I. Want. My. Country. Back.
And implicit in such a statement is the follow up . . .
I. Will. Take. My. Country. Back.
By force? Well, that’s been the threat for months now.
The rhetoric is as clear as day, yet the media continues to ignore the very real impact behind the very real death threats we’ve seen in the past week.
The media has been irresponsible in its coverage of this hate. It has been negligent in giving such hate a platform on the national cable news networks. And this constant search for some false moral equivalency between Left and Right ignores the very real threat at hand. The media’s foremost concern at a time like this shouldn’t be the politics of the matter. No, instead the media should be concerned with calling out the next domestic terrorist before he or she tries something stupid.
This is not a game. This is not a civics lesson or some poli sci 101 course in undergrad. This is real. And, if it continues to ignore the obvious signs, the media’s shameful ploy for evenhandedness might overlook the makings of another tragedy . . . a tragedy that perhaps might still be avoided if the media were to simply wake up and do its job.
I will say this ahead of time. . .
Memo to the Media: Please spare your audience the fake outrage and crocodile tears if these threats turn into action. Spare us the stupid questions of How did this happen? and Who could have seen this coming? if these threats turn into action.
Spare us the phony documentaries and town hall discussions. Spare us your self-aggrandizing coverage of memorial services . . . your half-hearted commentaries . . . your disingenuous interviews with grieving friends and family members.
Media, if these threats should turn into action, please spare us any efforts to make us believe that you actually care. Spare any efforts to fool us into believing that you’ll actually listen.
Because you have not listened thus far. You have subjected real concerns of hate to the same, tired, selfish, ratings-grabbing back and forth of political gamesmanship and infotainment that you try to pass off as news every single day. You have ignored the culpability of elected officials and their irresponsible use of hyperbolic rhetoric.
What is the answer? Well, the media can start by acknowledging its role as an enabler. Politicians who align themselves with this rhetoric are inciting violence. . . Politicians who ignore this danger are not credible. . . Sarah Palin’s rhetoric isn’t cute or “folksy”. . . and “concern” over the size of government is no excuse for blatant and unapologetic threats of violence.
Hate is hate. Stop giving it cover. Call them out for what they are.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Mitsubishi Motors Settles Racial Discrimination Suit
Apr 9th, 2001-NORMAL, Illinois - Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America last week agreed to pay more than $3.2 million to settle allegations of racial discrimination by plant supervisors and workers at a manufacturing facility in Illinois.
Under a settlement approved last week by a federal judge, Mitsubishi will pay $1.8 million to attorneys and $1.4 million to the ten lead plaintiffs in a class-action suit filed in January 2000, reported the Associated Press.
The workers, representing Mitsubishi’s other black and Hispanic workers, accused the company of suppressing black workers’ pay and promotion opportunities, and of regularly ignoring racial harassment, including pranks, slurs, and threats.
Other workers covered by the class-action settlement will receive funds to be determined by appointed arbitrators on an individual basis, according to the AP.
Mitsubishi also agreed to allow independent auditors to monitor the company’s compliance with the settlement and nondiscrimination practices, according to a company press release.
Plaintiffs’ lawyer Patricia Benassi last week praised Mitsubishi’s progress in combating discrimination at its Illinois facility. “It is evident that things have changed for the better,” Benassi said. “The mechanisms put in place under this agreement will advance this progress even further.”
A group of Mitsubishi’s female workers filed a similar suit in 1996, charging the company with pervasive sexual harassment. Mitsubishi settled that suit for $34 million.
Under a settlement approved last week by a federal judge, Mitsubishi will pay $1.8 million to attorneys and $1.4 million to the ten lead plaintiffs in a class-action suit filed in January 2000, reported the Associated Press.
The workers, representing Mitsubishi’s other black and Hispanic workers, accused the company of suppressing black workers’ pay and promotion opportunities, and of regularly ignoring racial harassment, including pranks, slurs, and threats.
Other workers covered by the class-action settlement will receive funds to be determined by appointed arbitrators on an individual basis, according to the AP.
Mitsubishi also agreed to allow independent auditors to monitor the company’s compliance with the settlement and nondiscrimination practices, according to a company press release.
Plaintiffs’ lawyer Patricia Benassi last week praised Mitsubishi’s progress in combating discrimination at its Illinois facility. “It is evident that things have changed for the better,” Benassi said. “The mechanisms put in place under this agreement will advance this progress even further.”
A group of Mitsubishi’s female workers filed a similar suit in 1996, charging the company with pervasive sexual harassment. Mitsubishi settled that suit for $34 million.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Report finds wide disparities in gifted education
ATLANTA — When Liz Fitzgerald realized her son and daughter were forced to read books in math class while the other children caught up, she had them moved into gifted classes at their suburban Atlanta elementary school.
Just 100 miles down the road in Taliaferro County, that wouldn't have been an option. All the gifted classes were canceled because of budget cuts.
"If they didn't have it, they would get bored and distracted easily," said Fitzgerald, whose children are 14 and 12. "It just wouldn't be challenging."
Such disparities exist in every state, according to a new report by the National Association for Gifted Children that blames low federal funding and a focus on low-performing students.
The report, "State of the States in Gifted Education," hits at a basic element of the federal government's focus on education: Most of its money and effort goes into helping low-performing, poor and minority kids achieve basic proficiency. It largely ignores the idea of helping gifted kids reach their highest potential, leaving those tasks to states and local school districts.
"In the age of Sputnik, we put money into math and science, and we ended up on the moon," said Del Siegle, a University of Connecticut researcher who wrote the report. "We really need to consider that again. We cannot afford as a country to ignore talent."
The federal government spent just $7.5 million last year on research and grants for the estimated 3 million gifted children in the U.S. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have tried to eliminate that money entirely, but Congress put it back into the budget each year.
Gifted programs are typically paid for by local districts or states and vary dramatically. In some states, it's as stark as one county with multiple gifted programs — magnet schools, honors courses and separate classrooms for advanced learners — next to a county with nothing.
"The quality of gifted services is dependent on geography, and it shouldn't be," said Laura Carriere, president of the Maryland Coalition for Gifted and Talented Education and the mother of two gifted children.
Just six states pick up the whole tab for gifted programs, and 13 don't put a single dollar toward such curriculum, according to the study. That means poor urban and rural school systems are often have no money left for their highest achievers, according to the Nov. 12 report.
"There is a markedly insufficient national commitment to gifted and talented children, which, if left unchecked, will ultimately leave our nation ill-prepared to field the next generation of innovators and to compete in the global economy."
For Bellevue, Wash., mother Julie Plaut Warwick, a gifted program was the only option for her now 16-year-old son, who is in a magnet high school in the Seattle suburb.
