Blog five: goes long on education funding

Sign for "Camp Roosevelt" - the first New Deal CCC project base
Image courtesy of Public Works Administration Wikipedia Article

Yesterday, 27^th May 2017, would have been John F. Kennedy’s 100^th birthday. He, the 35^th President of the United States, in the popular liberal mind, seems utterly at odds with the current and 45^th President, Donald Trump, which is why comments I read in The Guardian yesterday, for the admittedly right-wing historian Niall “Imperialism was a good thing” Ferguson didn’t ring quite true to me on first glance. Professor Ferguson remarks on JFK were thus: “I think the Kennedy myth will live on and, the longer it lives, the further it will be removed from historical reality… It’s a chronicle of malfeasance and yet the man is remembered as a hero,” he said. “Maybe there’s hope for Donald Trump yet.”

His reasoning was that with influential social thinkers like Arthur Schlesinger exalted and eulogised the Kennedy’s presidency with the idea of what-could-have-been Camelot idyll and the glamour associated with figures like Jackie O. This papered over “his razor-thin margin of victory, possibly won with some mafia help, the crazy philandering that even jeopardised national security when it turned that out he and a mobster were sharing a girlfriend with the KGB… [and] bugging Martin Luther King through brother Bobby.” He finishes calling the dealing of the Kennedy White House as “extraordinarily scuzzy”. With such a list of indictments, even a dyed in the wool liberal like myself starts asking questions.

This led me to think how or what of FDR’s legacy is enshrined in his New Deal and response to Pearl Harbour historicism that too ignores perhaps some of the man’s failings as a President. I’m not trying to tar his name or diminish the honour of being a Roosevelt scholar but more want to understand the man, quoting another controversial statesman, “warts and all” – particularly around 5-18 education, referred to as K-12 in the US. So, I began to dig…

Education in the US, curiously for a Brit and advocate of a National Education Service to mirror our NHS, sits and is funded locally rather than nationally due to the 10th Amendment of the Constitution: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  Public education was not mentioned as one of those federal powers, and so historically has been delegated to the local and state governments. This hasn’t stopped governments spending federally on education (to me, like healthcare, a core function of state – again at odds with the current President) but did for FDR. As spoken about in a previous blog, FDR’s tenure as POTUS was during the U.S.’s worst economic crisis – the Great Depression following the Wall Street Crash in 1929. In this period, approximately 80,000 public school teachers were left unemployed, teachers' salaries were cut and 145,700 pupils across America had their schools closed with many more receiving reduced or limited schooling. Resentment to teachers’ continued employment by those left jobless by the crash too created a febrile atmosphere for educators.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt giving milk to poor children in Vassar, New York - 1933
Image courtesy of Getty

Despite these challenges to the national education system, little is ever mentions about education in FDR retrospectives save for the New Deal youth programmes the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) – offering work to unemployed, unmarried men aged 18–25 from relief families - and the National Youth Administration (NYA) – a plank of the WPA providing work and education for Americans between the ages of 16 and 25. I had always assumed the New Deal offered federal funds into schools at a time when federal government became increasingly involved in the lives of its citizens in terms of housing, food, transportation, and employment but it did not increase its involvement in schools education at all. By 1934 the number of teachers, supervisors, and principals in education had fallen to the level of 1927; the cost per child enrolled declined to the level of 1922; the average salaries of teachers, principals, and supervisors dropped to the level of 1921; and the total capital outlay for schools was back to the level of 1913. Over just 5 years, two decades of educational advances disappeared, seemingly overnight. On a side note, when the CCC — which was essentially a youth employment program — began operations in 1933, its leaders soon discovered that there was a critical need not only for technical training, but also basic literacy instruction. Each camp then set up classrooms where CCC employees could voluntarily take remedial classes. As the program progressed, more advanced instruction was offered in such subjects as mathematics and history, which gave more jobs to teachers, along with more basic technical and vocational training.

