From the Desk of our HR Director

I couldn't possibly write a better announcement about CMCA's health insurance coverage for 2009 so I'm stealing it straight from the horse's mouth. Julie Kratzer, our HR Director sent the following to "All Staff" regarding the value of our health insurance policy and the importance of staff health:

"Each year around this time CMCA’s health insurance plan comes up for renewal. Changes to the existing plan are reviewed and other health insurance options are considered. I am excited to announce that for 2009, CMCA will once again pay the full monthly health insurance premium for our eligible employees. This is almost unheard of among other employers. CMCA will renew the Mercy health insurance plan. This means that the health coverage for 2009 will be the same as it was in 2008. The Mercy health plan is an excellent plan. A summary of plan coverage is attached. For more specific information, please call the member services number on the back of your health insurance card.

While there was an increase in the health insurance premiums, CMCA is not asking employees to pay even a portion of their premium. But rather we are asking that you continue to take care of yourselves, get your annual check ups, and use the preventive care options offered by our health insurance. For those of you who have your children and/or your spouse on the health insurance plan, the new monthly premiums effective January 1, 2009 are as follows: Spouse = $625.16 and children = $317.17 (flat fee for all children). CMCA pays the full employee premium of $509.91 on each eligible employee.

While on the subject of health insurance, please keep in mind that you can get many generic prescriptions filled for $4 or even free. If you doctor is writing your prescription ask him/her if there is a comparable generic available and if so have him/her write the prescription for the generic. You can save money. Walmart and Gerbes, offer many generic prescriptions for just $4. Schnuck’s has at least 13 commonly prescribed antibiotics that they will fill absolutely free when you bring in your prescription. Our co-pay on generic prescriptions is $10. So before you hand over your insurance card to the pharmacist and pay the co-pay, ask the pharmacist how much the drug actually cost – it could be cheaper than the co-pay.

Oh yeah, while I’m at it, eat an apple, quit smoking, and wear your seatbelt. We want you to be safe, happy, and healthy so you can continue to be part of our great team!

Have a great day!

Julie Kratzer

HR Director"

Development and Transformation

I find it terribly ironic that our agency is gaining new resources even as the economy continues to struggle. As we discussed at the board meeting a few weeks ago, more utility assistance (LIHEAP) and Weatherization funding has been appropriated by Congress, an additional $23 million is available to the state of Missouri for Neighborhood Stabilization through the Community Development Block Grant, and our Head Start program has taken on nearly $2 million (over the next several years) for projects around health literacy and healthy relationships. Sadly, much of this funding is a reflection of the fact that more people are struggling to make ends meet. Even with new resources however, we are not able to address all of the causes of poverty by ourselves, much less the influx of families who are struggling because of the current economy. This is all the more reason to continue implementing our transformational plan. CMCA must be about more than providing programs and services if it is truly to be a catalyst to ending poverty in mid-Missouri. Our transformational plan incorporates all of our programs but expands to engage the community to work together to address the root causes of poverty that our individual programs do not. This leads me back to our sources of revenue. We are not funded to implement our transformational plan nor to do much of the work that it outlines. Certainly we will work to maximize our programmatic budgets by looking for acceptable opportunities to braid our funding around certain activities but ultimately we will need new revenue. To fund our plan we will take a three-pronged approach. First, we will continue to look for grants that specifically fit our plan. Second, we will establish a development plan that incorporates events and direct fundraising (see our Development Plan for more details). Third, we are building capital to start a social enterprise that will generate revenue for the agency. For this reason I am all the more excited to get our Development Advisory Board up and running.

Before we get too much further along, I should point out that we have some significant recruiting to do to fill our board back to capacity (21 members). Cooper, Howard, Moniteau, and Osage Counties particularly need representation. Please share any ideas about people that would support our mission and be active board members. The Membership and Training Committee will be meeting on November 13 to discuss the current openings and to discuss recruitment strategies. We will also be discussing a new application process that will allow us to analyze board members’ and recruits’ knowledge, skills, and abilities to help us develop the most well-rounded board possible.

Development Planning

Today, Trina Almond, Development and Communication Director, and I attended the third of a series of four seminars on Strategic Fundraising for Nonprofits put on by the Nonprofit Services Consortium in St. Louis. Today we covered corporate and foundation relations, and board and staff leadership. The second part was particularly interesting to me as our agency wrestles with how best to engage our board in the process of fundraising. Because of our funding sources we are required to have a "tripartite" board of directors made of 1/3 low income representatives, 1/3 elected officials, and 1/3 private sector representatives. Within those sectors we have to have expertise in legal issues, finance, and early childhood education. This is a very important operational board but it isn't really geared towards fundraising. With that in mind, one of our board members suggested that we establish a Development Advisory Board that would be established with fundraising in mind and specifically recruit community members with the experience, network, and resources to make such efforts successful. We are moving forward with this concept and the board member that brought this concept is going to serve as the first chair of our advisory board! We have been slowly preparing our board to support fundraising efforts to supplement our program funding and I am looking forward to implementing our development plan.

Some people ask why we need to establish a development plan when we receive federal and state funds to operate our programs. The generic answer is that none of those sources is designed solely to "empower individuals and families to achieve self-reliance" as our mission suggests. All of our services play a role in our strategic plan, helping people to achieve their goals regardless of their starting point along the human development continuum but ultimately, it is important for CMCA to generate unrestricted funds to fill in gaps in those services. Specifically, unrestricted funds will be used for quality control and expansion of existing programs, capacity building within the agency (training, support, salary structures), client asset and business development, and our Circles approach (which is a comprehensive approach to ending poverty that is relatively unfunded at this point). With a more diverse source of revenue CMCA is more likely to achieve it's mission.

Announcement

CMCA has been working for a long time now on our transformational plan. This is the plan that gives us the opportunity to think beyond our programmatic barriers about how to end poverty in mid-Missouri. The plan both acknowledges all of the valuable contributions we are already making to our communities and challenges us to do more. Transformation does not mean paying lip-service to the management process of the month but rather it means that we are going to change the way we do business. By increasing our communication within the agency and engaging the community outside of our agency we can change the way we all think about poverty and build activities around long term solutions.

Our five agency wide strategic commitments are as follows:
1. Engage the community to assure that all people have their basic needs met.
2. Enhance community capacity to ensure all individuals have lifelong learning opportunities.
3. Build community capacity to enhance economic and community assets.
4. Build relationships across class and race lines.
5. Develop an innovative, caring agency dedicated to being an influential leader in our communities.

