Welcome To The Newest Third World Country

From the Foundation for Child Development report:

The worst has yet to come. Our research shows that conditions for children deteriorated through 2009 and are projected to bottom out in 2010. Virtually all the progress made in the family economic well-being domain since 1975 will be wiped out. Families, schools, neighborhood and community organizations, and governments continue to cope with budget cuts and the loss of jobs, producing the anticipated “lag time” in economic recovery.

h/t WI

I Am An Atheist Jew, Like My 13-Year-Old Son: Huh?

I went to a bar mitzvah today. I had to. I reacted viscerally. Let me explain.

Those of you who are regular readers are probably aware of my atheism. What you may not know is my Jewish history.

I was created by a "Jewish" father and a "Christian" mother. Apparently--I don't remember--we had a Christmas tree for the first couple years of my life. My dad (whose mother emigrated from Russia in 1910--she's the little girl in the picture) couldn't stand it, so it ended. From then on, again apparently, my family was Jewish. Mom did not convert, mainly because we were not religious. At all. Never went to temple. As a child my mother and her family were not religious either. Neither my dad, my brother nor I were bar mitzvahed. It was just a religious thing anyway, and who really believes a 13-year-old becomes a man by reading some Torah?

The Frustrated Family were just a bunch of cultural Jews, with a shiksa as our leader. Indeed, in my large extended family (those are 2 parents and their children in the picture--all of whose descendants have Seder together in L.A., where most of them live) my goyishe mother was considered the glue that holds the family together. That's how it was most of my life. Now that she has moved, she is merely a participant, like me.

I went to Jewish summer camps as a kid, was a counselor, and as a young adult I ran a few. That was my Jewish identity. The cultural Jew. The non-religious Jew. To some Jews, I would be considered a bad Jew; or worse, some might call me a self-hating Jew (I have been so accused). I love chopped liver and corned beef sandwiches. I felt connected to all my ancestors who were killed, sent away and harassed for millenniums. To be a Jew, in my mind, was to be part of a culture. We were a people, not a religion.

Summer camp was all about culture. We did the prayer before the meal, but we did it "Dixie" style, because praying is stoopid. Jews praying seemed to be marginally important compared to the things Jews in my life stood for: equality, fairness, intellectual curiosity, and social justice. The religious thing just never struck me.

The most important thing I got from being an "affiliated" Jew were friendships that last to this day. I was connected to a high-quality group of people. That is all good, and I want that for my son.

My son will be 13 in June. His mother (we are not together--haven't been since his birth) wanted him to go to Hebrew school. Her other 2 kids, now grown, did not. I think she deferred to her goyishe ex-husband and didn't think much about her, and subsequently her kids', Jewishness. It wasn't a big thing for her.

But with our son, possibly because her other son is lately feeling his Jewishness, she wanted it.

I was therefore confronted with a tough issue; I am an atheist. I become more atheist every day, it seems.

When she told me she wanted our son to go to Hebrew school, at the temple where I had run the camp, I decided not to make much of it. The kid wanted it, she wanted it, and I know my influence on our son is such that a little religious nonsense would not make him believe in fairies (or god). Besides, the cantor was an old rocker and we were friendly (we collaborated when I was camp director). I figured everything would be fine.

On the day we went to temple to talk with the rabbi about enrolling the kid in Jew school I had one question. After her schpiel, I asked if I could speak to the rabbi alone. I asked her, in private, if she tells the students the Torah/bible/old testament is the word of god, or just a bunch of stories. She convinced me she was not going to suck the empiricism out of the kid, so I said fine. So I told his mother, go for it! But I won't pay.

So the kid has been going for a couple years and this is his bar mitzvah year. He goes to the bima in August. Today was his good friend's bar mitzvah, and my first in a long, long time.

As I sat there, alone in the back, listening and watching, I felt horrible. I was tense. I nodded my head in disagreement, like Justice Alito. I watched the grown ups, with their talit, daven and close their eyes. I watchhed them gently leave their seat to go tell others to pick the prayer book up off the floor (there are no pews, just folding chairs). I watched the gay rabbi and the transgendered rabbinic assistant do their jew/rabbi thing, all the time saying things to myself like:

This is so obviously full of shit. Men hold the torah!

