Ivy League students shamed into giving?

Today I was referred to a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education that class gift solicitation at Cornell and Dartmouth began earlier this year, as in before graduation day. Graduating volunteers were provided with students who had not made commitments to give, and those students were aggressively solicited.

I'm not surprised. The students who are admitted to schools such as Cornell or Dartmouth are very bright. They are more likely to have graduated in four years, more likely to be recruited for permanent employment, and more likely to come from a well-to-do family. Their parents have probably been solicited, too.

Unlike schools such as Columbia and Harvard that are located in major business centers, Cornell and Dartmouth are more isolated. The students are less likely to come back to campus for reunions and other events. The best reason to hit them up before graduation day is: they are still there.

But the story also talks about pressure tactics that are excessive, especially for schools that pride themselves on having intellectually and social mature students. Students were told that a high level of participation would improve their school's ranking in U.S. News and World Report--would they really rank Cornell or Dartmouth over Harvard?--and in one case, a student who refused to donate was publicly criticized in the student newspaper. The decision to donate is personal; privacy should be respected.

The Ivy League schools and the most selective liberal arts colleges are probably the only institutions that have the luxury of approaching their students for actual contributions (as opposed to pledges) before graduation. They are privately supported, but they have been a better position to aid their most needy students. Princeton, as one example, has been quite conscious in keeping their graduates from leaving too deeply in debt.

Which takes me to my last point. People give to institutions that have helped them in life. I'd be very reluctant to contribute to a school that did not meet my expectations, so would most other college graduates. That's why fewer than a fifth of alumni at most schools do not give.

The military service academies, as one example, do an excellent job at raising money from their alumni. Their graduates have a five year service obligation; the academy knows where they are stationed. They have gotten a free education. And, there are alumni conspicuously ready to mentor them past that point, even if they choose to leave the military.

I give to Rutgers for much the same reason, though I cannot give significant dollars. The university gave me scholarships towards my undergraduate degree and my MBA; these lowered my costs dramatically. I made business contacts through alumni volunteer activities. Their services helped me find employment before I had my graduate degree. I would like to my alma mater help other students as it helped me. That is, after all, what satisfied alumni should do.

FDR's first race happened 100 years ago

This year marks the one-hundredth anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first campaign for public office. In 1910, he ran as the Democratic nominee for the New York State Senate at the age of 28, eleven years before he succumbed to polio. His uncle, Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican from the Long Island side of the family, was President of the United States. Franklin had voted for him two years before.

Already married to Eleanor, Franklin was a father of three children. They lived on his family estate at Hyde Park, which was originally his parent's home. Sarah, his mother, had raised him as a single mother from the time he was eight.

Sarah Delano Roosevelt could easily be called a "helicopter mom," had there been helicopters in 1910. She bought a brownstone in Cambridge so she could regularly visit her son at Harvard. She also got young Franklin his first job; the managing partner at Carter Ledyard, a New York firm that still exists today, was a family friend. Back then lawyers did not need to have a law degree to practice. They only needed to pass the bar. Franklin passed after he had dropped out of Columbia Law School two years into his education. When he decided to run for office, his mother was his leading contributor. She gave $2,500 to his campaign.

FDR was the first New York politician to campaign by car. He and Bob Connell, candidate for Congress, drove around the district in a two cylinder open Maxwell convertible on farm paths and badly maintained roads. Leaving Hyde Park each morning they drove three full days; one time they got lost and ended up in Connecticut. It would be another 14 years before New York's drivers were required to have a driver's license. FDR didn't have one. Try to imagine two anxious teens driving a gold cart on public roads--that was the image in my mind. Of course there were fewer cars back then.

Franklin was not expected to win. His state senate district had been Republican since 1856. The major issues of the day included the federal income tax (became the 16th Amendment to the Constitution in 1913), direct election of U.S. Senators (they were selected by the state legislatures until direction election became the 17th Amendment to the Constitution in 1913), reforming the banking system (the Federal Reserve network would not be founded until 1913) and woman's suffrage. And, while the President did not like the thought of his nephew running as a Democrat, he did not campaign against him.

1910 turned out to be a good year for New York Democrats. They won the governor's race and recaptured the Assembly and the Senate. Franklin Roosevelt went to Albany. He made his name by organizing an insurgent group, Empire State Democracy, to oppose the Tammany bosses in New York and their candidate for U.S. Senator. He would be re-elected to another term in 1912, though he was hospitalized with a thyroid condition during the campaign. He left for Washington before the end of his second term, to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

His Hyde Park legislative and Congressional districts, however, returned to Republican hands. While FDR won four presidential elections by overwhelming margins, he never won at home.

In 2006, Kirsten Gillibrand, now New York's junior U.S. Senator, was elected to Congress from this district and re-elected in 2008. Like FDR, she defeated a long-term Republican to capture the seat.

Appointed in 2009 to fill the term of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gillibrand is expected to win her first Senate campaign next week; polls have her ahead by an average of 22 points. But Real Clear Politics has labeled the Congressional race a "toss-up."

A Republican with a blueprint is running a tough race in my backyard.

I live within the boundaries of New Jersey's 12th Congressional District, now represented by six-term Democratic incumbent Rush Holt. Educated as a physicist, Holt has been re-elected with more than sixty percent of the vote in his past two races. The district has also voted for the Democratic candidate for President since Rep. Holt took office.

This time, Rep. Holt is in a much closer race, but unlike other Democrats he is not being opposed by a Tea Party Republican. His opponent, Scott Sipprelle, once a managing director at Morgan Stanley, now manager of a money fund for universities and foundations, among others, is more formidable and better informed, particular on economic issues. He appears to be either disinterested or uncomfortable discussing social issues.

When I listened to Mr. Sipprelle debate Rep. Holt at Rider University, Sipprelle, when asked about 'don't ask, don't tell' asked the debate moderator, a university professor, if discussion could be focused on job creation "since that was what the voters were most concerned about." The moderator asked Sipprelle to answer the question, and he said that 'don't ask, don't tell' should be decided by the chain of command within the military. Never mind that the top of the chain of command, the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United State, support repeal. Sipprelle was equally uncomfortable answering a question about same-sex marriage.

I must believe, from his discomfort, and the non-mention of social issues on the Issues page of his Web site, that Sipprelle knows that his views on these issues are in the minority for the district.

Sipprelle posts a Blueprint for Renewal on his site. I don't know how many undecided voters will take a look at it, but I, a Democrat, did. It covers the candidates ideas about job creation, regulation on Wall Street, health care cost containment, tax reform, fiscal responsibility and government spending. When it comes to financial issues, the man is at his element.

During the debate, Sipprelle criticized Rep. Holt for voting to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. That act, passed during the early 1930's, forced separations between commercial lending and investment banking. It also forbid banks from trading on their own shares, which the national banks had done quite aggressively. While the Act was formally repealed in 1999, separations between commercial banking and investment banking had already faded, thanks to policies advanced by the Reagan Administration and passed more than a decade before Rep. Holt took office.

So, when I went to Mr. Sipprelle's page and clicked "Wall Street," did I see a position to re-institute Glass-Steagall? No, though he makes a vague statement that the Federal Reserve should restrict "proprietary investing activities at deposit-taking subsidiaries."

Sipprelle, however, advocates that decision-making rest with a single "super-regulator" in the event of financial crisis, that one person be charged with leading resolution. That was the authority former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulsen wanted from Congress--and he didn't get it. However, President Obama appointed a crisis team to resolve the issues over Chrysler and GM. After that team completed its work, and the companies went under new management, they went home.

I have fewer issues with Obama's position. Congress got the chance to define the scope of the team's authority. It is not clear whether Sipprelle wants the same for a super-regulator.

But to be fair to Sipprelle, there are many good ideas on this page: a central derivatives clearing house, recapitalization through write-offs (this was done with GM), higher reserve capital requirements for banks, explicit liquidity standards and stronger ethical and holding requirements for institutional investors.

Each of the other pages has trade-offs. For example, on education, Sipprelle supports emphasis on vocational training, but does not say who would deliver or fund it. He proposes the idea of national examinations over degree requirements, but professional associations already have their examinations. Does he propose a new one for people who work in other fields? Unclear. He supports the growth of charter schools as well as what I call "true choice," direct tuition support to families. The problem is that the country would need to redefine separation of church and state so that public money could be credited towards tuition at religious schools.

On taxation Sipprelle proposes a 20 percent "flat tax," on all income, eliminating the double tax on dividends and savings. This would mean a very nice tax cut for the well-to-do. However, nearly half of all Americans pay no federal income tax; past policies have taken them out of the system. Does he propose that they now pay more taxes?

