Death by Good Intentions

There is an on-going attitude sweeping through the veins of our society that will be as deadly as Covid-19.

That attitude suggests that based on good intentions, America can re-balance our historical, deeply ingrained racial inequality now by changing what is good and works so that it can become inclusive even though the changes threaten to destroy the good and make it mediocre…at best.

That attitude suggests that with the best of intentions we can undue years of supporting foreign wars that now seem meaningless despite the trillions it has cost us and the hundreds of thousands of lives lost – ours and others – to focus on financing the social and physical needs of this country and its people. An attitude that says America can work better if we have the courage to build and rebuild both the roads and bridges and the everyday lives of what was once a middle class. An attitude that says all we need do is have the government spend the money where the needs are and things will work.

A plan and a formula that needs the votes in a Congress that cannot be found.

Good intentions only work when you know how to make them work to be better than what exists. The know-how it will take to do all of this is sorely missing in today’s America.

Right now there are two major indicators of good intentions going wrong in a divided and disabled country: the attempt by school systems in New York and in other major cities to end gifted and talented programs as they exist and open them in some fashion to the one group which has not been able to take advantage of them — the black community; and the actions of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to insist on spending 3.5 trillion dollars in a social infrastructure program or vote against the bipartisan agreed upon physical infrastructure program which will be approved by Congress.

de BLASIO’S LAST FOLLY

With two a half months to go in an eight year administration which has brought little good and a lot bad to New York City, Bill de Blasio, has announced an end to New York’s present gifted and talented program for an as yet (and as usual) unnamed approach to making the program more inclusive for New York’s black community.

He of course, will do none of it. As with most of his programs in the past four years, this one is forecast for a time after he has left office. And that is a relief because what he touches turns to dust.

There is no question that new Mayor Eric Adams may try to change the parameters and design of the gifted and talented program because he knows it needs changes.

While high school students who participate in AP (advanced placement) courses do have a better chance of getting into a chosen college and then do better in school then those who never were in AP courses, there is little hard evidence that the gifted and talented programs produce those very students who are involved in high school AP programs.

Like gifted and talented programs, new Pre-K programs for four and three year olds are not studied to learn if Pre-K truly works to advance learning for our youngest students.

But this we do know: because four year old children are tested for gifted and talented program potential, parents who have the time and money, do prepare their little ones to qualify for these programs.

Is this the best way? Four year olds? Wouldn’t a greater indicator of potential talent be recognized by third grade as suggested? Parents who are white, Asian and increasingly, Hispanic, are able to help their children qualify…black parents who are too often unable to afford the time or money for preparation, cannot.

What happens in the interim can be better managed by both early childhood education and preparation by schools and parents…with special consideration and programs to assist black parents.

Changes can be made that will not destroy these gifted and talented programs nor diminish them, nor hurt the children who qualify for them but rather widen the opportunity for preparation that can help black children qualify in the first place.

But instead we hear de Blasio talking about ending the program…with the sense that what exists will be destroyed.

This is not an educational approach but a political one.

Testing students endlessly was a political decision at the turn of the century. The introduction of the Common Core curriculum without training teachers to use it or even test it…was also a political decision not a decision by educators.

Whenever politics takes over the direction of educational policy, that policy fails

In today’s America children are going back to school as the pandemic continues because we are all convinced that being in school is the only way learning works.

Is there any discussion about making up for the loss of two years of learning or are teachers just expected to gloss over the fact that children in their classes right now are two years behind? Silence abounds. The questions go unanswered.

IF JOE BIDEN WAS LBJ

Joseph R. Biden and Lyndon Baines Johnson came from very different geographical and cultural areas yet had some very interesting parallels.

Biden from tough, working class neighborhoods of Scranton, Pa. and Johnson from hardscrabble, desert-dry West Texas.

They fought their way into the US Senate – Biden learning how to deal with the needs of industrial powerhouse DuPont which “owns” Delaware and Johnson learning how to wheel and deal with the wheeler-dealers in Austin and throughout Texas.

