EduShyster celebrated Black Friday not by shopping but by thinking about ways that Walmart could really make a difference in the lives of children.
For example, it could provide their parents a living wage and decent benefits or allow them to join a union.
Instead, the Walton family is a big funder of charters and vouchers and other aspects of the conservative reform movement to privatize public education and break teachers unions so that teachers can be treated like Walmart employees.
Walmart is one of the most data-driven organizations in the world. It practices “just-in-time” inventory and outsources its manufacturing wherever wages are lowest.
That may be its model of school reform.
Read her post to see which “reform” organizations are on the Walton/Walmart payroll.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Walmart family has been seeking to privatize our public schools for many, many years.
I was talking the other night with a friend of my son’s, they’re 20-1 years old. My son’s friend’s dad is a die hard union guy. His mom has worked at wallyworld for 18 years (He thought that was strange but I guess love conquers everything, eh). Anyway, his mom had never received a bad evaluation, had never been written up. Now that she is getting close to retirement the management has started to nit pick her, writing her up for any and everything they can. Bottom line-get rid of them before they retire.
And check this out on Schools Matter: Walmart “Associates” and Charter School “Scholars”.
Excerpt and full link:
By the way, calling children “scholars” in these lockdown hellholes is the equivalent of calling the exploited minimum wage workers at Walmart “associates.” Give me a break.
Here is a piece from Timothy Noah at the New Republic blog that exposes another of the thousands of corruption stories unfolding within the charter reform school industry:
In government, if I help myself to taxpayer dollars, we call that embezzlement and I go to jail. In the private sector, if I help myself to taxpayer dollars, we call that innovation and I get hailed as a visionary exponent of public-private partnership. That’s the lesson of a Nov. 17 investigation by Anne Ryman of the Arizona Republic into the state’s charter schools.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/11/walmart-associates-and-charter-school.html
Add “barista” to that list of bloated misnomers. Starbucks pays their counter help about $8.74 an hour.
Here’s a list of more corporations that exploit their workers which should be boycotted: http://www.alternet.org/story/156390/7_ultra-rich_companies_rake_in_profits_while_paying_workers_peanuts?page=0%2C3
At least Starbuck’s provides reasonably priced health care benefits and only the hourly workers (not store managers etc) share in the tips (which in some stores can be sizable!).
Or, I should say that is the way it was when my partner worked for them while in college.
As far as college jobs go it was a good deal.
Of course if you are successful, all those employees will lose their jobs. They will likely find work again at even lower wages.
Can’t get lower than minimum wage –which is the going rate at most of those companies anyways, since the corporations refuse to give rank and file employees more than what the government demands.
It should be a three pronged approach: boycott, pressure politicians to support labor (or vote them out) and unionize workers.
Every public school teacher in our country should stop shopping at Walmart NOW!
Never shopped there. Never will.
I stopped a year ago, but imagine if all public school teachers and their families no longer shopped there EVER again.
Same goes for me.
Why are these corporations so civic minded? I can only guess.
My guess is to lower education cost, so taxes don’t go up. Therefore, government will be less hard pressed to tax corporations more.
On the surface, that idea sounds good, but most corporations don’t show a profit in this country where they have to pay any tax. Or am I wrong?
Walmart’s Christy Walton sent big bucks to right-wing darling and public school opponent Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
http://walmart1percent.org/2012/06/04/christy-walton-sending-big-bucks-to-right-wing-darling-and-recall-target-scott-walker/
Wow, isn’t she kind and thoughtful? Why don’t these people spend money on people who are actually in need? Can you imagine the lives they could change? I see stories every day of people who are suffering. Do they even do anything to help these people?
I would like to point out that the places where wages are the lowest are the places where poverty is the most desperate.
Seems like a natural correlation. Your point is…
My point is that Dr. Ravitch included manufacturing where wages are lowest in a way that suggested to me that she was critical of that practice. In fact it is the best hope the world’s poor have for a better life.
If only it was so noble an idea rather than a way to enhance profits. I bet some of the Walmart associates could do those manufacturing jobs as well. I understand there are no easy answers, but the Waltons are not trying to create a better world with their educational philanthropy. They are trying to push their vision of a better world, which from all measures appears to require a large number of poorly paid peons.
But that is the beauty of the market. We do not need to depend on anyone being noble, but still end up saving tens of millions out of poverty.
That’s satire, right?
Uhhh, and that’s why there is no poverty in the U.S.?
Compared to rural China? Compared to rural India? Compared to where my foster son was born? The US has no poverty.
When kids go to school with preventable diseases or don’t own needed glasses then American has a poverty problem.
I agree that there is a poverty problem in the US, just not when compared to rural India or China. There children do not go to school at all.
Why would we want to compare the almighty USA with those tinpot countries like India or China?
Tell all the families of the dead Chinese workers at Foxconn who committed suicide that our manufacturing jobs are good for wrestling them out of poverty.
The six Walton heirs hold more wealth than 42% of our nation: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/07/walmart-heirs-waltons-wealth-income-inequalitys while their employees are paid so low that many are on Food Stamps: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/10/1141724/-Walmart-fuels-inequality-epidemic-taking-advantage-of-our-safety-net
Boycott Walmart!
