Unlike David Brooks, I don’t believe that Education is The Biggest Issue – as he conceives it, anyway. Brooks says, “America’s lead over its economic rivals has been entirely forfeited, with many nations surging ahead in school attainment,” because of an “educational slowdown” around 1970, which resulted in too few skilled workers to meet the demands of a surge in technological progress. “The relatively few skilled workers,” he says, “command higher prices, while the many unskilled ones have little bargaining power.”
But isn’t that what unions are for? Bargaining power?
From Schools as Scapegoats (Mishel and Rothstein, 2007):
Statistically, the falling real wages of high school graduates has played a bigger part in boosting the college-to-high-school wage ratio than has an unmet demand for college graduates. Important causes of this decline have been the weakening of labor market institutions, such as the minimum wage and unions, which once boosted the pay of high school–educated workers.
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What made semiskilled manufacturing jobs desirable was that many (though not most) were protected by unions, provided pensions and health insurance, and compensated with decent wages. That today’s working class doesn’t get similar protections has nothing to do with the adequacy of its education. Rather, it has everything to do with policy decisions stemming from the value we place on equality. Hotel jobs that pay $20 an hour, with health and pension benefits (rather than $10 an hour without benefits), typically do so because of union organization, not because maids earned bachelor’s degrees.
Brooks, who believes the “skills gap” is widening inequality, and that “Boosting educational attainment at the bottom is more promising than trying to reorganize the global economy,” wants to sidestep labor market and economic policy solutions to what he implicitly recognizes as the bigger problem – the global economy – by calling on schools to crank out more skilled workers. For what? For a shrinking supply of “knowledge worker” jobs.
Using the college “wage premium” as the sole factor to explain a widening gap between the poor and the affluent is easy. But then, that’s the point, isn’t it?
The Wall Street Journal provides a concrete example of the Declining Value of Your College Degree.
Mishel and Bernstein, writing for the Economic Policy Institute, explain that “…wage inequality is driven by a slew of factors, of which differences in education is but one.” Other factors include trade deficits and globalization that send manufacturing jobs overseas leading to the loss of good jobs for non-college-educated workers, declining union representation, and unemployment.
I’m all for “boosting educational attainment” in whatever form that may happen to take, which is why I was intrigued by Brooks’ mention of “Schools, Skills, and Synapses” by James Heckman [pdf]. Heckman discusses how cognitive as well as noncognitive abilities affect our lives, and points out that differences between children from advantaged and disadvantaged families appear early in life, pointing out that education policy is largely directed toward improving cognition, but (no surprise to most of us) “…more than smarts is required for success in life.” He claims that gaps in noncognitive and cognitive abilities can be traced to adverse early environments, and that “A greater percentage of U.S. children is being born into adverse environments.”
I and most teachers, I think, have long observed that many learning difficulties seemed to be linked to domestic home-life problems, and that there are a lot more of them than there used to be. So, the good news is that there is research to support this observation.
The bad news is that the longer we wait, the more expensive and difficult it is to effectively manage these problems, which is why Heckman and Brooks both advocate early intervention. In the meantime, we deal with the fallout in our classrooms. Brooks calls it “human capital development,” an outrageous term that reduces students to an economic commodity and belies his concern for our collective well-being. He believes that “America rose because it got more out of its own people than other nations.” How narrow-minded can you get?
What are some of the noncognitive skills Heckman identified? Well, they include physical and mental health, perseverance, attention, motivation, and self confidence. Every one of these is within a teacher’s realm of responsibility, and worthy in their own right, regardless of whether they enhance a person’s economic worth. In fact, attention to these human qualities sets great teachers apart from the clinicians. They’re impossible to test for, and they aren’t called upon until their exercise is required, but they are the foundation we need to build, and build upon.
Raising the bar, making school more rigorous, banging the drum for accountability, none of theses can begin to make a dent in the life of a kid who locks herself in the bathroom at night to hide from her mother’s boyfriend.
13 Comments
That last line is the one that got me. As a teacher, that troubled kid is the one I most want to reach. Personally, for that child, I don’t even care if she gets “good grades” or improves on her tests. For her, more important things take up her time. In some neighborhoods, you get a class full of kids like this. If they cannot transcend their circumstances, learning is impossible.
Truly, what is the best interest of the kid? Getting a “C” in Language Arts, or finding out that she is worth something, and someone cares about her, and that not all adults are out to get her?
Fell over this research report just after reading your provoking post Doug …
I think you will find the validation of some of the ideas you raise and an extension of them …. both sad and valuable .. Externalities in the Classroom: How Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Affect Everyone’s Kids
The comments on the research findings are also revealing …
I agree, Emily, that making a personal connection with kids is often the most helpful thing we can do. One of the complicating things we run into is that we usually don’t know which kids are having this kind of personal trouble since that information is confidential. Sometimes it takes a while to piece it all together.
