The Soccer Mom Vote

School is not a sporting event.

On November 6, Utah voters will go to the polls to decide on a statewide school vouchers initiative. It would give families across the state the opportunity to apply for private school vouchers worth  $500 - $3000, depending on family income. As of this writing, the measure looks like it will fail, largely because the public does not want to withdraw money from the public schools, and because voucher proponents have insulted the intelligence of undecided voters by raising the (supposedly frightening) spectre of control of the schools by Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi.

Interestingly, the Utah proposal is one of the few that does not take money out of the public schools, at least not for the first five years. What happens after that isn't specified. The measure is being touted as a way to alleviate overcrowding in the public schools. Utah families have an average 50% more children than the families in the rest of the country, 96% of them attend public schools and the state spends near the bottom per pupil on education. Most voucher and school choice schemes take the "tuition" of a student leaving the district directly out of the sending district's budget. Instead, the Utah measure increases overall school spending to cover the vouchers. Soccer Mom Angela outlines general voucher pros and cons in a non-partisan manner here.

Largely absent from the Utah debate is the usual claim that vouchers will give poverty-level children a better shot at learning. Because they don't, really. Funded at the level that they are, voucher programs not only don't cover the average private school tuition, but they don't even consider the cost of uniforms, textbooks (you buy your own in private school), and transportation. They are, as has been proven by studies of programs like the one in Milwaukee, not a ticket out of the public schools, but a discount for those who have already left or were never there in the first place (over 75% of Milwaukee voucher recipients were already in private school).

Of course the other word that always comes up in these debates is competition - union-based teachers, so goes the claim, don't want competition. Competition would supposedly improve the schools. This sometimes also called choice, as in "vouchers would expand parental choice." Well, I'm all for school choice, I think it's time we acknowledged that one size does not fit all when it comes to learning, but I stop short of supporting vouchers, because as anyone who has been through the rigors of applying for private school knows, the only party with any real choice is the school itself, enrolling and excluding whomever it chooses (for the record, yes, I got in). There are all sorts of reasons that comparing public and private school acheivement doesn't quite compute, but the exclusivity is the big one. The ability to sweep the top tier of talent and put it all one side makes voucher-based competition akin to putting your local high school football team up against the New England Patriots. Somebody call an ambulance.

Sure, some competition in education is healthy, motivational even. There's nothing like a spelling bee, or a science fair, or a DECA compeition to get kids excited to show off their abilities. These kinds of events aren't set up to punish the ones who don't win. Unfortunately, like a lot of the provisions of No Child Left Behind, voucher programs are designed to make even decent public schools look bad in the eyes of the general public.   If we are really serious about improving learning opportunities for children, there's a lot we could learn from the private school environment. That will be the subject of another post next month.

How Far Do We Take Parental Responsibility?

Today’s headlines included a report of a young teenager in suburban Philadelphia plotting to attack Plymouth Whitemarsh High School. He reportedly confessed to stockpiling weapons, making plans for the assault, and asking another student for help. His arsenal included “a 9 mm semiautomatic rifle, about 30 air-powered guns modeled to look like higher-powered weapons, swords, knives, a bomb-making book, [and] videos of the 1999 Columbine high school attack in Colorado.” This boy, Dillon Cossey, is fourteen years old.

His mother, Michele Cossey, has also been charged. It appears she is guilty of purchasing some of the weaponry: a .22-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle, and a 9 mm semiautomatic rifle with a laser scope.

How does a mother make these kinds of purchases for a child of fourteen? Her actions make it pretty easy for a person (ok, at least for me) to assign some blame on poor parenting for this young boy’s misdirection. I am thankful that his intention was discovered before anything tragic happened. And I’d like to be hopeful that he will receive the help and guidance he needs to get his life on the right track. But as optimistic as I am, I don’t know what the juvenile detention system in his state has in store for him.

Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein were both severely abused as children. How might the world be different if someone had paid a little more attention to them as children? Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t.

On the other hand, Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, both serial killers convicted of heinous crimes were not abused, but loved by their parents. (There’s a good argument however that Dahmer’s parents were seriously neglectful, and Bundy’s family was dysfunctional, to say the least, but so is mine. Isn’t yours?)

