Greed Capitalism, Civil Democracy, and Public Education

Extreme polarization in American politics has become the norm, and it’s wreaking havoc on public education.

The old labels of conservative and liberal must be set aside. “Conservatives” are intent on conserving nothing. These so-called conservatives—at least the most ardent of the tribe—are actively working toward resegregation of U.S. society not only along racial and ethnic lines but also along economic lines. The destruction of public education is one way they are trying to achieve it. This objective can best be characterized as an iteration of greed capitalism. The philosophy is not “I’ve got mine, you get yours” but rather, “I’ve got mine and now I want yours.”

Greed capitalism is rooted in fear, and there’s been plenty of that to go around. Although the 1990s brought nearly a decade of growth and prosperity, that happy time was disturbed as the world moved with mythic anxiety toward the turn of the century. Y2K was a boogeyman. Much of his boogeyness was steeped in a deep distrust of technology. The Digital Age didn’t arrive like the rosy-fingered dawn. It raced in with bells, sirens, and flashing lights. If you were content to live in some prior misremembered Golden Age, say, the Fifties, such a clamor represented a threat that, for all its subsequent banality, seemed all too real to many people at the time. New technology then and still today raises the fear of change.

And then, of course, there was the all-too-real assault on U.S. sovereignty of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Given a political hysteria already stoked by other forms of fear, it was no surprise that overreaction was the order of the day. Two ill-considered, illegal, and largely unnecessary wars torpedoed prosperity and plunged the country into massive debt, while policies favoring greed capitalism set America up for the economic knockdown of 2008, just when the country ought to have been recovering from its excess of imperialism.

So-called liberals experienced a fleeting resurgence in Barack Obama’s politics of hope, which were a reaction to the then-dominant politics of fear. But the 21st century’s not-so-great depression put some holes in hope, and the election—and reelection—of a black-identified President, of course, fueled the poorly concealed racism inherent in greed capitalism.

Today’s liberals would have been middle-of-the-road conservatives in those golden Fifties. A virulently radical rightwing cadre under the big tent of putative conservatism has dragged the entire body politic to the right. If there are any ardent leftists remaining, they are plowing their organic fields well away from the fray. If true, honest-to-Eisenhower conservatism has been subverted by the radicalism of greed, then true FDR liberalism has been subverted by apathy and, ironically, a reemergent sense of hopelessness.

The American Founders, by and large, well understood the dangers of absolute democracy, such as strict adherence to majority rule. A tyranny of the majority has always been a real threat. Democracy in the New World could succeed only on the basis of a social contract: government for the common good. Of the people, by the people, for the people—accent on for. This is the essence of our civil democracy—not socialism, as rightwing critics accuse.

A cornerstone of the common good has been, since near the beginning of our nationhood, public education. Truly public education is premised on notions of equity and equality. The common school is a reification of the common good, providing everyone the opportunity to achieve success and prosperity to the extent of his or her abilities and efforts. In attending to the common good, the Founders were focused on the notion often expressed in the cliché about a rising tide lifting all boats. When all prosper, the nation prospers. When prosperity is privileged, the nation falters.

Rightists give a wink and a nod to “democracy,” “Christianity,” and other wholesome notions and, in so doing, have hoodwinked a substantial segment of the population into believing that what’s good for the rich is good for everyone. Gold-enthroned televangelists have nothing on these purveyors of the greed-is-good philosophy, for whom there is no common good. Common is for commoners. Greed capitalists are creating an aristocracy of wealth. In 21st century American politics money rules wherever good people have been fooled into voting against their own best interests, something you'll never catch a greed capitalist doing.

So where does that put public schools? Smack in the middle. They are the red flag at the center of the rope in the socioeconomic and political tug of war, pulled this way and that. Adherents of the Founders’ vision of democracy tempered by social conscience are fighting to retain public education as the means by which the American dream can be realistically offered to everyone—no exceptions.

Greed capitalists and their dupes are pulling hard in the opposite direction, using vouchers, charters, and “choice” sound-good rhetoric (and accompanying legislation) to ensure a permanent, and growing, economic underclass—serfs for the aristocracy. The gulf between the wealthy and the impoverished in the United States is astonishingly large in comparison to other nations in the developed world. America has now become a shining example not of democracy realized, but of democracy imperiled.

Those who believe in the American Founders’ vision of a social contract, of the common good, of a land of opportunity must grasp their end of the rope and tug with increased fervor. Make no mistake, the opportunists of greed are doing just that from the opposite direction. The battle to keep universal public education public is a battle to save American democracy.

The Tea Party and Civic Education

Make no mistake: The Tea Party is not Republican. It is a separate, anti-democratic, anarchist faction. The characterization is mine, although at least the first part is broadly shared. According to a Pew Research study*, “47% of the public says they think of the Tea Party movement as separate and independent from the Republican Party, while somewhat fewer (38%) say it is a part of the Republican Party, and 14% do not offer an opinion.” Even among the rank and file, “more Republicans view the Tea Party as a separate movement from the GOP (51%) than as part of the Republican Party (32%).”

