Back to School?

Summer of Indecision———————-

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                We are only a third of the way through summer but the start of another school year is nearly upon us and many questions about it still remain. Among them, will classrooms be open and if not, when? It isn’t an easy question, of course, because the answer depends on many unknowns such as the course of the COVID-19 pandemic which affects different parts of the country and even the state differently, progress in containing the pandemic and the degree of risk we are willing to take. It’s a fluid situation and there is still a lot we don’t know about the disease, although there’s no shortage of opinions, not all of which are based on what we do know.

Meanwhile, California’s two largest school districts, Los Angeles and San Diego, have opted to start the school year on August 31 with online instruction only. Others, like Orange County, plan to resume classroom teaching and still others are keeping their options open as conditions change. It’s no small decision because of the lead time and expense involved in configuring classrooms and making other changes to reduce the risk of infection and the need for working parents to make necessary arrangements if the schools don’t open or stay opened.

Because of the many factors to be considered and the fact that the disease affects regions differently, the decision should be made by local authorities and politics should not be a factor. And yet, it always seems to be these days in almost every important decision. Republicans tend to favor reopening schools and accepting the risk. Democrats tend to disagree. I find it strange that some parents who believe that reopening schools would be too risky apparently saw little risk in taking their children to crowded demonstrations to “watch democracy in action.” On the other hand, pressure to reopen schools and threatening to withhold federal funding for those who don’t is yet another bad idea from Washington. This not a problem that is amenable to a “one size fits all” solution.

Local decisions on reopening classrooms ought to be based on input from all stakeholders, especially parents, teachers and health authorities. Adults being generally more at risk than children, teachers’ concerns should be respected and if they are not comfortable with the risk because of age or underlying conditions, perhaps they could be used to facilitate online teaching. Likewise if some parents are too uncomfortable with the risk, they should be able to choose online teaching or home schooling.

Most educators agree that while online teaching is suitable in many applications, in-person teaching is much more effective for most children. There can be too many distractions at home and some children do not do well with online instruction. If I still had school age children, I would be heavily-influenced by the belief that depriving them of in-person interaction with their classmates and teachers for a prolonged period could have a harmful effect on their emotional and social development, perhaps more harmful than any learning gap that might occur or risk of infection.

Speaking of parental input to school opening decisions, parents would also do well to get more involved with what their children are being taught, online or in person, particular with national attention focused on racial inequality. Schools may find themselves under pressure to embark on re-education programs that emphasize white privilege and white guilt. It’s worrisome enough that many university students are subjected to a steady diet of radical progressive views imparted by overwhelmingly liberal faculty members. College students, most of them at least, are mature enough to make their own decisions on what to believe or will be, hopefully, soon after graduation and exposure to the real world, but children should not be indoctrinated to feel guilt about events of the past that they had nothing whatever to do with or to feel guilty about advantages their parents provided them by dint of hard and honest work.

Parents, not teachers, should have the lead in instilling values in their children. Teachers need to stick to their job descriptions which should not include indoctrinating children or making them feel guilty about their race or believing that their ancestors were evil and that their country is not worthy of their allegiance. It may be uncomfortable for many parents to get involved in what their kids are being taught but nobody said parenting was easy and, unfortunately, many parents may not be up to it. Not all learning occurs in school, though. Much of it should happen at home and many of the problems that we blame on schools are not a result of poor teaching but rather poor parenting. So get involved. Attend school board meetings and parent/teacher conferences. You have a voice and you owe it to your kids to use it when their future is involved.

Dr. Kelly is a freelance writer and retired Navy Captain who commanded three San Diego-based ships, a research and development center and taught ship handling, seamanship and navigation at Naval Station San Diego. He earned his doctorate in education at USD, taught graduate students and was a senior vice-president and director of training and development at Great American Bank. He has written over 1500 newspaper and journal articles and has been a regular contributor to the Eagle&Journal since 2001.

