Tag Archives: policy

Nonprofit Policy Forum: A peer-reviewed journal for geeks like me

Posted on September 26, 2011 by | Leave a comment

I know. It’s not every day that someone’s getting emotional about a peer-reviewed journal. I mean, who uses the term “peer-reviewed” in conversation, anyway?

But, people.

Put yourself in my shoes.

This thing rocks.

The Nonprofit Policy Forum is a pretty new journal, which, in today’s age of the declining significance of print media, is fairly significant itself.

And its content is all available online, which is huge in the world of the peer-reviewed, since my former students find themselves abruptly excluded from academic literature as soon as their access to the university’s considerable subscription library expires.

AND, it focuses on policy process and content, and how both affect and are affected by the nonprofit sector. In other words, giving greater official legitimacy to the study and practice of advocacy and policy change, by nonprofit organizations, as well as discussing emerging policy trends that impact how nonprofits operate.

So, now you understand.

In the first issue, which is the only journal I can remember ever reading in its entirety, is an article reporting that putting clients (here, “constituents”) on a nonprofit Board of Directors and increasing their participation in strategic decision-making significantly increases the intensity of the organization’s advocacy, just as receipt of government and foundation grants tends to decrease it.

In other words: what we know to be true about the countervailing pressures that weigh on nonprofit organizations in the advocacy arena, confirmed empirically and actually citable. Oh, happy day!

There’s also an interview with Ambassador Andrew Young, specifically discussing the effectiveness (and limitations thereof) nonprofit organizations in shaping policy and a conceptual paper outlining how foundations can approach their philanthropy with an eye towards transformation and systems change. And an article introducing the challenges related to the emergence of social businesses has particular relevance for social workers, who can struggle at times to find ways to practice ethically and effectively in these newer organizational models.

I’m never one to pretend that academic journals make the world go ’round. Perhaps that’s part of why I’m so hard-pressed to find the time to submit to them?

But, when sometimes I feel very much like an outlier in the world of academia, given my particular areas of interest, it is very affirming to find communities of like-minded souls, and to be able to turn to their ideas on which to build my own. The way that scholarship is supposed to work.

Here’s to happy reading (and citing)!

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Guest Post: From classroom to capitol, literally

Posted on May 31, 2011 by | 7 Comments

*One of my students, Jody McCready, was a Kansas legislative intern this past session (in addition to her practicum and a full load of classes!). She kindly agreed to share her experiences here, and I know that she’d welcome your comments, too! What can you do to increase your engagement with your state legislature? How should our social work curricula be modified to encourage these experiences? Which piece of advice speaks most to you?

I was interested in interning at the Statehouse this year because I figured given the political environment and economic status there would be much to learn and observe. I was correct in this assumption. Some days I left the Statehouse extremely confused, irritated, and hopeless. I will try to share with you some of the lessons I have learned from my year with the legislature in a precise manner. Here are my top twelve lessons from the Statehouse:

12. Say “Hi” to everyone in the hallways, and start small talk with other people- even those who you disagree with. Talk to all legislators and develop a personal relationship. While talking to representatives, use your clinical skills and gather information about them- what they are experiencing. Talks should not just revolve around professional topics; really dedicate yourself to getting to know elected officials as the person they are. AND create relationships with the secretaries and support staff- they are the gatekeepers to the legislature.

11. Sometimes it is all about the money. Unfortunately, sometimes your goals and mission are overriden by the economic status. This year is a prime example. While this is frustrating to experience, you must not give up on educating elected officials about your mission and the needs of the population you are advocating for.

10. Understand that our representatives are not geniuses, and do not know it all. Many are honestly normal people. While some officials may have higher education, others may just have a high school education. For example, the representative I interned for only has an associate’s degree and has never had experiences with the population I am motivated to advocate for. Other legislators may reference religious morals as a basis for making political policy and votes. We must interact with representatives as if they know nothing about our mission and concerns. We must educate them on the basic concerns and needs of the population we are advocating. We also must know how to manage the topic of religion, especially how its tenets may contradict the realities of our populations. This takes precision and tact when in discussion with representatives who rely on such religious beliefs for policymaking.

9. Use your listening, paraphrasing, and “clinical” skills. Yup, engaging representatives (or consumers) through meaningful conversations is the way to connect. Your connection with an elected official will benefit you!

8. Prepare for uncomfortable situations, awkward statements, and boundary violations. It will happen. Some elected officials are not professional, and others may make inappropriate comments about your appearance or work. Be prepared on how you are going to deal with such situations.

7. Utilize resources supported by the state, like the research office and library. There are many resources supported by the State that are available to the public. Do not be afraid to call the research department when reviewing an issue, or consult the library to find resources.

