I taught at West Side High School. This is a story about their football team.

The trip takes just 378 steps. That is the distance between the Newark high school they turned into a football power and the ever-present reminder of how quickly it can disappear.

The players, wearing their green and white West Side High uniforms, form two lines near the school. They walk along South Orange Avenue, turning right under the brownstone archway for Fairmont Cemetery.

They continue up a leaf-covered slope until they arrive at a gravesite marked with five green flags and a pot of flowers. Brian Logan covers the cold ground with two No. 20 jerseys. His players circle around him. ''Everybody here knows what this means,'' the head coach tells the group. ''Everybody here knows how important this is to us. Everybody knows how important he was to us. ''We know the mission. We know he wanted to get a ring. Now, it's up to us to get it.''

Yusef Johnson, a linebacker and running back, was shot todeath on Aug. 10, 2005, just two blocks from his house. He was 15. The West Side players have come to his gravesite before several games since his death, and at the request of quarterback Anthony Baskerville, made the trip again yesterday.

West Side will play its biggest game in school history today, traveling to Morristown for the semifinals of the state playoffs. The team is 8-2 this season, the latest success story for a city that had not crowned a champion in 31 years until Weequahic High won last fall.

Dozens of high school teams will take the field in postseason games today, but none followed as difficult a journey to get there. It took a group from the community, led by a Newark cop with a knack for bringing people together, to carry them through a 70-game winless streak and the violence all around them.

''I get summoned to the funeral home quite a bit,'' said the Rev. Elijah Williams Jr., the pastor at the Welcome Baptist Church on 12 th Avenue. He leads a short prayer at the gravesite, asking everyone to join hands. ''For our community, this season is the zenith.''

RALLYING TO THE TEAM

Before the football team could become the pride of the community, the community had to rally around the team.

West Side had not won a game in more than eight seasons. Logan thought he could turn that around, but went 0-9 in his first season in 1998.

''I wondered, 'Should I go back to Pop Warner?' '' he said.

Logan works as a Newark police detective during the day, and maybe it was this background in a uniform that helped him understand he couldn't do this alone. When he got the job, a call came from Tony Woods, a Newark native who played 10 years in the NFL. ''If there's anything I can do to help,'' Woods said, ''you just let me know.''

“Don't you hang up that phone,'' Logan replied, and soon, Woods was writing an $8,000 check for weight-lifting equipment. Soon, Logan talked the former pro into becoming his defensive coordinator.

He kept looking. Logan found coaches on the police force -- five of them, in fact, ensuring that everywhere his players looked, they saw a role model. He asked legendary Barringer coach Frank Verducci, who had retired decades ago, to become a consultant.

Verducci tipped Logan off on where to find an offensive coordinator. There was just one obstacle: Frank Rossi was in Afghanistan, working as a staff sergeant in the Green Berets. Their first conversation about the option offense took place this summer over a crackling satellite phone connection.

''What was that?'' Logan asked.

''Mortar fire,'' Rossi replied.

He arrived on the practice field in August and might return to the Middle East before next season. Logan has a staff of 15 coaches. Seven of them are paid, and most end up spending that money on clothes and food for the players.

''This,'' Logan said, ''is the only family some of these kids have.''

But success always seemed to come with a setback. West Side finally broke through in

2000 with five wins, but an administrative error allowed an ineligible player on the field.

The Roughriders had to forfeit them all.

They went 8-2 the next season, but the team did not have enough power points to qualify for the state playoffs. City officials threatened lawsuits and demanded answers about the formula used to determine who makes the postseason, but nothing changed.

The team slipped back to mediocrity, then started to improve heading into the 2005 season. Then one day that August, Logan was driving home from a vacation in South Carolina when the call came.

Yusef Johnson was dead.

A SHOCKING CRISIS

Logan pulled off the interstate and checked into a hotel. His players were waiting for him to return home but he couldn't drive. He had dealt with problems before. But this?

Johnson, nicknamed “Taki,” was an energetic kid who Logan often took to a diner after practices to talk about life. He wanted to go to college, maybe become a cop like Logan. He was a honor student who was just returning from a friend's house, the victim of a random shooting that remains unsolved.

The coach handled the crisis the only way he knew how: Head on. They talked about the loss openly and made that walk to the gravesite. ''Everybody knows he will never be forgotten,'' Logan still tells his players, who carry Johnson's No. 20 jersey to every game.

''He's still with us,'' said Baskerville, the star quarterback. ''Every game. Every play. Every snap.''

Nearly two years to the day, another shooting shocked their school this summer -- the killings of three college students in a nearby playground -- and Logan had to pull his family close again.

He and the school principal, Otis Brown, took the team to the crime scene, where they

left flowers and said a prayer. Jamar Hightower, whose older sister was one of the victims, had played on the junior varsity the season before. Iofemi Hightower was the leader of the drum section in the marching band. Devastated by her loss, Jamar left the team and picked up her drumsticks.

''She talked about me and her going to the same college and playing in the same band, but she didn't get a chance,'' Jamar Hightower said. He was standing outside a classroom filled with the noise of young musicians tuning their instruments. ''I was going to do it for her.''

But now, the 17-year-old said he will rejoin the team next fall. Logan has been pushing him to come back, to rejoin the friends he calls ''my brothers.'' He figures his sister would

just want him to go to college, no matter how he got there.

Jamar Hightower will watch from the bleachers today in Morristown. So will several hundred people in this community who have rallied around the team. Logan, despite all the setbacks, allows himself to wonder: Is this the year everything finally comes together?

In that cemetery, with the high school just a couple football fields away, the players take black No. 20 patches and drop them onto the grave. They huddle around their makeshift memorial and raise their arms in the air.

''One-two-three... WIN!'' they yell, then,  “One-two-three... TAKI!''

