Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, is one of the few high-level policy thinkers who have noticed the attacks on public education. His concern is mainly with the rip-offs in for-profit institutions of higher education, which impoverish students and saddle them with debt.
But he does know that teachers are being scapegoated.
“Reich: Undoubtedly. Teachers have been scapegoated by those who don’t want to invest more in education. Who don’t want change. Who are personally happy with the status quo but feel that because the public is so unhappy with education, it’s easiest to scapegoat teachers. The fact of the matter is teachers are underpaid relative to other professions. The law of supply and demand in terms of wages is not repealed at the doors of our school houses. We are paying investment bankers and Wall Street traders, the people who are in charge of our financial capital, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year — many of them millions of dollars a year, a few a billion dollars or more. Yet we are paying teachers who are in charge of our human capital, arguably more important than our financial capital, a very tiny fraction of what Wall Streeters are paid.”
That’s good but he hasn’t yet figured out that these millionaires and billionaires are financing the privatization of public education, starting in urban districts and deeming themselves civil rights activists. Some for fun. Some for profit. Some because they believe the free market solves all problems.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/06/18/teacher-evaluation-study-released.html
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The point of the matter is this: it seems that the latest tactic to support ‘Common Core’ is to focus on the idea that parents and teachers don’t like ‘testing’ – and that’s little more than a Straw Man designed to divert our focus from the larger issue – namely, the for-profit privatization of education, the ability of a privileged few to fully define ALL ‘content’ to be taught to everyone (at least in the public school system, where the children of these ‘few’ don’t attend anyway) so as to mold a singular way of ‘accepted’ thinking which will permeate an entire generation, and the subsequent ‘log-in to the computer’ rather than teach ‘offline’, which is simply a slippery and unethical slope toward data mining, tracking and (likely) increased marketing at earlier ages via consumer profiling, and the opportunity to set later things such as insurance premiums based on behavioral tracking. It is a complex and pervasive issue and, arguably, the most important of our times, yet often goes overlooked by non-parents, or is carefully presented to as to remain under the radar while those who will benefit work to set their underlying structure in place.The question becomes what will the next generation look like, and be able to do? Not think for themselves, or be able to make great leaps forward by connecting the seemingly disparate disciplines of, say, physics and the arts, because they are instead being ‘groomed to consume’ (as I put it in “Cogh and The Machine: a children’s book for adults http://bit.ly/coghandthemachine ). The reality is this: we are fast descending into a dystopian – even Orwellian – future and all in the name of profit-over-people – and it needs to be stopped. – right now.
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Reich is a brilliant policy person and scholar. My objection is to promoting rhetoric of students as “human capital.” This designation appeals to the self-interest of capital managers who are being warned they are shooting themselves in the foot by underinvesting in the development of their own future work force. The moneyed elite have always invested as little as necessary in mass public education and as much as necessary in the elite education of their own children. Schooling should not be described as a factory to process labor into a workforce suitable for the unsustainable economy favored by the elites. Kids are human beings, period, not human capital, and the best we can offer them is what we adults ourselves need, a civic-minded force of citizens devoted to building democracy, equality, ecology, and peace.
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It also should be mentioned that palming off the entire responsibility for “workforce training” on the public is ignoring the role these employers have (well, used to have) in investing in their own workforce training.
They’re shifting risk from their companies to the public, because training someone IS risk. The employee might not work out or might not return the investment the employer made in training. That doesn’t mean it’s a given that whole duty should be shifted to the public, what amounts to training to employer specifications.
This works out very well for business, this demand the public produce employees who can work specific places right out of the box. What’s their role in training their own employees? Gone? That’s nice!
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Thank you for pointing out, once again, the corruption in the private business model which asks the public to pay for their employees’ training through our tax base, rather than investing in the training of their own employees.
When private business reaps the profits from public investment, and then finds a way to hide their private profit, so that they do not have to pay back into the public kitty, we have a huge problem.
Big business and financial industry players spend a pittance of their vast wealth to elect politicians who will continue to write policy that protects their ability to steal the wealth of production and innovation from the people actually doing the work. They want the public to pay all of the costs while they reap most of the benefits. Unfortunately the Walton model of business is still alive and well in America.
