PERSPECTIVE: Connecticut’s Upside-Down Property Tax System

by Ellen Shemitz and Ray Noonan There is something terribly wrong with taxes in Connecticut, but it is not what the conservative think tanks would have you believe. State and local taxes in our state are not troubling because they are too high across the board; they are troubling because they are wildly unfair, asking those with the least to pay far higher rates than those with the most resources.  This upside-down tax system hurts not only working families struggling to make ends meet, but it also harms the long term economic health of the state, making us less competitive by holding back thousands of children and parents from contributing their full potential.

Thriving communities are made possible by good schools, clean streets, safe neighborhoods, and other public services. To support these building blocks of economic development, Connecticut towns need a stable revenue system that provides them with adequate resources.  Addressing that need requires a hard look at our property tax system, which largely leaves towns on their own to fund local services and as a result creates huge disparities in opportunity.

For the 2015-2016 school year, Greenwich homeowners paid $1,127 in property taxes for every hundred thousand dollars of home value and in return received education funding of $21,331 per pupil. In contrast, Bridgeport homeowners paid $4,220 per hundred thousand dollars of home value yet received $14,343 per pupil in return—in other words, far higher taxes for far fewer educational resources. Since education funding affects educational and life outcomes, these differences result in differences in opportunity for Connecticut’s children based solely on where they are born.

Connecticut didn’t arrive at this situation by accident. Decades of “redlining,” or systematically denying investment to communities of color, prevented these communities from sharing in America’s postwar wealth. Years of restrictive covenants—contracts mandating that property be sold only to whites—excluded families of color from wealthier communities. Today, exclusionary zoning policies limit affordable housing across the state, denying low-income families the opportunity of a better education for their children. Inequalities that took generations of intentional policy to enact will take big ideas to fix.

One big idea Connecticut should consider comes from neighboring Vermont. To fund its schools, Vermont levies a statewide property tax that ensures equal education dollars for equal property tax rates. Applied here, children in Greenwich would still benefit from $21,331 per student in education funding, but the tax rate needed to raise that amount of money would be the same in Greenwich as it would be in every other town in the state. Conversely, Bridgeport could continue to spend $14,343 per pupil, but would no longer be compelled to charge as high taxes solely because of its restricted property base. We found that such a system in Connecticut would benefit 75 percent of residents in 117 cities and towns.

This system would also revitalize economic development in Connecticut by reinvigorating growth in our dense urban cores and inner-ring suburbs. Currently, large disparities in property tax rates between neighboring communities discourage development in the very places to which businesses and young families want to move. The state program in place to alleviate this problem, Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT), has never been fully funded. By fully funding PILOT and reducing these disparities, a statewide property tax would better align business incentives with state priorities.

For too long our laws have unfairly limited who is entitled to the benefits of living in a community that can afford good schools. Surely changes in the law today can ensure that, at the very least, those benefits are not afforded at a steep discount.

______________________________

Ellen Shemitz is Executive Director and Ray Noonan is Associate Policy Fellow for Connecticut Voices for Children.  

PERSPECTIVE: Public + Private = Powerful

by Rie Poirier-Campbell It’s no secret that the Hartford Public Schools are facing severe budget challenges, tied largely to our city’s and state’s grave financial pains. In fact, the magnitude of the problem in the school district is unprecedented, with a gap of as much as $20 million predicted for next school year.

Recently, Aetna, Travelers and The Hartford stepped up to help our city in a big way: pledging a combined $10 million each year for five years to ease the budget crisis, and – equally important – calling on other corporations to join them. This is the kind of fresh, civic-minded, business-smart, public/private approach that can help our community begin to dig out and move forward.

Public/private partnerships aggregate and focus new resources to public needs in a way that a strict reliance on tax dollars never can. They also bring highly creative thinking, enthusiastic teammates and often more cost-effective systems for delivering needed services.

Public/private partnerships are more than just an extra source of revenue. They’re a new way of doing business. Like all partnerships, they may take more work and ramp-up time than going it on your own. And they take ongoing investment on both sides. But the payoffs are far greater.

That’s the idea behind Hartford Performs’ partnership with the Hartford Public Schools. A few years ago, when Hartford students’ test scores were at their lowest, our region’s vibrant arts community asked the school district how it could help. Many arts organizations and teaching artists had done some work in the schools and saw how adding music or theater techniques to a lesson could help children learn. They, along with classroom teachers, knew that when students get up and dance like planets in the solar system, they internalize abstract concepts such as rotation and revolution. When they act out a scene from a book, they better understand the characters’ motives and develop empathy.