They put their helmets back on and walk down the cemetery slope, backtracking the 378 steps to the school, where a bus waits to take them to one final practice. Logan watches them walk away.

''If that doesn't get you focused right now, fellas . . . '' he says, never finishing his thought. West Side has the biggest game in school history today. But the true victory was getting here.

In the NYTimes:

When 17,000 people pour into the heart of New Jersey’s largest city on Thursday night to hear Bon Jovi perform the first of 10 shows, they will undoubtedly be impressed by the glimmering Prudential Center, the first new sports arena in the metropolitan region in 25 years.

The question that many people here are asking is whether the millions of visitors expected to traipse through Newark on their way to and from the $375 million arena in the coming years will be equally entranced by a city that might be charitably described as a work in progress.

For now, when they look out through the arena’s soaring glass facade or make the two-block hike from Pennsylvania Station, they will see a landscape of parking lots and ramshackle buildings. Their dining choices on Broad Street near Market Street, the city’s storied but tattered main intersection, will be limited to a Burger King, a Popeyes and a Bojangles’. If they want to grab a beer or a wine spritzer after the show, they will have to satisfy their thirst at Arena Bar or Scully’s Publick House, the only new drinking establishments within four blocks.

City officials and arena executives take pains to point out that downtown Newark is a flower about to bloom. A hotel is planned for a parcel just across from the arena’s front door, and next spring, an adjacent parking lot will be transformed into the $19 million Triangle Park.

As officials tell it, there is a hungry band of real estate developers jockeying to construct new residential buildings in the forlorn blocks that surround the red and gray brick-faced arena, which is nicknamed “the Rock” and will be home to Seton Hall’s men’s basketball team in addition to the Devils.

“Things are really shaking. There’s a lot of energy coming in,” said Mayor Cory A. Booker, who opposed the arena’s construction before he was elected but who was reborn as a booster after he realized he could not reverse the previous administration’s decision to contribute $210 million in public money toward construction.

There has already been some gain for Newark residents. More than half the arena’s 1,200 ushers, custodians and concessionaires have local ZIP codes, and eight of the outlets in the Taste of Newark food court will bear the names of popular local establishments.

Of course, not everyone expects such change to be beneficial. Many owners of jewelry and clothing stores on Broad Street who cater to African-Americans are skeptical. They say hockey fans, an overwhelmingly white demographic, have little need for the hip-hop clothing shops and hair weaving services that dominate the Broad Street strip. There is also widespread concern that the arena’s success will lead to soaring rents and the demise of many longtime businesses.

Sabina Smith, who owns the Calabash African Food Market in the shadow of the arena’s facade on Edison Place, said she was pleased that a year of disruptive construction was finally ending but also fearful of what the future will hold. Since opening in 1995, Calabash has been the only business on a very forbidding block, although her rent, an affordable $1,300 a month, has made it easier to stay afloat.

Standing in her shop, the air heavy with the aroma of smoked mackerel, the shelves heaving with giant yams and sacks of potato starch, she said she would try to appeal to concertgoers and sports fans with Doritos and bottles of cold Sprite. But she admitted that it might all be for naught. “This project is just too big for a little African shop like me,” she said, growing tearful. “I can see the landlord wanting me out of this place.”

City officials acknowledge that some displacement is inevitable, but they say the new apartments and stores they hope will revive Newark’s largely desolate downtown in the coming decade will create hundreds of new jobs and churn out desperately needed tax revenue.

The Police Department has been figuring out deployments for the 80 extra officers who will walk the street when the arena is open.

“My biggest battle right now is dealing with the perception of crime,” said Deputy Chief Daniel Zieser, who is in charge of operations within a quarter-mile radius of the arena.

Among hockey fans, who will be arriving on Saturday for the New Jersey Devils’ home opener against the Ottawa Senators, the biggest concern right now is parking and traffic. Sam Schwartz, a transportation consultant hired by the city and the arena’s owners to plan for the expected onslaught of cars and pedestrians, said there would be 10,000 spaces within a half-mile of the arena.

During a news conference last week, Mr. Schwartz urged people to take a train or bus to the city, although he predicted that fewer than a quarter of those coming to the arena would do so, at least in the beginning. He said the police would operate traffic signals by remote control and would favor foot traffic over cars.

Where: Newark, Lincoln Park

When: Saturday, August 25th, 12 noon

What: The People's March for Peace, Equality, Jobs and Justice!
Stop the war in Iraq, stop the war in our streets!

this promises to be the largest demonstration in the recent history of Newark, with people pouring in from all parts of the state. Traditional Peace Groups, organized labor, and Newark's grassroots organizations have joined forces for this extraordinary event.

The keynote speaker will be Rep. John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary committee, who will be preceded by a videotaped message sent especially by Michael Moore.

Key demands:

- Troops Home Now!
- Health care for All! support HR 676!
- Justice for survivors of Hurrican Katrina!

for more info, call 801 457 9557
or visit www.peaceandjusticecoalition.org

 i leave tomorrow for the west coast.

since i sincerely dislike flying, i will be taking the train: less hassle, more space, more scenery, less use of greenhouse gases, and zero risk of falling thousands of feet to a watery death. Really, the only downside is the amount of time (three days from East Coast to West Coast), but until i start school i will have nothig but time.

There are many things that i would like to say about my experience in Newark, but I would rather not consider it a closed book: living and working here shaped my perception of the world. And i plan to be back

La mattina, quando prendo l'autobus per andare a scuola, attraverso una serie di isolati devastati - costellati da palazzi che sono stati vittime di incendi e mai demoliti o ricosrtuiti, case abbandonate, finestre sbarrate...

Inutile dire che non ci sono molti cartelloni pubblicitari per costosi articoli di consumo. Pero' nella foto qui a fianco si possono vedere due cartelloni pubblicitari che illustrano perfettamente il modo in cui le istituzioni si prendono cura della citta'.

