Catholic schools are closing their doors all across America, leaving future generations with nowhere to turn for the high-quality academics and values-based education so many families are seeking. The number of students attending Catholic schools in the US fell from about 5.2 million in 1965 to around two million in 2008.
Pioneer Institute believes these schools are worth preserving. For over a decade, we have raised our voice in support of these excellent academic options, and tools such as tax credit scholarships that would enable more families to attend.
Pioneer has held public forums, published research on the benefits of Catholic education, on successful models such as Cristo Rey, and on policy changes that would stop the Massachusetts education department from depriving religious school students of special needs services and school nurses. The Institute has also convened key stakeholders, appeared in local and national press, filed amicus briefs, produced a feature a documentary film, and much more.
This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Julie King, immigrant from Mexico and founder of Villa Mexico Café in the financial district of Boston. They discuss the challenges of re-launching a career in a new country. It’s not atypical for an immigrant to start at a lower rung of the economic and social ladder than they previously enjoyed – but it’s a win when they persevere despite the pains, and thrive. A powerful lawyer in Mexico City, Julie at first found the American Dream elusive, initially delivering newspapers at 3 am for work. Then, a new opportunity arose, driven by a yearning for real Mexican cuisine. Today, she is full of admiration and respect for the country that allowed her to become a successful business owner, as you’ll hear in this week’s JobMakers.
Guest:
Julie King is the founder and owner of Villa México Café. Known as the (in)famous “Momma King,” she’s been a mentor, an adoptive mom, a nagger, and a local food industry personality. Villa México Café is an immigrant-women-family-owned restaurant that’s operated for 20 years. The restaurant’s mission is to bring authentic Mexican food and culture to the people of New England as one of the first authentic Mexican restaurants in Massachusetts. Villa México Café had its origins in Woburn, Mass. Momma King, owner, manager, cook, cleaner and everything else, moved there with her daughter, Bessie, after her American husband passed away from Alzheimer’s. A lawyer in Mexico, Julie could not litigate in Massachusetts without going to school again. She went into business with one mission: to bring authentic, homemade Mexican food to the people of New England. The first two Villa México Café locations were in Woburn. In 2006 Julie relocated to a gas station store in Beacon Hill, where the restaurant earned its “Best Burrito in Boston” title from Boston Phoenix and Improper Bostonian. The latest Villa México Café opened in Boston’s Financial District in 2016.
Read a Transcript of This Episode
Please excuse typos.
Denzil Mohammed:
I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to Jobmakers.
Denzil Mohammed:
Moving to a new country is usually hard, emotionally, financially, even health wise. And it’s not atypical for the immigrant to start at a lower rung of the economic and social ladder than they previously enjoyed. But it’s a win when he or she perseveres despite the pains, and is able to thrive for Julie King immigrant, from Mexico and founder of Villa Mexico Cafe in the financial district of Boston, that step down was steep. A powerful lawyer in Mexico city. She ended up delivering newspapers at 3:00 AM for work in the us, a widowed mother of one. The American dream to her was a nightmare. That was until an opportunity driven by a yearning for real Mexican food collided. Even then the nightmares didn’t entirely stop, but she kept at it. And after 20 something years is full of admiration and respect for the country that allowed her to become a business owner respect for sure, but maybe not love as she tells her tale. She gives a nuanced take on the idea that you can love both of your home countries. The same as you hear in this week’s job makers, Julie King, founder, and owner of Villa Mexico cafe, Water street, Boston. Welcome to the Jobmakers podcast. How are you?
Julie King:
Good. Good, good. Thank you, my dear, to be honest with you. I little tired because I have been working today since six o’clock in the morning.
Denzil Mohammed:
I was about to say it’s a Friday afternoon. You must be really exhausted. Tell us a little bit about your business and why do you think it’s special?
Julie King:
Okay. Villa Mexico Cafe started in 1999, because I wanted to show the people what is authentic Mexican food it’s special because we serve authentic Mexican food in this place. And since I open it day one, they know that I don’t serve nachos because they are not from Mexico. They are from Texas. We don’t serve nachos and we don’t serve for example, avocado with lobster, because we are not a food place. We are authentic. That’s what it makes my place special because I think that we are one of the few authentic Mexican restaurants in New England.
Denzil Mohammed:
I would imagine so. And a lot of people in America, I’m sure they’re feeding new Mexican food.
Julie King:
For example, today, the lady told me, can you put, do you put lettuce and onion in your burrito? I said, no, I don’t. Why not? Because that is not, we don’t. It is not the way that we do it in Mexico. It’s only rice beans, the meat of your choice, the salsa avocado. And that’s it? Oh my God, but that is not Mexican food. I said, no, you are right. It’s not Mexican food, the authentic, it it’s Mexican food, but authentic Mexican food, you are here to get authentic Mexican food and they still don’t get it. And you know, what is the worst thing? What the worst thing is that I know that Mexican food is a very good business. When they said that’s a Mexican restaurant, let’s go that. And they spend a lot of money for eating Mexican food, but to serve authentic Mexican food and especially home made there is nobody, but
Denzil Mohammed:
I love how you stick to your guns. You know, keep it authentic Mexican, despite what the customer may think that they want or may expect. But you are actually a lawyer in your previous life in Mexico. Yeah. So how come this drastic change of course in your life?
Julie King:
Completely. My dear in Mexico, my husband used to tell me that I was a big shot because I used to be the legal director for the Holidays hotel chain in Mexico City.
Denzil Mohammed:
Wow.
Julie King:
That was beautiful. It was an incredible, incredible job. I loved it. I was traveling. I used to talk to ministers, you know, in the Mexican government, even with the president, we’d have breakfast and meetings and things like that with the ambassador of the United States, big people, you know, and I was only in those days, 27 years old, but I was a big shock. Like my, like my told me that was my best, best job I ever had because I enjoy it. It made me really responsible. But then I got married. I met my husband and he, he was American an American officer, the Navy American officer, we got married and then I have to quit my job to come to the states and live in the states. But yeah, I was a big shot.
Denzil Mohammed:
Arguably, you’re still a big shot now, “Momma” King. So take us back to life in Mexico City.
Julie King:
Beautiful. Of course. I mean it like in your country, you know, my country is Mexico and it is, it was so nice, so beautiful because all the families in those days, they are very conservatives. They are all the schools. So we’re very educated that we didn’t have the rich people, medium class or the poor ones. Everybody was the same, the same thing. And we used to go everybody to the same official school. We didn’t have private school. Everybody, you, you could know your, your friends, your neighbors, and everybody was a family. And that’s the way we grew up. And I love it. And that’s why we are, I am very, very attached to my country because I love my country a lot because of all my, the memories that I have when I was a kid with all my friends that I still have, my friendship still exists with those guys.
Julie King:
And we had a very good friends and we have incredible memories when we get together. And we go like, remember what we were used to do in the kindergarten, or remember what we used to do in the elementary school. And this is a real life. And I, you a secret idea. All the immigrants come to the United States because they have a big dream, which they call the American dream. You know what being in the states is not my dream. It’s my nightmare. Why? Because I really suffered a lot when I came to the states, even when I was married and I was living in Texas, I moved, we moved from Mexico to Texas. And then when I moved to Boston with my daughter, oh my God, it was a nightmare because I received such an insult that people was extremely right now is better.
Julie King:
But in those days they could, everybody could insult you and nobody say anything to you. It was really hard to me getting into the Bostonian’s life because they, it is not easy for them to open. It’s so difficult. And, and as a woman, you know, single mother be by myself and myself and in Mexico. I used to have a lot of friends, my family, my support, my business, as a lawyer. And in here, it was horrible. For example, let me tell you, in Mexico, we have a beautiful house and easily have it. And it is a big house with garden and for bedrooms and living room, a huge living room or whatever. But it’s, I have my house in here. I didn’t know how the rents were. And I have to go into a little bitty place with two small bedrooms. And I was like, oh my God.
Julie King:
It was the first time I used to live in an apartment. Then in Mexico, I have my daughter’s nanny and my, and the people who help me in the house and my gardener and my driver, because like my husband said, I was a big shot, you know? And in here we are not used to do anything, but the problem is that we, we are not used to clean the house or we are not used to wash the dishes or to wipe the clothes. We are not used to that things, especially because I was having my daughter’s nanny. When we move me and my daughter to the states, I said, okay, I don’t mind. I’m going to get somebody to clean my house. And just to get a person, she charge me like $200 in those days for cleaning my house and washing my clothes. And I said, what two?
Julie King:
It was very expensive and I couldn’t afford it. So besides working and getting up at three o’clock in the morning and coming back and be washing my day, I have to clean my house. I took to watch dishes to go. It has been a nightmare. My dear, and I didn’t know your regulations in the states. There is a lot of regulations, completely different, like my country. And I was like crazy. I was crying every day. I was really bad and nobody could help me. But at the same time, in the meantime, I was opening my way to the being in Boston. I found good people that was welcome me. And probably they feel sorry for me, you know, because I was, I don’t know. I was really lost, lost being by myself and my daughter
Denzil Mohammed:
Without a solid support network. You’re really just on your own, not having family around is, and this is why family reunification is so important to the American immigration system, because we need our families there. We need our parents, our kids cuz that’s that what, that’s, what we rely on. We don’t have anything else to rely on. Right? So I can imagine how difficult that must be. And a lot of Americans don’t realize that when immigrants move here, they often take a step down. You know, your first job is not gonna be anything like the job that you had in your home countries. You have to work yourself back up. Even for you as a lawyer, you would have to retake all your law law years of law school similar for doctors who have to redo residencies 20 years ago, they would’ve been markedly fewer opportunities from the SBA, from different lending organizations. I’m sure a lot of discrimination with banks. How, how did you do it? How did you start this business? How, how many times did you fail?
Julie King:
Well, you say it right with, without family with no help. With not somebody to, to put my head on the shoulder and cry with doesn’t receiving any advice or at least welcome home or nothing. I didn’t have in my food. I couldn’t find good Mexican food in Boston. So I said, oh my God, no. And every time I wanted to go and have some breakfasts or some, some kind of my food, you know, we were me and my daughter were so sad and very disappointed that I said, okay, I’m going to show these people. What is the authentic Mexican food? Because I didn’t like the way they were serving the Mexican food. So that’s why it make me start my business. How all they, God knows. Because to be honest with you, I thought to come and work as a lawyer in the states and you just said, right?
Julie King:
I said, I don’t care. I’m going to work as a lawyer because I am a good lawyer. And when I went to apply for the first job, they requested my license and I gave them the one in Mexico and they said, what is this? You cannot work in here with that. I said, so what do you mean? I am a lawyer. Yeah. Wonderful. But you need to request your license. I said, and where do I gotta go and get it? And they told me, you gotta go to the, to the school. I said, what do you mean to the school? Yeah. You have to, you have to start your, your lawyer school again to get your license. And in these days
Denzil Mohammed:
That was an option.
Julie King:
It wasn’t like now that in, in less than six months, you can get your license. In those days, you have to go to the school for three years. And then I said, oh my God. And what do I do? I raise my daughter. And I, I, I take care of my daughter or I go to the school and pay for my school. And one day my, my sister took some vacations and she came to visit me in Uber. And we were walking by Google center and I saw this little bit place, very nice place. And I said, look, there is a playlist. Let’s go see how it looks inside. And we both were seen through the window, like, oh my God, this is a restaurant. And this and that. And look at it, got chairs and tables and a counter. And she said, do you think that it could be a good, a good place?
Julie King:
So you can set a business? I said, my God, I don’t have any money. How can I start a business? Why do you go and ask how much they want to have for rent? So I went next door and it was a laundry. And I asked to the guy, I said, do you know somebody who can gimme information about the place next door? What do you want to know? I said, I would like to know how much is the rent and what do they need to, what are the requirements? And I would like to know who do I have to talk? What do you wanna to, what do you have the place for? And I said, okay. I would like to have a Mexican restaurant in there. Oh, wow. It used to be like what they call it? Rose beef. Yeah. It was a rose beef place, but the guy couldn’t pay the rent and he left everything.
Julie King:
I said, are you kidding me? I would like to talk to the owner to the landlord. And he said, I am the landlord. And how much do you want for rent? And guess what? He said, $500. I said, what? 500, go ahead. I will help you to grow. What I did was a dream. God helped me and my, my, my sister stayed there for three months and we both cleaned the restaurant painted. And we, but of course, I didn’t know the requirements. These guy told me that I sit and use the license that were for the grocery place. And I believe him because he was the landlord. But when I tried to open the restaurant, I remember this day I was on my knees, watching the floor and cleaning everything. And we painted the chairs and it was so bright, so beautiful. Red collar, jello, color, yellow, Navy blue.
Julie King:
And it started looking so beautiful. And then I was on my knees, cleaning the floor. And when I saw a pair of shoes and saw pants, I pick up my face and I said, oh, I’m sorry. We are not open yet. And he said, and I, and he told me, and I don’t think that you will open for a while. You said you are going to have a Mexican restaurant. And this is for another restaurant. I said, yeah. So what do I have to do? And here he is. He said, I am from the battlefield. You need to go the permit to the neighborhood. You need to get a meeting. You need to apply for your license. That took me three months to get everything ready. In October of 1999, the first October, the October, the first I could open my location. And that’s the way we started.
Denzil Mohammed:
Wow. That is such an ordeal. I know that you ended up having to close that location. You opened another one in Woburn, and then you close that and opened up your first Boston location in beacon hill, out of a gas station. And now you’re on water street in the financial district. You have come a long way. How has your how has your cafe been received by the financial district?
Julie King:
I have a lot when I was in, in my location. I have a lot of people coming from, from Boston and the surrounding areas, Boston, Lexington, Arlington, Stoneham rock the everywhere. And I have a line on the door trying to, to, to get inside. And then it was incredible, beautiful, beautiful place, really. So we grew up and then when we ended up in beacon hill in the little gas station, the people in Beacon hill of course made, I mean, just the rich people lives in Beacon hill, but they were so nice and beautiful to me because I don’t know why everybody said that I am a funny person, but I am not funny, whatever I am like, I am a very honest and person. I see you. And I tell you, and I talk to you with the truth. And I met Congressman for the English, very rich people director from the banks from big companies. And when I saw them to me, they were not the rich people living in beacon hill. They were my friends, you know, like you and I talking, and to me, everybody is the same. And they was having a ball with me and we become good friends and they were helping me. And they were happy with the food and they were really taking care of us. That’s when I start being a really happy person with a neighbor who, because they accept us. Incredible. Incredible good.
Denzil Mohammed:
So you, you have stated in the past that your mission is to not only bring authentic Mexican food to new England, but also culture to educate your customers about the real history, culture and lifestyle of Mexico. Why is this your mission? Why, why do you think that’s
Julie King:
Important? Because for example, I give you a little example. Everybody goes crazy about cinco de Mayo and cinco de Mayo is just, we want a little bit battle, that’s it? And it’s not as I, I mean, it is important, but not in the way that is in here. We really appreciate our independence day. And it’s a big thing in Mexico, but the cinco de mayo is nothing, you know, and when I moved to Boston and I start finding out that cinco de mayo called wow, cinco de mayo. Wow. I said, wait a second. But you know, what is, and I was the first person that in the local TV, I told them cinco de mayo is nothing important. So please stop treating us like if it was someone independence day, Cinco de mayo is gringo de mayo.
Denzil Mohammed:
You’ve expressed tremendous pride in this interview about your home country in or your home country, Mexico. Is it possible for you to love or for anyone to love two countries, two cultures at the same time,
Julie King:
It’s not possible. <Laugh>
Denzil Mohammed:
Really
Julie King:
Let me tell you. I born in Mexico city, I was raised in our lost and with a love of family all together. And like I told you, in the beginning, we were exactly the same, but we were taught to respect our father and mother to love our family. And to be quiet whenever they call our attention, we, I didn’t grow up with a cell phone with a game boy or with a big machines. And we didn’t play the all day long in the TV. Here, everybody is doing their own stuff. They don’t get together. And if they go together, the parties, you know, they are always drinking. And to me to be here seeing different aggressive things, it is like I cannot get it. I cannot, I just cannot get it. I feel so sorry for all the kids that they don’t have the education, that they deserve to have because the father is working.
Julie King:
The mother is working and nobody’s taking care of them that they are not growing a, a good families together with values, but it is very difficult to love one country and to love the other one in the same way. Because just for one thing, I born in one place, not born in the states. I feel extremely respect for this country, which offers you many, many things. And I love it because I have to respect my second home and I have to respect and love the country that it give me my business and it helped me to grow. But in here, when we came, it was a big change. And I in a state to feel like happy I was suffering. But at the same time, I feel welcome because this was my husband’s country. And I work of this country as mine, but I cannot feel the same love that I have for my country, because I grew up in my country with probably with not too much money, but I got it with too much love. And in this country, I work so hard. I cry a lot. I make myself like my second home. I love Boston because it’s a beautiful place. I love it. But I still miss Mexico. It is like mixed feelings, you know?
Denzil Mohammed:
Oh, I totally get it. I totally get it. That was very heartfelt and very thoughtful. Thank you very much for opening up your heart and telling us your journey and your story. I was very moved by it. I think that this is gonna reach many Americans and they’re gonna learn so much more, not just about Mexican culture, but about the idea of the immigrant and the kinds of conflicts and stressors and things that, that we have to go through starting AF fresh in a new place. Thank you so much. Julie King, owner and founder of Villa Mexico Cafe in Boston’s financial district. Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast.
Julie King:
God bless you. And thank you for this opportunity.
Denzil Mohammed:
Jobmakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and the immigrant learning center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s beautiful and complex story of immigrant entrepreneurs. Remember, you can subscribe to Jobmakers, apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another Jobmakers.
Recent Episodes:
This week on “The Learning Curve,” co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Margaret “Macke” Raymond, founder and director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University. She shares some of the major highlights from Hoover’s recent Education Summit that featured a wide variety of national and international experts. They discuss the reasons for persistent problems, even after several federal efforts, with American students’ performance on important exams such as NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA, and the best path forward for state and federal education reforms. They discuss the shift in political support for charter schools, and the outlook for expansion among charters as well as private school choice programs. Dr. Raymond offers thoughts on the implications of the successful U.S. Supreme Court decision on Espinoza, and the likelihood of another victory in the Carson v. Makin case.
Stories of the Week: In Rhode Island, a federal lawsuit over whether there is a constitutional right to an adequate civics education has led to an agreement to improve instruction. States such as Texas and California are directing portions of the $350 billion in federal COVID relief aid to create or expand service and conservation corps programs.
Guest:
Dr. Margaret “Macke” Raymond has served as the Director of CREDO since its inception. She has steered the group to national prominence as a rigorous and independent source for policy and program analysis. She has done extensive work in public policy and education reform, and is currently researching the development of competitive markets and the creation of reliable data on program performance. Macke also leads CREDO in investigating the effectiveness of public charter schools. Prior to joining Stanford in 2000, she held faculty positions in the political science and economics departments at the University of Rochester. Macke also worked for a number of years in the telecommunications industry and was President of Raymond Associates, a private consulting company specializing in public policy research projects and telecommunications policy formulation, from 1985 to 2000.
The next episode will air on Weds., June 22nd, with Dr. Deborah McGriff, a former Managing Partner with NewSchools Venture Fund and a former urban superintendent.
Tweet of the Week:
Think learning loss will just vanish? Think it will vanish for all kids the same way? This report from @vkoganpolisci suggests otherwise. https://t.co/tmxJddstDc pic.twitter.com/6nq70gBd2r
— Robin Lake now at Threads (@RbnLake) June 10, 2022
News Links:
‘Democracy in peril’: Agreement seeks to bolster civics education in RI public schools
State and local governments are leading the way on service programs
Read a Transcript of This Episode
Please excuse typos.
[00:00:00] Hello listeners.
[00:00:25] GR: This is Gerard Robinson. Talking to you from beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. It is always beautiful in Charlottesville, but it’s always even, I would say more beautiful to have conversations with Cara about education, about social policy, about economics, about charter schools, about voting, about a lot of things.
[00:00:44] And so to make a beautiful mind, even better, we have to welcome.
[00:00:49] Cara: Hello, Gerard, thank you for that beautiful introduction. I, wanna go to beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. I’m still waiting for my invitation, but we’ll leave that there. Um, It’s [00:01:00]
[00:01:00] GR: well, well, well listeners, we should realize that Gerard in fact, invited Kara to a very exclusive meeting at the Institute in Charlottesville and the campus, or I just said the grounds of UVA.