Why is the rabbi touching the kid's head? Is he channeling Jesus?

Don't put the prayer book on the ground, but let anyone go to the bima!? Even women and homos?!

I am not a homophobe. I am not sexist. I thought these things because if traditions can be jettisoned in the name of equality, why can't the whole kit and caboodle be jettisoned in the name of sanity?

I listened to the rabbi and the bar mitzvah boy talk about god. I know this kid. He has never mentioned god. Nor has my son, except to tell me his atheism is kept quiet at temple because there are some true believers there.

And here is where the visceral nature of everything comes into focus. My son, who by his own admission is an atheist, is being required to maintain a mountain of religious nonsense to please his mother (also not religious--but very "spiritual") and to not make himself uncomfortable in the presence of these true believers--folks who might label him a bad Jew. I cannot countenance that. But, what choice do I have?

Fortunately my kid is hip to all the crap. He knows the only reason to keep going is because of the friends he has made and will keep, and the work he has put in. It is not about religion for him. It is about fun and feeling the satisfaction of accomplishing something after putting in a lot of work. He makes me very proud.

As soon as it was over I left. I love the family. I love the bar mitzvah boy, who has spent many nights here with my son. They are best friends.

My strong reaction tells me how hard it will be at my own kid's bar mitzvah. I will have to go up on the bima with him. I will have to listen to him artfully interpret the Torah portion so as not to compromise his integrity and at the same time not offend anyone. He can do it. But why?

I am an old curmudgeon. He is young and full of life. I need to watch myself as we near the culmination of this Jewish silliness.

Child Hunger Is A Complex Problem (It's More Than Just Food)

The hunger problem, like the achievement gap, is more complicated than one might think due to multiple factors that Americans are not equipped to deal with; unequipped due to consumerism, selfishness, and an inability to hold 2 thoughts in one's head at a time. Life is complicated, lots of grey. Complexity is not bad, just harder than simplicity. Americans are good at simplicity.

Missing more than a meal
Child hunger, called the 'silent epidemic,' is an increasingly complex problem

Even when children are not hungry, studies have found that slight shortages of food in their homes are associated with serious problems. Babies and toddlers in those homes are far more likely to be hospitalized than children in families with similar incomes but adequate food. School-age children tend to learn and grow more slowly, and to get into trouble more often. Teenage girls are more prone to be depressed or even flirt with thoughts of suicide.

Solving the problem is further complicated by its subtle nature. "Most people who are hungry are not clinically manifesting what we consider hunger. It doesn't even affect body weight," said Mariana Chilton, a Drexel University medical anthropologist who is part of Children's HealthWatch, a network of pediatricians and public health researchers in Philadelphia and four other cities. Hunger cannot be solved by food alone, their work shows, because it is one strand in a web of pressures that trap families, including housing and energy costs.

A nuanced problem

This more nuanced picture is emerging as the problem has become more widespread. With the economy faltering, the number of youngsters living in homes without enough food soared in 2008 from 13 million to nearly 17 million, the Agriculture Department reported last month.

War Creates Foster Children

I can't believe this story:

US Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, is being threatened with a military court-martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan, despite having been told she would be granted extra time to find someone to care for her 11-month-old son while she is overseas.

Hutchinson, of Oakland, California, is currently being confined at Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, Georgia, after being arrested. Her son was placed into a county foster care system.

After School I Get To Go To School!

Here's another brilliant example of grown-ups ruining people's childhoods. Ever notice that it is grown-ups who ruin things and almost never kids? Kids deserve better than a bunch of grown-ups. Seriously!

Stimulus Funds: Test-prep/Centralized Curriculum vs. Nothing

When the economy collapsed and education funding dried up, schools had to take the federal stimulus money (with major strings attached) or face cutting major school programs.

When the banking industry collapsed - due to Wall Street greed, deregulation, and market fundamentalism - banks were rewarded literally trillions of dollars with very few restrictions placed upon them.

Remind me again - who is supposed to be accountable here?