As hard times arrived, people outside education naturally enough wanted to save money by trimming education down to its sparest functions. Many schools were closed. Georgia shut down 1,318 schools, leaving 170,790 children without instruction. Other districts reduced their hours of operation. In Dayton, Ohio, schools were open only three days a week. The majority of schools cut recently introduced programs such as art, music, manual arts, home economics, physical education, and health. Vocational education, the foremost educational innovation of the 1920s, was virtually eliminated. In New York State, 97 of 110 school districts with populations higher than five thousand had no vocational education. Resources were squeezed - one fifth-grade class in Waukegan, Illinois, was forced to share a single textbook, from which the teacher read aloud. Many schools increased the teacher/student ratio of their classes as an economy measure. Enrolment in high schools also increased, as students who might have taken jobs if they were available stayed in school for want of work. Between 1930 to 1940 the number of public-high-school students increased from 4.4 million to 6.5 million, further straining the resources of financially strapped schools.

This under-pressure funding did have to come from somewhere – most of which ended up being directly from the states, rather than federally. This was not without its issues. The decline in property values and general prosperity often dried up sources of school funding at the local level. Increasingly states assumed the responsibility of paying for schools, standardising both financial practices and curriculum. Many states began providing "foundation grants"—a "floor" of guaranteed funding for every district in a state, however localities remained free to spend more or less on their own schools; this state funding was designed to ensure that a minimal amount of instruction was financed.

Alongside the increase in funding pressure on the states, the inequality in funding of school districts remained a severe problem that was related to the relative wealth or poverty of the individual states. South Carolina, one of the poorest states in the nation, for example, could not raise the funds necessary to finance schools on the level of a wealthy state such as Delaware. In response to the crisis, the Roosevelt Administration provided immediate relief in the form of a $20 million federal appropriation that was used to help shore up those schools and districts most in danger of collapse. Other recommendations were put to FDR: the National Survey of School Finance recommended that the national government provide foundation grants of $15 per pupil per year to the states, as the states had to their local school districts. This never came to pass. Similarly, in 1936 Mississippi senator Patrick Harrison proposed a federal grant of $100 million to the states, but the bill was defeated.

In 1938 the Roosevelt administration did create an education advisory committee, led by Floyd Reeves of the University of Chicago, to make further recommendations concerning educational equality. The commission recommended sweeping changes in educational financing, with the bulk of funding coming from Washington. The recommendation was killed in Congress. Many lawmakers believed increased control of education from Washington would violate the long tradition of local control of schools. Southerners feared the federal government would desegregate the schools, and budget balancers on Capitol Hill and at the White House were afraid the program would plunge the government into receivership.

Children receiving a free school lunch as part of WPA funded project
Image courtesy of the Great Depression Project.

In the putting together of the last six paragraphs the rosy glow of my New Deal idealism has been slightly burnished. The were some successes: public works relief built new schools (as did the later Lanham Act) and gave children a hot school lunch (as a getting people into work as cooks and servers, rather than a education-public health initiative). However, it now feels that FDR’s heralded accomplishment of investing in jobs, infrastructure and skills training seems to have come at the expense of investment centrally in a contracting and collapsing education system, filled with systemic failings and institutionalised inequality. Whilst the New Deal did deliver jobs – unemployment fell from 14 million in 1933 to under 8 million by 1937 – was this sustainable, especially with a workforce being developed with less schooling than the one before it and when the time came for less investment from central government? In 1938 unemployment actually increased again to more than 10 million, after Roosevelt (who had lost his working majority in Congress) reduced government spending. It wasn’t until the Second World War that America’s economy really surged with 17 million new civilian jobs created, industrial productivity increased by 96% and corporate profits after tax doubled. This, coupled with the social ideology of fighting the war, as a fight against foreign aggression and tyranny, galvanised society into wanting, and the increase in tax dollars allowing for, increased spending on a state level. Whilst the New Deal was “direct, vigorous” action on unemployment, it was neglect of the education system, which suffered under this abandonment. 

