SAMUEL LOGAN

Publisher

A Real Times Newspaper

479 Ledyard – Detroit, MI 48201

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April 21-27, 2010

JACKIE BERG

Chief Marketing Officer

BANKOLE THOMPSON

Senior Editor

CORNELIUS A. FORTUNE

Associate Managing Editor

JOHN H. SENGSTACKE

Chairman-Emeritus 1912-1997

LONGWORTH M. QUINN

Publisher-Emeritus 1909-1989

Page A-6

Detroit pensions: ‘Chickens come home to roost’

By Sam Logan

CHRONICLE PUBLISHER

Numbers mean a lot, espe-

cially in objective fields of en- deavor. The recent financial crisis continues to affect all things. Equity markets have strengthened as we have moved off the bottom caused by a co- lossal collapse in the banking and real estate system and the disappearance of Wall Street as we once knew it.

The real economy continues

to muddle along and is not ex- pected show any real strength until employment improves.

Accompanying this histori-

cal occurrence is the ultimate “chickens come home to roost” story which is the defined benefit pension structure in the US. Maintaining these systems are challenging for state and local gov- ernments and will require labor and manage- ment to work together to continue the benefits of the pension system.

Sam Logan

The current hysteria concerning the City of

Detroit Retirement Systems is more about the fundamental choices our community makes regarding quality of life and the priority of re- sources. Unfortunately, the tools available to solve these problems were not accessed prior to the very existence of the wealth of the City of Detroit became a subject of state domain.

It is interesting that amongst the midst of

the natural madness that occurs when the Re- public is threatened, I do consider the financial crisis a threat; bogeymen of all sorts are sought

out for blame and responsibili- ty. Of course, our protectors will accuse and capture many of the guilty parties and mistakes will be addressed and risk controls increase.

The impact of this crisis has

struck deeply into the budgets and financial fabric of state and local governments. Pension dis- cussions are occurring all over the US. Researchers just point- ed out to the State Legislature in California that the two large state pension systems have over $500 billion in unfunded liabili- ties.

The financial sponsors of these plans naturally must examine budget priorities in terms of maintaining local pension sys-

tems. However, such decisions must be made based upon fact, not the emotion of the times.

Which brings me back to that number, 240.

Under the recently proposed legislation to give away the Detroit systems, the State Treasurer is granted extraordinary powers over the pen- sion system. It is interesting the during the worst 12 months known to the financial mar- kets, one of the Detroit systems earned $240 million in additional earnings because they were not managed by the State Treasurer.

As we know, one year in the life of a pension

fund is but a moment in time. However, the data show that the Detroit Retirement Systems have better relative returns than their supposed “better managed” counterparts. Therefore, we must remove investment performance from the debate and discuss the real issues.

By Joel Klein, Michael Lomax and Janet Murgula

Why great teachers matter to low-income students

In the debate over how to fix American public

education, many believe that schools alone cannot overcome the impact that economic dis- advantage has on a child, that life outcomes are fixed by poverty and family circumstances, and that education doesn’t work until other prob- lems are solved.

This theory is, in some ways, comforting for

educators. After all, if schools make only a mar- ginal difference, we can stop faulting ourselves for failing to make them work well for millions of children. It follows that we can stop working to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently known as No Child Left Behind) and stop competing in the Obama administration’s Race to the Top initiative, which promises controversial changes.

Problem is, the theory is wrong. It’s hard to

know how wrong – because we haven’t yet tried to make the changes that would tell us – but plenty of evidence demonstrates that schools can make an enormous difference despite the challenges presented by poverty and family background.

Consider the latest national math scores of

fourth and eighth graders, which show star- tling differences among results for low-income African American students in different cities. In Boston, Charlotte, New York and Houston, these fourth graders scored 20 to 30 points higher than students in the same socioeconom- ic group in Detroit, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and the District of Columbia. Boston fourth-graders outscored those in Detroit by 33 points. Ten points approximates one year’s worth of learn- ing on these national tests, which means that by fourth grade, poor African American chil- dren in Detroit are already three grades behind their peers in Boston.

Not surprisingly, these differences persist

(or grow) by the eighth grade, at which point low-income African American students in De- troit are scoring 36 points behind their peers in Austin.

The scores tell a similarly painful story

for low-income Hispanic students in different cities. In fourth grade, there is a 29-point dif- ference between test scores in Miami-Dade and Detroit. By eighth grade, the gap has closed slightly, with low-income Hispanic students in Houston outscoring their peers in Cleveland and Fresno, Calif., by 23 points.

These numbers represent vast differences in

millions of lives. Low-income African American and Hispanic students in different cities are sufficiently similar in terms of their academic needs but their outcomes are so dramatically different.

