Desegregate Schools Now School Superintendent George Russell should be commended for bravely taking on the sensitive and difficult issues of school choice and segregation. The 4J School Board should move quickly to enact Russell's suggestions to move, merge or close alternative schools and enact other changes to make the school system fair to all kids. The proposed reforms are modest and long overdue. As Russell has reported, alternative schools have become a magnet for white and wealthy kids with educated, stable families. That leaves too many neighborhood schools with higher concentrations of the children that research shows are often the hardest to teach: kids from poor, frequently moving families with less educated parents. Many in Eugene's socio-economic elite have loudly opposed changing the current system, which they see as benefiting their kids. But the largely voiceless kids left behind in neighborhood schools are hurt by the system. School choice has concentrated the most challenging students to teach and contributed to a widening achievement gap, Russell reported. It doesn't have to be this way. Research shows mixing wealthier and poor kids raises test scores for poor kids while not hurting the wealthier kids — a win win. Eugene's two-tiered school system doesn't just hurt education. Weakening neighborhood schools in turn weakens neighborhood cohesiveness that makes the city more livable and safe. The healthy exercise of walking to school and playing with neighborhood kids has been replaced by driving kids all over town to choice schools. In addition, common schools that mix kids by race and class teach tolerance, provide equal opportunity and are a pillar of American democracy. Reforming the system with better information, transportation, funding and lottery preferences for disadvantaged children is a start. But the district will have to do far more to have much of an impact in desegregating the school system. Magnet neighborhood schools won't be able to attract elite students if the current alternative schools are allowed to keep all their advantages. You can't level the playing field while holding alternative schools harmless. The difference in altitude is just too great. Funding to make neighborhood schools more attractive will also have to be permanent and at much higher levels to provide effective incentives for parents. Classroom size caps at alternative schools should be removed. Neighborhood schools too often suffer crowded classrooms. Alternative schools should also share in teaching high mobility kids that move in and out of classes. Class caps and sibling preferences too often make alternative schools like private clubs, and they rarely admit families who have just moved. It's outrageous that the district has concentrated special education kids almost entirely in neighborhood schools. Alternative schools should share in educating and mainstreaming these children. Neighborhood schools losing students forecasts a spiral of decline and the threat of closure or merger. Alternative schools should share in that threat of closure if they don't meet district diversity goals and offer some unique values. High test scores are less a sign of the success of alternative school curriculum than a reflection of the concentration of the most privileged students in the district. Alternative programs nestled in wealthier neighborhoods just reinforce segregation. They should be moved to poorer areas and converted to magnet neighborhood schools that will draw richer families and increase integration. The current system is backwards. We've heard the argument that well-educated and highly involved parents deserve the chance to create a learning environment that benefits their children. But it's not that simple. Relatively poor and uneducated parents also care deeply about their children, and many see education as their family's only ticket to success. We shouldn't look down at these parents if they have to work, can't get child care, don't have a car or otherwise can't be as involved as they would like to be in their children's education. Powerful parents back the current system and political reality may mean 4J's style of choice is here to stay. But the unfair system shouldn't continue without major and prompt changes. Imagine Eugene 15 years from now if the current system continues while the Latino population grows to 20 percent. Will we still claim to "honor diversity" with a distinctly class-driven school system?     Rebuilding Labor An open letter to SEIU President Andy Stern BY DAN CAROL No, I am not weighing in with any thoughts on the internal "future of the labor movement" debate roiling on in Vegas this week. You think I am crazy? That's not my gig. But I did want to flag some emerging, massive opportunities that SEIU, and all unions, can capture in areas that aren't traditionally the province of labor. I'm talking about building the union halls, community centers and even the malls of the 21st century. Because right now, as you well know, Wal-Mart is winning. Now don't misinterpret my message: It's awesome that you are seeding smart bi-national organizing strategies, embracing online technology, leading the charge against Wal-Mart, targeting younger workers and immigrant populations on the rise, and aggressively pushing the labor movement to do more organizing. I hate to add to your to-do list, but now is the critical time to have a serious re-examination of what exactly "organizing" is. Because it's time to get busy with non-traditional organizing models designed to develop deep citizen/worker engagement strategies and build sustainable new models to refuel worker advocacy for the next 50 years. In the growing free-lance economy of some 10 million independent workers and 25 million part-timers, workplaces are no longer where as many people gather. They gather at the movie theater, on the soccer field, or in their church, or online. Worse, they don't gather at all. They cluster in their own apartments. They retreat to the safety of the walls they know. They home school. They also turn off — after all, the average American is bombarded by about 4,000 marketing messages a day. So who wants to be sold on joining anything, let alone a "union"? Given these trends, unions will keep declining in size and influence unless they use the most sophisticated techniques to market and deliver on a vision of community broader than simply workplace organizing and better benefits. So how do we reach "non-traditional" audiences and start a conversation about career, or college, or child care, let alone the need for workers to organize? I'm talking about a Purple Bank to match Wells Fargo, the appeal of Apple's iPod stores, creating places for mixing together — and mixing music. A new union hall that combines child care and after school programs and job training and urban theater — all in one. I'm thinking about a reverse AARP model — where instead of reaching out to 50-year-olds, we offer a hand out to new parents with support services and then grow a trusted relationship with thankful parents from there. I'm arguing for patience — because sweaty palms, "pa-leeese, join the union" marketing will scare most folks off. We can't rush these conversations until they're ripe. I'm envisioning a new union/SEIU media and membership network — constructed in partnership with community technology centers in 140 cities, in tandem with mayors like John Street who want community-owned wireless Internet access rather than cable companies to be the last mile to citizens, with new voices from the streets and the barrios who'll learn the ropes in your studios. Say the word and we'll sell the music and the gear on a jacked-up Purple Ocean internet radio system operating at a fraction of the cost of the old UAW radio network. In other words, let's not just reorganize the AFL, let's re-brand it, dammit.   Think about home shopping networks and imagine a Progressive QVC. Think about our own purple-clad "Avon" ladies and gentlemen going door-to-door for more than just voter turnout and a traditional canvass. To make it happen fast, I'd suggest partnerships with Rodale, Costco or other progressive companies. Did you know Rodale alone has a lifestyle database of over 20 million subscribers? We can't really fight Wal-Mart without offering serious shopping and lifestyle alternatives — and that means corporate partners and new capital strategies. Any company that wants to sell to your members will need to sign on to a new Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, a hybrid union bug, evincing their support for a living wage and Starbucks-level health care or whatever fundamental fairness and open dialogue can bring. This stuff is a little fuzzy and you will need to experiment and fail. But can anyone argue that a $2,000-per-member acquisition cost for a $300-per-year union member that pays off in seven years is a business model that can work well all by itself? This new union hall/community center/media hub model isn't hard to imagine. Local 1199 in New York looks that way now. But now we need to do it in 150 more cities, creating not only community media centers but urban-labor-environmental and business alliances around community economics, clean energy jobs and new capital strategies driven by Steel, Solidarity and the SEIU. So no matter how things turn out in Vegas, let's not just fight about how much "organizing" bucks are spent and who controls them, but what they are spent on. And let's remember what sometimes 16th Street has forgotten over the years in saying no to exploring new terrain: The perfect is the enemy of the good. Dan Carol is founding partner of CTSG, a rehabilitation center for paleo-liberal causes, based in Eugene and Washington, D.C.
		Table of Contents | News | Views | Calendar| Film | Music | Culture | Classifieds | Personals | Contact | EW Archive | Advertising Information |