Fight for 15 in Buffalo: Wage Board Show My Kids Democracy Works!

As you recall, we attended the Fight for 15 rally a view weeks ago.  Today we attended the a public hearing of the Wage Board and then sat through almost the entire hearing.

The goal is to get fast food workers up to $15 and hour.  We came to show support for the workers for many reasons.  Selfishly, it is unlikely security guards can continue to make very low wages if fast food workers get a sizable raise.  We are fortunate to have other sources of income including rising rent in our upstairs apartment (thank you Mayor Brown for helping Buffalo's major comeback) so we also feel that rising wages means even more rent and better tenants since more people will be able to be good tenants.  These are the selfish reasons.  We also feel it is a justice issue and want to demonstrate to our children through these real struggles what capitalism and democracy is (or often isn't about).

First off, I am proud of our own local leaders for showing support.  Our state Senator Tim Kennedy attended the kick off.  Sorry he is in between the head and sign in the middle of the photo because I couldn't get a good picture from where I was.

 Our Assembly person Sean Ryan was also there (in the suit speaking):

Of course, Mayor Brown is on the Board:

I was very impressed with his questions, and those of the other members, of the speakers.  It gave us great hope that the actions of the workers will be successful.

I am also very proud to be an Episcopalian.  At the last event our Rev. Mebane from St. Paul's Cathedral attended.  This time Mother Brauza from St. Andrews attended as well as a priest from Rochester.

When the kids and I spoke afterwards, I started into some detail about the supporting information presented by some of the community groups and academics, but it occurred to me that the lesson is even more basic.  Most of the people who spoke were workers or supporters!  Two people spoke from the business community, one person from Washington and one from the Buffalo Niagara Partnership (a regional chamber of commerce sort of group).  The only other person representing business was a small business owner from Rochester who was not opposed to higher wages, but wanted a slower phase in and some acknowledgement that higher prices would result.  Based on his tone when describing how competitive the industry is, I got the feeling that he understood that part of the reason running a restaurant is hard is because of big corporations and didn't seem to be entirely blaming workers.  I felt for him because big corporations cause him issues too, but in a different way.  Outside of these three people, EVERYONE else who spoke were the workers themselves or supportive groups from labor, the community, the clergy, or academia.  This is 3 people versus a vast number.  If business is going to suffer dramatically, why didn't they turn out?

The lesson regarding capitalism and democracy for my kids, therefore, is very simple: the interests of the many versus the few.  Will the majority rule?  It should in terms of the basics of democracy.  It should morally, as paying workers fairly and letting the chips fall is justice.  It is also justice that the public should not be subsidizing corporations by providing Medicaid and Foodstamps to workers who work hard, but still are in poverty.  Economically, it only makes sense as the most compelling evidence is that workers will drive the economy by spending their increase.  This isn't to mention the indirect affects of less stress on the health of the workers and education of their children.  It was mentioned that in Denmark fast food workers earn almost $20 and hour and the prices average only 10 to 15 cents more on items.  It is unlikely that it will affect fast food demand and to the minor extent that it does, health in the community should increase (I think demand will actually go up as the workers will be able to afford eating out more).

Mayor Brown and the Wage Board, I am impressed with your work so far, but I am now challenging you to show my kids, Thomas and Carmella, that democracy in our country is a reality.  Show them that the majority rules not the big money.  Show them that those in power care about justice as much as they do.

Fight for 15 in Buffalo: A Real Lesson in Economics and Social Justice

This morning we went to a Fight for 15 labor rally. Despite the dirty looks from onlookers (not those participating) and whispering that it was no place for kids, we brought the kids because it we want them to understand the real economic power structure. Before the financial crisis, many were lulled into the belief that there is economic justice simply because there appeared to be a path to a better life through education. Recently, it appears to be debunked. With failing schools, the high cost of college, student loans that can't be discharged in even the most dire circumstances and the fact that many people with degrees are working in low wage jobs, it is harder and harder to believe in fairness and the American Dream. (I am sorry for the picture, but with my fibro bad, I had trouble being steady enough to take one of the kids walking.  The only good one was Tom holding the sign.)