The main difference between these children

Obama should reject Elena Kagan for Supreme Court

By George Curry

Solicitor General Elena Kagan, said to be

President Obama’s leading choice to replace Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, would be a poor appointment and would be unlikely to mirror Stevens’ progressive voting record.

Kagan, former dean of the Harvard Law

School, was a finalist when Sonia Sotomayor was appointed by Obama to the court last year. Because she has already been vetted – and has won praise from some conservative quarters – White House sources have stated that she heads Obama’s short list of candidates to re- place Stevens, the leader of the four-member progressive bloc of Supreme Court justices.

“When President Obama chose Sonia Soto-

and teachers. “Teacher quality is the single most important school factor in student suc- cess,” the Aspen Institute’s Commission on No Child Left Behind recently noted. Given how much research supports this view, it is especially troubling, the commission found, that “teacher quality is inequitably distributed in schools and the students with the greatest needs tend to have access to the least qualified and least effective teachers.”

Different teachers get very different results

with similar students. So as reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is considered, we should look closely at those whom we attract and retain to teach, with regard to their quality and to ensuring that they are distributed equally across our school dis- tricts. If we can do those things, we could at least make Detroit students perform like those in Boston, and make Boston students do a lot better.

A few things need to happen: First, we must attract teachers who per-

formed well in college. Countries that do best on international tests draw teachers from the top third of college graduates. In the United States, however, most teachers come from the bottom third. Moreover, the bottom of that group is vastly overrepresented in our highest- needs communities.

Second, we must create systems that reward

excellence rather than seniority by creating sophisticated evaluation systems that include student performance and merit-based tenure and compensation. We must make it easier to remove teachers who are shown to be ineffec- tive.

Third, we must do more to attract teachers

to high-needs students, schools and subject areas, such as English language learners, spe- cial education and other areas to which it is dif- ficult to draw talent because of opportunities in other fields.

These are common-sense and ambitious re-

How to write us:

is that they are enrolled in different school dis- tricts. And research indicates that if the data were broken out for the same students in dif- ferent schools, the differences would be more dramatic – and more dramatic still if broken out for the same children in different classes.

What explains these differences? Schools

The Michigan Chronicle en- courages letters from readers. Expressed opinions must bear the writer’s signature, address, and phone number (only the names will be published with the letters). Write: Readers Speak, Michigan Chronicle, 479 Ledyard, Detroit, MI 48201 or email the editor at chronicle4@aol.com

forms. Such efforts are rewarded in the Race to the Top initiative and ought to be fully in- tegrated into a new Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Yes, they call for a reevaluation of seniority – the staple of most collective bar- gaining agreements – in the context of what ac- tually serves children. But right now, one bad teacher with seniority earns as much as two great young teachers. Who really thinks this is best for our kids?

Apologists for our educational failure say

that we will never fix education in America until we eradicate poverty. They have it exactly backward: We will never eradicate poverty until we fix education. The question is whether we have the political courage to take on those who defend a status quo that serves many adults but fails many children.

Joel I. Klein is chancellor of New York City

schools. Michael L. Lomax is president and chief executive of UNCF–the United Negro Col- lege Fund. Janet Murguía is president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza. They are co-chairs of the Board of the Education Equality Project.

How to write us:

The Michigan Chronicle encourages letters from readers. Ex- pressed opinions must bear the writer’s signature, address, and phone number (only the names will be published with the letters). Write: Readers Speak, Michigan Chronicle, 479 Ledyard, Detroit, MI 48201 or email the editor at or chronicle4@aol.com

mayor to replace David Souter, that had very little effect on the ideological balance of the court because Sotomayor was highly likely to vote the way Souter did in most cases,” Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer and former civil rights liti- gator, wrote in Salon. “By stark contrast, re- placing Stevens with Kagan (or, far less likely, with [Cass] Sunstein) would shift the court to the right on a litany of key issues (at least as much as the shift accomplished by George Bush’s selection of right-wing ideologue Sam Alito to replace the more moderate Sandra Day O’Connor).”

No one claims that Kagan, who supports

abortion rights and gay rights, is a conserva- tive. However, she is more likely to vote with the court’s conservative wing on such issues as executive power and civil liberties.

Candidates favored by progressives include

Appellate Court Judge Diane Wood, former Yale Law School dean and current State De- partment legal adviser Harold Koh and Stan- ford Law professor Pamela Karlan. The only African American mentioned has been former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah W. Sears, who is considered a long shot. Attorney General Eric Holder should be added to the list of serious candidates.

Writing in the Nation, Ari Melber said, “With

Justice Stevens retiring, it will take a nominee like Harold Koh just to maintain the court’s status quo.”

Greenwald predicts that Obama’s next ap-

pointee will be more conservative than Ste- vens.