[00:01:11] But she was so busy working to save the children, which I understand she could not make it, but one of her colleagues came in her stands. So it’s not from lack of, of trial,
[00:01:24] Cara: but you’re correct. I would say said, colleague begged me, please let me go. Because it was such a cool convening. So I’ll give you props for that. I’ll, have to make it to the next one. you know, what’s going on here in, in it is beautiful in Boston today. It’s not always we’re in the throes of the last week of school, Gerard.
[00:01:37] And let me tell you. I can’t decide if I’m ready for the, just the last week of school to be over or school to be over, because it feels
[00:01:44] like a
[00:01:45] Cara: sprint. It is a sprint to the finish line. Nobody’s doing anything except bothering mommy and , and, and our school has, which has been very locked down is finally.
[00:01:56] Thankfully opening things up to parents. And I have a daughter [00:02:00] who is graduating sixth grade when we were kids. I don’t, feel like we graduated from anything but high school, but we’re gonna go celebrate that. Well, listen, Jared, I would ramble on about beauty and coming to visit you and my personal life, but we’ve got some stories to get to, and I know you’re fired up about yours, which means I’m gonna go first.
[00:02:18] I’m gonna make you . But I, I love this. Blog out , from Brookings, it’s written by Martha. it’s entitled state and local governments are leading the way on service programs. And this is all about how many state and local governments are using those. Do you remember those? A R P American rescue plans, state and local fiscal recovery funds.
[00:02:43] Mm-hmm right. Nobody talks. Out these, we had talked about these a little bit on the learning curve because we were thinking, oh, you know, there are certain educational functions that states can use these for, but this blog is all about how a lot of states. Are [00:03:00] using these funds to expand service cores and especially conservation cores.
[00:03:05] So these are programs similar to AmeriCorps and Hey, peace Corps. Let’s go back to the sixties and think about it, right? Mm-hmm . But these are programs in which you sign up to serve your community for a defined period of time. And then you can work on projects that add societal value, like things like, some kids are working on actually what this article points out, what this blog points out.
[00:03:26] A lot of localities are using this for climate stuff. So they’re having cores that are focused on, climate mitigation by insulating homes and weatherizing homes and climate friendly landscaping. I need somebody to come to my home and just do landscaping. You can make it climate friendly. Right, but it’s really an interesting article.
[00:03:45] And one of the things that I appreciated about this is it points out that these programs are actually a really good return on investment for local communities. And that’s for a couple of reasons. Number one, communities are getting work. I mean, so [00:04:00] people do this in exchange for a pretty small living stipend, but the, people who participate are usually young, they’re looking for a career pathway.
[00:04:07] Some of them will end. In higher education after sort of putting in their time, some of them can mitigate the cost of higher education with some of these programs, but they’re doing things where they’re really giving back to the community. So you can think about a program like AmeriCorps. I know we have a program here city year got a lot of it’s funding from AmeriCorps, right.
[00:04:26] And you go in and kids are tutoring in schools. So that’s another educational use of. This article points out that for every dollar, the federal government puts into these programs, they’re getting a return of $17 and 30 cents. That’s a pretty good return on investment if you ask me. And I think that there’s just a lot of good things to be said about these programs, but also questions about Do we need always to think about the federal government as the lever that needs to be pulled to keep these programs sustained and to get these going, because there was a big [00:05:00] resurgence in these with the state and local fiscal recovery funds.
[00:05:04] Previous to that you’ll remember previously pandemic America funding, for example, had been cut. I know the church I used to chair. We relied on AmeriCorps members and we couldn’t after a while because the funding had been cut, but you can use folks in these community programs. To meet everything from long term needs.
[00:05:22] Like the ones that I just pointed out, climate change to meeting emergency needs such as during I don’t know a pandemic. So we think that it raises some really interesting questions. Martha does in this blog about how can states think about leveraging these programs or even cities leveraging programs like this in the absence of huge packages from the federal government.
[00:05:42] And I wanted to say, Gerard, I know I’m sucking a lot of bear, so I’m gonna let you get to your story. One of the things I love about this is something that I think you and I, and I know listeners of the podcast and others have been thinking a lot about lately, and that is just. How much people need community right now [00:06:00] and how people need to feel like they are members of a community right now.
[00:06:04] I mean, we’re reading it and we’re seeing it. Many of us are seeing it, unfortunately in our lives in people with high rates of depression. And, we know that suicide rates are going up. I know, this year, Many of us have lost, loved ones under pretty unimaginable circumstances. We see it in kids acting out in school.
[00:06:22] We see it in people leading their jobs in droves because of many different reasons, but among them a feeling of burnout, of anxiety, of other things. And I think that. I don’t know for any of us who have ever worked in a situation like this, there’s a really visceral feeling of when you are part of something bigger than yourself.
[00:06:41] You know, some people get this from organized religion. Other people get this from other organized civic groups. And this is part of, I think, what. These localized programs can do is they bring together community members, a sense of giving back, doing something meaningful. We can talk a lot. And I know you do at AI about the [00:07:00] value of work and the meaning of work.
[00:07:02] And although this blog didn’t talk about that, it really left me thinking, these civic programs and sort of this rebuilding of. Civic society and civil society in this really active way is so important in this time. So I loved this article and it makes me think about I don’t know, for a long time I’ve been volunteering at uh, food bank.
[00:07:24] And in the past couple months, I have to admit that because my kids have been so busy with their various sports. We haven’t been going on the weekends. I read this article and I thought you’re getting back there next weekend. It’s the beginning of summer. Time to go. So, anyway, Gerard, how about you?
[00:07:38] Have you ever participated in a program like.
[00:07:42] GR: I never participated personally, but I had an opportunity to work as a coach or to work as an adult lead. So for example, always had the almost 20 years ago for two summers, I worked with students uh, who stayed at UVA on grounds [00:08:00] as a part of the outward bound program.
[00:08:01] Our brown program is part of a larger trio program. Started, decades ago, basically very similar to the idea of AmeriCorps is to invest federal funds into young people, to not only inculcate a spirit of service learning and giving but also to give them an opportunity to meet students.
[00:08:20] Often from similar economic situations across race across urban and rural guidelines here in Virginia, and to come and spend 1, 2, 3, 4 weeks with each other in different programs. So that was a great opportunity for me to see that university of Virginia in fact, has one of the country’s oldest upward bound programs.
[00:08:39] And so was glad to be a part of that. When I was in Florida, as well as Virginia knew a number of people who were AmeriCorps. Workers but also people who worked in state departments who actually invested funds or oversaw people who were involved. So I’m a big fan. And one of my early mentors was Dr.
[00:08:57] Samuel Proctor. He was at one [00:09:00] time a pastor. At Abdin and Baptist church in New York. But he was also the first director of AmeriCorps appointed by John F. Kennedy. So those programs ring well, to me, two things come to mind when you mentioned the American recovery and reinvestment act of 2009, we had.
[00:09:17] similar conversation with Margarite Rosa and a couple of other guests about this topic because you and I both know this isn’t the first time we’ve had a massive investment of federal dollars during a time of economic uncertainty, and that we should try to learn lessons from that. Number two, we actually referenced on this show, another Brookings report, which actually identified lessons learned.
[00:09:42] So. Superintendents governors teachers and others who are involved with handling multimillion dollars, all of a sudden coming to the district what they can do as someone who is a supporter of our free enterprise system, someone who likes entrepreneurial thinking. I like the idea of seeing, did you say a [00:10:00] 17 to one return on investment?
[00:10:02] Ah, yeah. I mean, if you and I put a dollar in and had $17 return, someone would say that was a very good financial investment. Yeah. I see this as a very good human capital investment. I also like the idea of looking for public private partnerships. There’s some states, in fact who like to get a public match or a private sector match, or they can combine money because you’re right.
[00:10:25] There are a lot of reasons and I’m a supporter of the federal role in education. A smaller F compared to the better Robinson professor Robinson and UVA. Who’s a bigger F than me, but we both believe there’s a role there, but I also want to see the for-profit sector play a role, not just for their money, but to be invited in for their ideas, because I think a true public private partnership.
[00:10:46] Shouldn’t be. Public will run it private, give us money and then shut up and stay in your lane. Right. So I like the idea. I’m a supporter and glad to see that program moving forward. I will say that if people are looking for ways to support public [00:11:00] private partnerships one thing to do is to look.
[00:11:02] And whether or not your state is investing money into national teachers of the year North Carolina continues to have more nationally board certified teachers than anyone else. They also have a financial investment that goes along with that. Some states had to get rid of that investment because.
[00:11:18] Money was tight. So as we think about this, I think we should learn lessons from programs like this and see what we can do to support those in that program. So thank you so much for that story. My story’s a little different it’s about civics and it’s about a state. I don’t think we’ve actually.
[00:11:34] Spent any time talking about on learning curve. And so this was a learning curve for me as well. So in 2018, a group of parents and students in Rhode Island decided to Sue the state and the governor, well, the governor being the state and the education officials in federal court, because they said that.
[00:11:54] Rhode Island was not doing a great job to prepare students to fully [00:12:00] participate in civic life. And they asked the federal court if they could actually get a constitutional right, that all students in public schools in Rhode Island would have access to civic education. And so I went to court at the first level, the district level, us district judge, William Smith , actually dismissed the lawsuit.
[00:12:17] He said, while he understands the claim is desirable and even in central, he said for citizens to understand civic responsibility is really important. He said, but it’s not something that the us constitution contemplates mandates. So naturally moved to the us circuit court of appeals, which is in your city of Boston and the circuit court actually upheld the ruling of the district judge.
[00:12:41] They said that the defendants brought a good case, but again, it’s not something that the Supreme court can do. In fact, the court went further to say that defendants told the appellant court that binding legal precedent has established that there’s no fundamental right to education in the constitution.[00:13:00]
[00:13:00] So we’ve had on this show, a number of people who’ve talked about the Rodriguez case uh, it was a federal case decided in 1973, by the Supreme court, which basically ruled there was no federal right. To education. And this was part of a large wave of school finance lawsuits across the country, California, Texas New Jersey.
[00:13:20] Now, the reason I mentioned New Jersey is that Michael rebel and a group of others have been part of a number of lawsuits in different states to try and get. A federal right to education. Well, this take was a little unique in the fact that they said, well, let’s go for a constitutional right to civics education.
[00:13:38] So district court said, no, appellant court said no. The attorney for the parents and the students said, you know what, maybe I should take to this, to the Supreme court. Well, in the interim, the department of education in Rhode Island said that both sides the plaintiffs and the defendants decided to come together and he reached an, a.
[00:13:56] On how they wanna strengthen civics education in Rhode Island.[00:14:00] Governor Dan MCee actually signed legislation last year to require public schools, students to demonstrate proficiency as defined by local school districts in civics education, and to at least have or participate in one civics project beginning 20 22, 20 23.
[00:14:16] So there are at least three things that stand out for me as relates to this article one, here’s an example. Of when people use the court to get administrative agencies and executive agencies to do something. So even though there wasn’t a win in the court the executive branch bringing the governor’s office said, Hey, let me sign legislation.
[00:14:36] And then you had the regulatory agency, department of ed. Working with the plaintiffs and the defendant say, listen, let’s get to the table and see what we can do. So when I work with undergrad and grad students, when I talk about the history of school reform, this is one example of how people will use the court to wink at other governmental bodies.
[00:14:54] They do some work. Number two, I think it was really interesting. The role that the term [00:15:00] democracy in peril played. In fact, that’s the opening title for the article. the attorney for the plaintiffs basically said, listen, we need to do this in order for us to teach student civics and teach them responsibilities and one example.
[00:15:16] And so I think that’s important. So that’s my. Number two, many people here know that I’m a big supporter of civics education. In fact, today June 14th, a bipartisan group of us senators reintroduced the landmark civic secures democracy act, which would authorize in historic investment to support K12 civic education and American history.
[00:15:38] I’ve had a chance in 2020 to write a piece I published at AAI. About that piece of legislation and another one in a Virginia newspaper. So I’m pretty clear where I stand with civics education. So listeners, let me give you a quick overview of the state of civic education in the United States, based upon a 2016 report published by education commission of the states.
[00:15:59] [00:16:00] 47 states in DC address civics education in state or local statute. Every state requires students to complete coursework in civics education or social studies in order to graduate 37 states require students to demonstrate proficiency. Through assessment in civics or social studies, 17 states include civic learning and this accountability framework.
[00:16:23] And lastly, every state includes civic learning or social studies in the standard curriculum. I’m on the board of I civics uh, it’s nonprofit organization founded by former us Supreme court justice, Andrew Day O’Connor we work to provide a civics curriculum across the nation. With more than 120,000 teachers actively using our resources to more than 7.5 million students doing the same in all 50 states.
[00:16:48] So I am sure our listeners in Rhode Island I have already reached out to is civics. Or if you’re not familiar, we have partners, , in your state doing work. But let me go to the third part. And this is more about what I would call semis[00:17:00] the symbolic use of language.
[00:17:01] And so when we’d say democracy in peril the attorney. Upon hearing that there’s possibly not gonna be a win in the case that side of the fence said, listen, democracy is in peril. And all we have to do is take a look at what took place on the us capital steps January 6th. And I’m in agreement.
[00:17:21] I’m already on the record of saying that that riot was a tragedy on several fronts. And of course, right now, Congress is taking a look at that. And if January 6th is going to serve as a platform to talk about responsibility, democracy, or democracy and peril. Why not also look at the riots that took place across the country, following the death of George Floyd.
[00:17:45] And let’s just put that in perspective in terms of numbers. So there’s a company called property claims services and it tracks insurance claims related to civil disorder across the country since 1950. As least right now in [00:18:00] 20 states, the damage from the riots that followed what took place, the death of George Floyd in current dollars, 1.2 billion.
[00:18:09] Well, let’s put that in context. That’s more damage in terms of property value than the Rio in 68 in Chicago. 68 in Baltimore, 67 in Newark, 77 in New York, 68 in Washington, 1980 in Miami, 67 in Detroit and 65 in LA combined. And so if we are to talk about riots and to use it as a way of talking about peril about.
[00:18:37] What we can do about responsibility and about government. I think we should also look at what took place in our cities across the country related to George Floyd. So that’s another place we should look, but it’s also worth noticing that in Providence at least according to a June 2nd 22 report a police cruiser was torched.
[00:18:56] Windows in businesses were shattered. 75 to a hundred [00:19:00] people actually stormed ’em all and looted about 12 to 18 businesses. So there’s a local example of what we could use at that time. 2020 to also talk about responsibility in government and from historical standpoints also worth noting that in 1824, as well as 1831 if we’re to talk about white mobs, January 6th, there were white mobs in 1824 and 1831 in Providence who stormed and racked black homes and businesses historical way of also using that city race and white mobs to talk about government and civics.
[00:19:37] So I’m all about civics. I’m about using riots. If that is a vehicle in which we talk about civics responsibility, government and building a better nation, but let’s not cherry pick which ones we want to use and which ones we wanna.
[00:19:50] Cara: well, I’ll keep my remarks brief. Sure. Because we’ve got a fabulous guest waiting for us, but couldn’t agree more.
[00:19:56] One of the things that’s so interesting about your, thank you for [00:20:00] your detailed history, you always do such a good job of, bringing the facts. You’re like an encyclopedia is just this idea that I don’t think, civics education is really part of the broader American conversation and not only the examples that you gave, but just so many other facets of American.
[00:20:16] Right now and what we’ve come to accept it as normal in American life. Unfortunate parts of what we’ve come to accept as normal lead me to believe that civics education not only incredibly important, it’s increasingly important. Yep. Not just south of here in Rhode Island, but everywhere across this country Gerard, thank you for that.
[00:20:35] we’ve got, like I said, a great guest waiting for us, a friend of the show, someone we’ve talked to before, but we’ve got new, fresh questions for this person. There’s a lot on our mind. We’re gonna be speaking with Margaret Mackey, Raymond, and she is the director of credo, the center for research and educational outcomes at Stanford right after.[00:21:00]
[00:21:20] Learning curve
[00:21:20] Cara: listeners. We are really happy to have back. Dr. Margaret “Macke” Raymond. She has served as the director of credo since its inception. And I told you at the outset, what CREDO stands for, does the center for research? On educational outcomes. She has steered the group to national prominence as a rigorous and independent source for policy and program analysis.
[00:21:41] She has done extensive work in public policy and education reform and is currently researching the development of competitive markets. And the creation of reliable data on program performance. Macke also leads credo in investigating the effectiveness of public charter schools prior to joining Stanford.
[00:21:58] In 2000, she held faculty [00:22:00] positions in the political science and economies department at the university of Rochester. Macke also worked for a number of years in the telecommunications industry and was president of Raymond associates, a private consulting company, specializing in public policy research projects and telecommunications policy formulation from 1985 to 2000.
[00:22:19] I did not remember the telecom part of your background, Macke and interesting time to be thinking about digital divide telecom. So much of what’s going on, but I dig. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
[00:22:34] Margaret: Thank you very much for having me. I’m very excited to be here today.
[00:22:37] Cara: Yeah. we’re excited to hear what you have to say.
[00:22:39] So, I’m curious, just to get started right off the bat, you recently hosted an education summer at Hoover institution that featured a wide variety of national and international experts. Talk to us about what happened there. give us some of the big highlights.
[00:22:56] Margaret: well, I’d be happy to, we were incredibly lucky [00:23:00] to catch the wave of people just starting to travel after months and months of, staying close to home.
[00:23:07] And so we decided that we would gather. Policy leaders from across the globe on the topic of the priorities and the urgency of really big change in K12 education, not only in the United States, but around the world. And the message that we heard was consistent across all different stakeholders who came either as audience or as speakers, which is that the problem.
[00:23:34] Of public education is under described and under defined and not taken sufficiently seriously. And the magnitude of the consequences of not addressing it are less well understood than they should be. And they are disastrous. So starting with that as a sort of basic premise across the summit we heard.
[00:23:57] Almost every single person in the room [00:24:00] and online on the zoom virtual conference, the urgency of creating enough coalition and willingness to change to really drive substantial revision of our system. And if not to our peril and the per of the students who are in school,
[00:24:18] Wow. Do
[00:24:19] Cara: you think it took a pandemic to spur that urgency on to get people to really realize what trouble we’re.
[00:24:27] Margaret: I think that we have seen something similar in other disaster scenarios. Obviously there was hurricane Katrina and we had similar hurricanes in other parts , of the country. we’ve had wildfires that have closed down schools. We’ve never had a disaster at this scale before.
[00:24:44] And I think the, scale of this actually created conditions where. Regular citizens, parents, neighbors, grandparents got to see what really was happening in schools or more specifically what wasn’t happening in [00:25:00] schools. And it caused both concern and mobilization on a scale that we’ve just never seen.
[00:25:05] Yeah. Yeah,
[00:25:06] Cara: no, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, looking at, and this, actually leads to the next question I wanna ask you, because I think that, from my perspective, obviously from your perspective or what you were hearing at your summit absolutely parents woke up, communities, woke up, saw under the hood and thought, oh my goodness, is this really what’s happening?
[00:25:24] some of the stories, I’m sure we could all tell. But at the same time, a lot of the narrative that we hear. From those who have a vested interest, right. In maintaining the status quo we should say, or the, or just don’t wanna see it is sort of like, well, we need more of this and we need more federal involvement.
[00:25:42] and on the one hand you’ve got this real grassroots, like revelation around like, no, we need some serious change. I’ll say you see some states passing, real parent centered reforms. We, we don’t know yet the extent to which those are gonna be effective. Right. But on the other hand, there’s this call.
[00:25:58] More and more involvement from the feds. I [00:26:00] wanna visit that notion of involvement from the federal government with you, because you are expert in understanding it. So in the past 30 years, we’ve seen huge policy changes, initiated perhaps by the federal government. Probably some for good and maybe some for not so good.
[00:26:17] So things like standards, accountability through standardized testing, obviously charter schools. And then we’ve got like more state. Reforms around private school choice, et cetera. So, but okay. With all of these reforms and we’ll get nap results soon. Right. But we’re still sort of like in this Midling place, nap results are either stagnant or going down, you see a couple bright lights in places like Mississippi with literacy, ?
[00:26:42] what is it that we are missing that we still continue to not serve so many kids? Is there anything that’s good. About federal education reform or are we, is it a loss? what do you see there?
[00:26:55] Margaret: Well, that’s a huge question and, I hope that we have all day to get at that but in the [00:27:00] same time that we do have, let me just , take a crack at it.
[00:27:02] I know that the average nap results and Tim’s and Piza results have not looked great. But I would also say that the innovations that you’re talking about both at the federal level and at the state level are really intended to set the conditions for change. And what’s ended up happening in the political realm is that those conditions have been undermined by.