"He would be very bored and would have gotten in trouble," she said. "If you're in a regular classroom and you repeat things two or three times, he gets incredibly bored and frustrated."
The federal No Child Left Behind Law, which was passed in 2003, forced states to focus on bringing struggling children up to grade level — inadvertently exaggerating the problem even more, Siegle said. A Fordham Institute study released last month showed gifted students are still improving their standardized test scores, but not as quickly as low-performing children.
As the economy has tanked, some states are shifting money away from gifted programs to help balance their budgets. The report shows that 13 states — more than half of the 23 that actually fund gifted education — made such cuts in 2008-09.
In the Oxnard School District just north of Los Angeles, that means Martha Flournoy, who ran the district's gifted program for a decade, is back in the classroom.
She said the students who are suffering the most are bright children from poor families.
"If I'm middle class and my kids are identified gifted and talented, I'm going to find a charter school or go to a neighboring district or find a private school," Flournoy said. "That does not happen with all kids."
Some oppose having separate classes for gifted kids. Mara Sapon-Shevin of Syracuse University argues that gifted programs create "haves and the have nots." She prefers grouping students together and then tailoring the curriculum to each child. Sapon-Shevin kept her own daughter out of a second-grade gifted program in the 1980s.
"In the unit on birds, the gifted children would learn myths about birds, go bird watching, build bird houses, learn bird calls, do bird identification," she said. "The problem came when I raised my hand and asked what the other second-graders were doing. They said 'work sheets.'"
But for educators like Sally Walker, gifted programs help bright children reach their highest potential, putting future doctors, scientists and engineers in classrooms where they don't feel embarrassed for being smart.
Walker recalls the day she was testing a particularly bright 5-year-old boy in her gifted program in a Rockford, Ill., elementary school in the 1980s. She asked him what color coal is and gave him three options: black, purple and gray.
The boy marked all three answers and told Walker that coal was black indoors, purple in the sunshine and gray if it burns.
"These are students who are ignored because of the myth that they will make it on their own or succeed without help," said Walker, now executive director of the Illinois Association for Gifted Children. "They get frustrated because they feel they are not being understood."
Source: By DORIE TURNER (AP) – 2 hours ago
Just 100 miles down the road in Taliaferro County, that wouldn't have been an option. All the gifted classes were canceled because of budget cuts.
"If they didn't have it, they would get bored and distracted easily," said Fitzgerald, whose children are 14 and 12. "It just wouldn't be challenging."
Such disparities exist in every state, according to a new report by the National Association for Gifted Children that blames low federal funding and a focus on low-performing students.
The report, "State of the States in Gifted Education," hits at a basic element of the federal government's focus on education: Most of its money and effort goes into helping low-performing, poor and minority kids achieve basic proficiency. It largely ignores the idea of helping gifted kids reach their highest potential, leaving those tasks to states and local school districts.
"In the age of Sputnik, we put money into math and science, and we ended up on the moon," said Del Siegle, a University of Connecticut researcher who wrote the report. "We really need to consider that again. We cannot afford as a country to ignore talent."
The federal government spent just $7.5 million last year on research and grants for the estimated 3 million gifted children in the U.S. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have tried to eliminate that money entirely, but Congress put it back into the budget each year.
Gifted programs are typically paid for by local districts or states and vary dramatically. In some states, it's as stark as one county with multiple gifted programs — magnet schools, honors courses and separate classrooms for advanced learners — next to a county with nothing.
"The quality of gifted services is dependent on geography, and it shouldn't be," said Laura Carriere, president of the Maryland Coalition for Gifted and Talented Education and the mother of two gifted children.
Just six states pick up the whole tab for gifted programs, and 13 don't put a single dollar toward such curriculum, according to the study. That means poor urban and rural school systems are often have no money left for their highest achievers, according to the Nov. 12 report.
"There is a markedly insufficient national commitment to gifted and talented children, which, if left unchecked, will ultimately leave our nation ill-prepared to field the next generation of innovators and to compete in the global economy."
For Bellevue, Wash., mother Julie Plaut Warwick, a gifted program was the only option for her now 16-year-old son, who is in a magnet high school in the Seattle suburb.
"He would be very bored and would have gotten in trouble," she said. "If you're in a regular classroom and you repeat things two or three times, he gets incredibly bored and frustrated."
The federal No Child Left Behind Law, which was passed in 2003, forced states to focus on bringing struggling children up to grade level — inadvertently exaggerating the problem even more, Siegle said. A Fordham Institute study released last month showed gifted students are still improving their standardized test scores, but not as quickly as low-performing children.
As the economy has tanked, some states are shifting money away from gifted programs to help balance their budgets. The report shows that 13 states — more than half of the 23 that actually fund gifted education — made such cuts in 2008-09.
In the Oxnard School District just north of Los Angeles, that means Martha Flournoy, who ran the district's gifted program for a decade, is back in the classroom.
She said the students who are suffering the most are bright children from poor families.
"If I'm middle class and my kids are identified gifted and talented, I'm going to find a charter school or go to a neighboring district or find a private school," Flournoy said. "That does not happen with all kids."
Some oppose having separate classes for gifted kids. Mara Sapon-Shevin of Syracuse University argues that gifted programs create "haves and the have nots." She prefers grouping students together and then tailoring the curriculum to each child. Sapon-Shevin kept her own daughter out of a second-grade gifted program in the 1980s.
"In the unit on birds, the gifted children would learn myths about birds, go bird watching, build bird houses, learn bird calls, do bird identification," she said. "The problem came when I raised my hand and asked what the other second-graders were doing. They said 'work sheets.'"
But for educators like Sally Walker, gifted programs help bright children reach their highest potential, putting future doctors, scientists and engineers in classrooms where they don't feel embarrassed for being smart.
Walker recalls the day she was testing a particularly bright 5-year-old boy in her gifted program in a Rockford, Ill., elementary school in the 1980s. She asked him what color coal is and gave him three options: black, purple and gray.
The boy marked all three answers and told Walker that coal was black indoors, purple in the sunshine and gray if it burns.
"These are students who are ignored because of the myth that they will make it on their own or succeed without help," said Walker, now executive director of the Illinois Association for Gifted Children. "They get frustrated because they feel they are not being understood."
Source: By DORIE TURNER (AP) – 2 hours ago
Friday, November 13, 2009
Why alternative schools matter
Increasingly, most of the dropouts who enroll in Chicago’s alternative schools are close to, or even older than, the typical age for graduation, yet too far behind to make quick headway toward a diploma.
