A Wonderful Life

On the morning of the fourth day after Christmas, in the year 2014, my friend, Kathy McCormick passed away.

We had known each other for more than ten years. We worked together for more than eight years. I was the Principal, she was an Assistant Principal. She battled cancer for almost five years. I was inspired by her courage and her determination to keep working in spite of the surgeries and evils of chemotherapy.

This morning when I received the first of many phone calls and text messages informing me of her life having passed away, my heart skipped a beat as I reacted and adjusted to what I was being told. I thought of her husband and her children, and all of the many other people that loved her so much. But I have spent a lot of time thinking about death. I have spent a lot of time thinking of my own death, and it is no longer something that I fear. It is not something that I dread. I realize that dying is something that all of us will eventually do. Death is simply the inevitable conclusion to either a life well lived or one that has been wasted. As I thought of the many hours, days, weeks, and years Kathy and I spent working together, I managed a smile. She will surely be missed, but her’s was a life well lived.

Each year during the Christmas Holidays I take the time to watch Frank Capra’s classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”, starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. It is a simple but poignant story of a bright young man (Stewart) who defers most of his dreams and ambitions and winds up living what to many might seem a “simple” life. He takes over his father’s savings and loan business when his father dies and saves it from dissolution during the Great Depression. He can’t serve in the World War due to deafness in one ear he received when he saved his younger brother from drowning when they were children. He misses out on a huge business opportunity because he is tied to the family business. He gets married but never goes on a honeymoon because he has to use all of his money to save the savings and loan during the depression.

As the years go by, the savings and loan does relatively well, until Stewart’s uncle loses a large deposit. Stewart realizes that he will be held responsible during a coming audit and will probably go to jail. He becomes so distraught over the prospect that he is on the verge of committing suicide by jumping into a river until an angel on a mission to earn his wings intervenes to save him. The angel convinces Stewart to appreciate life by showing him what the world would be like if his life had not occurred as it had.

George (Stewart’s character) soon realizes his brother would have died as a young boy if he had not saved his life. His brother went on to win the Medal of Honor when he saved the lives of 200 men on a transport ship. The small town of Bedford Falls would have been totally different without the homes that were built with loans from his family’s savings and loan. His wife would have been an old maid. His uncle would have been in an insane asylum. His children would not exist.

Once he realized all of these things, George rushed back home prepared to accept the consequences of the situation, but when he arrived he discovered that his wife had informed his friends about his predicament and the house was soon filled with friends that piled money on a table until the missing money was totally replaced. Of course, this all happened on Christmas Eve, and the angel (Clarence) got his wings.

Each time I watch this movie I have to hold back the tears during the final scene. For some reason, seeing this man realize the importance of his life, how he had made a positive impact on so many people and the town he lived in, and seeing so many people express their love and appreciation for him is personally affirmative. If he had jumped in the river and died, I would not feel the urge to cry. The end of life does not compare to the drama and emotion of the life that precedes it.

Kathy McCormick was an incredible lady. She was dedicated, dependable, loyal, kind, determined, small, and tough. It comforted me to know that she would tell me if she disagreed with me, but she would always do it privately. Sometimes she would convince me to change my mind, but regardless of the outcome, I knew that when she left my office or I left hers, she would do whatever it was I asked her to do to the best of her ability.

Kathy had tremendous integrity. She did not, would not lie or deceive. She cared for and took good care of her students, teachers, and parents. She took care of her Principal.

During the eight years we worked together I never wondered if she would be where she was supposed to be, when she was supposed to be there. During her first year as an administrator I gave her responsibility for the Freshman Class. For the next four years she did everything a parent would do to prepare them for life after high school, and then she graduated them. I immediately gave her the next group of freshmen, and for the next four years, she did the same thing again. I do not know where those 750 young adults are today, but wherever they go, and whatever they do they will always think of Ms. McCormick.

On the day that Kathy told me she had cancer, she was afraid. So was I. I didn’t know what to say. But that was okay. There is a time to speak, and a time to listen. This was a time to listen, so I kept my mouth shut and let her talk. She told me what she would have to do, and what I could expect. We hugged each other. We cried together. I told her she could have all the time off she wanted, but she didn’t want any time off. She wanted to work. As the days, weeks, and months went by, Kathy kept coming to work. I was amazed by her courage and her determination. There were days she would have chemo in the morning and come to work in the afternoon. There were days when I could look at her and see how sick she was, but she kept coming to work. There were times she would walk so unsteadily that I would want to pick her up and carry her to a chair or couch to get her off of her feet, but I knew her well enough to only follow close behind just in case.

I am not immune to grief. Perhaps a moment will occur one day when I will think of Kathy and cry my heart out. I know I will miss her, I already do. I feel great sadness for her children, and her husband too. But I hope that they, like me, will be thankful for the opportunity we had to spend so much time with such a beautiful, loving person.