Uno dei cartelloni e' la pubblicita' della birra Corona. Quello a fianco e' un cartellone di reclutamento per l'esercito - che e' un esercito mercenario, pieno per la maggior parte di poveri, e disproporzionalmente composto da ragazzi e ragazze di colore.

Quindi, il messaggio che io ci leggo e' che sono rappresentati gli unici due percorsi accessibili agli studenti: l'esercito o una vita di alcolismo.

Mi sembra che la foto sia particolarmente significativa perche' questi cartelloni sono dietro uno degli innumerevoli tratti di "terra di nessuno" e affissi a uno dei gia' menzionati edifici in rovina.

Tremendo.

Ho preso una decisione della quale spero non dovermi pentire.

A scuola uno degli insegnanti di matematica si trasferira' per fare il capo del dipartimento ad un'altra scuola (con otto settimane di scuola rimaste. chi ci capisce e' bravo...). Quindi e' il terzo insegnante ad andarsene per un motivo o per l'altro quest'anno durante il corso dell'anno scolastico.

Insomma, per farla breve, da lunedi ricomincio a insegnare. avro' solo due classi, di meno di venti studenti ciascuna, e avro' meta' della mattinata per lavorare (dare voti ai compiti e cosi' via). Una classe di trigonometria, con diversi studenti relativamente capaci che avevo l'anno scorso, e una classe di "preparazione per il SAT", che e' una specie di esame di ammissione per l'universita'.

Vedremo come andra'...

There's an organization, the "center for union facts" - which won't disclose where it gets its' money - which has made it its mission to attack and discredit the Newark Teacher's Union (NTU). There is little doubt in my mind that they are bankrolled by right-wing foundations.

I have previously discussed the waste of NTU members' money represented by the "stop the killings in Newark now" billboards (which ought to have said: tell your senators: money for health care and education, not war and occupation), but the center for union facts has turned this billboard campaign as proof that the NTU is responsible for all of the failures of the Newark Public Schools (NPS).

The main hack at the Center for Union Facts has written an editorial in the Asbury Park Press expounding this anti-union BS.

The main claim of the article could be summed up as this: Teachers unions are notorious for preventing tenured teachers from being fired, no matter how bad their performances. And in Newark, the size of this problem is astonishing.

Which was immediately and authoritatively refuted by Marion Bolden - the NPS Superintendent. She said in the Star-Ledger: “Have I ever taken an opposing position with the Union, there is no question yes, we go to arbitration, but when a teacher is overwhelmingly incompetent they don’t support them”

So the main claim collapses upon any minimal inspection - not surprising, given the level of intellectual discourse about unions on the right. But there is more: the NTU is also guilty of other crimes:

Do “the people” of Newark want good schools? you bet. Do they want Cory’s vision for education? That’s a bit more of a shaky claim to make…

But some people would rather attack reform with billboards than offer to make any real change.

It’s not clear to me that NTU was attacking “reform”. They are clearly attacking Booker – who supports vouchers, and mayoral control over the schools. Are those the "reforms" that the NTU opposes? then they're doing the right thing! are they going about it in the worst possible way? Yes. But to paint it as an attack on "reform" is deceiving and a ridiculous pro-voucher ploy.

No one is more invested in keeping things the way they are than the Newark teachers union. Last year, mayoral candidate Ronald Rice launched his campaign from union headquarters. More recently the union rented the now-infamous billboards attacking Rice's victorious opponent, reform-minded Mayor Cory Booker.

In terms of education, it’s unclear to me exactly how Booker plans to “fix” the schools. it sounds like he wants vouchers and mayoral control of the schools. But both are politically volatile, and there’s NO evidence to show that they work, so this right-wing hack just says the more palatable and positive-sounding “reform”.

Any REAL effort to fix the schools (in Bob Moses' terminology) would focus on a massive political effort to redirect substantive resources to the education system, particularly to the recruitment and training of teachers.

Math teachers, particularly in the high school, are in VERY short supply, and elementary school teachers too often do not have the training in math that they would need to get their children where they need to be.

This ought to be the crux of the argument. Fine, let's remove the NTU and allow the adminstrators to fire as many teachers as they want. Where are the replacements going to come from? Is it going to be more likely that there will be a steady stream of qualified, experienced teachers committed to social justice applying to work in the NPS if they will have weaker protection from arbitrary administrators, and less pay - as would inevitably be the case without a vigorous union defending its members?

The center for union facts is less about "informing union members" about their leadership and more about dismantling any kind of public infrastructure to the detriment of the poor

non c'e'  niente da ridere.

dalle 2 e 50 fino verso alle quattro (in orario di dopo-scuola), insegno un corso di recupero per ragazzi all'ultimo anno delle superiori. In questi giorni la maggior parte dei miei alunni sono studenti della scuola del pomeriggio.

Martedi stavo dando un esamino. alcuni studenti hanno finito prima di altri, e quando hanno finito li ho lasciati andare.

Dopo le quattro son uscito di scuola e sono andato ad aspettare l'autobus per tornare a casa. c'era un'altra insegnante, e abbiamo chiacchierato un po'. mentre parlavamo per la strada sono passate varie macchine della polizia a sirene spiegate, mentre l'elicottero della polizia volava sopra di noi, in un cerchio abbastanza piccolo. ho spiegato all'altra insegnante che la nostra scuola e' in una zona pericolosa e violenta, dove abitano e bazzicano alcuni membri delle principali gang di Newark.

Piu' tardi martedi sera, dopo essere tornato a casa, ho letto su internet che c'erano state varie sparatorie nel corso delle precedenti ventiquattro ore. Due di queste sparatorie erano avvenute a pochi isolati di distanza dalla mia scuola.

