PERSPECTIVE: Closing the Resume Gap To Keep Careers on Track and Benefit Businesses

by Emma Buth Pay equity has been a hot topic in recent national debates. We even observe gender pay discrepancies in the workforce right here in Connecticut.

There is a drive today not only to combat this problem, but many others. Pay equity, the wage gap, and what is coined ‘the motherhood penalty,’ are metrics frequenting our news more and more. We all want to ensure women receive equal treatment when finding a job and while working. However, there is another measurement yet to be termed and quantified that further documents workforce inequalities. Often it fails to come up on our radar, but it takes an economic toll on women, businesses, and the economy alike.    

Do males and females with comparable education and equal years of professional experience record salary differences? When one (often the female but possibly, or even increasingly, the male) has paused their career for caregiving, they suffer reduced pay for the remainder of their career or are sidelined entirely.

The Center for Work-Life Policy finds a woman’s earning power declines by 11 percent when having a gap in employment of less than a year.  This increases to 37 percent for those who have been out of the workforce for over three years (Helping Women Opt-in 2018). Similar to the effects of “the motherhood penalty”, smart women, with experience, are making much less relative to peers (male or female with equivalent degrees and years of experience) when starting their careers once again.

One firm, a social enterprise launched in Connecticut, Untapped Potential Inc., is working to remove barriers that keep those with a gap sidelined. It is estimated that Connecticut women are paid just 83 cents for every dollar a man makes, women of color experience an even greater disparity in pay (CWEALF 2015). It’s projected that a woman cannot expect to earn the same as a man for the same job within our state until the year 2061! Since these figures fail to include the variation in income of equivalently educated and experienced workers underemployed (or un-engaged), Founder Candace Freedenberg contemplates whether the true pay equity is being captured.

While pay equity details that a woman should be paid the same as a man when doing equal amount of work in the same job, the gender wage gap differs. It describes the measured statistical difference in income between men and women. In Connecticut, the wage gap results in full time working women losing collectively $15 billion (Connecticut Women and the Wage Gap 2017).

Note the use of the qualifier ‘full time working women’. The Center for Talent Innovation highlights that 30 percent of working mothers choose to opt-out of full employment to manage work and family. During the opt-out years and beyond women experience a pay gap within the pay gap down the line. This overall gap may be tied to the employers relying on the historical salary question, and exclude those who have taken a break from their careers.

It is critical to observe that not all of those investing in higher education are taking part in the workforce. A Vanderbilt study concludes that the, “full-time employment rate for MBA moms who earned bachelor’s degrees from a tier-one institution is 35 percent” (Wolf 2013). Loss of 65 percent of educated professional women from a subset of higher universities has a measurable impact to an economy that critically relies on innovation.

Neither the wage gap nor the motherhood penalty take into account the many who have paused their careers to raise our nation’s next generation. Opt-outers or those who have left their job, find difficult barriers to overcome in order to get back in the workforce. Since 2000, 25- to 29-year-old women having a bachelor’s degree or higher college degree outnumber those attained by their male counterparts by ten percent (The Condition of Education 2017).

Educated and experienced women re-joining the workforce often face difficulties due to a lack of connections and bias when looking for jobs. Roughly 80 percent of jobs come through networking, and once women fall out of the know-to circle, it is much harder to get back on the career path (Adler 2016). Current job board systems sift out not only those with a gap but those missing key terms that rely on recent work engagement. These factors along with the fact that the prevailing requirements of industrial-age workplace modes in the internet-age largely keep mothers from seeking employment during their caregiving years.

That is where Untapped Potential (UP) comes in. Based in Hartford, the Benefit Corporation offers a programmatic approach to remove the barriers that keep educated experience professionals from engaging in our nation’s economic engine.  By creating a network of support, a skills portal to ramp up with latest tools and short courses and crucial mid-career engagements (Flex-returns) with forward-thinking companies, UP’s three prong solution tactically addresses the barriers of lack of contacts, skill currency and confidence.

Why would women who have opted out be so crucial to the work environment?

Freedenberg explains that businesses and our GDP ultimately struggle when these smart educated women are left out of the economy. As the Hamilton Project relates, “[B]arriers to participation by women also act as brakes on the national economy, stifling the economy’s ability to grow.” The lives and fortunes of women in the workplace affect us all. Untapped Potential curates talent not currently available in the marketplace, and businesses benefit from that high caliber talent that is eager to engage and grow the economy.

Ted Pizzo, SVP of Lockton companies, stressed how vital UP’s services are to the workforce by contending that, “Untapped Potential’s approach is almost like a surgical strike, they create a returnship for business that fuses talent to business needs.”

UP will host upcoming educational seminar titled the “Economic Value of Returning Women to YOUR Workforce Pipeline”  where businesses can meet our talent in a speed interview format. The third event of this kind is planned for March 9 in Hartford. The event is sponsored by Travelers and Quinnipiac Corporate Training. The event works to overcome the barrier that prevents hiring managers from ever seeing the caliber of talent that would inevitably be missed in the jobs board/keyword search scenario.

By pricing the Flex-returns at a competitive rate UP hopes to reduce the friction for companies to open their workplace to a mid-career internship with a high potential candidate that is indeed missing the latest key terms from their resume. Companies can learn how they can host a Flex-Returner at www.upotential.org.  Doing so works to return women to the company’s pipeline for senior roles, impacting gender equity over one’s career.

_______________________

Emma Buth, an aspiring journalist, is a senior at Avon High School interning for Untapped Potential as part of the  “Achieve" Avon High School Internship Program.

PERSPECTIVE: Republic Still at Risk; Connecticut Edges Forward

by Peter L. Levine My colleagues and I have worked on civic education for several decades, but I’ve never seen such an upsurge of interest as we’ve observed during the past year. Demands for more and better civics are not only coming from critics of the Trump administration who are concerned about a perceived erosion of constitutional principles. There’s also alarm across the political spectrum about polarization: Americans believe different facts, hold different opinions, and dislike their fellow citizens who disagree with them. “Fake news” is also a widely-shared concern, even though we debate what is “fake.”