[00:27:28] Folks who wanna maintain the status quo. They’re very , effective at the political maneuvering to dilute a lot of those. In spite of that, if you look at any one of these policies, you can actually see big variation in how well they’ve worked. And the thing that we haven’t done is we haven’t looked at the evidence where it has worked.
[00:27:50] Like let’s find out where. Accountability systems really did take root and make a difference. And there are several of them around the country, but we don’t look at [00:28:00] those. We don’t learn from them and we don’t try to redistribute that wealth of knowledge to get other folks to adapt, to be more like that.
[00:28:08] So I think that there’s a sort of a culpability in the effort. Effort is made effort is diluted. We don’t actually zero in on a continuous improvement style in any of these policies that we’ve had. And so they’re much more vulnerable to attack because at the average, it doesn’t look like much is happening.
[00:28:31] Oh,
[00:28:31] Cara: that’s fascinating. I mean, I would even point to thinking about state level reforms in which has seen great growth over time. Right? I think that one of the things to your point that you can point to in Florida and not everything’s perfect. Right. But they’ve, gotten a lot better is to a greater extent than other places, this continuity of approach, like we’re going to expand choice and we’re going to, to some extent.
[00:28:52] maintain a system of accountability. I would love to know your thoughts on where we’re at with accountability, because we spent a long time getting those reforms in [00:29:00] place, and it feels very much like they’re being rolled back. Maybe you can share those thoughts with me while all talking about some states that you think are doing it.
[00:29:09] Well, some commissioners that are, holding the line on the reforms
[00:29:12] Margaret: that do work. So a moment on the accountability. I do think that the pandemic I think legitimately during the pandemic, we put a pause on accountability like that. Wasn’t the thing we should be focusing on right now, but what that did then was to also give.
[00:29:28] Opponents of accountability, a really long runway to get their act together, to maintain the suspension of accountability. And they’re doing that in a variety of ways. They’re trying to weaken the testing systems. They’re trying to continue a moratorium of school quality reviews. They’re trying to eliminate any kind of consequences from any of Thea plans.
[00:29:49] And so I think that. The idea that somehow schools are no longer responsible for the product that they produce is gaining traction. And I think that that’s a [00:30:00] 180 degree misstep in a bad direction. When I think about the places around the country that are, not doing that. Of course, I think of Florida, of course, I think of Mississippi.
[00:30:11] I think of Louisiana where they are. Much more innovative in the way that they think about organizing systems. You know, we have new Orleans, which is an all charter district, but they also think about allowing good schools more discretion and allowing underperforming schools, very little discretion, very directed choices that they have to make in things like curriculum in things like.
[00:30:34] Allowing for additional time in school and additional days of school in the school year. So I do think that there are places around the country where smart minded people are systems oriented. They’re getting the right pieces in place and they’re sticking with them. As you said earlier.
[00:30:51] GR: So M I have a question dealing with American presidents.
[00:30:55] And so when you think about bill Clinton and the role that he played [00:31:00] in creating what is now charter school week the office at the federal level, dealing with investments. And so from Clinton forward you had presidents who supported charter schools. Now with the five administration, there’s been a recent break with his democratic brethren Clinton and Obama on their stance.
[00:31:17] And we see even some changes with some democratic politicians. Where do you see charter schools heading over the next five years? Given this current state of affairs?
[00:31:27] Margaret: Yeah, that’s a wonderful question jar. I don’t think that it’s a monolithic solution. we are going to see. States where there is a very, very strong democratic presence that is focused on supporting unions and labor.
[00:31:44] We’re gonna see the charter school environment weaken in those places. And that’s a real. Sad thing because those places are states that educate lots and lots and lots of kids and charter schools in those environments actually are producing superior outcomes [00:32:00] compared to the district schools in the same communities.
[00:32:03] So I’m, prepared and pessimistic about those situations. So I’m expecting weakening in Washington. California, for sure. I think Illinois, New York is a toss up. New York city is very strongly going in a charter school direction, but it’s not because of policy it’s because of philanthropy. And the rest of the state is, holding, but I’m not sure that that can hold for long.
[00:32:26] And then you’ve got places where. There’s already been damage like Massachusetts and the walking away of fiscal parody in a number of the states , in the Midwest. So I think that in some places we’re gonna see the charter school environment . Get softer. I don’t think that’s going to be universal.
[00:32:45] I do think that there are states that are very strong on charters. They have seen the evidence. So I don’t expect places like Louisiana, Missouri. I don’t expect Florida to back off. I don’t expect. Indiana Ohio to back off of charter [00:33:00] schools at all. And I think there’s gonna be a good opportunity for charter schools to start sharing what they do.
[00:33:07] There’s huge pressure now because of COVID to basically take what you know, and share it. And. Charters across the country are being asked to be partners with district schools to try to broaden the range of education options that kids have coming out of the pandemic. And so there are charter schools that are actually co-operating district schools.
[00:33:32] there are charter schools that are taking over district schools to run them. There are charter schools that are basically operating their own teacher training programs and are welcoming district teachers. So I think in some places, the boundary between charter schools and regular schools is gonna blur.
[00:33:49] I hope that that doesn’t get complicated in a political sense, but I think in the short term that that’s actually a good thing.
[00:33:56] GR: And thank you so much for bringing in [00:34:00] philanthropy because they’ve played at times a behind the seeds role, not in an nefarious way or anything in investing to move policy, talk to move schools and to move ideas.
[00:34:11] So we often overlooked that. Let me switch from the executive branch to the judicial branch. So over the last Few years 20 states have actually expanded or established a variety of private school choice programs. Mm-hmm . And when you look at the successful ruling, at least to some of us in the ESP Espinoza case, and we had ESP Espino on our show you couple that with growing parental dissatisfaction with traditional public schools under COVID, something you’ve mentioned, and the likelihood that another Supreme court case, this one coming out of Maine with Carson Vick.
[00:34:43] And, and if that let’s say goes the way reformers want. Where do you see private school choice heading?
[00:34:50] Margaret: Well, I think that it is very much a bull market for private school choice right now. I think we have as you said, broad to satisfaction, if you look at what happened with [00:35:00] enrollments, we are unable to account for over a million.
[00:35:04] In the last school year, we just simply don’t know what happened to them. Well, something is happening to them and programs like education, savings accounts and homeschooling and supported homeschooling, which I think is an emerging model where private schools are actually not accepting students into their school, but they are in fact providing educational resources so that families can homeschool that whole area.
[00:35:29] innovation I think is, ripe for further development. And I would expect to see at least a few more million kids in the next five years, moving out of public school and into private.
[00:35:39] GR: Yeah, that’ll be a monumental shift. Some of our colleagues America Federation for children, ed choice, mm-hmm center for education reform genie.
[00:35:47] We know that there’s at least a million students on the waiting list. And so of what you’re suggesting comes true, we would’ve accomplished in let’s say 24 months, what? 25 plus years of [00:36:00] efficacy and other work to get us to this point. Makes a lot of sense. when you think about right left coalition and reformers let’s take a look at this in terms of the, just the divide of where we are right now in American politics, charter schools in fact came about because of a diverse coalition of people, party, race, gender, public school teachers.
[00:36:23] In fact, in Minnesota and California played tremendous roles in getting. Charter schools off the ground and moving forward, when you think about the country, what do you see as being the most promising compromises, if any, that are going need to take place within our laws and policies to move us to
[00:36:42] Margaret: the next level.
[00:36:42] So I don’t think the game is actually at the political level. In the next period. And let me say a few more things about that and explain why I say that. I’ve been demoing this a lot of thought. I mean, it’s not just parents who got ticked off during the pandemic. There’s been a [00:37:00] lot of, new rumblings if you will.
[00:37:02] And I’m starting to see that there are really important stakeholder groups that live with the consequences. of K12 education policy, but have not yet taken a seat at the table. And let me give you a few examples of this. I think electeds in municipal government. So mayors county supervisors and so on they are required to live with the consequences.
[00:37:29] the folks who graduate from K12 schools in their communities are living in their communities and they are having to cope with the lack of preparation, the lack of employability, the lack of, ability to continue on as lifelong learners. And so I. There is in fact, a stakeholder group among electeds and municipal governments that could actually be a potent force in a coalition for reform.
[00:37:57] I think another one is the employment community, [00:38:00] local employers in the same communities that we were just speaking about, have to hire from that pool. And yet they’re not banging on the table and they should be. And I think as well, I think the sort of. Non-governmental organizations, the non-profits and the social service agencies who have to actually use community resources to continue to support folks.
[00:38:25] As a consequence of not being well prepared for life are another constituency that we never hear from. And yet. People are lining up outside their door, even more now as a result of the pandemic. So they’re a third stakeholder group parents. Obviously we talked about that’s a fourth stakeholder group.
[00:38:43] When I think about the possibility of lining up all those people on main street and getting them to lock hands and say, we’re mad as hell, and we’re not taking it anymore. I think we’ve got the possibility of some really serious coalitions for change.
[00:38:58] GR: That is one of the best [00:39:00] assessments of the different communities and roles and players that we need and stakeholders at the table that I’ve heard in a really long time.
[00:39:08] And when you mention business, yeah, I mean, people are going, for example, To college because they wanna get a job students who are enrolled in VO tech. And we had that conversation last week. A lot of them are going to get a job. And so employers are important and among the board of trustees for America succeeds, and that’s a nonprofit that works to harness the business community.
[00:39:30] So. That’s really, really good point. here’s just a, more of a reflective closeout question for you. Knowing what you do today, and there’s a Mackey and a Mac or Sally or Sam, who’s gonna listen to this, knowing what you know now, what would you tell yourself in 2000 when you were coming to Stanford to do this work?
[00:39:50] Margaret: I probably would’ve said ger your loins. It’s gonna be a whole lot harder than you expect. I would’ve said be very careful [00:40:00] about your opponents, keep your eye on them and make sure that you keep them close and never underestimate the power of individuals to come together and, to force change if we need it.
[00:40:13] And so I, continue to believe all of.
[00:40:17] GR: Thank you so much Mackey for joining us Kara and I, of course, looked forward to this conversation. And of course you exceeded all the great expectations we had for you. Keep up the good work at credo when you have another conference. Remember Kara and I Jamie really. Came back fired up from his trip to the bay area.
[00:40:36] And so, you know, you have a friend here with both of us. You also know that you have a platform. So keep up the good work and look forward to future conversations.
[00:40:44] Margaret: Thanks for your time today. Really enjoyed being with you. Take
[00:40:47] care
[00:40:48] Cara: Thank you, Macke.[00:41:00] [00:42:00] [00:43:00]
[00:43:11] GR: So listeners, my tweet of the week is from Robin Lake. She is a former guest. She is with the center on reinventing public education and here her tweet think learning loss will just vanish. Think it will vanish. For all kids the same way, this report, which she references suggests otherwise. So go to our webpage and take a look.
[00:43:34] Cara: Always bringing the good stuff. we’ve got some great, great reports. Gerard, next week, we’re gonna be speaking with somebody. I believe this person is a friend of yours. I think you used to work together. I might be wrong, but somebody I have long admired, we’re gonna be speaking with Deborah McGriff and she is a former managing partner with new schools’s venture fund, former urban superintendent ed reform.
[00:43:58] Wonk [00:44:00] queen among among many things. So really looking forward to that conversation. So am I, I, I bet you are well until next week, Gerard, please take care and thanks for will do.
[00:44:13] All
[00:44:14] GR: right. And congratulations to your daughter on finishing. You said the
[00:44:18] Cara: sixth grade at the Wellen Montessori school in Newton center, Massachusetts, the Wellen hour
[00:44:25] GR: and shout out to my daughter for graduating from the eighth grade.
[00:44:28] So good time for the Kara Gerard household. Awesome household. Love it. All right.
[00:44:34] Cara: Now just get my kindergartner on the road. Okay. take care of
[00:44:38] Gerard bye bye.[00:45:00] [00:46:00]
Recent Episodes
Culture and Recreation are among the most important services needed for the wellbeing of a community. Parks are grounds for socializing, playtime and community events and give residents the opportunity to build community spirit. The same goes for Cape Cod; but towns vary in the extent to which they provide these services. How does Barnstable County stack up?
Source: Pioneer Institute’s MassAnalysis website
As shown in the chart above, the towns with the highest per capita Culture and Recreation expenses were Truro, Wellfleet, Orleans, Chatham, and Harwich at $405, $387, $379, $284, and $254, respectively. Barnstable and Falmouth spent the most in the aggregate, despite having some of the lowest expenditures on a per capita basis.
Spending on culture and recreation hasn’t risen across all towns on the Cape in the past 10 years. Mashpee and Bourne recorded the lowest per capita expenses at $62 and $42, respectively. Additionally, Bourne spent the lowest portion of its overall budget on culture and recreation, a mere 1.3 percent. Interestingly, the town also reported no growth in per capita spending compared to 2010.
Chatham, which ranks fourth in culture and recreation expenses per capita, spent the highest percentage of total expenditures on the services, nearly 7 percent.
Only four towns saw contractions in spending compared to 2010: Brewster, Truro, Dennis, and Yarmouth; with Brewster ranking the highest at 68 percent and Dennis as the lowest at 2.5 percent.
Overall, the majority of towns saw growth, with Falmouth and Mashpee taking the lead at 63 percent and 40 percent, respectively. Culture and recreation expense amounted to over 5 percent of total spending in only 6 out of the 15 towns.
About the Author:
Etelson Alcius is a roger perry transparency intern with the Pioneer Institute. He is a recent graduate of Cathedral High School and incoming freshmen at the College of the Holy Cross, where he intends to double major in economics and computer science on a prelaw track. Feel free to reach out via email, linkedin, or write a letter to Pioneer’s Office in Boston.
In Massachusetts, the Know-Nothing amendments prevent more than 100,000 urban families with children in chronically underperforming school districts from receiving scholarship vouchers that would allow them access to additional educational alternatives. These legal barriers, also known as Blaine amendments, restrict government funding from flowing to religiously affiliated organizations in nearly 40 states and are a violation of the first and fourteenth amendments.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case this year, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, that could end these amendments. In 2018, Pioneer produced a 30-minute documentary on the impact of the Blaine amendments on families in Massachusetts, Georgia, and Michigan.
“She’s a good girl. She helps me a lot. She has big, big dreams. I don’t have the money, but she has big dreams. I hope she’s going to get everything, but she works so hard. She works so hard in school.”
“Our family is needing to make some really big sacrifices because we believe this is important, and so, we’re basically going to do whatever it takes… Sometimes we look at each other and go ‘I don’t know if I can do it again another month…’”
“A lot of the families have to sacrifice and work multiple jobs… And just scraping together enough money to just make tuition, just the basics.”
“It is discriminatory, that parents who want to choose an alternative to public school for their children, would not in any way receive any compensation for that, whether it be tax credit, whether it be a voucher…”
In the 1840s, nativist movement leaders formed official political parties and local chapters of the national Native American Party (later the American Party), although they continued to be commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party. Politicians sought to insert provisions into state constitutions against Catholics who refused to renounce the pope. The Know-Nothing movement brought bigotry and hatred to a new level of violence and organization.
The party’s legacy endured in the post-Civil War era, with laws and constitutional amendments it supported, still today severely limiting parents’ educational choices. A federal constitutional amendment was proposed by Speaker of the House James Blaine prohibiting money raised by taxation in any State to be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations. These were then named the Blaine Amendments of 1875.
in recent decades, often in response to challenges to school choice programs, the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated great interest in examining the issues of educational alternatives and attempts limit parental options. Massachusetts plays a key role in this debate. The Bay State was a key center of the Know-Nothing movement and has the oldest version of Anti-Aid Amendments in the nation, as well as a second such amendment approved in 1917. Two-fifths of Massachusetts residents are Catholic, and its Catholic schools outperform the state’s public schools, which are the best in the nation.
Help families like the Costons in Michigan to end the bigoted Blaine amendments in their state that are blocking tuition scholarships and other types of financial support that would make it possible for families to send their children to high-quality schools that are best suited for their children.
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This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Julie King, immigrant from Mexico and founder of Villa Mexico Café in the financial district of Boston. They discuss the challenges of re-launching a career in a new country. It’s not atypical for an immigrant to start at a lower rung of the economic and social ladder than they previously enjoyed – but it’s a win when they persevere despite the pains, and thrive. A powerful lawyer in Mexico City, Julie at first found the American Dream elusive, initially delivering newspapers at 3 am for work. Then, a new opportunity arose, driven by a yearning for real Mexican cuisine. Today, she is full of admiration and respect for the country that allowed her to become a successful business owner, as you’ll hear in this week’s JobMakers.
Guest:
Julie King is the founder and owner of Villa México Café. Known as the (in)famous “Momma King,” she’s been a mentor, an adoptive mom, a nagger, and a local food industry personality. Villa México Café is an immigrant-women-family-owned restaurant that’s operated for 20 years. The restaurant’s mission is to bring authentic Mexican food and culture to the people of New England as one of the first authentic Mexican restaurants in Massachusetts. Villa México Café had its origins in Woburn, Mass. Momma King, owner, manager, cook, cleaner and everything else, moved there with her daughter, Bessie, after her American husband passed away from Alzheimer’s. A lawyer in Mexico, Julie could not litigate in Massachusetts without going to school again. She went into business with one mission: to bring authentic, homemade Mexican food to the people of New England. The first two Villa México Café locations were in Woburn. In 2006 Julie relocated to a gas station store in Beacon Hill, where the restaurant earned its “Best Burrito in Boston” title from Boston Phoenix and Improper Bostonian. The latest Villa México Café opened in Boston’s Financial District in 2016.
Read a Transcript of This Episode
Please excuse typos.
Denzil Mohammed:
I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to Jobmakers.
Denzil Mohammed:
Moving to a new country is usually hard, emotionally, financially, even health wise. And it’s not atypical for the immigrant to start at a lower rung of the economic and social ladder than they previously enjoyed. But it’s a win when he or she perseveres despite the pains, and is able to thrive for Julie King immigrant, from Mexico and founder of Villa Mexico Cafe in the financial district of Boston, that step down was steep. A powerful lawyer in Mexico city. She ended up delivering newspapers at 3:00 AM for work in the us, a widowed mother of one. The American dream to her was a nightmare. That was until an opportunity driven by a yearning for real Mexican food collided. Even then the nightmares didn’t entirely stop, but she kept at it. And after 20 something years is full of admiration and respect for the country that allowed her to become a business owner respect for sure, but maybe not love as she tells her tale. She gives a nuanced take on the idea that you can love both of your home countries. The same as you hear in this week’s job makers, Julie King, founder, and owner of Villa Mexico cafe, Water street, Boston. Welcome to the Jobmakers podcast. How are you?
Julie King:
Good. Good, good. Thank you, my dear, to be honest with you. I little tired because I have been working today since six o’clock in the morning.
Denzil Mohammed:
I was about to say it’s a Friday afternoon. You must be really exhausted. Tell us a little bit about your business and why do you think it’s special?
Julie King:
Okay. Villa Mexico Cafe started in 1999, because I wanted to show the people what is authentic Mexican food it’s special because we serve authentic Mexican food in this place. And since I open it day one, they know that I don’t serve nachos because they are not from Mexico. They are from Texas. We don’t serve nachos and we don’t serve for example, avocado with lobster, because we are not a food place. We are authentic. That’s what it makes my place special because I think that we are one of the few authentic Mexican restaurants in New England.
Denzil Mohammed:
I would imagine so. And a lot of people in America, I’m sure they’re feeding new Mexican food.
Julie King:
For example, today, the lady told me, can you put, do you put lettuce and onion in your burrito? I said, no, I don’t. Why not? Because that is not, we don’t. It is not the way that we do it in Mexico. It’s only rice beans, the meat of your choice, the salsa avocado. And that’s it? Oh my God, but that is not Mexican food. I said, no, you are right. It’s not Mexican food, the authentic, it it’s Mexican food, but authentic Mexican food, you are here to get authentic Mexican food and they still don’t get it. And you know, what is the worst thing? What the worst thing is that I know that Mexican food is a very good business. When they said that’s a Mexican restaurant, let’s go that. And they spend a lot of money for eating Mexican food, but to serve authentic Mexican food and especially home made there is nobody, but
Denzil Mohammed:
I love how you stick to your guns. You know, keep it authentic Mexican, despite what the customer may think that they want or may expect. But you are actually a lawyer in your previous life in Mexico. Yeah. So how come this drastic change of course in your life?