Now is the time that I am thankful for my faith in God. Now is the time when I am comforted by his grace and inspired by his mercifulness. Go with God, Kathy. When my time has come and gone, I will be happy to testify, that you lived… A wonderful life.

A Christmas Truce

Each year during the month of December something special happens all over the world. Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus changes all of us. It seems to me that this is the only time of the year when “Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward Men” is a real possibility… At least temporarily.

Imagine a world where people are constantly focused on giving gifts to others to make them happy. Imagine the children of the world filled with the joy, anticipation and wonder of Christmas every day, trying to please their parents and the mystical “Santa” that brings those gifts.

The mothers and fathers of the world would be so happy to be able to look forward to having their families together regularly, and to be able to share the love that only families share. Many of the conflicts of daily life could be mitigated by the sheer proximity and the ability to simply talk to each other.

I love to go out and be among people during the holiday season. People are just friendlier. They are more likely to smile and talk to you. People are more willing to help you. They are more likely to tell you to enjoy the holidays and really mean it.

Although our economy has found a way to profit from our almost universal celebration, even the vast majority of the merchants shut down on Christmas Day. They call a truce, go home to be with their families, and allow their employees to do the same. The schools close, as well as the government. The Congress goes home, and the President too. The soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines go home too, (if they can get a pass).

For many people, Christmas is one of two times each year when they acknowledge that there may be something of this world greater than themselves. (The other time is Easter Sunday). Many will go to church, and some will simply think of the Nativity story they have heard since their own birth, listen to the ubiquitous carols, and quietly consider the wonder of it all.

Thankfully, the national news channels will take a break from the political and ideological wars. We will probably hear little about police brutality, immigration, Cuba, ISIS, the 2016 Presidential election, or North Korea. Lead stories on local news broadcasts might, just might, not be about the most frightening thing they can find or invent.

It is true, as the song says, “It’s the most……wonderful time of the year.”

In December of 1914, Pope Benedict XV, suggested a temporary Christmas truce during World War I. The leaders of the countries involved in the heaviest fighting, France, Germany, and Great Britain ignored him. The soldiers doing the actual fighting in the muddy, filthy, bloody, disease infected, miserable trenches had other ideas. On Christmas Eve the troops “started to sing Christmas carols to each other across the lines… At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day, German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the British lines across no-man’s land, calling out ‘Merry Christmas’ in their native tongues. At first the Allied soldiers thought it was a trick, but seeing that the Germans were unarmed they too climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with their enemies. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols together. Some of the soldiers even played a good natured game of soccer. Some of the soldiers used this time for the retrieval of the bodies of fellow soldiers who had fallen within the no-man’s land between the lines.”

On the next day, they went back to killing each other.

Nevertheless, Christmas has so much appeal to man’s humanity that it could literally push the pause button on a world war.

Last night my wife and I met with four of our friends in a restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland. We have known each other for 30 years. We have worked together, worshipped together, and watched our children grow up together. We laughed, smiled, hugged, kissed, and reminisced. We took pictures, discussed the pros and cons of a digital world, solved some of the world’s problems, and admitted defeat on some of the others. We looked at each other and made mental notes of the changes the years have brought, while acknowledging how kind the years have been to each of us physically and mentally. We spoke of our love for each other, but more importantly, we felt our love for each other. The food was wonderful, but being together again was better.

Christmas, made us do it. Christmas was the reason we decided to call a truce in our busy lives and take the time to be with each other, to love each other, and promise to do it again, soon, and more often than we did in the previous year.

Of course, if we forget, Christmas will remind us…. Next year.

War Crimes

George W. Bush, the former President of the United States, is a war criminal. His Vice-President, Dick Cheney is a war criminal too, as well as his Attorney General, John Ashcroft, his legal counsel, Alberto Gonzalez, his National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice, and his Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. All of them comprised the chain of command that ordered the systematic torture that resulted in the unconscionable abuse and outright murder of enemy combatants in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States of America.

On December 9, 2014 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a report that detailed the crimes committed by the Central Intelligence Agency on the orders of President Bush. In excruciating detail, the report describes enemy combatants being subjected to forced nudity, confinement in small boxes not much larger than a coffin, shackled stress positions with the arms above the head for up to 22 hours, sleep deprivation for days, waterboarding, slamming against walls, and “rectal feeding”, which is physiologically impossible, and which in reality was simply state-sanctioned rape. Prisoners were threatened with guns and electric drills. Some were threatened with the wholesale death of their families.

The celebrated Union General of the American Civil War, William Tecumseh Sherman once said, “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” The hell Sherman inflicted on the State of Georgia during his “March to the Sea” does not come close to the cruelty described in the Senate’s report.

Those that try to defend the actions of Bush’s CIA argue that the “EIT’s”, a convenient acronym for Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (They can’t bring themselves to call it what it is) were “effective”. That is not the issue. What is “effective” has nothing to do with what is right.