And beneath these trends is a slow but profound decline in our everyday civic engagement at the community level (distinct from politics and government). For instance, in a 2017 poll, only 28 percent of Americans said they belonged to even one organization that had accountable and inclusive leaders. These concerns are shared by many Americans who voted for Donald Trump, as well as by many who opposed him or who didn’t vote at all.

Students can and must be educated to participate in politics and community life. That means that we must certainly give more attention to civic education in our k-12 schools. But sometimes the conversation about k-12 civics gets off on the wrong foot. I constantly hear people ask, “Why don’t kids study civics anymore?” Or “Why isn’t anyone working on that problem?”

Sometimes these complaints are reinforced with evidence of adults’ lack of basic knowledge. For instance, after the national political conventions in 2016, just 37 percent of Americans could name the Republican candidate for vice president and just 22 percent could name the Democratic candidate.

This is not the right place to start because we already teach civics in schools. Almost all students are required to study the US system of government in history and other social studies courses. Almost all face tests on this material. Every state has lengthy requirements for learning basic civic information. And thousands of dedicated social studies teachers do an excellent job with this material. We must not erase their contributions or ignore our students’ learning by posing the issue as “Why don’t kids study civics anymore?”

Yet much more needs to be done. Civic education has been a backwater at a time when basic literacy, science, and math have received relentless attention. The social and political world has changed dramatically--for example, newspapers have shrunk and social media has arrived--yet very little money has been spent in revising social studies resources and methods for our new era. Teachers report a lack of support for educating future citizens.

We also tend to focus attention in somewhat the wrong places. For example, most students learn the mechanics of the political system in order to demonstrate knowledge on a test, but few develop habits of following the news out of interest and commitment. If a 50-year-old doesn’t know who was nominated for Vice President, it isn’t because we failed to teach social studies. It’s because the adult never became interested enough to keep up. Motivation is crucial in civics.

Finally, we don’t devote as much attention as we need to addressing the real weaknesses of American civil society: polarization, shrinking voluntary associations, and a fragmented news environment.

Connecticut has taken some positive steps lately. In February 2015, the state adopted new frameworks for Elementary and Secondary Social Studies. I think they are well done. They move beyond random-seeming information toward a coherent “Inquiry Arc” that should help to prepare citizens.

Secretary of State Denise Merrill and Commissioner of Education Dianna Wentzell are both advocates for civics. In 2017, they launched the “Red, White and Blue Schools” initiative that recognizes Connecticut schools for good civic education. This year¹s theme is local community engagement.

I’m proud to serve on the board of Everyday Democracy, which has helped start the Connecticut Civic Ambassadors Program. Citizens are asked to become “Ambassadors” who will engage with their local community to encourage civics education and engagement.

Another nonprofit based in Connecticut is the Civic Life Project, which “brings civics to life by empowering students to produce and screen short documentary films on community issues they care about.”

Finally, Kid Governor started in Connecticut in 2015 and has since spread to Oregon. It’s an absorbing and deeply educational program for 5th graders that culminates in a mock election.

These are the kinds of steps we need. More must be done in the face of a deeply caustic media and political environment. Strengthening civics isn’t easy, considering all the other challenges that confront our schools. But it is good to see civics receiving new attention and creativity, and I’m optimistic that the rising alarm about our politics will lead to even more improvements in Connecticut and nationwide.

____________________________________________

Peter Levine is Associate Dean of the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. For additional background, please see “The Republic is (Still) at Risk—and Civics is Part of the Solution,” a recent paper by Peter Levine and Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, released at a summit on civic education keynoted by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

PERSPECTIVE- Nonprofits: Focus on your impact, not your effort!

by Lou Golden Many years ago, I attended a marketing seminar and learned a simple, yet powerful, concept that helped guide me as I led a nonprofit organization.

The instructor, discussing the differences between features and benefits, pointed out that while hardware stores think they are selling drills, customers are actually buying holes. Marketers, he advised us, waste their time advertising features when they should be touting the benefits.

In the nonprofit world, that idea translates into: Focus on the outcomes you create rather than how you create them. Results matter more than process.

Consider this: Many nonprofits stress the size of their organization, the dedication of their staff, the creation of a new strategic plan or the amount of money they raise each year – rather than the impact they have in the community.

Some nonprofits even have crafted mission statements that focus on what they do rather than the what they achieve. I have seen plenty of mission statements that read like this: “Our agency is dedicated to providing services that aim to improve lives and remove barriers in our community.” A better mission statement would be:

“Our agency improves lives and removes barriers in our community.”

Ultimately, it’s important to remember that donors don’t fund nonprofit organizations. They fund outcomes. The nonprofit is simply a vehicle that connects a donor, who has a certain intention, to an outcome that fulfills that intention.

A donor, for example, may want to ensure that people in our community do not go hungry. Rather than trying to figure out how to get meals to hungry people on their own, the donor gives money to a local food pantry that has programs to feed the hungry. In that way, the food pantry connects the donor to the outcome he or she is seeking.

Simon Simek, an author and social scientist made famous by five books and one of the most popular-ever TED Talks, puts the same idea a different way. He urges leaders to “start with the why” -- in other words, first understand the reason your organization exists. Once you’ve done that, you can move on to easier-to-ascertain topics like what you do and how you do it.

Shouldn’t that be the natural order of any communication? Doesn’t your most powerful message have to do with your impact rather than your efforts? Won’t all of your audiences – your donors, your volunteers, your board and your staff – be most moved by a discussion of your higher purpose rather than your capabilities?

