It Be True

IF YOU’VE ever been in a one-team town the week before their big appearance in the grand final, you’ll know the feelings.

Anticipation.
Excitement.
The bubbling hope that this will be the one.
The searing knowledge of the times it has gone bad before.

Welcome to Denver, Colorado for the Democratic National Convention.

Nearly everyone wears “CHANGE” buttons, a lanyard with important looking documentation and an Obama-themed t-shirt. Winner of the day: “There’s A Black Man Running … and it’s not from the Police”. Worn by a black man.

You can feel it roiling in the streets, where the sellers hawk merchandise and the delegates walk around with mobile phones pressed to their head - like pushing them in harder will make the result of the call better.

Tonight Michelle Obama spoke at the centre. From my viewpoint in a hotel bar, it was an astonishingly polished performance. If the Democrats win in November, this will be considered one of the great “saves” of the campaign. Women were crying, there was a standing ovation. Killer stuff.

Today I spoke to New York City school chancellor Joel Klein about the “A-to-F” grading system he has applied to most of his almost 1,450 schools - a system Education Minister Julia Gillard wants to push to Australia.

NB: I have paraphrased my rambling answers. Mr Klein does not ramble and his answers are in full

Ms Gillard wants to scrap the actual “A-to-F” portion of the grading…

This is in some ways one of the more controversial points. I believe it has real power. It does reduce a lot of information to a single grade. By the same token, people could say it’s a little reductionistic, because looking at the data and the information can be very powerful. I would say that doing what the deputy PM wants, has proposed to do is terrific. Maybe it’s not only the first step but the last step. But to get the information – the basic information that ultimately we roll over into a grade … is what parents, teachers, others, the press, what they need to know about the schools. Because right now people are flying blind.

In Australia there is serious opposition towards any moves to increase the availability - or even the collection of - the kind of information you gather.

Sure, it’s kind of tradition. Once you start to make data about schools transparent – particularly about progress – that puts real pressure on … on all of us. I actually say, my life would be a lot easier, in a sense, if we didn’t put out the information. Because when we put it out the parents, legitimately, get concerned and make more demands on the system. But I think that’s the way you build a constituency and a consensus for change. I guess I also feel … I’m sure this is true in Australia as it is here, there are many children who grow up in poverty who have really enormous needs. And they don’t have a real sense of whether their school is making progress. So there’s a “feel good” quality about education, but when a student exits the public education or the private education system unprepared for the demands of the 21^st century it’s a short-lived feel good quality.

In Australia… 

I’m obviously not an expert on Australia, but I find in the US when you propose change a lot of resistance. And a lot of people resist, in particular, accountability.

Joel Klein, being aped by Stephen Colbert. From Gothamist.com

Parent groups have been vocally against your system being imported to Australia.

That would surprise me, because here in the US parents are overwhelmingly excited about the information. Not every parent. Some people don’t like testing – although I think if you don’t test students you don’t know what they know – maybe just again change is sometimes hard to get your head around, and it may be that when you have the information the pressure is to take action grows. People get concerned about that. I’m confident if you were to put the information out it would build the kind of support – and more importantly the schools would also look at their information. I remember when we first put out our letter grades, and I got calls from principals, they’d got a D or and F. The said “It wasn’t fair”. “It didn’t capture the richness of this or it didn’t capture that”. But every one of those conversations ended with the principal saying, “But I promise you this much chancellor, I won’t get the same grade next year.”

 They sound like the students…

“Exactly. It’s exactly the same as a kid! “Well the teacher didn’t like me,” or “I was sick on the day of the exam. But I promise you this, I won’t get the same one next year”. But that’s how you build the kind of constituency. None of this surprises me that it might be controversial.

I think they are worried about the potential of the information to be used to stigmatise the students of a poorly-performing school.