Slavery was tremendously “effective” improving the Southern economy. Does that make it right?

Apartheid was very “effective” in subjugating the majority population in South Africa. Was it right?

The holocaust was “effective” in removing more than six million Jews from the European continent. Was it right?

At the conclusion of World War Two, German and Japanese war criminals were tried for “crimes against humanity”. Many of them were imprisoned, some were hanged.

No one is going to arrest a former American President and his cabinet members and try them for war crimes. I suspect that the decision makers in the Bush White House knew that when the decisions were being made. I suspect that every time Dick Cheney defiantly says that he “would do it again” he is also thinking, “and what are you going to do about it?” Nevertheless, what was described in the report released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence are, without a doubt, crimes against humanity. 

I will never forget September 11, 2001. I will not forget where I was when I heard the news. I will not forget my anger and my desire to avenge the brazen attacks on my country. I remember wishing I was still on active duty in the Marine Corps. I was ready to go to Afghanistan and destroy anything and anybody that had the unmitigated cruelty and gall to kill innocent American men, women, and children. I made note of the fact that about 2,500 military personnel were killed at Pearl Harbor, but 2,996 civilians were killed on 9/11.

I was ready to go to war, but I was not ready to surrender my humanity.

The Senate Report was an indictment for those responsible for this stain on the American heritage. To his credit, one of President Obama’s first acts as President was to say “stop”. No more EIT’s. No more torture. But even he knew that it would have been political Armageddon for him to try to prosecute his predecessor.

The only force in the world with the power to do anything about the war crimes committed in our names are the American people themselves. The South African people called it “Truth and Reconciliation”. It was difficult, but necessary.

It would be difficult for America as well, but it might be the only way that “government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”        

The Arc of The Moral Universe

Something is happening in America right now. People are marching in the streets. Americans of all creeds, colors, and political persuasions  agree that there is something wrong with the way Black men are dying at the hands of those that are sworn to protect us. Americans are angry, confused, disgusted, flabbergasted, that prosecutors refuse to prosecute, grand juries decline to indict, and perpetrators are allowed to walk when Black men and boys are being killed.

But, are we witnessing a series of “protests” or a “movement”? 

I fear that our attention span will not last long enough to effect the fundamental changes that are needed to make a real difference. I yearn for the charismatic leader that can articulate the righteous anger of the people in the streets. Do we have someone that can envision tangible, achievable goals and devise a coherent strategy and effective tactics that would utilize every available resource?

A “protest” is a spontaneous expression of disagreement. A “movement” is a coordinated series of events designed to achieve a specific goal. A “movement” to achieve significant social change requires skilled leadership, organization, dedicated people committed to the cause, money, coordination, patience, strategy, effective tactics, and martyrs.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott is considered by many to be the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement. It began on December 1, 1955 and lasted more than a year, until December 20, 1955. The Civil Rights Act was signed nine years later, in 1964. The Voting Rights Act was not signed until 1965.

Four score and seven years (87) would pass from the date of the Declaration of Independence and the day that Abraham Lincoln would declare “A new birth of freedom” in the Gettysburg Address.

The Women’s Suffrage Movement began in 1869. The 19^th amendment to the constitution giving women the right to vote would not be ratified until 1920, fifty one years later.

Social change takes time and commitment.

Racial prejudices are the root cause of recent events that have resulted in the highly publicized deaths of Black men and boys in Florida, New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Arizona. They are not isolated incidents. Black men are killed and abused by police all over America daily, and until the recent media firestorm, no one thought it was important enough to count how many were being killed.

Since before our country’s birth Black men have been the objects of fear and loathing. We have been denied equal opportunities in the attainment of anything of value, and our lives have always been valued in economic terms if they were valued at all.

Nevertheless, our nation is remarkably better than it was when my great grandmother was a slave. I had many more opportunities to achieve and excel than my mother did. My daughter has seen very little of the racial prejudice that I did. Her educational and career opportunities have been far better than my own.

There is a significant difference in the racial attitudes, fears, and prejudices of America’s younger generations when compared to those age fifty and older. That is our reason to hope. It is unlikely that the current protests will develop into the type of “movement” that has created significant social change in our country’s past. The news cycles are too short. The next crisis will push this from the headlines, and who wants to march in the streets if it’s not going to be on television?

But, Sam Cooke was right. A Change is Gonna Come.

On March 25, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Alabama State Capital. As he looked out on Dexter Avenue, he could see that the wide avenue was packed with people. Many of them had been with him four days earlier in Selma, Alabama when they had begun their march from Selma to Montgomery in support of the Voting Rights Act that was pending in the US Congress. If he looked to his left he would see his own Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

Dr. King would deliver one of his most memorable speeches on that day, and his conclusion would include these words;

“I know you are asking today, “How long will it take?” I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again.

How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.