It’s easy, as a nonprofit leader, to lose sight of this. It’s hard to see your organization as “a vehicle” that simply produces outcomes that the community needs and that donors want to fund. But once you start seeing your organization in this way, it’s easy to put “the why” first and to imbue all that you do with it. So, for example:

• The stories you tell as you seek to build donations, gain volunteers, fi nd board members and build your brand should always focus on the difference in the community you actually are making.
• Your board needs to be, first and foremost, mission-focused. Before you fi ll them in on what you expect them to do (whether it be the size of a personal donation or a requirement to attend all meetings), make sure they are passionate about your organization’s ultimate purpose. Otherwise, they will never be the zealots you need them to be.
• Do not bog down the speaking portion of your special events with lots of information about what you do and how you do it. Streamline galas, receptions, and golf banquets by focusing only on your impact.

Your guests will be both delighted and motivated.

Last piece of advice: As a leader, experience the outcomes first hand – and do it often. Carve out time on your schedule to see your programs in action, talk to the people you help, watch your program staff at work. It will inspire you – and ground you in the reality of your purpose.

_______________________________

Lou Golden is a consultant focusing on leadership, strategy and communication for nonprofit organizations. He was president and CEO of Junior Achievement of Southwestern New England from 2002 to 2016. Previous to that, he was a journalist, a newspaper company executive and a marketing professional.

PERSPECTIVE: Intellectual Freedom and Net Neutrality

by Andrew Boyles Petersen By the time this comes to press, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will have voted on the future of the free and open internet we rely upon.   Current FCC chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal, Restoring Internet Freedom, seeks to eliminate the 2015 FCC protections for net neutrality. The existing regulations on net neutrality were passed in 2015 to establish clear rules prohibiting internet service providers (ISPs) from throttling, prioritizing, or blocking online content. As the fight for net neutrality continues around the country, it’s important for us as librarians to understand what net neutrality is, as well as the potential implications for our profession.

On a basic level, net neutrality is the expectation your ISP will treat all websites and content you access equally, allowing you to access any websites you desire. This principle has guided the formation, growth, and use of the internet, aligning with libraries’ service goals by providing patrons with equal access to information. Overturning net neutrality could directly go against this core tenant of our profession, resulting in access to different websites being prioritized or impeded based off of the beliefs or profit-model of the ISP.

As with many profit-based programs, consumers will likely be burdened with the consequences of these changes, with marginalized communities bearing the worst of this affront. Pairing with the push to end net neutrality, a November 16 FCC vote seeks to scale back the Lifeline program—a program designed to provide discounted phone and internet services to low-income households. Throttling back the Lifeline program alongside rescinding net neutrality will target many of our most vulnerable populations, both re-pressing possible avenues for their free speech and constraining marginalized communities to public telecommunications offerings, including our library services. This will likely lead to an increased demand for library services, particularly internet access. Responding to this demand, however, might be more and more difficult.

Without net neutrality in place, the payment plan for ISP customers, including libraries, could increase dramatically. As ISPs are presently prevented from blocking or slowing online content, customers are currently charged based on their service provider and desired download/upload speeds. Under the new plan, ISPs could slow or block web content, charging content companies and end-users to reach specific websites or receive priority access to content.

Along with higher monthly bills from their ISPs, consumers and libraries could also see increased costs from content companies once these companies begin paying ISPs for preferential treatment. Trickle-down from these increased costs would likely result in increased product and subscription charges for the average consumer. With state governments making cuts to library budgets and ISPs raising monthly rates, addressing an increased demand for library internet services may be challenging, or for some libraries, impossible.

On a national level, the American Library Association (ALA) has consistently supported maintaining net neutrality, resisting both the current and 2015 moves to repeal. Following the decision there will likely be legal challenges to the order in the federal court of appeals, as well as possible legislative action.

Throughout, the ALA has committed to “work with other supporters of strong net neutrality protections to ensure policymakers know how important a free and open internet is to libraries and the communities we serve” (Satterwhite, 2017). Similarly in our state, the Connecticut Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee (CLA IFC) is here to support you in this struggle, as well as in challenges to materials, library services, and patron privacy. Coinciding with the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, the CLA IFC seeks “to recommend such steps as may be necessary to safeguard the rights of library users, libraries, and librarians…” For that reason, we will be providing regular updates on these issues via this column in CLA Today.

In our digital age, we must together as a profession continually focus on protecting patrons’ rights online, seeking to support our patron’s right to free speech online and the confidentiality of their digital identities, just as we long have with their physical selves.  Although the FCC vote on net neutrality has now passed, there is still time to speak up on this issue.  Read through the ALA’s advocacy information on net neutrality, and follow the ALA Washington Office’s District Dispatch blog as this continues to unfold. If this debate transitions to Congress, call your senators and express your support for net neutrality. As we move toward a new year, we can together support our libraries and communities by speaking out against affronts to intellectual freedom and by working together to protect the rights of our patrons.

___________________________

Andrew Boyles Petersen is Instruction and Outreach Librarian at The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor and a member of the Connecticut Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee. This article first appeared in the latest issue of CLA Today, the newsletter of the Connecticut Library Association.    The publication will be providing updates on these issues in future issues.

PERSPECTIVE: Dialogue, Diversity and Progress Amidst News of Dysfunction

by Martha McCoy What better way to spend the day than with a broad diversity of people from across Connecticut who want to make our towns, cities and state even greater places to live – who are working to create inclusive communities and make a difference on the issues we face.

For six years, Everyday  Democracy and the Secretary of the State’s office have been bringing together an expanding group of civic leaders to consider indicators of our state’s civic heath – such as how well neighbors relate to each other, how often people participate in community affairs, and how well we collaborate across differences. 

On a sunny day with day with a New England chill in the air, 75 Connecticut residents recently gathered for the first annual Connecticut Civic Ambassadors Summit at the Hartford Public Library to celebrate our public life and find ways to improve it. During an afternoon of sharing food and conversation, we deepened our understanding of the “civic health” of our state and continued to find ways to take action together.

State news coverage often focuses on dysfunction. Our state was one of the last in the country to pass a budget. We are struggling to pay for important services, develop the economy, and address large racial and economic inequities. When we hear about towns and cities, it’s often about ways they are pitted against each other.

But the tone of the recent Saturday gathering was completely different. While we all acknowledge that our state faces tough issues, we believe that there are ways “we the people” can address them, working with each other and public officials in more inclusive and democratic ways.