To return to Kennedy, it wasn’t until his successor Lyndon B. Johnson passing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that the federal government created a lasting program to fund education for 5-18 year olds federally. Channelling FDR, Johnson said: “Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty”. President Trump is now cutting the Education Department’s funding by $9 billion, or 13% of the budget approved by Congress last month – much of this part of the LBJ money. He wants to cut state grants for career and technical education (CTE), for example, by $166 million, and nearly halve funding for the roughly $1 billion federal work-study program. With these sounding like the remit of the CCC and NYA, does America need a New Deal on education – and one far more wide reaching in this area than the one in the ‘30s. As this article shows, and with more cuts ahead, it could be vital.

Blog four: let's talk about literacy learning

Image courtesy of NTU - Students in Classrooms project

Evidence based learning strategies are all the rage now, with Theresa May last week announcing that school breakfast would be offered nationwide in primary schools off the back of the fantastic Magic Breakfast project run by the Education Endowment Foundation (an organisation once described to me as “the best £140 million Gordon Brown ever spent after finding it down the back of the treasury’s sofa”). Magic Breakfasts proves a 2-month improvement-boost in skills in children in KS1 over the course of the study, although the reasons for this, a healthy breakfast, activities at the breakfast club or a child’s preparedness to work after being eased in during the club’s session, are less clear cut. I must also point out that this ran in conjunction with free school meals for these children and the impact of this proposed cut has not been measured (but this isn’t a blog about politics...).

In my travels in the US, I’ll looking at EEF’s evidence too, particularly in terms of how we encourage literacy engagement in children in primary/elementary schools. Good literacy skills provide us with the building blocks not just for academic success, but for fulfilling careers and rewarding lives. Yet despite our best efforts, a disadvantaged child in England is still more than twice as likely as their classmates from more advantaged homes to leave primary school without reaching the expected levels in reading and writing.

Nottingham and Nottinghamshire has issues with low attainment in core English and literary KPIs in Key Stage 2; only 61% of children in the city and 65% in the county achieving expected standards in reading in 2016. This drops further to 58% and 57% for children with English as a second language, to 53% and 48% for children identified as disadvantaged and to 50% and 43% for children eligible for free school meals. The East Midlands is join third-bottom, barely above Yorkshire and Humber and the West Midlands, in regional attainment (all figures from DfE 2015 stats). Now, as a UNESCO City of Literature and an ambitious county of literacy, we can and should find ways to unlock the potential in our under-12s.

The best way to break this link between family income and educational attainment is through better use of evidence: looking at what has — and has not — worked in the past can put us in a much better place to judge what is likely to work in the future. The EEF have put together two guidance reports to support literacy teaching in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 which propose key principles for effective literacy teaching that make significant difference to pupils’ learning and include:

• focusing on pupils’ speaking and listening skills by encouraging them to read books aloud and have conversations with their friends about them;
• a balanced and engaging approach to developing reading, which integrates both decoding and comprehension skills;
• promoting fluent written transcription skills by encouraging extensive and effective practice and explicitly teaching spelling;
• targeting teaching and support by accurately assessing pupil needs; and using high-quality structured interventions to help pupils who are struggling with their literacy.

This will form the basis of what I’ll be trying to look at in the US – plus I’ll also investigate the application of skills and strategies in five core education areas: Arts Participation, Digital Technologies, Oral Language Interventions, Reading Comprehension Strategies, and Social and Emotional Learning. In the research, again by EEF in their Teaching and Learning Tool-Kit, implementing and using correctly these 5 areas of curriculum support can achieve as much as 20 months additional learning impact.

These headlines will not come as a surprise. They are probably already a key priority in most schools. This means there are unlikely to be easy solutions or quick fixes. It’s my hope that my assessing this in a system which is new to me that I can collate ideas and effective methods into a “tool-kit” evidence-based literacy programme for Nottingham that will ensure as many pupils as possible, regardless of social or geographic background, can read and write well.

