Students commemorate 9-11 anniversary
U.S. military personnel and first responders visit Beaumont High School
American staff
On the 12th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Beaumont High and Multiple Pathways @ Beaumont Army JROTC students remembered and celebrated those who lost their lives, and paid tribute to first responders.
The event was produced by the Beaumont Career and Technical Education (CTE) High School Army and included music, videos, a rifle demonstration, a flag ceremony, and speeches by St. Louis City Fire Department Captain Mike Killingsworth, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Captain Mary EdwardsFears and Beaumont Principal Terrell
Henderson.
Captain Killingsworth and Captain Edwards-Fears both highlighted the bravery of first responders in their speeches. They also informed students and other attendees about changes that have taken place in the country’s security measures over the past 12 years
Principal Henderson was personally affected by the 9-11 attacks. One of his cousins worked in the Second Tower and lost her life. He recalled struggling with grief as life seemed to continue as normal in St. Louis – nearly 1,000 miles away from the remains of the Twin Towers. He encouraged his students to practice safety and always be sensitive to others.
CHOICES/CAREERS
CHOICES/CAREERS, published three times annually, (Spring, Winter and Fall), focuses on career opportunities, career training, career enhancement and financial aid programs for African Americans. CHOICES/CAREERS includes varied profiles and features the experiences of successful post-high school African-American students, alumni and employees in the St. Louis area.
STAFF
Donald M. SuggsPublisher & Executive Editor
Kevin Jones - Sr. Vice Pres. & COO
Dina M. Suggs - Sr. Vice Pres.
Editorial
Chris King - Managing Editor
Kenya Vaughn - Website Editor
Earl Austin Jr. - Sports Editor
Sandra Jordan - Health Reporter
Rebecca S. Rivas - Staff Reporter
Wiley Price - Photojournalist
Consuelo Wilkins, M.D. - Health Editor
Dana G. Randolph - Contributing Editor
Fred Sweets - Contributing Editor
More than 20 representatives from local fire, police, and military attended a commemoration of the 12th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at Beaumont Career and Technical Education High School.
More than 20 representatives from local fire, police, and military attended the ceremony and were recognized with plaques and a standing ovation by students, staff, and community members. The ceremony concluded outdoors in
front of the school, where some 3,000 flags were on display on the lawn in remembrance of each victim of the attack. The flag was lowered to half-staff, and a wreath was posted at the base.
Sales / Marketing
Onye Hollomon- Sr. Acct. Exec.
Barbara Sills - Sr. Acct. Exec.
Pam Simmons- Sr. Acct. Exec.
Nevida Medina - Classified Ad Mgr
Angelita F. Jackson - Graphic Artist
Production
Mike Terhaar - Art Director
Melvin Moore - Graphic Designer
Administration
Robin Britt - Controller
Ishmael Sistrunk - Web/IT/Promotions
Kate Daniel - Exec Assistant
Loistine McGhee - Acct. Assistant
Mary Winbush - Receptionist
Work, productivity and the minimum wage
When employers pay wages that are too low, society must pay
By William Spriggs For The St. Louis American
On Aug. 29, across the country, thousands of workers in low-paying jobs stood up to demand $15 an hour. Most were at fast-food restaurants. There are many people who support the need for these workers to be paid more. They understand the unfairness of multinational corporations profiting on the wages of low-wage work. And on Labor Day, they probably reflected on the value of work and honoring the people who literally built this country.
To many people it is almost obscene that the CEO of McDonald’s, for instance, gets a compensation package worth $13.8 million a year; a giant raise from his 2011 pay of $4.1 million, a pay level that equals 915 full-time, full-year minimum wage workers at McDonald’s.
Still, understanding that the price of the hamburger was probably much more affected by giving the CEO a $9 million raise than the meager demands of the people serving them their food, many people scratched their heads at the notion the workers’ wages could be set at $15 an hour, a level they now equate with more “skilled” workers. This reflects the breakdown in our nation’s understanding of the value of work and the productivity of America’s workers.
The day before the strike, Aug. 28, the nation paused to recall the 50th anniversary of the March for Jobs and Freedom in Washington. It was a big celebration that masked the divisions of the country at that time and surrounded the movement to gain dignity for Americans held in the shadows from the light of America’s middle-class freedoms. We should not forget the final endgame of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s journey for justice five years after the march, when he was assassinated in Memphis continuing his struggle for dignity and freedom for sanitation workers.
In 1966, in line with the demands of the March for Jobs and Freedom, the minimum wage was increased and its coverage extended to include certain state and local government employees; those who worked in hospitals, nursing homes and schools. It did not include sanitation workers. But, it did boost the
minimum wage to $1.60 an hour in 1968. The Center for Economic Research and Policy has compared that minimum wage to changes in wages, prices and productivity to put it in context. Adjusting for inflation, today that would be $10.52 an hour.