Throughout the day, we heard from people of all ages (grade school to senior citizens) and all backgrounds and walks of life who are using their voices, generating productive collaborations, standing up for justice, and making a tangible difference in their homes, schools, communities, and regions.

Here are just some of the things we heard:

• “People are yearning to have discussion, to understand the world, and to come together to transform dialogue into action.”
• “Use the gifts you have to change the world around you…”
• “Young students have the power to change the world.” “Teachers need support so that they know how to help their students talk about divisive public issues in respectful ways.”
• “We need to start talking about things before they become hot-button issues. A tweet is not action.”

At the close of the Summit, 40 Civic Ambassadors were sworn in, pledging to be a dedicated and engaged community member to uphold civic values of civility, respect for our democratic institutions, principles of social justice, and nonpartisan civic action toward community improvement.

The goal of the Summit was to engage more people as Connecticut Civic Ambassadors.  Join us.  Civic Ambassadors are everyday people – all of us have a voice and can make a difference. We all need ways to resist the cynicism and polarization that are so prevalent both in our state and across the nation.  Whether you live in or outside of Connecticut, please call us so that you can learn about the civic health work going on in your state.

---------------------------------------------

Martha McCoy is Executive Director of Everyday Democracy.  A national organization based in Hartford,  Everyday Democracy works to strengthen democracy by making authentic engagement and public participation a permanent part of the way we work as a country. Since their founding in 1989, the organization has worked with hundreds of communities throughout the U.S., first by offering small, structured dialogues that led to positive and lasting change, and now offering an array of flexible resources, discussion guides, coaching and technical assistance.

https://youtu.be/jVue1tX-eI0

PERSPECTIVE: Access to Healthy Foods: How Far Are You Willing to Go?

by Garth Graham For the first time in the history of the United States, today’s youth are expected to have a shorter life-span than their parents. With medical, scientific and technological advances, this notion seems dumbfounding. But when we step away from the science and technology and take a deeper look at our communities, you can find the root causes.

Access to healthy food, public safety and environmental factors are all driving forces behind this decline in longevity. These social determinants of health are becoming increasingly influential to our health as individuals and as communities.

Increasing access to healthy foods is one of the primary social determinants of health that the Aetna Foundation is trying to address. We know that living closer to super markets or retailers that provide healthy food lowers health issues related to obesity, such as diabetes. Providing a community with healthier food doesn’t just benefit the well-being of the people that live there – it has also been show to increase economic activity.

While many of us are lucky enough to have full pantries and fridges, a large portion of the country is not as fortunate. More than 23 million Americans, including 6.5 million children, live in food deserts—places where fresh fruit and vegetables (and healthy foods in general) are largely inaccessible. A significant percentage of this group live in low-income neighborhoods, both urban and rural.

It will require more than a merger between Whole Foods and Amazon to reduce the number of food deserts across the country. Solving this problem starts by giving communities direct access to healthier options, which can help address the fact that more than 90 percent of people don’t eat the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables.

One approach that is helping communities across the country is the development of community gardens and farmer’s markets. The Aetna Foundation is committed to helping communities with this approach and has already supported 5,538 garden beds that have been planted across the country. More than three-quarters of nutrition education participants say that they consume more fruits and vegetables as a result of these activities. Some of the programs that are already making a difference in their local communities include:

• The e3p3 Live Well Perris in California is establishing community gardens and providing healthy food education and resources to its residents.

• Healthy St. Pete Empowering Change in Florida serves children, adults and seniors in low-income or low access areas of the city and designated food deserts, and also encourages policy change regarding nutritional access and availability.

Aetna is also working with groups like Meals on Wheels America to combine improved access to healthy food with innovative models for patient care coordination. Aetna recently announced a collaboration that will integrate Meals on Wheels’ daily nutritious meals, social support and critical safety checks into a continuum of care required as people age. Meals on Wheels and Aetna will pilot this model in several markets, and identify best practices intended to improve vulnerable seniors’ health outcomes.

Access to healthy food remains a pressing issue when it comes to determining the health of individuals and communities. We must find sustainable and scalable solutions that can be implemented in communities across the country. By improving access to healthy food, we can increase healthy behaviors, drive economic growth, and lower costs associated with obesity – one community at a time.

Garth Graham, M.D., MPH, is a leading authority on social determinants of health. President of the Aetna Foundation since 2013 and Vice President of Community Health for Aetna, Inc., Dr. Graham is a former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Obama and Bush administrations where he also ran the Office of Minority Health. Dr. Graham holds a medical degree from Yale School of Medicine, a master’s in public health from Yale School of Public Health and a bachelor of science in biology from Florida International University in Miami. He holds three board certifications including internal medicine, cardiology and interventional cardiology and serves as an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine.  This article first appeared on HuffPost and is published here with permission of the author.  

PERSPECTIVE: Racism 101

by Debby Irving “Data is like a Rorschach test.” Brandeis University’s Tom Shapiro said this to me when I confessed to him how I would have once interpreted the below data.

• US Racial Wealth Gap: Average Household Wealth
• White              $ 656,000
• Latino              $   98,000
• Black               $   85,000     (2013 Institute for Policy Studies)

Only ten years ago, I would have seen the above as evidence that white people were smarter, harder working, and more financially responsible. Because I thought racism meant white people not liking people of color, I remained clueless about the vast racialized systems and structures that shape the lives of all Americans, including mine. The process of “Waking Up White” has been an education in how an entire population, myself included, can be duped into ideas about human superiority and inferiority along racial lines.

Data is fascinating in that, without drilling into the story behind the data, it can serve to reaffirm ideas we already hold. Which is what happened to me.

