Poor? Pay Up.
Having Little Money Often Means No Car, No Washing Machine, No Checking Account And No Break From Fees and High Prices
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 18, 2009
You have to be rich to be poor.
That's what some people who have never lived below the poverty line don't understand.
Put it another way: The poorer you are, the more things cost. More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace. This is a fact of life that reality television and magazines don't often explain.
So we'll explain it here. Consider this a primer on the economics of poverty.
"The poor pay more for a gallon of milk; they pay more on a capital basis for inferior housing," says Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). "The poor and 100 million who are struggling for the middle class actually end up paying more for transportation, for housing, for health care, for mortgages. They get steered to subprime lending. . . . The poor pay more for things middle-class America takes for granted."
Poverty 101: We'll start with the basics.
Like food: You don't have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe's, where the middle class goes to save money. You don't have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar.
A loaf of bread there costs you $2.99 for white. For wheat, it's $3.79. The clerk behind the counter tells you the gallon of leaking milk in the bottom of the back cooler is $4.99. She holds up four fingers to clarify. The milk is beneath the shelf that holds beef bologna for $3.79. A pound of butter sells for $4.49. In the back of the store are fruits and vegetables. The green peppers are shriveled, the bananas are more brown than yellow, the oranges are picked over.
(At a Safeway on Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda, the wheat bread costs $1.19, and white bread is on sale for $1. A gallon of milk costs $3.49 -- $2.99 if you buy two gallons. A pound of butter is $2.49. Beef bologna is on sale, two packages for $5.)
Prices in urban corner stores are almost always higher, economists say. And sometimes, prices in supermarkets in poorer neighborhoods are higher. Many of these stores charge more because the cost of doing business in some neighborhoods is higher. "First, they are probably paying more on goods because they don't get the low wholesale price that bigger stores get," says Bradley R. Schiller, a professor emeritus at American University and the author of "The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination."
"The real estate is higher. The fact that volume is low means fewer sales per worker. They make fewer dollars of revenue per square foot of space. They don't end up making more money. Every corner grocery store wishes they had profits their customers think they have."
According to the Census Bureau, more than 37 million people in the country live below the poverty line. The poor know these facts of life. These facts become their lives.
Time is money, they say, and the poor pay more in time, too.
When you are poor, you don't have the luxury of throwing a load into the washing machine and then taking your morning jog while it cycles. You wait until Monday afternoon, when the laundromat is most likely to be empty, and you put all of that laundry from four kids into four heaps, bundle it in sheets, load a cart and drag it to the corner.
"If I had my choice, I would have a washer and a dryer," says Nya Oti, 37, a food-service worker who lives in Brightwood. She stands on her toes to reach the top of a washer in the laundromat on Georgia Avenue NW and pours in detergent. The four loads of laundry will take her about two hours. A soap opera is playing loudly on the television hanging from the ceiling. A man comes in talking to himself. He drags his loads of dirty sheets and mattress pads and dumps them one by one into the machines next to Oti.
She does not seem to notice. She is talking about other costs of poverty. "My car broke down this weekend, and it took a lot of time getting on the bus, standing on the bus stop. It was a waste of a whole lot of times. Waiting. The transfer to the different bus."
When she has her car, she drives to Maryland, where she shops for her groceries at Shoppers Food Warehouse or Save-A-Lot, where she says some items are cheaper and some are higher. "They have a way of getting you in there on a bargain. You go in for something cheap, but something else is more expensive." She buys bags of oranges or apples, but not the organic kind. "Organic is too much," she says.
"When you are poor, you substitute time for money," says Randy Albelda, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. "You have to work a lot of hours and still not make a lot of money. You get squeezed, and your money is squeezed."
The poor pay more in hassle: the calls from the bill collectors, the landlord, the utility company. So they spend money to avoid the hassle. The poor pay for caller identification because it gives them peace of mind to weed out calls from bill collectors.
The rich have direct deposit for their paychecks. The poor have check-cashing and payday loan joints, which cost time and money. Payday advance companies say they are providing an essential service to people who most need them. Their critics say they are preying on people who are the most "economically vulnerable."
"As you've seen with the financial services industry, if people can cut a profit, they do it," Blumenauer says. "The poor pay more for financial services. A lot of people who are 'unbanked' pay $3 for a money order to pay their electric bill. They pay a 2 percent check-cashing fee because they don't have bank services. The reasons? Part of it is lack of education. But part of it is because people target them. There is evidence that credit-card mills have recently started trolling for the poor. They are targeting the recently bankrupt."
Outside the ACE check-cashing office on Georgia Avenue in Petworth, Harrison Blakeney, 67, explains a hard financial lesson of poverty. He uses the check-cashing store to pay his telephone bill. The store charges 10 percent to take Blakeney's money and send the payment to the phone company. That 10 percent becomes what it costs him to get his payment to the telephone company on time. Ten percent is more than the cost of a stamp. But, Blakeney says: "I don't have time to mail it. You come here and get it done. Then you don't get charged with the late fee."
Blakeney, a retired auto mechanic who now lives on a fixed income, says: "We could send the payment ahead of time but sometimes you don't have money ahead of time. That's why you pay extra money to get them to send it."