“The danger that we don’t have such a status

quo-maintaining selection is threefold,” he wrote. “(1) Kagan, from her time at Harvard, is renowned for accommodating and incorporat- ing conservative views, the kind of ‘post-ideo- logical’ attribute Obama finds so attractive; (2) for both political and substantive reasons, the Obama White House tends to avoid (with few exceptions) any appointees to vital posts who are viewed as ‘liberal’ or friendly to the left; the temptation to avoid that kind of nominee heading into the 2010 midterm elections will be substantial… and (3) Kagan has already proven herself to be a steadfast Obama loyalist with her work as his solicitor general, and the desire to have on the court someone who has demonstrated fealty to Obama’s broad claims of executive authority is likely to be great.”

The most disturbing aspect of a possible

Kagan appointment is her admiration of the Federalist Society, a network of conservative and libertarian students, law professors, at- torneys and judges whose goal is to advance the conservative agenda by pushing America’s legal system to the right.

Five of the nine members of the Supreme

Court – Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy – have been members or close affiliates of the Federalist Society. Federal-

George Curry

ist board mem- bers have in- cluded Orin Hatch (R-Utah), one of the most conserva- tive members of the Senate; Ed Meese, at- torney general under Ronald Reagan, and C. Boyden Gray, P r e s i d e n t George H.W. Bush’s chief White House counsel.

The group is

so influential that in 2001 George W. Bush discontin-

ued the practice, dating back to Dwight Eisen- hower, of presidents relying on the National Bar Association to vet judicial appointments. Under Bush, the Federalist Society served that function for judgeships and some cabinet posi- tions.

In an article Trevor Coleman and I wrote on

the Federalist Society for Emerge magazine in October 1999, titled “Hijacking Justice,” Fran- cis A. Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois, said: “…They want to go beyond get- ting rid of affirmative action. They want to go back to Brown v. Board of Education.”

Boyle noted that in a lecture at Columbia

University, Scalia said if the landmark school desegregation case came before him today, he would vote against the plaintiffs, which would have the effect of maintaining segregated schools.

At a reception for the Federalist Society at

Harvard, members gave Kagan a standing ova- tion.

One Federalist Society site carries this quote

from her: “I love the Federalist Society…They are highly committed, intelligent, hard-working active students who make the Harvard commu- nity better.”

Other conservatives seem to love Kagan as

much as she loves the Federalist Society. Eric Lichtblau began a May 17, 2009 story

in the New York Times: “When Elana Kagan went before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February as President Obama’s nominee for solicitor general, Republicans were almost as effusive as Democrats in their praise for her.”

The story continued, “…Indeed, there was

so much adulation in the air from Republicans that one Democrat, Amy Klobuchar of Minne- sota, joked at the hearing that she understood how Ms. Kagan ‘managed to get a standing ova- tion’ from the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.”

But appointing Kagan because she might be

easier to confirm would be a major mistake. President Obama should appoint someone in the mold of Thurgood Marshall, William O. Douglas and William J. Brennan.

Many people voted for Obama with the ex-

pectation that he would appoint progressive judges to the bench. To do anything less, es- pecially to placate conservatives, would be a betrayal of trust.

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of

Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Ser- vice, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his web site, www.georgecurry.com You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Questioning the senator

I received an e-mail from Sen. Carl Levin (D-

Mi)informing me of a committee he is forming toinvestigate the financial crisis. What a joke!

This is like the coyote guarding the hen

house! It was Barney Frank’s committee that was

charged to over-see the banking and financial markets, but they fell asleep as the contribu- tions to their campaign funds kept growing with donations from Fannie and Freddie.

It was the Democratic members of Congress

that let this happen. They made the rules to allow this to come about and now they want to “investigate” it? Give me a break.

Financial institutions bought huge pack-

ages of loans from Freddie and Fannie because the American taxpayer through the federal gov- ernment insured them, but the Democrats let Fannie and Freddie cheat so that the bad loans spread like cancer in our system.

The Democrats lied, covered up and killed

legislation to protect Freddie and Fannie, their cash cow. McCain, Bush and the republicans

tried to stop it over and over again. Bush asked 15 times alone in his last year about the prob- lems at Freddie and Fannie. Maxine Waters and Barney Frank denied any wrongdoing all the while knowing that Franklin Raines was crimi- nally cooking the books to line his pockets with millions in bonuses.

This “committee” set up by Sen. Levin is

just another bit of political posturing trying to make up some ground from their move against our Constitution and against the will of the people by passing a health care bill that they knew we did not want.

These people have been forthright it tell-

ing us that the Constitution meant nothing to them, that they had no concerns over it when writing and passing laws that the Constitution gave them no powers to do.

If Sen. Levin is truly serious about this, let’s

set up a committee of citizens to investigate this crime against the American people and let the chips fall where they may. — Phil Solarz, Westland Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36