My sincerest thanks to everybody that worked on this plan or covered for a colleague while they attended planning meetings or who got excited about trying a new challenge!

So we have this great plan to transform our agency, now it is time to implement the plan. Over the summer we established a Coordinating Team that will be responsible for coordinating the work and approving implementation plans of Strategy Teams. Coordinating Team members will lead the Strategy Teams which will establish baseline information about our performance targets, identify indicators of progress, create activities that will accomplish our goals, and develop work plans and budgets around those activities. Whew! That sounds like a lot of work! That is why I refer to this process as a marathon, not a sprint. This is the way we will conduct business now and we will have to figure out how to make it work. The process of including CMCA staff in decision making is critical to our success. With that, it is my pleasure to announce that the Strategy Teams have been selected.

The Coordinating Team met to discuss all of the leaders across the agency. They considered cross-agency representation, staff work load and capacity, performance, geographic dispersion, and the interests and skills of various staff to come up with diverse teams that we would like to invite to help us implement our plan. The Co-Leaders will be contacting many of you to invite you to be on a team. I hope you will seriously consider this leadership opportunity. Think about your commitment to our mission and vision and whether you can commit to this long term aspect of your job. Discuss the invitation with your supervisor to make sure they support your participation by being flexible with your schedule and balancing your workload. If you accept the invitation please mark your calendar for an orientation session from 10:00 to 2:00 on December 2.

For those of you that were not selected, please understand that many factors went into this process and that it is no reflection on your performance or commitment to the agency. In fact, in many cases your heavy involvement in other agency commitments was so impressive that we did not want to add more to your plate. Still, there will be many opportunities to include additional leaders in the implementation process. Keep an eye out for ad hoc committees and other chances to provide feedback. As always, you can contact me directly if you have ideas that should be included in the implementation process or if you are particularly interested in one of these teams.

The Strategy Team Co-Leaders:
Strategy 1: Wendi Matlick and Adam Tipton
Strategy 2: Mernell King and Joyce Davis
Strategy 3: Dianna Moore and Brandy Tallman
Strategy 4: Angela Hirsch and Melissa Chambers
Strategy 5: Anita Sanderson, Chris Macy, and Julie Kratzer

Health Care Institute

CMCA submitted a Head Start Innovation and Improvement grant earlier this year to coordinate nationwide implementation of UCLA’s Health Care Institute. Last week we were notified that we have been awarded the grant. The grant is for just over $1 million over three years and we will focus primarily on Missouri for the first year, then east of the Mississippi and West of the Mississippi. Essentially this is a train the trainer model designed to increase the capacity of Head Start families to understand and address their health care needs and ultimately reduce strain on the Medicaid system. I think this fits nicely with the interests of many of our partners including Parents As Teachers, Mo HealthNet, and the Missouri Department of Social Services. I think there will be further-reaching opportunities beyond Head Start families as we get our grant into full gear. We will be recruiting Missouri Head Start programs to participate over the next few months. This grant will be heavily evaluated and I expect to show great outcomes over the next few years. This is a coup for Missouri and we intend to spread the benefit of this opportunity as far and wide as possible. While I tend to think social service interventions generally address the symptom rather than the cause, the HCI approach, like our Circles approach, Step Up to Leadership, and Family Development Credential, is designed to empower individuals and give them the tools to address their own needs and goals.

From the grant narrative:

“We understand the benefit of bringing low-literacy healthcare training to Missouri families. Using the low-literacy materials and methodologies that have been developed by the HCI at UCLA, families will become stronger advocates for the healthcare needs of their children and will also be able to better provide for the basic healthcare needs of their children. A healthy child has more opportunity to succeed in school and in life and healthier families mean healthier communities.”

The following is from the Wall Street Journal today (thanks Skip for sending). It's an interesting take on our presidential nominees' positions on homeownership policies. Since the foreclosure crises started to hit, I've been wondering about CMCA's efforts to support homeownership. In that time we've sold three homes by providing down payment assistance and offering affordable prices because of our partnership with Youth Build, a JobPoint program. So far so good. Clearly, homeownership is an important step towards economic self-reliance but considering the current crises, it's also clearly not the best first step for a lot of families. Many homeowners that either accepted or were dupped into signing dubious mortgage arrangements are suffering today because they took on more debt than they could afford or because the debt was structured in a way that came back to bite them several years into their mortgage. I still believe that homeownership is a very important goal but it is not the only way to meet one's housing needs nor their economic goals. NPR recently related a story that indicated that even the huge tax deductibility benefit from interest on a home loan (one of the largest "assistance" programs in the U.S. - don't think for a second any of us is "self-sufficient" and doesn't need the government support - heck I bought my first home with a VA loan) doesn't necessarily offset the cost of homeownership. In other words, despite the asset advantage, one could potentially be better off financially by investing the interest from a home loan and renting.

CMCA is trying to play both sides. Two of our Strategic Commitments address this issue. As a basic need, we have a ten year outcome that says "Quality, affordable housing is made available for families." This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with purchasing a home but rather that quality housing stock is available for rent or ownership at an affordable cost. Generally "affordable" in this context means that no more than 30% of household income is spent on housing. The second Strategic Commitment, which addresses economic and community assets is more homeownership based. Our three year outcome indicates that "15 families with low income become homeowners in CMCA's service area." We're going to really want to work with those families to make sure that they are prepared for the responsibility and obligations of homeownership. I think the key is that we're helping our clients to meet their goals. Whether or not I think homeownership is right for somebody isn't nearly as important as whether they do. Hopefully as federal policy evolves, it will be flexible enough to give organizations like CMCA, JobPoint, Habitat for Humanity, Housing Authorities, etc, the tools we need to create options that fit our clients' goals.

Homeownership Push Is Rethought

Both Candidates
Weigh the Best Path
To American Dream

By NICK TIMIRAOS
September 12, 2008; Page A4

The government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is forcing John McCain and Barack Obama to consider the proper fix for the companies' long-term structure. A key question in that effort: How aggressively should a new administration promote homeownership?

Most of the discussion from the candidates has been about how to stem rising foreclosure rates. Both tout homeownership as a central pillar of the American dream. But with many borrowers defaulting on loans and housing prices plummeting in some areas, both also are rethinking how best to achieve that goal.

"This is something the next administration will have to deal with: Are they going to be pushing people into homeownership?" said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington and a critic of the government's advocacy of homeownership.