Blog three: FDR and the New Deal

Image courtesy of The Hulton Archive

With my social media feed filled with the UK’s current general election, I thought I’d get political on here too. With my impending visit to the “land of the free and the home of the brave” (no, not Scotland), I’m going to look briefly and with shocking naivety and uninformedness at the dynasty that this great travelling scholarship is named after.

On both sides of the Atlantic there is a divisive politics, with President Trump’s “Muslim ban” and repeal of “ObamaCare” whilst over here we are dealing with the effects of a bitter Brexit vote and the chronic underfunding of our public services for the last 7 years. With the Conservatives, last week dusting off one of Ed Milliband’s policies on capping energy bills and Labour today announcing that there would be a renationalisation of water utilities, this is exactly the municipal socialism that got me interested in politics in the first place. I’ll not drone on about Joseph Chamberlain and his mayoralty of Birmingham however, instead I’ll try and speak about Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (though both can be categorised as great post-Gladstonian liberals) and the role of the state in social policy.

Elected in a landslide for the Democrats, Roosevelt’s New Deal, which had been a core campaign promise, began to take shape immediately after his inauguration in March 1933 effectively ending the non-interventionalist social policy of previous laissez-faire administrations. Based on the assumption that the power of the federal government was needed to get the country out of the depression, the first days of Roosevelt's administration saw the passage of banking reform laws, emergency relief programs, work relief programs, and agricultural programs.

Later, a second New Deal was to evolve; it included union protection programs, the Social Security Act, and programs to aid tenant farmers and migrant workers. Many of the New Deal acts or agencies came to be known by their acronyms. For example, the Works Progress Administration was known as the WPA, while the Civilian Conservation Corps was known as the CCC. Many people remarked that the New Deal programs reminded them of alphabet soup.

As an artist, I love that the New Deal also included the Federal Art Project and other measures

that provided work for jobless artists, but they also had a larger mission: to promote American art and culture and to give more Americans access to what President Franklin Roosevelt described as "an abundant life." The projects saved thousands of artists from poverty and despair and enabled Americans all across the country to see an original painting for the first time, attend their first professional live theatre, or take their first music or drawing class.

By 1939, the New Deal had run its course. In the short term, New Deal programs helped improve the lives of people suffering from the events of the depression. In the long run, New Deal programs set a precedent for the federal government to play a key role in the economic and social affairs of the nation.

Under the New Deal, the country gained from public works projects - dams, roads, airfields, schools, bridges, reforestation schemes, and similar projects. These brought lasting benefits to local communities. In its efforts to help the poor and the destitute, the New Deal had many successes. The many relief schemes provided jobs and support for millions of people. The numbers out of work fell steadily - from 14 million in 1933 to under 8 million by 1937. The New Deal also restored the confidence of the American people in their government. They retained their belief in democracy at a time when, in Europe, democracy was facing major challenges from far-right, anti-democratic politics.

America, for me, is enshrined in Emma Lazarus’ The New Colossus, the poem on the tablet of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” – I also feel that Roosevelt’s New Deal was one of the real giant leaps for America on their road to achieving it. It’s a huge privilege to be traveling under the auspices of such an American colossus.

Blog two: Nottingham and the ‘nited States

Image courtesy of WW2-Airborne.US

We know that Nottingham is a cultured and cosmopolitan place; it can hold its own against other cities like Paris, Milan, Shanghai and Derby. It’s also had a long history of friendship and exchange with the United States, some of which I’ll try and talk about here!

The first great influx of Americans to Nottingham was on 13th March 1944 when the US 82nd Airborne’s 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment were stationed at Wollaton Hall in advance of the D-Day landings later that year - the picture above is men of 3rd battalion, 508th in Normandy. There’s a great story here of American servicemen paying for people to go on rides at Goose Fair in 1944, held during the summer and in the day due to the blackouts!

There are also some brilliant photographs and memories from this time available from the BBC here, including some extraordinary film footage shot by an American soldier, Captain William H Nation. Sadly, Captain Nation died during fighting in Belgium but is remembered on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2010, a memorial to the American servicemen stationed at Wollaton Hall was unveiled and it is my hope to visit the 508th memorial at Arlington National Cemetery during my time in Washington, DC, and pay my respects to brave men like Captain Nation, who lost their lives in the defence of our freedom.

