"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

I adopted two Great Recession orphaned dogs

2010-02-03T19:32:30-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

On Sunday I put out this provocative message to all the pals who keep up with me on-line:

"http://twitpic.com/10sdk5 - (picture) The adoption process went through on Friday and I picked up my new 5 & 7 year old boy/girl today."

Of course it was a tongue-in-cheek message designed to alarm those who might be unable to imagine the likes of an Esther J. Cepeda toting around sippy cups and snack bags of cheddar Goldfish for a set of living, whining tots. They, of course, were right-on in assuming I was somehow joking.

In fact, after writing multiple pieces in the last two years (click here and here) on the effect the housing market downturn, rampant foreclosures and job loss on the lives of household pets I put my time and effort into the adoption of two Chihuahuas.

I took the plunge after reading yet another news article about the plight of abandoned, discarded, and otherwise left-behind animals; they tend to become but a footnote in lives broken by unemployment or underemployment and all the things that go wrong because of it.

This particular story – "Howls for help; Hard times have left many pets homeless" in the January 21, 2010 edition of The Economist – mentioned several organizations working to place animals in homes and on a total lark I went to one mentioned in the article (www.adopt-a-pet.com) and looked for a pair of sibling, housebroken, adult Chihuahuas who needed to be adopted together and were currently living near my home. I almost couldn't believe it when the search results spit exactly that out at me.

After filling out the application, putting in the requisite vet call, and passing the in-person interview – the adoption group had to ensure I was neither an ax murderer or a dog-eater – I finally got to meet Maxxie and Minnie.

As it turned out, Maxxie, 5, and Minnie, 7, had lived happy together for years when their owner unexpectedly died. They ended up in a Terre Haute, Indiana shelter before being rescued by one of the many pet rescue groups who have connected with www.adopt-a-pet.com in order to match people looking for new non-human family members. A few months went by and then I came along.

The foster family, who was housing another 10 dogs, just rescues dogs purely out of the kindness of their hearts. The 250 bucks I put out for each pup barely covered their vaccinations, "fixing", and micro-chipping, much less the cost of gassing up the car and traveling hundreds of miles to pick up scared, homeless dogs and drop off the lucky ones.

"We just love it," the foster mom, Laura, told me about the hours and hours of volunteered time devoted to housing and nursing back to health the unintended consequences of families' misfortunes. She was just thrilled to place the brother/sister duo in to a single home.

As for me, Minnie, Maxxie and the menagerie of furry family friends in my home, well… we're still settling into each other. Adopting somewhat scared adult doggies isn't exactly the same non-stop lovefest that brand new puppies have working in their favor, but then again, the quiet demeanor - and bladder control - they came with is priceless.

Keep up with me on Twitter (@ejc600words) and I'll give periodic updates on our progress.

In the meantime, know that there are literally thousands of "gently used" pets out there looking for a safe, warm home in exchange for unconditional love. If you're even remotely thinking of adding a pet to your life, please consider adopting one.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Melting pot giving rise to post-'Latino' Latino politicians

2010-02-01T20:44:42-06:00

http://www.suntimes.com/news/cepeda/2021807,CST-EDT-esther01.article

Melting pot giving rise to post-'Latino' Latino politicians

BY ESTHER J. CEPEDA　

February 1, 2010

I have no idea what 2050 will actually be like, but I'm imagining it will be fantastic beyond my wildest dreams!

By then I'll have mastered the piano and will be making tons of cash singing nightly cabaret gigs, not a bit bothered that no one is interested in what I've got to say about the world anymore because there'll be plenty of multi-ethnic people opining on current affairs in whatever passes for digital newspapers by then. Me and my "unique perspective," which is representative of the "emerging" Latino population, will have become as defunct as my gas-powered car.

By then Hispanics will be about a quarter of the population. Add the 15 percent of the population that blacks are projected to be, plus the children of today's estimated 3 million mixed-race couples, and there surely will be so many "minority" journalists, columnists and lawyers, engineers, scientists and sports stars that no one will care what I think anymore because I'll be just another face in the multi-hued crowd.

That happy thought sprang to mind last week when I was asked to go on Chicago Public Radio WBEZ's news program "848" for a discussion of the "Future of Latino Politics."

I chuckle when I hear stuff like that because the real future of Latino anything is a mainstream, U.S.-born, English speaking one that will be about as exotic and ethnic as the Chicago Irish.