Both men found their place in the Senate after years of work and reelection: Biden to become an expert in foreign affairs, Johnson as the most powerful Majority Leader in the Senate’s history.

Both men wanted to be President. Biden tried three times to find interest from Democrats…and didn’t.

Johnson’s hard-won position as Majority Leader made it more difficult for him to leave that place where he wielded great power and influence.

Both men became carefully selected Vice Presidents…Johnson because the Kennedy’s needed Texas to pull votes from the southern tier, Biden because newbie Barack Obama, America’s first President of color needed Biden’s Washington know-how and ability to negotiate legislation.

And then after both had essentially seen their chances for the Presidency pass them by – they became ‘accidental’ Presidents. Johnson when Kennedy was assassinated and Biden when the Democrats had so many vying to take on Donald Trump that his victory pulling a strong black turnout in the South Carolina primary launched him into the nomination.

As Presidents in a certain key time in our history both men took brave and progressive steps to seek legislation that would make important changes going forward.

Johnson was determined to finish what Kennedy had started and that was to pass a Civil Rights Act and a voting bill which would provide a new freedom for black voters after years of Martin Luther King’s efforts to bring that kind of legislation to Congress.

Biden, determined to bring back work and standing to the middle class so that those in the working class had a goal to achieve, brought a big dollar approach to physical and social infrastructure changes: fix the roads, bridges, tunnels and highways so neglected over time and deal with human needs for early childhood and higher education, child care advances for working parents, the need to deal with greater healthcare provisions and for what had become so obvious – the need to do something about climate changes beginning to ravage the World.

Knowing who and what LBJ was, how he understood power and how to use it, it is easy to imagine what he might be doing with the interesting walls that now obstruct Biden’s programs.

LBJ fought for and won the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights bills even though he knew he’d lose the South by doing so. Because he knew about the lives of each of those in Congress, because he had and used the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover to capture information on every legislator – the kind of personal information that legislators would never want anyone to know, Johnson was able to put together the votes he needed to win the legislation he wanted.

Today he would have had Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona in his office talking about their demands that the 3.5 trillion dollar social spending bill be reduced and their refusal to vote for it. He would have known exactly what they were doing to maintain their own Senate seats in States where Donald Trump had great influence and strong voting support. And he would have let them know that their attitudes did not insure their electoral success unless they showed some genuine support.

Then he would have taken the leaders of the 95 progressive Democrats in the House one by one and explained to each why they might relax their attitude of our way or no way and remind them that their careers might come to a fairly quick end if they could no longer serve on legislative committees that kept them front and center. He would have demanded that they vote now to pass the 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill and then work with him and the rest of the House to redraw and refine the larger bill to meet the present realities of a Congress held together by four votes at best and make that legislation happen too.

Joe Biden has never had that power or that ferocious skill …nor does he have it now.

Liberal and moderate thinkers believe that even more can be done for America with an even larger social and educational services bill but see the realities and believe in the good fight until something less can be won.

Here are two realities. The House progressives are led by young, inexperienced people who are used to getting what they demand from the World around them because they know no other way. Such people did not exist in Congress in the 1960’s…they might have been in the streets fighting for civil rights and against the Vietnam War but they were not in Congress.

And a recent study reveals that since 1985, the political party in power, whether Democrat or Republican has never won more than one significant advance during their years controlling the Presidency and Congress.

Obama got his Affordable Care Act but nothing else.

Biden with a tiny majority in both houses of Congress passed his American Recovery Act that sent billions to everyone suffering within the pandemic. History indicates he might get nothing else.

George W. Bush never got Social Security overhauled and privatized.

Donald Trump could not get rid of the Affordable Care Act.

Holding all the power and not getting what you want is a clear indication of how delicate that “power” really is

Good intentions…doing the right thing for the right reasons…should always win the day. But that can also mean that every player will win a multi-million dollar lottery.

It all feels so good and seems so right — but in a troubled America within a troubled World, we need more than good intentions. We need smarts and courage.

Do we have them…do they exist?

Or are they packed in one of those huge storage containers piled high on those monstrous cargo freighters waiting for weeks just to dock at our overcrowded ports.