Blakeney, wearing a purple jacket, leans on his cane. He has no criticism for the check-cashing place. "That's how they make their money," he says. "I don't care about the charge."
Just then, Lenwood Brooks walks out of the check-cashing place. He is angry about how much it just cost him to cash a check. "They charged me $15 to cash a $300 check," he says.
You ask him why he didn't just go to a bank. But his story is as complicated as the various reasons people find themselves in poverty and in need of a check-cashing joint. He says he lost his driver's license and now his regular bank "won't recognize me as a human. That's why I had to come here. It's a rip-off, but it's like a convenience store. You pay for the convenience."
Then there's credit. The poor don't have it. What they had was a place like First Cash Advance in D.C.'s Manor Park neighborhood, where a neon sign once flashed "PAYDAY ADVANCE." Through the bulletproof glass, a cashier in white eyeliner and long white nails explained what you needed to get an advance on your paycheck -- a pay stub, a legitimate ID, a checkbook. This meant you're doing well enough to have a checking account, but you're still poor.
And if you qualify, the fee for borrowing $300 is $46.50.
That was not for a year -- it's for seven days, although the terms can vary. How much interest will this payday loan cost you? In simple terms, the company is charging a $15.50 fee for every $100 that you borrow. On your $300 payday loan -- borrowed for a term of seven days -- the effective annual percentage rate is 806 percent.
The cashier says that what you do is write First Cash Advance a check for $345.50 plus another $1 fee, and it will give you $300 in cash upfront. It holds the check until you get paid. Then you bring in $346.50 and it returns your check. Or it cashes the check and keeps your $346.50, or you have the option of extending the loan with additional fees. You'll be out $46.50, which you'd rather have for the late fee on the rent you didn't pay on time. Or the gas bill you swear you paid last month but the gas company swears it never got.
But now the payday advance place has closed, shuttered by metal doors. A sign in the front door says the business has moved. After the D.C. government passed a law requiring payday lenders to abide by a 24-percent limit on the annual percentage rate charged on a loan, many such stores in the District closed. Now advocates for the poor say they are concerned about other businesses that prey on poor people by extending loans in exchange for car titles. If a person does not pay back the loan, then the business becomes the owner of the car.
All these costs can lead the poor to a collective depression. Douglas J. Besharov, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, says: "There are social costs of being poor, though it is not clear where the cause and effect is. We know for a fact that on certain measures, people who are poor are often more depressed than people who are not. I don't know if poverty made them depressed or the depression made them poor. I think the cause and effect is an open question. Some people are so depressed they are not functional. 'I live in a crummy neighborhood. My kids go to a crummy school.' That is not the kind of scenario that would make them happy." Another effect of all this, he says: "Would you want to hire someone like that?"
The poor suspect that prices are higher where they live, even the prices in major supermarkets. The suspicions sometimes spill over into frustration.
On a hot spring afternoon, Jacob Carter finds himself standing in a checkout line at the Giant on Alabama Avenue SE. Before the cashier finishes ringing up his items, he puts $43 on the conveyor belt. But his bill comes to $52.07. He has no more money, so he tells the clerk to start removing items.
The clerk suggests that he use his "bonus card" for savings.
Carter tells the clerk he has no such card.
He puts back the liter of soda. Puts back the paper towels. Sets aside $9 worth of hot fried chicken wings. He returns $13 worth of groceries. "Y'all got some high prices in this [expletive]," he says, standing in Aisle 4, blue shirt over work clothes.
The clerk suggests that he take his cash off the conveyor belt, because if she moves the belt the money will be carried into the machinery. Then the money will be gone.
Carter, a building engineer, snatches up the money, then gives it to the clerk. His final bill is $39.07.
He looks at the receipt and then announces without the slightest indication as to why: "Just give me all my [expletive] money back. It's too high in this [expletive]." The clerk calls the supervisor, who comes over. The supervisor doesn't argue with Carter. She just starts the process of giving him a refund.
"I want my money back. This [expletive] is too high. My grandmother told me about this store."
The supervisor returns $39.07 in cash. "Sir," she says, "have a blessed day."
The food in this supermarket might be cheaper than the goods at a corner store. But Carter still feels frustrated by what he thinks is a mark-up on prices in supermarkets in poor neighborhoods. Carter walks out.
The poor pay in other ways, ways you might never imagine. Jeanette Reed, who is retired and lives on a fixed income, sold her blood when she needed money. "I had no other source to get money," she says. "I went to the blood bank. And they gave me $30
"I needed the money. I didn't have the money and no source of getting money. No gas. No food. I have to go to a center that gives out boxes of food once a month. They give you cereal or vouchers for $10. They give you canned tuna and macaroni and cheese. Crackers and soup. They give you commodities like day-old bread."
The poor know the special economics of their housing, too.
"You pay rent that might be more than a mortgage," Reed says. "But you don't have the credit or the down payment to buy a house. Apartments are not going down. They are going up. They say houses are better, cheaper. But how are you going to get in a house if you don't have any money for a down payment?"
There is also an economic cost to living in low-income neighborhoods.
