidson

Crossposted from beverlymsw.wordpress.com.

Yesterday two of my friends and I had the honor of volunteering in Flint, MI for a small NGO called Crossing Water.   This is a volunteer organization started by some members of the National Association of Social Workers-MI chapter.  The goal of this group is to create connections among community groups in Flint to help serve impoverished communities who are deeply affected by the current water crisis.  What I saw was heart-breaking beyond words.  And it was only one day there.  I am trying to imagine living this way and I can’t. 

We came to a low-income housing complex run by the Flint Housing Commission.  I saw a case of water on people’s doorsteps that had been delivered earlier in the day by volunteers.  There was no governmental system in the complex to test water, distribute water, or provide lead-testing to the children.  This is a complex managed essentially by HUD.  Where are the government leaders?

We knocked on one door to deliver filters and water.  A young man answered who was happy to see us.  “Do you have a filter?” He does, but it did not fit, so we gave him another one which would work in his unit.  I asked if he had had his water tested, and he was not sure.  He showed me the testing bottle he had from his aunt’s house, which was on the floor of his car, but he could not find the paperwork to go with it (which is used for tracking and data analysis).  I explained how he had to get his water tested, making sure he understood to use unfiltered water that had been in the tap for at least 6 hours.  He had no idea he had to do this, as he had not heard that filtered water was not safe to drink either.  Children under six live with him, and they cannot drink even the filtered water. He had no idea, no one told him, and he does not have access to the internet to get all of the updates online.  My brilliant friend had the idea that instead of the Governor hiring PR firms to spin his reputation, perhaps he should hire PR firms to get a coordinated message out on safety and testing to ALL the people of Flint.

The next house four young children answered the door gleefully, as if they knew we were delivering water to them.    The little girl joyfully showed us her newly painted nails as we talked to her young auntie who was caring for them while their mom was at work.  We explained to the aunt about how to get her water tested, and she had no idea of the process.  She at least had a filter and we made sure she knew the kids could only drink the bottled water.  Then, the young boy strongly and sternly put out his arms for the case of water.  I said, “It’s pretty heavy, kiddo,” but he persisted with “I can do it!” I gave him the case and he proudly held it and brought it into the apartment.  All I could think about was that this little boy should not have to be so strong and sturdy that his little arms have to carry a case of water for his family, he should be holding out his arms to catch a ball or grab a swing.  But he was eager and ready for water.  Water he should be getting out of his tap, not out of a bottle.

Knock. knock.  A young mom answers her door and we ask if she needs water or a filter. She needed both, and I asked if there were any urgent medical issues.  She said her baby had a bad skin rash after a bath the other day, “but it’s ok, it went away today.”  NO, NO, NO, it’s not ok.  In the state of Michigan in 2016, a mother should be able to joyfully give her baby a bath and trust that her baby will be safe from skin rashes.  The saddest part is that this young mom just accepted this without much anger or question.  She has learned to live in a world that has treated her less than for so long that she readily accepts that her home is giving her baby skin rashes.

A few doors down, a young man answers the door for his elderly male relative who is homebound.   We give him some jugs of water and ask if they have a filter.  “yea, someone came by one day and gave us one.”  Did you know that you have to change your filter regularly, like every 2 months?  He yells to his relative and asks about the filter.  “no, we didn’t know that, ya got any?”  So we gave him a replacement cartridge.  Did anyone tell you to test your water? “Nah, how do you do that?”   We give him a test kit, the instructions, and realized that the water testing being done is abysmal.

A woman runs out to our car and asks if she can have some water because her daughter is pregnant.  Her apartment is not on our targeted list but of course we will give her water.   “Do I need to sign something for the water?”  My friend reassures her “No, no, you do not need to sign anything, we are not checking anything, we just want you to have water.”  She knows that her pregnant daughter cannot drink even filtered water, but she does not know how to get her unit tested.  We give her a test kit.  “We need to get our blood tested, do you know where we can go?”  I look up test sites on my Iphone, give her some information and tell her to take care of herself and her daughter.  She thanks us profusely, and we get in our car and scream.  How can this be happening?

I ask another woman if anyone from the Housing Commission has been out here.  “Nah, but we got some water delivered once by a guy in a big Budget truck.”  Good God, this crisis has been going on for 2 years and no one from Housing & Urban Development (HUD) or the Housing Commission has been out here to educate its residents or test the water?