July 24, 2020

 

Removing Obstacles

Economic Opportunities Matter—————————

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                As everyone remembers, the economy was booming before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Unemployment was at an all- time low, including for minorities and in some areas there were more job vacancies than applicants. A rising tide was lifting all boats, as they say. But with the onset of the pandemic, the tide suddenly ebbed. Some boats managed to stay afloat but they belonged mostly to the affluent, those providing essential services and those able to work from home.

It’s clear from the statistics that the pandemic and the economic recession it caused impacted brown and black minorities the hardest. The reasons are many, among them, having jobs (if they still had jobs) that put them at greater risk of infection, lack of access to health care, greater prevalence of underlying health conditions like diabetes, hypertension, obesity and dense living conditions making social distancing all but impossible.

Racial justice activists are finding racial injustice in almost every aspect of American life and it’s beyond question that our nation has a history of it but we can’t change the past or deny our children the lessons to be learned from our mistakes by trying to erase history and its artifacts or by re-writing it. Energy spent focusing on the past is often wasted energy, especially since it now appears, for the first time in my recollection, that everyone seems to agree that racial injustice did occur, some still exists and that it must end. Reasonable people, however, may disagree on how to end it.

It should already be obvious that defunding police departments and demonizing police will do little to promote racial justice and will make matters worse for those most vulnerable to crime, namely minorities. The urban crime statistics already reflect that in the brief time since the demands to defund the police began.  Defunding police departments leads to increased crime rates which causes businesses and taxpayers to flee crime-ridden cities, taking jobs and economic opportunities with them.

The focus should be on the future, not on the sins of the past and assigning blame for them. While some may find evidence of racial injustice everywhere they look, the facts suggest that the biggest problem facing African-Americans is economic hardship, not police brutality. Raising black employment and promotion opportunities and income levels would at least ameliorate many if not most of the other problems like better access to health care, better housing and healthier lifestyles. Employers urgently need to address these issues with actions, not platitudes and promises.

Many corporations are signaling their support for racial justice by taking out full page ads and making donations to organizations that campaign for racial justice. Though well-intentioned, these are largely feel-good gestures, not actions that actually create jobs for people of color or provide the training that will help qualify them to fill those jobs. Actions speak louder than words. Words and virtuous intentions won’t create economic opportunities for African-Americans. Changing employment and recruitment practices will. Removing barriers to their advancement will.

One step might be to eliminate unnecessary job pre-requisites like a requirement for a college degree unless university training has been shown to be absolutely necessary in order to acquire the specific skills needed for a particular job. We have somehow managed to create the notion that everyone needs to attend college in order to be successful. It’s true that statistics show that college graduates will, on average, earn more over a lifetime than those without a degree but it is by no means assured and, obviously, some won’t. Not all degrees or majors are equally marketable. An undergraduate degree these days takes the average student more than four years to acquire and is extremely expensive, thanks to the easy availability of student loans and the competition for admission. For many, it may be a waste of time and money, better spent in learning a marketable skill in a community college or university extension program, requiring much less time and expense. Some CEOs of our most successful companies dropped out of college because they felt they were wasting their time. Children of affluent families are much more likely to attend college than those of lower income parents, putting African-Americans at a disadvantage because of income disparities.

Employers need to take affirmative action to increase economic opportunities for African-Americans by actively recruiting in black communities, removing as many barriers to employment and advancement as feasible and by providing internal and external training opportunities in order to enhance their chances of success.

                Dr. Kelly is a freelance writer and retired Navy Captain who commended three San Diego-based ships, a research and development center and taught ship handling, seamanship and navigation at Naval Base San Diego. He earned his doctorate in education at USD, taught graduate students and was a senior vice-president and director of training and development at Great American Bank. He has written over 1500 newspaper and journal articles and has been a regular contributor to the Eagle&Journal since 2001.      

July 16, 2020

 

A Republic If We Can Keep It

Nation on the Brink————————–

               

                A Commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                “A vengeful mob is a fearsome thing but the true monsters are its teachers.”