From the Santa Fe New Mexican:

Stimulus cash spurs after-care program changes for Santa Fe schools
Under new program rules, parents can't pick up children until 5:30 p.m.; lessons required

By Anne Constable | The New Mexican

8/27/2009

Parents of students who registered for the after-school program at E.J. Martinez Elementary School were told last week that they would not be allowed to pick up their children until 5:30 p.m., even if they themselves get off work earlier than that.

"It's asinine to say if I can pick my kids up earlier than 5:30 p.m., I get penalized. That's nuts," said Valerie Ingram, whose children are enrolled in the school's after-care program. "I'll see them for maybe two hours before they go to sleep."

Maria Rael, a math teacher at E.J. Martinez who runs the program, was calling parents last week to let them know about the change. But even she was not happy about it. "I'm not crazy about the 5:30 thing. I wish it could be more flexible," she said.

Because the district is funding the after-care program at E.J. — and six other schools — with federal stimulus dollars, it is required to offer 90 minutes of uninterrupted academic instruction.

Instead of arts and crafts, the occasional movie and other low-key fun, students will be getting another set of lessons in math and English at the end of the day.

"It doesn't mean the activities have to be dry and horrible," Rael said. "I'm a math teacher and I'm always trying to find ways to make math fun."

But one mother who arrived at the school Wednesday around 5 p.m. said, "I think it's a long school day as it is, and I should be able to pick up my children."

She suggested that if structured time is required, it should start earlier and finish earlier.

The district is now considering this and other options, Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez confirmed.

Initially, the district settled on 4 to 5:30 p.m. for the instructional time to allow kids a break for a snack and running around outside after school ends.

Gutierrez said officials are working on "creating flexibility within the system," while still abiding by federal rules.

If it weren't for federal stimulus money, Santa Fe Public Schools might have been forced to cut the after-care completely. Earlier this year the district was facing a $4.5 million budget shortfall for the new school year.

Now many families are assured of getting the services — and for free. But, as Gutierrez admitted, there are "so many strings attached."

In addition to the required academic instruction, the schools must keep careful attendance records and sign-in logs, employ research-based curricula and submit lesson plans to authorities. And because the money is reserved for children in low-income, Title I schools, students at Wood Gormley, who used to come to E.J. Martinez for after-care, must now go to a fee-paying YMCA program at Atalaya.

Rael said that the district believes that if the schools can demonstrate that giving children direct instruction in smaller groups after school improves test results, "It might not be so hard to come up with money to fund after-school programs."

She added, "We almost lost our program altogether," because of funding issues. And, "A lot of children would (have ended) up going home (to an empty house), and that doesn't make sense."

The E.J. Martinez program has room for 65 children. Many families pre-registered at the end of the last school year, although some were reconsidering when they heard about the restrictions.

But the program is still popular with kids. Sofia Zambrano, a lively fourth-grader in her second year of after-care, thought it was "a great place to be." "I'm going to try to improve my organizing," she declared, adding that she missed school during the summer — "even the boys." Sounding older than her years, Sofia said, "The teachers really teach a lot. I love how they care for us and how much effort they put in everything."

The district is using about $635,000 in federal funds — stimulus dollars as well as Title I funds for low-income schools — on after-care programs for students from 10 schools. In addition to E.J. Martinez, the programs are at Ramirez Thomas, Gonzales, Salazar and Kearny elementary schools and De Vargas Middle School. Students from Alvord, Carlos Gilbert and Larragoite go to Gonzales Community School while Kearny Elementary School students go to Nava for after-care.

The E.J. Martinez program is paid for with $85,324 in federal funds (including $31,824 in stimulus dollars) and LANL Foundation grant money.

The after-care program costs about $1,200 per child per year, which includes teacher pay.

Previously, parents whose children received free and reduced-price lunches paid $20 a week for the program and $5 a week for each extra child. Other parents paid $40 for the first child and $5 for the second.

Families are still paying fees for after-school care offered by other providers at other schools.

Because the district asked only for half of its stimulus money this year, federal funds could be available for these programs next year if they don't have to be diverted to cover other operating costs. That might depend on how much the Legislature appropriates for education, Gutierrez said.

h/t KL