Celebrating Susan Stamberg

John Merrow Uncategorized ,

Susan Stamberg, who died on October 16th at the age of 87, was rightly known as National Public Radio’s “Founding Mother.”  She was for many years the heart and soul of NPR, as the Host of the network’s flagship program, “All Things Considered,” from 19732-1986. She was also a warm, funny, and generous soul with lots of fans who had no idea how to spell her name, as the following story illustrates.

Some background: I joined NPR sometime in 1974, hosting a weekly program about education. Back then, NPR didn’t have much in the way of programming, basically just ATC, “Voices in the Wind,” and a daily catch-all series called “Options.”  I was new to Washington, hired by a think tank to do something about education. My boss told me I could spend up to $10,000 promoting dialogue about education, and so I knocked on the door at NPR, which was largely unknown.  Ten grand was real money in those days, and NPR let me bring a couple of experts into the studio to explain school finance.  Frankly, the ensuing two-part program was duller than dishwater, but NPR–desperate to fill the airtime–said they loved it and asked me to host more programs. 

Before long, I had a weekly gig and an office, which—lucky me–was across the hall from Susan.  Her office looked out on M Street, big windows and lots of light, and my windowless room was across the hall.  Needing light and air, I kept my door open, while Susan, being Susan, kept hers open so she could shmooze. Before long I sort of got to know her, her great laugh and her warmth, just by inadvertent but unavoidable eavesdropping…

You need to know that radio listeners are a special breed, as I quickly learned.  For one thing, they write letters.  After 8 years at NPR, I worked in television, and I know that I received at least 20 or 30 times more mail in those 8 years than in my 31-year TV career.   I believe that’s because radio listeners cannot see whoever’s speaking and so must use their imagination to fill in the blanks.  In any case, they write letters….

Often, they don’t get the name right, and so every week I would get letters addressed to “John Murrow,” “John Merrill,” “John Morton,” and so on.

I was working late one night, and, when I left, I noticed lots of little pieces of paper scotch-taped to Susan’s door.  Curious, I took a close look at what turned out to be mail addressed to her: “Susan Steinberg,” “Susan Stoneberg,” “Susan Stoneman,” “Susan Stanberg,” and so on.

The next morning, on a whim, I knocked on her door and proposed a contest: “Let’s see who gets more incorrect versions of our name over the next six months or so,” I suggested.

“And the winner gets lunch…and chooses the restaurant,” she responded.

Game on.

(At some point Ira Flatow, NPR’s Science Correspondent, became aware of our contest and asked to be included. We didn’t even consider letting him in because we knew he’d win in a walk.)

Don’t hold me to the exact numbers, but I won.  Susan had around 20 incorrect versions of Susan Stamberg, but I had more than 30.  I won because a few listeners got my last name right but thought my first name was Jim, or Bob, or Joe….some common name.

My favorite, however, was a letter addressed to “John Moron.”  It probably shouldn’t have counted because it was clearly not an accident.  I know that because the letter began, “Dear John Moron, You are an asshole,” and went downhill from there. 

Did Susan take me out to lunch? I don’t remember, unfortunately.

Since you’ve read this far, would you like to know how “Morning Edition” got its name?  That was another contest, this one involving the 40 or 50 people who worked at NPR. “Drive time” was when lots of people listened to the radio, and NPR realized that it needed a program for the morning commuters, to complement ATC. One morning in 1979 President Frank Mankiewicz called all of us together.  “We’re going to start a morning edition of All Things Considered,” he said, “And whoever comes up with the best name for this morning edition will get a prize.”  He went on, talking about how a morning edition of ATC would attract a big audience, etc etc, and challenging us to come up with a clever, catchy name for this new morning edition of All Things Considered.

I have no idea how many people suggested other names, but somewhere along the way someone realized that the best name for a morning edition of All Things Considered was “Morning Edition.”  To the best of my knowledge, no one won Frank’s contest.

Final anecdote: One morning Susan popped her head into my office, smiled, and said, “I think we’re gonna make it.”  Why, I wanted to know.  “Well,” she said, “I was at my son’s Little League baseball game yesterday, cheering my head off, and someone near me asked, ‘Are you Susan Stamberg?’ That means real people are listening.”

They were, for sure, because Susan Stamberg was worth paying attention to.  She was one of a kind, a national treasure and a good person.  In her honor, please keep on supporting NPR and public broadcasting generally.

Don’t Blame Trump. It’s on Reagan (and us)

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

I will start with the fun stuff, some grist for dinner and cocktail party conversations about the cost of going to college these days.  Then I will try to connect these dots with six interconnected points: 1) The dramatic increase in the number of colleges shutting down; 2) The approaching ‘Enrollment Cliff;’ 3) The growing number of colleges offering three year Bachelor’s Degrees;  4) Increased questioning whether college is worthwhile;  5) President Trump’s attacks on colleges and universities; and, finally, 6) How much if not all of this can be traced back to the policies of Ronald Reagan. 

THE FUN STUFF: Two hundred years ago, 1825, it cost less than $200 to attend Yale; this fall it will cost more than $90,500. This includes tuition of $69,900 and a combined cost of housing and meal plans at $20,650.  (Simply adjusting for inflation, that bill for $200 would be less than $7,000 today, in case you’re wondering whether the cost of college has gone up a wee bit more than other parts of the economy!)

My brother sent me this from the 1825 Yale student handbook;  he also shared it with a grandnephew who is a Sophomore at Yale:

A clever friend of mine reacted with this additional information about life in America 200 years ago: “Those ‘good ole days’ meant a life expectancy of 40 years, an 25-30% infant mortality rate, an annual income of $500-600, and a good bath twice a year, once in the spring and another in the fall.”

A FEW FACTS AND FIGURES: We have nearly 6,000 colleges and universities, both 4-year and 2-year. About 1,900 of these are public institutions, another 1,750 are private and nonprofit, and an estimated 2,275 are for-profit. 

More than 60% of today’s high school graduates enroll in college.  In the fall of 2024, approximately 19.28 million undergraduate students were enrolled across the United States. Unfortunately, most of them will probably not graduate; in fact, nearly 20% will drop out during their freshman year. 

Dropping out is a significant, if largely ignored, issue: Nationally, more than 44 million American adults have some college credits, no degree, and, perhaps, student loan debt weighing them down. 

It’s also worth noting that American  higher education generally opposed the GI Bill, which allowed millions to attend college, which jump-started the American middle class, and which created a post-war economic boom that lasted for generations.  

Another important piece of background information: While most European countries created independent scientific research institutions after World War II, the United States government forged partnerships with colleges and universities.  Eventually, the Feds subsidized research at hundreds of American universities to the tune of billions and billions of dollars every year. For years the partnership worked, and the scientific breakthroughs are legendary. 

However, there is a down side, because, as the perverse Golden Rule cliché has it, “Whoever Has the Gold Rules.”   Every research university has become dependent on those dollars, giving the federal government a powerful hold over higher education.  This is, of course, playing out in front of us right now.

Now to the business at hand, my 6 interconnected ideas:

1) COLLEGE CLOSINGS: As noted, nearly 6,000 colleges and universities today, but in 2011, we had more than 7,000.  Between 2008 and 2024, two or three colleges closed or merged every month. Today, however, colleges are now closing at an increasing rate–some say it’s one every week!  The causes are myriad:  Enrollment continues to decline due to natural population trends, operating costs continue to rise, colleges don’t seem to be willing or able to lower their tuition, and young people–concerned about debt–are increasingly skeptical about the value of higher education.  

