#like speaking as someone who goes to a school known for upward social mobility

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

affirmative action struck down. once again asians in the usa have been used by the oppressors to uphold systemic racism. congrats to those ungrateful asians who whine about not getting into some school with a Big Name because of a hypothetical latine or Black person. you just let yourself be played for fools and used as tools. hope you’re happy lmao

[pierrehardy]

COVID-19 x Vicious Cycles

As I studied more and more about what kind of future COVID-19 made for us, honestly, the more depressing it got. The interconnectedness of the world made it easy for the virus to drag everything down with just a single pull. Read on to see how badly the economy and the people will be affected, the considerations that make reopening difficult, and a defense behind the logic of governments that tried to open schools first.

TL;DR

The effects of COVID-19 is a giant and convoluted feedback loop that splinters then reconnects. Read the whole blog for a bigger and clearer picture, but here’s a super simplified version as explained with arrows (->) 

First loop: Uncertainty (of second wave) -> people going out and spending less even as economies reopen -> businesses get less income -> businesses struggle -> leads to multiple consequences

Bankruptcy 

No money 

No money consequence splits

No money + uncertainty -> can’t invest -> less innovation -> lamer economy

No money -> Need government help -> may set precedent for state support -> zombie firms

No money -> can’t pay suppliers/lessors -> no money for even more businesses

No money -> can’t pay staff -> unemployment -> inequality will rise (since those fired first are the low-wage earners, racial minorities, younger employees, women, and less-educated workers) -> 

unemployed -> have no money to spend -> can’t spend on businesses, feeding back to the first loop. 

Second loop, starting with those lucky enough not to lose their job, which immediately splits

As businesses continue to struggle -> employed people that are economically anxious -> being more thrifty/will save more -> meaning they spend less -> spend less on businesses, feeding back to the first loop. 

Working from home -> can’t mingle with network -> less cooperation and innovation

Coming back to being employed but economically anxious + uncertainty because of the virus = can’t plan vacation -> tourism industry is fucked. 

Working from home + schools closed -> kids at home -> working from home is less productive

Third loop -> schools closed -> delays in schooling, split

Kindergarten closed -> children miss crucial age to learn social and emotional skills in playground -> will affect future wellness

Delay in schooling -> learning decay and loss -> will have less earning prospects in the future

E-learning -> younger kids can’t learn well

E-learning -> more self-study -> some cultures do not have this autonomy in children

Third sub-loop: Poor students

Poor -> can’t afford laptop -> can’t elearn + siblings -> even worse.

Poor + free lunch in school + free vaccines in schools = equalizing rich and poor students - school = increase inequality.

Poor -> need to work -> kids too?

Heart of the vicious cycle: uncertainty 

As I look at my notes, I despair about where to start. I will write my analysis in an “and-then” fashion using bullet points. Plenty of times, points will be repeated, which goes to show how interconnected everything is. Let’s start the path with the general uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

Figure 1 [1] 

Start: Overall, we’re still pretty clueless about the virus. There are too many questions like, do you get immune once you survive it, when is the vaccine coming, when is the cure coming? This makes creating policies hard. One uncertainty to start with is how likely a second wave will happen once we re-open.

The fear of the second wave makes consumers wary of coming out even though the lockdown is lifted. It doesn’t matter if a country imposed a lockdown in the first place, the virus itself caused people’s consumption demand to go down (Figure 1). [1] This is a contributor to what the future has for us: a lame economy.

This weaker demand from people will make it worse for businesses, who already struggled due to shutting most of their operations because of the lockdowns. [2] Plenty have already filed for bankruptcy (like Aldo shoes, Gold’s Gym, Debenhams, and more). [3] Those that survive would be battered. This can have multiple effects.

Struggling businesses will have less money to invest. This is bad because investments are about 18% of America’s whole economy. [4][5] This is another contributor to a lame economy.

Businesses can also invest less just because everything is uncertain (connecting back to uncertainty). Who can plan investments when you can’t predict the future? 

Struggling businesses that rely on the government through bail-outs to survive might set a precedent of government support. This will create zombie firms (alive but inefficient companies). [6]

Since supply chains and businesses are connected, struggling companies will infect others. For example, if a fast-food branch can’t pay rent, this will affect commercial real estate companies. [2]

The scariest consequence is that businesses struggle to pay their employees. This led to the lay-off  of employees and a rise in unemployment. 

And so, companies that struggle financially will lead to people struggling financially. The rising unemployment will have multiple effects too.