Sure, there'll be the obligatory heritage parades, but it'll be a "unique cultural identity" that's given consideration only annually and will be adopted by anyone who happens to be walking by and thirsty for beer. Think: Cinco de Mayo.

While the conversation's starting point was a recitation of Latino politics' greatest hits -- the supposedly defunct Hispanic Democratic Organization, the highly emotional Jesus Garcia/ Rudy Lozano campaigns against clouted incumbents, the rise of the young professional types like ex-Ald. Manny Flores -- I think I brought us back to the reality that the continually churning melting pot is already giving rise to the post-"Latino" Latino politician. Which is to say, a politician who's running as a candidate, not as a Hispanic candidate.

It's too soon to visualize that, I know. The Latino population as we know it today is relatively new to the United States, and its politics are defined by the civil rights, worker's rights and immigration reform concerns that naturally have particular resonance to a community still gaining a foothold in our society.

But much like the Italians and the Irish before them, who became just another thread in the fabric of this country, Hispanic community leaders will someday stop gathering from across the country to discuss a "Latino agenda" of social and political empowerment and instead concern themselves with focusing on more universal themes such as the U.S. economy, health care and education.

People often disdain my constant scanning of the horizon to a time when no one will focus on such matters as whether your mom's mom came from Latin America or Latvia, completely ignoring that our whole American conscious is made up of all the cultures of the people who live here and there's nothing wrong with focusing on the scary-to-some time when Latinos will have completely melted into the melting pot.

Like I told the radio show producer, as assimilation draws immigrants into the "American" culture -- as it always has and always will -- this "Hispanic" narrative that's currently playing out will become old hat. In the not-too-distant future, we'll be talking about the future of Muslim politics or of East Indian politics.

Or, if I look into the faces of my own family's children, we'll be talking about the rise of quarter-Mexican-quarter-Ecuadorian-half-black politics, quarter- Mexican-quarter-Ecuadorian-half-Filipino politics, and quarter-Mexican-quarter-Ecuadorian-half-white politics.

But it'll be called something else by then: just plain old politics.

And me? I won't have much to say about it, I'll be too busy tinkling the ivories, crooning "When You Wish Upon A Star" for you.

A message to those hating on Haiti: consider yourself hugged

2010-01-26T20:19:05-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Our constitutionally protected freedom of speech is a beautiful thing. "The freedom to speak without censorship and/or limitation," as Wikipedia so elegantly puts it, is "the synonymous term freedom of expression, sometimes used to indicate not only freedom of verbal speech but any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, such as on 'hate speech.'"

Ahhhh, hate speech -- like an oft-quoted remark about pornography, people may have trouble defining it, but they seem to know it when they hear or see it -- or so they think. But hey, I'm not here to induce a legal argument for one over the other, the topic simply sprung to mind once I started getting the inevitable emails about the "filthy animals [in Haiti] getting government welfare [from the "American people"] when we've got our own crisis going on." But don’t take my word for it, you’re only a quick Google search away from reading the truly vile things people are saying about Haiti.

I’m sure you've heard it, too. For every kid who's hit you up for a dollar to add to their school fund for Haitian relief efforts, you've heard someone in a corner muttering (quietly now, but they'll get louder, believe me) about how "we" here in the United States are in a crisis because so many hardworking Americans are out of a job and the economy is in the crapper.

The backlash was inevitable, but I choose to believe that in most cases people did not know that -- hello!!! -- Haiti has been so poverty stricken for so long that last year mothers were baking mudcakes in the sun to fill their children's stomachs with something that would keep them from bloating up and dying in that same sun.

Most people --especially those who don't travel out of the country often -- don't really understand the dire circumstances abroad and can't imagine that most Americans, even those suffering through the toughest of economic times, are still better off than millions around the world.

Still, I was ornery when my inbox sported a bulletin from theCenter For Immigration Studies. They took the opportunity of this nation's unified response to the impoverished country to put out a Fact Sheet on Haitian Immigrants to the U.S.

Why? It appears to add facts to underlie angry blog posts such as: "The Answer to the World's Problems — Immigration to America," "Help Haitians — in Haiti," "Illegal Use of Welfare Can Justify Fee Waivers for Haitian TPS Applicants," and "Spreading the Inevitable Flood of Haitian Refugees Around the Region," which they are also promoting.

My thought: what, not enough Haitians just plain dead enough for ya, that you have to whine they might be coming – gasp!— here?

