Growing Teacher Shortage

Kavan Peterson writes about the growing national teacher shortage on Stateling.org.

Increases in college tuition and new pressures to up student test scores have made low-paying teaching jobs less appealing, education advocates say. And because today's college graduates and new teachers typically change careers every five to seven years, turnover for teachers is at a record high.

The shortage is particularly a problem in the south where many districts are under funded and teacher pay is consistently below the national average.

Sun Belt states such as California, Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina and Texas are feeling the worst crunch, Bryant said.
North Carolina, for example, has to look outside the state to fill more than half its 10,000 teaching openings every year, according to the state Department of Public Instruction. By fall 2006, Florida will need to fill 30,000 teaching positions, almost double the amount in previous years because of a spike in retirement and the demands of a 2002 constitutional amendment to reduce classroom sizes.

The disparity between high tuition costs and increasing testing demands has to be resolved. This problem will not solve itself and is poised to get worse.

The shortage is expected to get more severe because nearly one-third of all U.S. teachers are ages 55 and older, Bryant said.

Southern incomes stall

The U.S. Dept. of Commerce yesterday released 2005 personal income statistics, and not much has changed for Southern states.

Virgina was the only Southern representative among the top ten states with the highest per capita income. Meanwhile, seven of the ten states with the lowest per capita income were in the South: Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, West Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Significantly, again only Virginia was among states to experience a significant growth rate in personal income, while Mississippi's was low and Louisiana's was negative.

The report attributed Louisiana's performance to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But what about the rest of the South? What is keeping us from doing better?

An article by the Arkansas News Bureau cites some analysis by Arkansas economists:

"Arkansas has just been behind for so long that we need more than steady growth," Deck said. "We need extraordinary growth rates in order to just be average."

Ashvin Vibhakar, director of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Institute for Economic Advancement, said the slow growth in personal income is linked to the lack of educational progress.

"Until we do close the educational gap, we will continue to see this problem," the UALR economist said.

Reframing the Poverty Debate

Over 200 scholars and anti-poverty leaders gathered in Chapel Hill, N.C., last week for a two-day conference entitled "Challenging the Two Americas: new Policies to Fight Poverty." The event was sponsored by UNC-Chapel Hill's Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, directed by former U.S. Senator John Edwards.

The conference covered a variety of topics including economic inequality, housing policy, work, welfare reform and racial/gender gaps. Perhaps the most important theme that ran through the conference was that issues typically associated with poverty no longer apply exclusively to the poor. Rather, many of the same barriers like the lack of affordable housing and the absence of health insurance have worked their way up the income ladder and now threaten the well-being of America's middle-class families.

Click here to read a summary of the conference that appeared in The New York Times.

Congress Notices North Carolina’s Progress

To follow up Warick Sabin’s Wednesday post, Rueters reports that a Progressive North Carolina law has influenced federal action regarding the practice of predatory mortgage lending.

The North Carolina law, among other things, set prohibitions on prepayment penalties and financing of upfront, single premium insurance on home loans. It also set restrictions on fees and the terms of high cost home loans.

The Center for Responsible Lending said the North Carolina law is one of the strongest anti-predatory lending laws in the United States. That group estimates that abusive home lending practices cost U.S. consumers $9.1 billion a year.

It’s refreshing to see bipartisan efforts in today’s polarized political climate. That a viable, progressive solution originated in the South is even more encouraging.

Affording higher education

Yesterday the University of Pennsylvania made history by announcing that it would pay for tuition, room and board for all students from families with incomes of up to $50,000. By topping similar aid commitments from wealthier universities, Penn will hopefully set off competition among top tier colleges to put money where their mouths ought to be: providing higher education for a greater number of qualified students.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced a similar program. Hopefully other public and private institutions will follow suit.

Ending payday lending

Are Southern states getting closer to excising those usurious demons known as payday lenders?

One payday lending company, Advance America, this week told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it will end its operations in Arkansas after the FDIC announced it will start regulating the industry more strictly.

Advance America is headquartered in South Carolina, and it also recently suspended operations in North Carolina after the bank commissioner there said the company's interest rates were illegally high.