Julie King:
Completely. My dear in Mexico, my husband used to tell me that I was a big shot because I used to be the legal director for the Holidays hotel chain in Mexico City.
Denzil Mohammed:
Wow.
Julie King:
That was beautiful. It was an incredible, incredible job. I loved it. I was traveling. I used to talk to ministers, you know, in the Mexican government, even with the president, we’d have breakfast and meetings and things like that with the ambassador of the United States, big people, you know, and I was only in those days, 27 years old, but I was a big shock. Like my, like my told me that was my best, best job I ever had because I enjoy it. It made me really responsible. But then I got married. I met my husband and he, he was American an American officer, the Navy American officer, we got married and then I have to quit my job to come to the states and live in the states. But yeah, I was a big shot.
Denzil Mohammed:
Arguably, you’re still a big shot now, “Momma” King. So take us back to life in Mexico City.
Julie King:
Beautiful. Of course. I mean it like in your country, you know, my country is Mexico and it is, it was so nice, so beautiful because all the families in those days, they are very conservatives. They are all the schools. So we’re very educated that we didn’t have the rich people, medium class or the poor ones. Everybody was the same, the same thing. And we used to go everybody to the same official school. We didn’t have private school. Everybody, you, you could know your, your friends, your neighbors, and everybody was a family. And that’s the way we grew up. And I love it. And that’s why we are, I am very, very attached to my country because I love my country a lot because of all my, the memories that I have when I was a kid with all my friends that I still have, my friendship still exists with those guys.
Julie King:
And we had a very good friends and we have incredible memories when we get together. And we go like, remember what we were used to do in the kindergarten, or remember what we used to do in the elementary school. And this is a real life. And I, you a secret idea. All the immigrants come to the United States because they have a big dream, which they call the American dream. You know what being in the states is not my dream. It’s my nightmare. Why? Because I really suffered a lot when I came to the states, even when I was married and I was living in Texas, I moved, we moved from Mexico to Texas. And then when I moved to Boston with my daughter, oh my God, it was a nightmare because I received such an insult that people was extremely right now is better.
Julie King:
But in those days they could, everybody could insult you and nobody say anything to you. It was really hard to me getting into the Bostonian’s life because they, it is not easy for them to open. It’s so difficult. And, and as a woman, you know, single mother be by myself and myself and in Mexico. I used to have a lot of friends, my family, my support, my business, as a lawyer. And in here, it was horrible. For example, let me tell you, in Mexico, we have a beautiful house and easily have it. And it is a big house with garden and for bedrooms and living room, a huge living room or whatever. But it’s, I have my house in here. I didn’t know how the rents were. And I have to go into a little bitty place with two small bedrooms. And I was like, oh my God.
Julie King:
It was the first time I used to live in an apartment. Then in Mexico, I have my daughter’s nanny and my, and the people who help me in the house and my gardener and my driver, because like my husband said, I was a big shot, you know? And in here we are not used to do anything, but the problem is that we, we are not used to clean the house or we are not used to wash the dishes or to wipe the clothes. We are not used to that things, especially because I was having my daughter’s nanny. When we move me and my daughter to the states, I said, okay, I don’t mind. I’m going to get somebody to clean my house. And just to get a person, she charge me like $200 in those days for cleaning my house and washing my clothes. And I said, what two?
Julie King:
It was very expensive and I couldn’t afford it. So besides working and getting up at three o’clock in the morning and coming back and be washing my day, I have to clean my house. I took to watch dishes to go. It has been a nightmare. My dear, and I didn’t know your regulations in the states. There is a lot of regulations, completely different, like my country. And I was like crazy. I was crying every day. I was really bad and nobody could help me. But at the same time, in the meantime, I was opening my way to the being in Boston. I found good people that was welcome me. And probably they feel sorry for me, you know, because I was, I don’t know. I was really lost, lost being by myself and my daughter
Denzil Mohammed:
Without a solid support network. You’re really just on your own, not having family around is, and this is why family reunification is so important to the American immigration system, because we need our families there. We need our parents, our kids cuz that’s that what, that’s, what we rely on. We don’t have anything else to rely on. Right? So I can imagine how difficult that must be. And a lot of Americans don’t realize that when immigrants move here, they often take a step down. You know, your first job is not gonna be anything like the job that you had in your home countries. You have to work yourself back up. Even for you as a lawyer, you would have to retake all your law law years of law school similar for doctors who have to redo residencies 20 years ago, they would’ve been markedly fewer opportunities from the SBA, from different lending organizations. I’m sure a lot of discrimination with banks. How, how did you do it? How did you start this business? How, how many times did you fail?
Julie King:
Well, you say it right with, without family with no help. With not somebody to, to put my head on the shoulder and cry with doesn’t receiving any advice or at least welcome home or nothing. I didn’t have in my food. I couldn’t find good Mexican food in Boston. So I said, oh my God, no. And every time I wanted to go and have some breakfasts or some, some kind of my food, you know, we were me and my daughter were so sad and very disappointed that I said, okay, I’m going to show these people. What is the authentic Mexican food? Because I didn’t like the way they were serving the Mexican food. So that’s why it make me start my business. How all they, God knows. Because to be honest with you, I thought to come and work as a lawyer in the states and you just said, right?
Julie King:
I said, I don’t care. I’m going to work as a lawyer because I am a good lawyer. And when I went to apply for the first job, they requested my license and I gave them the one in Mexico and they said, what is this? You cannot work in here with that. I said, so what do you mean? I am a lawyer. Yeah. Wonderful. But you need to request your license. I said, and where do I gotta go and get it? And they told me, you gotta go to the, to the school. I said, what do you mean to the school? Yeah. You have to, you have to start your, your lawyer school again to get your license. And in these days
Denzil Mohammed:
That was an option.
Julie King:
It wasn’t like now that in, in less than six months, you can get your license. In those days, you have to go to the school for three years. And then I said, oh my God. And what do I do? I raise my daughter. And I, I, I take care of my daughter or I go to the school and pay for my school. And one day my, my sister took some vacations and she came to visit me in Uber. And we were walking by Google center and I saw this little bit place, very nice place. And I said, look, there is a playlist. Let’s go see how it looks inside. And we both were seen through the window, like, oh my God, this is a restaurant. And this and that. And look at it, got chairs and tables and a counter. And she said, do you think that it could be a good, a good place?
Julie King:
So you can set a business? I said, my God, I don’t have any money. How can I start a business? Why do you go and ask how much they want to have for rent? So I went next door and it was a laundry. And I asked to the guy, I said, do you know somebody who can gimme information about the place next door? What do you want to know? I said, I would like to know how much is the rent and what do they need to, what are the requirements? And I would like to know who do I have to talk? What do you wanna to, what do you have the place for? And I said, okay. I would like to have a Mexican restaurant in there. Oh, wow. It used to be like what they call it? Rose beef. Yeah. It was a rose beef place, but the guy couldn’t pay the rent and he left everything.
Julie King:
I said, are you kidding me? I would like to talk to the owner to the landlord. And he said, I am the landlord. And how much do you want for rent? And guess what? He said, $500. I said, what? 500, go ahead. I will help you to grow. What I did was a dream. God helped me and my, my, my sister stayed there for three months and we both cleaned the restaurant painted. And we, but of course, I didn’t know the requirements. These guy told me that I sit and use the license that were for the grocery place. And I believe him because he was the landlord. But when I tried to open the restaurant, I remember this day I was on my knees, watching the floor and cleaning everything. And we painted the chairs and it was so bright, so beautiful. Red collar, jello, color, yellow, Navy blue.
Julie King:
And it started looking so beautiful. And then I was on my knees, cleaning the floor. And when I saw a pair of shoes and saw pants, I pick up my face and I said, oh, I’m sorry. We are not open yet. And he said, and I, and he told me, and I don’t think that you will open for a while. You said you are going to have a Mexican restaurant. And this is for another restaurant. I said, yeah. So what do I have to do? And here he is. He said, I am from the battlefield. You need to go the permit to the neighborhood. You need to get a meeting. You need to apply for your license. That took me three months to get everything ready. In October of 1999, the first October, the October, the first I could open my location. And that’s the way we started.
Denzil Mohammed:
Wow. That is such an ordeal. I know that you ended up having to close that location. You opened another one in Woburn, and then you close that and opened up your first Boston location in beacon hill, out of a gas station. And now you’re on water street in the financial district. You have come a long way. How has your how has your cafe been received by the financial district?
Julie King:
I have a lot when I was in, in my location. I have a lot of people coming from, from Boston and the surrounding areas, Boston, Lexington, Arlington, Stoneham rock the everywhere. And I have a line on the door trying to, to, to get inside. And then it was incredible, beautiful, beautiful place, really. So we grew up and then when we ended up in beacon hill in the little gas station, the people in Beacon hill of course made, I mean, just the rich people lives in Beacon hill, but they were so nice and beautiful to me because I don’t know why everybody said that I am a funny person, but I am not funny, whatever I am like, I am a very honest and person. I see you. And I tell you, and I talk to you with the truth. And I met Congressman for the English, very rich people director from the banks from big companies. And when I saw them to me, they were not the rich people living in beacon hill. They were my friends, you know, like you and I talking, and to me, everybody is the same. And they was having a ball with me and we become good friends and they were helping me. And they were happy with the food and they were really taking care of us. That’s when I start being a really happy person with a neighbor who, because they accept us. Incredible. Incredible good.
Denzil Mohammed:
So you, you have stated in the past that your mission is to not only bring authentic Mexican food to new England, but also culture to educate your customers about the real history, culture and lifestyle of Mexico. Why is this your mission? Why, why do you think that’s
Julie King:
Important? Because for example, I give you a little example. Everybody goes crazy about cinco de Mayo and cinco de Mayo is just, we want a little bit battle, that’s it? And it’s not as I, I mean, it is important, but not in the way that is in here. We really appreciate our independence day. And it’s a big thing in Mexico, but the cinco de mayo is nothing, you know, and when I moved to Boston and I start finding out that cinco de mayo called wow, cinco de mayo. Wow. I said, wait a second. But you know, what is, and I was the first person that in the local TV, I told them cinco de mayo is nothing important. So please stop treating us like if it was someone independence day, Cinco de mayo is gringo de mayo.
Denzil Mohammed:
You’ve expressed tremendous pride in this interview about your home country in or your home country, Mexico. Is it possible for you to love or for anyone to love two countries, two cultures at the same time,
Julie King:
It’s not possible. <Laugh>
Denzil Mohammed:
Really
Julie King:
Let me tell you. I born in Mexico city, I was raised in our lost and with a love of family all together. And like I told you, in the beginning, we were exactly the same, but we were taught to respect our father and mother to love our family. And to be quiet whenever they call our attention, we, I didn’t grow up with a cell phone with a game boy or with a big machines. And we didn’t play the all day long in the TV. Here, everybody is doing their own stuff. They don’t get together. And if they go together, the parties, you know, they are always drinking. And to me to be here seeing different aggressive things, it is like I cannot get it. I cannot, I just cannot get it. I feel so sorry for all the kids that they don’t have the education, that they deserve to have because the father is working.
Julie King:
The mother is working and nobody’s taking care of them that they are not growing a, a good families together with values, but it is very difficult to love one country and to love the other one in the same way. Because just for one thing, I born in one place, not born in the states. I feel extremely respect for this country, which offers you many, many things. And I love it because I have to respect my second home and I have to respect and love the country that it give me my business and it helped me to grow. But in here, when we came, it was a big change. And I in a state to feel like happy I was suffering. But at the same time, I feel welcome because this was my husband’s country. And I work of this country as mine, but I cannot feel the same love that I have for my country, because I grew up in my country with probably with not too much money, but I got it with too much love. And in this country, I work so hard. I cry a lot. I make myself like my second home. I love Boston because it’s a beautiful place. I love it. But I still miss Mexico. It is like mixed feelings, you know?
Denzil Mohammed:
Oh, I totally get it. I totally get it. That was very heartfelt and very thoughtful. Thank you very much for opening up your heart and telling us your journey and your story. I was very moved by it. I think that this is gonna reach many Americans and they’re gonna learn so much more, not just about Mexican culture, but about the idea of the immigrant and the kinds of conflicts and stressors and things that, that we have to go through starting AF fresh in a new place. Thank you so much. Julie King, owner and founder of Villa Mexico Cafe in Boston’s financial district. Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast.
Julie King:
God bless you. And thank you for this opportunity.
Denzil Mohammed:
Jobmakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and the immigrant learning center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s beautiful and complex story of immigrant entrepreneurs. Remember, you can subscribe to Jobmakers, apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another Jobmakers.
Recent Episodes:
This week on “The Learning Curve,” co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Margaret “Macke” Raymond, founder and director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University. She shares some of the major highlights from Hoover’s recent Education Summit that featured a wide variety of national and international experts. They discuss the reasons for persistent problems, even after several federal efforts, with American students’ performance on important exams such as NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA, and the best path forward for state and federal education reforms. They discuss the shift in political support for charter schools, and the outlook for expansion among charters as well as private school choice programs. Dr. Raymond offers thoughts on the implications of the successful U.S. Supreme Court decision on Espinoza, and the likelihood of another victory in the Carson v. Makin case.
Stories of the Week: In Rhode Island, a federal lawsuit over whether there is a constitutional right to an adequate civics education has led to an agreement to improve instruction. States such as Texas and California are directing portions of the $350 billion in federal COVID relief aid to create or expand service and conservation corps programs.
Guest:
Dr. Margaret “Macke” Raymond has served as the Director of CREDO since its inception. She has steered the group to national prominence as a rigorous and independent source for policy and program analysis. She has done extensive work in public policy and education reform, and is currently researching the development of competitive markets and the creation of reliable data on program performance. Macke also leads CREDO in investigating the effectiveness of public charter schools. Prior to joining Stanford in 2000, she held faculty positions in the political science and economics departments at the University of Rochester. Macke also worked for a number of years in the telecommunications industry and was President of Raymond Associates, a private consulting company specializing in public policy research projects and telecommunications policy formulation, from 1985 to 2000.
The next episode will air on Weds., June 22nd, with Dr. Deborah McGriff, a former Managing Partner with NewSchools Venture Fund and a former urban superintendent.
Tweet of the Week:
Think learning loss will just vanish? Think it will vanish for all kids the same way? This report from @vkoganpolisci suggests otherwise. https://t.co/tmxJddstDc pic.twitter.com/6nq70gBd2r
— Robin Lake now at Threads (@RbnLake) June 10, 2022
News Links:
‘Democracy in peril’: Agreement seeks to bolster civics education in RI public schools
State and local governments are leading the way on service programs
Read a Transcript of This Episode
Please excuse typos.
[00:00:00] Hello listeners.
[00:00:25] GR: This is Gerard Robinson. Talking to you from beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. It is always beautiful in Charlottesville, but it’s always even, I would say more beautiful to have conversations with Cara about education, about social policy, about economics, about charter schools, about voting, about a lot of things.
[00:00:44] And so to make a beautiful mind, even better, we have to welcome.
[00:00:49] Cara: Hello, Gerard, thank you for that beautiful introduction. I, wanna go to beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. I’m still waiting for my invitation, but we’ll leave that there. Um, It’s [00:01:00]
[00:01:00] GR: well, well, well listeners, we should realize that Gerard in fact, invited Kara to a very exclusive meeting at the Institute in Charlottesville and the campus, or I just said the grounds of UVA.
[00:01:11] But she was so busy working to save the children, which I understand she could not make it, but one of her colleagues came in her stands. So it’s not from lack of, of trial,
[00:01:24] Cara: but you’re correct. I would say said, colleague begged me, please let me go. Because it was such a cool convening. So I’ll give you props for that. I’ll, have to make it to the next one. you know, what’s going on here in, in it is beautiful in Boston today. It’s not always we’re in the throes of the last week of school, Gerard.
[00:01:37] And let me tell you. I can’t decide if I’m ready for the, just the last week of school to be over or school to be over, because it feels
[00:01:44] like a
[00:01:45] Cara: sprint. It is a sprint to the finish line. Nobody’s doing anything except bothering mommy and , and, and our school has, which has been very locked down is finally.
[00:01:56] Thankfully opening things up to parents. And I have a daughter [00:02:00] who is graduating sixth grade when we were kids. I don’t, feel like we graduated from anything but high school, but we’re gonna go celebrate that. Well, listen, Jared, I would ramble on about beauty and coming to visit you and my personal life, but we’ve got some stories to get to, and I know you’re fired up about yours, which means I’m gonna go first.
[00:02:18] I’m gonna make you . But I, I love this. Blog out , from Brookings, it’s written by Martha. it’s entitled state and local governments are leading the way on service programs. And this is all about how many state and local governments are using those. Do you remember those? A R P American rescue plans, state and local fiscal recovery funds.
[00:02:43] Mm-hmm right. Nobody talks. Out these, we had talked about these a little bit on the learning curve because we were thinking, oh, you know, there are certain educational functions that states can use these for, but this blog is all about how a lot of states. Are [00:03:00] using these funds to expand service cores and especially conservation cores.
[00:03:05] So these are programs similar to AmeriCorps and Hey, peace Corps. Let’s go back to the sixties and think about it, right? Mm-hmm . But these are programs in which you sign up to serve your community for a defined period of time. And then you can work on projects that add societal value, like things like, some kids are working on actually what this article points out, what this blog points out.
[00:03:26] A lot of localities are using this for climate stuff. So they’re having cores that are focused on, climate mitigation by insulating homes and weatherizing homes and climate friendly landscaping. I need somebody to come to my home and just do landscaping. You can make it climate friendly. Right, but it’s really an interesting article.
[00:03:45] And one of the things that I appreciated about this is it points out that these programs are actually a really good return on investment for local communities. And that’s for a couple of reasons. Number one, communities are getting work. I mean, so [00:04:00] people do this in exchange for a pretty small living stipend, but the, people who participate are usually young, they’re looking for a career pathway.
[00:04:07] Some of them will end. In higher education after sort of putting in their time, some of them can mitigate the cost of higher education with some of these programs, but they’re doing things where they’re really giving back to the community. So you can think about a program like AmeriCorps. I know we have a program here city year got a lot of it’s funding from AmeriCorps, right.
[00:04:26] And you go in and kids are tutoring in schools. So that’s another educational use of. This article points out that for every dollar, the federal government puts into these programs, they’re getting a return of $17 and 30 cents. That’s a pretty good return on investment if you ask me. And I think that there’s just a lot of good things to be said about these programs, but also questions about Do we need always to think about the federal government as the lever that needs to be pulled to keep these programs sustained and to get these going, because there was a big [00:05:00] resurgence in these with the state and local fiscal recovery funds.
[00:05:04] Previous to that you’ll remember previously pandemic America funding, for example, had been cut. I know the church I used to chair. We relied on AmeriCorps members and we couldn’t after a while because the funding had been cut, but you can use folks in these community programs. To meet everything from long term needs.
[00:05:22] Like the ones that I just pointed out, climate change to meeting emergency needs such as during I don’t know a pandemic. So we think that it raises some really interesting questions. Martha does in this blog about how can states think about leveraging these programs or even cities leveraging programs like this in the absence of huge packages from the federal government.
[00:05:42] And I wanted to say, Gerard, I know I’m sucking a lot of bear, so I’m gonna let you get to your story. One of the things I love about this is something that I think you and I, and I know listeners of the podcast and others have been thinking a lot about lately, and that is just. How much people need community right now [00:06:00] and how people need to feel like they are members of a community right now.
[00:06:04] I mean, we’re reading it and we’re seeing it. Many of us are seeing it, unfortunately in our lives in people with high rates of depression. And, we know that suicide rates are going up. I know, this year, Many of us have lost, loved ones under pretty unimaginable circumstances. We see it in kids acting out in school.
[00:06:22] We see it in people leading their jobs in droves because of many different reasons, but among them a feeling of burnout, of anxiety, of other things. And I think that. I don’t know for any of us who have ever worked in a situation like this, there’s a really visceral feeling of when you are part of something bigger than yourself.
[00:06:41] You know, some people get this from organized religion. Other people get this from other organized civic groups. And this is part of, I think, what. These localized programs can do is they bring together community members, a sense of giving back, doing something meaningful. We can talk a lot. And I know you do at AI about the [00:07:00] value of work and the meaning of work.
[00:07:02] And although this blog didn’t talk about that, it really left me thinking, these civic programs and sort of this rebuilding of. Civic society and civil society in this really active way is so important in this time. So I loved this article and it makes me think about I don’t know, for a long time I’ve been volunteering at uh, food bank.