The city’s network of alternative schools provides an opportunity for young people who haven’t been successful in traditional public high schools. These schools are often the last chance for dropouts to get a diploma before turning 21, when public school eligibility runs out. And the ranks of students who need another chance are growing: The district is making only slow progress in curbing the dropout rate, which still hovers at around 40 percent. A recent study completed for the district by the Boston-based Parthenon Group estimates that about 50,000 young Chicagoans between the ages of 16 and 21 are dropouts; another 50,000 are still in school, but far behind academically.
Meanwhile, the number of alternative schools is set to balloon in Chicago, bringing in a fresh crop of school operators outside the Youth Connections network, which operates all but a few of the city’s alternative schools. But Chicago is still playing catch-up: Over the past decade, other cities, such as New York, have focused more energy and resources on creating higher-quality schools for these students.
For a variety of reasons—ranging from a student’s impatience or personal difficulties to a dearth of resources at the schools—alternative programs often are a revolving door for dropouts. A Catalyst Chicago analysis of data from the district, the state and Youth Connections Charter found that:
These small, intimate schools are most successful with students who are reading at grade level and need less than 10 credits to graduate. Yet roughly half of dropouts who enroll are below 8th-grade level in reading and math; a third are performing at 6th-grade level.
Half of enrollees in a given fall quit school again by the next year. Overall, the mobility rate is a stunning 166 percent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chicago has some 50,000 dropouts between the ages of 16 and 21. Alternative schools are their last chance at a high school diploma, but often fall short.
■Most students who walk into alternative schools are 18 or older but have just a handful of credits and reading skills that are below 8th grade. It’s unlikely that these students can earn enough credits for a diploma before turning 21, when they are no longer entitled to a free public education.
■Fewer than one in four students leaves an alternative school with a diploma. Most of the students who do graduate are young women, although most dropouts are African-American and Latino males.
■In the age of high-stakes testing and No Child Left Behind, alternative schools are under increased scrutiny but don’t receive the additional resources necessary to meet the needs of the students who enroll.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of the 31,000 students who enrolled in an alternative school during the past 10 years, only 23 percent earned a diploma. Experts say such programs should graduate about half of their students.
Supporters of alternative programs say that these numbers are not as troubling as they seem. Society reaps substantial benefits for every former dropout who earns a diploma, notes Jack Wuest, executive director of the Alternative Schools Network, a Chicago-based advocacy group and service provider for alternative schools.
The economic benefit is substantial—more than $208,000 in additional tax revenue for each former dropout, as well as lower social costs for prison and welfare, according to a report released last fall by the Illinois Taskforce on Re-Enrolling Dropouts.
Linda Boisseau-Goodwin, the manager of alternative schools for the Chicago Public Schools’ Graduation Pathways Department, says that when a student drops out of an alternative school, it is not necessarily the school’s fault.
“There are so many factors involved outside our control,” Boisseau-Goodwin says. “You have to look at all the circumstances. You listen to some of these stories [from students] and they will make your hair stand up.”
Students often have long histories at other schools, and whatever prevented them from succeeding back then stays with them, she adds.
Miguel del Valle, who ran an alternative school before he became a state senator and then city clerk for Chicago, says high mobility is par for the course when students have difficult personal lives.
“We need alternative schools to be flexible,” he says. “Coming in, leaving and coming back—I will take that, as long as we are not giving up on the student entirely.”
Counselors and principals say an underlying tension haunts many young people at alternative schools: They want to be successful, yet personal problems, poor academic skills and lack of tenacity hinders them.
Damara Ortiz, a new teenage mom, is one example. She shows up at her school, Howard Area Leadership Academy in Rogers Park, a few weeks before the first day of school.
Immediately, she is hit with a barrage of questions from the two counselors in the school’s office: Where’s the baby? Is he sleeping through the night? And how is she holding up? “It’s her twin,” says counselor Helen Collins of the baby boy that 17-year-old Damara gave birth to just a few weeks earlier.
Damara patiently answers the questions—the baby is at home, and she is okay but wishes he didn’t cry so much. Then Damara launches into the real reason she came: Her mother was supposed to baby-sit, but now she can’t, and Damara is worried that she’ll have no place for the baby to go so that she can come to school in September.
The counselors immediately rattle off the names of day-care providers that Damara should call to see if they have space for an infant. Damara nods her head.
There’s a sense of urgency in the counselors’ demeanor. Damara took almost a year off after 8th grade, and her attendance at Howard Leadership has been sporadic. Damara admits she wound up spending many days just hanging out with her cousin. Only since she became pregnant last fall did Damara begin attending school regularly, determined to get an education so she can provide a better life for her child.
But Damara has now moved to the South Side, and has a small, squirmy baby to feed, dress and get to day care before she can leave for school. When the year begins, Damara shows up. But by Week 2, she’s already taking days off.
Collins says situations like Damara’s are more the rule than the exception. She and the other counselors at Howard Leadership say they want to stick by their students. But they wonder how much support they can provide with limited resources, and what are the realistic outcomes?
Another factor complicates the discussion: the increasing pressure on alternative schools to offer challenging academic programs and to meet high standards under the No Child Left Behind Act.
This scrutiny is new for alternative schools. Before 1997, they operated independently, typically run by grassroots organizations with deep roots in the community. Many offered a GED instead of a regular diploma and had little structure, cobbling funds together from CPS, the state and various federal agencies, with few requirements for performance.
Pa Joof, the principal of Prologue, which runs three alternative schools, notes that it was founded in the 1970s with a social justice focus. Sitting in an office surrounded by old photos of blond, shaggy-haired people in bellbottoms, Joof recalls how the first school was started by nuns in Uptown to serve disenfranchised children from Appalachia. The idea was not only to provide these students with an education, but also to nurture a commitment to improving the community and “create a level of awareness and activism,” Joof says.
Students did not receive grades, and academic rigor was not even discussed.
But the charter school movement brought the idea that schools with a unique focus can get stable public funding. At the urging of Wuest, former CPS CEO Paul Vallas agreed in 1997 to let the alternative schools form a network and have a charter. They jumped at the chance.
Today, Youth Connections has 22 campuses. (Other alternative schools include Alternative Safe School Program, run by Boisseau-Goodwin; and two Prologue schools, one a CPS contract school and another that operates independently.) The schools got stable funding—about $7,900 per student—but with strings attached: Meet standards set by No Child Left Behind.
Youth Connections schools have never met NCLB standards—but neither have most of the district’s traditional neighborhood high schools. (In 2009, NCLB calls for 70 percent of high school students to meet or exceed standards on state tests, and for schools to have a 78 percent graduation rate.)
Some educators also worry about the consequences of high-stakes testing that NCLB requires. And some observers wonder whether schools will quietly direct misbehaving and poorly performing students out the door, so that performance indicators look better—a criticism that has been leveled against charters in general. “Charter schools are more restrictive in who they let in or hold on to,” says del Valle.