“But that is the beauty of the market. We do not need to depend on anyone being noble, but still end up saving tens of millions out of poverty.”
…and as consequence driving many into poverty here in the U.S. What used to be living wage jobs here are turned into low wage jobs overseas. In their drive for profits, they promote the creation of a minimum wage labor force that has no benefits and no collective bargaining rights. We have been there, done that, and seen what it does. It is wrong.
There is no doubt that allowing the poor in China and India to produce things for the US market hurts those that produce here. I would not agree with you that giving households in China or India enough income to feed their children is wrong.
Companies that move to third world countries are just as likely to screw over their workers as they are in American. And by dropping in on an established agrarian/semi-skilled economy they stuff that up as well. When they leave town because they’ve found somewhere cheaper to produce their goods the net benefit is negative.
The employees always have the option of staying in the village and making mud bricks for twelve hours a day.
So cold and cruel, TE, cold and cruel.
All prostrate themselves before Mammon!!!
I am starting to think TE is Bill Gates. All data, numbers, linear thinking and no heart or compassion for others unless something directly affects him or his family….kind of aspergersish.
” I would not agree with you that giving households in China or India enough income to feed their children is wrong.” Huh? I believe that it is clear that I was speaking of the consequences to the labor force here in the U.S. But I forgot, capitalism knows no country and and is the benefactor of whoever is poor enough to be willing to work in a sweatshop. No wonder, so many wealthy plutocrats are anti-union. They dream of being robber-barons in the days when workers were just “human” capital. China must just send chills down their spines. Think of all those willing worker bees. Why there are so many of them they are practically disposable! That should solve their population problem.
“If you are not allowed to purchase goods or services produced by people outside the United States, clearly people in the United States are better off. Just as clearly, people in Bangladesh are worse off.”
I was not aware that there were only two choices: to buy or not to buy goods and services from another people. (I do not think we have developed an optimum model if there is such a thing.) Countries have always recognized a need to protect their self interests. As much as we would like to pretend so, we are not a global society. We far too much disagreement within countries. That is not to say we can’t practice, but colonialism has certainly demonstrated the need to guard against strangers bearing gifts.
You do sound like perhaps you have not decided whether the U.S. is home, which would explain your attitude a bit. It is not in your bones, yet. You would not see it as a betrayal for American corporations to divest themselves of most everything American but consumers. They’ll cut those ties, too, as consumer markets grow elsewhere.
The United States is defiantly home for me, but that does not mean that I value the life of a child in Burkina Faso so much less than I value the life of a child in Tulsa Oklahoma.
“We far too much disagreement within countries.”
Perhaps “We disagree far too much within our own countries…” would work better.
You can not divorce the consequences for workers in the US from the consequences for workers in other countries. If you are not allowed to purchase goods or services produced by people outside the United States, clearly people in the United States are better off. Just as clearly, people in Bangladesh are worse off.
You are correct that my ethics give equal weight to a child in Bangladesh as a child in the United States. Perhaps that comes from my being first generation here or my foreign born foster son.
I totally agree. There is not a single person on this earth who got to choose where he or she was born – what country, financial status, or family situation. I work with so many children that I admire simply because they got to school today. They are survivors and I am going to do my very best to make sure they have the best day they can have everyday they make it to school. Hopefully all of us will sustain them through their years with us and prepare them for better things.
Must chime in here: I watched an excellent documentary last night (Netflix): Surviving Progress based on the book A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright. It is entirely relevant to the topic at hand, particularly the counter-intuitive comments of teachecon.
I highly, highly recommend this film!!
Here’s a link: http://survivingprogress.com/
I am very curious about how my posts could be counter-intuitive. To old to teach finds them obvious.
I follow this blog daily but only for a month or so now. I am extremely concerned with the education issues discussed here. I am however puzzled the anominity of “EduShyster”. As a librarian, I teach my students to assess the validity of a website. There is nothing on the EduShyster site that identifies the person or persons behind the content. It is disconcerting to not have authority established on the ES site when so much is put out there on this(DR) site and the ES site about the corporations and individuals who sometimes fund or otherwise support the charter school movement and their possibly hidden motives.
I am learning a lot that supports my thoughts and feelings about where things are headed in the education sphere. Having more insight into who is behind (as in behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz) the well researched ES blog would perhaps allay any reservations about its validity.
As a librarian you will have come across countless books where the author is unknown. This can be for political reasons – the people in power don’t like your gender, your sexuality, your religion or your views or it can just be for privacy. This doesn’t mean that what they write lacks veracity.
It means the reader has to judge the information by what is written not by the standing of the author. As a librarian this ought to be a snap.
mpledger – as a librarian very little is a “snap”. An unknown source is simply that – unknown. Unknown sources abound in news media and their statements are often taken for fact. Again, if one is putting something out there in an informational context without identifiable authority, the content does lack some verasity. Understandably ES has an agenda that is biased and with which I often agree but because of the hidden nature of the writer(s) it doesn’t pass the sniff test.with me. I am able to recommend DR’s blog because her credentials are displayed. The ES blog while well written would come with a caveat: let the reader beware.