Later in the afternoon we go further into the East side of Flint.  The dilapidated homes are surrounded by barren lots, old abandoned buildings, a trailer park with gutted trailers tagged with graffiti all next to a junk yard and old factory.  One house we are trying to reach has a disabled adult who is homebound.  His dog is outside and greets us, doing his duty and barking and protecting his home.  We respect him, but then I see a person looking out the window.  We hold up some water, but no one comes out.  I wonder, would I come out and get water and a filter from a complete stranger?  Would I want to show my vulnerability and inability to perhaps walk or move, and come face to face with a stranger who reminds me daily that I cannot drink water from my own home? No, I do not think I would.  We understand this, we understand that this dog is not menacing, but protecting its owner, and we gently leave the cases of water and filter on the driveway.  I hope they understand we do not judge, we do not want to cause shame.  We just want them to be safe.

My friend knocks on the next door, and an elderly woman doesn’t get up but let’s her peek in.   “We are here with Crossing Water to deliver water to you.”  She does not want us to come in and really does not want us to ask any questions.  We know she is homebound, is isolated, and has cancer from the canvassing done earlier, which is why we are there.  We want to make sure she is medically ok, has a filter and understands the risks.  My friend tells her we have 3 cases of water for her.  “I only want 2.” No, really, we have three for you.  “I only want 2.”  Respectfully, we leave two cases for her.  And I know my friend will never be able to get this woman’s face out of her mind.   What will happen to her?  2 cases of water does not last long.

Across the street we go and knock, knock, knock.  A young mother of four races out to greet us in her driveway.  “Oh, my god, I’m so glad to see you guys, I just had a baby 3 weeks ago and I’ve been drinking water from the tap my whole pregnancy.  I don’t have a car because someone stole the ignition out of it.  I have some water for the formula but I have to wash his bottles with the tap water.”  We give her a filter, a test kit, and extra jugs, breaking the rules of how much water we can deliver to each house.  My heart breaks.  I work with infants, I know the effects of neurotoxins during pregnancy.  This baby likely has had massive lead exposure that is yet to be discovered.  This mom may have known the risks but HAD NO CHOICE but to use her only source of water for the last 9 months.  Her older daughter is watching us from the window.  She looks sad.  But is she mirroring my face?

The city was eerily quiet, with a myriad of In and Out marts, gas stations, bars, vacant lots, run-down houses, and churches surrounding the East side.   I wondered where all the water trucks were, where the National Guard were, where are all the governmental leaders?  This city has its entire water distribution destroyed, and all we could see were private volunteers at churches and businesses handing out cases of bottled water to people through a make-shift assembly line.   We can go to the Middle East, bomb and destroy entire cities, rebuild these cities, and we can’t fix this?  Where are the temporary water systems that our government could set up?  Where are the military personnel and trucks who could deliver cases of water and filters to people who have no resources nor transportation?  Folks are supposed to go to a local fire station, pick up a filter, a test kit, some water, and then return the test kit to the fire station for testing?  That’s the plan?  Seriously?  In 2016, that’s the plan?

I thought we’d see a local Command Central in an abandoned building, a church, or a school where there was a base of operations for water testing, water distribution, and lead testing.  I thought we’d see National Guard going door-to-door collecting water samples from each home so that accurate testing and mapping of the city could be done in an organized and coordinated manner.  I thought we’d see Red Cross tents throughout the poorest parts of the city.  What I did see were local groups and amazing volunteers of people from churches, social service groups, and unions meeting people in their homes so they could at least have bottled water and filters.  What I did see was good people trying to help, perhaps restoring some kernels of hope for people who have been beaten down.  More importantly, what I did see were poor people who, instead of being outraged at the indignity and destruction their government has created for them, have been so disenfranchised and are so impoverished that they have been conditioned to believe they are not worthy of even a basic human right such as clean water.

Not only does the infrastructure need to change, but so does an entire belief system on how we treat the poor.

In the words of Hubert Humphrey, “The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick and the needy, and the handicapped.”

In this city, in this state, our government has failed this test immeasurably.

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Lesson Learned? Pb, H2O, EAA & Investigative Reporting

Have you been reading about the scandal with lead [Pb] in the drinking water [H2O] in Flint? 

Maybe you have been wondering who is responsible for this mess. [Hint: start by looking at the emergency manager situation.]

Lead, in the periodic table.

Maybe you have have been wondering about the side effects of lead, and how they might affect a child's learning throughout life. In adults, lead can cause stillbirth, miscarriage, infertility. In kids?

• decreased bone and muscle growth
• poor muscle coordination
• damage to the nervous system, kidneys, and/or hearing
• speech and language problems
• developmental delay
• seizures and unconsciousness (in cases of extremely high lead levels

You know, there is a reason that kids are tested for lead when they go to WIC. 

(Side note: So yes, those kids with problems related to high lead levels could end up with being retained in third grade, if HB 4822 is passed with mandatory retention still in it, and if their learning delays are not diagnosed before then.)

Did you spend last year reading about the EAA, Detroit's "Education Achievement Authority?"