Unfortunately, those that were unemployed first are those that are most in need: low-wage earners, racial minorities, younger employees, women, and less-educated workers. [7] This will make future upward mobility harder for those who need it the most and increase inequality.

Those unemployed, due to the lame economy, may stay unemployed for a long time. This will not only make living more challenging, but their employability may suffer too as their skills degrade. The probability of the hoped rebound is not so shiny.

Those who managed to keep their job are probably working at home. Working from home, as managers realize the cost savings, is a trend that will stay. But working alone will degrade professional networks and make innovation slower. Less physical cooperation + less investment spending = less innovation which contributes to the lame economy. 

Another contributor to the slump in innovation is the fact that people are moving out of cities. [8] There are many reasons why people leave, but one thing is sure: those who do are those who can and those who can usually are high earning and educated. [9] This will leave cities, the breeding ground of innovation, to be less smart.

If you add the uncertainty of planning with less willingness to spend, you get a lethal combination to the tourism industry. You can’t arrange a holiday if the virus is on your way. 

The feedback loop so far is that as firms struggle, they fire staff. As people lose their source of income, they will be unable to spend in businesses, making companies struggle even more. This causes anxiety for those still employed. The risk of being fired is still alive in this loop, which makes them save more, spend less, and feed into the loop again, further contributing to the lame economy.

Lastly, I wish to bring back the part of the cycle regarding working from home. Working from home is not productive for everyone, especially those with children. This decrease in productivity will, once again, undoubtedly contribute to the lame economy. And speaking of children:

Someone think about the children

Recently, many governments were criticized as they attempted to open schools again, only to close them back up as new cases spiked. [10][11][12] Those who criticized them for the move were right, but I wish to defend the policymakers who tried to reopen schools. The argument behind it is reliable, and the consequences of missing education are more significant than you’d think. Let’s start with the lockdown’s consequences on children.

First, a list of established academic studies.

A Belgian study showed evidence that delays in the education of children hurt their future prospects (Figure 2). [13]

A review of papers shows that long delays in school, in the form of long summer breaks, leads to learning loss and decay (Figure 3). [14]

Learning social and emotional skills while young is vital for future wellness and social competence (Figure 4). [15]

One year of schooling leads to a 10% increase in lifetime income. And vice versa (Figure 5). [16]

Children are missing out on playground time to develop the much needed social and emotional skills. Children in kindergarten have a limited and crucial window for when to learn these skills, so delaying their education too much would be detrimental to their inner growth. 

E-learning is probably worse for children than real learning with a teacher. 

Different cultures have different levels of autonomy for self-learning. For example, Spain and France are known to have low self-study levels in contrast to Japan or to where I study (in the Netherlands). From experience, I once had a Belgian exchange student (and friend) that struggled with the amount of self-studying needed. At the same time, an American exchange student (also a friend) found it to be no different compared to where he’s from.

And perhaps the worst consequence: poor children are at a disadvantage. This will widen inequality and hinder upward social mobility (connecting back to an earlier point). Here’s how:

Online learning for children with less money for working gadgets and wifi will get worse education. 

Poor families with siblings will struggle to share limited resources (like internet bandwidth or laptops for learning). 

The school has been the greatest equalizer between rich and poor students. Thanks to free school lunches and vaccines, the rich and the poor are roughly equal at school. With schools closed, they lose this equalizer. 

Also, more impoverished children, due to the lame economy (connecting back to financial hardships), may be forced by their parents to stop schooling and go to work.

Figure 2 [13]

Figure 3 [14]

Figure 4 [15]

Figure 5 [16]

So it’s clear: closing schools hurts children and their future. Next, I will list the two main arguments that supported the reopening of schools.

Children have a chance of dying so low I can’t even see it in the graph (Figure 6). 

The second argument is the miscalculation. Since the old were the most vulnerable to the virus and not the young, the concern of reopening school is on whether children will be superspreaders. Earlier studies found no evidence of children-to-adult transmission [18] (now we do [19]). The mistake was interpreting the lack of evidence as the conclusion. More likely, what happened was that the closing of schools early caused this lack of evidence.

Figure 6 [17]

So, should we still try to reopen schools then? Honestly, I don’t know. We know that we need to, but now we also learned that it caused spikes in new cases. More cost-benefit analysis is required, but if the benefits of reopening outweighed the costs, here are some guidelines/suggestions. 

Open in stages, and start with the youngest first.

This is because their brains are thirstier and are at that crucial age to learn social and emotional skills. 

Older children have more discipline in self-studying and e-learning and understanding why specific rules are put in place.

Young children are the most hassle for working parents. 