Our legal system creates some pretty clear lines about what constitutes abuse. The nature of the law requires that, for the sake of enforcement. And we’ve got a history chocked full of people who’ve done awful things. Many times the personal histories of these criminals include such remarkable trauma and abuse that, while it certainly doesn’t justify their criminality, it does explain it. Clever lawyers, often with good reason and good intentions, have created defenses for these people: battered person syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, insanity, incompetence, and mental illness defenses abound in the courtroom. Are they overused? Are they fair?

Some people, some children, are simply troubled. People do terrible things sometimes. Sometimes we can figure out what they were thinking and sometimes we can’t. And I do believe that the buck should stop with them. They did the crime; let them do the time, as they say.

But given their childhoods, did some of these criminals ever have a fair shot at being anything other than what they became? I am not by any means suggesting that parents who are otherwise responsible and loving should be held accountable for the deviant actions of their adult children. But I must ask the question, at least of myself. Of you. To what degree should parents be held accountable?

Is too much homework a bad thing?

This is the first year since we’ve been homeschooling that we’ve outsourced a few classes for our big kids. That means homework for the first time since 2000, and I must say I am ambivalent about performing for the teacher. 

My children share a math teacher, and I find that she’s more concerned about them doing math the way she taught them than she is in them understanding the material. She is persnickety about things that I find unimportant.

It makes me wonder about kids in school full-time.

Our local paper ran an article called “I hate school,” where a father complains about his son’s homework load. Articles are popping up everywhere ascribing homework to a plethora of problems including anxiety and depression.

One study by two Penn State researchers suggests that homework is not properly utilized in low income households, and can actually create a greater disparity in performance between populations of students.

Parents complain about schools being test driven, and the study points out the irony that nations that assign less homework actually produce better test scores than nations that assign more homework.

Just what is the purpose of homework? Is it to learn the material on your own? Is it to practice skills until you learn them? Is it to control the student’s home life? Is it to affect the permanent record? Is it to get into a good college? Or is it to pass the standardized tests?

So I wonder, as more and more schools are ‘teaching to the test’, sending out more and more homework, and doing worse and worse on tests, if maybe we’ve lost our way here. If maybe national education is a failure? Since every child is different, we’re clearly out of the realm of one size fits all, yet that’s exactly what public education is about.

Before I started homeschooling, I thought that homeschooling was only appropriate for a specific kind of child, basically the rambunctious child that was medicated at school and clearly not learning anything. My husband checked me on my attitude, and I eventually became a homeschooler myself. Then I swung the other direction and thought that all school is bad and it needs to be dismantled, and that everyone would be better off at home with their parents. I don’t know if that’s even the point any more. Whether children should be or not withstanding, most are not at home with their parents, and the way they are being educated should be improved.

No one seems to agree about how. On one hand, you have the tests, which are supposed to be a gauge of what is being taught. In actuality, the tests are often far removed from what is covered in class. So, you start teaching to the test, but what you’re really teaching is test taking strategies. Basically, how to play the numbers for the school’s benefit.

Maybe the tests should be revamped. Maybe individual teachers should gear the tests towards what they cover in class.  That would be if the goal was to test whether the children are learning what is being taught.

What do we do about homework? Push our children until they’re anxious wrecks, ignore it altogether, or make sure that no matter what, our children are learning what they should be learning? Do you think homework is a problem at all?

Life Lessons and Control Issues

We want what’s best for our kids and we don’t want them to be disappointed or hurt. It breaks our hearts when they have to learn those life lessons regarding responsibility, community, and money. Especially when they are going to fail and we know we can step in and save them from themselves.

When we go to Barnes & Noble and my children ask for a teen magazine instead of a book, how can I say no? How can I ask them to bring their own money and buy their own magazines and books when I’m the one who wants them to read, when I’m the one who knows reading will help their imaginations grow? I would hate it if they realized, after using their own money, what a waste the magazine is compared to a great book. Of course I’ll buy them their teen magazines.

