Loading
AmeriCorps Montgomery

"locals serving locals for 23 years."

Posts by Paul Costello1

Gov. Wes Moore’s prepared remarks upon his inauguration as the 63rd governor of Maryland

January 26, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

Gov. Wes Moore was sworn in as Maryland’s 63rd governor and first Black executive shortly after noon on Wednesday. These are his remarks, as prepared before the ceremony, though the newly minted governor took liberty to ad-lib during his first address.

Good morning, Maryland, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you for the honor you have bestowed upon me and Aruna.

President Ferguson, Speaker Jones, and Members of the Maryland General Assembly, thank you, all. It’s an honor to be your partner.

To all the state workers, and all who organized this inauguration, thank you. It’s an honor to be your colleague.

And to Governor Hogan: We are grateful for the kindness you, and your team, have shown throughout this transition. Thank you for your eight years of service to the state we both love.

To my friend Oprah Winfrey — a Maryland girl at heart — thank you for your gracious and generous introduction. And thank you for always being in my corner.

To my wife, Dawn, our daughter, Mia, and our son, James, you are my heart, my soul, and my everything.

As I stand here today, looking out over Lawyers’ Mall, at the memorial to Justice Thurgood Marshall, it’s impossible not to think about our past and our path.

We are blocks away from the Annapolis docks, where so many enslaved people arrived in this country against their will. And we are standing in front of a capitol building built by their hands.

We have made uneven and unimaginable progress since then. It is a history created by generations of people whose own history was lost, stolen, or never recorded. And it is a shared history – our history – made by people who, over the last two centuries, regardless of their origin story to Maryland, fought to build a state, and a country, that works for everybody.

There are two people who embody that spirit sitting right here, in the front row. Two extraordinary women named Hema and Joy.

Hema came to this country from India; Joy from Jamaica. They immigrated to America with hope in their hearts, not just for themselves, but for future generations.

Today, they are sitting here at the inauguration of their children as the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the state that helped to welcome them.

To Aruna’s mother, Hema… and to my mom, Joy… you epitomize everything special about this state; You are proof that in Maryland, anything is possible.

Now yes, Aruna’s and my portraits are going to look a little different from the ones we’ve always seen in the capitol. But that’s not the point. This journey has never been about “making history.” It is about marching forward.

Today is not an indictment of the past; it’s a celebration of our future.

And today is our opportunity to begin a future so bright, it is blinding.

But only if we are intentional, inclusive, and disciplined in confronting challenges, making hard choices, and seizing the opportunity in front of us.

Our state is truly remarkable. From my birthplace of Montgomery County… to my adoptive home of Baltimore City…From the sandy beaches of the Eastern Shore… to the rolling hills of Western Maryland… and everywhere in between.

Maryland is home to spectacular natural beauty, dynamic industries, and people as talented as they are determined.

But…the truth is: Maryland is asset-rich and strategy-poor.

And for too long, we have left too many people behind.

We know it is unacceptable that while Maryland has the highest median income in the country, one in eight of our children lives in poverty.

We know it is unacceptable that in the home of some of the best medical institutions on the planet, that more than 250,000 Marylanders lack healthcare coverage.

We’ve been asked to accept that some of us must be left behind. That in order for some to win, others must lose.

And not only that: We have come to expect that the people who have always lost… will keep losing.

Well, we must refuse to accept that.

Instead, I am asking you to believe that Maryland can be different.

That Maryland can be bold.

That Maryland can lead.

It is time for our policies to be as bold as our aspirations—and to confront the fact that we have been offered false choices.

We do not have to choose between a competitive economy and an equitable one.

Maryland should not be 43rd in unemployment, or 44th in the cost of doing business.

We should not tolerate an 8-to-1 racial wealth gap, not because it hurts certain groups, but because it prevents all of us from reaching our full potential.

We can attract and retain top industries, like aerospace, clean energy, and cybersecurity… and raise our minimum wage to $15 an hour to help folks feed their families.

Maryland can reward entrepreneurs who take bold risks… and provide stability for families in need.

This can be the best state in America to be an employer and an employee.

It shouldn’t be a choice — and it isn’t a choice. The path forward requires us to do these things together.

Now, here’s another false choice we often hear: That people must choose between feeling safe in their own communities, and feeling safe in their own skin.

Over the last eight years, the rate of violent crime has risen. Many Marylanders have grown weary in their faith in government’s ability to keep them safe.

We can build a police force that moves with appropriate intensity and absolute integrity and full accountability, and embrace the fact that we can’t militarize ourselves to safety.

We can support our first responders who risk everything to protect us, and change the inexcusable fact that Maryland incarcerates more Black boys than any other state.

We will work with communities from West Baltimore to Westminster to share data so we can keep violent offenders off our streets. And we can welcome people who have earned a second chance back to our communities.

I know what it feels like to have handcuffs on my wrists. It happened to me when I was 11 years old. I also know what it’s like to mourn the victims of violent crime.

We do not have to choose between a safe state and a just state. Maryland can, and will, be both.

We are often told climate change is a problem for the future, or something you only have to worry about if you live on farmland or in a flood zone.

But climate change is an existential threat for our entire state, and it is happening now.

Confronting climate change represents another chance for Maryland to lead. We can be a leader in wind technology, in grid electrification, and clean transit.

We will protect our Chesapeake Bay, and address the toxic air pollution that chokes our cities. And we will put Maryland on track to generate 100 percent clean energy by 2035 — creating thousands of jobs in the process.

Clean energy will not just be part of our economy; clean energy will define our economy.

This requires everyone — companies, communities, state and local governments, and the people — to take bold and decisive action, together.

And importantly, we do not have to choose between giving our children an excellent education and an equitable one.

