Denis Smith, who served in the Ohio Department Olof Education, monitoring charter schools, has often reflected on the incoherence of the basic idea of chartering schools to compete with public schools. He reminds us here of the deep divide between traditional conservatives, who try to preserve community institutions and the new market-based “conservatives,” who love disruption and count themselves successful to the extent they destroy traditional institutions, icons, and brands.
In this post, he analyzes a column by David Brooks about how excessive individualism is tearing apart our social fabric. Smith wonders why conservatives don’t recognize that their own ideas contribute to the attack on social cohesion.
He writes:
“It’s not often that some of us can find common ground with the conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, but his recent piece warning about “four big forces coursing through modern societies” struck a chord. On the other hand, while many might agree with him on some of the causal factors of massive societal change, Brooks and his fellow conservatives may in fact be enabling or even accelerating some of this change as a result of one of their public policy positions.
“The column and commentary by Brooks arose from his analysis of a new book, Commonwealth and Covenant, where the author, Marcia Pally, writes about the tendency in modern life to both explore as well as be “situated” – i.e., having a sense of community.
“Leave it to others to dissect the long-term impact of global migration, globalization, and the Internet to transform both individuals and those political entities called nation-states. But Brooks’ exploration of the fourth big force, individual choice, should make us want to further examine his identification of choice as one of the keys to social change and instability.
“All of these forces have liberated the individual … but they have been bad for national cohesion and the social fabric,” he observes. Nevertheless, he continues, “The emphasis on individual choice challenges community cohesion and settled social bonds.”
“Brooks is concerned about a now weakened social fabric that, as a result of global migration, globalization and the Internet, might appeal to alienated youth and, as one example, make ISIS attractive for those who might opt for that fourth force – individual choice. He then asks his readers: “In a globalizing, diversifying world, how do we preserve individual freedom while strengthening social solidarity”?
“Pally’s individualism, or “separability,” inevitably results in undesirable outcomes, including greed and control of scarce resources, but it is not clear if Brooks clearly discerns the consequences of this in our society caused by his party’s promotion of educational choice, and how such a policy further adds stress to scarce public resources while also impairing the process of community-building.
“His question about how we preserve freedom serves to illustrate the certainty of unintended consequences for conservatives, viz., how can you promote the concept of choice, particularly educational choice, as a desired public policy outcome, while also warning about weakened community cohesion and a frayed, tattered, strained social fabric?
“Can conservatives have it both ways? Nope.
“If Brooks is correct when he says “We’re not going to roll back the four big forces coursing through modern societies,” why would he and his fellow Republicans nevertheless encourage further weakening community cohesion and place additional stress on our social fabric by developing a parallel system of “public” education through charters, let alone vouchers?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
David Brooks has a problem with individualism?? David Brooks??? Are we talking about the same David Brooks who has spent his career promoting “meritocracy”?
I know how you feel about Brooks, and so do I.
I just object to the idea that’s what’s true for “wealthy” parents in some places is true for all parents in all places:
“Wealthy parents are famously pouring more and more into their children, widening the gap in who has access to piano lessons and math tutors and French language camp. The biggest investment the rich can make in their kids, though — one with equally profound consequences for the poor — has less to do with “enrichment” than real estate.
They can buy their children pricey homes in nice neighborhoods with good school districts.”
Ordinary people can live in a good school district where I live. We have affordable purchase or rental housing and a wide range of incomes in our public school district- it’s about half lower income. They’re not fabulously wealthy schools with all the bells and whistles but they’re solid and they serve everyone. Not everyone lives in areas with astronomic land values and not everyone is segregated rigidly by income.
It’s called “a town”. It’s not a suburb of anywhere. Maybe they should look at public schools that manage to serve all income levels- not perfectly but they’re getting the job done- they exist. This whole “wealthy suburban/poor” divide theme is weirdly parochial and narrow.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/10/the-incredible-impact-of-rich-parents-fighting-to-live-by-the-very-best-schools/?utm_content=bufferfaaaf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
I agree on the social/economic class distinctions you are making. Not all of the suburbs are thriving of course, and millennials are not buying houses in the numbers expected by economists.
