Jennifer Berkshire posted this interview with economist Harvey Kantor in response to a column in the New York Times by David Leonhardt suggesting that schools were the best way to address poverty.
Leonhardt wrote that education “is the most powerful force for accelerating economic growth, reducing poverty and lifting middle-class living standards.” He then goes on to argue that vouchers don’t work, but charters do. This runs contrary to Roland Fryer and Will Dobbie’s study of charters in Texas, where they found that attendance in charter schools had no effect on future earnings.
What Kantor has to say is crucial in this discussion.
Kantor says what I have come to believe is bedrock truth. Poverty should be addressed by reducing poverty. No matter how high the standards, no matter how many tests, no matter how swell the curriculum is, those are not cures for homelessness, joblessness, and lack of access to decent medical care. This realization explains why I changed my mind about the best way to reform schools. It is not by turning schools over to the free market but by seeing them as part of a web of social supports for families and children.
Here is part of a fascinating discussion:
One of the consequences of making education so central to social policy has been that we’ve ended up taking the pressure off of the state for the kinds of policies that would be more effective at addressing poverty and economic inequality. Instead we’re asking education to do things it can’t possibly do. The result has been increasing support for the kinds of market-oriented policies that make inequality worse.
If we really want to address issues of inequality and economic insecurity, there are a lot of other policies that we have to pursue besides or at least in addition to education policies, and that part of the debate has been totally lost. Raising the minimum wage, or providing a guaranteed income, which the last time we talked seriously about that was in the late 1960’s, increasing workers’ bargaining power, making tax policies more progressive—things like that are going to be much more effective at addressing inequality and economic security than education policies. That argument is often taken to mean, *schools can’t do anything unless we address poverty first.* But that’s not what we were trying to say.
Berkshire: But isn’t part of the attraction of today’s education reform movement, that it holds out the tantalizing possibility that we can correct the effects of poverty without having to do anything about, well, poverty?
Kantor: That’s right. What’s interesting about our our contemporary period is that we’re now saying schools can respond to problems of achievement and we don’t need to address any of these larger structural issues. When you think about these larger questions—what causes economic inequality? What causes economic insecurity? How are resources distributed? Who has access to what?—they’ve been put off to the side. We’re not doing anything to address these questions at all.
Please read the entire discussion. It is very important in understanding the attack on schools and the fruitlessness of corporate reform, which ignores the causes of poor student achievement.
It will help you understand why billionaires and right-wingers love corporate reform. It enables policymakers to forget about the necessity of social policy that affects the conditions in which many families live.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Of all the no brainers is this one…. that eduction raises the incomes of it s citizens.
Here is a wonderful litlte video of graphs that makes it CLEAR. Income equality is the outcome of a society where the wealth goes to the top, and the people are derived OF THE SKILLS AND MEANS TO EARN MONEY. Wealth Inequality in America – YouTube
The deep state that runs this show, and is running our country into the swamp of history, knows that an educated population is the key.
‘GET’EM YOUNG!’ that is my name of the ploy and the plot.
That’s a real good one, Susan! Thanks for sharing!
Off topic
Please contact Good Morning America at its on-line feedback form. This morning 4 GMA co-hosts including George Stephanopoulos applauded a charter school graduate who will, in 3 mos., return to her Indiana charter school at 18 yrs. old, with a sociology degree, to teach.
It’s doubtful that George, and other GMA staff parents, would consider this level of inexperience and credentialing for the education of their kids. Networks that promote V.P. Spense’s oligarch agenda should receive criticism.
It is the same story that ran on CBS News a couple of days ago. Same song different story
IDOE investigates 21st Century Charter School
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/gary/idoe-investigates-st-century-charter-school/article_0ab2866c-b099-54ed-93e3-fe5f4dd6a18b.html
http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/2011/04/21st-century-charter-school.html
That of course comes along with the 100% graduation Rate.
Only not quite true according to State
http://www.doe.in.gov/accountability/find-school-and-corporation-data-reports
As well as the usuall 11-12th grade dropoff of student enrollment and below state levels of proficency.
http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/enrollment.aspx?type=school&id=4164
Typical charter school tooting their horn with sour notes.
The tragedy is that Black people, like the young woman who was applauded by GMA, are being used. Racist former Gov/./Sen. Talmadge first proposed privatization when the state faced integration court rulings. If the person in the situation had been a young White man, GMA may have reflected and asked questions.