• US Incarceration Rates by Race and Ethnicity
• White   380     per 100,000
• Latino   966     per 100,000
• Black   2,207   per 100,000     (2010 Prison Policy Initiative)

• CT Public School Graduates’ College Graduation Rates
• White              53.8%
• Hispanic          21.4%
• Black               24.4%     (2008 Connecticut State Department of Education)

Pre-wake-up, the three sets of above data would’ve reaffirmed my embedded racial beliefs, ideas I’d ingested early and often about white people as harder working, more responsible, less threatening, smarter, and less of a drain on society. Can you see how this data could support each and every one of those beliefs?

What’s astounding to me is that in my white, suburban childhood no one even mentioned white people’s supposed superiority. My ideology formed around counterpart ideas that were more explicit; ones about black and brown people as lazy, irresponsible, criminal, dangerous, less intelligent, and content to live like sloths off of hard working white people.

My understanding was that the US specialized in fairness, offering everyone a chance at the “American Dream,” through sheer hard work and good character. In that scheme, those who achieved success had earned it. If white people were in positions of leadership -- more specifically, white male Christian people – that meant they got there on their own merit, right? This thinking allowed me, at a very early age, to form ideas that connected ability to biological type and, in my imagination, white trumped all other racial types. It felt obvious, and in my all-white world, no one ever challenged my racial beliefs. We didn’t talk about race. It was considered rude.

In the white silence, my ignorance deepened as I collected evidence in support of what I already thought was true. Images of thriving, white all-American prototypes saturated my world through real life, TV Shows, textbooks, literature, and dollar bills. It felt wonderful to be part of a country ruled by fairness. I was emboldened imagining myself part of the superior race. The seduction of contempt is powerful.

The reality is far from fair. Embedded in US society lives a web of systems that differentially distribute access to rights, resources, representation, and respect. Creating room for this far harsher reality has been the ultimate waking up challenge. I resisted it for decades. As I’ve learned that there is a drastically different explanation for the above data, I’ve had to do battle with feelings of defensiveness, guilt, shame, and entitlement.

Here’s just one example of what I’ve learned. Following WWII, the US government transferred $120 billion to private citizens through the housing portion of GI Bill, a benefit package offered to returning veterans. Despite that fact that 1.2 million African-American GIs, as well as Latino-, Indigenous-, and Asian-American GIs also fought in WWII, 98% of GI Bill housing wealth went to white GIs, like my father. Though the GI Bill didn’t specify “whites only,” US housing and lending policy at the time restricted who could live where according to racially “redlined” maps. The GI Bill was only good in white-designated neighborhoods. My socially engineered, racially segregated, white world, where stories of rags to riches abounded, all but guaranteed I’d have no exposure to real black or brown people to pull me from denial.

Racism 101 is about this paradigm shift. Until white people understand the degree to which “we don’t know what we don’t know,” data intended to explain racial disparities in health care, food supply, transportation, education, lending, housing, and law is more likely to reaffirm old ideas than to inspire new ones. Waking up is hard to do. It’s also the only option to make a fair and just America a reality.

__________________________________________

Debby Irving is a racial justice educator and author of Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race. She will be speaking on Saturday, Jan. 20 at First Church in West Hartford as part of “Racism 101” which begins at 9 a.m. 

PERSPECTIVE: An Unexpected Journey on the Path to News Literacy

by Amanda Muntz 2008: I was 10. I looked away from the television, where Fox News was broadcasting the election results. My father shook his head in disbelief.

“Well, that’s it, folks. Barack Obama has just been elected the 44th president of the United States of America.”

My father, who prides himself on being a “constitutionalist,” went on: “Well, he’s got America fooled.” And: “You’re living in a totally different world now, Amanda.”

I was too young to process what was going on, but I trusted my parents and I believed that Obama could only be bad for this country. Back then, I thought of the government as an immoral institution that didn’t have the majority’s best interest in mind.

2017: At 19, I now recognize that I lived in a political bubble. It took a move and a new school to start broadening the views that I was exposed to. And when I began an internship with the News Literacy Project, I realized that if I had been taught at a younger age what I learned this summer, I would have been spared a long and rocky road to reaching an understanding of news literacy. NLP taught me how to properly check citations for credibility and to research facts across different sources. This ability alone has made sifting through large amounts of information much more manageable and efficient.

As a child, I’d hear members of my extended family mutter “socialist devil” and yell “Oh, all you do is lie!” whenever they saw Obama on television. I was never exposed to anything positive about the president and his family until I moved from Austin, Texas, to New York City at age 16.

The students at my new high school were more liberal than my classmates in Texas, and, over time, I saw that although I had been raised as a conservative, I had no idea what I truly thought about politics. My new friends would discuss Obama, and I recognized that I knew nothing about his administration or policies. I had heard at home that nothing he said could be believed, and I knew that most people who were close to me couldn’t stand him. But once I came to the realization that their opinions weren’t necessarily mine, I decided to take a step back.

I stopped talking about the president. I figured I had no business expressing an opinion that I wasn’t even sure was mine. I started to lower the defenses I had been taught to put up when listening to or about Obama.

Instead, I began reading articles from news outlets across the political spectrum. And I entered my senior year of high school with this conclusion: I had absorbed too much vitriol against Obama and his administration to have an unbiased opinion. That possibly wasn’t the right lesson to take away; in hindsight, I see that I wasn’t equipped with the educational tools to know how to sift through the immense amount of information I was reading or how to distinguish news — facts presented impartially — from opinion, which can be fact-based but also include personal views or even advocacy. However, it did lead me to have the confidence to say, “Honestly, I don’t have enough unbiased information on that issue to have an opinion that I’m comfortable sharing right now.”

I didn’t know it then, but I was taking my first steps toward news literacy.

I began to hear people with opposing views, instead of just listening for the sake of arguing against them. I wasn’t afraid to acknowledge when someone made a good point, and I learned to disagree with a degree of curiosity — wanting to hear their response, rather than to pick a fight. I began to tell the difference between news and opinion.

Those skills became increasingly important when it came time for the 2016 presidential election — the first election I could vote in.