The rally was very educational. First off, several religious leaders, including St. Paul's Cathedral's Rev. Mebane, spoke about what the Bible says regarding workers. None of it was a surprise to me, but it doesn't jive with our media's constant portrayal that religious people are and should be aligned with those who make a big deal of supporting the “free market”.  No one in the media mentions that corporations are the beneficiaries of regulation. Even the ones that don't benefit from many regulations benefit from the limited liability corporate law affords them. What about property rights? Don't they confer certain advantages? Yes, many people own property, but anyone who plays monopoly knows that it is easier to acquire more cash and property if you already have more. Hunter-gathers were the original state of things and any property ownership means the exclusion of some from the land and all the related benefits. The Bible takes these fairness issues into account and makes a point of dictating how and when workers should be paid.

Other speakers juxtaposed the volume of profits against the amounts the state has had to spend on the workers who, via their low income, are often eligible for Medicaid, Food Stamps, and HEAP despite working full-time. Who is really being subsidized, the workers or the companies who have a substantial amount of the compensation of their workers covered by the government. Is this fair to companies that pay a living wage without needing their workers to access the social safety net? Often these are smaller corporations, medium size businesses whose workers are more skilled. Why should the largest corporations benefit and not small and medium sized companies?

There were indirect lessons too. Many of the workers talked about not being able to afford a car. To me cars are luxury items, but they are necessities if workers are released from work so late that there is no bus, a more affordable alternative. Walking in the daytime is not a big deal, but in the middle of the night, many workers say they are afraid. Ironically, for the rally today, there were many police officers watching us. About half were chatting and acting like they were only there just in case, but the rest appeared to be watching us with displeasure in almost an intimidating way. Where are all these police officers in the middle of the night when people need to walk home from work?! It was a good opportunity to talk to Thomas and Carmella about the power structures. Do the wealthy corporations directly send the police the day of the rally? Of course not, but aren't the laws and police procedures slanted in their favor and against the gatherings of peaceful people. Why are their procedures and practices to assume there will be violence or damage? Is it inherently understood that there is real unfairness and the expectation is that workers will level the playing field through any means? There are no absolute answers here, but certainly the rally was a great real world occasion for us to explore these issues.

What is the alternative to taking the kids to such a rally? Economics class that covers micro issues and history textbooks blessed by the state of Texas that glorify everything about our country as if it were ordained by the divine. I went to excellent catholic schools that did a great job of covering some social justice issues such as drugs and prisons, but never comprehensively covered the economic system from all angles (I mean ALL angles rather than capitalism versus capitalism on steroids). In my adult life, I have spent some time seeking out alternative voices in economics and education. I highly recommend listening to online lectures by Richard Wolff, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Morris Berman, John TaylorGatto, Alfie Kohn, and John Holt. Although one difficulty is that often those most likely to fight for living wages, think highly of compulsory education. Few people see the tie in to the origins of schooling and the desire of such by the large corporate interests to create good employees and get people used to doing what they are told.  This likely includes susceptibility to advertising. They also had to quash the independent spirit of small farmers and business who, may not have had much, but had livelihoods free from the the constraints of employment. Now, living independent of large corporations via self-employment or consumption is extremely difficult due to the pricing out of smaller businesses. One example: my great-aunt felt like she had to buy her microwave at Walmart because it was the only place she could get a good price. I suspect it was the only place she could afford.

Anyway, the benefits of homeschooling are these opportunities to explore alternative views and take on a different worldview from limited one promulgated by the corporate media and the school system.

A Modest Counter-Proposal to Public Boarding Schools in Buffalo

This recent news article caught my attention regarding possible public boarding schools coming to Buffalo.  I have a better proposal which would include some infrastructure projects perfect for getting construction workers back to work from the housing crisis!

