Why this teacher keeps one chair empty in his middle school classroom:Sydney Page washington Post

Sydney Page

Mon, June 20, 2022 at 5:50 PM

All 26 chairs in Dan Gill's middle school classroom are occupied - aside from one, which he leaves vacant.

For the past 30 years, the social studies teacher at Glenfield Middle School in Montclair, N.J., has kept an empty seat in the front corner of his classroom. It represents a childhood memory - which, Gill said, not only propelled him to become a teacher but also shaped the way he teaches.

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"The chair symbolizes that we will always have room in the classroom for anyone," said Gill, 75, who described Glenfield Middle School as having a diverse student body. "It symbolizes acceptance."

As a 9-year-old boy in New York City, Gill and his best friend at the time, Archie Shaw, went to a friend's birthday party together. When they knocked on the door of the friend's apartment, the child's mother looked disapprovingly at Archie - a Black boy. She invited Gill inside, then told Archie he had to go home because "there are no more chairs," Gill recalled her saying.

"I can still see this woman's face," he said, adding that he offered to sit on the floor and give Archie his seat. "She said: 'No, you don't understand. There are not enough chairs.' "

"That's when it hit me," Gill continued. "She was judging him because of the color of his skin."

Although he was only a child, he had some sense of the racial inequalities that plagued society. At the time, it was the beginning of the civil rights movement.

"I felt so bad because he had been humiliated," Gill said. "We gave her the presents and I said we're going to go to my house, where there are plenty of chairs."

In hindsight, Gill presumed the child's mother did not know her son had invited a Black boy to his birthday party. "I don't think she would have allowed it," he said.

Both boys, confused and hurt by what had happened, cried when they got back to Gill's house, he said. His mother took them for ice cream to cheer them up.

Gill lost touch with Shaw as they got older, but that day stayed seared in his mind and influenced his desire to become an educator.

"When I look back now, I think that really made me want to help young people," he said, explaining that he hoped to set a positive example. "Any bad behavior that kids have, they get it from an adult, and any good behavior they have, they get it from an adult."

When he began his teaching career 52 years ago, he started a tradition of telling the story to his students annually on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, "as a way to punctuate what the day means in the lives of ordinary people, and how they should act when confronted with racism," Gill said.

 As he honed his teaching skills, Gill said he realized "kids learn really well through metaphors," he said. So, he decided to add an empty chair to his classroom about 30 years ago - and it has remained there ever since.

"It's been a really effective tool," said Gill, who teaches students in grades 6 to 8. The chair embodies "the idea of opportunity; it's the idea of welcoming; it's the idea of treating people with respect."

Over the years, the chair - and, more importantly, the story behind it - has resonated with students. One teen even made a customized necklace with a chair on it, Gill said.

 Naturally, there have been a few students "that don't get it," Gill said, "but the group psychology of it is that the kids that do get it will explain it."

For Maggie Horn, 16, learning about the chair in 2017 left a strong impression on her. It's a story she regularly remembers and references often in conversations with peers.

"Its message was something that could speak to sixth-graders and allow us, for the first time, to understand what it meant to be privileged, and what it meant not to be," Horn said. "That was really powerful for us all.

 It helped me understand the idea of belonging, and that everyone deserves to feel like they belong," she added. "It helped me understand that everyone deserves a seat - quite literally."

Amid America's racial reckoning in 2020, Horn said the chair was the first thing that came to mind.

"I thought of Mr. Gill's story, and how timely it still is today," she said.

It is most rewarding, Gill said, "when they come back and visit me, and kids say, 'I always remember the chair.' 

 Emily McCarthy, 25, is one such former student.

"When I think about the lessons that I learned from Mr. Gill, I think a lot of them started with that chair," she said.

School administrators said that Gill, who has been at the school for 45 years, has left an impression on the whole community. He was also heavily involved in the school's desegregation efforts in the 1970s.

"I often refer to him as our anchor," said Erika Pierce, the principal of Glenfield. "He is an amazing force to have in the building, and such a wealth of knowledge for all of us."

