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Education’s Big Lie, Part V: Every Student Is Important! No Student Should Be Forgotten!

I began this series of posts on Education’s Big Lie more than three months ago with the post Education’s Big Lie, Part I – Introduction.  In attempting to make my first point I highlighted Procrustian’s aphorism “one size fits all.”

Caricature from 19th century German satirical magazine “Berliner Wespen” (Berlin Wasps) – Title: Procrustes. Caption: Bismarck: As I see, Lady Liberty is somewhat too large – we want to change this immediately to her contention. (He chops away her legs.) – Inscription on the bed: Socialist Law. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; in Public Domain

To address the question of whether the American systems of elementary, secondary and higher education are forgetting or ignoring students, I turn now to Henry David Thoreau, Albert Einstein, and Lyndon Johnson. This extremely disparate group of individuals might seem to be an unusual choice of spokespersons.

Thoreau was a 19th-century American writer and transcendental thinker. He is probably most well-known for his book “Walden; or, Life in the Woods“, a treatise on the simple life and self-sufficiency.  The key tenets of transcendentalism included the inherent goodness of nature and individuals. Followers of this world view believed that our culture, society and its institutions had corrupted the purity with which each of us was born. To return to our best, natural state, we should withdraw from society.

Henry David Thoreau, 19th-century American artist, writer and intellectual (1817 – 1862) This image is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923.

Thoreau is reported to have made the following comment concerning a child’s potential:

Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything.

I picked Thoreau because he could see the future in the eyes of a child playing with a jar of paint. Most people only see the child making a mess. To Thoreau, that child was envisioning a masterpiece on the epic scale of the Sistine Chapel.

This photo of a baby playing with yellow paint by Dutch artist Peter Klashorst is entitled “Experimental”. Image courtesy of Peter Klashorst and Wikimedia Commons. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

In December 1999, Time Magazine named Albert Einstein the Person of the Century. The editors proclaimed him to be a “genius, political refugee, humanitarian, locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe.” They further explained their somewhat controversial choice by saying, “He was the pre-eminent scientist in a century dominated by science. The touchstones of the era–the Bomb, the Big Bang, quantum physics and electronics–all bear his imprint.”

Albert Einstein German-American scientist (1879 – 1955), lecturing in Vienna in 1921, the year he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Photo by Ferdinand Schmutzer. Image in Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons”

Einstein often spoke of the importance and significance of the individual. The following quote is generally attributed to him: manner:

The person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever seen before.

Solitary hiker on virgin snow. The photo was taken March 23, 2014, by Tapas Biswas near Sandakphu, West Bengal’s highest peak. The image is licensed by Biswas under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Image courtesy of Tapas Biswas and Wikimedia Commons.

I picked Einstein and this quote denigrating the process of following the masses because Einstein was a person who set out on his own most of his life. He separated himself from the crowd and concentrated his attention on what he saw, heard and thought. These were things that people who took the shoveled path never saw.

Lyndon Johnson was elected Vice President of the United States in 1960 when John Kennedy won the presidency over Richard Nixon. When Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Johnson became the 36th President of the United States. Under Johnson’s leadership, a series of domestic legislative programs called the Great Society and the War on Poverty were enacted. They included Medicare and Medicaid, and a significant increase in federal spending on education, the arts, urban and rural development, and public services. There was also a dramatic increase in governmental attention to the civil rights of individuals.

The signing ceremony on April 11, 1965, for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) at the Former Junction Elementary School in Johnson City, Texas. Lyndon B. Johnson is seated at a table with his childhood schoolteacher, Ms. Kate Deadrich Loney. The President took the opportunity to deliver prepared remarks about educating American youth. This image is the work of Frank Wolfe, White House photographer, an employee of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. As a  work of the U. S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In President’s Johnson prepared remarks he said,

By passing this bill, we bridge the gap between helplessness and hope for more than five million educationally deprived children.

We put into the hands of our youth more than 30 million new books, and into many of our schools their first libraries.

We reduce the terrible time lag in bringing new teaching techniques into the nation’s classrooms.

We strengthen state and local agencies which bear the burden and the challenge of better education.

And we rekindle the revolution–the revolution of the spirit against the tyranny of ignorance.

As a son of a tenant farmer, I know that education is the only valid passport from poverty.

As a former teacher–and, I hope, a future one–I have great expectations of what this law will mean for all of our young people.

