Hurricane Katrina’s Lesson for Montebello
What lesson for
Montebello do you find in the following article?
Post-Katrina Education Problems Linger
Two years after
Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast,thousands of displaced students
and millions of dollars in unfunded school reconstruction projects still
plague the region, a new report from the Atlanta-based Southern Education
Foundation finds, http://www.sefatl.org/
.
Described as the
first comprehensive, independent assessment of
education along the Gulf Coast since the storm, the report, Education
After Katrina (35 pages, PDF), found that only 2 percent of the government's
hurricane-related funding went toward education recovery.
And while the hurricane caused $6.2 billion in damages related to
educational needs, only $1.2 billion in federal funding has been committed
to restoring physical structures and property.
…
Based on an analysis
of government data, school records, and private surveys, the report urges
the federal government to adopt a "new response" to restoring
public education in the region. Many members of Congress agree with that
assessment. ...
Others,
however, urged caution. "[To resolve the situation] means doing a full
assessment of what the childcare centers, preschools, and K-12 schools need
to restore themselves," said Steve Suitts, the foundation's program
director and author of the report. "That's a lot different from
throwing a few million dollars into a bill as it's going through the
hopper."
Byrd, Sheila.
"Post-Katrina Education Problems Linger."
Associated Press,
8/29/07, as reprinted in Philanthropy News Digest, September 4, 2007.
If
you answer the multiple-choice questions below and e-mail to lessonanswers@mymontebello.com
with “Lesson answers” in the subject field, you will be credited toward
a “certificate of recognition in community affairs” to be awarded in
2007 by a local nonprofit organization.
1. Two years after Hurricane Katrina, where is there still a gap
in rebuilding?
(a) Education for
students.
(b) Health care for the
public.
2. What is the lesson for Montebello?
(a) If a disaster were to befall us, we should insist on our own
priorities and timetable for spending Federal dollars earmarked for
rebuilding.
(b) We should identify
resources which could be and would be tapped to enable our community to
function as much as possible, without regard to whether Federal help would
be coming.
Gatekeepers
They Are, Sleepers Are We, Part 4
“Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes?” is a Latin phrase
variously
translated as "Who will guard the guards?", "Who watches the
watchmen?", "Who shall watch the watchers themselves?", or
similar.
Decimus
Iunius Iuvenalis,
known
in English as “Juvenal,” was a Roman poet
active
in the late first and early second century CE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juvenal
In part 1 we learned
that a “gatekeeper” could be an adult adviser to a youth club and that
the gatekeeper’s personal limitations, caused by her / himself or by
others, could harm youth. Such
harm would come mostly through missed opportunities for education, skills
demonstration or recognition. In
parts 2 and 3 we looked at examples of missed opportunities in Montebello.
Unfortunately, the
problem pervades our society.
Have you ever applied
for a grant? A grant making
foundation’s ability to help the community is only as good as its
staff’s knowledge, experience, and creativity.
In other words, you could put a stunning innovation into a grant
proposal, only to be stunned by the rejection by the foundation.
Foundation staff have limitations, and those limitations affect who
gets a grant, and that in turn affects the quality of life in a community.
University professors
are paid well, but from a community’s perspective, are generally unhelpful
gatekeepers. I had a
conversation in May, 2006, with the service-learning scholar-elect of the
California State University, at which time he told me that part of his job
was to educate professors about service-learning, that is, community service
tied to coursework, in the hope that more of them participate.
Why would professors ignore service-learning?
Because nobody ever planted a strong community spirit in them—just
as nobody is doing so in our youth today—and nobody is requiring that they
become involved with the community. We
could consider universities a major underutilized resource at a time when we
need to tap the potential of all resources.
Here is a gatekeeper
problem with which we are painfully familiar:
managers filtering information from staff. An example: FBI
management’s mishandling of reports from agents with regard to suspicious
activities in the United States prior to September 11, 2001.
If we were to think that the creation of the Department of Homeland
Security would have eliminated this problem, we would be putting our
communities, families, and ourselves at risk.
Last week, I
commuinicated with Pi Sigma Delta, the national political-science
fraternity, because there was an idea, on my computer, for citizen-centered,
nonlegislative campaign reform which might have a large, positive effect on
our democracy. The newsletter
editor of Pi Sigma Delta, a professor at North Carolina State University,
said that there was no room in the fall newsletter and that the fraternity
did not do e-mail blasts. So,
potentially far-reaching ideas can be quashed by perfunctory policies.
Have you thought of the
Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) as a gatekeeper?