I could go on, but it would be better to read the details for yourself. Scott Sipprelle is a bright and very well-packaged Republican, a candidate that the suburbs of Orange County would love; folks up in northwestern New Jersey might like him, too. I'd love for him to manage my money, though I'd prefer to give Rep. Holt another term in Congress.

Scott Sipprelle gives you a good picture of a GOP agenda, should the party capture the majority in Congress. Independent voters of modest means or moderate social issue positions should read and be wary.

New Jersey anti-bullying bill has too much of the wrong stuff

The New Jersey Assembly is considering a bill, A-3466, that if passed would be a "Bill of Rights" for students considered to be victims of bullying, intimidation and harassment in the public schools and on college campuses.

The bill has bi-partisan support with eight primary sponsors and 34 co-sponsors in an eighty member Assembly, so it will probably pass that house of our legislature and be referred to the other house, the State Senate.

The bill adds "harassment,intimidation and bullying" among acts of misconduct that can be subject to suspension or expulsion from school. It also requires teachers and administrators made aware of such incidents to report them, and disciplines those who don't.

The bill requires teachers, administrators and school board members to receive anti-bullying training and asks that school superintendents report to the board about all such incidents twice a year; the report would also be graded by the state department of education. Lastly, it requires public universities to institute their own anti-bullying policies and procedures and communicate them to students at the start of the fall semester.

Unfortunately, the state legislature has not posted the bill on its Web site; it might be assigned to committee when they're in session tomorrow. But the news coverage mentioned nothing about funding to help school systems implement any of the requirements imposed upon them in this bill. This appears to be a package of unfunded mandates, which is almost as bad as ignoring the problem.

Nor the coverage of the bill it mention the sanctions that might be imposed on teachers, administrators and school board members who do not comply. I can imagine teachers who, out of eagerness to do the right thing, could risk going to work in fear of their students or angry parents. What protection is provided for them?

This bill also extends protection of students off-campus, but it's not entirely clear what that means. If that means a student is protected while participating in a school-sponsored activity, fine. If that means the school system is responsible for providing protection when a student is at home, supposedly under the protection of his family, that's an over-extension of authority.

I'm also leery of a bill that develops another state-directed "report card" that has the potential to hang a label on a school as punishments for the actions of a few. Though I'm also curious. How might this information correlate with the academic stature of the school? Are poor-performing schools more or less likely to report incidents of bullying, harassment or intimidation?

Further, I am also concerned when a legislator calls public schools a "war zone," as Assemblywoman Valerie Vanieri Huttle, a North Jersey Democrat told The Star Ledger, the state's major paper, yesterday. This speaks poorly of teachers and school officials who try, and encourages parents to take their children out of public schools, hoping to put them into schools where discipline can be dished out faster. In such schools, the school may be considered the "ruling body," rather than the school board or the state.

But these may be "minor details" when a bill has support of more than half of the Assembly before it goes to committee.

Like the parents interviewed in the news coverage, I would like to see an anti-bullying bill, but I'd like to see one with real teeth. If the state would like to see schools become more serious about protecting their students, they should hire experts to advise teachers, administrators and school board members at no cost to the district.

There should also be specific penalties when incidents of bullying are proven to lead to a more serious crime. But that should be decided by the courts, not a public school system.

For example, in the case of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who committed suicide, the case against the two students who planted the Web cam will be tried in the courts, possibly as a privacy rights case. Rutgers is not trying the students; the authority does not rest with the university administration, since the students have neither been charged nor tried.

Since this bill is going through a review, as opposed to a vote, I'd suggest the focus be on defining the crime, the necessary training, the funding and the process by which a school system refers the most serious incidents to the courts. Officers of the court will need training, but most likely the state and county Bar Associations can direct it for them.

A-3466, while well-intentioned, has too many of the wrong ideas, and too few of the right ones.

The environmental risks to 'drill baby drill' on the Marcellus Shale

The best campaign commercial I've seen this year is on my brother's Web site. It addresses the risks of drilling for natural gas on the Marcellus Shale, which runs through several states, quite prominently through Pennsylvania and New York.

It is well worth sharing--in this care viral means vital.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the fiscal risks to college in their dealings with oil and gas companies to sell or lease mineral rights on the Shale. But the stories I had read at that time did not deal with the environmental risks terribly much. This commercial does. The risks are serious: contaminated drinking water and fissures in the earth--imagine strings of dragon fire at will from the ground up.

Worse, at least in New York State, there are an inadequate number of inspectors to oversee the drilling, so that hazards may be avoided before they happen. I would imagine the case is the same in other states, such as Pennsylvania, that are far from fiscally sound.

I hope that college presidents and students, among others, will view this commercial. Hydrofracking is an extremely risky technology on which to bet a future.

Candidate in my family

Next week I plan to be working on Election Day--for a candidate I cannot vote for. My brother, David, is running for State Assembly from western New York. He is the Democratic nominee for an open seat in a district where the incumbent, a Republican, decided not to run for re-election.

I know my brother better than most people, so I can say that he's earned everything he has. He's always wanted to go into politics, but he had never decided upon the route he'd take, until he had advanced far into his business career. Most politicians, including President Obama, as well as New Yorkers Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, got their start as state legislators. Teddy started as an Assemblyman, as my brother will.

David has always had the skills to succeed in politics. He was a champion public speaker in high school, earning trips to national tournaments from his freshman through senior year. He's never been the smartest or the strongest, but he has always been able to reconcile differences, even when he was very young.

David got into Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, a state-supported unit of the university, as an out-of-state student. That's like trying to get into Harvard, Princeton, Yale, or one of the military service academies.

David's education helped him get his first job as a human resources executive with ABC; his people skills and political skills made him a corporate officer by the time he turned 35. That's the same age that another executive legend, Lee Iacocca, became an officer, too.

Nine years ago, David came to Western New York when he was appointed Senior Vice President-Human Resources for Bausch and Lomb. In that position, he helped create over 400 jobs in the region where he worked, developed a novel approach to employee health care, and revamped their corporate training center. I cannot imagine many candidates would know more about health care. David was responsible for purchasing health insurance for thousands of employees around the world. And he is a tough negotiator.

David is running as a pro-business Democrat. He is the only Democratic legislative candidate to receive the endorsement of Upstate Unshackled, a coalition of over 70,000 western New York businesses. He also has the endorsements of the New York State Business Council, the Rochester Business Alliance Political Action Committee and the Rochester Democrat-Chronicle, the major newspaper for the region. He also has the support of labor, the pro-choice movement. Environmental organizations will come to support him, too, as I will show in another post.

Pro-business Democrat? In a period of Tea Party insanity some might say that's an oxymoron. But David's approach is to cut unnecessary spending and frivolities--they're called 'member items' in the state legislature, "pork," or "earmarks," in Congress and use an economic development strategy based on regional assets--nanotechnology and health sciences are two examples--to create new jobs. This is how Silicon Valley and the Route 128 Corridor, among others, became the centers for commerce and innovation that they have been for decades.

Western New York, especially the Rochester area, has many of the same assets: culture, recreation, quality colleges and universities one would find in, for example, Boston. Several area public high schools rank among the nation's best in Newsweek's annual survey. Even while the tax structure has not been favorable to business, housing costs have been considerably lower.

This region has more potential to attract good jobs with good wages than most. It did during the first half of the twentieth century. Venerable corporations: Bausch and Lomb, Corning, Eastman Kodak, and Xerox, among others, call Western New York home. Their founding executives were among the leading philanthropists of their day. Now, organizational and cultural changes mean that new ideas and new businesses must come forward.

A Republican is likely to say deregulate and cut taxes, new business will follow. But it takes more, namely an educated population, a high quality of life that attracts and retains families, sound natural resource management and the leveraging of financial and technological assets. David has known this throughout his career--and I know he'll put that knowledge to good use in politics.

I hope you'll take a few moments to visit David's Website and learn how a Democrat can be pro-growth for New York, and maybe your state, too. Better yet, I hope you'll chip in a few bucks so he can prove it.

America will miss June Cleaver

A little more than a week ago,one of America's most famous parents, Barbara Billingsley, passed away. She starred for seven years on Leave It to Beaver, one of the more popular family sit-coms of its time. Leave It to Beaver ran seven years from 1957 to 1963, always in black and white, for 234 episodes. It changed stations, moving from CBS to ABC after the first season.