La mattina di mercoledi, quando sono tornato a scuola, sono venuto a sapere che una delle sparatorie aveva come bersagli due miei studenti. uno dei due era tra quelli che avevano fatto il compito il giorno prima.E' uscito di scuola, ha fatto cinquecento metri, e gli hanno sparato alla schiena e al collo. All'altro hanno sparato alla testa.

sono sopravvissuti entrambi, per un intervento di un ente superiore. presto verranno dimessi dall'ospedale. quello a cui hanno sparato alla testa non potra' rientrare a scuola per un po', data la severita' delle ferite. Troveranno un insegnante che gli vada a fare lezione a casa.

cosa sta succedendo?

There was an article in the Times about crime in Newark - citing some statistics that suggest progress on several fronts, even though the murder rate is the same.

But I would be careful about making generalizations. Here are some of the numbers, from January to March.

Shootings: (in 2006) 99 (in 2007) 57

Burglaries: (in 2006) 296 (in 2007) 155

one has to wonder: is this the responsibility of a newly aggressive Newark Police Department? or is there an additional cause - namely the intense cold that we experienced in that same time period? At any rate, while the decline is positive, I think one should wait to see whether the negatie trend continues.

There is also the not insignificant fact that there were 24 murders in the first three months of both years.

The other statistic that is quoted as positive has to do with arrests.

Arrests: (in 2006) 5890 (in 2007) 7170

Is this a good thing? It is described as a good thing - but all it means is that more people (incidentally, poor people of color) are being put in prison. Is this related to the decline in crime? maybe - but no arguments are made in favor of such a connection, it is just assumed that there is a connection. Who are these people? what were they arrested for? minor infractions - the result of the "broken windows policing" that the Mayor and the Police Director are so fond of?

What are these people going to do once they are released? What impact has their incarceration had on the already overcrowded prison system?

Behind Foreclosures, Ruined Credit and Hopes

NEWARK — After Franklin Abazie fell behind on his mortgage last year, he tucked one of his foreclosure notices, still in its ripped envelope, into the visor of his car — a looming reminder of why he had to take a second job.

Rashid and Yvonne Moore, a middle-aged couple whose lenders are threatening foreclosure because they have fallen behind on their mortgage payments, have begun thinking the unthinkable: moving in with his parents.

For Quintin Fields, it may take a miracle to keep his house; he owes nearly as much in late payments as he will earn all year.

“Everything is closing in on me right now,” Mr. Fields said.

Broad swaths of Newark are groaning under the weight of mortgage debt, much of it accumulated in the building boom of recent years that has transformed some parts of the city with gleaming redevelopment.

But in many of these neighborhoods, a heavy mortgage debt has led thousands of residents — many of them first-time homebuyers — close to financial ruin, experts and local officials say. According to recent census figures, more than 40 percent of Newark homeowners spend more than half their income on housing, one of the highest percentages in the New York metropolitan region and among the highest in the country.

In small ways and large, that debt is forcing thousands of people here to change their lives. Many have taken second jobs. Others are selling off prized possessions. Some have had to rent out rooms. And more than a few have surrendered to the inevitability of losing their homes to foreclosure.

Driving the high mortgage debt and the boom in home sales here, and around the country, has been the proliferation of mortgages that have made it possible for people with poor credit, scant savings and modest incomes to buy homes. Among these are subprime loans, which are easier to obtain than prime rate loans but come with an added burden: much higher interest rates. In many cases, financial institutions lent to people without verifying whether their incomes could support the monthly payments. [...]

Malcolm Bush, president of the Woodstock Institute, a national research group that studies mortgage lending in poor neighborhoods, said that widespread foreclosures in an area can depress already low housing prices, making it harder for others in that area to get loans or refinance. And those troubles can afflict an entire community. “This has wider social implications,” Mr. Bush said. “It appears that things are going to get worse.” [...]

At first, [Franklin Abazie] had assumed that he could find a tenant to help offset the cost of the mortgage, but soon discovered his neighborhood had a glut of vacant apartments [...] Last month, they found a tenant, who pays $400 a month, far short of the $1,200 rent they had thought they could charge. 

[...] For Michelle Pitt, subprime loans were not the problem. But she, too, has found herself swimming in debt that is jeopardizing her ability to keep her home.

Ms. Pitt, a 39-year-old single mother of four, bought her two-family house from a local nonprofit group, Episcopal Community Development, in 1999. The house sits on a hill in the South Ward and rattles constantly with the sound of Interstate 78, the highway next door. Still, it was a good deal, selling for $105,000 under a subsidized housing program.

Ms. Pitt, a first-time home buyer, got a mortgage with a relatively good interest rate of 7.5 percent. And at the time, she was earning decent salaries from two jobs, as a flight attendant for Spirit Airlines and as a dental assistant in state prisons.

Over the next few years, she was laid off by the prison and stopped working at Spirit when the company moved some of its New York operations to Florida. Since then, she has held temporary jobs, most recently as a part-time orthodontist’s assistant. [...]

-----

The first reflection that hit me with the force of a hammer is that living in Newark for people like TFA-ers is not only a "nice" and "responisible" thing to do, but (done right) it is a very concrete way to help not only the landlords, but also the community surrounding the house against financial ruin.

I have been reading about the effects that the bursting of the "housing bubble" has had on THEM, but this is the first in-depth analysis I have read about the effect on PEOPLE. And it really makes me despise these Wall Street types who - with the goal of making a quick profit - set up conditions that have the only foreseeable consequence of screwing people over. How sick is this system? And is there anything that individual citizens and taxpayers can do to help these poor people out?

Yesterday I helped out and attended the "People's Rally for Peace and Justice" sponsored by the Peace and Justice coalition, with much of the work done by the People's Organization for Progress.

A lot of speeches were made. Too many, I felt at the time. But I wonder.