Data hounds, paid by the same major foundations pushing charter schools ) Gates Walton et al. have teamed up with Zillow at greatschools.org. People who are looking for “good schools” as a factor in purchasing a home, or moving from one community to another, are likely to find a rating for the “available” choices in schools. The rating is conjured from dubious averaging and rescaling of scores on standardized state tests, also ACT and SAT, and any other data dumped into the public domain (soon ratings on school climate, absentee rates). Zillow distributes the same ratings (it purchased Truila so the “visitors” to three very large websites get the same ratings. Only the very diligent will know that the ratings are based on limited information, “concocted” from mathematical junk including VAM scores for schools, and shoving the averaged scores into a bell curve. This sham billionaire-funded data mongering is not widely recognized as contributing to the practice of redlining communities and their schools.
A couple of years ago, Chiara, I would have agreed with you about your assessment of schools.
The last several years, though, has wrought changes upon our local school district. The school district has jumped on the “social justice” bandwagon, and has eliminated all honors classes in junior high. It has only been a couple of years, but the classes are already watered down. Parents are already complaining about the academics at the school.
This “social justice” trend to eliminate advanced courses only magnifies the distance between the ‘first tier’ and ‘second tier’ schools. There is a divide between neighborhood schools based on wealth, and because of the policies that school districts are choosing in the name of “social justice,” that divide is only getting worse.
Brookes is a card-carrying member of the Republican party that for 4 decades served the aristocratic group of social x-rays like him. I doubt he ever dared touch a poor person.
It does not matter to me what you call what is happening in our society. What is happening is wrong, and we need to change course. We can blame conservatives, neoliberals, the internet, individualism or the global economy, but the fact is we need to change so our government works for all. Our economy is skewed to benefit a few at the expense of everyone else. This economy is far from a free market; it is a rigged market as the wealthy manipulate the laws and rules to benefit only them. We have seen these forces at work in privatization and “reform.” Teachers have been demonized, suppressed, and muzzled and by corporate forces with an agenda. Teachers are threatened if they want to unionize. We have allowed billionaires and their lobbyists to write legislation that has no basis in fact. Our poor have become disenfranchised, and it is no wonder that community disintegration is the next level of decline in our downward spiral.
Of course “Choice” is just another example of The Big Lie — the financial raid of public education funds is designed to prevent the public from having any choices but those the edumarketers choose to stock on the Education StupidMarket shelves.
Many of Brooks’ columns suffer from intellectually inconsistency, just like George Will’s do.
Speculating, they both want to be better people than they are. Their columns reflect a nagging pull, in different directions.
Thought bubble: Brooks columns suffer from sanctimonious BS, just like George Will’s do.
Good point, jcgrim.
Will and Brooks are withering in their criticism of Trump. It’s because Trump’s character has shades of themselves. Will and Brooks are like preachers who condemn the flock, for the sins that they share with them but, won’t acknowledge.
“. . . the new market-based “conservatives,” who love disruption and count themselves successful to the extent they destroy traditional institutions, icons, and brands.”
That’s just it, they aren’t conservatives at all. They are neoliberal regressive libertarian types who are spoiled brats who would rather break things than build them. And if they can’t break them they’ll take their sledgehammers home and not play anymore ensconced in their own little social cocoons.
I don’t see much difference in impact between “trickle down” economics of conservatives and “corporate worship” of the neoliberals. They both seek to keep everything at the top of the economic pyramid, and the result has been the destruction of the middle class with more classism and racism. They both involve a few winners and the top, and lots of losers at the bottom.
They aren’t conservatives, they’re vandals that destroy things and leave the mess for someone else to clean up and repair.
It obfuscates to call corporate right wingers, “neoliberals”. Corporate right-wingers, like Gates and Laurene Powell Jobs, masquerade as Democratic “philanthropists” because the Democratic Party condones or, encourages it. The sanitized title, “neoliberal”, facilitates infiltration and influence, in an administration, that promotes itself as a party of the people. The ruse is exemplified by the association of Democratic politicians with the hedge funds of DFER.
It’s likely that the only parts of the Democratic platform shared, by both the “party of the people” and the “Democratic” philanthropists, is gay rights and abortions for women of means.
No, it’s not obfuscation. The term neo-liberal is a proper description. It is folks ignorance of the term that obfuscates what it is in their mind.
From Wiki: Neoliberalism (or sometimes neo-liberalism)[1] is a term which has been used since the 1950s,[2] but became more prevalent in its current meaning in the 1970s and 80s by scholars in a wide variety of social sciences[3] and critics[4] primarily in reference to the resurgence of 19th century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism.[5] Its advocates support extensive economic liberalization policies such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Neoliberalism is famously associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States.[7
Clarity can be advanced by substituting the very clear label, “corporate right winger”.