What they also knew was that, while some students in Hartford had access to this kind of innovative teaching approach, most did not. What was needed was a system for making sure that every student, regardless of grade or school, have the benefit of arts experiences that would help them learn core subjects.

So the school district and the arts community created a public/private partnership to build that system. Hartford Public Schools invested financial resources; arts organizations invested human resources and innovation; and forward-thinking corporations and foundations created leverage by underwriting the infrastructure to make it all work.

The result is that, today, every Hartford Public School student from prekindergarten through eighth grade has teaching artists visit their classrooms several times a year to help them understand things like fractions, adverbs, the water cycle and the Emancipation Proclamation, by drawing, dancing, drumming and dramatizing. The students are not only learning, they’re enjoying what they’re learning. It’s such a powerful model. I will never forget seeing a student’s eureka moment when he finally figured out what one-eighth meant by coloring it out with a teaching artist.

The numbers bear out how well this approach works. Teachers who participated in a recent independent evaluation said that Hartford Performs programs helped their students develop vocabulary (92%), express themselves verbally (88%), develop active listening skills (96%), work collaboratively with other students (86%), develop problem-solving skills (75%), retain information (93%), develop social skills (89%) and express themselves in writing (65%).

None of this would have been possible without the public/private partnership that developed this broad-reaching and cost-effective system of services for Hartford kids. Further, it’s easy to see how this model can be replicated to serve Hartford students in other areas, such as sports, life skills, civics or vocational/technical learning.

Even – and I would argue especially – in tight budget times, this model is well worth continued investment by all partners, private and public, who are interested in advancing the achievement of Hartford students.

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Rie Poirier-Campbell is Executive Director of Hartford Performs

PERSPECTIVE: Is Your School Fresh Check Day Cool?

by Rachel Papke Most people are surprised to learn that suicide is the second leading cause of death for individuals between the ages of 15-24.

The Jordan Porco Foundation’s mission is to prevent suicide, promote mental health, and create a message of hope for young adults. They accomplish this by providing engaging and uplifting peer-run programs on college campuses. Their signature program is Fresh Check Day.

Fresh Check Day is an uplifting mental health promotion and suicide prevention event that includes interactive expo booths, peer-to-peer messaging, support of multiple campus departments and groups, free food, entertainment, and exciting prizes and giveaways.

Fresh Check Day aims to create an approachable and hopeful atmosphere where students are encouraged to engage in dialogue about mental health and helps to build a bridge between students and the mental health resources available.

The program’s primary goals are to:

• Increase awareness of mental health resources and services available to students
• Reduce stigma and misconceptions around mental health and suicide that often deter individuals from seeking help
• Empower peers to be gatekeepers by understanding warning signs and knowing what to do if a friend is exhibiting signs of suicide or a mental health concern
• Increase willingness to ask for help if experiencing emotional distress

The Jordan Porco Foundation does not charge a fee for service for Fresh Check Day in consideration of varying capacities to fund large-scale mental health programming. Instead, they provide significant support and ask participating schools to provide the remaining essential components within their budgetary means.

This year they experienced incredible growth. They expanded Fresh Check Day to a national reach that includes 14 states, with 58 events this year alone. Currently, they have signed-on 90 schools in 28 states, plus the District of Columbia, and counting.

In Connecticut, 22 institutions are participating, including:  Gateway Community College on April 11, the University of Hartford on April 12, Norwalk Community College on April 19, University of Saint Joseph on April 19, University of Connecticut on April 22, Sacred Heart University on April 28, Three Rivers Community College on September 20, Connecticut College on September 22, Quinnipiac University on October 6, and Central Connecticut State University on October 17.

What can you do?  Bring Fresh Check Day to your school. You can connect with Student Activities, Residential Life, Health Services, your school’s counseling services, or anyone you can think of on campus, and have them get in touch with the Jordan Porco Foundation. Or, you can e-mail the Jordan Porco Foundation at info@jordanporcofoundation.org to introduce yourself, and the programming staff will help you.

“This was an eye opening experience,” said one college participant.  “It helped me feel like I wasn’t alone.”  Added another: “As someone whose mental health had limited my life for some time, I want you to know that these things change lives.  Your event made people feel valued and important and cared about.  You may never hear thank you from everyone that today changed their life but I can promise you our campus is a safe place because of Fresh Check Day.”