In other words, we’re saying: this is a school that’s not doing well, even compared to peer schools with similar situated, challenging kids. And the fear is we’ll stigmatise them. But isn’t the real fear that they’re not educating our children, and we as a public, you in the press, should know about this and should begin to ask the tough questions? Why is it that in this group of 40 schools, that even though they start in a very similar place, some of them make two or three times the progress that others make – and some of them even go backwards. Sure that creates a stigma – but it’s the stigma of not succeeding in education, and we need to know about that. Not to punish people but to fix it. And that’s a big part of what I think the challenge in education is. But if nobody knows…

 (We then discussed a famous Australian example, encapsulated by the headline “The School We Failed” and a picture of the students on the front of the Daily Telegraph) 

Well put aside the picture of the kids, but the school … if the school is not preparing the kds shouldn’t we have a shout-out on that? Shouldn’t we ask why? Particularly when you know similar schools are doing well. It’s not about stigmatising the school, it’s really about preparing our children. If you’re a parent and the school is not making progress, and you say there’s very limited choices, well maybe one of the things you have to do is create choices. We’ve created choice here in New York, we now have almost 100 charter schools, which are public schools but they’re independent of the school system. Maybe you need to create those choices so you get the competition people need. Think about the implication of what you say: The school is not doing well. So we whisper about it so  no-one knows and everyone goes along happily, except the kids who are getting hurt.

So that competition is good.

Of course! Of course! And that’s a good thing.

 An unalloyed good?

Is that an unalloyed good? You bet it is. Think about it. You’re the parent of a kid. If you’re an affluent parent you have all the choices in the world. Here the kids whose families have all the opportunities, the kids who will have the financial support to do what they will, they have choices. Now why should kids who grow up in poverty not be given an opportunity to choose among different kinds of schools in the system so that the parent can get what’s right for the kid. That seems to me to be a good thing. And it also puts pressure (on). We’ve been watching the Olympics, right? People always run faster when there are more people in the race. Competition works! Competition has its abuses and I understand that. You don’t want people to give you faulty data, you don’t want people to cheat. But you do want people to succeed in education and I’m sure in Australia you want people to succeed, especially for your highest-needs kids because you want them to be productive adults. This information, coupled with information and opportunity, would be great.

 What makes the difference to low performing schools: shame, or the public scrutiny as leverage?

There’s a degree of , if you will, public calling-out, which you call shame. That affects people, affects all people.. But more importantly than that, because of the way we cluster schools together there’s a powerful learning opportunities. That’s what happens. If I’m in a group of schools and you’re making real progress with a similar group of children, lets just say high-poverty minority kids. And you’re getting progress and I’m not. First thing I’m going to do is visit your school. Now, until I had these peer groups and these horizons, I didn’t even know about your school. Sure, somebody told me “he’s got a school” but there’s a lot of urban legend in public schooling. So I think it’s the power of the information to change. I wish you could do it, without a public dimension. But if you could do it, we wouldn’t be in the fix we’re in in public education.

(We discuss his history as a top lawyer nailing Microsoft on anti-competition laws and running a corporation. Klein is often spoken about as a candidate for mayor).

It’s the hardest and best job I’ve ever had. It’s not only so many people and so many voices, it’s about people’s children. People take their kids and their futures seriously. Because of Mayor Bloombery we’ve been very fortunate to be able to do some bold, exciting things. And because of that we’re doing some exciting things with education in this city. People always ask me, “what was harder, suing Microsoft or taking on the school system”. With all due respect to Microsoft this is much much harder, but it’s also much more rewarding. Because you change a world for kids. Some ten thousand more students are graduating in New York City each year than when I started. Now, those are real lives. There are far too many kids who aren’t graduating, but that’s a very exciting and rewarding way to spend your time.

What would you say to parents, anyone, who is against the introduction of this system to Australia?

Anyone who doesn’t want the information shouldn’t have to look at it. But I would dare say – one of the things we’ve learnt, particularly in democratic government – is that transperancy in information is empowering to the people. In the end, anything like this may take a little bit of time to get used to. The system won’t be perfect the first time you do it, but in the end I dare say as the parent of a daughter this is information I would certainly like to have.

Because of a slow train I was late to the interview. To see the principal. Terrible.

Welcome, particularly if you’re heading here from an article by Deborah Gough in The Sunday Age to which I contributed.

New York’s public schools annually receive a “mark” which takes into account their student’s progress, their amenity and other factors. Principals eagerly await their report card, just like the kids, which gives them a mark from A to F (there’s no E). High achievers can receive financial bonuses - up to $25,000 for some principals - while low scores bring assistance and extra scrutiny.