"The cheaper housing is in more-dangerous areas," says Reed, who lives in Southeast Washington. "I moved out of my old apartment. I hate that area. They be walking up and down the street. Couldn't take the dog out at night because strangers walking up and down the street. They will knock on your door. Either they rob you, kill or ask for money. If you're not there, they will steal air conditioners and copper. They will sell your copper [pipes] for money."
And then there is the particular unpleasantness when you make too much money to fall below the poverty line, but not enough to move up, up and away from it.
For our final guest lecturer on poverty we take you to the Thrift Store on Georgia Avenue and Marie Nicholas, 35, in an orange shirt, purple pants and thick black eyeliner. She is what economists call the working poor.
She is picking through the racks. The store is busy with customers on a Monday afternoon. There is the shrill sound of hangers sliding across racks under fluorescent lights. An old confirmation dress hangs from the ceiling. It has faded to yellow. It's not far from the used silver pumps, size 9 1/2 , nearly new, on sale for $9.99.
"People working who don't make a lot of money go to the system for help, and they deny them," Nicholas says. "They say I make too much. It almost helps if you don't work."
She says she makes $15 an hour working as a certified nursing assistant. She pays $850 for rent for a one-bedroom that she shares with her boyfriend and child. She went looking for a two-bedroom unit recently and found it would cost her $1,400. She pays $300 a month for child care for her 11-year-old son, who is developmentally delayed. She tried to put him in a subsidized child-care facility, but was told she makes too much money. "My son was not chosen for Head Start because I wasn't in a shelter or on welfare. People's kids who do go don't do nothing but sit at home."
Money and time. "I ride the bus to get to work," Nicholas says. It takes an hour. "If I could drive, it would take me 10 minutes. I have to catch two buses." She gets to the bus stop at 6:30 a.m. The bus is supposed to come every 10 or 15 minutes. Sometimes, she says, it comes every 30 minutes.
What could you accomplish with the lost 20 minutes standing there in the rain? Waiting. That's another cost of poverty. You wait in lines. You wait at bus stops. You wait on the bus as it makes it way up Georgia Avenue, hitting every stop. No sense in trying to hurry when you are poor.
When you are poor, you wait.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Reading assignment for Wednesday May 20
April 2, 2001 by John Leo
Republicans belittle environmental concerns
After a speech I gave to a conservative group in New York, a man rose to ask a question: Didn't I think that all the alarm about global warming was just another example of the politically correct agenda of the left? I said no, the evidence of a drastic warming trend seemed overwhelming to me.I missed the opportunity to say that the "no-consensus-on-warming" crowd now sounds a lot like the tobacco lobby arguing that the link between smoking and lung cancer has not yet been established. Even without this observation, my response was incorrect. So the man asked his question again to give me a fresh chance to get things right. I said I didn't understand why social conservatives are generally so hostile to environmental concerns. Shouldn't conserving come naturally to conservatives?
Apparently not. Economic conservatives, for whom The Wall Street Journal is the primary spokesman, are dismissive about most environmentalism. When President Bush announced he would not abide by the Kyoto protocol calling on America to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the Journal hailed him for "refusing to bow before the environmentalist holy of holies."
Derisive references to environmentalism as a quasi-religion of the softheaded tend to play well among social and religious conservatives who generally don't respond to arguments from big business. These references remind all conservatives that the most extreme environmentalism does look a bit like an ersatz earth religion, with humans as the poisonous intruders who shouldn't be here. But why do social and religious conservatives so often fall in line with business executives who dismiss environmentalists as wackos?
One reason is that environmentalism rose out of the same 1960s agitation that social conservatives believe was so ruinous to the general culture. Some environmentalists give the impression that the movement is simply part of the left, thus managing to alienate potential supporters on the right. This is a major strategic mistake, but an understandable one, given the hostility to the environment that Republicans have produced over the past 20 years.
Issues of class are a factor, too. Environmentalists tend to come from well-off elites with the luxury of worrying about the snail darter and the state of the global environment in 2050. When a candidate like Al Gore appears, it is relatively easy for Republicans to connect the dots and associate environmentalism with elite Democratic stances that appall so many conservatives.
The result is that on every level, the party with the most social conservatives contains the fewest environmentalists. In Congress, the most notable Republican effort in this field is attaching anti-environmental riders to appropriations bills. Martha Marks, head of REP America, refers to herself as "the president of what a few jokers have called the world's funniest oxymoron: Republicans for Environmental Protection."
The absence of a meaningful environmental constituency explains why it was so easy for the new administration to back off the Kyoto agreement and support drilling for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and (ominously) other wilderness areas. The undermining of Christine Whitman as head of the Environmental Protection Agency apparently began early. Word came that she was known around the White House as "Brownie," a sarcastic reference to President Clinton's EPA chief, Carol Browner, who was predictably unpopular among many big-name Republicans. Is this a show of contempt for Whitman, her agency, or both?
Republican anti-environmentalism dates only from the Reagan years. As opinion rose against big government and heavy regulation, particularly in the West, environmental protection was demonized as a symbol of Washington's overbearing power. By the time of Newt Gingrich's poll-tested Contract With America, anti-environmentalism was part of the Republican canon. Environmental historian Willam Cronon writes that the contract "came to grief in good measure because most Americans continue to believe that protecting the environment is a good thing." Newt now thinks so too, and has admitted that Republicans were "malpositioned" on the environment.