We will ensure that every student knows their state loves, and needs them — and we will create policies to help them thrive.

We will invest in our special education students, our English language learners, our LGBTQIA+ students, students experiencing homelessness, and every kid who needs a little extra help.

We will see to it that mental and behavioral health challenges do not prevent our children from getting the education they need and deserve.

And while Maryland is home to some of the world’s greatest institutions of higher education — a fact of which we should be very proud — we must end the myth that young people must attend one of them to be successful.

Every student in Maryland will know that there are many paths to success and fulfillment — and those paths begin with high-quality, highly inclusive schools from Pre-K to 12th grade.

My own journey started in military school, where I learned one of my core values: Service. I went on to lead soldiers in Afghanistan.

My years of service transformed me. My character was strengthened, my vistas were widened, my leadership was tested.

I want every young Marylander, of every background, in every community, to have the opportunity to serve our state. That is why we will offer a service year option for all high school graduates.

A year of service will prepare young people for their careers — and provide our state with future leaders: public servants we desperately need.

The challenges we face will require us to answer the call of service. To join the ranks of our teachers and our firefighters, our police officers and our civil servants, our nurses, and union members.

You’ve elected me to serve as your Governor, but the work, will be done together. Now there will be skeptics, who will say that we cannot rise above the toxic partisanship we see all too often in today’s politics, where people care more about where the idea came from than is it a good idea. Those voices told me at the beginning of my campaign, “You don’t understand how politics works.” To them I said and I say, “We must govern on big principles instead of petty differences.”

To them I said and I say, we must form broad coalitions that bring people together rather than scare them.  I said and I say, the urgency of the moment demands a different way of serving the people.

While I led paratroopers, do you know what question I never asked my soldiers, what’s your political party?

I will govern the same way: For all Marylanders. For those who did not vote for me, I will work to earn your support; for those who did, I will work to keep it.

Now, to work together, it means we must also get to know each other again. To come together across lines of difference –– both real and perceived –– to build uncommon coalitions.

Because the simple fact is we need each other; we all have a role to play.

And that’s the lesson from generations before us.  We are being called on to come together so we can march forward.

“And let us march on til victory is won.“

But understanding that today is not the victory –– today is the opportunity.

An opportunity to lead with love. An opportunity To create with compassion. An opportunity  To fight fearlessly for our future.

Maryland: our time is now. Our time is now to build a state that those who came before us fought for, a state that leaves no one behind.

That is not a slogan; it is a fulfillment of a hope.

It’s our time, Maryland. Let’s lead.

Thank you.

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2023/01/18/read-gov-wes-moores-prepared-remarks-upon-his-inauguration-as-the-63rd-governor-of-maryland/

Wes Moore to be sworn in as Md. governor on Frederick Douglass’s Bible

January 26, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

By Joe Heim

Wes Moore’s left hand will rest on history Wednesday when he takes the oath of office and becomes Maryland’s first Black governor and only the third Black governor elected in the history of the United States.

Underneath his palm as he swears to “bear true allegiance to the State of Maryland, and support the Constitution and Laws thereof” will be a Bible that once belonged to Frederick Douglass, a Marylander born into slavery who later escaped to freedom and became a leading voice of abolition and an enduring champion of equality and justice he never saw fully realized.

Moore, who describes himself as a student of Douglass, said including the Douglass Bible in the ceremony would deliver symbolic heft to the day but that he had no idea whether it would even be possible to arrange. The moment the Democratic governor-elect learned the National Park Service had approved his request was “breathtaking,” Moore said in an interview Friday.

“I’m not just an admirer, but someone who is a true connoisseur of his life, of his teachings, of his writings,” Moore said. “And I’ve wondered what he would think about this moment, particularly with his life, with his sacrifice, with his frustrations.”

Moore, a political newcomer who ran for governor on a pledge to “leave no one behind” and a platform of ending child poverty and broadening economic opportunity for all Marylanders, said he believes Douglass would be proud of the state for achieving a goal that seemed out of reach when Douglass was alive. But he also said the venerated anti-slavery activist, who called on America to live up to its promises of freedom and equality, would not take satisfaction that the work was complete.

In Md., Black people poised to occupy four critical positions of power

“I think he would caution that the swearing in and the inauguration is not the task,” Moore said. “It’s a powerful statement that the state made. But if you don’t do anything with this moment and you don’t do anything with the statement, then you’ve missed the point.”

The well-worn Bible, embossed with “Frederick Douglass” on the front, is part of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site museum collection, cared for by the National Park Service. For the swearing in ceremony, it will be in a specially designed protective container held by Moore’s wife, Dawn. Only the new governor’s hand will touch it.

The Bible was a gift to Douglass in 1889 from the congregation of Washington’s Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest Black churches in the District. It was presented to Douglass as he prepared to travel to Haiti, where he would serve as President Benjamin Harrison’s U.S. resident minister and consul general until July 1891, according to information provided by the Park Service.

“The history of Frederick Douglass’s Bible transcends his work in the United States, and it encompasses an additional window into understanding his international battle for equal rights,” said Aaron Treadwell, an assistant pastor at Metropolitan AME Church from 2013 to 2017 and now an assistant professor of history at Middle Tennessee State University.

The Bible, Treadwell said, “ was thought to be a tool of protection in his international travels, but it also was a symbol to warrant his inclusion in the fight for uplift in Haiti.”

David W. Blight, a history professor at Yale and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom” said he thinks Douglass “would be deeply honored” by Moore’s decision to take the oath of office on his Bible.

“Though Douglass’s actual personal faith changed over time, he never, ever stopped using the Bible,” Blight said. “Especially the Old Testament, especially for wisdom, for storytelling, and literally for quote after quote after quote.”