In 1968, 40 percent of the sanitation workers in Memphis qualified for welfare payments because their wages were too low to pull their families out of poverty. Reflecting on that, Dr. King was moved to give the ultimate Labor Day sentiment.
“If you will judge anything here in this struggle, you’re commanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs,” Dr. King said.
argue that if we are concerned with the poor, then we should simply subsidize low wages; in short, put working people on welfare as was the case in Memphis in 1968.
n It makes far more sense that these huge corporations pay wages that reflect the productivity of their workers.
But subsidizing low wages is inefficient. It actually subsidizes what low-wage companies produce. When employers pay wages too low to support workers, it is society that then must pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program so the workers can eat, and housing assistance so they have a roof over their heads, child care block grants so someone can watch over their children, Medicaid so they have access to health care and grant them tax relief with Earned Income Tax Credits to prevent the government from further impoverishing them.
levels of employment.
Workers in St. Louis recently joined national protests in favor of raising the federal minimum wage.
“But let me say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth. One day our society must come to see this. One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive.”
We have, as a nation, come to accept low wages. And there are many who
It makes far more sense that these huge corporations pay wages that reflect the productivity of their workers. Since the late 1970s, America has gone on a crooked path. The productivity of America’s workers has gone up, but the pay of America’s workers has gone flat. That difference, between what Americans can produce and what Americans earn creates a gaping problem: if people can’t buy what is being made, then increasing their productivity can only lead to lower
From 1980 to 2007, the solution was to let workers borrow enough money to make up for that gap, so demand would meet the rise in productivity and we could keep employment up. And in 2008, the notion that household debt could rise, with incomes staying flat, to fill the gap came to a stop. Now, we must return to paying workers for their productivity to fill the gap between increased productivity and earnings.
Even if we believed that low-wage workers have not kept up with average productivity advances – note that a McDonald’s worker today produces far more sales per square foot and hour than a McDonald’s worker in 1968 – and we set the minimum wage to reflect only half the gain in average productivity since 1968, then today the minimum wage would have to be $15.34 an hour.
So the worker serving you food at that wage would not themselves need help with food stamps to buy food. And, more importantly, we would be moving back toward paying workers so they can afford to buy the goods coming from increased productivity, rather than getting rid of workers when productivity goes up for the lack of buyers.
Spriggs is chair of the Economics Department and a professor of economics at Howard University, as well as the former executive director of the National Urban League’s Institute for Opportunity and Equality.
Follow Spriggs on Twitter @ WSpriggs.
Nurse practitioners ‘make a difference’
Nurses for Newborns bring resources to needy families of infants
By Robert Joiner Of The Beacon
With years of experience as a nurse and a nurse practitioner specializing in women’s health, Linda Spina has gained a lot of insight into why babies are born too soon, weigh too little and, in some instances, die prematurely. She also has learned that conventional wisdom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when it comes to saving at-risk newborns.
On a hot summer afternoon recently, she drove into a hardscrabble neighborhood near the intersection of Goodfellow and Natural Bridge to see a side of infant care that’s largely invisible to most area residents.
“It’s a sad case,” Spina says.
The house lacks air conditioning, and the soft voice of the mother, Charitta Harral, 24, is nearly drowned out by the whirling sound of a window fan as she talks about caring for an infant born at 24 weeks and weighing only 1 pound and 11 ounces. Now 10 months old, young Ja’cailen remains unable to raise his slightly misshapen head, and he has difficulty breathing. His twin brother didn’t make it.
Harral’s mood brightens at the sight of “Miss Linda,” the name some young mothers use when referring to Spina, director of clinical practice at Nurses for Newborn.
For more than two decades, the agency’s team of experienced nurses has become a lifeline to babies and families
across the St. Louis area and in 20 Missouri counties beyond. The group conducted more than 13,400 RN visits in Missouri last year. Its services cover health in a broad context, extending to issues such as nutrition and obesity, which can develop into long term problems for children. Baby formula and food, along with diapers and wipes, are among items that can be donated to the organization.
The group’s care givers and advisers educate such families on how to reduce child neglect and abuse, how to use alternatives to costly and avoidable emergency room and hospital care for some child illnesses, and how and where to find other resources to help them raise healthier babies.
All these missions are vital in a state where every day, on average, eight babies die before their first birthday, 89 are born weighing under 5.5 pounds, 26 are born too early (under 37 weeks), and many of the mothers are poor.
One widely held assumption is that lack of prenatal care is a big reason for premature births. The issue is far more complicated, Spina said after visits, weeks apart, to Harral and to another mother struggling with raising children born prematurely.
