HINDSIGHT - WRITE SOMETHING WORTH READING ABOUT OR DO SOMETHING WORTH WRITING ABOUT
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN
Talk Is Cheap--And Not All That Useful
In a world where
everyone has a megaphone, doing is the best way to get through the noise.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD
TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH
INVESTORS@HOWARDTULLMAN1
JAN 30, 2024
I had an early morning
breakfast recently with the CEO of a Chicago tech company who's so focused on
his business and constantly in motion that he makes me feel like a slacker. He
said he had spent a few hours over the weekend building a new gaming computer
for his 16-year old son and that it had been more challenging and
time-consuming than he had expected because he was having his son do most of
the work so that he would develop his own skills and dexterity. He mentioned
that one of the critical cables turned out to be defective so that the fully
built system wouldn't work at first. But they kept at it, did some
troubleshooting, eventually found the problem, and replaced the bad connection.
Knowing him as I do, I can just imagine the steam shooting out of his ears.
Patience isn't his long suit. Perseverance, on the other hand, is one of his
amazing strengths, which he hopes to pass on to his kids.
Foolishly, I asked him
why he didn't simply buy the kid the best gaming computer out there since he
could certainly afford it. Besides, the companies selling these high-end
machines had whole teams doing quality assurance to make sure they worked right
out of the box. He shrugged and said two interesting things: first, as you'd
expect from a genius computer geek, the one they ultimately built was better
and faster than anything on the market; and second, the whole point of the
exercise was that he was building the new machine not just for his son, but
with his son, and helping him in the process as well. It was both a teaching
opportunity, a shared moment, and an important bonding experience.
These days millions of
parents are impatient, at a loss, tongue-tied, and finding it harder and harder
to effectively engage their own kids, not to mention their younger team members
at work, in substantive conversations about so many critical things: ethics,
politics, trust, antisemitism, money. These are things that matter now, and
which will matter even more in their futures. The message and the lesson that I
took away from my breakfast chat is that the most successful strategy today
isn't: (1) trying to share your "truth" with your kids or lecture
your employees on something or (2) throwing up your hands in frustration and
ending the discussion entirely.01:23
It's more about showing
them, through your actions, what's important, what matters, and why.
Don't expect anyone to
listen to your sage advice and speeches and ignore your example. Observation,
at a time when everyone's a videographer, is far more convincing and relevant
than conversation. There's tremendous untapped power in the simple act of showing
up, sharing experiences, and demonstrating that you sincerely care about the
outcome. What you do often speaks so loudly that there's no need to hear
what you say. Find time in your busy life to pitch in, to drive your kids to
their next game or activity, and to stick around to show them that you're
interested.
We're at a critical
juncture in our country. None of us -- whether we're building a
business, raising a family, or trying our best to do both -- can afford to
tune out and shut down. Or allow the pains of the recent past and the
disappointments we're feeling with our institutions, organizations, governments,
and even fellow citizens immobilize us, or lead us to believe that our efforts
are hopeless.
It's easy to lose hope
as we watch feckless and foolish former football coaches like Alabama Senator
Tommy Tuberville threaten our military and make fools of the rules and the
leaders in Congress. It's depressing to watch the border crisis and the lack of
more aid to Ukraine continue to cost lives every day while the MAGA hypocrites
in the House block bipartisan relief bills and bend their knees to the demands
of the Orange Monster -- a deviant just found liable for $83.3 million in
damages in a defamation case in New York.
And it's easy to become
discouraged when we see our creaky and antiquated court systems unable to fully
deal with many obvious crimes, lies, and attacks on our democracy, as well as
with their perpetrators. But we shouldn't accept for a moment that there's
nothing we, as parents, business builders, and concerned citizens, can do to
set the right examples for our kids and team members. Saying won't make it so,
but doing can take us a long way. Actions still speak louder than words.
Small steps and gestures
can start the ball rolling. The key to getting things done is to overcome the
pervasive inertia and angst and put yourself out there by doing something.
Whether it's a DIY project at home or joining some community action committee
at your church or synagogue or raising funds for your firm's favorite charity.
There's plenty that needs to be done and nothing that dissipates the languor
and lethargy as effectively as the satisfaction of working together as a team
to complete even simple chores and short projects. Step by step, brick by
brick, and task by task, the real objective is to restore and rebuild business
and personal connections at every level, which will eventually form the new
foundation for fair, full and honest communication. You'll hear far more
compliments than complaints because those who are pulling the oars don't have
time to rock the boat.
Your kids and newer
employees may be hesitant at first to buy into the process and be convinced
that it's authentic and sincere. That's expected, because we're all still
suffering from Trump's destructive and cynical attacks on integrity, sincerity,
and trust. But, in fairly short order, they'll catch on and surprise you with
their interest, commitment, and enthusiasm.
We may not believe that
we have the necessary strength as individuals to turn things around, but even
when strength fails, there is always perseverance. And beyond perseverance,
there remains hope. When hope doesn't seem sufficient to the task, there's love.
And love never fails. Make sure your kids know this each and every day. No
child should ever have to wonder if his parents love him.