When I was younger I used to see Beaver in re-runs along with Father Knows Best, another suburban family sit-com that ran on CBS about the same time. Based on a radio program that had aired on NBC for six years, Father Knows Best ran for six years, from 1954 to 1960, on CBS. After that, the show went into re-runs that appeared on each of the three major networks: ABC, CBS and NBC for the next three years.

Having watched the two shows so many times, I found it amazing that one network aired both of them for a season, but it was not amazing that CBS let the newer show go. Both were family sit-coms that revolved around the mis-adventures of children, but they took slightly different approaches.

+ Robert Young, who played Jim Anderson, the father in Father Knows Best, was a stronger father figure than Hugh Beaumont, who played Ward Cleaver. Coincidentally, both fathers sold insurance. Jim Anderson ranks third as one of TV Guide's Fifty Greatest Dads, while Ward Cleaver ranks 28th.

+ Billingsley, however, was a stronger mother figure as June Cleaver than Jane Wyatt (the first Mrs. Ronald Reagan), who played Margaret "Peggy" Anderson. Not that Peggy was a weak character, but it seemed like her oldest daughter Betty (played by Elinor Donohue) walked all over her and her youngest, Kathy (played by Lauren Chapin), whined all over her. June Cleaver ranks sixth on Mothers Day Central's top 31 Sit-Com Moms, Peg isn't on the list.

+ The Cleavers had no girls, but Wally, the older son (Tony Dow)seemed to listen to his parents better than Bud (Billy Gray). At the end of the show's run, Wally is going to college on a swimming scholarship, while Bud never knew what he'll be doing from day to day. Both had friends who tried to be cool, but weren't.

+ Then there is the Beaver. He wasn't an exceptional child, but his dumb questions made him the real star of his show.

+ The Andersons lived in Springfield, the Cleavers in Mayfield, towns that were meant to be "anywhere in America." Well, anywhere it didn't snow or was overly hot outside. More often than not, you saw boys in lightweight spring/fall jackets and they did not have distinct accents either. I'd say both towns were in northern California.

Of the actors who appeared on both shows, Young was the most famous, Jerry Mathers, aka The Beaver, was more iconic, as was Billingsley. Young was the perfect father (later the wise old doctor Marcus Welby) and Billingsley the perfect mother.

College students not expected to vote?

I'm reading a story on Politico.com about changes in voter registrations among college students between 2008 and 2010, and the differences are disturbing. According to Rock-The-Vote, which leads one of the major youth voting drives across the country, there have been only 280,000 new registered voters among college students, versus 2.5 million two years ago.

Part of this can be explained by the elections. This is a mid-term year and President Obama is not on the ballot. Obama is trying to deal with this himself by campaigning on the larger college campuses in states where Democratic candidates for Senator or Governor are on the ballot.

But the downward trend is still disturbing, as college is a time when young adults develop and refine their political views, even if they do not study politics or plan to participate in public service as a career.

College students might not always realize this, but a governor has more of an impact on the cost of their education than President Obama. The governor recommends the budget, including cuts, as well as tuition increases.

In New Jersey it used to be that a governor would propose a double-digit tuition increase in a weak economy; he had little problem convincing the legislature to cut the state's subsidies to higher education. But college was also less expensive.

In 1978, tuition,room and board at Rutgers were approximately $2,500; a double digit tuition increase was less than two hundred bucks. Today, tuition, fees, room and board are more than $25,000; a double digit tuition increase would be about $2,500. Now parents say 'ouch'--and the governor knows it. He'll cap the tuition increase and cut state-supported financial aid instead.

Is this downward trend because young voters are disappointed in Obama as president? Possibly. While the Obama Administration has increased funds for Pell Grants, student loans and community colleges, the job market is less promising for those who are about to graduate.

The President and First Lady have stood front and center on public service, but little new blood was brought into the administration; many appointees had previously served President Clinton. More recent college graduates wanted to work for this president than any other, so this has to be a disappointment, too.

Is this because of the message? Possibly. Organizing for America sends me regular e-mails. They remind me how important my representative, Rush Holt (D. NJ), is important to President Obama's promises to bring change. I didn't need convincing; in fact, I have already voted for Rep. Holt by absentee ballot, but I'd guess that newer voters do. They haven't followed their representative's career long enough to make a well-informed decision.

However, each message came with a request for money. Okay, I'm an adult, but I'd hope the college kids who registered and volunteered in '08 got a different message. They might not have the money, but they do have the energy to volunteer, and of course they have their votes. Those votes mean more locally than they do nationally. You'd hope the national political campaign committess would do a better job to sell that message.

Book Review---Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine by George Dohrmann

Play Their Hearts Out is a story of boy's grade school and high school basketball that makes tales of the pros look tame. It's main characters are Joe Keller, a entrepreneurial basketball camp operator/non-coach and Demetrius Walker, once hailed on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 14 as "the next LeBron."

I use the term camp operator/non-coach to describe Keller, because the author, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer for Sports Illustrated, shows that while Keller has a talent for spotting talent, and manipulating parents, high school coaches, even Adidas executives, he has little to no knowledge of basketball fundamentals. He cannot teach naturally talented players how to use their talents better or to blend them into a team game. While his AAU teams had the talent to win, they lacked the chemistry or enthusiasm to play together.

Keller is also called into question for steering players towards particular high schools in exchange for favors, or to prevent the player from joining a rival shoe company's summer team. He even arranges supplemental payments for the player's family, more often than not a single mother, so that the player will play where he wants, with no regard to academics.

Keller even rebuffs the efforts of one mother, a Georgetown-educated lawyer to help the players make academic progress. He acts "hands off" with her son, but he does not encourage the other players to go along with the more academic activities she has planed.

As you will read, Joe Keller is not the only "non-coach" who places self-interest over the interests of his players; there are many other coaches who do the same. They tell seventh and eighth graders that they can play in the pros one day, and lead them nowhere when the kids learn that they can't.

For five or six years, Demetrius Walker is Keller's prize pupil. He is the best player on his team, even though he is not a leader on the team. Keller pampers him to the point where he lets other good players go, including many who later received college scholarships. Walker is fawned upon by everyone other than his teammates, but in high school, at an AAU summer camp, he faces the truth about his natural ability.

At 14, he ranks first among prospects his age. By 16, he is barely in the top 200, good enough to get a scholarship to a small school, maybe a mid-major program if he can improve his grades, but not good enough to play for a perennial NCAA champion. Walker eventually brakes away from Keller and becomes a better prospect without him.

If you're a basketball fan, a player, or sports parent read this book. If you have little to know connection to the grassroots youth programs it will be an eye-opener.

Maybe we need a Constitutional convention for candidates

The recent stories about Senate candidate Christine O' Donnell and her knowledge of the U.S. Constitution are quite disturbing to me. It's not so much the candidate's intellect, as it is her hypocrisy. How can a Tea Party candidate claim to follow the guiding principles of our country, when she does not even know the First Amendment?

As Americans we study the Constitution in school. We're told about the amendments. We're given an abridged version of the intentions of the Founding Fathers. Those who choose to study more do so because they want to, or because there is a state graduation requirement.

But when I read and listen to the news coverage of candidates such as Christine O' Donnell, I wonder if we need a convention to re-educate politicians and political activists about the Constitution. If people of all political persuasions claim to live by it, lets make sure they really buy in.

This wouldn't require a government program. The National Constitution Center could design the curriculum and deliver it in every state. Political parties could provide supplemental materials--though the Constitution does not provide for them. So could educational foundations, colleges, universities and policy think tanks. Just as there are scholars who debate the meaning of content in the Bible and other religious scriptures, there are scholars who have different interpretations of the Constitution. Politicians should learn, welcome and celebrate those differences; that will only make them more effective campaigners and legislators.

Let politicians to be debate amongst themselves about Constitutional questions and the amendments;they should know the issues that the Founding Fathers had to consider at the end of the 18th century. Some might actually walk in with pre-conceived views, only to come out better informed. We might even get good ideas for an amendment or two. And we're likely to get better informed candidates than Christine O' Donnell

Book Review--Nemesis by Philip Roth

By no means am I an expert on literary fiction. NBA means National Basketball Association to me, while it means National Book Awards to gifted literary writers.

However, I have read and enjoyed several Philip Roth novels; this one, Nemesis, being no less thought-provoking. I read Roth more than most because I can relate to his background. He grew up during the 1940s in Newark, and began his college education at what is now the Rutgers campus in that city. Though he later transferred to Bucknell, he identifies himself as a native of Newark and New Jersey.

Nemesis is the story of Bucky Cantor, a top high school athlete and recent college graduate, ineligible for military service because of his eyesight. While his best friends go to war--they have served for at least two years at the time this story has taken place--he takes a job as a playground supervisor in Weequahic Park, then the Jewish section of Newark. A job as a physical education teacher in the public schools awaits him after the summer is over.