Have classes in shifts to have fewer students in the classroom. This makes social distancing easier. 

Provide teachers some support so they can protect themselves better. They’re at a higher risk than children, after all. 

Do not punish parents for not letting their children go back to school. You can’t fault them, but if you show that it’s safe (which you must), they will follow. 

Support initiatives to fill in the educational gap the virus caused.

Maybe longer school days. 

Shorter summer breaks. 

Government supported summer school. 

A huge caveat to this: we now know that children can infect grandma, which may not be feasible to all cultures. In Western cultures, perhaps. But in cultures like Hispanic or Asian (like mine), having extended family under one roof is more common. This may pose a severe risk to the elderly living with the children.

Bright side?

As a tradition, I try my best to finish on an uplifting note. But honestly, the picture is very bleak. We’re a bit lucky that this disaster happened today when the economy can somewhat be propped up by IT and working from home. If it happened a decade or two earlier, this would be much worse. 

References

[1] Andersen, A. L., Hansen, E. T., Johannesen, N., & Sheridan, A. (2020). Pandemic, shutdown and consumer spending: Lessons from Scandinavian policy responses to COVID-19. arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.04630.

[2]https://qz.com/1856171/malls-eager-to-reopen-as-tenants-miss-up-to-90-percent-of-rent-payments/ 

[3]https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2020/05/03/coronavirus-bankruptcy-tracker-these-major-companies-are-failing-amid-the-shutdown/ 

[4]https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2014/11/graphing-gdp-components-with-our-new-release-view/ 

[5]https://www.statista.com/chart/18550/gdp-components/ 

[6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_company 

[7]https://news.iu.edu/stories/2020/05/iub/releases/14-data-behind-job-losses-labor-markets-unemployment-coronavirus-pandemic.html 

[8]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/san-francisco-residents-leaving-unprecedented-163000346.html 

[9]https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/15/upshot/who-left-new-york-coronavirus.html 

[10]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52845015 

[11]https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-shuts-some-schools-as-coronavirus-cases-jump-after-reopening-11591203323?mod=hp_listb_pos1 

[12]https://www.voanews.com/student-union/some-french-schools-close-again-due-covid-19 

[13] Belot, M., & Webbink, D. (2010). Do teacher strikes harm educational attainment of students?. Labour, 24(4), 391-406.

[14] Cooper, H., Nye, B., Charlton, K., Lindsay, J., & Greathouse, S. (1996). The effects of summer vacation on achievement test scores: A narrative and meta-analytic review. Review of educational research, 66(3), 227-268.

[15] Jones, D. E., Greenberg, M., & Crowley, M. (2015). Early social-emotional functioning and public health: The relationship between kindergarten social competence and future wellness. American journal of public health, 105(11), 2283-2290.

[16] Psacharopoulos, G., & Patrinos, H. A. (2018). Returns to investment in education: a decennial review of the global literature. The World Bank.

[17]https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51674743 

[18] JESPERS, V. (2020). COVID-19 TRANSMISSION AND CHILDREN.

[19] Dong, Y., Mo, X., Hu, Y., Qi, X., Jiang, F., Jiang, Z., & Tong, S. (2020). Epidemiology of COVID-19 among children in China. Pediatrics, 145(6).

[thesedays-posts-blog]

The State of CPS • Independent After-School Programs Fill Void Left By Funding Cuts

Special Report • Part 3 of 5

This week, TheseDays’ latest addition, Nicole Kreizel, dives into the current state of operations at Chicago Public Schools. CPS has a long history of budget shortfalls and school closings, and the back and forth between Springfield and Chicago has been contentious. The latest sparring between Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Rauner has caused the public schools’ situation heading into 2017 to become a flashpoint in the state’s agenda.

Politicians, along with teachers, parents, students and nonprofits, have all shaped, and are continuing to contribute to, Chicago’s educational landscape. Over the course of the next five days, we will delve into the key decisions and issues within this realm.

Bearing in mind the financial atmosphere that the state often leaves CPS in, money allocated to activities not recognized as ‘necessary’ by the powers that be has largely run dry. Working to fill this void, a coalition of independent organizations and school co-ops focused on the arts has sprung up.

“For kids having a difficult time at home or at school, art can be a survival tool,” said Dominique Chestand, a teaching artist for the community organization Young Chicago Authors (YCA) located off the corner of Division & Ashland in Wicker Park. As a student in CPS, she first attended St. Ailbe Catholic School, a neighborhood school on the South Side, and then enrolled at Young Women’s Leadership Charter School in Douglas; she was not happy in school until she discovered writing and poetry and found others with similar interests. “I’ve seen the arts keep kids in school and alive…to cut this survival tool from schools, especially in black and brown neighborhoods, is basically a death sentence for some students.”