In a feudal system, the more knowledgeable serfs taught the other serfs. The de-professionalization of teaching, associated with wages that are at subsistence level, puts the nation firmly in a feudal system, which is what immigrants came to the U.S. to escape and what the emancipation act was passed for- to create opportunity.
“Wipe out poverty on Wall Street”
Wipe out poverty
Cheap and quick
Using property
Wall Street trick
All you need
To make the cut:
Market greed
And charter glut
The education system in this US compounds inequality – more equitable conditions including smaller class sizes and preK have been proven to lead to better student outcomes and narrow the opportunity/ achievement gap. These reforms should be implemented along with efforts to attack poverty directly through a higher minimum wage and more progressive taxation etc. the two are not mutually contradictory- there is no reason anyone but especially education advocates should have to take one side vs. another.
Interested in ending poverty (which our Overclass clearly is not, since part of its wealth and power is based on maintaining/expanding it)?
Then allow people to freely form and join unions; it’s the single greatest anti-poverty program (and cost-free to taxpayers) ever devised.
I thought Kantor explained it well. I agree with this:
” One of the consequences of making education so central to social policy has been that we’ve ended up taking the pressure off of the state for the kinds of policies that would be more effective at addressing poverty and economic inequality. Instead we’re asking education to do things it can’t possibly do. The result has been increasing support for the kinds of market-oriented policies that make inequality worse.”
I’m sometimes amazed at what gets dumped on public schools. Apparently there is NOTHING public schools can’t cure. There aren’t enough hours in the day for public schools to fix all these problems. It’s comical.
The state of Ohio is right now shoving the whole opiate addiction problem onto public schools. They are being ordered to fix it. They can just add this to the list of the 100 other problems the legislature and governor dumped on them this year.
My husband and I are doing a program where we go into the school and present on “financial literacy”. We do interest rates, lenders, how not to get ripped off, that sort of thing and it’s fine- I enjoy it and the kids are great but, boy, they have a LOT to get thru in their school day. They are scheduled down to the minute. It seems impossible to cram all this stuff in.
When did public schools become responsible for teaching this? So just this year these kids had “financial literacy” added to their schedule along with “opiate abuse” – can some OTHER entity do some of this or is the idea we just dump everything in the world and then complain they aren’t meeting our goals?
Lawmakers need to GO INTO SCHOOLS. There aren’t huge blocks of down time! Adding something means subtracting something else.
“. . . and present on “financial literacy”. We do interest rates, lenders, how not to get ripped off, that sort of thing and it’s fine. . . ”
Did you advise them to never go into debt? If not you are not doing them any good. Did you explain that bankers have a legal mandate to steal from anyone? If not you didn’t explain lenders very well. Did you explain how 6% interest rate is actually 240% interest rate, that the bankers can legally lie like that???
The only and best advice to anyone: Get out of debt and never go back. Even better, never go into debt. It’s legal servitude now with the banking system set up the way it is. The banksters will hook you, reel you in and then gaffe you and throw you on ice.
A good education can do wonders for lots of people, but it will not cure poverty, and neither will privatization. Unfortunately, privatization is more divisive and unequal than the democratic ideology behind public schools that serve the common good. If education could address poverty minority college graduates would earn the same amount of money as their white counterparts. The reality is that white high school dropouts are wealthier than black and Hispanic college graduates. There is a huge disparity in income levels. Despite what the Supreme Court has said, racism continues to plague our nation and no amount of education, testing or blame can eradicate it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/10/white-high-school-dropouts-are-wealthier-than-black-and-hispanic-college-graduates-can-a-new-policy-tool-fix-that/?utm_term=.f6d3240f35e2
Here’s more of the stupidest ideas ever — this time from Green Dot Charter Chain founder and former Green Dot leader Steve Barr:
— only schools cause poverty
— only schools can eliminate poverty
… from that propaganda classic WAITING FOR SUPERMAN:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
( 23:13 – 23:18 )
( 23:13 – 23:18 )
STEVE BARR: (quotes dropout statistics, then concludes)
“Over 40 years, this is the damage that this school has done to this neighborhood.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Yeah, right. Steve, it’s the schools and its teachers that wrecked the neighborhood.
Whatever you say.