I was in my first year at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Between the polarized political atmosphere across the United States and the largely liberal environment on campus, I became increasingly frustrated with people simply parroting what they found on their Facebook feeds or other social media platforms. While I’m glad there are places online for everyone to share their opinion, I wish my peers wouldn’t read every Tumblr rant as if it were a Pulitzer Prize-winning news report. Amid all this chaos, I knew it was up to me to make an informed decision.

So I put two cable news outlets — CNN and Fox News — to the test. I livestreamed the Republican National Convention with friends, so there were no commercial breaks or commentary. For the Democratic National Convention, I decided to go back and forth between Fox and CNN. To avoid leaning left, I tried to watch more of the commentary on Fox. The results were not comforting.

What I found was that while CNN aired most of the speeches and the comments were generally positive, Fox didn’t even show half of the people at the podium. Instead, the Fox reporters and commentators were drowning them out — talking over them about topics that the speakers weren’t even discussing. As the first night of the convention came to an end, and more prominent figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Michelle Obama took the stage, Fox finally started to stick with the speakers. I found myself wondering how CNN’s coverage during the Republican convention compared with this.

I didn’t stop there. I enrolled in government and economics classes. I began reading articles from a variety of news outlets, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. I finally started to develop my own political opinions — and am finding that I’m more progressive on social issues and more conservative on fiscal ones.

News literacy is — and should be — an increasingly pressing concern in today’s world of social media and endless platforms for opinions. The lack of awareness of fake news and heavily biased news is what attracted me to accept an internship at the News Literacy Project. Being an intern at NLP has taught me how to properly sift through information and how to truly reach my own conclusion by checking facts and reading across multiple sources. Throughout this summer, I’ve seen what a difference these lessons can make.

I particularly urge high school and college students to try to make the distinction between news and opinion and begin implementing news literacy in their everyday lives. While it’s important to listen to different people and hear their points of view, it is even more important to process this information and formulate your own opinions. The News Literacy Project provides an excellent platform to begin educating yourself and others.

________________________

Wesleyan University student Amanda Muntz is studying international law and globalization at the University of Birmingham in England.  This article first appeared on the website of The News Literacy Project.

PERSPECTIVE: Life in the Slow Lane? Drive Through Data

by Patrick Flaherty The Connecticut State Data Center at the University of Connecticut recently released population projections for Connecticut and its towns through 2040¹. The projections suggest a slowing of population growth but do not show an exodus of young people from Connecticut. Declines in the younger population groups are driven by a low birth rate while migration out of state is concentrated in older age groups.

Nevertheless, the number of senior citizens will increase while the school-aged population will decline. Growth with be uneven across cities and towns with some (particularly the largest cities) gaining significant population while others decline. Some of the smallest towns are projected to reverse part of the strong growth they have experienced in recent decades.

Statewide Overview: Connecticut's population increased by over 255,000 from 1970 to 1990 and added an additional 300,000 from 1990 to 2015, a 9.3% increase (Chart 1). Population growth is projected to grow just 1.7% in the 25 years from 2015 to 2040, less than 20% of the growth rate of the previous 25 years.

Focusing on the most recent 15 year period and comparing it to the next shows a similar pattern. Population grew 5.5% from 2000 to 2015 but is projected to grow just 1.1% from 2015 to 2030. While these projections are not predictions of what will happen (unforeseen events such as changes in the economy could affect these projections), they are carefully calculated projections based on fertility rates, survival rates, domestic migration, international migration, and college migration.

Age profile: The age profile of Connecticut’s population will change during the projections period. As shown in Chart 2, compared to 2015, in 2040 Connecticut is projected to have more children under age 10, people aged 25 to 44, and age 70 and over. On the other hand, there will be fewer aged 10 to 24 and 45 to 69.

Focus on 2015-2030: While the longer-term trends are of interest, many planning horizons are of shorter duration². The rest of this article will compare the 15 years from 2000 to 2015 with the projections for 2015 to 2030. The age distribution of the population changed from 2000 to 2015 as the largest cohort aged into its 50s and beyond.

There will be more changes by 2030 (Chart 3) as the number of school and college-aged (age 5 to 24) is expected to decline and the number of those mid-twenties to mid-forties is projected to increase as the “millennial” generation ages. The number of people in their mid-forties through late-fifties will decline as the last of the baby-boomers moves past age 60. Chart 4 compares the 2015 and projected 2030 populations but also includes an “Aged 2015” population – that is, a representation of what the 2030 population would look like if everyone in Connecticut in 2015 were still here in 2030 and no one died or moved in or out.

Compared to the “Aged 2015” population, the 2030 projected population shows more people from age 40 to 54, but fewer people aged 55 and above. While some of this is due to natural decrease (death) the majority of the decline is due to migration to other states. For example, in 2015 the largest five-year age cohort were those aged 50 to 54. By 2030 there are projected to be more than 90,000 fewer people aged 65 to 69 than there were people aged 50 to 54 in 2015. Three-quarters of this decline is due to domestic net migration (people leaving Connecticut for other states).

Statewide Overview: In addition to statewide projections, the Connecticut State Data Center provides population projections by age for every town in Connecticut.

From 1970 to 2000, Connecticut largest cities lost population. Hartford had the largest decline (down 36,439), but Bridgeport (down 17,013), New Haven (down 14,081) and New Britain (down 11,903) all lost significant population. On the other hand, Danbury and suburban towns such as New Milford, Glastonbury, Shelton, and Southbury all gained more than 10,000 residents each with other suburban towns such as Cheshire, Guilford, Farmington, South Windsor and Southington not far behind. Since 2000 some of this trend has reversed.

From 2000 to 2015 New Haven gained the most population of any city or town in Connecticut (+8,245) followed by Danbury, Stamford, Norwich, and Bridgeport (+6,313). Hartford gained more than 3,000 residents and New Britain more than 2,000. Towns that lost the most population from 2000 to 2015 were Branford, Enfield and Greenwich.

When considering the towns that are projected to lose population, the Connecticut State Data Center (CSDC) emphasizes that the projections are for resident population. As noted on the CSDC website, “Resident population is defined as those persons who usually reside within a town in the state of Connecticut (where they live and sleep majority of the time). Individuals who reside in another state but either own property or work remotely in a town within the state of Connecticut are not included in these population projections.”