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Rachel Papke is Communications Coordinator at the Jordan Porco Foundation

The Jordan Porco Foundation is a 501(c) (3) public charity. Their programs strive to start a conversation about mental health that reduces stigma while encouraging help-seeking and supportive behaviors.  Tickets to Jordan’s Journey Gala, their annual event in support of the Jordan Porco Foundation’s lifesaving programs are now available.  The event is on March 25.  Learn more at jordanporcofoundation.org or (860) 904-6041.

PERSPECTIVE: Fighting Fake News in the Classroom

by Lorenzo Burgio The struggle to tell fact from fiction in the digital age is the battle being fought recently by teachers and professors.

A Stanford study recently found that students in middle school, high school and college, are bad at verifying the news read online — which is worrisome.

The ability to verify news is something that has to be practiced in the nation’s classrooms, said Professor Sam Wineburg, who produced research for the Stanford study, to NPR.

In the study, Wineburg explained that the concept becomes even more worrisome because “many people assume that because young people are fluent in social media, they are equally perceptive about what they find there.” This makes young people a major factor, because they are susceptible to believing fake news and more prone to spreading it.

“How do they become prepared to make the choices about what to believe, what to forward, what to post to their friends, when they’ve been given no practice in school?” said Wineburg to NPR.

This idea is becoming even more prominent as the media is constantly being attacked or used for personal agendas, and this is something educators are aware of.

This is also a responsibility that is falling more and more into the hands of teachers and professors, because “fewer schools now have librarians, who traditionally taught research skills,” explained The Wall Street Journal.

As Facebook works with the Associated Press and other organizations to ensure fake news is not spread throughout the social media platform, efforts in the classroom can also help tame the spread of fallacies on the Internet.

“Teachers from elementary school through college are telling students how to distinguish between factual and fictional news — and why they should care that there’s a difference,” wrote USA Today.

Encouraging and teaching the ability to sift out fake news in the nation’s classrooms is necessary. This ability is vital to becoming a functioning and involved member of society and can only benefit future voters.

California lawmakers passed a bill in January that requires the state to teach courses that help students between grades seven and 12 distinguish fact from fiction and understand the repercussions of spreading fake news.

The dynamics of these courses are specifically designed to have students combat fake news by knowing proper reporting techniques. They teach students to ask questions such as, “Are other news sites reporting on it? How is the writing? Can I find the people in the story elsewhere online?”

There is also be a special emphasis on using tools such as Snope.com and FactCheck.org to validate all information and to always think twice before sharing something on social media.

These courses should be taught nationwide. In a digital world that is only becoming increasingly technologically based, these are necessary skills that students should be properly educated in and to combat the spread and influence of fake news. It is particularly significant because the young social media users play such a large role in spreading fallacies due to their familiarity and expertise with social media, and the perceived notion that news shared by them is of the same stature.

Lorenzo Burgio is editor of Central Recorder, the student newspaper of Central Connecticut State University, where this column first appeared.  Published with permission.

PERSPECTIVE: Just 3 of the JUST 100

by Larry Bingaman Quarterly earnings alone can no longer determine the success of corporate America – such assessment is shortsighted and has proven harmful to the well being of our economy and those who support it. According to Paul Tudor Jones^1, “…we as a society have come to view our companies and corporations in a very narrow, almost monomaniacal fashion with regard to how we value them, and we have put so much emphasis on profits, on short-term quarterly earnings and share prices, at the exclusion of all else. It's like we've ripped the humanity out of our companies.”

Stark words that hold much truth. Why do we as a society check our values and purpose at the door before entering the workplace? Why do we in the US have the greatest income inequality and the greatest social problems?¹ What are we doing to reverse this trend of unjust behavior in our corporations and companies?

I agree with Paul Tudor Jones – we must hold all companies accountable.¹ Through Tudor Jones’ JUST 100: America’s Best Corporate Citizens in 2016², he does JUST that. His research team surveyed 50,000 Americans on corporate behavior, ranking the largest 897 publically-traded companies within their industries according to the following 10 metrics: worker pay and benefits, worker treatment, supply chain impact, community well-being, domestic job creation, product attributes, customer treatment, leadership and ethics, environmental impact, and investor alignment.³

Interestingly, each of these metrics align with three of the four tenants of Conscious Capitalism, a business philosophy stating that business should exist to elevate humanity through higher purpose, conscious leadership, conscious culture, and stakeholder orientation. Of note, the JUST 100 study does not seem to capture whether the company embraces a higher purpose. It will be interesting to see if this driver is added as the study matures.