How long? Not long. Because you will reap what you sow.

How long? Not long. Because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice”…

A Time to Kill

It is true that the law is simply a reflection of our own prejudices.

 In the 1996 movie “A Time to Kill” Samuel L. Jackson stars as the father of a young girl that is brutally raped by two white men in Canton, Mississippi. Enraged, and noting that others were recently acquitted of the same crime in a nearby town, Jackson obtains an assault rifle and kills the two men himself before they can be tried. He enlists a local attorney to defend him, played by Matthew McConaughey, and resists the advice of the local NAACP to hire their own high powered attorneys for his defense.

In 1846 the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney wrote for the majority in the Dred Scott case that Blacks “Had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”. There are few places where this was truer than Mississippi. It was a foregone conclusion that Jackson’s character would die for killing two white men in Mississippi. It did not matter what had happened to his daughter. She had no rights that a white man was bound to respect, and neither did he. If the Ku Klux Klan did not get him, the courts would.

One reason that Jackson’s character (Carl Lee Hailey) wanted McConaughey’s character (Jake Brigance) to defend him was because they had known each other for many years and although they considered themselves friends, they were admittedly not close. However, Jake had a daughter that was the same age as Carl’s.

As one would expect, the case created racial tension in the community. There were demonstrations and riots. The governor called up the National Guard to quell the riots. The KKK tried to bomb Jake’s home and eventually burned it down. They killed his secretary’s husband and attacked his assistant, (Sandra Bullock) tying her to a tree and leaving her to die (she was rescued).

The prosecutor, played by Kevin Spacey, demanded the death penalty and seemed destined to get it from an all-white jury until Jake’s climactic closing statement before the jury. The courtroom was packed with Black and white spectators. The streets outside the courthouse were filled as well with people anxiously awaiting the outcome of the trial. The National Guard was also there to maintain the fragile peace. After apologizing to the jury for his own failings and asking the jury not to hold them against his client, he told them he wanted to tell them a story. Then he said,

“Close your eyes, listen to me…listen to yourselves.

This is a story about a little girl, walking home from the grocery store on a sunny afternoon. Suddenly a truck races up, two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field. They tie her up. They rip her clothes from her body…They climb on. First one and then the other. Raping her. Shattering everything precious and pure…with a vicious thrust…in a fog of drunken breath and sweat.

When they’re done, after they’ve killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to bear children, to have life beyond her own, they use her for target practice. So they start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw them so hard, that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones.

Then they urinate on her.

Now comes the hanging. They have a rope. They tie a noose. Imagine the noose coiling tight around her neck…and a sudden blinding jerk, she’s pulled into the air, and her legs go kicking…they don’t find the ground. The hanging branch…isn’t strong enough. It snaps, and she falls. Back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck, drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge, and pitch her over the edge. She drops some 30 feet, down to the creek bottom below.

Can you see her?

Her raped, beaten, broken body…soaked in their urine.

Soaked in their semen.

Soaked in her blood.

Left to die.

Can you see her?

I want you to picture…that little girl…

Now…imagine…she’s white.”

That all-white jury in Mississippi acquitted Carl Lee Hailey, a Black man of killing two white men.

Why?

Because in their hearts, they knew that if someone had abused a white child in the same way that Carl Lee’s child had been abused, killing the people that did it would be justifiable homicide.

An incredible amount of attention has been placed on recent cases of young Black men being killed by police officers and pseudo law enforcement individuals hiding behind ridiculous “stand your ground” laws. This is not news. It has been the status quo in America for hundreds of years.

The third chapter and the third verse of the book of Ecclesiastes says, “A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.”

“The law is simply a reflection of our own prejudices”.

Until the day arrives when America has overcome its racial prejudices, the “time to kill” America’s Black men with impunity will not end.

An American High School in Cleveland

It was Henry David Thoreau that said “No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails…” Perhaps it should be said no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its schools, its best schools and its worst. For the past 30 years I have lived in Montgomery County, Maryland. Our schools are considered by most to be among the best in the United States. For 17 years I worked in the Prince George's County, Maryland Schools, considered by most to be among the worst in Maryland. Using the Thoreau test, I was well qualified to render an opinion about the State of Maryland, but maybe not America.

But then I spent a year as an educational consultant in Cleveland Ohio.

I want to tell you about an American high school in Cleveland. It is not unique. In fact, when it comes to education for minority children in America’s inner cities, it is closer to the rule than the exception. The school is located minutes from beautiful downtown Cleveland. It is in a neighborhood in which the homes are marketed for $25,000 dollars or less. Many of the homes have boards in the windows although they are still occupied, and the roads in front and surrounding the school are filled with potholes.

One hundred percent of the students receive free or reduced meals, the government’s official benchmark for being really poor. All (100%) of the students are minorities. Cleveland does not have school attendance zones. Students can attend any school they want to, until it’s full. The students that attend this school are here because it is convenient to get to, they have been expelled from other schools, or they can’t get into any other school.