As President of the United States, I believe deeply no law I have signed or will ever sign means more to the future of America.

To each and everyone who contributed to this day, the nation is indebted.

What an awesome responsibility to place on one law:

  • Bridge the gap between helplessness and hope
  • Put new books and libraries in our nation’s schools
  • Reduce the time lag in bringing new teaching techniques into our classrooms
  • Rekindle the revolution against the tyranny of ignorance
  • Provide a valid passport from poverty
  • Give young people great expectations for their futures

In the half a century since ESEA was signed into law, there have been a few victories. One of the first to occur in the late 1960’s was the concept of magnet schools. These schools were introduced as an educational reform model of public school choice as a way to address educational inequity.   Magnet schools are based on the premise that students do not learn in the same way or at the same rate; that if we find a unifying theme or a different organizational structure for students of similar interest, students will learn more in all areas. In other words, if a magnet school voluntarily attracts students and teachers, it will succeed because, more than for any other reason, those in attendance want to be there. They will have chosen that school.  These schools usually have superior facilities and staff and offer a specialized curriculum designed to attract pupils from any school throughout a city or district.  Magnet schools have been created centered around STEM fields, the arts, and the classics.

Students at Parkland Aero Technology Magnet School in Rockville, MD are shown using a  device called a Sunspotter to track sunspots. Talking to the students is Research Scientist Daniel Mueller. He is explaining what they are seeing. Mueller from the European Space Agency is working with the Solar and Heliosphere Observatory (SOHO) of NASA. The photograph was taken in June 2016 by a NASA employee. This image is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. Image courtesy of NASA and Wikimedia Commons.

 

This is the art gallery of Da Vinci Arts Middle School, an arts magnet school in the Portland, Oregon.  The photograph was taken in January 2016 by Margalob. This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.  Image courtesy of Margalob and Wikimedia Commons.

A number of school districts have been very successful at putting new books and new technologies into libraries and the hands of our students.  For example, the Port Charlotte school district on the Gulf Coast of Florida, approximately half way between Sarasota and Fort Myers, has a new combination library and media center that rivals many college facilities in its equipment and attractiveness.  Its mission reflects the goals of President Johnson and the EASA legislation.

 The Mission of the Port Charlotte High School Media Center is to encourage our students to develop a love of reading, to appreciate the many kinds of literature available, and to ensure that students become effective users of ideas and information.  We aim to provide a comprehensive program of service, print and non-print materials, equipment and technology that will help meet the students’ academic and leisure needs.  Our resources and instruction support the educational goals of Port Charlotte High School.

Port Charlotte High School Media Center in Port Charlotte, Florida. This image was posted to Wikimedia Commons by its author, identified as PCHS-NJROTC, on May 12, 2010,  It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Image courtesy of PCHS-NJROTC and Wikimedia Commons.

Before we get too excited and get the idea that most public school libraries look like this, we must take note that Port Charlotte is a wealthy suburban district where the median price of homes in mid-2017 is over $235,000. It was ranked as the 15th best public school district in Florida by NICHE, a small firm that is comprised of data scientists, engineers, and parents, who are passionate about helping people discover the schools and neighborhoods that are right for them and their children. The total 2016 fiscal year budget for the Port Charlotte School District was $247million, of which $30million was appropriated for capital improvement projects.

There are many other successful school districts across the United States. However, the failures have far outnumbered the successes. To find examples of these failures, all one has to do is read the daily or weekly news reports coming out of Washington and many other cities and towns around the United States. In my next post, I will highlight some of those failures. Having been a participant in and observer of education for more than 65 years, I have seen at least six types of students who have been and are being ignored by American public K-12 education as a system and by individual teachers within the system. In subsequent posts, I will highlight these types of students and make some suggestions concerning what I believe needs to be done to bring these students into the mainstream.

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Who Are My Neighbors and How Can I Love Them?

In my last post I noted that my next post would answer the question, “Who are my neighbors?” As I began to fill in the outline that I had developed for my post, I discovered that I needed to answer a second question: “How can I love them?”

Loving someone with whom we are very close, like friends and family, can be hard. However, at least 10 times in Scriptures, we are told to love our neighbor.  The obvious questions are: “Who is my neighbor?” and “What does it mean to love my neighbor?”