Blight noted that Douglass professed a deep love for Maryland, even though he had spent his youth enslaved there. After escaping slavery in 1838 and fleeing north to freedom, Douglass wouldn’t return to Maryland until after the passage of a new constitution in Maryland that banned slavery in 1864.

Once slavery was banned, Blight said, “Douglass announced, ‘I am going back to Baltimore, to the soil of my birth, to the free state of Maryland.’ And he did. He went back to Fells Point. And he spoke at the Bethel AME Church, which is one of the places he had worshiped as [an enslaved]teenager.”

Md. Democrats are set to rule Annapolis. Here’s what you need to know.

Moore, who was born in Takoma Park and now lives in Baltimore, finds a source of strength in Douglass’s deep ties to his home state.

“No matter where he went, not just around the country but around the world, he always was a proud Marylander,” Moore said. “And there is a beauty to that, to have such a love and such a fondness for a place and space that never, never during his lifetime really understood or cherished his value.”

Douglass’s Bible isn’t the only one Moore is bringing to Wednesday’s ceremony. He also will have his grandfather’s Bible, which his children will hold during the swearing-in ceremony. If Douglass’s Bible represents Maryland and the nation’s journey from slavery to freedom to leadership, Moore’s grandfather’s Bible is for him a more personal but no less important reminder of the Black American experience.

James Thomas, Moore’s grandfather on his mother’s side, was born in South Carolina to parents who had come to America from Jamaica. But the family returned to Jamaica after his great-grandfather, a minister, was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan, Moore said.

Though scared away from America, Moore said, his grandfather wanted to return because it was the land of his birth and he felt he belonged here. As a teenager, James Thomas did come back to the United States and attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.

He later moved to New York, where he eventually became the first Black minister in the Reformed Church in America, Moore said. After Moore’s father died when Moore was a young boy, his mother moved the family to New York to live with her parents, and that’s where Moore forged a deep bond with his grandfather and his grandfather’s faith.

“I love his Bible because it is literally a workbook,” Moore said. “It has tape that holds it together. There is writing all over it. Literally questions that he’s asking. And I love it because it always gives me a sense of how he thinks.”

Thomas died in late 2005 while Moore was serving in the Army in Afghanistan. The idea that his Bible will be part of the swearing-in ceremony would make his grandfather proud, Moore said, but, like Douglass, he would not have a sense that the job was done. Moore thinks that as the first Black clergy member of the Reformed Church, his grandfather could give him advice on being the first Black governor of Maryland. And he thinks he knows what that advice would be.

“While he was a first, he did not want that to be the thing that people remembered most, and I think I very much approach it the same way,” Moore said. “I’m cognizant of the fact that I am first in the state of Maryland and one of less than a handful in this country’s history. But I think that when it’s time for me to pass the baton on, I want that to be something mentioned as an afterthought. So that we talk about all the work that got done and, oh, by the way, he was the first Black governor in the history of Maryland.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/14/maryland-governor-moore-frederick-douglass/

Montgomery County youth overdoses increased 77% in 2022

January 26, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

By Nicole Asbury.  Washington Post Jan 22 2023

Officials are warning of the dangers of opioids — specifically fentanyl — after a 15-year-old student recently died of a suspected overdose

A 15-year-old Montgomery County Public Schools student is the latest young person to die of an overdose, county officials said this week, prompting warnings to students and families about the dangers of opioid use, particularly fentanyl.

Youth overdoses — which include those by people under the age of 21 — spiked in the D.C. suburb in 2022, rising 77 percent. There were 48 youth overdoses last year, 11 of which were fatal, according to data from the Montgomery County Police Department.

In 2021, there were 27 reported youth overdoses; five were fatal.

The overdose numbers among young people are similar to those in other local jurisdictions, including Prince George’s and Prince William counties, where police and school officials have alsowarned about the use of illicit drugs by this age group. Prince George’s County Public Schools started a countywide education campaign earlier this school year, after three students died of suspected overdoses.

“Every time a parent in our community loses a child, I feel it twice — once as superintendent, and second as a parent,” Monifa B. McKnight, superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools, said during a news conference Thursday.

Officials from Montgomery County’s police department, school district, county council and state’s attorney’s office announced the rollout of a campaign to teach students and parents the pitfalls of using illegal drugs and how to find help for young people battling addiction.

McKnightadvised community members to create safe environments for young people to share what pressures they may be experiencing and why they may be seeking out substances. “We actually have to solve the problem all the way back there,” she said.

Getting that help for troubled youths is critical, said parent Elena Suarez, who shared her daughter Collette Russ’s story. Russ — who graduated from Montgomery’s Winston Churchill High School in 2019 — died of an accidental overdose when she was 19, Suarez said.

Russ was introduced to illegal drugs during a vulnerable time after experiencing sexual trauma during a spring break trip, Suarez said.

Less than two years later, on Aug. 26, 2020, Russ died after ingesting a fentanyl-laced substance.

“She was very funny; she was hysterical,” Suarez said. “I miss her laughter, her silliness, our dancing together.”

There’s a horrible stigma attached to addiction and substance users, she said. “What we need is more compassion and compassionate care and to get help for our loved ones.”

Within the county, typically, young people have mistakenly ingested fentanyl by taking counterfeit pills they believed to be Xanax, Percocet or another drug, Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones said. But a more recent trend suggests youths are intentionally buying and using straight fentanyl.

A majority of the overdose incidents that police have responded to have been at residences, Jones said, but there have been some at schools. The school system’s community engagement officers will conduct more checks in schools to prevent these incidents from occurring, Jones said. The police department is also joining with school staff in presentations to each school principal on fentanyl and opioid overdoses.

