How could the events detailed in this film have occured 30 years ago?
That's what I was thinking by the end of the biopic "Milk," which we screened this weekend, one of the most moving and inspiring movies I have seen in a long time. But then, of course, this was my life: Harvey Milk was first elected as the nation's first "out" gay official (after several failed attempts)in 1977, the year I came out at age 16. The protests he lead against Anita Bryant's national attempts to deny gay people our civil rights; and against the infamous Prop 6, or Briggs Amendment, in California which threatened to have all gay school teachers fired (!)-- these were the initial events of my own activism. This was a time when gay culture was very much a bar culture; gay life was very much about sex; this was very much pre-AIDS. Gay pride marches were not solely celebrations of our unique lives, but rather angry protests against our oppression.
It's a different world now, although having come of age in that one I sometimes have difficulty believing how different it is. With gay people on TV and in movies; on the covers of national magazines; and also increasingly part of our public political life--such as Christine Quinn, a lesbian who is the chair of the New York City Council--our fight has moved toward achieving the right to marry. Yet as we suffer the responses to that fight, we see how much homophobia is still alive in parts of our culture. Where are the out gay federal legislators? Judges? Mayors? Governors? We're not there yet, Harvey: but we sure have come a long way. Thanks to you for your inspiring, fearless leadership.
And for those of you who have not yet seen "Milk," including Sean Penn's amazing, Academy Award-winning performance--get thee to your local theater.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Ironies and Tragedies
It’s ironic at best--and tragic for our students at worst--that those fighting school consolidation under the banner of “local control” are looking to the state “for a better deal”(or a legislative repeal) to provide our students with access to better education.
School consolidation is not going away. Coordinating and sharing teaching resources, and spreading administrative costs across larger districts, are proven, effective methods for sustaining small rural schools and improving the level of education we are able to provide for our students. 80% of Maine’s school population is now consolidated.
The close vote on the island, despite months of one-sided, negative reports riddled with unsupported facts, shows there is no mandate here for fighting consolidation. Instead, we could assert some real local control—the kind that provides a better education for our students—by creating a positive, pro-active plan which leverages the benefits of regionalization and is worthy of support.
This effort might start with creating efficiencies in our existing school union: synchronizing schedules to enable the sharing of teaching resources, professional, and curricula development; consolidating contracts to eliminate the costs of multiple negotiations; consolidating purchasing to decrease expenses; collaborating to seek independent grant funding to support important educational initiatives; and creating school cultures which attract peninsula students to take advantage of Deer Isle-Stonington’s particular strengths (marine trades, the arts). These kinds of cooperative initiatives, savings, and educational improvements are necessary and should not require legislative mandate.
State and local funds are limited: funding will be awarded to those with the best, most effective performance, management, and governance; and withdrawn from those who don’t keep up. In turn, we will be asked to cut educational resources our students need; when instead we could embrace administrative change to ensure our kids don’t get left behind other parts of Maine or the country. The sooner we really shift our focus locally—recognizing it’s the children who matter, and not the school committee or where the superintendent is—and implement a good plan for administrative change, the more fiscally and educationally viable our schools will be for our students’, and our community’s, futures.
School consolidation is not going away. Coordinating and sharing teaching resources, and spreading administrative costs across larger districts, are proven, effective methods for sustaining small rural schools and improving the level of education we are able to provide for our students. 80% of Maine’s school population is now consolidated.
The close vote on the island, despite months of one-sided, negative reports riddled with unsupported facts, shows there is no mandate here for fighting consolidation. Instead, we could assert some real local control—the kind that provides a better education for our students—by creating a positive, pro-active plan which leverages the benefits of regionalization and is worthy of support.
This effort might start with creating efficiencies in our existing school union: synchronizing schedules to enable the sharing of teaching resources, professional, and curricula development; consolidating contracts to eliminate the costs of multiple negotiations; consolidating purchasing to decrease expenses; collaborating to seek independent grant funding to support important educational initiatives; and creating school cultures which attract peninsula students to take advantage of Deer Isle-Stonington’s particular strengths (marine trades, the arts). These kinds of cooperative initiatives, savings, and educational improvements are necessary and should not require legislative mandate.
