Arthur Camins writes of our nation’s current misdirection and our failure to dream big dreams.

This is an article I wish I had written. Camins nails the paucity of vision that narrows our goal to individual competition instead of seeking a better life for all Americans.

He writes:

“The United States is suffering through the audacity of small hopes. In the shadow of the Great Recession and after several decades of increasing wealth disparity in the United States, the politically and financially powerful have the audacity to call upon the nation to accept small dreams.

“Nowhere is this more evident than in the pathetically small hope that consequential testing and competition — among parents for entry into charter schools, among schools for students, and among teachers for pay increases — can lead to substantial education improvement and be a solution to poverty.

“There were times when our dreams were big. They can be again. The times demand it. A look back at what values and actions have broadened access to a decent life for all can illuminate a path toward greater equity in the future.
Images of workers on breadlines in the 1930s and of fire-hosed civil rights demonstrators in the 1960s catalyzed moral outrage and direct action leading to big dreams and substantive progress toward equality and equity for all Americans.”

He adds:

“To be clear, it was not the leadership, noblesse oblige or largesse of the powerful that led to improvement in people’s lives in the decades after the Great Depression. Nor was it individuals competing with one another for their personal chance to climb the economic latter. It was the values, vision, direct action, and political pressure of the labor movement- embodied in the song, Solidarity Forever- that pushed legislators to enact a new deal to address the needs of a nation that President Roosevelt called, “ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished…..”

“Maybe the most important historical lesson is that only mass collective action guided by a moral vision will pressure elected leaders to prioritize the interest of the many over the selfish demands of the few. Hence, the claims of the empowered to be leading the charge to reduce poverty through their version of education reform should be taken with a healthy grain of salt. An additional lesson is that while the seeds of past triumphs for greater equality and equity were planted through local action, it was only when community engagement culminated in national legislation or Supreme Court rulings that progress was fully realized and secured.

“Unfortunately, those lessons have been obscured through decades of concerted propagandizing. Purposeful underfunding has reenergized the canard that government cannot be a force for general wellbeing. Once again, states rights, long the thinly veiled defense of segregation, is morally acceptable as political posturing. We need bigger, better hopes and dreams…..

“We can be better than the audacity of small hopes. The next anthem for equity needs to include the unifying theme: We’re in this together for jobs, justice, and equitable education.”