Government policies have promoted homeownership for decades, from Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, which paved the way for the 30-year mortgage, to postwar policies that explicitly ensconced it as a federal goal.

During the 1990s, Washington pushed Fannie and Freddie to expand their role providing loans for low- and middle-income borrowers. In 2002, the Bush administration charted a more aggressive course by pushing for lower down payments and touting vouchers that would allow public-housing tenants to one day own homes.

Neither candidate has suggested that the government's basic goal of expanded homeownership is a mistake. Sen. Obama has proposed a 10% mortgage interest tax credit for homeowners who don't itemize. The goal is to give more low- and middle-income Americans an existing tax subsidy, as two-thirds of taxpayers don't itemize on their returns, according to the Internal Revenue Service. The campaign estimates that the provision would provide an average $500 each to 10 million homeowners.

Both candidates are challenging the way the U.S. has pushed for homeownership, however. "It doesn't mean the goal was flawed. It means that the Bush administration went around it the wrong way," said Jason Furman, an Obama economic adviser. The Democratic platform calls affordable rental housing "more critical than ever," while the Republicans call for a housing policy that recognizes the "needs of renters."

In 2004, President George W. Bush campaigned on lower barriers to homeownership as part of the domestic agenda for his second term. The Republican Party platform that year singled out the down payment as the "most significant barrier to homeownership."

This year's Republican platform makes no mention of that plank, instead warning that "government action must not implicitly encourage anyone to borrow more than they can afford to repay."

Sen. McCain was a leading advocate of raising down-payment requirements on loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration and has warned against lending to homeowners who don't have enough of their own capital in the investment.

The Fannie-Freddie rescue has revealed differences between the campaigns over how they believe the next president should approach long-term reforms. Sen. McCain supports downsizing the companies, then selling them off, severing all ties to the government. His advisers have called for the FHA or other government agencies to make mortgages available to borrowers who otherwise might not qualify.

Sen. Obama's advisers have argued against privatization. "If your only plan is privatization, that is reckless and ideological and risks affordable housing in this country," said Mr. Furman. While parts of the institutions may need to be privatized, he said, the failure of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. is an example that "a private structure is no guarantee that you avoid problems."

Both candidates have urged stiffer measures to stem mortgage fraud and called for greater transparency in the loan process, so homeowners can better understand their mortgage terms.

Sen. McCain offered his most detailed response to the liquidity crisis in March, when he rejected the use of taxpayer money to bail out speculators or financial institutions and warned against rescuing irresponsible players, from big banks to small borrowers.

Sen. Obama has called for amending the federal bankruptcy code to allow judges to force mortgage lenders to take a loss on their loans as part of a Chapter 13 settlement. He has criticized Sen. McCain for voting in favor of a 2005 bankruptcy bill that critics say made it harder for lower- and middle-class consumers to file for bankruptcy. The bill had the support of Sen. Obama's running mate, Joe Biden.

The Illinois senator also has called for restoring public-housing funding cuts made by the Bush administration, and supports efforts to create an affordable-housing trust fund, which would provide a dedicated source of funding for low- and middle-income housing.

Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com

Financial crises

Yesterday the price of oil jumped $5 per barrel. That means our "reprieve" from high gas prices is likely to end soon. I can't believe I even consider $3.39 per gallon for gas cheap, but I guess that's how they get us. A recent columnist in Newsweek reminded me that it's not cheap and that riding my bike to work is still a pretty good investment of my energy. Course soccer moms don't necessarily reflect the challenges of CMCA clients but truly there are alternatives to individual automobiles that pose solutions that all of us should consider. The bus system in Columbia seems to work for a lot of college students but I haven't heard a lot of praise from folks who are just trying to get to work on time. But it is something we can build on. Our more rural communities don't even have a kernel of a transportation system. Walking, biking, and carpooling seem to represent the best options for gasoline conservation at this point. But I digress. The NPR story that alerted me to the rise in the cost of oil also spouted off a litany of additional costs that we should expect to inflate. Primarily food, clothing, and just about anything one would use U.S. currency to purchase. Teri Roberts, CMCA Financial Education Coordinator, sent me this resource to help consider how to deal with these rising costs, avoid crises, and help our neighbors to deal with the crises they're already experiencing. It isn't much but we're all going to have to figure out how to get through this together.

Now that it's getting hot . . .

I just looked at how much of our LIHEAP funds are obligated so far this summer. LIHEAP is the funding source that provides energy assistance and crises assistance to help pay utility bills. The summer season started June 2 and we have just spent 80% of the funds we have available to get through September. From an administrative standpoint, we're using the money efficiently to spend down our allotment. From a human being, I'm really worried that it's just now getting really hot this summer and we aren't going to have any help available within a few weeks. We know that utility rates are going up and utility cutoffs are becoming more common but are ability to do anything about this is limited. Some in Congress are trying to help to deal with this crises with a quick bandaid of additional funds but even the recommended $120 million wouldn't take us but a few weeks further into the summer. I applaud Senator Collins and her 44 colleagues that are recommending this step and appreciate her interest in domestic spending. BUT, the real crises of poverty won't be addressed by pumping money into the system. As with most complicated problems, there are no quick fixes. Years of policy and denial have led us to our current reality, and longterm solutions that invest in preventive measures are the best hope for the generations that follow.

Darin and the Director of Senior Corps

Last night's event went off great. All of the speakers praised the value of volunteers and community service and got us all fired up.

Today I've been exposed to two valuable perspectives. First, I invited myself to a session on social networking tools for non-profits and then I attended a session specifically for Executive Directors of "sponsor" agencies. I'll start with that. Apparently some ED's and CEO's are put out that the Corporation for National and Coomunity service doesn't communicate with them (us) more directly and that their Program Directors have too much influence. I have a few thoughts on that. First I want CMCA's Foster Grandparent Director, Ann Gilchrist, to have influence with CNCA as she has all the experience and know-how. Second, she's been forcing me to stay engaged in FGP issues and would LIKE me to be more involved I think. Certainly I see now that I can be more involved in promoting and administering (but I'm not about to get in the way of managing) and will follow up with Ann when I return. Finally, I can't help but make comparisons to Head Start, Workforce Investment, CSBG, etc. They all want to tell us how to run our programs and organizations. Heck, the Head Start Reauthorization tells our BOARD how to operate. All the more reason to seriously and continuously pursue new resources from nongovernmental sources.