Englander, Thomas Clark, in his Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012, blog post, “Another Angry Voice”, explains, in multiple paragraphs the origins, applied theory etc. of neoliberalism. When a lengthy expository is required, just to say, corporate right wingers have infiltrated the opposite political party, which is the situation in the U.S., it should be said in a way that a broad audience understands.
Neither economists nor governments, use the term neoliberal to describe themselves, suggesting intent to distance themselves from the description? Main stream media does not use the term. Rather it is their intent to obfuscate or avoidance of anticipated public confusion, the effect is the same.. the public has to make up its own explanation to fit why the Democratic Party has betrayed the common goods.
I don’t have the same animosity towards the “corporate” as many here do as corporate/corporation is a broad term that encompasses any and almost all businesses. Perhaps because I didn’t start teaching till I was 39 and had worked in the business sector up to that time and know many business owners and people who have worked their way up a corporate ladder and still have their humanity I don’t see “corporate” as a derogatory term.
No doubt the neo-liberals have expanded their domain in the political realm, with that we agree. But I’ve argued here and elsewhere against using “corporate” to describe the edudeformer and privateer agenda. And I stick with denouncing that mis-usage of the term “corporate”.
Business in the U.S. has changed. A few decades ago, business students were taught the concept that “business, is a guest in society”.
The foremost, esteemed scholar/practitioner, at the time was Peter Drucker. He would not recognize a U.S. where, (1) universities shill for the richest 0.1% (UnKochMyCampus.org) (2) a financial sector is allowed to drag down GDP by 2% (3) G.E.’s Jack Welch declares that, a worker’s commitment to his/her employer, is unwelcome.
The unleashed, shareholder-driven dominance, of D.C. and state capitols, as a result of the Citizens United ruling, would have been anathema to the CEO’s of the past.
I, too, worked in business. An, on-demand economy, in effect, making all of America’s workers, day laborers (a political agenda, promoted by the national Chamber of Commerce) is not good for the U.S.. Former U.S. CEO’s, had more than their own paychecks in mind. The current structuring of corporations, in U.S. law, prevents corporate managers from valuing anything except shareholders.
While, I don’t know much about a group of CEO’s, who have formed a group called “Patriotic Millionaires”, their PR suggests they understand the threat that multinational corporations pose to our future. Cost cutting as a primary goal and increasing concentration of wealth, among shareholders, spells disaster for the world economy.
No example better makes the point, than Gates’ ownership of an entire privatized U.S. public education system and, his international for-profit business, Bridge international Academies.
The use of consumer profits, to undermine political processes, invalidates arguments for free enterprise, particularly, its strongest defense, efficiency.
Can’t agree with that statement as where else can one expect profits to come from? And once the owner has that profit, is it not hers to spend as she sees fit?
As fuel for economic growth, the fundamental argument for free enterprise, is that revenue, beyond costs of goods sold, operating expenses, costs to attract capital, etc., is used to create new, improved, more efficient products.
There is no plank in free market theory, that accommodates for spending on political process. We see the end result of it now, the money has been spent for laws and avoidance of enforcement that results in concentration of wealth, which is strangling economic growth.
“There is no plank in free market theory, that accommodates for spending on political process.”
Quite correct! The “freemarkteers” don’t much follow Adam Smith’s pleadings to any degree other than to insist that there is this thing called the free market which no one, ever nor ever will see as it doesn’t exist except in those who use it as an excuse for human exploitative actions.
Read Thomas Picketty, his economic work is unassailable.
He’s on my list to read. Been seeing more and more references to him lately.
Choice is a false choice!
Uh, oh Maybe people in government telling public schools they have to re-allocate funds and purchase millions of dollars worth of devices isn’t such a good idea?
“We present findings from a study that prohibited computer devices in randomly selected classrooms of an introductory economics course at the United States Military Academy. Average final exam scores among students assigned to classrooms that allowed computers were 18 percent of a standard deviation lower than exam scores of students in classrooms that prohibited computers. Through the use of two separate treatment arms, we uncover evidence that this negative effect occurs in classrooms where laptops and tablets are permitted without restriction and in classrooms where students are only permitted to use tablets that must remain flat on the desk surface.’
https://seii.mit.edu/research/study/the-impact-of-computer-usage-on-academic-performance-evidence-from-a-randomized-trial-at-the-united-states-military-academy/
This is probably the fourth study I’ve seen, yet the Obama Administration are still having public schools sign pledges to buy this stuff. Why? Is that a good use of ever-shrinking public school budgets?