Education Minister Julia Gillard met the chancellor of the state’s schools Joel Klein and was impressed with the system. I’ll get my chance to ask him about it on Friday. Gillard doesn’t want to import the actual “A to F” mark, which would presumably be too easy and provide too much information for parents in a school system which prefers students to go the geographically nearest school. Instead, she wants to use their system of comparing schools within a peer group of 40 institutions with a similar student make-up.

Currently, the method of ranking schools based on test scores tends to stigmatise those who operate in an area of socio-economic disadvantage (poor) or have lots of new arrivals to the country. Ranking schools against schools like them could give a clearer picture of which are performing well and who needs some homework.

Because New York teaches some of the poorest and most recent immigrants to America - and the rich go to private schools -  its test scores have tended to be lower than the rest of the country, education figures told me for the report. There has been a slight rise in scores since the introduction of the new system, but it is uncertain if this is linked.

If you have any questions you’d like me to ask of Klein, please email.

WELCOME to people visiting after my article in The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and Brisbane Times on Wall Street’s woes.

Real estate agent Rachel Aschalew misses the in-your-face swagger, present just a few years ago when she worked for US investment bank Bear Stearns.

“They had that power walk, that stride, up and down the street,” she said. “Now it’s like a black cloud. The energy of Wall Street is gone.”

Bear Stearns is gone, too, shifted at a fire-sale price to JPMorgan Chase after failing to stem a flurry of trader angst about its exposure to losses in the subprime mortgage market.

THERE’S MORE:

* Subprime is not just the reason you find so much blood on the floor, it is a fair description of the mood. Fear is stalking Wall Street.

* The numbers are brutal, even if the battered players are safe from the real poverty visible in the city’s subways. Their billions in annual bonuses are expected to drop 20%, perhaps 30%, this year. Many staff will get nothing.

* Lay-offs on Wall Street are expected to total 35,000 employees, 6% of the finance sector’s workforce.

* New York state’s deficit is tipped to soar to a record $US26.2 billion ($A28.7 billion) due to reduced tax income from profits and bonuses from Wall Street, which typically contributes 20% of revenue. And worse may be coming, with employment consultants predicting further sackings.

I don’t believe for a second this is some kind of terminal shift in the finance sector of the US - the highest-paid army of financial wizards on earth. But the ground is shaking.

Yesterday’s New York Times gave another reason for brokers to consider buying smaller sports-cars. Outsourcing isn’t just hitting the payroll guys anymore.

Wall Street’s losses are fast becoming India’s gain. After outsourcing much of their back-office work to India, banks are now exporting data-intensive jobs from higher up the food chain to cities that cost less than New York, London and Hong Kong, either at their own offices or to third parties.

Bank executives call this shift “knowledge process outsourcing,” “off-shoring” or “high-value outsourcing.” It is affecting just about everyone, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse and Citibank — to name a few.

The jobs most affected so far are those with grueling hours, traditionally done by fresh-faced business school graduates — research associates and junior bankers on deal-making teams — paid in the low to mid six figures.

Cost-cutting in New York and London has already been brutal thus far this year, and there is more to come in the next few months. New York City financial firms expect to hand out some $18 billion less in pay and benefits this year than 2007, the largest one-year drop ever. Over all, United States banks will cut 200,000 employees by 2009, the banking consultancy Celent said in April. 

The average time a US household has a TV set turned on is 8 hours and 25 minutes each day.

That’s a record high, over an hour more than a decade ago. Eight hours and 25 minutes.

Don’t want to be overly critical, but isn’t that just a little bit appalling. I mean, when do people sleep?

Source: Nielsen

THE furious and farcical pace of the Presidential campaign will slow next week as Sen. Barack Obama takes a week’s holiday. Aiyee. Give thanks to whoever you worship. (Stephen Colbert?)

The presumptive Democratic Party nominee is heading to his childhood home in Hawaii, spending a week away while the country diverts its attention to the Olympic Games. There’s less than three months to the election, but are we really going to learn anything new in the next two weeks? Following the past month of the election - once Clinton was out of the race and Obama took the mantle - has been horrendous and brain-splitting. Anything substantive has been trumped by the trivial.

Actual screen-grab from Fox News

But there’s no escape, really. McCain will keep campaigning and TVs tuned to Beijing will see ads from both candidates. Obama has bought $5 million worth of time on NBC’s broadcast, which Politico said experts “described as unprecedented in its size and scope”. Then McCain outdid him, with a $6 million buy. 

