Outline

Spring Carnival

MLK video Markets and Politics Poor People’s Movement Saul Alinsky and the Industrial Areas

Foundation BUILD

Relational Power Living Wage Movement

Evaluations? Returns…someone stop me at 3:10

Saturday

Eyes on the Prize, Volume 5

“The Promised Land”

Eyes on the Prize: The Promised Land

1. Briefly summarize why Dr. King thought opposition to the war in Vietnam was linked to his goal of improving the lives of African Americans and poor people.

2. In what ways did this position seem to impact his civil rights campaign?

3. How many cities experienced riots in 1967? According to King, what did the riots represent? How did the riots influence Dr. King’s decision to create a poor people’s movement?

4. The decision to organize a poor people’s march on Washington was a controversial one. What were some of the reasons given in support of the position that that the march was a good idea? What were some of the reasons given by those who thought it was a bad idea?

5. What brought Dr. King to Memphis Tennessee?

6. What type of “disruptive” tactics were planned or used by the poor people’s campaign?

7. Did it seem like the poor people’s march on Washington was a successful tactic? Why or why not?

“Life is just unfair…” or “Liberty and Justice for All”

Capitalism and Democracy

“…markets exist in an uneasy tension with welfare states” (Iceland 2003:194)

Market institutions and Political Institutions exist side by side in American society

They offer different strategies for the “mobilization of resources, the distribution of rewards, and the steering of society” (Korpi 1989: 312)

Politics Against Markets

“Numerically large collectivities, which are relatively weak in terms of their market resources, can therefore be expected to attempt to use their more favorable positions in terms of political resources to affect the conditions for and outcomes of distributive market conflicts” (Korpi 1989: 312)

Groups of citizens (i.e. workers, senior citizens, poor people) can be expected to organize to alter the distribution of society’s resources “Social policy can be used by those who are relatively weak

in terms of market resources to extend social rights and thereby enrich the status of citizenship” (Korp 1989: 313)

People use “Democracy” to provide an alternative logic of distribution to “Markets” Social Security; Labor law; Min wage, TANF, Food Stamps,

etc.

Poor People’s Movements: Why they succeed and how they fail

“What remained as their main resource was…disruption, the breakdowns that resulted when people defied the rules and institutional routines that ordinarily governed life”(p.707)

A limited power that would not happen very often…but when “large scale socio-economic change interrupted those routines” (p.707)

Poor People’s Movements: Why they succeed and how they fail

Poor possess a limited power that would not be exercised very often …but when “large scale socio-economic change interrupted those routines” (p.707)

Could not really be planned or organized…

Piven and Cloward thought that attempts to build from “spontaneous” disruption to organization were doomed to failure

Organizations that resulted would be small and ineffective

Moreover, attempts to build organizations led to attempts to become “respectable” and to reign in disruption…the very thing that they found to be most effective…

Saul Alinsky Disagreed

Very famous community organizer Hilary Clinton and President Obama connect to him or

his organizations

Agreed with Piven and Cloward Electoral politics in US offers little for poor Disruption and conflict is main source of power

Tactic to get the Mayor of Chicago to meet with group about community issues?

Tactic to get Kodak to meet with reprsentatives from the Rochester Community?

Dirsuption…but via permanent Organizations

Agreed with Piven and Cloward Electoral politics in US offers little for poor Disruption and conflict is main source of power

Shit ins, Fart ins, Picketing Buckingham Palace…

“Very often the most ridiculous tactic can prove the most effective.” Alinsky

Goal is to disrupt…or credibly threaten to disrupt…

Disagreed with notion that powerful local organizations could not be built to give voice to poor

Industrial Areas Foundation and BUILD

Politics Against Markets

BUILD has accomplished many things in Baltimore. Please briefly describe anyone of their accomplishments. Be sure to note at least one form of pressure that BUILD used to win their objective.

Except the living wage…More on that later

BUILD’s Accomplishments…via Disruption

Banks only lending small proportion of mortgage funds to inner city neighborhoods $660,000 out of $50 million in Baltimore

BUILD collects data BUILD asks churches to calculate their savings in local

banks $15 million

BUILD asks to meet with Bank heads to build relationship Banks say no

BUILD members demand change in pennies

Banks agree to meet

Banks finance 500 low income families

BUILD

Forces Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC) to provide priority hiring for high school graduates with 95% attendance rate and GPA of 80

Politics shape markets

Child First Authority

To address educational problems in Baltimore

Politics Against Markets…Baltimore as Microcosm

In your own words, try to explain what “relational power” is. It might be easier to answer this question after you have read the entire article. Be sure to use an example/cite from the text in your answer.