Jesus answers both of these questions in the Luke 10 record of the encounter between Jesus and an expert in the Jewish law,

23 And he turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: 24 For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.  25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? 27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. 28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. 29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? 30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. 33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, 34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. 36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? 37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. (KJV)
from Presenter Media

Jesus, knowing that the lawyer was asking Him  a “gotcha question,”  turned the question back around to the lawyer.  Jesus replies, “You’re an expert in the law. How do you read it?”  This exchange reminds me of one of the modern talk shows where the host grills a guest with tough questions asked to catch the guest in a contradiction or lie.

from Presenter Media

 

 

The lawyer is trying to paint Jesus into a corner from which he can’t escape without stepping on the fresh paint.

from Presenter Media

However, Jesus turns the question back on the lawyer. The lawyer is now so unsure of how to proceed that he kicks over the can of paint, trapping himself.

Is the Old Testament more neighbor friendly than the New Testament?  In the Old Testament, there are more than 120 references to neighbor or neighborhood; while in the New Testament are only slightly more than 20 such references.  The lawyer’s response refers back to Leviticus 19:18,

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord. (KJV)

For the 1400 plus years between the time of Leviticus and the time of Jesus, Jewish lawyers and rabbis were continually debating the question asked by the lawyer: “Who is my neighbour?” Most of the strict constructionists said that because the first half of Lev. 19:18 only referred to the children of Israel (“the children of thy people”), the second half should also only refer to the children of Israel. These strict constructionists taught that Israelites had no responsibility to love Gentiles.  Many taught that the Israelites had a responsibility to avoid Gentiles completely. In fact, this allowed the children of Israel to despise anyone who wasn’t a “full” child of Isreal. This was carried to the extent of excluding any Israelite who married outside “the faith”, and any “half-breed children” that descended from such a non-sanctioned union.

from Presenter Media

In His response to the lawyer’s answer, Jesus completely reverses the course of the strict constructionist’s view that neighbor only referred to other Israelites. HIs answer swam in the face of almost all of mainstream Jewish thought of more than a millennium.

Actually how did Jesus answer the lawyer? He tells a story about “a certain,” unidentified man being attacked and severely injured by thieves. In this story, three individuals, two Jewish religious leaders and an unidentified Samaritan, encounter this unfortunate attack victim . The priest and the Levite do nothing to help or even acknowledge the “half dead” individual. Then a member of a hated group of half-breeds, the Samaritans, comes along. This good man not only stops to see if he could help the unfortunate victim, he goes out of his way to get the victim extra help. Jesus then puts the lawyer on the spot with the question of the moment,  “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?” The lawyer is caught in his own trap. It is obvious that the two Jewish officials who did nothing could not have been neighborly. However, the lawyer could not bring himself to even say that a Samaritan could be a good neighbor. The lawyer responded, “He that shewed mercy on him.” Then I can see Jesus looking straight at the lawyer and with emphasis saying to him, “Go, and do thou likewise.”

Image from Presenter Media

So to answer the foundational questions: Firstly, who is my neighbor? It is any one in need with whom I come in contact.

from Presenter Media

Secondly, how do I love them?  I provide the help that they need. It might be a hand up to help them get on their feet. It might be a shoulder to lean on to help them get around. It might be a roof over their head to give them shelter. It might be a meal to help nourish them. It might be medical assistance to help heal them. It is whatever they need that you can provide.

The point of most parables is to force the audience to place themselves into the story and figure out how to respond. So here’s the question to you: Who is your neighbor? and How should you love them? From this Good Samaritan story, we now have hundreds of Good Samaritan hospitals and shelters run by service agencies, offering love and aid to the needy. We also have hundreds of state and local laws, known as Good Samaritan laws, offering legal protection to individuals who in good faith come to the assistance of another individual in dire need. Paraphrasing the question from an old television game show, “Who do you love?”

My post next week asks the questions: Is there a difference between ethics and ethical behavior? Can we mandate ethics, or is our best expectation compliance at the behavioral level?

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Which Would You Find More Acceptable in Your Back Yard, a Toxic Waste Dump or a Murder of Crows?

Are you kidding me? Who would want a toxic waste dump in their back yard? However, who cares about crows anyway? Crows are noisy, dirty birds. They are omnivorous. They eat anything that comes along. They can devastate a garden or a crop of corn before it can be harvested. Few people worry about eliminating these nuisances from their backyards. Right?