It doesn’t end there either. D. H. Lawrence, the Eastwood bad-boy who wrote literary classics such as Women in Love and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and his wife, Frieda, were regular visitors to the home of Mabel Dodge Luhan, a New York socialite and arts patron, who lived in Taos, New Mexico. Taos made a notable impression on Lawrence, with him writing: “I think New Mexico was the greatest experience from the outside world that I have ever had. It certainly changed me forever...”. I hope to visit the Taos ranch, currently owned by the University of New Mexico, and bring a gift from the City of Literature and from the town of Eastwood.

Image courtesy of University of New Mexico

Sticking with literature, with Nottingham now a UNESCO City of Literature, I’m also planning on visiting the US’s CoL, Iowa City, and seeing what they’re doing to foster a love of reading in their areas and neighbourhoods. You can find out more about Iowa City of Literature here or there’s a super blog post by Jan Weissmiller, co-owner of Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City, about the local literary scene!

If you have any stories or links about Nottingham and the United States, please let me know by commenting on my Facebook feed here!

Blog one: a perfect opportunity

Image courtesy of Nottingham City Council 

Hello reader - My name is Gareth Morgan and I've been selected to be one of this year's Nottingham Roosevelt Scholars. As someone Nottingham born and bred it’s a massive honour to have been picked alongside Miles and Angelela to visit the United States and explore my chosen subject of primary literacy, specifically working with children from deprived areas or who have English as a second language. I want to talk briefly, as briefly as I can, about my initial feelings about being a Nottingham Roosevelt Scholar and why it means so much to me, using the three words of the title. If you read my blogs you might come to realise that I think words are really important

Let's start with "Nottingham": I am more than a bit, probably painfully over-enthusiastically, proud of Nottingham - a place that has been my home for 25 of my 29 years. It's where I grew up, it's where my family are from and it's where I discovered who wanted to be when I grow up (I still don't really consider myself a grown up). It's where you can ask someone if they want "spread on their cob" and they don't look at you funny. It can be "black over't Bill's mothers" and "yer tabs can laff". It's where you can call a bus driver, or really anyone, duck. It's also the home of the greatest football team to ever play the game and a newly bestowed UNESCO City of Literature. It’s where I learned to talk, to express myself and to read – the latter mostly at Sherwood Library or Seely Primary School.

Nottingham is a great place to be. I genuinely can't think of a much better day than a Brown Betty's breakfast on St James' Street, catching the number 36 to QMC roundabout and walking up the lime lined avenue to Wollaton Hall for a walk round the lake, followed by going back to town for an Annie's burger and a drink in the Keans Head. I hope that some of the people I meet on travels get the chance to come to Nottingham and do this with me!

As far as Roosevelt goes, I think we're in a time that needs a new FDR - someone who can grasp the nettle and invest in skills and infrastructure like the New Deal did. This was a radical reshaping of the American Dream and one which created the powerhouse that the country is today. It also created America's social security system and invested in the arts and documentation of heritage. In the uncertain economic and political times we're living in since the banking collapse in 2008, would a Roosevelt-like figure be the firm hand the world needs on the tiller, although some believe that Obama could have a shot at this legacy once the dust on his presidency has settled and an objective assessment can be made.

With scholarship, I believe every day is a school day and that learning is something we continue throughout our lives. Policies put forward by some of the parties in the current general election of a National Education Service offering life-long learning are something that would sway my vote. To quote another great statesman of the Twentieth Century, Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Hopefully, with help from many people across America and the UK, we can change the way we support the way children across the city and county learn and develop a lasting love of books and reading.

This will be the first blog of many in which I’ll be documenting my preparation, my trip and my return. I’m looking forward to all that I will discover and share with you on my journey this year.
Thanks for making it this far!

Gareth