When my children are not careful with their toys and lose them or tire of them and beg for new ones who am I to say no? I see the pain in their eyes, I hear the promises of “I’ll take better care of it next time!” and I don’t want them to suffer. I want them to be happy. They’ve clearly learned from their mistakes. As their mother I can replace those toys and I will be the hero again.

Right? Right?!?

No. I know these scenarios are ridiculous. It’s our job as parents to make sure our children learn their lessons well while they are growing up so they can make positive contributions to society; so they do not become dependent on hand-outs. It may break our hearts that they are miserable, but there are some lessons they will learn only by failing. We do a disservice to our children when we don’t let them fail. Every time we bail them out because we don’t want them to have to take care of themselves or because we know we can do it better or because we can make the pain go away and be the hero, we are letting them down.

Now think of it another way: non-privatized Social Security, welfare, socialized health care. We are perpetuating entitlement simply by not allowing people to stand on their own and make their own decisions.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

Gerald Ford

It’s insulting that Hillary Clinton would suggest that privatization won’t solve anything (referring to Social Security). She’s essentially saying I’m not mature enough to know what’s best for me and I should let her decide because she and the government know best.

I find it absurd that people are still complaining that we’ve not rebuilt after Katrina. Do you know that we have spent more on rebuilding after Katrina than we spent rebuilding sixteen nations after WWII? And yes, that is adjusted for inflation. 

I do understand that occasionally people need help. I am not saying that you and I should ignore that. However, I submit that the help should come from private organizations (e.g., churches, Red Cross, United Way, individuals) not the government. Our government was not designed to be a welfare state. You and I should be able to choose which causes or groups we give our money to for aid. The government should not tell me or you that we “owe” anything to anyone simply because we are working hard for ourselves.

Most of us agree we need to let our children learn life lessons the hard way, but we do not agree that the adults of this country should be afforded the same courtesy. We want to provide government aid over and over to people who are not learning any lessons except that if they ask for it, they’ll get it. Meanwhile, those of us who want to make our own decisions are being told we couldn’t possibly have the ability to do so.

I’d love to know what you think.

Shame, Shame, Shame

I'm sick.  My kids have been sick all week.  Warning: I won't be holding back any punches on this one.

If you haven't heard, the House yesterday failed to get the two-thirds vote it needed to override a presidential veto to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).  This program would expand the current one by covering an additional 4 million children living in the U.S. and increase costs by $35 billion over the next five years.  Yes, that's a lot of money, but money that is needed if we are to provide health care for the now one in eight children living in the U.S. that do not have it.

The president and Republicans who upheld his veto argued that the bill was too wide-reaching.  They claim that the new bill would provide coverage for children, and even adults, in middle class families and even, gasp, illegal immigrants who certainly don't need or deserve the government's assistance, I guess.  However, I disagree.

Health care costs are out of control.  I looked at my husband's pay stub just yesterday and had no idea that between his employer and our family we had already paid out $12,000 to our health plan.  And let's remember that's just for coverage.  That doesn't include co-pays, prescriptions or any out of pocket expenses that would be required for things not covered by the plan.  I don't complain too much in that I'm lucky to have a good health plan (one where I don't have to think about whether to call the doctor when my kids need to be seen) and my husband's employer is a large corporation and therefore pays the bulk of the cost (at least for now).

But I don't care if you're in middle-class America or not, if you need help in providing health care coverage for your children then you should receive it.  No one in this country should have to hesitate in taking a sick child to the doctor because they won't be able to afford the expenses involved. I would like to believe that America(ns) is better than that; that we care about the children in this country and want to see them healthy no matter where they live or what their socio-economic status. 

There will be another vote.  The Democrats have promised that and if you'd like to take action regarding this issue visit Momsrising.org to sign their petition encouraging legislators to keep this issue alive.  Don't be sucked in by the hype - this is not a political or partisan issue, this is a humanitarian issue and it needs our attention.

Besides, if we can afford to spend $200 million dollars a day to wage a war in Iraq that kills people, I think we can throw some money at the more than 10 million children in the U.S. who would otherwise go without quality health care.