This fourth post in my NIMBY series is the second example of a first pick alternative.  More of that a little later. I begin by explaining the second half title of this post. “A murder of crows” is an expression that goes back to at least the 15th century. It is a poetic expression that refers to a group of crows. The phrase was included in “The Book of St. Albans”, a compendium of collective nouns, published in 1486.

The term murder of crows may have come from several traits of crows. They will eat anything that they find available, especially carrion. However, if they come across a nearly dead or helpless animal, no matter its size, they are not above picking the animal to death. This includes their own species. When crows are sick or dying, their companions will pounce on the poor brother to finish him off, and then make a meal of him.

The second trait that might suggest calling a group of crows, a murder of crows, is their annoying, raucous calls. This is especially true when a group of them seem to be taunting each other with the calls. How many times have a group of kids playing noisily been chastised by a parent, yelling at them, “Knock off the noise! What are you trying to do, kill each other?”

A 1998 movie written and directed by Rowdy Herrington, named “A Murder of Crows” is part of the inspiration of the title of this post. In his suspenseful thriller, a disbarred lawyer steals the unpublished book of a dead man and publishes “A Murder of Crows” as his own work. The book tells the story of the murder of five unscrupulous lawyers. The title is derived from a reference in the book to the murdered lawyers as crows.

I have indicated that this post will deal with a choice between toxic waste dumps and a murder of crows. Where am I getting this comparison? It comes from a joke on one of the late night television shows. I don’t remember which show, but I do remember the joke. The comedian began his routine by referencing two national reports.

The first listed the location of all the toxic waste superfund sites by state in 2011. New Jersey topped the list with 116 sites. The next closest was California with 98. The 116 sites in New Jersey equaled the total sites for the 25 states with the fewest superfund sites. The second report was a 2012 report of the American Bar Association listing the number of lawyers per capita in each state and district of the United States. Probably not surprising, Washington, D.C. topped the list with New York in second place. What might be surprising is the difference. In D.C., there are more than 800 lawyers per 10,000 residents, or one lawyer for every 13 residents. In New York, there were 84 lawyers per every 10,000 residents, or one lawyer per 120 residents. Thus, in D.C. there are almost 10 times more lawyers per resident than in New York.

After giving out these statistics, the comedian ask the natural question: “Why should New Jersey have the superfund waste dumps while Washington, D.C. has the lawyers?” The quick, obvious answer was: “Washington won the coin toss, but deferred, just like they do with every other decision, until the second half. That gave New Jersey first choice and they took the waste dumps.”

There is a very logical reason why Washington, D.C. has the highest number of lawyers per capita in the country. The main business of Washington, and even the reason for its existence, is to be the legal center of our country. Almost every thing in the city revolves around laws. From writing laws, enacting laws, enforcing laws, interpreting laws, and adjudicating laws, who is better qualified than lawyers? The facetious answer to this question might be, “Anyone, but a lawyer.” The United States is a country of law, governed under the rule of law. Throughout history, the world has seen many examples of what happens when a society descends into lawlessness. This makes lawyers indispensable. However, I’m tempted to paraphrase a line from “Fiddler on the Roof.”  “May God bless lawyers, and keep them out of my back yard.”

There are also very logical reasons why there are so many toxic waste dumps in New Jersey. They begin with the history of New Jersey. For many years, New Jersey’s economy has been very heavily dependent upon dirty industries. By dirty industries, I mean manufacturers involved in the production and distribution of potentially harmful products and products with potentially harmful byproducts. New Jersey is the home of a number of refineries, paint and solvent manufacturers, chemical companies, building material plants, automotive-related industries, and electronic-based businesses. In the face of the high industrial concentration in the parts of the state,  New Jersey is additionally the home of many farms which can also be major polluters.

Just because the products associated with the pollution are located in New Jersey, why should the waste also be sited in New Jersey? There are three main reasons. The first two are economics and convenience. It is so much cheaper and easier to dispose of waste near to the location it was created. The third reason is actually a form of the NIMBY argument. “Why would other locations want to take New Jersey’s dirty waste? I don’t want my neighbor’s waste and junk in my back yard.” Thus New Jersey was stuck with its own waste.

I’m not sure I have helped you answer the question: “Which would you rather have in your back yard, a toxic waste dump or a murder of crows?” As a country, both have provided many benefits. Personally, I am leaning toward a murder of crows. Dealing with a bunch of dirty birds is more appealing to me than trading potential health hazards for financial prosperity .