But at the same time Bucky has begun his job, a polio epidemic spreads through select parts of Newark, and kids under his charge are afflicted. It is unbearably hot and Newark, being an industrial center, has its mix of odorous smells, any of which might be a cause to the epidemic. Neither science, nor the medical experts, including Dr. Steinberg, Bucky's future father in law, know for sure.

As more and more kids contract polio, Bucky's guilt intensifies. Marcia, his fiance, finds him an out: a job at a camp in the Poconos. Only the polio spreads there, too. Bucky later learns that he is the carrier, and he carries that guilt through to the rest of the story, as he outlives practically all of the afflicted children. A survivor is the narrator of the story.

The storyline may be very simple, and it is difficult to discuss the book without revealing it, but you see some very deep feelings and considerable maturity from a young man who has responsibilities outside of his family for the first time in his life. How he handles them, and lives his life, is remarkable. Nemesis is fine literary fiction, but it could have also been an inspirational tale for the GI Generation.

New Jersey cannot approve too many charter schools too fast

New Jersey governor Chris Christie was an advocate for charter schools during his campaign. He is no less of one now. However, he should be careful about relaxing the authorization process, or outsourcing it to colleges of education.

I see the appeal of charter schools, at least the best ones, to politicians like Chris Christie. They're smaller, they cost less and, if they become more successful academically and financially, they will be less dependent on state and local government funding. Plus, for Christie, the more teachers in charters, the weaker the teacher's union.

Aside from welcoming more schools from the more successful charter school operators, such as the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) or Green Dot, he should not rush to kick the door open too far.

To date less than two percent of New Jersey K-12 students are enrolled in charter schools. Not all of them are successful, at least based on the one quantitative measure available: standardized test scores. While that is only one measure of a school, the charters that lack ties to well-healed foundations or other reliable sources of funding can prove to be very difficult to sustain.

What would be the future for such schools, if they can succeed on the academic measures but not the financial ones? Most likely they would ask for more money from state and local government, or subsidies for new buildings or reduced costs for utilities and transportation expenses. Another option might be to allow charters to charge tuition and welcome out-of-district residents. Traditional public schools in New Jersey already have this option; why not extend it to the charters, too?

I am all for charter schools and for nurturing new ideas in education. But if we're to be serious about managing costs, we need to favor the operators who have not only records of academic achievement, but also proof of sustainability. More important, we need to bring the best practices of the charter schools into the traditional schools. Not every student will get a winning ticket in the lotteries.

Book Review--Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter and Jeff Passan

I can't resist reading good original arguments to end college football's foolish Bowl Championship Series, and these writers for Yahoo Sports have given us several in this new book. The authors, who researched organizational and financial records for the college bowl games, advocate that the BCS be replaced with a 16 team playoff.

Eleven conference champions plus five highly ranked at-large teams would play for the national title. The higher seeded teams would host the lower seeded ones in the first round. Bowl games would not be part of the national championship picture, though they would still exist--with half of their current income. Conferences with twelve of more teams would still hold title games, just as they do now.

The idea is interesting, mainly because the authors try to explain the politics of the BCS and they also try to explain the best interests of the schools. They reject the idea of using bowl games to host play-off games for two reasons: it would take away the power of bowl organizers to select the teams that would be the best attendance draw for their site, and it would allow the higher ranked schools to earn more money for their program while giving their fans an extra game that matters.

But I think the author's plan would also give more incentive for top teams to pad their schedules. They counter that computer programs could be better set up to use margin of victory and strength of schedule to offset this. But the BCS executives, as they also point out, prefer some analyst's methodologies over others.

Bowl games, the authors report, are Chamber of Commerce type affairs built on boosting economic development and tourism more than offering a meaningful game. They are planned with the hope that fans will stay in town for several days, rather than come and go on game day. This all works well when your game is in a tourist-focused community, or if you get to host the national championship. But less than half of all college bowl games break even or make a profit.

Bowl hosts also ask the schools to help assure their success. Each school pledges to buy and sell tickets for the game. Unsold tickets, of which there are many for the minor bowls, are simply tossed in the trash. Game day payouts do not exceed the school's expenses for playing in a minor bowl game, unless their conference covers their losses. Yet the schools play in these games to gain more recognition for their program and provide some semblance of moving forward to please the fans.

I agree with many of the points in this book, though I disagree with their thoughts about the use of minor bowl game sites for play-offs and conference title games.

I would think that if sites were matched to games that mattered, bowl operators would see higher attendance figures, and make more money than they do now. Their problem is that the NCAA would pick the teams that would play. A team with a small fan base, even a champion, is a risk. I disagree, since play-offs, especially those involving large schools, would also attract more television interest than minor bowls.

Bowl operators who know that they would make more money from hosting a 6-6 Notre Dame team over a Mid-America Conference champion would not be happy hosting a play-off game. But they'd still earn a very good living, as you'll learn when you read this book.

Book and a Movie--Waiting for Superman

This weekend I got to see Waiting for Superman,the first time it played in the Princeton area. The movie got here several weeks after the book. It would have made a more powerful impact on parents if it had come out around the first days of school. However, it might have led them to pull their children out of the public schools.

Directed by Davis Guggenheim, who helped Al Gore earn an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for Superman is a ninety minute documentary about the state of U.S. public schools, mostly in urban areas, although one district in well-to-do community, Redwood City in northern California, is also profiled.

The movie is packed with powerful scenes--one comes from a student who filmed his teacher reading a newspaper in class while another shows an infamous "rubber room" of New York City teachers due for hearings--and indicting statistics against the public schools. It follows five students and their parents who enter lotteries to receive highly coveted seats in top-performing charter schools. Their family situations are interspersed with commentary from the educators who run these schools, as well as noted Washington Post education reporter Jay Matthews, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem-based Children's Zone, and former Washington D.C schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, among others.

While the movie came out late, it's timing turned out to be interesting. It made it to my area about a week after Michelle Rhee resigned. Rhee has said in the movie that the D.C. job would be her last as a superintendent. Either she was confident that she would survive changes in mayoral administrations or she realized how parents and teachers would react to her efforts towards quick fixes and a new teacher's contract that offered a choice between tenure and an ambitious merit pay program. There is also a scene where she is riding in the back of an SUV and says that she has learned that the job is "all about the adults," as opposed to the students. That was, I felt, a major point that Guggenheim was trying to make throughout the entire movie.

Other major points from the movie:

+ Only the rich and the lucky have a choice of passing up a poor-performing neighborhood school. We're made clear about the number of entrants in each lottery, as well as the number of places. As he narrates the movie at the start, Guggenheim admits that he is fortunate that he has a choice while living in Los Angeles, which has many exceptionally poor performing schools.

+ Even supposedly good public schools, urban and suburban, are "failing" all students through poor teachers and outdated practices such as "tracking."

+ Teachers unions hold unchallenged power over politicians and public schools, as well as parents, while they protect the job security of poor teachers over the better interests of the students.

+ True reform, especially in the urban areas, goes beyond classrooms. Geoffrey Canada's Children's Zone is a perfect example; it provides support services to parents, including a Baby College to help single mothers raise children. So is the SEED Academy in Washington D.C, which is a publicly supported boarding school, where the living spaces are decorated much like a college dormitory.

If you liked the movie and want to learn more, buy the book. While the movie focuses more on the kids and their families, the book profiles the reformers more extensively. Canada comes off extremely well in the movie, but you are more impressed by him after you read the book. The same is true with the Knowledge is Power charter schools. You also read Randi Weingarten's critical comments of the movie; the book might be the only place where she got a fair chance to respond.

After the release of An Inconvenient Truth, which was also accompanied by a book, Guggenheim was credited with advancing the issue of global warming. While it might have been easy to nod through Al Gore, it was difficult to ignore the scenes of glaciers and faded life. We only have one earth; no planets have been set to colonize. Global politics have been set in motion. Even as the conservative senators from Oklahoma and some scientists may question the idea of global warming, most discussions of climatic issues are non-partisan.

But, given today's politics, as Democrats fear the loss of Congress, I don't see a similar impact from Waiting for Superman.This movie provides a powerful learning experience, but it is one that will make well-to-do parents relieved that they have a choice of schools and poorer parents wish they did.

The best outcome is likely to be more charter schools. The existing ones that deliver the best results will raise more money to make more room for more students. But, as anyone will see from the scenes on lottery day, too many children will be left behind.