Indeed, some alternative schools have instituted admissions requirements. And Youth Connections has ejected six lower-performing schools from its network over the past 12 years. Some have closed; others now offer only a GED program.
Prologue’s independent campus, Winnie Mandela in South Shore, was cut by Youth Connections last year. But Joof says Prologue decided that the community still needed an alternative school. The four small schools on the South Shore High campus have high dropout rates, and the community has no other neighborhood high school.
Winnie Mandela’s principal, Jamillah Kareem, started the school and bristles at the suggestion that it is underperforming. Other schools, she notes, turn students away. Winnie Mandela only has enough funds to serve 40 students, and has a long waiting list. “I take them,” Kareem says. “They have got to have some place to go.”
In 2003, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided $31 million to start alternative schools for dropouts in several big cities, including New York, Philadelphia and Seattle. The question of quality has been front-and-center.
In Philadelphia, the school system and outside advocates were cognizant of the danger of creating a second-class school system, says Laura Shubilla, co-president and CEO of the Philadelphia Youth Network.
“We thought it would be a disservice to students if they graduated with a diploma that didn’t mean anything,” Shubilla says. “It would set them up for future failure.”
Yet they also worried about the consequences of setting performance standards so high that schools couldn’t meet them and might get shut down. “We want to protect the opportunity,” Shubilla adds. “We understand that it would be real easy to get rid of these schools.”
So Philadelphia wound up with a set of minimum standards that school must meet, and a second list of so-called “stretch” standards that serve as incentives. Schools earn additional money if they meet them.
In New York, the Gates funding sparked a complete overhaul of alternative schools, says Jo Ellen Lynch, who was the head of the New York Public Schools’ Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation, before leaving early this year to become a consultant. No longer were they even called alternative schools.
New York has created about 50 new schools and programs, divided into three types to meet the differing needs of students: Transfer Schools serve students who have few credits and are far from earning a diploma; Young Adult Borough Centers serve older students who only need a few credits to graduate; and GED-only programs are for those who choose that route.
Lynch says these schools have strong community partners, but are not run by outside agencies. Instead, they fall under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education. New York also has a weighted funding formula that provides more money to these schools because of the extra support these students need.
New York also created new evaluation criteria that take into account the difficulties of educating dropouts. One example: School progress reports show how well transfer schools perform with students based on the number of credits they have when they arrive—a unique barometer that is tailored to alternative schools. Officials also looked at graduation rates for off-track students—those who are overage for their grade and have few credits—and found that transfer schools performed much better with this group than traditional schools, posting 56 percent graduation rates compared to 19 percent in regular schools.
CPS, however, has not yet taken a hard look to determine the best way to judge the performance of its alternative schools. And the district provides the same per-pupil funding for Youth Connections as for other charters.
New York had so many out-of-school youth (more than 100,000) that officials there decided to focus on dropout recovery. Chicago has been concentrating on dropout prevention, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Graduation Pathways. But in the coming year, the department plans to shift its focus to recovery.
Alternative schools face a constant battle to balance the need to meet standards with the skills of their students.
Few alternative school principals will openly criticize their counterparts at neighborhood schools. But they complain about the increasing number of older students who have left regular high schools with barely any credits.
“We are talking 17- and 18-year-olds reading at 5th and 6th-grade levels,” says Myra Sampson, principal and founder of CCA Academy. More special education students also are showing up.
Youth Connections offers professional development and support, but does not have a standard curriculum for its schools. And indeed, many of these school principals and teachers say they value being able to use creativity in teaching.
But such freedom can result in uneven quality. When Youth Connections was up for charter renewal in 2007, observers saw many good things happening, including high engagement on the part of students and instruction tailored to their needs. But they noted “ensuring instruction is appropriately rigorous can be difficult, especially when student skill levels are below-grade-level.”
At some of the schools, observers saw lessons that were far below high-school level.
Venson admits schools have a tricky balancing act. She wants principals to stop accepting credits for classes in which students received a “D.” A “D” usually means that a student didn’t master the subject—for instance, algebra—and that makes it impossible to teach them subsequent courses—like geometry and calculus.
Yet Venson adds that alternative schools need significantly more funding if they are to go back and re-teach lower-level skills. Given more money, she’d like to hire reading and math specialists to support teachers.
But principals scoff at the notion that students should retake classes, given that it’s already an uphill battle to keep these students engaged.
Brianna Gibson is teetering on that edge.
The young woman recalls how she ended up enrolling in CCA. One day, she sat on the couch in her living room, the hours ticking by, swallowed up by soap operas and talk shows. Then she realized that she had a choice. “I could be either a statistic, or somebody,” she says. “I want to be somebody.”
Sampson says that virtually all of the young people who come to CCA desperately want to get an education. “They want to do more and they want to do better,” she says. “They understand the (employment) ceiling.”
But Sampson openly wonders how much she can help her students, given the support they need. “I would have to pull miracles out of the air,” she says.
Without that support, students begin to repeat the cycle that forced them out of school the first time around: struggling in classes and taking days off. “They are willing to pay the price,” Sampson says, “until they get so beat down and defeated, they give up again.”
The city’s network of alternative schools provides an opportunity for young people who haven’t been successful in traditional public high schools. These schools are often the last chance for dropouts to get a diploma before turning 21, when public school eligibility runs out. And the ranks of students who need another chance are growing: The district is making only slow progress in curbing the dropout rate, which still hovers at around 40 percent. A recent study completed for the district by the Boston-based Parthenon Group estimates that about 50,000 young Chicagoans between the ages of 16 and 21 are dropouts; another 50,000 are still in school, but far behind academically.
Meanwhile, the number of alternative schools is set to balloon in Chicago, bringing in a fresh crop of school operators outside the Youth Connections network, which operates all but a few of the city’s alternative schools. But Chicago is still playing catch-up: Over the past decade, other cities, such as New York, have focused more energy and resources on creating higher-quality schools for these students.
For a variety of reasons—ranging from a student’s impatience or personal difficulties to a dearth of resources at the schools—alternative programs often are a revolving door for dropouts. A Catalyst Chicago analysis of data from the district, the state and Youth Connections Charter found that:
These small, intimate schools are most successful with students who are reading at grade level and need less than 10 credits to graduate. Yet roughly half of dropouts who enroll are below 8th-grade level in reading and math; a third are performing at 6th-grade level.
Half of enrollees in a given fall quit school again by the next year. Overall, the mobility rate is a stunning 166 percent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chicago has some 50,000 dropouts between the ages of 16 and 21. Alternative schools are their last chance at a high school diploma, but often fall short.
■Most students who walk into alternative schools are 18 or older but have just a handful of credits and reading skills that are below 8th grade. It’s unlikely that these students can earn enough credits for a diploma before turning 21, when they are no longer entitled to a free public education.