[00:07:24] And in the past couple months, I have to admit that because my kids have been so busy with their various sports. We haven’t been going on the weekends. I read this article and I thought you’re getting back there next weekend. It’s the beginning of summer. Time to go. So, anyway, Gerard, how about you?
[00:07:38] Have you ever participated in a program like.
[00:07:42] GR: I never participated personally, but I had an opportunity to work as a coach or to work as an adult lead. So for example, always had the almost 20 years ago for two summers, I worked with students uh, who stayed at UVA on grounds [00:08:00] as a part of the outward bound program.
[00:08:01] Our brown program is part of a larger trio program. Started, decades ago, basically very similar to the idea of AmeriCorps is to invest federal funds into young people, to not only inculcate a spirit of service learning and giving but also to give them an opportunity to meet students.
[00:08:20] Often from similar economic situations across race across urban and rural guidelines here in Virginia, and to come and spend 1, 2, 3, 4 weeks with each other in different programs. So that was a great opportunity for me to see that university of Virginia in fact, has one of the country’s oldest upward bound programs.
[00:08:39] And so was glad to be a part of that. When I was in Florida, as well as Virginia knew a number of people who were AmeriCorps. Workers but also people who worked in state departments who actually invested funds or oversaw people who were involved. So I’m a big fan. And one of my early mentors was Dr.
[00:08:57] Samuel Proctor. He was at one [00:09:00] time a pastor. At Abdin and Baptist church in New York. But he was also the first director of AmeriCorps appointed by John F. Kennedy. So those programs ring well, to me, two things come to mind when you mentioned the American recovery and reinvestment act of 2009, we had.
[00:09:17] similar conversation with Margarite Rosa and a couple of other guests about this topic because you and I both know this isn’t the first time we’ve had a massive investment of federal dollars during a time of economic uncertainty, and that we should try to learn lessons from that. Number two, we actually referenced on this show, another Brookings report, which actually identified lessons learned.
[00:09:42] So. Superintendents governors teachers and others who are involved with handling multimillion dollars, all of a sudden coming to the district what they can do as someone who is a supporter of our free enterprise system, someone who likes entrepreneurial thinking. I like the idea of seeing, did you say a [00:10:00] 17 to one return on investment?
[00:10:02] Ah, yeah. I mean, if you and I put a dollar in and had $17 return, someone would say that was a very good financial investment. Yeah. I see this as a very good human capital investment. I also like the idea of looking for public private partnerships. There’s some states, in fact who like to get a public match or a private sector match, or they can combine money because you’re right.
[00:10:25] There are a lot of reasons and I’m a supporter of the federal role in education. A smaller F compared to the better Robinson professor Robinson and UVA. Who’s a bigger F than me, but we both believe there’s a role there, but I also want to see the for-profit sector play a role, not just for their money, but to be invited in for their ideas, because I think a true public private partnership.
[00:10:46] Shouldn’t be. Public will run it private, give us money and then shut up and stay in your lane. Right. So I like the idea. I’m a supporter and glad to see that program moving forward. I will say that if people are looking for ways to support public [00:11:00] private partnerships one thing to do is to look.
[00:11:02] And whether or not your state is investing money into national teachers of the year North Carolina continues to have more nationally board certified teachers than anyone else. They also have a financial investment that goes along with that. Some states had to get rid of that investment because.
[00:11:18] Money was tight. So as we think about this, I think we should learn lessons from programs like this and see what we can do to support those in that program. So thank you so much for that story. My story’s a little different it’s about civics and it’s about a state. I don’t think we’ve actually.
[00:11:34] Spent any time talking about on learning curve. And so this was a learning curve for me as well. So in 2018, a group of parents and students in Rhode Island decided to Sue the state and the governor, well, the governor being the state and the education officials in federal court, because they said that.
[00:11:54] Rhode Island was not doing a great job to prepare students to fully [00:12:00] participate in civic life. And they asked the federal court if they could actually get a constitutional right, that all students in public schools in Rhode Island would have access to civic education. And so I went to court at the first level, the district level, us district judge, William Smith , actually dismissed the lawsuit.
[00:12:17] He said, while he understands the claim is desirable and even in central, he said for citizens to understand civic responsibility is really important. He said, but it’s not something that the us constitution contemplates mandates. So naturally moved to the us circuit court of appeals, which is in your city of Boston and the circuit court actually upheld the ruling of the district judge.
[00:12:41] They said that the defendants brought a good case, but again, it’s not something that the Supreme court can do. In fact, the court went further to say that defendants told the appellant court that binding legal precedent has established that there’s no fundamental right to education in the constitution.[00:13:00]
[00:13:00] So we’ve had on this show, a number of people who’ve talked about the Rodriguez case uh, it was a federal case decided in 1973, by the Supreme court, which basically ruled there was no federal right. To education. And this was part of a large wave of school finance lawsuits across the country, California, Texas New Jersey.
[00:13:20] Now, the reason I mentioned New Jersey is that Michael rebel and a group of others have been part of a number of lawsuits in different states to try and get. A federal right to education. Well, this take was a little unique in the fact that they said, well, let’s go for a constitutional right to civics education.
[00:13:38] So district court said, no, appellant court said no. The attorney for the parents and the students said, you know what, maybe I should take to this, to the Supreme court. Well, in the interim, the department of education in Rhode Island said that both sides the plaintiffs and the defendants decided to come together and he reached an, a.
[00:13:56] On how they wanna strengthen civics education in Rhode Island.[00:14:00] Governor Dan MCee actually signed legislation last year to require public schools, students to demonstrate proficiency as defined by local school districts in civics education, and to at least have or participate in one civics project beginning 20 22, 20 23.
[00:14:16] So there are at least three things that stand out for me as relates to this article one, here’s an example. Of when people use the court to get administrative agencies and executive agencies to do something. So even though there wasn’t a win in the court the executive branch bringing the governor’s office said, Hey, let me sign legislation.
[00:14:36] And then you had the regulatory agency, department of ed. Working with the plaintiffs and the defendant say, listen, let’s get to the table and see what we can do. So when I work with undergrad and grad students, when I talk about the history of school reform, this is one example of how people will use the court to wink at other governmental bodies.
[00:14:54] They do some work. Number two, I think it was really interesting. The role that the term [00:15:00] democracy in peril played. In fact, that’s the opening title for the article. the attorney for the plaintiffs basically said, listen, we need to do this in order for us to teach student civics and teach them responsibilities and one example.
[00:15:16] And so I think that’s important. So that’s my. Number two, many people here know that I’m a big supporter of civics education. In fact, today June 14th, a bipartisan group of us senators reintroduced the landmark civic secures democracy act, which would authorize in historic investment to support K12 civic education and American history.
[00:15:38] I’ve had a chance in 2020 to write a piece I published at AAI. About that piece of legislation and another one in a Virginia newspaper. So I’m pretty clear where I stand with civics education. So listeners, let me give you a quick overview of the state of civic education in the United States, based upon a 2016 report published by education commission of the states.
[00:15:59] [00:16:00] 47 states in DC address civics education in state or local statute. Every state requires students to complete coursework in civics education or social studies in order to graduate 37 states require students to demonstrate proficiency. Through assessment in civics or social studies, 17 states include civic learning and this accountability framework.
[00:16:23] And lastly, every state includes civic learning or social studies in the standard curriculum. I’m on the board of I civics uh, it’s nonprofit organization founded by former us Supreme court justice, Andrew Day O’Connor we work to provide a civics curriculum across the nation. With more than 120,000 teachers actively using our resources to more than 7.5 million students doing the same in all 50 states.
[00:16:48] So I am sure our listeners in Rhode Island I have already reached out to is civics. Or if you’re not familiar, we have partners, , in your state doing work. But let me go to the third part. And this is more about what I would call semis[00:17:00] the symbolic use of language.
[00:17:01] And so when we’d say democracy in peril the attorney. Upon hearing that there’s possibly not gonna be a win in the case that side of the fence said, listen, democracy is in peril. And all we have to do is take a look at what took place on the us capital steps January 6th. And I’m in agreement.
[00:17:21] I’m already on the record of saying that that riot was a tragedy on several fronts. And of course, right now, Congress is taking a look at that. And if January 6th is going to serve as a platform to talk about responsibility, democracy, or democracy and peril. Why not also look at the riots that took place across the country, following the death of George Floyd.
[00:17:45] And let’s just put that in perspective in terms of numbers. So there’s a company called property claims services and it tracks insurance claims related to civil disorder across the country since 1950. As least right now in [00:18:00] 20 states, the damage from the riots that followed what took place, the death of George Floyd in current dollars, 1.2 billion.
[00:18:09] Well, let’s put that in context. That’s more damage in terms of property value than the Rio in 68 in Chicago. 68 in Baltimore, 67 in Newark, 77 in New York, 68 in Washington, 1980 in Miami, 67 in Detroit and 65 in LA combined. And so if we are to talk about riots and to use it as a way of talking about peril about.
[00:18:37] What we can do about responsibility and about government. I think we should also look at what took place in our cities across the country related to George Floyd. So that’s another place we should look, but it’s also worth noticing that in Providence at least according to a June 2nd 22 report a police cruiser was torched.
[00:18:56] Windows in businesses were shattered. 75 to a hundred [00:19:00] people actually stormed ’em all and looted about 12 to 18 businesses. So there’s a local example of what we could use at that time. 2020 to also talk about responsibility in government and from historical standpoints also worth noting that in 1824, as well as 1831 if we’re to talk about white mobs, January 6th, there were white mobs in 1824 and 1831 in Providence who stormed and racked black homes and businesses historical way of also using that city race and white mobs to talk about government and civics.
[00:19:37] So I’m all about civics. I’m about using riots. If that is a vehicle in which we talk about civics responsibility, government and building a better nation, but let’s not cherry pick which ones we want to use and which ones we wanna.
[00:19:50] Cara: well, I’ll keep my remarks brief. Sure. Because we’ve got a fabulous guest waiting for us, but couldn’t agree more.
[00:19:56] One of the things that’s so interesting about your, thank you for [00:20:00] your detailed history, you always do such a good job of, bringing the facts. You’re like an encyclopedia is just this idea that I don’t think, civics education is really part of the broader American conversation and not only the examples that you gave, but just so many other facets of American.
[00:20:16] Right now and what we’ve come to accept it as normal in American life. Unfortunate parts of what we’ve come to accept as normal lead me to believe that civics education not only incredibly important, it’s increasingly important. Yep. Not just south of here in Rhode Island, but everywhere across this country Gerard, thank you for that.
[00:20:35] we’ve got, like I said, a great guest waiting for us, a friend of the show, someone we’ve talked to before, but we’ve got new, fresh questions for this person. There’s a lot on our mind. We’re gonna be speaking with Margaret Mackey, Raymond, and she is the director of credo, the center for research and educational outcomes at Stanford right after.[00:21:00]
[00:21:20] Learning curve
[00:21:20] Cara: listeners. We are really happy to have back. Dr. Margaret “Macke” Raymond. She has served as the director of credo since its inception. And I told you at the outset, what CREDO stands for, does the center for research? On educational outcomes. She has steered the group to national prominence as a rigorous and independent source for policy and program analysis.
[00:21:41] She has done extensive work in public policy and education reform and is currently researching the development of competitive markets. And the creation of reliable data on program performance. Macke also leads credo in investigating the effectiveness of public charter schools prior to joining Stanford.
[00:21:58] In 2000, she held faculty [00:22:00] positions in the political science and economies department at the university of Rochester. Macke also worked for a number of years in the telecommunications industry and was president of Raymond associates, a private consulting company, specializing in public policy research projects and telecommunications policy formulation from 1985 to 2000.
[00:22:19] I did not remember the telecom part of your background, Macke and interesting time to be thinking about digital divide telecom. So much of what’s going on, but I dig. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
[00:22:34] Margaret: Thank you very much for having me. I’m very excited to be here today.
[00:22:37] Cara: Yeah. we’re excited to hear what you have to say.
[00:22:39] So, I’m curious, just to get started right off the bat, you recently hosted an education summer at Hoover institution that featured a wide variety of national and international experts. Talk to us about what happened there. give us some of the big highlights.
[00:22:56] Margaret: well, I’d be happy to, we were incredibly lucky [00:23:00] to catch the wave of people just starting to travel after months and months of, staying close to home.
[00:23:07] And so we decided that we would gather. Policy leaders from across the globe on the topic of the priorities and the urgency of really big change in K12 education, not only in the United States, but around the world. And the message that we heard was consistent across all different stakeholders who came either as audience or as speakers, which is that the problem.
[00:23:34] Of public education is under described and under defined and not taken sufficiently seriously. And the magnitude of the consequences of not addressing it are less well understood than they should be. And they are disastrous. So starting with that as a sort of basic premise across the summit we heard.
[00:23:57] Almost every single person in the room [00:24:00] and online on the zoom virtual conference, the urgency of creating enough coalition and willingness to change to really drive substantial revision of our system. And if not to our peril and the per of the students who are in school,
[00:24:18] Wow. Do
[00:24:19] Cara: you think it took a pandemic to spur that urgency on to get people to really realize what trouble we’re.
[00:24:27] Margaret: I think that we have seen something similar in other disaster scenarios. Obviously there was hurricane Katrina and we had similar hurricanes in other parts , of the country. we’ve had wildfires that have closed down schools. We’ve never had a disaster at this scale before.
[00:24:44] And I think the, scale of this actually created conditions where. Regular citizens, parents, neighbors, grandparents got to see what really was happening in schools or more specifically what wasn’t happening in [00:25:00] schools. And it caused both concern and mobilization on a scale that we’ve just never seen.
[00:25:05] Yeah. Yeah,
[00:25:06] Cara: no, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, looking at, and this, actually leads to the next question I wanna ask you, because I think that, from my perspective, obviously from your perspective or what you were hearing at your summit absolutely parents woke up, communities, woke up, saw under the hood and thought, oh my goodness, is this really what’s happening?
[00:25:24] some of the stories, I’m sure we could all tell. But at the same time, a lot of the narrative that we hear. From those who have a vested interest, right. In maintaining the status quo we should say, or the, or just don’t wanna see it is sort of like, well, we need more of this and we need more federal involvement.
[00:25:42] and on the one hand you’ve got this real grassroots, like revelation around like, no, we need some serious change. I’ll say you see some states passing, real parent centered reforms. We, we don’t know yet the extent to which those are gonna be effective. Right. But on the other hand, there’s this call.
[00:25:58] More and more involvement from the feds. I [00:26:00] wanna visit that notion of involvement from the federal government with you, because you are expert in understanding it. So in the past 30 years, we’ve seen huge policy changes, initiated perhaps by the federal government. Probably some for good and maybe some for not so good.
[00:26:17] So things like standards, accountability through standardized testing, obviously charter schools. And then we’ve got like more state. Reforms around private school choice, et cetera. So, but okay. With all of these reforms and we’ll get nap results soon. Right. But we’re still sort of like in this Midling place, nap results are either stagnant or going down, you see a couple bright lights in places like Mississippi with literacy, ?
[00:26:42] what is it that we are missing that we still continue to not serve so many kids? Is there anything that’s good. About federal education reform or are we, is it a loss? what do you see there?
[00:26:55] Margaret: Well, that’s a huge question and, I hope that we have all day to get at that but in the [00:27:00] same time that we do have, let me just , take a crack at it.
[00:27:02] I know that the average nap results and Tim’s and Piza results have not looked great. But I would also say that the innovations that you’re talking about both at the federal level and at the state level are really intended to set the conditions for change. And what’s ended up happening in the political realm is that those conditions have been undermined by.
[00:27:28] Folks who wanna maintain the status quo. They’re very , effective at the political maneuvering to dilute a lot of those. In spite of that, if you look at any one of these policies, you can actually see big variation in how well they’ve worked. And the thing that we haven’t done is we haven’t looked at the evidence where it has worked.
[00:27:50] Like let’s find out where. Accountability systems really did take root and make a difference. And there are several of them around the country, but we don’t look at [00:28:00] those. We don’t learn from them and we don’t try to redistribute that wealth of knowledge to get other folks to adapt, to be more like that.
[00:28:08] So I think that there’s a sort of a culpability in the effort. Effort is made effort is diluted. We don’t actually zero in on a continuous improvement style in any of these policies that we’ve had. And so they’re much more vulnerable to attack because at the average, it doesn’t look like much is happening.
[00:28:31] Oh,
[00:28:31] Cara: that’s fascinating. I mean, I would even point to thinking about state level reforms in which has seen great growth over time. Right? I think that one of the things to your point that you can point to in Florida and not everything’s perfect. Right. But they’ve, gotten a lot better is to a greater extent than other places, this continuity of approach, like we’re going to expand choice and we’re going to, to some extent.
[00:28:52] maintain a system of accountability. I would love to know your thoughts on where we’re at with accountability, because we spent a long time getting those reforms in [00:29:00] place, and it feels very much like they’re being rolled back. Maybe you can share those thoughts with me while all talking about some states that you think are doing it.
[00:29:09] Well, some commissioners that are, holding the line on the reforms
[00:29:12] Margaret: that do work. So a moment on the accountability. I do think that the pandemic I think legitimately during the pandemic, we put a pause on accountability like that. Wasn’t the thing we should be focusing on right now, but what that did then was to also give.
[00:29:28] Opponents of accountability, a really long runway to get their act together, to maintain the suspension of accountability. And they’re doing that in a variety of ways. They’re trying to weaken the testing systems. They’re trying to continue a moratorium of school quality reviews. They’re trying to eliminate any kind of consequences from any of Thea plans.
[00:29:49] And so I think that. The idea that somehow schools are no longer responsible for the product that they produce is gaining traction. And I think that that’s a [00:30:00] 180 degree misstep in a bad direction. When I think about the places around the country that are, not doing that. Of course, I think of Florida, of course, I think of Mississippi.
[00:30:11] I think of Louisiana where they are. Much more innovative in the way that they think about organizing systems. You know, we have new Orleans, which is an all charter district, but they also think about allowing good schools more discretion and allowing underperforming schools, very little discretion, very directed choices that they have to make in things like curriculum in things like.
[00:30:34] Allowing for additional time in school and additional days of school in the school year. So I do think that there are places around the country where smart minded people are systems oriented. They’re getting the right pieces in place and they’re sticking with them. As you said earlier.
[00:30:51] GR: So M I have a question dealing with American presidents.
[00:30:55] And so when you think about bill Clinton and the role that he played [00:31:00] in creating what is now charter school week the office at the federal level, dealing with investments. And so from Clinton forward you had presidents who supported charter schools. Now with the five administration, there’s been a recent break with his democratic brethren Clinton and Obama on their stance.
[00:31:17] And we see even some changes with some democratic politicians. Where do you see charter schools heading over the next five years? Given this current state of affairs?
[00:31:27] Margaret: Yeah, that’s a wonderful question jar. I don’t think that it’s a monolithic solution. we are going to see. States where there is a very, very strong democratic presence that is focused on supporting unions and labor.
[00:31:44] We’re gonna see the charter school environment weaken in those places. And that’s a real. Sad thing because those places are states that educate lots and lots and lots of kids and charter schools in those environments actually are producing superior outcomes [00:32:00] compared to the district schools in the same communities.
[00:32:03] So I’m, prepared and pessimistic about those situations. So I’m expecting weakening in Washington. California, for sure. I think Illinois, New York is a toss up. New York city is very strongly going in a charter school direction, but it’s not because of policy it’s because of philanthropy. And the rest of the state is, holding, but I’m not sure that that can hold for long.
[00:32:26] And then you’ve got places where. There’s already been damage like Massachusetts and the walking away of fiscal parody in a number of the states , in the Midwest. So I think that in some places we’re gonna see the charter school environment . Get softer. I don’t think that’s going to be universal.
[00:32:45] I do think that there are states that are very strong on charters. They have seen the evidence. So I don’t expect places like Louisiana, Missouri. I don’t expect Florida to back off. I don’t expect. Indiana Ohio to back off of charter [00:33:00] schools at all. And I think there’s gonna be a good opportunity for charter schools to start sharing what they do.
[00:33:07] There’s huge pressure now because of COVID to basically take what you know, and share it. And. Charters across the country are being asked to be partners with district schools to try to broaden the range of education options that kids have coming out of the pandemic. And so there are charter schools that are actually co-operating district schools.
[00:33:32] there are charter schools that are taking over district schools to run them. There are charter schools that are basically operating their own teacher training programs and are welcoming district teachers. So I think in some places, the boundary between charter schools and regular schools is gonna blur.