Clearly, boarding school is being proposed to maximize learning time for students, but the high recurring price tag as well as the increased liability exposure makes it seem unfeasible to me.  But how can they become productive citizens if they are not in a productive environment at all times? What about holding parents accountable too?  Wouldn't a boarding school let them off the hook?  The answer is to make their current environments superior learning environments.  School hours should be extended too from the 6-7 hours it currently is to 10-12 hours not counting school bus time.

Lengthening the school day isn't enough, of course.  Instructional time in school should be tightened up also.  While lunches have been cut down to a minimum, physical education has succumbed to budget cuts, and recess has been reduced, much more can be done so that every minute of the school day is productive.  Obviously, recess has to go completely.  Lunch should be made over into stadium seating with a small table for each chair so students can watch a lecture whether live or on-screen.  This time should be cut from the now twenty minutes down to eight minutes as such time will obviously be less productive than class time due to not being able to also take notes or write exams while eating.  Don't forget that a small hand sanitizer dispenser will be at each place to avoid the time spent washing hands before lunch.

The change in the structure of the auditorium for this new lunch shouldn't be the end of the construction, buses will be outfitted differently too.  Transportation time is a waste currently since students can't listen to the teacher or complete exams.  Bus seating shall be converted to cubicles.  The cubicles should be ergonomically laid out to make work productive including a comfortable harness seat so that students can be strapped in well but with their arms free to take notes on a video lecture and read textbooks.  The rest of their bodies shall not be permitted to move so as to avoid injuries in accidents or distractions to other students.  This additional learning time on the bus, approximately 17 otherwise wasted minutes, is so critical that parents will not be permitted to opt out to transport their own child (this will give an environmental boost too getting all those pesky SUVs off the road during rush hour).  For students who cannot handle reading and writing while in motion, bus aides will provide fast acting nausea medication upon entry onto the bus.  Presumably the district will be able to leverage a volume discount from the drug companies.

I wouldn't stop the make over with lunch and transportation, but bathroom time can be made over too.  Urinals will need to be removed from schools so that all students will use stalls.  In the stalls, there will be desks so they can bring their study books with them and a screen so that they don't miss a word of what their teacher is saying.  This will work fine until it comes time to wipe, so I propose toilet/bidet combinations where students will be cleaned with a high intensity disinfecting jet and power dried in the same manner as the intense hand dryers.  Since no wiping of dirty crotches/rears will occur, hand washing will not be necessary and students can very quickly return to class. 

What about after school?  Isn't the home learning environment lacking?  Shouldn't the time between school and bed time be productive?   The time should be filled with homework and the sorts of activities upon which colleges look favorably.  What about the time required for cooking, grooming, or chores?  Students will no long be permitted to do these things as they detract from productive homework time.  They can learn nothing from cooking except how to be a low wage restaurant worker, so parents shall cook for their students so they do not leave the school books.  Students will not need to do much cleaning as they will have no time to make a mess and parents will do the remainder.  Grooming will be a hybrid effort only because it would be expensive to waterproof school books and have parents bathe their children while they do homework.  The infrastructure project will provide funding so that household bathrooms with school age children will have the school style toilet stalls as well as waterproof audio visual equipment so that even shower time may be productive listening to a prerecorded lecture available online from the teacher.  Other than shower time, students will not groom but do homework and parents will comb their hair, brush their teeth, etc.  You ask if this will work when the students are teenagers and I say that they are children until age 18 so Mom (and Dad) can still groom them.  Despite the fact that students are at school the majority of their waking hours, parents are ultimately responsible for their children's learning and can be accountable for these tasks.