Maybe you wondered who was responsible for the EAA. Maybe you wondered about its staffing, its pay, what kids were getting taught... where the money was coming from, where it was going to...

How did we find out?

Eventually, our standard news outlets started doing a better job covering these stories (see, for example, this story). But in the beginning...in the beginning it was just some activists (education activists in the case of the EAA, and community activists in the case of the Flint water scandal), and a couple of people who were willing and able to investigate these issues. 

Worth noting: These "investigators" were not found where you would normally expect them to be found (by which I mean, the traditional press.)

In the case of the EAA, a state representative, Ellen Cogen Lipton, spent time and money FOIA'ing important documents.

In the case of the Flint water catastrophe, the decision of the ACLU of Michigan to hire an investigative reporter, Curt Guyette, a couple of years ago, made the difference.

In both cases, the links between state-directed emergency management and problems that directly injure kids and their families are inescapable. 

But what's also inescapable is that non-traditional investigations, using tools like the Freedom of Information Act, and with the person or people driving the investigation not being traditional reporters, made these stories see the light of day. 

Lessons learned:

We need more investigative reporters.
If we don't get them from our traditional news sources (and sometimes we do), we need to turn ourselves into citizen investigators.
I am grateful--very, very grateful--for the individuals and organizations that have invested time, effort, and energy into uncovering these stories.

What stories do you think need investigating, that haven't been investigated yet?


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Louisiana Lesson #3: Invasive Species

One of the things we did in New Orleans was to go on a kayak trip. But first, we had to learn about the devastation of the Louisiana wetlands--how dredging and channelization, levees, oil and gas exploration, climate change and more have had a devastating impact on the Louisiana coastline. It is losing miles of land every year and is more at risk than any other part of the U.S. And that is even without hurricanes! I'm not going to go into a detailed explanation of it here--but if you are interested, this link has a nice primer.

[I'm not going to do into an explanation of why the nearly-all Republican legislators from Louisiana don't take the lead on trying to find a solution to the problem. Granted, most of them don't believe in climate change but I personally think you don't even need to believe in climate change to understand this is a problem...]

But anyway--while we were out there kayaking, we did hear about how some of the invasive species are contributing to the devastation of the wetlands.

In particular, we heard about the water hyacinth. A native of South America, it was innocently introduced as a beautiful plant for water gardens in the south at the 1884 Worlds Fair. And now it has spread, and spread--taking over wetlands throughout the south.

Having seen it, I can tell you that the Water Hyacinth is a pretty plant. It looks shiny and new.

It struck me that invasive species are a good metaphor for what happens with the schools. The idea of introducing a new species sounds good. And then it turns out that it wasn't such a great idea. In fact, that it caused a lot of new problems.

Here in Michigan we've got our own invasives to contend with--purple loosestrife, periwinkle, garlic mustard, buckthorn...(read about them here).

Testing, charters, Teach For America--to me they are all invasive species. They sounded like good ideas, but in the end, they are (as a famous story in my family goes) "not so hotsy-totsy, and not so ai-yai-yai!". In fact, they are destructive.

Louisiana is ahead of us in invasive species and wetlands loss, and ahead of us in destruction of public schools as well. But don't think that we are not catching up! And understand that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

As with the fight to get rid of invasive species, different techniques are required for different species. So too with all the "new, better" school invasions.


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Thirteen years ago, as I prepared to leave the Ecology Center, where I was an environmental educator, I wrote this piece for the Ecology Center newsletter. I recently rediscovered it, and to my (pleasant) surprise, it has held up rather well!  Here is the link to the post on the Ecology Center page, and the link to the Ecology Center main page.

The Challenges of Environmental Education in the 21st Century

September, October 2000

By: 

 Ruth Kraut

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the challenges of environmental education. I've been thinking about why it's so critical, yet often ignored by organizers and policy makers; spoken of with great passion, yet underfunded; maligned as "biased" and appropriated by corporations anxious to show environmental concern. Perhaps it's not surprising that I've been thinking about this, because I've been working in the environmental education field consistently for the last eleven years and fitfully for the last twenty. And now, I'm preparing to go back to school and of course as part of this a bit of reflection seems necessary.

The first challenge -- funding. With school spending facing its own challenges, with grantors tending to be more interested in policy rather than education, and with self-imposed limits on taking funds from polluters which we employ at the Ecology Center, finding money for our environmental education programs has always been difficult. That's one reason that we were so grateful to see a wonderful response to our Special Environmental Education Appeal. From the smallest checks of two and three dollars, to the two hundred dollar checks, every single one was also a message saying, "We believe in the power of environmental education."

The second challenge is one of delivering appropriate, relevant, and important information well. No teacher likes to teach the same thing year after year after year (it gets boring). Yet, every year we have a different crop of third graders. The material is new to them and still relevant and important. We always need to make it fresh for ourselves, too!