In terms of civic education, the Tea Party provides examples of how radicalism can derail democracy. Tea Party initiatives deform our otherwise nearly universal understanding of democratic governance for the common good. Some of this faction’s actions undermine the ideal of the common school as an entity, and most Tea Party initiatives contribute to students’ misunderstandings and confusion about how American democracy is supposed to work. But there are some useful lessons to be learned in all of this.

Every political party is composed of an informal coalition of relatively likeminded individuals and groups. However, the coalition of the Tea Party and the Republican Party more closely resembles the type of coalition found in parliamentary democracies. Governing parliamentary coalitions often are composed of parties that, under other circumstances, would not share the same room. If the Republican Party, as some of its members aver, is operating from a “big tent” philosophy, then the Tea Party is setting fire to its corner of the canvas.

As bad examples go, the recent cliffhanger over government funding was a doozy. Tea Party radicals essentially held the Republican Party, the federal government, and, by extension, the American people hostage to the point of forcing a government shutdown in an attempt to defund what amounted to a small portion of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare). In so doing, Tea Partiers cost U.S. citizens and businesses billions ($24 billion according to Time), rather ironic considering the Tea Party platform is all about decreasing taxes, saving people money, and saving people from “big government.”

The government shutdown, any defensive rhetoric to the contrary, was wholly driven by this radical faction. Consequently, support for the Tea Party has declined. However, because the Republican Party has embraced, at least putatively, its radical rightwing brothers and sisters, the GOP has been tarred with the same brush. This does not bode well for midterm elections, where Republicans are likely to face stiff opposition in all but the most ardently conservative districts.

A couple of civics lessons in this national debacle should not be lost. (It was a debacle, though it could have been a greater one—with even more dire international consequences—had not a last-minute deal been brokered.) First, obstruction is not governance. The exercise of democratic governance requires finding common ground in pursuit of the common good, not clinging obstinately to an ideology with citizens, nation, and world be damned. Second, holding the nation hostage in an attempt to force on everyone the faction’s narrow ideology ultimately is a counterproductive strategy. In our democracy, fortunately, wiser, or at least more moderate, heads eventually prevail; and radicalism harms not only the larger society, and often the people in support of radicalism, but also the radical cause itself.

In Federalist No. 10, James Madison addresses the dangers of factions. Now might be a good time for students both young and old to read or reread this brief.

While conventional wisdom is that the Republican coalition cannot succeed without pandering to the Tea Party faction, it might also be a good time for thinking conservatives to rethink that position. By cutting loose the Tea Party, mainstream Republicanism might be revived by drawing back into their “big tent” those moderates who have defected rather than be held hostage by radicalism. This would not be a bad thing. It might well provide a lesson in how to reposition a party using reason in place of ideology.

* “Tea Party’s Image Turns More Negative,” Pew Research, October 16, 2013.

Time to Grade the School Board?

The following, written with co-authors Phil and Joan Harris, appeared as a guest column in the Bloomington, Indiana, Herald-Times, on October 9, 2013.

The 45th annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools was released recently. The annual poll is one way of “grading” our nation’s public education system according to the public it serves. A majority of the public (58%), for example, rejects using student test scores to evaluate teachers, and even more (78%) aren’t convinced that increased testing helps school performance. The poll is a thoughtful, well-researched, respected mechanism for gauging what the public thinks is right and wrong about America’s schools. Too bad we don’t have a localized tool to do the same.

Indiana instituted an A-to-F grading system for schools that proved to be corruptible. Even before the Tony Bennett grade-changing scandal, the best that could be said of this “system” is that it fails to say anything meaningful about the quality of public education. It is simplistic and mischaracterizes school quality.

The A-F scheme merely tells us what we already know—and ignore—about the effects of poverty on education. Researchers have identified common poverty-related factors that significantly affect children’s health and learning, and thus limit what schools can accomplish. Factors include inadequate medical, dental, and vision care; food insecurity; and substandard living environments. These and related factors correlate to many poverty-induced problems that children bring to school and manifest in issues such as attention disorders, absenteeism, linguistic delays, and bad behavior.

Given what we know and ignore about the influence of poverty on student academic growth and graduation rates, the A-F scheme has the effect of holding down those whom it purports to lift up. “Failing” schools almost invariably have large numbers of students from impoverished backgrounds. Such schools often are not failing but merely fighting an uphill battle that cannot be easily won.

Let’s admit, then, that grading schools in this way is really about labeling communities and keeping the poor in their place. Ask any realtor whether an F school is likely to encourage higher home prices. The effect of A-F labeling—not actually evaluating—schools simply stamps “POOR” on the neighborhood and perpetuates problems.