Many of the points that were made were right on target. The waste of resources represented by the current war in Iraq was appropriately attacked, and the point was made repeatedly that those resources are - desperately - needed here, in Newark. Some of the speakers gave examples of just what could be accomplished with the billions of dollars spent in Iraq, in terms of housing, education, and health care.

The war was appropriately assailed as immoral, and illegal, on all parts.

We heard from veterans, and from one man whose son was killed in action. As Larry Hamm - the MC - pointed out, those were the domestic groups most affected by the barbarity in Iraq. Perhaps an Iraqi perspective would have been appropriate. There were speeches from Labor, from elected officials, from the first African-American woman president of the New Jersey Chapter of the National Organization for Women, from Ministers of both large African American churches and the Nation of Islam. More women spoke at the Rally than did at the Conference - a welcome development.

I quickly grew impatient with all the speeches. "Yes, I know all of these things," I thought. Now let's be constructive and talk about ACTIONS. The Occupation Project (a courageous, creative idea) was briefly mentioned towards the end of the event. People agreed to march. But I felt impatient, restless. When I read Stokeley Carmichael's autobiography (Ready For Revolution) or Howard Zinn's accounts (in SNCC: the New Abolitionists) of what people in the Civil Rights movement were doing to end US Apartheid, they were getting trained for non-violent resistance, they were having heated debates, and they were putting their bodies on the line - they didn't sit around and listen to people talk for hours on end. I wanted to say something about tax resistance, and my own efforts, limited though they may be, at civil disobedience with the federal excise tax in my phone bill.

But - and this is still slowly sinking in - I began to realize was that what was happening was something different. There was a delicate dance being conducted by the member organizations. And the point of the dance was to see whether they could all be together in the same room and agree on something - namely, in Martin Luther King's words, that

we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

And I realize that perhaps the focal point of this rally was less to mobilize the masses, and more to continue on the tentative path that the coalition set out on after the Peace Conference in January. And that my impatience with the proceedings is misplaced: what I was witnessing was the complicated and lengthy birth of a strange new creature. A still tentative alliance of African-American religious organizations, Labor, college students, and traditional "peace activists" which could - potentially - target the nexus of domestic corporate power and imperialism, with the aim of creating a more just society. This is the stuff that must give Dick Cheney nightmares.

So the role of anyone who was there was not to immediately become a foot-soldier in a wave of mass action, but rather to indicate to those who were on the podium, and to everyone else in the room that this is important. That we support their and our efforts to figure it out, and work as a coalition. That whatever differences may divide us (or divide our "leaders"),  we AS A PEOPLE think that this is important enough to set those differences aside.

Will it work? It's hard to say. But it seems clear that at SOME point these changes will have to occur, if the coalition is going to be sustainable, sustained, and ultimately effective:

• shift the focus away from this or that particular war and pinpoint the military budget and the whole military-industrial complex. Individual wars end (and the war in Iraq may end soon, hopefully). The Pentagon goes on.
• Think more broadly about our permanent war economy, as represented by the empire of US military installations around the world - which are being resisted from Ecuador, to Italy, to Japan.
• Move to engage the masses of people. The organizations in the coalition who do not mobilize in the street will have to start doing so. The "white, middle class" peace movement will have to challenge itself to incorporate more fully the domestic repercussions of a war economy, so as to become meaningful to the poor, the homeless, and the chronically undermeployed. All will have to be more visible, foster organization at all levels of society, and promote a culture of resistance.
• Somehow engage the youth of the cities in the struggle, and make them a focus of the "revolution of values."  Gangs, for example, represent a tremendous potential source of organization and energy. Schools at all levels are teeming with children who are just yearning for a framework to make sense of their world, and the natural rebelliousness of youth, properly channelled, could be a fantastic source of energy.

...Writing about this helps me reflect about what happened on Saturday, and it sharpens my focus on what I need to do. What should my role be in all this? If you got this far, anonymous reader, hopefully you are doing the same.

THE PEOPLE'S RALLY FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

Saturday, March 24

12 noon

Essex County College Gymnasium

Stop the war! Bring the Troops home now! Fund Education, Health Care, Jobs, and Housing not War and Occupation! Stand up for Peace and Justice! Stop the War in Iraq, Stop the War in out Streets!

In the continuing saga of Newark's economic woes, there was a fascinating piece in today's Star Ledger by Joan Whitlow, an astute obsever of city hall's doings. She describes the attractive apartments being built by the Newark Housing Authority, and then highlights the fact that the poor in Newark cannot afford them. 

Some highlights:

One hundred units are beginning to open for occupancy. A one- bedroom flat goes for $868 a month; it's $1,316 a month for a four-bedroom townhome. [...] Compare that with an apart ment in one of the multifamily houses going up around town: $1,600 a month,[...]

The housing authority says it has built 2,200 townhouses since the demolition derby. However, more than 7,000 units of low-cost housing were lost. [a lot of high-rise projects were demolished starting in '95]

The NHA says the people who used to live in the old housing towers have the right to return only if they did not take any kind of a relo cation deal from the NHA, such as a Section 8, federally subsidized housing voucher, to find other accommodations.

So: Only those low-income families that managed to go off on their own, in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, for, say, five years -- that's how long ago Stella Wright came down -- have a guaranteed right to move into the housing built on the dust of the homes that were blown out from under them? Yep, and not even that guarantee is a guarantee.

First, there are income limits: between $25,307 and $35,460 for an individual through $37,226 to $58,740 for a family of six.

Then comes the credit check. Too many late rent payments will knock you off the waiting list for Cottage Place.

Cottage Place is nice, and officials aim to keep it that way. What the NHA has built is not public housing. It is affordable housing, the authority explains. [affordable for WHO???]

So far, out of 381 applicants, 233 have been turned down.   

I would count this as another "strike" against the new Booker administration. They have claimed that they want to do lots of good things for the poor, and i had previously been lulled by their talk of "affordable" housing - but now that I better understand what that means (namely: no poor people allowed) I will be much more skeptical in the future.