The third challenge is internal to the organizations doing environmental education. We do other things too, such as advocacy; we have limited time. Sometimes it seems less important to teach those third graders basic information (such as how water can get polluted) when there is a pressing policy issue. Environmental educators are prone to saying that "the students of today will be the policy makers of the future." Sometimes I would say it and not really believe it. But I recently realized just how true it is, when I found out that a student who volunteered at the Ecology Center as a high school student is now working for the Sierra Club's national office on policy issues.

The last challenge I'll mention today is perhaps the most daunting. It is educating people so that they really care about the environment. I've been thinking about the "spark." How did you become interested and concerned in the environment? Was it camping, fishing, hunting, hiking with a friend or relative? Was it participating in a biology class or reading a book like Silent Spring?

Rachel Carson, US Fish & Wildlife
Employee Photo, found online here.

The feminist movement (Ms. Magazine, actually) called the moment where you internalize the feminist world-view a "click" moment, where all of a sudden everything "clicks" into place. Rachel Carson, in her engaging book A Sense of Wonder, suggests that "If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it." Developing that sense of wonder, internalizing it, and capitalizing on it is perhaps the biggest challenge, and is sometimes called the "teachable moment." The teachable moment is when things fall into place so that you can teach and others can learn.

Sometimes people ask me how I ended up an environmental studies major. I was already interested in the environment from camping and hiking and growing up on Long Island Sound. But I remember one semester in college taking a biology class, a geology class, and an environmental studies class. It so happened that over the course of a couple of weeks we studied Darwin in each of those classes. And in each class, we learned something different about his work and how it has influenced science, social science, and Western thought. This collection of experiences was my personal environmental "click" moment. I realized that I couldlearn something from the interdisciplinary nature of environmental studies, and in this case, that the whole was bigger than the sum of its parts. So in this case, the teachable moment was actually a collection of moments, and my professors never knew about it.

Ultimately, the challenge of environmental education is, like all education, to find the teachable moment. And to capitalize on that moment, so that the person who is in the position to be taught not only learns the facts, but internalizes them. Then they can say, "Yes, I am an environmentalist, and I believe that what I do makes a difference." It does.

Ruth Kraut has worked at the Ecology Center since 1986. In September, she will be starting at the University of Michigan to get an M.A. in Education and an M.P.H. in Public Health.

Externalizing Transportation Costs: Yes, We Pay

Today, the Ann Arbor Chronicle has a piece by David Erik Nelson, In It For The Money: School Transportation. In it, he points out that  

If you’re wondering why there is such a crazy drag on Michigan’s economy, maybe part of the problem is that we make 40 able-bodied adults do, at no pay, the work that we once paid one dude a basically fair salary to do with a big yellow bus. Those are hours spent not making anything anyone can buy, not earning any money to buy anything from anyone else, not creating jobs for another person, not rendering or using services, not being useful to the community.

Nelson describes how, in place of each cancelled bus route, we now have many, many adults driving their kids to school, and what a drag that is. . . on the environment, on the economy, on people's time.

He has some other examples and I think the entire article is worth reading, but the basic point is that the costs don't go away. They just get transferred from the school district (the public good) to individuals. In some cases, the costs go up--how much do you think all of those parents are paying in gas? But they don't go up for the district, they go up for the individuals.

Nelson then goes on to detail the ways in which the most vulnerable get the least attention in this shuffle, because the parents with email, the parents who speak good English--they are the ones whose complaints get noticed. The ones who don't have email, who don't speak good English? Forget about it.

One of the side effects of cutting transportation--and one that definitely contributes to the number of parents driving their kids to school--has been the expansion of the "walk zone." How far away from school do you have to be to get a bus ride? Now, it's 1-1/2 miles.

Now I have no problem with an expanded walk zone, if it's safe for kids to walk, year round. Even in snowy weather. Even in the early mornings in late fall when it is dark. That would require sidewalks.

Do we meet that test? Funny you should ask. No, we don't. I'm just waiting for the serious accident to happen. How much are our savings worth?

I was glad to see, in annarbor.com today, an article about Clague receiving a $180,000 Safe Routes to School grant. According to the article,

The grant is one of six awards MDOT allocated to Michigan schools this month — about $990,000 in all — to help students safely walk and bike to school.

Huron High School students walk north toward home on Nixon Road just south of Green Road Thursday afternoon in Ann Arbor

Courtney Sacco | AnnArbor.com

 

The grant will fund the installation of sidewalks and crosswalks on Nixon Road, flashing beacons on Green Road and crosswalk improvements at the intersection of Green and Nixon. Clague Middle School Principal Cindy Leaman said students currently walk on a bike path space on the side of the road to get to and from school because a sidewalk on Nixon Road is incomplete.

