Author: Sam

I write books and talk about stuff.

In Balancing Freedom and Security, A Tale of Two Cities

Posted on | by Sam

All this talk of Edward Snowden and the tension between freedom and security has reminded me that back in 2006, as part of a documentary history of First Amendment Rights in America, we included Section 215 of the Patriot Act as one of the book’s 37 primary sources.

I think what we wrote then has relevance now, but you, dear reader, will have the final word on that point. Enjoy —

Emotions were running high as more than two hundred people crowded into the city council chamber in Eugene, Oregon, on November 25, 2002. At issue was Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA Patriot Act), passed by Congress a month after the terrorist attacks at the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Following passionate testimony from citizens, the Eugene City Council voted unanimously to support a statement opposing the Patriot Act. It reads in part: “We resolve that, to the extent legally possible, no city resources, particularly administrative or law enforcement funds, will be used for unconstitutional activities conducted under the USA Patriot Act or recent Executive Orders which permit activities listed above.”

With that vote, Eugene became the fifteenth city in the United States, and the first in Oregon, to adopt such a resolution. By the summer of 2005, seven states and 382 cities and counties had taken similar action. Indeed, the debate over the Patriot Act had moved an extraordinary number of Americans to exercise their First Amendment rights of free speech, petition, and assembly.

Other city governments took the opposite view, turning aside efforts to condemn the Patriot Act. In Springfield, Oregon, located on the outskirts of Eugene, the city council issued a statement in support of the act. Councilor John Woodrow explained the city’s officials position this way: “I would submit that, as elected officials, the Springfield City Council has either sworn or affirmed to uphold the Constitution and the Laws of the United States and the State of Oregon. As such, we should not take a position of noncompliance with federal law, nor is it necessary to pass a resolution or take a position affirming compliance with federal law, as we do that per our oath of office.”

The backdrop for the debates in Eugene and Springfield is a question as old as the republic: To what extent, if any, does the demand for more security necessitate greater restrictions on individual liberties? Key events in American history, from the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 to the Vietnam-era legal battle between the New York Times and Washington Post and the federal government, illustrate the ongoing challenge of negotiating the tension between security and freedom in times of national emergency.

The “war on terrorism” in the twenty-first century has provoked a vigorous new debate in the United States about how to balance the demands of security with the need to protect personal freedoms. Did Congress go too far – or perhaps not far enough – when it passed the USA Patriot Act?

Critics of the act argue that the 342-page bill was rushed through the House and Senate, and passed with little debate. While acknowledging the need for additional law enforcement tools after September 11, they charge that some of the act’s provisions and some of the executive orders issued in wake of the act’s passage are unconstitutional. Proponents respond that Congress was right to move quickly after the attacks to meet the heightened threat from domestic and international terrorists. They argue that changes in the law under the Patriot Act do little more than apply existing legal principles to the fight against terrorism. Resolutions opposing the Patriot Act in Eugene and elsewhere have focused on provisions that give the government expanded powers to detain people suspected of terrorism; make it easier for the government to obtain records about people from libraries, hospitals, businesses and elsewhere; and provide the government with new tools for wiretaps and searches.

The biggest lightning rod for opposition to the act has been section 215, the provision that expands the power of federal investigators to obtain library, bookstore, and other records secretly. This section amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enacted in 1978 to prescribe procedures for requesting judicial authorization for electronic surveillance and physical search of people engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the U.S. on behalf of a foreign power. Under this amendment, it is no longer only the personal records of suspected foreign agents that can be accessed. The government may now obtain the personal records of any citizen as long as the information being sought is, in the words of the Patriot Act, “part of an authorized investigation to protect the United States from international terrorism.”

Librarians, civil libertarians, and others from across the political spectrum worry that section 215 gives the government too much police power without enough accountability. Prior to the Patriot Act, federal investigators needed a warrant and probable cause that a crime had been committed to access otherwise private library records. Now, critics charge, records of people who are not themselves suspects can be searched with minimal judicial oversight as long as the government asserts that the search is part of an investigation to protect against terrorism. Moreover, section 215 places a gag order on the person who is required to turn over the records. A librarian, for example, may not notify anyone that his or her records are being searched.

In reports to Congress, the Justice Department says that section 215 has not been used to obtain library or bookstore records. Critics point to a 2002 University of Illinois study that found 178 public libraries in the U.S. had received FBI visits in the first year after the Patriot Act passed. The Justice Department maintains that those requests for records were part of criminal investigations and were not authorized under section 215. Many librarians and booksellers, however, contend that the threat of secret searches has had a chilling effect on First Amendment freedoms. They worry that people may avoid borrowing or buying books that might trigger FBI interest. Some libraries have installed computer systems that erase a library user’s records as soon as a book is returned. And a number of cities have adopted resolutions calling on libraries to post section 215 warnings and advising bookstores to regularly destroy customer records.

