Reader Anonymous, responding to my critique of Brooks' column, suggests I may have gone a little astray in my thoughts on this issue. Anonymous writes "the point of this article is not “why fund schools when it is one's place in society that really determines a kid's future?” Rather, the point is why continue to throw money at a problem when more money has clearly not led to a sustainable solution."
Brooks was trying to point out that there is more to educational achievement than simply going to a school that is funded really well. A student's habitat has an undeniable effect on how that student does in school. That I will not dispute. What I will dispute is that everything has been done within the school to act as a counterbalance for what the student sees on the outside of the schoolyard. Pre-school funding has been cut, before-school activities have been cut, after-school activities have been cut year in, year out. In many places the school offers nothing more than a building one goes into for seven hours a day. Yes, students must be primed to learn, but without proper funding, a school is just a building.
Both Anonymous and I agree that "education is...the silver bullet," but s/he thinks that social problems can't be fixed by "throwing money" at the problem. Certainly public money should be spent wisely. All officials should spend money wisely and with discretion and indeed money probably shouldn't ever just be thrown around. While money should be spent wisely, it should also be spent fairly. The local property tax issue I raised in my post is still valid. Prestigious school districts are always in prestigious and exclusive neighborhoods. You can't say that doesn't have something to do with how much funding they get from their local property taxes. Reports of outdated textbooks, old (or non-existant) science equipment, no music or art facilities -- these are not problems that plague rich, suburban school districts. These are problems faced by all of the other schools districts out there.
After a certain level, education spending will bring few rewards for the extra spending (diseconomy of scale, right?). But, can anyone reasonably argue that every school is at that top level, especially in areas of blight and deprivation?
Brooks was saying that rich students are outpacing poor students, thus catapulting themselves to financial security and relegating the latter to serfdom (making the American dream harder to realize). But he goes on to blame the serfs for their serfdom. They live socially dysfunctional areas, their families are falling apart, how can they learn in school? I agree with that, to a point, but we aren't talking about a level playing field here at all. I had plenty of friends who had dysfunctional families or grew up with a single parent. Want to know something? They ended up going to Ivy League schools, prestigious state and private schools, and most of them did really well and are doing great things with their life.
Oh yeah, and my school district spent the second highest amount on its students in the entire state.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
The Sticky Ladder -- by David Brooks: a response
I'm always a little wary of Brooks. He always comes out of the gate and says something intelligent, and I say to myself "Am I reading this right? Does he appear to be turning into a sensible person?" I am always disappointed by the end of his piece and this column is no different.
Brooks seems to think that "there are some indications that it is becoming harder and harder for people to climb the ladder of success." Really? Who told him so? The Economist, that's who. And, those living in Europe, a continent which "[seems] more class riven and less open," are just as socially mobile as we are in the United States. Gasp. This is a problem for him. The US should be about social mobility, a place where the next generation is better off than the previous.
I'm glad that he is pointing this out, but he sure is underselling the argument. Differences between quintiles have been growing for decades now, producing not so much an underclass of perpetually poor, but an overclass of perpetually wealthy (although to really see the effect, quinties are too broad -- it is best to look at the differences in wealth from percentile to percentile). Some people are wealthy enough to shut themselves off from normal society. People who don't rely at all on normal government social programmes like schools and medicine, let alone welfare and social security. It is these people that the current deregulatory push is aimed at pleasing.
But, the rich are running away with the show. According to Brooks, there is a causal link between the family income and childhood education. Rich kids, say Brooks, do better because they have more money to spend on, say, a Harvard education. Those kids will inevitably do better in life than their poorer counterparts who, say, went to the state university. In turn, the kids of Harvard grads will do better than the kids of state schools graduates, and so on.
All of this comes clumsily to a point at the end, when his true intent is revealed: "We can spend all we want on schools. But if families are disrupted, if the social environment is dysfunctional, bigger budgets won't help." Meaning, of course, why fund schools when it is one's place in society that really determines a kid's future?