“Both mothers got very good prenatal care,” but they had to cope with stress hormones that were “really constant in their lives,” Spina says. “They had to cope with the stress of profound poverty and all that that entails. More and more research is showing a correlation (between) these stress hormones and how they affect a woman’s ability to carry a pregnancy to term.”
With a laptop and a scale in tow, Spina found a seat in the living room in Harral’s home and picked up young Ja’cailen, checking his vital signs, weighing him and asking lots of questions about what the mother had done and hadn’t done since the last visit. At one point during the meeting,
Claire Devoto, development director at Nurses for Newborn, and Linda Spina, director of clinical practice at Nurses for Newborn, show off a picture book that Devoto made of children of a family they’ve helped.
Photo by Robert Joiner
Harral showed she was becoming more skillful in caring for the boy, reaching instinctively for a nebulizer when the child became agitated, suggesting breathing difficulty.
Weeks later, in another poor neighborhood on King Drive west of Union Boulevard, Spina is visiting Felicia Valentine, the mother of two boys born prematurely. Valentine lives on a street where commotion is constant. During Spina’s visit, a crowd gathered on the sidewalk next door after a police cruiser pulled up, followed by the arrival of an ambulance. One resident looks out a second floor window and speculates: “It’s a shooting.”
Valentine stayed focused on her talk with Spina about the progress her sons were making and her own progress with personal issues. When Spina asks her about a drug problem, Valentine points with pride to a living room wall certificate showing she has completed a residential treatment program for abusing hard drugs.
The nurses are on call day and night, so it helps that they have turned to social media to keep in touch with some families. Moms like Valentine like that approach, mentioning that whenever a question or concern arises, she simply texts Spina.
What’s striking is how much the organization has helped children like Valentine’s two boys adjust in spite of
UM Extension brings 4-H to the city
Programs offer education, community service, practical skills
By Linda Geist
For The St. Louis American
When University of Missouri Extension youth specialist Jody Squires was honored Sept. 13 at the 26th annual St. Louis American Foundation’s Salute to Excellence in Education Scholarship and Awards Gala, the work of MU Extension St. Louis City also was honored.
in the St. Louis area by working and sharing with caring adults through the “Revolution of Responsibility.”
St. Louis City’s 4-H programs include TechXcite, an after-school engineering program created by Duke University. Through the program, 20 groups of 4-H members in middle school learn about prosthetic limbs, harvesting solar energy to power cars, wireless remote control burglar alarms and more through after-school events, clubs, homeschool groups and summer camps.
n St. Louis youth can participate in 4-H’s Science, Engineering and Technology project.
While 4-H typically has been thought of as an activity for rural youth, Squires and others have used 4-H programs to improve the lives of inner-city kids and help 2,100 youth
The Missouri 4-H LIFE (Living Interactive Family Education) program helps incarcerated parents, their children and family members maintain and strengthen relationships.
The College Within Reach program is credited with helping at-risk youth stay in high school and reducing barriers for them to attend college. The program emphasizes education and community service and
Since 2000, the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group, University of Missouri Extension and others have partnered to develop a set of initiatives towards creating a healthy, dynamic and sustainable community.
teaches practical skills such as managing finances, communication and teamwork. Members visit colleges and take field trips, and can get help preparing for college admissions tests.
St. Louis youth can participate in 4-H’s Science, Engineering and Technology project, which encourages participants in the National 4-H Science initiative. This bold national effort seeks to engage 1
COntInuEd On PAgE 7
their premature births, one in 2010 and the other last year.
“Miss Linda is awesome,” Valentine says. “She helped me to make sure my children were doing what they were supposed to be doing at certain ages.”
Spina is impressed by the progress but concedes that both youngsters have a way to go. “Because of their prematurity, they were substantially developmentally delayed. I’d say they have caught up about 80 percent.”
One got special care at a nursery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the other at Children’s Hospital.
An ongoing challenge at NFN involves helping people learn to navigate the system and access frequently limited services, ranging from special medical care to nutritious foods, that are essential to strengthening babies and families as well, Spina says.
An example is a case cited by Claire Devoto, NFN’s development director. She mentions a mother who had been jailed in Illinois on a drug charge and later discovered she was pregnant. With triplets. The children were born near Chicago, and the mother’s parents lived in Missouri beyond De Soto. The grandmother stayed a few weeks in a Ronald McDonald House near where the triplets were born.
Eventually the grandmother took the three girls to her home in Missouri, where Jane Adams, a member of the Nurses’ team, stepped in to help. Home to the grandparents is a drafty log cabin that needed to be insulated for the sake of the triplets. Some men in the area volunteered to do the work.