[00:33:49] I hope that that doesn’t get complicated in a political sense, but I think in the short term that that’s actually a good thing.
[00:33:56] GR: And thank you so much for bringing in [00:34:00] philanthropy because they’ve played at times a behind the seeds role, not in an nefarious way or anything in investing to move policy, talk to move schools and to move ideas.
[00:34:11] So we often overlooked that. Let me switch from the executive branch to the judicial branch. So over the last Few years 20 states have actually expanded or established a variety of private school choice programs. Mm-hmm . And when you look at the successful ruling, at least to some of us in the ESP Espinoza case, and we had ESP Espino on our show you couple that with growing parental dissatisfaction with traditional public schools under COVID, something you’ve mentioned, and the likelihood that another Supreme court case, this one coming out of Maine with Carson Vick.
[00:34:43] And, and if that let’s say goes the way reformers want. Where do you see private school choice heading?
[00:34:50] Margaret: Well, I think that it is very much a bull market for private school choice right now. I think we have as you said, broad to satisfaction, if you look at what happened with [00:35:00] enrollments, we are unable to account for over a million.
[00:35:04] In the last school year, we just simply don’t know what happened to them. Well, something is happening to them and programs like education, savings accounts and homeschooling and supported homeschooling, which I think is an emerging model where private schools are actually not accepting students into their school, but they are in fact providing educational resources so that families can homeschool that whole area.
[00:35:29] innovation I think is, ripe for further development. And I would expect to see at least a few more million kids in the next five years, moving out of public school and into private.
[00:35:39] GR: Yeah, that’ll be a monumental shift. Some of our colleagues America Federation for children, ed choice, mm-hmm center for education reform genie.
[00:35:47] We know that there’s at least a million students on the waiting list. And so of what you’re suggesting comes true, we would’ve accomplished in let’s say 24 months, what? 25 plus years of [00:36:00] efficacy and other work to get us to this point. Makes a lot of sense. when you think about right left coalition and reformers let’s take a look at this in terms of the, just the divide of where we are right now in American politics, charter schools in fact came about because of a diverse coalition of people, party, race, gender, public school teachers.
[00:36:23] In fact, in Minnesota and California played tremendous roles in getting. Charter schools off the ground and moving forward, when you think about the country, what do you see as being the most promising compromises, if any, that are going need to take place within our laws and policies to move us to
[00:36:42] Margaret: the next level.
[00:36:42] So I don’t think the game is actually at the political level. In the next period. And let me say a few more things about that and explain why I say that. I’ve been demoing this a lot of thought. I mean, it’s not just parents who got ticked off during the pandemic. There’s been a [00:37:00] lot of, new rumblings if you will.
[00:37:02] And I’m starting to see that there are really important stakeholder groups that live with the consequences. of K12 education policy, but have not yet taken a seat at the table. And let me give you a few examples of this. I think electeds in municipal government. So mayors county supervisors and so on they are required to live with the consequences.
[00:37:29] the folks who graduate from K12 schools in their communities are living in their communities and they are having to cope with the lack of preparation, the lack of employability, the lack of, ability to continue on as lifelong learners. And so I. There is in fact, a stakeholder group among electeds and municipal governments that could actually be a potent force in a coalition for reform.
[00:37:57] I think another one is the employment community, [00:38:00] local employers in the same communities that we were just speaking about, have to hire from that pool. And yet they’re not banging on the table and they should be. And I think as well, I think the sort of. Non-governmental organizations, the non-profits and the social service agencies who have to actually use community resources to continue to support folks.
[00:38:25] As a consequence of not being well prepared for life are another constituency that we never hear from. And yet. People are lining up outside their door, even more now as a result of the pandemic. So they’re a third stakeholder group parents. Obviously we talked about that’s a fourth stakeholder group.
[00:38:43] When I think about the possibility of lining up all those people on main street and getting them to lock hands and say, we’re mad as hell, and we’re not taking it anymore. I think we’ve got the possibility of some really serious coalitions for change.
[00:38:58] GR: That is one of the best [00:39:00] assessments of the different communities and roles and players that we need and stakeholders at the table that I’ve heard in a really long time.
[00:39:08] And when you mention business, yeah, I mean, people are going, for example, To college because they wanna get a job students who are enrolled in VO tech. And we had that conversation last week. A lot of them are going to get a job. And so employers are important and among the board of trustees for America succeeds, and that’s a nonprofit that works to harness the business community.
[00:39:30] So. That’s really, really good point. here’s just a, more of a reflective closeout question for you. Knowing what you do today, and there’s a Mackey and a Mac or Sally or Sam, who’s gonna listen to this, knowing what you know now, what would you tell yourself in 2000 when you were coming to Stanford to do this work?
[00:39:50] Margaret: I probably would’ve said ger your loins. It’s gonna be a whole lot harder than you expect. I would’ve said be very careful [00:40:00] about your opponents, keep your eye on them and make sure that you keep them close and never underestimate the power of individuals to come together and, to force change if we need it.
[00:40:13] And so I, continue to believe all of.
[00:40:17] GR: Thank you so much Mackey for joining us Kara and I, of course, looked forward to this conversation. And of course you exceeded all the great expectations we had for you. Keep up the good work at credo when you have another conference. Remember Kara and I Jamie really. Came back fired up from his trip to the bay area.
[00:40:36] And so, you know, you have a friend here with both of us. You also know that you have a platform. So keep up the good work and look forward to future conversations.
[00:40:44] Margaret: Thanks for your time today. Really enjoyed being with you. Take
[00:40:47] care
[00:40:48] Cara: Thank you, Macke.[00:41:00] [00:42:00] [00:43:00]
[00:43:11] GR: So listeners, my tweet of the week is from Robin Lake. She is a former guest. She is with the center on reinventing public education and here her tweet think learning loss will just vanish. Think it will vanish. For all kids the same way, this report, which she references suggests otherwise. So go to our webpage and take a look.
[00:43:34] Cara: Always bringing the good stuff. we’ve got some great, great reports. Gerard, next week, we’re gonna be speaking with somebody. I believe this person is a friend of yours. I think you used to work together. I might be wrong, but somebody I have long admired, we’re gonna be speaking with Deborah McGriff and she is a former managing partner with new schools’s venture fund, former urban superintendent ed reform.
[00:43:58] Wonk [00:44:00] queen among among many things. So really looking forward to that conversation. So am I, I, I bet you are well until next week, Gerard, please take care and thanks for will do.
[00:44:13] All
[00:44:14] GR: right. And congratulations to your daughter on finishing. You said the
[00:44:18] Cara: sixth grade at the Wellen Montessori school in Newton center, Massachusetts, the Wellen hour
[00:44:25] GR: and shout out to my daughter for graduating from the eighth grade.
[00:44:28] So good time for the Kara Gerard household. Awesome household. Love it. All right.
[00:44:34] Cara: Now just get my kindergartner on the road. Okay. take care of
[00:44:38] Gerard bye bye.[00:45:00] [00:46:00]
Recent Episodes
Culture and Recreation are among the most important services needed for the wellbeing of a community. Parks are grounds for socializing, playtime and community events and give residents the opportunity to build community spirit. The same goes for Cape Cod; but towns vary in the extent to which they provide these services. How does Barnstable County stack up?
Source: Pioneer Institute’s MassAnalysis website
As shown in the chart above, the towns with the highest per capita Culture and Recreation expenses were Truro, Wellfleet, Orleans, Chatham, and Harwich at $405, $387, $379, $284, and $254, respectively. Barnstable and Falmouth spent the most in the aggregate, despite having some of the lowest expenditures on a per capita basis.
Spending on culture and recreation hasn’t risen across all towns on the Cape in the past 10 years. Mashpee and Bourne recorded the lowest per capita expenses at $62 and $42, respectively. Additionally, Bourne spent the lowest portion of its overall budget on culture and recreation, a mere 1.3 percent. Interestingly, the town also reported no growth in per capita spending compared to 2010.
Chatham, which ranks fourth in culture and recreation expenses per capita, spent the highest percentage of total expenditures on the services, nearly 7 percent.
Only four towns saw contractions in spending compared to 2010: Brewster, Truro, Dennis, and Yarmouth; with Brewster ranking the highest at 68 percent and Dennis as the lowest at 2.5 percent.
Overall, the majority of towns saw growth, with Falmouth and Mashpee taking the lead at 63 percent and 40 percent, respectively. Culture and recreation expense amounted to over 5 percent of total spending in only 6 out of the 15 towns.
About the Author:
Etelson Alcius is a roger perry transparency intern with the Pioneer Institute. He is a recent graduate of Cathedral High School and incoming freshmen at the College of the Holy Cross, where he intends to double major in economics and computer science on a prelaw track. Feel free to reach out via email, linkedin, or write a letter to Pioneer’s Office in Boston.
Julie King Brings Authentic Mexican Cuisine to Boston
/in Economic Opportunity, Featured, JobMakers /by Editorial StaffThis week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Julie King, immigrant from Mexico and founder of Villa Mexico Café in the financial district of Boston. They discuss the challenges of re-launching a career in a new country. It’s not atypical for an immigrant to start at a lower rung of the economic and social ladder than they previously enjoyed – but it’s a win when they persevere despite the pains, and thrive. A powerful lawyer in Mexico City, Julie at first found the American Dream elusive, initially delivering newspapers at 3 am for work. Then, a new opportunity arose, driven by a yearning for real Mexican cuisine. Today, she is full of admiration and respect for the country that allowed her to become a successful business owner, as you’ll hear in this week’s JobMakers.
Guest:
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Read a Transcript of This Episode
Please excuse typos.
Denzil Mohammed:
I’m Denzil Mohammed and welcome to Jobmakers.
Denzil Mohammed:
Moving to a new country is usually hard, emotionally, financially, even health wise. And it’s not atypical for the immigrant to start at a lower rung of the economic and social ladder than they previously enjoyed. But it’s a win when he or she perseveres despite the pains, and is able to thrive for Julie King immigrant, from Mexico and founder of Villa Mexico Cafe in the financial district of Boston, that step down was steep. A powerful lawyer in Mexico city. She ended up delivering newspapers at 3:00 AM for work in the us, a widowed mother of one. The American dream to her was a nightmare. That was until an opportunity driven by a yearning for real Mexican food collided. Even then the nightmares didn’t entirely stop, but she kept at it. And after 20 something years is full of admiration and respect for the country that allowed her to become a business owner respect for sure, but maybe not love as she tells her tale. She gives a nuanced take on the idea that you can love both of your home countries. The same as you hear in this week’s job makers, Julie King, founder, and owner of Villa Mexico cafe, Water street, Boston. Welcome to the Jobmakers podcast. How are you?
Julie King:
Good. Good, good. Thank you, my dear, to be honest with you. I little tired because I have been working today since six o’clock in the morning.
Denzil Mohammed:
I was about to say it’s a Friday afternoon. You must be really exhausted. Tell us a little bit about your business and why do you think it’s special?
Julie King:
Okay. Villa Mexico Cafe started in 1999, because I wanted to show the people what is authentic Mexican food it’s special because we serve authentic Mexican food in this place. And since I open it day one, they know that I don’t serve nachos because they are not from Mexico. They are from Texas. We don’t serve nachos and we don’t serve for example, avocado with lobster, because we are not a food place. We are authentic. That’s what it makes my place special because I think that we are one of the few authentic Mexican restaurants in New England.
Denzil Mohammed:
I would imagine so. And a lot of people in America, I’m sure they’re feeding new Mexican food.
Julie King:
For example, today, the lady told me, can you put, do you put lettuce and onion in your burrito? I said, no, I don’t. Why not? Because that is not, we don’t. It is not the way that we do it in Mexico. It’s only rice beans, the meat of your choice, the salsa avocado. And that’s it? Oh my God, but that is not Mexican food. I said, no, you are right. It’s not Mexican food, the authentic, it it’s Mexican food, but authentic Mexican food, you are here to get authentic Mexican food and they still don’t get it. And you know, what is the worst thing? What the worst thing is that I know that Mexican food is a very good business. When they said that’s a Mexican restaurant, let’s go that. And they spend a lot of money for eating Mexican food, but to serve authentic Mexican food and especially home made there is nobody, but
Denzil Mohammed:
I love how you stick to your guns. You know, keep it authentic Mexican, despite what the customer may think that they want or may expect. But you are actually a lawyer in your previous life in Mexico. Yeah. So how come this drastic change of course in your life?
Julie King:
Completely. My dear in Mexico, my husband used to tell me that I was a big shot because I used to be the legal director for the Holidays hotel chain in Mexico City.
Denzil Mohammed:
Wow.
Julie King:
That was beautiful. It was an incredible, incredible job. I loved it. I was traveling. I used to talk to ministers, you know, in the Mexican government, even with the president, we’d have breakfast and meetings and things like that with the ambassador of the United States, big people, you know, and I was only in those days, 27 years old, but I was a big shock. Like my, like my told me that was my best, best job I ever had because I enjoy it. It made me really responsible. But then I got married. I met my husband and he, he was American an American officer, the Navy American officer, we got married and then I have to quit my job to come to the states and live in the states. But yeah, I was a big shot.
Denzil Mohammed:
Arguably, you’re still a big shot now, “Momma” King. So take us back to life in Mexico City.
Julie King:
Beautiful. Of course. I mean it like in your country, you know, my country is Mexico and it is, it was so nice, so beautiful because all the families in those days, they are very conservatives. They are all the schools. So we’re very educated that we didn’t have the rich people, medium class or the poor ones. Everybody was the same, the same thing. And we used to go everybody to the same official school. We didn’t have private school. Everybody, you, you could know your, your friends, your neighbors, and everybody was a family. And that’s the way we grew up. And I love it. And that’s why we are, I am very, very attached to my country because I love my country a lot because of all my, the memories that I have when I was a kid with all my friends that I still have, my friendship still exists with those guys.
Julie King:
And we had a very good friends and we have incredible memories when we get together. And we go like, remember what we were used to do in the kindergarten, or remember what we used to do in the elementary school. And this is a real life. And I, you a secret idea. All the immigrants come to the United States because they have a big dream, which they call the American dream. You know what being in the states is not my dream. It’s my nightmare. Why? Because I really suffered a lot when I came to the states, even when I was married and I was living in Texas, I moved, we moved from Mexico to Texas. And then when I moved to Boston with my daughter, oh my God, it was a nightmare because I received such an insult that people was extremely right now is better.
Julie King:
But in those days they could, everybody could insult you and nobody say anything to you. It was really hard to me getting into the Bostonian’s life because they, it is not easy for them to open. It’s so difficult. And, and as a woman, you know, single mother be by myself and myself and in Mexico. I used to have a lot of friends, my family, my support, my business, as a lawyer. And in here, it was horrible. For example, let me tell you, in Mexico, we have a beautiful house and easily have it. And it is a big house with garden and for bedrooms and living room, a huge living room or whatever. But it’s, I have my house in here. I didn’t know how the rents were. And I have to go into a little bitty place with two small bedrooms. And I was like, oh my God.
Julie King:
It was the first time I used to live in an apartment. Then in Mexico, I have my daughter’s nanny and my, and the people who help me in the house and my gardener and my driver, because like my husband said, I was a big shot, you know? And in here we are not used to do anything, but the problem is that we, we are not used to clean the house or we are not used to wash the dishes or to wipe the clothes. We are not used to that things, especially because I was having my daughter’s nanny. When we move me and my daughter to the states, I said, okay, I don’t mind. I’m going to get somebody to clean my house. And just to get a person, she charge me like $200 in those days for cleaning my house and washing my clothes. And I said, what two?
Julie King:
It was very expensive and I couldn’t afford it. So besides working and getting up at three o’clock in the morning and coming back and be washing my day, I have to clean my house. I took to watch dishes to go. It has been a nightmare. My dear, and I didn’t know your regulations in the states. There is a lot of regulations, completely different, like my country. And I was like crazy. I was crying every day. I was really bad and nobody could help me. But at the same time, in the meantime, I was opening my way to the being in Boston. I found good people that was welcome me. And probably they feel sorry for me, you know, because I was, I don’t know. I was really lost, lost being by myself and my daughter
Denzil Mohammed:
Without a solid support network. You’re really just on your own, not having family around is, and this is why family reunification is so important to the American immigration system, because we need our families there. We need our parents, our kids cuz that’s that what, that’s, what we rely on. We don’t have anything else to rely on. Right? So I can imagine how difficult that must be. And a lot of Americans don’t realize that when immigrants move here, they often take a step down. You know, your first job is not gonna be anything like the job that you had in your home countries. You have to work yourself back up. Even for you as a lawyer, you would have to retake all your law law years of law school similar for doctors who have to redo residencies 20 years ago, they would’ve been markedly fewer opportunities from the SBA, from different lending organizations. I’m sure a lot of discrimination with banks. How, how did you do it? How did you start this business? How, how many times did you fail?
Julie King:
Well, you say it right with, without family with no help. With not somebody to, to put my head on the shoulder and cry with doesn’t receiving any advice or at least welcome home or nothing. I didn’t have in my food. I couldn’t find good Mexican food in Boston. So I said, oh my God, no. And every time I wanted to go and have some breakfasts or some, some kind of my food, you know, we were me and my daughter were so sad and very disappointed that I said, okay, I’m going to show these people. What is the authentic Mexican food? Because I didn’t like the way they were serving the Mexican food. So that’s why it make me start my business. How all they, God knows. Because to be honest with you, I thought to come and work as a lawyer in the states and you just said, right?
Julie King:
I said, I don’t care. I’m going to work as a lawyer because I am a good lawyer. And when I went to apply for the first job, they requested my license and I gave them the one in Mexico and they said, what is this? You cannot work in here with that. I said, so what do you mean? I am a lawyer. Yeah. Wonderful. But you need to request your license. I said, and where do I gotta go and get it? And they told me, you gotta go to the, to the school. I said, what do you mean to the school? Yeah. You have to, you have to start your, your lawyer school again to get your license. And in these days
Denzil Mohammed:
That was an option.
Julie King:
It wasn’t like now that in, in less than six months, you can get your license. In those days, you have to go to the school for three years. And then I said, oh my God. And what do I do? I raise my daughter. And I, I, I take care of my daughter or I go to the school and pay for my school. And one day my, my sister took some vacations and she came to visit me in Uber. And we were walking by Google center and I saw this little bit place, very nice place. And I said, look, there is a playlist. Let’s go see how it looks inside. And we both were seen through the window, like, oh my God, this is a restaurant. And this and that. And look at it, got chairs and tables and a counter. And she said, do you think that it could be a good, a good place?
Julie King:
So you can set a business? I said, my God, I don’t have any money. How can I start a business? Why do you go and ask how much they want to have for rent? So I went next door and it was a laundry. And I asked to the guy, I said, do you know somebody who can gimme information about the place next door? What do you want to know? I said, I would like to know how much is the rent and what do they need to, what are the requirements? And I would like to know who do I have to talk? What do you wanna to, what do you have the place for? And I said, okay. I would like to have a Mexican restaurant in there. Oh, wow. It used to be like what they call it? Rose beef. Yeah. It was a rose beef place, but the guy couldn’t pay the rent and he left everything.
Julie King:
I said, are you kidding me? I would like to talk to the owner to the landlord. And he said, I am the landlord. And how much do you want for rent? And guess what? He said, $500. I said, what? 500, go ahead. I will help you to grow. What I did was a dream. God helped me and my, my, my sister stayed there for three months and we both cleaned the restaurant painted. And we, but of course, I didn’t know the requirements. These guy told me that I sit and use the license that were for the grocery place. And I believe him because he was the landlord. But when I tried to open the restaurant, I remember this day I was on my knees, watching the floor and cleaning everything. And we painted the chairs and it was so bright, so beautiful. Red collar, jello, color, yellow, Navy blue.
Julie King:
And it started looking so beautiful. And then I was on my knees, cleaning the floor. And when I saw a pair of shoes and saw pants, I pick up my face and I said, oh, I’m sorry. We are not open yet. And he said, and I, and he told me, and I don’t think that you will open for a while. You said you are going to have a Mexican restaurant. And this is for another restaurant. I said, yeah. So what do I have to do? And here he is. He said, I am from the battlefield. You need to go the permit to the neighborhood. You need to get a meeting. You need to apply for your license. That took me three months to get everything ready. In October of 1999, the first October, the October, the first I could open my location. And that’s the way we started.
Denzil Mohammed:
Wow. That is such an ordeal. I know that you ended up having to close that location. You opened another one in Woburn, and then you close that and opened up your first Boston location in beacon hill, out of a gas station. And now you’re on water street in the financial district. You have come a long way. How has your how has your cafe been received by the financial district?