■Fewer than one in four students leaves an alternative school with a diploma. Most of the students who do graduate are young women, although most dropouts are African-American and Latino males.
■In the age of high-stakes testing and No Child Left Behind, alternative schools are under increased scrutiny but don’t receive the additional resources necessary to meet the needs of the students who enroll.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of the 31,000 students who enrolled in an alternative school during the past 10 years, only 23 percent earned a diploma. Experts say such programs should graduate about half of their students.
Supporters of alternative programs say that these numbers are not as troubling as they seem. Society reaps substantial benefits for every former dropout who earns a diploma, notes Jack Wuest, executive director of the Alternative Schools Network, a Chicago-based advocacy group and service provider for alternative schools.
The economic benefit is substantial—more than $208,000 in additional tax revenue for each former dropout, as well as lower social costs for prison and welfare, according to a report released last fall by the Illinois Taskforce on Re-Enrolling Dropouts.
Linda Boisseau-Goodwin, the manager of alternative schools for the Chicago Public Schools’ Graduation Pathways Department, says that when a student drops out of an alternative school, it is not necessarily the school’s fault.
“There are so many factors involved outside our control,” Boisseau-Goodwin says. “You have to look at all the circumstances. You listen to some of these stories [from students] and they will make your hair stand up.”
Students often have long histories at other schools, and whatever prevented them from succeeding back then stays with them, she adds.
Miguel del Valle, who ran an alternative school before he became a state senator and then city clerk for Chicago, says high mobility is par for the course when students have difficult personal lives.
“We need alternative schools to be flexible,” he says. “Coming in, leaving and coming back—I will take that, as long as we are not giving up on the student entirely.”
Counselors and principals say an underlying tension haunts many young people at alternative schools: They want to be successful, yet personal problems, poor academic skills and lack of tenacity hinders them.
Damara Ortiz, a new teenage mom, is one example. She shows up at her school, Howard Area Leadership Academy in Rogers Park, a few weeks before the first day of school.
Immediately, she is hit with a barrage of questions from the two counselors in the school’s office: Where’s the baby? Is he sleeping through the night? And how is she holding up? “It’s her twin,” says counselor Helen Collins of the baby boy that 17-year-old Damara gave birth to just a few weeks earlier.
Damara patiently answers the questions—the baby is at home, and she is okay but wishes he didn’t cry so much. Then Damara launches into the real reason she came: Her mother was supposed to baby-sit, but now she can’t, and Damara is worried that she’ll have no place for the baby to go so that she can come to school in September.
The counselors immediately rattle off the names of day-care providers that Damara should call to see if they have space for an infant. Damara nods her head.
There’s a sense of urgency in the counselors’ demeanor. Damara took almost a year off after 8th grade, and her attendance at Howard Leadership has been sporadic. Damara admits she wound up spending many days just hanging out with her cousin. Only since she became pregnant last fall did Damara begin attending school regularly, determined to get an education so she can provide a better life for her child.
But Damara has now moved to the South Side, and has a small, squirmy baby to feed, dress and get to day care before she can leave for school. When the year begins, Damara shows up. But by Week 2, she’s already taking days off.
Collins says situations like Damara’s are more the rule than the exception. She and the other counselors at Howard Leadership say they want to stick by their students. But they wonder how much support they can provide with limited resources, and what are the realistic outcomes?
Another factor complicates the discussion: the increasing pressure on alternative schools to offer challenging academic programs and to meet high standards under the No Child Left Behind Act.
This scrutiny is new for alternative schools. Before 1997, they operated independently, typically run by grassroots organizations with deep roots in the community. Many offered a GED instead of a regular diploma and had little structure, cobbling funds together from CPS, the state and various federal agencies, with few requirements for performance.
Pa Joof, the principal of Prologue, which runs three alternative schools, notes that it was founded in the 1970s with a social justice focus. Sitting in an office surrounded by old photos of blond, shaggy-haired people in bellbottoms, Joof recalls how the first school was started by nuns in Uptown to serve disenfranchised children from Appalachia. The idea was not only to provide these students with an education, but also to nurture a commitment to improving the community and “create a level of awareness and activism,” Joof says.
Students did not receive grades, and academic rigor was not even discussed.
But the charter school movement brought the idea that schools with a unique focus can get stable public funding. At the urging of Wuest, former CPS CEO Paul Vallas agreed in 1997 to let the alternative schools form a network and have a charter. They jumped at the chance.
Today, Youth Connections has 22 campuses. (Other alternative schools include Alternative Safe School Program, run by Boisseau-Goodwin; and two Prologue schools, one a CPS contract school and another that operates independently.) The schools got stable funding—about $7,900 per student—but with strings attached: Meet standards set by No Child Left Behind.
Youth Connections schools have never met NCLB standards—but neither have most of the district’s traditional neighborhood high schools. (In 2009, NCLB calls for 70 percent of high school students to meet or exceed standards on state tests, and for schools to have a 78 percent graduation rate.)
Some educators also worry about the consequences of high-stakes testing that NCLB requires. And some observers wonder whether schools will quietly direct misbehaving and poorly performing students out the door, so that performance indicators look better—a criticism that has been leveled against charters in general. “Charter schools are more restrictive in who they let in or hold on to,” says del Valle.
Indeed, some alternative schools have instituted admissions requirements. And Youth Connections has ejected six lower-performing schools from its network over the past 12 years. Some have closed; others now offer only a GED program.
Prologue’s independent campus, Winnie Mandela in South Shore, was cut by Youth Connections last year. But Joof says Prologue decided that the community still needed an alternative school. The four small schools on the South Shore High campus have high dropout rates, and the community has no other neighborhood high school.
Winnie Mandela’s principal, Jamillah Kareem, started the school and bristles at the suggestion that it is underperforming. Other schools, she notes, turn students away. Winnie Mandela only has enough funds to serve 40 students, and has a long waiting list. “I take them,” Kareem says. “They have got to have some place to go.”
In 2003, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided $31 million to start alternative schools for dropouts in several big cities, including New York, Philadelphia and Seattle. The question of quality has been front-and-center.
In Philadelphia, the school system and outside advocates were cognizant of the danger of creating a second-class school system, says Laura Shubilla, co-president and CEO of the Philadelphia Youth Network.
“We thought it would be a disservice to students if they graduated with a diploma that didn’t mean anything,” Shubilla says. “It would set them up for future failure.”
Yet they also worried about the consequences of setting performance standards so high that schools couldn’t meet them and might get shut down. “We want to protect the opportunity,” Shubilla adds. “We understand that it would be real easy to get rid of these schools.”
So Philadelphia wound up with a set of minimum standards that school must meet, and a second list of so-called “stretch” standards that serve as incentives. Schools earn additional money if they meet them.