6. Present professional, well-rounded information. Present professional-looking materials. Try to supply not only statistical information but also personal stories. Make suggestions for amendments for policies in the works; don’t just present problems. If you have a concern about a policy, don’t be afraid to supply amendments or suggestions to improve the policy. You would be surprised how many legislators are interested in hearing such improvements. Many representatives do want to represent their constituents but don’t how to address the gaps in policies. We as social workers are the experts and can supply suggestions close such gaps.

5. Don’t discriminate according to party. Just because a representative is a “Democrat” or “Republican” does not mean that they agree with the party’s stance on every issue. They all are humans and their path through life has led them to have different life experiences, just like us. By talking to representatives you never thought would support your cause, you may surprise yourself and find a new supporter.

4. Know yourself and what topics trigger you! Prepare yourself for stereotypical statements and testimony that will flat-out infuriate you. Prepare for this, create a plan on how to deescalate your feelings when you are getting worked up while in a professional environment, and how to deal with the stress that follows when you leave for the day.

3. Volunteer to attend political events, forums, and to assist in campaigns. I am volunteering to help a representative out of Overland Park this summer just to gain more experience. There is much to learn while interacting with representatives on their campaign, and vice-versa. Representatives do have much to learn from social workers given hot political topics.

2. Constituents need to be present and visible in the Statehouse. Bottom line- constituents are the most effective way to get a representative’s attention. Elected officials are devoted to their constituents and by bringing a constituent to them who can speak to your mission will achieve much.

1. Social workers are needed in the Statehouse DAILY. Social workers need to be visible and available to legislators. Being at the capital for one day does not create a lasting impression with legislature. You want to cultivate a relationship with a legislator? Be visible, available, and constant in the legislator’s day.

I personally suggested to the Dean to make capitol experiences a focus in our school intern curriculum, even for clinical workers. As social workers we learn the needs and concerns from our community through direct experience; this is why we must also have direct experience in the legislature. All social workers have much to learn from direct observation and presence in the legislature. We as social workers need to be present in the legislative session to fill the role of liaisons from policy development to current functioning of our communities.

I also feel that organizations need to continue contact with representatives after session. Organizations must invite legislators to educational events and trainings to inform them of their organization’s mission, concerns, service, and population’s need. There is just not enough time to do this while in session; therefore we must maintain the relationship with our elected officials and continue education with them as much as possible after the end of the legislative session.

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Giving every kid Sam’s chance at success

Posted on January 31, 2011 by | Leave a comment

photo credit, Flickr Creative Commons

Seeing my kids learn and grow and change (too quickly, sometimes!) every day, makes me think a lot about kids, and what their lives are likely to be like, and what it takes to give them a really good chance.

My oldest son is exceptional. I know that. He’s not only extremely bright (there’s no way that I could parent him without Wikipedia, because I have to look things up multiple times each day to answer his questions), but he’s also very insightful. I hope every day that I will be able to help him find the best ways to use his talents, that I am up to the task of parenting him.

And, so, as I watch him take on the challenges of his world, I have a new measuring stick of sorts–a new criterion by which I evaluate how well we’re doing by our children:

Does every child have Sam’s chance?

Obviously, every child is born with varying levels of innate ability. But, as Malcolm Gladwell dissects in Outliers, the experiences of everyone from political leaders to professional hockey players to child geniuses to Asian math students to rock stars to billionaire software engineers show that no one really succeeds on the basis of his/her inborn talents alone, that all of us are highly dependent on the context in which we thrive (or not) to determine the course of our lives.

Which is wonderful news, really.

It means that we have, within our control as a collective, the power to shape much of the trajectory of our children’s futures. It means that determining who will succeed and who will not doesn’t mean getting better at measuring IQ at earlier ages, or looking at the success of one’s parents.

It means putting all of the elements in place to support each child, so that we take much of the ‘luck’ out of the equation.

Today, when I look at Sam’s peers, I’m worried. Rather than trying to level out the disparities, the environments in which kids grow up today magnify them dramatically. I talk with him, and learn with him, and I get angry that he starts off so much farther down the road than so many.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

I know I’m not the only parent who thinks like this. I’d never claim to be Marian Wright Edelman, but I do apparently think like her, as she writes to her sons about her, “sometimes difficult, even frantic, efforts to balance my responsibilities to you, my own children, and to other people’s children with whom you must share schools and streets, the nation and world. Paradoxically, the more I worried about and wanted for you, the more I worried about the children of parents who have so much less.”

We know what helps kids succeed: good schools, with qualified teachers and quality materials and ample hours dedicated to study; safe communities, with recreational opportunities and hazard-free housing; a healthy foundation of nutrition and access to care; strong relationships with supportive adults.

Giving kids a fair start, then, like so many other social policy challenges today, isn’t so much a technical problem as it is a political one. The problem, of course, is that we’ve failed to commit ourselves to investing in these elements in the life of every child.