The pernicious paradigm that we have to fight over and over again is the education is just a consumer product and that parents just have to find the right product to buy to be successful.
What is lost is the paradigm of raising children to be proper members of society with all the understanding of the rights and obligation that comes with that.
A parallel article that I recently read explores the same theme of society and community and what is lost when the community is destroyed. The author, Rod Dreher, usually rails against public school systems but he is troubled by the destruction of communities by all sorts of pressures. I think he senses the problems but can’t get there from here because of his preexisting viewpoint. I have doubt we will ever achieve consensus on the intersection of public education and society.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/poverty-mayberry-isolation/
In many urban areas the proliferation of charters is a major contributor to the decimation of the existing community in order to create a more profitable community for developers.http://www.alternet.org/education/who-profiting-charters-big-bucks-behind-charter-school-secrecy-financial-scandal-and
The nation had “consensus”, before the political process was overwhelmed by the richest 0.1%
Contradictions abound. One that just occurred to me: we rightly deplore how slavery stripped Africans of their cultural inheritance. Yet we think it good to strip white Americans of any knowledge of their own cultural inheritance on the grounds that it’s evil. Two wrongs do not make a right.
Sigh. No one is trying to “strip white Americans” of anything. We’re just saying let’s not celebrate our barbarous slave-holding history in the town square. Would you approve of statues of Hitler adorning German cities in the name of “German heritage?
“Yet we think it good to strip white Americans of any knowledge of their own cultural inheritance on the grounds that it’s evil.”
That may be an overstatement.
“Strip” is not the right word, but “neglect the transmission of” seems right to me. I have heard many (justified) calls to teach African-American kids about their African roots. I have never heard a teacher say, “It’s imperative that we teach European-American kids about their cultural roots.”
Isn’t every class involving American or European history essentially a class that teaches European-American kids about their cultural roots?
“Never heard a teacher say…” The required reading of Western Civ , said it.
Everything from “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue” to “they hate us for our freedoms” *is* white/European history. Sheesh.
I just watched several hours on PBS about the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland. Very good, though the end was a bit rushed and weak. But definitely cultural and not a suppression of European history. I think what you see is the backlash on “white privilege”, though I would offer the idea is a bit more complicated than just skin color. Like the case of the university girl accosting the white guy for wearing dreadlocks. Or the many articles I read in Salon. If America can sort out race relations without tearing apart the social fabric, we may make it another 100 years.
I love this Brandeis quote: “We must work to possess that which we have inherited”. I’m glad African-Americans have demanded that we do the work of learning about African culture and history. We must do this work to possess that inheritance. But when it comes to learning about European culture and heritage, one’s more likely to hear, “Why learn facts when we have Google?” or “We must teach how to think critically about history, not history facts.” Isn’t this so? It just strikes me as interesting that facts matter when it comes to learning about African heritage, but facts are passe when it comes to learning about European heritage. I think all Americans should do the work to POSSESS our inheritance. We are not making a concerted effort to do this work. Instead we are making a concerted effort to pass math and literacy tests. To go back to Denis Smith’s original post: we will not feel connected together as Americans unless we ingest a common body of lore and knowledge about America. Our frightening disunity at this moment stems from our schools’ failure to recognize the importance of cultivating a common identity.
“Our frightening disunity at this moment stems from our schools’ failure to recognize the importance of cultivating a common identity.”
Oh good, something else that schools are responsible for mucking up completely and threatening our very survival. Amazing what powerful entities schools are.
Dienne,
Unity does not just happen. It must be cultivated, don’ you think?. It seems to me this should be one of the functions of our schools. Teaching empty skills sets is not a recipe for creating a People. The time-honored approach, from ancient Greece to the griots of West Africa, is to tell the people’s story until it is internalized. This does not have to be a triumphalist story. It can be nuanced and self-critical, but it must be told vividly and repeatedly until is becomes part of us and we identify with it and thereby develop an identity. We are not automatically Americans; we must work to possess American-ness.