Students throughout the school - including those who have not been taught by Gill - are aware of the chair story, she added, explaining that he has shared it at schoolwide assemblies

 The chair really speaks to his educational philosophy about inclusion and making sure that everyone feels that they have a place and a space, and that they're valued," Pierce said.

Now, Gill is getting the opportunity to tell the story to a wider audience. Last month, he won an impromptu book pitch at the Montclair Literary Festival, securing himself a publishing contract for a children's book he wrote, titled "No More Chairs."

He had no intention of participating in the "Pitch-a-Palooza," but at the last minute, he decided to give it a shot. Writing a book about the chair, Gill said, "has always been in the back of my mind."

 Gill's one-minute pitch won against 13 contenders, an experience he called "so surreal."

The text for the book is complete, and Gill is now working with an editor to refine the writing. He is also in the process of finding an illustrator, and he hopes the book will be published within a year.

He plans to retire in 2023, but "through this fortuitous opportunity, I'm going to be able to still teach," Gill said. "I'm really happy that I now have a wider audience to share the story."

He will be dedicating the book to Archie Shaw, who passed away last year.

"It's wonderful to be able to share this meaningful story that can touch other people, and motivate them to open up their hearts," Gill said.

 

Should We Suspend Gas Taxes to Counter High Oil Prices? By Gilbert Metcalf·March 31, 2022 Tufts University

 

The Issue:

The price of gasoline has spiked since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and politicians have been quick to call for a temporary suspension of gasoline excise taxes, either at the federal or state level. Already, three states – Connecticut, Maryland, and Georgia – have temporarily suspended their state excise tax.  As Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont put it, “With this bipartisan action, we are taking steps to provide some relief to consumers as they face rising prices due to a number of international dynamics and market instability that go far beyond our state." But is this really helpful? Is it good policy? 

 Gas prices today are only slightly higher than their average value over the past thirty years when accounting for general price inflation.

 The Facts:

• Although they have seen a steep increase in a short period of time, gas prices today are only slightly higher than their average value over the past thirty years when accounting for general price inflation. Even with the recent spike, inflation-adjusted gas prices were higher in the spring and summer of 2008, and the majority of the months from 2011 through the summer of 2014 (see chart). The more unusual circumstance was the very low gas prices that followed this, in the five years beginning in February 2016. Moreover, the amount that the gas tax contributes to inflation-adjusted prices at the pump has diminished over time. The federal tax on a gallon of gas was last raised in October 1993. Since then, its value has fallen by nearly 45 percent – or, put differently, the 18.4 cents per gallon in 1993 translates to 35.9 cents per gallon in 2022 dollars.
•  Gas prices started rising long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine but have spiked up since then. Gas prices hit a low point in April 2020 of $2.15 per gallon at the outset of the COVID recession. Prices started to rise after that as the economy started to recover. Two-thirds of the rise in gas prices since their nadir in the Spring of 2020 occurred prior to this year and reflected the effects of an improving national and world economy. Gas prices spiked by almost 20 percent in nominal (that is, not inflation adjusted) terms in the first two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24^th. But in the second half of March 2022, gas prices began to recede slightly, falling by 1.6 percent even as overall inflation remains high.
•  The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought to the forefront the world’s vulnerability to energy shocks arising from political instability. Russian oil exports account for less than 10 percent of global oil consumption, but demand and supply are sufficiently insensitive to short run changes in price that even small shocks to supply can have large impacts on price – if no other suppliers step up, the price of gas could rise dramatically in the short run to resolve a virtually unchanging demand with a reduction in supply. This price volatility illustrates our vulnerability to oil shocks. True energy security can only be realized through reducing our consumption of petroleum products. Higher gas prices can help move us towards this goal in the longer run by encouraging purchases of more fuel efficient vehicles as well as greater adoption of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles. With two-thirds of the petroleum we consume used in transportation, reducing consumption in transportation will be critical to reducing our vulnerabilities to oil shocks.
• Cutting the gas tax would not have much of an effect on prices at the pump and undermines our efforts to cut our reliance on oil. The average state and federal gasoline excise tax rate is $0.48 per gallon. Zeroing out all federal and state fuel excise taxes would cut the price of gasoline by roughly 10 percent. Based on recent estimates of the how the consumption of gasoline responds to short run fluctuations in price, a 10 percent reduction in gas prices would increase demand for gas by a little over 3 percent. Even this small increase in demand is counterproductive at the time when we should be discouraging consumption of gasoline, not promoting it. Anything that reduces the demand for oil products will reduce Russia’s political leverage internationally.
•  Revenues from taxes on gasoline fund road and bridge construction and maintenance.  Federal taxes on motor fuel fund the Highway Trust Fund that was created by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Revenues from these taxes and have been an important source of funding for highways and mass transit. It is estimatedthat federal excise taxes on fuels will result in revenues of $42 billion in 2022, with 60 percent of these coming from the tax on gasoline. These revenues are important because surface transportation in the United States is in poor condition; the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that the oldest portions of the Interstate Highway System are approaching 60 years of age, and over 7 percent of the nation's bridges were rated in poor condition in 2019 and the American Society of Civil Engineers has given poor grades to the country's roads and bridges and estimated an $786 billion backlog of highway and bridge capital needs in 2021. Cutting the gas tax will reduce revenues earmarked for improving transportation infrastructure.
•  States rely on this revenue to support and maintain transportation infrastructure as well. State motor fuels tax rates range from a low of 9 cents per gallon of gasoline in Alaska to a high of 57.6 cents per gallon in Pennsylvania (see chart).  Annual receipts in 2019 totaled $50.5 billion for the states with roughly 80 percent of the revenue earmarked for state and local roads. Another 10 percent is earmarked for mass transit and the remainder is used for general and non-highway purposes, on average.