And maybe a big part of the “why” is that we fail to understand how much of a difference it could make. Maybe, as Gladwell asserts, it’s our personalization of success–our belief that it’s about you or I when it’s really all about we–that leads us to miss out on so many opportunities to make successes of so many. And, of course, we’re the losers then.

When only those kids who are naturally amazing enough or baldly lucky or unjustly privileged enough to push through all of the obstacles that could derail their success manage to make it, we lose the potential of all of those who could have, would have, if only we would have understood that it’s up to us to make sure that they did.

I love part of the introduction to Outliers:
“We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight that warmed them, the soil in which they put down the roots, and the rabbits and lumberjacks they were lucky enough to avoid? This is not a book about tall trees. It’s a book about forests” (p. 20).

Here’s to planting better forests.

I want Sam, and every four-year-old with whom he will share a world, to grow up in the shade.

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Dear Santa, please bring me immigration reform

Posted on December 16, 2010 by | 4 Comments

Dear Santa,

Hi. Look, so maybe I haven’t been that good this year–I admit that I pretended not to hear the twins crying at night sometimes, so that Kory would get up with them, and I may have used the phrase “knock it off” a few too many times with Sam.

But, still, I certainly haven’t asked for much lately, so it seems like you could, you know, cut me a little slack here?

Because here’s what I really, really, really want for Christmas this year: an immigration policy that’s not an embarrassment, a tragedy, and an affront to justice. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit, I have selfish reasons for choosing this particular holiday request.

I want to be able to go to sleep at night without thinking about little kids whose parents never came home from work. I want to check my email without reading heartbreaking appeals from honors students facing deportation over a broken taillight. I want to complain about the heat next August without haunting visions of people dying trying to cross the desert. I want to tell my kids about the Statue of Liberty without feeling like a fraud.

But this is a real bargain of a gift, Santa, because, while I’m the one asking, I’m certainly not the only one who would benefit. We could use extra billions in GDP, new tax revenues, and the savings from reductions in wasteful enforcement spending. We’ll be safer once our immigration enforcement can focus on those who are real security risks. American workers will benefit from not competing with those so desperate they’ll accept a job at any wage. And, while I’ll grant that your mailbox may not be full of letters asking for CIR this year, polls show that I’m not alone in my wish.

So, Santa, what do you say? I mean, stockings filled with toys and sugarplums are great, I guess, but wouldn’t you rather give the gift that keeps on giving–giving families a chance to live as a family, workers dignity on the job, communities the security of living as neighbors, and our country the chance to honor our past and restore our future?

That’s what I thought, big guy. I appreciate it.

PS. And my son wants a Lego cargo train, but I think he’d settle for cap and trade legislation, if you want to throw that in.

Most sincerely,

melinda

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In the rearview mirror: thoughts on virtually teaching social policy, virtually

Posted on December 14, 2010 by | Leave a comment

At the end of this first semester of “blended” (half online, half traditional classroom instruction) social policy teaching, I’m fairly conflicted. There were some aspects of the experience that I found very rewarding, especially the blurring of the lines between “learning time” and “regular life”–I tend to think about social policy a lot of the time, weaving my ruminations into my daily interactions, and I think that the more fluid nature of the blended course prompted that among my students, too. But it was a semester with considerably more angst than usual, which, for someone who teaches people who want to be social workers about the part of social work (social policy) that we tend not to think too much about, is really saying something. I would love to share this discussion with my own students, current and former, as well as other students and instructors who have engaged in online or blended learning. Here’s where I sit, with one semester down:

  • Part of the psychological challenge for my students was that they did not have a choice to select blended instruction or a traditional model, and, while it hadn’t truly seemed like a make-it-or-break-it thing to me initially, it pretty quickly became obvious that it was: we know that people everywhere are resistant to change and, quite expectedly, more resistant when they didn’t choose the change. We’re now trying to figure out ways to build an element of choice into the curriculum design, because it seems that its lack is a hurdle that students struggled to get past.
  • Online instruction doesn’t seem to work as well in a course, like this one, where students are diverging into pretty new material, and, indeed, a new understanding of their profession, as compared to those courses which are an extension of what they already know. A lot of my job as a policy instructor is to make policy relevant, and accessible, and, indeed, conquerable for social work students, and that’s harder to do without the sustained face-to-face contact.
  • Students need real-time access to the instructor. We started off the semester with this blog, and closed-circuit discussion boards, and other online communication structures built in, but without a real-time chat set up, and I’m going to include that for sure next time. Students want to process their readings, in particular, and need a sort of free-form discussion in which to do that. Live and learn.
  • My sense that this blended model would work particularly well for certain students with certain learning styles was confirmed; I had several students who really flourished, for example, with the discussion boards, because they could look up material in advance, make connections between different parts of the course, and engage in “conversation” with students in other sections. I was right about that, but I underestimated the extent to which online instruction would fail students with other learning styles, and it was really a nightmare for students whose primary learning style is through oral communication with peers. There’s just no way to really replicate that outside of a classroom.
  • Online instruction is different, in so many ways, from a traditional classroom, that instructors are well-served to not try to pretend that it’s similar. I made the decision to allow students to engage in the online content for any week’s unit at any point in the semester, rather than assigning artificial due dates to “contain” that content, and that was the right decision.