Ohio grades its schools in three general areas, Achievement, Gap Closing, and Graduation Rate. The schools get two grades for Graduation Rate (four and five year). For the year prior to my arrival this school received a “D” for Achievement and a grade of “F” in all of the others. The four year graduation rate was 53.4%. The five year rate was 62.7%.

At the beginning of the school year this American school had twenty four staff vacancies, seventeen vacancies at the end of the first semester, and eight at the end of the year. The school had 64 teaching positions, so on the first day of school, almost 40% of the classes had substitute teachers or no teacher at all. Imagine the effect this had on the school and classroom environment. Students that were already behind fell farther behind in core subjects and foreign languages.

This school in the heart of one of America’s major cities did not allow its Principal to appoint Department Chairs. The school district did not allocate any funds to compensate department chairs or a testing coordinator. As a result, communication was poor, subject and departmental coordination was non-existent, professional development was uninformed, record keeping was laughable, and morale was terrible.

A foreign visitor would walk away from our American school saying there was a serious lack of urgency by the staff to be where they were supposed to be. Teachers and administrators were habitually late to school. This resulted in large numbers of students in the halls due to missing teachers and locked classrooms, or because of large groups being moved to other classes due to missing substitute teachers. The persistent absences and tardiness of the staff had a direct negative impact on the morale and discipline of the students. The constant lack of supervision contributed to a culture in which the more powerful influence was exerted by the students themselves.

Student attendance averaged less than 80%. The school was able to document the fact that many enrolled students were attending other schools. Many others had dropped out, confirmed to be not returning by their parents or other responsible adults, but the school was not allowed to remove them from its enrollment. Student tardiness was rampant.

Communication efforts in the school were ineffective. Administrators, staff and students were constantly uninformed or misinformed of day to day events. The public address system functioned poorly and was inadequate for the purpose of communicating information to everyone in the building. This created an obvious, permanent safety hazard.

Our American school did not keep inventory records. There was a serious lack of knowledge relating to budget and purchasing procedures. The lack of department chairs made it very difficult for teachers to collectively assess their needs and request needed materials.

The school did not have access to a computer program or application to create a master schedule. The master schedule was not completed until the week-end before the first day of school. As a result, student schedules were incomplete and filled with errors on the first day of school. Hand written copies of the master schedule were distributed to the staff.

Expectations for student behavior was low. Disrespectful behavior by students toward themselves and adults was common. Profanity was commonly used as well. Trash and other litter was constantly in the halls. Fighting was common.

A discipline policy that outlines and defines student activity that will result in suspension did not exist. Consistency was lacking. Procedures were not in place to ensure that the staff is made aware each day of students that have been suspended or expelled. Procedures were not in place to ensure that Special Education students received manifestation hearings each time they were suspended once they reached ten total days of suspension.

To be sure, there were some very good teachers providing good classroom instruction in our “typical??” American school. But generally speaking, subject presentation failed to elaborate on critical attributes of the subject matter, failed to stress important factors, did not encompass the writing process or include reading comprehension elements, and failed to relate content to prior learning. In many cases lesson plans were either unavailable or not current. Lesson objectives were not clear and measurable or non-existent. Assessments did not consistently occur or were not evident. While there were notable exceptions, classroom environments were not conducive for teaching and learning. “Principles of Learning” were a major concern. Clear expectations, accountable talk, academic rigor, and self-management of learning were very rarely seen.

In 1896, in the case of “Plessy vs. Ferguson” The United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities. They said there was nothing wrong if they were “separate but equal”. On May 17, 1954, Thurgood Marshall convinced the court to reverse that ruling in the landmark “Brown vs, Board of Education of Topeka” case. The court decided that separate schools were “inherently unequal”.

The students, teachers, administrators, visitors, and parents of our American high school in Cleveland would say,

“Damn right”.

Advanced Placement

I recently watched an HBO documentary entitled “Little Rock Central”. The documentary was made in 2007 to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the integration of the high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1957 a federal court ordered the school to allow Black children to attend, and the results became a landmark in the history of education and civil rights in the United States. The nine children that were selected to integrate the school would become known as the “Little Rock Nine”, and their initial attempt to attend the school would be met with a display of the most vicious anger and racist-fueled vitriol that can be imagined.

Not until President Dwight Eisenhower dispatched troops from the army’s 82^nd Airborne Division to escort and protect the children were they able to enter the school. The troops would continue to protect the children the entire year, escorting them in the hallways, in the cafeteria, and on the athletic fields for the entire year.

The producers of the documentary spent the entire year on the campus. The film gives intimate portrayals of many of the students and their parents. There are candid discussions with teachers, coaches, and the school’s Principal. Community activists and politicians are featured as well. I watched the documentary once, and then less than an hour later, I sat down and watched it again. It reminded me of so many things that I had to grapple with as Principal of my school, Crossland High in Maryland, and it also made me think of what might have been.

