text:
Register here to submit a proposal through the ASA's 2013 submission site. (Closed)
Access your ASA membership account at JHU Press including online access to American Quarterly and the Encyclopedia of American Studies Online. Forgot your membership account passwordCreate an account to join an ASA community. Only current ASA members may contribute to the community blogs. Registration is not required to submit display or text ads or news and events or to view many pages. We will refuse posts that are not of professional interest to ASA members.
Click here for membership FAQ's
The Minority Scholars' Committee of the American Studies Association invites nominations for the 2013 Richard A. Yarborough Mentoring Award. The prize was established in 2012, and will honor a scholar who, like Richard Yarborough, demonstrates dedication to and excellence in mentoring. The winner will be announced at the Mentoring Breakfast of the Minority Scholars' Committee during the annual meeting of the association to be held November 21-24, 2013, in Washington, DC.
Nominations for the 2013 Richard A. Yarborough Mentoring Award
Nomination materials should include:
1. A letter of nomination (no longer than 5 single-spaced pages) describing the nominee's achievements in mentoring underrepresented students and faculty. This statement should include his or her contributions locally (at their home institution), nationally, and internationally. This statement might also address the nominee's scholarly contributions, as well as the impact of the nominee's research on the careers of underserved and underrepresented publics.
2. Supporting letters from collaborators, colleagues, postdoctoral fellows, undergraduate and graduate students mentored. Although these letters can be individually authored, nominators are urged to solicit a smaller set of collectively authored letters with multiple signatories.
3. URLs for any relevant websites.
Published on February 22, 2013 by John F Stephens.
Submit a speaker request | Community Partnership Grant Program
The American Studies Association is pleased to announce the scholars participating in its Distinguished Speaker's Bureau. Speaking on a wide range of topics, the Distinguished Speakers' Bureau brings leading scholars to your institution.
Speakers listed here are willing to give at least one lecture in the academic year on behalf of the ASA. Speakers donate their time to the ASA in order to participate. Host institutions pay a $1,000 speaker's fee directly to the ASA, in addition to the speaker's travel and lodging expenses.
All speakers' fees are deposited into the ASA's Community Partnership Fund. The Community Partnership Fund supports a competitive grants program open to members of the American Studies Association. The Fund encourages projects developed in collaboration with community-based organizations, school districts, public libraries, local historical societies, community museums, and other non-profit entities.
Published on March 12, 2013 by John F Stephens.
This website provides scholars with a one-stop shop for the latest research published in American studies journals throughout the world. Organized by the International Initiative of the American Studies Association and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this site is the outcome of a collaboration between numerous journal editors around the world.
Published on March 12, 2013 by John F Stephens.
The voting in the ASA Election is now completed. The following members have been elected to three-year terms that shall last from July 1, 2013, to June 30, 2016.
Lisa Duggan, New York University
Ann Cvetkovich, University of Texas, Austin
J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Wesleyan University
Sunaina Maira, University of California, Davis
Martin Manalansan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Juana Rodriguez, University of California, Berkeley
Student Councilor:
Marisol Lebron, New York University
Nominating Committee:
Siobhan Somerville, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Judy Wu, Ohio State University
The Council extends its appreciation to all those who agreed to run for office, congratulates the new leaders of the Association, and wishes them success in their undertakings over the next three years.
The Council also extends its gratitude to those who are completing their term of service. The councilors whose terms expire on June 30, 2013 include:
Evelyn Alsultany, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Jennifer Doyle, University of California, Riverside
Robert Lee, Brown University
Sarah Melton, student councilor, Emory University
Nayan Shah, University of California, San Diego
Priscilla Wald, immediate past president, Duke University
Cynthia Young, Boston College
The Nominating Committee members whose terms expire on June 30, 2013 are:
Jasbir Puar, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Meredith Raimondo , Oberlin College
Published in News on March 13, 2013 by ASASTAFF.
The San Juan ASA Conference represented an important moment to continue thinking deeply about the conceptual and methodological demands of a truly transnational American Studies. The location of the conference was itself a powerful call for reflection—reflection on indigeneity and dispossession; reflection on the course of US empire; reflection on rich histories of resistance; reflection on American Studies as a set of interpretive and pedagogical practices in that zone where Indigenous Studies, Atlantic World, Caribbean Studies, Diaspora Studies, and Pacific Rim all come together. From the outset the Program Committee felt an awesome responsibility to organize sessions and events that would do justice to the significance of this Caribbean locale and its (anti-) colonial history.
The ASA membership responded to the call and the challenges of the conference with terrific energy, innovation, insight, commitment, and with a spirit of true collaboration and intellectual generosity. This was one of the best-attended and most vibrant ASA meetings in recent memory. The program was expanded in order to accommodate as many of the very fine submissions as possible; the final program comprised over 400 panels, round tables, caucus meetings, screenings, readings, lightening rounds, and installations, involving the participation of over 1500 scholars, writers, artists, and activists from 25 countries in North and Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe. Sessions represented a vast and ingenious array of methods, approaches, and orientations, as well as scholarly and politically committed conversations that ambitiously crossed disciplines, geographic regions, and historical periods. A brief sampling of the interpretive modalities and the intellectual concerns running through the program includes comparative empires, US regions/cities in the context of empire, the Puerto Rican diaspora, empire and migration, political economy, activism and public scholarship, liberalism (in both its broad and narrower meanings), legal structures and juridical discourses, public pedagogy, transnational activism, the carceral state, neoliberalism, militarism and state violence, biopolitics, hegemonic and alternative archives, tourism, commodity chains, settler colonialism, borderlands, cartography, indigeneity and anti-imperialist strategies, digital humanities, consumption and the commercial cultures of empire, religion as oppression and as resistance, oral history, missionaries and explorers, feminist internationalism, environmental justice, sexuality and imperial power, global health, hemispheric solidarities, the politics of water, the global South and the "resource curse," radical poetics, human rights discourse, photography as a technology of empire, modernities and modernisms, museums and curation, sonic landscapes, narco-empire, graphic novels and animation, race and real estate, and trauma.
This was a tremendously rich, varied, and productive program. Among the most meaningful of the many conversations enabled at the meeting were those between colleagues from different parts of the world, between Puerto Rican scholars and activists and their colleagues from the US, between scholars in the humanities and in the social sciences, and between early Americanists and their colleagues who work on later periods. The program committee worked especially hard to raise the profile of early America in the conference and to invigorate the conversations across the temporal spectrum from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first.
The committee likewise assembled a slate of extracurricular exhibits, screenings, and events meant to augment and anchor the anti-imperialist spirit of the conference agenda and to provide routes into San Juan and its history quite distinct from those laid out by the normal circuitry of tourism. These included tours of the Hacienda La Esperanza Nature Reserve, one of the largest sugar plantations in Puerto Rico in the latter half of the nineteenth century; historical tours of Viejo San Juan, led by Edwin Quiles Rodríguez, author of San Juan Tras la Fachada: Una Mirada Desde Sus Espacios Ocultos (1580-1900); and a tour of the ENLACE Caño Martín Peña Project, whose residents seek to overcome poverty and attain social and environmental justice. Special events also included a reading by Puerto Rican poet and writer Giannina Braschi, whose work explores themes of US-Caribbean relations, the politics of empire and independence, and the migrant's experience of marginality and liberation; and installations by two artists-in-residence: Nao Bustamante presented her multimedia project, Personal Protection, which activates the tactile and tactical histories of women in wa; and Adál Maldonado presented his multi-media project, Blueprints for a Nation: Construction of an Imaginary State, weaving diverse perspectives on the Puerto Rican Diaspora, the significance of creative expression in fostering new political imaginations, and the subversive tropicalization of new environments. All of these events were heavily attended and enthusiastically received.
Finally, an in-house Anti-Imperialist Film Festival provided continuous screenings of important documentary films. These included Roberto Clemente, followed by a discussion with director Bernardo Ruiz; Aquel Rebaño Azul [The Blue Herd], a historical account of police brutality in Puerto Rico, sponsored by Puerto Rico's Civil Rights Commission; Más de 800 Razones, on the 2010-2011 University of Puerto Rico student strikes; and a number of films provided by the feminist collective, Women Make Movies. The festival culminated in a screening and director's discussion of John Sayle's Amigo, on a Philippine baryo in the crossfire of empire and resistance, and a ragtag but lethal detachment of U.S. soldiers who find themselves halfway around the world walking point for their country's new imperialist policy in 1899.
