Can Community Colleges Change the Way We Think About Talent?

Believe it or not, some high school graduates not bound for four-year colleges still want to pursue higher education.  But our system of higher education has other plans in mind for these students.  In the United States, if you don’t attend a four-year college immediately after high school, you essentially become red meat for employers seeking low-wage workers (if you’re fortunate enough to find a job at all) or for-profit colleges whose duty is to the bottom line, whether or not they meet the unique needs of each student.   In too many cases, community colleges have become either a choice of last resort or a choice that has lost so much credibility that many students no longer consider it an option.  Why attend community college for two years, if you can “get the training you need for a job with a future in as little a nine months,” as Everest College heralds on its website?

Raising the standards of community colleges would raise standards across-the-board by forcing for-profits to compete by providing student-centered learning, providing four-year colleges with a more diverse pool of quality applicants seeking additional education beyond the Associates degree, and raising the standards of the American workforce.  In a nation in which people of color are expected to make up more than 50% of the population by 2050, it is critically important to reform higher education in a way that teaches students of varying learning styles the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills they will need to compete in a global economy. 

This will require us to shift the way we think about the potential of workers beyond the age of seventeen. By some accounts, age eighty is the new sixty-five for retirement.  Paradoxically, American workers internalize the message that their abilities are written in stone and what they have accomplished from age 0 to 17 will irreversibly determine the next 63 years of their working lives.  This myth provides justification to plutocrats, but is holding the rest of the country back.  It also flies in the face of a growing body of research suggesting that IQs are not fixed at birth, but can be improved with education.

On December 16, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies convened a roundtable discussion among education policy stakeholders for a results-driven dialogue to improve community colleges’ ability to educate the next generation of American innovators.  In the keynote, Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Mignon Clyburn urged participants to empathize with individuals who have the potential to excel but not the opportunities. Thomas Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy in the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, stressed President Obama’s goal to move America from the middle to the top of the pack of the world’s most innovative countries.   To do this, the White House has partnered with Change the Equation, the National Academy Foundation, and Skills for America’s Future to improve high schools and community colleges and strengthen ties between community colleges and employers.  The White House has also produced an inventory of STEM programs nationwide through the post-doctoral level.  According to Kalil, over $1 billion of federal investments in STEM are allocated to broaden participation by underrepresented groups.  Kalil acknowledged the critical importance of improving STEM education in early grades, but also said that retaining STEM students by reducing class sizes is important to keep students interested and engaged in STEM. A book entitled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” summarizes other efforts to improve American competitiveness.

The nation’s challenge to improve STEM education is multifaceted and will not be overcome without significant effort from a variety of stakeholders.  Living conditions play a major role in academic achievement. Thus, any approach to reducing achievement gaps must address the circumstances of poverty and the circumstances of working while attending school.  Several roundtable participants raised other important issues that must not be overlooked.  Ajenai Clemmons, Policy Director of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and a roundtable participant, urged policy makers to include local elected officials in the discussion. Quentin Lawson, Executive Director of the National Alliance of Black School Educators, another roundtable participant, expressed the need to develop better ways to develop STEM instructors, especially STEM instructors from underrepresented backgrounds.  Linda Rosen of Change the Equation raised the issue that many elementary school teachers think of themselves as generalists, rather than science and mathematics teachers.  John Horrigan, Vice President of Policy Research at TechNet, said that data needs to be made available to the research community in order to understand where the “outliers” are that have been successful and develop initiatives to apply what works.

These issues only skim the surface of the many problems that need to be addressed before we accomplish true STEM reform.  It is only through a persistent and interdisciplinary effort that it will be achieved.  Accordingly, the Joint Center announced the formation of a task force to make specific recommendations to improve STEM education.  This effort must be results-oriented rather than simply another Washington discussion in which people drink coffee, eat cookies and go home.  The future of American innovation depends on creating a culture of lifelong learning that makes fewer reductionist assumptions about students’ intrinsic abilities.