My next NIMBY post returns to scriptures. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is under fire from a hostile lawyer pressing him on the issue what was necessary to inherit eternal life. Jesus turned the question back on the lawyer by asking him, “What does the law say? How do you read it?” After a testy exchange, the lawyer asks Jesus directly, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the post “Who is My Neighbor?” I will discuss the implication of the parable for NIMBY debates in today’s world.

With all the negative interactions in scripture which involve lawyers, I’m having second thoughts about my first choice. It reminds me of an old joke:

Q:   Have you heard any “good lawyer” stories recently?

A:   I didn’t know there were any?

Do I really want a whole of bunch of loud, obnoxious  lawyers arguing in my back yard, spewing their poisonous venom into the air? Maybe the toxic waste dump in my back yard isn’t so bad after all? Is there any difference?

You caught me. I am guilty of hyperbole. Obviously, I have fallen into the trap of dumping all lawyers into the same trash heap. I know, as well as you, that not all lawyers are bad. Many are good, decent human beings, whose work is absolutely necessary for the well-ordered operations of our communities and country. These lawyers should be honored. It’s the bad apples that need to be identified and eliminated.

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What Makes a Better Neighbor: a Prison or a University?

In February 1980, one of the most horrific prison riots in US history occurred at the Maximum Security State Prison in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Several years later, at an academic gathering in the beautiful conference setting of quaint Santa Fe, the dinner discussion turned to the question of why the main branch of the state university was located in Albuquerque, while the maximum security state prison was located in Santa Fe. An administrator from a college in New Mexico, replied, “As State Capital, Santa Fe had first choice.” When I first heard this comment about 30 years ago, I thought it was a joke. However, I immediately recognized that this one-liner could come in handy in future discussions. Thus, I filed it away in my memory to pull out at an appropriate time.

I will admit that over the intervening years, in addition to employing it myself, I have heard others use the “first choice” quip on more than one occasion in discussions of seemingly anomalous situations. My next post, “Which Would You Find More Acceptable in Your Back Yard, a Toxic Waste Dump or a Murder of Crows?” represents such an occurrence. 

When I started this series of posts on the NIMBY syndrome, I figured it was time to pull out this old story and look at it more closely. I thought of three general questions that I should answer. Firstly, are there other state capitals which may have chosen prisons over universities? Secondly, what are positives and negatives for a community having a prison within its environs? Thirdly, what are the benefits and detriments that an institution of higher learning imparts to the community in which it resides?

I quickly discovered that arriving at the answer to the first question was much more time consuming than I expected it to be. I first ascertained that all 50 state capitals had jails, prisons, and/or detention centers of some stripe within their metropolitan boundaries.

Surprisingly, trying to determine how many state capitals hosted state-supported universities also proved a little trickier than I thought. I began by settling on a definition of state-supported university. For my purposes, I looked at institutions of higher education that: 1) called themselves public colleges or universities; 2) offered four-year baccalaureate degrees as the core of their undergraduate academic programming; 3) offered primarily full-time, traditional, residential programs; 4) offered campus housing to students; and 5) garnered a significant slice of their general operating budget from direct state appropriations. In my search I found 41 states that had institutions that met all five of my conditions. Besides New Mexico, the other eight that did not were Iowa, Maryland, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The higher education options in the capitals of these nine states present an interesting mix. All nine of the state capitals have for-profit institutions offering non-traditional degree programs for adult students. Four of the state capitals do not have any private colleges or universities that offer traditional four-year baccalaureate programs.  These are Des Moines, Iowa, Pierre, South Dakota, Montpelier, Vermont, and Cheyenne Wyoming. Only two of the state capitals, Annapolis, Maryland and Pierre, South Dakota, do not have public two-year community colleges.

Although Annapolis, Maryland does not have any state supported four-year school, it is the home of the United States Naval Academy. As a national military academy, it is not the typical college. First students do not pay tuition. They “pay” for their education by a military service requirement after graduation or separation from the academy. The admissions process is also quite complicated, with the student completing a normal academic application and a nomination application to those individuals or groups that are authorized to nominate students to the national military academies.

Thus, Pierre, South Dakota seems to fall completely outside the normal pattern of educational opportunities in state capitals. There are no traditional college options, either public or private, in Pierre. Students just graduating from high school must leave Pierre and go elsewhere to attend any college.

