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Catherine Read

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by Rachel Simon

Del. Patrick Hope – Medicaid Expansion in Virginia

(June 4, 2018) Catherine Read interviews Delegate Patrick Hope (D-47) of Arlington to discuss the recent passage of the Medicaid Expansion in the Virginia General Assembly, as part of the biennial budget signed by Gov. Ralph Northam.  Del. Hope currently sits on the the General Laws, Courts of Justice and Health and Welfare Committees in the House of Delegates, where he is able to lend his professional expertise from his career as a healthcare attorney.  Del. Hope also serves on the Joint Commission on Healthcare and the Deeds Commission, which has been tasked with studying and making recommendations on improvements to Virginia’s mental health care delivery system.

Del. Hope was elected to office in 2009, one year before the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, was passed into law. Under the ACA, Washington allows states to open their rolls to people with income up to 138% of the federal poverty level, which is $16,750 for an individual and $28,700 for a family of three. The federal government agrees to pay 90% of the cost of expanding the rolls, totaling approximately $2 billion a year.  These are dollars that Virginians have been paying with their federal taxes that will now be returning home.  Baked into this year’s proposed budget is a tax on hospitals in Virginia, which is designed to cover the 10% cost that the state will be responsible for.

Since the adoption of the ACA in 2010, Hope has advocated for expanding Medicaid, and bringing these federal tax dollars back to the commonwealth for individuals who fall in the “gap”. This gap exists because as the program works today, Medicaid in Virginia has a very low-income threshold for eligibility – $6900 for a family of three, $9700 for a disabled individual, and able-bodied childless adults are not eligible at all, no matter how poor they are. Therefore, insurance on the ACA marketplace was not accessible to the 300,00+ working poor citizens of Virginia.

Del Patrick Hope VirginiaEffective January 1, 2019 this will all change. The influx of federal dollars to provide healthcare to those in need will free up money in the biennial state budget to invest in other important initiatives. Teachers will receive a 3% pay raise, all judgeships will be fully funded (and 30 judgeships will be added to cover increase caseloads), and state employees will get a 2% pay raise. Money will also be allocated to improve mental health services, as well as addiction and substance abuse programs throughout the state. Del. Hope points out that these are important investments in our safety net and our future.

The adoption of Medicaid expansion will also be a big boost to the state’s economy. By bringing 300,000+ residents onto the healthcare rolls, we will need to find healthcare “homes” for all of the new patients. More doctors, nurses, support and administrative staff will be needed to accommodate the increase in patients. These will be new, well paying and sustainable jobs that will help drive the economy forward.

In order to bring Republicans on board with adopting Medicaid expansion, there are several provisions that were incorporated into the new law. Work requirements will be imposed on all able-bodied adults age 18-55, to ensure that nobody is getting a benefit without putting effort into finding or training for work. The program is called the Training, Education, Employment and Opportunity Program (TEEOP), and will have to seek approval by the Trump Administration before it can be implemented. Del. Hope praised the bipartisan work in the House of Delegates, who included Medicaid expansion in their original proposed budget, along with the hard work and brave efforts of Sens. Emmett Hangar (Hanover), Frank Wagner (Virginia Beach ) , Jill Holtzman Vogel (Faquier) and A. Benton Chafin, Jr. (Russell) who propelled the Senate to move the budget forward with Medicaid expansion included.  There will be much work to be done to get the program off the ground, but passage of the budget was the first step of the process.

Filed Under: Healthcare, Inside Scoop, Political, TV Shows, Virginia Tagged With: A Benton Chafin Jr., ACA, Affordable Care Act, Ben Chafin, Delegate Patrick Hope, education, Emmett Hangar, Employment and Opportunity Program, Frank Wagner, Jill Holtzman Vogel, Medicaid Expansion, Medicaid Work Requirements, TEEOP, Training

by Catherine Read

Educated: A Memoir – Tara Westover

(March 2018) “I am not the child my father raised. But he is the father who raised her.”

A gripping memoir. From the opening passage to the final sentence, I was pulling for Tara Westover to make it.