No, Steve, it has nothing to do with the fact that the tire and auto and countless other industries pulled out of South L.A. in order to maximize profits.
It also has nothing to do with the fact that a great majority the African-Americans in South Central originally migrated from the extremely impoverished areas of the Deep South (southeast United States) to begin with, poverty caused by capitalism — and the lasting impact of centuries of slavery — not the freakin’ schools.
But don’t you be dissin’ capitalism! That’s a major No-No at Green Dot.
A few years ago, activist Robert Skeels publicized the fact that Green Dot’s charter school petition contained language requiring that all Green Dot students must “demonstrate a belief in the values of … capitalism.”
http://dissidentvoice.org/ 2011/02/on-anschutz- villaraigosa-lausd- privatization-candidates-and- riding-dinosaurs/
Not an understanding of capitalism.
Not an appreciation of the the capitalism’s beneficial aspects, along with its deficiencies.
No, AN ALLEGIANCE TO CAPITALISM.
You know, the same system whose profit motives drove capitalists disinvest and pull out all its factories from South L.A., and thus, played a major role in creating poverty that exists there.
But no, says Steve Barr, it’s not capitalism that’s the problem; it’s the teachers at the schools — and those teachers alone — that wrecked South L.A.
That idiotic “capitalism” quote is still in the Green Dot Charter at the bottom Page Two — at this pdf
https://www.scribd.com/doc/ 24665283/Green-Dot-Public-sic- Schools-original-Alain-Leroy- Locke-Charter-High-School- petition
Almost a decade into Green Dot’s takeover of Locke High School om Sputh L.A., there’s been no improvement, and by some accounts, things are much worse. And that’s with tens of millions of outside private funding. Green Dot students are primarily taught by low-paid Teacher for America Corps Members who had previously never taught a day in their lives, and only had 5 weeks of TFA training. The overwhelming majority of them leave right after their two-year requirement is over… then the cycle continued.
Read this from Brett Wyatt, a former Green Dot Locke teacher and Insider:
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/ 06/05/the-inside-story-of-the- green-dot-charter-schools/
As justification for taking over Locke, Green Dot leaders like Barr pointed to … the low test scores! the low test scores! … as justification for taking over Locke. However, years later, when the scores were slightly worse under Green Dot control, they claimed, “Well scores aren’t everything. You need to look at how we’ve improved the school’s culture.”
Yeah, the scores only matter when it’s a public school that you’re trying to execute a hostile takeover of.
Whatever you say, guys.
And here it’s Davis Guggenheim, WAITING FOR SUPERMAN’s film maker and narrator’s turn to sound like an idiot:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
( 23:51 – 24:06 )
( 23:51 – 24:06 )
DAVIS GUGGENHEIM (narrator):
“For generations, experts tended to blame failing schools on failing neighborhoods.
“But reformers have begun to believe the opposite, that the problems of failing neighborhoods might be blamed on failing schools.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Again, teachers are to these “reformers” what the Jews were to the Nazis, the scapegoats for all that’s wrong with distressed neighborhoods. Teachers — especially unionized teachers — are also obstacles to these plutocrats’ desire to privatize the schools system, and profit from that privatization, so the more they can smear and portray teachers as greedy, lazy scum, the better.
Blaming teachers for the conditions in South L.A. — or in East Baltimore, or in Camden, New Jersey, or in South Chicago, or in the Anacostia neighborhoods in D.C. — that’s like blaming the rescue workers for causing Katrina or 9-11.
Again, this statement of Guggenheim’s was one of the made-to-order messages that were deliberately included in this this movie, at the command of its plutocrat backers. Demanding that the film conclude this was, to Philip Anshutz and the rest of film’s backers, like ordering up a cheeseburger, and that sell-out Guggenheim was their short order cook / film director / slave.
“Davis, here’s one of the key messages that you must include in the documentary …. in order to earn your multi-million dollar salary as producer and director, this better damn well be in there.
“Now go and dig up as much footage, and cute animated graphics, and on-camera spokes-holes that support that message, and leave out anything that doesn’t support that message, or that refutes it.”
That’s how propaganda is manufactured.
Indeed Davis Guggenheim was perfectly cast to deliver that message as well. You see he’s the pro-union progressive who used to love public schools, with all their problems, BUT NOW HE’S SEEN THE NEO-LIBERAL PRIVATIZE-EVERTHING, UNION-BUSTING LIGHT.