My morning session was presented by the Director for Community Affairs in the US for Google, and reps from MySpace, Salesforce.com, and VolunteerMatch. We learned about all kinds of free online services available to non-profits for use in fundraising, volunteer recruitment, administrative functions, etc. Google and Salesforce.com have free fundraising tools for online donations and donor tracking. Google suggests using the internet "cloud" for intranet and local server functions and collaboration tools that allow multiple users to edit a single document (instead of tracking multiple versions of a document as peopoe make revisions). The MySpace rep talked about "viral fundraising" where "friends" enable fundraising through "widgets" on their websites, blogs, and MySpace pages. They all pointed to the fact that 18-25 year olds are particular engaged in community building (or have a desire to do so) and are likely to be comfortable with a variety of online communities. Shouldn't we be giving them the opportunity to connect with us and our clients? Here's the real kicker. The following is an excerpt from Salesforce.com's annual report about the Family Service Agency of San Francisco's use of their tools, "one of the largest benefits has been for the agency's caseworkers who work directly with clients. Previously, caseworkers spent nearly 50 percent of their time on paperwork and reporting. Now, using Salesforce, they can access client records remotely, make case notes more quickly, and track client progress over time. The result of lessening the administrative burdens has allowed caseworkers to increase the time they spend with clients by more than 30 percent." Sounds like everything our funders' short sighted, controlled, data management systems haven't been able to deliver on.

Foster Grandparent Program

I'm in Atlanta for the National Conference on Volunteering and Service. I'm sitting here in the Georgia World Congress right next to Centennial Olympic Park and several things have jumped out at me already during this first day. 1) Atlanta is a cooler city than I realized, 2) the Corporation for National & Community Service knows how to put on a heckuva conference and 3) there's nothing "old" about the Senior Corps. I was skeptical about coming here since I'm filling in for Ann Gilchrist, our Foster Grandparent Program Director, but I have been seriously impressed. The hall is filled with the rhythms of a local volunteer bongo drum corp and we're getting ready to hear from Neil Bush, Congressman John Lewis, the director of the Peace Corps and more. I'll let you know how it goes later. Our Foster Grandparents Program is one of three Senior Corp programs sponsored by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The others are RSVP and the Senior Companion Program. Did you know there are nearly 30,000 FGP volunteers?! They served over 25 million hours of volunteer time and more than a quarter million children across the country. (Take note of the CNCS and Senior Corps websites for some of their technical aspects. They're full of widgets, RSS, and feed to social networking sites. I'm going to sneak in to a session about the use of these tools tomorrow morning. Expect to see me experimenting with this blog and the ShowMeAction website with these tools.)

Eat at FUDDRUCKERS May 16

Join us on May 16th!

Central Missouri Community Action is fighting to End Poverty here in Central Missouri and Fuddruckers has joined us in this effort by FORKIN’ IT OUT FOR A GREAT CAUSE. If you've never been to Fuddruckers, this is a great opportunity to try it out.

On May 16, 2008 Fuddruckers is holding a Benefit Night for Central Missouri Community Action to help End Poverty in Central Missouri. Download and bring this flyer to Fuddruckers on May 16, 2008 from 11:30am – 8:30pm and Fuddruckers will donate 10% of your total bill to Central Missouri Community Action. This is a fun and easy way to help End Poverty here in our community.

Fuddruckers is located at 1301 Grindstone Parkway in the Grindstone Plaza next Wal-Mart in Columbia, MO. Their phone number is 573-442-6484. For more information or questions about the Benefit Night at Fuddruckers contact Adam Tipton at (573) 443-8731 ext. 201.

Thank you for your support!

CMCA Leadership Team

The CMCA Leadership Team is made up of our program directors that are directly supervised by me. Specifically, the following staff are members of the Leadership Team:

Angela Hirsch – Community Services Director
Anita Sanderson – Finance Director
Chris Macy – IT Director
Dianna Moore – Economic Development Director
Joyce Davis – Employment and Training Director
Julie Kratzer – HR Director
Mernell King – Early Childhood Director

This team meets every first and third Tuesday of the month to discuss the CMCA’s progress and challenges, to work on our own professional development, to plan, and soon to work on the transformation plan implementation. At our last meeting we agreed to share highlights of our meetings with all staff in an effort to increase communication and give you a sense of where we are trying to go as an agency. I won’t share every detail of these meetings but I will give you a sense of the topics we are covering. If you are particularly interested in a topic, please follow up with your supervisor or the nearest leadership team member. We are trying to minimize discrepancies in the information you get so please let me know if you get any mixed messages. I’ll also post these notes to my blog to increase our transparency for a broader audience. I hope that having more information about our agency helps to empower and support your efforts so that when you take advantage of leadership opportunities at CMCA or in your community you have a fuller knowledge of our agency’s purpose.

Tuesday, May 6

The two main topics for discussion were the Family Development Credential and the agency Indirect Rate.

Members of the LT attended training in April to learn more about the Family Development Credential (FDC). This certification is a strength-based case management training course that challenges case managers to think more comprehensively about their caseload. CMCA tried to implement this credential several years ago but it was during the period of significant leadership turnover and it went basically unsupported until it fell apart. Now we have a team that is committed to implementing this credential at CMCA and will support its implementation. In June, 6 staff (3 Head Start, 2 county staff, and 1 staff from Employment and Training) will attend intensive training to prepare to deliver the course. FDC is a 90 clock hour course that will be conducted over the twelve month period starting in October. Participants will gain new case management skills that will give them more tools to help our clients define and attain their own success. Participants will build a portfolio throughout the course, be tested, and graded to achieve their certification. We are exploring options with MU to receive college credit from the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. We are also planning to make the training available to our community partners to support their case management capacity. During the first year we expect to certify only a small handful of our staff but as we build capacity more and more staff will be expected to participate. Eventually the Family Development Credential will be a required qualification for CMCA case workers.

Like most Community Action Agencies and other organizations with federal contracts, CMCA adheres to an Indirect Rate to pay for administrative costs. Each year we apply to a federal office in Dallas, Texas to get a determination of our rate based on actual administrative costs. At CMCA each program pays 15.2% of the cost of salaries and benefits into the “indirect pool” to pay for our administration. Our administration includes my salary, the HR and IT departments, and the entire accounting function of CMCA. Basically, the administration (paid out of the indirect pool) supports all agency wide functions to make sure employees are paid and have systems in place that enable you to do your work. Our administration is pretty lean as we currently operate at less than 7% of the agency’s overall budget. The discussion that ensued from Anita’s presentation on our indirect rate consisted of a consideration of how we will cost allocate cross-functional programmatic and administrative responsibilities as we begin to implement our transformation plan. Those answers will have to evolve as we get into that process because this is relatively unchartered territory!