                                                                       -Cynthia Ozick

                                                                                Author, “Critics, Monsters, Fanatics and                                                                                    Other Literary Essays”

For those old enough to remember the riots of the 1960s following the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and the 1992 riots after the verdict in the Rodney King beating trial, the riots following the killing of George Floyd by police brought back painful memories. There were differences, however. The earlier riots occurred mostly in cities with large black minorities and targeted mostly black neighborhoods. The recent ones took place over a larger swath of America and included affluent, white neighborhoods and this time the rioters included large numbers of young whites.

Another notable difference was the apparent support for and rationalization of much of the violence from a large cross-section of the population including white academics and other white elites as well as the mainstream media. Some have described the civic unrest as a movement or a revolution. The description seems apt, with mobs taking over sections of cities like Seattle, New York and Washington, D.C., erecting barricades to keep police from entering and, in Seattle’s CHOP, declaring sovereignty. A unifying objective, on the surface at least, was defunding the police and drastically restructuring law enforcement.

To Northwestern University’s Gary Saul Morson, a professor of Russian literature, there are striking similarities between what is going on now in America and what occurred in Russia just prior to the Communist revolution that overthrew the Czarist government. In that revolution, the Marxists openly endorsed terrorism as a necessary means to an end. The opposition liberal party, known as the Constitutional Democrats, did not condone terrorism but steadfastly refused to condemn it, believing it would be political suicide to do so, according to Prof. Morson. In fact, he says, they actually called for the release of imprisoned terrorists.

In an interview published recently in the Wall Street Journal, Morson said that the lessons from this are highly relevant today. People may know that acts of violence and destruction of property are wrong but feel that it might be political suicide or subject them to criticism (or worse) to say so and so they go along supporting or remaining silent about things they know are wrong. And unless some moral force emerges to stop it, the slide toward chaos accelerates. That moral force seems lacking in America today as it was in Russia then. Morson notes another analogy, saying that “many of today’s revolutionaries are wildly successful and privileged”, citing, as examples, Colinford Mattis and Uroog Rahman, charged with attempting to firebomb a police vehicle. Both are New York attorneys, educated at, respectively, Princeton and New York University.

If we are, in fact, witnessing a revolution today, it seems important to understand what it’s about and where it began. Many believe that It’s about much more than just black lives matter, defunding the police and restructuring law enforcement. It’s about redistributing wealth and power. It’s significant in this regard that many of the demonstrations now are targeting the homes of those with power and wealth. Intimidation is a powerful weapon. It’s also about re-defining free speech. Revolutions cannot tolerate insightful criticism and require both a sympathetic news media and a passive policing policy that will monitor, but not prevent, violence incident to their demonstrations. Dissent must be crushed if it threatens to impede the revolution. Therefore, if you dare to criticize the actions of the demonstrators or rioters, you are “not listening” or “you don’t get it.” You are “on the wrong side of history” and “just part of the problem” or “not qualified to criticize because you are privileged”. Revolutionaries insist that they support free speech of course, but, in practice, they do only if it supports their narrative. Otherwise, it’s branded a lie and needs to be suppressed.

How did this all begin? For starters, consider the widespread embrace of political correctness. And where did all that begin? It was born and nurtured on college campuses all over America where leftist ideology prevails almost unchallenged, supported by overwhelmingly liberal faculties. The rare conservative voices are often suppressed and shamed or banished from campus. Our universities have produced a generation of young socialists taught to see only the flaws and not the greatness of our nation. Most of them supported Bernie Sanders and are not enamored with the choices we have for president in November. (In the latter matter at least, I share their distress.)

If this is a revolution, will it ultimately succeed? That, of course, is squarely up to the American people. But if they are too fearful to speak their minds, it really doesn’t matter what they think or want. Silence is surrender. As Benjamin Franklin reportedly said, “A republic, if you can keep it.” We’ve kept it for nearly two and a half centuries but could we be on the brink of losing it?

Dr. Kelly is a freelance writer and a retired Navy Captain who commanded three San Diego-based ships and a personnel research and development center and taught ship handling, seamanship and navigation at Naval Base San Diego. He earned his doctorate in education at USD, taught graduate students and was a senior vice-president and director of training and development at Great American Bank. He has written over 1500 newspaper and journal articles and has been a regular contributor to the Eagle&Journal since 2001.