Julie King:
I have a lot when I was in, in my location. I have a lot of people coming from, from Boston and the surrounding areas, Boston, Lexington, Arlington, Stoneham rock the everywhere. And I have a line on the door trying to, to, to get inside. And then it was incredible, beautiful, beautiful place, really. So we grew up and then when we ended up in beacon hill in the little gas station, the people in Beacon hill of course made, I mean, just the rich people lives in Beacon hill, but they were so nice and beautiful to me because I don’t know why everybody said that I am a funny person, but I am not funny, whatever I am like, I am a very honest and person. I see you. And I tell you, and I talk to you with the truth. And I met Congressman for the English, very rich people director from the banks from big companies. And when I saw them to me, they were not the rich people living in beacon hill. They were my friends, you know, like you and I talking, and to me, everybody is the same. And they was having a ball with me and we become good friends and they were helping me. And they were happy with the food and they were really taking care of us. That’s when I start being a really happy person with a neighbor who, because they accept us. Incredible. Incredible good.
Denzil Mohammed:
So you, you have stated in the past that your mission is to not only bring authentic Mexican food to new England, but also culture to educate your customers about the real history, culture and lifestyle of Mexico. Why is this your mission? Why, why do you think that’s
Julie King:
Important? Because for example, I give you a little example. Everybody goes crazy about cinco de Mayo and cinco de Mayo is just, we want a little bit battle, that’s it? And it’s not as I, I mean, it is important, but not in the way that is in here. We really appreciate our independence day. And it’s a big thing in Mexico, but the cinco de mayo is nothing, you know, and when I moved to Boston and I start finding out that cinco de mayo called wow, cinco de mayo. Wow. I said, wait a second. But you know, what is, and I was the first person that in the local TV, I told them cinco de mayo is nothing important. So please stop treating us like if it was someone independence day, Cinco de mayo is gringo de mayo.
Denzil Mohammed:
You’ve expressed tremendous pride in this interview about your home country in or your home country, Mexico. Is it possible for you to love or for anyone to love two countries, two cultures at the same time,
Julie King:
It’s not possible. <Laugh>
Denzil Mohammed:
Really
Julie King:
Let me tell you. I born in Mexico city, I was raised in our lost and with a love of family all together. And like I told you, in the beginning, we were exactly the same, but we were taught to respect our father and mother to love our family. And to be quiet whenever they call our attention, we, I didn’t grow up with a cell phone with a game boy or with a big machines. And we didn’t play the all day long in the TV. Here, everybody is doing their own stuff. They don’t get together. And if they go together, the parties, you know, they are always drinking. And to me to be here seeing different aggressive things, it is like I cannot get it. I cannot, I just cannot get it. I feel so sorry for all the kids that they don’t have the education, that they deserve to have because the father is working.
Julie King:
The mother is working and nobody’s taking care of them that they are not growing a, a good families together with values, but it is very difficult to love one country and to love the other one in the same way. Because just for one thing, I born in one place, not born in the states. I feel extremely respect for this country, which offers you many, many things. And I love it because I have to respect my second home and I have to respect and love the country that it give me my business and it helped me to grow. But in here, when we came, it was a big change. And I in a state to feel like happy I was suffering. But at the same time, I feel welcome because this was my husband’s country. And I work of this country as mine, but I cannot feel the same love that I have for my country, because I grew up in my country with probably with not too much money, but I got it with too much love. And in this country, I work so hard. I cry a lot. I make myself like my second home. I love Boston because it’s a beautiful place. I love it. But I still miss Mexico. It is like mixed feelings, you know?
Denzil Mohammed:
Oh, I totally get it. I totally get it. That was very heartfelt and very thoughtful. Thank you very much for opening up your heart and telling us your journey and your story. I was very moved by it. I think that this is gonna reach many Americans and they’re gonna learn so much more, not just about Mexican culture, but about the idea of the immigrant and the kinds of conflicts and stressors and things that, that we have to go through starting AF fresh in a new place. Thank you so much. Julie King, owner and founder of Villa Mexico Cafe in Boston’s financial district. Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast.
Julie King:
God bless you. And thank you for this opportunity.
Denzil Mohammed:
Jobmakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and the immigrant learning center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s beautiful and complex story of immigrant entrepreneurs. Remember, you can subscribe to Jobmakers, apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a review. I’m Denzil Mohammed. See you next Thursday at noon for another Jobmakers.
Recent Episodes:
Hoover at Stanford’s Dr. Macke Raymond on the Current State of K-12 Education Reform
/in Academic Standards, Featured, Podcast, School Choice /by Editorial StaffThis week on “The Learning Curve,” co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Margaret “Macke” Raymond, founder and director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University. She shares some of the major highlights from Hoover’s recent Education Summit that featured a wide variety of national and international experts. They discuss the reasons for persistent problems, even after several federal efforts, with American students’ performance on important exams such as NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA, and the best path forward for state and federal education reforms. They discuss the shift in political support for charter schools, and the outlook for expansion among charters as well as private school choice programs. Dr. Raymond offers thoughts on the implications of the successful U.S. Supreme Court decision on Espinoza, and the likelihood of another victory in the Carson v. Makin case.
Stories of the Week: In Rhode Island, a federal lawsuit over whether there is a constitutional right to an adequate civics education has led to an agreement to improve instruction. States such as Texas and California are directing portions of the $350 billion in federal COVID relief aid to create or expand service and conservation corps programs.
Guest:
The next episode will air on Weds., June 22nd, with Dr. Deborah McGriff, a former Managing Partner with NewSchools Venture Fund and a former urban superintendent.
Tweet of the Week:
News Links:
‘Democracy in peril’: Agreement seeks to bolster civics education in RI public schools
https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/education/2022/06/12/civics-education-ri-public-schools-agreement-to-improve/7602811001/
State and local governments are leading the way on service programs
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2022/06/13/state-and-local-governments-are-leading-the-way-on-service-programs/
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Read a Transcript of This Episode
Please excuse typos.
[00:00:00] Hello listeners.
[00:00:25] GR: This is Gerard Robinson. Talking to you from beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. It is always beautiful in Charlottesville, but it’s always even, I would say more beautiful to have conversations with Cara about education, about social policy, about economics, about charter schools, about voting, about a lot of things.
[00:00:44] And so to make a beautiful mind, even better, we have to welcome.
[00:00:49] Cara: Hello, Gerard, thank you for that beautiful introduction. I, wanna go to beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. I’m still waiting for my invitation, but we’ll leave that there. Um, It’s [00:01:00]
[00:01:00] GR: well, well, well listeners, we should realize that Gerard in fact, invited Kara to a very exclusive meeting at the Institute in Charlottesville and the campus, or I just said the grounds of UVA.
[00:01:11] But she was so busy working to save the children, which I understand she could not make it, but one of her colleagues came in her stands. So it’s not from lack of, of trial,
[00:01:24] Cara: but you’re correct. I would say said, colleague begged me, please let me go. Because it was such a cool convening. So I’ll give you props for that. I’ll, have to make it to the next one. you know, what’s going on here in, in it is beautiful in Boston today. It’s not always we’re in the throes of the last week of school, Gerard.
[00:01:37] And let me tell you. I can’t decide if I’m ready for the, just the last week of school to be over or school to be over, because it feels
[00:01:44] like a
[00:01:45] Cara: sprint. It is a sprint to the finish line. Nobody’s doing anything except bothering mommy and , and, and our school has, which has been very locked down is finally.
[00:01:56] Thankfully opening things up to parents. And I have a daughter [00:02:00] who is graduating sixth grade when we were kids. I don’t, feel like we graduated from anything but high school, but we’re gonna go celebrate that. Well, listen, Jared, I would ramble on about beauty and coming to visit you and my personal life, but we’ve got some stories to get to, and I know you’re fired up about yours, which means I’m gonna go first.
[00:02:18] I’m gonna make you . But I, I love this. Blog out , from Brookings, it’s written by Martha. it’s entitled state and local governments are leading the way on service programs. And this is all about how many state and local governments are using those. Do you remember those? A R P American rescue plans, state and local fiscal recovery funds.
[00:02:43] Mm-hmm right. Nobody talks. Out these, we had talked about these a little bit on the learning curve because we were thinking, oh, you know, there are certain educational functions that states can use these for, but this blog is all about how a lot of states. Are [00:03:00] using these funds to expand service cores and especially conservation cores.
[00:03:05] So these are programs similar to AmeriCorps and Hey, peace Corps. Let’s go back to the sixties and think about it, right? Mm-hmm . But these are programs in which you sign up to serve your community for a defined period of time. And then you can work on projects that add societal value, like things like, some kids are working on actually what this article points out, what this blog points out.
[00:03:26] A lot of localities are using this for climate stuff. So they’re having cores that are focused on, climate mitigation by insulating homes and weatherizing homes and climate friendly landscaping. I need somebody to come to my home and just do landscaping. You can make it climate friendly. Right, but it’s really an interesting article.
[00:03:45] And one of the things that I appreciated about this is it points out that these programs are actually a really good return on investment for local communities. And that’s for a couple of reasons. Number one, communities are getting work. I mean, so [00:04:00] people do this in exchange for a pretty small living stipend, but the, people who participate are usually young, they’re looking for a career pathway.
[00:04:07] Some of them will end. In higher education after sort of putting in their time, some of them can mitigate the cost of higher education with some of these programs, but they’re doing things where they’re really giving back to the community. So you can think about a program like AmeriCorps. I know we have a program here city year got a lot of it’s funding from AmeriCorps, right.
[00:04:26] And you go in and kids are tutoring in schools. So that’s another educational use of. This article points out that for every dollar, the federal government puts into these programs, they’re getting a return of $17 and 30 cents. That’s a pretty good return on investment if you ask me. And I think that there’s just a lot of good things to be said about these programs, but also questions about Do we need always to think about the federal government as the lever that needs to be pulled to keep these programs sustained and to get these going, because there was a big [00:05:00] resurgence in these with the state and local fiscal recovery funds.
[00:05:04] Previous to that you’ll remember previously pandemic America funding, for example, had been cut. I know the church I used to chair. We relied on AmeriCorps members and we couldn’t after a while because the funding had been cut, but you can use folks in these community programs. To meet everything from long term needs.
[00:05:22] Like the ones that I just pointed out, climate change to meeting emergency needs such as during I don’t know a pandemic. So we think that it raises some really interesting questions. Martha does in this blog about how can states think about leveraging these programs or even cities leveraging programs like this in the absence of huge packages from the federal government.
[00:05:42] And I wanted to say, Gerard, I know I’m sucking a lot of bear, so I’m gonna let you get to your story. One of the things I love about this is something that I think you and I, and I know listeners of the podcast and others have been thinking a lot about lately, and that is just. How much people need community right now [00:06:00] and how people need to feel like they are members of a community right now.
[00:06:04] I mean, we’re reading it and we’re seeing it. Many of us are seeing it, unfortunately in our lives in people with high rates of depression. And, we know that suicide rates are going up. I know, this year, Many of us have lost, loved ones under pretty unimaginable circumstances. We see it in kids acting out in school.
[00:06:22] We see it in people leading their jobs in droves because of many different reasons, but among them a feeling of burnout, of anxiety, of other things. And I think that. I don’t know for any of us who have ever worked in a situation like this, there’s a really visceral feeling of when you are part of something bigger than yourself.
[00:06:41] You know, some people get this from organized religion. Other people get this from other organized civic groups. And this is part of, I think, what. These localized programs can do is they bring together community members, a sense of giving back, doing something meaningful. We can talk a lot. And I know you do at AI about the [00:07:00] value of work and the meaning of work.
[00:07:02] And although this blog didn’t talk about that, it really left me thinking, these civic programs and sort of this rebuilding of. Civic society and civil society in this really active way is so important in this time. So I loved this article and it makes me think about I don’t know, for a long time I’ve been volunteering at uh, food bank.
[00:07:24] And in the past couple months, I have to admit that because my kids have been so busy with their various sports. We haven’t been going on the weekends. I read this article and I thought you’re getting back there next weekend. It’s the beginning of summer. Time to go. So, anyway, Gerard, how about you?
[00:07:38] Have you ever participated in a program like.
[00:07:42] GR: I never participated personally, but I had an opportunity to work as a coach or to work as an adult lead. So for example, always had the almost 20 years ago for two summers, I worked with students uh, who stayed at UVA on grounds [00:08:00] as a part of the outward bound program.
[00:08:01] Our brown program is part of a larger trio program. Started, decades ago, basically very similar to the idea of AmeriCorps is to invest federal funds into young people, to not only inculcate a spirit of service learning and giving but also to give them an opportunity to meet students.
[00:08:20] Often from similar economic situations across race across urban and rural guidelines here in Virginia, and to come and spend 1, 2, 3, 4 weeks with each other in different programs. So that was a great opportunity for me to see that university of Virginia in fact, has one of the country’s oldest upward bound programs.
[00:08:39] And so was glad to be a part of that. When I was in Florida, as well as Virginia knew a number of people who were AmeriCorps. Workers but also people who worked in state departments who actually invested funds or oversaw people who were involved. So I’m a big fan. And one of my early mentors was Dr.
[00:08:57] Samuel Proctor. He was at one [00:09:00] time a pastor. At Abdin and Baptist church in New York. But he was also the first director of AmeriCorps appointed by John F. Kennedy. So those programs ring well, to me, two things come to mind when you mentioned the American recovery and reinvestment act of 2009, we had.
[00:09:17] similar conversation with Margarite Rosa and a couple of other guests about this topic because you and I both know this isn’t the first time we’ve had a massive investment of federal dollars during a time of economic uncertainty, and that we should try to learn lessons from that. Number two, we actually referenced on this show, another Brookings report, which actually identified lessons learned.
[00:09:42] So. Superintendents governors teachers and others who are involved with handling multimillion dollars, all of a sudden coming to the district what they can do as someone who is a supporter of our free enterprise system, someone who likes entrepreneurial thinking. I like the idea of seeing, did you say a [00:10:00] 17 to one return on investment?
[00:10:02] Ah, yeah. I mean, if you and I put a dollar in and had $17 return, someone would say that was a very good financial investment. Yeah. I see this as a very good human capital investment. I also like the idea of looking for public private partnerships. There’s some states, in fact who like to get a public match or a private sector match, or they can combine money because you’re right.
[00:10:25] There are a lot of reasons and I’m a supporter of the federal role in education. A smaller F compared to the better Robinson professor Robinson and UVA. Who’s a bigger F than me, but we both believe there’s a role there, but I also want to see the for-profit sector play a role, not just for their money, but to be invited in for their ideas, because I think a true public private partnership.
[00:10:46] Shouldn’t be. Public will run it private, give us money and then shut up and stay in your lane. Right. So I like the idea. I’m a supporter and glad to see that program moving forward. I will say that if people are looking for ways to support public [00:11:00] private partnerships one thing to do is to look.
[00:11:02] And whether or not your state is investing money into national teachers of the year North Carolina continues to have more nationally board certified teachers than anyone else. They also have a financial investment that goes along with that. Some states had to get rid of that investment because.
[00:11:18] Money was tight. So as we think about this, I think we should learn lessons from programs like this and see what we can do to support those in that program. So thank you so much for that story. My story’s a little different it’s about civics and it’s about a state. I don’t think we’ve actually.
[00:11:34] Spent any time talking about on learning curve. And so this was a learning curve for me as well. So in 2018, a group of parents and students in Rhode Island decided to Sue the state and the governor, well, the governor being the state and the education officials in federal court, because they said that.
[00:11:54] Rhode Island was not doing a great job to prepare students to fully [00:12:00] participate in civic life. And they asked the federal court if they could actually get a constitutional right, that all students in public schools in Rhode Island would have access to civic education. And so I went to court at the first level, the district level, us district judge, William Smith , actually dismissed the lawsuit.
[00:12:17] He said, while he understands the claim is desirable and even in central, he said for citizens to understand civic responsibility is really important. He said, but it’s not something that the us constitution contemplates mandates. So naturally moved to the us circuit court of appeals, which is in your city of Boston and the circuit court actually upheld the ruling of the district judge.
[00:12:41] They said that the defendants brought a good case, but again, it’s not something that the Supreme court can do. In fact, the court went further to say that defendants told the appellant court that binding legal precedent has established that there’s no fundamental right to education in the constitution.[00:13:00]
[00:13:00] So we’ve had on this show, a number of people who’ve talked about the Rodriguez case uh, it was a federal case decided in 1973, by the Supreme court, which basically ruled there was no federal right. To education. And this was part of a large wave of school finance lawsuits across the country, California, Texas New Jersey.
[00:13:20] Now, the reason I mentioned New Jersey is that Michael rebel and a group of others have been part of a number of lawsuits in different states to try and get. A federal right to education. Well, this take was a little unique in the fact that they said, well, let’s go for a constitutional right to civics education.
[00:13:38] So district court said, no, appellant court said no. The attorney for the parents and the students said, you know what, maybe I should take to this, to the Supreme court. Well, in the interim, the department of education in Rhode Island said that both sides the plaintiffs and the defendants decided to come together and he reached an, a.
[00:13:56] On how they wanna strengthen civics education in Rhode Island.[00:14:00] Governor Dan MCee actually signed legislation last year to require public schools, students to demonstrate proficiency as defined by local school districts in civics education, and to at least have or participate in one civics project beginning 20 22, 20 23.
[00:14:16] So there are at least three things that stand out for me as relates to this article one, here’s an example. Of when people use the court to get administrative agencies and executive agencies to do something. So even though there wasn’t a win in the court the executive branch bringing the governor’s office said, Hey, let me sign legislation.
[00:14:36] And then you had the regulatory agency, department of ed. Working with the plaintiffs and the defendant say, listen, let’s get to the table and see what we can do. So when I work with undergrad and grad students, when I talk about the history of school reform, this is one example of how people will use the court to wink at other governmental bodies.
[00:14:54] They do some work. Number two, I think it was really interesting. The role that the term [00:15:00] democracy in peril played. In fact, that’s the opening title for the article. the attorney for the plaintiffs basically said, listen, we need to do this in order for us to teach student civics and teach them responsibilities and one example.
[00:15:16] And so I think that’s important. So that’s my. Number two, many people here know that I’m a big supporter of civics education. In fact, today June 14th, a bipartisan group of us senators reintroduced the landmark civic secures democracy act, which would authorize in historic investment to support K12 civic education and American history.
[00:15:38] I’ve had a chance in 2020 to write a piece I published at AAI. About that piece of legislation and another one in a Virginia newspaper. So I’m pretty clear where I stand with civics education. So listeners, let me give you a quick overview of the state of civic education in the United States, based upon a 2016 report published by education commission of the states.
[00:15:59] [00:16:00] 47 states in DC address civics education in state or local statute. Every state requires students to complete coursework in civics education or social studies in order to graduate 37 states require students to demonstrate proficiency. Through assessment in civics or social studies, 17 states include civic learning and this accountability framework.
[00:16:23] And lastly, every state includes civic learning or social studies in the standard curriculum. I’m on the board of I civics uh, it’s nonprofit organization founded by former us Supreme court justice, Andrew Day O’Connor we work to provide a civics curriculum across the nation. With more than 120,000 teachers actively using our resources to more than 7.5 million students doing the same in all 50 states.
[00:16:48] So I am sure our listeners in Rhode Island I have already reached out to is civics. Or if you’re not familiar, we have partners, , in your state doing work. But let me go to the third part. And this is more about what I would call semis[00:17:00] the symbolic use of language.
[00:17:01] And so when we’d say democracy in peril the attorney. Upon hearing that there’s possibly not gonna be a win in the case that side of the fence said, listen, democracy is in peril. And all we have to do is take a look at what took place on the us capital steps January 6th. And I’m in agreement.
[00:17:21] I’m already on the record of saying that that riot was a tragedy on several fronts. And of course, right now, Congress is taking a look at that. And if January 6th is going to serve as a platform to talk about responsibility, democracy, or democracy and peril. Why not also look at the riots that took place across the country, following the death of George Floyd.
[00:17:45] And let’s just put that in perspective in terms of numbers. So there’s a company called property claims services and it tracks insurance claims related to civil disorder across the country since 1950. As least right now in [00:18:00] 20 states, the damage from the riots that followed what took place, the death of George Floyd in current dollars, 1.2 billion.
[00:18:09] Well, let’s put that in context. That’s more damage in terms of property value than the Rio in 68 in Chicago. 68 in Baltimore, 67 in Newark, 77 in New York, 68 in Washington, 1980 in Miami, 67 in Detroit and 65 in LA combined. And so if we are to talk about riots and to use it as a way of talking about peril about.