Should first year teachers be paid the same as entry level engineers?

I found this interesting story in Education Week about a McKinsey study about the teaching profession, and why it does not attract the best and brightest high school and college students.

The McKinsey consultants believe that schools and school districts could attract teacher candidates who are more likely to succeed by subsidizing teacher-preparation tuition costs; ensuring more effective administration and training opportunities in high-need schools; improving teachers’ working conditions; and providing performance bonuses of up to 20 percent.

It took a consulting fee to tell us what educators have said all along?

I also had to wonder: why don't we do the same for targeted science and engineering fields? We have shortages in these areas and the private sector might be willing to work with schools to fill them. Corporations already participate in scholarship and experiential education programs.

But teachers, especially those who work in public schools, work in a different marketplace than people in other fields. It is not just pay that is a problem.

+ Teachers cannot transfer their experience from one school system to another. Even if they receive tenure in one system, if does not necessarily mean a teacher will receive tenure in another if they have to relocate. Private sector workers in other fields such as accounting and engineering, where graduates, like teachers, go to work with only bachelor's degrees, are usually paid based on the work experience they bring with them from another employer. They do not start all the way back at the entry level salary.

+ Teachers compensation is not performance-based. However, teachers do not have an impact on revenues or cost savings. There is no way to assure the best teachers that a school system will have sufficient revenues to pay performance bonuses. Private sector workers who contribute to the bottom line are rewarded in good times; sometimes they are rewarded in bad times, too.

+ Teachers receive part of their training while they are still in school. This is good and bad. The good news: candidates get their feet wet early and sometimes see the rewards. The bad news: the experience causes some prospective teachers to quit before they ever take a teaching position. And a poor student teacher evaluation can end a career before it ever starts. Students who chose one of the more difficult majors that are tied to high compensation--engineering, accounting, computer science being examples--can often get jobs with average to poor grades in the major.

+ Teachers often dig into their own pocket to purchase supplies that enable them to do their jobs. Private sector workers do not.

Teaching is not the only profession that whittles down people from the entry level. I know plenty of engineers who left engineering for business careers within five years of completing their degree. Same with computer programmers or nurses. The similarity between teaching and these professions is that there is no career path; you stay within the field unless you go into management. However, teaching is different in that it pays less.

I'm not one who believes that first year teachers should receive salaries similar to those paid to people in higher paying fields. For one thing, school districts do not have the money. For another, the highest paid teachers are in public employee unions that provide better benefits than those available to private sector workers. And lastly, public education is very much local. School boards like to set the wage scale; they would not want state government to do it for them.

But this story made me wonder: what if all public school teachers were state employees instead of local? What changes would you see?

+ There would be one union and one union contract. There might be regional wage differences, but not as many variations as you see from district to district.

+ The profession could be more 'portable.' If a teacher had to move within the state, she might be able to find a position where her experience would matter, and she would not lose income.

+ There could be a single professional development program where mentoring could come from anywhere in the state.

+ Teachers would pay dues to only a state union, but not a local.

+ The power of a state union could back teacher grievances. That helps the teachers, though it can be argued that it would hurt local school boards.

+ Local school boards would not need to spend money to handle their own labor relations. Since their revenues vary, they would not be forced into an uncomfortable position of trying to negotiate a contract in bad times.

What do you think? I'd be curious to know.

Should the Peace Corps be restructured as a multi-country organization?

Today I read a story in USA Today about changes in the focus of the Peace Corps. Founded in 1961, approximately a year after a campaign speech by President John F. Kennedy at the University of Michigan, the Peace Corps activities have shifted from education to economic development, HIV/AIDS prevention and environmental and technology programs.

In 1962, according to this story, slightly more than 2,800 Peace Corp volunteers were assigned to work in 27 participating countries. These included Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iran, and Somalia, among others. By 1966, 15,000 people were in the field. A total of 200,000 volunteers have served over the past forty nine years working in 139 countries. President Kennedy, according to the story, had set a goal of 100,000 volunteers per year.

In 1962, the typical volunteer was 22, likely a recent college graduate. Today, the average age is 28. According to CollegeGrad.com, an entry level employment site, the Peace Corps is still a major hirer of college graduates. An estimated 4,100 volunteers will come on board this year, likely the result of the economy as well as a $400 million appropriation for the Corps, it's highest ever.

But the story made me wonder: what has the Peace Corps failed to do that newer public service organizations have done? My answer: it has never thought beyond being an agency of the federal government. Teach for America, by comparison, has succeeded for more than 20 years, and grown faster, because it is a public-private partnership. Federal money leverages private investment as well commitments from the participating school systems.

I believe that part of the reason for the Peace Corps was to spread a message about America and democracy to developing nations. The organization was founded at the height of the Cold War, when leaders of developing nations were put in the position to choose between humanitarian assistance from Communist nations and more democratic ones.

I also believe this is still part of the political intentions for keeping the Peace Corps functioning. The Peace Corps has survived for nearly fifty years; it could have just as easily been closed down along with other programs of the New Frontier or the Great Society. Even as the Soviet threat of the past have been replaced by more global threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the Peace Corps marches on.

The story talks about organizational reforms, but I wonder, if the ideas written there go far enough. Why not reconsider the Peace Corps as a global coalition with volunteers from many nations, backed by more than U.S. government funding?

The United States has formed multi-national coalitions to go to war. Why can't the country do the same in the name of peace? President Kennedy would be no less proud of the Peace Corps if it evolved into a multi-country organization.

Georgia ban on illegal immigrants removes 27 students from selective colleges

Today I'm reading this story in the Chronicle of Higher Education that the Georgia Board of Regents has banned illegal immigrants from attending five of the state's most selective public institutions: Georgia College & State University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, the Medical College of Georgia, and the University of Georgia. The board's policy can be changed to add or remove more schools on an annual basis.

This policy separated a grand total of 27 students from the institutions where they were enrolled. It has no impact on the remaining 464 students who attend other public colleges in the state. They go to less selective schools.

The thought behind this policy was probably that there were many more illegal immigrant students than expected. Some might think that the Regents would ask for an enrollment figure--the data was available--before taking a vote.

This policy is foolish. Essentially it denies 27 students an education, which they might have been closer to finishing than starting. None of these students, according to the story, paid in-state tuition. They weren't going to school at a discount. Not to mention, they met the admissions standards of the school that accepted them.

This policy also sends a message to a small group: we'll let you into college, if we have room, and after all of the spots at the best schools are gone. We are not going to give you a chance to compete for those spots, even against other international students. If you are the child of an illegal immigrant, presumably you are a citizen of another country.

So, the son or daughter of an illegal immigrant from Mexico, for example, has less of a chance of acceptance than a student at a Mexican high school? That makes no sense.

Higher education is not only a national asset; it is a global one. U.S. colleges and universities seek students from all across the world. This is not only good for democracy, it also helps to advance nations to which the U.S. is allied economically or militarily.

Mexico, as one example, is not an enemy of the United States; it is a trade partner. Remember NAFTA? I know it's easy to say: they can go home for college. But why deny these students the chance to earn their place in a class? Students from in-state, out-of-state, even out-of-country, ask for no less.

One of the dumbest things a free society can do is look for people to blame for problems. Blaming less than two-tenths of one percent of the students in a university system for fiscal or education accessibility problems is no less than absurd.

Repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and calls for anti-harassment policies come at a critical time

Today I read that U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips has issued a ruling that has declared the military policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to be unconstitutional.

The ruling was made in a case brought against the federal government by the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization of gay and lesbian members of the GOP and by Servicemembers United, the nation's largest organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans.

The Department of Justice has 60 days to appeal the ruling, though it is under no obligation to do so. It was interesting that a Republican organization sought repeal through the courts while Democrats have sought repeal through Congress, and the Republicans may have achieved greater success.

I've written pieces on Don't Ask, Don't Tell here in support of its repeal. While I am pleased to know of the ruling, I'm also concerned for those members of the military who are considering the question of whether or not to "come out." The military culture has historically taken a long time to address issues of inclusion and non-discrimination.

I was interesting that this ruling has come so recently after the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a gay Rutgers University student. While the published stories mentioned that students knew that Clementi was gay, the Rutgers freshman was also quiet about his sexuality. We've also read that he was afraid to discuss it. I could understand why; he could not expect others, especially those who lived on his floor, to understand.

Since Clementi's death, colleges and university administrations have announced that they will implement anti-harassment policies to protect gay and lesbian students. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I spent a week this summer, was the latest to announce such efforts.