George W. Bush is probably too moderate a man to emerge as a version of the old anti-environmental Newt. But even in narrow partisan terms, the Republicans should be careful here. Wirthlin Worldwide, a polling firm associated with Republican causes, reports that "two out of three Americans say we need to protect the environment no matter what it costs."
In 1999, Zogby International, another pollster heavily used by the GOP, surveyed probable Republican primary voters in five key states and found about as much support for "protect the environment" (92 percent) as "encourage family values" (93 percent). And an Environmental Defense Fund poll says that young adults (18 to 25) are "remarkably skeptical" about environmental progress over the past 30 years, with 62 percent believing that conditions are now worse than in 1970.
Republicans may be counting on the old rule of thumb: Everybody supports the environment in polls, but it's nobody's primary concern in the voting booth. But if I were running the party, I don't think I would tie myself closely to the losing side of a broad national argument.
Republicans belittle environmental concerns
After a speech I gave to a conservative group in New York, a man rose to ask a question: Didn't I think that all the alarm about global warming was just another example of the politically correct agenda of the left? I said no, the evidence of a drastic warming trend seemed overwhelming to me.I missed the opportunity to say that the "no-consensus-on-warming" crowd now sounds a lot like the tobacco lobby arguing that the link between smoking and lung cancer has not yet been established. Even without this observation, my response was incorrect. So the man asked his question again to give me a fresh chance to get things right. I said I didn't understand why social conservatives are generally so hostile to environmental concerns. Shouldn't conserving come naturally to conservatives?
Apparently not. Economic conservatives, for whom The Wall Street Journal is the primary spokesman, are dismissive about most environmentalism. When President Bush announced he would not abide by the Kyoto protocol calling on America to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the Journal hailed him for "refusing to bow before the environmentalist holy of holies."
Derisive references to environmentalism as a quasi-religion of the softheaded tend to play well among social and religious conservatives who generally don't respond to arguments from big business. These references remind all conservatives that the most extreme environmentalism does look a bit like an ersatz earth religion, with humans as the poisonous intruders who shouldn't be here. But why do social and religious conservatives so often fall in line with business executives who dismiss environmentalists as wackos?
One reason is that environmentalism rose out of the same 1960s agitation that social conservatives believe was so ruinous to the general culture. Some environmentalists give the impression that the movement is simply part of the left, thus managing to alienate potential supporters on the right. This is a major strategic mistake, but an understandable one, given the hostility to the environment that Republicans have produced over the past 20 years.
Issues of class are a factor, too. Environmentalists tend to come from well-off elites with the luxury of worrying about the snail darter and the state of the global environment in 2050. When a candidate like Al Gore appears, it is relatively easy for Republicans to connect the dots and associate environmentalism with elite Democratic stances that appall so many conservatives.
The result is that on every level, the party with the most social conservatives contains the fewest environmentalists. In Congress, the most notable Republican effort in this field is attaching anti-environmental riders to appropriations bills. Martha Marks, head of REP America, refers to herself as "the president of what a few jokers have called the world's funniest oxymoron: Republicans for Environmental Protection."
The absence of a meaningful environmental constituency explains why it was so easy for the new administration to back off the Kyoto agreement and support drilling for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and (ominously) other wilderness areas. The undermining of Christine Whitman as head of the Environmental Protection Agency apparently began early. Word came that she was known around the White House as "Brownie," a sarcastic reference to President Clinton's EPA chief, Carol Browner, who was predictably unpopular among many big-name Republicans. Is this a show of contempt for Whitman, her agency, or both?
Republican anti-environmentalism dates only from the Reagan years. As opinion rose against big government and heavy regulation, particularly in the West, environmental protection was demonized as a symbol of Washington's overbearing power. By the time of Newt Gingrich's poll-tested Contract With America, anti-environmentalism was part of the Republican canon. Environmental historian Willam Cronon writes that the contract "came to grief in good measure because most Americans continue to believe that protecting the environment is a good thing." Newt now thinks so too, and has admitted that Republicans were "malpositioned" on the environment.
George W. Bush is probably too moderate a man to emerge as a version of the old anti-environmental Newt. But even in narrow partisan terms, the Republicans should be careful here. Wirthlin Worldwide, a polling firm associated with Republican causes, reports that "two out of three Americans say we need to protect the environment no matter what it costs."
In 1999, Zogby International, another pollster heavily used by the GOP, surveyed probable Republican primary voters in five key states and found about as much support for "protect the environment" (92 percent) as "encourage family values" (93 percent). And an Environmental Defense Fund poll says that young adults (18 to 25) are "remarkably skeptical" about environmental progress over the past 30 years, with 62 percent believing that conditions are now worse than in 1970.
Republicans may be counting on the old rule of thumb: Everybody supports the environment in polls, but it's nobody's primary concern in the voting booth. But if I were running the party, I don't think I would tie myself closely to the losing side of a broad national argument.
Reading Assignment for Tue May 19
Read Chapter 19 "Population and the Environment"
This is the last chapter to read!!!
Take notes on.......
Demography, Census, Vital statistics, demographic transition, population explosion, baby boom & stable population growth.
This is the last chapter to read!!!
Take notes on.......