YCA and YOUmedia, a similar organization located first at Harold Washington Library and then in schools across the city, serve as safe spaces for Chicago’s youth. YCA encourages these students, many of  whom regularly face the type of violence, segregation and inequality that plague the city, to develop their voices through writing, publication and performance education. Art and spoken word programs help students create their own narratives in a community that surpasses cultural and socioeconomic boundaries.

YCA’s weekly workshops in poetry, journalism and performance art, along with the organization's Wordplay spoken word forums, have also served as a catalyst for easing divisions in the city. Through YCA, Chicagoans from different neighborhoods, who might not interact otherwise, are able to communicate and understand each other.

While nonprofits like YCA and YOUmedia help fill in the gaps that CPS leaves, they also prove how vital art, reading and writing programs are for students, and why these vacuums must be filled.

Chestand has been involved with YCA since she was 13, and through this program, she learned about the importance of role models. The artists who taught and inspired Chestand are still in her life, and the same goes for her YCA peers. Chestand and her fellow artists have all watched each other grow, she said, and become mentors in their own rights. The transition from student to mentor made Chestand want to become a better artist, as she both learns from her students and strives to have a positive impact on them.

“I think what is also really powerful is that when you are a black artist and you are going into these spaces where people see blackness as something that’s monotonous, that blacks are only good at one or two things or have certain driven paths, it is important to have an adult come into these spaces who has made her own path as an artist and as a person who wants to succeed, and who has a similar background as they have,” said Chestand. “It is good [for them] to see what the other options are.”

Grammy Award-winning Chance The Rapper and Saba, among other artists like Vic Mensa, Noname, Malcolm London and Mick Jenkins, got their start in YCA and YOUmedia. They have attributed the open mics and their mentors in these creative spaces to their growth and success as artists. These hip-hop and poetry legends were able to watch each other perform and inspire each other through these programs.

When Mike Hawkins, better known as Brother Mike, passed away in 2014, Chance and London started the monthly “Open Mike” series to honor the death of the YOUmedia leader who changed the lives of many Chicago youths who attended his Lyrical Loft at Harold Washington Library in the Loop. By offering students a place where they could express themselves and be heard, Hawkins paved the way for his mentees to “turn moments into movements,” as he said. His students have indeed done this, and  we’ve since enjoyed the blossoming ‘Chicago Renaissance’ that has placed the city and its artists front and center on a worldwide scale.

Tara Mahadevan, who runs a journalism program at YCA, said that the Open Mikes and YCA programs are places where students who might feel frustrated by social injustices both inside and outside of their schools can openly voice their thoughts. She explained how this self-expression can serve as a coping mechanism and a form of self-care for students who feel like they have to hide their emotions or hold their tongues elsewhere.

“YCA is a space where people can flourish and grow into themselves...not only do they feel safe, but no one says they’re wrong,” said Mahadevan. Mentors like Coval, who started Louder than a Bomb (LTAB), a teen poetry slam that empowers young writers from all over Chicago, encourage youths to strengthen their voices.

Some powerful figures and mentors, like London, the 2011 winner of LTAB, have transformed their voices into actions in the political realm. London is a leader of the Black Youth Project, an organization dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all black people. He helped organize a National Moment of Silence in response to the events in Ferguson in 2014, and led a protest march in the wake of the release of the video of Laquan McDonald being shot in 2015.  Likewise, many members of Black Youth Project, such as rapper Ric Wilson, have traveled as far as the United Nations to stand up against issues like police violence and education funding.

The Open Mike, another one of London’s projects, brings high school students together from all over the city to express themselves and connect with each other in an open environment. Chicago has long been known as, arguably, one of the most segregated cities in the world. With lower-income, minority citizens largely populated on the city’s west and south sides, the dynamics of the city and who is accepted where has been complicated. In the wake of sweeping arrests of gang leaders in the late 90s, however, the divisions between neighborhoods became more entrenched, to almost block-by-block contingents shooting at one another.

In a city where kids can take a bullet for walking down the wrong street to school, inclusionary events like Open Mike allow students from all corners of the city to gather in a common, positive space. At one of the early Open Mikes, Chance stood onstage as teenagers got up to leave and urged them to speak to one another, to communicate: “We’re in Hyde Park, there’s a train that way, a bus that way,” he instructed the crowd, pointing to his left and right. “You’re all in this together, you are Chicago, take care of one another, walk together, keep each other safe.”

