Monthly Archives: September 2008

Sarah Palin and the cultural divide

Although this is already well-traveled terrain, I’d like to venture a few paragraphs about why Americans seem so divided in their early reactions to Sarah Palin.

That we are divided seems clear. Even before there was much publicly available information about Gov. Palin, The New York Times ran an op-ed explaining what would happen if a vice-presidential nominee had to quit; and Republican consultants were recorded saying that her nomination was disastrous for their side. But also before any of us had much information, some Americans were so excited by her arrival on the national scene that the Republican ticket bounced up in the polls. This trend reflected an average–closer inspection showed enormous differences by state.

Pretty clearly, some kind of “elite” is opposed to some kind of a “populist base” on the question of Sarah Palin, who supposedly belongs to the latter camp. But this elite cannot be defined by money, because the Palins have quite a bit of that–as do many of the excited Republican delegates and voters. Nor is it about power: she is a governor, selected for national leadeship by a senior Senator. Nor is it about intellect, because none of us have any basis on which to judge how smart she is. If the “elite” side assumes she is dumb, that is about them, not her.

So maybe we should drop the term “elite” for the purposes of this discussion. There are relevant cultural divisions among wealthy and powerful Americans. For instance, Sarah Palin graduated from college after obtaining credits from several state schools; she married a man without a college degree. Barack Obama was the editor of the Harvard Law Review and an instructor at the University of Chicago. It would be extremely rare for someone in his shoes to marry a woman with much less than Michelle Obama’s educational attainment (a Princeton BA). I say this not as a value-judgment. I would be the first to dispute the assumption that Princeton and Harvard add more value, or educate better, or produce more qualified graduates, than Western state colleges and fishing crews. I merely state, as a sociological observation, that people like Barack Obama value certain kinds of educational attainment so much that they expect it of their spouses and children. The same is true of many strong Obama supporters and Palin denigrators. They may not have Harvard degrees, but they value them.

Harvard and Princeton are just symbols of this divide. They are not “liberal” institutions in any tight sense of that term (they are enormously rich; lightly regulated, private institutions that graduate tons of Republicans). But they stand for one side of a Kulturkampf. Other markers of this divide include evangelical Christianity, hunting and fishing, the suburbs versus the cities, and one’s attitudes toward the metropolitan coasts. If you have lots of money and you’re on Sarah Palin’s side of the divide, you’re likely to spend it on country club memberships and hunting trips. On the other side, people travel to Tuscany and drink those lattes whose mention is inevitable in posts such as this one.

We don’t have to like each other, but we are going to have to live together, and that means that it’s important not to let these differences blow out of all reason. There are, after all, fundamental ways that people like Obama and Palin are alike. There are also many, many Americans who are not much like either of them. It’s not a bipolar country; it’s a great kaleidoscope.

video from the Service Nation summit

I continue to be very impressed that our colleagues from the service movement managed to get both national presidential candidates to endorse a service agenda on 9/11 in New York City, as a centerpiece of their “truce” on that auspicious day. CNN has lots of interesting video clips from their interviews.

Here is Barack Obama talking about “active citizenship” (that’s exactly what we call it at Tufts) in thoughtful ways and then summarizing his policy agenda for civilian service and service-learning:

The clip entitled “A Reminder of the American Spirit” is longish but it’s interesting at the end when Obama starts talking about concrete ways that citizens and government could work together on key national challenges.

And here is John McCain making two fair points–the climate of the campaign would have been better if Obama had agreed to meet him in frequent town meetings; and he does respect community organizing:

PS: I just read this denunciation of McCain’s claim about town-hall meetings. As a clarification, let me say that I do not believe those meetings would have improved the climate because the candidates would have gotten to know each other better. Personal dynamics would have had nothing to do with it. Forums would have improved the climate because they would have attracted a lot of attention and thereby made other forms of media somewhat less important. During the forums themselves, the candidates would have been rewarded for relatively substantive and respectful discourse.

This is a nonpartisan blog. From my nonpartisan, civic perspective, I will argue that both campaigns could behave better (and that both have been helpful at times–as shown above). My nonpartisan stance will not, however, prevent me from opining that the McCain campaign has deliberately taken the low road in deeply disappointing ways that will damage both the civic climate and the candidate’s own reputation for honorable leadership.

value-judgments in testing

It would be possible to create a valid and reliable test of the 10 greatest virtues of Saddam Hussein. Those virtues could even be facts about him: for example, that he was unafraid to die. Such a test would be morally worse–really worse, not just worse in my opinion–than a test of students’ understanding of the First Amendment.

I write this to try to shake people’s confidence in a prevalent theory about research, evaluation, assessment, testing, and accountability. This theory holds that measurement should be scientific. Everyone knows that evaluators always hold opinions and make value-judgments. But their values are often treated as problematic, as evidence of bias or subjectivity or political agendas. Values should be disclosed, investigated, and minimized: the hold of that positivist theory is strong even decades after it was rejected in philosophy.

The alternative, of course, is to say that when we evaluate, we make value judgments. Some judgments are better than others. Our most important responsibility is to hold good values. Since our value-judgments differ, we’d better discuss them–not just to disclose them and acknowledge our differences, but to reason together about what is right.

I currently serve on a federal test committee. We receive “items” (test questions) written by consultants. We reject some proposed questions on scientific grounds. For instance, when tested in a lab, some items prove to be confusing for reasons unexpected by the writers. That is an empirical finding that should matter. We also rely on scientific expertise to tell us how many questions we need to obtain a reliable measure, how many kids need to be tested to make estimates about populations, and so on.

But ultimately the item-writers choose questions because of their beliefs about what kids should know. They are guided by written standards, which are themselves statements of moral value, albeit rather vague ones. When we on the committee reject questions, it is usually because of our values. For instance, we may say that a topic is trivial. We have expertise, but that really means that we have clawed our way into jobs that allow us to express opinions about what is important. We also decide how difficult each question is. That depends somewhat on empirical evidence about what average kids actually know. But it also essentially depends on what we think they should know.

I don’t believe that the irreducibly moral nature of testing and evaluation is a problem. It reflects the irreducibly moral nature of everything that matters in life. Nor is it necessarily a mistake to hire experts and consultants to write tests. We need reasonably independent, experienced, committed referees who can focus intensely on the task of evaluating kids. What is a mistake is to interpret the results of a test as “scientific” or to regard the intrusion of values as “bias” or as “politics.” The only alternatives to “politics” are boring homogeneity, spurious objectivity, utter thoughtlessness, or a dictatorship.

my stump speech

Within the next few weeks, I will be speaking to students and faculty at SUNY Geneseo and Bates College, high school teachers in Wisconsin, and assorted leaders in DC. I’m working today on my generic talk, which I will customize for the various audiences. I call it somewhat jokingly my “stump speech.” I realize that the outline looks more like a lecture than a speech, although I do mix it up with stories and rhetorical asides when I’m actually on the podium. (The whole key to effective speaking, as the ancients knew and the better speakers at this year’s conventions demonstrated, is variatio: shifting from anecdote and low-key information to passionate exhortation, to keep people interested.) Anyway, if by any chance you plan to attend one of my live talks, read no further; I don’t want you to be bored. If not, you can click below to see the draft speech.

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