Raised in a Mormon family in Idaho that eschewed modern medicine, public education and was deeply fearful of the government, Tara did herself and the world a great favor by keeping journals from a very early age. The word that kept flashing in my brain throughout this book was “gaslighting.” She was constantly being made to feel that SHE WAS THE CRAZY ONE by her family – her parents, her siblings and the larger Mormon community.

Despite never having attended school at all (nor having the “homeschooling” her parents claimed to provide), she managed to enroll in Brigham Young University based on her high ACT score at the age of 17. From that point, she was fortunate to connect with people who recognized her ability and wanted to help her to realize her potential. Those professors and mentors kept opening doors that she walked through to claim her future.

At the same time, she kept striving to remain a member of her nuclear family.

I never knew what would happen next. It is an emotional rollercoaster. Keeping a journal turned out to be central to this memoir. All of us have faulty memories. It’s hard to be accurate in hindsight when intervening events color our memories of the past. Having a contemporary account of what happened in the immediate aftermath of traumatic events provided a more reliable witness to her life.

Perhaps I’m just particularly drawn to memoirs of strong women these days. Tara’s internal struggles to reconcile her life with her desire to stay connected to her family reminded me of Emily Nunn’s memoir The Comfort Food Diaries which addressed similar issues. (Both authors changed the names of their immediate family members to protect their privacy.) Where does our commitment to our family begin, and end, when it impacts our ability to live a full and healthy life?

I would highly recommend this book. It is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit in the most difficult circumstances. Our history does not dictate our future. Our origination story is not the only story. We can write a narrative for ourselves that accepts that where we have come from is only part of who we are. Our “self” is in our heads. We do have choices. And self preservation is the choice we have to make first.

Filed Under: Education, Good Books, Women Tagged With: BYU, Cambridge, education, Harvard, herbalism, Idaho, Memoir, Mormon, Tara Westover

by William Zuhl

Restorative Justice – Inside Scoop

(Feb 26, 2018) On this episode of Inside Scoop, Catherine Read talks to Restorative Justice experts Vickie Shoap, Bill Casey and Dave Deal about what Restorative Justice (RJ) is and how it is being applied in Fairfax County Public Schools and by the Northern Virginia Mediation Services. Vickie Shoap is a Restorative Justice specialist working for FCPS, on their Restorative Justice Initiative which deals with the school system’s disciplinary process. Bill Casey and Dave Deal are co-directors of the Northern Virginia Mediation Service Restorative Justice Program, and work with the county on the Alternative Accountability Program, which provides an alternative to criminal charges for first time offenders.

Vickie Shoap FCPS RJRestorative Justice is a philosophy of dealing with misdeamors and minor crimes by examining the situation through a different lens. Where traditional justice does an investigation then punishes the responsible party exactly according to the law. Restorative Justice examines individual harm, who and how were they harmed, then bringing them together with the one who did the harming. In school, they use it for all forms of conflict, using it to prevent the escalation of situations. They also use it to respond, letting those who were harmed talk about what they experienced and what exactly it meant to them. It brings offenders face-to-face with the realities of what they did. It creates a conversation which can be very difficult to have, especially for children. All of that is with the ultimate goal of repairing the harm and making the situation right and prevent the situation from occurring again.

Restorative Justice is an old method of seeking to address wrongs which was suppressed under zero-tolerance policies. The traditional method was, when an offense had occurred, to gather the community and discuss how to repair the harm and restore relationships. They built upon a notion that everyone is connected, ultimately, it’s about developing empathy.

In modern society its hoped that by applying Restorative Justice techniques that there can be a reduction in recidivism and a reduction in punishments which don’t actually achieve their goals. For example, it has been suggested that out-of-school suspensions fail to serve anyone’s needs, the student who is suspended simply gets free days, while they fall behind their school work and does nothing to solve the underlying issues. That idea has gained enough traction that the Virginia State Legislature is looking at addressing an excessive number of suspensions.