I hope parents and taxpayers agree that this is in the best interest of the district fiscally.  A boarding school would expand yearly general fund expenses into the future while an infrastructure project approach would provide new long term assets for the dollars spent which can be financed at the very favorable rates available nowadays to local governmental entities.  The amounts spent on debt service can be offset by new fines on parents.  Since parents will need to do their part as described above, they will be fined when students perform poorly on tests.  Parents will care when it hits them in the pocketbook.  When they can't pay, the debt should accrue in the same manner as student loans with no opportunity for discharge in bankruptcy.  Good parents can take comfort in knowing that bad parents are burdened by more of the cost.  I hope you see that this very meritocratic and long-term investment approach is far better than boarding schools!

Not in Buffalo: Looking Globalization in the Face

After our great experience last year with my friend in a different part of Guatemala, we decided to go to Antigua to explore more Mayan culture and, of course, some Spanish colonial history.  Aside from the rich educational experience, our second reason for the trip was affordability.  Try going to a vacation spot in the U.S. for the same amount for the same amount of time.  I haven't done too much research, but it seems impossible.  As it is, we can afford a vacation due to being carless.

With my fibromyalgia, my regular days are several hours to get through the stiffness to get going, taking care of my fibro by swimming and stretching, cooking lunch and dinner together so I only need to cook once and simply microwave dinner plates in the evening, take the kids to activities on the bus, and hit the couch immediately upon coming home.  When I go to the bathroom, I move a load of laundry, but most often rely on Tom and the kids to put it away.  I rely on Tom and the kids to clean outside of the kitchen and cooking related tasks.  That is my life most days.  It is fine for me, but leaves little energy for other things including writing these posts.

Of course, in Guatemala, the cleaning comes with the place and it costs very little to pay the person to cook a meal (lunch and dinner together :o) like at home).  This frees up my energy for more posts and more educational site-seeing.  While it is still slow travel, doing only one or two activities a day most days, I can manage them much better.

However, when discussing this recently a relative sort of sneered, particularly when I mentioned that I knew several people who were able to be home with their kids with house help when they were small and they could stretch their various small but remote incomes (some online work, some child support, some investment income) in cheaper countries like Guatemala.  The person who sneered, along with many other Americans, shops at Walmart (they are all pretty bad, but Walmart is the worst given its level of profits) and many other large stores who take advantage of even cheaper overseas labor than house help in Guatemala.  No one in the United States can escape it.  Even L.L.Bean makes items overseas (although at least they take responsibility for their products more than other stores).  Most Americans are taking advantage of cheap labor, mostly because there isn't a choice.  Globalization cannot be fought on the individual level.  I have researched trying to and it can be done on small fronts, but not large.  The people with the power, who control the government, need to address it.

Regardless, the hypocrisy is infuriating.  When you hire house help, you can make a point to pay the higher end of the wage range for the area and position. You can be generally aware of the prices they need to pay for items for themselves. You can make sure they eat some of the meals they make for you.  You can be flexible about their work hours to take care of family commitments.  You can recommend them for further positions if they like.  You get the idea.  When you shop in the U.S. for items, most of which are made overseas, you have no idea how the people are treated and because you don't see them you don't even have to think about them or about globalization.

Hopefully, my kids will think about it and understand it as they progress through their lives.  They are experiencing differences in prices and wealth first hand in Guatemala.  They look our part-time housekeeper in the face and and have to face it in a more real way.  I am not sure most adults have such a perspective on globalization and our economic system.  Schools certainly don't teach it well.  This is mainly because they don't teach economics well.  Noam Chomsky frequently says "Adam Smith who you are supposed to worship, but not read".  Schools have spun the economic message far away from the classical texts.  I can't help but think this is on purpose.  While I love teachers and they are very knowledgeable, few have a grasp of macroeconomics.  It doesn't appear to be taught in teaching colleges.  When it is covered it is covered in a separate course rather than holistically interwoven throughout history.  History is kept separate focusing on names, places, and dates.  Even in a college macroeconomic course, more emphasis is on mathematical models than broad conceptual differences which, sometimes, can't be quantified easily.

Only time will tell if the concepts are sinking in with the kids, but I would like to think that living it for a month will give them a perspective.

Not in Buffalo: I think we've covered the Mayans!