July 8, 2020

Action Needed Now

A Summer of Discontent—————————————-

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

Recently  I wrote that now, with public attention so focused on the senseless murder of George Floyd while in police custody, it was urgently important to seize the moment and implement measures to deal with the problem of racial injustice. Reforming law enforcement practices should be the first order of business. Protesters expect to see some results, not just the usual promises of change. Changes to improve economic and educational opportunities for African Americans may not show immediate, perceptible results, especially in an economy crippled by a pandemic, but reforming policing practices such as abandoning the use of choke holds and improved training and recruitment should.

Policing reforms won’t be easy because law enforcement is largely a local, not federal, responsibility and it isn’t just simply a matter of the federal government issuing rules, although federal grants could be made contingent upon compliance. There is, in addition, a plethora of law enforcement agencies, including city, county and state police and sheriff’s departments as well as numerous other agencies such as campus police, all with different jurisdictional limits, reporting responsibilities and funding sources. Still, the federal government can exert influence through grants and other forms of persuasion. Federal guidelines are needed and needed now. Otherwise, this could be a long summer of discontent.

Alas, nothing happens quickly in Washington these days, unless you count street demonstrations and riots. The GOP-controlled Senate drafted a bill authored by Sen. Tim Scott (R, S.C.), the Senate’s only black Republican member, who has himself been racially profiled multiple times while driving and even while trying to enter the Senate chambers. Mr. Scott’s bill emphasized data collection and training police officers in de-escalating confrontations and dealing with those suffering from mental disorders. These areas, along with improved recruitment strategies stressing judgment and decision-making while screening out those with evidence of identity bias or anger management issues, are exactly where the emphasis should be. Democrat leaders, however, have indicated that Mr. Scott’s bill is far too little and they blocked the bill, preventing debate.

Democrats are not interested in collecting more data; at least not data of the sort that they well know fails to show a consistent pattern of racial bias in the use of deadly force by police as many researchers and pundits, including the Wall Street Journal’s Jason L. Riley, have documented. As Mr. Riley wrote recently, a few viral videos just doesn’t prove otherwise. Let me be clear, however, that in my view even one event like Mr. Floyd’s brutal, heartless murder, is sufficient enough to justify outrage and even a few of them enough to justify reform. But that reform should be informed by hard, objective facts, even if they don’t support a particular narrative. It should never be based on emotion, least of all rage and revenge.

Data that Democrats do want more of are data on the race and ethnicity of both suspects and police involved in traffic stops and similar encounters. But enforcement of the law should be colorblind. The issue is about whether or not a law was broken and by whom, not the race or ethnicity of those involved. No one is above the law and no one who breaks the law should get a pass because of race or ethnicity. Justice must be blind and evenly applied or it is not just at all.

Finally, Democrat leaders are insisting on changes to the doctrine of qualified immunity which provides some protection to police from lawsuits seeking damages against them personally as long as they did not violate clearly established law. The doctrine is somewhat similar to the Feres Doctrine which protects military officers from lawsuits arising in connection with the execution of their lawful orders. Elimination of such protection would have a chilling effect on recruitment. Why would a young man or woman, having less dangerous career options available, seek a career in law enforcement without protection from the frivolous lawsuits that would likely arise in the absence of such protection?

Mr. Scott, in an emotional speech on the Senate floor, said he thought that Democrats would appear to prefer to “run (for election) on police reform rather than accomplish it”. His bill may not be perfect, but it is a starting point. It needs to be debated. So does the House bill which passed on party lines A joint House/Senate committee should work out a compromise bill that the president will sign if it’s not veto-proof. That’s what Congress used to be able to do. They should remain in session until they produce something. That’s their job. They should just do it.

Dr. Kelly is a freelance writer and retired Navy Captain, who commanded three San Diego- based ships and a research and development center and taught ship handling, seamanship and navigation at Naval Base San Diego. He earned his doctorate in education at USD, taught graduate students and was a senior vice-president and director of training and development at Great American Bank. He has written over 1500 newspaper and journal articles and has been a regular contributor to the Eagle&Journal since 2001.

July 3, 2020