The strength, vitality, and rich programming regarding Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans, the Caribbean, and the Americas created a larger space from which to theorize, reflect upon, and produce knowledge that advances our understanding of the consequences of empire. The inclusion of local scholars from the Island, the participation of former Puerto Rican political prisoners, and the performances of Bustamante and Maldonado were particularly important. ASA members came away from San Juan having taken serious stock of the voluminous and electrifying interdisciplinary work that has recently been produced on empire, but also with a new, deeper charge to expand on conversations that cross disciplines, national boundaries, and period-specific specializations. Most agreed that this was an energizing and important set of meetings.
Published in News on March 15, 2013 by ASASTAFF.
The American Studies Association publishes an online registry of American Studies and American Ethnic Studies doctoral dissertation abstracts. American Studies and American Ethnic Studies graduate programs and their recent Ph.D.s may submit entries. These abstracts are added to the ASA website on a continuing basis. This list is now comprised of abstracts of doctoral dissertations written in the United States since 1986. Click here to access the abstracts, sorted by author's last name, or click here to submit your abstract using our online form.
Each year, the ASA conducts a survey of recent Ph.D. recipients' immediate employment and career plans. Doctoral degree recipients are invited to participate in the survey as well as submit abstracts of their dissertations. This survey has been recorded since 1996-1997, and encompasses sources of funding received, time taken to completion, short-term and long-term employment and career plans. For past survey reports, please visit the following web page, or click here to submit your survey response using our online form.
Published on April 15, 2013 by John F Stephens.
Prepared by the Graduate Education Committee, ASA
November 2012
Download Grad Ed FAQs.pdf
Statement on Standards in Graduate Education
How should I prepare for graduate work in American Studies?
An undergraduate degree in American Studies is probably the best preparation for graduate study since it builds the foundation for the interdisciplinary research and analysis required to complete a Master's or Ph.D. degree. But many undergraduates don't have the opportunity to major in American Studies and others discover an interdisciplinary approach only later in their undergraduate studies. Students who major in more traditional disciplines—literature, history, the social sciences, even the natural sciences—often have the opportunity to take courses outside their major as electives which can improve their interdisciplinary range and strengthen their application to American Studies graduate programs. Students who come to American Studies from the social or natural sciences, or from a humanities field with a non-Americanist focus, can bring fresh perspectives and useful skills. These students find it useful to gain a background in U.S. history on their own (or as a part-time student in a graduate program where they can take one course) before starting graduate-level work in American Studies.
What is the best American Studies graduate program for me?
You should weigh factors such as faculty, professional goals, quality of program, funding opportunities, and geography in choosing where to apply. Applicants should first research American Studies programs to determine which programs have faculty who work specifically in the areas of research that most interest them. In the course of this research, an applicant should try to contact faculty members who share his/her research interests to find out if they currently advise graduate students and to ask more specific questions about their department. Applicants need to find programs that best suit their intellectual interests and this is best determined through direct communication with faculty. While it is crucial to enter a program where you have identified a mentor with whom to work, you shouldn't plan your entire course of graduate study around one faculty member, as faculty do not always stay at one university throughout their career. Therefore, students should find a program in which there are several faculty members with whom they could potentially study. If applicants are geographically restricted in where they can apply, they will need to determine which programs in their area have faculty available to mentor their work, communicating with faculty to see how flexible they can be in advising students outside their specific research areas. Many department websites have lists of current students and their research interests. Contacting students who are currently enrolled, or recent graduates, is an excellent way to gauge the suitability of the program for your individual interests. Faculty and departmental representatives will be able to provide you with contact information.
Applicants should also consider which programs best suit their professional goals. For example, some American Studies programs are strong in placing their graduate students in jobs in public history or archival work, while other programs are known for helping students find tenure-track teaching jobs and/or others focus on an activist, engaged scholarship. Some programs have special strength in African American studies, whereas others have a concentration of specialists on the Asia-Pacific region and so forth.
The amount and types of funding available for graduate students has a major impact on the time to completion of the degree as well as to the range of teaching and research experiences one will gain while in graduate school. It is important to find out what kind of funding (e.g. teaching assistantships, research assistantships, fellowships, tuition waivers) are available in the program of one's interest. We think teaching experience is important preparation for all graduate students, no matter their career plans, but too much teaching takes time away from research and writing.
Most graduate programs designate one faculty member to advise graduate students and/or speak with prospective students. You can find this person's contact information on the website or by phoning or emailing the department office. You should be in touch with this faculty member as well to insure that your interests can be served by the program, to receive suggestions on your application, and to understand the available financial aid and how to apply for it.
Do I need a Masters degree in American Studies before applying to a doctoral program?
Many applicants apply to doctoral study directly from undergraduate work—especially if they have already earned a B.A. degree in American Studies. Nevertheless, if a student applies without much previous background in interdisciplinary study, it can be useful to start with a Master's program to explore the field of American Studies before making the commitment to doctoral study. Earning an M.A. in American Studies may also be useful to enhance one's application for, and acceptance into, doctoral programs.
What makes an effective personal statement?
Applicants should describe the academic and other relevant backgrounds that have prepared them for graduate-level work in American Studies. A strong personal statement in an American Studies application offers a concise description of the applicants' research interests and goals with a particular emphasis on why the interdisciplinary approach of American Studies is the most effective way to pursue those interests and goals. In addition, applicants should make a clear case for why the particular program they are applying to best suits their goals. You should avoid digressions into personal biography, unless there is an appropriate intellectual reason to do so. For instance, a formative experience might be a helpful introduction to your interests, but anecdotal material must have a clear purpose such as helping explain one's intellectual development. Applicants to doctoral programs need not have a dissertation topic drafted for a personal statement, but they should be able to lucidly describe their general interests and specific fields/subfields, theoretical frameworks, methodologies, scholars, or books that have influenced their intellectual development and interest in American Studies.
What kind of writing sample should I submit?
An effective writing sample for American Studies would be a research paper (15-20 pages in length) that had both a clear argument and provided evidence of the applicant's ability to do primary and secondary research. Papers that incorporate an interdisciplinary approach to research would also be helpful, but are not required. Depending on the work you have done, and want to do, a shorter piece of writing aimed at a more general audience might also be appropriate.
Who should write my letters of recommendation?
Recommendations from faculty with whom you have taken a class and who know you personally are most helpful. In general, letters from employers or friends are not as effective because they often don't adequately assess an applicant's abilities as a researcher or writer.
How important are the GRE scores?
Many programs require applicants to submit their GRE scores and how the scores are weighed in the overall application varies from program to program. Higher scores are certainly better than lower scores; however, in general American Studies programs do not see the GRE scores as the most important factor in the application package. The personal statement, writing sample, recommendation letters, and previous academic records read together can go a long way in making up for lower GRE scores.
For international students, many programs see TOEFL scores as a replacement for GRE scores. Good TOEFL scores not only increase the chances of admission but the language ability they measure is also necessary for actually doing graduate work in American Studies.
What kind of jobs do graduate students in American Studies get after graduation?
Graduate students in American Studies can go into a variety of fields, but most are interested in teaching jobs or museum work. They can also be competitive for jobs at historical societies, archives, state and federal humanities and cultural resource agencies as well as community cultural development organizations.
Published on April 28, 2013 by John F Stephens.
Introduction. By Simon J. Bronner (Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg)
1. Being an American. By Isabelle Culpepper (The Lovett School, Atlanta, GA)
2. Learning American Studies: An Education Anyone Can Use. By Molly Fay (La Salle University, Philadelphia)
3. Learning What It Means to Be an American. By Brant Ellsworth (Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg)
Although teaching is a component of learning, there is much more discussion on instructional pedagogy than on how students, particularly those in integrated and interdisciplinary studies such as American Studies with goals of "connected learning," process and apply knowledge. In the theory behind connected learning is a counter-disciplinary premise that presented with problems, students should be taught to find patterns across subjects. In other words, they thematize knowledge and find correspondences in an assortment of evidence to arrive at conclusions, or rather, interpretations taken from different vantages. For American Studies there is also an implication of relevance to contemporary issues apparent in references within learning objectives and goals of many courses to interpret American culture and society, both past and present. The EAS Forum previous to this one (no. 3) was devoted to "Teaching American Studies" and with its professorial contributors, it contained suggestions from the instructor's side of the classroom that such a thematic or cognitive style constituted a distinction of American Studies pedagogy. But if professors or curators encode knowledge in this style, do their audiences decode it as the teachers intend? The question remains as to how and what people learn, or perceive they have gained, when presented with an "American Studies approach," whether in the lecture hall, exhibition, seminar, essay, or public program. Another aspect of this inquiry are the institutional settings in which learning occurs and the difference across the life course. In the three essays here, representatives speak to these questions from their seats in high school, undergraduate, and graduate school classrooms. My hope is that this inquiry can be expanded to other venues as American Studies scholars contemplate not only what they know but how they know.