President Bush released the administration's budget. I wrote a proposal for an op-ed to the Star Ledger, so i'll wait to post it for a week, to see if they pick it up (i doubt it). In the meanwhile, i wrote three letters to the Times - with no reply. I may stop writing to the Times, and focus on the Ledger.

Letter I

If, as your newspaper suggests, the democrats are 'not especially eager' to cut back military spending and roll back President Bush's tax cuts (despite President Bush's record low approval ratings, and an electoral mandate to change direction in Washington), it must also means that they are 'not especially
eager' to remain the dominant party in congress - let alone be the party that wins the Presidency.

Letter II

Re: "Advanced Placement Tests Are Leaving Some Behind"

I teach math in an inner city high school in Newark, NJ. Our school offers an AP calculus class, but in any given school year at most five students have had the background to take it.

Yet the President's DOE budget would allocate $120 million to train more AP teachers (up from $30 million in 2007) - filling a non-existing 'need'.

In fairness, it's true that the budget also calls for an additional $250 million to be spent  on improving math and science instruction in elementary and middle school - a real necessity; it's a pity that it amounts to less than $8 per student.

It is even more of a pity when I compare the spending on math preparation with the $9 billion to be spent on National Missile Defense - i can't help but wonder about our priorities.

 Letter III

Re: "Federal law drains resources for the gifted"

Do we truly live "in a world of scarce resources"?

If so, why are is there a request for $481.4 billion in the FY2008 DoD budget - an increase of $42 billion over last year?

This figure also does not reflect the additional $235.1 billion requested to continue to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The truth of the matter is that when our elected officials decide their priorities, students (whether gifted or struggling) take a very remote back seat to the ever-expanding military industrial complex.

The Newark Teachers' Union was one of the only major supporters of Cory Booker's main opponent in the race for Mayor - current state senator Ron Rice. Their stance was perhaps undestandable given Booker's outspoken support for Vouchers. Recently, they have paid lots of money to put up billboards next to the main access points to Newark that say "HELP WANTED" and underneath say something about the number of murders in the city.

The official justification is the perceived need for help with retention of new teachers (people are afraid to live here and work here), but this strikes me as being so much Bull. People don't leave the system because they are afraid of violence, but because they are overwhelmed by the impossible task they are confronted with - and given that they have other options, they take them. And why would these signs only crop up now, since the city has been under siege for years?

I have read some comments suggesting that the union should protest the questionable spending by the Newark Public Schools. Some of the items:

In "desk reviews" of a random sample of purchase orders, auditors said there wasn't enough documentation to know if spending was reasonable for $13 million in Camden, $10 million in Paterson, $558,000 in Jersey City and $446,000 in Newark.

Newark has the highest budget of the three, and yet came up with the lowest amount. Still unacceptable, but let's put things in perspective.

Newark also spent $310,000 in payroll to 28 dead employees.

Truly unacceptable

$29,995 for Newark Schools Superintendent Marion Bolden's 2005 Grand Cherokee Jeep, a 4-by-4 with leather interior and navigation screen. The district responded it was provided according to the state-appointed superintendent's contract.

THIS is BS journalism at its best/worst. IS IT PART OF HER CONTRACT OR NOT??? Something like this is verifiable, it doen't need to be left as "they said" "they responded."

$1,795 for a jukebox purchased in Newark by Bolden, who responded it was bought from a vendor who didn't accept purchase orders.

My understanding is that this was for the Mic it Up nights at Harold Wilson - a commendable, great  program of performances by students (though it may be a questionable use of public money).

But this is also missing the point: THERE IS NO BIGGER WASTE OF MONEY IN THIS COUNTRY THAN THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX (at least as far as working people are concerned).

the only sign that a Union ought to be putting up is this one:

On Monday, January 15th, i marched with the People's Organization for Progress (POP) in memory of Martin Luther King. It was amazing to me that on that day (of all days) the police were making a fuss about allowing us to mrch in the streets of Downtown Newark. In Seattle (a city with a MUCH smaller percentage of people of African descent) the MLK day march is an institution that Washington State senators attend. In Newark, no elected official was present.

Then on Saturday January 20th I attended the People's Peace Conference at Rutgers Law School (the muscle behind the event was also mostly from POP). A wonderful event, whose main theme was the appropriate one: The consequences of the war in our community.

The spirit of all these events that now motivates me can be found in the powerful speech in which Martin Luther King declared that he would begin to actively campaign against the war in Vietnam. But his speech is entitled Beyond Vietnam. The reason he made abundantly clear himself:

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

There was a brilliant op-ed in the NY Times this weekend - about teaching. I agree wholeheartedly with what the author has to say:

By TOM MOORE

IN the past year or so I have seen Matthew Perry drink 30 cartons of milk, Ted Danson explain the difference between a rook and a pawn, and Hilary Swank remind us that white teachers still can’t dance or jive talk. In other words, I have been confronted by distorted images of my own profession — teaching. Teaching the post-desegregation urban poor, to be precise.

Although my friends and family (who should all know better) continue to ask me whether my job is similar to these movies, I find it hard to recognize myself or my students in them.

So what are these films really about? And what do they teach us about teachers? Are we heroes, villains, bullies, fools? The time has come to set the class record straight.

At the beginning of Ms. Swank’s new movie, “Freedom Writers,” her character, a teacher named Erin Gruwell, walks into her Long Beach, Calif., classroom, and the camera pans across the room to show us what we are supposed to believe is a terribly shabby learning environment. Any experienced educator will have already noted that not only does she have the right key to get into the room but, unlike the seventh-grade science teacher in my current school, she has a door to put the key into. The worst thing about Ms. Gruwell’s classroom seems to be graffiti on the desks, and crooked blinds.