Late in 2024 the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimated that up to 80 colleges could close this academic year because of financial distress caused by a worst-case-scenario drop in enrollment.  While for-profit colleges once drove closure rates, since 2020 traditional private colleges have been closing at a higher rate. The closures have affected the lives of more than 50,000 students, thousands of faculty and staff, and the economies of the communities where these institutions are located.

2) THE ENROLLMENT CLIFF: This term refers to changes in the size of the traditional college-going population, 18-24.  The so-called ‘Cliff’ that’s fast approaching is generally attributed to a drop in fertility during the Great Recession. “Between 2008 and 2011, the U.S. birth rate plummeted, and despite an economic recovery facilitated within the next decade, did not bounce back. As a result, the college-age population was reduced, and enrollment figures fell from 19.9 million in 2017 to 19.1 million in 2024. Within this time period, public 4-year colleges maintained the most enrollment, totaling 7.8 million students in 2020. Demonstrating the tip of the enrollment cliff, this number dropped to 7.6 million by 2023. Along with declines in demographics, the number of prospective college students may have been impacted by the recent COVID-19 pandemic, in which the switch to online learning led to an additional 1.1 million high school dropouts. Additionally, Americans may be further inclined to defer pursuing higher education on account of the exceedingly high costs – and subsequent debts – incurred from attending college in the United States.”

The Enrollment Cliff gets steeper when one considers the dramatic drop in foreign students. Two years ago, about 6% of all US college students came from foreign countries, more than 1.1 million (tuition-paying) students.  This year those numbers are dropping.  About half of American colleges anticipate big drops, because the Trump Administration proposes to limit foreign enrollment to 10-15% of a college’s student body.  

Meanwhile, a record number of American students have decided to study elsewhere; granted, it’s a small number, but it’s a trend.  

While it’s true that college enrollment is up slightly this fall, this is apparently the last gasp, and tough times will soon be upon most institutions.

3) THREE-YEAR BACHELOR’S DEGREES:  If you attended college, you spent at least four years earning your degree, but that’s changing.  “The first three-year degree programs in the country—online programs at Brigham Young University–Idaho and Ensign College in Utah—gained approval just two years ago. Since then, the number of shortened degree programs has expanded exponentially, with nearly 60 colleges nationwide now offering or working toward developing such programs.” 

That’s the lead paragraph of a fascinating article in Inside Higher Education, and I hope you will click on this link to read the entire piece.

When you do, you will discover that almost all of the accrediting agencies (major power-brokers in higher education) are now willing to recognize the 3-year Bachelor’s Degree, something they have resisted for years.  Four years and 120 credits have been part of the landscape forever, but just because something is normal does not make it right or inevitable.  The 3-year program will require 90 credits, so you can say goodbye to electives, of course. However, if a student is focused on a career, why not push through as fast as possible?  Recently a friend told us about his grand-niece, who is majoring in ‘Golf Tournament Management’ at a university in Kentucky.  She has to complete internships at three golf clubs during the summers, but why should she have to spend four years on campus?  

The same logic applies to graphic design, physical therapy, hospitality management, and cyber-security, and a host of other fields. 

It’s also worth noting that higher education systems in some other countries have embraced the 3-year Bachelor’s Degree.  

This trend is evidence that higher education is in survival mode, on high alert, perhaps because of #4, below.

4) QUESTIONING COLLEGE:  It’s apparent that many young people–and their parents–are questioning the value of higher education in the United States; although 79 percent of Americans believed it was more or equally as important for people today to have a college degree in order to have a successful career, only six percent said that everyone in the U.S. could access a quality, affordable education after high school if they wanted it. In addition, current students have been vocal about the negative impacts of attending higher education, with over half considering dropping out of school due to emotional stress. College dropouts tend to be worse off than when they started due to high levels of debt, and student debt is also a major factor on the financial decisions that Americans can make after college.

5) DONALD TRUMP: He is very much part of higher education’s problem, because he’s not a fan of higher education, and, if you have read this far, I am certain you are familiar with Trump’s attacks on Harvard and other leading private institutions, or his forcing the resignations of the president of the University of Virginia, George Mason University, and others.  Under the banners of ‘fighting DEI’ and ‘ending anti-semitism,’ Trump and his allies have seemingly brought most of higher education to heel.  

To some extent, higher education has brought some of this on itself, with its embrace of ‘safe spaces’ and ‘micro-aggression’ and ‘identity politics,’ all of which seem to have made many campuses places where it’s dangerous to talk about controversial ideas and even riskier to actually hold divergent views.  

Trump’s so-called ‘cure’ may be worse than the disease, unfortunately, but the roots of higher education’s problems can be traced back to another politician who was famously hostile toward higher education, the Great Communicator himself.

6) THE LEGACY OF RONALD REAGAN

If you needed financial help to go to college before Ronald Reagan became president, the chances are you received most of what you needed as a grant, not a loan.  From the right-leaning publication, The Intercept: “For decades, there had been enthusiastic bipartisan agreement that states should fund high-quality public colleges so that their youth could receive higher education for free or nearly so. That has now vanished. In 1968, California residents paid a $300 yearly fee to attend Berkeley, the equivalent of about $2,000 now. Now tuition at Berkeley is $15,000, with total yearly student costs reaching almost $40,000. Student debt, which had played a minor role in American life through the 1960s, increased during the Reagan administration and then shot up after the 2007-2009 Great Recession as states made huge cuts to funding for their college systems.”

Here’s more on that point.

And from The New York Times in late 1981: Since taking office last January, the Reagan Administration has set out to curtail the cost of Federal student assistance and to alter the philosophy as well. ”I do not accept the notion that the Federal Government has an obligation to fund generous grants to anybody that wants to go to college,” said Budget Director David A. Stockman in Congressional testimony in September. ”It seems to me that if people want to go to college bad enough, then there is opportunity and responsibility on their part to finance their way through the best they can.”

Most of us have lived through a sea change, going from a time when we collectively believed that investing in higher education paid social dividends that far outweighed the costs, to a time when the federal government and all state governments have reduced their support.  Now, the operating philosophy seems to be, “Hey, you want an education? Pay for it yourself!”

I don’t know if anyone has a solution for higher education’s problems, but I am certain that “education reform” is NOT the answer.   I see higher education’s challenges as part of a larger picture: our declining commitment to almost anything ‘public,’ such as public transportation, public libraries, public spaces, public schools, public health, public safety, and on and on.  

Absent a strong commitment to the common good, coupled with disgraceful–and growing–income inequality, our national experiment in “a more perfect union” seems doomed.

“A Third of Teachers Are Terrorists”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

The US has nearly 3.6 million K-12 teachers, and another 1.5 million college teachers. One-third of 5.1 million is 1.7 million. Who knew that we have 1,700,000 terrorists in our classrooms!

I certainly had no idea things were that bad, and I’m kicking myself for not knowing. After all, I spent more than 67 years in American classrooms, as a student, a teacher, a parent, and a reporter. I must have interviewed and maybe even socialized with thousands of these terrorists, and I didn’t have a clue.

My 4th grade teacher yelled a lot and banged desks (and some ears too), so I supposed she “terrorized” us, but I don’t think that’s what the accuser had in mind.