Published on June 6, 2013 by John F Stephens.
The Nominating Committee is preparing a ballot for the 2014 annual ASA elections. Members of the American Studies Association are invited to submit recommendations for elected positions. Letters suggesting or recommending a candidate should relate the member's experience to the association's work and his or her vitae. All candidates must be current members of the American Studies Association.
The following positions will appear on the 2014 election ballot: president-elect, councilor (4 positions), K-12 member of council (1 position), international member of council (1 position), student councilor (1 position), and nominating committee member (2 positions).
Please submit your recommendations no later than September 1, 2013, to the Nominating Committee:
The final slate must provide representation of the diversity of the Association's membership. Those nominated must be current members of ASA in order to serve. All persons elected serve three-year terms and will take office on July 1, 2014.
Nominations may also be made by petitions carrying in each case the signatures of at least twenty-five members of the association in good standing and indicating in each case the particular vacancy for which the nomination is intended. The Chair of the Nominating Committee must receive nominations by petition no later than October 1st. The Chair shall ascertain that all candidates nominated by the committee or by petition have consented to stand for election.
Published on June 17, 2013 by John F Stephens.
The conference theme Beyond the Logic of Debt, Toward an Ethics of Collective Dissent called for discussions of "debt" in its many historical, contemporary, and allegorical dimensions, and invited thinking not only about the dominant logic of debt but also the alternative practices of collective dissent that disrupt and deregulate its coercive power. We could not be more pleased with the multiple ways in which ASA panels, sessions, and roundtables have engaged and elaborated on the theme. The program committee received almost 300 individual paper proposals and 377 session proposals representing an exciting range of projects that foreground practical, material, and institutional contexts such as Indigenous land theft, home foreclosure, environmental devastation, health care inequities, military violence, occupation, prison, and education, as well as rich historical and conceptual work around key words like debt, obligation, ethics, collectivity and dissent.
The topic of student debt is represented by panels such as the Program Committee and Students' Committee panel, The Cruel Optimism of the University of Debt, which investigates how the future-oriented, aspirational logics of contemporary universities, particularly with regard to diversity, encourage student debt. The panels Mortgaging Higher Education and Reordering Higher Education both represent perspectives in critical university studies while the Committee on Programs and Centers' workshop, Strategies for Financial Survival in an Age of Austerity and the International Committee's American Studies and the State of Collective Dissent in the Arab World promise to provide forums for discussing American Studies in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East.
"Debt" serves as a kind of hinge linking schools and prisons and a number of panels focus on carceral spaces and practices of occupation. Downsizing Prisons or a Jubilee for Debts to Society, organized by the Critical Prison Studies Caucus, brings together practitioners and theorists working to reduce the number of people who incur the multiple debts generated by the prison industrial complex. The roundtable Prison Abolition and the Queer Commons centers queer/trans politics in anti-prison activism and scholarship while Deficiency, Debt, and Deportation: The Carceral Space of Migrant Removal connects histories and experiences of incarceration and deportation.
A number of panels focus on how regimes of debt generate and hide settler colonialism while informing Indigenous resistance. The Ethnic Studies Committee, for example, has organized two linked panels, Accumulation: Settler Colonialism and Military Occupation as Paradigms for Neoliberal State Formation I and II: Knowing Settler Colonialism and Legal Legacies, which analyze the ongoing history of settler colonialism in order to understand military occupation and neoliberal state formations. Meanwhile, the panel Indigenous and Critical Settler Cartographies: Mapping Labor and Debt in Public Spaces of Dissent counters the settler state's maps with those produced by Indigenous and critical settler cartographers that present alternative economies to regimes of debt. Debt and "The Palestine Question" in Latin America: Colonization, Zionism, Imperialism and Dissent theorizes the colonial "debt" of land owed to the Palestinian people as it intersects with the complex dynamics of colonialism, slavery, imperialism, dictatorship and the overdue "return" to democracy in the Americas.
Other panels highlight financial instruments of (neo) colonial power in histories and theories of money, credit, and financialization, including two ASA Program Committee Panels, What Does Money Mean? World-Making through Currency and Credit, which historicizes credit and currency as forms of Western (neo) colonial power from the early modern empires through the twentieth century rise of deterritorialized sovereignty; and Economies of Dispossession III: Life, Death, and Financialization, which focuses on how the genealogies and present-day constellations of financialization, debt, and expropriation in the U.S. work through social relations informed by imperial conquest and racial capitalism.
The conference theme prompted a number of submissions that analyze debt as a force for the normalization of race, gender, sexuality, and ability. Panels that turn a critical gaze on health care, for example, include Dying for Work: Latina/o Labor and the Price of American Health, 1930-1965 and the Women's Committee's Critical Conjunctures of Debt: Women of Color, Healthcare Disparities, & Advocacy; while other submissions, recalling the AQ special issue Race, Empire, and the Crisis of the Subprime, focus on housing such as 'Burning Down the House': Violence, Race, and Development (struggles over housing from the Cold War to the present in Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, East Baltimore, and Brooklyn). Similarly, Normalizing Debt in the Americas analyzes how lending discourses and practices directed at working class Blacks and Latino and indigenous migrants serve as forms of social control in urban spaces in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.
A series of panels engage histories of slavery, racial capitalism, anti-blackness, and social death. Drawing on disability studies and studies of race and slavery, Morbid Accumulation: The Body as Capital, Bodies in Debt, Embodied Resistance, historicizes 18th and 19th century forms of capital accumulation based in the production of morbidity. Acknowledging a debt to Clyde Woods and the special issue of AQ he edited titled In the Wake of Hurricane Katrina, the panelists on Lessons in Hegemony from the Neoplantation/Neoliberal Laboratory: Contests for Justice in New Orleans historicize anti-blackness and forms of neoliberal asset stripping in post-Katrina New Orleans. Ethical Confrontations with Antiblackness: To Whom is the Human Indebted? argues for a Black Studies framework, based in the particularity of anti-blackness, as essential for meeting the challenge of justice elaborated in the ASA meeting theme. Also referencing Woods, Life After Debt: The Politics of Afro Pessimism and Social Death shifts focus from social death in order to develop a critical framework for analyzing forms of Black dissent.
Many submissions center debt and related dynamics in critical histories of imperialism and militarism. For example, the Program Committee's Imperialism, Freedom, Refuge, Reparations, and The "Debt" of U.S. Cold War "Liberation": Rethinking Transnational Circuits of Labor in the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea investigates debt as a mode of colonial subjection, military expansion, and imperial warfare. The roundtable Hemispheres of Debt, Crises of Ecologies, Ethics of Collective Dissent: The Caribbean and Pacific Islands in American Studies calls attention to narratives of "first contact" between conquerors and Indigenous peoples on islands in the Caribbean and Pacific and examines the contemporary consequences of colonization for diverse groups and ecologies. Similarly, the panelists on Refugee Archival Memory: Disrupting the US Logics of Freedom and Debt in Hmong/Laotian History engage refugee art and literature to explore the absence of the "secret war" in histories of the Cold War and to invoke alternative knowledges and memories. Finally, the town hall session titled The United States and Israel/Palestine uses the theme of debt and dissent to encourage a discussion of historic and contemporary relationships between the U.S. and Israel/Palestine with a particular focus on their significance for American Studies.
Many proposals investigate cultures of debt in literature, film, music, performance, and visual culture, including Seeing and Being Seen as a Citizen: Collective Dissent in a Transnational Culture of Photography; This Debt We Pay: Black Identity, Labor, and Performance at the Nadir; and Toxic Debt: Creative Research on Crises of Ecology, Capital, and Sovereignty in Risk Society. Also noteworthy in this context are the Sound Studies Caucus panels, Musical Debts: Appropriations, Reparations or New Traditions?, and Sound Studies: Sampling Phonographies: Sonic Memory and the Long History of Sampling; as well as the Visual Culture Caucus panels, Spectacles of Debt: Visualizing Indebtedness in Landscape Painting, Documentary Photography, and the Mass Media, and Recuperating Disabled Spaces: Intimacies of Visual and Tactile Cultures (both held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum).