Nope, I'm not complaining. As residents – not "citizens", but merely residents – of this great country, we're all entitled to our opinions, informed, uninformed, malevolent, concerned or otherwise.

And because of that I send out the only thing you can extend to people so bitter and angry that they can only ooze hatred on the weakest among us: I send love.

Yes, to all those who may read this and rail against the Haitians who have mostly captured this country's compassion, consider yourself hugged.

How will kids be healthy if their parents eat junk?

2010-01-25T07:30:00-06:00

How will kids be healthy if their parents eat junk?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/cepeda/2009208,CST-EDT-esther25.article

January 25, 2010

BY ESTHER J. CEPEDA

In the early-morning hours before Michelle Obama addressed the Conference of Mayors in Washington to make her pitch about the importance of curbing childhood obesity last week, I was sitting in a crowded elementary school gymnasium with kids and their parents, fearing for the heart attack victims of tomorrow.

The occasion was a salute to the school's honor roll students, which certainly called for an extra dose of celebratory sugar, sure. But it wasn't the kids' liberal dose of syrup for the French toast sticks that concerned me; it was parents' obvious lack of any nutritional cognizance that sounded the alarms.

Children mimic their parents' behaviors and habits, and if a child sees his mom or dad bypass the freshly cut fruit and whole-grain bagels in order to load up a plate with greasy muffins, iced sweet rolls and French toast sticks drenched in syrup destined to be downed with a handful of juice boxes, what, exactly, will they understand about healthy eating habits?

Though, who can blame anyone for looking for some sweetness in life these days? I'm sad to say there were tons of parents at this breakfast because so many are out of work. I heard their stories myself: One dad was telling an acquaintance he had been laid off months ago and his wife was working two jobs. Another lady was worried about making it to an upcoming Parent Teacher Organization meeting because her scant hours at work are all over the map and she's never really sure where she's going to be. Who could begrudge these people a couple of extra free cheese danishes?

During her speech, Obama rattled off facts: Nearly one-third of children in America are overweight or obese, and one-third of all children today will eventually suffer from diabetes -- in African-American and Latino communities it goes up to almost half. She cited recently published studies stating that obesity could now be an even greater threat to Americans' health than smoking, that medical experts are predicting the next generation is on track to have a shorter life-span than their parents, that budget cuts are decimating school gym time, and that crime makes it impossible for most parents to tell their kids to go out and play until dark.

I'd add that we are also burdened by school systems that pump our children full of sugar and fat-laden breakfast and lunches -- the poorest among them for a low cost or for free -- and then wonder why they get labeled by frustrated teachers as behavior-issue problem kids. Also add that parents don't understand the consequences of what their kids eat because they never learned what healthy eating means.

The first lady closed her speech by praising creative ideas some cities are trying in order to manage the problem, but she also soberly stated the obvious: Efforts to curb childhood obesity won't be cheap, easy or quick. I agree with her and add that it's doable. At the very least, it's the worthiest goal I can think of.

We may have tragically lost a generation to killer eating habits, but if the statistics horrify enough leaders and role models into action, helping others understand good nutrition, then in about 40 years we'll have a whole crop of young parents -- and enlightened grandparents -- who'll know that "fruit punch" is not fruit juice, and certainly not preferable to fresh, frozen or dried fruit.

They'll get it that a "special treat" is not something that occurs hourly or even daily. They'll know that if you have time to surf the Web, you can also make time to box your best friend on the Wii. And they'll understand that -- repeat after me -- chocolate-chip bagels, banana split-flavored yogurt and blueberry jam granola bars are not "health food."

2050 here we come!

Statement from President Obama on the Passing of Chicago Reporter Carlos Hernandez Gomez

2010-01-18T14:06:50-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

I’m sad to say I never had the unique pleasure of meeting the celebrated journalist Carlos Hernandez Gomez.

This is how his obituary in the Chicago Sun-Times described him:

"Carlos Hernandez Gomez, political reporter for CLTV, stood out among Chicago reporters not only because of his old-school fedora, but also because of his encyclopedic knowledge of Chicago politics.

He didn’t need notes to tell his audience who was backing whom in a campaign, why a specific endorsement was so important — or why two politicians couldn’t stand each other.

Off camera, he was the life of the party, a friendly, down-to-earth storyteller who would do spot-on renditions of politicians’ speaking styles — often at their request.

Mr. Hernandez died Sunday evening following a battle with cancer that was diagnosed on Christmas Day, 2008. He was 36.