And according to the Facing South blog, Tennessee legislators are considering measures to regulate the payday lending practice:

Here in Tennessee there is legislation that would limit interest on payday and title loans to 36% APR in total instead of the current 24% and up to 20% of the principal in fees. Similar legislation in the last session would have limited the interest to 12% and 10% of the principle in fees, but it went nowhere.

There is also proposed legislation to require more extensive financial disclosures for payday and title loans to U.S. military and their families, and limit interest to 36%.

Payday lending is predatory, and the only reason it continues is that the industry makes big campaign contributions to ensure that elected officials will leave them alone. That needs to stop, and these recent developments are a welcome sign that progress is being made.

Katrina photo essay, part 3

PASS CHRISTIAN, MS -- More than six months after Hurricane Katrina ripped through Louisiana and Mississippi, devastation still grips the coast.

These pictures, taken around noon today, are similar -- but a little different -- from the earlier photos in New Orleans. They're the same because of the destruction that permeates. They're different because of the trees. Just about everywhere you look, you see trash-filled trees.

As in New Orleans, people are recovering -- houses are being rebuilt, people are buried in cemeteries, cafes serve food. But what's happened -- and is still happening -- here is truly numbing.

• View photo essay from New Orleans
  

Southern Politics

The April issue of The Washington Monthly contains several articles of interest to students of Southern politics and culture.

• "Deviously Ineffective" -- a discussion of the controversies surrounding Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and current Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in Georgia. (Not available online).
• "Everyday Low Vices" -- a critique of Wal-Mart's labor and employment policies and an explanation of the negative publicity that surrounds the Arkansas firm.
• "Backseat Strategists" -- an essay reviewing four new books about the future of the Democratic Party and the role that the South, especially the rural South, could play in that future.

Perhaps the most interesting piece is "When Would Jesus Bolt?" by Amy Sullivan. Sullivan's article explores the growing tensions between moderate evangelical voters and the national GOP -- a tension stemming from the national party's refusal to actually deliver on the issues of importance to some evangelicals. Special attention is given to the work of Randy Brinson, an Alabama evangelical who founded Redeem the Vote, a national voter registration organization.

Eastern N.C. Needs Attention

Rob Christianson of the News and Observer writes about a new report from the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research. The report reiterates an oft-overlooked, yet persistent concern for state’s economic health and society; Eastern North Carolina is suffering.

If Eastern North Carolina were a separate state, it would be drawing comparisons to Mississippi and Arkansas. Mississippi has a median household income of $31,330; areas in the east without military bases have a median of $31,903.Things are so bad that the idea of taking New York's garbage in large regional landfills was not laughed off. Neither is a Branson, Mo.-style hub for country music in Roanoke Rapids, or a giant new port facility near Southport. Falling tobacco barns might make a pretty Bob Timberlake painting. But you can't say the same thing for shuttered textile mills or vacant storefronts.

The problems of the east are similar to those of the rural Deep South. The disparity between the urban, suburban, and rural eastern North Carolina can serve as a metaphor for the problems arising from Southern growth and change across the region. Solutions for the plight of the east can be applied to the South as a whole.

Three of four workers in the east work in the service or retail sector, mostly in low-paying jobs. In eight counties, Wal-Mart is the largest private employer. In four counties, meat-packing plants reign supreme. The region has lost half its farms in the past 30 years. Recruiting new industry is difficult. As the center notes, economic development goes "one step forward, two steps back." While Nash County gets a $16 million Cheesecake Factory bakery, nearby Glenoit Fabrics Corp. lays off workers and Glenoit Universal Ltd. closes its rug factory. The east has so many needs it's hard to know where to begin -- but better schools, roads and utilities are a start.

New Orleans photo essay, part 2

NEW ORLEANS, LA., 10 A.M. -- Some impressions from a ride around the Lakeview and Lake Vista parts of the city:

Some things haven't changed or are back running: lines at the Metairie Winn-Dixie, cafe au lait and beignets at the Morning Call, morning commuter traffic. A morning walker waited for cars to cross so she could continue her exercise. Girls wearing plaid kilt uniform skirts get out of cars to go into a local Catholic school.