State and local funds are limited: funding will be awarded to those with the best, most effective performance, management, and governance; and withdrawn from those who don’t keep up. In turn, we will be asked to cut educational resources our students need; when instead we could embrace administrative change to ensure our kids don’t get left behind other parts of Maine or the country. The sooner we really shift our focus locally—recognizing it’s the children who matter, and not the school committee or where the superintendent is—and implement a good plan for administrative change, the more fiscally and educationally viable our schools will be for our students’, and our community’s, futures.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Yes, We Can: Locally as Well as Nationally
Change.
While our country is standing at the threshold of great change this week, those of us born and raised along the New England coast have never been very comfortable with it. We’re stubborn Yankees, descendents, as the journalist Colin Woodward noted in his fine history, The Lobster Coast, of fierce Anglo and French stock. Not only do we not like change: the desire to actively FIGHT it seems embedded deep in our genes.
While fiercely sustaining our unique island culture and traditions is critical, resistance to change can also hurt us and limit our future prospects, most especially when it comes to educating our children.
As world change happens ever more quickly—including in our fishing industries—spurred on by technologies that make once complicated functions possible in mere seconds, the requirements for and demands made on each new generation of students change exponentially. Meeting these needs requires vision and the ability to take risks. Yet instead of leading necessary changes to our schools so our students can compete equally, and succeed, we’re being asked by local school leadership to resist such change.
The biggest change at stake, in a vote on January 27, is school consolidation: whether or not to bring together our small area schools under a larger umbrella, to ensure their survival and ability to provide the resources our students need for a 21st century education.
The benefits of a consolidated rural school district are uncontestable and are currently being realized throughout the small coastal towns in Regional School Unit (RSU) #1 around Bath where, in the first year of consolidation, they have saved over $1.2 million AND added quality to their school program (in the form of additional AP classes at their high school, foreign language at elementary level, etc.—the very things our current structure is lacking). Consolidated rural school districts allow small schools like ours to align schedules; professional development; teaching resources and specialists; curricula; and purchasing and other contract negotiations to keep our small schools alive and thriving. While there are short-term costs to making such changes, the long term savings and benefits are much more important.
Perhaps the most misunderstood component of consolidation is its focus. This is not about closing schools: in fact, the island will be able to strengthen our position by becoming part of the larger district. The focus of consolidation is administration, not buildings. By mandating larger administrative districts, consolidation shifts the focus of control, and costs, away from superintendents and unwieldy numbers of school governing boards, meetings, and disparate contracts, correctly recognizing that true “local control” resides in strong principals in the buildings themselves, as well as active parent-teacher organizations. Consolidation is not about losing our local schools, or control; it is about preserving and improving them.
Students around the country and, increasingly, around Maine, from Bath to Ellsworth and beyond, benefit from consolidated educational structures. Our own students are benefitting immeasurably from the consolidation of the Deer Isle and Stonington elementary schools, another bitterly fought change more than 15 years in the making. Let’s hope it doesn’t take us 15 more years, plus state penalties and further mandates, to take this next necessary step to improve local education.
It’s just plain sad that our local educational leadership has chosen to discuss and plan only for the short term costs of consolidation, rather than the more important educational improvements and long term financial savings. Not surprisingly, those mounting the strongest opposition are those whose roles will be most directly changed in a regional school district: the superintendent and school committee members.
The state law mandating consolidation—similar to the state law mandating the creation of the Stonington Sanitary District in the 1980s, also opposed by local voters—is not perfect. The consolidation plan brought to us by our existing school committees, for an Alternative Organizational Structure (AOS), is so badly put together, taking advantage of few of the benefits offered by RSU’s, it only makes clear they want consolidation to fail.
That leaves making this necessary change up to us, the voters. Even though the current proposals are imperfect, we must vote YES—for the sake of our students and the future of our communities—to keep this critical process moving forward. The existing structure is broken and will not survive the economic and educational demands of the 21st century. We can’t afford to drag our feet on this issue. We owe it to our children.