Looking ahead through 2030, towns expected to gain the most population are New Haven, West Haven, Manchester, Bridgeport, Norwich, and Danbury. Greenwich, Westport, Monroe, New Fairfield and Wilton will have the largest losses.

The five largest cities in 1970 -- Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford and Waterbury -- had 60,000 fewer residents by 2000, but they have been increasing since and are projected to top their 1970 population by 2030. On the other hand, the 10 smallest towns in 1970 gained nearly 60% by 2015 but are projected to decline through 2040.

School-Aged population: Connecticut’s population aged 5 to 19 fell by just over 1,000 from 2000 to 2015 and is projected to decline nearly 40,000 by 2030. However, some towns will see an expanding school-aged population with three towns (Manchester, Stamford, and West Haven) increasing by more than 2,000 school-aged children each³.

While the upper end of the 5 to 19 age group may include those no longer in school, for towns losing school-aged population the largest declines are all in the age 10 to 14 cohort. Similarly, towns gaining school-aged population, the largest increases are in the age 10 to 14 group. As noted, these are population projections, not projections of school enrollment. Nevertheless, these projections suggest there will be towns with significant increases in school-aged population even as the statewide number of people of school-age will be declining.

Senior population: Connecticut is projected to see an increase of more than 84,000 in the population aged 70 and over from 2015 to 2030. Nearly every town will see a population increase for this age group. For example, as shown in Chart 6, Oxford, Newtown, Wallingford, and Southington are projected to see the largest increases in the population aged 70 and above.

The enormous increase in Oxford is a good illustration of the difference between a projection and a forecast and shows the limitations of the projections. Oxford has seen a significant number of seniors moving into town over recent decades.

The models used to create the projections assume this trend will continue. A forecast (which tried to predict exactly how many seniors would be living in Oxford in 2030) would need to consider other factors such as the availability of housing for seniors and not just past trends. Nevertheless, the projections are a useful indication of where things are headed, even though other factors – from economic events to policy changes – will affect the course of population growth in Connecticut.

Implications: As the millennial generation ages into its 40s, Connecticut may have an opportunity to attract even more of this large generation than the projections suggest. The projections may also understate the aging of the population – the 85+ age group is the most difficult to project and the groups just under that may not leave Connecticut at the pace suggested by the projections. On the other hand, the declines in the school-aged population have already begun and are likely to continue even as some towns and school districts are facing an influx of new students.

___________________

Patrick Flaherty is Assistant Director of Research for the Connecticut Department of Labor.  This article first appeared in the December 2017 issue of The Connecticut Economic Digest, published by the Department. 

1 Details about the projections including on-line data visualizations are available at http://ctsdc.uconn.edu/. Questions about the methodology for producing the projections should be directed to the Connecticut State Data Center through the above-referenced website.

2 For example, the Department of Labor’s long term industry and occupational projections look out 10 years.

PERSPECTIVE: Is Algorithmic Transparency the Next Regulatory Frontier in Data Privacy?

by William J. Roberts, Catherine F. Intravia and Benjamin FrazziniKendrick  The U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection held a hearing last month on the use of computer algorithms and their impact on consumers.[1]  This was the latest in a series of recent efforts by a variety of organizations to explore and understand the ways in which computer algorithms are driving businesses’ and public agencies’ decision-making, and shaping the digital content we see online.[2]

In its simplest form, an algorithm is a mathematical formula, a series of steps for performing mathematical equations. The witness testimony and questions from the members of the Subcommittee highlighted a number of issues that businesses and government regulators are facing.

Bias and Discrimination

A variety of businesses use algorithms to make decisions, such as social media platforms determining what content to show users, and credit card companies deciding what interest rates to charge consumers. However, the algorithms may treat otherwise similarly-situated consumers differently based upon irrelevant or inappropriate criteria.[3] Examples of bias in these algorithms abound.

For example, research shows that credit card algorithms drive interest rates up for individuals who have entered marriage counseling. Advertisement algorithms have shown job advertisements in engineering to men more frequently than women.

Exploitation of Consumer Data – Hidden Databases and Machine Learning

One way in which businesses and other entities can exploit consumer information is by creating databases of consumers who exhibit certain online behaviors. For example, they can identify users who search for terms such as “sick” or “crying” as possibly being depressed and drive medication ads to them. Companies have been able to develop databases of impulse buyers or people susceptible to “vulnerability-based marketing” based on their online behavior.[5]

Further, the past few years have seen a huge growth in the use of “machine learning” algorithms.[6] The cutting edge of machine learning is the use of artificial neural networks, which are powering emerging technologies like self-driving cars and translation software. These algorithms, once set up, can function automatically. To work properly, however, they depend on the input of massive amounts of data, typically mined from consumers to “train” the algorithms.[7]

These algorithms allow companies to “draw predictions and inferences about our personal lives” from consumer data far beyond the face value of such data.[8] For example, a machine learning algorithm successfully identified the romantic partners of 55% of a group of social media users.[9] Others have successfully identified consumers’ political beliefs using data on their social media, search history, and online shopping activity.[10]  In other words, online users supply the data that allows machine learning algorithms to function, and businesses can use those same algorithms to gain disturbingly accurate insights into individuals’ private lives and drive content to users “to generate (or incite) certain emotional responses.”[11] Additionally, companies like Amazon use machine learning algorithms “to push customers to higher-priced products that come from preferred partners.”[12]

Concerns in Education

In the education context, the use of algorithms to drive decision-making about students raises concerns.[13] How the algorithms will affect and drive student learning is an open question. For example, will algorithms used to identify struggling pre-med students be used to develop interventions to assist those students, or used as a tool to divert students into other programs so that educational institutions can enhance statistical averages of applicants who are accepted to medical school?