But the block after block of devastation is numbing. There are For Sale signs in front of houses you'd think no one would ever buy. Blue tarps dot the area to cover roofs. FEMA trailers sit on blocks in front of some houses; others seem abandoned - - or people are back inside living in conditions that seem fine. ... Grass in parks and green areas is uncut. Piles of rubble litter streets. ... It's not uncommon to see dirty cars, obviously victims of floodwaters, to be turned upside down or on their sides. There was even a stripped Rolls Royce along one street.

• See more pictures...

Explaining Southern Republican dominance

There's an interesting discussion at Kevin Drum's Political Animal blog that boils down to this question:

Did Republican Party dominance in the South happen because suburban Southerners were attracted to Republican economic policies, or did racial politics create the Southern suburbs and make them responsive to race-baiting Republican messages?

Here is an edited version of Drum's post:

Clay Risen wrote a piece in the Boston Globe last week about a new book, The End of Southern Exceptionalism, by Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer. Johnston and Shafer argue that the reason the South became a Republican stronghold following World War II was due less to racial backlash than to the postwar growth of suburbia, with its natural affinity for Republican economic policies. ...

But perhaps this puts the cart before the horse. After all, it's not a natural law that suburbs have to be conservative, so it's worth asking why suburbia is so conservative in the first place. A few months ago Kevin Kruse sent me a copy of his book White Flight, which I just started reading over the weekend, and he argues that, in fact, suburban economic conservatism is inextricably linked with racial backlash. ...

Since I haven't finished the book I need to be careful summarizing Kruse's argument, but basically he suggests that the crude Klan-style racism that dominated attention at the national level during the postwar years was actually fairly ineffective, and was quickly replaced by more sophisticated segregationist arguments that were less overtly racist: namely that whites weren't fighting against the rights of others but for rights of their own. ...

This core set of beliefs, which was originally just an acceptable public face for private segregationist sentiment, was carried into post-WWII suburbs by whites fleeing central cities, where they found a sympathetic reception in the Republican Party. Eventually these beliefs became the bedrock economic principles of the party, and as Southern whites became increasingly influential within the GOP its economic policies became ever more radicalized.

So: was Republican ascendancy in the South due primarily to economic likemindedness or to racial backlash? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

"Campaign 2.0" Comes to Virginia: Is the Southeast Next?

With James Webb’s entry into the race for the US Senate seat from Virginia currently held by George Allen, a movement is afoot to leverage the power of the Internet to transform Virginia politics and send Webb to Washington. Seizing an opportunity to shift the political paradigm, a significant number of Virginia’s progressive and Democratic bloggers – the so-called “netroots” - are throwing their support behind the former Reagan Navy Secretary and best-selling author who is now a Democrat. According to Raising Kaine, a leading progressive blog,

“For the Democratic and Progressive blogosphere, Jim Webb represents Campaign 2.0...Jim is very interested in the netroots, and in running a different kind of campaign. This is a chance for the Democratic/progressive netroots community to really take things up a notch.”

Lowell Feld, political director of Raising Kaine’s PAC and a leading figure in the move to “draft” Mr. Webb, says, “So far, the Webb campaign and its grassroots supporters have worked together extremely well, and this cooperation is almost certain to improve as time goes by. This combination of 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' has the potential to be an unstoppable combination both in the primary and also in the general election.”

With a fundraising campaign designed to raise $300,000 for Webb in 3 weeks, this movement is going to change the complexion of the genteel politics of the Commonwealth. Regardless of the ultimate outcome, this band of tech-savvy activists plans to “shake up the stale Democratic establishment with a huge gust of fresh air.” If successful, “Campaign 2.0” could serve as a model for expanding traditional notions of politicking throughout the Southeast. With blogs becoming a fixture of political life in Dixie, the sky’s the limit as to where such efforts will lead.

New Orleans photo essay, part 1

Six months after Katrina's fury rocked the Mississippi coast and New Orleans, the area remains ravaged. But after only being here a few hours, it's clear that things are moving here, although there's still a long way to go.