Traditional punitive methods create a stigma around the offender, preventing them from properly integration back into the community even if they have done their time and learned from their offenses. Restorative Justice focuses on the victim as well as the offender, then those who were affected by the fallout. The needs and harm done to the victim is addressed, which traditional methods frequently ignore in favor is just punishing the offender. Restorative Justice is about making the offender acknowledge their offense and contribute in some manner to repairing the harm done by their actions. Generally, students will still be in the same class together, so it is important to work out their differences and resolve the issues before things escalate.

Applying Restorative Justice to various situations turns punishment into an educational process, especially for students. In Fairfax County, the school system has been applying Restorative Justice to their correctional process in aid of developing social skills and empathy. They feel that traditional out-of-school suspensions teach students that simply staying at home is better than facing situations where they come into contact with those they may have harmed and further that the traditional suspension is based upon the idea of isolation, something which modern technology makes a near impossibility and does nothing to solve potential ongoing conflicts or prevent escalation. Data has shown that repeated suspensions in middle school triples the probability those students will be involved in the juvenile justice system. By having face-to-face conversations with those they wronged, students are taught exactly what their actions have caused and about resiliency, social responsibility and empathy. Discipline is supposed to be educational, to teach students how they can be better, rehabilitation, not necessarily about the punishment itself.

Zero tolerance policies came to the fore in the 1980s initially relating to the drug issues in society, but over time became too rigid. Juvenile offenders and school offenses became lumped in to the need for punishment and created a situation where offenders became isolated from the community. They also made no allowances for children acting as children sometimes do, turning relatively minor learnable situations into larger situations. The policies were about punishing offenders but did nothing to address restoring the damage done. It became so harsh that offenders failed to learn while those harmed did not have their needs met.

FCPS has been working on a Restorative Justice policy for almost ten years. Initially the program was piloted using the services of the Northern Virginia Mediation Service (NVMS) in Westfield High School. In the 2010-2011 school year FCPS committed itself to a system-wide implementation of Restorative Justice policies in every school, elementary, middle and high school. Over 200 schools implemented the system with the aid of seven full-time restorative justice experts, including Vickie Shoap.

FCPS has been applying Restorative Justice techniques to more than just their disciplinary process. Teachers have been trained in using the techniques to encourage students to talk with one another, share information and create a community, preventing incidents before they can happen in the first place. By getting students used to Restorative Justice Practices they also allow the process to move more smoothly when an incident does occur, as students are familiar with the concepts behind restorative justice, or even allow teachers to resolve incidents without escalating matters higher up.

Dave Deal NVMSBy cooperating with each other FCPS and NVMS have, with the aid of the Fairfax police, the county juvenile court and the county Neighborhood and Community Services office, expanded Restorative Justice programs for police referral. Over time law enforcement officials have become more excited at being able to refer offenders to the program and out of juvenile court, allowing minors to avoid tarnishing their records, provided they participate in good faith. Initiating a Restorative Justice case is far simpler than going through the criminal system. Generally two 30 minute meetings are needed, each party involved, the victim and the offender, individually, followed by a longer group session involving everyone, including the police, victim and perpetuator, which answers three questions, what happened, who was impacted and how, and what should happen. The victim starts with laying out what they think should be done. At the end of the process there is a written agreement, reached between the offenders and the victims, where the perpetrator agrees to restitution ranging from apologies, to payment, to community service as well as agreeing to not reoffend. After the meeting is over the Restorative Justice Mediators keep a copy of the agreement and make sure that the perpetrator has followed through on what they agreed to. If the perpetrator fails to do what they agreed to then the case is sent to juvenile court. Restorative Justice is an entirely voluntary process one which a student or parent can chose to forgo, but data has shown that restorative justice tends to lead to better outcomes, even though it can not be applied to every situation.