I can think of one other possible example of ‘terrorism’ in the classroom: My 10th grade English teacher, Mr. McKinley, would deliberately make mistakes when he wrote stuff on the blackboard and then erupt in (faux) fury if we failed to catch his flubs. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the accuser had in mind.

Are you questioning the accuracy of the accusation? OK, it came from President Donald Trump’s buddy Steve Bannon, who opened his mouth while in Arizona to pay tribute to Charlie Kirk, the assassinated leader of Turning Point. The podcast host was saying to Bannon that Kirk’s ideas about marrying early and having lots of children were actually not popular with young people, which prompted Bannon to blame teachers for brain-washing their students. Here’s what he said:

“…..those kids — look, from kindergarten all the way up, they are essentially, you know, a third of the teachers are terrorists that are trying to form them.”

Predictably, the right-wing podcaster didn’t challenge Bannon’s wild accusation or even ask him what he meant by ‘terrorist,’ so I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Bannon meant that teachers were teaching values that Bannon disapproves of, like tolerance and cooperation. I have seen lots of teachers work hard to inculcate such values, and, if that’s ‘terrorism,’ I approve.

Mocking Bannon is a woefully insufficient response, however, because his blatant teacher-bashing is part of the right wing’s persistent, harsh, and (unfortunately) often successful campaign to bring down public education.

And Bannon’s not even a field general in this war. He’s clearly outranked by Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters, who in January reacted to violence at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. You may recall that, early on New Year’s Day an army veteran carrying an ISIS flag drove his pickup truck down Bourbon Street and killed 14 people and injured dozens more before the police killed him. It was labeled a possible terrorist incident, prompting Mr. Walters to go off: “We also have to take a look at how are these terrorists coming from people that live in America. …. You have schools that are teaching kids to hate their country, that this country is evil. You have the teachers’ unions pushing this on our kid (sic).”

Mocking the hyperbole of school critics like Walters and Bannon is ineffective, because culture warriors are immune to humor. Instead, they are seriously opposed to just about everything that some of us believe is in the public interest, such as public education, public transportation, public libraries, public parks, public health, and so on. They recognize that public education is a cornerstone of our democracy, and they are going after it, with sledgehammers and other implements of destruction, including lies and absurd accusations from the likes of Bannon and Walters.

(They are anti-public-everything, acronym APE. Don’t be an APE!)

Early in September, the New York Times reporter Dana Goldstein did a deep dive into the impact of vouchers, education savings accounts, tax credit scholarships, and other programs that divert funds from public schools to non-public schools. The entire article is well worth your time.

The number of students whose parents are using these programs has doubled since 2019, nearly all in Republican-led states. Five years ago, only about 20,000 students had education savings accounts (ESA), which allow deducting any ‘educational’ expense from one’s taxes; today, more than 500,000 families have ESA’s.

In the past, eligibility for most of these programs was means-tested because the stated goal was to help low income families. That’s changed, and in the new programs, any family can take advantage, regardless of income.

This ain’t cheap. Indiana’s program, for example, is costing more than $600 million a year, dollars that might have gone to public education.

Joining the 14 states with voucher-type programs is your federal government, because the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress earlier this year includes a $5,000 voucher.

Do these voucher programs work? The evidence is mixed, at best.

Are they popular with voters? Here the answer is crystal clear: NO! In the 17 opportunities that voters have had to weigh in on vouchers since 1970, they’ve said NO, including three votes in Republican-led states in 2024.

For a critical view of what’s going on, read David Osborne’s analysis here.

If you support public education, begin by thanking teachers. Take a minute to picture the teachers who changed your lives for the better…and then to ask yourselves if you ever said ‘Thank you’ to those women and men. If it’s too late to connect directly with them, you might write something about them and share it with others.

That’s only the first step. Consider attending school board meetings, perhaps even running for election to your local school board. You might join the parent-teacher organization, or volunteer as a tutor. You might contribute supplies, or help with school fund-raising efforts. Let your elected officials at all levels know that you support public education. If you’re a public school parent, move beyond ‘involvement’ to ‘engagement,’ by getting to know your children’s teachers.

(I’ve written about this in more detail in “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education,” which is available at most public libraries, some bookstores, and Amazon. It’s reviewed positively here and negatively here.)

It’s not pie-in-the-sky idealism to believe that a strong public education system is the road to equality and citizenship, or that the real safeguard of democracy is education. Those insights came from FDR and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.

Please make certain that you are registered to vote, and that your friends and neighbors are as well. This attack on public education is serious, folks. Don’t take our democracy for granted.

Higher Education in the Crosshairs/at a Crossroad

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Let me begin with an assertion that may upset some readers: Most American colleges and universities are glorified vocational institutions whose primary purpose is to prepare people for the work force. Most students understand this and go about ‘building a resumé’ that will earn them a good job.  This is, I think, a devil’s bargain for the vast majority of students.

It’s the rare college student who focuses on the challenge of ‘building a self,’ even though jobs come and go, and one’s inner self is your only sure companion for the rest of their lives.  And while some professors push their students toward personal discovery and intellectual growth, the primary drivers of higher education are jobs and careers: ”Learn to Earn.”

It has always been thus: Harvard, the country’s oldest college, was established in 1636 to train ministers, and Yale was founded in 1701 to serve the same purpose.  

That said, I think that colleges have an obligation to guide their students in directions that are likely to lead to gainful employment, and perhaps to “lives of significance” as well.  Teach ‘the Principles of Management,’ not ‘Stagecoach Maintenance.’   But also expand your students’ horizons and encourage their dreams.  

Universities cannot accurately predict the future or the future job market, and that can have awful consequences for their students.  I encountered this in 1969 when I was teaching English at Virginia State College, in Petersburg, Virginia.  Virginia State (now a university) was and is an HBCU, serving mostly first generation African American students, many of them from challenging economic circumstances.  A Virginia State education and diploma offered a huge opportunity, the chance to join the middle class.

Remember now, 1969 was the dawn of the computer age. You’ve seen photos of large main-frame computers and the armies of key punch operators who punched, collated and then fed cards into the machines. But even then savvy people knew change was coming.  It didn’t take long: The first personal computer was introduced in 1971, and three years later, 1974, the Altair-8800 became commercially available.

I was shocked to discover that some VSC officials were steering students into a major that essentially taught them to be key punch operators, and I learned that that particular major was the college’s most popular. Students were being told that good jobs would await them upon graduation, and they believed it.

Fast forward to 2025, and something similar is happening. While nobody is being taught how to key-punch, thousands of students majored in computer science and other math-related fields because they were told that good jobs would be theirs for the taking. Now they are discovering that to be false. 

The New York Times dug into this recently.  

“Growing up near Silicon Valley, Manasi Mishra remembers seeing tech executives on social media urging students to study computer programming.  

“The rhetoric was, if you just learned to code, work hard and get a computer science degree, you can get six figures for your starting salary,” Ms. Mishra, now 21, recalls hearing as she grew up in San Ramon, Calif.

Those golden industry promises helped spur Ms. Mishra to code her first website in elementary school, take advanced computing in high school and major in computer science in college. But after a year of hunting for tech jobs and internships, Ms. Mishra graduated from Purdue University in May without an offer.”

Many others are in her situation; they have degrees and debts, but no job.