On January 27, vote for a new and improved future for our students and our communities. Vote YES for school consolidation.
Written from my perspective as an active volunteer, mentor, and teacher in the Deer Isle-Stonington schools, who helped to draft and pass the schools’ Strategic Plan.
While our country is standing at the threshold of great change this week, those of us born and raised along the New England coast have never been very comfortable with it. We’re stubborn Yankees, descendents, as the journalist Colin Woodward noted in his fine history, The Lobster Coast, of fierce Anglo and French stock. Not only do we not like change: the desire to actively FIGHT it seems embedded deep in our genes.
While fiercely sustaining our unique island culture and traditions is critical, resistance to change can also hurt us and limit our future prospects, most especially when it comes to educating our children.
As world change happens ever more quickly—including in our fishing industries—spurred on by technologies that make once complicated functions possible in mere seconds, the requirements for and demands made on each new generation of students change exponentially. Meeting these needs requires vision and the ability to take risks. Yet instead of leading necessary changes to our schools so our students can compete equally, and succeed, we’re being asked by local school leadership to resist such change.
The biggest change at stake, in a vote on January 27, is school consolidation: whether or not to bring together our small area schools under a larger umbrella, to ensure their survival and ability to provide the resources our students need for a 21st century education.
The benefits of a consolidated rural school district are uncontestable and are currently being realized throughout the small coastal towns in Regional School Unit (RSU) #1 around Bath where, in the first year of consolidation, they have saved over $1.2 million AND added quality to their school program (in the form of additional AP classes at their high school, foreign language at elementary level, etc.—the very things our current structure is lacking). Consolidated rural school districts allow small schools like ours to align schedules; professional development; teaching resources and specialists; curricula; and purchasing and other contract negotiations to keep our small schools alive and thriving. While there are short-term costs to making such changes, the long term savings and benefits are much more important.
Perhaps the most misunderstood component of consolidation is its focus. This is not about closing schools: in fact, the island will be able to strengthen our position by becoming part of the larger district. The focus of consolidation is administration, not buildings. By mandating larger administrative districts, consolidation shifts the focus of control, and costs, away from superintendents and unwieldy numbers of school governing boards, meetings, and disparate contracts, correctly recognizing that true “local control” resides in strong principals in the buildings themselves, as well as active parent-teacher organizations. Consolidation is not about losing our local schools, or control; it is about preserving and improving them.
Students around the country and, increasingly, around Maine, from Bath to Ellsworth and beyond, benefit from consolidated educational structures. Our own students are benefitting immeasurably from the consolidation of the Deer Isle and Stonington elementary schools, another bitterly fought change more than 15 years in the making. Let’s hope it doesn’t take us 15 more years, plus state penalties and further mandates, to take this next necessary step to improve local education.
It’s just plain sad that our local educational leadership has chosen to discuss and plan only for the short term costs of consolidation, rather than the more important educational improvements and long term financial savings. Not surprisingly, those mounting the strongest opposition are those whose roles will be most directly changed in a regional school district: the superintendent and school committee members.
The state law mandating consolidation—similar to the state law mandating the creation of the Stonington Sanitary District in the 1980s, also opposed by local voters—is not perfect. The consolidation plan brought to us by our existing school committees, for an Alternative Organizational Structure (AOS), is so badly put together, taking advantage of few of the benefits offered by RSU’s, it only makes clear they want consolidation to fail.
That leaves making this necessary change up to us, the voters. Even though the current proposals are imperfect, we must vote YES—for the sake of our students and the future of our communities—to keep this critical process moving forward. The existing structure is broken and will not survive the economic and educational demands of the 21st century. We can’t afford to drag our feet on this issue. We owe it to our children.
On January 27, vote for a new and improved future for our students and our communities. Vote YES for school consolidation.
Written from my perspective as an active volunteer, mentor, and teacher in the Deer Isle-Stonington schools, who helped to draft and pass the schools’ Strategic Plan.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Policy and Philosophy Matter to our Pocketbooks
For the second time in the last 25 years, we middle class and poor citizens have felt the pain of failed Republican economic policy and philosophy.