I felt like shouting, Hey, at least you have blinds! My first classroom didn’t, but it did have a family of pigeons living next to the window, whose pane was a cracked piece of plastic. During the winter, snowflakes blew in. The pigeons competed with the mice and cockroaches for the students’ attention.
[The school at which i taught was structurally in very good conditions, and very well kept. from what i understand, the same is not true for all of the schools in Newark]

This is not to say that all schools in poor neighborhoods are a shambles, or that teaching in a real school is impossible. In fact, thousands of teachers in New York City somehow manage to teach every day, many of them in schools more underfinanced and chaotic than anything you’ve seen in movies or on television (except perhaps the most recent season of “The Wire”).

Ms. Gruwell’s students might backtalk, but first they listen to what she says. And when she raises her inflection just slightly, the class falls silent. Many of the students I’ve known won’t sit down unless they’re repeatedly asked to (maybe not even then), and they don’t listen just because the teacher is speaking; even “good teachers” are occasionally drowned out by the din of 30 students simultaneously using language that would easily earn a movie an NC-17 rating.

When a fight breaks out during an English lesson, Ms. Gruwell steps into the hallway and a security guard immediately materializes to break it up. Forget the teacher — this guy was the hero of the movie for me.

If I were to step out into the hallway during a fight, the only people I’d see would be some students who’d heard there was a fight in my room. I’d be wasting my time waiting for a security guard. The handful of guards where I work are responsible for the safety of five floors, six exits, two yards and four schools jammed into my building.

Although personal safety is at the top of both teachers’ and students’ lists of grievances, the people in charge of real schools don’t take it as seriously as the people in charge of movie schools seem to.

The great misconception of these films is not that actual schools are more chaotic and decrepit — many schools in poor neighborhoods are clean and orderly yet still don’t have enough teachers or money for supplies. No, the most dangerous message such films promote is that what schools really need are heroes. This is the Myth of the Great Teacher.

Films like “Freedom Writers” portray teachers more as missionaries than professionals, eager to give up their lives and comfort for the benefit of others, without need of compensation. Ms. Gruwell sacrifices money, time and even her marriage for her job.

Her behavior is not represented as obsessive or self-destructive, but driven — necessary, even. She is forced into making these sacrifices by the aggressive neglect of the school’s administrators, who won’t even let her take books from the bookroom. The film applauds Ms. Gruwell’s dedication, but also implies that she has no other choice. In order to be a good teacher, she has to be a hero.

“Freedom Writers,” like all teacher movies this side of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” is presented as a celebration of teaching, but its message is that poor students need only love, idealism and martyrdom. [which strikes me as being one of the ways in which one could interpret what Teach for America does]

I won’t argue the need for more of the first two, but I’m always surprised at how, once a Ms. Gruwell wins over a class with clowning, tears, rewards and motivational speeches, there is nothing those kids can’t do. It is as if all the previously insurmountable obstacles students face could be erased by a 10-minute pep talk or a fancy dinner. This trivializes not only the difficulties many real students must overcome, but also the hard-earned skill and tireless effort real teachers must use to help those students succeed.

Every year young people enter the teaching profession hoping to emulate the teachers they’ve seen in films. (Maybe in the back of my mind I felt that I could be an inspiring teacher like Howard Hesseman or Gabe Kaplan.) But when you’re confronted with the reality of teaching not just one class of misunderstood teenagers (the common television and movie conceit) but four or five every day, and dealing with parents, administrators, mentors, grades, attendance records, standardized tests and individual education plans for children with learning disabilities, not to mention multiple daily lesson plans — all without being able to count on the support of your superiors — it becomes harder to measure up to the heroic movie teachers you thought you might be.

It’s no surprise that half the teachers in poor urban schools, like Erin Gruwell herself, quit within five years. [...]

While no one believes that hospitals are really like “ER” or that doctors are anything like “House,” no one blames doctors for the failure of the health care system. From No Child Left Behind to City Hall, teachers are accused of being incompetent and underqualified, while their appeals for better and safer workplaces are systematically ignored.

Every day teachers are blamed for what the system they’re just a part of doesn’t provide: safe, adequately staffed schools with the highest expectations for all students. But that’s not something one maverick teacher, no matter how idealistic, perky or self-sacrificing, can accomplish.

Tom Moore, a 10th-grade history teacher at a public school in the Bronx, is writing a book about his teaching experiences.

Many of these thoughts i have had myself (while watching Stand and Deliver for example) - first and foremost the fact that all movie teachers only ever seem to be dealing with ONE CLASS of twenty students or so. In my experience, teachers have at least fifty kids each - i never had fewer than 100. Students in the movies don't transfer in or out in the middle of the school year - my eighth period class last year started with 25 and ended with 25, but only ten students stayed throughout the nine months. And so on.

The only thing that is missing from his article - though he hints at it in the end - is that the problem of mis-education cannot be solved by one (or even hundreds) of "martyr" teachers: the problem is a political one, and can only be solved through a political process - a process in which teachers should be involved, because they have the potential to affect the political discourse so powerfully.

There is a long article in the Times about Newark's "revival." it strikes me tha throughout it is plagued by a classist bias

Foe example, this statement “This city is coming back,” is preceded by the fact that Throughout Newark, even on the most ragged blocks, new three-family homes are selling for $400,000. The article aslo talks about 1180 Raymond Boulevard: Vacant for 20 years, the building at Raymond Boulevard and Broad Street is being transformed into 317 apartments, and will feature valet parking, a mod bowling alley and a yoga studio. The average rent for a two-bedroom is $2,500; the building is still under renovation, but half the finished apartments have been rented. A year from now, the landlord, Cogswell Realty Group, plans to break ground nearby on a project that would bring 2,900 units to a stretch of Broad Street now dominated by abandoned department stores.