• What this Means:

  Gas prices had a dramatic spike in the first weeks after the invasion of Ukraine but, most recently, have begun to stabilize and even fall. This raises the possibility that state and federal lawmakers will cut the gas tax just as the problem of high gas prices begins to recede. But the problems with cutting the gas tax run deeper than just one of timing. This may explain why there has never been a federal gas tax holiday and any prior state gas tax holiday has been mostly limited to a few days. In fact, there is an important case to be made for higher taxes on gasoline because they pay for needed federal and state transportation infrastructure and also in order to reduce our dependence on oil in the long-term – for environmental reasons and to diminish our vulnerability to oil shocks stemming from geopolitical risks. But there are also distributional considerations, and some households are being hard hit by higher energy prices. The burden of this impact can be ameliorated through aid that is better targeted to those most affected.

The problem(s) with Cruz blaming Biden for Texas’ energy troubles By Steve Benen

Texas isn’t just facing questions about the state of its power grid, it’s also struggling with rising energy prices. Sen. Ted Cruz, however, has a message for his constituents: Blame the White House. The Republican senator tweeted over the weekend:

“The impact of President Biden being beholden to the Green New Deal radicals in his party has electricity costs through the roof in Texas.”

The same tweet referred readers to this Dallas Morning News report on rising energy prices in the Lone Star State

 So, a few things.

First, as Cruz almost certainly knows, Texas has its own independent system of power. Indeed, as regular readers may recall, in the continental United States, every state has to answer to federal regulators — except Texas, which goes its own way, with its own power grid.

What does the White House have to do with electricity costs in Texas? Effectively nothing, making the senator’s accusation plainly ridiculous

 What does the White House have to do with electricity costs in Texas? Effectively nothing, making the senator’s accusation plainly ridiculous.

Second, I don’t doubt that some far-right activists get worked up by mere references to the Green New Deal, but the climate goals haven’t been approved, and they also have nothing to do with the prices Texans are paying. (The senator lashed out again at the Green New Deal agenda yesterday, skipping past the nagging deal that the agenda hasn’t actually passed.)

Third, in an ironic twist, the Dallas Morning News article that Cruz referred people to quoted Alison Silverstein, an energy consultant who formerly worked with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Public Utility Commission of Texas, explaining, “Wind and solar are saving our wallets.