"Carlos was more than a great reporter and a great friend to hundreds of people. He had a great heart," said Sun-Times investigative reporter Steve Warmbir, who was best man at Mr. Hernandez’s wedding.

"In a business filled with cynics, he was one of the kindest and most decent people you would ever want to meet."

Mr. Hernandez grew up in the Chicago neighborhoods of Lincoln Park and Portage Park, and was fiercely proud of his ancestral home of Puerto Rico.

A graduate of Quigley Seminary, he attended DePaul University and was an editor at the DePaulian, the school’s student newspaper.

He covered local and national politics for WBEZ-FM and the Chicago Reporter before joining CLTV in 2005.

"To a certain extent he was a throwback," said U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, who visited Mr. Hernandez at Northwestern Memorial Hospital Sunday. "He wanted to dress the part with the glasses and the hat. He was kind of retro. He decried modern journalism where you do a superficial story as fast as you can."

"Coming from public radio, he was determined not to dumb down the news. He would rather do a thorough story about a complicated issue and he explained it. He had this great sense of humor and could do great impressions of elected officials. With his boyish sense of humor he made us all laugh and smile."

Survivors include his wife, WGN-TV reporter Randi Belisomo Hernandez; father, Carlos Hernandez Sr.; mother and stepfather, Myrna and Tom Kinsella and brother Jason.

Funeral arrangements were pending

President Barack Obama released the following statement at 12:45 today:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_______________________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 18, 2010　

Statement from the President on the Passing of Carlos Hernandez Gomez

"I was saddened to hear of the passing of Carlos Hernandez Gomez.　 Our paths first crossed when I was a State Senator.　 He was a throwback in the style of Chicago’s storied political reporters.　 He loved Chicago, and he relentlessly sought to tell its story with the commitment to truth and the insatiable curiosity that any good reporter has to have.　 I quickly learned that when you saw his sharp fedora in a crowd, hard questions were coming.　 But Carlos always played it straight.　 And I always enjoyed our interactions in Springfield, Chicago, or on the campaign trail.　 Carlos was a role model to many, and an integral part of the Chicago story he strived to tell.　 My thoughts and prayers are with his wife Randi and his family."

##

Mr. Gomez had the same profound impact on the city as many of the stalwart reporters Chicago is famous for but he did it as one of a very, very few Hispanic journalists working today – and, most notably to me, as a journalist who neither highlighted his heritage for any sort of gain, nor shrank away from it.

My very favorite part of his reporting was when he said his name! It was always this perfect, perfect English throughout the report and then his perfectly pronounced name in all it’s rolled R’s glory. I loved that!

Yet people would complain about it to me! They were literally surprised, or offended at the aural intrusion, they felt he was waiving his heritage in their faces when the guy was simply just pronouncing his name correctly.

Either way, people took notice of Carlos Hernandez Gomez – and not mostly for his name. He was a respected and knowledgeable journalist with a style all his own. A real American original.

And he will be missed.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Rev. King's words ring just as true in today's world

2010-01-18T06:00:00-06:00

Rev. King's words ring just as true in today's world

http://www.suntimes.com/news/cepeda/1996240,CST-EDT-esther18.article

January 18, 2010

BY ESTHER J. CEPEDA

My favorite Martin Luther King Jr. Day memory: Each year, the spring semester at my beloved alma mater, Southern Illinois University, began on the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And each year, I played out the same ritual of leaving home.

On the morning of MLK Day, I'd finish packing my tan '84 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with a healthy supply of clean laundry and junk food, kiss Mama and Papa Cepeda goodbye, and take off on a six-hour odyssey down Interstate 57 back to school in Carbondale.

As the Kankakee exits blew by on this particular MLK Day in 1993, I was in a car full of fellow simultaneously reluctant and excited back-to-schoolers. Having switched from driver to navigator, my chief duty was to kill an hour by entertaining the driver with tales from the newspaper.

I lovingly orated the full speech, reprinted in that day's Sun-Times, being sure to inhale before "Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends" so that the phrase would be properly articulated. I moved gingerly through the "I have a dream" sections so as not to caricature King's iconic delivery, bit back the overwhelming desire to sing the snippet of "My Country 'Tis of Thee" he quotes, and ended the "Free at last" proclamation in a near whisper as if in prayer, given that the federal holiday was as much a commemoration of his violent death as it was a celebration of his peace-inspiring life.

