INCOMING
“WE ARE TIRED OF BURYING OUR CHILDREN.”
Re: “Classroom Experiment” (Aug. 6) I want to respond to the comments by Alan Lesgold, dean of Pitt’s School of Education. He blames the lack of success [at the Pittsburgh Public Schools’ UPrep program] on the teachers’ union. As one who has spent most of his professional life teaching, I have the utmost respect for teachers and believe that they, like all others, deserve the rights and dignity afforded by a powerful union. In the U.S., the overwhelming majority of top-performing states have teacher unions. Conversely, the overwhelming majority of the low-performing states do not have teacher unions. Internationally, many of the topperforming countries have strong teacher unions. How could this be if unions were as detrimental as their critics claim? Currently, teachers make no decisions but are blamed for all poor performance. I think that I speak for all teachers when I say give us control over curriculum, budgets and policies and we will gladly accept responsibility for all educational outcomes. Until then, if you need to blame, blame the people making the decisions. — Tom Gordon Professor of Elementary and Early Childhood Education, Slippery Rock University
Re: “The Talking Cure” (Aug. 6) Might does not make right. What’s right is that UPMC be held to the same standards as ALL the taxpayers of the city. I am going to bet that once again, UPMC is going to come out ahead and the city and its taxpayers are going to get the short end of the stick. UPMC came out ahead with the Pittsburgh Promise as well: It was a quid pro quo where UPMC agreed to fund this program in lieu of being spared property and payroll taxes. However, if one adds up all the taxes the city lost with this agreement, and what UPMC has paid into [the Promise program], UPMC clearly has benefited, while the city has not. — Comment posted by “James Nih”
6
DOING THEMSELVES
JUSTICE
Group urges increased community role in preventing, solving crime {BY REBECCA NUTTALL}
O
N A HOT June day, 34-year-old Autumn Perkins and about a dozen others set out from New Life AME Church in Homewood with water bottles and flyers in hand. They went into bars, barbershops and convenience stores. Their goal: to get people to come forward with information about homicides in the community. “A lot of people know who’s out here doing the killing,” said Perkins. “But a lot of them are scared of retaliation, and they don’t trust the police enough.” The “peace walk” in Homewood was organized by We Need Justice Too, an organization founded by Perkins and various local community groups. Made up mostly of individuals who’ve had a family member violently injured or killed, the group’s approximately 50 active members have spent the past few months working to reduce violence in their communities. Perkins herself lost the father of her three children, who was killed in July 2013: His killer has never been found. And as the death toll in Pittsburgh rises, she worries about her children, especially her oldest son, who is set to start high school this fall. “It’s so bad out here right now, it’s scary,” says Perkins. “I grew up when gang-banging was bad and it was not this bad then. I’m scared for my kids. All
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.13/08.20.2014
{PHOTOS BY JOHN COLOMBO}
We Need Justice Too member Charlie Ragan comforts a mother whose son was shot on a nearby corner.
these mothers are out here grieving for their children.” “The group started very organically,” says Shannon Williams, an organizer with gun-control group CeaseFirePA. Perkins “had enough and she wanted to do something about it.” But Perkins and her group are up against steep odds. The city has seen a sharp increase in homicides, with 11 people killed in July alone. So far, some 44 homicides have been committed in
Pittsburgh this year. At that pace, Pittsburgh may match or beat a record for homicides set in 1993. We Need Justice Too was created after the February murders of Susan and Sarah Wolfe, two white sisters who were killed in East Liberty. A suspect was arrested less than a month later, and group members started wondering why so many murders in the black community remain unsolved. Of the 214 unsolved homicides between 2004 and 2013, 85 percent CONTINUES ON PG. 08