Therefore, the data suggest that most state capitals have not picked prisons instead of colleges or universities. While 96% of state capitals had state supported, two-year technical or community college, a hefty 82% were also home to state supported universities. Thus, most state provided their state capitals with both prisons and state supported higher education.

Although most economic impact studies give the edge to universities over prisons in providing economic benefits to the surrounding community, there are a few negative blips on the radar screen. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the two unrelated trends of an economic downturn in rural America and the epidemic-like increase in U.S. prison population caused some rural communities to turn to prisons as a basis for economic development. While most economic and employment impact studies look at the increased revenue produced by the universities and prisons, they do not take into account the added costs of increased services required and social disruption.

With all the economic, cultural and educational advantages that colleges and universities provide communities, why would any community embrace a prison before a college or university? There are some economic reasons, but many of the reasons seem to be social. Whereas a college or university is likely to drastically change the culture of a community, a prison is very unlikely to cause any such changes. Colleges may attract a diverse student body that is very different from the community. This can cause tensions among the students and the local residents. Faculty and students are also by nature activists and push for change, while the local residents may be very content to remain in their status quo. College students are also generally free to move about.  I once read a newspaper account concerning a community resident complaining about a wild party which spilled over from a college into the surrounding community. It described the scene by saying, “The inmates were running wild.” With prisons, the inmates almost never run wild in the local community. Prisoners are locked up and have little or no contact with the surrounding community.

Once a prison is built, there are few extra demands on public safety services or transportation infrastructure. Once a college is built there are multiple extra public safety or infrastructure concerns. Colleges and universities have numerous, large events with a concomitant influx of visitors, which must pass through the community to get to the campus. Communities are left with the big question of who is going to pay. Since all public and most private colleges are tax-exempt organizations, they do not pay state and local taxes to cover the cost of the common public services that communities must provide like public safety, transportation infrastructure like roads and bridges, and utility infrastructure concerns like water and sewer. To get around the tax questions, some communities have asked college and universities and other tax-exempted organizations to pay user fees to cover what might be considered their fair share of the cost of providing community services.

One other concern with a number of college communities is the disruption that the expansion of a college causes the local neighborhoods. From personal experience, I have seen neighbors very upset with the way colleges have bought up properties and changed the nature of the neighborhood. With public institutions, the use of eminent domain can further alienate the locals.

 Why are prisons sometimes considered better neighbors than college and universities? Colleges and universities change the nature of their neighborhood. They are a disruptive force, costing more than they are worth in the opinions of some neighbors. Once prisons are built, they usually just sit there and have no interaction with the neighborhood.

 

 

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Never Underestimate a Group of Irate Senior Citizens

The US DOE seems to be a slow learner. In the early 1980’s in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, they counted their chickens before they hatched. When the DOE attempted in the late 1980’s to build a nuclear waste dump in Allegany County, New York, they were outflanked by a group of irate senior citizens.

During 1988 and 1989, the DOE had settled on the rural Allegany County of Western New York as the site for a new nuclear waste dump. It seemed to be an ideal location. There were no large population centers in the county. There were few companies with large numbers of employees that would relocate away from a nuclear waste dump. The geology of the area showed no signs of instability. The county was primarily farm land or forests, and hence large plots of land would be relatively inexpensive to acquire.

In early 1990, when the news about the proposed dump started circulating around Allegany County, the local citizens began protesting. On April 5, 1990, those protests made the national news, and put the DOE on the hot seat again.

The DOE had picked an actual site for the dump. A number of DOE officials scheduled a visit to survey the location on April 5th. Such a visit can never be kept secret. When the word leaked out, the leaders of the county protesters planned a reception for the DOE officials.

The DOE officials arranged a small motorcade to visit the site and see the surrounding area. This information somehow got into the hands of the protesters. Knowing the location of the site, the protesters could easily determine the route that the motorcade would have to travel. It required the visitors to cross a bridge over the Genesee River. This would be the place that the protesters would confront the DOE visitors.

Knowing the date and time of the visit, the protesters knew when they had to be ready to greet their visitors. They also knew they needed to document the event. Thus, they had notified the local news outlets of their intentions.

On the appointed day, a group of Allegany farmers and ranchers mounted their horses and blocked the approach to the bridge. The Allegany protesters knew full well that the DOE would call the State Police to break up their equine barricade. Therefore, the Allegany protesters had a back up plan.