Three of the JUST 100 companies are headquartered here in Connecticut:

• FactSet Research Systems, Inc, ranking #2 out of 23 Consumer & Diversified Finance companies;
• Cigna, ranking #2 out of 27 Health Care Providers & Services companies; and
• Terex, ranking #2 out of 32 Machinery companies.

In FactSet’s category of Consumer & Diversified Finance companies, American Express ranked first while Capital One Financial ranked third. FactSet’s JUST Strengths included worker pay and benefits, paying its workers above the industry average and having the employees themselves highly rate company benefits such as healthcare, paid time off, and free working lunch in its offices. Additional strengths included investor alignment and domestic job creation.⁴

In the rankings, Cigna was preceded by Humana and followed by Anthem. Its JUST Strengths include worker treatment, environmental impact, and investor alignment. According to the company’s JUST Capital report, “The company shows good performance in serving the interests of employees, communities, suppliers, and the environment, as well as investors.” Its noted that Cigna focused intently on employee diversity and inclusion with over 1,400 clinical staff participating in Culture Diversity Forums in 2015 and 2016, and it has provided more than $5.6 million in funding through Educational Reimbursement Program.⁵

Terex, which was sandwiched in the rankings between first place Cummins and third place Deere, won the category for worker treatment as a result of its commitment to diversity and inclusion. While additional JUST Strengths include domestic job creation and product attributes, it is noted that the company was outperformed by peers in supply chain impact, citing the need to enhance management of the social impact of its supply chain.⁶

While we should be proud of these three corporations for their commitment to just behavior, I propose we should be calling on all Connecticut companies to commit to uphold a similar level of “justness.” A commitment to justness and Conscious Capitalism would no doubt benefit our employees, our customers, our companies, our communities, and the economic well being of our state.

If you want to learn more about the JUST 100 or Connecticut’s Conscious Capitalism Chapter, which seeks to engage, educate, and inspire leaders to practice Conscious Capitalism so they can make a positive impact on their business or organizations and its people, then please email me at info@consciouscapitalismct.org.

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Larry Bingaman is the president & CEO of the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority (RWA). Since 2009, he has been keenly focused on RWA’s sustainable and conscious business practices that maintain and grow the region’s rich natural resources to create new opportunities.  He is deeply involved in the New Haven community, serving as a founding board member of the Connecticut Chapter of Conscious Capitalism, chairman of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, member of the Gateway President’s Advisory Council, and member of the Business Advisory Council at Southern Connecticut State University.

NOTES

1. Tudor Jones, P. (2015, April). Paul Tudor Jones: Why we need to rethink capitalism [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_tudor_jones_ii_why_we_need_to_rethink_capitalism
2. JUST Capital, Retrieved from https://justcapital.com
3. Whittaker, M. (2016, November 30). The Just 100 Methodology: How The Rankings Work. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/martinwhittaker/2016/11/30/the-just-100-methodology-how-the-rankings-work/#572dfd4643ed
4. JUST Capital, Retrieved from https://dataexplorer.justcapital.com/pdfs/FDS.pdf
5. JUST Capital, Retrieved from https://dataexplorer.justcapital.com/pdfs/CI.pdf
6. JUST Capital, Retrieved from https://dataexplorer.justcapital.com/pdfs/TEX.pdf

PERSPECTIVE: Self Control is the Best Control

by Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff One of the great motivational discoveries of the twentieth century is that people who coordinate and control their own work produce greater economic and social results than those who do not. Many leaders, though they might deny it, act as though they prefer control to results. How do we know? They impose coordination and control from above. They have never experienced the alternative: control from within.

Running large-group strategic-planning meetings in the 1990s, we soon recognized that we preferred results to control. We could not control scores of people working in the same room toward a plan that incorporates all of their experiences and aspirations. We found that we got the best results by focusing everyone on the same goal, creating structures for self-managing, and getting out of the way.

That way of leading proved harder than we imagined. Our biggest challenge was controlling ourselves—holding back, waiting, listening, opening doors, and letting people learn their own capabilities. Doing that meant setting the bar higher.  We had given ourselves a new leadership challenge. We had to overturn the conventions we inherited. As we became more confident of consistent results, we began inviting others to try leading in new ways.

We have now helped thousands of people access the advanced skills presented here—“advanced” in the sense of adding new capabilities to your repertoire. These skills need not replace anything you do now. If you are trying some of them for the first time, however, you will indeed be “overturning convention” if you employ them to plan, organize, motivate, and control.