Halfway through the Olympics, McCain and Obama will make their first joint campaign appearance in what sounds like a massive squirm-fest. On August 16 they’ll mount up at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, where they are expected to appear briefly together … before being questioned individually for an hour each by Reverend Rick Warren.

Lagging Republican candidate McCain will take advantage of Obama’s beach holiday, ripping through stops in Iowa, Arkansas, Nevada and Pennsylvania. 

Check this out:

“The word’s biggest celebrity will be off the campaign trail, so we figure we’ll have a better opportunity to get some attention on the campaign trail all by our lonesome,” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said. “Next week will be about John McCain reaching out to voters individually and making his case for leadership during the next four years.” 

First of all: I love the names in America. Tucker Bounds! Secondly: the “celebrity” angle is not going to let up. Even being spanked by Paris Hilton on her Funny or Die video (which is funny) won’t let it up. That’s because while people like celebrities, they don’t trust their judgement. Celebrities are, the thinking goes, not better than us - they just think they are.

Obama won’t be able to get a real holiday, though. He’ll work on his convention speech and hold a fundraising event in Honolulu. But he suggested this week to a paper that his focus would be on his wife, children and grandmother, who he has not seen in 19 months.

Journalists need a break. TV viewers need a break. The candidates really, really, need a break. 

THERE’S just something about this US chain  which would appeal to “Capital L” Liberals from Australia. I can’t quite nail it, but have a look around their site and see what you think.

Watch US television or read newspaper here and you would imagine this country is cleft in two.

On one side are God-fearing conservatives, who vote Republican and want to build a wall against the world
On the other are Democrat-supporting heathen Liberals, open to any whim - no matter how depraved.

The truth is far from either.

In a great article in today’s New York Times, columnist Charles M. Blow details how the country has moved towards consensus on a wide range of issues.

“According to Gallup polls taken over the last eight years:

• Six in 10 Americans believe that conservation should be emphasized to solve the energy problem, 7 in 10 favor the death penalty for murder and don’t want to ban the sale of handguns, and 8 in 10 believe in God but also believe that abortion should be legal, at least under certain circumstances

With the exception of the death penalty and guns - long and tightly held beliefs here - the majority position on the environment and abortion is similar to Australia. The outgoing Howard Government was caught out when the public moved on global warming … while the Prime Minister clinged to a stance edging towards denial.

• Nearly half now believe that we are unlikely to win the war in Iraq and that the war has made us less safe from terrorism.

• An increasing number of people believe that religion as a whole is losing its influence on American life and an increasing number want it to have less influence.

• While more bemoan the worsening state of moral values in the country, we are increasingly shifting our opinion on what is morally acceptable. Now most believe that getting divorced, engaging in premarital sex and having babies outside of marriage are morally acceptable. Nearly half also say that gay relationships are morally acceptable.

Demography is destiny. As the current generation grows, its tolerance of gay relationships, pre-marital sex and out-of-wedlock-birth will have more sway. Discriminatory policy won’t last. The glacial progress of legislation is no comfort to people fighting for rights and respect, but they must surely feel the tide is turning.

This growing consensus is another reason I think Obama will win the popular vote - but I’m still not sure about the electoral college.

IN MY three years of covering entertainment for The Age, there was never any doubt that the Nine Network would give you something to write about.

When Eddie McGuire won the top job, the network had been run down and its international hits were fading. It was like being given the keys to a Rolls Royce and finding out the engine was rusted out - and they don’t make the parts anymore.

So it’s not really a surprise that Nine have axed the Sunday program and the Nightline news service. It’s sad to see Sunday go - given its immense history - but sliding ratings and nonsensical changes had pretty much sealed that from earlier this year.

Nightline, on the other hand, was a good roundup of the news, with a solid preview of the next day. Other networks do it too, but Nine’s had an edge which stood out from Ten’s fluffy attempt and Seven’s slightly robotic delivery.

Author Augusten Burroughs (Running With Scissors, Dry, A Wolf at the Table) is an astonishing person. Read more about him by clicking here. You’ll find links to pertinent articles and the transcript of our interview. DZ