In 2007 Little Rock Central was considered one of the best high schools in the United States. It had more than 2000 students, and almost 50% of those students were minorities. Most of the white students were from excellent neighborhoods and stable, professional families, they also drove their own cars to school. They had the means to attend private schools but they chose to attend Central instead. The school is the most famous school in the country and receives tremendous support from various sources. It has a stellar academic reputation because so many of the white students take multiple advanced placement classes and are readily accepted into many of the top colleges in America.

Most of the Black students attending Central were there because it is their neighborhood school. The majority of them are depressingly poor, live in single parent homes, and come to the school reading two or three years below grade level. Most of them ride the bus to school. Ironically, the student body President was an exception to the prevailing misery in the Black community. He is a Black student that had a profile similar to the white students. He lived in a white neighborhood, and had a stable, nuclear family. He had college educated parents, had plans to go to college himself, drove his own car to school, and took multiple advanced placement classes.

Remove the white students from the picture, and you have what I had when I walked into Crossland High.

As I watched this excellent film, the frustrations of the Principal reminded me of my own. So many of the Black students reminded me of my students, and I will never be able to forget them, including the athlete whose mother threw him out of the house, that had terrible grades because he didn’t go to class, mindlessly betting his life on a career in professional sports. Or, the sweet young girl that had taken it upon herself to take an advanced placement class, conceding that she might fail but refusing to quit. I will never forget the camera following her home as she walked through a neighborhood one would expect to see in a third world country, into her cramped home where she described the sink that didn’t work and the room she shared with her brother. Or the pride she had in the fact that her mother did not have multiple men hanging around their home. Nor will I forget the young girl with the wonderful attitude that was only fifteen but had not one, but two children, and her sister that was younger than her and teased her because she only had one baby. The camera followed her as she walked to school one day as well, casually describing a crack house as she passed it, and explaining that the kids usually stayed inside because the “crack heads were crazy”. She arrived to school late, like so many of my students did.

Little Rock’s Central High School was de-segregated in 1957, but fifty years later, it was still not integrated. Black and white students rarely mixed. If they were in the same class they sat on separate sides of the room. They separated themselves in the cafeteria. There were no Blacks on the golf team. There were very, very few Black students in advanced placement classes.

At the conclusion of my first year as Principal at Crossland we had more than 2000 students enrolled but only 7 took advanced placement courses. By the time I left nine years later we had more than 700 students taking advanced placement courses. The demographics remained the same. The socioeconomic conditions of the students remained the same. But, many other things changed.

Education without literacy is impossible. If our students came to us unable to read on grade level, we had to teach them to read, so we did.

We did not ask or try to convince our students to do what was in their academic best interests, we required them to do it. Our goal was to graduate our students “college and/or career ready”. Consequently, once our students were reading on grade level, they were required to take at least one advanced placement course.

We changed expectations for students, parents, teachers, and the community. The pursuit of excellence in behavior, attendance, academics, athletics, college applications, college acceptances, and community service became the norm.

We could not have raised our academic expectations without the framework of advanced placement. These college level courses brought their own standards, their own unbiased curriculum and exams. The teachers by design expected more, and the students expected more as well.

What we did was controversial at times. I was met with reactions from skepticism to hostility. But the results were indisputable. Our student’s scores on the Maryland state exams in math improved each year from a 15% pass rate to 76%, and in English they improved each year from 22% to 78%. From 2005 through 2011, 70% of our seniors applied to 4 year colleges, with a 90% acceptance rate.

As a result of our student’s academic achievements, our school was featured by The Washington Post, the Center for American Progress, the Heritage Foundation, The University of Pennsylvania, The State of Delaware, Forbes Magazine, The American Diploma Project, The US Department of Education, and invited to visit the White House.

I can only wonder what type of school we would have had if half of Crossland’s students were the kind of white students depicted in the Little Rock Central documentary.

   

Crime and Punishment

“You get high?” When I was in college and during my time in the Marine Corps, every time I went to a party somebody asked me that question. Believe it or not, my answer was no, which immediately made me something of an an outcast. I had never learned to smoke, and I was afraid of cocaine. I had read too much about addiction to think that I was immune to its dangers. Of course, I was not immune to women, and most of the women I was interested in used drugs recreationally as well.

It was one of my girlfriends that convinced me to try marijuana. Since it was her preferred aphrodisiac, she convinced me to go out and buy if for her as well. Today, twenty three States and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical use. Four States have legalized the weed for recreational use. Two more (and the District of Columbia) have legalized it for recreational use effective in 2015.

