Dr. Jonah Edelman speaks at the Madison Civics Club
It’s about the children
It’s about the children
off the historic march on behalf of children. “We ended up pretty quickly building a lot of momentum for this,” Edelman said. “Of course my mother has a pretty
tremendous level of respect and relationships, so a lot of the national organizations got on board. But we created a grassroots structure that encouraged people
in their communities, including here, to get on buses and come to D.C. By April, we knew we were going to have 3,000 buses. At that point, I started thinking
‘Well, what next?’”
As the final stages of the march were put in place and 200,000-300,000 people descended on Washington for the Stand for Children march, Edelman
began to answer his own question. The easy part was the march if he and others were going to impact the issues children face today. The hard part was getting
things done back in the local communities of the marchers. Stand for Children kept its office open, but its staff shrank to three people, including Edelman.
“I set out to figure out what to do to get people in their communities, which is a lot harder to do than to get them to come to a rally,” Edelman said. “It took me a
couple of years to figure it out. I looked at an incredible range of organizations from membership associations on the right and the left to groups historically
voluntary associations that had made a huge impact in the past to community organizing networks that were doing great work across this country. All of that
distilled down to an idea of how to build clout and constituency for children at the grassroots level, local and state. At that point, I started looking at states to
pilot my ideas. It came down to Wisconsin and Oregon. I ended up choosing Oregon. It’s been ten years since I moved out there. We’ve established an
incredibly strong voice for children and schools in Oregon.” Stand for Children now has branches in four states and is looking to expand its number of affiliates in
the near future.
While Stand for Children addresses a myriad of children’s issues, education is at the top of the list for Edelman. “Public education, from early childhood to
college, is the great leveler,” Edelman said. “It is the potential bridge from poverty to prosperity. Too often, schools fail to fulfill their promise to kids, particularly
poor kids and minority kids. It comes down to the paradigm in public schools as well as the level of support. To me and to us, money is a definite factor. You can’
t just cut and cut and cut and expect the product to get better. At the same time, it’s a question on how the money gets spent. Is it spent in ways that really
attracts the best possible teachers, develop them to be as effective as they possibly can be and reaching different kinds of kids and provide them the support
through reading specialists and math specialists and counselors and the like to help catch every possible kid and also making schools engaging for kids.”
One problem that Edelman sees is that through the budget cuts and the emphasis on studying foe tests due to No Child Left Behind — a term ironically coined
by his mother — education has lost its connection to children and has stopped inspiring them to learn. “The result is a lot of kids get turned off,” Edelman said. “If
you’re not from a family with college expectations and you are going to a school every day that isn’t connecting with you and you aren’t necessarily doing great
and no one is paying attention to you and trying to figure out what you are really interested in, it’s likely that at some point, you are going to physically or
mentally drop out.”
Edelman had high praise for the Madison school district with its high graduation rates. He stated that Madison taxpayers were getting their money’s worth.
“That is just an amazing level of success, particularly when you think about the level of disinvestment that has happened in your community over the past 15
years,” Edelman observed. “I think it is very important for people who are reading this newspaper to know that this school system uses their money well. This
referendum that’s on the ballot November 4 is an important opportunity for the community to reciprocate and show that people are willing to invest in a quality
product.”
While many may look at the educational system purely through the needs of their individual families, Edelman sees a community institution that impacts
everyone’s quality of life. “When other kids fall through the cracks, it determines the crime rate in the community, the public assistance costs, the cost of
incarceration, the quality of the workforce and the level of productivity,” Edelman emphasized. “It is fundamental. It affects what happens to all of us, so we all
have a stake. That is my message today. We are all in this together. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. What happens to others affects all of us. Ultimately I
know there was potentially a worthy purpose in mind in terms of property taxes were out of control and the like. But over time, there is a diminishing impact on
the quality of life with revenue caps. Expenses go up by way more than revenue consistently and you are going to cut the quality of services and it is going to
result in a lot more kids falling through the cracks and fewer kids graduating and fewer kids ending up on the path to secondary education and as a result, on the
path to being productive, civically-minded adults. And that hurts us all in the long term.”
Health care — or the lack of it — is another thing that is negatively impacting children today. According to Edelman, there are 89,000 children in
Wisconsin alone who do not have adequate health insurance. As the saying goes, ‘a stitch in time saves nine.’ And the lack of adequate health care has serious
repercussions for the entire community ion the future.