Next LT meeting scheduled for May 20.

Bike, Walk, and Wheel Week

In an effort to prepare for full participation in Bike, Walk, and Wheel Week, and an ongoing commitment to reduce my carbon footprint, improve my health, save gas money, and be a role model for my son, I rode my bike to work today. Hayden asked why I was doing that as I rolled out of the driveway and I hollered over my shoulder, "To save the planet!" I love that he still thinks I'm a hero. :) As I was riding in, I thought about all the things CMCA is doing to model "green living." First, we have an informal, internal agreement that anything we build from this point forward will include elements of energy conservation and "green" strategies. From the transitional housing unit we are designing in Columbia to single family homes in Vandalia and everything in between, we're considering the materials we use, the facing of the facility, the "tightness" of the housing stock, and the carbon footprint. Our weatherization program itself is designed to create energy efficiency in an effort to decrease utility bills and increase the housing quality for the families we serve. When an eligible families applies, we do an energy audit to determine where repairs and renovation would have the most impact and then seal the home up based on those recommendations by replacing and caulking windows, fixing holes and leaks, adding insulation to floors, walls, and attics, etc. Savings generated from these efforts are nearly $350 per home (around 30% of their utility costs!) and return about $1.40 for every dollar we spend. We also partner with various volunteer groups to wrap water heaters and take minor steps to reduce energy use in senior housing and have an air conditioner replacement program with the City of Columbia to replace worn out, inefficient window units with Energy Star units. Our energy department is getting in the act too. While the idea is to help pay utility bills for low-income clients, we know that high utility rates are disproportionately effecting the poor. The most effective way to help folks to be self reliant is to help them decrease their utility bill (unfortunately the State only provides enough Weatherization funding to serve less than 1% of eligible households). Ironically, they are also the least likely to afford expensive CFLs so we're helping to provide these energy efficient bulbs to our clients. Do your part by pledging to change your own lightbulbs as part of our campaign to Change a Light, Change the World. Lastly, we're looking at our own habits. By turning off lights in unused spaces in our offices, recycling everything possible, and promoting constant thought about where to reduce energy consumption, CMCA is joining the ranks of organizations that have already made this a priority.

So back to my original subject, Bike, Walk, and Wheel Week is next week. Please consider signing up and committing to schedule more activity in your life. Here's a comment from Ian Thomas, Executive Director of the PedNet Coalition,

"The seventh annual Bike, Walk, and Wheel Week (BWWW) starts on Saturday, and we're hoping to break last year's record of 3,450 participants. If you can build some walking or biking into your schedule during the week of May 3-10, please go ahead and sign up at www.pednet.org or www.getaboutcolumbia.com. The kick-off event this Saturday (May 3) features the dedication of the new Flat Branch Park pedestrian bridge at 1:00 pm followed by welcoming comments from Mayor Hindman and Richard & Patty King (this year's BWWW honorary chairs), the Celebrity Bike-Car Challenge, the "Float your Boat" children's activity, Ironweed Bluegrass, ArtCycle, and $1 off admission to the YouZeum with your BWWW t-shirt. Friday, May 9 is Breakfast Stations Day when you can pick up a free breakfast at any of eleven locations around town if you're biking, walking, or wheeling. And if, in these times of increasing gas prices, you're thinking about giving bike commuting a try, check out the various classes on safe cycling, commuter tips, and basic bike maintenance."

Board Challenge

The CMCA board met last night and had some excellent discussion. Thanks to all who attended. The general theme for the evening revolved around our housing responsibilities, most of which fall under our first and third strategic commitments. 1. Engage the community to assure that all people have their basic needs met; and 3. Build community capacity to enhance economic and community assets. Some of the board members expressed some concern over our involvement in tax credit development deals. In a nutshell, the state of Missouri created the Missouri Housing Development Commission to support the development of affordable housing throughout the state. Developers apply for tax credits to fund their development, they sell those credits to syndicators (investors) that turn the credits into cash for the building project. The developers are required to have non-profit partners to keep the playing field level. That's where we come in. As non-profit partner we generally get some small portion of the developer fee (the profit from the development) and have the responsibility of certifying that the new development makes apartment units available to tenants with low-income and that rents constitute less than 30% of their household income. Generally there is a sense that developers are getting rich by taking advantage of these arrangements and that not enough of the tax credit dollars actually make it into the project itself. A couple of things come to mind when I hear that. First, without this arrangement I do not believe that we would see the development or rehabilitation of quality affordable housing in Missouri. If a developer can't make a profit, why would they do it? Also, the developers are the ones taking the risk. Their entire profit comes immediately after the completion of the building phase. Apartment rents are kept so low that there is little or no profit to be made managing them over the life of the structure, unlike market rate developments where the rent provides ongoing profit. Most importantly, the conclusion I have come to (and more importantly, that the board has endorsed), is that as a non-profit with commitments to provide affordable housing, WE should be in the driver's seat on these developments. If CMCA acts as the developer, the "profit" goes back into our programs and services to serve our communities even better. That leads me to the challenge the board presented last night. One of our directors attended the Community Action Capitol Development Enterprise conference with two of our staff and came back fired up about new opportunities and thinking outside of the box. She challenged us to follow through on our Transformation Plan (more to come on that) by generating revenue for the agency in all new ways. Federal funding for our programs has been stagnant or declining for years and we have to think differently about our revenue options if we take our mission seriously. I heard that message loud and clear and am excited to continue moving our organization in that direction.