However, very often, she links documents, videos, agreements…check out today’s post about a charter in Gloucester, MA and a “donation”…just read the links alone and you make up your own mind. I could say the same thing (your post above) about our corporate owned newspapers…so they have a reporter named..big deal..they spin, they obfuscate and they lie. I have more faith in Ed Shyster to get some news rather than Fox News, Rupert’s rags or the NY Times.
FYI
Listen to Act 2 of “This American Life” and decide if names on newspaper articles mean anything at all
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/468/switcheroo
Remember, some people stay anonymous because they could lose their jobs if they became known. The ed reform movement has many super wealthy and powerful individuals involved. I would remain anonymous too. I am glad edushyster exists.
Just want to remind everyone that a certain Walton (Jim) who was–or still is (he was supposed to have been leaving)–the President of Worldwide CNN–was behind Diane’s ambush interview, the praise of Rhee, and the erasure of Ravitch Blog readers’ & other supporters’ negative comments on the Randi Kaye interview and positive comments & support for Diane. In addition to never shopping at Walmart, I have also boycotted CNN ever since the interview & its aftermath.
CNN is awful. They put out so much charter garbage propaganda
Teaching Economist is entirely right, of course, in his analysis of the effects of moving jobs overseas on the labor markets in the US and abroad. But for us educators, that isn’t really important. It merely explains why the Walton’s are so supportive of rephorm interests.
The industrial economy is dead in the US. Very few highly-paid low-skill jobs exist anymore in America, and the few that do will disappear soon as the market is glutted with low-skilled workers. The kinds of schools that are the darlings of the rephormers (like the Waltons) are preparing kids for a future that will only exist in places like Wal-Mart, where compliance is valued above nearly anything else and critical thinking and creativity are feared above nearly anything else. Think about it. What sort of job does endless test prep., school uniforms, being kicked out for having your shirt not tucked in etc. prepare you for? Not one at Google or Facebook, that’s for sure.
Seth Godin has a lot of good thoughts in this area and his recent TEDx talk does a good job of highlighting this: http://youtu.be/sXpbONjV1Jc
I liked how the video said that 75% of kids were not proficient in reading. What does that mean? All they’ve done is stated where the cut lines are in the norm-referenced test the kids took.
What most people seem to be confused about is the fundamental purpose of public education. And no it is not to provide worker bees for those who would exploit them. See the following response I wrote to a statement by Diane of the purpose of public education:
“What is the primary goal of education? To assure that the younger generation is prepared in mind, character and body to assume the responsibilities of citizenship in our society.” Not quite. There are thousands of missions statements out there, probably at least one for every district and school and more likely than not those are “secondary” statements. What is the primary goal of public education? And where can it be found?
To answer the second question first, in each state’s constitution in the article that authorizes public education. So in essence there are 50 different goals/purposes although I suspect that they are similar in nature to what Missouri’s constitution has to say: Article IX, subsection 1a: “A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the general assembly shall establish and maintain free public schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this state within ages not in excess of twenty-one years as prescribed by law.”
I’ll let you decide what “A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people. . .” means. But I do not see anything about “preparing students to assume the responsibilities of citizenship”-whatever those “responsibilities” may be. We have assumed a purpose that may or may not be in concert with what the constitution says so I have concerns with these mission statements that go beyond the basic purpose as delineated in the constitution.
Now the “prescribed by law” part can be a problem in that some laws made may be unconstitutional, e.g., segregated schools. And I believe that when we sort and separate students using grades and standardized tests [which are the main tools of the rheeformers/privatizers] to name a couple of nefarious practices, some of whom then receive rewards funded by the state-scholarships, special treatment, awards, etc. . . , or vice versa, are sanctioned, not getting scholarships, held back, not given a diploma but a certificate of attendance, etc. . . , then we, the public schools are discriminating against a certain class of student, those who through no fault of their own (in essence like skin color) don’t “live up to the standards”. And in doing so we are contravening the fundamental purpose of education and causing harm to some students.
Sorry, I don’t see why you can’t connect the dots. To me, “the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people” is integral to “the responsibilities of citizenship,” and also consistent with Jefferson’s statement, “Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.” I think Diane’s definition is right on target.
Prof W.
My line of thinking is that we don’t know what the “responsibilities of citizenship” are whereas the rights and liberties of the people are pretty much spelled out in the constitution. Please explain more about those said responsibilities as I don’t see the connection.
The meaning of “‘responsibilities of citizenship” to me hints at demands on the individual that may or may not be congruent with “the preservation of the rights and liberties. In the first it is others who would determine those responsibilities whereas in the latter it is the individual. (discounting of course Foucault’s notion of ‘power’ being at the interstices of our very being). Your quote of Jefferson I think speaks to my notion of the individual being able to determine his/her own sense of liberty.
Duane, I recalled reading more detailed explanations of the purpose of education and the responsibilities of citizenship by Diane, so maybe I just filled in the blanks. I searched and found it this,
“The purpose of education is to develop the mind, heart, character and health of the rising generation so that they will be ready to sustain and improve our democracy.”