One Occupy Protester Changes the Live News Model

This brilliant young man is going to use quadrocopters to shoot overhead footage of OWS protests.  While traditional news copters can be restricted, any altitude at 400 feet or below is not restricted, FAA airspace. Both the quadrocopters and the smartphones are wireless technologies.  In the context of social engagement to address disparities that minorities are disproportionately affected by, this is far from being second class citizenship. 

[via Mashable]

“Occupy Wall Street broadcaster Tim Pool’s protest coverage, shot entirely on smartphones, has received more attention than most mainstream media. The reporter - who doesn’t identify with the term citizen journalist - is now devising ways mobile technology can provide unprecedented news coverage.

Pool rose to fame after his 21-hour live Ustream broadcast of the Nov. 15 raid on Zuccotti Park went viral on Twitter. His stream provided what large camera crews could not - an unfiltered take on the action as it unfolded. His footage was featured on Al Jazeera English, MSNBC and Time.com …”

http://on.mash.to/uc74PE

“Progressives?”: Race Baiting and the Digital Divide

“One of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down.”

-Pauline Kael

What is to blame for digital age inequality?  The digital divide behind door number one?  Or the digital divide behind door number two?  These seem like silly questions.  That’s because they are.  But no matter what the reason is, some advocates always manage to find a way to insult the lifestyle choices of people of color.

Last week was a busy week for these folks.  On December 3^rd, The New York Times published an op-Ed by Susan Crawford, a long time net neutrality advocate, professor of law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of law, and former special assistant to President Obama on science, technology, and innovation policy.  Crawford wrote that smartphones—the devices that African-Americans and Latinos overwhelmingly prefer for accessing the internet—provide a “second class” tier of Internet service, as compared to the high-speed wired internet access that middle-class urbanites and suburbanites are able to enjoy via computers connected directly to the Internet.  In a blog post in Colorlines—a blog focusing on issues affecting minorities—Colorlines News Editor Jamilah King reiterated Crawford’s thesis, then went the extra mile of calling out the NAACP and National Urban League for taking funding from telecommunications companies like AT&T and Sprint.

The problem with Crawford and King’s approach is that they cast wireless broadband and smartphones in their worst possible light.  High-speed broadband and wireless broadband each have a distinct set of unique advantages over the other, making neither of them superior to the other in all respects.  If wireless were a substitute for high speed internet access, there would be no competition. 

This dichotomy is not a race issue.  I have not seen any minority groups make the argument that wireless broadband is a complete substitute for high speed internet.  I have heard them say that, in the absence of high speed internet, or where high speed internet is not affordable, wireless is a lifeline.  However, I have not seen any organizations say that we should forget about high speed Internet access for communities of color and focus exclusively on ensuring that communities of color have smartphones. So the idea that there is some grand conspiracy to “trick” minorities into using mobile devices instead of computers sounds specious to me.

High speed internet access is critical for exposing people of color to the culture of innovation from which they have largely been excluded.  In this context, wireless internet access is not a substitute for high speed internet access.  Nor is it a substitute for some of the uses that Crawford mentions in her article, such as writing resumes, using remote healthcare applications, or for earning a degree online (although the current success rate of online learning for minorities is dismal).  But the exclusionary culture of Silicon Valley is not something that mainstream media advocates have addressed.  If corporations are really “D.C.’s most truly bipartisan, non-ideological lobbying force, spreading their money around everywhere from the halls of Congress to the advocacy organizations that represent communities’ interests there,” as King asserts in her article, wouldn’t minority organizations have a more diverse funding base?  Why not attack the technology companies that don’t fund them?  Why not attack free market groups more often?  Why are minority-oriented groups such easy targets?

Mainstream media advocates pooh-pooh minorities’ use of smartphones, but at the same time we debate about why so few African-Americans are participating in the Occupy Wall Street Movement, even though African-Americans are among those racial and ethnic groups most affected by socioeconomic disparities.  “Protesters” are Time magazine’s Person of the Year.  Could anyone plausibly question whether the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street protests would have been as successful as they have been were it not for wireless broadband?