During the testimony before the city council in Eugene, many citizens voiced concerns about the potential for the federal government to abuse the powers granted under the Patriot Act. Misa Joo warned against accepting a mentality of fear similar to the one that led to the internment of her grandparents and other Japanese Americans during World War II. Nadia Sindi claimed that Muslim Americans were suffering persecution as a result of religious profiling. She described how the FBI had searched her home, even though she had been an American citizen for thirty-two years.

On a national level, objections to portions of the Patriot Act have created an unusual coalition. Groups ranging from the conservative Americans for Tax Reform to the liberal People for the American Way joined together in the fall of 2003 to support legislation that would scale back the act. And in the spring of 2005, a coalition of 38 Republicans and 199 Democrats supported an amendment to a funding bill that blocked section 215 as it applies to libraries and bookstores.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other civil liberties groups challenged the constitutionality of parts of the Patriot Act. In a 2003 press release from the ACLU, associate legal director Ann Beeson warned of government abuses of power under the act: “Sadly, our government has an ugly history of using its investigative powers to squelch dissent. We saw it during the Japanese internments of World War II, the Red Scare of the 1950’s and the civil rights movement of the 1960’s and now we see it in the post-9/11 investigations and detention of Arabs and Muslims.”

The U.S. Department of Justice mounted a vigorous defense of the act, arguing that it “has played a key part – and often the leading role – in a number of successful operations to protect innocent Americans from the deadly plans of terrorists dedicated to destroying America and our way of life.” According to the Justice Department, the act makes only “modest, incremental changes in the law,” and contains adequate safeguards for the protection of civil liberties. In fact, Justice Department officials characterize many of the objections to the Patriot Act as “myths” that need to be dispelled. For example, against the charge that section 215 gives overly broad powers to monitor the personal records of citizens in libraries and other places, the Justice Department argues that “historically, terrorists and spies have used libraries to plan and carry out activities that threaten our national security. If terrorists or spies use libraries, we should not allow them to become safe havens for their terrorist or clandestine activities.”

In sum, what many civil libertarians see as abuse of state power, the government views as an essential tool in national security investigations. According to the ACLU, the Patriot Act unconstitutionally expands the government’s authority to spy on American citizens. By contrast, the Justice Department insists that investigators have no interest in the reading habits of ordinary Americans.

Many of the Patriot Act’s provisions, including those intended to enhance border security, toughen penalties for existing federal crimes related to acts of terrorism, and strengthening of federal money-laundering laws, enjoy strong public support. But in addition to section 215, other portions of the act covering secret searches of private homes and businesses, wiretaps, and changes in immigration laws have sparked widespread debate. Given the complexity of the act’s many provisions – and the secrecy surrounding terrorism investigation – understanding the constitutional arguments for and against the USA Patriot Act is challenging, to say the least. But however confusing and complex, the act has become a symbolic target for Americans who are concerned about expanded government powers to fight an open-ended war on terrorism. Indeed, the grassroots movement that led to the resolution in Eugene and more than three hundred other communities continues to spread across the nation.

The debate over the Patriot Act, much like previous debates during other times of national crisis throughout American history, is a reminder of the importance of First Amendment rights in a democracy. Once again, Americans on all sides of the debate are speaking out, organizing, and petitioning – and by so doing helping to define the future of democratic freedom in the United States. The crowded city council meetings in Eugene, Springfield, and across America are powerful reminders of how much Americans care about their freedoms.

In the spring of 1944, another time when America’s character was deeply tested, Federal Appeals Court judge Learned Hand spoke to a crowd of mostly new Americans in New York City’s Central Park about what it takes to sustain freedom in a time of national crisis: “I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.”

To Fix Public Education, Let’s Eliminate Private Schools

Posted on | by Sam | 1 Comment on To Fix Public Education, Let’s Eliminate Private Schools

While hardcore progressives and Tea Party activists continue cozying up to each other in a shared rejection of the Common Core, I have a radical proposal to make – and it might just be crazy enough to garner an equally eclectic coalition of support:

Let’s eliminate private schools altogether. Or, better yet, let’s make every school both public and private.

If that idea doesn’t make sense to you, consider this: it’s already happening at Sharon Academy (TSA), a school in Vermont that offers, in its words, “the best of both private and public school education.” Kids who live near the school can attend TSA just as they would any neighborhood school. Kids who live outside the attendance zone can attend as well, as long as they pay tuition. And the genius of the Vermont system is that those fees are not paid by the family; they’re paid by the hometown of the student.