That’s located here: https://dianeravitch.net/2012/06/20/how-are-police-like-teachers-these-days/
I believe I’ve read more from Diane regarding this matter, too, but am unable to locate it right now.
“Walton’s” in my previous comment should be “Waltons”. I hate it when people use apostrophes improperly.
May I recommend a little video that seems appropriate to our discussion here?
Try the Story of Stuff…very gimlet eyed take on consumerism, our sourcing, free market, etc. Well researched, sources sited.
I use it with my students during our Ecology unit.
They love it.
http://www.storyofstuff.org
Wow, I can’t type.
Or proofread.
OUT source
cite source
MY bad.
Sources cited – yay!!!
This is one store I NEVER shop in. How can they treat their workers with such disregard? No shame at all!
To mpledger,
I will check out the link and I didn’t say there isn’t any merit to a reporters name attached to an article. It just doesn’t in itself imply research or that they are not being used for a purpsoe…remember Judith Miller, Iraq war, NY Times??
Also Ed Shyster always includes links to videos, meeting minutes, local BOE videos, contracts, etc…just reading those provides documentation that the newspapers do NOT provide.
I agree that the ES site is well documented. I just find it a bit odd that the writer(s) are willing to “out” the large corporations and rephorm backers but unwilling to take credit or responsibility for doing so. Clearly there is great intellectual fodder and information available on the site but it’s as if the ubitquitous “they” are presenting it. For example – They say climate change is a myth or they say climate change is escalating… Who is the “They” we are all supposed to believe?
Maybe the Waltons will want to send some of their billions to these families in Bangladesh…looks like we are back to the days of fires in factories and trapping in workers (The Triangle Factory Fire in 1911).
Will we find the ages of these workers?
At least 117 killed in fire at Bangladeshi clothing factory
The country has about 4,500 garment factories that make clothes for stores including Tesco, Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney, H&M, Marks & Spencer, Kohl’s and Carrefour. The sector earned $19 billion this year as of June.
The state-run news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha recently reported that some 6,000 people die every year in fires in Bangladesh.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/25/world/asia/bangladesh-factory-fire/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
So glad you found a good link. I thought teachingeconomist would be interested in seeing how well the poor workers in Bangladesh are cared for by American corporations. I guess they won’t be feeding their families anymore, will they. Is the the kind of job we need to be training our students for?
Oh yes, compliance above all else…no creative thinking please…just follow orders, choose the correct bubble, tuck in your shirt and sit up straight…these are scholars, you know.
And as we have been told over and over by TE it is so much better to be poor in America…they don’t even know how good they have it. Walmart will even help them fill out their food stamps forms….so so charitable and kind.
On a serious note…God bless those killed and injured in this fire and pray for their families.
Let us take a look at what has happened in Bangladesh over the last twenty years:
Life expectancy at birth 1990: 59 2010: 69
Infant death per 1,000 1990: 97 2010:37
Child death per 1,000 1990: 139 2010: 46
Maternal death per 100,000 1990: 800 2010: 194
Female literacy (15-24) Rate 1990: 38% 2010: 77%
Underweight Children 1990: 62% 2010: 36%
According to The Economist, the only comparable increase in human health occurred in the late nineteenth century in Japan. The empowerment of women is a big reason for this stunning increase in health. How did they become empowered? Well, take a guess about who works in the garment industry.
The posters on this blog may be comfortable turning the clock back to a time when traditional agriculture dominated Bangladesh. I am not that cruel.
For now I will think of and pray for the ones who died in a factory fire making cheap crap for Walmart and other corporations who could care less about their workers. You keep searching for stats.
It is sad that you do not see in these numbers the joy that a mother feels when her child does not die, the husband who does not lose a wife in childbirth, the girl whose world opens up because she can read.
Let me add a video by a statistician: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoKfap4g4w
Please TE…get over yourself…we are not imbeciles. I can read and interpret. You always redirect the issue being discussed to some stat or your personal situation. People died in a factory fire in the year 2012 making cheap crap. Stick with that fact. Oi vey!
How is life expectancy in Bangladesh not relevant to life in Bangladesh? How is infant mortality irrelevant? Maybe you should try asking someone from there if it is relevant or not.
Who are you talking to? I see no post that deals with your questions of relevancy.
I was replying to Linda where she said I was redirecting the issue.
I am slightly familiar with some of the aid efforts in Bangladesh. Emphasis has been placed on upgrading healthcare, nutrition and education. There has also been a concerted effort to empower women economically and not by putting them in sweatshops run by American corporations.
You underestimate the crushing poverty in rural areas of the developing world. People work in the garment industry because it is the best alternative they have. I would not take that away from them.
I am not opposed to the garment industry as you well know. I am opposed to American corporations producing goods under working conditions that would not be allowed in this country and should not be allowed anywhere.
You wish to substitute your judgement for their judgement, and would condemn them to the far worse traditional agricultural life.
TE, you are quite clever at hearing only what you want to hear. Try not to put words in other people’s mouths. I understand someone who has no other choice taking a position that is from where they stand a step up. The fault lies with the corporation that takes advantage of that desperation and does not provide decent working conditions. You and I both know that corporation will be off to the next third world hell hole if the living standards rise to a point where the people feel justified in demanding better treatment and wages. They see these people as cheap, disposable labor and nothing more.