From the outset of the digital divide debate in 1995, the Department of Commerce’s National and Information Administration (NTIA) has expressed the need to evaluate more than just telephones to determine who are the “haves and have nots” when it comes information access and participation.  NTIA’s report stated, “While a standard telephone line can be an individual’s pathway to the riches of the Information Age, a personal computer and modem are rapidly becoming the keys to the vault.”  But in 1995, according to CTIA, the Wireless Industry trade association, there were just 33.8 million wireless subscribers in the U.S.  By 2009, that number had grown to 277.6 million.  Just as it was important to avoid allocating excessive resources toward universal telephone service as computers began to take hold, it is equally important to acknowledge that wireless offers a different value proposition vis-à-vis wireline broadband.

High-speed internet access and bandwidth are absolutely essential for supporting American innovation in Silicon Valley.  But commoditizing minorities to bolster that underlying argument is patently irresponsible.  There is no “new” digital divide—we are faced with the same digital divide that we have been faced with since at least 1940.  Wireless broadband has helped to close part of that gap, but we still have a long way to go.

Jazz Has Endured, Can Public Media?

The FCC’s media ownership rules have never resulted in commercial programming that fully reflects local communities.  Local newscasts make up only a small portion of local radio and television broadcast schedules.  The vast majority of other programming is national, network programming and syndicated shows.  While radio stations have more of a “local feel” than television, their most popular news programming is often syndicated, and music formats are programmed based on national record sales. 

Public media is critical to filling the void left by commercial broadcasters.  But several structural changes have threatened the ability of public media to thrive and provide local content. 

Newark, New Jersey’s WBGO 88.3FM “Jazz 88” is a prime example both of public media done well and what we stand to lose if public broadcasting is not preserved.  Founded in 1979, WBGO was New Jersey’s first public radio station.  While WBGO is based in the predominantly African-American city of Newark, it can be heard in all five New York City boroughs, north of the city in Rockland and Westchester Counties, Long Island, and parts of Connecticut.  The station now streams its broadcast and boasts membership from listeners around the world.  Despite its far flung reach, WBGO has never lost sight of its mission to provide programming for the City of Newark. 

But WBGO has moved its antennae transmitter to Manhattan.  Some are worried the move will result in less Newark-specific programming.  This is not inconceivable.  The precipitous decline in the mainstream popularity in jazz (see the latest Recording Industry Association of America data here) could pressure WBGO to offset listener attrition by increasing its New York-specific content.  But this hasn’t happened —yet. 

New Jersey has decided to exit the public broadcasting business altogether.  Earlier this year, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed off on a deal to transfer the operations of the New Jersey Public Television Network to New York’s WNET.  New York Public Radio has also acquired four of New Jersey’s state-owned radio licenses.  Philadelphia’s WHYY has acquired another five of New Jersey’s radio licenses.  Some advocates have fought to ensure the new owners will continue to program these properties with local, New Jersey content.  WNET is contractually required to program NJN with New Jersey-based content.  But the term of the deal is only five years.  What happens after those five years have expired is anyone’s guess, and the fates of the radio properties now owned by entities in New York and Philadelphia remains up in the air.

Congress has also sought to end public broadcasting.  Earlier this year, Republicans pushed two bills to defund National Public Radio (NPR) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).  After significant public outcry, the bills failed, but the effort brought public broadcasting to a precipice, and there is no reason to conclude that Congress will pass up the next opportunity to defund public broadcasting.

The incentives for public media and those of commercial media are quite different. Media companies must program their stations in a way that generates profits, not in light of the amount of concentration and consolidation you and I wish there were, but in light of what the climate actually is. And with advertising dollars moving farther away from traditional, broadcast-only media outlets, especially radio, and toward multi-platform brands that engage across different types of media, we can expect less localism from the private sector—not more. Public broadcasting doesn’t have those same kinds of constraints because their mandate is to fill the void left by commercial media in exchange for tax incentives.