The picture above, excerpted from the annarbor.com article, shows kids walking to Clague from Huron High School on a roadside bike path. They are not walking against traffic, and I don't know if the bicycle path even exists on the other side of the road. Now imagine those kids walking to school, in the morning, in the dark. Does that seem safe to you? Not to me.

And the grant is truly fantastic. Except for one thing. There are nearly thirty schools in the Ann Arbor school district, and I don't know if there is a single one where every student within the walk zone has a safe route to school. I know for sure that my local schools, Wines Elementary and Forsythe Middle School, do not. Are we going to get these grants for every school in the district? That would be impossible. There were only six grants given out in Michigan this year. [Thurston Elementary School did get one a few years ago.]

As noted in the article, 

Students walk on the shoulder of Newport Road and over M-14 to get to [Wines] school because there is no sidewalk on the road, [City Council member Sabra] Briere said. “There is no safe route,” Briere said. “These students are forced on to Newport Road or they don’t walk — their parents have to drive them. The burden has shifted from the government to the individual.”

"You showed me my first wildflower"

Bill Browning in action

At tonight's AAPS board meeting, Dave Szczygiel and Nancy Stone presented an award and thank you to Bill Browning. For many years Bill was the Ann Arbor Public Schools environmental education coordinator. He also was a member of the school board for several years. Dave is the current environmental education coordinator and Nancy Stone works for the City of Ann Arbor, but her background is also in environmental education.

Most recently, Bill Browning made a $30,000 donation to the environmental education endowment fund. The environmental education endowment fund helps support the field trips that our kids love and learn so much from. I thought it was worth saying that you, too, can make a donation to the environmental education endowment fund. They take my (not very large, but devoted) donation every year. Find out more information about the AAPS Science and Environmental Education Endowment Fund. It is easy to make a donation.

Dave Szczygiel gave Bill Browning a puddingstone, and Bill gave an explanation of puddingstones to the Board of Education. Bill also thanked "those who had gone before him." Perhaps he was talking about Bill Stapp, the founder of the district's environmental education program and a huge leader in national environmental education.

Bill Stapp

He made particular mention of people taking students up north in a "stake truck" to an AAPS-owned property. I think he might have been talking about trips that Tappan ran every year for many years. I only know about them because there is a very cool book in the Ann Arbor District Library--a history of Tappan School--and a description of the trips is in there.

My favorite thank you came from trustee Susan Baskett.  (I am slightly paraphrasing here, despite the quote marks.) "I remember those trips very well. I am a master gardener now, but you showed me my first wildflower. Trillium. Marsh marigold. And mayapple. For a little city girl, that was a big deal."

Thank you, Bill Browning!
Thank you also to Dave Szczygiel and Nancy Stone for their hard work on behalf of this program.

Read more! Here is a history of environmental education in the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

Shopping this weekend?

Perhaps you need some winter clothes for the changing seasons? This is a great opportunity to support the Ann Arbor schools as well as practice the "thrifty" (get it? it's a "thrift" shop!) value of reuse.

It's the first-ever "Stuff-a-Bag"Warehouse Clothing Sale 

at the PTO Thrift Shop!

Sunday, September 25th, 2011 from 11am-5pm

The Thrift Shop provides the bag -- plus a huge inventory of "as is" clothing --while shoppers select and “stuff-a-bag" from what's on our warehouse sales tables.

It's only $5 per bag so the more you stuff, the more you save!

With over 1000 bags of unsorted clothing and other apparel in all sizes, seasons, colors and conditions, the tables will be restocked throughout the day -- this overstock must go!

$5/bag – includes the tax! Cash ONLY sales in the warehouse! No coupons or discounts apply. All sales final! And Pilar’s Cart will be on site -- try a tamale for lunch!

Find out more about the Thrift Shop at: www.a2ptothriftshop.org.

And by the way...in separate, recreational news, the Thrift Shop of Ypsilanti will be having a special fundraiser for Rutherford Pool on October 15th, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., 14 South Washington Street Ypsilanti, MI 48197, 734–483-1226, http://www.thriftshopofypsilanti.org/.

Pass this jobs bill and...

. . . hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people will have the hope and dignity of a summer job next year.  (President Obama's Jobs Speech, 9/9/11)

As soon as President Obama said that, I flashed back to this memory:

In 1983, I scored a summer job working for the Parks Council in New York City.  I was a "supervisor" of two team leaders and 24 high school students for a CETA jobs program. There were 20 African-American kids and 4 Latino/Latina kids; the team leaders were a Latino community college student and an African-American student from Howard University. I was the only white person, for the first time in my life.

Do you remember CETA? It was the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, a federal program that offered people with low incomes, as well as the long-term unemployed, with jobs and job training programs in the public and non-profit centers.