For example, when dealing with a shoplifting case the Restorative Justice program will bring the offenders together with the store owners and answer the three questions, what happened, who was affected and how to resolve the situation. The offender is told exactly what happens when they steal, even as little as one item, the whole process of checking inventory, loss of money having to employ security and other knock on effects. Then they ask, what are you going to do next time? They create a hypothetical situation where the offender is encouraged to think about what they will do if a similar situation occurs again, what if a someone encourages them to shoplift again, or other encouragement. Creating a plan, where rather than having to make a decision on the spot, the person knows ahead of time exactly what they would do in a given situation. They also create a space where the parents of the perpetrator can discuss what their experiences are, how hearing that their child had broken the laws and the morals they had attempted to teach made them feel.

The Restorative Justice system is not available to every offender. The perpetrator only qualifies if they have no other criminal record, only first offenders. Offenses which lead to the restorative process commonly include thief, damage, trespassing and vandalism, but never capital offenses. The process only applies where there was a victim and an offender who has recognized that they have done something wrong.

According to data collection since Restorative Justice becoming official police policy in June of 2017 the recidivism rate of offenders who go through the Alternative Accountability Program (AAP) is approximately 4-5 percent in comparison to the court system’s 40+ percent. NVMS maintains a database of what cases have been through the system and hope to use the information to improve outcomes even further. The FCPS Restorative Justice Initiative’s own data shows a far lower rate of repeat suspensions for students who go through the program, as well as a rising rate of students themselves asking for conflict resolution services.

Every case is different, and the reactions of parents, victims and perpetrators vary greatly, but sharing viewpoints allows every side of the story come out and provide paths to a better outcome.

For more information on the FCPS Restorative Justice Initiative visit https://www.fcps.edu/resources/student-safety-wellness/restorative-justice. For more information on NVMS and their Restorative Justice Program and the Alternative Accountabiliy Program visit http://nvms.us/restorative-justice/.

Filed Under: Education, Inside Scoop, TV Shows, Virginia Tagged With: Catherine Read, education, Fairfax County, Fairfax County Schools, northern virginia, Restorative Justice

by William Zuhl

Sandy Evans – Your Need to Know

(Feb 21, 2018) Sandy Evans is the Fairfax County School Board member from Mason District. She has been on the FCSB for 8 years after having first been elected in a special election in March of 2010. She and Catherine Read take a look at the issues facing Fairfax County Public Schools, the nations 10th largest school system.

Sandy Evans started out as a parent advocate, supporting the PTA of her daughter’s school. When her daughter entered middle school Sandy Evans was made aware of the then early start times for Fairfax Country middle and high schools. Seeing the early start times as a serious health issue, she cofounded SLEEP (Start Later for Excellence in Education Proposal) and then ran for the school board. In Fall of 2014 the school board approved the change of high school start times from 7:20 AM to 8:10 AM starting in the Fall of 2015. Currently, Sandy Evans and SLEEP are advocating for later middle school start times as well.

Currently, Sandy Evans is the budget chair of the school board, and they are currently debating the school superintendent’s proposed budget ahead of an expected early February vote to send the budget to the Fairfax Country Board of Supervisors. The new budget makes a priority of creating new teacher pay scales in order to make the country more attractive for talented teachers. While the new pay scales will take time to go into effect, more than 54 million dollars have been set aside in the current budget to raise teacher salaries into the new scale. The current overall budget is 2.9 billion dollars providing services for over 188 thousand students.

The members of the school board have also been working with legislators in Richmond to try and increase state level support of the county schools in support of special need, ESL (English as a Second Language) and impoverished students. Currently, about 25% of FCPS students qualify for free or reduced cost meals, 29-30% need ESL services and 14% qualify for special needs. These numbers are currently expected to grow going into the future, and local community support is not expected to be enough to fill the gap. The current state funding formulas mean that Fairfax County Public Schools receive less funding proportional to their size in spite of the fact that over 54,000 students qualify for free or reduced price meals, a number equal or larger than many other school systems entire enrollment in some parts of the state.