Currently, people have few choices but to consume mass appeal content. Corporate decision makers believe that what makes mass appeal content so attractive and profitable is that the greater number of platforms for-profit companies are engaged with, the more difficult it becomes to maintain a consistent brand identity. So mass appeal formatting is sort of a no-brainer—it is easy to produce and control. Reinforcing this is the fact that our public institutions—courts—have deemed mass-appeal approaches to be most consistent with what the Founder’s envisioned. 

In Lutheran Church Missouri-Synod v. FCC, Judge Silberman, writing for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, struck down the FCC’s Equal Employment Opportunity rules, reasoning that even considering racially based differences is antithetical to the Constitution and to democracy.  In her famous dissent in Metro Broadcasting v. FCC, Justice O’Connor questioned whether diverse media ownership correlates with diverse programming. Justice O’Connor reasoned that broadcasters, irrespective of their race, would respond to what the market dictates. 

Commercial media has become less local not more.  If we lose public, locally-focused broadcasting, we will lose an important source of local content that is unconstrained by the need to be mass appeal.    

Wireless Taxes: Why You Don’t Have $10 for Lunch Today

“This tax, that tax, what do they all mean?  Well, I guess I have to pay them if I want to keep this phone.”  Sound familiar?

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the Wireless Tax Fairness Act of 2011, which would freeze any increases in state and local taxes on wireless services.  Now that the House has passed its version of the bill, the Senate should follow suit and pass this legislation.  Both chambers should consider passing a similar measure—the Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act of 2011—which would prevent new taxes on digital goods and services.  Digital goods such as apps and e-books do not burden state resources in the same way that physical goods and services do, and so they should not be taxed at the same rate.

Preventing tax increases on wireless services is a small but significant step toward ensuring that broadband remains affordable for low-income consumers who are disproportionately people of color.  Increases to wireless bills that may seem slight to middle-class and upper income consumers can be enough to cause low-income consumers to cancel or forego their wireless service.  For example, a recent paper by Glenn Woroch estimates that adding $4.17 to the average wireless bill of $47.21 would lead to a 7% drop in wireless subscribership levels.

Three of the top 5 states with the highest wireless tax rates are home to large cities with African-American and Latino populations exceeding the national average.  In some states, wireless service taxes are more than twice the sales tax placed upon physical goods.  New York, for example, has the highest wireless service tax rate (17.78%) among states with majority-minority cities.  Contrast this with New York’s state-wide sales tax rate of 8.25%.  Other such states include Florida (wireless service tax: 16.57%/statewide sales tax: 7.25%) and Illinois (wireless service tax: 15.85%/statewide sales tax: 9%).

Congress should prevent increases to state taxes on digital goods and services as well.  The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies has reported that African-Americans (32%) and Latinos (29%) are more likely than white Americans (23%) to download apps to their cell phones.  Further, according to Nielsen, 45% of Latinos and 33% of African-Americans own smartphones, as compared to 27% of white mobile users.  And what would the apps market be without smartphones?

Smarter devices and services have made quality goods and services more accessible to low-income consumers.  However, a regressive tax mechanism applied to wireless service, digital goods and digital services would further repress this potential utility of mobile broadband.  For example, several online services can assist low-income consumers in buying groceries if they live too far away from well-stocked and more reasonably priced supermarkets.  Previous studies have shown that many low-income, urban neighborhoods are “food deserts” without feasible access to stores with an array of quality produce and meats.  Online services, such as Peapod, deliver quality meats, seafood and produce to consumers beyond the one-mile radius of partnering supermarkets. Last week, Amazon debuted a new service that allows consumers to purchase basic groceries—including coffee, cereal, meat, and seafood—with few geographic restrictions at all.  Thus, while further raising wireless taxes may create a revenue stream to fund other state and local initiatives, the gains from those initiatives will be negated by nudging low-income consumers toward purchasing lower quality goods at higher prices, and thereby exacerbating negative health and economic outcomes.

Comprehensive and equitable tax policies are absolutely critical for creating a mobile broadband environment that is more conducive to improving conditions in low-income communities. 