Demography, Census, Vital statistics, demographic transition, population explosion, baby boom & stable population growth.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Reading Assignment for Thursday May 14
The Importance of Education
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Education has an immense impact on the human society. One can safely assume that a person is not in the proper sense till he is educated. It trains the human mind to think and take the right decision. In other words, man becomes a rational animal when he is educated.
It is through education that knowledge and information is received and spread throughout the world. An uneducated person cannot read and write and hence he is closed to all the knowledge and wisdom he can gain through books and other mediums. In other words, he is shut off from the outside world. In contrast, an educated man lives in a room with all its windows open towards outside world.
The quality of human resource of a nation is easily judged by the number of literate population living in it. This is to say that education is a must if a nation aspires to achieve growth and development and more importantly sustain it. This may well explain the fact that rich and developed nations of the world have very high literacy rate and productive human resource. In fact these nations have started imparting selective training and education programs so as to meet the new technical and business demands of the 21st century.
In the US, many educational institutes offer vocational as well as other training programs apart from the normal credit programs. To cater to the educational needs of the working population, many colleges offer online education. The degrees and certificates offered by these online colleges and universities are very convenient for working people as well as students. Working people needs these degrees to update their knowledge and skill level which will come handy in their promotion and achieving growth as professionals. Students can also pursue an online degree and work and earn at the same time.
In fact, certain professionals like doctors and dentists, are obliged to follow mandatory lifelong learning. This is done so that they keep pace with all the research and development done in the medical field. These professionals not only needs to update themselves about these developments, but also learn new techniques of practice and perfect old ones. Learning about patient management and the delivery of care is rather a continuing process. Since these professionals, especially doctors have huge moral responsibility towards the patients and society in general, continuing education is a must for them.
It is in such a scenario that distance education comes into the picture. Since professionals do not have the time to attend classroom classes, distance education comes as a convenient alternative. They can learn at a time convenient to them and from the comfort of their homes.
Keeping the importance of education in mind, the US Department of Education aims to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. It also establishes policies regarding federal financial aid for education, and distributing as well as monitoring those funds. It also continuously strives to focus national attention on key educational issues and providing equal access to education.
The importance of education cannot be neglected by any nation. And in today’s world, the role of education has become even more vital. It is an absolute necessity for economic and social development of any nation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Education has an immense impact on the human society. One can safely assume that a person is not in the proper sense till he is educated. It trains the human mind to think and take the right decision. In other words, man becomes a rational animal when he is educated.
It is through education that knowledge and information is received and spread throughout the world. An uneducated person cannot read and write and hence he is closed to all the knowledge and wisdom he can gain through books and other mediums. In other words, he is shut off from the outside world. In contrast, an educated man lives in a room with all its windows open towards outside world.
The quality of human resource of a nation is easily judged by the number of literate population living in it. This is to say that education is a must if a nation aspires to achieve growth and development and more importantly sustain it. This may well explain the fact that rich and developed nations of the world have very high literacy rate and productive human resource. In fact these nations have started imparting selective training and education programs so as to meet the new technical and business demands of the 21st century.
In the US, many educational institutes offer vocational as well as other training programs apart from the normal credit programs. To cater to the educational needs of the working population, many colleges offer online education. The degrees and certificates offered by these online colleges and universities are very convenient for working people as well as students. Working people needs these degrees to update their knowledge and skill level which will come handy in their promotion and achieving growth as professionals. Students can also pursue an online degree and work and earn at the same time.
In fact, certain professionals like doctors and dentists, are obliged to follow mandatory lifelong learning. This is done so that they keep pace with all the research and development done in the medical field. These professionals not only needs to update themselves about these developments, but also learn new techniques of practice and perfect old ones. Learning about patient management and the delivery of care is rather a continuing process. Since these professionals, especially doctors have huge moral responsibility towards the patients and society in general, continuing education is a must for them.
It is in such a scenario that distance education comes into the picture. Since professionals do not have the time to attend classroom classes, distance education comes as a convenient alternative. They can learn at a time convenient to them and from the comfort of their homes.
Keeping the importance of education in mind, the US Department of Education aims to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. It also establishes policies regarding federal financial aid for education, and distributing as well as monitoring those funds. It also continuously strives to focus national attention on key educational issues and providing equal access to education.
The importance of education cannot be neglected by any nation. And in today’s world, the role of education has become even more vital. It is an absolute necessity for economic and social development of any nation.
Read these two articles for Wed May 13
Louisiana gov. signs controversial education bill
Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:33pm EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page[-] Text [+]
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NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law a bill that critics say could allow for the teaching of "creationism" alongside evolution in public schools.
Jindal, a conservative Christian who has been touted by pundits as a potential vice presidential running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, signed the legislation earlier this week.
The law will allow schools if they choose to use "supplemental materials" when discussing evolution but does not specify what the materials would be.
It states that authorities "shall allow ... open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning."
It also says that it "shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion."
Jindal's office declined on Friday to comment. The bill was backed by the Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative Christian group, and the Discovery Institute, which promotes the theory of "intelligent design" -- a theory that maintains that the complexity of life points to a grand designer.
"Intelligent design is currently not in the Louisiana state science standards and so could not be taught. But this allows scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory to be taught," said John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute.