We settled on eight core skills after much iteration. You could easily make our list longer.  These are skills that reinforce one another, that we could use anywhere, and that led people to do more than they dreamed they could. Best of all, we could bring them to bear on any given day. You can do likewise if you are willing to experiment.  But are you?

More than 50 years ago, Douglas McGregor, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote an all-time best seller, The Human Side of Enterprise. His was the famous Theory X, Theory Y book. McGregor described how our assumptions about human nature determine how we lead. Theory X assumes that most people are dependent, dislike work, and require close supervision. Theory Y assumes that most people enjoy work, want to learn, and welcome responsibility. Each theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The tighter the control, the narrower the jobs, and the less judgment people exercise, the more helpless, inept, and dependent they become.

“They act like children,” says the boss.  “He treats us like children,” say the employees.

By contrast, people who have discretion, broad skills, accurate information, and opportunities for growth motivate themselves. From birth we carry the seeds of both theories. Babies come into the world helpless and dependent—and also curious and eager to learn. When (unconscious) Theory X assumptions dominate an organization, they translate into dysfunctional policies, procedures, and structures. They discourage the behavior leaders want to instill.

On the other hand, we have seen people around the globe act out (unconscious) Theory Y assumptions. Under the right conditions, they rediscover natural impulses they had since birth, impulses nourished by unconventional policies, procedures, and structures. People respond to jobs that foster autonomy and growth. Structure includes determining who is allowed to do what. That is something you can control. It involves encouraging people to take initiative beyond their job descriptions. It means enabling communication up, down, and sideways, not just top to bottom. It means turning supervisors into coaches. It means insisting on integrating meetings between departments rather than putting up with silos.

Much organizational conflict is structural. People act the way their jobs require. Salespeople emphasize interpersonal skills. They spend time in small talk before getting down to business. Production workers relate to their machines. They skip the small talk and solve the problem. The structural strategy is to encourage people to maintain their functional differences.

This includes appointing people to integrating roles, using project coordinators, and having cross-functional mechanisms such as product teams and ad hoc problem-solving teams that head off conflict.  In our book “Lead More, Control Less,” we show how to develop the following skills:

• Gain more control by controlling less
• Get others to share responsibility
• Change the structures under which people interact without struggling to change the people
• Demonstrate how getting the “whole system” to explore the “whole elephant” leads to high motivation and fast implementation
• Use anxiety and authority projections to build respect and improve teamwork
• Resolve conflicts and lead people to find where they are 100 percent in agreement
• Experience what you can accomplish by trying out actions that may not come naturally

We emphasize a stubborn reality: Change means doing something you never did before. That is the message from ordinary leaders in business, education, health care, and community building who discovered new capabilities in themselves. We quote them throughout the book.  You may find changing structure ahead of behavior a stretch if you are used to managing personal styles, attitudes, motivations, and extrinsic rewards.  Each chapter advocates an advanced leadership skill and principles of action that you can try out every day:

1. Control Structure, Not People
2. Let Everyone Be Responsible
3. Consider Anxiety “Blocked Excitement”
4. Avoid “Taking It Personally”
5. Disrupt Fight or Flight
6. Include the Right People
7. Experience the “Whole Elephant”
8. Surface Unspoken Agreements

We invite you to travel with us down a road where people perform better the more you let go. If you go far enough, you will discover higher performance, greater self-control in others, and greater freedom for yourself. When you see the results you are getting, you will need no further proof.

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Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff are co-authors of “Lead More, Control Less.” Janoff will be speaking on February 23 at Leadership Greater Hartford’s Lessons in Leadership program. Book excerpt published with permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

PERSPECTIVE: Taking Risks, Serving Customers Key to Sustaining Success

by Mickey Herbert A few years ago, I was asked to talk to a group about my career as an entrepreneur.  I had never considered myself an entrepreneur, but I realized that I had taken risks in my professional life that were, in retrospect, pretty significant.  Here’s what I had to say regarding risk taking and a company's corporate culture.

My parents were always my mentors, teaching me integrity, and how to be respectful of others.  I'm not sure how they taught me to be a risk taker, but somehow, I think I got that from them too. 

Nobody in my family had ever gone to college, and I remember when my Swarthmore College acceptance letter came in the mail to our home my father took it to work before I even saw it. He wanted to show it to all the PhD's he worked for at the U. S. Naval Research Laboratory.

He hadn't finished college because of WWII, but he had learned glass blowing in the Navy and he was the only one who could build those lasers they designed.  He was also a terrific athlete, a football and baseball player in the mold of Babe Ruth, who might have played professional sports except he opted to be the first kid on his block to enlist after Pearl Harbor.