“We have to look at real access,” Edelman said. “When they aren’t insured, they don’t get regular preventative check-ups. If they have issues around their
hearing or their sight or their teeth, they don’t get addressed early and they end up being more expensive later and potentially more damaging in terms of the
long-term impact on that child. And it costs us all more. The idea that you can let some people suffer and it doesn’t affect us is really ludicrous. It just isn’t true.
All of our health insurance premiums are higher because of uninsured children and adults. We’re paying more, like it or not. The question is whether we want to
pay more in taxes and enable everyone to have access to good health care and, as a result, use our money better to encourage healthy people or are we going
to pay on the back end and pay $100,000-$300,000 for surgeries that wouldn’t have been necessary had the child gotten routine preventative care.”
Edelman may have missed the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but it is obvious that he has retained the heart and soul of the movement as he continues his
crusade on behalf of children. In an era when people clamor for lower taxes and fewer services out of their own narrow self-interest, it is refreshing to hear
someone like Edelman give a fresh and positive voice to the needs of children, all of our children.
tremendous level of respect and relationships, so a lot of the national organizations got on board. But we created a grassroots structure that encouraged people
in their communities, including here, to get on buses and come to D.C. By April, we knew we were going to have 3,000 buses. At that point, I started thinking
‘Well, what next?’”
As the final stages of the march were put in place and 200,000-300,000 people descended on Washington for the Stand for Children march, Edelman
began to answer his own question. The easy part was the march if he and others were going to impact the issues children face today. The hard part was getting
things done back in the local communities of the marchers. Stand for Children kept its office open, but its staff shrank to three people, including Edelman.
“I set out to figure out what to do to get people in their communities, which is a lot harder to do than to get them to come to a rally,” Edelman said. “It took me a
couple of years to figure it out. I looked at an incredible range of organizations from membership associations on the right and the left to groups historically
voluntary associations that had made a huge impact in the past to community organizing networks that were doing great work across this country. All of that
distilled down to an idea of how to build clout and constituency for children at the grassroots level, local and state. At that point, I started looking at states to
pilot my ideas. It came down to Wisconsin and Oregon. I ended up choosing Oregon. It’s been ten years since I moved out there. We’ve established an
incredibly strong voice for children and schools in Oregon.” Stand for Children now has branches in four states and is looking to expand its number of affiliates in
the near future.
While Stand for Children addresses a myriad of children’s issues, education is at the top of the list for Edelman. “Public education, from early childhood to
college, is the great leveler,” Edelman said. “It is the potential bridge from poverty to prosperity. Too often, schools fail to fulfill their promise to kids, particularly
poor kids and minority kids. It comes down to the paradigm in public schools as well as the level of support. To me and to us, money is a definite factor. You can’
t just cut and cut and cut and expect the product to get better. At the same time, it’s a question on how the money gets spent. Is it spent in ways that really
attracts the best possible teachers, develop them to be as effective as they possibly can be and reaching different kinds of kids and provide them the support
through reading specialists and math specialists and counselors and the like to help catch every possible kid and also making schools engaging for kids.”
One problem that Edelman sees is that through the budget cuts and the emphasis on studying foe tests due to No Child Left Behind — a term ironically coined
by his mother — education has lost its connection to children and has stopped inspiring them to learn. “The result is a lot of kids get turned off,” Edelman said. “If
you’re not from a family with college expectations and you are going to a school every day that isn’t connecting with you and you aren’t necessarily doing great
and no one is paying attention to you and trying to figure out what you are really interested in, it’s likely that at some point, you are going to physically or
mentally drop out.”
Edelman had high praise for the Madison school district with its high graduation rates. He stated that Madison taxpayers were getting their money’s worth.
“That is just an amazing level of success, particularly when you think about the level of disinvestment that has happened in your community over the past 15
years,” Edelman observed. “I think it is very important for people who are reading this newspaper to know that this school system uses their money well. This
referendum that’s on the ballot November 4 is an important opportunity for the community to reciprocate and show that people are willing to invest in a quality
product.”