In New York, the Gates funding sparked a complete overhaul of alternative schools, says Jo Ellen Lynch, who was the head of the New York Public Schools’ Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation, before leaving early this year to become a consultant. No longer were they even called alternative schools.
New York has created about 50 new schools and programs, divided into three types to meet the differing needs of students: Transfer Schools serve students who have few credits and are far from earning a diploma; Young Adult Borough Centers serve older students who only need a few credits to graduate; and GED-only programs are for those who choose that route.
Lynch says these schools have strong community partners, but are not run by outside agencies. Instead, they fall under the jurisdiction of the Board of Education. New York also has a weighted funding formula that provides more money to these schools because of the extra support these students need.
New York also created new evaluation criteria that take into account the difficulties of educating dropouts. One example: School progress reports show how well transfer schools perform with students based on the number of credits they have when they arrive—a unique barometer that is tailored to alternative schools. Officials also looked at graduation rates for off-track students—those who are overage for their grade and have few credits—and found that transfer schools performed much better with this group than traditional schools, posting 56 percent graduation rates compared to 19 percent in regular schools.
CPS, however, has not yet taken a hard look to determine the best way to judge the performance of its alternative schools. And the district provides the same per-pupil funding for Youth Connections as for other charters.
New York had so many out-of-school youth (more than 100,000) that officials there decided to focus on dropout recovery. Chicago has been concentrating on dropout prevention, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Graduation Pathways. But in the coming year, the department plans to shift its focus to recovery.
Alternative schools face a constant battle to balance the need to meet standards with the skills of their students.
Few alternative school principals will openly criticize their counterparts at neighborhood schools. But they complain about the increasing number of older students who have left regular high schools with barely any credits.
“We are talking 17- and 18-year-olds reading at 5th and 6th-grade levels,” says Myra Sampson, principal and founder of CCA Academy. More special education students also are showing up.
Youth Connections offers professional development and support, but does not have a standard curriculum for its schools. And indeed, many of these school principals and teachers say they value being able to use creativity in teaching.
But such freedom can result in uneven quality. When Youth Connections was up for charter renewal in 2007, observers saw many good things happening, including high engagement on the part of students and instruction tailored to their needs. But they noted “ensuring instruction is appropriately rigorous can be difficult, especially when student skill levels are below-grade-level.”
At some of the schools, observers saw lessons that were far below high-school level.
Venson admits schools have a tricky balancing act. She wants principals to stop accepting credits for classes in which students received a “D.” A “D” usually means that a student didn’t master the subject—for instance, algebra—and that makes it impossible to teach them subsequent courses—like geometry and calculus.
Yet Venson adds that alternative schools need significantly more funding if they are to go back and re-teach lower-level skills. Given more money, she’d like to hire reading and math specialists to support teachers.
But principals scoff at the notion that students should retake classes, given that it’s already an uphill battle to keep these students engaged.
Brianna Gibson is teetering on that edge.
The young woman recalls how she ended up enrolling in CCA. One day, she sat on the couch in her living room, the hours ticking by, swallowed up by soap operas and talk shows. Then she realized that she had a choice. “I could be either a statistic, or somebody,” she says. “I want to be somebody.”
Sampson says that virtually all of the young people who come to CCA desperately want to get an education. “They want to do more and they want to do better,” she says. “They understand the (employment) ceiling.”
But Sampson openly wonders how much she can help her students, given the support they need. “I would have to pull miracles out of the air,” she says.
Without that support, students begin to repeat the cycle that forced them out of school the first time around: struggling in classes and taking days off. “They are willing to pay the price,” Sampson says, “until they get so beat down and defeated, they give up again.”
Saturday, October 10, 2009
"Housing Patterns Are Segregated": The Part of the Champaign School Crisis That Requires Action Beyond the School Board
An opinion from the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (2004).
In case you didn't hear it, National Public Radio's All Things Considered (heard locally on WILL AM580) had a report Sunday evening on the court case that one observor said may be "the last straw...in resegregating our society" in America.
The US Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on whether the use of race as a factor in assigning students to schools to fight segregation is legal. This is the sort of system that the Champaign schools have been using as a way to satisfy court-ordered remedies for the results of racially skewed educational outcomes for black students.
For some time, local opponents of these legal efforts to end the pernicious effects of remaining racism, such as the editorial board of the local daily, the Champaign News-Gazette, have argued that the court-ordered plan is too expensive and unfair.
While they have been vociferous critics of the plan, they have offered little to nothing in the way of alternatives. The deeper reality of what underlies the school district's legal trouble is that, as Beth Shepperd, Assistant Superintendent of the Champaign Public Schools in Illinois, put it, Champiagn's "housing patterns are segregated" ("High Court Will Hear School-Integration Arguments" by Debbie Elliott).
Now, hearing that Champaign has patterns of racially segregated housing might come as a shock for listerners who ordinarily rely on the News-Gazette for the bulk of thier local news. Unfortunately, this is largely due to the fact that the News-Gazette has stubbornly refused to address patterns of persistent segregation in local housing. And the school board is hardly the only one to blame for segregated housing, since schools are only a small, but important, part of the housing equation.
In case you didn't hear it, National Public Radio's All Things Considered (heard locally on WILL AM580) had a report Sunday evening on the court case that one observor said may be "the last straw...in resegregating our society" in America.
The US Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on whether the use of race as a factor in assigning students to schools to fight segregation is legal. This is the sort of system that the Champaign schools have been using as a way to satisfy court-ordered remedies for the results of racially skewed educational outcomes for black students.
For some time, local opponents of these legal efforts to end the pernicious effects of remaining racism, such as the editorial board of the local daily, the Champaign News-Gazette, have argued that the court-ordered plan is too expensive and unfair.
While they have been vociferous critics of the plan, they have offered little to nothing in the way of alternatives. The deeper reality of what underlies the school district's legal trouble is that, as Beth Shepperd, Assistant Superintendent of the Champaign Public Schools in Illinois, put it, Champiagn's "housing patterns are segregated" ("High Court Will Hear School-Integration Arguments" by Debbie Elliott).
Now, hearing that Champaign has patterns of racially segregated housing might come as a shock for listerners who ordinarily rely on the News-Gazette for the bulk of thier local news. Unfortunately, this is largely due to the fact that the News-Gazette has stubbornly refused to address patterns of persistent segregation in local housing. And the school board is hardly the only one to blame for segregated housing, since schools are only a small, but important, part of the housing equation.
True, good schools attract higher property values, but new developments and the planning that should go into providing basic city services, as well as maintaining those services in older parts of the city, is largely the result of decisions made by the city council and city staff. Unfortunately, both have given short shrift to the idea of equal access to place priorities on city services.