The Great Funding Roller Coaster

Funding for community action agencies is like a roller coaster. Six months ago I was worried that we were going to use more than $300,000 in agency reserve funds to account for deficits in Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), Head Start, Weatherization, and Foster Grandparents. Today, I am confidant we will make it through the year with a balanced budget for the first time since I have been at CMCA. We have leveled the roller coaster through tireless advocacy, innovative and responsible management and budgeting, and a little bit of luck. Let me explain. Two of our programs experienced "rescissions" this year. Essentially that means our federal funders decided that they can't really afford the contracts we have in place. WIA experienced a rescission of more than $100,000 and Foster Grandparents experienced a $7,000 rescission. Our employment and training department was already spread thin by hiring freezes required by our contractor and ever increasing demands. We planned to maintain our current staffing and absorb the deficit from our CSBG reserves to see if funding is restored next year while seeking additional grants elsewhere in the meantime. Joyce Davis was relentless in her pursuit of additional funds and worked with Anita Sanderson and the Central Region Workforce Investment Board (CWIB) to restore the entire deficit last month. LIHEAP and CSBG were written as deficit budgets last year because there is just more work than we have staff to accomplish. In January and February however, Missouri granted more LIHEAP funds that both filled our staffing needs and compensated some of our CSBG staff who had been doing LIHEAP work. Angela Hirsch and Anita worked diligently to rework the budget with these changing parameters to live within our means. Head Start funding has been stagnant for years. The only increase we have seen in the last seven years has been a 1.5% cost of living increase that didn't even come close to catching up to all of our rising costs. During that time more of our teaching staff has earned degrees and national accountability measures have squeezed our budget tight. Mernell King is a brilliant manager that has been able to re-organize our Head Start structure (twice in the last two years) in a way that both makes our budget work and maintains a high level of quality. Significant grants have been written and awarded to her team for Healthy Smiles, Connect for Kids, and Fathers First, and more are on the way. The initiatives help to support our administrative costs and enhance the quality and comprehensiveness of our Head Start program and agency. Our Weatherization program (Wx) also experienced a budget hiccup that was just bad timing. The state changed one of its regulations about how we are funded and the end result was the $47,000 from a '07 contract with Ameren got lost in the shuffle. After going around and around with Ameren and the Department of Natural Resources (our Wx funder), Teresa House found a solution that everyone can agree on. It is not a perfect solution as we still feel like we are losing $47,000 but it won't hit us until next year when we can at least plan for it. The point of all of this is that this is no way to run an organization. Our state and federal governments are not supporting our programs consistently and I believe that we have to find revenue from different sources that at least give us some control over how much we get and how we use the funds. To that end, we continue to plan for fund raising strategies and social enterprises that will generate revenue we can use to plug holes in our grant budgets and ultimately move us closer to our mission of empowering individuals and families to achieve self-reliance.

Inflation Hits the Poor Hardest

I realize how difficult it is to keep up with a blog each time a month slips by and I realize I haven't posted anything!

Today's entry is easy. We are all feeling the pinch of rising costs (it shouldn't cost $50 bucks to fill the gas tank of a HONDA!) but who feels it the most? You guessed it, those who can least afford an increase of bread, milk, and gas. What's worse, the price for these staples is going up faster than the price of items that we can cut back on like cars or restaurant meals. This article from the front page of the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago provides some excellent food for thought. This article was brought to my attention by the Community Action Partnership, our national Community Action presence. They are doing a great job of bringing the reality of poverty to our national leaders.

For those of you who have been following my school board exploits, you might wonder how I can feel good recommending a tax levy increase in Columbia despite the situation described above. First, I don't feel good about it. Ultimately though, education is one of the best ways to mitigate the effect of recession. A strong public education system provides an important draw to employers who are looking for qualified employees, prepares students for higher paying jobs and post-secondary education options, and increases the quality of life for everyone in the community. Supporting education is the right thing to do for our economy and everyone effected by the current economic climate.

Community Issues Management

I had the good fortune recently, and last summer, to represent Missouri Community Action interests at a convening of really smart people who are building a system to manage community resources in a GIS, spacial analysis environment. We were in Charleston, South Carolina, where the local United Way is funding the development and application of this system called C.I.M. (community issues management). The really exciting thing is that they are working with an organization called the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI) located at the University of Missouri . . . in Columbia! I won't even describe the random string of events that led to working with this group but I am ecstatic that it happened. I brought with me Steve Hollis who coordinates social service funding for the city of Columbia because he sees value in the system too.

RUPRI describes CIM as follows:

The Community Issues Management (CIM) Collaborative provides a mechanism for engaging stakeholders in identifying, analyzing and prioritizing issues that impact their community and region. This collaboration is comprised of an engaged learning community and unique Internet-based decision support tools. These tools include a suite of applications that enable decision makers to conduct place-based analyses and generate maps and dynamic reports.

The CIM system is built within a national-level Internet-based GIS framework that enables intermediaries across the country to add community-specific data and overlay their data with state and national datasets. The collaboration involves integrating health and human services data with other federal, state and local data (i.e., socio-economic, demographic, jurisdictional, political, environmental, and infrastructure data) to: (1) geographically visualize community, regional, and national-level data via the Internet; (2) integrate new spatial data and overlay these data to conduct location-specific analyses; and (3) generate maps, dynamic reports, and “what if” scenarios that utilize the integrated nature of these information systems.

The bottom line for CMCA is that we could enter data into this system about the services we provide, specifically by census tract, neighborhood, or zip+4 code, overlay those services on vital statistics like poverty, crime, childbirth, education levels, household income, etc and look at a map that in a glance would tell us whether we're working in the right places and focusing on the right outcomes. Further, we could add other social service programs and see if there are gaps in our community that need to be addressed. The City or State could add their own criteria and determine if the money they are pouring into social services is having any effect over time. In fact, they could select a range of issues and say "we want to focus our resources on x, y, and z issues" and then specifically track progress on those issues to target their funds and hold service providers accountable, collectively, for that progress. It's kind of a complicated concept that I'm constantly re-wrapping my brain around but it seems like it would be an incredibly helpful tool for an organization that wants to ensure that its services are meeting its goals. You'll hear more about this from me as we look more deeply into the availability of this tool and implications for our service area. In the meantime, you can read the overview here.

Healthy Marriage Initiative

Three words that have historically stricken fear into the hearts of liberals fearing right-wing "family-values" conspiracies: Healthy Marriage Initiative. Last fall, CMCA received a grant award of nearly $500,000 per year for the next five years as part of the Head Start Healthy Marriage Initiative. While I was ecstatic to receive that kind of funding, I was a little nervous about the implication that we might become a dating service, wedding chapel, or spiritual counselor . . . none of which fit with our new Strategic Commitments. As it turns out however, what we are really talking about is supporting healthy relationships to benefit children. I attended a meeting today to start forming a statewide healthy marriage (relationship) initiative in Missouri with Dr. David Schramm. Among the fascinating information we got, I learned that "intervention research demonstrates that parent-child relationship quality and child behaviors were improved more by "Couples Education" than by "Parent Education" (Cowan & Cowan). That certainly puts an interesting twist on our efforts to work with Parents As Teachers and our own Head Start home visiting model. One could go many different directions with research related to healthy relationships but we also heard about one I had never considered. We know that unhealthy relationships between the adults in a child's life can lead to negative effects like maltreatment, depression, unhealthy stress levels, physical illness, and economic hardship but it also effects a child's quality and quantity of sleep. Why does that matter? A child's sleep patterns is directly connected to their cognitive performance, academic achievement, physical health, body mass index, and psychological adjustment! This information blew my mind. Dr. Schramm, in his remarks, indicated that marital agression in a child's life is a factor in childhood obesity. That may seem like a stretch, but when you consider the list of effects we already knew about crises, violence, and aggression in the home (maltreatment, depression, unhealthy stress levels, physical illness, and economic hardship), these factors line up with causes of obesity. When the parents of children, married or not, do the right things for their kids, they are greatly enhancing that child's ability to be successful. I am proud that we are diving into this arena with our partners at the University of Missouri. Following are the benefits we expect for healthy relationships among the following groups:

Adults: lower stress levels, better healthy habits and practices, better mental health, better physical health, greater financial well-being.

Children: improved school performance, decreased emotional/behavioral problems, decreased substance abuse, criminal activity and risky sexual behavior.

Workplace: Better employees, lower absenteeism, greater work commitment, greater job stability, higher levels of productivity.

Families and Communities: more involved fathers, better parenting, financial stability, homeowners, volunteers in communities, fewer risky behaviors/criminality.

I suspect I have another blog posting or two on this subject. What are your thoughts?

Boonville Head Start Back in Action

Last night the Boonville City Council unanimously approved the plan to move Head Start into a new facility. This after more than a yearlong pursuit of new facilities. The old one deteriorated beyond repair after the December 2006 ice storm. After exploring more than 40 different properties the Head Start staff finally came back to me last summer to recommend the purchase of the Kemper Greens clubhouse. I visited the site and was impressed that we had found such a perfect location. It is the former clubhouse for the former Boonville golf course and is just the right size and shape to be perfect for a Head Start center. I remember traveling in August of last year and hiring a property lawyer over the phone and finalizing the contract prior to returning home. I thought we were ready to roll. Turns out however that I still had about five months of heartache in front of me. The golf course was purchased by a local partnership called GRM, LLC and they were really stepping up to help out the community by taking this vacant 52 acre property off the hands of investors that would have otherwise been sunk. They had this great idea to develop the land into about 13 acres of high end single family homes and the rest would be commercial, retail properties. As such, they had it rezoned as a mixed use zone. The first of its kind in Boonville. That's where CMCA comes in. Rather than tear down the clubhouse to build a pharmacy, we suggested, why not sell us the clubhouse and about 2 acres for our Head Start center. This looked good to the developers because it meant they'd have a sale on their hands to kick-start their development. Looked good to us because it is a great location and practically move-in ready. Being the first sale in a first-of-its-kind development has its drawbacks though. The City Council has been very cautious to proceed because they want to make sure this development is everything it was cracked up to be. Long story short, we had to work with GRM's engineer to redraw the site plan for the 2 acres, negotiate a transfer agreement that essentially transfers the responsibility of the developer regarding road development and infrastructure to us proportional to our portion of the total development, attend multiple Planning and Zoning meetings to defend our plan, and attend City Council hearings up to approval last night. On top of all of this, at least one Council member worried outloud about CMCA's ability to meet its obligations and GRM's capacity to hold up its end of the deal. In the end, I think the Council is more in tune with Head Start than they were before. In fact, several Council members asked about the need for more Head Start slots. I'm pretty sure this is finally going to work out. Andy Prevo is starting to work on some minor upgrades to the building and I'm hoping to get our Boonville families into that facility within a few weeks. In the meantime, Krescenz Hundley and the Head Start staff have proven their mettle by keeping those families involved using the home-based model and even setting up temporary quarters at First Baptist Church. Real leadership shines in a crises and Krescenz has outshined them all for the last year.

Economic Stimulus

I get the economic stimulus package Congress is debating. Consumer spending is a ridiculously large portion of the Gross Domestic Product, the number people like to throw around to indicate the relative economic health of countries. Over 70% of the dollars traded in the United States come from consumer spending. So you pump $146 BILLION dollars into people's pockets, suddenly there's a bunch of those 50" t.v.s leaving Best Buy, and the economic heartbeat of our country gets resuscitated. It makes sense. But to me it's a sick kind of sense. We're injecting adrenaline into a patient that needs brain surgery. I've got two problems with the discussion. 1. The House version of the stimulus package gives a check to households making up to $150,000 and the draft version being debated in the Senate is for households making twice that much. I don't know, that just sounds wrong. Personally, I'm going to use the money to pay down credit cards bills. That's consumption that's already taken place, not the new consumption needed to keep the boat afloat. I'd rather see the cap on household income at $50 or $60 thousand and for about twice as much per household than is reflected in the House version (around $1,600 for a family of four). Two or three grand in a household that make up to just past living wages would buy a lot of stuff. But still, those families carry a tremendous amount of debt and I'd have to advise that they use the windfall to pay that debt down. Which leads me to my second problem with the economic stimulus discussion. It seems to me that rabid consumerism may have something to do with the problem. We have established an expectation that we should all get all the stuff we can while we can, debt be damned, as if there is no consequence for the trillions of dollars that are being spent on credit. This is money that doesn't exist. It's no surprise that Congress is pushing a package that legitimizes our every desire when they've been spending trillions of imaginary dollars for years. Guess who the creditor for the U.S. is . . . China. No kidding. But I digress. Seems to me our government ought to be telling us to tighten our belts a little, drive our cars a little less, perhaps even get out of our houses and help out our neighbors when they're in need. I know I'm all over the place on this one but imagine what $146 billion dollars could buy if only we were thinking about an investment in the future rather than a quick fix. Heck, just $7 billion added to the Head Start allocation would fund Head Start for every eligible child in the country. We could put countless thousands through college, draw the best teachers to inner-city schools, create venture capital for a whole new breed of entrepreneurs, create birth funds that virtually guarantee that no child would need to live in poverty, or link even the most rural parts of our country with broadband internet access (the U.S. is like 33rd in overall broadband coverage) , creating commerce opportunities we can only dream of.
I could go on and on. There are lots of things better to invest in than just telling the public "everything is okay, just keep spending money." Like I said though, I really do get the concept. It just leaves me feeling a little queasy and shallow. Anyway, I think I'll go think of other ways to spend my money.

A moment for Martin Luther King Jr.