So, he is really invoking a favorite argument -- breakdown of society/family. He drops the name of James Coleman, who wrote some very influential sociology/rational choice/economics pieces during the last part of the 20th century. Coleman wrote on social capital. Social capital, defined in varying ways, generally means the value of the social connections between people, which helps the mechanisms of society function smoothly. One could, with some necessary qualifiers, boil it down to "it isn't what you know but who you know." Old boys networks are rich in social capital, as are block clubs and church groups. In a way, gangs are rich in social capital, but they use that capital for ends, which are generally at odds with the rest of society. The ends of the capital must be defined for social capital is the same as monetary capital -- it can be used to purchase anything.
Social capital is not necessarily related to ones income. Just as one cannot form a tight bond with ones neighbor when one works two minimum wage jobs, a bankers who logs 80 hour work weeks can't really pop over for a cup of tea. The effect is widespread across the US; it prompted Robert Putnam to write a book titled Bowling Alone, because of the steep drop-off in bowling league attendance, and indeed all civic participation, across America. (Although Putnam deems pop culture to be the main culprit.)
The guy working two minimum wage jobs probably doesn't live in a rich NYC suburb or on the North Shore of Chicago. And, where education is concerned the banker would probably have to send his or her kids to the local public school, if better private option were available. The struggling worker has no option but the local public school.
So social capital can't be used as a scapegoat for poor performance. How much should schools be funded, I can't say, but it certainly can't be in relation to the surrounding society.
That, of course, brings me to an even larger problem – the fact that most public schools are funded by local property tax. Rich kids in rich schools live in rich neighborhoods while poor kids go to poor schools and live in poor neighborhoods. Maybe that imbalance should be addressed as well as Brooks’ perceived social breakdown.
I agree with him that the lack of a rigid class structure is good. We have no defined royalty, and we don't go around referring to someone as Lord This, Lady That or Sir What’s-his-name.
Indeed the irony of the US is that because we all have the idea that we could one day be multi-millionaires, we don't want to tax those who already are, lest we be taxed one day at that same rate.
Brooks seems to think that "there are some indications that it is becoming harder and harder for people to climb the ladder of success." Really? Who told him so? The Economist, that's who. And, those living in Europe, a continent which "[seems] more class riven and less open," are just as socially mobile as we are in the United States. Gasp. This is a problem for him. The US should be about social mobility, a place where the next generation is better off than the previous.
I'm glad that he is pointing this out, but he sure is underselling the argument. Differences between quintiles have been growing for decades now, producing not so much an underclass of perpetually poor, but an overclass of perpetually wealthy (although to really see the effect, quinties are too broad -- it is best to look at the differences in wealth from percentile to percentile). Some people are wealthy enough to shut themselves off from normal society. People who don't rely at all on normal government social programmes like schools and medicine, let alone welfare and social security. It is these people that the current deregulatory push is aimed at pleasing.
But, the rich are running away with the show. According to Brooks, there is a causal link between the family income and childhood education. Rich kids, say Brooks, do better because they have more money to spend on, say, a Harvard education. Those kids will inevitably do better in life than their poorer counterparts who, say, went to the state university. In turn, the kids of Harvard grads will do better than the kids of state schools graduates, and so on.
All of this comes clumsily to a point at the end, when his true intent is revealed: "We can spend all we want on schools. But if families are disrupted, if the social environment is dysfunctional, bigger budgets won't help." Meaning, of course, why fund schools when it is one's place in society that really determines a kid's future?
So, he is really invoking a favorite argument -- breakdown of society/family. He drops the name of James Coleman, who wrote some very influential sociology/rational choice/economics pieces during the last part of the 20th century. Coleman wrote on social capital. Social capital, defined in varying ways, generally means the value of the social connections between people, which helps the mechanisms of society function smoothly. One could, with some necessary qualifiers, boil it down to "it isn't what you know but who you know." Old boys networks are rich in social capital, as are block clubs and church groups. In a way, gangs are rich in social capital, but they use that capital for ends, which are generally at odds with the rest of society. The ends of the capital must be defined for social capital is the same as monetary capital -- it can be used to purchase anything.
