Opinion

Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us .

Dry Bones MEANWHILE

Editorial

An Economic Tightrope

T

here isn't much doubt that the
first weeks of the Barack Obama
administration will be dedicated
to trying to fix the economy.
And the man at the center of that effort
will be Lawrence Summers, the head of
the new President's Council of Economic
Advisors.
There is little debate that Summers, born
into a Jewish family in New Haven, Conn., is
a brilliant economist. His awards would fill
several walls and he is noted for the schol-
arly publications he has edited, including a
four-volume series on how taxation policy
impacts the economy. He was also among
the youngest tenured professors in the his-
tory of Harvard University.
But his appointment has raised the ire
of some political activists for several rea-
sons. His brief tenure as Harvard's presi-
dent was marked with a few statements
that fell well short of being politically
correct and he is also blamed for backing
policies that favored de-regulation of Wall
Street and led to the current economic
crisis.
While at Harvard, he advised black

studies professor Cornel West to spend
more time in the classroom and less doing
research into the cultural significance of
hip-hop lyrics.
Summers then, according to his crit-
ics, implied that women cannot compete
with men in the fields of math and science
because of inherent genetic differences.
What he actually said was the reason for
the shortage of women in those disciplines
was worthy of serious study and genetics
could be one of several possible explana-
tions.
Even raising the possibility infuriated
feminists and he resigned as Harvard's
president after a no-confidence vote by the
arts and sciences faculty.
Summers will be walking on equally
treacherous ground in his new position.
The president-elect appears to favor
application of Keynesian economics to
the current situation, massive government
spending to create jobs and stimulate pri-
vate spending. It was the approach chosen
by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, but
its critics say the results then were incon-
clusive, at best.

PALESTINIANS
ARE NOW BEING
BRUTALIZED AND
TERRORIZED IN
GAZA

BUT NOBODY IS
MARCHING OR
DEMONSTRATING
PM THEM

Republicans in the
Senate will almost
certainly oppose
further bailouts and
BECAUSE THESE
spending programs
VICTIMS ARE PLO
and will hold out for
ACTIVISTS IN
tax cuts. They insist
that will have a faster
GAZA ,
impact on the econo-
my by placing money
in the pockets of con-
sumers immediately.
Summers first came
to academic attention
through a series of
studies that demand-
ed and assembled
DryBonesBlog.com
hard evidence to sup-
port soft economic
theories. For that work, he became the first cially critical job. We can only hope that
economist to receive a medal from the
the careful scientist in him manages to
National Academy of Scientists.
check the flippant part of his person-
That mindset should serve him well in
ality. What got him into hot water at
the present situation, demanding quantifi- Harvard could be much, much worse in
able facts rather than politically conve-
Washington.
nient theories.
The country doesn't need any more of
Summers is the right man for an espe-
that right now.

Reality Check

Fumbled Chances

T

here is only one institution in
this area that surpasses the Lions
in utter incompetence. That
would be the Detroit School Board.
With much more at stake than football,
the board has shown itself fully capable
of going winless every year. The two have
much in common: a lack of accountability,
a declining customer base, absence of
leadership, a culture of losing, no toilet
paper. No, scratch that. The Lions are
ahead there.
As the new year began, they were both
looking for new leaders, a quest on which
they have been spectacularly stupid in the
past.
But here is a critical difference. The
Lions were compelled by the National
Football League to interview a minority
candidate for their head coaching job. No
such consideration is mandated for the
school board.
One would think that an organization
as thoroughly screwed up as the Detroit
Public Schools would be searching every-

where for someone, anyone with
fresh ideas, regardless of race or
gender.
But the last person who was
not an African-American to
run the city's schools was David
Adamany, and he was imposed
by Gov. John Engler in 1999
during the state takeover.
Adamany made some prog-
ress in cutting down waste and
got a few other reforms done.
But even after running Wayne
State University for many years,
he was stunned at the sheer
volume of calamity he uncovered and
left, shell-shocked, after a year to become
president of Temple University.
Similarly, when current Chicago Mayor
Richard M. Daley was given the chance
to name a CEO for that city's schools, he
picked Paul Vallas, budget director of the
Illinois Legislature. Vallas won national
attention for his innovations in a district
that was regarded as the worst in the

nation. At least, it has relin-
quished that title.
I'm not saying that it takes
a white male to run a school
district effectively. I am saying
that ideas come from every-
where and limiting candidates
by race eliminates a source of
possible progress.
Of course, with this board in
place, progress may be a shad-
ow. What it seems to demand
is someone who can walk on
water, eliminate deficits, raise
test scores and keep their nose
out of the no-bid contracts they like to
confer on buddies.
But there is also the real consideration
that black separatism is alive and well
in the city, making anyone other than an
African-American unacceptable for that
job. The Black Muslims had a strong pres-
ence there from the start and Malcolm X,
whose early nickname was "Detroit Red,"
once was in charge of Mosque Number One.

Milton Henry was demanding a sepa-
rate state, preferably Mississippi, for black
people back in the '60s. It was the under-
lying definition of Coleman Young's 20
years as mayor.
If a less divisive figure, maybe a Dennis
Archer, had been elected back in 1973, the
story might have been different. But Young
was a man for his times and the city,
including the school board, still bears the
weight of his legacy, even in this most his-
toric week for the country's race relations.
When I read the platitudes about
Detroit's resiliency in hard times, I always
go back to this basic reality that makes us
different from most other cities. It is the
ghost in the machine, making it almost
impossible to grapple with the problems
that are central to this area's future.
Like giving the city's children an educa-
tion that can bring them hope. _±

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com .

January 22 • 2009

A29