That’s the trajectory the film makers want its progressive viewers to have as well.
He made a two-hour movie about public schools WITHOUT ONE POSITIVE ASPECT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS MENTIONED EVEN ONCE, AND WITHOUT ONE INTERVIEW WITH ANYONE COUNTERING THE WALL-TO-WALL ANTI-PUBLIC-SCHOOL MESSAGES AND ON-CAMERA INTERVIEWS SPOUTING THOSE MESSAGES.
It’s both stupid and stupefying to consider.
Guggenheim’s press interviews promoting this trash are horrifying to watch. You’re looking at and listening to a man who has lost his very soul.
Guggenheim’s father was a great progressive documentarian, winning an Academy Award for a documentary on the Little Rock Nine. He’s gotta be twirling in his grave as to what’s become of his son Davis.
Diane: What we learn about the way things are in the first few years of our lives, whether fortunately or not, is what becomes at least recognizable and at most comfortable for us, like home, for all of our lives. If we hate it, it’s the base that we struggle to get away from. If we see others who have more and better than we do, which easily can occur in a kindergarten class, then we can become painfully aware of our place in the social order or, as children are known to do, we blame ourselves for our lesser life. We also can take on the conflict we fine between our family situation and those we know are better, and end up quietly hating either or both. And when we grow up and actually do something with our lives, we are dogged with a wispy sense of fraudulence.
This variable but common state of affairs comes from the whole of our early existence which can include schooling but, as your note suggests, is more about the larger familial-social context. If there’s any truth to it, that truth puts present policy, and the privatization movement, in a very bad light. Thanks for posting.
It enables policymakers to forget about the necessity of social policy that affects the conditions in which many families live.
Exactly so.
It also allows most economists (Kantor being the rare exception) to avoid messy reality.
Much easier to pretend that the unfettered free market can solve all problems.
One of the reasons children living in poverty have a disadvantage compared to the children of families with $$$ is the narrowness of their experiences. Lacking a car and no money for public transporting, their lives are limited to where they can walk in the neighborhood. The schools provide the information enrichment that the family can’t afford to provide (another plus for community schools) but even that can’t make up the resulting gap.
When you read a paragraph on a subject you already know about you have a heads up compared to others who find this subject brand new. The more you know the more “glue” you have for retaining new information. In other words, poverty is like putting up wallpaper without any glue – it doesn’t stick to the wall.
There is only so much a teacher can do to compensate for these differences. Ignoring the problem doesn’t make it disappear,
flos56: I think you are right about teachers, especially savvy teachers, who know how to compensate for their children’s problems.
Two things about that, hoewver: First, the “starve the beast” policies and the incessant bad-mouthing of public schools and teachers makes it more and more difficult for good teachers to do and be what they know is right. And second, if such compensation is not thought-out well–that is, with “larger view” knowledge at the background of all initiatives, then we tend to over-compensate and, in the process, too-easily can overlook and ignore what is still good and even essential about a child’s family; and even get “uppity” about the child’s situation.
An example: I had one teacher in one of my classes who worked in a poor neighborhood and who said that she wanted to take the children from their families and give them an entirely new environment. She saw the family as the problem (which of course in some situations, it can be); but children are not robots as she seemed to think, and they are commonly wholly identified with their family, in most cases, right or wrong, bad or good. In my view, hers was an extreme case of destructive overcompensation. I was glad she didn’t have the power to implement her plan.
So I think you re right in a general way, however . . . .the question of the quality of compensation is still the issue in individual cases.
Is the question part of a joke?
I wish it were. See “Waiting for Superman.” Or read Wendy Kopp
This bears (no, not the Betsy kind) repeating over and over:
“. . . what I have come to believe is bedrock truth. Poverty should be addressed by reducing poverty. No matter how high the standards, no matter how many tests, no matter how swell the curriculum is, those are not cures for homelessness, joblessness, and lack of access to decent medical care. This realization explains why I changed my mind about the best way to reform schools. It is not by turning schools over to the free market but by seeing them as part of a web of social supports for families and children.”
Thank you!
