Tom Corbett's Incredible Opportunity

It’s often difficult for many of us engrossed in our day to day existence to gauge the real impact of state and national politics on our local communities. The most recent political cycle was again full of partisan rhetoric with labels like conservative, liberal and the relatively new “tea-bagger” being hurled at opponents with great disdain. Back in May I wrote voters should be asking our candidates about their views and not just their political party. Last month many here in Pennsylvania and across the country did just that and a number of seats went to candidates with a decidedly conservative economic view point. The big question is “What will these new political and economic realities mean to local communities?”

On the state level Republicans will control Pennsylvania’s state government with majorities in the House and Senate as well as re-occupying the Governor’s Mansion. Tom Corbett will be a much different governor than Ed Rendell. He has to be. At noon on January 18th when he takes the oath as Pennsylvania's 46th governor, he'll be faced with a budget deficit, which by some estimates could be $4 billion, the largest revenue gap in state history. Tom Corbett has pledged to create a 2011-12 operating budget without any tax increases, an admirable promise that will require some very difficult decisions in Harrisburg with consequences cascading down throughout the region, Delaware County and eventually to its local communities.

Do the math. The last Rendell operating budget totaled $26.6 billion with an additional $2.4 billion in federal fiscal stimulus funds for a total of $29 billion. Education and Health / Human Services each accounted for about 40% of the budget. The remaining 20% went to Public Safety, State Operations, Debt Service and Economic Development and keep in mind that Tom Corbett’s budget must also factor in any increases in mandated costs such as Medicaid, pensions, and prisons. There are only two ways to reduce a deficit, you can increase revenue or reduce spending. Until the new Governor’s team can increase tax revenues by creating an atmosphere for establishing new businesses and expanding existing ones by as State Senator Ted Erickson said recently “The state government needs to get out of the way of business”, we must be prepared to reduce spending. The reality is that there will be less funding coming into our communities from Harrisburg. Period. Local and county governments, school districts, any organization relying on state funding should be prepared to do better with less, a critical situation which makes effective local community collaborations all the more critical.

While a balanced budget presents a tremendous challenge, it also affords Governor Corbett an incredible opportunity to identify the core mission of state government and perhaps redefine the state’s roles. Whether challenge or opportunity, tough decisions must be made and I wish Governor-Elect Corbett every success.

Thanks to our veterans

Today is Veteran's Day, a day set aside to thank those who have served in the military. Please take a moment to thanks the veterans in your life and say a prayer for those who made the ultimate sacrifice and died in combat. I’ll be remembering two friends of mine from Grays Ferry who were killed in Viet Nam; John Daly and Jack Donnelly, two guys who died way too young. I’ll also be remembering my favorite veteran, my dad, and what he and his friends on LCT-540 went through on D-Day as they hit Omaha beach at 0720 hours to deliver combat engineers who were to clear obstacles from the beach before the infantry landed. For their action on D-Day, the 17 member crew of LCT-540 earned a Presidential Unit Citation, the highest decoration given to a military combat unit.

The 540’s citation, signed by James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy reads:
For outstanding performance and distinguished service in combat during the assault on the Coast of Normandy, France, launched June 6, 1944. Rocked by the blasts of German 88-mm. Cannon during the approach, her gun turrets wrecked, fires blazing aboard, her officer-In-Charge killed and eight of her men casualties, the U.S. LCT 540 hit the beach on schedule under the heaviest concentration of enemy fire. In gallant response to the urgency of her task, she operated twenty-four hours a day until June 9, beaching her cargo while still under fire and returning repeatedly to place ashore the equipment, supplies and troops vital to the success and the very life of our assault forces. Crippled but undaunted, the LCT pursued her course unwaveringly despite German-emplaced underwater obstacles and terrific gunfire opposition, supplementing the valor and fortitude of her inexperienced officer and her men by her own steadfastness in the fulfillment of a perilous mission.” Based on conversations and notes from crewman, I’ve chronicled the exploits that day on a blog - http://lct540.blogspot.com/. If you’d like to get a glimpse of what the crewman of US amphibious craft experienced on D-Day, feel free to stop by and visit.

Take a moment to thank the veterans in your life. They helped make the freedoms we enjoy possible.