The memory of reading those words aloud still gives me the chills!

That was almost 16 years to the day before the first black president would be inaugurated.

Back then, I was a marvelously innocent 18-year-old who had never even given consideration to the idea that King's national civil rights push was every bit as much for me -- a female, ethnic minority -- as for the descendents of slavery.

All those connections were yet to be made during subsequent college courses, but let's just say I got a firsthand inkling of the very real oppression blacks experienced in this country during King's time when that next summer, at a fair in a tiny town even deeper in southern Illinois, I came across my first glimpse of white supremacists.

A vendor sitting at a table next to the corn-dog shack was hawking Ku Klux Klan lapel pins, Nazi swastika ball caps and T-shirts with racist epithets too crass to repeat here. Seeing him in all his army-helmeted, skull-tattooed glory made me wonder -- in a typical fit of naivete -- if there were other people in the world who didn't like people who were not white. I'd never met any before that time, so how could I have known they actually existed outside of dusty history books?

Fast-forward to 2010, an African American is the leader of the same U.S. of A. that imported slaves to help build the country, yet first lady Michelle Obama still has to explicitly explain to people -- reacting to this latest Harry Reid racial comment dustup -- that the existence of a black president would not heal all our race-related ills. Who could have blamed us for hoping so?

It doesn't matter. King gave us 21st century advice good for a post-racial, peace-filled, poverty-cured world we haven't quite attained -- yet. Advice aimed at "black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics" that was never guaranteed to be easy or fun, but necessary:

"As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

Tossing out Chicago cop exam is a ridiculous idea

2010-01-11T20:47:28-06:00

Tossing out cop exam is a ridiculous idea

http://www.suntimes.com/news/cepeda/1983808,CST-EDT-esther11.article

January 11, 2010

BY ESTHER J. CEPEDA

Slap me on the back, pals, I've come up with a brilliant plan to solve the persistent problem of the lack of enough highly qualified high school math teachers to train the scientists and engineers of tomorrow: Let's not ask potential math teachers to pass the state's required-for-certification test in mathematics.

Problem solved.

Also, a recent study by a Columbia Law School professor has found that despite the push to diversify the student body in law schools to better reflect our nation's multicultural population, both the percentage and the number of black and Mexican-American law students remains low and has actually declined in the last few years. Let's fix that one right here and now, too: Throw out the Law School Admission Test.

While we're at it, the country has a shortage of family-practice doctors -- the real money is in orthopedic surgery these days. So let's just drop the board certification requirement for doctors going into primary care.

What, you don't like the reasoning here? Maybe because the idea is stupid. Simplistic and lazy in that it doesn't fix -- or even address -- the problem of finding ways to get more qualified people of a certain background into a particular profession. It merely sidesteps the problem while creating bigger problems. It doesn't take a genius to see that the cure in each case is far worse than the ailment it's intended to heal.

So why would anyone even consider creating a police corps that reflects our fine city's diverse populace by just tossing the entrance exam? Faced with a suddenly intolerable 54 percent Caucasian police force, sources told two Sun-Times reporters, that's exactly what City Hall seriously is considering.

Oh, we're told, there would be other benefits if the city were to eliminate the police entrance exam. Besides making it easier to hire minority officers, the city would be spared the considerable expense of providing and scoring the test, and it would avoid costly legal challenges by those who fail the exam.

My favorite cops called me the day the story ran. They were incredulous, disgusted, offended and angry.

But the angriest messages I got were not from police officers ticked off that this scheme to maybe drop the entrance exam basically represents a lowering of the high standards they had to meet in order to become one of Chicago's finest. They had to work to become members of the second-largest police department in the United States, a department, I might add, that in the last three years has had to deal with several embarrassing situations of violence and brutality against civilians.

Nope, the people I heard from most were multiracial, multi-ethnic and multi-mad at the implication that minorities are such dolts that the only way to integrate a homogenous organization with high standards is to drop those standards.

"Condescension is the worst form of discrimination," one woman wrote to me, angered by the ridiculous claim that creating a rigorous test that is fair to anyone of any gender, culture or color would be too much of a burden.

Could it really be true that becoming one of the easiest police departments in the country to slide into -- few other police departments, and none in major cities, lack an entrance test -- is preferable to putting in the time and effort to becoming a pioneer in culturally sensitive, cognitively arduous police entrance exams for a diverse 21st century police force?

The word "laughingstock" comes to mind.