I am so glad that I was not arrested for possessing those drugs in Alabama when I was in my early twenties. If I had, I would be a convicted felon. I would have lost the right to vote. I would not have had any of the jobs that I have had, and if I was hungry I would not have been able to get food stamps. I would not have the education I have. I would have been subject to discrimination in the types of housing available to me, I would not be able to serve on a jury. My citizenship rights would have been severely restricted, just like my parents under the Jim Crow laws of the South, and my grandparents under the black codes that existed after Reconstruction, and my great grandparents under slavery.

At the end of 2012 there were more than 2 million people incarcerated in the United States. Another 5 million were on probation or parole. Of those 7 million convicted felons, 40%, or almost 3 million are Black. 

By the grace of God, I am not one of them.

It is difficult to believe, but just a little more than thirty years ago there was a little more than 300,000 people in America’s prisons. How in the hell did we get to 2 MILLION in 30 years? It all started in 1968 when Richard Nixon came up with the “Southern Strategy”. The strategy was to drive a political wedge between the Blacks and poor whites of the south. Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats had created an unbeatable coalition by bringing them together around the economic benefits of the New Deal. Amid the riots in the inner cities, assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and the rising visibility of Black nationalists like the Black Panthers, Nixon promised “law and order”.

Nixon won easily, capitalizing on racial fears and separating many poor whites from the Democrats. He used the same strategy to get re-elected in 1972, but was undone by the Watergate scandal. Jimmy Carter, the Democrat from Georgia won the presidency in 1976 as the anti-Nixon, but 1980 would bring Ronald Reagan to the stage.

Reagan would double down on the “Southern Strategy” and kick off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. This was the same place that three civil rights workers had disappeared and had been found later buried in an earthen dam.

Reagan then had the nerve to make a speech about “states’ rights”.  He spent the rest of the campaign demonizing drug dealers, affirmative action and “welfare queens”. The Southern states were his. He would later declare the “War on Drugs”, as “crack cocaine” ironically became a household term.

Reagan’s “War on Drugs” has had a devastating effect on Black America. Almost 3 million children have parents in the prison system. Those children are adversely affected financially, socially, and psychologically. Two out of three of these imprisoned parents are non-violent offenders, many of them imprisoned on minor drug charges. The children are deprived of regular contact with their parents. Many of the children of the imprisoned are teased by other children. Often when released, the parents are barred from welfare programs such as cash assistance for the poor, food stamps, vouchers for rental housing, apartments in public housing, subsidized student loans for college, and employment licenses for many jobs. All of which perpetuates a cycle of poverty that breeds hopelessness and recidivism.

Michelle Alexander has written an excellent book about this subject entitled “The New Jim Crow”. She believes that our “war on drugs” has created a substitute for the Jim Crow system of the past. The Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder has directed the Justice Department to charge non-violent drug offenders with less severe federal crimes. He supports sentencing more people to rehab than imprisonment for crimes rooted in drug abuse and addiction. The attorney general stated in a recent speech to the American Bar Association that “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason” and at great public expense.

I agree.

This past Sunday when I went to church I noticed that the church was participating in a program this holiday season to identify children in the community that have parents in prison. The church will then purchase and deliver Christmas gifts to those children.

 I plan to participate.

The Supremes

Lately, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the Supremes… Not Diana, Mary and Flo, but Alito, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Roberts. Especially Roberts. I know that there are nine of them, but these five are the ones that have been constantly creeping into my thoughts. These are the REPUBLICAN judges, appointed by Republican presidents. They are the Red States of the Supreme Court. Some are redder than others. Scalia, Thomas, and Alito might as well be Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina. Democrats have no chance there. Kennedy could be Georgia, a Democrat can dream there. Roberts is Virginia, the big maybe.

The Supremes recently agreed to hear a case called “King v. Burwell”. If you haven’t heard about it, you will. The case is the latest Republican challenge to the Affordable Care Act, and it has the potential to destroy it. It takes four votes for the Supremes to agree to take a case. We will never know how many voted to take this one, but there is no doubt that at least four of the names mentioned above voted in the affirmative.

Basically, the case comes down to this. The Affordable Care Act is designed to make insurance available for everyone. This is done by making Federal Income tax subsidies available to people that can’t afford the policies that are sold on the individual state insurance exchanges or markets that are set up on-line. So, if you can't afford it, the federal government gives you money to help you pay for it. Because of these subsidies, no one has to pay more than 8% of their income for health insurance. Since everyone can now afford to buy health insurance, the government can assess a penalty to those that refuse to buy. This maximizes participation and keeps prices down.

One section of the law states that if a state refuses to set up its own insurance marketplace the federal government can set one up for them. Twenty nine states with Republican governors refused to set up insurance exchanges. So the people in those states use the federal exchange.

Another section of the law makes the subsidies available to people that buy insurance from an exchange “established by the state”. It makes no mention of an exchange established by the federal government if the state refused to do it.

That’s what “King v. Burwell” is all about. The plaintiff is saying that the people in those 29 states can’t receive any assistance to buy health insurance because their state’s exchange was established by the federal government and not “the state”.