Over the next few days, we'll publish a photo essay of the area to show what's happening as the area continues its recovery.

• To view the essay, go to: www.bettersouth.org

Environmental Reminders

For many progressives, especially here in the South, there are myriad overwhelming issues; from health care to race, poverty to education, these are things that rightly demand our attention and action.

But news in recent weeks has provided some grim reminders about the need for us to keep in mind our role as champions for the environment. With a bit of a Southern twist to a (very) Northern story, scientists from the University of Tennessee this week published a research paper in the journal Science about the effects of climate change on the Arctic. Here's the story from the L.A. Times, by way of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to avoid having to subscribe to see it. (In the interest of full disclosure, by the way, I work for UT.)

Why should we care here in the South, though? A walrus in Alaska doesn't mean a whole lot to your average Southerner, it's true, but this work shows some of the first signs that what we feared about global warming is true. While corporations have managed to get 20-year reprieves from using technology that they could install next week to help reduce emissions, it's more pertinent than ever.

Should we keep fighting to raise the minimum wage and start to bring our respective states out of second-tier status? You bet. But at the same time, as Southern progressives fight to bring better jobs and new opportunities to the people of our states, we need to keep a steady and persistent focus on making sure that when that new car plant goes up, it's less polluting. We may not see the benefit now, but as studies like this one show, we've got our work cut out for us in the future if we want to avoid the kind of climate change that will began to force us into a different way of life.

Being progressives, we look to the future while others look to the past. Nowhere can we better serve the interests of our region and our nation than here.

Diversity Spreads South

The Hispanic, black and Asian populations of Southern metros recorded some of the nation's highest growth rates between 2000 and 2004, according to a new study by William Frey of the Brookings Institution.

Frey found that "the fastest growing metro areas for each minority group in 2000-2004 are no longer unique, but closely parallel the fastest growing areas in the nation." While some Southern metros expanded greatly in recent decades, much of that growth was fueled by white in-migration. That is no longer the case.

Take Hispanics. Historically, much of the growth in the nation's Hispanic population had been concentrated in a few gateway cities like New York or Chicago. Today, Southern metros are magnets for Hispanic growth with places like Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville and Atlanta experiencing rapid growth in their Hispanic populations.

Similarly, blacks are now moving back to the South after having spent decades moving away in search of better lives outside of the region. Southern metros like Orlando, Atlanta, Tampa, Austin and Dallas all have seen their black populations swell since 2000.

Such trends are remaking the face of growing Southern metros. Besides having to confront such growth issues as providing adequate infrastructure and addressing sprawl, Southern metros also must confront racial and ethnic issues. For example, many Southern metros now have "majority minority" child populations. In Atlanta, 34 percent of the children younger than age 15 are black, 10 percent are Hispanic, 4 percent are Asian and 2 percent belong to other non-white groups. Addressing such issues will be just as crucial to the region's success as building roads and providing affordable housing.

Bush Loosing Southern Support

It appears that the solid South might be beginning to crack. A new poll from Elon University in Burlington shows decline of support for the President in a region that has been instrumental in his electoral victories.

All five of the states polled - North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida - went to Bush in the 2004 presidential election by margins ranging from 58 percent in South Carolina and Georgia to 52 percent in Florida. Less than 18 months later, Bush isn't even close to majority approval in any of those states. "For him not to even break (50 percent), not to even approach it, says all you need to say," said Hunter Bacot, who teaches political science at Elon and is the director of the poll. "In five 'red' states that have been ardent supporters of Bush, he can't even approach 50 percent."

It has been hard to avoid headlines about Bush’s falling national approval ratings. It is notable; however, that the trend is appearing within the South. Even in military-friendly states like North and South Carolina, it appears that Iraq is beginning to have an impact on Southern voters. While no poll should be taken too seriously, this trend may prove to be a serious factor come next election.

Of those polled, 46 percent said they voted Republican in the 2004 presidential election, while 42 percent said they voted Democratic. When asked which party they will support this year, 33 percent said Democrats and 27 percent said Republicans.