How widespread is over-vocationalization, if such a word exists?  In a casual conversation a few weeks ago, a friend told me that his grandniece was majoring in “Golf Course Management” at one of the country’s best programs and that her course work included a summer internship at a nearby golf course.  “Do many colleges offer that major,” I asked?  Yes, he said, dozens do.

He’s right. A casual Google search turns up a surprising number that offer a major in Golf Course Management, Golf Tournament Management, and/or Turf Grass Management.  On the list: Penn State, Ohio State, the University of Nebraska, Florida State, the University of Colorado, the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, New Mexico State, Western Kentucky University, Coastal Carolina University, Mississippi State University, Kansas State University, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and (her school) Eastern Kentucky University. 

A few more institutions, such as Michigan State University, offer a “certificate” after 4 semesters and 54 credits.  Sixteen of these programs are certified by the PGA, professional golf’s governing body. 

Internships are a crucial part of the training; one university insists on an 16-month internship, meaning that students are working away from their university for nearly a year and a half, while presumably paying tuition!

While running a golf course can pay more than $100,000 a year, are there job openings awaiting the 600-800 or so men and women who graduate each year?  The US has about 16,000 golf courses, but 75% of them are public courses, under management by a political entity.   There’s probably not a huge turnover in the public or private arena, which suggests that the vocational training that these men and women have paid for (and will continue to pay for) may not lead to jobs in the field they have immersed themselves in.

What do they do now? Are they prepared to switch careers, from one that didn’t want them to something else?  Has specialization done them wrong?

Colleges and universities have larger and more public problems than what I am describing: President Trump has them in his crosshairs, the supply of 18-year-olds is about to drop dramatically, and, on average, one college closes every week.  

However, I believe what you’ve just read gets at the root of the issue.  Higher education has embraced ‘learn and earn’ as its Golden Rule, with disastrous consequences, including isolation and polarization.  How many of those young people who majored in Golf Tournament Management also  took courses in philosophy or classical music, or computer science for that matter?  How many of those math and computer science majors branched out?  

American Higher Education is failing its students by allowing and encouraging specialization, instead of providing and requiring a broad curriculum, an experience that ‘builds a self,’ to again use Jacques Barzun’s memorable phrase.  

He’s worth quoting at length on the value of a broad liberal arts education.  Professor Barzun begins by asking why one should tackle the classics.

The answer is simple: in order to live in a wider world. Wider than what?  Wider than the one that comes through the routine of our material lives and through the paper and the factual magazines—Psychology Today, House and Garden, Sports Illustrated; wider also than friends’ and neighbors’ plans and gossip; wider especially than one’s business or profession. For nothing is more narrowing than one’s own shop, and it grows ever more so as one bends the mind and energies to succeed. This is particularly true today, when each profession has become a cluster of specialties continually subdividing. A lawyer is not a jurist, he is a tax lawyer, or a dab at trusts and estates. The work itself is a struggle with a mass of jargon, conventions, and numbers that have no meaning outside the specialty. The whole modern world moves among systems and abstractions superimposed on reality, a vast make-believe, though its results are real enough in one’s life if one does not know and follow these ever-shifting rules of the game. 

And then he addresses the consequences of living in the silo of one’s speciality:

The need for a body of common knowledge and common reference does not disappear when a society is pluralistic. On the contrary, it grows more necessary, so that people of different origins and occupations may quickly find familiar ground and, as we say, speak a common language. It not only saves time and embarrassment, but it also ensures a kind of mutual confidence and goodwill. One is not addressing a stone wall, but a responsive creature whose mind is filled with the same images, memories, and vocabulary as oneself. Otherwise, with the unstoppable march of specialization, the individual mind is doomed to solitude and the individual heart to drying up. The mechanical devices that supposedly bring us together—television and the press, the telephone and the computer network—do so on a level and in a manner that are anything but nourishing to the spirit. 

The message to students should be crystal clear: do not put yourself into a pigeonhole by specializing. Instead, take courses across the curriculum. Find out who the most interesting professors are and enroll in their classes.  Stretch, because you might discover parts of yourself that you didn’t know existed.   

And, remember, that job that you think you want, that job may not even exist three or four years from now.  Or less, as AI picks up speed.  Before you’re through, you may end up having a dozen or more jobs, and two or three careers.  

The way to prepare for change and uncertainty is to embrace them.

“The Play’s the Thing….”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , , ,

Before I get to the point of this essay, I want to tell you a story that you may find interesting. Paul D. Schreiber High School is in Port Washington, New York, only 23 miles from Times Square, the beating heart of New York City. Like most public high schools in the 1960s, Schreiber was rigidly tracked, 1-5. Most of the kids in Tracks One and Two were clean cut and had last names like Wilshire and Braddock. They were destined for college and success, and so they got the most attention. Threes, the ‘average’ kids, were on track to become mechanics and hairdressers; many of their surnames ended with a vowel. As for the Fours and Fives, the system didn’t really care much about them, although a few teachers dedicated all their energy to getting them through high school.

I had expected to be teaching English in Kenya but failed the Peace Corps physical; out of desperation, I got the job at Schreiber. However, because I was an untrained rookie teacher just out of college, the system didn’t let me anywhere near the Ones and the Twos. Instead, they assigned me five classes of Threes and Fours, maybe 130 students in all. And when a young history teacher suggested that she and I combine our classes and team teach our 10th grade Fours for the second semester, the powers-that-be just shrugged and gave their approval.

Patty, who just happened to be tall, blonde, attractive, and full of energy, was in her second year of teaching. Anyway, because she and I now had 25 or 30 disinterested kids for a double period, about 90 minutes, every day, we needed something to hold their attention. I think I got the idea of having students write a play from The English Journal, one of the magazines I started reading when I realized I had no clue about teaching.

Patty liked the idea, and that was that. We didn’t have to ask permission or even inform our supervisors, because, after all, we were teaching Fours. We presented it to the kids as a challenge and an opportunity, and perhaps because I had taken my Fours to a Broadway play during the first semester, most were willing, even eager to try something different.

We told them about plot, character, story arc, scenes, and acts, but what I remember is the story they wanted to bring to life. At its center was a group of teenagers that no adults seemed to care about, students who went through the motions in school but who led full lives outside of school as members of a group (not a gang!) that took care of each other and also helped elderly neighbors by repairing their cars, etc etc. Rough-looking and tough-talking, these kids were misunderstood.

They were also scorned by the elite students in their school, largely ignored by teachers, and looked upon with suspicion and hostility by local merchants.

Art imitating life, you’re thinking? Yup.

So those were their characters. What was the plot? What would be the arc of the drama?

What I remember is that it involved shop-lifting. The owner of the neighborhood ‘five and dime’ store had accused a couple of the teenage ‘roughnecks’ of regularly stealing packs of cigarettes, and he banned them from the store. Their friends knew they were innocent, because they had seen two other kids, the football captain and the head cheerleader, taking the cigarettes, but they had to catch them in the act.

Our students were on fire, and we would spend class time trying out lines, acting out scenes. We tried to convince them to introduce some complexity into the plot, so the ‘bad guys’ weren’t all bad, the ‘good guys’ not entirely good. Shouldn’t there be some sympathy for the store owner, who was losing money every day, for example, even though he was lashing out at the wrong kids? I don’t know if we were successful at that, but I remember that I had the kids doing a lot of writing and rewriting, not just of the play itself but also about the process of creating a play, what they were learning about that.

