Education for the real world

I had an Op-Ed that ran in yesterday's Central Maine Newspapers (Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel) on a subject that I think needs to be addressed with the same passion that tax-cutting currently is being bantered about in our state. I've posted on my workforce blog.

While I was pleased that the newspaper finally ran my opinion piece, I was equally pleased to have it run alongside an equally pertinent piece, by Waterville High School teacher, Alan Haley. His opinion is that the Maine Learning Results are an absolute failure. He also addresses the state's Department of Education and its monolithic stranglehold on education.

Personally, I think the model of education that the state should be looking at is Career and Technical Education. This model is committed to developing technical and academic skills, as well as promoting the student attitudes and achievements that best prepare students for further education and careers in the 21st Century. The were formerly Maine's vocational high schools, but if you think that the only thing they do is teach kids to pound nails and tune engines, you are mistaken.

I urge anyone that cares about the education in our state and elsewhere, to contact your local CTE program and arrange a tour. You'll be amazed by the diversity of subjects and the rigorous preparation for the real world that the students receive.

Book news, part I

Did I tell you I'm writing a book? Oh yeah, I guess I did. That's why the posts have been and will probably continue to be less frequent, at least for awhile.

I know some of my readers have books and may be working on one at the moment. They'll appreciate the process and the difficulty of that "birthing" process." (forgive the analogy, particularly from a white male, without any childbirth experience). This is my second time round and it doesn't get easier with practice.

I have a draft excerpt and a tentative title (which will change), but that's what's been occupying my free time of late.

It's the economy, stupid!

[For those who follow these things, John Miller's article on the U.S. economy is worth considering, seeing that it is an election year, and all-JB]





Stormier Weather

It's not only radical economists and cyberspace Cassandras uttering the "r"-word nowadays. Just what are we to make of it when Harvard economists, The Economist magazine, and Morgan Stanley followed by Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch say the economy is headed toward, or already in, a recession?

You can bet the house, whatever its current value, that hard times are on the way—more layoffs, fewer new jobs, lower wages, tighter family budgets, more debt, and higher poverty levels. This year will see rising economic hardship even if the U.S. economy scrapes by without sinking into an official recession, usually defined as two straight quarters of declining output.

How do I know this? Hard times have been the hallmark of the U.S. economy during this decade, even as the economy expanded. We will be in for more of the same, but worse, as the economy slows and the inevitable downturn in the business cycle exacerbates the economic injuries many people have already sustained thanks to long-term shifts in the U.S. economic system.

To read more.....

Some libraries are better than others

[File photo of Waterville Public Library]

Libraries are one of my favorite places to visit—sometimes. Other times, I find them irritating, loud and nearly impossible to work in.

When I was researching When Towns Had Teams, some of my best periods of research were performed at the temporary location of the Auburn Public Library. At the time (2004-2005), their historic building on Court and Spring Streets was undergoing a major renovation and upgrade. As a temporary solution to vacating their building, they relocated to the Auburn Mall. Now books and malls seem counterintuitive, but for whatever reason, this location seemed to work. Actually, it probably had more to do with Director Rosemary Waltos and her staff, like reference librarian, Sally Holt, that made my trips there memorable.

Today, I’m on my way to Skowhegan, for an evening meeting with business leaders and educators. Our hope is that dialogue can be established and possible avenues for partnership developed that might open initial discussions about education’s role in preparing students for careers and the requisite skills required for today’s workforce.

I am out of an afternoon meeting and since I’ll be working late into the evening, I decided to bring my laptop and try to get some work done during some downtime.

Since most libraries across Maine now offer Wi-Fi access and I’m passing through Waterville, I thought I’d spend time at their public library.

Pulling up to the library building on Elm Street, I immediately recognized that with the snow banks, I wouldn’t be parking in front of the building. I drove around back to what I thought was a parking lot for library patrons and saw signs indicating that the lot was restricted to employees of a neighboring business. Fortunately, the road behind the library offered curbside parking and I made my way up the poorly sanded back stairway and ramp.

Library circulation desks are usually a reasonable place to orient yourself during an initial visit. Most of Maine’s better libraries have signage that directs you to Wi-Fi hotspots, or other areas. I couldn’t find any, so I chose to stand in line waiting for an available staff person. The WPL staff didn’t seem in any kind of hurry to wait on patrons (or visitors). I was fourth in line and it became apparent that after five minutes, I was on my own. I could have chosen to wait, but my arm was tiring from my briefcase and my shoulder was aching from the laptop strap, so I did the next best thing; I followed a small, homemade sign pointing upstairs to the Teen Room and the Maine History Room. This was fortuitous for me, as neither room was occupied. I had an outlet and I was able to access the library’s network and I was now in business. If you think about it, if you are one of those odd people who cherish the quiet and privacy that once was synonymous with libraries, then an area specializing in Maine history would probably be a place of solitude (except at Lewiston Public Library, which will be a story for a later post).