Let's look at the facts. We cannot afford to allow this to happen again.
Wielding the scare tactics of "tax increases" and social issues to assert the philosophy that unregulated markets not only feed individual greed but somehow benefit everyone, the Republican Party has forsaken the economic conservatism that was historically a hallmark of this party and become adept at getting voters to vote against our own pocketbooks.
"Reaganomics"--or "voodoo economics," as they became known when the economy crashed in 1987--convinced the American public that our economy could sustain tax cuts for corporations, Big Oil (Reagan removed Jimmy Carter's solar panels from the White House in 1980) and the wealthy while increasing military spending and not investing in the domestic infrastructure that makes us strong and competitive: education, health care, alternative energy, science and technology research, etc. These policies first failed in 1987, with the largest single-day losses in the history of the U.S. economy and untold job losses.
During the 1990s, Bill Clinton struggled to build bipartisan consensus and was able to restore widening prosperity and innovation to the American economy through the creation of a fair and balanced tax program; cuts in wasteful spending; and investments in domestic infrastructure. Our nation entered the 21st century with a budget surplus and at an innovative peak.
How did we allow the last eight years to happen? September 11 scared us, and we have allowed the Republican Party to leverage this fear for the advancement of a politics and philosophy which benefit the few at the expense of the many. Never has this been more apparent than in today's economic crises. How could anyone, even a registered Republican, vote for the Republican Party this year, in the face of such widespread evidence of the failure of these economic policies and philosophies?
"The economy" and "the market" do not have lives independent from policy--although Republicans attempt to have us believe this is so. It is time to hold those responsible for the current mess accountable for their actions: series of policies and decisions which hurt and damage the American middle class.
This election offers us as middle class and poor voters a clear choice between a candidate who will offer meaningful change and a candidate who will offer more of the same. Barack Obama has clearly proposed the types of economic policies which will rebuild our nation, while John McCain has offered nothing. For the sake of each of us and for us as a nation in a global economy, let's pay attention to the facts and make the right choice this time.
Let's look at the facts. We cannot afford to allow this to happen again.
Wielding the scare tactics of "tax increases" and social issues to assert the philosophy that unregulated markets not only feed individual greed but somehow benefit everyone, the Republican Party has forsaken the economic conservatism that was historically a hallmark of this party and become adept at getting voters to vote against our own pocketbooks.
"Reaganomics"--or "voodoo economics," as they became known when the economy crashed in 1987--convinced the American public that our economy could sustain tax cuts for corporations, Big Oil (Reagan removed Jimmy Carter's solar panels from the White House in 1980) and the wealthy while increasing military spending and not investing in the domestic infrastructure that makes us strong and competitive: education, health care, alternative energy, science and technology research, etc. These policies first failed in 1987, with the largest single-day losses in the history of the U.S. economy and untold job losses.
During the 1990s, Bill Clinton struggled to build bipartisan consensus and was able to restore widening prosperity and innovation to the American economy through the creation of a fair and balanced tax program; cuts in wasteful spending; and investments in domestic infrastructure. Our nation entered the 21st century with a budget surplus and at an innovative peak.
How did we allow the last eight years to happen? September 11 scared us, and we have allowed the Republican Party to leverage this fear for the advancement of a politics and philosophy which benefit the few at the expense of the many. Never has this been more apparent than in today's economic crises. How could anyone, even a registered Republican, vote for the Republican Party this year, in the face of such widespread evidence of the failure of these economic policies and philosophies?
"The economy" and "the market" do not have lives independent from policy--although Republicans attempt to have us believe this is so. It is time to hold those responsible for the current mess accountable for their actions: series of policies and decisions which hurt and damage the American middle class.
This election offers us as middle class and poor voters a clear choice between a candidate who will offer meaningful change and a candidate who will offer more of the same. Barack Obama has clearly proposed the types of economic policies which will rebuild our nation, while John McCain has offered nothing. For the sake of each of us and for us as a nation in a global economy, let's pay attention to the facts and make the right choice this time.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
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