After our great experience last year with my friend in a different part of Guatemala, we decided to go to Antigua to explore more Mayan culture and, of course, some Spanish colonial history.  After loads of church ruins and museums, we decided that we better hit some major Mayan ruins in case we are unable to come back to Guatemala.  Most people think of Tikal.  We thought about going there, but Copan is quite a significant site and closer to Antigua, not to mention being able to visit Honduras.

It was a great experience.  I will post many photos at the bottom of this post because I think it speaks louder than my descriptions.  First of all, there is nothing like being in a place like an Antigua for a month.  To me, this is the minimum amount of time needed to pretend to live in a place and get a real feel and familiarity for it as well as see the sites slow and steady without wearing out.  Secondly, it was fascinating traveling to Copan, only 5 hours away, but different.  The tipicas comidas were similar sorts of foods, beans, corn tortillas, queso, avocado, but they were prepared and tasted different than their Guatemalan counterparts.  Also, the weather was more humid, including an hour and a half of rain in the evening, something rarely seen in the dry season of the popular parts of Guatemala.  The border crossing experience was quite interesting too.  Despite the agreement between Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, you need to formally leave one country before entering another.  This is quite different than going to Canada from Buffalo, where you don't talk to any immigration officials until you are on the other side talking to a Canadian official.

We kept telling the kids how lucky they were to see all of it firsthand rather than simply reading about Mayans in a library book, or worse, a textbook.  Hopefully, they understand that most kids don't get to go to Copan or any other site.  For some it is money (outside of airfare, there are cheap ways to travel central america like a backpacker, also expensive luxury accommodations with many options in between) or time, but for others it is fear.  Regardless, nothing beats this most authentic way to cover the Mayans so well and to get a sense of native peoples generally.

Many things were interesting, but see for yourself:

Public Transportation Curriculum

When we are out and about late afternoon, it is difficult to fight the sinking feeling when I see the all too familiar yellow buses.  A little bit of the feeling is the resource intensiveness of the super security to go a short distance versus the relatively low economic resource levels of children in our city.  More of it, however, is the knowledge that those children, as well as those in the bubbles of their parents' vehicles, are missing the tremendous number of educational opportunities on the NFTA buses and metro rail.  Indeed, all cities with relatively significant public transportation systems have unique systems and environments for learning.

Some of it is what you expect, geography and timing, but much more of it is character and socialization.  Kids in cars have no real responsibility for their own transportation.  They can't because they can't drive.  Besides putting their seat belt on without being asked and not distracting mom and dad, there's nothing.  Students on yellow buses can make sure to be at the stop on time and behave, but nothing else.  My kids have to carry their own bus passes, get them out at the right time, not lose them, make sure they scan, pull for the stop at the right time, etc.  These are not tremendously difficult things to do, but they need to do the same things adults do in order to ride.  They get real responsibilities sooner.

There are many rewarding social encounters.  Often, someone sees us and alerts me to a good place to take kids or some event for them nearby that I hadn't heard about.  Sometimes they witness kind adults and teenagers giving up their front seats for elderly or disabled people.  This is something they are starting to do.  One time, my son chatted with a man who was impressed with a story he told and encouraged him to write a book.

There are also social encounters that just don't happen in other environments since there are so few other opportunities to be in close quarters with strangers.  Many are great learning opportunities.  We witnessed two men heckling a woman over her hat one day and the incident had many components including: how to behave in public, freedom of religious expression, the lack of correlation between religious beliefs and proper behavior sometimes, as well as the idea that sometimes even the truth need not be stated.  We discussed these things the best we could given their complexity and their current ages.  Another time, we met someone on the bus who clearly had a hard life and was facing several hardships.  The kids kept pointing out several ways she and I were similar.  When I talked to them later, I tried to make them understand that often the only difference between someone who is doing okay and someone facing hardships are a few wrong turns, some of which may be outside of their control.  I hope they are learning empathy and compassion.