I think because I was white, I got assigned to the tony southern end of Central Park. Some of the other New York City parks were not so nice, and they had longer commutes from my house. At lunchtime I could sit by myself, or with my boyfriend, and watch Dustin Hoffman eat his lunch with his friends. Yes, he would come to the park too.

The animals had been removed from the Central Park Zoo by 1983.

Our headquarters were in the Central Park Zoo, which was mostly closed for renovation in 1982--a good thing since the original animal stalls were truly prison cells. There is a nice history of the zoo here. The only animals that I remember still being at the zoo were the sea lions. (Photo taken from here.)

The kids taught me slang--"I've got my main squeeze and my two side squeeze"--as well as why we couldn't rake leaves in certain areas (rats). I'm not sure what I taught them. . .

But one day we were on a field trip and one of the girls came up to me. She had just finished 10th grade and she was probably the most diligent worker in the group. Her mother was from Jamaica and worked as a nurse's aide.

"I was thinking," she said to me, "that maybe I could become an LPN [Licensed Practical Nurse]."
"Great!" I said. "That's a great idea!"

But in my heart, I thought, "Why be an LPN? You're smart enough to be an RN or a BSN. In fact, why not be a doctor? You're smart enough to be a doctor."

I didn't say that to her though.

Why didn't I say that to her? Well, probably partly because I was only 20. I couldn't even give myself career advice.
But probably also because I wasn't trained to have Great Expectations from poor black kids.

I wasn't trained. I don't honestly think it's a good excuse. Part of the achievement gap comes from the unconscious assumptions that we make and pass on to others, even when we are trying to do the right thing, and even when we are working on an "employment and training" program.

CETA wasn't perfect, but it did offer those kids jobs, and it did mostly keep them out of trouble that summer.

I hope that Obama gets to pass a good strong jobs bill.


And I hope--I really hope--that someone else told that kid she could be a doctor.

Happy News

Before break, some happy news.

Congratulations to Adams Elementary in Ypsilanti for making Adequate Yearly Progress two years in a row. I'm not a big fan of testing, but I'd much rather have our local schools making AYP than not making it.

And did you know the Ypsilanti Public Schools Foundation now has a ReSale shop? Not only is it a 501(c)3 organization that you can donate to, but YPS students and families that need clothes and household goods can shop free there. And so can YPS teachers, looking for classroom supplies. What a great idea!

Congratulations to the Dexter school board and administration for being brave enough to admit that they need more time to plan a transition to the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum, and plan the switch back to semesters from trimesters. (And hey, their reasoning looks a lot like mine! Great minds think alike:)

Congratulations to Saline Schools for a relatively user-friendly web site and to their Superintendent for his interesting blog. (The Saline Schools twitter regularly too.)

Congratulations to Pioneer and Huron high schools for taking a step toward equity by offering the PSAT in the middle of the week, and not on Saturday; and congratulations to all of AAPS for eliminating the fee for taking the PSAT. I'll bet a lot more kids took the PSAT! (Not only is that the qualifier for National Merit awards, but it also means those students will get more information about colleges and scholarships.)

Congratulations to Judy and Manfred Schmidt for being honored for all of their work on behalf of the Scarlett-Mitchell Nature Area. If you're looking for a nice walk over break, this could be the one for you! There are about 5 miles of trails there. I linked to this lovely article about the woods once before. You can park in the school parking lot, and enter the park right behind Scarlett.

Congratulations to Ann Arbor Open for another lovely Multicultural Festival. It's my favorite (school) day of the year, as you might remember from this post I wrote last year (now it's an oldie but a goodie).

I'm not sure if I will be blogging over break, or not, but...I hope you get some time off.

Happy 2011!

Thurston Pond, Millers Creek

Because I promised myself that I would try to keep this blog positive (and to balance my next post, which will be critical), I thought I would share the cool work that is going on around a tributary of the Huron River known as Millers Creek.

I read about it in the Huron River Watershed Council newsletter.

Runoff and erosion during storm events have created a situation where the water quality of the creek has been greatly degraded. In fact, Thurston Pond, which is part of the Thurston Nature Center, right by Thurston Elementary School, got so degraded that it could no longer be used by the AAPS Environmental Education field trips! (It is still a beautiful little nature center and pond, though, which you can read about here.)

So--Huron River Watershed Council has spearheaded an effort to clean up the water quality of Millers Creek. So far, it seems to be fairly successful.

I would just like to highlight the involvement of the Thurston Elementary PTO, which is a project partner, and the students of Thurston Elementary.