The convention theme called for critical reflection on alternative logics of debt and dissent, and scholars, activists and artists have responded in productive and creative ways. Several panels rethink the significance of intellectual and institutional debts, as in the Program Committee's The Burdens of Our Genealogies: Intellection, Indebtedness, and American Studies, and in the panels Intellectual Debts, Modernity and C.L.R. James: "Beyond a Boundary" Fifty Years On, and Our Debt to Michel-Rolph Trouillot: Haiti in the Americas and in the World. Other panels locate critical resources for reimagining survival, opposition, and transformation beyond dominant institutions and forms. The Politics of Exigency: Dispossession, Petitioning, and the Limits of Legal Recourse, for example, considers the potential but also limitations of legal petitions as means of opposing imperial occupations and removals in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Similarly, the Program Committee's Forgotten Histories, Continuing Pasts: Unaccounted Modes of Life, explores practices of life-making and creative survival within contexts of seemingly outmoded forms of expropriation such as debt-bondage, rent/tribute, and the theft of land and common resources. A Debt and A Dream: The Afterlives of the March on Washington reconsiders the significance of that seminal example of collective dissent for movements in the present. The roundtable Mobilizing Against Settler Colonialism: Idle No More and Allied Dissent discusses the renewed ethics of decolonization for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in settler states and beyond. The panel Autonomous Knowledge builds on contemporary notions of radical pedagogy, street mobilizations, student strikes, and anti-corporate education, as well as Black, queer, and Crip theory, in order to link together emergent possibilities for dissent from neo-liberalism in educational sites in Latin America, Asia, Canada, and the U.S. And The Strike Debt Assembly brings to the ASA a format created by Strike Debt, an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, that will address the debt system at the center of professional academic life in the context of the new academic majority of contingent faculty and student labor.
The ASA artist in residence is Ricardo Dominguez, one of the co-founders of the Electronic Disturbance Theater and a theorist and practitioner of "virtual sit ins." For the convention he has organized the Disturbance Research Lab (DRL), which will focus on 3 initiatives: 1) a session providing training on how to create an "electronic disturbance," from coding to final performance; 2) Debt Strike, a digital exhibition of net art projects focused on data-driven manifestations and the question of debt; 3) Dominguez will seek out temporary spaces, at random times, and present micro-gestures entitled Unexpected Interfaces, which will fall between "flash crash" cultures and the promissory algorithms of past social debts unmet.
The site resources committee is planning a series of events that are tied to the conference theme and that enable members to learn more about D.C. This will include on-site programs about the policing of sex work in D.C.; histories of gentrification and social protest; and activist strategies for fighting foreclosure on multiple scales, local to global; among more. Off-site events include "Off the Mall" tours and activities that examine the history-as well as activist and cultural responses to-sites of reconstruction and conversion in D.C., from readings by local poets to a walking tour of Harriet Jacobs' 19th century Alexandria. These will be joined by events co-sponsored by the Visual Culture Caucus, including a reception and performance about artists and debt at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art; a tour of the Federal Reserve Board's Fine Arts Collection; and a visit to "Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art," among much, much more.
We are incredibly grateful to the inspired and inspiring members of the program committee: Abigail Boggs, Rachel Buff, Jodi A. Byrd, Sarika Chandra, Arlene Davila, Bethany Moreton, Naomi Paik, Shelley Streeby, and Neferti Tadiar. Big thanks as well to the amazing John Stephens, without whom the convention could never happen. Finally, thanks to T'Sey-Haye Preaster for her brilliant administrative work.
Roderick Ferguson, University of Minnesota
Lisa Lowe, Tufts University
Jodi Melamed, Marquette University
Published on June 17, 2013 by John F Stephens.
Page 1 of 1 pages
American Quarterly [official journal site]
American Quarterly [editorial site]
Encyclopedia of American Studies
Encyclopedia of American Studies [editorial site]


text:
Nearly ten years ago, this was the nicest hotel in Des Moines. It is showing a bit of its age as it hasn't been updated much and getting a little tired. Pros: nice beds and linens. Good location. Cons: Not connected via Skyway and Check-in always seems to take longer than it should. I have stayed here at least 10... More
- Also Known As:
- Suites Of 800 Locust Hotel Des Moines
- Suites Of 800 Locust Hotel
- Hotel Of 800 Locust
- Reservation Options:
- TripAdvisor is proud to partner with Cheap Tickets so you can book your Suites of 800 Locust Hotel and Spa reservations with confidence. We help millions of travellers each month to find the perfect hotel for both holiday and business trips, always with the best discounts and special offers.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Full refund within 30 days if you're not completely satisfied.
Page text
THIS MONTH'S PULPIT is written by Sam Leith. His new book, You Talkin' To Me? Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama, is published by Profile in October.
JAN MORRIS's Allegorizings will be published posthumously by Faber & Faber in London, and W W Norton in New York.
LESLEY DOWNER is the author of Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World and, most recently, The Courtesan and the Samurai (Corgi).
JONATHAN KEATES's The Siege of Venice is published by Chatto & Windus.
WILLIAM BLACKER is the author of Along the Enchanted Way: A Story of Love and Life in Romania (John Murray).
EDNA FERNANDES is the author of The Last Jews of Kerala and Holy Warriors: A Journey into the Heart o f Indian Fundamentalism (both Portobello).
RICHARD OVERY's The Morbid Age: Britain Between t he Wars and his 1939: Countdown to War were both published in 2009 by Allen Lane.
SAUL DAVID's books include Victoria's Wars: The Rise of Empire and Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 (both Penguin).
KENNETH O MORGAN's most recent book is Ages of Reform (I B Tauris).
JONATHAN SUMPTION's latest book, Divided Houses (Faber & Faber), is the third volume in his history of the Hundred Years War.
STEVE FULLER is Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology at the University of Warwick. His new book, Humanity 2.0: What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future, is published by Palgrave Macmillan in the autumn.
JAN MORRIS Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams Charles King LESLEY DOWNER Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultural History of US–Japan Relations Michael R Auslin JONATHAN KEATES City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire Roger Crowley WILLIAM BLACKER On the Road to Babadag: Travels in the Other Europe Andrzej Stasiuk JOHN KEAY Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia Thant Myint-U DANIEL MATLIN Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts MIRANDA FRANCE Into the Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight Alexander Fiske-Harrison EDNA FERNANDES Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars Sonia Faleiro
15 16
23 24
RICHARD OVERY The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944–45 Ian Kershaw SAUL DAVID A Merciless Place: The Lost Story of Britain's Convict Disaster in Africa Emma Christopher NIGEL JONES Citizen Sailors: The Royal Navy in the Second World War Glyn Prysor Sea Wolves: The Extraordinary Story of Britain's WW2 Submarines Tim Clayton KENNETH O MORGAN Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible Nick Spencer WILLIAM DOYLE Monsters of the Gévaudan: The Making of a Beast Jay M Smith JONATHAN SUMPTION Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe Charles Freeman LEANDA DE LISLE Mary I: England's Catholic Queen John Edwards JOSH GLANCY The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery Eric Foner PIERS BRENDON The Future of History John Lukacs
28 30
STEVE FULLER Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity Raymond Tallis MAREK KOHN The Origin of Our Species Chris Stringer JOAN SMITH How To Be a Woman Caitlin Moran
MARK BOSTRIDGE Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas Matthew Hollis Edward Thomas: Prose Writings, A Selected Edition – Volume I, Autobiographies (Ed) Guy Cuthbertson
LITERARY REVIEW August 2011
Editor: NANCY SLADEK Deputy Editor: TOM FLEMING Editor-at-Large: JEREMY LEWIS Senior Editor: JONATHAN BECKMAN Contributing Editors: MICHAEL BURLEIGH,
SARA WHEELER, PHILIP WOMACK Editorial Assistants: FRANK BRINKLEY, TOM WILLIAMS
Advertising Manager: TERRY FINNEGAN Classified Advertising: DAVID STURGE
Founding Father: AUBERON WAUGH
Cover illustration by Chris Riddell
Issue no. 390
3 2
35 37
46 47 48
51 52 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59
60 62 63 64 12
BLAIR WORDEN The Life and Thought of Herbert Butterfield: History, Science and God Michael Bentley LESLIE MITCHELL Dare to Stand Alone: The Story of Charles Bradlaugh, Atheist and Republican Bryan Niblett SIMON HEFFER Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life Susie Harries JONATHAN MIRSKY Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller Ira B Nadel
EDWARD DOLNICK Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners Sandy Nairne KEVIN JACKSON Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist Phil Baker WILLIAM PALMER I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy Bob Riesman
DAVA SOBEL Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition that Reshaped Our World Larrie D Ferreiro JOHN SUTHERLAND The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture Gary Saul Morson JAMES LE FANU Disease Maps: Epidemics on the Ground Tom Koch FRED INGLIS Visions of England Roy Strong SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE Sex on the Moon: The Amazing True Story behind the Most Audacious Heist in History Ben Mezrich ALEX RENTON Dishing i t Out: In Search of the Restaurant Experience Robert Appelbaum IAIN MARSHALL ON FOUR BOOKS ON BICYCLES
MATTHEW ADAMS Complete Stories Kingsley Amis ADRIAN TURPIN The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes JOHN THIEME The Cat's Table Michael Ondaatje EDMUND GORDON On Canaan's Side Sebastian Barry ANTHONY CUMMINS The Blue Book A L Kennedy MICHAEL SHERBORNE Gods Without Men Hari Kunzru JONATHAN BARNES ON FIVE FIRST NOVELS RACHEL HORE Blow on a Dead Man's Embers Mari Strachan JOANNA HINES ON SIX HISTORICAL NOVELS DAVID ANNAND Wild Abandon Joe Dunthorne
WILLIAM DOYLE's most recent book is Aristocracy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press).