Soon the students were pushing to stage their play, not just in our classroom but on the school’s stage! Word had gotten out that Miss Ecker and Mr. Merrow’s class was doing something cool, and eventually the Principal gave his OK.

That brought a whole new level of energy, because it meant creating and building sets, finding costumes, and rehearsing after school. It meant significant responsibilities for a lot more students, not just acting and directing but also set design and construction, lighting, etc etc. Suddenly these Fours had real status in the halls of Schreiber.

We–they–put on the play, maybe two or three performances, and it was a hit. Students loved it, and some of the parents were overjoyed to see their children succeeding. In the eyes of other Threes, Fours, and Fives, our kids mattered. They were now achievers, a status they had never attained–and perhaps had never had the chance to attain. How the school’s elite students, the Ones and the Twos, felt, I don’t remember, but that didn’t matter.

What I realized only later is that Patty and I had inadvertently and accidentally invited our students to become producers; we’d given them permission to seemingly take control over their own learning.

I say ‘seemingly’ because she and I, their teachers, still held the reins, albeit loosely. It was our responsibility to see that they became capable writers, learned some history of theatre, learned to work together, to fail and try again, and so on, but we were using their energy and curiosity to make it happen.

Generally speaking, school back then, even for the Ones and the Twos, required Consumption, not Production. Students absorbed and regurgitated information, but we had invited our kids to become Producers, and not just of a play that allowed them to work out their resentments. They produced real knowledge, and they went forward knowing that they had achieved something significant.

That opportunity can and should be extended to all students, as often as possible.

The next year I invited/challenged my Threes to put MacBeth and Lady MacBeth on trial for First Degree Murder, and they jumped at that chance. We had defense and prosecuting attorneys, a judge (the Principal!), and lots of witnesses like Banquo’s Ghost and MacDuff. The only down side was there weren’t enough parts, so a handful of students had to be jurors. If any teachers reading this decide to do it, I recommend that those ‘extra’ students be reporters, assigned to produce a news report at the end of each trial day. Talk about learning opportunities!

I tell you that story because I am concerned about what’s going to happen–or not happen–because cellphones use is being restricted or banned entirely in so many schools.

Simply put, banning is the right thing to do, but if that’s all schools do, it’s going to be a disaster. That’s the negative step: “NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT.” But have the adults given serious thought about what new opportunities they’re going to offer students?

That’s why this essay is entitled “The Play’s The Thing….” Just as Shakespeare used the staging of a play to ‘catch the conscience of the King’ who had murdered Hamlet’s father, schools could use drama, music, and other creative arts to catch and engage the creative energy that kids bring to school, lest it turn negative and destructive.

As I write this, about half of all US states, and thousands of school districts and individual schools have banned or severely restricted the use of cellphones, and that number seems certain to increase. This is a good thing, a necessary but hardly sufficient step forward. In addition to banning cellphones, schools must provide stimulating opportunities and experiences; they must bring back theatre, art, music, and other ‘extra-curricular’ activities that all but disappeared when George W. Bush’s disastrous “No Child Left Behind” bill became law in 2001.

First, here’s why a complete ban makes sense:

  1. Nearly all teenagers–95%–are on social media like TikTok, WhatsApp and their counterparts. One-third of teens admit to using social media “almost constantly.”
  2. Social media is damaging our kids, according to the U.S. Surgeon General: “The types of use and content children and adolescents are exposed to pose mental health concerns. Children and adolescents who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety. This is concerning as a recent survey showed that teenagers spend an average of 3.5 hours a day on social media. And when asked about the impact of social media on their body image, 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse.” A ‘national mental health emergency’ for children and adolescents was declared by the American Academy of Pediatrics back in 2021. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that “In 2021 and 2022, 21% of adolescents reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety in the past two weeks and 17% reported experiencing symptoms of depression.” Undoubtedly, matters have only gotten worse, as teens’ use of social media has increased.

Unrestrained use of social media damages children in many ways:

  • Social media exposes young people to “extreme, inappropriate content.”
  • Social media makes them–especially adolescent girls–feel bad about their bodies.
  • Social media is a haven for predators. Nearly 6 in 10 girls say they’ve been contacted by strangers online “in ways that make them feel uncomfortable.”
  • Social media can overstimulate the brains in ways similar to addiction, leading to problems sleeping and difficulty paying attention.
  • Time on social media is time that is NOT spent with peers, developing relationships, learning about life’s give-and-take, what Erik Erikson calls ‘identity formation.’
  1. Teenagers access social media on their cellphones, and 95% of teenagers have their own cellphone. These ubiquitous devices are their portal, their entry point, their lifeline to social media. Without cellphones, teenagers have extremely limited access to social media. Cellphones, which are ubiquitous, are the lifeline and portal to social media.

(It’s not just teens, of course. According to the National Institutes of Health, “Mobile phone adoption in the United States is starting in late childhood and early adolescence; currently, 53% of children have a smartphone by age 11.”)

Without cellphones, teenagers won’t be taking 100 or more selfies to get the ‘perfect’ photo to post. They won’t be making 10-second videos for TikTok or spending hours watching cats being cute. If they aren’t on social media, the thinking goes, they will be more social. If they aren’t communicating with a machine, they will engage in genuine personal communication.

Banning phones is necessary, but it is not sufficient, not even close. What are adults offering in exchange? What’s the rest of this bargain? Without some other steps, some quid pro quo, this will be perceived by most teens as heavy-handed and punitive, something being done to them against their will, something that makes school even less appealing.

Of course many kids see the ban as punitive, and why wouldn’t they? When adults try to reassure them by saying, “Trust us. This is for your own good,” that only confirms their suspicions. This is being done to them–and so they are going to devote a lot of energy to beating the ban.

Unfortunately, schools and the adults who run them are too often reactive, when thoughtful proactive behavior is called for. Instead of simply banning phones, the adults ought to be trying to get young people to want to come to school regularly, not simply ‘to attend school.’ To do that, schools (with or without cellphones) need to be interesting, challenging, and safe.

Here are four specific steps that should, I believe, accompany the cellphone ban:

1) Restore the full range of extra-curricular opportunities–because most kids come to school so they can do interesting stuff with their friends! Invite them to write and perform their own plays, as Patty and I did back in school year 1965-66. While schools today aren’t officially tracked, most students know whether they are unofficial Threes or Fours. That energy can be tapped into, for good.

Oskar Eustis, the theatrical director of New York City’s Public Theatre, believes that participating in theatre brings kids together and teaches all the skills and virtues we hope all children will acquire: teamwork, self-discipline, compassion, courage, a strong sense of their own worthiness, and more.

As I related at the top of this essay, I can attest to that.

2) Homeroom could become an extended period, not just a quick five minutes when attendance is taken. Make daily homeroom a pressure-free time when students–without phones to distract them–can catch up with friends, forge new relationships, finish homework, or even take naps. “Home” is the operative word here. For most high school and middle school students, “Homeroom” is the equivalent of the starting blocks in a track meet. They touch base, listen to (or maybe ignore) morning announcements, and, when the bell sounds, dash off to class. In truth, “Homeroom” matters to school administrators only because it gives them a head count, but it’s a meaningless perfunctory exercise for kids. For them, “Homeroom” is just a room, about as far from actually being a home as one can imagine.