Monday, January 29, 2024
Saturday, January 27, 2024
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VALLAS ON CPS
Back to the Bad Old Days
The Chicago Teachers Union wants to destroy school choice and objective standards.
Nearly four years on from the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the traditional American public education system remains in disarray. The virus exposed longstanding structural flaws in public schools’ capacity to respond to such crises, particularly thanks to the overwhelming influence of teachers’ unions. Now the unions are trying to hide the damage they have wrought by pushing elected officials to reject objective standards and school choice.
In Chicago, leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and their peers nationally are pressing districts and states to end testing. They claim that doing so will reduce student stress, promote teacher autonomy, and end “racist” practices; their real motivation is to eliminate quantitative accountability standards for poorly performing teachers. Emboldened by the election of former CTU organizer Brandon Johnson as mayor (my opponent in last year’s race), these efforts threaten to bring back what was once called the “soft bigotry of low expectations”—and not just for students.
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is already moving to a “soft” scoring and assessment system for measuring school performance rather than individual student performance. Its new policy for sizing up schools would expand the types of evaluation metrics, placing greater emphasis on how schools promote students’ social and emotional development. While factors such as staffing levels, curriculum, and other district investments are important in evaluating school performance, the move to diminish student outcomes in evaluations is the institutional partner to grade inflation for students.
CPS is following national trends and rapidly abandoning teaching standards, which is evident from teacher evaluations. Despite the dramatic drop in student scores, CTU walkouts, and union-forced remote learning, CPS teachers received stellar reviews. According to the Illinois Report Card, the state’s annual assessment of public school districts, 100 percent of CPS teachers in 2021 were “evaluated as excellent or proficient by an administrator or other evaluator trained in performance evaluations.” That’s up from 98 percent in 2020, 91.4 percent in pre-Covid 2019, and 85.6 percent in 2018. Some students, meantime, remained out of the classroom for nearly two years. It’s obvious, then, that teacher evaluation scores and student performance are totally disconnected.
It’s also clear that the accusations of racism hurled by teachers’ unions and their allies are a pretext for an agenda that seeks to return schools to a time when the lack of student achievement carried no consequences for failing schools and teachers. Remedying such “racism” means inflating evaluations and grades, skipping testing, and reestablishing the practice of social promotion—moving students to the next grade, even if they fail to learn the skills of their current grade. Conveniently, these measures also shield poorly performing teachers and union leaders from the need to achieve results for students.
Even if the unions get their way in traditional public schools, they still face the threat of competition from private schools and alternative models of public education, such as charter schools. The unions are therefore working to limit both private and public school choice.
United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and other leaders of union locals have accused school-choice supporters of being advocates for racist and segregationist policies. “Make no mistake: This use of privatization, coupled with disinvestment, are only slightly more polite cousins of segregation,” Weingarten said in 2017. CTU president Stacy Davis Gates is even less subtle. She labels proponents of school choice fascists. Her union leveraged its war chest to lobby successfully against Illinois’ Invest in Kids Act, which would have provided tax credits for private funding to scholarships for low-income students. Meantime, she enrolls her own son in a private Catholic school, in apparent recognition that parents like her should have access to better schools for their kids.
Members of the Chicago Board of Education, appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, recently approved a resolution that would transition CPS away from “privatization and admissions/enrollment policies,” the latter of which give students options to attend high-performing, public selective-enrollment schools. (By “privatization,” they really mean public charter schools.) The CTU leadership called the plan a “step in the right direction” and decried the “deep inequity” of selective-enrollment schools.
This is complete hogwash. In Chicago, charter schools receive over $8,600 less in funding per pupil than traditional public schools do—even with 88 percent of the students they serve living in poverty, compared with 78 percent of the total public school population. Of the 11 selective-enrollment high schools, nine receive less funding than the district average. Make no mistake: the school district intends to deny students and families even public school options by phasing out public charter schools and selective-enrollment magnet high schools.
Let’s be clear on who will be harmed by the CTU’s attack on public school choice: poor black and Latino students. Over the past two decades, it’s primarily the black middle class that has been leaving CPS. According to district data, black enrollment in CPS is less than half of what it was in 1999–2000, a staggering decline from 227,000 to approximately 113,000 students. During this time, 266,188 blacks left Chicago, overwhelmingly low- and middle-income families with school-age kids.
The families remaining increasingly see public charter schools as an alternative to failing and often unsafe neighborhood schools. Out of the more than 54,000 children attending public charter schools, 96 percent are black and Latino, and 86 percent come from low-income households. Of the more than 12,000 students attending magnet schools, over 70 percent are black and Latino, and over 50 percent come from low-income families.
The answer to massive student learning loss won’t come from those who helped create (and worsen) the problem in the first place. American schoolchildren—already well behind their peers in other industrialized countries—would be ill-served by eliminating testing and weakening teacher evaluations.
We already know what works: quantitative evaluations for students, teachers, and schools, and providing parents with options for leaving failing traditional public schools. Whether political leaders like Mayor Johnson will do what’s right by Chicago’s public school students is far less certain.