LEANDA DE LISLE's most recent book is The Sisters Who Would be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine & Lady Jane Grey (HarperPress).
MAREK KOHN's most recent work, Turned Out Nice: How the British Isles will Change as the World Heats Up, is published by Faber & Faber.
JOAN SMITH i s the author of Misogynies, What Will Survive and halfa-dozen crime novels. She is President of the Creators' Rights Alliance and blogs as www.politicalblonde.com.
MARK BOSTRIDGE's most recent book is Florence Nightingale (Penguin). He is writing a study of England in 1914.
BLAIR WORDEN's most recent book is The English Civil Wars, 1640–1660 (W&N).
LESLIE MITCHELL is Emeritus Fellow of University College, Oxford. His publications include a study of the Whig Party entitled The Whig World.
EDWARD DOLNICK is the author of two books on art crime, Stealing the Scream and The Forger's Spell.
DAVA SOBEL's books include Longitude and Galileo's Daughter. Her new book, A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos, is published next month by Bloomsbury.
JOHN SUTHERLAND is Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus at UCL.
FRED INGLIS is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Sheffield. His most recent book is A Short History of Celebrity (Princeton).
ALEX RENTON writes a column in The Times on food.
The Literary Review, incorporating Quarto, is published monthly from: 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW Tel: 020 7437 9392
Fax: 020 7734 1844 ISSN 0144 4360 © All subscription enquiries and changes of address to:
Literary Review Subscriptions, FREEPOST RSJB-SUGY-ZKRA, Impakt MMD Ltd, 3-4 Pylon Way, Croydon CR0 4XX Tel: 020 8683 7151
UK Subscription Rate £35, Europe £45, rest of the world air mail only £63 (US$106) USA Airspeed subscription price is £45 (US$77) per annum. Periodical pre-paid at Champlain NY (USPS 004218). All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW Tel: 020 7437 9392
Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Ltd, at the Dorset Press, Dorchester DT1 1HD Tel: 01305 251 066
Distributed to newsagents worldwide by COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Rd, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 7QX Tel: 01895 433 800
Distributed to bookshops by Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 Tel: 020 8986 4854
www.literaryreview.co.uk subscription enquiries: email@example.com email: email@example.com
LITERARY REVIEW August 2011


text:
THIS WEEK is one that illustrates a stark reality about education reform and collective bargaining.
In Boston, the city went into negotiations intent on getting a longer school day to boost student performance. The agreement reached this week, after some two years of negotiation, does not include any new classroom time for kids.
Repeat a lie enough time and maybe it will get over. Anyone whoever has taught in schools know that a teacher's day does not end when the bell rings. So continuing to harp on the number of hours between the first and last bell is misleading. Teachers put in a tremendous number of hours outside of those bells. And teachers in urban schools put in more than their fair share helping students and dealing with the multitude of problems our students face from living in poverty. Teachers are helping students every day after classes. If Lehigh and the Boston Globe editorial board refuses to acknowledge this they are simply being the mouthpiece for the corporate agenda that do not want to acknowledge the effect that defunding public education has had on our schools.
And the average teacher salary in Boston is $81,633...they know there is supposed to be time to plan lessons and correct papers and they are paid handsomely for that time...there are many other jobs that require work to go home with you. But none of those come with 14+ weeks of vacation, a budget for supplies and a BTU card that seems to get you a discount in almost every store. They knew the job, if it is so abhorrent then step aside there is a line of people who would gladly take it.
And the average teacher salary in Boston is $81,633...they know there is supposed to be time to plan lessons and correct papers and they are paid handsomely for that time...there are many other jobs that require work to go home with you. But none of those come with 14+ weeks of vacation, a budget for supplies and a BTU card that seems to get you a discount in almost every store. They knew the job, if it is so abhorrent then step aside there is a line of people who would gladly take it.
Don't forget to add taxpayers to the list of losers. The mayor has a spotty labor management track record. He caved to unions early and we the taxpayers have been paying for it ever since. City residents should always keep in mind how rich the BTU and other contracts are in wages and perks when you're wondering why it is taking so long for your street to get plowed, or that pot hole to get to get fixed. There is plenty of money sloshing around, it just gets misspent and the taxpayer along in this case the students lose.
This comment has been removed.
Having experience as a teacher and admininstrtor in Boston...one of the things missing here is that yes, unions can be an obstacle to excellence...but so can an intrusive district, that strips autonomy from principals and forces schools to rely on dysfunctional systems that slow down the process of educating.
This comment has been removed.
This comment has been removed.
Scott I usually agree with you but this fetishization with charter schools its going reach diminishing returns soon.There is just no magic bullet to student achievement. And hiring people off the street at low wages isn't the answer.Young, energetic know-littles are not the solution. Teach for America "teachers" all want in the union eventually.Thank the stars that we have unions In this country.I'm going to guess you've never set foot in an urban classroom Scott.Its a different job than teaching in the suburbs.Praise to the teachers, praise the Boston Teachers Union, praise to Richard Stutman. Paul Grogan is a corporatist who wouldn't know how to teach his way out of a paper bag.He's a bad man who couldn't care less about kids. He's an armchair quarterback and a pompous jerk.(I would have preferred the A word).
This comment has been removed.
The problem here is not about negotiating in favor of one side or the other. This situation has arisen because of the emasculation of state budgets by a recession. A quicker resolution and a better outcome for teachers and students would come if the proper investments was available. It isn't so so everybody takes sides depending on whose ox you want to gore. Shortchanging education to any degree halts our forward push to become a more prosperous nation.
Education and health care suffer from the same problem. Neither can be outsourced to third world/slave labor. As a result, the perception of cost value in the marketplace is totally skewed. An iPhone looks like a much better deal than a trip to the doc, or the cost of running a school. Duh. It is a better deal because they're built in sweatshops or worse. This leaves all of the American public blind to the true cost of education. Unfortunately Scott seems to have fallen prey to this same delusion. The public wants to buy a first class education system on a fifth class budget. People don't want to pay taxes, but they want the perfect school. People don't want to pay insurance premiums, but they want world class health care. They want the kids to come home from school brilliant at the end of the day. They want to walk into the doctor and have a magic wand touch them, so they can leave perfectly healthy. And they don't want to pay for any of it. Usually I agree with Scott, but he missed the boat on this one. This is not about unions. The teachers union is only the messenger on this one. The message is that there ain't no free lunch.
My kid is getting a first class education. I'm sending her to a private school. The unions get outrageous, unreasonable concessions that few in other lines of work enjoy. Health care costs are exponentially higher than a decade ago, and expensive procedures like in vitro fertilization that are restricted in most people's coverage are not restricted for union teachers. Mediocre teachers can't be replaced. Unions suffocated the US auto industry enough so that bailouts and bankruptcy were needed. I'm all for the paying teachers a generous salary, but because of the draconian teachers unions I've chosen to keep my kid out of our local schools, and I truly wish I didn't have to do that.
Here here. Unions have been fantastic, wonderful institutions to fight for safe working conditions, 40 hour work day, child labor laws. I'm talking about the 1930's and 40's. The modern day Unions are all about bargaining power for outsized salaries and benefits, political power and bankrupting cities and states.
Scot--your argument is sooooo tired. The system worked. Stutman and Menino reached a fair agreement. Who are you to say that because the school day was not shortened, we are worse off. Many people want the school day extended merely as a means to get something for nothing. Guys like Scot, know it alls like Mr.Grogan, whose salary is $590,000 plus benefits, and Sam Tyler who works for State St. Bank always know best. Just ask them.