Education innovators profiled

The George Lucas Educational Foundation publishes a monthly magazine called Edutopia that profiles innovation in schools. In the March issue, there's an interesting feature on the Daring Dozen - - a dozen innovators from across the U.S. who challenge conventional wisdom and push the envelope. Of these, two have Southern roots.

Barbara Rountree, Alabama:

Barbara Rountree, a veteran educator and former professor at the University of Alabama, wonders why technology has so profoundly changed such professions as banking and medicine, yet has lagged so far behind in education. But instead of complaining about the quality of schools in her home state, Rountree founded the Capitol School in Tuscaloosa in 1993. This preK-12 school offers its 140 students "as many educational opportunities as possible," says Rountree. And it does so through a tech-strengthened curriculum tailored to each student's needs.

Joy Hakim, Virginia:

Twenty-five years ago, when Joy Hakim was a reporter for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, she was sent to cover a state school board hearing in Richmond, where administrators and textbook publishers were at odds about content. Curious, Hakim opened one of the books and began reading. She was appalled by what she saw. "Everyone was saying they wanted a good history textbook," she says, "and I felt that after years as a journalist, I could do a better job."

Southern leadership in health care

Can a Southern state be a leader in finding ways to extend health coverage to the uninsured?

Arkansas proved this week that it can. As the New York Times reported yesterday, the state received federal approval to use its Medicaid dollars to support a program offering bare-bones health plans to small businesses.

The employer-based program is novel in two ways. The benefit package is extremely limited, much more austere than Medicaid's. In addition, if an employer wants to participate, it must guarantee that all its employees, regardless of income or other factors, will be covered. ...

Under the plan, to be approved by Michael O. Leavitt, secretary of health and human services, the state expects to enroll at least 50,000 workers with incomes less than twice the federal poverty level and 30,000 workers with higher incomes. The poverty level this year is $9,800 for an individual, $13,200 for a couple. ...

Federal officials said the Arkansas program could be a model for other states that want to expand coverage without substantially increasing costs.

People who sign up for the program will receive a basic benefit package covering six doctor visits a year, seven days of inpatient hospital care a year, two outpatient hospital procedures or emergency room visits a year and two prescription drugs a month.

Beneficiaries will have to pay an annual deductible of $100 and 15 percent of the cost of each service, with a maximum out-of-pocket cost of $1,000 a year, state officials said.

It's not perfect, but it's a good start, and certainly better than nothing for the thousands of workers who otherwise would have no coverage. We need to continue down this road and find new ways to address this problem, because the current situation is untenable for everyone.

Katrina's forgotten victims

At the six month anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the largest slice of national media coverage went to New Orleans, just as it did during the hurricane's aftermath. To the frustration of Magnolia State residents and to the shame of parachuting media types who invariably go for the easiest story, Mississippi is a distant second in terms of news coverage, both then and now.
(For a collection of out-of-the-ordinary stories on the hurricane's toll look here. I recently toured the Gulf Coast with these editorial writers.)

However, there is one Katrina story in Alabama that has been ignored by the big news outlets. In Bayou La Batre, a small coastal town in Alabama that is heavily dependent on the fishing industry, 23 shrimp boats remain grounded. (Click here for a photo.) The reason those boats remain on land while the government has removed hundreds of others from Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana is a frustrating tale that once more points a finger of blame at the federal government.

After the boats were grounded and the storm had passed,local officials decided the best plan would be to remove the gas and oil from the vessels. It turns out that ecologically friendly move landed local shrimpers in bureaucratic hell.

The feds won't pay to get the boats back to water because - get this - they no longer pose an environmental threat. Yes, we know that, the locals say, we're the ones who removed the threat before it could pollute anything.

These stranded boats represent jobs. Shrimpers are getting increasingly frustrated. One told a reporter from The Anniston Star, "You sit there and you see multi-million-dollar recovery projects going on in Pakistan and Iraq and Indonesia and you think, 'If they can do that over there, why can’t they do it here?' "

You can read more about their plight here. (Warning: You'll have to either subscribe or sign-up for a day pass to read the story.)