If business had to invest in their own employees, perhaps they would not be so quick to treat people like expendable commodities.
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That was a perfect response. You hit the multitude of problems succinctly on the head! Your response needs to go directly to Robert Reich!
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You are absolutely right, Ira: we will not drive the money-changers from the Temple of Learning until we take back the language used to discuss education. Teachers are not human capital or “talent” (as so-called reformers also like to call them), and students are not “products,” “customers” or “human capital.” They are children, youths and future citizens, all beautiful and possessed of infinite potentialities, which committed, experienced educators with adequate funding and professional autonomy can help them realize.
Referring to students and teachers in those terms means accepting the premises of so-called reform on a very basic level, and being trapped in their ideological cage and subject to their worldview.
If they control the language, they control the terms of debate, even when it’s being challenged by fundamentally decent economists like Reich.
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Reich is an economist. Economist is as econoscheiße does.
Much like Reich’s statement “. . . that because the public is so unhappy with education,”
Horsescheiße. Not according to most everything I’ve read about the public’s view of education.
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I don’t know why everything in the world has to be jammed into the “business box” anyway.
We can have more than one sector, and we can use more than one language. It’s so freaking NARROW. It’s like there was this consensus “we all have to talk like this now, all the time, about everything”
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The quote about “human capital” struck me as downright idiotic.
“Yet we are paying teachers who are in charge of our human capital, arguably more important than our financial capital, ”
In addition to categorizing our children as “capital” (chattel?), anyone who thinks there is any question (‘arguably”?) about which is more important, our children or our financial capital is a fool.
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Exactly, capital is fungible in a way that children never are, and should never be viewed.
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“Fungible and Plungible”
Capital is fungible
Children ain’t but fun
Econ is just plungible
And should be cuz it’s dumb
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I think Reich stands in the position somewhat similar to Albert Shanker since he’s seeing the merit in charter experiment by making a qualified statement. His focus is primarily on higher education, rather than K-12. Glad that he began to touch on the latter. He is aware of powerful private corporations eroding public common. It may take time to get to the point in which corporations are taking over public education.
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My problem with Reich is right here:
“Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor”
The issues he talks about didn’t spring up overnight. What did he do when he had actual power?
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Ira . I agree. Reich refers to people…
“Who don’t want change. Who are personally happy with the status quo but feel that because the public is so unhappy with education, it’s easiest to scapegoat teachers.”
I think this is a case of misdiagnosing one of the big problems from the last decade and a half, namely constant churn and change imposed top down on the work of school administrators, teachers, and children with policies forged by a significant number of people who care only about profit and have reified test scores as the most important measure of teachers productivity, student “achievement,” and the performance of schools as a “driver of the economy.” Many have also contributed to engineering consent around the idea that public education is awful and that “throwing more money at schools won’t fix them.”
These are deeply flawed concepts about the core purposes for education in public schools. Among these is NOT the production of “human capital” but well-informed citizens who understand themselves and others not just as producers and/or consumers but as human beings, inhabitants and custodians of a fragile planet and as capable participants/shapers of their world.
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Way to go Diane. More, more, more of this. This is the tip of the iceberg though. The Department of Education which you are very familiar with is filled with duplicative, parasitical jobs that are totally unnecessary today. I’m sorry, but historians, researchers
and the like are inconsequential to the process today. $70 billion of waste. It’s time to eliminate this vestigial organ of government, and cede the jobs back to the states. It has become cost prohibitive to keep this department. When one adds in inflationary costs, this department will have spent $1 trillion dollars over 10 years.
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Ian, most who work for the Department of Education are clerks who review contracts.
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Diane, If you are right, then we need to eliminate this superfluous entity as soon as possible. You have more power that you are are of, and you are the only person in the country who can organize teachers to act on their own behalf to change the culture and end the demeaning status of teachers. the unions can;t do it, because they are not respected throughout the country. Teachers must stand “one for all and all for one” in order to make any substantial change, even on the issues that you have been railing against. Once again, if every teacher were to refuse to give a Pearson test, we can effectively put them out of business. Try giving them their marching orders. You will be surprised at the outcome. Ian
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Ian, if you believe that, I will give you marching orders. Organize a peaceful but large demonstration wherever supporters of high stakes testing make an appearance, such as the governor or key legislators, or at a shareholders meeting of Pearson, or at the ECS conference in Denver where Sanders is being honored. Join the BATs. Make noise.