Long story short, I have a perfunctory perch to work for the next hour and then, it’s off to Skowhegan for tonight’s meeting.

Buying bread takes more "bread"

[Baking bread at Big Sky--Portland Press Herald Photo]

There has been little in the way of positive economic news for weeks now. The biggest issue on most American voter’s minds right now, is the health of the U.S. economy.

Just this morning, the Business Tuesday section of the Portland Press Herald had three stories highlighting the rising cost of fuel, food and fears of inflation.

Bakers of bread, pizza makers and others that rely on flour for their livelihood are facing escalating prices, as wheat stockpiles worldwide are at 60-year lows. This is in part due to droughts in Australia, a major world producer of wheat, as well as burgeoning demand for wheat and wheat products in the world’s two most populous countries, China and India.

Owner Andrew Siegel, of When Pigs Fly, a York-based bakery that churns out wonderfully unique breads, is quoted as saying, “It’s kind of a scary time right now.” The scary time he’s referring to is bakeries seeing their flour costs tripling over the past year.
Portland-based Big Sky Bread Company has also seen costs nearly triple from a year ago, with recent prices up 50 percent since the beginning of January.

Martha Elkus, owner of Big Sky Bread says that a 50-pound bag of flour cost about $11 in February 2007, and is now about $30. At about 60 bags per week, that means her weekly flour bill has jumped from less than $700 a year ago to about $1,800 now.

“The person delivering her flour recently joked that he might need an armed guard,” Elkus said.

With flour and wheat products tripling in price and the price of oil at an all-time high, the three remaining presidential contenders will have their hands full with just the U.S. economy, let alone geo-political concerns abroad.

In this context, I’ll leave you the sometimes misogynistic and always-"sunny" Jim Kunstler, with a portion of his take (from Monday’s Clusterfuck Nation).

Whoever wins on November 5 will wake up to preside over a different America than the schematic one he was debating about during the primaries and the election. The long campaign will beat a path straight into the long emergency. The new president will inherit a wrecked banking system, an economy in freefall, a wobbling world oil market, and an American public extremely ticked off by its startling, sudden impoverishment. (This is apart from whatever melodramas spool out on the geopolitical scene.)

The president-elect will quickly realize that the number one problem is not that Americans can't afford health care -- it's that they can't afford anything, because their income is evaporating in terms of both lost jobs and a dollar that is racing toward worthlessness. They'll be hard put to pay for food and gasoline, nevermind Grandma's emphysema treatments. They will be walking away from home ownership -- or yanked kicking and screaming by default-and-repo -- and any government scheme devised to abridge their mortgage contracts will only undermine basic contract law that has made mortgage lending a credible thing in the first place. And that too, of course, would redound straight to a real estate sector already in price free-fall, with no one willing or able to think about buying a house.

One more section from Kunstler to hammer home some reality, in a campaign season filled with delusion and I assign blame widely, both right, left, and to the loopy. Say what you want about Jimbo (and he gets my hackles up on a regular basis), there are few, in my opinion that root the energy/peak oil issue as succinctly and firmly in a reality-based paradigm as he does.

Whoever wakes up as the next president on November 5 will have to preside over the comprehensive reorganization of American life. The big question is whether he can persuade the public to let go of its sunk costs, and all the sheer stuff that represents, and move ahead in a unified way that doesn't end up tearing the nation apart. The danger is that the public will want to mount a kind of last stand effort to defend a way of life that has no future under any circumstances, and they will ask the president to lead that last stand.

To avoid that deadly outcome, the new president will have to be equipped with a realistic vision of what this society can actually do to survive the discontinuities that circumstances present. This will require him to confront the prevailing delusion that the US can become "energy independent" in the sense that we can run WalMart on something other than oil from foreign lands. The new president would have to carefully restate American expectations and goals -- for instance, not to keep all the cars running at all costs, but to get us living in places where driving is not mandatory. I'm concerned that the American people will hate the new president if he tells them the truth: that an old way of life is over and a new one has to begin now. We're about to find out how much "change" the public can really stand.

Happy bread baking!