Yes they will, and it will make life better for those people as well.
Except for all the collateral damage, like the 117 people killed in yesterday’s horrendous sweat shop fire and each of their family members.
You are MUCH more cruel than you think because you are supporting the inhumane practices of America’s robber barrons, who enter foreign markets solely for the purposes of exploiting poor workers and the lax laws of their countries, and you are presenting that as if it is THE solution to eradicating poverty.
Industrialization is the only solution that has ever worked on a large scale. Again, if people are choosing to work in a garment factory, it is because they think the alternative is worse.
Being burned alive in a building with locked exits, fake fire fighting equipment and managers who send employees back to work when fire alarms are sounding, so they can meet their quotas, is probably not what people in Third World countries envision when they consider working in corporate America’s manufacturing plants.
Instead of applauding these barbaric work environments and holding them up as the savior of Third World countries, you should be raging against the injustice and fighting to uphold the human rights of all laborers.
Industrialization that exploits labor, places workers at risk of death, rapes countries of natural resources and contaminates their land with toxic waste and is not a humane, civilized solution to ending poverty.
We know a hell of a lot more today than people in the Industrial Age did and you should know better as well.
Sorry, those narrow columns to the right which make each post look like an e.e. cummings poem are just too difficult to read. What I wrote in reply to TE was this:
Being burned alive in a building with locked exits, fake fire fighting equipment and managers who send employees back to work when fire alarms are sounding, so they can meet their quotas, is probably not what people in Third World countries envision when they consider working in corporate America’s manufacturing plants.
Instead of applauding these barbaric work environments and holding them up as the savior of Third World countries, you should be raging against the injustice and fighting to uphold the human rights of all laborers.
Industrialization that exploits labor, places workers at risk of death, rapes countries of natural resources and contaminates their land with toxic waste is not a humane, civilized solution to ending poverty.
We know a hell of a lot more today than people in the Industrial Age did and you should know better as well.
At the risk of mimicking e. e. cummings, I wanted to thank you for getting my objections all in one posting. All of these capitalist robber barrons who are lending us their expertize to advance education into the 21st century might try some of their 21st century management skills themselves. If Bangladesh is the best they have to offer, the world is in big trouble.
Thanks, 2old2tch. Yes, I agree. Corporate raiders who continually demonstrate that they don’t care about the suffering they cause to humanity (or even acknowledge the damage they do to our planet) should be the very last people to whom we entrust our children.
Your position would condemn the people of Bangladesh to a miserable existence in a feudal agricultural sector.
Here is a question I ask my students: would you be willing to implement a simple policy change that would save over 30,000 lives a year in the US? Just drop the speed limit on all roads to 5 miles an hour. No lives would be lost at those speeds. Many don’t believe it to be worth the cost, but perhaps you do.
Your position condemns people to live a life of servitude in industrial hell holes. Tell the people of Bangladesh who’ve been raging in the streets today that sweat shop workers don’t deserve intervention on their behalf.
Ecnomists like you cannot solve the problems of humanity because you see everything in the shades of money.
Perhaps you missed the two thirds reduction in infant mortality rates and the three quarter reduction in the maternal mortality rate. The currency of the economist has nothing to do with money, the currency is lives saved and improved.
You provided no research base indicating a causal relationship, but even if there is, just think how many more lives could be spared if women and men worked in healthy environments.
Your currency is cash, because it would cost corporations to provide safe working conditions and equitable pay to Third World laborers and you are not advocating for anything like that.
“Your position would condemn the people of Bangladesh to a miserable existence in a feudal agricultural sector.”
No, your position assumes that industrialization has to be brutal. We have learned better ways to industrialize that do not involve a repeat of our own horror stories. Of course, the “captains of industry” wouldn’t be able suck out quite so much wealth for themselves.
FYI: We can walk five miles an hour.
I thought people would like the protection from the rain, but if you want we could ban all other forms of transportation other than walking. Many lives would be saved.
I do not assume industrialization need be brutal. In fact it must be less brutal than the lives people live without it or people would not choose to work in an industrial setting. Wages and working conditions will improve quickly, but only if industry has a chance to grow. If you say that a seedling is not good enough and demand it be ripped from the ground, the people of Bangladesh will never get to rest in the shade of the tree.
You are living in a time of in unprecedented reductions in poverty and increases in the quality of life around the world due largely to the expansion of the market economy around the world and the increased integration of national economies into world markets. Look around and appreciate what is happening out there.
Ugh, these one word columns! To repeat my response to TE in real sentences –and then I’m done with this conversation:
You provided no research base indicating a causal relationship, but even if there is, just think how many more lives could be spared if women and men worked in healthy environments.
Your currency is cash, because it would cost corporations to provide safe working conditions and equitable pay to Third World laborers and you are not advocating for anything like that.
You don’t understand how economists think about the world. Cash is nothing. Opportunity costs, the option given up, is everything.