I did it!

I did something yesterday that I've never done before. I called two of my congress people to urge them to override President Bush's veto of SCHIP when they vote today. But haven't there been other issues in the past that I've felt just as strongly about and that should have led me to make calls such as these? Yes, definitely. So why was this the first time I'd made such calls? I guess I never thought that expressing my generally liberal opinions would really make a difference in the conservative state of Texas where I live. And, more importantly, I'd never been a mother before. Having a child of my own makes me want to help and protect all children, everywhere, even more than I did before becoming a mother.

In my red state of Texas, only one of my three congress people voted in favor of renewing SCHIP and that was Kay Hutchison. Both Senator John Cornyn and Representative Lamar Smith voted against it and are assumed to be voting against an override to President Bush's veto of the program. Will my calls to their offices make a difference? I'm not sure. I certainly hope so. And I think if we all took the time to make calls like these (which only took about 45 seconds apiece out of my busy day), no matter what our opinions are, then I believe we can and should make a difference on the issues.

Just placing those two, quick calls made me feel good about myself because for once, instead of complaining about the way things are, I at least attempted to make a difference on an issue about which I feel strongly. Contacting my congress people is something I will do again and maybe, eventually, even in this conservative state, my liberal opinions will one day be heard.

It's Niki!

Massachusetts is sending a woman to Congress for the first time in 25 years. And it's not just any woman. Niki Tsongas is the widow of former Senator Paul Tsongas, a widely respected moderate Democrat who briefly ran for President. That race was ultimately won by Bill Clinton, but hearing Tsongas speak was, for me, an early glimpse into that "third way" that Clinton brought to office.

Though he represented a largely working class community (Lowell), Tsongas recognized that business was not the enemy. Although blunt at times, He was both compassionate and pragmatic; a proponent of a balanced budget. He ran for President years after retiring from the Senate to battle cancer, saying that his survival obligated him to give something back. When he died in 1997, I thought that the country had lost an important voice for common sense.

Since this was a special election to fill a vacant seat, she'll have to run again for the seat next year, but it's my hope that Niki Tsongas will help restore some of that common sense to the country and the Democratic party. She expects to go to Washington and cast her first vote to override Bush's veto on SCHIP legislation.

Making a dent

Yesterday evening as I was leaving work, I ran into a friend in the elevator.

"Heading home?" I asked.

"Not tonight," she said, then leaned in conspiratorially.  "Actually, I'm on my way to volunteer for the DNC.  I'll be making phone calls, which I'm not crazy about," she added with a grimace, "but, hey, it's just a few hours."

Then she said something that I've been thinking about all day today.

"If the Republicans win and I hadn't even made an effort to fight them, I'd always regret it. This way I know that I'm at least trying to make a dent when I have the chance."

Now I know not everyone reading this will agree with the political sentiment that my friend expressed, but this post is not about that.  It's about finding ways to "make a dent."

One of the things I really like about my friend is that she is a doer.  She's action oriented, and she really wants to bring about productive change in her work and in her life.  She's inspired me professionally and personally in a lot of ways before -- but for some reason, her off-the-cuff comment really hit me hard in a way I needed to hear.

For nearly my entire life, I've stayed away from political discourse.  There are many reasons for this, but one of the most significant is my cynicism about politics, arising from my belief that there's not much I can do to influence politics with a capital P.

"What can one person do, anyway?" I've wondered to myself.  "Why should I write to my member of Congress about this issue -- I'm sure everyone else has."  "Ah, I'm not even going to vote today.  It's just one vote that won't really matter."  (Actually, I've voted almost every year since I got my voter's registration card, even during non-Presidential years.  But you get the idea.)

My friend's optimism and her willingness to participate in political discourse has reminded me that sometimes my cynicism is misguided.  That apathetic can be kind of pathetic, in that it's not really getting me anywhere, and it's certainly not advancing my community in any tangible way.