The more of these encounters and experiences we have, the more I believe that the decline of public transportation is one of many reasons that individualism and materialism seem to be so high in our culture.  There is no longer a sense that we are all more similar than than we are different or that we are all in it together.  It is easier to see others as "other" or even less than human when you don't have to get close to them.  People can more easily be in bubbles: in cars driving from their homogenous town past those "other" kinds of people in those "other" neighborhoods.

Hopefully, I am countering some of this bubble culture with my kids.  Only time will tell if riding around on the bus is the answer to responsibility and character building.

Really Covering Citizenship - School Board Election Time

Tonight we attended a session with the candidates for the Buffalo Board of Education at the Merriweather branch library.  First of all, for those of you not from the state of New York, yes, school board elections are in May, not in November with the other elections.  It does encourage a lack of broad representation in the sense that those that make a special effort to turn out in May usually have some vested interest of some sort, for better or for worse.  Anyway, there were a couple of things that struck me about the evening.

The first was that I was covering citizenship much better compared to the parents (and teachers) of school students.  Out of about 30,000 students in the district, there were perhaps 10 from what I could see, presumably school kids, in the audience.  Where were the students?  Surely they have vested interest in what happens.  I can only guess that some kids, the trouble makers who were alluded to regarding suspensions, don't care and the "good students" are too busy doing homework, going to activities, and going to bed early.  Either way, it is clear to me that homeschooling, with its lack of homework, lack of suspensions and relative lack of need for a bed time permits more engagement in the political process.  It is sort of a microcosm of the way the corporatocracy has kept people too busy to participate and notice that our state and national elections are bought.  Between busy or disengaged students and disadvantaged parents who need to work multiple jobs to have a living wage, I am sad but not surprised.  I hope I was setting an example for my kids that I tried to ascertain which candidates are good.

The second thing that struck me was that all the candidates were mainstream in the sense that they stated what you would expect.  No one, even the more interesting candidates, was outraged about mandatory kindergarten, for example, which to me is a big attack on parents rights and freedoms to decide what is right for their children.  There was all the "working together" and "caring about the community" rhetoric of course.  It was much easier to see which candidates not to vote for.  Sergio Rodriguez boldly stated how much he as for mandatory kindergarten and even mandatory Pre-K in the typical more-school-is-better approach to learning.  Clearly, he has not read what I have read about child development and the ways children learn.  Several candidates, including Sam Davis who most directly seemed to address it, stated that they wanted to eliminate waste and get the money into the classrooms.  This shows the ignorance of the candidates.  It is an extremely small percentage of what is spent that isn't directly or indirectly mandated by state education law and related applicable laws and contracts developed under those laws.  It is not to say that all tax dollars are put to good use.  I would certainly overhaul the entire education system, but such things would have to occur at the state level.  Making a note of those who mentioned this also eliminated several possible candidates for me.  I was pleasantly surprised that so many stated fairly directly that they wanted the good programs to be spread across the district to neighborhood schools rather than concentrated in a few schools in an unfair manner.  Unfortunately, this didn't help differentiate the candidates too well even though Wendy Mistretta seemed to articulate this best of all that spoke on this.  I agree with them on the inherent unfairness obviously, but it wasn't a differentiating factor.  Only one candidate, Daniel Reynolds, spoke about child centered learning at all.  He didn't state it directly, but alluded to it by wanting to teach students via their interest in hip hop.  My fear is that between not explaining it well and acting somewhat strange in that he included singing and dancing during the session that he may not be taken seriously.  He also seemed to be one of the more interesting ones in terms of his own education.  However, despite this he was for mandatory kindergarten when I talked to him although at least was open minded enough to tell me he would do further research on his position after speaking to me.

Anyway, I haven't finalized my choices yet other than deciding who not to vote for.  Whoever gets elected, however, the proof of educational improvement to me will be in how many of the students attend next year's board candidate forums because it will show whether or not the teaching methods have instilled enthusiasm and priorities.