Champaign has taken a largely "those that pays, gets to call the plays" when it comes to development, encouraging sprawl, while neglecting other parts of the city, as one of its results the maintenance of de facto school segregation some forty years after de jure school segregation was ended. The News-Gazette's editorial board would have you believe that the market will solve all the problems with our schools, if only the courts would give it the chance. But the market is largely responsible for the patterns of racially segregated housing that is a large part of the problems with Champaign's school system -- the market has had free rein and it has continued to reproduce racial segregation in housing, aggravating disparities in the educational system. And the harsh reality is that this problem extends beyond Champaign.
Urbana is far from perfect and the growth of such bedroom communities as Mahomet, Savoy, and St. Joseph is intimately tied to white flight from inadequate and underfunded schools in Champaign; Rantoul has had its own special housing segregation issues since it was an Air Force base town. I didn't have the time to participate in Big.Small.All, but I heard that one of its big goals is to improve educational opportunities in Champaign County.
Unfortunately, the News-Gazette and other local opinion leaders have swept the major cause of the Champaign school system's legal problems -- segregated housing patterns -- under the rug as they have gone about stubbornly attacking the consent decree. We will likely not be any closer to solving these issues in the future unless we as a county begin addressing these disturbingly persistent and shameful failures of the American dream in a more forthright manner.
So, how about it, John Foreman and Tom Kacich-- can we at least hear your opinions on what other units of government beyond the Champaign School Board can do to begin addressing patterns of persistent housing segregation? That would seem to be one way to help solve the issues raised by the consent decree. Or do you really not care?
Source
Champaign has taken a largely "those that pays, gets to call the plays" when it comes to development, encouraging sprawl, while neglecting other parts of the city, as one of its results the maintenance of de facto school segregation some forty years after de jure school segregation was ended. The News-Gazette's editorial board would have you believe that the market will solve all the problems with our schools, if only the courts would give it the chance. But the market is largely responsible for the patterns of racially segregated housing that is a large part of the problems with Champaign's school system -- the market has had free rein and it has continued to reproduce racial segregation in housing, aggravating disparities in the educational system. And the harsh reality is that this problem extends beyond Champaign.
Urbana is far from perfect and the growth of such bedroom communities as Mahomet, Savoy, and St. Joseph is intimately tied to white flight from inadequate and underfunded schools in Champaign; Rantoul has had its own special housing segregation issues since it was an Air Force base town. I didn't have the time to participate in Big.Small.All, but I heard that one of its big goals is to improve educational opportunities in Champaign County.
Unfortunately, the News-Gazette and other local opinion leaders have swept the major cause of the Champaign school system's legal problems -- segregated housing patterns -- under the rug as they have gone about stubbornly attacking the consent decree. We will likely not be any closer to solving these issues in the future unless we as a county begin addressing these disturbingly persistent and shameful failures of the American dream in a more forthright manner.
So, how about it, John Foreman and Tom Kacich-- can we at least hear your opinions on what other units of government beyond the Champaign School Board can do to begin addressing patterns of persistent housing segregation? That would seem to be one way to help solve the issues raised by the consent decree. Or do you really not care?
Source
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The truth about BET from a former BET Executive
An e-mail to media types from BET's former executive editor of music, Andreas Hale:
As someone who has been critical of BET for many years, it surprised many that I would leave my post at HipHopDX last year to take a position at BET. But it was an opportunity I absolutely had to take. I could no longer be critical of this company without accepting the opportunity to change it when given.
Although I was hired to bring about change, I was systematically shut down. I wasn't hired to make noise, I was hired to be silenced. The truth of the matter is that everything that you thought was wrong with BET is true.
Over the past year, I've seen a lot to reinforce my position that BET is too far gone in the negative to turn into a positive. We have all always thought the worst, but to actually see it in action is another thing in its entirety. The unprofessionalism, the tomfoolery, the favors, the misappropriation of resources, the bad ideas that reinforce negative stereotypes, the emasculation of men, the meetings that break down in full-fledged cursing battles, the unpaid overtime, the tears from employees scared for their underpaid and overworked positions and ultimately the unwillingness to change are all harsh realities that I've witnessed firsthand.
That is not to say that there aren't some good people who have sat in the offices of BET. Unfortunately, the good people are not in positions of power to instill any change. Instead, they work their fingers to the bone just to keep their jobs in this harsh economic climate. The other good people ran out of the door as soon as an another employment opportunity presented itself. To say BET was a revolving door would be an understatement. I came in with a plan to provide balance and to deliver good music to the masses and help make BET relevant again -- at least in the dot-com world. Those attempts were shut down by out-of-touch executives who run a dot-com but could barely turn on a computer. By those who judge their metrics by page views over absolute unique visitors (that's ad sales talk). By those who simply don't understand the Internet.
They brought me in because of my track record but never once took a look at my body of work. If they did, they would have known that I was the pen behind editorials such as "BET's Coon Picnic" or were aware of the many times I have been critical of their award shows and programming. All they knew is that I played a major role in making a once-unknown Web site into a online media outlet that surpassed theirs, and they wanted a piece of the action. Too bad they never researched who I really was.
During my tenure, I worked long hours and sometimes succeeded at bringing in decent content to try to reflect the change I wanted to achieve. But it wasn't without opposition. While some interviews and content initiatives were able to make it through, many others were either shut down or met with ridicule. I offered ideas to incorporate the blog world and to spotlight new talent before MTV did. Those ideas were met with comments such as, "This isn't HipHopDX" or "You don't know what you are talking about." BET is not about the quality of your work. Rather, BET is about the relationships you have with powerful people within the company. BET is not about challenging. Instead, BET is about accepting and saying "yes."
If you have known or followed me over the years, you would know that these are things that simply are not in my character and ultimately resulted in my removal. For the artists and labels that I have worked with for years, I tried. I did whatever I could to achieve that balance many of us wanted to see happen. To the writers who wanted to write for BET, I made an attempt but was never given a budget to work with.
Upon my arrival, I was told I would be given a staff. Not true. I had a staff of one to carry out daily operations on a Web site. I fought tooth and nail to accomplish the minimum (an embeddable player and a site people could navigate) and was constantly brushed off. It was a position that was set up for failure. But I endured as long as I could.
Alas, I have been removed from my position after infiltrating the system, and the timing was perfect. I wasn't let go because the site's numbers were down. Not because I didn't work hard. Simply because of a personality clash with an individual whose proverbial ass I didn't kiss enough. Again, not about the work you do but about the relationships you keep and the sides you take.
I'd like to thank BET for covering the cost of my relocation to bring me to the great city of New York/New Jersey. I'd also like to thank them for putting me in close quarters with people who think like me and will hopefully work with in the near future. I'd also like to thank them for providing me enough controversial content that I observed firsthand and will make for many tales to be told.