I really don’t get you. Really, I don’t. I don’t know why you would even be interested in these topics. You comments are either out there or you beat a dead horse. I don’t want to go back and forth. I just don’t understand what point you are trying to make most of the time. I’m from Venus…you’re on a entirely different galaxy.
Linda,
I am interested because I have devoted my life to teaching. I have taught full time for 24 years, student taught for 5 more.
Well, there ya go, Linda. In what galaxy is student teaching five years long? Sounds like he was a TA in college and his experiece is in teaching college students, not children. No wonder he acts like he disdains P-12 teachers. Very different worlds.
I address everyone’s comments here seriously, never making any personal remarks or questioning anyone’s motivation. Can you give me some examples where I act as if I disdain K-12 teachers?
Linda was right, TE. We are from different galaxies. Economists pray at the alter of the almighty dollar, extoll the virtues of “free markets”, as if they are the answer to everything wrong in the world, even though they benefit corporate opportunists most, and they expect the common man to await trickle-down benefits from their corporate masters.
Most teachers are humanists, for whom the rights of people trump corporate profits. I beleive the best way to eradicate poverty is to pay workers a livable wage. You live in a very different world.
Again, you are confused about what economics is about. The classic three questions for economists are what we should produce, how we should produce it, and for whom it should be produced.
Perhaps you should read Krugman’s intro text. He is an economist often quoted with approval on this blog.
Again, economists lack humanistic priorities. People don’t matter as much as production does, which is why economists like Hanushek have been trying to determine the direction our schools take even though they know nothing about children or their educational and non-cognitive needs.
Perhaps you should deflate your ego and grow a heart.
“Again, you are confused about what economics is about. The classic three questions for economists are what we should produce, how we should produce it, and for whom it should be produced.”
Exactly. These are not the classic questions of a teacher.
We are actually discussing issues of economic development here, not teaching.
Right now, we are talking about how different mindsets, lead to different world views. You will notice attempts to tie these views back to education.
I don’t think we really have different mindsets. You are arguing that international producers in Bangladesh should pay workers more and provide safer/more pleasant workplaces because the workers will be better off.
I am arguing that if you increase the cost of manufacturing in Bangladesh, some producers will close because they can not make it with the higher costs, others will fire the least productive workers. The people who lose their jobs will have to find re-employment elsewhere, in situations that they had turned down when they originally took the manufacturing job.
My argument is that your policy will not achieve your goal of improving pay and working conditions in Bangladesh. Those that keep their jobs will be better off, those that lose their jobs will be worse off.
And those burned in a fire are gone! Poof!
Along with the over 30,000 people we allow to die in car crashes every year because we want to drive so very fast on the roads.
Such a compassionate comparison….you really should write for Hallmark. Feeling down in the dumps, depressed, suicidal? Here are some stats to cheer you up courtesy of TE. You must be a blast at a party!
Can anyone here actually address my argument rather than making claims about my lack of a heart? If I am right, you’re lice is likely to increase the number of traficed we on from Bangladesh. Please show me where I am wrong.
Reread your post.
I am sorry, but I don’t find this helpful. It seems to me that there may be two issues in my logic. First, the requirement of first world pay and working standards may not result in fewer people being employed in industry in Bangladesh. Second, even if there are fewer people employed in industry in Bamgladesh, they will get jobs that they preferred to their previous jobs.
Where do you think I made my error?
One or both of us need a good night’s sleep. I do not understand what you are saying.
Cosmic Tinkerer,
Goods and services are just some of the means to the end of enhancing human welfare. You may want to look into Amartya Sen’s work on the capabilities approach to measuring economic development. I think it might be adaptable as a measure for school performance.
The Wikipedia entry is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_approach
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry is here:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/capability-approach/
It makes perfect sense to bring the conversation back to education and highlight the differences between the world views of P-12 teachers and the mindsets of many economists, because it’s influential bean counters who have been attempting to set education policy across our nation (and spreading GERM around the world). It’s what has been extolled by economists from conservative think tanks that the Waltons, Gates, Broad, Rhee, etc., as well as politicians, refer to when trying to justify the kind of schooling they have decided should be mandated for America’s children.
It’s also economists who lend credence to the circuitious route that those with wealth and power have taken in regard to resolving poverty. The direct route would be for billionaires, who can well afford it, to pay their workers a livable wage. The route taken instead is to claim that education is the only way out of poverty –and then scapegoat teachers who supposedly prevent that from happening successfully.
The “classic questions” of economists may sound benign, maybe even altruistic, but they are far from that. They are about investments and return on the dollar for investers. Since the early 70s, the focus of Hanushek has been on what school districts “buy” from teachers, which he calls “inputs”, and what they get in return. The “outputs” for him have virtually always been students’ standardized test scores. Considering the man had over 40 years to examine the matter, remaining focused on test scores as outcomes makes little sense except when placed in the larger context of corporate employers that want rank and file workers who will tow the line and generate profits at minimal cost.
