Weekly Briefing

Hard economic times ought to be a wake-up call – not an excuse to cut

There is an old bumper sticker that’s familiar to most Americans who’ve driven through an elementary school parking lot at some point in the last few decades. It goes something like this: "Wouldn't it be great if our schools had all the money they needed and the Army had to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber?"

Setting aside for a moment the fact that some families of soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were reduced to holding bake sales to buy body armor for their loved ones during the early years of those conflicts, the point of the bumper sticker still resonates. Ultimately, what a society accomplishes in any particular area is a matter of what it chooses to make a priority – with its energy and with its money.   

Throughout much of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, the United States led the world in universal public education. While other nations reserved education for select groups, the United States pursued a different model. Here, just about everyone, with the glaring and unpardonable exception of many children of color, had access to basic education.

The results of this commitment paid dividends for many decades: in economic dominance, scientific breakthroughs and overall societal health and well-being. Similar patterns have occurred within the U.S. itself as some states invested heavily in education and thrived while many others scrimped and suffered the consequences.

Diagnosing the decline

Now, of course, America (and even some of its more successful states) have seen much of their advantage in this area gradually slip away. While most of our students are still doing relatively well, our lead over the rest of the world has melted away and large groups of American kids (and adults) are struggling mightily – to the detriment of all.

How could this be so? Is it a matter of low standards? A decline in the emphasis on reading, writing and mathematics? Poor teachers? Drugs?  TV? Video games? Education bureaucracies? Permissive parents? Integrated schools?  One need only examine the lengthy list of education bills introduced in the North Carolina General Assembly (or any other legislative body) each year to understand that there are as many “magic bullet” prescriptions for what ails education as there are elected officials (and probably more).

The problem with almost all of these prescriptions, however, is that they seek to treat the symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem. Ultimately, what ails American schools is not sloth or permissiveness or a lack of some secret technique or new innovative breakthrough. What ails our schools is (as the “bake sale for bombers” bumper sticker neatly summarizes) a lack of overall societal commitment. American schools are not what we would have them be because we simply have not invested enough energy and money in them.  

As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted last week:

"If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be “education.” In the 19th century, America led the way in universal basic education. Then, as other nations followed suit, the “high school revolution” of the early 20th century took us to a whole new level. And in the years after World War II, America established a commanding position in higher education.

But that was then. The rise of American education was, overwhelmingly, the rise of public education — and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered."

The reality that faces America’s modern education system today is this: our decades-long obsession with low taxes and no-cost “solutions” like high stakes testing and privatization has finally taken its toll.

What’s more, in a time of national economic downturn – a time in which our economy is suffering mightily for a lack of smart, inventive workers that could help lead us back to prosperity – the nation is cutting its investments in education.

According to the same Krugman column, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 29,000 jobs were lost last month in state and local education. Here in North Carolina, we are witness to the same phenomenon as state budget cuts have led to larger class sizes and reduced instruction budgets. Poorer overall results are sure to follow.

The waste issue

Opponents of significantly increased education spending argue that a state can’t spend its way to education success. According to this point of view, we waste far too much already on expensive education bureaucracies and any big increases are sure to be frittered away.

But this logic flies in the face of our experience in myriad areas.

Is there a significant amount of waste in America’s military expenditures?  Of course. Bureaucracy and wasteful spending on the military are as old as civilization. It will always be a phenomenon that deserves aggressive attention. But does this fact of life mean that Americans shouldn’t do whatever it takes to have the best and most advanced defense systems in the world? Most people would say “no – certainly not.”

There are numerous other examples where we have decided that potential losses to waste and inefficiency simply shouldn’t dissuade us from doing whatever it takes to be the best – whether it’s in the construction of physical infrastructure like roads and highways, exploring outer space, combating disease, or bailing out the nation’s banking system. In these and many other areas, Americans have long adopted the attitude that falling behind is simply unacceptable. While we remain vigilant and devoted to the cause of stretching our dollars, in the long run, we have decided that the substantive objective must come first.

Going forward

And so it clearly must be with public education. Unfortunately, this is not now the case. Indeed, at a time of profound national challenge – a moment at which enormous global forces like the climate crisis, demographic shifts, political and ethnic strife and a rapidly evolving economy threaten American prosperity and stability – the notion that American states like North Carolina are cutting their investments in education is a scandal of immense proportions.      

Think about it for a minute: Right now as you read this, thousands of teachers throughout North Carolina are attempting to cope with the effects of more crowded classrooms, reduced budgets for materials and activities and increased testing and paperwork demands. Not surprisingly, their students are suffering.

And for what reason? So that we can place more pressure on education administrators to reduce inefficiency? So that we can make sure that none of our school facilities is overly luxurious? So that North Carolinians of means can pay 7% of their income on state and local taxes combined rather than, say 9 or 10%? What kind of society makes such short-sighted decisions? 

The answer to this final question, it seems, is increasingly apparent: it is a society comprised of people who are much more concerned with the size of their cars, homes and bank accounts in the present than with the long-term well-being of their children, their country and their planet.     

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Weekly Briefing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.