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The US department education spending ($70 billion) is follows:
Pell & student aid 38%
Title 1 21%
Special education 18%
All other programs 23%
Please identify which of the 4 items above is waste that should be eliminated.
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Anything Reich proposes will be from an economist’s point of view. At least, his perspective is progressive, and he understands that we need to invest in our young people, our future. I found this video where he explains making higher education and community college, and job training free. Like Warren he understands that young people cannot move forward under a mountain of debt. He also proposes small class sizes. http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Economy/Robert-Reich-How-to-Reinvent-Education
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I agree. I LOVE Reich, find him to be one economist with his head where it should be.
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Gordon WIlder.. I agree with you. It did annoy me to read him refer to students as “human capital” but do I trash everything about him because of this? NO! THE MAN IS ON OUR SIDE AND IS BRIGHT ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THE RESPONSES IN THIS ARTICLE and why we have them. I don’t think it is wise or in the best interest of public education to attack Reich… to dialogue with him yes… his views on poverty, living wages, health care… he does get it! And given the society we live in, someone who is an economist and actually “gets it” should be an invaluable partner. He has even been vocally expressing concerns on Hillary Clinton’s positions despite his former strong ties to Bill Clinton. He says what he knows to be right and is nobody’s puppet. As educators, if we are able to “get his ear” this could only be a good thing.
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Rumor has it that Reich went out with Hillary when she was in college. I saw an interview with him in which he states his support for her 100%, and believes she has the interests of the middle class at heart.
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Education must be a priority’
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The fact of the matter is teachers are underpaid relative to other professions. The law of supply and demand in terms of wages is not repealed at the doors of our school houses….we are paying teachers who are in charge of our human capital, arguably more important than our financial capital, a very tiny fraction of what Wall Streeters are paid.””
Perhaps I am misunderstanding Reich, but that sounds like he is saying you get what you pay for — the implication being that if you pay low salaries you get less qualified people.
I don’t see how else to interpret that.
perhaps someone can help me?
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Maybe if you look at everything through the lens of economics, this is a reasonable conclusion. I can’t speak for others, but I graduated from high school and college summa cum laude with fairly high SAT scores, and I chose teaching because I wanted to work with ESL students. I never regretted that decision because I know I made a difference, and I loved it. That is my story, but my colleagues in New York were intelligent, well trained and dedicated as well. This includes the younger teachers; they were not people that had no other options. I taught in suburban New York City where perhaps the expectations and pay are higher. Maybe in rural areas the quality of teachers is lower, but I don’t really know.
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I actually don’t think I am mistaken about my interpretation of Reich.
And his statement indicates that he does not understand what motivates people to be teachers.
In fact, if you paid teachers the salaries of Wall Street execs and used the same selection criteria, you’d end up not with the best and brightest teachers, but (as on Wall Street) the greediest and most unethical shysters.
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Thank you very much for all wonderful post about economic topic.
I admire “”retired teacher”” who chooses teaching career to make a difference in ESL learners’ lives. Therefore, I disagree with SomeDamPoet’s idea that high paying jobs will attract “”the greediest and most unethical shysters.””
There are some and a few of BAD APPLES in all careers whether these careers will yield low, average or high paying salary.
However, specifically, educators who are noble will surely and confidently cultivate the spirit of liberty, humanity, civility, responsibility and joy of learning in all learners. These learners will be the best foundation to build the strongest nation, to preserve democratic society, and to maintain civilization. Back2basic
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Perhaps I was unclear.
What I meant was that teachers — unlike wall Street shysters — are quite obviously not motivated to do what they do by money.
That’s not to say that they should not be much better paid for the critical job they do (Believe me, I am the last person one has to convince of that!)
But if one offered the same salaries AND used the same selection criteria to pick teachers that are used to select Wall Street execs, one would almost certainly end up with the same type of people.
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Thank you SDP for your clarification.
Definitely, it is no doubt that the selection criteria would produce the typical character regardless of the salary. May.
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