Going into the future, Sandy Evans is determined to make sure the school board is committed to school equity, using needs based staffing to make sure every student has equal opportunities regardless of the school they attend. FCPSOn is an initiative dedicated to making sure that every student has access to a computer. Students attending schools with high poverty rates will be offered laptops which they can take home and use, then return at the end of the school year. FCPS have also recently put their Parent Liaisons on contracts to work full time as opposed to their older hourly system. Parent Liaisons are particularly important in schools with high ESL or poverty rates, which frequently have either no or underfunded PTAs, having a person dedicated to communicating with parents and providing translation services to ensure that parents feel welcome to speak concerns and keep informed of how their children are doing.

Talks have also been on going about using schools as a platform for community services. The school board has been in talks with County Supervisor Penny Gross about building a new school in the Wilston area which could potentially be combined with a health facility or a public library to provide services to the population at large while reducing costs for students in particular.

The school board has also recently made changes to the school discipline system. They’ve aimed to replace out-of-school suspensions with in-school suspensions overseen by people versed in restorative justice and positive behavior approaches. They’ve also attempted to speed up the process of informing parents of troubled students, and Sandy Evans wishes to make that process even faster going into the future.

In July, the Fairfax County School Board voted to change JEB Stuart High School’s name. The public suggested 73 different names but failed to produce a majority opinion. The school board took the five most popular names and picked Justice High School. Students attending the school were allowed to pick their new mascot and following a school-wide vote chose to become the Wolves. The school board has allowed 2 years to make the transition to the new name, but the school superintendent expects the process to be finished by next fall.

For more information, contact Sandy Evans at [email protected], or www.fcps.edu/index.php/school-board/Sandy-Evans or go to fcps.edu for more information about Fairfax County Public Schools.

 

Filed Under: Blogging, Education, TV Shows, Virginia, Your Need to Know Tagged With: Catherine Read, education, Fairfax County, Fairfax County Public Schools, Sandy Evans

by Catherine Read

The Power of Moments – Chip and Dan Heath

The Power of Moments(Oct 2017) I read Chip and Dan Heath’s first book, Made to Stick, months after it was published in 2007. I am still recommending that book to people today for it’s exceptional concepts and the way in which those ideas are presented.

The Heath brothers have created another extraordinary book with The Power of Moments and I am again evangelizing about the value of what they have to say. I love the way they write. There is an easy and natural humor in these pages that has been in all the books they’ve written. The subject matter can be substantive without being tedious, pedantic or dry in its presentation. Actually, that is one of the central themes of this book – creating memorable moments – peaks.

Creating a peak has four essential elements, although not every peak may have all four. They are Elevation, Pride, Insight and Connection. Peaks will have one or more of these elements. One of the hallmarks of a Chip and Dan Heath book is the well researched case studies explained in an engaging and memorable way. Presenting these elements through real life stories well told is one of the true delights of reading this book.

From the first paragraph on page one, they demonstrate how one powerful moment of recognition can lead to the creation of powerful moments that are intentionally created to be life changing. Two guys are sitting in a pub watching National Signing Day on ESPN in 2000. Not any two guys, two educators running a start-up charter school called YES Prep in Houston. Their “aha moment” came when they asked themselves why there wasn’t similar excitement around academic achievement, not just sports. And then they answered their own question by creating Senior Signing Day at their school where the faculty, all the students and senior’s family members gathered in the auditorium (later moved to the arena at Rice University) to watch seniors march across the stage to “reveal” what college they would be attending after graduation.

There are so many wonderful examples of how the ordinary can become the extraordinary with some creative thought and a change of perspective. The Hillsdale High School “Trial of Human Nature” is such an inspired idea. One of the standout concepts in that chapter is the recognition that the process of education can seem like an endless practice without a culmination (See: All Practice, No Game?). Unlike sports, where you practice toward the goal of playing a competitive game with a definitive outcome, academic study is a process that goes on and on with few peaks to provide a payback for the effort. The annual “Trial of Human Nature” has become a peak – for the students, teachers and other members of the community.Read More

Filed Under: Good Books, New Ideas Tagged With: Chip Heath, Dan Heath, Donors Choose, education, innovation, Peaks, Power of Moments, YES Prep

by Catherine Read

The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class

Sum of Small Things (Sept. 2017) The aspirational class members make decisions and establish norms that have far more pernicious outcomes for society than did previous leisure-class consumerism. Rather than buying silver spoons and going on long holidays, their investments in education, health, retirement, and parenting ensure the reproduction of status (and often wealth too) for their offspring in a way that no material good can. Through this reproduction of cultural capital and its trappings we see the emergence of what Charles Murray has called the “New Upper Class” and “New Lower Class,” which is not simply an economic divide, but is also a deep cultural divide that has never existed with such distinction as it does today.