As I thought about Judge Phillip's ruling and the actions planned by the academic community, I recollected an event that happened on the Rutgers camps when I was in school. It was called Blue Jeans Day.

The Gay Alliance on campus asked through the campus paper and other media that gay and lesbian students wear blue jeans to show their pride. I'd read the press release and chose not to wear blue jeans that day. I did not know many people at Rutgers, and I was afraid that there might be misunderstandings.

I have never been and I am still not gay. But I knew what it meant not to be liked. While I've always enjoyed watching and playing sports, I was never very athletic and I also wore conspicuously thick eyeglasses; technology has changed that for a long time since. I had braces on my teeth until my junior year in high school, about two years later than most of my classmates. I did not have many friends; neither boys nor girls want to be around someone so visibly flawed. And sometimes, someone so visibly flawed is considered "gay," "queer," a "fag," and so on.

I entered Rutgers with the braces gone, followed by very few people who had gone to the same high school. I felt free to make my own friends, to date, and I did whenever I could. I learned to take good-natured teasing, too. But I was no less afraid of nasty name-calling than I'd been in grade school and high school.

But on Blue Jeans Day, 1979--this was the fifth such event at Rutgers, the founding site--members of a jock fraternity threw either nails or stones (don't remember which now) at any man wearing blue jeans. I didn't find that particularly funny at the time. I still don't. Such things were thrown at me in middle school, and trust me, they sting.

But now, I wonder, while there may have been good intentions, did the Gay Alliance put students in harm's way?

It's one thing to ask people to feel what they feel in a coached and simulated setting that the Alliance, with the help of trained educators and counselors could control. It's another when you announce an event where you cannot predict or control the behavior of all of the participants. It's almost like a microcosm of The Truman Showwhere you build a world where no one in the population knows they're really actors in a play that could turn out to be a tragedy.

I'm hopeful that colleges and the military will adopt better events and programs than the Blue Jeans Day I witnessed back in college. While Americans have become more accepting of gay and lesbian members in the military and in university communities, our general population is no less homophobic.

School district code of conduct policies sometimes go too far

Yesterday's USA Today had an interesting story on school code of conduct policies. Student-athletes and others involved in extracurricular activities are signing codes of conduct that hold them accountable for their behavior regardless of whether school is in session. At least six New Jersey school districts have such policies and enforce them year-round.

The first question I asked myself was: why?

It is one thing if a student has actually been arrested, charged with a crime, and sentenced in some way, for example, to community service. The school district should aid the court and the student in abiding with the law.

It is one thing when students become unruly when traveling on behalf of their school, for example, to an athletic event or band competition. Then teachers and the principal can make the proper decision and explain it to parents.

But it is another thing when the conduct does not take place on school grounds, is not a crime, and has no impact on student activities. Why should a school district step in and pass judgment, and how can they do it?

The USA Today story referred to a New Jersey case, Bernal-Silva et al v. Borough of Mountain Lakes et al. I read a story about the case, which was settled in February.

In December 2006, Caroline Bernal-Silva, then a student at Mountain Lakes High School was accused of underage drinking, but never charged. She was, however, sitting in the car on a driveway at a house party where underage drinking was taking place. Her parents reported that she had not been drinking. However, the police reported the incident to the Mountain Lakes school board. Caroline was suspended from the basketball team.

In this situation, the police reported an incident, and presumable the names of the students who were present, including Caroline. The high school over-reacted because Caroline had not been charged with a crime. Caroline's father, Michael Bernal-Silva ended up settling with the district for $50,000 rather than having the case go to trial.

School districts that adopt year-round policies become more like the professional sports leagues where code-of-conduct policies are in every standard player's contract.

The pro leagues have these for good reasons--to protect a team's investment as well as to spare them from unnecessary embarrassment. These policies also provide a standard for the league's commissioner to render a decision.

But the commissioner usually waits until there is sufficient evidence to link a player to a criminal incident; he does not suspend him right way. School districts should follow the same reasoning.

Experts weigh in on how Newark schools should spend Facebook fortunes

The New York Times Room for Debate pages have a series of cautionary tales and commentaries on how the Newark schools should spend the $100 million commitment by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. They're all worth reading.

However, I would pay the most attention to the comments of Rudy Crew. Of the panel of experts assembled by the Times, he is the only one who has run a public school system. He has served as the chief educational officer in New York and Miami. He knows what it means to succeed, as well as what it takes to be fired.

Crew's suggestion is that money be used to reduce the intellectual isolation of the best teachers and principals, to give them new tools to teach and train new teachers to succeed in the poorer performing schools. It's certainly a more cost-effective idea than vouchers to send a fraction of the students elsewhere or giving teachers "combat pay."

Can reformers survive from mayor to mayor?

Today I read that Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the Washington D.C. public school system has resigned. The resignation was no surprise; her job was rumored to be endangered when Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his bid for re-election.

During her three and a half years as chancellor, Rhee had done what recent education reformers were expected to do. She closed poor-performing schools, fired under-achieving teachers and central office workers and attempted to implement a merit-based compensation plan. No one doubted that Rhee had the necessary skills and connections to make reforms work, except possibly the teachers and next mayor.

Rhee will no doubt find a new position. There will be ambitious mayors who will appreciate her talents. But Rhee's tenure provides some lessons on what it takes for reform to work. These include:

+ A secure and popular mayor. The mayor's popularity, or unpopularity in the case of Adrian Fenty, extends to his appointees. In a district under mayoral control, such as New York or Washington D.C., this includes the direction of the school system. In addition, a secure mayor does not discourage strong personalities, as long as they are loyal and do not get overly wrapped up in their public relations.

+ Inclusion. Rhee simply blamed the teacher's union for the failures of the students. Yet, by her resignation, she has acknowledged her failure to work with union leadership. A strong executive would have sought for areas of agreement with a union president--the system's failure is everyone's concern--at first. She tried to do too much too soon.

+ Sound economic conditions. It's very difficult to call for reforms such as a longer school year, test-based evaluations, or merit pay at a time when reductions in force will happen anyway. It's better to attempt them when teachers feel more secure or have more options available to them if they want to leave.

+ Consent of the council and or school board. A mayor who aggressively pushes a hand-picked candidate for a job compromises his career, and the candidate's, if the candidate fails. Enemies keep score and pounce on failures quickly. It's quite possible Rhee did not have enough political allies to enable her to keep her job.

I've seen Rhee speak in person only once, but I've read enough about her to know that she is a very strong "my way or the highway" leader. Sometimes such leadership is necessary, and it is very hard to come by in the public sector. But smart leaders look for wins in the early stages while they learn the politics and try to sell a bigger picture. Change does not happen overnight.

Michelle Rhee needed eight years, maybe more, to complete a reform agenda. Sadly, she got less than four. But her tenure provides a good business case for future attempts at reform.

Book Review--Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility by David Walker

Once featured in a segment of 60 Minutes, David Walker could have been regarded as the voice of gloom and doom, a man who had proclaimed that the sky was falling in the nation's capital.

But Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and a CPA, is very well informed and no such man at all. He has, however, led road shows around the country about our government's financial dilemmas, first as a public servant,with the complete knowledge of the President, then later as the chief executive officer of the Peterson Foundation.

Walker, who considers himself to be politically independent, ran the GAO for ten years, through the administrations of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Prior to his appointment, he had served as an assistant secretary of labor during the Reagan Administration. While the director of the GAO is a political appointment, the executive selected is authorized to operate independent of politics. His staff analyzes the long term fiscal impacts of legislation on not only the national debt, but also obligations of the federal government.

According to Walker, sixty percent of the federal budget is already locked into three programs: Social Security retirement and disability income, Medicare and Medicaid (which are the current health care programs). Congress has discretion over the rest of the budget, though approximately half of that amount goes to defense. Other obligations include veteran's benefits, government employee pensions, and retiring the national debt.

Walker's primary concerns are that taxes are actually too low, but so are savings rates, while future obligations are becoming too costly to meet. He explains, for example, the "IOU lock box" for Social Security, and that it is not an obligation to fund it. However, he does believe the government will meet the obligation.

Walker proposes several policy prescriptions, some such as a consumption tax and value-added taxes to replace the income tax, are probably unrealistic, but others such as a "Health Care Fed" to manage health care costs and allocations, tighter financial planning for defense and the entitlement programs, higher retirement ages and savings plan deductions deserve consideration.

Walker believes that the Bush tax cuts should be repealed but that the estate tax exemption should be gradually raised, as opposed to be completely eliminated. He adds that the country should not go into undeclared wars or go to war without an exit strategy. The fiscal problems created by the second Bush Administration were created, he says,in part due to the funding of the war in Iraq through emergency and supplemental appropriations. In effect, the president wanted a blank check to go to war.