 In other words, the kind of renewable energy projects that Republicans are so skeptical of — for entirely political reasons — are actually helping consumers in Texas.

 

1 in 6 US kids are in families below the poverty line By Callie Freitag & Heather D. Hill

In the United States, children are more likely to experience poverty than people over 18.

In 2020, about 1 in 6 kids, 16% of all children, were living in families with incomes below the official poverty line – an income threshold the government set that year at about US$26,500 for a family of four. Only 10% of Americans ages 18 to 64 and 9% of those 65 and up were experiencing poverty, according to the most recent data available.

The official child poverty rate ticks down when the economy grows and up during downturns. It stood at 17% in 1967 – just about the same as in 2020. In many recent years the rate hovered even higher – around 20%. 

 

Persistence of US child poverty since 1967

The official child poverty rate stood at 16% in 2020, roughly equal to levels seen in the late 1960s.

Another way to measure poverty

Researchers calculate the official poverty rate by adding up a household’s income and comparing it with a threshold of what is needed to survive.

The government has calculated this rate the same way since the 1960s.

One of its shortcomings is that it excludes several sources of income, including tax credits and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which are intended to reduce poverty.

In 2011, the government began to calculate an alternative metric: the supplemental poverty measure. It includes SNAP and tax credits. It also uses thresholds based on the cost of living in different areas of the country. For a family of four, this threshold currently ranges from $24,000 to $35,000, depending on where a family lives and whether they own or rent housing.

 

According to this alternative measure, 10% of children were living in poverty in 2020, the lowest rate ever recorded.

Depending on which measure you use, either 7 million or 11.7 million U.S. children lived in poverty in 2020.

By both metrics, poverty is higher for children of color. The official poverty rate for Black children stood at 26%, and 23% for Hispanic children, while for white, non-Hispanic children it was 10%. 

 

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In the United States, children are more likely to experience poverty than people over 18.

In 2020, about 1 in 6 kids, 16% of all children, were living in families with incomes below the official poverty line – an income threshold the government set that year at about US$26,500 for a family of four. Only 10% of Americans ages 18 to 64 and 9% of those 65 and up were experiencing poverty, according to the most recent data available.

The official child poverty rate ticks down when the economy grows and up during downturns. It stood at 17% in 1967 – just about the same as in 2020. In many recent years the rate hovered even higher – around 20%.

Don’t let yourself be misled. Understand issues with help from experts

Another way to measure poverty

Researchers calculate the official poverty rate by adding up a household’s income and comparing it with a threshold of what is needed to survive.

The government has calculated this rate the same way since the 1960s.

One of its shortcomings is that it excludes several sources of income, including tax credits and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which are intended to reduce poverty.

In 2011, the government began to calculate an alternative metric: the supplemental poverty measure. It includes SNAP and tax credits. It also uses thresholds based on the cost of living in different areas of the country. For a family of four, this threshold currently ranges from $24,000 to $35,000, depending on where a family lives and whether they own or rent housing.

According to this alternative measure, 10% of children were living in poverty in 2020, the lowest rate ever recorded.

Depending on which measure you use, either 7 million or 11.7 million U.S. children lived in poverty in 2020.

By both metrics, poverty is higher for children of color. The official poverty rate for Black children stood at 26%, and 23% for Hispanic children, while for white, non-Hispanic children it was 10%.

Before and after 2020

Both child poverty rates had been declining before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The official rate dipped to 14% in 2019 from 21% five years earlier. It shot back up to 16% in 2020, when the pandemic compounded economic hardships for many families.

The supplemental measure of child poverty tells a more complete story.

Steps the government took during the pandemic, including its series of economic impact payments, the child tax credit expansion and a boost in SNAP benefits, led the supplemental child poverty rate to keep declining even during the economic crisis.

 The government will release its child poverty data for 2022 in September 2023. But some researchers at Columbia University have monthly data suggesting that child poverty rose steeply after the expiration of the pandemic-era programs. They estimate that 3.7 million more children were living in poverty in January 2022 than in December 2021 because of the expiration of the child tax credit expansion.