That could change. America’s teenagers desperately need more “Home” in their lives, more opportunities to connect with others, more moments that tell them they matter. The rigidity of today’s high-pressure school schedules makes matters worse, not better.

The simple—not easy, but simple–fix is to make “Homeroom” more of a HOME, not just another room. Some teachers will have to be convinced that this new time period is an opportunity for them to expand their own professional repertoire of skills to include their students’ social and emotional growth. The challenge may be to train teachers to listen and not react, in order to allow young people to identify and share their feelings. NewsWeek magazine reports that Tacoma, Washington, schools are doing this, training not only teachers but also parents and school bus drivers.

In each of these new extended Homerooms, teachers and their students will have to work together to figure out how they want to use this time. Some students may want to finish homework, or sleep, but the teacher could steer the conversation in the direction of “team building.”

Perhaps one day a week could be set aside for discussion of some interesting questions (“If you could meet one figure from history, who would it be, and why?”), even trivial ones (“What questions would you like to ask Taylor Swift?”).

Ideally “Homeroom” will turn into a safe space where students can learn to share and will agree that what’s shared there stays there. No bullying allowed.

3) Expand course offerings to include some college classes and vocational training opportunities. Meet kids where they are, not where you think they should be.

4) Work harder to make schools safe in three vital ways: physically, emotionally, and intellectually.  Emotional safety means that bullying and cyber-bullying are not tolerated. Intellectually safe schools celebrate curiosity and honor academic achievement. In these schools, adults encourage students to admit when they do not understand or are confused, often by modeling that behavior. Intellectually safe schools don’t treat kids as numbers but as growing and changing individuals. (And young people who are treated with respect are unlikely to bring their dad’s semi-automatic rifle to school.)

Without cellphones as a crutch and given a more stimulating environment, most young people will be inclined to engage with each other. With adult guidance, they can explore new ideas, share curiosities, make plans, and so forth. They can learn that there is life without cellphones.

Removing cellphones creates new opportunities and challenges, but that won’t happen if adults simply enforce the ban. That is, banning cellphones in school is NECESSARY but not SUFFICIENT.

It’s time for the grownups to grow up and step up!

(POSTSCRIPT: Miss Ecker was a marvelous teacher who cared deeply about her students. I left Schreiber High School after two years and lost track of Patty. However, about 12 or 13 years later I was in Los Angeles reporting for NPR and happened to turn on my hotel room’s TV–and there she was, an anchor for a local station! We had a cup of coffee and a pleasant reunion. A few years later she married a colleague, Joe Benti, and later gave birth to twins.)

HOW TO DEFEAT TRUMP

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Donald Trump has inadvertently handed anguished Democrats, angry Independents, and disappointed Republicans the key to defeating MAGA and taking control of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate in the 2026 Midterm elections.  

While I hope you will keep reading, here’s the key: support public schools (and other public institutions as well).

 About 6 weeks ago, Trump ordered his Education Department to withhold nearly $7 billion in funds for public schools, money that had been appropriated by Congress.  

The outcry was immediate, loud, and non-partisan.  Republicans made just as much noise, maybe more, than their Democratic counterparts.   And it worked!  Three weeks later, the Education Department announced it was releasing the funds.

As the savvy education reporter Jennifer Berkshire noted, “And just like that, the Trump Administration has released the billions in funds for public schools it had suddenly, and illegally, frozen earlier this summer. The administration’s trademark combo of chaos and cruelty has been stemmed, at least temporarily. That Trump caved on this is notable in part because his hand was forced by his own party—the first time this has happened in the endless six months since his second term began.”

There is, as Berkshire notes, a ‘cross-class alliance’ that supports public schools, which close to 90% of students attend, in Red, Blue, and Purple states.  Republicans in Congress eagerly push vouchers (chits to allow students to attend private schools), but those efforts have been soundly defeated in state legislatures for years.  The best example is Kentucky, a deeply Red state whose voters last November soundly rejected a voucher proposal, 64.8% to 35.2%.  

Another savvy analyst, David Pepper, has been watching, and his insights are worth your while.  Here’s a sample:  “10 GOP Senators stood up to the administration’s freezing of $6 billion funds for public school programs across the country. Yes, GOP politicians who are silent on almost everything were willing to call out the freeze, which was crippling public schools every day it lasted, and demand it be ended.

They actually defended the programs in a public letter: ‘This funding goes directly to state and local districts, where local leaders decide how the funding is spent, because as we know, local communities know how to best serve students and families…These funds go to support programs that enjoy longstanding, bipartisan support like after-school and summer programs that provide learning and enrichment opportunities for school aged children which also enables their parents to work and contribute to local economies. …. Withholding these funds will harm students, families and local economies.”

Too many Democrats seem to be running against Trump and his assaults on our democracy. Too much energy is being wasted examining the plusses and minuses of potential Presidential candidates like Andy Beshear, J.B. Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, Jamie Raskin, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Pete Buttigieg, and Reuben Gallego. 

The first priority has to be articulating its First Principles, and I suggest that the first of these should be THE PUBLIC GOOD: That means strong support for all things public:  public education, public libraries, public transportation, public parks, public health, public safety, public spaces, and public broadcasting.  Democrats must be the party of the Common Good.

But a second pillar must be Individual Rights.  Because the fundamental rights that are guaranteed in our Constitution are often subject to interpretation, debate, and even violent disagreement, Democrats must be clear.  Free speech, freedom of worship, habeas corpus, and other fundamental rights are not up for debate, and nor is a woman’s right to control her own body.  

Health care is a right, and Democrats must make that a reality.  

Conflict is inevitable–think vaccination requirements–and Democrats should come down on the side of the public good.  

Because Americans have a right to safety, Democrats should endorse strong gun control measures that ban assault weapons that have only one purpose–mass killing. 

We can and should argue about other First Principles, but Democrats must take control of Congress and begin the arduous tasks of stopping Trump and rebuilding America.  While the Trump regime continues to be a disaster for a majority of Americans and for our standing across the world, it’s not enough to condemn his greed and narcissism, even if he goes to prison.  Let’s first acknowledge that Trump tapped into serious resentment among millions of Americans, which further divided our already divided country.  

The challenge is to work to bring us together, to make ‘one out of many’ in the always elusive ‘more perfect union.’  The essential first step is to abandon the ‘identity politics’ that Democrats have practiced for too long.  Instead, Democrats must support policies that bring us together.  Here are five suggestions:

1) Adopt sensible and realistic immigration policies that welcome newcomers who arrive legally but close our borders to illegal immigration. 

2) Adopt fiscal and monetary policies to address our burgeoning national debt. This should include higher taxes on the wealthy, emulating Dwight Eisenhower. 

3) Rebuilding America also means rebuilding our alliances around the world.  Democrats should support NATO and Ukraine, and rejoin efforts to combat climate change. 

4) Urge states and local school districts to beef up civic education in public schools, teaching real history, asking tough questions.  At the same time, federal education policies should encourage Community schools, because research proves that schools that welcome families are more successful across many measures. 

5) Bring back the draft for young men and women and offer a deal to those who volunteer for two years of (paid) National Service. In return, they get two years of tuition or training credits at an accredited institution.  They may serve in the military, Americorps, the Peace Corps, or other helping organizations.  One may teach or work in distressed communities, or rebuild our national parks, or serve in other approved capacities.  JFK famously said “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”  Let’s ask BOTH questions.    (Perhaps National Service should be mandatory, but that’s a long row to hoe, and we should begin with a voluntary program.)