    I believe that online instruction, in some form, will continue to play an increasingly prominent role in higher education, so it’s critical that we get this right. I worked harder this semester than in any since the first time I taught the course, and I hope that those efforts helped to mitigate the losses that this cohort of students experienced by being the experimental first class.

    What do you think about online instruction in higher education, specifically social work? How can we make sure that this technology will work for students, and for our profession?

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    Why we need a “left flank”: Reflections on the Kansas Legislature, 2010

    Posted on December 13, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    When I was reading The Woman Behind the New Deal last summer, I found myself thinking about the Kansas Legislature’s 2010 session during the section on the role of the Townsend Movement in the legislative battle for Social Security.

    Yes, that’s how my mind works.

    The book relates the story of how, when congressional support for the Economic Security Act (retirement support, unemployment compensation, mothers’ pensions, and other key measures in our social welfare system) was waning, passage was ultimately secured, in part, due to pressure from supporters of a more aggressively liberal proposal: the Townsend bill. These campaigners wanted $200 per month for retirees, and they sent letters to Congress, held events around the country, and, most importantly, influenced the debate over economic security legislation, such that a more modest pension plan like the one supported by the Roosevelt Administration was ultimately seen as a compromise measure, not a radical initiative.

    And that’s what made me think about the Kansas Legislature.

    During the 2010 debate on new revenue measures, the factions coalesced around the “no new taxes/cut and cut and cut” pole, versus the “sales tax increase to avoid further cuts” camp. The increase revenue side eventually won, and the legislature passed a budget which included a sales tax increase (and an increase in the state Earned Income Tax Credit, so all was not bad!) and no new cuts in education or social services. It was actually quite amazing how a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans came together to support the package, which none of them thought was perfect but all of them preferred to cuts upon cuts.

    But.

    Reading about this history of the role played by the Townsend Movement (whose goals were, ultimately, not all that reflected in the final version of Social Security that won approval in Congress) made me wonder…

    what if?

    What if there had been a strong, coordinated push for a truly progressive revenue package, with an increase in the income tax (especially on higher earners) and additional rollbacks of corporate tax cuts? What if there had been an effort to light a fire in middle-class and working-class households and communities, where people are feeling the simultaneous squeeze of declining incomes (which reduce their ability to absorb a sales tax increase) and the effects of reduced services? What if there had been the kind of movement that resulted in all of those letters to Congress from older adults, and the Kansas Legislature had felt some real pressure to enact a progressive revenue package? And what if that coalition, or maybe even a slightly different one, had then had to tack to the left in order to accommodate that pressure, and we had ended up with a revenue base that would have not only put us on sound financial footing for the coming budget year but also promoted the kind of just economic policy that is its own reward?

    Too often, we put forward these “reasonable”-sounding policy proposals that we think can garner bipartisan support, as though there were some kind of advocacy bonus point system for sounding reasonable, when what we really need is some outlandish proposals that make even the huge victories that we ultimately ‘settle’ for look modest by comparison.

    Townsend reportedly told his wife, who wanted him to quiet down as he was ranting about the world’s injustices (my husband could probably empathize), “I want all the neighbors to hear me! I want God almighty to hear me. I’m going to shout till the whole country hears!”

    Of course, he did. And his legacy, while perhaps unrecognizable as a shadow of his actual vision, looms huge in U.S. social policy today.

    So, for next year’s Kansas legislative session, and on the national stage too, I’m proposing a whole lot more shouting. We need to revive (and perhaps invent anew) a bunch of crazy-sounding ideas (amnesty, perhaps? guaranteed incomes? universal free higher education?) that make aggressively progressive proposals look tame and more restrictive ones look radioactive. 2011, when the deck is already stacked against us after the 2010 elections, just might be the year to go out on a limb. What do we have to lose?

    Those are the kinds of compromises I can get excited about.

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    When the bold becomes the status quo

    Posted on November 30, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    Now THAT'S an entrenched social policy

    In all of my thinking about what a theory of change looks like in advocacy, how we know when we’ve really won, how we measure the impact of our policy agendas, this fundamental truth has never really emerged as starkly as it did during my reading last summer of The Woman Behind the New Deal:

    We win when our opponents have totally co-opted our initiatives, and nearly everyone claims them as their own ideas.