Family, education key to Chester’s rebirth

I’d like to comment on an editorial which appeared last Friday in the Delco Times entitled “Family, education key to Chester’s rebirth”.
Having spent a number of years directing the United Way in the City of Chester, I had the opportunity to meet and work with a number of hard-working dedicated people focused on Chester’s future. Two people with whom I had the pleasure of working and who I consider as friends were mentioned in the article.

Wendell Butler is a lifelong Chester resident, the Republican Mayor of Chester and its former police chief. Being a police officer in a poor neighborhood gives you a very unique view of the impact of poverty and the importance of the family structure. Something I learned as a cop in West Philly in the 70’s.

Portia West, another life-long resident was elected last year to Chester’s City Council as a Democrat, only the 2nd time a group of Democrats held citywide office in Chester since 1906.

Wendell Butler and Portia West are committed professionals focused on Chester’s future. Both see the importance of the family structure, and both agree that if change is going to happen, the home is where it must start. They know that education does not start in first grade, but begins at home when the child is born and continues in the local community as the child matures.

The Mayor and the Councilwoman are part of the bi-partisan political leadership in Chester, but they cannot be expected to have all the answers. They can, however, be instrumental in pulling the city’s power structure together to find the needed help for Chester’s children. With the assistance of community leadership organizations like United Way, they can help the residents of Chester focus on how to surround its children with a community of support, empowering students to stay in school. Chester should be about connecting students and their families to critical community resources that are tailored to their needs, and all designed to prepare its students to succeed.

Friday’s editorial ended with a suggestion that Chester’s recovery will be accomplished one family at a time. With folks like Wendell Butler and Portia West in leadership positions,and with the help of parents like Darlene, Deneen, Karen and Portia; wonderful young men and women like Donald, Darrell and Juani, Tyrone, Portia and Zaakiyah who have graduated Chester High and are doing very well in college, I’m convinced Chester’s resurgence is coming much sooner than most people think.

Waiting for Superman II

“Waiting for Superman” the new film directed by Davis Guggenheim is certainly generating discussions about educational success, although I think the film would have been more impactful by taking a more realistic look at what is needed for true educational reform. The documentary follows five kids in their efforts to secure a good education outside of traditional public school systems, and while charter schools might be a solution for some, widespread educational reform will require hard work and sustained collaboration of a variety of committed stakeholders.

School systems are only part of the educational process. Successful education is dependent on three systems: School, Family and Community. A child needs at least one of the systems to be working well if he or she is to have any chance to succeed. If a school system does its job well, educators could overcome family strife, and could overcome a poor community, and get their students prepared. Family and community have equally important roles in education, a fact that seems to get left out of many discussions on education reform.

The unfortunate reality is that many students come to school with needs that hinder their ability to do well in school. An idea that has gained traction in some communities is the concept of community schools which bring together, under one roof, the services and activities our children and their families need to reach their potential. School buildings are open all day and evening for tutoring, homework assistance and recreational activities. Medical, dental, English language instruction, employment counseling, citizenship programs and GED programs and child care services could also be available to meet the community’s needs. Having these programs and social services in schools could encourage parents to get more involved in their children’s education, and help to stabilize families so they can better support their children’s learning. It’s one idea of many.

Local educational reform must start with a collaborative effort between school districts, parents, businesses, labor, religious, civic and neighborhood groups and their leaders. Every aspect of the community must be involved for reform efforts to be successful, because educational success doesn’t take place only at school. It starts at home and continues in the community.

If you get a chance, go to see the movie, then add your voice to the discussion. We owe it to our children to provide them with the best education possible.

Waiting For Superman

Have you heard the buzz on Davis Guggenheim’s new movie “Waiting for Superman", which premiered last week? You might remember Guggenheim’s best known work, “An Inconvenient Truth” the documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the global warming a worldwide issue. “Waiting for Superman" is an exploration of public education in the U.S. and how today’s educational opportunities affect our children.

The film follows five unforgettable kids whose futures depend on charter school lotteries in their search for a better education, and through the film Guggenheim aims to spark a national conversation about public education, and how communities might transform their local school systems. Public education is one of those issues with the potential to bring people together on its own, and the hope is that community leadership organizations like United Way will convene diverse stakeholders to discuss common-ground efforts to provide every child with a quality education.