Walker left the GAO prior to President Obama taking office. He does not believe that the Obama health care plan will provide the cost savings that have been claimed (in excess of $600 million), and that more savings will be needed. He does not fault the White House for the stimulus package, but felt that too much was allocated towards tax cuts and not job creation. And he opposed the bailouts of the automobile companies. He does, however, support Obama's efforts to form a bi-partisan commission to address the federal deficit, now exceeding $1.6 trillion.

I don't know how many people listened to David Walker, but he had the ear of three presidents. He broke through the initial cloud of secrecy in the Cheney Energy Task Force. He earned the respect of elected leaders of all ideologies. And he has zeroed in on specifics, problems that can actually be solved in a bi-partisan way, if Congress were willing.

David Walker served our country as a bureaucrat. But he saw where all the money went and he is in a position to bring that to the country's attention. He's written a book worth the time for anyone who is seriously interested in public policy. It may lead to many arguments, but at least they stand a chance of being constructive.

Book Review--Proud to Be Right: Voices of the Next Conservative Generation edited by Jonah Goldberg

I never met a true right-wing conservative until I had one for an apartment roommate during my senior year in college. Never did I hear more impassioned calls for an increased defense budget--ratcheting up our weaponry to beat the Soviets was the priority in 1980--or such strong support for tax cuts. But I gave the man credit, he followed through on his views and took an internship with Jack Kemp, then a member of Congress, later the author of the Kemp-Roth Act, which gave us the Reagan tax cuts.

I've been out of college for nearly three decades and I know quite a few more conservatives now. For the most part, they has less time to be politically active, but they still believe in limited government, self-reliance and freedom for the individual. I don't have as much time to argue with them, though I've come to accept the thought that government cannot solve every single problem. In fact, two of the strongest public-private service partnerships, Teach for America and City Year, were started while conservative Republicans held the White House.

Back when I was in college, people like my roommate were considered odd on-campus. They were almost a radical minority, as opposed to the mainstream. This past weekend I read Proud to Be Right, and I see that conservatives are still part of a campus counterculture. This is in the face of the growing popularity of conservative talk show hosts, the Tea Party, and Sarah Palin.

Proud to Be Right is a collection of essays by twenty and thirty-somethings who analyze and/or represent the future of the conservative movement. None of the authors is a sitting politician, though one ran a losing campaign for Congress in a heavily Democratic district in New York.

What several authors have in common is that they attended college at a time when conservatism was not the "norm" on campus. They were less liberal than their teachers, and sometimes they were downgraded for their views. Other times they faced hateful sarcasm, even hostility, from their classmates. Three graduated from schools with a more fundamentalist perspective such as Biola or Kings (NY) and found that they were not taken seriously.

In short, these authors were as much campus radicals as the liberals who protested during the Sixties and Seventies. They were no less articulate and they faced similar reactions of negativism or silence. They showed that while Millenials--those ages ten to twenty eight--are perceived to have a greater commitment to public service than past generations, they are not necessary liberal or even "progressively moderate." Some are apolitical or even conservative.

While I did not agree with most of the policy viewpoints, I found myself respecting these writers. They had stuck to their knitting. They reminded me that the best campus setting is one where both sides get a fair hearing and leave it up to individuals to make up their own minds.

Conservative male senators should lift hold on women's museum

About a year ago the U.S. House of Representatives passed the National Women's History Museum Act. Sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D. NY) along with 51 co-sponsors, forty seven of them being Democrats, the Act authorizes the General Services Administration to sell a parcel of land on the National Mall to a privately run organization for the establishment of a National Women's History Museum. The organization has sought no subsidy, and they have offered to pay fair market value for the land.

Yet Senators Tom Coburn (R. Ok) and Jim DeMint (R. SC) have placed a hold on the Senate's version of the legislation. The hold prevents the Senate from passing the bill by unanimous consent--the House version was passed by a voice vote--and makes the bill vulnerable to a filibuster.

A conservative group, Concerned Women for America, contacted DeMint and asked for the hold, fearing that the new museum would exhibit bias towards the pro-choice view on abortion. The senators might have asked for it anyway; they believe that the museum is redundent--other museums have women's history exhibits--and that they may one day ask for a subsidy they should not receive. The museum board plans to apply for an affiliation with the Smithsonian to borrow artifacts and collections, so that may add reason for their concern.

I haven't seen the 2010 Census, but I would imagine that it would show that women represent slightly more than half of the population. And, having seen a center-right Democratic woman and a conservative Republican woman seek high office over the past two years, it is easy to see that women have not taken a single viewpoint on a variety of issues. As one example, Susan B. Anthony, an abolitionist who led the fight for women's suffrage, has been considered to be pro-life.

I cannot believe that a museum organized around the emergence of a majority of the population would ignore such a broad spectrum of viewpoints; its board would want exhibits to be perceived as historically accurate, and they want to sell tickets. I doubt that any exhibit on a divisive issue would ignore both sides. The museum has already run several online exhibits, none of which has been considered biased. Museums consult scholars, not politicians, when they develop new exhibits.

This is an example where two champions of conservatism have gone too far. If the museum ever elected a new board that asked for a subsidy, these senators, if still in office, can always vote no. If they object to a future exhibit in the name of a constituent group, they could always arrange a meeting. The hold is merely an example of political theater at its finest.

Book Review--Freedom Summer: The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy by Bruce Watson

Imagine that you're a college student who is about to consider a once-in-a-lifetime summer job, an opportunity to make a difference. You won't get paid; in fact, you'll need to have at least $500 bail money, in case you're thrown in jail.

That's the way it was for nearly 700 college students who descended upon Mississippi in 1964 to run informally organized schools and register black citizens to vote. Initially trained in Ohio, these students were trained as teachers or canvassers. They were warned that they would not be welcome. They were also advised not to over-fraternize. Their leadership asked President Lyndon Johnson for protection, but they did not receive it. But these men and women, the Freedom Riders, came anyway.

Bruce Watson's book is a fascinating account of youth leadership, a murder that captured the attention of the country, behind the scenes politics, an FBI investigation and the beginning of the end of the solid Democratic south. While Mississippi was, and still is, nearly 40 percent black, no state worked harder to disenfranchise them.

But, late in the summer of 1964, some Freedom Riders became Freedom Democrats, and tried to get black delegates seated at the Democratic convention in Atlantic City. A compromise, two seats, was not accepted.

Two of the 700 volunteers, Harold Ickes, Jr. and Barney Frank later entered politics. Ickes served as deputy chief of staff to former president Bill Clinton. He later ran Hillary Rodham Clinton's run for the White House. Frank has served Massachusetts in Congress for thirty years. One of the more liberal members of the House, he chairs the Financial Services committee. But another volunteer, Dennis Sweeney, murdered Congressman Allard Lowenstein in his Manhattan office.

Any student with strong ideals should read this book. It is a story of many people who paid heavily for keeping to their ideals within a hostile setting. Sadly, it was within their own country.

Carl Paladino is no Chris Christie.

Today I'm listening to the interview between Matt Lauer and Carl Paladino, Republican candidate for governor of New York. The interview addresses Paladino's past comments about homosexuality and the Gay Pride parade that he made before an Orthodox Jewish group. You should listen, too.

Paladino, the Tea Party candidate, has consistently put his foot in his mouth since he upset former Congressman Rick Lazio to win the nomination of his party. Actually, it was more than an upset; he won by 26 points. That's a spanking against the Republican establishment in New York, a state where the mayor of the largest city has switched his affiliation from Republican to independent.

Paladino's colorful nature follows on the heels of New Jersey's governor Chris Christie who has become a Republican Ralph Cramden. But the difference is that Christie won election on a track record of public service. Christie also found it unnecessary to alienate or be perceived as alienating people of specific religious beliefs or the gay community in his state (though he has mentioned that he is opposed to gay marriage).

I live in New Jersey and I did not vote for Chris Christie. I have also shown my disagreements with several of his proposals on these pages. I have also disliked his flippancy.

But one cannot deny the man's political skills--he is becoming increasingly popular in a state where his party controls neither house of the state legislature--or his commitment to cost-cutting and protecting his state from future debts. I actually agree with his stance on the New York City tunnel project. New Jersey bore a disproportionate share of the costs. In addition, I have always believed that Christie was more than qualified to run for governor.