So I'm going to embrace the baby steps: a campaign donation here, a letter to Congress there.  I won't be afraid to let my voice, teeny-tiny as it may be, pipe up even if it might be drowned out by those louder and more insistent than me.  Sure, I'm not going to be singlehandedly reforming health care on Capitol Hill... but I've got to start somewhere.

water shortages

I don't know if it's been in the news elsewhere in the country, but it's all over the place here: Southern California is headed for a water shortage.  It was inevitable that the subject would come up on one of the parenting lists I belong to, and people had come up with some stuff that I hadn't even thought of.  Of course, there's always installing a greywater system but that can be costly, complicated, and difficult to acquire a permit for (in some places, impossible).  I would personally love to re-use household water on a grand scale, but can't quite swing it right now.  So here's what I'm doing instead (very simple and limited, but hey, it's something): save shower water to flush with.  My husband and daughter take a bath every morning, and instead of letting the water out we leave it in and flush pee with it.  Simply fill up a bucket from the tub, pour into the toilet, and it flushes.  For my shower, I have a bucket that I keep in the middle of it and let the cold water rain into it while I am waiting for it to get hot.  In the time it takes for that to happen, the bucket fills and I get an extra free flush out of it.  It may not seem like much, but I feel better about it.

If you live in a place where it rains often, a downspout rain barrel is super easy to assemble and use, though you can buy one for about 100$ from most gardening websites.

My big water stumbling block is my lawn; I have it, so it must be watered.  I'm not a fan of xeriscaping.  If my regional xeriscape looked like this, I might get on board, but this is what it looks like where I live.  I could plant food in my lawn, but it would take SO MUCH work to make my lawn into garden and maintain it.  So what am I to do?  I water and mow (though with a push reel mower, so at least I'm not noise or carbon polluting while I am doing it) but I don't fertilize or use pesticides.  Anyone have any great ideas on this problem?

accumulating small changes

Today, I'm joining in Blog Action Day, whose focus this year is on the broad and complex topic of the environment.

I'm not one of those people who has always been hip to the issues of environmentalism.  Oh, sure, I had a phase in high school where I became a vegetarian and protested animal cruelty in debate class, but I can't claim any title like "lifelong activist".  In fact, I have a confession to make: up until January, I didn't even bother recycling.

A trip to the desert sparked my conversion and I am happy to say that our household has adopted a number of changes that I'm proud of.  My husband calls me the "recycling Nazi" because of my diligence in recycling and reusing all that we can.  I buy and eat local and/or organic food often.  I carry a compact extra cloth bag with me when I'm running errands to avoid using plastic.  My daughter and I both use reusable cups for trips to Starbucks.  I've gradually switched out the cleaners in our house to more natural, eco-friendly options. We stopped buying bottled water.  I hang laundry to dry on the line when weather permits.  I try hard to carpool and combine errands when possible to reduce carbon emissions. 

There are two points that I'd like to make, however, about these changes.  One is that they are, individually, small.  It hasn't been hard to make them because I started with one change and it led to another.   Once I started recycling, a process that required me to sort by hand, I started paying attention to packaging when I was buying the grocery store.  That, in turn, led me to pay more attention to the food we were consuming.  Then I noticed the number of plastic bags that came home with in just a single shopping trip.  And so on.  I haven't done anything radical, I've just done things that made sense.  Once I started down the path, one thing led to another.

The other point I'd like to make is that I'm not doing all I can, and there are limits to what I'm willing to do to make our lifestyle more green.  Sometimes organic is too expensive.  I could join a CSA, but haven't.  I could compost, but don't.  I could have a whole stack of canvas or cloth bags for the grocery store (which I'm working on, but not there yet).  We use a lot of Method cleaning products because they work and they're easily accessible at Target.  If I had to buy everything at a health food store, I'd balk.  I don't have a bike.  I rarely walk.  I still drive a small SUV.

There are many others -- including some of the contributors to this site -- who are ahead of me on this issue.  I applaud them.  I admire their tenacity.  I find it amazing that they use glass straws to avoid plastic.  But I'm not there yet.  I might not ever be. 

I am, however, doing something. I'm hopeful that if we all do a little more something, we can make a difference.

What are you doing?  What makes you take action?  What prevents you from making change?