Patricia Kapunan, MCPS’s medical officer, said parents should learn how to recognize signs of substance abuse, trauma and mental health problems. All residents, she said, should learn about naloxone — a lifesaving overdose antidote — and how to administer it.

Montgomery County’s state’s attorney, John McCarthy (D), encouraged youths to call 911 if someone is overdosing, even if there are drugs in the room. He pledged to follow the good Samaritan law, which protects people assisting in an emergency overdose situation from arrest and prosecution.

“Make the call; save your friend,” he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/01/21/youth-overdoses-opioids-fentanyl-montgomery-county/

Maryland Gov.-elect Moore proposes ‘gap year’ for high school graduates

January 18, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

Gov.-elect Wes Moore picks Fagan Harris, co-founder of Baltimore Corps, as chief of staff – Baltimore Sun

FREDERICK, Md. (DC NEWS NOW) — On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Maryland’s governor-elect Wes Moore proposed graduating high school seniors take a so-called “gap year” to work in their communities on a broad range of projects.

They would be paid $15,000 and be eligible for a $6,000 college scholarship after helping with a variety of needs in urban neighborhoods and rural areas. Moore said it would bring youth from diverse racial and economic backgrounds together for a common good.

On the other hand, some say that compulsory military service may be preferred.

“These future leaders can work on the environment or serving older adults — it is their choice, but it helps address the college affordability crisis. I believe in experiential learning and this will create a pipeline into the workplace,” said Moore.Health care premiums increasing: how much more DMV residents will pay

Guy Mutchler, a Frederick resident, said he favors compulsory military service.

“It is extremely important,” he said. “It builds character. It builds discipline, and it will prepare them for the workforce.”

Iowa and California have similar programs, but they are limited to conservation projects. The Maryland General Assembly leaders indicate strong support for Gov.-elect Moore’s proposal.

4 Surprising Reads for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

January 17, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

There is much to be learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movements beyond memorable public events such as this 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, D.C.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. remains a towering figure, known around the country and the world for his civil rights activism and moving speeches. But his story is not completely written, and we still have much to learn about the man and the cause. In honor of MLK Day 2023, here are four stories from the Atlas Obscura archives that delve into often-overlooked—or long hidden—aspects of the civil rights movement, from King’s dedication to another cause to the people who supported his efforts and the government agents who surveilled them.

Each spring, the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington D.C is surrounded by Japanese cherry blossoms.
Each spring, the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington D.C is surrounded by Japanese cherry blossoms. RON COGSWELL/FLICKR

Why MLK Day Is a Big Deal in Hiroshima

Martin Luther King Jr. was also outspoken against nuclear weapons.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, thousands of Americans join parades, volunteer, or just take a few minutes to contemplate the legacy of a man devoted to peace and equality. Odds are, at least a few people in Japan do, too–thanks to a former Hiroshima mayor who was also an MLK superfan. “Hiroshima is one of the only cities outside North America to honor Martin Luther King Day,” historian Patrick Parr says. The relationship highlights a lesser-known part of King’s legacy, his anti-nuclear activism.

The Underground Kitchen That Funded the Civil Rights Movement

Georgia Gilmore’s cooking fueled Martin Luther King Jr.’s Montgomery bus boycott.

“Martin Luther King often talked about the ground crew, the unknown people who work to keep the plane in the air,” Thomas E. Jordan, pastor of the Lilly Baptist Church in Montgomery, reflected in an oral history. One of those people was Georgia Gilmore, who played a pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott by organizing an underground network of Black women who sold pound cakes, sweet potato pies, and plates of fried fish and stewed greens door-to-door to raise money. “She was not really recognized for who she was,” Jordan said, “but had it not for been people like Georgia Gilmore, Martin Luther King Jr. wouldn’t have been who he was.”

Just a few of the hundreds of thousands who attended the 1963 March on Washington.
Just a few of the hundreds of thousands who attended the 1963 March on Washington. NAID 542003 / PUBLIC DOMAIN

Sold: Papers From the Planning of the 1963 March on Washington

They tell a ground-level story of how the movement led to social change.

The study and sweep of history tends to turn real life into myth. In hindsight we imagine it unfolding in grainy footage set to a sweeping cinematic score. Such is often the case with the iconic images of the 1963 March on Washington. But documents and memos from organizers of that unforgettable day show just how much planning and attention to detail went into ensuring the success of the peaceful event. They are a surprisingly prosaic reminder of the local, personal level at which world history is made.

Peek Inside the 1977 Report Detailing FBI Misconduct While Surveilling Martin Luther King Jr.

A review of the bureau’s assassination investigation uncovered an illegal counterintelligence program.

In January 1977, FBI director Clarence M. Kelley received a much-anticipated memo from the Office of Professional Responsibility, informing him that the Martin Luther King Task Force had completed its investigation. Its work revealed the extent of the Bureau’s “surveillance and harassment” of King at the behest of J. Edgar Hoover.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mlk-day-2023?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7ed2ae8c98-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_01_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-7ed2ae8c98-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=7ed2ae8c98&mc_eid=4a729f24f9

Call for National Service

January 16, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

” The political spectrum is not a straight line. It is more like the Greek letter omega, with the left and right extremes bending toward each other. The common denominators of the hippies and the MAGA militias are a delusional pessimism about our country and a warped emphasis on individual expression — on freedom, that most seductive and dangerous of democratic principles — with no corresponding regard for responsibilities.”…

“In the end, the one thing the armies of the American left and right may have most in common is a weakness for performance art. We are the luckiest people in human history. The overwhelming majority of us — evenmany of those who have suffered the scourge of bigotry — have never experienced war or privation. And so we invent our demons. According to Mogelson, 23 percent of Republicans believe that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global sex-trafficking operation.” That could happen only in a country with too much leisure time on its hands.

