Atlantic Writer Blames Arugula for California's Failing Schools

In the media world, the hatchet job has long been a profitable one. It involves finding a major figure, uncovering a supposed flaw and then showing the world how it is a symptom of everything that's wrong with -- fill in the blank -- politics, business, schools, etc. 

Caitlin Flanagan's rant about Alice Waters qualifies as a glowing example of the genre. In the piece, she argues that Water's school gardens are doing everything to disenfranchise poor, undereducated kids by making them work outdoors rather than hitting the books. She leads off with a supposed child of a former migrant worker who goes to school -- only to do migrant-like work at the Berkeley middle school garden that Waters organized.

The child is a figment of Flanagan's hyperactive imagination. Did she go to the school, talk to the kids or parents or teachers, ask if any kids felt they were being exploited, or even wasting time -- in a school garden? Why bother because she already knew the answer. 

I don't think anyone would dispute that schools are in trouble, especially California's with its famous budget troubles. A piece looking into those schools -- something that Flanagan's colleague Sandra Tsing Loh, for example, has done amusingly well in these same pages - would be welcome. And in fact, in the same Atlantic issue, there is a very worthwhile piece on what really makes students excel (hint: it's the teachers). Flanagan, however, fixates on little seedlings and argues not only that the gardens are misplaced but suggests they are the cause of said educational failures. Blame the arugula for school dropouts.

The purpose of this argument is to skewer a person Flanagan viscerally detests. But finding Alice Waters' precious local foodie proclivities distasteful is one thing. (Even I found the bit where she poached an egg over an open hearth on 60-Minutes a bit much). Pinning the ills of the state's educational system on school gardens is something else again. What's next? Blaming the deep recession on Michelle Obama's White House garden because it takes the president's attention off more weighty problems at hand?

It's long been known that adequate nutrition has a direct relationship on children's achievement in school. Whether gardens would have a bearing on this equation is a question Flanagan chooses to ignore. (Oh wait, she does explore this issue by traveling to a grocery store in Compton to get her answer. She decides poor people can get good food, but they mostly like junk and nothing but upward mobility will change that). 

Maybe the gardens can help with the nutrition equation. Perhaps they won't. But you can't get anything to grow without diligence, attention, planning and hard work -- all qualities that can be applied to other endeavors, even farming. (She never considers that a kid really drawn to the garden might end up owning a farm business in the state's $39 billion agriculture industry, rather than being a migrant -- not a far-fetched path in California). Whatever the case, it's clear that the gardens are a minor sideshow in the issues facing the California school system. As she writes:

I have never seen an entire school system as fundamentally broken and rudderless as the California public schools, a system in which one out of five high-school students drops out before graduation, and in which scarcely 60 percent of the African American and Hispanic students leave school with a diploma. These young people are cast adrift in a $50 billion system in which failure is almost a foregone conclusion.

In that universe of problems, she focuses on ... gardens? Frankly, I think her imaginary migrant parents would probably spend more time worrying about Sacramento gutting meager school resources and teachers' positions then about the 1-1/2 hours a week their kid spends tending the arugula. And they should.

Comments

[Natassha Sloben]

"The purpose of this argument is to skewer a person Flanagan viscerally detests."

The article shows little evidence of this assertion. It may not be the best angle of approach in terms of its central argument, but authorial objectivity wasn't compromised in the way you say. The "precious" disposition you refer to is a massive turn-off from whomever it emanates from, not merely Ms. Waters; there was, however, no overbearing flavor of this phenomenon in Flanagan's article.

[Sam Fromartz]

She refers to Waters a "dowager queen of the grown-locally movement". The gardens are "one manifestation of the way the new Food Hysteria has come to dominate and diminish our shared cultural life..." She can't stand Waters, probably her Atlantic colleague Corby Kummer, and all that this movement has wrought on the landscape.

[Tana Butler]

Natassha, I disagree with you completely. There is hardly one sentence in that article that doesn't drip with scathing scorn. If you read closely, you will see this. One thing I learned from this typist (I will not waste the word "writer" on Ms. Flanagan) is that, if you really want to insult someone with stature, you will accuse them of recycling.