The grandma suffered a heart attack last year and was treated at a hospital in St. Louis. Devoto went to the hospital to visit the grandmother. “And here comes the grandfather pushing these three babies in a big stroller, coming to see grandma. These girls are 2 years old now. They turned out lovely, just lovely.”
In the absence of help provided by Adams, the children might have been removed from the family home, Devoto says. Devoto went the extra mile, too. Being moved by the case of the triplets, she made a special picture book of the children so the family can preserve the memories. She has now decided to make similar picture books of children of other families served by NFN.
Spina is dismayed, she says, because she feels that many issues, such as access to health care through Medicaid in Missouri, have become politicized.
“There are some days when it’s really difficult for me to find a resource to help the mothers and children,” Spina said. “But I love what I do. To me it’s a privilege to be invited to someone’s home and make a difference.”
Edited for length and reprinted with permission from stlbeacon.org.
Organizer nets ‘Champion for Good’ award
Dobbie Herrion, Academic Support Center manager at St. Louis Community College-Florissant Valley, recently was named a Champion for Good by Allstate Insurance Company as part of its Give It Up for Good campaign. This initiative urges people to share the good in their community by recognizing and highlighting the unsung heroes who dedicate themselves to enriching the lives of others.
Herrion founded Neighborhood Nets, a community development program dedicated to bringing pride back to playgrounds by putting a net on every bare basketball rim in the St. Louis area and eventually the world. Herrion says they have put up 60 nets and one basketball rim so far.
million young people to meet increased demand for science and technology professionals. Through a partnership with Pakt Community Center in Ferguson and Storman Academy in North St. Louis County, a robust robotics program sparks 85 young people’s interest in STEM careers.
The 4-H Neighborhood Leadership Academy helps youth develop and enhance skills in a community setting. Participants learn skills to help them secure funding for projects in their neighborhoods. The program is in its 12th year.
“Girls Night In” offers 4-H girls the opportunity to learn about citizenship, leadership and life skills in a fun setting. MU Extension 4-H also partners with the Special School District of St. Louis County.
In addition to these innovative programs, St. Louis also has traditional 4-H clubs in the city and the county. MU Extension in St. Louis offers other services in areas such as business development, community development, disaster recovery, financial education, gardening, housing education, labor education, conservation, nutrition and health, and others. More information about MU Extension in the St. Louis area, visit extension.missouri.edu/stlouis.
New dental school partners with Grace Hill
By American staff
At its August 2013 meeting, the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) adopted a resolution to grant initial accreditation to A.T. Still University’s Missouri School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ATSU-MOSDOH), a new dental school and only the second in the state.
Initial accreditation was the final step needed before the school could welcome its inaugural class and begin classes on October 1. Selected from 954 applicants, the student body will comprise 22 women and 20 men from 19 states, including nine students from Missouri.
The mission of ATSU’s Missouri School of Dentistry & Oral Health is to increase access to oral healthcare for Missouri’s most vulnerable populations. The number of dentists in the state is declining, while the underserved population and demand for dentists are rising.
Central to the new school’s curriculum is extensive, in-depth clinical training
inside community health centers (CHCs), as called for in a 2011 Institute of Medicine report. In Missouri, CHCs care for 420,000 vulnerable residents, or 25 percent of the total number of low-income and uninsured citizens.
Collaboration with CHCs for on-site clinical education is the most effective way to break down the barriers to care faced by Missouri’s underserved populations.
Graduates of ATSU’s Missouri School of Dentistry & Oral Health will earn a certificate of public health, in addition to a doctor of dental medicine degree. Partnerships with CHCs are expected to increase retention within the state’s oral health workforce by encouraging graduates to practice public health dentistry.
Students will not have to wait until they graduate to begin filling the gaps in Missouri’s dental care. During their third and fourth years, they will be embedded inside Missouri CHCs, where their clinical education will include treating patients under supervision of faculty
A.T. Still University is opening the Missouri School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ATSU-MOSDOH), a new dental school and only the second in the state.
dentists. This will allow the centers to reach an additional 11,500 patients each year.
ATSU-MOSDOH’s most comprehensive CHC relationship will be with St. Louis’ Grace Hill Health Center, which provides primary medical, dental and behavioral health services to a large segment of the city’s low-income and uninsured population.
Beginning in the summer of 2015, GHHC in partnership with ATSU, will operate an expansive new 85-operatory dental clinic. After spending two years
on ATSU’s Kirksville, Mo., campus, students will relocate to St. Louis for third-year clinical experiences at the ATSU-GHHC-operated clinic. During the fourth-year, students will divide their time between St. Louis and additional CHC locations throughout Missouri and the Midwest.
The Missouri Foundation for Health provided support to ATSU’s new dental school by awarding $3 million in grants toward its development.
For more information, visit www.atsu. edu/mosdoh.