The recommendations of the Jan. 6 committee’s final report are numerous and worthy — such as reform of the Electoral Count Act (since passed) and the criminal referrals of Trump and others to the Justice Department — but incomplete. There is nothing to address the nation’s viral playacting, the elitist posturing of the left and the nativism of the right. There is nothing to encourage the rigor and unity that Mailer’s generation experienced in the U.S. Army. So I wonder: Would it be too much to suggest the need for a universal boot camp as a coming-of-age experience where, under muscular duress, we might get to know each other again, followed by a requisite period of national service that is not necessarily military? Democracy demands effort and sacrifice, as well as freedom within limits, especially in a multifarious society. In our affluence, we ask nothing of substance from one another, and nothing of significance from ourselves. It is hard to imagine how a republic can be maintained under those circumstances.”

Joe Klein is the author of seven books, including “Primary Colors” and, most recently, “Charlie Mike.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/01/12/performance-protest-hippies-maga/

AmeriCorps CEO Statement on Unity through Service to Honor MLK Day

January 16, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

WASHINGTON, DC – To commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr., Day of Service, AmeriCorps CEO Michael D. Smith released the following statement:  

“Martin Luther King, Jr., Day is the only federal holiday designated as a National Day of Service to encourage all Americans to volunteer to honor the life and legacy of Dr. King by improving their communities.  

“While today may hold just one day on the calendar, we know that volunteering—even just once—can spark a lifetime of service. Helping a child learn to read could spark a lifetime passion for mentoring. Planting a community food garden could give young families their first access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Driving an older neighbor to their doctor appointments could reverse the effects of loneliness and depression.   

“When we unite in service, we have the power to reimagine and reform systems that perpetuate inequality and deny opportunity. Service takes us on a path from charity to justice and brings us one step closer to Dr. King’s vision of creating the Beloved Community—one in which no one is left behind.  

“National service programs also can help create a more level playing field, opening doors to opportunities to try new careers, develop new skills, and meet new people so that a zip code where you are born does not limit your full potential.   

“And critically, service brings us together. National service and volunteering are some of the best tools to build bridges, heal divides, and help people find common ground, so that we can remain strong against anything that tries to divide us. 

“Now is the time to unite through service and volunteering to counter the corrosive effects of hate-fueled violence on our democracy and create a shared vision for a more united America. Let us come together and find new ways to engage our communities and spark a newfound sense of belonging.  

“Even though we’re living through challenging times, I have never been more optimistic about the power and potential of service to tackle critical problems and drive more equitable solutions.  

“This MLK Day of Service, AmeriCorps and the Biden Harris Administration invite people from all corners of the country to engage with your community, volunteer your time, and act on Dr. King’s legacy of social justice and equity, today and all year through.   

“Together, we can strengthen ties to our communities and build a more united, more just future for America.” 

###

AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteerism, provides opportunities for Americans to serve their country domestically, address the nation’s most pressing challenges, improve lives and communities, and strengthen civic engagement. Each year, the agency places more than 250,000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers in intensive service roles; and empowers millions more to serve as long-term, short-term, or one-time volunteers. Learn more at AmeriCorps.gov.

AmeriCorps offers opportunities for individuals of all backgrounds to be a part of the national service community, grow personally and professionally, and receive benefits for their service. 

Suffer the teachers

January 12, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

Perspective by Robin Givhan.  Washington Post January 11 2023

Who will be left to educate this country’s children when all the teachers have had enough?

Who will remain when educators tire of picking their way through a political obstacles course of ginned-up outrage over bathrooms and manufactured controversies about racial justice? Who will be there when all the good-hearted, well-intentioned teachers finally become fed up with being lambasted by the left and the right for what amounts to simple human imperfection?

What will happen when teachers are no longer there to provide the school supplies, the warm clothing, the extra snack, the safe space, for the kids who fall through the country’s flimsy social safety net? Who will be there to notice the bruises? Or to hear the worrisome silences? Or to recognize the artist amid the engineers?

Who will educate children when teachers finally become fed up with dodging bullets — or taking bullets — in service to someone else’s child? What will happen when teachers can no longer be heroic?

These are the questions that come to mind in the days after the shooting of a teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Va. The person accused of pulling the trigger of the 9mm gun that injured Abigail Zwerner, 25, is her 6-year-old student. Police have said that the gun was lawfully purchased by the child’s mother and that the child brought it to school and that the shooting was “intentional,” which is to say that the child actually pulled the trigger and didn’t somehow drop the weapon, resulting in an indiscriminate gunshot. Beyond that, what does it even mean to say that a 6-year-old child’s act of grievous gun violence was intentional when intent can be difficult to discern in an adult, let alone a mind still in thrall to Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy?

6-year-old who allegedly shot Va. teacher used gun legally purchased by mom, police say

After the single bullet hit Zwerner in the hand and chest, she still had her students front of mind. According to the police, she ensured that they were out of harm’s way before she made her way to the front office and collapsed. “Ms. Zwerner was the last person to leave that class,” the police chief said. “She made a right turn and started down the hallway and then she stopped. She turned around to make sure every one of those students was safe.”

But how much longer can the country expect teachers to be that selfless? It’s no secret that they’re underpaid for all the duties they perform. The average public school teacher salary in the United States is about $66,000. They should be paid more. They should be paid more. They should be paid more. The country went through a brief phase of teacher worship when schools were shut down because of the pandemic and parents were left to wrangle their children on their own. After parents logged their homebound kids into virtual classrooms, they were able to bear witness to the kind of patience, calm, empathy and determination that’s required of teachers on a daily basis. Parents expressed their heightened respect for teachers. They oozed thankfulness.