What can we do? Maybe it’s time we evaluated our local school trustees. We might choose to evaluate them simplistically, the way the A-F system does schools. We could use superficial factors, such as meeting attendance, number of school visits, minutes spent with administrators, and so forth. Or we might model our evaluation on what we have learned really matters in public education:

• Does the school board evaluate this community’s schools based on this community’s values, needs, and circumstances, rather than generalized, simplistic state criteria?
• Are school board meetings truly open, and are community members encouraged to participate meaningfully? Do our school trustees really listen and respond?
• Do our school trustees work with education experts to understand programs and projects fully in order to allocate public dollars where they are needed and will achieve real results?
• Is professional knowledge and public input the driving force behind school board decisions? Do school trustees set politics aside?
• How is our school board working to change bad education policies—national, state, or local—that negatively affect our children and their teachers?
• What is our school board doing to mitigate the effects of poverty in the schooling of our children? Are our school trustees honestly working to level the education playing field?

These are tough evaluation questions. They are not yes-no, check-the-box questions that are easy to answer but tell us nothing we don’t already know. We, the public, want real answers. The only way to get them is to ask real questions.

Competition Is Harming Our Schools

The predominant theme in our education system has been—and is—competition. Schools in one neighborhood are compared to schools in another, town against city, state against state, and our nation against all others. Often such comparisons are ill conceived and without merit. Nevertheless, the idea that competition is good is conventional wisdom. Policymakers at every level promote competition, embedding it in the very language of policy. “Race to the Top” is a prime example.

However, that phrase and the concept behind it are incompatible with a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats philosophy presumed to be foundational in American public education. Horace Mann, the “father of American education,” believed that the common school would be the “great equalizer.” That ideal has yet to be realized.

Politicians and policy leaders prize the sentiment. The titling of No Child Left Behind bears witness. But NCLB rhetoric rang hollow from the beginning. No broad-based, legitimate effort has been made over the past three decades and more to address affirmatively the fundamental public education goals of equality and equity, regardless of rhetorical pandering to these notions by pundits, politicians, and policymakers of every stripe. Public schools today are more poorly funded than ever, the gap between haves and have-nots has widened, many schools are experiencing resegregation, and the culture of competition ensures that the education playing field will never be level.

Technology is inextricably intertwined in today’s education. From the federal office to the local classroom, from attendance software to apps on students’ tablet computers, technology is integral to schooling at all levels. Technology proponents, echoing Horace Mann, have envisioned technology as the “great equalizer.” Often, to the contrary, education technology is being coopted to serve the national mania for competition. The use of technology to support testing based on the Common Core State Standards is an example.

Sarah Irvin Belson, dean of the American University School of Education, Teaching, and Health, recently commented, “If reformers were interested in making real change, they would address the real issues that underpin the school quality, such as increasing teachers’ professional authority and encouraging high quality curriculum and instruction (note that standards do not equal curriculum). Current school reformers (including the current secretary of education, Arne Duncan) are focused on a misguided principle that competition and disclosure can be a powerful tonic for school improvement.”*

All available evidence points in precisely the opposite direction. Unbridled competition is harming our schools and the children they serve.

(*Quoted in Valerie Strauss, “Is Competition in Education Killing Our Sense of Community?” Washington Post, June 17, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/17/will-competition-in-education-kill-our-sense-of-community/)

A to F: Failing Our Schools

The best that can be said of awarding A to F grades to schools is that this so-called system consistently fails to say anything meaningful about the quality of public education. It is simplistic and vastly mischaracterizes school quality. A lot worse can be said, too.

The claim, still on view on the Indiana Department of Education website, that this spurious system is a “model [that] holds schools and corporations to higher standards and provides a more accurate picture of their performance by incorporating student academic growth and graduation rates, as well as college and career readiness, as measures of success” is sheer nonsense.

For the most part, the A-F scheme merely reifies what we already know—and ignore—about the effects of poverty on education. Researcher David Berliner*, for example, identifies common poverty-related factors that significantly affect children’s health and learning, and thus limit what schools can accomplish: 1) low birth weight and nongenetic prenatal influences; 2) inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, often because of little or no medical insurance; 3) food insecurity; 4) environmental pollutants related to substandard living environments; 5) family relations and family stress; and 6) neighborhood characteristics. These factors correlate to many poverty-induced physical, sociological, and psychological problems that children bring to school and manifest in issues such as attention disorders, absenteeism, linguistic delays, and bad behavior.

Given what we know and ignore about the influence of poverty on “student academic growth and graduation rates,” the A-F scheme is draconian, having the effect not of improving schools but, to the contrary, holding down those whom it aims to lift up. So-called failing schools are almost invariably those with large numbers of students from impoverished backgrounds. Ask any realtor whether an F school is likely to encourage higher home prices. Go ahead. Ask. The effect of labeling—not actually assessing the quality of—schools as “failing” simply stamps “Poor” on the neighborhood. And that’s the way the corporatist bureaucrats want to keep it.

This is important stuff: the manipulation of public education to serve the ends of corporatist greed and societal stratification under the guise of “improving” education. Indeed it was important enough for Indiana’ previous schools superintendent to falsify the grade given to a supporter’s charter school, changing it from a mediocre (and thus unacceptable) C to an A. What are friends for if they won’t lie for you, even if it results in a subsequent scandal and job loss?

Let’s admit that grading schools is really about labeling communities and ensuring that privileged enclaves remain exclusive and about keeping the poor in their place.

*David C. Berliner. “Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success.” National Education Policy Center, March 9, 2009.