Dear Editor:
I love the cartoons. Living in Providence isn’t always funny, so it’s nice to have some levity along with the stats and the multiple facets of the woeful state of our city’s education system. I especially liked this week’s example. The drawing is great, and the peppers’ faces are hilarious.
Only one problem, somehow Hannah Dean forgot two super hot peppers: ghost pepper and Carolina Reaper. I can only imagine their expressions.
More please.
David Karoff
Dear Editor,
There seems to be an irresistible juggernaut nationwide to upzone, but this one-size-fits-all approach does not take local conditions into account and, I fear, will speed mass demolition of Providence’s prized historic buildings and the disruption of our existing beloved neighborhoods. I want to be clear I am pro density, new construction, and the creation of affordable housing–but I am not for giving landlords and speculators cart blanche. I would like to see more out-of-the-box thinking on how to achieve our desired objectives, perhaps an approach more like the one outlined here. While I admire their incredibly hard work and dedication, I don’t think the Planning Department, City Plan Commission, or current Comp Plan have adequately addressed the urgent concerns many neighborhood associations across the city have voiced.
We have one more chance for input, and that is when the City Council votes on the Comp Plan this fall. We must tell our City Council reps what we want the Comp Plan to emphasize. Here are some of my thoughts:
1) The Comp Plan must much more strongly prioritize developing empty lots, parking lots, and other areas that cry out for development to prevent mass demolitions of viable, quality, historic buildings in stable neighborhoods.
2) There must be very powerful incentives in place that encourage reuse/densification of existing historic homes.
3) There must be strong design reviews so demolished buildings are not replaced by shoddy new construction but rather by quality, well-designed buildings that fit into the fabric of historic neighborhoods.
4) There must be much stronger measures that encourage owner-occupancy, so that local residents and homeowners benefit from these changes rather than real estate investors; without owner- occupancy restrictions and other protections, upzoning is likely to create powerful financial incentives for investors to buy up homes at slightly over market value, edging out ordinary buyers (I’ve seen this happen firsthand with student housing investors on College Hill). Certainly, we want to avoid the mass transfer of homeownership to real estate investors and to ensure homeownership is more accessible to ordinary people. For renters, owner-occupant landlords are preferable to large-scale or corporate absentee landlords.
5) Last, and perhaps this remains in the realm of wishful thinking, why shouldn’t Providence be leader in undertaking an exemplary European-style social housing experiment (say in the Superman building), along the lines of what is described here.
Thank you,
Nina Markov
(The author is president of the College Hill Neighborhood Association)
To the Editor,
Regarding the article about the City’s increase education vs. public safety spending, some added context is helpful to understanding the bigger picture:
– Education spending, overall, is more than double public safety overall and dwarfs everything else.
– Education spending is funded by the City and the State, so there are various gears at work when considering the overall spend and the change per year. State level spending looks like it will increase this year, in particular for ELL.
– Contextualizing Education spending really requires looking at the $$ spent per pupil in Providence, as compared to others. Another area of spending to understand is the cost and impact of ELL students and if there is a better way to support ELL students (heavy duty immersion programs, e.g.) to make sure this group does not fall behind their peers. Yet another area of spending to understand is in the area of special needs, as that can absorb a disproportionate portion of the budget.
– The increased allocation (and difference in the increase) is nominal compared to the budgets of either public safety or education.
– The bigger addition to public safety, this year, might say more about the ballooning cost of public safety, and demands on it, than it does about education.
– Public safety might benefit from realignment or re-engineering of how EMS is operated (currently, out of fire departments, often involving a fire truck).
– The pension obligation is a big drag on the City budget and also needs to be held front and center when looking at spending. I have a hope the City could renegotiate the obligation in a manner that extends the liability for those that can delay receipt of payments – doing through negotiations what they haven’t been able to accomplish with a Pension Obligation Bond. The State could also help back a portion of the POB.
Jordan Frank
@jordanfrank
Dear PVDEye:
When I see an article about the importance of civic learning — including the excellent one by Ruth Macaulay — I smile. But it also makes me a little sad.
First, the smile part. Several years ago as a program officer at Carnegie Corporation of New York, civic learning was one of my portfolios. We helped design and were a first funder of CIRCLE—which Dr. Macaulay references for good reason: it has been and continues to be the country’s go-to resource for all things youth civic engagement, including civic learning. Peter Levine (associate dean for academic affairs at Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life and eminence gris of all things civic learning) and I led a national effort that convened scholars and practitioners from around the country who had different approaches to civic learning to review the research and, ultimately, agree on a more comprehensive approach that incorporated the best components of each cohort. They included: “traditionalists” (focused on civic knowledge), service learning (experiential opportunities to apply civic knowledge and learn civic skills and behaviors), developmental psychologists (aligning this kind of education with kids’ developmental stages across the entire school-age years, not just in high school), and political advocates (learning about how to advocate for issues/social change).
These data and approach were summarized in a report—the Civic Mission of Schools—that also included recommendations for state and federal policymakers to consider in instituting civic learning more systematically in the nation’s schools. The report, which received national attention from policymakers and the media, has since been updated and Carnegie’s efforts have continued, as evidenced by a new report it issued last year reviewing the civic learning field overall. Among the most promising initiatives cited is the iCivics’ CivXNow Coalition, which involves more than 320 cross-ideological partners throughout the country working to advance civic education policies at state and federal levels. Thanks to the strong advocacy of CivXNow Coalition members, states across the political spectrum have bolstered civic learning in recent legislative sessions, including Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Utah.
Now the sad part: Despite this work and the efforts of hundreds of people who care about this issue, we’re still having to advocate for the kind of comprehensive civic learning described above, despite statistics showing that most Americans (not just young people) are woefully unaware of our system of government.
That’s alarming, for sure. What’s more alarming, though, is that today, even the best civic learning, while essential, may be insufficient in encouraging longer-term civic and political participation in a system that many (especially young people) see as fundamentally broken and in which their trust has declined significantly.
As our democracy teeters on the edge of implosion, it may be time to add another component to the civic learning tool box: giving people (especially young people) opportunities to explore and advocate for fundamental system reforms that will not only help rectify the current quagmire in which we find ourselves but offer citizens stronger incentives to participate meaningfully over the long-term. Most important, that practice needs to allow young people the chance to step back and propose innovative reforms that go beyond those that buttress the way our democracy is structured currently to those intended to support, foster, and/or create new forms of democratic governance and participation. Raising serious questions about whether our traditional system of government is still serving and working for all people shouldn’t be seen as subversive or naïve but rather, encouraged and supported. Anything less risks seeing articles like this again in years to come.
Cynthia Gibson