    Here’s how Frances Perkins put it towards the end of her career, after the Republican Party platform, which included support for protection and expansion of Social Security, among other formerly ‘radical’ items, was approved:

    “It seemed to me that our program was now bipartisan. Nobody would ever abandon the regulation of hours and wages, the prohibition of child labor, and all that kind of thing. That was done. I had accomplished what I came to do.” (p. 310)

    Talk about being able to retire in peace. Having so shifted the frame on these once-controversial measures, she and her allies truly did institutionalize these core protections and now-vaunted programs as part of the way we do things in this country, even defining characteristics of our economy and our social structure. And nothing enshrines the social changes we’ve won like having our former opponents be the ones championing them.

    And, so, this month, as I begin to look towards a new year (yes, I know, it’s still a ways away, but I’ve got cookies to bake and a whole lot of merry-making for three little Santa-believers!), this is my new benchmark, and the goal towards which I believe we must work:

    Our advocacy work is successful to the extent to which we so completely change the way that people think about the social problems on which we’re working, that they can’t imagine not responding the way we have articulated that we should.

    In other words, we win when they think it was their idea, or at least want to pretend it was.

    In part, this was some of the Obama Administration’s game plan on health care reform–include pieces that will become so popular with the American public that future generations of policymakers will clamor to place themselves on the prevailing side. It certainly remains to be seen whether that can be done, but it happened with Social Security, and it happened with those labor laws, and it happened with women’s suffrage, and interracial marriage…there are, throughout the history of social movements and the legislative changes they’ve spawned, lots of examples of how something that once seemed outlandish later becomes commonplace.

    And it’s towards that vision that we must strive–seeking not just changes in laws, but, ultimately, changes in ideas, because the latter are far more powerful than the former.

    And that goal can animate even our most pie-in-the-sky, revolutionary ideas. As an activist in Soul of a Citizen reminds us, “many changes (have) been someone else’s radical struggle for social justice. Whether the minimum wage, child labor laws, public schools, even jails instead of chopping people’s heads off” (p. 115). If that can’t convince us that it’s worth sticking in for the long haul…

    Here’s to 2011–the year social justice goes mainstream.

    I can’t wait to see those party platforms.

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    Thankful in 2010

    Posted on November 23, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    As I write this post, giving thanks, just a few weeks after an election in which I found relatively little to cheer, I feel like all of us could use some good thanking, and thankful-being, right about now.

    So, here’s my 2010 thankful list, but I’d like to hear yours, too. What are you thankful for at this moment, as we start to look to 2011, and the uncertainties of what the new year will bring, and as we reflect back on a year of both triumphs and disappointments?

  • A successful example of consumer advocacy: Craigslist cancelled their adult services section this year, under pressure from anti-human trafficking activists who pointed out how the website was used to facilitate the sale of human beings. No, it’s not a complete victory; activists point out that the activity will move to other parts of the Internet, but, still, it’s a company listening to its consumers and taking the right stand. THANKFUL
  • Health care reform: Yes, it’s imperfect and incomplete. And, yes, it’s under attack. But, as I facilitated a strategic planning session for a network of anti-poverty organizations in October, I was struck by the conversation around unmet needs in the area of health, which mostly focused around access to quality, affordable mental and oral health services. I mean, two years ago, we wouldn’t even have gotten around to talking about mental health, because people were going bankrupt all over the place trying to get needed physical health care. Health care reform is a game-changer, and, if we stay in the game long enough, we’ll see that. THANKFUL
  • A Kansas budget agreement that stopped the worst of the cuts: Again, 2011 is going to be long and tough, with a hardline anti-tax legislature and one of the most conservative governors in the country, but 2010 was an example of reasonable policymakers from both parties coming together to make the best out of a bad situation. It reduced the pain for social services and education, and even expanded the state Earned Income Tax Credit at the same time. We’re in a better place heading into next year than we would have been. THANKFUL
  • California federal district court ruling on gay marriage: I really believe that equal rights for gays and lesbians is a major civil rights issue of our time, one on which we’ll look back, a generation from now, with considerable shame and a little confusion (what were people so angry about, anyway?). I don’t trust this Supreme Court as far as I can throw them, but I still don’t see how anyone can read the Equal Protection clause and think gay marriage bans are OK. We’re set up for a decisive battle. THANKFUL.
  • The community of concern that arose in response to Arizona’s ill-conceived, morally nightmarish, repugnant racial profiling law (masquerading as an “anti-illegal immigration” measure): Sometimes, those who oppose human rights do something so audacious that they’re then surprised by the backlash. We saw it in 2006 with the passage of HR4437 (which would have made it a felony to help an undocumented immigrant in any way), and we saw it in Arizona, too. We still have a long way to go to win public support for humane and sensible immigration policies in this country, but seeing political cartoons and late-night talk shows and mainstream politicians disavow the Arizona approach is heartening. Sometimes we come together by standing against a common enemy. THANKFUL
  • Students who have persevered with me through these initial experiments in online learning, and who continue to challenge me to not just learn more but also discover new ways of communicating what I know. I can’t imagine my life without teaching, now. THANKFUL
  • People who help me raise my kids: You know who you are, Miss Beth at our local public library, and Marla the administrative assistant at our School and just about all of our neighbors. I’m thankful for all that you do, to care for kids not your own and, in so doing, to show their Mommy your commitment to the collective endeavor of raising the next generation. Thank you, too, to the lady who makes faces at the twins while we’re waiting in a long checkout line and to the man who holds the door for us. I couldn’t do it without you. THANKFUL
  • The three most amazing kids in the world: I’m thankful when Sam uses “person-first” language (as in, “why would someone without a disability ever park in a spot for someone with a disability?” Why, indeed, Sam.), when he asks me how to say something in Spanish, and when he wants to talk about war. I’m thankful when Ella gets her brother his pajamas when he’s too tired to cope, and when Ben asks for two of everything to give one to his sister. I’m thankful for their smiles and even their demands, which remind me that policy failures and election disappointments are, while important, decidedly not everything. THANKFUL
  • Learning to make good homemade apple pie: I had two pieces on November 2. I’ll be making many more come January. The crust is delicious. THANKFUL
  • People who actually read what used to fill up my brain and spin around in my soul: I’m thankful for readers who ask me questions and give me answers, and who are willing to be companions on this journey towards justice. I am a different person than when I started this blog a year and a half ago, and, for that, I am thankful.