Critics say intelligent design is biblical creation theory by another name and that the new legislation is an attempt to water down instruction about evolution.
"Louisiana has a long and unfortunate history of trying to substitute dogma for science in ... classrooms," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, an executive director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a religious liberty watchdog.
The group says similar legislation has been attempted previously in other states such South Carolina, Alabama, Michigan, Missouri and Florida. Similar battles have also taken places at the school board level in Kansas.
The teaching of evolution -- the basis of modern biology rooted in 19th-century naturalist Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection -- has become one of the leading battlefields in the America's "culture wars."
Many U.S. conservative Christians reject evolution and believe in the biblical story of creation. A nationwide survey conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 45 percent of U.S. adults did not think evolution was the best explanation for the origins of human life.
Evidence and Evolution: A Controversial Theory— Rob Bartlett
THE IMPORTANCE OF evolutionary theory for biology can hardly be overstated. An oft-quoted remark by the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky captures this: "Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." The applications of genetics—the foundation of evolutionary theory—are widespread and profound in technology as well as basic biology.
One of the reasons that governments and private industry were willing to sink billions of dollars into sequencing the human genome—then mice, fruit flies, roundworms and other organisms—is that they expect to get big profits from comparing the DNA (basic genetic material) from genes in different species. One benefit comes from identifying mutated forms of genes responsible for diseases or associated with higher risks of developing diseases, and potentially the development of drug treatments for them.
Yet any casual reader of newspapers cannot fail to have noticed a steady stream of articles dealing with evolution—not articles detailing the research of scientists studying aspects of the history of life, but cases where local or state boards of education or legislators introduce challenges to the central paradigm in biology of evolution, in the name of "teaching the controversy" or allowing the "evidence contradicting evolution." The recent case most in the news is that of Dover, PA, whose school board was sued by parents who opposed the introduction of Intelligent Design (ID) into their curriculum. Specifically the board required that teachers read a statement asserting that "because Darwin's theory is a theory it continues to be tested"…and "is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence." It then introduces Intelligent Design as an alternative explanation to evolution.
In late December (after the voters in Dover had kicked the "Intelligent Design" proponents off the school board), the judge hearing the case made a sweeping ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, labeling ID not scientific but merely a mutation of "scientific creationism" and thus religious in essence, violating the separation of church and state. The 139-page opinion declined to rule narrowly, and instead was a historical listing of both the legal antecedents of this case and a detailed refutation of the scientific claims of ID.
Not surprisingly, proponents of ID like the Discovery Institute's associate director, Dr. John West, decried the decision saying that "Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur." Allusions to activist judges are somewhat ironic in this case as the judge is a Republican, appointed by President Bush.
Although this ruling is nothing new, but merely affirms similar rulings of the past, it is clear that the "controversy" over evolution will not go away. During 2005 there were dozens of other instances where legislators introduced bills supporting the teaching of ID, or where state boards of educations changed their standards to weaken the teaching of evolution, despite widespread unanimity in the scientific community that support the primacy of evolution as a unifying theory in biology.
While much of this legislation is introduced with little chance of it being enacted into law, in some places, like Kansas and Ohio, state boards of education have changed their state science standards to introduce "controversy" over the theory of evolution or allow teaching of "alternative theories" to evolution such as ID.
Even a state like Illinois, which has a standard that reads "Describe processes by which organisms change over time using evidence from comparative anatomy and physiology, embryology, the fossil record, genetics and biochemistry," the "process,"—evolution—is not named. This could be attributed to either caution or cowardice, but in any case it highlights the chilling effect of opposition to evolution.
Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:33pm EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page[-] Text [+]
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NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law a bill that critics say could allow for the teaching of "creationism" alongside evolution in public schools.
Jindal, a conservative Christian who has been touted by pundits as a potential vice presidential running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, signed the legislation earlier this week.
The law will allow schools if they choose to use "supplemental materials" when discussing evolution but does not specify what the materials would be.
It states that authorities "shall allow ... open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning."
It also says that it "shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion."
Jindal's office declined on Friday to comment. The bill was backed by the Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative Christian group, and the Discovery Institute, which promotes the theory of "intelligent design" -- a theory that maintains that the complexity of life points to a grand designer.
"Intelligent design is currently not in the Louisiana state science standards and so could not be taught. But this allows scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory to be taught," said John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute.
Critics say intelligent design is biblical creation theory by another name and that the new legislation is an attempt to water down instruction about evolution.
"Louisiana has a long and unfortunate history of trying to substitute dogma for science in ... classrooms," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, an executive director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a religious liberty watchdog.
The group says similar legislation has been attempted previously in other states such South Carolina, Alabama, Michigan, Missouri and Florida. Similar battles have also taken places at the school board level in Kansas.
The teaching of evolution -- the basis of modern biology rooted in 19th-century naturalist Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection -- has become one of the leading battlefields in the America's "culture wars."
Many U.S. conservative Christians reject evolution and believe in the biblical story of creation. A nationwide survey conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 45 percent of U.S. adults did not think evolution was the best explanation for the origins of human life.