From the Millers Creek web site:

From the Huron River Watershed Council web site:

Thurston School Rain Garden

Thurston School students from the third grade and school neighbors helped Millers Creek by capturing rainwater in a school rain garden. HRWC and JFNew provided planning and design work, site prep, plant materials and educational signs and in June of 2009 we converted a grassy depression that was receiving rainwater runoff from the school's roof into a 1,400 square foot rain garden. The site's heavy clays were replaced with a rich porous soil and then planted with water-loving native plants. As a result, the rain that runs off the school roof now flows through the garden, infiltrates through the soil and is taken up by the plants.

MICHIGAN: Granholm vetoes legislative spending plan for federal education dollars (2010-10-12)

MICHIGAN: Granholm vetoes legislative spending plan for federal education dollars (2010-10-12)

 Why don't we plan well? Who loses? Kids...oh yeah, but kids don't really count, do they?

Looking Good

Tappan Garden

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The Bike Angel

It's not too late to sign up for the Commuter Challenge. If your school or office hasn't done it yet, that's okay, there is still time. (Hey, sign up on the last weekday in May and I think you would still get that ice cream coupon to Washtenaw Dairy. UPDATE: Nope. You need to sign up by May 7. )

A few years ago, I was on my way to work, on my bike, when my bicycle basket broke on the EMU campus. It got stuck in my spokes. I was thinking about walking my bike to my friend's house and taking the bus the rest of the way. How could I fix it? The bike looked terrible! And I had forgotten my cell phone at home! (Truthfully, I didn't really look at what had happened, I just kind of freaked out.)
Just then a guy on a bicycle came riding by. I still call him my bike angel.
He quickly assessed the situation, reminded me that I had a quick release wheel, helped me untangle my basket from the spokes, and I was on my way. But first, because I was doing that thing that women do--that "I'm sorry to bother you" thing--he told me that "bicycle commuters are going to save the world."
(Well, I doubt it--but it was a very nice thing to say.)
I also found out he was a new professor at EMU, teaching about Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), which--coincidentally--is a special interest of mine. Thanks James Perren! You made my day.

You too can save the world. Sign up for the Commuter Challenge. (And if you should happen to need a bike angel, I am now convinced that they are everywhere.)

(Bike Angel picture taken from a t-shirt shop. You can buy your Bike Angel t-shirt at gringear.com.)

31/31

In my last post, I wrote about 30/30 in April.
In May, we have 31/31. At least, that is what I'm calling the Commuter Challenge, because there are 30 days in April, but 31 in May.
During the Commuter Challenge, the goal is to get to work by biking, bussing, carpooling, or walking.

The program is sponsored by the Chamber's Get Downtown program and their real interest is in freeing up parking downtown, which--as you know, if you read annarbor.com or the Ann Arbor Chronicle, is a HOT topic. And personally, I find the downtown aspect of the Commuter Challenge a little short-sighted. I don't work downtown, so if it were just about getting downtown, a Commuter Challenge would not have too much meaning for me. And in my daily life, if I'm not in the habit of hopping on my bicycle or walking, I am not going to make it a habit when I do occasionally go downtown. I mean, this should be about the environment, right? And not just about parking spaces.
So I'm hoping that in coming years, the program (which is sponsored by the DDA, hence the downtown focus) will really expand the way they think about this.
BUT--those of us who don't work downtown are still invited to participate.
AND--I'm really interested in the sustainable commute. Last year, I put 500 miles on my bicycle between May and November (that's when I had the bicycle odometer tracking my mileage), and this year my goal is 1000 miles.
AND--Sustainable commuting is all about getting from Point X to Point Y. I am thinking that if I get in the habit, it will be easier to keep up the habit.
AND--if you bicycle one way, and it turns out that the weather is crummy on the way home, you can put your bicycle on the bus! Find bus routes here.
Last year I wrote about the Commuter Challenge, and I noted that only two schools were signed up for the Commuter Challenge. (Those two? Pioneer and Clague.) This, despite the fact that most of the schools have easy access to bus routes--yes, Ypsilanti High School and Tappan Middle School, I'm talking to you. I personally know teachers who live walking distance to Slauson and Pioneer, and there is even limited bus service to Rudolph Steiner School!
If you don't work at a school? I'm talking to you too--you can sign up your own workplace.
OK, so enough said about that. There is one more thing that I should mention. Every person who logs at least one sustainable commute (One. Measly. Commute. And that includes carpooling.) gets a coupon for a Washtenaw Dairy ice cream cone. That alone makes it worth it for me. Plus there are other prizes too.
I hope you sign up today. 
Here is the link to the Commuter Challenge web site. If your school or workplace has not signed up yet, then you can sign up the building--just let your coworkers know, and then they can sign themselves up.
My goal this year: one bicycle commute each week, and a couple of carpools as well. And for me, that is 24 miles round trip. I'm hoping to continue that throughout the summer. I will let you know if I make it.