This sort of arrangement is possible thanks to a 1997 state law that was drafted in response to a Vermont Supreme Court decision that said the state’s existing educational funding system was unconstitutional, and that it must provide “substantially equal access” to education for all Vermont students, regardless of where they live.

As a result, every town in Vermont is required to pay a school up to the amount of the state’s average tuition. Schools can charge more than the average, but TSA pegs its tuition to whatever that number may be (typically no more than $12,000). As a result, no student – I repeat, no student – pays any additional tuition, and TSA commits to cover whatever shortfall exists via its own fundraising efforts.

If this seems too good to be true, it’s worth noting that other countries around the world have found a way to ensure equity. Education in Finland, for example, is free to all beginning at the voluntary pre-primary level and continuing through upper secondary school. Funding responsibilities are divided between the federal and local governments. And not surprisingly, there are very few private schools in Finland. Simply put, in a system that has prioritized (indeed, standardized) equity, they have no niche to fill.

These sorts of efforts stand in stark, uncomfortable contrast to America’s long history of separate and unequal schooling. The closest we came to correcting the inequity was 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 margin, reversed a lower court’s decision in favor of a group of poor Texas parents who had claimed that their state’s tolerance of the wide disparity in school resources violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Gone from the court’s 1973 ruling was its 1954 contention in Brown v. Board of Education that “education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.” Gone, too, was its assertion that “it is doubtful any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity,” wrote a unanimous court in Brown, “where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.”

Instead, the five-justice majority in San Antonio v. Rodriguez wrote simply that while the Texas school system “can fairly be described as chaotic and unjust … it does not follow that this system violates the Constitution. Though education is one of the most important services performed by the state, it is not within the limited category of rights recognized by this Court as guaranteed by the Constitution.” If it were, the majority conceded, “virtually every State will not pass muster.”

For Justice Thurgood Marshall, that was precisely the point. “The Court concludes that public education is not constitutionally guaranteed,” he wrote, even though “no other state function is so uniformly recognized as an essential element of our society’s well being.”

Marshall understood that without equal access to a high-quality public education, democracy doesn’t work. “Education directly affects the ability of a child to exercise his First Amendment rights,” he explained. “Education prepares individuals to be self-reliant and self-sufficient participants in society. Both facets of this observation are suggestive of the substantial relationship which education bears to guarantees of our Constitution.”

Were he alive today, Marshall would take solace in Vermont’s decision to chart a different course. And while it is nearly impossible to imagine a future landscape in which Americans refuse the opportunity to give their child a competitive advantage in favor of ensuring equal educational opportunities for all, schools like Sharon Academy are there to remind us that a different model is possible. The rest is up to us.

(This article originally appeared in the SmartBlog on Education.)

In American Schools, What is Quality Work?

Posted on | by Sam

For years now, I’ve been asking everybody I meet the same question: “When and where were you when you learned best?”

I’ve asked this question because so many of our national school reform efforts are not about learning at all; they’re about achievement, which has come to mean something quite apart from the stories people tell when you ask them to recall one of the most powerful experiences of their lives.

And here’s the thing: if you stitch everyone’s stories together, a clear pattern emerges. I know because I did this (see for yourself). And what emerged was that we all need, to differing degrees, learning opportunities that are challenging, engaging, relevant, supportive, and experiential.

I was reminded of that work – and of the importance of relevance – when watching Chapter 8 in the 10-part video series about Mission Hill, a public elementary and middle school in Boston.  It begins with a young boy holding an alligator. It continues with young children organizing and opening a bakery in their classroom. And it concludes with a group of teenagers eagerly ripping open a package that contains fresh copies of the book they have all worked to co-create.

What we learn is that the children have been asked to imagine a possible future profession for themselves, and to interview someone who does that work so they can better understand if it might really be for them. One child envisions a life as an animal tamer. Another thinks he might become a martial artist. And two other students have each set their eyes on becoming the future Mayor of Boston.

“It’s so important that the ideas come from the kids,” says teacher Kathy Klunis-D’Andrea, “and that they get to see them actualized. There’s so much that they can learn about those real-life experiences that make true connections that they don’t forget. They are locked into learning.”

Of course, what we see at Mission Hill is more than just relevant projects. There’s a culture in place, an ethic, that demands the best of its teachers and students. As longtime educator Ron Berger puts it in his wonderful book An Ethic of Excellence, “Weighing yourself constantly doesn’t make you lighter and testing children constantly doesn’t make them smarter. The only way to really lose weight and keep it off, it seems, is to establish a new ethic – exercise more and eat more sensibly. It’s a long-term commitment. It’s a way of life.