Navigating the Global South

Scholars, public officials and policy practicioners from across the South gathered in Chapel Hill, N.C., last week for a two-day conference entitled "Navigating the Global South." Sponsored by UNC-Chapel Hill's Center for the Study of the American South and University Center for International Studies, the event explored "the economic, political, cultural and social challenges and opportunities the southern United States faces in the midst of globalization."

While the conference touched on a wide array of themes, two topics dominated the discussions: economic development and immigration. In recent decades, the South has evolved from an economic laggard into an dynamic leader, intimately connected to an international marketplace. While that prosperity has benefited the region, challenges abound in regards to maintaining and expanding that prosperity and ensuring that all Southerners and their communities benefit from change.

Similarly, the South's growth has turned the region into a magnet for people from across the globe. Immigrants from Latin America in particular have come to the South and have altered the region's historic white-black population dynamic. Dealing with the opportunities and challenges connected to immigration is essential to the region's sustained growth.

Click here to access all of the conference papers.

Australian Evangelical in Rocky Mount

One of the Center’s focal issues deals with faith and the South. The Center’s website states,

Rethinking faith and the South: The Center is probing whether new progressive ideas to build a stronger South can come from the region's faith community.

The Independent Weekly out of Durham has published piece on an Australian evangelical Ken Ham who has brought his message on the “Biblical Answer to Racism” to Rocky Mount.

Ham pushes his audience (culturally conservative and about 90 percent white) one step further. "If you disagree with what I'm going to say, please do not give me your opinion, because I'm not interested," he begins. "I want to know what the Bible says." He implores his fellow Christians to let go of their objections to interracial marriage--because, according to the Scriptures, "there's no such thing as biological interracial marriage." As long as both parties are Christian and agree that "the husband is to be the spiritual head of the home," it doesn't matter how much pigmentation each one has. There's a quiet sprinkling of applause and amens before Ham continues: "The next time someone comes into your church and they have a different skin shade from you, look past the external minor differences and see the person. 'How can I help you? Do you need my love?'"

While Ham could hardly be considered Progressive, he is preaching a different message. Whether you agree with Ham or find him completely off-base, one has to recognize that he is addressing, historically, the South’s most glaring problem. While his stance is “interesting” to say the least, he is preaching a positive message that has attracted many fellow Southerners.

A Southern energy solution

It seems like everyone is talking about a gasoline tax. (Thomas Friedman is advocating it again in his New York Times opinion column today.) Even President George W. Bush has said Americans are addicted to oil and must find a way to achieve energy independence.

However, a huge, immediate increase in the gasoline tax would be extremely regressive and devastating to most people in the South, where there are few urban areas with viable public transportation.

A better idea is promoting alternative energy sources that derive from agricultural products, which would be a win-win for the South. Fuels like biodiesel and ethanol would create new markets for farmers as they labor in a sector of the regional economy that has been in decline. At the same time, these fuels don't require new, specialized vehicles or major engine modifications.

Already biodiesel production facilities are opening in Arkansas and other Southern states. It seems like a logical way to create a domestic source of energy that is cleaner, cheaper and easier to utilize while giving our farmers a needed source of income.

Virginia Bloggers Debate the Blogosphere: Whither the Southeast?

This week, some of Virginia’s leading political bloggers are debating whether the medium has run its course or grown stale. Opinions vary about the efficacy of blogging as a political tool, the etiquette of good political blogging, and whether the exponential explosion in the sheer number of blogs and bloggers is helping or hurting public discourse. Still, blogging has fast become part of life in Virginia politics and on the national scene.

Is this the case for the rest of Dixie?

As technology shifts and more households gain Internet access, will blogging as a tool of citizen activism become par for the course? In a region like the Southeast, where small towns, rural counties, and mid-sized cities are not served by large media conglomerates, blogging seems to have the potential to redefine the social and political fabric. In an age where large corporations, wealthy donors, and ideological elites of all stripes still exert heavy influence on public policy, is blogging swinging the pendulum of accountability back into the hands of the average citizen? The answers are far from certain but seemingly worth exploring.

It would be interesting to hear views from across the region on this emerging issue.