Evidence and Evolution: A Controversial Theory— Rob Bartlett
THE IMPORTANCE OF evolutionary theory for biology can hardly be overstated. An oft-quoted remark by the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky captures this: "Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." The applications of genetics—the foundation of evolutionary theory—are widespread and profound in technology as well as basic biology.
One of the reasons that governments and private industry were willing to sink billions of dollars into sequencing the human genome—then mice, fruit flies, roundworms and other organisms—is that they expect to get big profits from comparing the DNA (basic genetic material) from genes in different species. One benefit comes from identifying mutated forms of genes responsible for diseases or associated with higher risks of developing diseases, and potentially the development of drug treatments for them.
Yet any casual reader of newspapers cannot fail to have noticed a steady stream of articles dealing with evolution—not articles detailing the research of scientists studying aspects of the history of life, but cases where local or state boards of education or legislators introduce challenges to the central paradigm in biology of evolution, in the name of "teaching the controversy" or allowing the "evidence contradicting evolution." The recent case most in the news is that of Dover, PA, whose school board was sued by parents who opposed the introduction of Intelligent Design (ID) into their curriculum. Specifically the board required that teachers read a statement asserting that "because Darwin's theory is a theory it continues to be tested"…and "is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence." It then introduces Intelligent Design as an alternative explanation to evolution.
In late December (after the voters in Dover had kicked the "Intelligent Design" proponents off the school board), the judge hearing the case made a sweeping ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, labeling ID not scientific but merely a mutation of "scientific creationism" and thus religious in essence, violating the separation of church and state. The 139-page opinion declined to rule narrowly, and instead was a historical listing of both the legal antecedents of this case and a detailed refutation of the scientific claims of ID.
Not surprisingly, proponents of ID like the Discovery Institute's associate director, Dr. John West, decried the decision saying that "Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur." Allusions to activist judges are somewhat ironic in this case as the judge is a Republican, appointed by President Bush.
Although this ruling is nothing new, but merely affirms similar rulings of the past, it is clear that the "controversy" over evolution will not go away. During 2005 there were dozens of other instances where legislators introduced bills supporting the teaching of ID, or where state boards of educations changed their standards to weaken the teaching of evolution, despite widespread unanimity in the scientific community that support the primacy of evolution as a unifying theory in biology.
While much of this legislation is introduced with little chance of it being enacted into law, in some places, like Kansas and Ohio, state boards of education have changed their state science standards to introduce "controversy" over the theory of evolution or allow teaching of "alternative theories" to evolution such as ID.
Even a state like Illinois, which has a standard that reads "Describe processes by which organisms change over time using evidence from comparative anatomy and physiology, embryology, the fossil record, genetics and biochemistry," the "process,"—evolution—is not named. This could be attributed to either caution or cowardice, but in any case it highlights the chilling effect of opposition to evolution.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Reading Assignment for Wed 5/6
It's All Our Fault
By John Leo
Posted 7/31/05
In the wake of the London bombings, New York City is now searching the bags of subway riders. As you might expect, this is provoking the usual cluster of perverse reactions. Someone on Air America, the liberal talk radio network, suggested that riders carry many bags to confuse and irritate the cops. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, normally a sane fellow, has ordered that the searches be entirely random, to avoid singling out any one ethnic or religious group. So if someone fits the suicide bomber profile--young Muslim male, short hair, recently shaved beard or mustache, smelling of flower water (a preparation for entering paradise)--the police must look away and search the nun or the Boy Scout behind him. What's the point of stopping a terrorist if you have to trample political correctness to do it? Besides, the New York Civil Liberties Union opposes all bag searches. No surprise there. The national American Civil Liberties Union still opposes passenger screening at airports. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, historian Fred Siegel said that the Democrats, pegged as the party of criminals' rights, are in danger of becoming the party of terrorists' rights.
From the first moments after the attacks of 9/11, we had indicators that the left would not be able to take terrorism seriously. Instead of resolve, we got concern about emotional closure and "root causes," warnings about the allegedly great danger of a backlash against Muslim Americans, arguments that violence directed at America is our own fault, and suggestions that we must not use force, because violence never solves anything. "We can't bomb our way to justice," said Ralph Nader.
The denial of the peril facing America remains a staple of the left. We still hear that the terrorism is a scattered and minor threat that should be dealt with as a criminal justice matter. In Britain last October, the BBC, a perennial leader in foolish leftism, delivered a three-part TV series arguing that terrorism is vastly exaggerated. Al Qaeda barely exists at all, the series argued, except as an idea that uses religious violence to achieve its ends. Besides, the series said, a dirty bomb would not kill many people and may not even kill anyone. This ho-hum approach isn't rare. Though evidence shows that the terrorists are interested in acquiring nuclear weapons to use against our cities, a learned writer for the New York Review of Books insists that the real weapons of mass destruction are world poverty and environmental abuse. Of course, world poverty is rarely mentioned by terrorists, and those known to be involved have almost all been well fed and are well to do.