Well, of course: if houses cost $400,000 and a two-bedroom costs $2,500 the city must be coming back, right? But how many current Newark residents can afford to buy those houses? well, this is what the renewal is all about: hundreds of suburbanites and New Yorkers are moving into the city’s first luxury high-rise in a generation [and] As it stands, more than three-quarters of the city’s 150,000 jobs are held by out-of-towners.

And just who is going to live in the Cogswell Realty homes? The company sees its markets as college students who currently commute to Newark, young professionals priced out of Manhattan and empty-nesters seeking an urban experience without depleting their savings.

The articles countinues by saying that Business leaders and politicians alike say such retail — and residential — development depends in part on the 50,000 students and teachers whose lives revolve around Seton Hall Law School, Rutgers University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Essex County College and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. And there is a massive push to get these people to live in Newark: i got a hold of the Rutgers student paper, and essentially the only two ads in it were for these new residential complexes (one of which advertised the presence of 24-hour security).

The article does not hide the class issues: For Mr. Booker, already tarnished in the eyes of some as an outsider for his suburban upbringing and criticized for hiring too many aides from New York, the true challenge will be to spread change beyond a few shiny spots in the business district downtown into the struggling neighborhoods. But sentences like these are followed by this kind of assessment: “The edge is so thin right now,” said Alfred C. Koeppe, president of the Newark Alliance, a consortium of business leaders working to improve the economy and schools. “All it takes is one kid who recently moved here to get shot on the way to the PATH train and it could be all over.”  Never mind the 106 people who were murdered in Newark last year - they're not even part of the equation, except maybe because they create a negative impression in the minds of potential new residents.

The mayor has been saying some of the right things. He says he's going to create building trade apprenticeships for jobless young people and develop a municipal loan pool for minority business owners, [and he is] trying to make the rehabilitation of former offenders [...] a top priority. And there is certainly room to do so: Indeed, down at the waterfront, where the business of unloading and loading cargo has doubled in the past decade, producing about 1,000 new jobs a year, nearly 80 percent of the 28,000 stevedore and truck driving positions are held by people who live outside the city. At Newark Liberty International Airport, the airlines hire hundreds of baggage handlers, flight attendants and reservation agents every month; few are from Newark. (i mentioned the advertisement in this picture in a previous post - this is certainly a good thing).

With 1,500 to 2,000 parolees returning to Newark each year — and 60 percent of them ending up in handcuffs again within three years, according to city officials — the Booker administration plans to unveil a program next month that would provide ex-felons with job training and help them expunge their criminal records.

However, aside from the advertisement above and the proposed redevelopment of Brick Towers (also in a previous post), I have seen many fewer concrete things done for "the mass who burn and toil" than for "the vultures who thirst for blood and oil", and the cynic in me thinks that this is the most telling statement of the whole article:

“All my life, the politicians have been calling this place the Renaissance City,” complained Latonya Edwards, 28, a part-time security guard who is raising three children in a decrepit apartment building on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. “I think the renaissance is for suburban people who go downtown. If they have their way, people like me would just disappear.”

I have been following discussions about Newark's new mayor's performance in trying to make the murder rate decline. The mayor has been making a big deal of the fact that, despite Newark's 106 homicides last year (which broke a ten-year record), he should only be held accountable for the ones that occurred after he took office in July. Okay, fair enough.

But this is this year's news, and it's not starting well:

3rd fatal shooting in Newark this week
A 29-year-old man was shot to death tonight in Newark, the city's third homicide in the first four days of the new year, police said.

I have been asked what i think of mayor Cory Booker. I oppose his support of voucehers, and i'm not so sure about some of this policy choices. But I have often been reminded of the fact that fascists can pave roads just as well (if not better) than progressives.

In the end, i think that the residents of Newark will evaluate his tenure based almost exclusively on whether he can bring down the murder rate. I have been thinking that perhaps 80 this year would mean a big sign of improvement.

By the Associated Press:

[...] So far, Newark has recorded at least 104 murders this year. The county prosecutor's office puts the tally slightly higher — at 110 — because it includes several victims whose bodies were found in Newark but who had not obviously been killed in the city. The city does not include them in its own count.

[...] "The number one thing we're seeing is people settling disputes using guns," she said. "It's become the norm for everybody to pack a gun. That sense in the community that guns are an acceptable way of doing business and living has its impact on crime here in Newark."

Glorious King Sau, a spokesman for the Street Warriors, a group that tries to steer teens away from gangs and violence, said many of the city's youths are brazen and armed to the teeth.

"Newark is rough, man," he said. "These kids have some of the best weaponry, and they're quick to kill. You get into an argument with a 14-year-old, and they're strapping," he said, using a street term for carrying a gun.

"These guys are ruthless," he said. "They're quick to shoot. They don't fear the police. They're all about instant gratification. In our community, education gets a bad rap because they think they can hustle and get by without it."

Sau said a lack of proper role models has a lot to do with kids gravitating toward gangs and drug dealers.

And in the meanwhile, I have to try to stop myself from puking after reading this in the Times:

The Pentagon is seeking nearly $100 billion for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, a request that, if approved by Congress, would set an annual record for war-related spending.

The $99.7 billion request, detailed in a 17-page internal Defense Department memorandum dated Dec. 7, would be in addition to $70 billion appropriated in September. The request would push the total for the 2007 fiscal year to nearly $170 billion, 45 percent more than Congress provided for 2006.

[...] some experts questioned whether the services were exploiting the must-pass nature of the supplemental bill to seek money for other purposes like the modernization of aircraft rather than just wartime replacements. Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, a policy analysis organization in Virginia, pointed to the Air Force request for $62 million for ballistic missiles, a weapon not being employed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Since 2001, Congress has approved $507 billion for Afghanistan, Iraq and other operations deemed part of combating terrorism. Even with the Democrats in control, there is unlikely to be much appetite for cutting the war-related spending requests, Mr. Kosiak said.