So, in a very real sense, he encouraged me to take the risks he never had the opportunity to take.  Above all else, he wanted me to go to college and/or to play professional baseball, the two life choices that had eluded him because of the war.

Throughout my life, I have always wanted to live up to the person my father wanted me to be - indeed, to be the person he wanted to be if circumstances in our country were different, almost 80 years ago.

To quote Mark Twain, one of our state's most famous citizens, who died over 100 years ago, "Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.  So, throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore, Dream, Discover.

So, with a firm sense of right and wrong, but no money to speak of, I went off to college in Pennsylvania, foregoing, by the way, an opportunity to sign a professional baseball contract. After college, I went straight to the Harvard Business School, then to New York City for a couple years before I headed to Minnesota - where I didn't know a single person in the upper Midwest.

Six years later, I set sail for Connecticut where, again, I did not know a single person in this state, but I was determined to become a successful CEO of a new health plan which would challenge Blue Cross and Blue Shield - Connecticut's dominant health insurer - covering most of our state's 3.5 million residents. I also took advantage of an opportunity to play fast-pitch softball with the Raybestos Cardinals in Stratford, the defending national fast-pitch champions at that time.

Management guru Tom Peters has said that the greatest predictor of one's success in business is one's willingness to take risks.  I used to have a sign in my office which said "Mistakes don't matter, it's the response to error that counts".  In other words, I believe we should all be risk takers, and not be afraid to make mistakes; but when you do make one (and I've made a few doozies in my life), learn from it so you won't make that mistake again.

Because I was a CEO from 1976 to 2010 (and am now one again), I had the incredible opportunity over three and a half decades to define the corporate culture at three companies - PHS, the Bridgeport Bluefish and ConnectiCare. In looking back, I realize that so much of what made these three companies special is very simple.  Peter Drucker once said that successful management is doing a few simple things and doing them well.  For me, it was figuring out what business we were in, and then sticking to the knitting. 

• At PHS, and then again at ConnectiCare, we determined that our business was delivering the highest quality, affordable health care, with unsurpassed customer service, to the citizens of our region. Notice that I said nothing about health insurance. At PHS, we had a slogan, "Intensive Caring" that we trademarked and ingrained into every employee we hired.
• At ConnectiCare, our slogan, and theme song, was "You Know Us by Heart" which carried the very same message.
• At the Bluefish, we determined at the very outset that we were in the business of delivering the highest quality, affordable, family entertainment to the citizens of our region. Notice I didn't say anything about professional baseball.  We made the ballpark a happy, happening place where people wanted to be, a veritable town meeting place, a place where they could be proud to be in and from, Bridgeport, a place where something was going wonderfully right in a city that had often seen things go wrong.

At all three companies, we made all kinds of decisions to increase our likelihood of success, not the least of which was to hire the best people we could, provide them with extraordinary training, and then empower them to go out and make decisions on their own.  What I guess it is about more than anything else is having a totally-focused, customer-friendly culture.

I feel very fortunate to be able now, at the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, to continue the legacy.

______________________________

Mickey Herbert is President and CEO of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council

PERSPECTIVE: Fighting 'fake news' - The myth of 'information literacy'

by John Richard Schrock The Thunderbolt was a publication of the American Nazi Party. I saw my first copy my first year of teaching in rural Kentucky in 1969.

Before class, a high school student showed me a copy, careful that no classmates were nearby. The feature story was an outrageous claim that African-Americans were more closely related to gorillas because they could produce hybrids and white Aryans could not. The article had a picture of a very hairy black infant to “prove” the case.

I recognized the picture. I wrote the term “hirsutism” on a slip of paper and sent the student to the library with instructions to look it up in the World Book encyclopedia. When he came back, after class was over he came up and whispered: “They lied, didn’t they.” I nodded. He had found the encyclopedia entry on the wide range of infants that have this rare hirsute condition and realized how the neo-Nazis had fabricated their racist article.

We did not use the term “fake news” in 1969. We had fake news, but it was slow to spread in print, and readership was small.

Today with social media, such fake news could “go viral” overnight.

Today, both K–12 and higher education are rushing to battle fake news with so-called “information literacy” courses that have magic cures for detecting the range of amateurish didn’t-quite-get-the-story-right misinformation to vicious falsehoods, such as the example above.

Librarians are often called upon to sort truth from trash. That is ironic because before the internet, library materials were classified: 500s and 600s were the pure and applied sciences. The occult was in the 100s.