Students commemorate 9-11 anniversary
U.S. military personnel and first responders visit Beaumont High School
American staff
On the 12th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Beaumont High and Multiple Pathways @ Beaumont Army JROTC students remembered and celebrated those who lost their lives, and paid tribute to first responders.
The event was produced by the Beaumont Career and Technical Education (CTE) High School Army and included music, videos, a rifle demonstration, a flag ceremony, and speeches by St. Louis City Fire Department Captain Mike Killingsworth, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Captain Mary EdwardsFears and Beaumont Principal Terrell
Henderson.
Captain Killingsworth and Captain Edwards-Fears both highlighted the bravery of first responders in their speeches. They also informed students and other attendees about changes that have taken place in the country’s security measures over the past 12 years
Principal Henderson was personally affected by the 9-11 attacks. One of his cousins worked in the Second Tower and lost her life. He recalled struggling with grief as life seemed to continue as normal in St. Louis – nearly 1,000 miles away from the remains of the Twin Towers. He encouraged his students to practice safety and always be sensitive to others.
CHOICES/CAREERS
CHOICES/CAREERS, published three times annually, (Spring, Winter and Fall), focuses on career opportunities, career training, career enhancement and financial aid programs for African Americans. CHOICES/CAREERS includes varied profiles and features the experiences of successful post-high school African-American students, alumni and employees in the St. Louis area.
STAFF
Donald M. SuggsPublisher & Executive Editor
Kevin Jones - Sr. Vice Pres. & COO
Dina M. Suggs - Sr. Vice Pres.
Editorial
Chris King - Managing Editor
Kenya Vaughn - Website Editor
Earl Austin Jr. - Sports Editor
Sandra Jordan - Health Reporter
Rebecca S. Rivas - Staff Reporter
Wiley Price - Photojournalist
Consuelo Wilkins, M.D. - Health Editor
Dana G. Randolph - Contributing Editor
Fred Sweets - Contributing Editor
More than 20 representatives from local fire, police, and military attended a commemoration of the 12th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at Beaumont Career and Technical Education High School.
More than 20 representatives from local fire, police, and military attended the ceremony and were recognized with plaques and a standing ovation by students, staff, and community members. The ceremony concluded outdoors in
front of the school, where some 3,000 flags were on display on the lawn in remembrance of each victim of the attack. The flag was lowered to half-staff, and a wreath was posted at the base.
Sales / Marketing
Onye Hollomon- Sr. Acct. Exec.
Barbara Sills - Sr. Acct. Exec.
Pam Simmons- Sr. Acct. Exec.
Nevida Medina - Classified Ad Mgr
Angelita F. Jackson - Graphic Artist
Production
Mike Terhaar - Art Director
Melvin Moore - Graphic Designer
Administration
Robin Britt - Controller
Ishmael Sistrunk - Web/IT/Promotions
Kate Daniel - Exec Assistant
Loistine McGhee - Acct. Assistant
Mary Winbush - Receptionist
Work, productivity and the minimum wage
When employers pay wages that are too low, society must pay
By William Spriggs For The St. Louis American
On Aug. 29, across the country, thousands of workers in low-paying jobs stood up to demand $15 an hour. Most were at fast-food restaurants. There are many people who support the need for these workers to be paid more. They understand the unfairness of multinational corporations profiting on the wages of low-wage work. And on Labor Day, they probably reflected on the value of work and honoring the people who literally built this country.
To many people it is almost obscene that the CEO of McDonald’s, for instance, gets a compensation package worth $13.8 million a year; a giant raise from his 2011 pay of $4.1 million, a pay level that equals 915 full-time, full-year minimum wage workers at McDonald’s.
Still, understanding that the price of the hamburger was probably much more affected by giving the CEO a $9 million raise than the meager demands of the people serving them their food, many people scratched their heads at the notion the workers’ wages could be set at $15 an hour, a level they now equate with more “skilled” workers. This reflects the breakdown in our nation’s understanding of the value of work and the productivity of America’s workers.
The day before the strike, Aug. 28, the nation paused to recall the 50th anniversary of the March for Jobs and Freedom in Washington. It was a big celebration that masked the divisions of the country at that time and surrounded the movement to gain dignity for Americans held in the shadows from the light of America’s middle-class freedoms. We should not forget the final endgame of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s journey for justice five years after the march, when he was assassinated in Memphis continuing his struggle for dignity and freedom for sanitation workers.
In 1966, in line with the demands of the March for Jobs and Freedom, the minimum wage was increased and its coverage extended to include certain state and local government employees; those who worked in hospitals, nursing homes and schools. It did not include sanitation workers. But, it did boost the
minimum wage to $1.60 an hour in 1968. The Center for Economic Research and Policy has compared that minimum wage to changes in wages, prices and productivity to put it in context. Adjusting for inflation, today that would be $10.52 an hour.