Educators are concerned with and value people, processes, as well as many more kinds of outcomes than “reformers”, economists, corporate leaders and politicians do. For example, the 40 year longitudinal research on the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project, which compared the efficacy of three different curricula on low-income preschool children, examined the impacts on education, economic performance, crime prevention, family relationships, and health over a lifetime: http://www.highscope.org/file/Research/PerryProject/specialsummary_rev2011_02_2.pdf
This study demonstrates the positive impacts of play-based curricula over direct instruction on young children over the course of their lives. However, in today’s climate of Common Core standards, Race to the Top, high-stakes testing, VAM, etc., which have been promoted by “reformers”, economists, politicians and corporate leaders, drill for skill direct instruction is much more likely to be implemented.
So, today we have non-educators determining what and how children are to be taught, not educators, despite very compelling research to the contrary. And then teachers are being held accountable for policies and practices they had no say in determining. No wonder they feel like they’re from a different galaxy. Due to their differing concerns and values, they have been exiled there by policy-makers. It’s great to see them taking a stand and fighting back against that!
“So, today we have non-educators determining what and how children are to be taught, not educators, despite very compelling research to the contrary. And then teachers are being held accountable for policies and practices they had no say in determining. No wonder they feel like they’re from a different galaxy. Due to their differing concerns and values, they have been exiled there by policy-makers. It’s great to see them taking a stand and fighting back against that!”
Very well said, Prof W. I guess that’s why I am an unemployed teacher and you are a professor!
Thank you! I don’t think anyone is “2old2tch”. It sounds like a lot of students would benefit if you were given another teaching job –if you still wanted one. I can’t stand age discrimination, but being a senior myself, I know very well that it exists, despite being illegal, because our society too often values youth and beauty over experience and wisdom. I hope you are able to do what you aspire to at this point in your life!
How awful for you! I know about those online applications. Although it’s illegal for prospective employers to ask your age, they can readily deduce it by requiring the dates of your degrees and work experience. Often, the online application won’t move forward if you omit them, or your salary history –another way of filtering out veteran teachers.
It’s so sad for career educators like you, who have committed your life to making a difference, as well as the children who could have benefitted from your experience and expertise.
–Wishing you all the best in your future!
My handle is tongue in cheek, but I see no evidence that schools are interested in anyone “over the hill.” With the online application process being the only accepted way of applying for jobs, they can limit their pool of applicants easily. The only face to face interview I have gotten was for subbing in a district after more than a year of searching. There are so many teachers out of work that districts can pick and choose subs!
I a have a few questions about your direct root to poverty reduction.
1) How will you force billionaires to pay their workers a “living wage”?
2) What will you do when the billionaires reduce the number of workers they hire because of the higher wage rate?
3) If you cannot address the problem in question 2, what impact will the billionaires former workers have on the wages of workers who do not work for billionaires?
4) How will this policy impact the vast majority of the poor who live in rural areas (85% of the poor in Bangladesh live in rural areas, the majority of those work in agriculture)?
One would think that an economist who professses to be so concerned about the poor rural citizens of Bangladesh would try to come up with a variety of creative solutions. It sounds like your intetrest in maintaining the coffers of billionaires really trumps all else. Why don’t you try removing the blinders which prevent you from thinking outside the box?
I don’t care about billionaires profits. My criticism of this approach is that it WILL MAKE POOR PEOPLE POORER. If my criticism is incorrect, please point out the errors.
The policy proposal I am arguing against is imposing a minimum wage on some firms operating in Bangladesh. In what way is that “thinking outside the box”?
Not minimum wage, a LIVABLE wage. If minimum wage was livable, Walmart employees would not need food stamps.
If you don’t care about billionaires’ profits, then stop using the same line of defense that corporations have argued for decades whenever regulations protecting workers and the environment have been proposed which might cut into their profit margins.
Can you please explain why my criticism fails?
You want to help the poor but also prevent the redistribution of wealth, so corporations ARE taking priority.It’s highly inflated salaries, bonuses and other perks provided to executives which have risen dramatically and caused increasingly disparate pay between the salaries of execs and the stagnant incomes of employees in the trenches. The redistribution of wealth is already happening, but it’s just at the top of the food chain.
See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/19/executive-pay-2010-ceo_n_850975.html and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/executive-pay-soars-worker-pay-stagnates_n_877519.html
What might happen if corporations like Walmart paid livable wages? http://marshallbrain.com/etq-double.htm
Reflation of demand: http://benl8.blogspot.com/
I am not arguing against redistributing income. I am arguing that your policy will make the income distribution worse.
Worse for the 1%.
There are other ways to help people out of poverty and promote development, such as the micro-loan programs that have been provided to poor women in Third World countries such as Bangladesh: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/21/business/micro-loans-to-the-world-s-poorest.html
You are stuck in an Industrial Age mindset.