The last week or so my wife and I have been marveling over what our son Hayden is learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. as a kindergardner. He's basically gotten the whole story in a watered-down version that is palatable to the six year old brain. We reflected on the fact that when we were in elementary school thirty-some-odd-gasp years ago, none of this was part of the traditional curriculum. Heck, there in the mid-70's Martin Luther King Jr.'s words weren't even ten years old and the first decade after his death hadn't passed. As much as I tend to take for granted the lessons of the Civil Rights movement, it's hard to believe it was still simmering when I was born in 1970. We're still not far from it and certainly haven't finished our evolution on this subject. There are still people in Stacey's hometown that can't watch a black man dance with a white woman. Perhaps my son's generation in it's historical distance and relative starting point for thinking about race issues will move us that much closer to Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. Hayden still doesn't get why we're talking about it. That's good on one hand but still a little naive on the other.

Race and poverty are still shamefully intertwined, educated friends who are black feel that it is condescending when told that they "speak well," and other friends point out the hopelessness and despair that frame their peers' reality. Things have definitely improved over the last forty years but the circumstances that surround the above realities reflect the prevalence of inequalities. Sometimes I worry that while our collective thinking about race is evolving, the relative silence on the subject masks the simmering cauldron that holds our fears, hopes, and prejudices. We're closer to King's dream but we still have a long way to go. I'd encourage everyone to make a point of studying Dr. King's words today. Even in the vastly different context of 2008, the dream is worth sharing.

Head Start paranoia evolves

A few years ago, in my last job as Director of the Missouri Head Start State Collaboration Office, I reveled in the conspiracy theories surrounding Head Start, even co-founding a quasi-subversive listserve with some of my snarkier peers around the country. With them, we laughed (to ward off crying) at the standardized testing of four-year olds, a corrupt Head Start official assigned to root out corruption, marriage proponent trainers that made gender jokes during presentations, and schemes to "block grant" Head Start to the states without any protections against being stripped of it significant social service and parent components. All of this was done in relative isolation as it seemed no one with any power could put a stop to this. Maybe we were just paranoid. In this month's Mother Jones, they showed that it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you, with a brief expose of all these issues. More than $100 million was spent over four years for standardized testing that was so ill-begotten that it's data was never used for anything. "Shay Gurry, an education coordinator for St. Jerome's Head Start in Baltimore, remembers a kid who was asked over and over to pick out a picture of a knight; finally she erupted, 'there's no moon, so there's no night!' Another, asked how many books would be left if you had three and gave one to a friend, explained, 'I don't have any friends.' (Excerpted from Mother Jones, January + February 2008 [sorry, there's no link to this article]). The Head Start official was corrupt, doling out thousands of dollars in contracts to her family members and "dubious" reimbursements to herself. It's been a dark time for Head Start these last eight years but I'm afraid they're not quite over. While our new Congress is still getting its sea legs, it passed a Head Start Reauthorization bill that, while vastly improved over previous drafts from as many as three years ago, still contains some disconcerting concepts. I might go over some of those concepts in a future post. In the meantime, I am very pleased to know that CMCA's program can weather just about anything that comes our way. Mernell King, Early Childhood Director, and her team are exemplary. In addition to the fact that they completed a nearly flawless peer review last summer, they left a great impression on our agency independent auditor (who wrapped up his scrutiny of our agency just today). He was blown away by our accountability systems and even pointed out that Melissa Chambers, Assistant Director, was the "best ChildPlus manager" he'd ever seen. Mernell often says that if you stay focused on what's best for kids, you're going to have a good program. Interestingly, that's not as touchy-feely as it might sound. To the CMCA Head Start team the best interest of the kids also happens to mean maintaining strict accountability of the government funds we receive, squeezing every drop of quality out of those dollars, and holding themselves to the highest standards in all areas of program implementation. I couldn't be prouder to work with a group of people. The Head Start landscape continues to evolve and we're preparing for the future.


Today I'm over my Head Start conspiracy theories . . . and wonder who's behind the dismantling of the rest of the social service, education, and health sectors . . .

Does ending poverty mean growing the middle class?

Is it okay to be poor if you're getting by? Should middle class values and expectations be imposed on those in the lower class? Is it offensive to talk about "classes" in polite company? Can't we all just get along? We touched on all of these concepts during a fascinating discussion with the Transformation Team this morning. We're involved in a massive, if not overbearing, process of creating a plan for our agency to evolve over the course of the next ten years. We're trying to organize our strategic plan in a way that we are addressing the vision, values, and mission of CMCA instead of taking what tidbits the government gives us and doing what they tell us to do. The whole of our parts, in other words, should mean people are getting out of poverty (or becoming self-reliant - as our mission states) instead of just having reports that show we have served a lot of people. So this morning we were focusing on reviewing the ten year outcomes staff from throughout the agency have put together over the last three months. We hit a snag on the second strategic commitment which states "Enhance community capacity to ensure all individuals have lifelong learning opportunities." We knew that we were talking about education and whether or not people were getting what they need from school or other training mechanisms to be successful. We were having a having a hard time however getting the concepts down in a way that make sense for our agency and our community. The team that worked on this gave us a framework and laid out the concepts. This morning we came up with a slightly different way to organize those thoughts. Basically we came up with the concept of having outcomes that focused on 1) traditional education, 2) "survival skills", and 3) enrichment opportunities. So far so good. Relatively quickly we agreed to a ten year outcome that says

“Comprehensive, accessible education ensures all students achieve success.”

(comprehensive means PK-K-12-votech-post secondary, accessible means eliminating barriers, whatever that means to people, parent support, ESL).

Next we wanted to work on "survival" skills. These are job skills, homeownership and care, budgeting, GED and remedial education to ensure understanding of critical concepts and reading, citizenship, lawfulness, parenting skills, etc (we had a list of about 20 ideas). With this idea in mind we started searching for the outcome that identified why these skills are important. One astute team member said "are we talking about being in the middle class here?" After some gasps and thoughtful silence, some of us said "yes, that's what we're talking about." Here's the outcome we drafted:

"Individuals have the skills necessary to participate in a society that is based on middle class norms."

This is where things fell apart. Half the room felt this was an offensive statement and the other half thought this was the holy grail of progressive anti-poverty thinking.

What does middle class mean to you? Does one need to know the rules of the middle class to be successful in our society? Are we perpetuating class stereotypes with this kind of statement? Or does this bring to one's attention the realities of our society? How does a society like ours - moving towards a global economy - maintain a middle class majority?