In 1968, 40 percent of the sanitation workers in Memphis qualified for welfare payments because their wages were too low to pull their families out of poverty. Reflecting on that, Dr. King was moved to give the ultimate Labor Day sentiment.
“If you will judge anything here in this struggle, you’re commanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs,” Dr. King said.
argue that if we are concerned with the poor, then we should simply subsidize low wages; in short, put working people on welfare as was the case in Memphis in 1968.
n It makes far more sense that these huge corporations pay wages that reflect the productivity of their workers.
But subsidizing low wages is inefficient. It actually subsidizes what low-wage companies produce. When employers pay wages too low to support workers, it is society that then must pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program so the workers can eat, and housing assistance so they have a roof over their heads, child care block grants so someone can watch over their children, Medicaid so they have access to health care and grant them tax relief with Earned Income Tax Credits to prevent the government from further impoverishing them.
levels of employment.
Workers in St. Louis recently joined national protests in favor of raising the federal minimum wage.
“But let me say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth. One day our society must come to see this. One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive.”
We have, as a nation, come to accept low wages. And there are many who
It makes far more sense that these huge corporations pay wages that reflect the productivity of their workers. Since the late 1970s, America has gone on a crooked path. The productivity of America’s workers has gone up, but the pay of America’s workers has gone flat. That difference, between what Americans can produce and what Americans earn creates a gaping problem: if people can’t buy what is being made, then increasing their productivity can only lead to lower
From 1980 to 2007, the solution was to let workers borrow enough money to make up for that gap, so demand would meet the rise in productivity and we could keep employment up. And in 2008, the notion that household debt could rise, with incomes staying flat, to fill the gap came to a stop. Now, we must return to paying workers for their productivity to fill the gap between increased productivity and earnings.
Even if we believed that low-wage workers have not kept up with average productivity advances – note that a McDonald’s worker today produces far more sales per square foot and hour than a McDonald’s worker in 1968 – and we set the minimum wage to reflect only half the gain in average productivity since 1968, then today the minimum wage would have to be $15.34 an hour.
So the worker serving you food at that wage would not themselves need help with food stamps to buy food. And, more importantly, we would be moving back toward paying workers so they can afford to buy the goods coming from increased productivity, rather than getting rid of workers when productivity goes up for the lack of buyers.
Spriggs is chair of the Economics Department and a professor of economics at Howard University, as well as the former executive director of the National Urban League’s Institute for Opportunity and Equality.
Follow Spriggs on Twitter @ WSpriggs.
Nurse practitioners ‘make a difference’
Nurses for Newborns bring resources to needy families of infants
By Robert Joiner Of The Beacon
With years of experience as a nurse and a nurse practitioner specializing in women’s health, Linda Spina has gained a lot of insight into why babies are born too soon, weigh too little and, in some instances, die prematurely. She also has learned that conventional wisdom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when it comes to saving at-risk newborns.
On a hot summer afternoon recently, she drove into a hardscrabble neighborhood near the intersection of Goodfellow and Natural Bridge to see a side of infant care that’s largely invisible to most area residents.
“It’s a sad case,” Spina says.
The house lacks air conditioning, and the soft voice of the mother, Charitta Harral, 24, is nearly drowned out by the whirling sound of a window fan as she talks about caring for an infant born at 24 weeks and weighing only 1 pound and 11 ounces. Now 10 months old, young Ja’cailen remains unable to raise his slightly misshapen head, and he has difficulty breathing. His twin brother didn’t make it.
Harral’s mood brightens at the sight of “Miss Linda,” the name some young mothers use when referring to Spina, director of clinical practice at Nurses for Newborn.
For more than two decades, the agency’s team of experienced nurses has become a lifeline to babies and families
across the St. Louis area and in 20 Missouri counties beyond. The group conducted more than 13,400 RN visits in Missouri last year. Its services cover health in a broad context, extending to issues such as nutrition and obesity, which can develop into long term problems for children. Baby formula and food, along with diapers and wipes, are among items that can be donated to the organization.
The group’s care givers and advisers educate such families on how to reduce child neglect and abuse, how to use alternatives to costly and avoidable emergency room and hospital care for some child illnesses, and how and where to find other resources to help them raise healthier babies.
All these missions are vital in a state where every day, on average, eight babies die before their first birthday, 89 are born weighing under 5.5 pounds, 26 are born too early (under 37 weeks), and many of the mothers are poor.
One widely held assumption is that lack of prenatal care is a big reason for premature births. The issue is far more complicated, Spina said after visits, weeks apart, to Harral and to another mother struggling with raising children born prematurely.