I see an emerging body of work from various sources that have common threads running through them pointing to this same conclusion. J.D. Vance, in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, describes his dawning realization that the other students around him at Yale Law School knew things about how the world worked that he had no idea about. The world in which those other students lived might be located in the United States, but it was a world way from where Vance grew up in the economically depressed Middletown, Ohio.

The author, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, is a social scientist who has taken a great deal of research, data and anecdotal information and weaved it into a highly readable book meant for the general public. I applaud both the rigorous academic research necessary to formulate credible theories and also the academic who can then take that information and make it digestible for non-academic consumption. In order to talk about the bigger issues, we all have to understand the concepts and have a shared vocabulary to do so.

The book begins with the well known research and writing of Thorstein Veblen around the “conspicuous consumption” of the “leisure class.” She then walks us through the evolution of mass production and the democratization of consumer purchasing that removed the status symbols and brands that formerly marked the elite. What has replaced it is “inconspicuous consumption” among those with economic means to have more choices.

Conspicuous consumption among the rich has been replaced by “inconspicuous consumption”—spending on nonvisible, highly expensive goods and services that give people more time and, in the long term, shape life chances. These include education, health care, child care, and labor-intensive services like nannies, gardeners, and housekeepers.

I found the examination of breast-feeding to be particularly illuminating. That particular topic fits within the larger scope of “intensive mothering,” which is also part of this “inconspicuous consumption” that I have seen evolve in my lifetime. Without mandated paid leave benefits in this country for new mothers, women in better paying professional careers with companies that voluntarily provide those benefits have options in their parenting choices that other women simply don’t have.

As the journalist Hannah Rosen calculates, “Let’s say a baby feeds seven times a day and then a couple more times at night. That’s nine times for about a half hour each, which adds up to more than half of a working day, every day, for at least six months. This is why, when people say that breast-feeding is ‘free,’ I want to hit them with a two-by-four. It’s only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.

Those with the economic means to have choices, are choosing to invest in the future of their children. That leaves behind those families without the economic means to have choices, and creates this widening gap of cultural differences that carry over from one generation to the next.

Having economic means to make a wider range of choices has also given rise to what Currid-Halkett terms “conspicuous production.” From organic vegetables at farmers markets, to the artisanal farm to cup production of Intelligentsia Coffee, cultural capital is created in the choices we make. Where Starbucks made its fortune in bringing luxury to the masses, Intelligentsia makes its (smaller) fortune proclaiming its rarity. What drives the economic model in paying more for a product or service is how that feeds our personal narrative about who we are, what our priorities are, and how we see the world. Consumers’ desire for these less ostentatious forms of consumption is crucial to conspicuous production’s success.

There are themes in this book that intersect with those of Dream Hoarders by Brookings Senior Fellow Richard V. Reeves. That’s why I see this emerging body of work around cultural and economic issues as providing various threads that woven together give us a clearer picture of where we are and potentially where we are headed. There was even a reference in this book to The Primates of Park Avenue, which also looks at many of these same issues from a very different narrative perspective. Awareness is the first step in having a productive discussion about wealth gaps, education gaps, the lack of true social mobility and what seems to be the shrinking of America’s middle class.

This book is a good read. It will likely make you more self aware about your own lifestyle choices, along with heightening your awareness about the choices of those around you. It’s a fascinating look at the times we are living in.