By engaging diverse stakeholders, including residents, non-profits, businesses and others to develop sustained collaborative efforts to strengthen education, community leadership organizations could be in a better position to link unique local resources together with its educational resources to provide a more effective, nurturing learning environment. As I‘ve written before, it isn’t rocket science, but getting a community’s assets all working together to support education, could be a very empowering tool.

If you get a chance, go to see the movie, then add your voice to the discussion. We owe it to our children to provide them with the best education possible.

Transparency

As I stated in my last post, we should be demanding that our political and community leaders demonstrate what they have accomplished, not what they can’t be blamed for. Our political leaders will again go through their regular evaluation on Election Day. Since most employees go through a job evaluation annually, it’s only fitting that elected officials do, although a dramatic Yes or No final decision is not for the feint of heart.

Since we support government programs through our tax dollars and non-profit programs through our contributions, shouldn’t we know if the funded program was worth the money spent on it? I wonder how much the public sector might change if we had a similar evaluation for publicly supported programs. Not a general election, but a realistic evaluation to determine if a program is not performing as advertised. I’d like to think that in order to secure funding, funded programs have not only identified goals, but have established some sort measurement tools to gauge their effectiveness in meeting those goals. I’d also like to think that these programs were funded because each created a collaboration of committed partners to re-define how they work together in order to accomplish those goals, and that political connections were not a consideration. No, I don’t believe in the tooth fairy.

Most of us could appreciate a report on funded programs. Nothing too elaborate, but something that shows what the program goals were, who were the partners, what was accomplished, what did it cost and what do we do now. Wouldn’t you like to see how your tax dollars have worked for you? Kudos to the programs that show success; “Sorry Charlie” for those that don’t.

I think an increase in transparency could go a long way to building additional support for effective programs, and reducing the continuation of weak programs. The current economic and social conditions in our local communities require us to maximize use of our tax and charitable dollars, and we should demand more from our elected or non-profit leadership. The strength of our local communities depends on these leaders and the decisions they make!

Listen before you call him an idiot!

The Saturday of Labor Day weekend in 1970 had two big events in the Philadelphia area. An anti-war rally was held at Valley Forge featuring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and a young speaker named John Kerry. Most of my focus, however, was on north Philly, because that same day on Temple’s campus the Black Panther Party was hosting their national convention. Tensions were extraordinarily high in Philadelphia late that summer. On August 29th, Fairmount Park Police Sgt. Frank von Colln was murdered by 5 members of the Black Panthers while sitting at his desk at 63rd and Catherine, 2 other cops were shot by the Panthers that same day in West Philly, and these shootings came a few days after 2 other cops were shot. 5 cops shot in one week!

I graduated from the Philadelphia Police Academy on Friday September 4th and was assigned to the 18th District. 6 days before my 20th birthday. You may remember that I wrote back in March that my self-described duties as an “armed social worker” eventually gave me a very unique insight into poverty, crime, education and the importance of a community support structure. 40 years ago today I found myself sitting on a police bus as part of a tactical response effort put together by Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo. With riot helmet and baton in hand, I sat and wondered to myself how I might possibly make a difference when whole communities seemed at odds. Black – White, Young – Old, Anti-war – Pro-war.

As in the Buffalo Springfield song…
“There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong …
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say hooray for our side”

Today’s animosity in social and political discourse is getting in the way of the kind of collaborations our communities need. These tough economical times will not allow bottom-less pockets of money. Times require that we establish wide-spread community engagement to determine what communities can be and what they might accomplish. We need to have our best ideas identified, discussed and evaluated without politics getting in the way. We should be demanding that our elected leaders demonstrate what they have accomplished, not what they can’t be blamed for. A lot has changed in the past 40 years, but unfortunately a lot has stayed the same. If we spent as much time trying to understand the other guy and his or her ideas as we spend figuring out how to label him, we’d be better off. Finding common-ground with your opponent could be a powerful tool, but you have to give a little to gain a little. You have to be ready to give up your held-fast beliefs to gain a better understanding of other ideas and possibly a stronger more-diverse collaborative. Stand up and be heard, but listen to what the other guy is saying before you call him an idiot.