As does Groucho Marx's famous condemnation, which will ring in the ears of Chicago police veterans and future cops if this plan is adopted: "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."

Three cheers for shop class

2010-01-07T20:11:00-06:00

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Auto shop, wood shop, metal shop – all horrors of a certain segment of the high school population. Let’s face it, shop class never got much respect.

So, when I read Rosalind Rossi’s story "Shop Class shake-up" in Tuesday’s Chicago Sun-Times I was near giddy. In it, Rossi details a new Chicago Public Schools push to elevate shop classes from the second-tier electives most people recall to high-tech, certified vocational education programs that will put kids into decent-paying 21st century careers the day they walk out of high school.

It’s about time.

We live in a world where the corridors of the educational industrial complex are clogged with academics and starry-eyed teachers who truly believe that every single student in the United States must be prepared and routed straight to a four-year college. They believe that to expect anything less is to doom a child to a life of destitution.

I’m not making this stuff up. You need only spend about 15 minutes with the average teacher or teaching professor at any educational facility in this country; if you were to opine that hey, maybe not every Susie and Tommie should be encouraged to strive for Harvard or Princeton, you’d get looked at like you were a monster. A bad one. The kind of monster that did not, in fact, believe that every single human in the world must study Jane Austen – sans zombies – or Greek philosophy to experience a happy, productive or healthy life.

(I dare you to try this next time you come across a professional educator, sucker! Dare you not to roll your eyes when the words "I believe the children are our future…" come rolling out.)

Don’t get me wrong: we are indeed operating in a 21st century knowledge economy and every single student who wants to go to college should get every bit of assistance humanly possible to do so, but college prep shouldn’t be the sole focus of schools as it currently stands. When my washing machine spewed soapy water all over my basement a few weeks back I did not consult a mechanical engineer. I also didn’t call one of my many brilliant PhD friends. Nope, I called up my local appliance repairman, thanked him with a nearly unnatural ferocity after he showed up at my house on a Sunday morning. Then, with a great big smile, I happily paid him a lot of money when my machine was working again.

It takes all kinds to make this world go ‘round: doctors and car mechanics, lawyers and magnificent sous chefs, accountants and creative, talented construction workers. Starting next year, CPS’ new "College and Career Academy" programs will be a living testament to that by training kids to walk out of senior year with the expertise to begin work in so-called "middle-skill" careers such as electricians, medical technicians, welders, and computer support services. And don’t worry, this is not some fairy-tale CPS lark, many many school districts across the country and in Illinois already have similar, and successful programs (Lake County, IL’s High School Technology Campus is one notable example).

So three cheers to the CPS shop rats of tomorrow from someone who knows she’ll soon be shelling out major dollars to the furnace repair woman – they’ll be laughing all the way to the bank as I make my thousand-dollar student loan payment every month.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

International community must unite for global air travel safety

2010-01-04T07:56:08-06:00

Countries must work together on air safety

http://www.suntimes.com/news/cepeda/1971238,CST-EDT-esther04.article

January 4, 2010

BY ESTHER J. CEPEDA

I was flying back to Chicago from the Dominican Republic two days before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up U.S.-bound Flight 253 on Christmas Day, chuckling about how easy it would have been for some nutball to hijack my plane.

To begin with, my family and I waltzed through the last security checkpoint clad in bulky Chicago-weather-appropriate hoodies and were never asked to take off our shoes. Realizing that in the shuffle I'd forgotten to take my laptop and camera out of my carry-on bag -- and thinking I was about to get in trouble -- I informed the security person that there were electronics about to go through the machine, but he waved it off with a "no problem" and a smile

Even as I type this, I'm marveling that no one blinked about the 20-inch souvenir wooden machete that one of us took aboard the plane.

The laxity of security at that particular airport underscores a critical weakness in our air travel security system -- we must rely on other countries to hold up their end of the screening and security conundrum. Under rules established by the International Convention on Civil Aviation, each country is responsible for the safety and security oversight of its own air carriers. Although other countries can conduct certain specified surveillance activities -- principally involving the inspection of required documents and the physical condition of aircraft -- our Federal Aviation Administration is not permitted to evaluate a foreign carrier within its own sovereign state.

That's not so odd. I can't imagine that anyone here would be thrilled about some other country's designated government agents being posted at our airports to inspect U.S. aircraft bound for their countries. It is true that nobody from the United States has attempted a terrorist attack against any other country, but you see the stickiness of the issue.

