Day: February 27, 2006

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What progressives can learn from Governor Rendell’s failures: the future of progressive politics in PA, part 2

  By Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Progressive Politics

Governor Rendell went to Harrisburg hoping to follow his path to success in Philadelphia. As Mayor of this left of center city with its strong labor unions, Rendell governed from the center. He took on the municipal unions, forcing them to make significant concessions. He cut taxes. He used city funds and tax breaks to create the public facilities and to encourage the private initiative that spurred development, mostly in center city. He was neither a rightist who minimized the role of government nor a leftist who attempted to use government to pursue social justice. Continue reading

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The real problem at Temple

  By Education

A week or so ago I defended myself, and Temple, against David Horowitz’s charges that left-wing political correctness undermines the education we give our students. Today I want to address a real problem at Temple. Two years ago I walked into my first class of the semester and found that I had only two African American students in my class. (My classes had typically been over fifty percent African American when I started teaching at Temple eight years ago.) After the class was over I complained to an higher level administrator. His response has been repeated as the company line for the last few years. Given the increase in the number of students, and especially students from the suburbs, the percentage of African American students at Temple was dropping. You can see that this is true from the following data from the recently released Temple Factbook which can be found… Continue reading