“Both mothers got very good prenatal care,” but they had to cope with stress hormones that were “really constant in their lives,” Spina says. “They had to cope with the stress of profound poverty and all that that entails. More and more research is showing a correlation (between) these stress hormones and how they affect a woman’s ability to carry a pregnancy to term.”
With a laptop and a scale in tow, Spina found a seat in the living room in Harral’s home and picked up young Ja’cailen, checking his vital signs, weighing him and asking lots of questions about what the mother had done and hadn’t done since the last visit. At one point during the meeting,
Claire Devoto, development director at Nurses for Newborn, and Linda Spina, director of clinical practice at Nurses for Newborn, show off a picture book that Devoto made of children of a family they’ve helped.
Photo by Robert Joiner
Harral showed she was becoming more skillful in caring for the boy, reaching instinctively for a nebulizer when the child became agitated, suggesting breathing difficulty.
Weeks later, in another poor neighborhood on King Drive west of Union Boulevard, Spina is visiting Felicia Valentine, the mother of two boys born prematurely. Valentine lives on a street where commotion is constant. During Spina’s visit, a crowd gathered on the sidewalk next door after a police cruiser pulled up, followed by the arrival of an ambulance. One resident looks out a second floor window and speculates: “It’s a shooting.”
Valentine stayed focused on her talk with Spina about the progress her sons were making and her own progress with personal issues. When Spina asks her about a drug problem, Valentine points with pride to a living room wall certificate showing she has completed a residential treatment program for abusing hard drugs.
The nurses are on call day and night, so it helps that they have turned to social media to keep in touch with some families. Moms like Valentine like that approach, mentioning that whenever a question or concern arises, she simply texts Spina.
What’s striking is how much the organization has helped children like Valentine’s two boys adjust in spite of
UM Extension brings 4-H to the city
Programs offer education, community service, practical skills
By Linda Geist
For The St. Louis American
When University of Missouri Extension youth specialist Jody Squires was honored Sept. 13 at the 26th annual St. Louis American Foundation’s Salute to Excellence in Education Scholarship and Awards Gala, the work of MU Extension St. Louis City also was honored.
in the St. Louis area by working and sharing with caring adults through the “Revolution of Responsibility.”
St. Louis City’s 4-H programs include TechXcite, an after-school engineering program created by Duke University. Through the program, 20 groups of 4-H members in middle school learn about prosthetic limbs, harvesting solar energy to power cars, wireless remote control burglar alarms and more through after-school events, clubs, homeschool groups and summer camps.
n St. Louis youth can participate in 4-H’s Science, Engineering and Technology project.
While 4-H typically has been thought of as an activity for rural youth, Squires and others have used 4-H programs to improve the lives of inner-city kids and help 2,100 youth
The Missouri 4-H LIFE (Living Interactive Family Education) program helps incarcerated parents, their children and family members maintain and strengthen relationships.
The College Within Reach program is credited with helping at-risk youth stay in high school and reducing barriers for them to attend college. The program emphasizes education and community service and
Since 2000, the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group, University of Missouri Extension and others have partnered to develop a set of initiatives towards creating a healthy, dynamic and sustainable community.
teaches practical skills such as managing finances, communication and teamwork. Members visit colleges and take field trips, and can get help preparing for college admissions tests.
St. Louis youth can participate in 4-H’s Science, Engineering and Technology project, which encourages participants in the National 4-H Science initiative. This bold national effort seeks to engage 1
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their premature births, one in 2010 and the other last year.
“Miss Linda is awesome,” Valentine says. “She helped me to make sure my children were doing what they were supposed to be doing at certain ages.”
Spina is impressed by the progress but concedes that both youngsters have a way to go. “Because of their prematurity, they were substantially developmentally delayed. I’d say they have caught up about 80 percent.”
One got special care at a nursery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the other at Children’s Hospital.
An ongoing challenge at NFN involves helping people learn to navigate the system and access frequently limited services, ranging from special medical care to nutritious foods, that are essential to strengthening babies and families as well, Spina says.
An example is a case cited by Claire Devoto, NFN’s development director. She mentions a mother who had been jailed in Illinois on a drug charge and later discovered she was pregnant. With triplets. The children were born near Chicago, and the mother’s parents lived in Missouri beyond De Soto. The grandmother stayed a few weeks in a Ronald McDonald House near where the triplets were born.
Eventually the grandmother took the three girls to her home in Missouri, where Jane Adams, a member of the Nurses’ team, stepped in to help. Home to the grandparents is a drafty log cabin that needed to be insulated for the sake of the triplets. Some men in the area volunteered to do the work.