From Disruption to Relationships…

Relational Power and Community Building

Building relationships between community members and cultivating indigenous leaders

“The Alinsky method, which Obama taught long afterward, is centered on one-on-one conversations. The organizer's task is to draw out people's stories, listening for their goals and ambitions -- "the stuff that makes them tick," one of his teachers told him. There he would find the self-interest that would spark activism.” Washington Post Article about President Obama

and Alinsky

Relational Power with Others

BUILD forges “significant long standing relations with public officials and civic leaders” (Orr 2001: 71)

Relationships are centered on BUILD’s “capacity to mobilize hundreds of Baltimore’s citizens (Orr 2001: 72)

BUILD’s Goal: amass power…but not brute power, but “relational power”

Not just “protest” but policy initiation and “governance”

Initially, BUILD may have to force people into relationships, but over time relationships of trust develop

State Economy

Civil Society

Individual

Food Bank

Church

Informal

Neighborhood

Connections

State Economy

Civil Society

Individual

Food Bank

Church

Informal

Neighborhood

ConnectionsBUILD

Relational Power…an Example

Public schools failing in many urban areas…

BUILD’s parent organization, the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) brings together parents, teachers, clergy, business leaders to address problem

IAF builds relationships between social actors…

Relationships open doors of communication, problem solving

Relationships help build coalitions that can gain more leverage

Individual parents are angry that schools are failing

Parents unite in BUILD which builds relationships with local Banks, Clergy, Politicians to address issue

State Economy

Civil Society

Individual

Food Bank

Church

Informal

Neighborhood

ConnectionsBUILD

Living Wages…

How did the redevelopment of Baltimore’s inner harbor ultimately lead to BUILDs living wage campaign. Be sure to cite the text in your answer.

Briefly summarize what living wage laws require. Be sure to cite the text in your answer.

Briefly describe the rationale used by proponents of living wage ordinances. Why do they think these laws are both necessary and justified? Be sure to cite the text in your answer.

BUILD’s Living Wage Campaign

BUILD wants to link “downtown development projects benefiting from public subsidies with the creation of higher-quality job opportunities for Baltimore residents” (Orr 2001: 81)

Ministers notice that many (1/3) of the people using their food kitchens were employed, and many worked downtown.

Wages could not lift a family out of poverty

BUILD’s Living Wage Campaign

BUILD demands that government and business “consider the plight of the working poor, the men and women who are ‘invisible in the bustling downtown, who arrive early to prepare for those valuable tourists, and who clean up after the business executives go home” (Orr 2001: 81)

Logic of the Living Wage

BUILDs/Living Wage Logic:

If government provides special loans, incentives, tax breaks and services to firms, government should require that these firms pay their workers a living wage.

Attach strings to government monies Welfare moms must work for government money Businesses must pay a living wage for government money

Businesses that do not pay a living wage unfairly create a tax burden for society when workers turn to food stamps, housing programs, etc.

Taxpayers end up subsidizing company profits…That’s not right

Politics Against Markets

1. How did advocates of the living wage “frame” their argument? Why did they think a living wage was needed? What was the basis of their appeals?

2. How did the opponents of the living wage “frame” their argument? Why did they think a living was not needed?

3. NOTE NEXT SLIDE…markets or politics

“Life is just unfair…” or “Liberty and Justice for All”

Capitalism and Democracy

“…markets exist in an uneasy tension with welfare states” (Iceland 2003:194)

Market institutions and Political Institutions exist side by side in American society

They offer different strategies for the “mobilization of resources, the distribution of rewards, and the steering of society” (Korpi 1989: 312)

Politics Against Markets

This a clip from the PBS show NOW that aired earlier in early April 200. As you watch, be attentive to the way politics are used to shape markets and address poverty

1. How much were the workers in the video paid at the beginning? At the end?

2. What was the basis of power utilized by those who wanted the university to enact a living wage policy? Money? Economic resources? Voting? Collective Action?

1. What were some of the tactics/actions that they engaged in?

3. Did social actors pursue the living wage policy alone, or was a coalition of different groups formed? If a coalition, who was part of the coalition?

Politics Against Markets

One of the students in the video mentions a “culture of subservience” at the university. He suggests workers are invisible to students who don’t appreciate what they do. Is it like that at Widener?

Living Wage Movement Has Spread…

Living Wage Laws

“Require employers to pay wages that are above federal or state minimum wage levels.

Only a specific set of workers are covered by living wage ordinances, usually those employed by businesses that have a contract with a city or county government or those who receive economic development subsidies from the locality.

The living wage level is usually the wage a full-time worker would need to earn to support a family above federal poverty line, ranging from 100% to 130% of the poverty measurement.

The rationale behind the ordinances is that city and county governments should not contract with or subsidize employers who pay poverty-level wages.” http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_livingwage_livingwagefacts

Living Wage Laws

January 30, 2006, University Memorandum,Series 4 - #8

ARAMARK Update

Last spring a group of students and faculty asked that the university consider its responsibility regarding the wages of individuals hired by contract employers such as ARAMARK. Since that time, I personally spoke with ARAMARK hourly employees about their concerns and had several conversations about this issue with my faculty and staff colleagues, members of the Board of Trustees as well as student leaders

Widener Living Wage

I am pleased to announce that ARAMARK and Widener have agreed to set the minimum hourly wage for ARAMARK employees at or above $8.50 per hour beginning in September, 2006. In addition, there will be an annual inflationary increase so that within a year the minimum hourly rate for all ARAMARK employees will be approximately $9.00 an hour. Increases for current ARAMARK employees will be based on the performance reviews of the individuals as set by corporate policy in the future.