Guys, Here's what the defenders of the BTU and the status quo have to come to grips with: Charters schools are doing a better job for the sasme per pupil amount. (Plus, they are financing their own buildings from that sum, so they really are doing a better job for less.) One big reason is that they have longer days and longer years. Since we get that from charters for the same price that only gets us a 6-6.5 hour day from our traditional school teachers, a taxpayer has to conclude that charters are a great deal. It's become clear we are not going to be able to change the traditional school system. That's a shame, but it is nevertheless a reality. Given that reality, I think every urban district family who wants a charter slot should have one available. Kids are too important to say, well, the union doesn't want more charters or a longer day, so that's that. Scot
A longer day and a longer school year means a single working parent, or a family with two working parents, doesn't have the same burden for finding after school and summertime care for their children, or it means less time home alone for latchkey children. Forty (gasp) years ago when I was in school we had a shorter day and shorter year than the public schools and we performed better, but then, we had an admission exam and persistent poor grades meant expulsion. Think of it as the health care argument. All the 'healthy' learners are going to charter and private schools, which leaves public schools stuck with increasing proportions of 'sick' learners.
A couple of other points to consider: Many of the charter schools that tout their high acheivement scores are only doing so after they have huge drop out rates. You get rid of the dead wood and students who struggle (for whatever reason) and you're left with the stars to advertise your school. You then make a big name for yourself with these (false promises) and (lack of transparency) and make yourself a wad of cash. Write some huge grants for yourself with much self-patting on the back. Match School in Boston is a good example of this. What they do is even more tricky. They'll say that the kids who don't make it at Match will graduate from another public school. OK, but that still doesn't explain away their ability to shout about how high their students test scores are. Of course they do, they end up getting rid of roughly 40% of their kids by graduation.
Check out this study Scot: http://www.btu.org/sites/default/files/research/credo_standrod_charter_school_performance_full.pdf What you'll see is that there is a need for a common metric throughout the country to compare Charter School performance.
It may turn out to be true that more hours on task means more learning. Seems reasonable. But more hours means more public commitment. Put your money as a taxpayer where your mouth is Scot.
With respect Scot, I disagree. Although abuses by union leaders, and selfishness by certain individuals, can bring down the process, ultimately the key to better schools is twofold. First, parents. A parent who does not value education, and does not value manners and the like, will have children who don't want to be in school, and don't care about disrupting things for the rest of the students. If you would expect a teacher to be a surrogate parent then take those children away from their underperforming 'real' parents. Second, authority. The reason private schools and charter schools perform better is that parents (and most of the time their children) want to be there and want to learn. I went to a Catholic school and had a great education because I wanted it, and so did my parents. We had some troublemakers, and they were expelled. Give public schools more leverage in expelling those who belong in a locked, supervised setting anyway, and you will see improvement.
With regard to connecting student test results to teacher performance, I'm reminded of a segment from the past Pat Whitley/Marjorie Claprood radio show. Yes, that was a time ago but I believe the issue then has relevance now. They had a math teacher who was then teaching in Lexington, MA at the time of his being on their show. He also had been a teacher in a lower socio-economic suburb of Boston ( sorry, exact city escapes my memory ) for several years before teaching math in Lexington. His argument at the time was that while overall test scores for his students was better in Lexington he was the same math teacher as he was in the other community. He stated emphaticaly that he did not suddenly become better in Lexington. He proceeded to civilly and respectfully point to the differences in the socio-economice issues between the two communities. While I feel that student performance must be included in teacher performance, it's the ratio of that factor to several others that must be fairly negotiated.
I do not think teachers should be alloweddcx to be uniionized -same with any public entity. The arrangement is too perverse and, as has been repeatedly shown, ripe for abuse.
"a painstaking 2009 Harvard-MIT study gave the lie to those oft-repeated rationalizations."
What this study ignores is that the student who won the charter lottery ended up in a class with other charter school students. These students can be asked to leave if they don't perform, and are far less likely to have special needs than those in the public school. Their parents value education enough to enroll them, are required to attend meetings, and are stable enough to keep them there. The student who lost the charter lottery is in a class with students who may have been asked to leave a charter school, whose special needs were deemed better suited to services provided in public school, whose parents didn't put the effort into selecting the best school, might be unwilling to attend meetings or unable to maintain a stable enough family life to even get their child to school very often. It is hardly valid to compare test scores of students in such completely different class settings.
Don't forget that the per pupil cost of public schools includes the huge costs of educating severe special needs students, which is not a responsibility of charter schools.
Teachers don't like ineffective and lazy teachers in their schools. Principals need tools for evaluating them. But don't forget that in Boston schools last year, many teachers were not evaluated at all in accordance with the the contractual requirement. This is an appalling lack of leadership by administration, as they are not even attempting to use what tools they have. There are so many variables in a classroom that test scores are unlikely to be an accurate measure of teacher quality.
I agree with the general concept of unions getting in the way of reforms that make sense. However, the problem is the teachers union refuses to be 'singled out' from all other public unions in this effort, and on that front I don't blame them. Only when we are willing to insist on the same things for police, fire etc. will you get some cooperation from the teachers union. You think its hard to get rid of a bad teacher? Try getting rid of a bad cop or fireman...impossible. You want a teacher to work an extra 45 mins with no extra pay as proposed? With the police, that is an automatic 4 hrs pay. So by all means fix the damn problem that is public unions, but you will not do so singling out the largely female teachers union just because you think you can.
Are these adults or children we are dealing with? It's hard to tell, if this is really the problem they have, being singled out??
Negotiate with the Teachers and do what is best for the children and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing or getting. Didn't our mothers teach us this? "If little Johnny gets an iPhone 5 then I have to have one, too" It's infantile.
Teachers, unionized or not, already work a longer day than is contractually defined. One of the first actions teachers' unions take during prolonged negotiations is a 'work to rule' approach; in other words, do exactly what the contract says...no more, no less. The effect is immediate and noticeable. Everyone, especially parents of schoolchildren accustomed to teachers extending themselves each school day, plus others, suddenly find their children "abandoned." No supervision or attention to pupils at busses or after school. No buying pupils paper, pencils, notebooks, underwear(!), sock, winter jackets and hats. No phone calls to parents. No discussion of pupils except at parent-teacher meetings (scheduled as a group.) No outside courses or professional improvement beyond the contract. No giving up negotiated raises by deferring % for any length of time. I could go on, but you get the idea. Teachers are the most educated (at least a Masters Degree) munincipal servants, but they earn less than firemen, policemen and some clerks! Teachers get no overtime and to their credit, they care more about their charges than people realize. RedSox in right: any other munincipal employee will not work without compensation. Teachers probably save the taxpayer thousands of dollars each, every year, year in and year out. Everyone believes that education is the most important thing for children.....but nobody wants to pay for it.
Mr. Lehigh, you left out a very important fact about charter schools; they do not have to take special education students - and they don't.
The cost of hiring special help to be in the classroom and to attend to the needs of Special Ed students is extreme. I believe that in some school districts, Special Ed students are entitled to his/her own attendant. The issue is something that is seldom mentioned but it is a fact that should be recognized and discussed.
This, to me, is one of the biggest differences between charter schools and BPS public schools, and as a BPS special educator, I have seen many students over the years who have been kicked back into BPS from charter schools either right at MCAS time or right after the date on which a charter school collects its state funding for each student enrolled. While I have no doubt that charter schools can provide a good environment for many students, when it comes to caring for "the least of these" (to use Jesus's language), they tend to do a poor job. (And this is especially true in terms of students with behavioral/social emotional issues.) We just had a student transfer into a charter school from one of my BPS schools, and due to his struggles with reading and writing, I am already anticipating his return sometime later on this year. (Only time will tell if I'm right about this or not!)
Scot; While it may be true that the new BTU agreement does not include longer work days,I don't think that it is fair to characterize the new agreement as one sided. The BTU conceded a new evaluation policy (under pressure of a stricter one being imposed on them). That was the big issue for critics in the past. Let's see how ths plays out over this contract term. The union was able to wrangle more social workers, nurses, and other support staff in exchange for the new evaluation program. I'm just wondering how many charter schools need the same level of social workers and psych. personnel. I have mentioned it before, but my impression is that studies have shown that longer days don't always mean better results. I don't know how old your kids are, but in my town, many high school students are up until 11:00 or 12:00 finishing homework, now. If we add to the school day, they will have to quit sports (or other activities), just to squeeze in the work. On top of that, extra help for struggling students is offered after school, what happens to that? Do they fall further behind? Finally, comparing Chicago to Boston may not be fair. I believe that Boston is one of the highest performing urban school districts (and Chicago one of the lowest). If this is true, then shouldn't Boston teachers be the highest compensated (or so say all of the people who demand stricter evaluations).