And Artichoke, you’re right. That research report is sad. And valuable. Several years ago I asked at a staff meeting whether the school district would disaggregate test results for domestic violence victims, since all the students in my class who scored below proficient that year had family histories. I got a few raised eyebrows, and the principal just said, No.
The idea that these students affect the learning outcomes for others in their classes makes me think a little more about the concept of “failing schools.”
hi doug,
Would like to discuss some of these issues in more detail – just a few brief thoughts initially:
** it seems that you feel that Brooks lacks heart and understanding but yet in some respects you agree with his analysis or at least find it ambiguous – perhaps self serving(?) – personally I don’t have much problem with what Brooks says (or Friedman who is saying something similar), there is much truth in their analysis, but it is (as you might be suggesting) very much about “saving america, no broader internationalist concerns
** unions, IMO, don’t carry “the solution” either, their brief is to serve their members, eg. teachers first, not the interests of the most dispossessed, disadvantaged children; hence your rebuttal to Brooks in this regard does not actually serve your broader argument that we should be doing much more for the most disadvantaged – unions by and large do not do that anymore, they are just as self interested as other organisations
** globalisation does lead to more skilled jobs globally – so yes, Brooks is a narrow minded nationalist but he is being logical. I think you are incorrect to say there is “a shrinking supply of “knowledge worker” jobs”
Sorry to be so brief, I will try to take up some of these issues in more depth. Thanks for link to the Heckman pdf, much to think about there.
Bill,
Brooks’ view of school as “human capital development” (and free market ideology generally) seems callous and inhumane to me.
Maybe we can/should make a distinction between unions and collective bargaining, recognizing that unions suffer from the same shortcomings as any social organization with a hierarchical structure. Without collective bargaining, how are working people going to protect themselves from the power of capital? Is it right to pay people less than a living wage?
You’re right; there may not be a shrinking supply of knowledge worker jobs, but the ones that pay well are going away – outsourced, just like manufacturing jobs did.
Education, I believe, is still a necessary but perhaps no-longer-sufficient means toward social mobility, and economic security.
I believe that education is the solution.
Doug,
I couldn’t agree more. You might be interested in a similar post I had on my blog, “Sorry, Barack, but teachers aren’t the saviors you think they are . . .” and Stephen Downes’s response on his blog, “Education, Equity and the Family.”
Thanks for your hard work!
jhc
Like Emily, I was really struck by the last line. It seems to so clearly explain many of the issues facing education today. We expect the schools to fix everything while there are things beyond their control. We can do as much as possible for these children and they will still spend most of their time in environments that are detrimental to their physical and mental health.
Interesting. You were so close to the crux of the problem…. yet you missed it.
Schools are the problem. Teacher’s UNIONS are a significant part of that problem and are the main stumbling block to a better education.
Coldfoot, re. teacher unions:
You gotta be kidding me. They couldn’t do a study comparing union schools with non-union schools?
To get the results they wanted they had to make up some phoney criteria of “strongly teacher unionized” states? Then make a big deal of better performance on certain tests?
Seems to me that simply asserting, “Schools are the problem. Teacher’s UNIONS are a significant part of that problem…,” without evidence or rationale, is about as weak an argument as anyone could possibly make. What’s the point of having a such a discussion? It’s pointless.
RE: ColdFoot and Doug Noon
I work at a private Jesuit High School and even though we are private about 30% of our students qualify for free or reduced lunches. We have a suition system called fair share, in a nutshell tuition is based on family income. It isn’t a perfect system but it does give us some socio-economic diversity that rivals the local public schools. Within our province, we are considered the blue collar school of the Jesuits. Even in this economic time we are seeing high numbers applying to our school. Obviously we receive students for many reasons– religion, academic excellence, and one that has become a rather significant reason the No Child Left Behind Act. As a private school we an an entry exam therefore we are exempt from the standardized state test that students are required to take in order to graduate. More and more parents in our area are opting to register their students in a private institution to bypass the state standardized testing. We believe in rigor– 98% of our students go onto a four year college after graduation– but we also practice what the Jesuits call “cura personalis” which is caring for the whole of the person. We have many students who come from dysfunctional and broken homes as well as students who come from well to do families who have available to them all the means possible and are well taken care of; where they are on the spectrum has no bearing on developing in them a sense of accomplishment and self-worth. It doesn’t matter if these students can create a Power Point project or post to a blog. Students graduate from our school with the knowledge that people care about them. This is action that reverberates througout our community as students become alumni.
Did I mention we have an association? Technically not a union but we do have representatives that negotiate for our wages and benefits as well as other issues– the same issues that any school whether private or public share. Our salary is at the 98% of the public schools within our state so we are by no means in it for the wage. What keeps us is the closeness and support of the community and the privilege of working with such wonderful students. To say unions are the problem in education is simply ingnorance. It is the unions and associations that maintain the balance between faculty and administration. The bearing on the actual students learning is inconsequential.
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[...] 8, 2008 Thanks to Doug over at Borderland for the tip to Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein’s excellent article Schools as [...]
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