    What are you thankful for?

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    Posted in Analysis and Commentary, My New Favorite Thing

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    My worst policy presentations

    Posted on November 17, 2010 by | 2 Comments

    Okay, so this should really be filed under “how not to”.

    In class this week, we’re tackling the challenge of effectively communicating our fantastic policy ideas to elected officials, potential coalition allies, opinion leaders, agency bureaucrats.

    To a large extent, it’s easy to overstate the importance of the policy presentation, as a finite act. Really, influencing how people think and talk about a particular social problem is an organizing challenge; people are much more likely to change their approach to a given issue based on their relationships with others than even the most cogent presentation of facts. So, I guess, that’s kind of lesson #1–what you do in all of the time outside of the presentation is way more important than what you do with that time. For many of the people to whom you are to present, who you are and who you know are still much more persuasive than what you say.

    But, still, I’ve certainly seen minds changed based on legislative testimony or even a really compelling written presentation of facts, and it’s also certainly true that there is a lot of ambivalence among the general public and even our more targeted audiences about the issues with which we grapple as a society, and you have an opportunity with every policy presentation to elevate your perspective and move someone off the fence and firmly into your camp.

    But, since my students and I will spend time this week looking at examples of policy presentations and talking about what makes different types succeed, and since there is so much anxiety about any kind of policy presentation that involves ‘oral arguments’ (why is it that putting our writing forward isn’t as scary? In some ways, I think it should be more so, because it’s there, staring at us, in near-perpetuity!), I have dedicated this particular post to:

    My Five Biggest, Most Disastrous, Missed Opportunity, Worst-All-Time Policy Presentations

    I’ve tried to pull out some lessons from each of these debacles, and it is my hope that readers will not only gain some insights from my failures but also be emboldened and encouraged to hear about the spectacular ways in which I have, well, flamed out. AND, I’d especially love it (and be very grateful!) if anyone would be willing to share a lesson learned from a presentation gone bad of their own, too. It’s all for my students’ learning, here, people!

    Here they are, yes, in reverse order of awfulness. I’ve saved the best/worst for last:

    5. Stunted Expectations
    One of my biggest failures may have looked like a success. I gave a public presentation in Garden City, Kansas on the need for comprehensive immigration reform. My presentation was well-attended and well-received, and almost everyone there signed the postcards to Congress calling for progressive immigration legislation. So, what was the problem? Well, several, actually. Most significantly, I totally failed to tailor the presentation to the audience; I had been on a circuit around the state for a week, giving essentially the same speech, and so I failed to account for Garden City’s unique history and political tradition regarding immigrant inclusion. I should have asked much more–organize events in the city, do delegations to their elected officials, perhaps become part of the New Sanctuary Movement. It was also a perfect (missed) opportunity to try out some of my harsher critiques of the status quo; instead, what was nearly revolutionary in some communities sounded tepid in Garden City.
    My diagnosis? Laziness, timidity, and forgotten context watered down my message for this audience and, as a result, I missed the chance to turn supporters into activists, passive believers into active campaigners, and the committed into a powerful leadership. We can’t be guilty of expecting too little from those to whom we present.