Social capital is not necessarily related to ones income. Just as one cannot form a tight bond with ones neighbor when one works two minimum wage jobs, a bankers who logs 80 hour work weeks can't really pop over for a cup of tea. The effect is widespread across the US; it prompted Robert Putnam to write a book titled Bowling Alone, because of the steep drop-off in bowling league attendance, and indeed all civic participation, across America. (Although Putnam deems pop culture to be the main culprit.)
The guy working two minimum wage jobs probably doesn't live in a rich NYC suburb or on the North Shore of Chicago. And, where education is concerned the banker would probably have to send his or her kids to the local public school, if better private option were available. The struggling worker has no option but the local public school.
So social capital can't be used as a scapegoat for poor performance. How much should schools be funded, I can't say, but it certainly can't be in relation to the surrounding society.
That, of course, brings me to an even larger problem – the fact that most public schools are funded by local property tax. Rich kids in rich schools live in rich neighborhoods while poor kids go to poor schools and live in poor neighborhoods. Maybe that imbalance should be addressed as well as Brooks’ perceived social breakdown.
I agree with him that the lack of a rigid class structure is good. We have no defined royalty, and we don't go around referring to someone as Lord This, Lady That or Sir What’s-his-name.
Indeed the irony of the US is that because we all have the idea that we could one day be multi-millionaires, we don't want to tax those who already are, lest we be taxed one day at that same rate.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Iraq the Vote
How nervous are you about Iraqi elections on Sunday? I am quite nervous.
But I can't decide what I should think about it.
If you are like me, you think democracy is good. It should be cultivated and it should be promoted... peacefully, that is. Promoting democracy through war is not at all akin to "you have to break some eggs to make an omelette." But, I digress, this was a discussion for, say 20 months ago.
So, yes, democracy is good. People must have a say in how they are governed and that say must be through direct elections. Having a set of laws is also good, a set, hopefully, that guarantees certain rights for everyone. Of course, what those rights turn out to be is yet another discussion (human vs civil rights, for example, or even a tertiary level of rights).
But, yeah. Those elections. Problematic, considering Zarqawi is intent on disrupting them at all costs. And, "disruption" is a euphamism for "killing many many people in a number of bloody, horrible ways." When democracy advocates of a poetic ilk say things like "marching on a path to freedom" I'm not sure glossing over the issue of "disruptions" does anybody any good.
So, what to do? Go ahead with them? Call them off?
If they do go ahead, I just can't see them being legitimate. The actual vote process may be within necessary parameters, but certainly many many people are going to be dissuaded from voting. Especially the Sunnis, who are expected to get a lashing anyway. Any good democracy must respect and protect the minority from majority tyrrany, but I fear a low turnout from a group who know they are going to lose.
But I can't decide what I should think about it.
If you are like me, you think democracy is good. It should be cultivated and it should be promoted... peacefully, that is. Promoting democracy through war is not at all akin to "you have to break some eggs to make an omelette." But, I digress, this was a discussion for, say 20 months ago.
So, yes, democracy is good. People must have a say in how they are governed and that say must be through direct elections. Having a set of laws is also good, a set, hopefully, that guarantees certain rights for everyone. Of course, what those rights turn out to be is yet another discussion (human vs civil rights, for example, or even a tertiary level of rights).
But, yeah. Those elections. Problematic, considering Zarqawi is intent on disrupting them at all costs. And, "disruption" is a euphamism for "killing many many people in a number of bloody, horrible ways." When democracy advocates of a poetic ilk say things like "marching on a path to freedom" I'm not sure glossing over the issue of "disruptions" does anybody any good.
So, what to do? Go ahead with them? Call them off?
If they do go ahead, I just can't see them being legitimate. The actual vote process may be within necessary parameters, but certainly many many people are going to be dissuaded from voting. Especially the Sunnis, who are expected to get a lashing anyway. Any good democracy must respect and protect the minority from majority tyrrany, but I fear a low turnout from a group who know they are going to lose.
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