I cannot say the same about Carl Paladino. This man has all the sizzle of a Chris Christie, but none of the meat. He has no plan to govern; at least New Jersey residents had some idea of what they were going to get with the Republican nominee

I hope that New Yorkers realize that serious times call for a more serious man. Democrat Andrew Cuomo will likely govern more like a Republican than past Democrats and be fiscally conservative. But no one, especially Carl Paladino, comes close to Cuomo's record of service to New York.

Senator Lautenberg's university code of conduct bill may be premature

Today I'm reading that U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D. NJ) has introduced a bill that would require universities to implement a code of conduct and establish anti-harassment policies in order for them to receive federal financial assistance. The bill also provides for funding to universities to establish anti-harassment programs.

This bill comes on the wake of the death of Tyler Clementi, a gay Rutgers university student who committed suicide soon after he learned that a sexual encounter he had had with another student was taped and broadcast over the Internet. The death is nothing less than a tragedy and it has mobilized the Rutgers community as well as other university communities across the country.

But Senator Lautenberg's bill may be too much too soon. For one thing, the investigation into the cause of Mr. Clementi's death has not concluded. For another, it is necessary to consider how any and all forms of harassment fall under federal laws.

Harassment is a crime that is tried by anything from college judicial boards to local and state courts. Obviously, everyone wants to protect the students, and schools will go to great measures to do that on their own. Rutgers, for example, has its own Civility Week, a initiative of the university administration.

I realize that the Senator's bill will be popular in New Jersey and on many college campuses across the country, but there is a question that must also be answered: is cyberbullying, as in the case of Tyler Clementi, a state or a federal crime?

Students put a camera in Clementi's room; he didn't know about it. That's a violation of his privacy. They may have also invaded his personal space. The resident assistant who could not assist Clementi may have been inadequately trained to help him. States already have privacy laws. Schools already have property laws. Schools also have policies and can better train counselors to enforce them.

However, posting the video online for all to see, versus a secure university setting, deals with interstate commerce. Which is where federal law kicks in. There have been legal precedents to address cyberbullying, but it is unclear whether it is a federal crime.

Last year,Rep. Linda Sanchez (D. Ca) introduced the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, which would make cyberbullying a federal crime. Her bill, according to THOMAS, the Congressional information system would amend the federal criminal code to impose criminal penalties on anyone who transmits in interstate or foreign commerce a communication intended to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to another person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior.

But, also according to THOMAS, that bill has not gotten out of committee. It should be passed. Federal funds can then be used to help schools prevent incidents of a federal crime. That would be a more practical solution than to impose another set of regulations upon a university. In incidents of cyberbullying, non-university authorities must be involved.

A genius behind Sesame Street will live on

Today I'm reading that Dr. Gerald Lesser, a Harvard psychologist and adviser to Sesame Street, has died at the age of 84. He was a consultant to the show for twenty seven years.

Dr. Lesser was the brains behind the show meaning that he advised the creative team on how pre-school children learned and how television captured their attention. The original efforts were to teach the alphabet and how to count to ten. This helped prepare children for kindergarten.

I've followed education long enough to know that there are teaching methods that are tried and true, while others are fads that come and go. A program that has run for four decades certainly belongs in the tried and true group. That's an enviable run for any television production, even a soap opera

Sesame Street has had the unique advantages of entertainment and characters that have had commercial appeal off-camera. Barney has nothing on Big Bird and the rest of the Sesame Street cast.

Dr. Lesser had been gone from the show for 14 years when he passed away yesterday. But children around the world will see his genius every day.

Movie Review--The Social Network

Sunday afternoon I passed on the Jets game to see The Social Network. I figured they'd have an easy win over the Bills, and I wanted to see the movie. Luckily I was right about the easy win.

I worked in the dot-com world for ten years and have some familiarity with college-focused social networking sites. The history of Internet business is littered with the names of brands such as TheGlobe, Tripod, SixDegrees, TheSquare and many more that failed to do what Facebook accomplished; bring college students together in a place where they can check up on their friends. I'm not surprised that Facebook has a valuation in the billions; these failed firms had multi-million dollar valuations, too.

Written by Aaron Sorkin, best known for The West Wing, and based on a very controversial book, Accidental Billionaires by business writer Ben Mesrich, The Social Network is about the early history of Facebook on the Harvard campus.

Mark Zuckerberg is a social misfit and conceited computer programmer determined to prove that he is something extraordinarily special in a place where everyone is special. The movie continually plays around with the irony that the young man who has developed the most successful social network site ever is exceptionally anti-social. He hurts a woman who has dumped him by posting a nasty message online and he dilutes the equity of his best friend from thirty precent to three-tenths of one percent, even though said friend has provided all of the initial working capital.

After crashing the Harvard computer network, Zuckerberg is co-opted by two twin brothers from a wealthy family background who want him to develop a site called Harvard Connection. He agrees to do it, takes their code, throws it away, writes his own and launches his own site.

The actors who play the brothers are shown to be preppie buffoons; they are reluctant to sue Zuckerberg at first, but try to corner him on campus and by e-mail without physically threatening him. I found that amazing. If I were them I would have called the lawyer without hesitation. The brothers also get a meeting with Harvard president Lawrence Summers--you might remember his comments about women in the sciences that got him fired--that is hilarious. The president essentially acts as if the meeting was put into the schedule as a practical joke.

Another thing I found odd was that the movie shows that Zuckerberg was extremely opposed to working with advertisers who could help to monetize Facebook when that was the major source of revenue for every social networking site that had come before it. Instead, he preferred to go to venture capital firms that offered angel money for equity, and would eventually direct Facebook to monetize by working with advertisers.

I found myself liking the fictional Zuckerberg less and less as I watched the movie. I found him to be a rude and spoiled know-it-all--he was as much a preppie as any Harvard student from a well-to-do family--who was happier around a computer than he was around people. I also liked the movie Sean Parker, played by Justin Timberlake, less and less. But maybe that was the point. A fifty year old adult is not supposed to like these characters; they're young, spoiled and arrogant.

But the difference between The Social Network and pictures like Wall Street is that the subject is a real company that is publicly traded. It is about a real, and extremely immature, chief executive, too. I don't know how much this movie will affect Facebook's valuation, but it might get privacy advocates to hate the company's chief executive even more than they do now.

This movie comes on the heels of Zuckerberg's recent commitment of $100 million over five years to the Newark public schools. However, unlike most philanthropists, Zuckerberg is taking a "hands-off" approach with the money. He is not trying to impose his own views about education and use them to set conditions on how his contribution is to be used. But, after seeing The Social Network, I wonder how hands-off Zuckerberg will be in the long term.

NYU students first to get into enhanced Linked In--but everyone else can, too

Today I'm at NYU, my most recent alma mater, to learn about Linked In's new student-focused career tool called Career Explorer. NYU is the roll-out site; the company will conduct events at more than a dozen other universities across the country.

Career Explorer is not a job board, rather it is a tool that shows job seekers the typical career paths that they can take from the entry level position through advanced level jobs. It's a visually powerful tool that will leave an impression on younger job seekers.

Career Explorer is an exceptionally useful tool for students who want to know how the position they start in could evolve into a rewarding career. It uses a simple navigation bar to help display the path. It can evolve into a tool for career changers as content becomes richer, beyond what students can already get from other sites (for instance Salary.com)or from their career counselors at school. If nothing else, this tool will make it less expensive for counselors to inform students.

Linked In was right to launch this tool at a large university in a major job market and a major media market where there are all sorts of education interests to accommodate. This will help their design team refine the content and adjust to students who are not so typical, such as adult learners. To the credit of Linked In and their co-sponsor, Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), the visual impact of the launch was no less than a splash.

In addition to launching the beta, students and guests were treated to a panel that included the chief executives of Linked In and PWC as well as s senior vice president of Teach for America, which hires more college graduates than any other U.S. employer. The panel may have been the draw for an audience, but the wisdom of this program was in Linked In.

Career Explorer is the tool that will expand Linked In into the "resume for life," or "credential for life" arena. The challenge for the company is to collect quality profiles, as in the case of other sites, and encourage younger job seekers to build and maintain their job search networks earlier. The time between school life and work life gets shorter and shorter as college internship, co-op and public service programs become more expansive and more sophisticated.

The challenge is to get buy-in from the schools and to educate more counselors on social media as well as advances in the Internet job search. Linked In, in particular, is a site designed to encourage job seekers to stick around; it's more like Facebook than a job board.

While NYU was the launch site, Career Explorer is available in beta to anyone who has a Linked In profile. If your son or daughter is in college and has some sense of what they'd like to do after they complete their education, tell them to open a Linked In account as soon as possible. It's one of the most economical ways, besides college resources, to get networked and get noticed.