Lanai Moon, a senior at Lindblom Math and Science Academy, values spaces like these where creative minds can collaborate. “You can see the different perspectives of other students and the issues around Chicago...it’s a good time to have conversations, schools are not having enough conversations,” she said. “People feel more included in whatever the conversation is [in these spaces] and can express their opinions; it’s amazing to see that so many people agree with you or disagree, and you can learn who you are in another group of people.”

Moon also talked about the importance of mentors, to encourage students to have these discussions and guide them in their creative works.

Someone else who, interestingly enough, has voiced similar ideas, is our own city’s mayor. Emanuel stressed the importance of role models in his speech on Chicago violence in September 2016. He said that many young men turn to gangs and crime in search of praise and hope, as they lack positive role models to help them make productive decisions, overcome obstacles and reach their goals. Emanuel even called out the 7,200 at-risk young men in eighth, ninth and 10th grade in CPS in the 20 most crime-plagued neighborhoods, who desperately need access to positive alternatives.

Again, Emanuel was on the same page as many artists and education advocates when he awarded Chance with the 2014 “Outstanding Youth of the Year” award, praising Chance for giving himself to the upward mobility of the state’s youth.

The Emanuel administration has found itself in a unique situation, as it forces schools to cut extracurricular programs and deprioritize the arts at the same time it toasts Chance as a face of Chicago’s music scene and an active mentor to Chicago’s youth. The juxtaposition is not lost on Chancelor Bennett, who rapped on his recent single “Angels”: “I guess that's why they call it where I stay/Clean up the streets, so my daughter can have somewhere to play.”

The contingent of artists incubated in the after-school programs developed their artistic understanding and stage presence to express their thoughts and experiences dealing with the socioeconomic circumstances surrounding them. They use these outlets to discuss difficult subjects like violence and discrimination, along with other topics such as enduring relationships, common dreams, shared struggles as artists and the everyday meanderings of the teenage mind.

Inspired by the work of mentors like Hawkins and YCA coordinator Kevin Coval, Chance recently unveiled his ‘Social Works’ initiative at his ‘Magnificent Coloring Day’ festival on the South Side. While the city continued cutting budgets and closing schools, these humble institutions stepped in to bring the city together and spark a new, unprecedented era for Chicago’s arts and music scene.

“That place [YOUmedia] saved our lives,” said London, who grew up in Austin, to the Chicago Tribune. “When we were upset and angry that was our place to go. We went to the library to write.”

To revisit the paradox between the government’s words and actions: In the same speech from last year, Emanuel mentioned that he would invest $36 million over the next three years to expand mentoring programs; three short months later, however, Rauner took $215 million away from CPS.

These budget cuts hurt the same at-risk students in poor, crime-plagued neighborhoods that Emanuel spoke about earlier. The neighborhood high school in London and Saba’s home neighborhood of Austin, labeled an area with the highest crime rate in 2015, is under-enrolled and under-funded (The Atlantic). Because of the open-enrollment system, there are about 390 students in a building meant for 1,700, and as the number of students drops, so does the school’s funding (The Atlantic). Minimal budgets, weakened by enrollment numbers, have eliminated programs and teachers, and left the remaining students with bleak futures.

Back in 2013, CPS closed seven schools in Englewood, another area known for its violence, because the schools were underused and performing poorly (Englewood Portal). This was traumatic, as schools are often the glue of communities, and many students were displaced into “receiving schools” in gang territories and unfamiliar neighborhoods. In the schools that remained, teachers had to be let go, along with performance-boosting after-school programs (Englewood Portal). The school closures led to declining academic performance and forced some children to attend other schools in gang territories (Englewood Portal).

It seems like these two politicians should put state money where their mouths are and address the current education situation. Both have been quick to champion the achievements of the city’s artistic class, while simultaneously cutting the legs out from under the next crop of creatives. As city and state lawmakers continue to divest funds from extracurricular and arts-based programming within CPS, the importance of independent organizations is magnified.

When resources are stripped away from marginalized people in CPS,  students who might not excel in standard school subjects, but who find themselves in their art, might have a difficult time. With her strong focus in the arts, Chestand discussed how finding her passion, poetry, drew her out of a period of depression. But what happens to students who do not find outside programs like YCA to fill the void CPS is leaving?

“You can’t really talk about CPS without talking about the local government, or YCA, or music culture, or art culture or the rap scene; they are all so deeply intertwined,” said Mahadevan.

As CPS drains money from music and art programs, though, students walking along these interwoven paths might reach dead ends.