While many may look at the educational system purely through the needs of their individual families, Edelman sees a community institution that impacts
everyone’s quality of life. “When other kids fall through the cracks, it determines the crime rate in the community, the public assistance costs, the cost of
incarceration, the quality of the workforce and the level of productivity,” Edelman emphasized. “It is fundamental. It affects what happens to all of us, so we all
have a stake. That is my message today. We are all in this together. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. What happens to others affects all of us. Ultimately I
know there was potentially a worthy purpose in mind in terms of property taxes were out of control and the like. But over time, there is a diminishing impact on
the quality of life with revenue caps. Expenses go up by way more than revenue consistently and you are going to cut the quality of services and it is going to
result in a lot more kids falling through the cracks and fewer kids graduating and fewer kids ending up on the path to secondary education and as a result, on the
path to being productive, civically-minded adults. And that hurts us all in the long term.”
Health care — or the lack of it — is another thing that is negatively impacting children today. According to Edelman, there are 89,000 children in
Wisconsin alone who do not have adequate health insurance. As the saying goes, ‘a stitch in time saves nine.’ And the lack of adequate health care has serious
repercussions for the entire community ion the future.
“We have to look at real access,” Edelman said. “When they aren’t insured, they don’t get regular preventative check-ups. If they have issues around their
hearing or their sight or their teeth, they don’t get addressed early and they end up being more expensive later and potentially more damaging in terms of the
long-term impact on that child. And it costs us all more. The idea that you can let some people suffer and it doesn’t affect us is really ludicrous. It just isn’t true.
All of our health insurance premiums are higher because of uninsured children and adults. We’re paying more, like it or not. The question is whether we want to
pay more in taxes and enable everyone to have access to good health care and, as a result, use our money better to encourage healthy people or are we going
to pay on the back end and pay $100,000-$300,000 for surgeries that wouldn’t have been necessary had the child gotten routine preventative care.”
Edelman may have missed the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but it is obvious that he has retained the heart and soul of the movement as he continues his
crusade on behalf of children. In an era when people clamor for lower taxes and fewer services out of their own narrow self-interest, it is refreshing to hear
someone like Edelman give a fresh and positive voice to the needs of children, all of our children.
By Jonathan Gramling
Jonah Edelman was in Oxford, England, minding his own business as he finished up his doctoral work
when he called his mom, Marian Wright Edelman, the director of the Children’s Defense Fund, to get some
support before he defended his dissertation. Instead of soothing him and relieving his tress levels, Wright
Edelman talked to him about the need to build a movement for children and a March on Washington.
The prospect of working on this venture was appealing to Edelman because he grew up listening to his
parents talk about the civil rights movement back in the 1960s. By the time he came of age, community
activism had lost a lot of its political undertones. “My era when I was in college was more about just
volunteerism and there was kind of a divide between volunteerism and politics,” Edelman said before he
spoke to the Madison Civics Club October 11 at Monona Terrace. “At that time, it was more about go and
do direct service and that is what you should do.”
Edelman took his mother up on her challenge and began to set up offices for the Stand for Children
march during a blizzard in Washington, D.C. Eventually, Edelman had a staff of 125 people to help him
pull
Jonah Edelman was in Oxford, England, minding his own business as he finished up his doctoral work
when he called his mom, Marian Wright Edelman, the director of the Children’s Defense Fund, to get some
support before he defended his dissertation. Instead of soothing him and relieving his tress levels, Wright
Edelman talked to him about the need to build a movement for children and a March on Washington.
The prospect of working on this venture was appealing to Edelman because he grew up listening to his
parents talk about the civil rights movement back in the 1960s. By the time he came of age, community
activism had lost a lot of its political undertones. “My era when I was in college was more about just
volunteerism and there was kind of a divide between volunteerism and politics,” Edelman said before he
spoke to the Madison Civics Club October 11 at Monona Terrace. “At that time, it was more about go and
do direct service and that is what you should do.”
Edelman took his mother up on her challenge and began to set up offices for the Stand for Children
march during a blizzard in Washington, D.C. Eventually, Edelman had a staff of 125 people to help him
pull
Dr. Dan Nerad, Madison superintendent of schools
(l-r), Dr. Jonah Edelman and Dr. Gloria
Ladsen-Billings
(l-r), Dr. Jonah Edelman and Dr. Gloria
Ladsen-Billings