And then the schools reopened. Parents quickly recovered from the shock of dealing with their own kids all day. They began to harangue teachers with a newfound gusto. They forced teachers to fend off accusations that they were teaching critical race theory when they were really just trying to get someone’s recalcitrant child to understand that racism has consequences. School boards began putting restrictions on how teachers discuss gender, in essence asking teachers to tamp down their sense of empathy and muzzle efforts at inclusion. School districts began banning books and narrowing children’s vision even as they demanded that teachers prepare students for a more complex and competitive world.

A White teacher taught White students about White privilege. It cost him his job.

The United States has lost 370,000 teachers since the start of the pandemic. And yet the teachers who remain continue to do those things that prompt police officers to call them heroic and that have parents compliment their ability to treat every student like an individual rather than an anonymous seat-filler. Teachers continue to speak up even when doing so can cost them their job for reasons that completely blindside them.

A parent at Richneck Elementary School recalled how Zwerner left notes of encouragement in her son’s backpack and noticed when he was out of sorts because of family upheaval. When three student-athletes at the University of Virginia were shot and killed in November, a professor who’d had two of them in class used social media to share stories about their good humor, intellectual curiosity and empathy. In Uvalde, Tex., teachers consoled students when law enforcement went missing. Students continue to have favorite teachers because teachers continue to form bonds with their pupils even as legislators seem intent on transforming those relationships into little more than rote transactions. Teachers persist in caring.

There are uninterested, inflexible and unprofessional teachers — same as in any field. But it does seem as though society has been making the work lives of teachers exceptionally difficult. Critics have been punching at them from all sides. The country asks public school teachers to carry this nation’s future on their backs, and then we force them to walk through a field of land mines. And as explosions go off all around them, teachers keep pressing forward because they have faith in the future.

They were college students, with all the limitless possibility that implies

When people talk about children, they have a tendency to introduce their comments with the phrase: as a parent. They say this as a way of adding heft to their opinion, as a way of announcing that they have intimate experience in the ways of children, as a way of proclaiming that they have certain inviolable rights. All of this is fair. But a non-parent’s point-of-view has importance, too. They have the capacity to see a child, not in the context of a beloved offspring and pride of the family, but as part of the broader society, as someone who will grow to be a neighbor, a colleague, a citizen.

Teachers help children make that transition in ways that parents oftentimes cannot. It may be natural that there’s friction in the relationship between parents and teachers. If a parent helps a child discover themselves, a teacher helps them figure out how that self-defined person fits into the world.

When teachers have had enough, it will all fall to pieces. And already, the teachers have suffered and endured plenty.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/10/suffer-teachers/

Building empathy in children takes practice. Parents can help.

January 5, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

Advice by Elizabeth Chang  Washington Post Jan 5th 2023

Politicians making fun of an 82-year-old man who was attacked with a hammer. Online commenters calling anti-vaxxers who died of covid-19 “stupid.” Teachers refusing to address transgender students by their chosen names.

At a time like this, it can seem to parents more urgent to promote empathy — but also more difficult. “It’s hard to have a shared morality when you don’t have a shared reality,” said Richard Weissbourd, a psychologist and senior lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Weissbourd is also director of the Making Caring Common Project, which focuses on helping parents, schools and communities raise children who care about others and the common good.

“The challenge for parents is to cultivate kids’ capacity for empathy for people who are different from them or not in their immediate circle,” Weissbourd said. “So, different in gender, different race, different class, different sexual orientation. Different in political orientation and different religious orientation.”

That doesn’t mean parents should encourage children to agree with people who don’t share their views, he noted. “They may fiercely disagree, but it is a matter of listening and trying to take other people’s perspective and valuing other people as human beings.”

Most researchers concur that there are three dimensions of empathy, according to Jamil Zaki, a Stanford University neuroscientist. “One is emotional, vicariously sharing what other people around us view. The other is cognitive, which is trying to understand what other people feel and why. And the third is compassion or empathic concern,” said Zaki, author of “The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World.”

A truly empathetic person must have all three, Weissbourd said. After all, “con men and torturers and politicians and salespeople can take other people’s perspective.” That’s why the third aspect of empathy, which he calls the moral or ethical aspect, is so essential.

So how do parents encourage their children to be proficient in all three dimensions? “I think learning empathy is like playing an instrument or learning a sport. It’s a lot about practice,” Weissbourd said.

How empathetic should your child be? Here’s an age-by-age guide.

Talk about feelings — theirs and others

One of the things parents can practice with kids is talking about and labeling emotions. This helps them recognize emotions in themselves and in others, which is probably an essential step for empathy.

It’s important that parents acknowledge and accept their child’s emotions, according to Tracy Spinrad, a professor and researcher in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University.

In fact, parenting style is key to raising empathetic kids. There is evidence “that warmth and support in parenting is predictive of children’s empathy and sympathy responses,” Spinrad said.

That could be because warm and supportive parents are more likely to raise emotionally regulated children, and there is some evidence showing that “children that are better regulated tend to be children that display more empathy and helping behavior.”

Research in the development of empathy also supports the practice of talking to children about their behavior and how it affects others and how amends might be made, rather than punishing them or forcing them into offering an apology. “We want to make sure that children’s emotional responses are coming from something internal and not something external,” she said.

Teaching kids how to understand what other people feel

Weissbourd says that the tougher work these days, especially with older children, involves understanding what other people feel and feeling compassion or empathy. “Most kids are growing up in quite politically homogeneous communities,” he said, “and there isn’t a lot of effort in schools typically — or in homes — to encourage kids to take the perspective of those who don’t share their political views.”

