Ask The Tot where his mama was on Saturday morning and he’ll proudly tell you, “Education.” He knows that has something to do with school, and that it’s important, but he probably can’t tell you what exactly Mama’s work for education means. I’m not sure I can either, but it feels good to at least learn what the heck is going on.
On Saturday morning, I was down on the south side, at Ariel Academy in Kenwood. Sonia Kwon, Jill Wohl and I bypassed the floods and the Cubs traffic and made it to the humid, slippery auditorium in time to hear Karen Lewis’ rousing speech about CPS, the state of Illinois and the state of education. Lewis reported that the powers that be at CPS are repeating the same, tired schpiel that all people in power repeat when their motives or actions are called into question: Won’t someone please think about the children? Oh, please. Like CPS teachers are in it for the money? Like involved parents’ primary motivation are not their children? Were we all giving up a couple of hours smack-dab in the middle of a summer Saturday for some other reason but the children? As Lewis said, it’s about money and power. Like everything else in Chicago, it seems. Same-old, same-old.
Lewis also said something that struck me as pretty powerful. In 2004, she said, 62% of the CPS budget went to personnel costs. In 2009, that number dropped to 49%. What changed? Why? I wish I could say that I checked her facts against existing data to substantiate her claim, but getting the city to share its “datapoints” is harder than getting a willful toddler to eat smashed peas.
But her ire was not directed only at CPS, but at the state as well. She suggested that we all call our state representatives and senators and tell them that they are late in their payments. “And we’re not even charging you interest.” Good point.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Will someone please think about the children?
"As if, you know, the kids are really what all these machinations are about." I want to be Ben Joravsky when I grow up.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Work-Life Balance
In late March, the White House hosted a symposium on workplace flexibility. Of course, I could not watch it live because I was at work, but I did watch the opening session online that evening. (They've since added all the breakout sessions to the blog.) That the White House was even having a public discussion about this stuff is pretty compelling to me.
The work-life question is a popular topic of conversation among my friends and peers, whether our primary-waking-hours job is employment outside of the home or caring for our own children. Truthfully, I know very few people who work full-time or stay at home full-time who are 100% happy with that. SAHMs long for more intellectual stimulation and/or some financial independence. Working moms long for more flexibility and/or time to themselves and/or time with their children.
Back at the White House in March/April, Michelle Obama spoke of how she brought Malia in a stroller to a job interview because she didn't have adequate childcare at the time. That she brought a sleeping toddler to a job interview in the late 1990s is no less shocking to me as is the fact that they gave her the job.
Obviously, Mrs. Obama's interviewers recognized some quality in her that would let her perform well in paid work despite a small child. Was she lucky? Or is that kind of workplace flexibility and work-life balance a common occurrence? In a world where women earn only 70-80% of what their male colleagues earn, I'm fairly confident that Mrs. Obama was lucky, or magnetic, or both.
The 1970s manifesto of equal wages, equal treatment, and fair valuation of housewifery is yet to be realized in 2010. That SAHMs have intrinsic value is somewhat recognized; that their work should have a monetary value is decidedly not. To wit: a 7-year argument I've had with my husband about whether childcare necessarily involves (or should) housecleaning. After all, when modern couples outsource these tasks, they are generally to different service people. While both can be (and often are) mind-numbing, busy-work tasks (and to be fair: so can any job in corporate America), they do require different skill sets.
After nearly a year of full-time work after 6 years of very, very part-time work, I can firmly say that I wish Chicago was a more flexible working town. Although I do know people with flexible working arrangements (some of them even in my company), it seems that most of them paid their dues as full-time workers for a period of time before negotiating their time down to 2/3 or 3/4-time. This would be the difference between reported flexibility arrangements between employers (one half) and employees (one third), as cited in the Work-Life Balance and the Economics of Workplace Flexibility study.
The work-life question is a popular topic of conversation among my friends and peers, whether our primary-waking-hours job is employment outside of the home or caring for our own children. Truthfully, I know very few people who work full-time or stay at home full-time who are 100% happy with that. SAHMs long for more intellectual stimulation and/or some financial independence. Working moms long for more flexibility and/or time to themselves and/or time with their children.
Back at the White House in March/April, Michelle Obama spoke of how she brought Malia in a stroller to a job interview because she didn't have adequate childcare at the time. That she brought a sleeping toddler to a job interview in the late 1990s is no less shocking to me as is the fact that they gave her the job.
Obviously, Mrs. Obama's interviewers recognized some quality in her that would let her perform well in paid work despite a small child. Was she lucky? Or is that kind of workplace flexibility and work-life balance a common occurrence? In a world where women earn only 70-80% of what their male colleagues earn, I'm fairly confident that Mrs. Obama was lucky, or magnetic, or both.
