Peter Levine

Evaluation requires resources, may be even an organization. That goes beyond the capacity of any blogger.

I wasn't thinking of formal evaluation (with pre-test and post-test data, control and comparison groups, random assignment, etc). Valuable as true evaluation is, it's beyond the range of a blogger. Instead, I meant eye-witness descriptions of programs, site visits, interviews with practitioners and beneficiaries, and informal evaluations.

That is still a lot of work that will take a lot of time. Spending time requires at least a paycheck.

Well, you have people like Rivka, Tough on Crime May 21 post (advocating a high-risk parental support program that seemed very effective as prevention) here - http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_respectfulofotters_archive.html#10851428414919547 - but I could swear (but not find URL, sorry) that there was a news report in last month or so that a similar program (or same?) was evaluated and not found to be effective.

In general when judging the efficacy of social work by the writings of social workers I'd guess that there will be a lot of noise (i.e. not clear signal), given that the writer will be someone with a personal (emotional) vested interest in focusing on the positive.

Not to disparage Rivka, who is good. I particularly liked her "hey, look at all the white people" post on New Urbanism here - http://respectfulofotters.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_respectfulofotters_archive.html#107962181803907750

On the other hand, see the bottom of this (June 17) post on canvassing for nonprofits. Sad.

Thanks for the link to "Respectful of Otters"; it's just the kind of report we need. The author is a "psychologist working in HIV research and treatment in the inner city"--in other words, a leftist blogger who's actually on the front lines, keeping her eyes open, learning from experience.

The link in Anna's second post is to a disgruntled former PIRG canvasser. I like and work with the national PIRGs. This particular blogger sounds a little untrustworthy to me. However, there are valid criticisms of canvassing as a form of civic and political engagement. CIRCLE is funding a researcher to interview a random sample of PIRG canvassers; we'll see what it shows.

The key is to find your community. The only way to attract the bigs is to link to one of their posts, call them a moron, and then switch gears and talk about what you want to talk about.

Peter --

I think some of your observations here may be part of a wider trend. Please forgive me for using a David Brooks-sized paintbrush here.

I suspect that much of the left half of the 'sphere is populated by upper middle class social liberals who think economic conservatism is immoral. Many of them/us have at least a minor interest in law (particularly appellate law -- which is much more an academic legal exercise than practical one) or macroeconomics. So it's those issues that get the focus rather than actual tangible social work.

Someone on the sphere -- I forget who -- made the point that a number of bloggers think the center-left should form an alliance with libertarians. But the libertarian class is mostly white upper middle class who stands to gain almost nothing from improved government social policy, and furthermore is ideologically opposed to its existence. The socially conservative/moderate working class, on the other hand, has lots of economic motivation to vote Democratic.

So social work, like union issues, often get the short shrift in favor of more abstract discussion.

I might add that between poor foreign policy and a lack of effort on the right to engage in any substantive discussion on domestic policy, discussions on how to make domestic policy work better seem ... quaint.

Peter,

I've responded to you, but basically I agree with praktike.

http://www.bopnews.com/archives/000940.html#940

Praktike,

You never come by anymore. We're sad.

I want to apologize for saying (above) that the blogger who criticized the PIRGs (his name turns out to be William Gillis) "sounds a little untrustworthy to me." I really had no basis for that remark, and Gillis later sent me a nice and interesting email. He has a valuable blog. He and I agree that one person's take on the PIRG experience proves nothing by itself; nevertheless, his testimony is surely sincere.

-- Peter

I can't access the Williams Gillis blog (url won't work), so I don't know if I'm repeating someone, but my personal experience as a canvasser for a PIRG was hell. I worked throughout the summer of 2003 and when I totalled my earnings over the time I spent, I basically made $3.60 an hour. They hired me as a "field manager" but that didnt mean I needed to be more creative or intelligent, that just meant they expected my to work longer (unpaid) hours. This was a job that was supposed to pay for my living expenses and the apartment I sublet.

We did street canvassing, so that meant I had to approach people on the street (read: they were trying to go somewhere else) and ask them to become members of PIRG. Becoming a member entailed giving me their credit card information... how many of you would give that out to someone on the street? Yes, I was paid on comission. Only 10% of one-time cash donations, and about $40 per member I signed up. I counted myself lucky if I got one member a day. I would lead a group of about four people out onto the streets, for six hours everyday. We weren't supposed to have a lunch break. We were told to bring lunches and eat them on the bus. I, as "field manager," usually let people have a lunch break anyway, but if a director accompanied us, we had to work solidly for the entire afternoon.

By the way, you were fired if you didn't meet a certain weekly quota. 4 members a week, no exceptions. No questions asked. Didn't matter how long you had been with the organization. "Buh-bye," was all you got. So you can imagine there was a fairly high turnover rate in the office. I met at least 15 new people each monday and more than half of them were gone by thursday. So, every day I had to come in at 8 a.m. and spend two and a half hours training the newcomers on our issues and "the rap," by which I mean the rehearsed sales-pitch you had to give to prospective donors on the street. If you didn't memorize the rap (word for word) they would fire you. We were told not to tell anybody anything that wasn't in the rap, or to ever express our own opinions. In addition, I also had to work at least 2 hours afterwards filling in information into the PIRG database.

You weren't allowed to take days off. If you didn't work five days a week, you would be fired. If you were sick, or had a prior engangement, you had to work weekends to make up for it. PIRG would not give me the Monday off on the Fourth of July weekend so that I could visit my grandmother, even though at that point I was their most senior student employee.

Sometimes I tried to be active in other PIRG activities besides canvassing. One day I spoke at an EPA convention on diesel fuel, and another time I helped organize a press conference on merucury in a local lake. Even though I worked all day in those instances, PIRG still made me come in on the weekend and canvass, to make up for the days I had "missed."

I am an undergraduate at the number one liberal arts college in the country. I wanted to work for PIRG because I had this idealism that the work I did that summer would make a difference. Instead I felt bitter and tricked. I could barely pay my bills, I had to quit the rugby team I joined, and I was too exhausted after a day of work to even enjoy myself. I was treated as if I had absolutely no qualifications, when in fact I'm an environmental studies and political science double major. I felt like I could write an expose about how shitty this activist group treated its workers.

I will never work for or contribute to PIRG again, and this past school year I was influential in kicking MASSPIRG off of our term bills and out of our campus.

They need to make a lot of changes if they ever want to be considered a viable "public interest" group.

-J