A number of Allegany protesters were elderly and could not comfortably ride horses. These senior citizens would form a second line of defense. The protest group strung a heavy chain across the bridge roadway and six of the senior citizens handcuffed themselves to the chain. They then conveniently lost the keys.

When the DOE motorcade approached the bridge, the scenario went as scripted. The State Police escorts called for reinforcements. When these extra police arrived, the riders and their horses were ushered off the roadway. The motorcade then proceeded only to find the road blocked by the human chain of old folks.

Momentarily stopped and not knowing what to do, one of the police officers called for additional help from the State Police in the form of a “Jaws of Life” tool. The message was mistaken for an emergency call. Headquarters sent several sets of first responders to the scene.  This caught the attention of the reporters at the scene, who started calling in their stories. Suddenly, this was no longer simply a local interest item. It was news.

Television crews captured pictures of the State Police using the “Jaws of Life” to cut the chain between the senior citizens and ordering them to leave the bridge. When they refused, the Police started carrying them off the bridge. One particular picture made the national news. A small, feisty 87-year-old lady is picked up by a burly police man, who carts her off. She was yelling, screaming and kicking. This made a great feature on all the national news shows, “State Police officer picks on frail 87-year-old woman.”

With the bridge finally open the DOE and State Police thought their passage to the site was unobstructed. To make sure, they sent a scout on ahead to check the road. When the scout reported back that the road was clear, the motorcade started on their way again. However, the protesters were not done.

Down the road several miles from the bridge around a sharp curve, the road passes through a valley created by two steep hills. In early April, Allegany County usually still has snow on the ground. In the winter of 1989-1990, there was a particularly heavy snow fall. The two hills on either side of the road were loaded with loose snow. The locals knew how to take advantage of this. After the police scout had passed the valley and the motorcade started toward its destination, the protesters jumped into action again.

At the top of the hills, they made large balls of snow, and rolled them down the slopes, creating huge balls of snow that completely blocked the road. When the motorcade rounded the curve and saw the road blocked, the State Police called in snow plows to clear the road. Since the television crews were still in the area, they began filming again. This event also made the national evening news shows. By the time the motorcade finally reached the proposed dump site, the DOE officials were exasperated with the whole mess.

This was the final straw. The DOE decided it had to find another site for the dump. When the DOE announced this, the Allegany folks claimed victory . However, the locals took no chances. For more than a year, there were signs everywhere in Allegany County that said, “Allegany — No Dump” or “Bump the Dump.”

I remember driving through Allegany County, during the Easter weekend of 1991, a whole year later. There were still “Allegany — No Dump” signs on lawns.

My next NIMBY post is entitled What Makes a Better Neighbor, a Prison or a University? The answer given by some people may be surprising. The rationales for their answers may be even more surprising.

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Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch

Before I focus on the NIMBY scenario in which the United States Department of Energy and the residents of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, faced off against the State of Tennessee, I would like to provide a little background on the title Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch.

I was surprised to find that this quip is approximately 700 years old. It can be traced to a 14th century French, oral fable about a milk maid on her way to the market. In this tale, the young girl is day dreaming about what she’s going to do with the eggs she’s planning on buying with the money she’ll receive when she sells the milk in her pail. Unfortunately, she is paying more attention to her day dream than where she is walking. She trips and spills the pail of milk. Since she has nothing to sell, she runs home. She falls into her mother’s arms out of breath. Her eyes and cheeks are red from her crocodile  tears. Her mother tries to calm her down and find out what’s wrong. The young maid finally composes herself and blurts out the whole story. At this point, there are two possible morals to this fable. In the first one, a consoling mother says, “Be more careful, and pay attention to what you’re doing. However, when there is an accident, there’s no sense in crying over spilled milk.” In the other, an angry mother says harshly, “Pay attention to the task at hand! Confine your thoughts to what is real.”