Friday, January 26, 2024
Trump Forces Terrified Republicans to Bend the Knee Yet Again
Trump Forces
Terrified Republicans to Bend the Knee Yet Again
Mitch McConnell’s capitulation to the
former president exposes the real MAGA.
AL DRAGO/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is on the verge of
pulling the plug on any hopes for a bipartisan deal that includes funding for
border security and aid to Ukraine. The culprit? Donald Trump, who has been urging Republicans to reject any deal, on the apparent
theory that any compromise with Democrats will be insufficiently anti-immigrant
by definition.
This
has been widely seen as evidence that Trump wants border chaos
to continue to use against President Biden in the election. But this whole
episode reveals something else too: What Trump and the MAGA right really fear
above all is a system that might function better without resorting
to the maximally cruel and extreme restrictions they see as the only acceptable
“solution.”
Punchbowl
News reports that McConnell privately told GOP senators that with Trump winning the GOP
nomination, the “politics have changed” on immigration, and a deal might
“undermine him.” As Punchbowl notes, McConnell is “acknowledging Trump’s
continued stranglehold on the GOP.”
Meanwhile,
CNN reports that McConnell believes the GOP is in a “quandary” because Senate Republicans
are divided on any deal, and anything the Senate passes would be opposed by
House Republicans, who only want their own wildly radical border bill.
McConnell insists that talks are
still ongoing. But at the very least, he is in the process of surrendering to
the idea that Trump is in control of outcomes here.
Either
way, the key question is this: What exactly are Trump, most Senate Republicans,
and the House GOP rejecting as insufficient in terms of “securing the border”?
At
the center of the talks is the $14 billion that Biden has asked for to fund new border enforcement agents, expanded
detention, expedited consideration of asylum claims, and other border security
measures. Republicans initially said that’s not enough without major policy
changes.
So
Democrats agreed to many policy concessions. Negotiators have reportedly agreed on provisions such as raising the bar to qualify for
asylum, more expedited removal of some migrants from the interior, and a
trigger that effectively closes down asylum seeking if border encounters climb
too high.
I
can add more: Negotiators have also been discussing the creation of a whole new
process for administrations to remove asylum-seekers who fail their initial
screening, according to sources close to the talks.
What’s
more, due to that and other policy changes on the table, the emerging deal
would end up spending substantially more money on immigration
enforcement than even what Biden has requested, according to the sources.
That
Republicans reject all these serious new restrictions—including much more
border security spending—as insufficient shows how extreme the MAGA-fied GOP
posture on this issue has become.
To
illustrate the point, consider that Republicans have also pushed to gut Biden’s parole programs, which admit tens of
thousands monthly who apply from abroad. Democrats have rejected this, angering
Republicans who insist those programs abuse Biden’s parole authority.
But
it’s important to understand why Democrats are rejecting this.
These parole programs provide alternative legal pathways for
migrants to enter the United States by securing a sponsor from afar and then
flying into the country. Rather than requiring them to come to the border and
seek asylum, this creates an orderly, rules-bound way to enter instead.
This
is a crucial innovation under Biden: The idea is to shift incentives away from
the very sort of migration—crossing the border and then requesting asylum—that
is creating the strains on the border infrastructure that Republicans claim to
fear and loathe.
Republicans
should applaud that shift. But they oppose those programs precisely
because they allow migrants to enter the country in a functional way.
They’re abandoning a compromise that would spend billions more on border
security; make asylum seeking more efficient, including removing those who
don’t qualify faster; and create numerous other ways to expedite
removal—because it doesn’t gut legal immigration programs that are working
well.
What
Republicans object to isn’t border chaos. It’s having more migrants come here
successfully and efficiently.
Here’s
a nuanced reading of McConnell’s position, offered by someone close to the
talks: He now sees that due to Trump, the deal might not win enough GOP
senators to pass with moderate Democrats. So he’s telling Republicans it’s time
to decide whether they’ll let Trump dictate the outcome or accept a compromise
that does much of what they want. The right answer is clear.
It’s sometimes argued that Democrats too are unreasonable on immigration;
that they refuse to accept restrictions that are politically and substantively
imperative. It’s true that any compromise would have to include new
restrictions on asylum (my preferred deal would trade that for legalization of some
undocumented immigrants living here and expanded legal pathways for entry).
It’s also true that some on the left would reject such a deal.
But
now that Republicans are balking at the compromise on the table, simply because
Trump is instructing them to, it cannot be denied that the right is the primary
obstacle to any reasonable compromise on this issue.
Underscoring
the point, Trump has been telling Republicans to sink the deal so that he can
“fix” immigration if elected again. It’s worth remembering that Trump was
already president once, and guess what: He too released a lot of migrants into the interior, and he couldn’t pass his immigration agenda even with unified GOP control.
But that aside, what he really means is this: Republicans must reject any deal
that improves the system in ways both sides can accept, because the public
might like it, closing off any chance at exploiting the current challenges to
push his own wildly extreme agenda.
It’s
often said that Republicans want border chaos for political reasons. But their
opposition to compromise is more telling than that: Anything that reforms
immigration without dramatically slashing legal immigration must be rejected,
because to them, it isn’t a solution at all.
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