Our conciliator president must approach air travel safety not solely as a domestic issue, but as one that requires even greater international cooperation.

In the days after the Christmas Day attack that thankfully never was, President Obama rightly railed about all the missed signals and unconnected dots that allowed Abdulmutallab to board an American-bound plane, calling it a "systemic failure" of our nation's intelligence apparatus. But something more is needed -- a conversation about how the entire international community can put aside political posturing and act as one to improve security.

Terror threats and the measures we take to counter those threats -- including ever greater security screening at airports -- already make air travel a punishing gauntlet for business and pleasure travelers. This can only hurt countries around the world that are still struggling to rebound from the global recession.

It galls me that our knee-jerk response to terrorist threats will be to harass millions of completely innocent, nonviolent people, from all over the world, by imposing extremely personal security checks -- even monitoring their toilet time while in the air -- rather than approach the problem with pragmatism and greater international cooperation. Governments need to work together better to share information and establish baseline safety standards.

I sure hope that if I were to go through the Dominican Republic's airport today it would be a much, much different scene: my shoes and hoodie would come off and more attention would be given to all the electronics and potential weapons in my carry-on.

But how long will it be before the predictable "day after" hyper-attention to security fades, given the daily grind of moving millions of people around the globe?

Affirmative action must be based on income, not race

2009-12-28T07:15:00-06:00

http://www.suntimes.com/news/cepeda/1960763,CST-EDT-esther28.article Affirmative action must be based on income, not race

December 28, 2009

BY ESTHER J. CEPEDA

I've never been more sure. If we want to make a real difference in meaningfully educating our children, we must let race and ethnicity concerns go. It is high time for color-blind, income-based affirmative action.

I just had the pleasure of polishing off a big, thick novel written by my journalistic/literary hero Tom Wolfe. And my reading of his 2004 book, I Am Charlotte Simmons, coincided with a report by the policy group Public Agenda that found the main reason students drop out of college is that their academic lives are complicated -- and ultimately overburdened -- by having to work. That finding cemented in me the conviction that in today's world, problems of socioeconomic status are far more important than race and ethnicity in shaping successful lives.

I Am Charlotte Simmons
tells the story of a poor, white "mountain" girl from Sparta, N.C., who, while living in a shack with a dirt floor, is prepared for college so rigorously by a singularly attentive teacher that she knocks her SATs out of the park. She lands a full-ride scholarship to one of the most exclusive and prestigious private colleges in the United States.
The story pokes a finger in the eye of one of the most common misconceptions about college life -- if you get in and have the tuition covered, you're golden -- by detailing the travails of a poor, even if brilliant, student completely ill-equipped to thrive in the university system.

In the book, Charlotte Simmons, despite being able to read many of her course materials in their original languages, might as well be a Martian on campus -- not because of the color of her skin but because of the poverty she has known her whole life.

Ultimately, Charlotte's lifelong isolation from people of different socioeconomic classes -- and a shortage of day-to-day cash -- blunts her ability to perform well academically.

In real life, having to work to pay for tuition often is only the final straw in derailing a college career. Other major disadvantages begin and need to be addressed starting in preschool.

This country must embrace socioeconomic cultural awareness by promoting income-based affirmative action to the best public and private educational facilities. Only then can children from all points on the income spectrum "see how the other half lives."

Unfortunately, our country is so focused on civil rights era notions of ethnic and racial diversity that it fails to look beyond those terms to establish a framework for adequately educating children of all income levels.

And pity the poor sap who tries. Take Ron Huberman, the Chicago Public Schools chief, who is trying to maintain racial desegregation in selective-enrollment school classrooms by basing admissions in part on five socioeconomic measures, such as family income. The courts have ruled he no longer can use race as a factor directly.

At the same time, Huberman understands that the neediest of Chicago's needy aren't uniformly black, Hispanic, Asian or white. Children of all these groups can lack the social and financial capital necessary to succeed.

But poor Huberman never knew what hit him. He immediately was attacked, lobbied and guilted by interest groups claiming his socioeconomic parity plan would infringe on the "civil rights of black children."

The simplistic fairy tale is that racial considerations above all, rather than income and social factors, are the best way to deliver a better education for all children. The reality is so much more complicated.

But it's a tough lesson, one that Charlotte Simmons learned too late: A lack of familiarity with the basic touch points of different socioeconomic classes can be just as destructive to an academic career as not studying enough for midterms.