But the key to defeating Trump and saving our democratic republic from his vainglorious and petty fascism is support for public education and other vital public enterprises.  

“Bought and Sold” (revisited)

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

(I originally posted this about 6 months ago, before Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” slashed taxes for the very rich while cutting services for many less fortunate Americans, before Trump began his erratic embrace of tariffs, before ICE began grabbing thousands of non-white and ‘foreign-looking’ people off the streets, and before Trump persuaded the Republican-controlled Congress to claw back the money it had appropriated to support public broadcasting, and before…et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think it’s even more relevant today, and I think it’s long past time for Democrats to leave their circular firing squad and embrace everything that is in the public good: public transportation, public parks, public schools, public health, and more.)

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that your family’s wealth is roughly average, which means that you’re worth about $1 million, a big jump from 2019.  “Both median and average family net worth surged between 2019 and 2022, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve. Average net worth increased by 23% to $1,063,700, the Fed reported in October 2023, the most recent year it published the data. Median net worth, on the other hand, rose 37% over that same period to $192,900.”

So if you are the average American, you are a millionaire, but before you get too excited, you are worth roughly 1/600,000 of what Elon Musk is worth!

I’m talking about the same Elon Musk who spent $300,000,000 to buy the last presidential election and, as it turns out, to purchase our government.  Three hundred million dollars is a fortune for nearly everyone else, but for Musk it was chump change.

Suppose you ( just barely a millionaire) had spent the same portion of your wealth that Musk did.  $300 million of his estimated worth of $600,000,000,000–SIX HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS– is .0005% 

And .0005% of your fortune is $500!

Maybe you’re richer, worth $3 million.  Well, 5 thousandths of 1 percent of your $3M is $3000.   

Even if you’re really rich–worth $30,000,000–your ‘Musk equivalent cost’ is still chump change, $30,000.

That’s right, we sold our country for a pittance.  And as I see it, those who willingly and wittingly bought into the MAGA line have also sold something–their souls. (Those Trump voters have been misinformed and miseducated by the Fox/right wing media machine for years deserve sympathy, not condemnation.)

Those who sell themselves are, to put it crudely, whores.  And those who sell themselves for .0005% are CHEAP WHORES.

That’s where America is right now, in the hands of greedy megalomaniacs, power-hungry opportunists, and vengeful white Christian nationalists.

How do we escape their grasp and recapture our country?  I suggest at least five courses of action: 1) support the ACLU and other organizations that are filing lawsuits, 2) join forces with anyone who supports local public institutions like schools and libraries, 3) support Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who take public stands against MAGA, 4) support independent journalism wherever you find it, and 5) stand with those the Trump Administration is attacking (which now includes Lutherans and Catholics who are supporting compassionate services for immigrants).

It’s long past time for liberal Democrats to stop focusing on sectional interests like gender, race, and immigrant status and pay attention to the needs of a shrinking middle class suffering from growing income inequality.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sounded the warning back in 2017, when he urged everyone to “understand that absolutely these are very difficult and frightening times. But also understand that in moments of crisis, what has happened, time and time again, is that people have stood up and fought back. So despair is absolutely not an option.”

If we don’t work together, MAGA will eventually come for you, and for me, and all of us!

Chuck Feeney died on October 9, 2023, at the age of 92. I wrote this in 2017

John Merrow Uncategorized

Billionaire Charles Feeney has finally completed what he set out to do: He has given away his fortune.  In all, he’s donated $8 billion, keeping only about $2 million for himself and his wife, Helga, who now live in San Francisco.  Jim Dwyer of the New York Times wrote a glorious profile of Mr. Feeney early this month, and I urge everyone to read it.  You will discover how he made his money and why he decided to give it away.  Unlike Donald Trump, he did not insist upon having his name on buildings (and his money has helped build more than 1,000 of them!).  He hasn’t wanted his name in lights, unlike a certain New Yorker.  Moreover, Mr. Feeney gave away money that he himself had earned, in sharp contrast to Mr. Trump, who solicited donations from others and then donated the money in his own name.

Most of Mr. Feeney’s gifts have gone to to higher education (especially Cornell, his alma mater), public health, human rights, and scientific research).

For most of his time as a philanthropist, Mr. Feeney insisted on anonymity (unlike another New Yorker we know). Recipients either did not know where the money was coming from, or, if they did, they were sworn to secrecy.

I’m one of the beneficiaries. His gift saved my career.

It was 1994, and I was basically broke, with two films nearing completion but no money to finish them.  I was employed by a small non-profit in South Carolina but working in New York City. That organization managed our grants, took care of payroll for the three of us, and filed final reports to foundations (although I wrote them).  For these small tasks, the organization took 20% of every grant, off the top.  I thought that was way too much, and I was able to persuade one foundation to write a 15% cap into its grant.  I used that as leverage to get the rate down for other grants, but only after a protracted and nasty battle.

Winning that battle was a mistake, because I soon lost the war, one that I hadn’t even known he had declared.  Early in 1994 the boss called me to announce (with glee) that he was shutting down my operation in New York City because we were out of money.  I explained that I had two sizable grants in the pipeline and that all we needed was an advance to cover a few months.  Sorry, he said, no advances.

I was panicked.  I lay awake most nights, in a cold sweat. We had spent three years filming in a Cincinnatti high school, watching a small band of reformers put Ted Sizer’s “Less is More” Essential Schools philosophy into operation. We had wonderful characters and a great story of the resistance to change from within a school. But we didn’t have the dollars necessary to finish editing, mixing, color-correcting, et cetera.   And we were well into filming another story.

In all, I calculated that we needed about $90,000 to finish both films and deliver them to PBS.  That number didn’t include salaries, which all three of us had decided to forgo just to get the work done.

I spent days on the phone, calling in whatever chits I imagined I might have.  Not many, as it turned out, but I did get promises of $10,000 from one foundation, $5,000 from another, and (perhaps) $7,500 from a third.  Then I called Sophie Sa of the Panasonic Foundation. She said her foundation couldn’t make grants, unfortunately. I was crestfallen and was about to sign off when she said, “Do you know about the anonymous foundation?”

No, I said, tell me.

“I can’t. It’s a secret.  No publicity.”

Gee thanks, I thought to myself.

“But if you will send me a letter explaining what you’re looking for, I will see they get it.”

The fax went out within the hour, and the next morning my phone rang.

“John, this is Angela. I work for an anonymous donor, and we’d like to meet with you.  Can you come by this afternoon?”

When I got there, I discovered that Angela’s last name was Covert, perfect for a top-secret organization. She and her colleague, Joel Fleishman, spoke highly of our work and said they’d like to help, under the condition of absolute secrecy.  After I agreed, they asked me how much I needed.

I think we can finish both films for about $75,000, I said, hoping that I wasn’t aiming too high.  “That’s a ridiculous amount,” Joel said, and I’m sure my face fell.  Then he added, “You will need at least twice that amount.”

He went on to talk about unexpected expenses, our salaries, some money for publicity, and a financial cushion to give me time to raise more money to keep the organization afloat.

And then one of them added, “And you ought to think about setting up your own non-profit so you don’t find yourself in this situation again. That means hiring a lawyer, which means more money.”

