Inspiration in an unlikely place

Homemade soccer ball in Kenya c. 2005- http://tiny.cc/9wXN0.

This past week I attended the Southwest Regional Leadership Forum hosted by the Sarkey’s Foundation in Norman, OK. I honestly didn’t expect to come back completely re-energized and inspired to take on the world… but I did. One thing I’ve learned recently from the book Made to Stick by the Dan Heath and Chip Heath is that there is elegance in brevity and simplicity. So rather than give you my entire 2-day rambling brain dump, I am going to share some links and  insights with you concerning the key speakers. I need to save some other stuff for other posts! 

Blogging the National Network of Sector Partners National Conference

Washington, D.C. – This week I’m at the national conference of the National Network of Sector Partners. The conference will cover a wide range of topics related to industry driven workforce development initiatives, including sector case studies, policy and systems change, green jobs and other emerging industries, and program sustainability. Dinner Thursday night is being keynoted by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. If you want to help me choose some sessions, take a look at the list of workshops and tell me what you’d find most interesting. (Obviously I have ideas of my own so no promises to take your advice!)

I’m hoping to do some “tape-delayed” blogging (as opposed to live blogging – don’t think I have the attention span to listen and blog at the same time) throughout the conference so be looking forward to that.

To help you get excited, here’s an article on successes among the ultimate low-skilled population – house pets – in attaining college degrees. Online learning is really breaking new ground! Like in the human world, I think the main problem here is insufficient focus on emerging job sectors and attainable career pathways. On the other hand, George the Cat successfully joined the British Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming. Wages for that profession sound promising!

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Image used under a Creative Commons license from flickr user inmasera.

Creative Kids in Oklahoma

I recently learned about a group of amazing kids in Howe, Oklahoma who use technology to harnass their creative talents.  They’re learning by creating content for presentations that they share over the internet.  They’re also taking “virtual fieldtrips,” visiting places around the country and the world that they might never get a chance to see in person.

This kinds of hands-on engagement has taken them well beyond the typical textbook learning.  And it reminded me of what the FabLab concept (which  Diama and Micah have written about ) is all about – give kids a creative outlet, and they’ll take advantage.  It’s inspiring and exciting to see it, and I think as a community we should work towards ensuring ALL kids have access to these creative opportunities.

You can see what the Howe students have created – they’re so good that they won First Place in the Kids Creating Community Content contest in 2008 and Third Place in 2009.

What to do about the flu?

Since I’m stuck at home with H1N1 this week, I thought I’d do a little public service and offer you all some flu-related resources:

1. Flu.gov. First stop is FLU.gov. This is the federal government’s central clearinghouse for flu information. You can find out where to get flu shots, how to prevent and treat the flu, and what your workplace or organization can do about it.
2. Flu Shot Locations. The seasonal flu vaccine is normally available at your county health department, many health clinics and pharmacies, and through schools and workplaces. However, the Tulsa Health Department is currently out of seasonal vaccine.The H1N1 vaccine is available for healthcare workers and for at-risk populations only, including school-aged children in schools with high levels of flu-related absenteeism, children under age 18 with chronic medical conditions, and pregnant women. As supplies become available, the vaccine will be offered to the general population. Check this page from the Oklahoma State Department of Health for the latest information.
3. Flu Self-Evaluation. If you think you might possibly have the flu, seasonal or H1N1, this simple questionnaire will help you determine whether to visit the doctor. It’s the first thing I did when I woke up Tuesday morning feeling feverish, achey, and stuffy.
4. If you have the flu: Stay home!! You should stay home until you have been fever-free (without fever reducers such as acetaminophen) for at least 24 hours. Even when you do return to work or school, be extra vigilant in practicing good hygiene by washing your hands frequently, coughing into a kleenex and then throwing it away, and avoiding close contact with your colleagues whenever possible.

Finally, a couple things I learned from my doctor:

• If you get the flu now, it’s almost certainly H1N1. Seasonal flu isn’t currently affecting the Tulsa area. H1N1 symptoms may be more severe than seasonal flu, and is more likely to include nausea and diarrhea. However, my symptoms have been relatively mild – so there’s hope for you!
• Your doctor can prescribe you the anti-viral Tamiflu, which is shown to reduce the duration of flu (including H1N1) by 1 to 2 days as well as the severity of its symptoms. It’s especially effective as a preventive measure or if begun very soon after contracting the flu. However, the CDC anticipates a Tamiflu shortage this year, so only take it if it’s necessary for your personal situation.

Disclaimer: Obviously I am not a doctor, so go talk to a real one or visit the above links if you have any questions of medical importance.

A Marriage Penalty I Didn’t Know About

Conservatives are often big proponents of ending the “marriage penalty” on federal income taxes. Basically, the “penalty” refers to the higher tax rates that married couples face than if they have filed their taxes individually as “heads of household.”

Yesterday, the Innovation Lab team met with our free tax preparation team, who are planning their 2010 tax season. The program’s goal is to make sure every eligible family receives the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is the largest federal anti-poverty program in the U.S. and provides up to $5,600 to working families with children. We’re working together to find ways to reach more of our Head Start and other early childhood program families through the tax program and to make sure they receive the EITC.