“I have a hard time thinking about a quick fix for education,” Berger continues, “because I don’t think education is broken. Some schools are very good; some are not. Those that are good have an ethic, a culture, which supports and compels students to try and to succeed. Those schools that are not need a lot more than new tests and new mandates. They need to build a new culture and a new ethic.”

To build a new ethic at a school, of course, one must begin somewhere. Berger believes student work is the logical place to start. “Work of excellence is transformational,” he writes. “Once a student sees that he or she is capable of excellence, that student is never quite the same. We can’t first build the students’ self-esteem and then focus on their work. It is through their own work that their self-esteem will grow.”

This ethic of excellence Berger describes is at the center of schools like Mission Hill. It’s also present in organizations like Expeditionary Learning, a national network of more than 150 schools. And that network isn’t only filled with established, stable schools; it’s expanding to include the places where a school-wide ethic of excellence is being cultivated for the very first time.

One such place is the Mundo Verde Public Charter School in Washington, DC. Now in its second year, Mundo Verde decided to document one of its expeditions – typically, multiweek explorations of a topic that involves not just original research, but also a culminating project that is presented to the public – in its first year of operation. The film of that experience, La Expediçion, highlights the same qualities we see at work in Mission Hill – and the same core characteristics we see in our own personal learning memories.

As you watch both videos, consider the quality of the work Mission Hill’s 8th graders and Mundo Verde’s Kindergartners are able to produce. In schools like these, there’s no doubt about what matters most – quality work. And if there was any doubt about why that was the right goal to have, Mission Hill’s 8th graders clarified matters by the title they chose for their book: A Place for Me In The World.

(This article originally appeared in Education Week.)

Has TED run its course?

Posted on | by Sam | 1 Comment on Has TED run its course?

I just watched the new PBS Special TED Talks Education, and it’s made me wonder if the TED phenomenon has, perhaps, gone as far as it can go.

Watch TED Talks Education on PBS. See more from TED Talks Education.

In many respects, the growth of TED has mirrored our own growing interest in, well, ourselves. Although it technically started in 1984, TED didn’t really find its sea legs until the annual conference format began in 1990. And it didn’t really take off until it started posting videos of its talks online, in 2006.

One of those early videos introduced the world to a funny and insightful Englishman named Sir Ken Robinson. Ken’s clarity of thought, his humor, and his looseness combined to give us an emotionally powerful indictment of the Industrial model of schooling. The strength of that talk has turned Ken, rightly, into a global phenomenon (full disclosure: he’s a good friend).

But here’s the thing: when Ken was addressing that conference hall back in 2006, he wasn’t angling for a book deal. He had no illusions that his words might someday be played in small villages in Kenya, or across the giant television screens of Times Square. He was merely trying to share, in the spirit of TED’s founding, an idea worth spreading. And he did.

The problem is that now, anyone that gives a TED talk (further disclosure: I’ve given two) has in the back of their mind that they might become the next big thing. This has led to a flaw in most new talks — call it the Curse of Over-Curation. Every slide, every sentence, is rehearsed and revised to such a point that no room is left over for spontaneity and wit — the very things that made Ken’s first talk so powerful. As a result, shows like TED Talks Education feel less like a platform for ideas worth spreading, and more like the stage of a new reality show competition in which contestants are competing against each other to give the most inspiring speech.

When you think about it, that makes sense. After all, TED’s rise has coincided with the rise of reality television, and the lionization of the everyman celebrity. Survivor got the ball rolling in 2000. But the peak/nadir of the format began the same year Ken gave his famous talk — 2006 — with the debut of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Orange County (now in its 8th season).

Now there are as many reality shows, with folks like you and me, as there are scripted ones, with folks very unlike you and me. Photographs of Snooki and Kim Kardashian are as important to Us Magazine as shots of Gwyneth Paltrow or Tom Cruise. And our society’s insatiable lust for celebrity has penetrated everything from teen motherhood to old celebrities wanting to recapture the glory of a time when everybody knew their name (no matter the cost).

Perhaps the format of this particular show — a special on Education — underscored the evanescence and incongruity of  TED’s “sage on the stage” format. After all, we know a lot now about how people learn best (actively) and how problems best get solved (by groups, not individuals). Is giving a select group of people eighteen minutes to wow us with their presentation skills — and making the rest of us sit silently in the shadows — really the change we seek?

TED was a major player in expanding our collective sense of possibility, in elevating the power of ideas, and in providing people a platform to build and sustain an audience for their work. In its current form, it had a great run. And now it’s time for a reboot.

(This article also appeared in the Huffington Post.)