Trade-offs. The "our fault" argument seems permanently entrenched. After the London bombings, Norman Geras of the University of Manchester wrote in the Guardian that the root causes and blame-Blair outbursts were "spreading like an infestation across the pages of this newspaper ... there are, among us, apologists for what the killers do." That has been the case on both sides of the Atlantic. After 9/11, Michael Walzer, one of the most powerful voices on the left, warned about "the politics of ideological apology" for terrorism. In the June 2005 issue of the American Prospect, he returned to the theme. "Is anybody still excusing terrorism?" he asked. "The answer is yes: Secret sympathy, even fascination with violence among men and women who think of themselves as 'militants,' is a disease, and recovery is slow." Though the argument has shifted somewhat, he wrote, the problem is "how to make people feel that the liberal left is interested in their security and capable of acting effectively. We won't win an election until we address this."
Walzer's analysis is a strong one. The Bush administration has botched many things, but large numbers of Americans go along with the president because he displays what the left apparently cannot: moral clarity and seriousness about what must be done. When the ideas of the left come into view, the themes often include the closing of Guantánamo, attacks on the Patriot Act, opposition to military recruitment on campuses, casual mockery of patriotism (a whole art exhibit in Baltimore was devoted to the theme), and a failure to admit that defeating terrorism will require some trade-offs between security and civil liberties. Is this a serious program? Real security, Walzer says, will depend on hunting down terrorist cells, cutting off the flow of money, and improving surveillance at key sites. He writes: "The burden is on us--nobody else--to make the case that these things can be done effectively by liberals and leftists who will also, in contrast to today's Republicans, defend the civil liberties of American citizens." Good argument. How will the left respond?
To hear some on the left tell it, terrorism is exactly what the West deserves for its many sins.
By John Leo
Posted 7/31/05
In the wake of the London bombings, New York City is now searching the bags of subway riders. As you might expect, this is provoking the usual cluster of perverse reactions. Someone on Air America, the liberal talk radio network, suggested that riders carry many bags to confuse and irritate the cops. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, normally a sane fellow, has ordered that the searches be entirely random, to avoid singling out any one ethnic or religious group. So if someone fits the suicide bomber profile--young Muslim male, short hair, recently shaved beard or mustache, smelling of flower water (a preparation for entering paradise)--the police must look away and search the nun or the Boy Scout behind him. What's the point of stopping a terrorist if you have to trample political correctness to do it? Besides, the New York Civil Liberties Union opposes all bag searches. No surprise there. The national American Civil Liberties Union still opposes passenger screening at airports. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, historian Fred Siegel said that the Democrats, pegged as the party of criminals' rights, are in danger of becoming the party of terrorists' rights.
From the first moments after the attacks of 9/11, we had indicators that the left would not be able to take terrorism seriously. Instead of resolve, we got concern about emotional closure and "root causes," warnings about the allegedly great danger of a backlash against Muslim Americans, arguments that violence directed at America is our own fault, and suggestions that we must not use force, because violence never solves anything. "We can't bomb our way to justice," said Ralph Nader.
The denial of the peril facing America remains a staple of the left. We still hear that the terrorism is a scattered and minor threat that should be dealt with as a criminal justice matter. In Britain last October, the BBC, a perennial leader in foolish leftism, delivered a three-part TV series arguing that terrorism is vastly exaggerated. Al Qaeda barely exists at all, the series argued, except as an idea that uses religious violence to achieve its ends. Besides, the series said, a dirty bomb would not kill many people and may not even kill anyone. This ho-hum approach isn't rare. Though evidence shows that the terrorists are interested in acquiring nuclear weapons to use against our cities, a learned writer for the New York Review of Books insists that the real weapons of mass destruction are world poverty and environmental abuse. Of course, world poverty is rarely mentioned by terrorists, and those known to be involved have almost all been well fed and are well to do.
Trade-offs. The "our fault" argument seems permanently entrenched. After the London bombings, Norman Geras of the University of Manchester wrote in the Guardian that the root causes and blame-Blair outbursts were "spreading like an infestation across the pages of this newspaper ... there are, among us, apologists for what the killers do." That has been the case on both sides of the Atlantic. After 9/11, Michael Walzer, one of the most powerful voices on the left, warned about "the politics of ideological apology" for terrorism. In the June 2005 issue of the American Prospect, he returned to the theme. "Is anybody still excusing terrorism?" he asked. "The answer is yes: Secret sympathy, even fascination with violence among men and women who think of themselves as 'militants,' is a disease, and recovery is slow." Though the argument has shifted somewhat, he wrote, the problem is "how to make people feel that the liberal left is interested in their security and capable of acting effectively. We won't win an election until we address this."
Walzer's analysis is a strong one. The Bush administration has botched many things, but large numbers of Americans go along with the president because he displays what the left apparently cannot: moral clarity and seriousness about what must be done. When the ideas of the left come into view, the themes often include the closing of Guantánamo, attacks on the Patriot Act, opposition to military recruitment on campuses, casual mockery of patriotism (a whole art exhibit in Baltimore was devoted to the theme), and a failure to admit that defeating terrorism will require some trade-offs between security and civil liberties. Is this a serious program? Real security, Walzer says, will depend on hunting down terrorist cells, cutting off the flow of money, and improving surveillance at key sites. He writes: "The burden is on us--nobody else--to make the case that these things can be done effectively by liberals and leftists who will also, in contrast to today's Republicans, defend the civil liberties of American citizens." Good argument. How will the left respond?
To hear some on the left tell it, terrorism is exactly what the West deserves for its many sins.
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