I found it a despicable article, in every regard. Upon reading it, I asked myself if Ms. Flanagan's real voice sounds like an outraged Margaret Dumont, or an adenoidal Sarah Palin mall chick. I am guessing the latter. But if you want a laugh, read it with the former. Trill your R's when you read this: "(I’ve had major surgeries in which I was less scrupulously informed about what was about to happen to me, what was happening to me, and what had just happened to me than I’ve been during a dinner there.)" Clasp your hand to your breast while you do it: it's hilarious!

Flanagan: my eyes just rolled out the door.

[Natassha Sloben]

@Samuel: Your first example is rather subjective-- I don't see malice in the observation. There is nothing inherently critical, and certainly nothing inherently insulting, in the term "dowager." Indeed, many forensic adepts would find great success arguing that the term is complimentary. Had it been "spinster," I could buy it... That leaves tone, and as I say, I believe your take to be overly subjective.

And as for citing what came after: "one manifestation of the way the new Food Hysteria has come to dominate and diminish our shared cultural life..." What came after that? "...someone whose brilliant cookery and laudable goals may not be the best qualifications for designing academic curricula for the public schools." But I suppose you'd see that as damning her with faint praise.

Also, insinuating you have some insight into her true feelings toward a colleague borders on gross hypocrisy. What's to stop us from drawing the conclusion that your post is fueled more by an animus for Flanagan similar to that which you accuse her of bearing toward Ms. Waters-- your body of work, and how the deep devotion it underscores? Ok...

@Tana: A dispassionate or impartial writing critic would suggest you head right back to the drafting process. Your third sentence betrays a partisan sensitivity, rather than any meaningful insight. It all comes off more as the return volley from someone whose team has been dissed by a fan from a rival team.

Obama has stature, but I've yet to hear his critics rip him for recycling. I've yet to hear any of the CEOs of the big financial institutions (for whom there are no euphemisms; they're thieves) pilloried more for recycling than for bald-faced stealing. Your criticisms are based more on a visceral reaction to the article's flavor, than on the close reading of the article you initially suggest.

Take it with a grain of fairly-traded sea salt: Anyone can preach to the choir. Here in Oregon, I've been in and around this movement for the better part of the last 15 years. And without question, there's a lazily seething, simpering, facile, would-be-elitist, smug, effete, disingenuous, non-sustainable cult of personality operating within that pushes far more people away from "the movement" than it attracts. Organically grown produce/sustainable agriculture? The one and only way, I agree wholeheartedly. The marketing/promotional efforts that have risen up concurrently? Facile, insipid, exclusive and divisive.

I appreciate your attention, thank you.

[Sam Fromartz]

For another take, check out Tom Philpott's critique on Grist:
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-01-13-atlantic-attack-edible-schoolyard/

[Nelson Wong]

Natassha, you mention "Here in Oregon, I've been in and around this movement for the better part of the last 15 years."

Can you elaborate what your experience has been "in and around this movement"? I'm curious as to your level of involvement in "the movement" (I'm assuming that you mean movement = "organically grown produce/sustainable agriculture" movement)

I'm not sure what you mean by the "marketing/promotional efforts" of this movement. Can you explain?

As to the tone of the article and the comments in this post: of course you wouldn't take issue with Flanagan calling Waters the "dowager queen of the grown-locally movement." Would I be wrong to say that you don't like Waters? Perhaps you'd call her "lazily seething, simpering, facile, would-be-elitist, smug, effete, and disingenuous"?

The keyword is not dowager, it is "queen" and the primary inference (among many) that most readers will draw is that Waters is royalty, upper crust, elite. Combined with Flanagan's description of Waters as the founder of "an eatery where the right-on, 'yes we can,' ACORN-loving, public-option-supporting man or woman of the people can tuck into a nice table d’hôte menu of scallops, guinea hen, and tarte tatin for a modest 95 clams-wine, tax, and oppressively sanctimonious and relentlessly conversation-busting service not included."

Alice Waters: elite, liberal - whoops, looks like I got the order wrong - liberal elite.

Personally I thought that was at least slightly malicious so I googled for "liberal elite" and found the Wikipedia article as its top link describing "liberal elite" as "commonly used with the pejorative implication that the people who support the rights of the working class are themselves members of the upper class, or upper middle class, and are therefore out of touch with the real needs of the people they claim to support and protect." See (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_elite#United_States)

So I disagree with you regarding Sam's "subjective" example - it's rather obvious once you boil down Flanagan's subtle hints and digs at Waters that Waters is just another one of those liberal elite - and therefore you shouldn't trust anything she's working towards.