Practicing “cognitive empathy” — or understanding another person’s mind or what they feel — involves “having conversations that alert kids to how other people may feel in the family and outside the family in different situations,” Weissbourd said. “It’s talking about the news and having conversations with your kids about what people are experiencing in this country and other countries that might be different from them. It’s helping out neighbors and understanding neighbors who may be different in some way. It’s noticing and talking about the contributions that different people are making to kids’ lives,” including people who might not be on their radar, such as the school secretary, custodian or bus driver.

Weissbourd calls this expanding kids’ “circle of concern,” and through this approach, “we’ve increased the number and diversity of people that kids have empathy for.” A study of the effects of Facing History and Ourselves, an educational program that uses lessons about racism and genocide to encourage social-emotional learning, found that middle school students who participated in the program “reported higher levels of empathy, prosocial behavior, and stronger participatory citizenship beliefs” than a control group.

Zaki also says that older children benefit from a different approach to empathy: one that is peer-based. His Empathy Lab conducted an experiment that showed that seventh-graders who believed that empathy was popular among their classmates were more likely to engage in empathetic behavior. Parents can help make empathy contagious by asking tweens and teens to point out examples of empathy they’ve seen among their peers and praising actions they’ve taken on their own.

“It’s critical that if we want our kids to be empathic, that we also recognize and celebrate when they do it, when they do something kind, and we ask them about the kind of things that they do, just as much as we ask them how much they’re learning in math, science, and in reading and writing,” Zaki said. There’s data showing that parents don’t do this enough: In a national survey conducted by Making Caring Common in 2014, about 80 percent of the middle and high school students polled report that their parents were more concerned about achievement or happiness than caring for others.

Challenges to empathy

But just as important as building empathy, according to Weissbourd, is “removing the barriers” by addressing stereotypes and biases with kids, including your own. He shared a story with his children about an acquaintance who offered advice about caring for a cut on his hand. He asked whether she was a nurse. No, she replied. She was a surgeon.

Another difficult aspect of empathy, Weissbourd said, “involves having empathy for people or caring for people despite their mistakes or their flaws.” He calls this “hard” caring. To encourage it, parents need to give their children permission to hold conflicting feelings about others, such as, say, an uncle the family disagrees with politically. Parents can say: “He can be generous and he can be a lot of fun to be with. And he’s been kind to you your whole life. You can have all these feelings for him. You don’t have to land in one place.”

Parents need to watch their own behavior, too, Zaki said. “Oftentimes, I want my kids to be empathic, but then I get upset about an election result or something that I hear in the news. And if I act in a way that’s divisive, if I act in a way that’s angry, well, I have to realize that my suggestion to my kids to be empathic is going to fall flat.”

Finally, parents also need to keep in mind that the least kind, most extreme, most toxic voices are often those that get amplified in today’s society, Zaki said. “And I think that older kids feel a lot of pressure to fit in with whatever culture is around them. So if we give them a skewed perspective that people are really cruel, they’ll feel like maybe kindness and empathy are for dorks, and they won’t want to express those.”

The challenge for parents is to remind kids that, “despite what you read in the news, the people around you really want to be friends,” Zaki said. “They want to be connected. They want to be kind. And in many cases, they are being all of those things.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/06/parents-teach-empathy-children/

Inside the new middle school math crisis

January 3, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

While other grades recover, middle schoolers are still in freefall. Two Virginia schools are bucking the trend.

By Steven Yoder December 30, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. EST Washington Post

ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. — It was a Thursday morning in November, a few minutes into Ruby Voss’s and Amber Benson’s eighth-grade math class at Northside Middle School just outside Roanoke, a city of roughly 100,000 in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Thursdays are spent in review in preparation for tests each Friday. The teachers posted a question on-screen — “What’s the slope of the equation below?” — and gave students a few minutes to answer it. The room grew loud as students jostled into line to bring their completed graphs to the front, where Voss separated them into two groups: Those who got the right answer wrote their initials on a touch screen up front, and those who answered incorrectly went to Benson for additional help.

It was a public exercise, with the whole class watching. Each Monday, the class does something equally public: Teachers review test performances, with charts showing the group’s recent performance and that of each student. “The whole class will either go ‘yay’ or ‘ohhhh,’ depending on how the class did,” Voss said.

That approach turns students into stakeholders in each other’s success, Benson said. And this is possible because teachers dedicate significant amounts of time to fostering relationships with students and helping them get to know one another. At the start of each school year, for example, the class devotes a few days to trust-building exercises, not math. That focus, combined with other strategies such as longer math periods and tutoring, has helped Northside Middle’s students bounce back from learning losses during the pandemic more quickly than middle-schoolers in many other districts, teachers and administrators here say. Nationwide, students who started middle school early in the pandemic lost more ground in math than any other group and do not appear to be recovering.

Test data paints a dire picture: The educational assessment nonprofit NWEA found that seventh- and eighth-graders’ scores on its math assessments fell in 2022, the only group of pupils for whom that was true. NWEA researchers estimate it will take these students at least five years to catch up to where they would have been without the pandemic. On the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, average eighth-grade math scores declined eight points from 2019, hitting a level not seen since the early 2000s.

At Northside, the share of eighth-graders passing the state math standards test fell by 19 percentage points from 2019 to 2021, reaching 68 percent. (No tests were administered in 2020.) But in 2022, the pass rate roared back to its pre-pandemic level of 87 percent; the state average was 46 percent. Northside doesn’t owe its rebound to a well-off student body: About 42 percent of students qualified for free and reduced-price lunch in 2019-2020.

Falling behind in middle school math has ripple effects. Those who fail Algebra I (which most students take in ninth grade) are far less likely to graduate from high school on time and attend four-year college. More than proficiency in other subjects, math proficiency predicts both an individual’s future earnings and a country’s economic productivity.