Filed Under: Good Books, New Ideas, Women Tagged With: Aspirational Class, Conspicuous Consumption, Currid-Halkett, education, Intelligentsia Coffee, Middle Class, paid leave, Wealth Gap

by Catherine Read

Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship

Reading with Patrick (Aug 2017) Maybe a record of someone’s private thoughts is worthless anywhere. Certainly in jail — contraband is worth more. But I wondered if it was especially worthless in the Delta, where a calm place to read was hard to come by; where there wasn’t a bookstore for a hundred miles and families couldn’t afford a book, anyhow; and where a teacher once burst into my classroom to scold me for having the kids write about the death of a classmate, not wanting them to feel sympathy for him.

I love this book so much. As Patrick would say, “It’s real.”

Michelle Kuo has gifted to this world such an extraordinary testimony — both hers and Patrick Browning’s.

It’s a beautiful literary work that is full of thought and introspection. It is a meditation on the great questions of the human experience and how books and writing and poetry impact how we see our world.

All that beauty is wrapped around the gritty reality of rural poverty, racism, history denied, mass incarceration, failed education policies, despair, addiction and violence. And yet – there is also faith, family, resilience and love.

This story of how a daughter of Taiwanese immigrant parents, born and raised in Michigan and educated at Harvard, ended up in the Mississippi Delta teaching at an alternative school, has more plot twists than you can imagine. Only this is no work of fiction. It’s an extraordinary personal journey.

I feel inadequate to the task of reviewing this book. There is not a “genre” for this kind of non-fiction literature. It weaves the well researched history of racism and poverty in rural Helena, Arkansas, together with the writings of Leo Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass and the poetry of Yeats, Tennyson, Whitman and Emily Dickinson. Ms. Kuo and Patrick explore Haiku together day after day in a jail visitors room. She has him write letters – to his daughter and to the man he killed. Those things may seem to be incongruous on their face, but it’s about the transformative power of words, ideas and the experience of those before us to help us see who we are.

“Bad conditions could impel one to leave, but they could also sap one’s strength to go.” I found so much in these pages that resonated. I felt the struggle of the place, of the people, and the determination of this teacher to help Patrick to find in himself the things he could not see.

I highly recommend this book to every reader as it a story deeply rooted in the power of education to change lives.

Filed Under: Good Books Tagged With: education, Good Books, Helena Arkansas, Injustice System, Jail, Mentoring, Michelle Kuo, Patrick Browning, Poetry, racism, Reading, Rural Poverty

by Catherine Read

Something Must Be Done about Prince Edward County

Prince Edward CountyThis book is about finding a way forward through reconciliation. Kristen Green writes a compelling book about a tragic and terrible part of Virginia’s history. There are many Virginians who don’t know the story of what happened in Prince Edward County or that plaintiffs from Moton High School were part of the Brown v. Board of Education case decided by the Supreme Court in 1954 that declared school segregation to be unconstitutional.

The author discovered that her grandfather was instrumental in the massive resistance movement that closed all the public schools and created a whites only private academy. Black school children were shut out of getting a public education from 1959 to 1964 while Green’s own parents attended the private all white academy funded by “tuition grants” paid out of county tax money. Her own education and that of her brothers was also in that same private academy. Her sense of guilt and her search for meaning is palpable throughout the entire book. I believe that in researching and writing this book, she is engaging in an act of atonement.

For those who have seen the Civil Rights memorial at the Virginia State Capitol, just a short distance from the Governor’s Mansion, you will recognize the name Barbara Johns who led a student walkout at Moton High School in 1951. The former Robert Russa Moton High School is now a Civil Rights Museum in Farmville – the only Civil Rights museum in Virginia. Quite ironically, the only Vice-Presidential debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence will be held at Longwood University on Oct. 4th, just down the street from the Moton Museum.

The additional twist? That Civil Rights monument at the state capitol honoring Barbara Johns and acknowledging what happened in Prince Edward County was unveiled in 2008 by then Governor Tim Kaine.Read More

Filed Under: Blogging, Good Books, Virginia Tagged With: education, History, racism, Schools, Virginia

by Catherine Read

Hillbilly Elegy – J.D. Vance

Hillbilly ElegyI wouldn’t have believed this young man of 31 could have such wisdom to impart to the world. But he does. It’s a book for this time we live in, for this contentious political atmosphere, for this generation struggling to find their path forward into the future.