I said it and I meant in: One year to either make changes or move on. I left HipHopDX on Sept. 16, 2008. Today is Sept. 8, 2009. Eight days short of a year. Most thought I wouldn't even last that long. But in that year I've had, my greatest fears about Black Entertainment Television [were] affirmed.
There is so much wrong with BET that I'd rather not break it down in a single e-mail. It is pretty good fodder for a book, don't you think? As of today, Andreas Hale is a free agent.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Advertisers continue to distance themselves from Beck
Comments from advertisers recently distancing themselves from Beck:
“As mentioned before, Applebee’s regularly evaluates where our advertising appears,” said Miles McMillin, a spokesperson for Applebee’s Services, Inc., in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We strive to reach our diverse group of consumers in many different advertising venues. We do advertise in programming where various opinions are debated as we believe discussion about issues important to our country is very valuable. We expect this discussion to be respectful. As also pointed out earlier, we have not purchased advertising time on the Glenn Beck show specifically. However, at this time, we have asked that our advertising that appears on FOX News not be included on the Glenn Beck program.”
In an email conversation with ColorOfChange.org, Joseph L. Goode, Senior Vice-President of Global Media Relations for Bank of America, confirmed that a statement posted on was authentic and that any advertisement placed on the Glenn Beck Program was an error and they would take steps to correct it.
“We don’t advertise on Glenn Beck’s show anymore,” said Charlie Sahner, a spokesperson for Vonage, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.
“I can confirm the authenticity of the statement published, said Valérie Moens, Senior Manager of Corporate Affairs for Kraft Foods Inc., in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “Kraft Foods has made the decision to stop advertising on the more politically extreme programs on all networks. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of shows with extreme content, including on the political front. These shows often are controversial and do not align with our company or brand values. That’s why we have made the decision to stop advertising on the more politically extreme programs on all networks.”
“We’re not an advertiser, that I can’t tell you [sic],” said Tom Forsythe, Vice-President of Corporate Communications for General Mills, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “It’s not necessarily in response to your campaign. The action has much more to do with the content of the program...Upon hearing your request, I made sure that that was true. But it should have already been true because of the nature of the show.”
In a phone conversation with ColorOfChange.org, Jon Gieselman, Senior Vice-President of Advertising and Public Relations for DirecTV, Inc., confirmed that their ads should not be running on Glenn Beck’s program. “We have actually not purchased national advertising from Fox News during his show since August 3rd, and right now we don’t have plans to purchase media in the future,” Gieselman said. “We have already clarified our position with Fox News.”
“To be clear, the Glenn Beck program has never been part of our advertising effort,” said Frank Colangelo, Director of Advertising Research for Travelers Insurance, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “Any Travelers advertisements that ran during that program in the past were due to commercial placement mistakes by Fox News. In fact we have a standing “no buy” policy with regard to the program and we have confirmed that fact with Fox News.”
“We’ve discontinued our advertising on this program and don’t plan to resume,” said Scott M. Peters, Chief Marketing Officer for Regions Financial Corporation, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.
“Our company, SAM (Store and Move) has complied with your request and “The Glenn beck” show has been put on the “do not air” list for SAM,” said Nicole Henkel, a spokesperson for SAM (Store and Move), in an email to ColorOfChange.org.
“While our distributor controls advertising, we have no plans for ads on this [Glenn Beck’s] program,” said Hank D’Ambrosio, Vice-President of Administration for Bell & Howell, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “As I said to you in our conversation and reiterated in my conversation with our distributor, in our 102 year history, Bell and Howell has never been involved in politics or in anything that could be construed as discriminatory in any way and never will.”
“As mentioned before, Applebee’s regularly evaluates where our advertising appears,” said Miles McMillin, a spokesperson for Applebee’s Services, Inc., in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We strive to reach our diverse group of consumers in many different advertising venues. We do advertise in programming where various opinions are debated as we believe discussion about issues important to our country is very valuable. We expect this discussion to be respectful. As also pointed out earlier, we have not purchased advertising time on the Glenn Beck show specifically. However, at this time, we have asked that our advertising that appears on FOX News not be included on the Glenn Beck program.”
In an email conversation with ColorOfChange.org, Joseph L. Goode, Senior Vice-President of Global Media Relations for Bank of America, confirmed that a statement posted on was authentic and that any advertisement placed on the Glenn Beck Program was an error and they would take steps to correct it.
“We don’t advertise on Glenn Beck’s show anymore,” said Charlie Sahner, a spokesperson for Vonage, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.
“I can confirm the authenticity of the statement published, said Valérie Moens, Senior Manager of Corporate Affairs for Kraft Foods Inc., in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “Kraft Foods has made the decision to stop advertising on the more politically extreme programs on all networks. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of shows with extreme content, including on the political front. These shows often are controversial and do not align with our company or brand values. That’s why we have made the decision to stop advertising on the more politically extreme programs on all networks.”
“We’re not an advertiser, that I can’t tell you [sic],” said Tom Forsythe, Vice-President of Corporate Communications for General Mills, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “It’s not necessarily in response to your campaign. The action has much more to do with the content of the program...Upon hearing your request, I made sure that that was true. But it should have already been true because of the nature of the show.”
In a phone conversation with ColorOfChange.org, Jon Gieselman, Senior Vice-President of Advertising and Public Relations for DirecTV, Inc., confirmed that their ads should not be running on Glenn Beck’s program. “We have actually not purchased national advertising from Fox News during his show since August 3rd, and right now we don’t have plans to purchase media in the future,” Gieselman said. “We have already clarified our position with Fox News.”
“To be clear, the Glenn Beck program has never been part of our advertising effort,” said Frank Colangelo, Director of Advertising Research for Travelers Insurance, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “Any Travelers advertisements that ran during that program in the past were due to commercial placement mistakes by Fox News. In fact we have a standing “no buy” policy with regard to the program and we have confirmed that fact with Fox News.”
“We’ve discontinued our advertising on this program and don’t plan to resume,” said Scott M. Peters, Chief Marketing Officer for Regions Financial Corporation, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.
“Our company, SAM (Store and Move) has complied with your request and “The Glenn beck” show has been put on the “do not air” list for SAM,” said Nicole Henkel, a spokesperson for SAM (Store and Move), in an email to ColorOfChange.org.
“While our distributor controls advertising, we have no plans for ads on this [Glenn Beck’s] program,” said Hank D’Ambrosio, Vice-President of Administration for Bell & Howell, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “As I said to you in our conversation and reiterated in my conversation with our distributor, in our 102 year history, Bell and Howell has never been involved in politics or in anything that could be construed as discriminatory in any way and never will.”
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