Although the phrase “Do not count your chickens before they hatch.” has been around for approximately three-quarters of a millennium, there are variants of the story with similar morals that are almost three millennia old.  One Indian version is from the Panchatantra, a set of Sanskrit parables for children, from the 2nd century B.C. It is the story “The Brahman Who Built Air-Castles.” It is about a poor man with a wife and child who are given a jar of grain. The three get so excited about planting the grain, reaping a large harvest, and then reinvesting the gains in animals and more grain. In their imagination, they go through numerous cycles until they are very rich and have built imaginary castles. The child is jumping all around playing in their new imaginary home. The father yells at the mother to calm the child down. When the mother doesn’t follow the father’s instruction, he takes a real stick and begins to beat the child who starts running away from the father. The child in all the excitement runs into the real jar of grain, breaking it. This spills the grain all over the ground outside their real hut where chickens and wild birds begin to gather and eat the grain.

A similar Jewish fable from an earlier period of time is called “The Dervish and the Honey Jar.” In this story, a poor man begs for handouts of honey at the Jewish temple and market every day. When he finally has a full pot of honey, he is so excited, he puts the jar next to his bed so no one can steal it. HIs excitement carries over into his sleep. He dreams of what he is going to buy with the proceeds from selling the honey. In his sleep, he dreams robbers try to steal his newly acquired wealth, so he tries to fight them away with his staff. In swinging the staff around in his sleep, he breaks the honey jar spilling the honey all over his dirty floor. When he hears the jar break, he jumps up quickly and walks through the honey on the floor mixing more dirt with the honey.

What do these fables have to do with the confrontation between the Department of Energy,and the State of Tennessee? As noted in a previous post, the DOE had already built a nuclear lab and power plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. With every nuclear lab and power plant, there are nuclear waste products which must be disposed of properly. The cornerstone of the economy of Oak Ridge was the atom. The majority of the residents of Oak Ridge dealt with nuclear materials every day. They knew the dangers and the precautions that had to be taken to handle such materials safely. The residents of Oak Ridge were perfectly comfortable with having a nuclear waste dump in their neighborhood.

The DOE expected the approval process to build a waste dump in the Oak Ridge area to be a walk in the park. However, the DOE didn’t count on the resistance from the remainder of the state of Tennessee. This resistance came primarily from three sources and came in three forms.

The first source was a very broad segment of the State’s business community. Arguably, the biggest economic player in Tennessee is the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA is a federally owned corporation created in 1933 to provide  flood control, navigation, land management and electric power for the Tennessee River system and the surrounding region. Since its inception, the TVA has been extremely successful in doing that job.  As a result of those successes, farming, recreation and the sale of electricity became three of the most profitable industries in the region. The coalition of these three industries didn’t want anything upsetting their apple cart. The possibility of nuclear power became a threat to the goose that was laying golden eggs for them.

The second source was the general population of the rest of the state of Tennessee. Since so little was known about nuclear dangers, it was easy for opponents to raise fears in the uninformed. Protests against nuclear power, laboratories and waste dumps were held in all parts of the state. Residents cried for their local officials to protect them from the nuclear dangers and the DOE which they saw as an encroaching enemy. These cries were not unheard in the halls of the state government, which lead to the third source of resistance.

The third source was the state governmental complex. When the federal government established the Oak Ridge laboratory and power plant, it did not involve officials from the State very much at all. It used its federal clout to “just do it.” This affront turned off the members of the executive and legislative branches of the state government. They were angry and suspicious of the federal government, particularly the DOE.  They were also afraid of their local constituents who were demanding action and protection. This resulted in a number of laws which greatly restricted the placement of nuclear facilities and the movement across the state of nuclear material. Not only did local governments have to approve such placements or movements, the State Legislature had to formally approve any new facilities and movement of nuclear material anywhere within the state.

When the proposal for a nuclear waste dump in Oak Ridge became public, the Tennessee State Legislature quickly passed a resolution prohibiting the establishment of such a facility. The DOE attempts to appease the legislature were met with complete contempt and rejection. When the DOE attempted to bypass the state and proceed with their plans, the State of Tennessee took legal action against the DOE. This road block complicated the DOE’s plans greatly. The DOE lost the first round of the battle in Tennessee courts, but eventually won the war in federal courts. However, this victory was costly. The delays cost years and millions of dollars. In addition, many residents of Tennessee are still suspicious of the federal government and fight it over very minor matters that have nothing to do with nuclear material.  

So one would have thought that the DOE learned its lesson about the reaction of local residents to their plans about nuclear plants and waste facilities. The DOE was still counting its chickens before they hatched when they went to locate a nuclear waste dump in Allegany County in New York. I relate that story in my next posting, Never Underestimate a Group of Angry Senior Citizens.