If you are interested in learning more about the effect of excessive state and local taxes on wireless service and digital goods and services, read the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’ report released ahead of yesterday’s House vote.

“This tax, that tax, what do they all mean?  Well, I guess I have to pay them if I want to keep this phone.”  Sound familiar?

On Monday, the House of Representatives passed the Wireless Tax Fairness Act of 2011, which would freeze any increases in state and local taxes on wireless services.  Now that the House has passed its version of the bill, the Senate should follow suit and pass this legislation.  Both chambers should consider passing a similar measure—the Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act of 2011—which would prevent new taxes on digital goods and services.  Digital goods such as apps and e-books do not burden state resources in the same way that physical goods and services do, and so they should not be taxed at the same rate.

Preventing tax increases on wireless services is a small but significant step toward ensuring that broadband remains affordable for low-income consumers who are disproportionately people of color.  Increases to wireless bills that may seem slight to middle-class and upper income consumers can be enough to cause low-income consumers to cancel or forego their wireless service.  For example, a recent paper by Glenn Woroch estimates that adding $4.17 to the average wireless bill of $47.21 would lead to a 7% drop in wireless subscribership levels.

Three of the top 5 states with the highest wireless tax rates are home to large cities with African-American and Latino populations exceeding the national average.  In some states, wireless service taxes are more than twice the sales tax placed upon physical goods.  New York, for example, has the highest wireless service tax rate (17.78%) among states with majority-minority cities.  Contrast this with New York’s state-wide sales tax rate of 8.25%.  Other such states include Florida (wireless service tax: 16.57%/statewide sales tax: 7.25%) and Illinois (wireless service tax: 15.85%/statewide sales tax: 9%).

Congress should prevent increases to state taxes on digital goods and services as well.  The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies has reported that African-Americans (32%) and Latinos (29%) are more likely than white Americans (23%) to download apps to their cell phones.  Further, according to Nielsen, 45% of Latinos and 33% of African-Americans own smartphones, as compared to 27% of white mobile users.  And what would the apps market be without smartphones?

Smarter devices and services have made quality goods and services more accessible to low-income consumers.  However, a regressive tax mechanism applied to wireless service, digital goods and digital services would further repress this potential utility of mobile broadband.  For example, several online services can assist low-income consumers in buying groceries if they live too far away from well-stocked and more reasonably priced supermarkets.  Previous studies have shown that many low-income, urban neighborhoods are “food deserts” without feasible access to stores with an array of quality produce and meats.  Online services, such as Peapod, deliver quality meats, seafood and produce to consumers beyond the one-mile radius of partnering supermarkets. Last week, Amazon debuted a new service that allows consumers to purchase basic groceries—including coffee, cereal, meat, and seafood—with few geographic restrictions at all.  Thus, while further raising wireless taxes may create a revenue stream to fund other state and local initiatives, the gains from those initiatives will be negated by nudging low-income consumers toward purchasing lower quality goods at higher prices, and thereby exacerbating negative health and economic outcomes.

Comprehensive and equitable tax policies are absolutely critical for creating a mobile broadband environment that is more conducive to improving conditions in low-income communities. 

If you are interested in learning more about the effect of excessive state and local taxes on wireless service and digital goods and services, read the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’ report released ahead of yesterday’s House vote.

Will McDonald’s TV be Good for African-Americans?

McDonald’s announced today that it will launch an HDTV station in its restaurants. The stations will feature local content.  The channel is expected to reach 18 to 20 million customers per month. A recent study shows that predominantly African-American communities have an average of 2.4 McDonald’s restaurants per square mile, compared to 1.5 restaurants in predominantly white neighborhoods.  African-Americans also watch the most TV, with 7 hrs. and 12 minutes per day, compared to the national average of 5 hrs. and 11 mins. per day.  Minorities are also avid mobile users.  If the station does well, mobile apps allowing customers to access McDonald’s programming anywhere are just around the corner.  Is this a good thing for low-income African-Americans who rely on cheap fast food to survive?  What are health food establishments, such as Whole Foods, doing to reach low-income African-Americans?