Soory for the OT post, but I know Scot will never make a correction and tthis study has been a key source for many of his recent columns:
The Tax Policy Center authors—Samuel Brown, William Gale and Adam Looney, the last a former Obama Administration economist—concluded that Mr. Romney's tax plan was "mathematically impossible" and therefore to avoid increasing the deficit he would have to dip into the lower-income brackets for more revenue.
But it turns out the authors made selective and speculative assumptions and even invented tax details that Mr. Romney has never endorsed. In a follow-up paper on August 16, they conceded that they were merely looking at "the broad implications" of Mr. Romney's reform.
Later in August, Harvard economist and Romney adviser Martin Feldstein published his own calculations in these pages. He concluded, "Since broadening the tax base would produce enough revenue to pay for cutting everyone's tax rates, it is clear that the proposed Romney cuts wouldn't require any middle-class tax increase, nor would they produce a net windfall for high-income taxpayers. The Tax Policy Center and others are wrong to claim otherwise."
In still another walkback, Messrs. Brown, Gale and Looney concede again that "both Feldstein and we use stylized reforms that could not be implemented in practice" and that the whole debate "over what is or isn't possible"—er, the debate they started—"distracts from the more important question of what the Romney plan actually is."
Egged on by the likes of the Tax Policy Center, the media are demanding an absurd level of detail from Mr. Romney that no candidate in history has ever been required to offer. (What will you do about the tax treatment of municipal bond interest?) Meanwhile, Mr. Obama is awarded with a get-out-of-policy-jail-free card for his budget that proposes to take on debt indefinitely until the economy crashes. A middle-class tax increase is far more likely—we'd say a certainty—under Mr. Obama's plan than it is under Mr. Romney's.
This comment has been removed.
Here, I think you omit the key detail of Marty Feldstein's study: In making his assertion that Mitt's plan is achievable, he was looking at the totality of deductions down to the $100,000 income level. The Tax Policy Center, in its study, said Romney couldn't accomplish his goals without hitting families making under $250,000 and even $200,000. I've asked the Romney campaign several times if it is Mitt's intent to eliminate deductions for those making $100,000 or more. They haven't answered that question. But if it is, don't you think they should say so? I'm not sure how people would react if they were told it is indeed Romney's plan to close deductions for those making, saqy, $125,000 or $150,000, but if that is the plan, shouldn't he say so?
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-reply-from-martin-feldstein.html - his reply.
The final objection is to my use of the $100,000 level to show that the middle class (i.e., those below $100,000 AGI) would experience no tax increases. The $100,000 level corresponds to 21 percent of all taxable returns and a significantly smaller fraction of all households. I think it is very reasonable to say that people in that high-income group are not the "middle class." The TPC focus on those with AGI over $200,000 limits that group to the top 4 million taxpayers who are three percent of all returns and five percent of all taxable returns
Just to clear up a couple of things: The Harvard-MIT study compared kids who had won a spot in a charter with kids who had applied but had not. In other words, the same type of kids, same type of parent, with one group randomly selected, in effect, for charters, and the others (in effect), randomly assigned to BPS traditional schools. (That controls for things like parental involvement, socioeconomic background, &tc. It's about as good a study as is possible in policy evaluation. It just compared the two groups of kids -- those who won a charter spot and those who did not -- and their scores in different educational environments. It showed large gains for the charter kids. They essentially went from a Boston public school achievement level to a Brookline public school achievement level. Such a study doesn't allow one to say that the difference is special ed kids or english language learners, or any other differences. Because it's randomized, it has controlled for all that.
Now, people can argue all they want over charters better educate kids, but I think commonsense tells us that if you spent an extra 1.5 to 2 hours a day in school, you will learn more than if you only have a shorter day.
Which brings us back to the central point here: Charters are providing that longer day (and longer year) for the same per pupil expenditure that only gets us a shorter day in the traditional BPS schools.
Exactly the point. The kids who 'lost' the lottery then were back to having to go to school with a bunch of kids who were NOT like minded to them, which of course limits their upside potential to learn. THAT is the key to charter schools....I whole school full of like minded kids and parents who have made education a priority. But dropping one of those kids back in a school full of something less than that will of course leave them underachieving MOST of the time.
The extra school time that comes from a longer day and year is obviously the biggest difference between charters and traditional schools. Over the course of even a traditional school year, if you attend a longer-day charter, it's like going to school for an extra 50-55 days each year. So it defies commonsense to contend that that's not the big reason for higher achievement.
But just for the fun of it, let's suppose you are right and the big reason is the like-minded students and the charter atmosphere. There are thousands of other students who would like to be in charters. By your own lights, if those students could be there, they would do better. That being the case, shouldn't we have more charters?
The short answer is yes, we should. I am a big supporter of charter schools and have been involved in them for 13 years. I also am very knowledgable about the 'public' schools. So I come with a wealth of information from both sides. But I try to be fair in looking at both.
But recognize that when doing so, generally, you will be left with many of the lowest performers who come from families that don't want to deal with the work that comes with sending your kids to charter schools (which generally hold parents much more accountable). So you have to account for that when you structure 'what's left'.
That said, without question, the #1 factor is not school day length, nope, not even close, it starts and ends with the family structure and what's going on at home. It is the single biggest influence on a childs education and is at the foundation of any other argument you may try to make.
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-reply-from-martin-feldstein.html - his reply.
The final objection is to my use of the $100,000 level to show that the middle class (i.e., those below $100,000 AGI) would experience no tax increases. The $100,000 level corresponds to 21 percent of all taxable returns and a significantly smaller fraction of all households. I think it is very reasonable to say that people in that high-income group are not the "middle class." The TPC focus on those with AGI over $200,000 limits that group to the top 4 million taxpayers who are three percent of all returns and five percent of all taxable returns
Well, I would agree to this point: If Mitt said: Guys, look, I'm going to take away deductions for anyone making $100,000 or more, because above that you're no longer middle class, you're upper class, that would be honest. But he doesn't say that. (It would be funny to see what the WSJ would say if he stipulated that $100,000 is the dividing line between middle class and upper earners.)
This comment has been removed.
Another fine mess ollie
Egan Jones Downgrades US From AA To AA-
From Egan-Jones, which downgraded the US for the first time ever last July, two weeks ahead of S&P: "Up, up, and away - the FED's QE3 will stoke the stock market and commodity prices, but in our opinion will hurt the US economy and, by extension, credit quality. Issuing additional currency and depressing interest rates via the purchasing of MBS does little to raise the real GDP of the US, but does reduce the value of the dollar (because of the increase in money supply), and in turn increase the cost of commodities (see the recent rise in the prices of energy, gold, and other commodities). The increased cost of commodities will pressure profitability of businesses, and increase the costs of consumers thereby reducing consumer purchasing power. Hence, in our opinion QE3 will be detrimental to credit quality for the US.
Does society (or the state or city) feel that a longer school day is so important for students that they are prepared to pay teachers more their time? The NY Times just carried a study showing teachers are still not paid as well as other professionals are. How many extra hours do you feel teachers should work at school without extra pay? Please clarify and be specific. When I taught, my work continued at home, and that went for weekends too. Of course there will be no unions in the charters. Will be interesting to see how charter teachers can make a career of it, support their families and send their kids to college. Magic I guess. Our best public schools in Massachusetts are unionized, and it is union teachers who have made our schools the most highly ranked in the country--that is, if you feel student standardized test scores provide valid rankings. No, not all charters do better than public schools--about 20% do, most do about the same, and 20% do worse. Scott, can we just say that you don't like unions and call it a day.
Local Observer:
Four points:
1. BTU teachers are already very well paid.
2. The BTU gets more money every year. Although I think they will have one year without a raise in this contract, they generally always get yearly raises in addition to their automatic step increases. And there's more $$$ if they want to take courses. And longevity awards for older teachers. That's not the way it works in the private economy.
3. The BPS (school department) was willing to give them more for teaching an extra 45 minutes; BPS offered a stipend; BTU demanded a set hourly rate.
4. Charter schools deliver more time than BPS was looking for from the BTU -- and at the same per pupil rate that the BTU gets for one of the shortest urban days in the nation.
My conclusion is that we need more charter schools.
This comment has been removed.
Scott, my question remains, would you support a similar approach to wring more productivity out of all public employee who are unionized? By that I mean, would you be in favor of private FF companies to replace current public unionized ones? They already exist and generally cost about 52% of the equiv public version to do the same job. I'm trying to figure out if its a teacher/female thing with you, or all unions.