The 1970s manifesto of equal wages, equal treatment, and fair valuation of housewifery is yet to be realized in 2010. That SAHMs have intrinsic value is somewhat recognized; that their work should have a monetary value is decidedly not. To wit: a 7-year argument I've had with my husband about whether childcare necessarily involves (or should) housecleaning. After all, when modern couples outsource these tasks, they are generally to different service people. While both can be (and often are) mind-numbing, busy-work tasks (and to be fair: so can any job in corporate America), they do require different skill sets.
After nearly a year of full-time work after 6 years of very, very part-time work, I can firmly say that I wish Chicago was a more flexible working town. Although I do know people with flexible working arrangements (some of them even in my company), it seems that most of them paid their dues as full-time workers for a period of time before negotiating their time down to 2/3 or 3/4-time. This would be the difference between reported flexibility arrangements between employers (one half) and employees (one third), as cited in the Work-Life Balance and the Economics of Workplace Flexibility study.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Breaking the Clique
I've "heard" that there is a perception among the parents at The Boy's and The Girl's school that the existing parent groups are "exclusive" and "cliquey." I can understand that; after all, the same 20+ people often show up to everything. I am happy and grateful to those volunteers (like myself) who want to be really involved or really informed. But: why aren't more people involved? How can we create a warm and inclusive parent community/culture? How to create more opportunities for involvement? And a confession: I often feel that I am on the outside of the circle.
In talking to other parents at other schools, this feeling of exclusion is common--even parents like myself who are what my friend Ami would call Super Volunteers. Last week, during a community-building session at Nettelhorst's CPS Symposium, one parent, Patricia O'Keefe of Friends of Alcott, shared what she had done to "break the clique" at Alcott, creating a community culture that really, truly values parent volunteers. It's simple, really, but so smart:
Everyone who wants to be a room parent, can be a room parent.
I know what you're thinking: well, how does that work? Basically, at Alcott, they broke up all the tasks associated with classroom activities and made it more manageable for everyone to get involved:
#1 Teacher Contact. This person fulfills the normally associated duties of room parent, meeting with the teacher as-needed, assessing classroom needs, and communicating with the teacher and the rest of the room parents about what is needed. Teacher preference goes.
#2 Communications. This person does everything associated with communications: putting together a class list, helping with the directory, sending out emails to parents, etc. Some teachers at Alcott even have the communications room parent help or do their weekly newsletter.
#3 Social Butterfly. This person coordinates social time for kids, parents, moms, dads, etc. outside of the classroom: pizza parties, MNO, DNO, parent socials, etc.
#4 Volunteers. This person coordinates volunteers needed for classroom events, putting together a schedule, getting the information on classroom volunteers from the teacher contact, etc.
#5 LSC/PTA/FO Contact. This person is the liaison between the classroom and these organizations. If a classroom project needs to be done for an auction or other event, this is the person who works it out.
#6+ Ad Hoc Time. This person or people may have 4 hours/week or 1/2 an hour a year to support the classroom. They'll work with the classroom volunteers person to make sure that the teacher has all of her bases covered in and outside of the classroom, lending a hand here and there as needed.
In talking to other parents at other schools, this feeling of exclusion is common--even parents like myself who are what my friend Ami would call Super Volunteers. Last week, during a community-building session at Nettelhorst's CPS Symposium, one parent, Patricia O'Keefe of Friends of Alcott, shared what she had done to "break the clique" at Alcott, creating a community culture that really, truly values parent volunteers. It's simple, really, but so smart:
Everyone who wants to be a room parent, can be a room parent.
I know what you're thinking: well, how does that work? Basically, at Alcott, they broke up all the tasks associated with classroom activities and made it more manageable for everyone to get involved:
#1 Teacher Contact. This person fulfills the normally associated duties of room parent, meeting with the teacher as-needed, assessing classroom needs, and communicating with the teacher and the rest of the room parents about what is needed. Teacher preference goes.
#2 Communications. This person does everything associated with communications: putting together a class list, helping with the directory, sending out emails to parents, etc. Some teachers at Alcott even have the communications room parent help or do their weekly newsletter.
#3 Social Butterfly. This person coordinates social time for kids, parents, moms, dads, etc. outside of the classroom: pizza parties, MNO, DNO, parent socials, etc.
#4 Volunteers. This person coordinates volunteers needed for classroom events, putting together a schedule, getting the information on classroom volunteers from the teacher contact, etc.
#5 LSC/PTA/FO Contact. This person is the liaison between the classroom and these organizations. If a classroom project needs to be done for an auction or other event, this is the person who works it out.
#6+ Ad Hoc Time. This person or people may have 4 hours/week or 1/2 an hour a year to support the classroom. They'll work with the classroom volunteers person to make sure that the teacher has all of her bases covered in and outside of the classroom, lending a hand here and there as needed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