    4. The Wrong Messenger
    This failure felt wrong from the moment I agreed to do it, and it just kept feeling wrong. I was invited by a high school in Topeka to talk to a large group of immigrant students about higher educational opportunities, Kansas’ new instate tuition law, and leadership/advocacy. And I totally should have said, “no.” See, this is exactly the kind of thing that the immigrant young people who led the effort to pass the instate tuition law should have done themselves; who better to inspire other high school students than high school students? And, yet, maybe because it was during the school day, or maybe because I knew I’d already be in Topeka, or maybe because, after so many days of talking to hostile audiences, it sounded kind of fun to go to be thanked for the work…I said, “yes.”
    And, it was okay; I mean, they were awesome students and excited about the new law, and they had some great ideas for how to advance organizing in their own community. But all of that just reinforced to me how it could have been wonderful, and, instead, wasn’t, because I took the easy way out and put my own considerations ahead of the cause’s. Would it have been more work to manage the logistics of getting permission for one of the student leaders to miss school and blah, blah, blah? Sure. But it would have lived my values of empowerment, and helping people speak for themselves. And it would have worked a lot better, too.

    3. Round Peg/Square Hole
    I’m including this one to demonstrate that I have even spectacularly failed in policy presentation in multiple languages and in more than one country! I had been asked to be on a panel at the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras conference. I was to speak for 20 minutes about the prospects for immigration reform and workers’ rights in the United States, in Spanish, with simultaneous translation into English. I prepared my remarks, but, when the day of the panel arrived, the organizers told me that I’d actually only have 10 minutes, because the conference was running late. And that’s where the problems started. To try to fit in everything, I raced through, barely noticing the reaction of the translators in the back of the room. Soon, one actually left the booth, waving her arms frantically over her head. I was speaking so quickly that they couldn’t keep up; some of the attendees had absolutely no idea what I was saying, and I was probably losing many of the others with my rapid pace.
    And, while I admit that I still speak quickly, far too quickly at times, this experience (and its humiliation) stayed with me; when presenting, especially orally, we have to know exactly what the parameters are, and never assume that we’re above the rules. The most profound of our remarks won’t have any impact if people aren’t around anymore to hear them, or if they’re said unintelligibly, or if the dominant message is that we’re inconsiderately disregarding the needs of those around us. And pay attention to body language and feedback cues from your audience. Nodding heads are good. People flagging you down is usually a very, very bad sign.

    2. Totally Blindsided
    So I actually did quite well on this one. My testimony fit exactly within the time limit and covered all of the key points, and I had great delivery, and…it really didn’t matter at all. Because I forgot that, sometimes, it’s what everyone else says that counts a lot more. This was a hearing on our bill that would restore undocumented immigrants’ access to driver’s licenses, a right that was stripped in 2000, nearly restored in 2001, and then definitively halted after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, out of national security concerns. I thought that I had done everything right for this hearing, in January 2004. Our bill had cleared the House the year before and was now in the Senate. The Judiciary Committee Chairman supported it, as did several of the members, with whom I had already spoken. I had lined up a strong list of supporters: faith groups, law enforcement officers, two eloquent immigrant leaders, an insurance agent…it looked very solid. It snowed more than 6 inches the night before, but we still had about 1000 people in Topeka to show their support. As proponents, our testimony went well. And, then.
    Things first went bad when the final person to speak as a proponent was the one person on our side with whom I hadn’t spoken in advance. His argument still rings in my ears: part of it was, verbatim, that “Hispanics are having more babies than white people so, watch out, we’re going to take over.” Um, can you say “opposite of what we wanted to say?” Lesson that, sometimes, even your ‘friends’ can hurt you, if you haven’t done the work in advance. But, still, if it had just been that, we probably could have rebounded.
    There was just one opposing testimony. From a father…whose son was killed in the Twin Towers. Now, I’m sorry for his loss. Obviously. As was everyone else in the room, which went silent when he began to speak. But I so wish I knew then what I found out about 5 minutes after leaving the hearing, which is that he was actually a representative of a group affiliated with the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform. We had, in fact, already done a lot of work discrediting FAIR within the Kansas Legislature, but I was totally unprepared for this conferee, and, so, even later, my efforts to clarify and explain to our media contacts and friendly legislators were the classic “too little, too late.” Even the Chair whispered to me on the way out the door, “I don’t think we can save this.”
    We have to acknowledge that we don’t set the agenda and often can’t control the conversation. That means that any successful policy presentation must include intelligence-gathering on those who oppose our understanding of the social problem and our strategy to solve it. Our message should not simply react to this opposition, but it must account for it, diffuse it, and effectively counter it. Otherwise, you’ll be like me, listening in shock as everything I said was completely wiped from the minds of my audience, and even my friends shook their heads in disbelief.