J.D. Vance’s memoir makes a lot more sense to me because I recently read Dreamland: The True Story of America’s Opiate Epidemic written by Sam Quinones. His mother’s drug addiction follows the arc of an opiate epidemic that began in “pill mills” in Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia after the powerful prescription drug OxyContin hit the market in 1996. The author was 12 years old at the time.

His Mamaw and Papaw who grew up in eastern Kentucky ended up in Middletown, Ohio, following the steel industry’s recruitment of workers from that region post WWII. Married at the ages of 14 and 17, they had a tumultuous marriage that was exacerbated by his Papaw’s alcoholism. While his mother’s home life and that of her siblings was chaotic, his grandparents ended up providing what little stability J.D. had in his young life. His mother’s addiction and her string of five husbands and constant relationship partners created chaos in his own life that overshadowed everything else. Combined with a town whose economy was in decline, his future seemed bleak. He credits his Mamaw with supporting him in a way that made it possible for him to see a future that wasn’t evident as he was growing up in such difficult circumstances.

This is a well written book that is searingly honest and profoundly self aware. It resonated with me. I understand the family chaos and the impact that it carries from one generation to another. While my family doesn’t quite fit the “hillbilly” mold, I recognize these people in his life.

I think the description of the book is accurate: part personal story, part sociological analysis and some keen observations about what social policies and government programs can and cannot do. It’s well written and I was captivated by what J.D. Vance has to say. Ultimately, he is an optimist as well as a realist. I wish I could put this book into the hands of every high school student in the country. There is some real truth telling here.

Filed Under: Blogging, Good Books, Political Tagged With: education, JD Vance, Ohio, Personal Responsibility, public policy, social programs

by Catherine Read

Community Schools – Kevin J. Hickerson, FEA President

(Aug. 1, 2016) Catherine Read talks with Kevin J. Hickerson, President of the Fairfax Education Association, on his first day in the role. He will serve a three year term as president, after teaching English/Special Education at Chantilly High School for 13 years. Mr. Hickerson has identified the development of community schools as one of his primary goals in his tenure as FEA President.

There are over 5,000 community schools in US and it is based on solid research and an evidence based model. Community Schools are NOT charter schools. They are public schools that provide coordinated services to students and their families that impact the ability of children to thrive in a classroom setting. Restorative Justice is also one of the important pillars to this educational model. The new “Every Student Succeeds Act” ESSA provides $2.4 billion annually for community schools across the country (http://GetESSARight.org), yet Virginia does not have one single Community School.

The slides used in this broadcast came from a panel at NetRoots Nation 2016 in St. Louis, MO, “The Real Progressive Solution: How the Community School Model Supports Students and Revitalizes Entire Neighborhoods.” Jitu Brown, Jane Quinn of the Children’s Aid Society, Eric Brown, and Kyle Serrette of the NEA, provided substantive and compelling information about the success of community schools around the country. http://nea.org/communityschools

Community Schools have been a turning point for schools in decline, particularly in places like Kentucky, where they have over 800 community schools. Kentucky schools ranked 48th in the nation in 1998 and is now ranked 27th. The statistics from specific schools around the country show how failing schools can be turned around by changing the model. http://communityschools.org

Kevin Hickerson intends to pursue the implementation of the community school model here in the Fairfax County Public School System, specifically to address the needs that are evident in the county’s 40 Title I schools. The focus on education needs to take a “whole child” approach that includes addressing the connection between what happens outside the classroom to what is happening inside the classroom.

Filed Under: Blogging, Inside Scoop, TV Shows, Virginia Tagged With: Catherine Read, Children's Aid Society, Community Schools, education, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Fairfax Education Association, Kevin Hickerson

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Catherine S. Read
I believe in the power of community and the ability of one person to make a difference.

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