But our misunderstanding of free speech has kept the Internet free from classification. How dare anyone put vaccines-cause-asthma or dolphins-are-just-underwater-humans in the non-sciences.

So the Internet has become a vast wasteland. I let my student teachers discover this themselves. I assign them to find 10 accurate websites on the Internet in some specific biology field that they choose: kidneys, ferns, fish, etc. They think it will be an easy assignment, but it takes hours or even days.

They have more than 40 credit hours of biology under their belts and they detect website after website that looks good — until they read the details. Tips on search words and other literacy tricks have little effect.

A study in the journal Pediatrics found the majority of online information on childhood diarrhea was wrong, and sometimes fatal. Dot.gov and dot.edu sites are no more accurate than dot.com addresses.

A most damning piece of research came from the University of Connecticut. Seventh-grade students were taught to become “research pros” by using RADCAB, a “critical thinking assessment tool for online information” teaching about Relevance, Appropriateness, Detail, Currency, Authority and Bias.

The Connecticut study directed students to use RADCAB on the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus website. The students found that the Tree Octopus website passed all the tests for authority, citations and other criteria (the Ph.D.s and journals were fake, however).  But when an actual expert was brought in to explain how the octopus only lives in the sea, nearly all of the students rejected the expert.

They now had “ownership” of this falsehood.

This would not have happened if the students had actually known something about an octopus. To combat fake information in the future, citizens are just going to have to know more content.

To return to the neo-Nazi Thunderbolt article I described at the beginning, my ability to de-fuse that terrible lie came directly from my having read through the World Book encyclopedia in fifth grade and then recognizing the picture more than a decade later.

Without that knowledge and our unique ability to recall faces and photos for long times, I would have had to resort to an authoritative “believe me” explanation that would not have undermined the legitimacy of the claim.

Abstract “information literacy” lessons don’t work. If there was any god-like truth-detector, we would all be using it.

Simply, any assertion that schools can teach students a method to separate truthful reporting from fake news, is itself “fake news.”

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John Richard Schrock is a distinguished biology professor at Emporia State University in Kansas.  This column first appeared in the Crowley Courier Traveler and is published here with permission. 

PERSPECTIVE: Manufacturing - Opening Minds to the New World of Innovation

by Bob Sobolewski With more than 4,500 manufacturing companies, Connecticut is no stranger to the world of innovation. In fact, some pretty cool things were first made here in our state — such as helicopters, erector sets, guitars, watches, sneakers, typewriters and bicycles. Most of these items continue to be mass-produced in plants of all sizes today — well, perhaps not typewriters.

Manufacturing employs more than 18.6 million people in the United States, and in the last few years manufacturing jobs have increased by 500,000, according to the National Association of Manufacturing (NAM). In Connecticut, there are about 160,000 people working in the manufacturing field, according to CT Department of Labor (DOL).

The bottom line is stuff has to be made — and Connecticut companies have an ongoing demand for production workers, mechanical engineers, CNC operators, machinists and much more. Unfortunately, many people have the wrong impression about manufacturing. These perceptions stem from a vast history of dark, dusty and dirty industrial environments.

Today is a far different picture as manufacturing plants now embrace new operational standards and LEAN processes. Most facilities maintain cleanliness, order and advanced technology so they can be as efficient and productive as possible.

Manufacturing is a process with many essential steps, including concept, design, sourcing, funding, production, testing, marketing, distribution and disposal. Staffing manufacturing companies requires many unique talents, especially in the high growth fields, such as precision machining, fiber optics and precision metal fabrication.

State and community colleges across Connecticut are now offering certificate and degree programs focused on different disciplines within manufacturing, so graduates can enter the field earning competitive salaries. For instance the median income for an aerospace engineering technician with a bachelor’s degree is about $77K, or a CNC operator with a certificate may earn a median income of $55K, according to the CT DOL.

Manufacturing is an ideal career for those who like to figure out how things work, or enjoy making things. It is also for those who thrive in a world of innovation and critical thinking. It is a field where creativity and curiosity opens the door for new methods, products and processes to be conceived and developed.

Manufacturing accounts for more research and development in the nation, creating more innovation than any other economic sector, according to NAM. Manufacturing is a key driver in our economy, bringing in $1.48 of economic activities for every $1 in manufactured goods.

This is why it is necessary to change perceptions and showcase all the positive aspects of the manufacturing landscape, especially as the older, more experienced workforce ages out. We need to invite students and their parents into Connecticut manufacturing plants for informational tours, so they can see the magic that happens inside the spaces.

