Support America’s Youth! Support the Education Equality Project & Amethyst Initiative

So these relatively new associations of public officials, important people, and Matt Damon* are among my new favourite things. It’s increasingly common these days for ‘important associations of important people to take important stances on important issues.’  There are two that have formed this summer that I think take really necessary and crucial stances on issues that affect young people in America. As a young person in America, I’m both encouraged by their articulation of issues, goals, and notable list of signatories.

Education Equality Project

The first, most important, and much more likely to be successful of the two is the Education Equality Project. Launched in June by co-chairs Joel Klein, Chancellor of New York City Schools and the Reverend Al Sharpton, one of the nation’s most outspoken and esteemed advocates for civil rights.

Who They Are:

A non-partisan group of elected officials, civil rights advocates, and educational reformers committed to working towards greater educational opportunity for the highest needs students in America’s public schools.

Notable names include: Cory Booker, Jeb Bush, Janet Murguia, Newt Gingrich, Michael Bloomberg, Arne Duncan, John McCain, Adrian Fenty, Michelle Rhee, Roy Romer, and Harold E. Ford, Jr. Alongside educational and political officials from St. Paul, San Diego, Denver, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Stamford, New Orleans, Houston, and the states of Florida, and Louisiana.

What They Stand For:

“The project will take on conventional wisdom and the entrenched impediments to real reform, focusing on teacher quality and pay; accountability for results; and maximizing parents’ options. It will also challenge politicians, public officials, educators, union leaders, and anybody else who stands in the way of necessary change. This means challenging laws and contracts that preserve a system that fails students. The one measure of every policy, regardless of the depths of its historic roots or the power of its adherents, must be whether it advances student learning.”

Who’s Against Them:

So far, the EEP hasn’t shown themselves to be terribly friendly to the teacher’s unions. At both conventions, they played a key and strong role in drumming up bipartisan support for their work on education initiatives. As such you can expect a critical eye and lukewarm to strong resistance from the usual suspects on the issue of school reform as it relates to teacher quality and pay. The NEA and AFT, have to see just how precarious their position is in fully opposing the work of the EEP. As much as they’ve benefited from and led the opposition to NCLB, the last eight years have seen a shifting landscape regarding the politics of education that have weakened their overall position.

You’ll also see cold support from suburban districts and politicians, there’s little in the school reform the EEP is proposing that they’ll benefit from. America’s public education crisis is one that disproportionally affects urban and rural districts, and solutions will be geared towards reducing the inequalities that, for the time being, contribute to the success of suburban schools.

Why They Should Succeed:

Educational inequality in America is staggeringly high and for a heretofore increasingly suburban population, an increasingly less visible one. The problems of America’s public education system are far-reaching, deep, entrenched. Political posturing by adults over adult concerns have stymied solutions for years and driven the system as a whole away student-focused solutions. This group is looking to break through the deadlock and build the political will and support for solutions for America’s students.

Why They May Not:

There’s a reason school reform has been so unsuccessful in the past. Like many problems, if there were easy solutions, they’d have been found already. This group has to find political solutions to educational problems, an approach bound to encounter stiff resistance from proponents of the status quo. Moreover, while a bipartisan effort to restore the integrity and success of public education is probably possible there remain real, substantive differences between the parties over everything from the specifics of reform to the appropriateness of governmental involvement. Some compromises will be possible, others will not without significant amounts of popular and political pressure that may be beyond the ability of EEP and their allies to deliver.

To learn more, visit their web page, here.

Amethyst Initiative

The second group, which is arguably less important to the future of the nation and unrelatedly less likely to succeed, is the Amethyst Initiative. Their website, however, is snazzier. Founded in July of this year, by President Emeritus of Middlebury College and the Founder of Choose Responsibility, John McCardell.

Who They Are:

A list of Presidents, Chancellors, and Interim Presidents of some of America’s best and largest institutions of higher education. They include private universities, public universities, and schools of religious heritage from a multitude of states, settings, and student body compositions.

What They Stand For:

The signatories of the Amethyst Initiative recognize that the current drinking age of 21 is not adequately working as well as it should be, nor as well as the public thinks. They believe that the unintended consequences of the law warrant a reexamination of the goals of the law and its effectiveness in achieving that goal. While purposefully not proposing specific policy proposals, the group hopes to begin a national dialogue on what can be done about the problem of underage drinking that so invisibly and irritatingly plagues all corners of the nation, not merely college campuses.