The Bangladeshi government has declared a period of national mourning for more than 120 garment workers who died in a fire at a factory that supplied U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart, among others. Joining us from Bangladesh is labor activist Kalpona Akter, who has visited the factory and took pictures of the charred clothing labels she found there — including the Wal-Mart brand, Faded Glory. She started work in garment factories when she was 12 years old. Now she campaigns for better wages, recognition of the right to organize, and higher safety standards. We are also joined by Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, which investigates working conditions in factories around the world. In comparison to the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City, Nova says, “It really is an extraordinary achievement, in an ironic sense, that the U.S. apparel industry has managed to replicate early 20th century conditions that were so brutal and cruel to workers now again here in 2012 in factories in places like Bangladesh. It is a shameful record for the U.S. apparel industry … And hopefully this horror will finally galvanize a global push for genuine reform of the labor practices of the big brands and retailers. Akter speaks directly to shoppers, saying, “Consumers can play a big role because they are the most powerful player in the supply chain.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/27/bangladeshi_labor_activist_finds_burned_clothes
Teacher Ed- I think we need to get a little wider.
I have no worries about the wealth of the one percent. My concern is solely with the garment industry workers, mostly women, that will lose their jobs if your policy is implemented.
I am familier with micro lending and have had two students write extensively about it based on field research they did in Bangladesh and Pakistan. You might also look into the work of an aquatence of mine named Iqbal Quadir. He founded Grameenphone in Bangladesh. He is a big advocate of private enterprise to reduce poverty in his country.
It is your thinking that is narrow, because you continue to defend low paying jobs and unsafe working conditions that risk the health and lives of workers and assert that this is the solution to poverty.
You have only provided support for the robber baron model of industrialization. You have offered no other options and repeatedly attempt to tear down those suggested by others. You are a tool of corporations, as so many other American economists, whether consciously or not.
All done conversing with another closed-minded know-it-all.
I am not defending low paying dangerous jobs. I am just pointing out that if you require the garment industry to pay a “living wage” and have first world working conditions, you will produce MORE LOW WAGE DANGEROUS JOBS. True, they will probably be in the rural areas, so we will not read about the daily deaths that will occur. That may be a comfort.
It would be very helpful to me if you could point out where my argument is incorrect. I would like nothing more than to be able to reduce poverty in the world by simply passing a law.
I do find it ironic that I am criticized for saying that reform will not work and not offering an alternative on this blog.
Teachers on this blog are against “reform” that is clearly for the purpose of promoting corporate interests, as demonstrated by the alliance between corporate sponsors, such as the Waltons, Gates and Broad, ALEC and both political parties that are behind the push to privatize public education. They do not support reforms that are in the best interests of children, families and communities. They discovered a way to profit from the public funding till and they don’t want to let go of it.
You have argued to maintain dangerous low paying jobs because that’s better than rural work in third world countries, instead of considering let alone offering any alternatives. You have also claimed that poverty is not so bad here. Tell that to the fast food workers who just walked off their jobs in NY today, some of whom are paid so low they can’t afford to rent apartments and have to live in homeless shelters, as reported here:
Just days after Walmart workers made history with their Black Friday strike, hundreds of workers at McDonalds, Burger King, and other fast food chains have walked off the job in New York City, demanding a living wage and union representation.
Like the Walmart workers who went on strike last week, fast food workers in New York are risking everything to challenge a system keeps millions in poverty so a few massive corporations can make huge profits. If this strike shows that low-wage workers can fight back and win, it could be the first step towards creating a more just economy — and they need all the support they can get.
This strike could change the lives of thousands of workers — workers like Chyna Scott, who works at a McDonald’s in the Bronx. Chyna makes $7.25 an hour, and hasn’t been able to find an apartment, so for the last year, she and her three year-old daughter, Jakiya, have been living in a homeless shelter.
Click here to sign our petition in support of New York fast food workers: http://action.sumofus.org/a/fast-food-strike/68/?sub=taf
Let start with the issue at hand. My argument is that destroying low paying and dangerous jobs in the garment industry will force workers into even worse jobs, most likely the same ones they fled to become garment workers in the first place. If you believe that argument to be incorrect, give me a counter argument to the one I made.
What I have argued is that we measure poverty badly in the US. I provided a link to a National Academy of Science study which looked at this problem. Did you have a chance to look at it?
Finally a minimum wage is not a well targeted anti-poverty program. It would be better to increase the earned income tax credit. That way the benefits can be targeted to people living in poor households, rather than increasing the wages of the teenage children of the middle class.
Do you not see how people don’t want to continue to talk to you, teachingeconomist? The reason for that is because you don’t listen to anyone here. You keep going on and on about the same stuff, over and over again, and you talk down to folks as if you always know better. Please, get a clue!
(And by the way, you don’t know everything. Single people earning more than $13,600 don’t qualify for the earned income credit –which is just a once a year deal anyway. Also, a number of states already have different laws governing minimum wage for teens/students than for adults.)
I teach to – if I repeat my argument about the impact of imposing first world salary and working conditions on the garment industry in Bangladesh it is because 1) people who respond to me have not explained why my analysis is incorrect and 2) because it is important that we do not make it more difficult for the poor in Bangladesh.
We have explained. You do not hear! No one has suggested first world salaries for Bangladesh. We have suggested a living wage which is something very different. It is not necessary to treat people like slave labor to make a profit.
I am not at all interested in profits, and if the workers at garment factories are slaves and did not choose to work in those places my analysis would be incorrect.
I wish we could start a new thread with TE comments cut and pasted titled: Warm, fuzzy and loving thoughts to help you get through the day.