writing paper
Chanel James
AnyonChp.3Excerpts4.docxAnyon, J. (2011). Marx and education. New York: Routledge.
[p. 67] Barak Obama, who campaigned on a platform of liberal-sounding change, has adopted an approach to the jobs crisis that is remarkably similar to that of conservative former President George Bush. That is, both regimes have counted on education to solve the problems of unemployment and increases in poverty.
This chapter argues that Race to the Top, and its antecedent No Child Left Behind, are policy substitutes for economic reform—reforms like the creation of good jobs for low and middle income workers, including the requirement that employers pay decent wages, provide health care, and pensions.
Employers big and small would find these requirements onerous, as such legislation would decrease the decision- making freedom and the profits of business. Moreover, economic reforms like these are often (wrongly) labeled ‘socialism’ by conservatives, to forestall their enactment. [p. 68] Neither Democratic nor Republican administrations seem willing to fight for economic reforms that would substantially benefit low and middle income employees. Instead, education reform replaces needed economic change…
In the Introduction, I mentioned that corporate and political elites often argue that education must be reformed because it is a prime determinant of U.S. economic competitiveness. While there is merit to the argument that education contributes to U.S. competitiveness, the main determinants of economic competitiveness are economic, not educational…In this chapter, I focus on a different assumption underlying NCLB and Race to the Top. This second assumption motivating the educaional policies is that more education will get a person a good job and thereby reduce poverty and inequality.
For example, former president George Bush stated that “The No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act, when you think about it” (Third Presidential Debate. Oct. 13, 2004). [p. 69] And the 2010 White House fact sheet for Race to the Top states that, “The reforms contained in the Race to the Top will help prepare America’s students to graduate ready for college and career, and enable them to out-compete any worker, anywhere in the world” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the- press-office/fact-sheet-race-top).
One assumption underlying these statements—that more education will get people jobs and therefore raise their standard of living and decrease poverty and inequality—sounds plausi- ble enough, given the fact that those with a college degree earn more than most who have only a high school degree. However, there are serious fallacies in the federal assumption, and I believe these fallacies are fatal to the utility of education as a replacement for the actual creation of economic opportunities.
The first fallacy of the premise is that for several decades now, more education and skills—that is, higher productivity— has no longer been rewarded with higher pay. American work- ers are more productive than they have ever been, primarily because they have more education and technological skills; but wages and salaries for most have declined. The late 1990s was the only period of broad-based gains for American low and middle income workers since the early 1970s.
American families typically lose ground during a recession. The first decade of the 21st century was not the first time that middle and low-income families lost ground in a recession, nor was it the first time that their losses continued after a recession ended. But before a business cycle ends—before the next recession starts—real median incomes usually start to grow and ultimately surpass their prior high. Yet, according to labor economists at the Economic Policy Institute, in this first decade of the 2000s, the longest jobless recovery on record [p. 70] damaged families’ earnings capacity, and increased inequality; moreover the growth that did occur by-passed low and middle income families, going to the top few of the highest earners, leading to dramatic increases in inequality (Mishel, Bernstein, and Shierholz, 2009).
The sharp rise of income inequality has contributed to the disconnection between productivity and broadly shared income gains. The most comprehensive data on inequality demonstrates an historic rise in inequality. Data on income concentration going back to 1913 shows that “The top 1% now holds 23% of total income, the highest inequality level in any year on record, but one: 1928. In the last few years alone, $400 billion of pretax income flowed from the bottom 95% to the top 5%, a loss of $3,660 per household in the bottom 95%” (ibid.,3). (Changes to the tax system under former President Bush have exacerbated the problem by lowering tax rates of those at the top of the income scale much more than those in the middle, or at the low end.) U.S. low and middle income job holders are relatively highly skilled; and they work more hours than in other advanced capitalist countries; but they are not being given the proceeds of their increased productivity.
The second fallacy in the assumption underlying NCLB and Race to the Top (that increased education and skill will be rewarded by better jobs and higher pay for most students) is that there are in fact very few jobs that pay well or that demand high cognitive and technological skills. The jobs the U.S. economy has been producing for the last few decades are primarily poverty and low-wage jobs (low-wage being income slightly above the poverty level). The economy creates relatively few highly paid positions—making it increasingly less certain that more education will assure that work pays well…
[p. 76] I have alleged that NCLB and Race to the Top are federal legislative substitutes for policies that would actually lower poverty and inequality—legislation that would create jobs with decent wages and benefits for those who do not have them. My critique has been that an assumption underlying these policies, that increased educational achievement will ultimately reduce poverty, does not prove valid for large seg- ments of the population. I want to make a further point here.
If businesses were mandated by law to create jobs for those who need them—and if businesses had to pay decent wages and benefits—the costs to business owners would be enor- mous. As we know, neither small nor large corporations pay such costs now. Instead, the costs of the poverty produced by insufficient and poorly-paid employment are passed on to the [p. 77] tax-paying public in the form of programs to compensate: public tax dollars pay for welfare, food stamps, the costs of incarceration, and Medicaid—among other publicly-funded programs that attempt to ameliorate the individual and social pain of unemployment and underemployment (see Anyon and Greene, 2007).
When the federal government and the business communities rely on education to reduce poverty, the social costs of the failure of such an approach are enormous, and taxpayers shoulder the burden… [p. 78] … public funds subsidize the research and develop- ment, technology, infrastructure and education that the corporate community says it needs…NCLB and Race to the Top are part of this process of social- izing the costs of poverty. When the Acts assume—even implicitly—that poverty is a result of low scores on standard- ized tests, rather than a result of the fact that there are not enough decently paying jobs, it lets the business community off the hook. It saddles the poor with unrealistic expectations and the rest of us with unwitting support of corporate irresponsibility.
Instead of the federal attempt to use standardized testing, merit pay, and charter schools (all required by Race to the Top) to fight poverty, I would suggest (in addition to the cre- ation of good jobs) two education policies that might provide [p. 79 ] traction in assisting low-income students in their efforts to climb the socioeconomic ladder.
First, as I have already mentioned, the U.S. should fully fund and otherwise support all low-income students who are accepted by a college or university. Rewarding Strivers, edited by Richard Kahlenberg (2010), provides details on ways some universities are already assisting low-income students. These schools could be models for federal support. In addition, there is a historical precedent for funding the post-secondary educa- tion of those who cannot pay. After the Second World War, the federal government funded the education and support of over 8 million returning soldiers and their families. I see little reason we could not do the same for our college going low-income youth today.