I think Hollywood does a better job of giving us shared narratives than our schools do. I think our schools need to step up and participate. Yes, American history is taught, but I don’t think it’s taught with the intention of really making it part of the souls of our kids. It seems to me that foreign kids often know American history better than Americans do.
I would add that it’s not just learning about American history that imparts American identity. It’s know the flora and fauna, the geography, the customs, the arts and the literature of America too. Our schools, it seems to me, do not make a wholehearted effort to transmit this knowledge either. Instead they try to teach skills like inference-making or problem solving.
I disagree that white Americans aren’t learning “their” history. A history teacher has to work really hard to put in perspectives OTHER than white men in American history. Trying to add some information about other cultures doesn’t denigrate “white culture.” It’s not a zero sum game.
Also, NO ONE should be surprised that history and geography are not being learned and/or taught. STEM and reading have taken over the world. Sometimes, people speak up for the arts, but WHEN do people speak up for history and geography and civics? Pretty much never, unless it’s to use them for informational texts for reading. But using social studies to only teach reading neglects any real instruction on history and other subjects, and usually lacks any pattern or coherence.
As you may have guessed, I teach U.S. History and geography.
Threatened,
I’m all for teaching non-Western history. Our CA standards require a lot of that, for which I’m grateful. But the result is superficial treatment of everything. I think we should devote more time to all history, but especially to American and Western history, because, regardless of whether an American’s ancestors are from China, Africa or Italy, the major elements of our culture have roots in the West (language, major religions, ideas about education, customs, government, etc.). The story of America really begins in Athens and Jerusalem. Nowadays one can trace some narrower roots to Chang’an, Ghana and Gujarat too. To know ourselves, we need to know that story. Just as an individual cannot have an identity sans memories of his past, so a people cannot have an identity sans memories of their past.
It’s concentration of wealth that dooms us- particularly hard hit are the people who are economically victimized by discrimination.
The anger that Fox and AM talk radio feeds into, is loss of entitlement.
Linda,
Not loss of entitlement but loss of work, loss of good jobs, loss of a future. As income and assets become increasingly concentrated in the upper 1%, there is a growing sense that this generation will not be better off than its parents. This is a threat to the American dream of progress.
Agree.
The loss of economic opportunity, caused by the richest 0.1%, justifiably results in anger.
That anger has been intentionally misdirected, against people of color. It gains foothold because, white men (and some white women), like those at Trump rallies, feel their entitlement, to conferred, superior status, is disappearing.
Gun idolatry and anger against abortions/gay people, are a parallel. Loss of economic hope has destabilized elements within the 99%. In response, they are trying, desperately, to feel good about themselves. In the prior America, there were status opportunities for “hard work”, loyalty to company and/or unions, etc. What is there now, but, clinging to a collective that says we’re superior because we’re heterosexual, we protect the unborn, we’re patriots with guns? Is there an easier place for them to look for the validation they once had? Just an opinion.
David Brooks talks up a storm of intellectual sounding blathering and babbling, all meant to sound like something important when in reality, it’s a bunch of dressed up drool.
Really read what he has to say and how he says it.
WHAT an idiot!
Fractures of the social land mass are occurring because traditionalists are sick of being told what to think by progressives, who want community ONLY on their own terms, which are fundamentally socialist and collectivist and therefore tyrannical at their root.
Brooks is not actually a true conservative. I agree with Rendo that he drools.
No tyranny…while Congress fails to listen, to 90% of the people? (research of Princeton Professor- Martin Gilens)
No tyranny… when the U.S. oligarchy/ ALEC writes laws that apply to incarceration, etc.?
Tell me more, please, Linda.
J. H. Underhill
Based on your comments over the past year or so, I thought you were ill-informed. This morning, I concluded that you are one of the estimated 1%-3% of the population, that mental health experts, describe as sociopaths.
You really think I’m some kind of ‘nut’?
I appreciate whatever mental gymnastics Brooks can do to distance himself from his own post-Erasergate statement on PBS, “Michelle Rhee is my hero.”
I’m afraid David Brooks is, and always has been, a gasbag.
Mark,
Professional pundits get more and more remote from reality as they become famous. They go to dinner parties with the elite, and they land in an echo chamber where the sound of their own voice is very loud.
I definitely agree, Diane, and have, over time, lost patience with the punditocracy–even those with whose views I agree….