Rick Wolff says that mainstream economics is ignoring one of the biggest casualties of the recession:
Capitalist crises, especially severe ones, are case studies in that system’s social costs. Because the dutifully conservative economics profession rarely studies such cases, let’s do just that here by focusing on how the current capitalist crisis is damaging public education. Deteriorating schools leave scars lasting for many years. They undercut the quality of the skills and knowledge of the next generation in their individual capacities as workers, citizens, friends, parents, and so on…
Politicians concerned about their careers dare not seek extra state revenues from the corporations and the rich. Instead they cut state services not favored by their patrons. Since children of the rich increasingly attend private schools or certain elite public schools, politicians end up cutting chiefly the public education that serves everyone else. As US corporations shift ever more skilled jobs overseas, they need fewer educated US workers…
Reacting to the economic crisis, both Bush’s and Obama’s administrations have allowed the state and local funding supports for public education to decline nationwide. Educational opportunities shrink as educational inequality rises. From coast to coast, most students’ job, income, and life prospects fall ever further behind those of children of the rich. The US government’s response to economic crisis might well be ironically renamed as “leave no banker behind.” Yet a collapsing public education system threatens society’s future no less than a collapsing credit market. A president who campaigned on a program of hope presides over its evaporation for most children.
Thanks for the post! I have some thoughts:
“Reacting to the economic crisis, both Bush’s and Obama’s administrations have allowed the state and local funding supports for public education to decline nationwide.”
With the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the public education sector received over $44 billion of additional funding. How can the addition of $44 billion to public education considered to “have allowed the state and local funding supports for public education to decline nationwide”? Public education has received unprecedented levels of funding from the Obama Administration and even from the Bush Administration, though it admittedly wasn’t to the tune of an extra $44 billion.
“Politicians concerned about their careers dare not seek extra state revenues from the corporations and the rich. Instead they cut state services not favored by their patrons.”
This statement also fails to be true. Here in Indiana, the biggest supporter of public education is Eli Lilly, and they have very corporate reasons for wanting better schools. Corporations have invested heavily in public education because they know that their vitality depends on a healthy, intelligent, and educated workforce. While some businesses do try to get workers from oversees, this is more complicated than appears. The basic tasks in a company (paper work, customer service, answering inquiries, etc.) can be outsourced. But the complex, value-add work can’t be sent to an overseas agent (as pointed out by Friedman in The World is Flat and many others since then), and it is precisely these tasks that drive the business and drive the corporation to greater profits and economic viability. Therefore, they are very interested in improving the quality of our schools, and they have put down the money to prove their interest. I would agree with you that their motives are self-serving (aren’t they always in business?), but their desire to improve themselves has caused them to invest in education, not to hire cheap labor for pennies in Bangalore, to create revolutionary an innovative product and services for our economy.
If you have any data or resources that refute these claims, I would be more than interested in reading them. This is just the reality of education as I see it as a member of the system for the past 6 years.
Anyone looking at public schools knows that they are in need of major repair, but it is false to say that President Bush, President Obama, and corporations are doing nothing about it. They are putting money to the problem, but we are realizing a simple truth: money doesn’t always solve problems.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Tony.
Regarding your first point, I think it’s hard to argue that the ARRA allocations and support to state and local govts have been adequate; teacher layoffs are happening everywhere, and Wolff cites CA and NY as examples.
As to your second point, I think Wolff goes out on a limb here. Even if it wasn’t in their interests to have strong public education, I’m not sure corporations see a direct enough link to neglect them as he says.
Finally, I agree that money doesn’t always solve problems. I’m also sympathetic to Jonathan Kozol’s arguments about underfunding education. That said, while I’m not sure if this is true statewide, in South Bend CSC, spending per pupil is equalized across schools and yet the results are quite unequal.
I appreciate the response.
I agree that layoffs continue to happen. We are experiencing them all over the district here in Indianapolis. But what needs to be done? If an investment of $44 billion (and now, the U.S. DOE says it is up to $70 billion) isn’t enough, then what is? Do they need another $10 billion? Another $50 billion?
I think this massive influx of money has shown one thing: many school districts are economic disasters. They are bathed in red ink and poor performance. This is, of course, not true of all schools. But if you are running a corporation that has received $70 billion, and you still cannot sustain your current economic model, something is severely broken!