So far, efforts to help students recover may not be enough. The federal American Rescue Plan Act, passed in April 2021, provided schools with nearly $200 billion to spend on needs related to the coronavirus, but relatively little of that money is going to academic recovery, and, until recently, some districts have been slow to use the money they received.

“Students are running out of time,” said Emily Morton, an NWEA research scientist.

Middle school is always hard — and the pandemic made it worse.

For a host of reasons, middle-schoolers were hardest hit by pandemic school closures. More independent than younger children and no longer overseen as closely by parents, they were more likely to sleep late, miss remote classes and struggle with the online format. Some, like high-schoolers, had adult responsibilities — babysitting younger siblings, for example — but, more often, these early teens lacked the learning strategies and executive functioning to manage, said Ben Williams, the assessment and research director for Roanoke County Public Schools, Northside’s school district.

Math, meanwhile, becomes more complicated in middle school, with the introduction of concepts such as equations and linear functions. And parents, even those who are strong in the subject, often lack the confidence to help their children, Williams said. Terrance Harrelson, an accountant and the father of Northside eighth-graders Braylen and Kylin Harrelson, found it tough to help his children work on math from home during the 2020-2021 school year because he did not understand the procedures being taught. “I would have to try to learn that process and try to get feedback out of my children. I need a textbook, I need some notes, right? Some examples. And I don’t have that,” he said.

Early adolescence also is a time of rapid cognitive change, when children need social interaction with peers and teachers to learn. For many middle-schoolers, working alone during the pandemic was a disaster.

That was the case for Evan Bruce, now a ninth-grader at Northside High School, across a parking lot from Northside Middle. Home five days a week during the 2020-2021 school year, Evan had trouble paying attention to remote lessons via WebEx. Midway into that year, his math grade hit single digits. “I started lying a lot to my parents about doing assignments,” he said. “At home, I don’t have the motivation to get out of bed, open a laptop and start working.”

Many of his peers were similarly struggling: The share of the school’s seventh-graders passing the state’s standardized math test dropped by almost 30 percentage points from 2019 to 2021.

When Evan’s seventh-grade math teacher, Stacy Puriefoy, saw what was happening to his grades, she started calling Evan’s mother regularly to check in and arranged for him come to school one day a week for at least three hours of one-on-one tutoring.

Evan’s mother also began returning early from work to watch him study, for 2½-hour stretches. “I had to start doing my work: Teachers were on me, my parents were on me,” Evan said. After only a few weeks, his grades started rising.

Northside Middle and Northside High have long-standing math intervention practices, such as tutoring and doubled-up math periods, that many districts across the county are just now introducing.

Although many districts are starting to hire tutors to work individually with students several times a week, at the Northside schools, math teachers tutor students themselves. Benson and Voss said they stay after school for an hour four times a week to work with students individually or in small groups. The district’s high school math teachers do the same, before and after school, said high school Principal Jill Green. Benson said she and Voss had been putting in the extra hours, unpaid, from before the pandemic.

Teachers are ideal tutors because they tend to be invested in their students, education researchers say. They’re also more familiar with the material students are covering. But some researchers are skeptical about any approach that relies on teachers to work without pay.

“It’s not a replicable model to have teachers volunteer or be ‘volun-told’ to stay after with students,” said Kenya Overton, a math education doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut and a former public school math teacher, who co-wrote a research brief on math catch-up strategies in June.

Students are behind in math and reading. Are schools doing enough?

Many districts also are considering adding math time during the school day. That approach has been in place in Roanoke County middle schools for almost 10 years. Students get more than an hour and a half of math a day, a change the district introduced after the stricter requirements of the 2001 federal No Child Left Behind Act, Williams said.

If the extra math time is used well, if teachers work with students to more fully develop skills, it can be “spectacular” for students, said Beth Kobett, an education professor at Maryland’s Stevenson University. “Extra time allows us to look at the progression more deeply and help students fill in maybe a missing piece here and there and make important connections,” she said.

Northside High ninth-grader Taylor Orange said the double period helped him recover in math. As a seventh-grader in the 2020 school year, he attended class in person only twice a week. On the days he was home, he struggled to pay attention via WebEx, and his grades fell. Now, the hour and a half plus of Algebra I each day gives him time to focus and ask questions, Taylor said, adding that teachers often pull students aside to work one-on-one. He’s now earning As and Bs.

The Roanoke County district is so confident that longer math periods will enable students to make up ground, Williams said, that it is spending most of its American Rescue Plan money on hiring remedial teachers and tutors in its elementary schools, which do not have the flexibility to build extra math time into class schedules.

Northside educators insist, though, that their students’ recovery is primarily the result of strong teachers who are fanatically committed to meeting children’s individual needs. “The kids like us,” said Puriefoy, the teacher who helped Evan two years ago, explaining why students’ scores have rebounded. Added Northside Middle Principal Paul Lineburg: “Supporting students’ social-emotional needs, building positive relationships with them, is a key first step to their success in math.” Some research supports the idea that good teacher-student relationships are important to students’ achievement.

Back in school full-time last year as an eighth-grader, Evan averaged low Bs in math. Now in his second semester of Algebra I as a ninth-grader, things are looking even better; he finished the first semester with an 88 average and is at 100 percent so far in his second.

Puriefoy now teaches ninth-grade Algebra I at Northside High and has Evan again as a student. “I think he likes school. He’s social, he’s in sports, he’s got good friends. … He’s involved,” she said. “I really think that’s what a lot of the kids need, is to be connected.”

This story about middle school math was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/30/middle-school-math-pandemic-recovery/