 

 

rate

 

New research examines the cost of crime in the U.S., estimated to be $2.6 trillion in a single year

For the first time in 25 years, a team of researchers, including Professor Mark A. Cohen of Vanderbilt University, has provided a comprehensive overview of the number of incidents of crime in the United States and their staggering financial costs. Cohen, along with research team leader Ted R. Miller of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and colleagues, found that more than 120 million crimes were committed in the U.S. in 2017 (including 24 million violent crimes), amounting to a financial impact of $2.6 trillion

 he findings, which will be published in an article in the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis on Feb. 5, could help determine the efficacy of the nation’s myriad initiatives designed to reduce crime, including criminal justice advocacy, policy reforms, early childhood education and youth interventions. In the article, the team identifies the timely need for accurate estimates of crime incidence and cost, particularly as the country grapples with a system of criminal justice that disproportionately affects communities of color through racial bias. Cohen says that working with more accurate data will allow policy makers to address inequities and put resources toward programs that have the potential to have the biggest effect.

 “Our estimates of unit costs and total costs will help to inform some tough decisions,” said Mark Cohen, Justin Potter Professor of American Competitive Enterprise. “In a resource-limited world, policy needs to weigh costs against benefits.”

 Since no comprehensive national database depicts crime incidence, the team amalgamated models that rely on local data with the best available crime counts from various public databases. For example, to estimate the number of police-reported crimes nationally, the researchers combined arrest rates by crime in communities that report to the National Incidence-Based Reporting System with national arrest counts.

 After determining more accurate crime incidence statistics, the team was able to engage in a thorough analysis of the true costs of crime. Some costs of crime are direct, out-of-pocket expenses. The direct costs cover police response, medical and behavioral health care, victim services, court and child welfare proceedings, incarceration and other sanctions, and the value of stolen goods or damaged property. Some of these costs are direct losses to victims or perpetrators; others are paid for in whole or in part by insurance, by private hospitals providing uncompensated care or by taxpayers

 These direct costs, however, are a small fraction of the costs of violence. Costs of violent crime are dominated by wages and housework (productivity) and quality of life losses by victims and their families, as well as wage losses of incarcerated perpetrators. In considering policy implications of these estimates, the research team advocates for a more comprehensive definition of the “cost” of crime to incorporate cost to the individual victim and costs to society at large. 

 

Overall, personal crime in the U.S. cost almost $2.6 trillion in 2017. Direct costs to victims and taxpayers totaled $620 billion—about $1,900 for every person in the U.S. That figure represents 3.2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product and exceeded the $590 billion spent on the military or the $450 billion spent on social welfare programs in 2017. Health care costs alone totaled more than $90 billion—about 2.5 percent of U.S. health care expenditures.

While there has been a steady decline in violent crime, crimes that had previously been excluded from national counts carry a massive cost. The researchers note that these new, more accurate figures can improve the effectiveness of policy decisions.

 “What is surprising about these figures is that over the past 25 years, traditional street crime such as burglary, robbery and assaults has actually gone down considerably,” Cohen noted. “When Ted Miller and I last published similar cost estimates based on 1993 crime rates, we found that tangible costs represented about 1.5 percent of GDP—less than half what we estimate now. The main reason costs have increased so much is that we have now been able to include many nontraditional crimes such as fraud and identity theft, child maltreatment and impaired driving crashes. These three crimes alone represent about half the total direct costs of crime.”

 

There are historical and psychological reasons why the legal age for purchasing assault weapons does not make sense by Ashwini Tambe

The Uvalde and Buffalo mass shootings in May 2022 had at least two things in common: The shooters were 18 years old, and they had both legally purchased their own assault rifles.

The shooters’ young age was not an aberration. The average age of school shooters is 18, when tracking incidents since 1966.

The relatively young age of most mass shooters has ignited conversations about the minimum legal age for purchasing firearms.

When it comes to gun laws, there is clearly a legal debate about how to define adulthood. But there is also a complex history of how societies determine adulthood, as I’ve examined in my work on the age of marriage and sexual consent. 