Close your mouth. Don’t laugh. The Republicans already have four votes. They only need one more.

John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America is the wild card. He will be the decider. He will decide if the 10 million people that have insurance now, (that did not have it before the ACA was implemented), and the millions more that will sign up for it in the coming months will have it taken from them. Virginia was once the capital state of the Confederacy, but Virginia also elected the nation’s first Black governor, and gave its Electoral College votes to Barack Obama, twice. Virginia can be persuaded to do the right thing. This is the second time the Affordable Care Act has had a major challenge in the Supreme Court. It was John Roberts that cast the deciding vote to save the law then. Will he have the courage to do the right thing again?

During his confirmation hearing Roberts was asked if he would be influenced by his ideological persuasions while serving on the court. He replied that he would simply “call balls and strikes”. I doubt if any umpire has ever faced the kind of pressure he is about to face. The intensity of the hatred of President Obama and all he has accomplished by many people in our country defies description. The power and influence at their disposal is formidable. All of it will be focused on one man. He alone will be able to give them the ultimate victory or a final defeat.

Imagine being the umpire at Yankee Stadium. It is the seventh game of the World Series, bottom of the ninth inning. The Yankees are losing 2 to 1. The bases are loaded. The count is 3 balls, 2 strikes, and Derek Jeter, the beloved Yankee captain is batting. The entire city of New York is screaming. People all over the world are watching with bated breath.

Here’s the pitch… It’s high and outside, but is it a ball…..or a strike?

The Equalizer

When I was growing up in Alabama the United Negro College Fund had an ad that ran on Black radio stations constantly. The ad depicted a courtroom scene in which a white woman was sentenced to jail for the “crime” of teaching “colored” children to read. That was once a reality in the southern states, and it is important to ask the question “why?” Why did white people feel it was important for Black people to be illiterate? Why did they feel so strongly about it that they would codify it and were willing to put other white people in jail for violating that code?

H.L. Mencken has been quoted as saying “You will never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people”. Perhaps we should listen to "Deep Throat" of "Watergate" fame and “follow the money”. 

According to the New York Times, there are more uninsured Americans living in the former Confederate states than anywhere else in the country. They also suffer from the most poverty, and they also have the lowest levels of education. Ironically, these same people are literally a voting bloc for the Republican Party, and the most vociferous opponents of the Affordable Care Act. Again, it is really important to ask the question “Why?”

We must understand, before we condemn.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say that you were white, unemployed, with three children still in middle and high school. You’re married, but your spouse is making $12.00 an hour with no benefits. You live in a trailer in Alabama and neither of you went to college. You are both in your late 40’s, and both of you smoke. Your child that’s in middle school has constant strep throat and one of your high school kids has asthma. None of your kids have ever been to a dentist. You lost your health insurance when you lost your job and you struggle to pay your bills.

Now, what if I walked up to your trailer and told you I was going to sell you some insurance that would cover the following;

·         Doctor visits, prescriptions, home health services, and hospice care.

·         Visits to the emergency room, and the ambulance to take you there.

·         Hospital care, including doctors, nurses, laboratory and other tests, medications, room and board, surgeries and transplants. Even nursing home care.

·         Laboratory services, including preventive stuff like breast cancer screenings and prostate exams.

·         Maternity and new born care, including labor, delivery, and post-delivery.

·         Diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of mental health and substance abuse issues.

·         Physical or occupational therapy, including speech therapy, as well as cardiac or pulmonary rehab.

·         Pediatric care for children, including well-child visits and vaccines and immunizations. Dental and vision care as well, including corrective lenses every year.

·         Preventive care, such as physicals, immunizations, and cancer screenings, and care for chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes.

In addition to all of that stuff, you can’t be denied if you are already sick, and there is no limit on how much the insurance will pay.

Your first response would probably be “that sounds pretty good but I can’t afford it”. But then I would say, “Oh but yes you can! Because the government is only going to ask you to pay what you can afford, and they will pay the rest!”

What would you do then? And why would you do it?

Would you say “Sign me up right now!” because nothing is more important than the well-being of your family?

 Or, would you say, “Take your insurance and shove it!” 

I believe that it was once a crime in the South to educate Black people because the ruling class realized it would be impossible to subjugate any educated group of people in a democracy. Education gives an individual the power to think and reason. It gives them the literacy to be able to inform, motivate, organize, and lead others.

It is amazing to me that the Republican politicians have convinced the lower income whites in the South to act and to vote against their own interests.

Education always has been, and always will be a key element in solving most of our nation’s problems. Unfortunately, for the people of the South, it is in the best interests of the politicians to keep things just the way they are.

As for the people, the poor people that need it most, education, the great equalizer, will continue to be out of reach.  

 The Republicans are probably saying, “We will never lose an election, underestimating the intelligence of the people in the South”.

They could be right.