We need to encourage internships for students, so they can experience the work environment first hand. We need teachers to become more connected to businesses through externships, so they can share the possibilities and excitement of the manufacturing field in their classrooms.

We need to ensure that curriculum design aligns with workforce demands so students come prepped and ready for a fulfilling career. And we need have people eager to take the helm to ensure all of the stuff essential to live, work and play is designed, made and distributed without missing a step.

To find out more about Connecticut’s manufacturing initiatives and how your company can become involved, visit www.nextgenmfg.org.

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Bob Sobolewski is a 30-year business veteran who headed up the U.S. division of the multinational manufacturer, ebm-papst, inc, before retiring and starting a change management consulting business. Bob is immediate past chair of the CBIA Board of Directors and in 2012 founded ingenuityNE, a not-for-profit public charity to create interest and excitement in STEM (science, technology, engineering & math) among K-12 students throughout New England. He serves on the Executive Advisory Board for FIRST.

PERSPECTIVE: Connecticut Must Act to End Traffic-Related Deaths and Injuries

by Adina Gianelli We have a problem in the state of Connecticut, a problem as stunning as it is abhorrent, as urgent as it is fixable. That problem is one of road safety.

According to the Connecticut Crash Data Repository, an estimated 311 car crash-related fatalities occurred throughout our state in 2016, a four year high. These crashes disproportionately affect people who are walking or biking. This is cause for alarm and a call to action.

Some may think: “I don’t ride a bike, and I don’t really walk anywhere, either. Why should this matter to me?”

Streets are the most fundamental of public spaces. And whether you think of yourself as a pedestrian or cyclist, we all require safe access to our streets.

Complete streets benefit cyclists and walkers, a broad and diverse category that includes, among many others, children who bike to school and seniors who walk for exercise, commuter cyclists and those who travel via public transportation, triathletes and people with mobility limitations (and triathletes with mobility limitations). It benefits people when they get out of the car, as motorists inevitably do. And yes, complete streets benefit drivers, as well. When it comes to street safety, policies that improve conditions for walkers and cyclists benefit us all.

Humans are not invincible. We remain especially vulnerable to the dangers of cars, as the 311 vehicular crash-related deaths in Connecticut in 2016 reveal. But even one death to a cause wholly preventable is one too many. This is why Vision Zero, which strives to end all traffic-related death and injury, is so important, and has been implemented in NYC and a growing number of cities nationwide.

I wish I could devote this piece to highlighting the joys and pleasures of biking, which confers myriad benefits to well-being and community health. I’d love to tell you about the advantages of walking, which Dr. Thomas Frieden, Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), describes as “the closest thing we have to a wonder drug”.

In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to tell you that there were 32,166 fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2015, resulting in 35,092 deaths. I wish I didn’t feel compelled to tell you that traffic fatalities represent the leading cause of death for teenagers nationwide, or that 4500 people are killed crossing the street in the United States each year, a disproportionate number of whom are children, seniors, and people of color. But as a matter of conscience, it is imperative to share this data. These statistics are harrowing and reveal necessary truths about the critical need for action on the part of the Connecticut General Assembly.

How might we move forward to improve road safety for all of Connecticut, and our most vulnerable users in particular? The problem is massive, but the solutions are all but laid out before us. We simply need to implement them.

Complete streets—and the resource allocation necessary to implement this infrastructure—are essential. Education represents another cornerstone, and a critical component of lasting cultural change. By adopting and implementing a statewide, evidence-based cycling education program—such as the one developed by Bike Walk Connecticut—in our public schools, we can keep our children healthy and safe.

Connecticut must strengthen its crosswalk legislation to align with best practices for public health and safety. As a state, we would be well served to revisit our vulnerable user laws, increasing penalties for motorists who injure or kill walkers or cyclists. Ours is one of only 10 states that doesn’t require motorists to refrain from opening a vehicle door until conditions are safe; this, too, must change. Boston, Massachusetts recently implemented a 25 MPH default speed limit; there is no reason that Hartford—and other Connecticut municipalities—shouldn’t do the same. Adopting Vision Zero is an imperative. The work has never been more urgent, and the need has never been more clear.

Arudhati Roy once wrote that “[a] new world is not only possible, but she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” On a quiet day, I can see her biking and walking, safe on beautiful and complete streets.

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Adina Gianelli is Executive Director of Bike Walk Connecticut, a member-supported non-profit organization changing the culture of transportation through advocacy and education to make bicycling and walking safe, feasible, and attractive for a healthier, cleaner Connecticut.