[00:18:37] What we can do about responsibility and about government. I think we should also look at what took place in our cities across the country related to George Floyd. So that’s another place we should look, but it’s also worth noticing that in Providence at least according to a June 2nd 22 report a police cruiser was torched.
[00:18:56] Windows in businesses were shattered. 75 to a hundred [00:19:00] people actually stormed ’em all and looted about 12 to 18 businesses. So there’s a local example of what we could use at that time. 2020 to also talk about responsibility in government and from historical standpoints also worth noting that in 1824, as well as 1831 if we’re to talk about white mobs, January 6th, there were white mobs in 1824 and 1831 in Providence who stormed and racked black homes and businesses historical way of also using that city race and white mobs to talk about government and civics.
[00:19:37] So I’m all about civics. I’m about using riots. If that is a vehicle in which we talk about civics responsibility, government and building a better nation, but let’s not cherry pick which ones we want to use and which ones we wanna.
[00:19:50] Cara: well, I’ll keep my remarks brief. Sure. Because we’ve got a fabulous guest waiting for us, but couldn’t agree more.
[00:19:56] One of the things that’s so interesting about your, thank you for [00:20:00] your detailed history, you always do such a good job of, bringing the facts. You’re like an encyclopedia is just this idea that I don’t think, civics education is really part of the broader American conversation and not only the examples that you gave, but just so many other facets of American.
[00:20:16] Right now and what we’ve come to accept it as normal in American life. Unfortunate parts of what we’ve come to accept as normal lead me to believe that civics education not only incredibly important, it’s increasingly important. Yep. Not just south of here in Rhode Island, but everywhere across this country Gerard, thank you for that.
[00:20:35] we’ve got, like I said, a great guest waiting for us, a friend of the show, someone we’ve talked to before, but we’ve got new, fresh questions for this person. There’s a lot on our mind. We’re gonna be speaking with Margaret Mackey, Raymond, and she is the director of credo, the center for research and educational outcomes at Stanford right after.[00:21:00]
[00:21:20] Learning curve
[00:21:20] Cara: listeners. We are really happy to have back. Dr. Margaret “Macke” Raymond. She has served as the director of credo since its inception. And I told you at the outset, what CREDO stands for, does the center for research? On educational outcomes. She has steered the group to national prominence as a rigorous and independent source for policy and program analysis.
[00:21:41] She has done extensive work in public policy and education reform and is currently researching the development of competitive markets. And the creation of reliable data on program performance. Macke also leads credo in investigating the effectiveness of public charter schools prior to joining Stanford.
[00:21:58] In 2000, she held faculty [00:22:00] positions in the political science and economies department at the university of Rochester. Macke also worked for a number of years in the telecommunications industry and was president of Raymond associates, a private consulting company, specializing in public policy research projects and telecommunications policy formulation from 1985 to 2000.
[00:22:19] I did not remember the telecom part of your background, Macke and interesting time to be thinking about digital divide telecom. So much of what’s going on, but I dig. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
[00:22:34] Margaret: Thank you very much for having me. I’m very excited to be here today.
[00:22:37] Cara: Yeah. we’re excited to hear what you have to say.
[00:22:39] So, I’m curious, just to get started right off the bat, you recently hosted an education summer at Hoover institution that featured a wide variety of national and international experts. Talk to us about what happened there. give us some of the big highlights.
[00:22:56] Margaret: well, I’d be happy to, we were incredibly lucky [00:23:00] to catch the wave of people just starting to travel after months and months of, staying close to home.
[00:23:07] And so we decided that we would gather. Policy leaders from across the globe on the topic of the priorities and the urgency of really big change in K12 education, not only in the United States, but around the world. And the message that we heard was consistent across all different stakeholders who came either as audience or as speakers, which is that the problem.
[00:23:34] Of public education is under described and under defined and not taken sufficiently seriously. And the magnitude of the consequences of not addressing it are less well understood than they should be. And they are disastrous. So starting with that as a sort of basic premise across the summit we heard.
[00:23:57] Almost every single person in the room [00:24:00] and online on the zoom virtual conference, the urgency of creating enough coalition and willingness to change to really drive substantial revision of our system. And if not to our peril and the per of the students who are in school,
[00:24:18] Wow. Do
[00:24:19] Cara: you think it took a pandemic to spur that urgency on to get people to really realize what trouble we’re.
[00:24:27] Margaret: I think that we have seen something similar in other disaster scenarios. Obviously there was hurricane Katrina and we had similar hurricanes in other parts , of the country. we’ve had wildfires that have closed down schools. We’ve never had a disaster at this scale before.
[00:24:44] And I think the, scale of this actually created conditions where. Regular citizens, parents, neighbors, grandparents got to see what really was happening in schools or more specifically what wasn’t happening in [00:25:00] schools. And it caused both concern and mobilization on a scale that we’ve just never seen.
[00:25:05] Yeah. Yeah,
[00:25:06] Cara: no, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, looking at, and this, actually leads to the next question I wanna ask you, because I think that, from my perspective, obviously from your perspective or what you were hearing at your summit absolutely parents woke up, communities, woke up, saw under the hood and thought, oh my goodness, is this really what’s happening?
[00:25:24] some of the stories, I’m sure we could all tell. But at the same time, a lot of the narrative that we hear. From those who have a vested interest, right. In maintaining the status quo we should say, or the, or just don’t wanna see it is sort of like, well, we need more of this and we need more federal involvement.
[00:25:42] and on the one hand you’ve got this real grassroots, like revelation around like, no, we need some serious change. I’ll say you see some states passing, real parent centered reforms. We, we don’t know yet the extent to which those are gonna be effective. Right. But on the other hand, there’s this call.
[00:25:58] More and more involvement from the feds. I [00:26:00] wanna visit that notion of involvement from the federal government with you, because you are expert in understanding it. So in the past 30 years, we’ve seen huge policy changes, initiated perhaps by the federal government. Probably some for good and maybe some for not so good.
[00:26:17] So things like standards, accountability through standardized testing, obviously charter schools. And then we’ve got like more state. Reforms around private school choice, et cetera. So, but okay. With all of these reforms and we’ll get nap results soon. Right. But we’re still sort of like in this Midling place, nap results are either stagnant or going down, you see a couple bright lights in places like Mississippi with literacy, ?
[00:26:42] what is it that we are missing that we still continue to not serve so many kids? Is there anything that’s good. About federal education reform or are we, is it a loss? what do you see there?
[00:26:55] Margaret: Well, that’s a huge question and, I hope that we have all day to get at that but in the [00:27:00] same time that we do have, let me just , take a crack at it.
[00:27:02] I know that the average nap results and Tim’s and Piza results have not looked great. But I would also say that the innovations that you’re talking about both at the federal level and at the state level are really intended to set the conditions for change. And what’s ended up happening in the political realm is that those conditions have been undermined by.
[00:27:28] Folks who wanna maintain the status quo. They’re very , effective at the political maneuvering to dilute a lot of those. In spite of that, if you look at any one of these policies, you can actually see big variation in how well they’ve worked. And the thing that we haven’t done is we haven’t looked at the evidence where it has worked.
[00:27:50] Like let’s find out where. Accountability systems really did take root and make a difference. And there are several of them around the country, but we don’t look at [00:28:00] those. We don’t learn from them and we don’t try to redistribute that wealth of knowledge to get other folks to adapt, to be more like that.
[00:28:08] So I think that there’s a sort of a culpability in the effort. Effort is made effort is diluted. We don’t actually zero in on a continuous improvement style in any of these policies that we’ve had. And so they’re much more vulnerable to attack because at the average, it doesn’t look like much is happening.
[00:28:31] Oh,
[00:28:31] Cara: that’s fascinating. I mean, I would even point to thinking about state level reforms in which has seen great growth over time. Right? I think that one of the things to your point that you can point to in Florida and not everything’s perfect. Right. But they’ve, gotten a lot better is to a greater extent than other places, this continuity of approach, like we’re going to expand choice and we’re going to, to some extent.
[00:28:52] maintain a system of accountability. I would love to know your thoughts on where we’re at with accountability, because we spent a long time getting those reforms in [00:29:00] place, and it feels very much like they’re being rolled back. Maybe you can share those thoughts with me while all talking about some states that you think are doing it.
[00:29:09] Well, some commissioners that are, holding the line on the reforms
[00:29:12] Margaret: that do work. So a moment on the accountability. I do think that the pandemic I think legitimately during the pandemic, we put a pause on accountability like that. Wasn’t the thing we should be focusing on right now, but what that did then was to also give.
[00:29:28] Opponents of accountability, a really long runway to get their act together, to maintain the suspension of accountability. And they’re doing that in a variety of ways. They’re trying to weaken the testing systems. They’re trying to continue a moratorium of school quality reviews. They’re trying to eliminate any kind of consequences from any of Thea plans.
[00:29:49] And so I think that. The idea that somehow schools are no longer responsible for the product that they produce is gaining traction. And I think that that’s a [00:30:00] 180 degree misstep in a bad direction. When I think about the places around the country that are, not doing that. Of course, I think of Florida, of course, I think of Mississippi.
[00:30:11] I think of Louisiana where they are. Much more innovative in the way that they think about organizing systems. You know, we have new Orleans, which is an all charter district, but they also think about allowing good schools more discretion and allowing underperforming schools, very little discretion, very directed choices that they have to make in things like curriculum in things like.
[00:30:34] Allowing for additional time in school and additional days of school in the school year. So I do think that there are places around the country where smart minded people are systems oriented. They’re getting the right pieces in place and they’re sticking with them. As you said earlier.
[00:30:51] GR: So M I have a question dealing with American presidents.
[00:30:55] And so when you think about bill Clinton and the role that he played [00:31:00] in creating what is now charter school week the office at the federal level, dealing with investments. And so from Clinton forward you had presidents who supported charter schools. Now with the five administration, there’s been a recent break with his democratic brethren Clinton and Obama on their stance.
[00:31:17] And we see even some changes with some democratic politicians. Where do you see charter schools heading over the next five years? Given this current state of affairs?
[00:31:27] Margaret: Yeah, that’s a wonderful question jar. I don’t think that it’s a monolithic solution. we are going to see. States where there is a very, very strong democratic presence that is focused on supporting unions and labor.
[00:31:44] We’re gonna see the charter school environment weaken in those places. And that’s a real. Sad thing because those places are states that educate lots and lots and lots of kids and charter schools in those environments actually are producing superior outcomes [00:32:00] compared to the district schools in the same communities.
[00:32:03] So I’m, prepared and pessimistic about those situations. So I’m expecting weakening in Washington. California, for sure. I think Illinois, New York is a toss up. New York city is very strongly going in a charter school direction, but it’s not because of policy it’s because of philanthropy. And the rest of the state is, holding, but I’m not sure that that can hold for long.
[00:32:26] And then you’ve got places where. There’s already been damage like Massachusetts and the walking away of fiscal parody in a number of the states , in the Midwest. So I think that in some places we’re gonna see the charter school environment . Get softer. I don’t think that’s going to be universal.
[00:32:45] I do think that there are states that are very strong on charters. They have seen the evidence. So I don’t expect places like Louisiana, Missouri. I don’t expect Florida to back off. I don’t expect. Indiana Ohio to back off of charter [00:33:00] schools at all. And I think there’s gonna be a good opportunity for charter schools to start sharing what they do.
[00:33:07] There’s huge pressure now because of COVID to basically take what you know, and share it. And. Charters across the country are being asked to be partners with district schools to try to broaden the range of education options that kids have coming out of the pandemic. And so there are charter schools that are actually co-operating district schools.
[00:33:32] there are charter schools that are taking over district schools to run them. There are charter schools that are basically operating their own teacher training programs and are welcoming district teachers. So I think in some places, the boundary between charter schools and regular schools is gonna blur.
[00:33:49] I hope that that doesn’t get complicated in a political sense, but I think in the short term that that’s actually a good thing.
[00:33:56] GR: And thank you so much for bringing in [00:34:00] philanthropy because they’ve played at times a behind the seeds role, not in an nefarious way or anything in investing to move policy, talk to move schools and to move ideas.
[00:34:11] So we often overlooked that. Let me switch from the executive branch to the judicial branch. So over the last Few years 20 states have actually expanded or established a variety of private school choice programs. Mm-hmm . And when you look at the successful ruling, at least to some of us in the ESP Espinoza case, and we had ESP Espino on our show you couple that with growing parental dissatisfaction with traditional public schools under COVID, something you’ve mentioned, and the likelihood that another Supreme court case, this one coming out of Maine with Carson Vick.
[00:34:43] And, and if that let’s say goes the way reformers want. Where do you see private school choice heading?
[00:34:50] Margaret: Well, I think that it is very much a bull market for private school choice right now. I think we have as you said, broad to satisfaction, if you look at what happened with [00:35:00] enrollments, we are unable to account for over a million.
[00:35:04] In the last school year, we just simply don’t know what happened to them. Well, something is happening to them and programs like education, savings accounts and homeschooling and supported homeschooling, which I think is an emerging model where private schools are actually not accepting students into their school, but they are in fact providing educational resources so that families can homeschool that whole area.
[00:35:29] innovation I think is, ripe for further development. And I would expect to see at least a few more million kids in the next five years, moving out of public school and into private.
[00:35:39] GR: Yeah, that’ll be a monumental shift. Some of our colleagues America Federation for children, ed choice, mm-hmm center for education reform genie.
[00:35:47] We know that there’s at least a million students on the waiting list. And so of what you’re suggesting comes true, we would’ve accomplished in let’s say 24 months, what? 25 plus years of [00:36:00] efficacy and other work to get us to this point. Makes a lot of sense. when you think about right left coalition and reformers let’s take a look at this in terms of the, just the divide of where we are right now in American politics, charter schools in fact came about because of a diverse coalition of people, party, race, gender, public school teachers.
[00:36:23] In fact, in Minnesota and California played tremendous roles in getting. Charter schools off the ground and moving forward, when you think about the country, what do you see as being the most promising compromises, if any, that are going need to take place within our laws and policies to move us to
[00:36:42] Margaret: the next level.
[00:36:42] So I don’t think the game is actually at the political level. In the next period. And let me say a few more things about that and explain why I say that. I’ve been demoing this a lot of thought. I mean, it’s not just parents who got ticked off during the pandemic. There’s been a [00:37:00] lot of, new rumblings if you will.
[00:37:02] And I’m starting to see that there are really important stakeholder groups that live with the consequences. of K12 education policy, but have not yet taken a seat at the table. And let me give you a few examples of this. I think electeds in municipal government. So mayors county supervisors and so on they are required to live with the consequences.
[00:37:29] the folks who graduate from K12 schools in their communities are living in their communities and they are having to cope with the lack of preparation, the lack of employability, the lack of, ability to continue on as lifelong learners. And so I. There is in fact, a stakeholder group among electeds and municipal governments that could actually be a potent force in a coalition for reform.
[00:37:57] I think another one is the employment community, [00:38:00] local employers in the same communities that we were just speaking about, have to hire from that pool. And yet they’re not banging on the table and they should be. And I think as well, I think the sort of. Non-governmental organizations, the non-profits and the social service agencies who have to actually use community resources to continue to support folks.
[00:38:25] As a consequence of not being well prepared for life are another constituency that we never hear from. And yet. People are lining up outside their door, even more now as a result of the pandemic. So they’re a third stakeholder group parents. Obviously we talked about that’s a fourth stakeholder group.
[00:38:43] When I think about the possibility of lining up all those people on main street and getting them to lock hands and say, we’re mad as hell, and we’re not taking it anymore. I think we’ve got the possibility of some really serious coalitions for change.
[00:38:58] GR: That is one of the best [00:39:00] assessments of the different communities and roles and players that we need and stakeholders at the table that I’ve heard in a really long time.
[00:39:08] And when you mention business, yeah, I mean, people are going, for example, To college because they wanna get a job students who are enrolled in VO tech. And we had that conversation last week. A lot of them are going to get a job. And so employers are important and among the board of trustees for America succeeds, and that’s a nonprofit that works to harness the business community.
[00:39:30] So. That’s really, really good point. here’s just a, more of a reflective closeout question for you. Knowing what you do today, and there’s a Mackey and a Mac or Sally or Sam, who’s gonna listen to this, knowing what you know now, what would you tell yourself in 2000 when you were coming to Stanford to do this work?
[00:39:50] Margaret: I probably would’ve said ger your loins. It’s gonna be a whole lot harder than you expect. I would’ve said be very careful [00:40:00] about your opponents, keep your eye on them and make sure that you keep them close and never underestimate the power of individuals to come together and, to force change if we need it.
[00:40:13] And so I, continue to believe all of.
[00:40:17] GR: Thank you so much Mackey for joining us Kara and I, of course, looked forward to this conversation. And of course you exceeded all the great expectations we had for you. Keep up the good work at credo when you have another conference. Remember Kara and I Jamie really. Came back fired up from his trip to the bay area.
[00:40:36] And so, you know, you have a friend here with both of us. You also know that you have a platform. So keep up the good work and look forward to future conversations.
[00:40:44] Margaret: Thanks for your time today. Really enjoyed being with you. Take
[00:40:47] care
[00:40:48] Cara: Thank you, Macke.[00:41:00] [00:42:00] [00:43:00]
[00:43:11] GR: So listeners, my tweet of the week is from Robin Lake. She is a former guest. She is with the center on reinventing public education and here her tweet think learning loss will just vanish. Think it will vanish. For all kids the same way, this report, which she references suggests otherwise. So go to our webpage and take a look.
[00:43:34] Cara: Always bringing the good stuff. we’ve got some great, great reports. Gerard, next week, we’re gonna be speaking with somebody. I believe this person is a friend of yours. I think you used to work together. I might be wrong, but somebody I have long admired, we’re gonna be speaking with Deborah McGriff and she is a former managing partner with new schools’s venture fund, former urban superintendent ed reform.
[00:43:58] Wonk [00:44:00] queen among among many things. So really looking forward to that conversation. So am I, I, I bet you are well until next week, Gerard, please take care and thanks for will do.
[00:44:13] All
[00:44:14] GR: right. And congratulations to your daughter on finishing. You said the
[00:44:18] Cara: sixth grade at the Wellen Montessori school in Newton center, Massachusetts, the Wellen hour
[00:44:25] GR: and shout out to my daughter for graduating from the eighth grade.
[00:44:28] So good time for the Kara Gerard household. Awesome household. Love it. All right.
[00:44:34] Cara: Now just get my kindergartner on the road. Okay. take care of
[00:44:38] Gerard bye bye.[00:45:00] [00:46:00]
Recent Episodes
A Decade of Culture and Recreation Spending on Cape Cod
/0 Comments/in Blog: Transparency /by Etelson AlciusCulture and Recreation are among the most important services needed for the wellbeing of a community. Parks are grounds for socializing, playtime and community events and give residents the opportunity to build community spirit. The same goes for Cape Cod; but towns vary in the extent to which they provide these services. How does Barnstable County stack up?
Source: Pioneer Institute’s MassAnalysis website
As shown in the chart above, the towns with the highest per capita Culture and Recreation expenses were Truro, Wellfleet, Orleans, Chatham, and Harwich at $405, $387, $379, $284, and $254, respectively. Barnstable and Falmouth spent the most in the aggregate, despite having some of the lowest expenditures on a per capita basis.
Spending on culture and recreation hasn’t risen across all towns on the Cape in the past 10 years. Mashpee and Bourne recorded the lowest per capita expenses at $62 and $42, respectively. Additionally, Bourne spent the lowest portion of its overall budget on culture and recreation, a mere 1.3 percent. Interestingly, the town also reported no growth in per capita spending compared to 2010.
Chatham, which ranks fourth in culture and recreation expenses per capita, spent the highest percentage of total expenditures on the services, nearly 7 percent.
Only four towns saw contractions in spending compared to 2010: Brewster, Truro, Dennis, and Yarmouth; with Brewster ranking the highest at 68 percent and Dennis as the lowest at 2.5 percent.
Overall, the majority of towns saw growth, with Falmouth and Mashpee taking the lead at 63 percent and 40 percent, respectively. Culture and recreation expense amounted to over 5 percent of total spending in only 6 out of the 15 towns.
About the Author:
Etelson Alcius is a roger perry transparency intern with the Pioneer Institute. He is a recent graduate of Cathedral High School and incoming freshmen at the College of the Holy Cross, where he intends to double major in economics and computer science on a prelaw track. Feel free to reach out via email, linkedin, or write a letter to Pioneer’s Office in Boston.