Who’s Against Them:

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the source of an earlier post, are the prime opponents to Amethyst, their un-American and unprincipled attack on open discussion and thoughtful reexamination is silently supported by the lack of political will to lower the drinking age. At best, it’s a non-issue for politicians and at worst a third rail sure to lead to political challenges for re-election.

Why They Should Succeed:

There are two successes here. The open discussion and reexamination and then the potential changes in policy.The former is both the easiest and hardest goal to accomplish. On one hand the low bar of discussing the problem is just that, a low bar. On the other hand, nobody really wants to discuss or, more importantly, be seen discussing potential changes in the drinking laws. However, in our society and government we really need to step away from the sacred cow form of problem-solving. We’re handicapping ourselves and ironically emulate the exact behaviour that we criticize so strongly in shadowy special interests. Perhaps if we stopped penalizing politicians and active citizens from asking questions, demanding answers, and discussing the issues of the day, we’d get better results?

The second part of success revolves around changes in the policy, which are desperately needed. First, the federal law in place, which is pretty explictly coercive needs to be repealed. Let the states decide their own alcohol laws. Second, MADD’s suggestion that we merely step up enforcement and crack down more than we already are is counter-productive. Drinking alcohol before turning 21 is no longer taboo, it’s a cultural expectation.

It undermines respect for the law, respect for authority, and citizen involvement to treat adults between the ages 18-21 like criminals for engaging in a behavior that most of their parents were able to do without significant detriment and more importantly that is so easy to do it is a cultural expectation.

Moreover, the drinking laws encourage an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, increasing the likelihood of contraction of STD’s, bodily harm, sexual assault, and death. They decrease the likelihood of underage drinking adults exhibiting responsible behaviours. To encourage recklessness and discourage responsibility isn’t a mistake of the law but a perversion of it.

There are lots of substantive arguments to be made but there is also a strong principled objection to the drinking laws. We consider the rule of law to be an underpinning principle of the vibrancy and moral resoluteness of our republic. The fact that we hold similarly situated people, equally accountable to the laws of the community is a point of pride, yet the drinking laws represent an abhorrent anomaly to that principle. People within the age limit of 18-20 are considered similarly situated adults when it comes to the draft, ability to purchase a firearm, make, sign, and fulfill contracts, sentencing for crimes, and voting among other rights and responsibilities. The exception, of course is for drinking. The drinking laws are an exception notable not just among our own case law, but also among western democracies and the civilized, drinking world.

It’s a cruel, unfair, and pernicious law that assumes one, at the age of 19, is fully mature enough to contract their life and liberty to the government, be sentenced to death for a crime committed, be drafted, trained, and sent to either their own death or to take the lives of others, but is not reasonably mature enough to drink responsibly. Solving this incoherency could mean raising the age of adulthood to 21, restricting the licensing to operate multi-ton vehicles to the age of 21, or otherwise creating a coherent set of law that correspond to the principles of the nation. What it does not mean is accepting the status quo.  If the problem is irresponsible driving that results in death, lets discuss how to make driving America’s roads safer in a more comprehensive way and  then ways to address and promote responsible alcohol usage.

In the last 13 years, although driving related fatalities have slightly declined, the absolute numbers show a consistently high number around 42,000 per year.  The legal drinking age may have done something but what it hasn’t done is made the roadways appreciably safer. The law hasn’t eliminated drunk drivers, drivers on drugs. Off the road, it hasn’t prevented sexual assaults, robberies, injury, accidental STD transmission, accidental pregnancies, or death. What it has done is passed the buck from parents to law enforcement and colleges and universities. MADD has made the least influential people in their children’s lives the most responsible for their well-being while absolving themselves of any responsible role. This has to change.

Why They May Not:

As mentioned above, MADD’s sole reason for existing these days is building and maintaining support for the raised legal drinking age, a law that they successfully lobbied for. They’re not going to let that 20 year old law be challenged by a bunch of front-line experts without a nasty, swift-boat-esque attack. Moreover, there are plenty of politicians who don’t care nor want to even approach the topic, due to it’s toxicity. For now, this remains an academic pipe dream. Which is sad, because in the mean time thousands of college students, who might otherwise been spared sexual assault, injury, police and criminal reports, and even a handful of deaths by alcohol poisoning, will be at-risk because MADD has to cling to their false victory.

I think I’ve just developed a new annual award. This year, the recipient of the Joan Crawford Award for Misguided Paternalism goes to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. E-mail in to pick up your award.

To learn more click here.

*Vogue Republic does not purport to understand, respect, or be aware of all of Mr. Damon’s memberships in advocacy groups.

~ by Kyle on September 12, 2008.