In the end, the anonymous foundation wrote a check for $200,000 or maybe $225,000, to be paid to a new non-profit organization.  That’s how Learning Matters came into being.

We finished the film, which earned high praise.  Judy Woodruff, then at CNN, called it “Riveting reporting….that powerfully demonstrates at once how hard reform will be and how absolutely necessary it is, if we are to save this and future generations of American youngsters.”

When the cover of anonymity was stripped away some years later, we learned that man who saved us from going broke was Charles Feeney, a public-spirited New Jersey native who served as a radio operator in the Air Force, attended Cornell on the GI Bill, and in 1960 co-founded Duty Free, the shops that cater to international air travelers.

Thanks to Charles Feeney’s generosity and the hands-on work of Angela Covert and Joel Fleishmann, Learning Matters had a good run of 20 years. We earned two Peabody Awards, produced hundreds of reports for the PBS NewsHour and three programs for Frontline, and served as a training ground for dozens of skilled producers who continue to focus on education and children’s issues.

(We did one other thing when Mr. Feeney went public: From that point on as far as we were concerned, Angela Covert was now Angela Overt!)

May Charles Feeney, now 85, and his wife enjoy many years of health and joy.  What a marvelous role model he has been, and is.

Thank you, sir….

(In 2017 I called this post “The Anti-Trump,” and you can find the readers’ reactions here: https://themerrowreport.com/2017/01/12/the-anti-trump/?c=6928#comment-6928 )

(Joel Fleishman died in 2024 after a long life of service. He was 90 https://sanford.duke.edu/story/honoring-joel-fleishman/)

The Anti-Trump

OK WE’RE AGAINST KINGS. WHAT ARE WE FOR??

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

More than five million demonstrators in about 2000 communities stepped forward to declare their opposition to Donald Trump, on June 14th. “No Kings Day” was also Trump’s 79th birthday, Flag Day, and the anniversary of the creation of the American army.

So now we know what many of us are against, but the central question remains unanswered: What do we stand FOR? What do we believe in?

Just as FDR called for Four Freedoms, the Democratic party needs to articulate its First Principles.  I suggest three: “The Public Good,” “Individual Rights,” and “Rebuilding America after Trump.” 

 THE PUBLIC GOOD: Democrats must take our nation’s motto, E pluribus unum, seriously, and they must vigorously support the common good.  That means supporting public libraries, public parks, public schools, public transportation, public health, public safety, public broadcasting, and public spaces–almost anything that has the word ‘public’ in it.

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: Because the fundamental rights that are guaranteed in our Constitution are often subject to interpretation, debate, and even violent disagreement, Democrats must be clear.  Free speech, freedom of worship, habeas corpus, and other fundamental rights are not up for debate, and nor is a woman’s right to control her own body.  

Health care is a right, and Democrats must make that a reality.  

Conflict is inevitable–think vaccination requirements–and Democrats should come down on the side of the public good.  

Because Americans have a right to safety, Democrats should endorse strong gun control measures that ban assault weapons that have only one purpose–mass killing. 

REBUILDING AMERICA AFTER TRUMP:  The Trump regime was and continues to be a disaster for a majority of Americans and for our standing across the world, but it’s not enough to condemn his greed and narcissism, even if he goes to prison.  Let’s first acknowledge that Trump tapped into serious resentment among millions of Americans, which further divided our already divided country.  

The challenge is to work to bring us together, to make ‘one out of many’ in the always elusive ‘more perfect union.’  The essential first step is to abandon the ‘identity politics’ that Democrats have practiced for too long.  Instead, Democrats must adopt policies that bring us together, beginning with mandatory National Service: 

National Service: Bring back the draft for young men and women to require two years of (paid) National Service, followed by two years of tuition or training credits at an accredited institution.  One may serve in the military, Americorps, the Peace Corps, or other helping organizations.  One may teach or work in distressed communities, or rebuild our national parks, or serve in other approved capacities.  JFK famously said “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”  Let’s ask BOTH questions.  

Additionally: 1) Urge states to beef up civic education in public schools, teaching real history, asking tough questions.  At the same time, federal education policies should encourage Community schools, because research proves that schools that welcome families are more successful across many measures.

2) Rebuild Our Aging Infrastructure: This is urgent, and it will also create jobs.

3) Adopt fiscal and monetary policies to address our burgeoning national debt. This should include higher taxes on the wealthy, emulating Dwight Eisenhower. 

4) Adopt sensible and realistic immigration policies that welcome newcomers who arrive legally but close our borders to illegal immigration.

5) Rebuilding America also means rebuilding our alliances around the world.  Democrats should support NATO and Ukraine, and rejoin efforts to combat climate change. 

In addition to adopting Three “First Principles,” Democrats must act NOW to ensure that the 2026 elections are free and fair. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, is concerned about this.  In an email he wrote: “For me, the essential question for my party is this: do you think this political moment is frenzied but still normal, and thus our job is to use our tried and true political tactics to make Trump as deservedly unpopular as possible so that we win back levers of power in 2026; or, do you think this moment is without precedent, and that Trump’s assault on democracy is so serious that all our work must be directed not toward winning the 2026 election, but making sure there is a free, fair election in 2026?”

Murphy is launching a fund to support citizen-led, grass roots, state and regional efforts to protect the vote.  American Mobilization will provide money and logistical support, Murphy promises. The first $400,000 is going to three organizations: the Committee to Protect Health Care, the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition for Action, and Project 26 Pennsylvania. He explains, “The Committee to Protect Health is organizing doctors and nurses to protect Medicaid in Michigan, Louisiana, and Utah, and Georgia Youth Justice and Project 26 are organizing young people, including college students, to join the fight.”

It’s worth supporting Senator Murphy because Trump presents a genuine and serious threat to our democratic republic. Democrats have to fight.

In a column in the New York Times, David Brooks argued that we are in a ‘world-shifting’ time, and that Democrats haven’t realized how they are being left behind.  In other words, sharpening their message won’t cut it.  He writes, “This is not about policies. Democrats have to do what Trump did: create a new party identity, come up with a clear answer to the question: What is the central problem of our time? Come up with a new grand narrative.”

The three non-negotiable requirements for Democratic success are 1) First Principles that articulate a clear set of core beliefs, 2) Effective messengers, and 3) Mastery of the medium(s) that conveys the message.  Call it the 3M concept: message, messenger, and medium.  Right now too many Democrats are spinning their wheels on #2 and #3, instead of figuring out what they stand for.  

Rebuilding America also requires looking forward, because AGI, artificial general intelligence, is both an existential threat and a huge promise.  At a minimum, AGI will be a job-eliminator in ways we cannot even imagine, and that reality must be addressed.  If we cannot create enough new jobs, what will adults do with all that free time? 

And Ukraine’s drone attack deep into Russia must also be seen as another new reality.  We are now vulnerable in ways we never imagined, now that an ordinary freight truck can be converted into an aircraft carrier.

These are perilous times, the worst possible time to have a shallow narcissist in the White House, enabled by Fox News ‘personalities’ and other toadies in positions of power.

But that’s our reality until the 2026 elections, when we can begin to retake control of our destiny and begin to repair America and our standing in the world.  

Just SAYING “No” to kings won’t cut it.  Organize, register to vote, register others, contribute to the ACLU, and speak up and speak out.