Second, would you be willing to work 20% more hours for 5% more pay at your job?
While you are right about the set increases etc, you leave out the fact that the high end for a teacher is much lower than the equiv high end for a similarly educated person in the private sector. How little can you expect someone with a masters degree and 10 years experience to work for? In MA a starting toll collector makes more than a starting teacher with a masters. Hmmm. A first year cop makes about 140% of a first year teacher. Hmmm.
I'm with you on fixing the union problem. But you seem perhaps to simply have a problem with teachers. I'd love to see if you have it in you to go after the others (read: Men).
This comment has been removed.
The kind of legislative action that may be really needed is to equalize the funding of educational opportunity for all Massachusetts students. Tyler said the City went about as far as it could go. Let's start by eliminating the property tax exemption of the major non-profits located in Boston. Increase the funding for public education and save the taxpayers money at the same time. The Boston Teachers Union is a convenient target. The non-profit institutions need to step up and pay their fair share, and stop beating up on the teachers. Their funding of public education needs to be a predictable, steady source of funding, and not just trendy, targeted rewards for pet projects that advance their personal or corporate adgenda, over which they maintain the purse strings. Increased, legislatively mandated increases in payments in lieu of taxes or similar payments are a rational approach to equal educational opportunity for all of Boston's students.
rioters swarmed over the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia, tore down the American flag and replaced it with the black flag of al Qaeda: I
In a word, yes. I've long advocated CDS (competitive service delivery), which would let private firms bid for jobs done by city agencies and win the work if they could do it more efficiently and meet quality metrics. I think public payrolls should be about performing necessary governmental functions at a fair and reasonable cost, not one that is inflated by a lack of competition.
And I was a big opponent of the over-the-top raise award the firefighters got a few years ago and urged the council to reject it. (That got me fireworks set off outside my house at 3 a.m.) And I've long argued that police details are a huge waste of taxpayers money. So I do think I'm consistent on these issues.
And as for myself, I know journalism may be a little different because print is under pressure, but we are all working a lot harder than we were five or 10 years ago, and we know it's not realistic to expect automatic annual raises.
I do think, with teachers, one has to pro rate the salary for the part of the years they don't work. I'm not saying it is not a reasonably challenging job, at least when done well, but it's also one that affords you more vacation than the average person gets. And that provides strong benefits.
Fair enough. I can live with consistency. I agree with you for the most part, just feel like teachers are singled out because the job is more measurable, and more important, than most other public jobs, and quite honestly because its a female dominated profession that doesn't engage in the same tactics that would be used by some other public unions if the same changes were proposed.
As for vacation time, fwiw, they end up getting about the same time off as the typical public employee, and slighty less than the typical FF. Yup, slightly less when you figure it out. But certainly more all around than the typical private sector employee for sure.
For anyone interested, here's a link to the Boston Foundation study:
For anyone interested, here's a link to the Boston Foundation study:
For anyone interested, here's a link to the Boston Foundation study:
For anyone interested, here's a link to the Boston Foundation study:
For anyone interested, here's a link to the Boston Foundation study:
For anyone interested, here's a link to the Boston Foundation study:
I hate to be the one to burst your bubble but did you ever wonder why charter schools have a much higher teacher turnover rate than their public school counterparts? Are you aware that most charter school teachers attempt to form their own teacher unions within the first five years? Do you know that the majority of "charter schools" are run by for-profit corporations?
After you digested that information you may want to remember that Boston schools were once filled with relatives and friends of Boston School committee members before the teachers unionized. Prior to unionization, teachers could be replaced without cause, often to make rooom for the brother in law of a local politician! Academic freedom was nonexistent in the classroom. Classroooms were overcrowded with forty plus students and teachers were making subsistence level wages. Is it any wonder that teachers don't want to give up what they've earned?
Teachers teach the neediest of our kids. They often spend their own money for supplies, food and, sometimes, clothing for their students. Granted there is a small percentage of clunkers in our schools, but the vast majority of our teachers work very hard and dedicate themselves to their students.
From the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) study in 2009:
"Some charters do better; the majority do the same or worse. CREDO also moved beyond individual student performance to examine the overall performance of charter schools across multiple subject areas. They found that while some charter schools do better than the traditional public schools that fed them, the majority do the same or worse. Almost one-fifth of charters (17 percent) performed significantly better (at the 95 percent confidence level) than the traditional public school. However, an even larger group of charters (37 percent) performed significantly worse in terms of reading and math. The remainder (46 percent) did not do significantly better or worse."
The BTU is an easy target for so-called educational reformers. Grogan and Tyler opine that Boston could not go as far as it should. Scott also takes a shot at the Union. Legislative intiatives are the answer, these reformers claim. They may be right. A legislative initiative to eliminate the property tax exemption of the non-profits would be a big educational reform. This would provide the City with a steady stream of revenue in the public school budget, and save taxpying families some real money. Such a legislative initiative could help fund real improvements of the kind the editorial staff called for, in the regular district schools, such as after school enrichhment programs.
I agree totally! If Samuel Tyler, President of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, really wants the children in BPS Schools to have an extended day, I would suggest he get the large non-profits (not to be confused with charity) organizations, and the private colleges, and universities in the city to pay their fair share for municipal services. If they picked up their fair share, as Mayor Menino and I, and other residents of Boston, have requested, then municipal workers and BPS Teachers could be paid fairly.
The BPS could be funded appropriately, and could afford an academic extended day and after school enrichment programs. Look, the Museum of Art (MFA), worth $282,450,999 million, was asked to pay $259,473., to date the MFA has paid only $28,055! The Boston Conservatory, worth $23,099,000 million, was asked to pay only $6,285 for FY2012, and has paid $0 to date! Samuel Tyler needs to get the corporations, large "non-profits," universities and hospitals, he represents, to step up and pay their fair share!
Part 2 of 2
In June of 2011, Dr. Johnson closed the Hyde Park Education Complex. She moved "CASH" across town to the Cleveland School building, and dispersed students from the Engineering School and Social Justice to other BPS schools. Students were not supposed to be sent to underperforming turnaround schools. Dr. Johnson and "her team" thought she could send these students into the empty pilot school seats. That's when she found out that pilot and charter schools don't have to "Backfill" in grades 10, 11, and 12! Filling those empty seats would "change their community!" The suspected deal Dr. Johnson made with these BPS cherry pickers was that they would accept students from Engineering and Social Justice High Schools, only if they had a B+ average and not 1 behavior problem!
Barbara Fields of the Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts (BEAM), asked at the September, 2011 BPS School Committee meeting, for a breakdown of where the students from these closed schools went. I would like to know the GPA's of those students selected to go to BPS "pilot and in-district charter schools" and I would like to know how many students were "counseled out" during the school year. BEAM and I are still waiting for the answers! Maybe you could pull out that Press Pass and find out for us?
Part 1 of 2
Good news Scott! You might not have heard, Boston Public Schools is the Number 1 urban school system in the United States! That was accomplished by the hard work of Boston Public School Teachers! Massachusetts is the Number 1 school system in the United States! If Massachusetts were a sovereign nation, we would be Number 3 in the world! WOW!
I think you must not have all the facts. Have you noticed, as I have, that in those communities that do not have exam schools, pilot, in-district charter schools, and now "innovation" schools, like the BPS, always make AYP? Have you ever heard of schools in Lexington and Wellesley not making AYP? No! There is a reason for this, and it not that kids in those communities are smarter, or that their teachers are newer, better, innovative, creative, younger and cheaper TFA or BTR teachers! It's that all of the student populations, in communities that are making AYP, are in "heterogeneous" schools, unlike the Boston Public Schools.
The BPS "Portfolio of Schools" (BPS words not mine) is comprised of 128 schools, 75 are traditional schools that take everyone, the BPS "other" schools, which include 3 exam schools, 21 pilot schools, 5 in-district charter schools, and 4 "innovation" schools, get to cherry pick students! Now, segregation is when you impose the separation of a race or class of people from others or from a main body or group. That is what is happening in the BPS. Only this time the segregation is happening to SPED students, ELL students, and students found "not to be the right fit" for the schools philosophy (read behavior problems). These BPS "other" schools will tell you that students are chosen by "lottery," but they don't tell you that the price of a lottery ticket is an 11 page application. These BPS "other" public schools, counsel out students, and send them back to BPS traditional schools, if "they are not the right fit!" Here is a little BPS secret, these BPS "other" schools do not have to "BACKFILL" empty seats.
Now if all BPS students were returned to traditional BPS public schools we would be making AYP. It's time for the state and federal government to stop judging individual schools and start judging school systems!