When we have a complaint about a telephone company, we might contact
the FCC. The FCC decides
whether to pursue our complaint. What
is of concern to me—and, hopefully, to you—is that a thousand people
might have similar complaints, but none of them would know of each other’s
complaint, because the FCC does not enable the public to organize and pursue
a solution.
Back to Montebello.
Soon there is to be an event. The
organizer, at his expense, invited different organizations to be admitted
for free to the event in order to meet people and raise money for
themselves. The invitation was
by e-mail and was ignored by the president of one organization.
But because I sent the invitation to somebody whom I knew in the
organization, the other officers found out and wanted to participate.
How many times, whether we know it or not, are we stopped by a
gatekeeper, when the people on the other side of the gate want what we
offer?
I think that we have a
good idea of the problem posed by gatekeepers.
Is there anything which we can do about the problem?
Announcements
FOR YOUTH, TEACHERS, PARENTS. Local
scholarship money and prize money. Essay contest for fourth, eighth, and twelve graders as part of
Montebello’s first annual Hispanice heritage month celebration.
$1,000 awarded at each of these grade levels.
Essay deadline is Tuesday, September 18.
Also, $500 school-spirit prize to be awarded for the most
students and guests displaying positive spirit at the celebration.
The celebration takes place at Montebello City Park on Saturday,
September 29. For details
for these two contests, start by calling 323.887.1373.
FOR EVERYONE. Police-awards
luncheon. “Above and
Beyond—in the Line of Duty” 2007 awards luncheon, Thursday, September,
20, 2007, 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Quiet Cannon, 901 Via San Clemente,
Montebello, California. Honoring
recipients of the Medal of Valor, Medal of Courage, Medal of Merit, Purple
Heart, Life Saving Medal, and meritorious citations.
Check-in begins at 11 a.m. Advance
purchase only, prior to September 17, 2007.
$25 per person. For
ticket information, contact Alice Aguilar, 323.887.1287.
FOR
EVERYONE. Honoring one of our
own. On
Friday, September 21, at 6:00 p.m. at the Quiet Cannon in Montebello, 901
Via San Clemente, Montebello Soroptimist will have the privilege and honor
of hosting a wonderful gala in celebration of Elaine Kirchner’s 90th
birthday. To read about Elaine
and what the Montebello Soroptimists are doing, go to “A Local Legacy”
at www.mymontebello.com/best_tc_all
. Please contact Veronica Diaz
for more information regarding the gala, 323.887.4581.
FOR EVERYONE. The
health fair is here! Montebello
Town Center, Saturday, September 22, and Sunday, September 23. Admission is free. There
will be a variety of exhibitors, including hospitals, the YMCA, senior
services, housing experts, travel agents, banks, and many local businesses.
There will be speakers, too. Because
of the effort by a Montebello businesswoman and her team in organizing this
large event, extensive detail about the event can be found at www.mymontebello.com/best_tc_tyh
.
FOR TEACHERS. Global
quiz by MSNBC. Excellent
quiz—and source material for lessons—for high schoolers on the modern
world. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19337909/site/newsweek/
Fun Fact about the Mona Lisa
The Mona
Lisa has no eyebrows, because shaved eyebrows were a fad at the time.
http://www.fun-facts.com/item/71545
The
Flashback Quarterback: “My Head Hurts”
Whom to believe?
1. At the CBS News Web
site, there is a report by the CBS partner Web MD about a study published in
the September, 2007, edition of Pediatrics:
Kids
who watch more than two hours of television per day may be more likely than
other children to have attention problems as teens.
But note what Web MD
says later in the report:
…The
study doesn't prove that TV wrecks children's attention.
Yet, the Web MD report
ends like this:
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which
publishes the journal Pediatrics, recommends that children younger than 2
get no "screen time," which includes TV and videos. The AAP also
advises limiting older kids to no more than two hours of quality TV and
videos per day.
2.
From the newspaper Roma One, September 3, 2007, translation below:
… I RISCHI DELL' ELETTROSMOG - I dati forniti
dall'Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanità evidenziano una correlazione fra
l'esposizione prolungata a campi elettrici e magnetici e l'incremento del
numero dei casi di alcune patologie tumorali e, in particolare, delle
leucemie infantili.
The risks of “electrosmog” [here is a word which we do not use
in American
English] – Data furnished by the World Health
Organization show a correlation between prolonged exposure to
electric and magnetic fields and an increase in the number of cases
of certain tumorous pathologies, in particular infantile leukemia.
And in
America we have been told that electromagnetic fields have not been proven
to cause harm?
Whom do we believe in the two examples above? Our health depends on having accurate information.
Remember the suggestion as to how we could get accurate information?
About
Montebello E-News and “My Montebello”
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learn about this newsletter, Montebello E-News, and the accompanying,
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