 

Considering someone an adult once they turn 18 is a relatively recent trend, and it’s not clear that it can stand up to public scrutiny as a meaningful threshold for legally purchasing firearms.

A push for age limits

In the Parkland, Fla., school shooting in 2018, the shooter was 19. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter in Newtown, Conn., was 20 years old. And the shooters at the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., in 1999 were 18 and 17. 

 

Following the Uvalde massacre, Democratic Texas state senators called for an emergency legislative session to raise the minimum age to purchase firearms in the state from from 18 to 21, which Governor Greg Abbott has resisted.

The day after the Buffalo massacre, on May 15, 2022, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called to raise the age to purchase assault rifles from 18 to 21. The New York State legislature then voted on June 2 to ban anyone under the age of 21 from buying assault weapon.

On June 2, President Joe Biden also called for a ban on assault rifles – or for raising the age when someone is allowed to purchase one. 

 On the other side of the issue, the National Rifle Association has challenged state laws in Florida and California that restrict people under 21 from buying rifles. 

 

When adulthood begins

Several news outlets, including The Associated Press and The New York Times, called the mass shooters in Buffalo and Uvalde “men” and “gunmen” in their coverage. Some observers argued that these terms were accurate because the age of the shooters was 18.

But there is no single, cohesive legal answer to whether 18-year-olds are actually adults, in every respect.

In most U.S. states, 18 is the legal age of majority – this is the age when people are no longer entitled to parental support, can be emancipated from their parents or foster care, tried as adults for crimes, and enlist for military service. But not all states follow this age standard – in a few states, the age is 19 or 21.

 

Adulthood wasn’t always set at 18 in the U.S., either. The legal age of adulthood was 21 for several centuries in the U.S., a holdover from colonial rule reflecting a British feudal custom relating to when knighthood was possible.

In the early 1970s, following a congressional push to make the voting age consistent with the age of compulsory enlistment in the army, the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. In the following years, most states classified someone as an adult at the age of 18, aligning with the voting age.

This age does not rigidly define adulthood across every legal context, though. 

 

Generally, at 18, a person can participate in activities that require a certain amount of cognitive independence, such as voting, consent to medical treatment and the right to sue someone.

Most states set the age of sexual consent between 16 to 18 years. The federal age of marriage is 18, but most states set a lower age for marriage with parental consent. Even in other parts of the globe, as I note in my book about the transnational history of marriage laws, parental consent determines the legal age standards for marriage. 

 

A higher limit

On the other hand, some activities that can directly harm others and oneself have a higher age threshold.

The federal minimum legal drinking age is 21 because, after being dropped to 18 in the 1970s, an increase in drunken driving fatalities pushed states to raise it again to age 21 in the 1980s.

Government studies showed that states with the minimum drinking age of 18 had higher motor vehicle fatalities.

Drivers below the age of 25 also find it either difficult or more expensive to rent a car, given the higher risks of accidents for the car, the driver and others on the road.

The age threshold is also higher for activities involving financial risk.

 For example, someone under the age of 21 needs a co-signer to get a credit card in their own name because of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act, passed in 2009.

 

Phased-in adulthood

Researchers who study adolescent brain development argue that different types of maturity develop along distinct timelines. They offer nuanced distinctions between the ability to reason in a systematic way, which typically happens around age 16, and decision-making that involves emotion and risk assessment. This can take many more years to develop.

Such cognitive growth in fact continues until around age 25.

For these reasons, some legal scholars argue strongly against an absolute single standard for adulthood – one that holds across all activities. 

 

The series of recent mass shootings by teenagers is challenging legal standards about when someone is an adult and can legally purchase firearms. Emotional maturity – the ability to recognize and process one’s fear, to control impulses – should ideally be a facet of gun ownership, if civilians are to have access to guns at all. The decision to pull a trigger requires exactly the kind of forethought that neuroscientists argue develops slowly.

In most legal contexts, activities that can put others at risk are not permissible at age 18. Adult status is actually granted in phases, depending on the activities in question. There is a strong case to be made on both historical and scientific grounds that 18-year-olds should not be allowed to purchase firearms.