The grandma suffered a heart attack last year and was treated at a hospital in St. Louis. Devoto went to the hospital to visit the grandmother. “And here comes the grandfather pushing these three babies in a big stroller, coming to see grandma. These girls are 2 years old now. They turned out lovely, just lovely.”
In the absence of help provided by Adams, the children might have been removed from the family home, Devoto says. Devoto went the extra mile, too. Being moved by the case of the triplets, she made a special picture book of the children so the family can preserve the memories. She has now decided to make similar picture books of children of other families served by NFN.
Spina is dismayed, she says, because she feels that many issues, such as access to health care through Medicaid in Missouri, have become politicized.
“There are some days when it’s really difficult for me to find a resource to help the mothers and children,” Spina said. “But I love what I do. To me it’s a privilege to be invited to someone’s home and make a difference.”
Edited for length and reprinted with permission from stlbeacon.org.
Organizer nets ‘Champion for Good’ award
Dobbie Herrion, Academic Support Center manager at St. Louis Community College-Florissant Valley, recently was named a Champion for Good by Allstate Insurance Company as part of its Give It Up for Good campaign. This initiative urges people to share the good in their community by recognizing and highlighting the unsung heroes who dedicate themselves to enriching the lives of others.
Herrion founded Neighborhood Nets, a community development program dedicated to bringing pride back to playgrounds by putting a net on every bare basketball rim in the St. Louis area and eventually the world. Herrion says they have put up 60 nets and one basketball rim so far.
million young people to meet increased demand for science and technology professionals. Through a partnership with Pakt Community Center in Ferguson and Storman Academy in North St. Louis County, a robust robotics program sparks 85 young people’s interest in STEM careers.
The 4-H Neighborhood Leadership Academy helps youth develop and enhance skills in a community setting. Participants learn skills to help them secure funding for projects in their neighborhoods. The program is in its 12th year.
“Girls Night In” offers 4-H girls the opportunity to learn about citizenship, leadership and life skills in a fun setting. MU Extension 4-H also partners with the Special School District of St. Louis County.
In addition to these innovative programs, St. Louis also has traditional 4-H clubs in the city and the county. MU Extension in St. Louis offers other services in areas such as business development, community development, disaster recovery, financial education, gardening, housing education, labor education, conservation, nutrition and health, and others. More information about MU Extension in the St. Louis area, visit extension.missouri.edu/stlouis.
New dental school partners with Grace Hill
By American staff
At its August 2013 meeting, the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) adopted a resolution to grant initial accreditation to A.T. Still University’s Missouri School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ATSU-MOSDOH), a new dental school and only the second in the state.
Initial accreditation was the final step needed before the school could welcome its inaugural class and begin classes on October 1. Selected from 954 applicants, the student body will comprise 22 women and 20 men from 19 states, including nine students from Missouri.
The mission of ATSU’s Missouri School of Dentistry & Oral Health is to increase access to oral healthcare for Missouri’s most vulnerable populations. The number of dentists in the state is declining, while the underserved population and demand for dentists are rising.
Central to the new school’s curriculum is extensive, in-depth clinical training
inside community health centers (CHCs), as called for in a 2011 Institute of Medicine report. In Missouri, CHCs care for 420,000 vulnerable residents, or 25 percent of the total number of low-income and uninsured citizens.
Collaboration with CHCs for on-site clinical education is the most effective way to break down the barriers to care faced by Missouri’s underserved populations.
Graduates of ATSU’s Missouri School of Dentistry & Oral Health will earn a certificate of public health, in addition to a doctor of dental medicine degree. Partnerships with CHCs are expected to increase retention within the state’s oral health workforce by encouraging graduates to practice public health dentistry.
Students will not have to wait until they graduate to begin filling the gaps in Missouri’s dental care. During their third and fourth years, they will be embedded inside Missouri CHCs, where their clinical education will include treating patients under supervision of faculty
A.T. Still University is opening the Missouri School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ATSU-MOSDOH), a new dental school and only the second in the state.
dentists. This will allow the centers to reach an additional 11,500 patients each year.
ATSU-MOSDOH’s most comprehensive CHC relationship will be with St. Louis’ Grace Hill Health Center, which provides primary medical, dental and behavioral health services to a large segment of the city’s low-income and uninsured population.
Beginning in the summer of 2015, GHHC in partnership with ATSU, will operate an expansive new 85-operatory dental clinic. After spending two years
on ATSU’s Kirksville, Mo., campus, students will relocate to St. Louis for third-year clinical experiences at the ATSU-GHHC-operated clinic. During the fourth-year, students will divide their time between St. Louis and additional CHC locations throughout Missouri and the Midwest.
The Missouri Foundation for Health provided support to ATSU’s new dental school by awarding $3 million in grants toward its development.
For more information, visit www.atsu. edu/mosdoh.