Poor People’s Movements

Now well over 50 city or county ordinances effecting over 100,000 workers nationwide

Do you think this is positive thing or a negative thing? Do you think it will help alleviate poverty in a meaningful way?

Market wage vs. Fair Wage

Capitalism and Democracy “…markets exist in an uneasy tension with welfare

states” (Iceland 2003:194)

Market institutions and Political Institutions exist side by side in American society

They offer different strategies for the “mobilization of resources, the distribution of rewards, and the steering of society” (Korpi 1989: 312)

Why do you think that there are not more poor people’s movements aimed at addressing low wages, substandard housing, failing education, and the other problems that the poor face?

Outline

Poor People’s Movements Wake County, North Carolina Harlem Children’s Zone

60 Minutes Thinking Sociologically

Next week due on TUESDAY… As always, optional review questions on readings Final ANONYMOUS Reflection questions that are

a mandatory assignment

Poor Town, Poor Human Capital…And the game of life

Algebra before 9th

4 yrs of math

4 yrs of science

AP courses

Reading SAT

Math SAT

Write SAT

Attend College

Chester

0% 10% 1% 2 347 336 348 38%

Swarthmore/Wallingford

88% 95% 97% 21 555 564 550 90%

Improving the Human Capital of the Poor The New York Times article describes an

innovative education policy that was implemented in Raleigh North Carolina. Please describe what this policy is and discuss whether or not it has improved educational outcomes.

Raleigh, NC

Schools integrated using income as key factor

No school should have more than 40 percent low income students

To achieve this, students sometimes attend schools that are not the closest ones to their house

Suburban students bused to magnet schools in city

Urban kids bused to suburban schools

Results?

Wake County 1995…40 percent of Black students in grades 3-8 scored at grade level

Wake County 2005…80 percent did…

What has been offered as an explanation for the success?

“Low income students who have an opportunity to go to middle class schools are surrounded by peers who have bigger dreams and who are more academically encouraged. They are surrounded by parents who are more likely to be involved active in the school. And they are taught by teachers who more likely are highly qualified than the teachers in low income schools.”-Kahlenberg

Solutions…

Do you think that the policy of integrating students by social class is a good or bad policy? Why?

Why might Mark Rank applaud such efforts, but also note that it won’t reduce poverty in society as a whole?

Do you think it could be implemented in Delaware County to help the kids you tutor?

8. Use google or the search engine of your choice to find out what recently happened to the innovative education policy described in number 7.

North Carolina county schools reverse busing law By David Zucchino 3/24/2010

In a contentious 5-4 vote, the Wake County school board voted late Tuesday to approve a new policy that will assign students to schools in their neighborhoods under a "community school zone" program.

Opponents of the move said it will create more schools with high concentrations of poor, African American students in the 140,000-student district. A coalition of supporters of the current policy said the new policy will create "have" and "have-not" schools.

The vote ended three decades in which schools in Raleigh and surrounding Wake County used either race or socioeconomic status as significant factors in school assignments.

The new policy was spearheaded by parents and their supporters angry about the busing of students out of their neighborhoods. Conservative opponents of the current diversity policy gained control of the nine-member school board after elections in November.

Since 2000, the district has used socioeconomic status as a prime factor in determining student assignments, with the goal of creating diversity.

Socioeconomic status is determined primarily by the percentage of students in the federal school lunch program, many of them poor African Americans but others from low-income white or Latino families.

The 159-school district is 51% white, 25% black and 11% Latino.Even with busing, 85% of district students attend schools within five miles of their homes, Evans said.

Improving the Human Capital of the Poor 5. In Wilson’s article on The Obama

administration’s proposals to address concentrated poverty, he discusses the Harlem Children’s Zone. Briefly describe what this project is.

Remind you of other “welfare states?”

Improving the Human Capital of the Poor Harlem Children’s Zone

Improving the Human Capital of the Poor Harlem Children’s Zone

Ok…interesting…but does it work…

Trickier question than one might think…

Let’s think sociologically…

Drawing Conclusions: Self Selection Bias?

Self Selection Bias

It may be that the most savvy, motivated, “together” parents send their kids to charter schools

Their kids would have done ok anywhere

Not

But

So…how does a social scientist deal with this possibility?

Experimental Design

Lottery Controls for Parent Effect…

Results…does the HCZ seem to work?

Evidence of a “Spectacular Effect”

An effect…but still questions…can anyone remember? Or maybe just reason through?

Evidence of an Effect…but what exactly explains the improvement…School or Neighborhood Improvement?

Wilson presents evidence which leads him to believe it is mostly the schools…but the debate continues

Obama, Canada and Public Policy: Good Idea? Do you think it can be replicated?

Improving the Human Capital of the Poor Harlem Children’s Zone

Next…

The Future of Poverty