News Day

Working nine to five – what a way to make a living,
Barely getting by, it’s all taking and no giving.
They just use your mind and they never give you credit.
It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it … (Nine to Five, by Dolly Parton)

As she belts out this working class anthem, Dolly Parton goes on to sing that, “There’s a better life and you think about it, don’t you?” Thinking about it, Remapping Debate has created an interactive tool that lets you play with numbers. Continue reading →

Huey Lewis & The News sing about working for a living:

Bus boy, bartender, ladies of the night
Grease monkey, ex-junky, winner of the fight …

I’m taking what they’re giving, cause I’m working for a livin’

Their version of working for a living focuses on low-wage, low-respect jobs, including temp jobs, which comprise the fastest-growing part of today’s U.S. work force. Continue reading →

As I prepare to leave a job I’ve loved, and worked very hard at for seven and a half years, I’m thinking a lot about work, past, present and future.  My first paying job, way back in the day, was as a writer. My last paying job, which I hope is still decades in the future, will likely also be some kind of writing. In between, I’ve done a variety of things, including being a lawyer and a gym teacher (not at the same time.)

I wrote a weekly column for the Litchfield Independent Review during my high school years. The first five weeks were the investigative story I pitched to the editor, John Harmon, about the differences between rural and town schools.

While his politics and mine couldn’t have been further apart, we agreed that the country schools were not doing a good job of preparing students. I dug through school records in the courthouse, analyzing test results of students entering junior high, teacher education levels, libraries, hot lunch programs. The school superintendent and staff, not knowing what I was looking for, gave me a figurative pat on the head for being a good student and caring about education. Until the first column was published, that is. Luckily, I had completed my research before publishing the first column.

I wrote what I found: on average, students from one- and two-room country schools entered junior high more than a year behind the students who had gone to the town elementary school or the parochial school. Rural teachers were less-educated, their salaries lower, and if they acquired more education, they usually left for town schools. Rural libraries and music programs lagged far behind those in town schools. And so on.

I got a lot of flack for those columns, which only whetted my appetite for finding and reporting uncomfortable truths.

Test scores were not the whole truth about rural schools, any more than they are the whole truth about urban schools today. The disparities between rural and town schools, however, were an important and unreported reality. Among the other disparities were income, inability to participate in extra-curricular activities because of lack of transportation, and attitudes about “dumb farmers” that were part of the culture.

I think it’s rare that a journalist can report all of the 360-degree reality of any story. What we can hope to do is to accurately tell one part of an important story, and to tell it in such a way that people will find it interesting enough to read/view/listen/think about. Three small words — important, accurate, and interesting — pose a big enough challenge for a lifetime of work.

x x x x

I’ll be writing a lot more about work, from various angles, in the weeks ahead. Check back often! 

Here’s round-up of some good-news statistics from the week: Continue reading →

“When I think about a groundwater aquifer, I think of a giant milkshake glass,” Arizona law professor Robert Glennon told MPR. “And when I think about a well, I think about that well as a straw in the glass. ”

In Minnesota, we might have too many straws in the glass. Continue reading →

The prisoners are held without criminal charges. They work for a dollar a day or less, sometimes only for a candy bar. Some report being threatened with solitary confinement if they don’t report for “voluntary” work. It’s happening right here, in private U.S. prisons and in some county jails, according to a report in the New York Times: Continue reading →

Back in the day, before we were married, my husband and I went for long walks at night — the only free time we had in common, and also lovely and romantic. I always noticed footsteps behind us, anyone approaching and, in general, who was in the vicinity at all times. He didn’t. We talked about what shaped our different awareness / alertness / fear levels. Continue reading →

Remember that graduation speech meme that goes, “Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” It’s pretty gag-worthy, both for its appalling misstatement of astronomy and for the triteness of the metaphor. Turns out it’s also advice that most college students can’t afford to take. Instead of shooting for the moon (or the stars), they’re more likely to shoot for the biggest salary they can find, so they can pay the student loan debt.  Continue reading →

Minneapolis is celebrating passing the 400,000 resident mark — 400,938 according to this week’s reports. St. Paul is pushing on toward 300,000 — at 296,542, we have just a few thousand to go! That’s big growth for both cities from their 1980-90 low points, though both have a way to go to get back to the numbers of their 1970 glory days.   Continue reading →