    1. You Can’t Convince Everyone, and Sometimes You Shouldn’t Try
    So I promised a real nightmare for this last one. One year, I agreed to do a call-in show on a conservative talk radio program about immigrants’ rights. It was on a Saturday morning–my birthday!–at 8AM. So that sets the stage. Now, I’d done my research, and I knew that this host and his listeners were quite hostile to my position, but I had a lot of faith in my persuasive abilities, or something. Anyway, I dutifully called in.
    I was, of course, defeated from the beginning; the host was deliberately rude to me, refused to let me finish a sentence, distorted the few words I managed to get in, and, then, after about 15 minutes, directed his listeners to “call in and tell me if this is the stupidest person we’ve ever had on this radio show or not.” Seriously.
    Either my Protestant guilt or sheer shock kept me on the phone, long past when I should have just hung up. The only redeeming moment was when one woman called in to say, “no, I think there was someone stupider on once,” but then the host talked her into conceding that I was, in fact, “actually way stupider than that guy.”
    Easy lesson from this one, of course: there are many people who may be receptive to at least parts of our messages of social justice, especially when we couch them in the language of shared values and common aspirations. And we shouldn’t shy away from controversy or be afraid to debate.
    BUT.
    We should also not allow ourselves to be exploited by those who have no interest in truth or dialogue, especially when we’ll be so baited that we may, actually, do something that could turn off potential allies. Or, when there are much better things we could be doing with our time: organizing our “choirs”, so that they’ll actually “sing”; honing our messages; researching our policy alternatives; reaching out to those undecided middles; or, even, celebrating our birthdays.

    Your turn–please share lessons learned from your own policy presentations gone bad. Really. It will make me feel better.

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    The more things change: the case for CIR, then and now

    Posted on November 8, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    When I gave speeches about the need for immigration reform, I used to talk about how we were revisiting a lot of the same issues that plagued the nation in the early 1980s: the need for legalization for undocumented immigrants working in the country, the toll that family separation takes on our communities, and the insecurity born of a system showing obvious signs of strain. I used the point to reinforce the need to really fix the nation’s immigration system, so that we wouldn’t have to revisit these same debates and fears and tragedies every couple of decades.

    I should have gone a bit farther back in history.

    When I read The Woman Behind the New Deal last summer, there were several passages about Frances Perkins’ work overseeing the immigration department, which then fell under the Department of Labor (kind of interesting, really, given how we continue to view immigrants as valuable chiefly/solely for their labor contributions, but subsequently moved the INS to the Department of Justice (connected to our criminalization of immigrants) and then to Homeland Security (consistent with our conflation of migration and terrorism). My guess is that we’re not moving ICE to DHHS any time soon!)

    What I found most stunning was her statement to Congress when she was questioned about failures to deport some foreigners viewed by Congress as possible communists (and, therefore, deportable):

    “The problems which the immigration laws present are serious, intricate and of the highest public importance. They have a peculiar significance to the future of our country, for it is incumbent upon those who administer the immigration laws to aim at two important goals: First, to preserve this country, its institutions and ideals, from foreign forces which present a clear and present danger to the continuance of our way of living; and second, to show those aliens who together with their families are soon to become our fellow citizens that American institutions operate without fear or favor, in a spirit of fair-play, and with a desire to do justice to the stranger within our gates, as well as to the native born.” (p. 281)

    I’d stress the themes of family reunification and workers’ rights and civil liberties a bit more explicitly than she did but, in all, it’s almost eerie how easily this statement could have been made 70 years later. We still wrestle with immigration policy as a core question related to American identity: who gets to be “one of us”? And what does that decision say about the nation we present ourselves to be?

    Unfortunately, it seems that the prejudices and misperceptions about immigrants and their contributions to this country have not changed much in the past seven decades, either:

    “Many refused to believe government statistics, and they circulated reports alleging that 1 million foreign sailors jumped ship in the United States each year, or that five hundred thousand Mexicans strolled across the border in the previous decade. In her annual report in 1935, Frances blasted these accounts as “fantastic exaggerations”" (p. 191). I can picture her today, decrying those horrible “undocumented immigrants are stealing Social Security” email forwards that periodically get sent to me for debunking.

    So, here we are, generations later, still fighting the same struggles for basic decency, due process, and equal opportunity for those who happened not to share our good fortune of being born in the United States of America.

    And, here we are, as far away from an upcoming congressional election as we’re going to get, staring at two years to get comprehensive immigration reform done in this Congress.

    We’ve got to make it happen–for the families torn apart, for the bodies strewn in the desert, for the workers (immigrant and not) whose wages and bargaining position are undercut by the existence of so many who have so few rights, for the security we all deserve in knowing who’s in this country and allowing law enforcement to focus on those who truly mean us harm, and for the still-salvageable American Dream, which has never been limited just for those who’ve always been here.

    And we’ve got to make it happen because, otherwise, we could still be making the same case, and combating the same myths, in 70 more years. Except that I’m not sure we can withstand it.

    Call your members of Congress today. Tell them (you have three–call all three!) that now is the time. Do it for those who long to call America home, for those who long have but are still afraid to come out of the shadows, for those who fear change but know that this isn’t what welcoming the stranger looks like. Do it for social work, which can’t afford to sit out this important struggle for social justice and the definition of what our nation will mean. And, do it for Frances.

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