In that meeting, I came to learn something I didn’t know. Families with a tax filer who has an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) are not eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit. ITIN’s are provided by the IRS to any tax-payer that does not have a social security number – mainly certain categories of immigrants (and not necessarily undocumented). These tax-paying workers are denied access to a critical family-supporting credit, even if the other parent does have a social security number. That leaves out a potentially huge swathe of working families from the government’s most important family-supporting, work-promoting, anti-poverty program. And it penalizes the children of married parents, and marriage itself, when one parent has an ITIN.

I’d like to see someone get behind ending this marriage penalty.

October Really Hasn’t Been So Quiet

Loyal readers may be wondering “what’s going on?”  Has Tulsa Initiative stopped innovating?  Have they gone on sabbatical?  (We wish!)  Actually, we’ve been really busy getting a few projects up and running.  Things you’ve been reading about like the CareerAdvance (workforce development project) and FabLab have taken huge steps in recent months.  If I were a better blogger I’d be able to link you back to previous posts on those topics, but you can find them if you search for Jobs/Workforce, Economic Security & Advancement, and Innovation.

Briefly, CareerAdvance enrolled 14 Head Start parents in a Certified Nursing Assistant track at Tulsa Community College.  Classes started Oct. 13.  Some of them are also working towards their GED.  A few are taking English as a Second Language.  They’ve been meeting as a cohort for three weeks and are totally stoked about the classes.  They’ve also heard a lot about the CNA and nursing career, and are ready to face the challenge.

FabLab had a terrific community meeting in Kendall Whittier, as described in a recent post by email.

So both these things have kept Micah & Diama, our two main bloggers, pretty occupied.  That leaves me to brag on their behalf.  Great work!

Fablab in KW Neighborhood

So, awhile back we posted about our experience at the Boston Fablab and how we might work to bring one to Tulsa. Well, fast forward and Kendall Whittier Inc is seriously pursuing the idea of putting one in the KW neighborhood. There will be a community presentation on Oct 5 at 7pm at Educare at 2511 E. 5th Pl. Please join us if you can make it, Micah and I will be there in a supporting role to share our experiences and help answer any questions about what this could do for the KW community and potentially Tulsa. The Tulsa World did a piece on it in yesterday’s paper. Check it out!

CFED Releases 2009-2010 Assets and Opportunity Scorecard

Every year, those of us that track poverty in relation to assets anticipate the release of this scorecard. Our friends at OK Policy Institute and the Oklahoma Asset Building Coalition partnered with CFED to provide findings for Oklahoma.

Oklahoma, this year, scored a C in relation to the other states. Major recommendations include: funding IDA’s to improve low net worth and high rates of income poverty; increase funding to schools to improve below-average educational outcomes; and limit high interest rates.

To read the report, go to http://scorecard.cfed.org/state_data/oklahoma.php. OK Policy also has a link on their blog.

Into and Out of Poverty

I posted yesterday about the links between single parenthood and poverty and referred at the end to the relatively small portion of people that fall into poverty by becoming single parents. Well the Urban Institute just dropped a great research brief into my inbox summarizing the research on poverty “spells.” Just in the interest of being straight with my readers, I should point this nugget out: “Single-mother households become poor at a rate of 15.7 percent a year, compared with just 2.8 percent for married-parent households (Ribar and Hamrick 2003).”

So, yes, households headed by a single mother are more at risk for poverty. But even so, the overwhelming majority of these households are not in poverty. Poverty and single parenthood should not be conflated.  And, to again reinforce, a solid plurality of poverty spells are caused by job loss not by parenting status: “between 40 and 50 percent of those who become poor live in a household where the head of the household, spouse, or other family member lost his or her job.” The majority of people (the brief says between 50 and 70 percent) who leave poverty do so because they or a household member got a job, not because a single parent found a spouse.

“Broken Families Cost Taxpayers”

The Tulsa World reports on a state legislative panel’s hearing yesterday on reducing divorce and births to unwed parents. I know the author isn’t responsible for writing the headline, but the headline editor definitely captured the spirit of the article with the headline “Broken Families Cost Taxpayers.”

So that I don’t bury the lede here, let me just state my complaint up front: in Oklahoma (and in most places), among the most effective ways to draw the public’s scorn is to say something “costs taxpayers.” I remember the report on that Defense Department toilet (which turned out to be an astronaut toilet) costing millions of dollars to procure. “Toilets Cost Taxpayers Millions”, or some variation on that theme, the evening newscasters screamed. And sure enough, the public was appropriately scornful of toilets and the Defense Department. So what happens when you label your story “Broken Families Cost Taxpayers”? You draw scorn upon “broken” families.

Moreover, the headline implies that our concern over “broken” families should be rooted in its cost to taxpayers rather than in compassion for the family members themselves. It’s commonplace now to see economic arguments replace what used to be ethical issues (by which I mean a competing conception of the good), ranging from the President’s urge to “bend the cost curve” on healthcare to organizations like the Partnership for America’s Economic Success (which argues for greater early childhood investments), to the House hearing reported on today.

Finally, the reporter writes, “slightly more than 60 percent of all Oklahoma births that year [2008] were funded by Medicaid.” Now that may be technically true, but the wording implies that births are a sort of government program. We could reduce our appropriations to them and then there’d be fewer births. It’s as if there’s something wrong with a government that supports its children at their most vulnerable.

Now, it can’t be denied that single-parent households are at much greater risk for economic insecurity and, thus, more likely to be eligible for government safety net programs.