Additionally, how will a teacher’s perception of a student’s ability to succeed be affected by algorithms that can identify students as being “at-risk” before the student even sets foot in class?[14]  The bias in algorithms could also affect the ability of students to access a wide variety of learning material. For example, university librarians have noted that algorithms they use to assist students with research suffer from inherent bias where searches for topics such as the LGBTQ community and Islam return results about mental illness.[15]

Transparency is also at issue. Should students and families be aware that educational institutions are basing decisions about students’ education and academic futures on algorithmic predictions? And, if students have a right to know about the use of algorithms, should they also be privy to how the specific institution’s algorithmic models work?

Finally, concern has grown over the extent to which algorithms, owned and operated by for-profit entities, may drive educational decisions better left to actual teachers.[16] Presumably, teachers are making decisions based on the students’ best interests, where algorithms owned by corporations may be making decisions to enhance the company profit. 

Future Issues for Consideration

Regulation in this area may be forthcoming. Already, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for example, gives EU residents the ability to challenge decisions made by algorithms, such as a decision by an institution as to whether to deny a credit application.[17] New York City is considering a measure to require public agencies to publish the algorithms they use to allocate public resources, such as determining how many police officers should be stationed in each of the City’s departments.[18]

In the meantime, educational institutions in particular should carefully consider issues such as:

• Are companies using software to collect student data and build databases of their information?
• Which educational software or mobile applications in use by an institution are using machine learning algorithms to decide which content to show students?
• Should institutions obtain assurances from software vendors that their applications will not discriminate against students based on students’ inclusion in a protected class, such as race or gender?
• How will the educational institution address a bias or discrimination claim based on the use of a piece of educational software or mobile application?
• Is technology usurping or improperly influencing decision-making functions better left to teachers or other staff?

While no regulatory framework currently exists, educational institutions may find they are best able to proactively address algorithmic transparency while negotiating contracts for the use of educational technology.

In negotiating contracts with educational technology vendors, for example, education institutions may want to determine what algorithms the technology is using and whether student data the vendor is gathering from students will be used to train other machine learning models. Further, educational institutions may want to consider issues of bias in the algorithms and negotiate protections against future discrimination lawsuits if the algorithms consistently treat similarly situated students differently.

Ultimately, educational institutions will need to evaluate each piece of educational technology to understand how its built-in algorithms are influencing the data it collects and the information it presents to users.

_________________________________

William Roberts is a partner in Shipman & Goodwin LLP’s Health Law Practice Group and is the Chair of the firm’s Privacy and Data Protection team.  Catherine Intravia focuses her practice at the firm on intellectual property, technology and information governance matters. Benjamin FrazziniKendrick is an associate in the firm’s School Law Practice Group, providing legal advice to public schools and other institutions in civil litigation, special education, and civil rights compliance.

Notes

[1] Algorithms: How Companies’ Decisions About Data and Content Impact Consumers: Hearing Before the H. Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Commc’n and Tech. and Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Prot., 115th Cong. (2017) (hereinafter Algorithm Hearing), video and written testimony available at https://energycommerce.house.gov/hearings/algorithms-companies-decisions-data-content-impact-consumers/

[2] INT 1696-2017, 2017 Leg. (N.Y.C. Council 2017), available at http://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3137815&GUID=437A6A6D-62E1-47E2-9C42-461253F9C6D0; see also Dan Rosenblum, The Fight to Make New York City’s Complex Algorithmic Math Public, City and State New York (Nov. 27, 2017), http://cityandstateny.com/articles/politics/new-york-city/making-new-york-city-algorithms-public.html#.WiKktbQ-ccg.

[3] Algorithm Hearing, supra note 1, written statement of Dr. Catherine Tucker, Sloane Distinguished Professor of Management Science and Professor of Marketing, MIT Sloane School of Management at 3-4, available at http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF17/20171129/106659/HHRG-115-IF17-Wstate-TuckerC-20171129.pdf.

[5] Algorithm Hearing, supra note 1, written statement of Frank Pasquale, Professor of Law, University of Maryland at 10 (hereinafter Statement of Pasquale) (citing Latanya Sweeney, “Discrimination in Online Ad Delivery,” Communications of the ACM 56 (2013): 44, abstract available at https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2013/5/163753-discrimination-in-online-ad-delivery/abstract).

[6] See generally Bernard Marr, A Short History of Machine Learning — Every Manager Should Read, Forbes (Feb. 19, 2016, 2:31 am), https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/02/19/a-short-history-of-machine-learning-every-manager-should-read/2/#6ed1622d6b1b; Erick Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, What’s Driving the Machine Learning Explosion, Harvard Business Review (July. 18, 2017), https://hbr.org/2017/07/whats-driving-the-machine-learning-explosion.

[7] Algorithm Hearing, written statement of Michael Kearns Professor and National Center Chair, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania at 1-2 (hereinafter Statement of Kearns), available at http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF17/20171129/106659/HHRG-115-IF17-Wstate-KearnsM-20171129.pdf

[8] Id. at 1.

[9] Id.

[10] Id. at 1-2

[11] Statement of Kearns, supra note 7, at 3-4.

[12] Statement of Pasquale, supra note 4, at 16.

[13] Learning From Algorithms: Who Controls AI in Higher Ed, and Why it Matters, EdSurge On Air, transcript and audio download available at https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-11-14-learning-from-algorithms-who-controls-ai-in-higher-ed-and-why-it-matters-part-2.

[14] Statement of Pasquale, supra note 4, at 15.

[15] Id. at 16 (citing Matthew Reidsma, Algorithmic Bias in Library Discovery Systems, Matthew.Reidsrow.com (Mar. 11, 2016), https://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/173).

[16]  Statement of Pasaqule, supra note 4, at 16 (citing Elana Zeide, The Structural Consequences of Big Data-Driven Education, 5 Big Data 164-172 (2017), abstract available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2991794)

[17]  Is Your Institution Ready for GDPR?

[18] Dan Rosenblum, The Fight to Make New York City’s Complex Algorithmic Math Public, City and State New York (Nov. 27, 2017).