By the way, if you commute Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor, well--Bike Ypsi might be able to provide you some company. They have a festival coming up on May 2nd, and Mark Maynard interviews some of the organizers here.

P.S. Riding? Wear your bicycle helmet!

Looking for Best Practice Models: Michigan Parks Planning

It shouldn't surprise anyone that our state parks are facing many of the same challenges as our state schools--limited funding, concerns about infrastructure--at the same time that they are, in fact, some of our greatest assets (as are our kids). After all, If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.

Ron Olson, the person currently in charge of Michigan state parks (whom I mention by name because he was formerly in charge of Ann Arbor's parks), Michigan state parks staff, and the Citizen's Committee for State Parks, together decided to examine funding models from other states and identify the best models. They did. They actually found a model that a) appears to be more stable, b) would keep funding separate from the general fund, c) was voluntary, and d) had bipartisan support. 

You would think that would make it a slam dunk, but no. It got tangled up in the idea that the state needs a comprehensive budget solution. Instead, the state parks, and all of us who live in the state, are left Waiting for Godot.

In any case: kudos to the state parks staff and volunteers who did the legwork. When people ask me, what should we tell the state government we want done around funding schools, my partial answer is: let's do exactly what the state parks people did. Let's start by looking at funding models and education outcomes in other states. Let's find the best practices. I think, but I'm not sure, that they will be found in the mid-Atlantic or northeast states (that is where the best outcomes can be found). And I could be surprised. Guess where the parks model came from?

Montana.

School Starts: Odds and Ends

1. Have you been to the Thurston Nature Center? Thurston School in Ann Arbor has a new rain garden--worth checking out. It was worked on by the third grade classes. (And apparently the nature center was used for filming "Flipped" as well! A movie was also filmed on the Ann Arbor Open at Mack playground, but I don't know what move it was.)

2. Small victory on the AAPS web site. This Week, the internal feature that I wrote about here, has been moved to the front page under publications. If you read This Week, you will see more good news about the AAPS.

3. Also on the AAPS web site--a new survey on cafeteria offerings. It's short, and there's lots of space for comments. Tell them what you think! (See the image, both This Week and the Survey can be found on the right-hand side of the page.) I hope you have a good year.

4. There's also new information on the AAPS web site around H1N1 flu. The upcoming season promises to be challenging. For one thing, all kids are recommended to get the H1N1 flu shots (yes, that is plural--they are supposed to be given one month apart), and many kids who have underlying health conditions (say, asthma) are also expected to get a seasonal flu shot. In case you are having trouble adding, that's 3 shots, and my guess is that a lot of people won't get them all. The new absence-reporting procedure asks you to tell the school why your child is sick (i.e. sore throat, fever, broken arm) and this is supposed to help them keep track of the flu. The only thing is that I bet a lot of parents won't follow it. I wrote about how my brother-in-law told the school his son had a 100 degree fever, and they said he had to stay home for a week. It wasn't the flu. My nephew was fine the next day, but he still couldn't go back to school. Will you tell, if you don't think it's the flu and it might mean staying home for a week?

5. How do you feel about school starting? You can take my unscientific poll if you like (right-hand side, top). I always feel like a Mack Truck has hit me--the change in pace is striking.

Bike, Bus, Walk to School--Curb Your Car!

Teachers, Aides, Administrators, Parents, and yes--kids--It's

Curb Your Car Month! Time for the Commuter Challenge.

I see a lot of teachers in my neighborhood walking to school, and I've seen a few bicycling too (in other words, they are already doing the commuter challenge), but only one school is signed up so far as an "organization." That school would be Clague Middle School, which has not one, but two ambassadors--Jeff Gaynor and Bruce Geffen. If you see them, thank them for their efforts. [Clague signed up as Ann Arbor Public Schools--Clague, so I guess that's a good model to follow for those of you from other schools, if you are the first one from the school to sign up.]

This is a great way to model sustainable commuting for all the kids in your classes, or your kids at home.

You can sign up here, and set your own goals. Did I mention that even one sustainable commute gets you free ice cream from Washtenaw Dairy? (There are some prize drawings too--it didn't hurt my feelings that I won a really comfy fleece blanket last year.)

Most of the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti schools have fairly good bus service. And carpooling counts too. And--if you get to school on your bike, or on foot, and there's a thunderstorm threatening on the way home, well...you can even put the bike on the bus!

Last year, Curb Your Car Month was a great motivator to get me to start riding my bike and setting a goal to ride my bike once a week, all summer, to and from work. (I mostly made that goal--but I wouldn't have even started if not for Curb Your Car Month and the motivation of some bicycling pals--it's about 12 miles each way, and knowing I had to meet someone was a big help.)

Yes, it's good for you, good for the earth, and there are prizes--what more could you ask for?