“The bear truth about Betsy”
Betsy scares
The grizzly bears
With crazy hairs
And steely glares
I just posted this on Diane’s last post, because it is WONDERFUL and its series of animated graphs elegantly EXPLAIN THE SOICAL CONTEXT OF HOW THEY ARE BANKRUPTING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Wealth and income equality is TIED INEXORABLY to education and the skills a populace has that allows them to enter an economy.
Wealth Inequality in America – YouTube
as Robert Reich explains, they want to keep Americans trapped in a vicious cycle, and it begins by removing public education. At the end of this piece — which he wrote before the election_ he says: “Regardless of who wins the presidency in November and which party dominates the next Congress, it is UP TO THE REST OF US to continue to organize and mobilize. Real reform will require many years of hard work from millions of us.”
While everyone is focused on the health care debate, as these callous politicians look to wreck what we already have- the DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION FALLS BY THE WAYSIDE.
Today, there is another savage cut to special education…EMBEDDED IN THIS GOP ‘HEALTH PLAN.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/us/politics/health-bill-medicaid-special-education-affordable-care-act.html?_r=0
“With all the sweeping changes the Republican bill would impose, little attention has been paid to its potential impact on education. School districts rely on Medicaid, the federal health care program for the poor, to provide costly services to millions of students with disabilities across the country. For nearly 30 years, Medicaid has helped school systems cover costs for special education services and equipment, from physical therapists to feeding tubes. The money is also used to provide preventive care, such as vision and hearing screenings, for other Medicaid-eligible children.
“The new law would cut Medicaid by $880 billion, or 25 percent, over 10 years and impose a “per-capita cap” on funding for certain groups of people, such as children and the elderly — a dramatic change that would convert Medicaid from an entitlement designed to cover any costs incurred to a more limited program. AASA, an advocacy association for school superintendents, estimates that school districts receive about $4 billion in Medicaid reimbursements annually.
In a January survey of nearly 1,000 district officials in 42 states, nearly 70 percent of districts reported that they used the money to pay the salaries of health care professionals who serve special education students.
“The advocates argued that under the House bill, the federal government would transfer the burden of health care to states, which would result in higher taxes, eligibility cuts or curtailed services for children. And they said that schools would have to compete for funding with other entities, like hospitals and clinics, that serve Medicaid-eligible children.
The ability of school systems to provide services mandated under the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act would be strained. The law is supposed to ensure that students with disabilities receive high-quality educational services, but it has historically been underfunded.
“School-based Medicaid programs serve as a lifeline to children who can’t access critical health care and health services outside of their school,” Under a little-noticed provision of the health care bill, states would no longer have to consider schools eligible Medicaid providers, meaning they would not be entitled to reimbursements.
John George, executive director of the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit in Pennsylvania, said Medicaid primarily paid for speech, physical and behavior therapists.
Special education students make up roughly 16 percent of his student population, he said, and his most recent Medicaid reimbursement was about $5.4 million.
“It’s devastating,” Mr. George said of the potential impact of losing Medicaid funding. “Our most vulnerable citizens are going to be suffering the most. If any legislator votes for this, it’s unconscionable.”
There is another type of poverty out there that is appropriate to the discussion. We have a shortage of time that is forced on schools and families. This is the myth that all students should reach the same level of performance at the same time. The result of this is the teacher that has to rush through the explanation and exposure to ideas the students are not prepared to encounter. Their children do not understand the concepts, but are assumed to be facile in dealing with them due to the mapping of the curriculum.
Families, meanwhile, are trying to get their kids to exercise and grow in all ways( I type this while my daughter in in swimming practice). We will get home, late, and try to get ready for a 4H presentation. She will want to read.
We are not short on money, but we are short on time, and we behave the same way people do when they are short on something, by over-compensating. People short one money are doubly clobbered, because low wages mean double jobs for some. I have a friend that does an all night gig as a manager of a motel and a day gig as an after school program director. That is how you make ends meet in a service economy.
This is why we can never separate discussions of education from discussions of economic disparity, social justice and corruption. When we look at a “failing” school the first thing we should ask is, how many of the parents in that school are unemployed or underemployed? How can we provide gainful employment and livable wages to families in poverty?
Instead we ask – how many tests can we give, how can we hold teachers accountable, how many schools can we close and how many kids can we segregate into charters?
Let’s look at the Value-Added Measures for elected officials like presidents and governors, based on growth made in providing jobs to the unemployed (as they invariably promise during campaigns).
I’m not so sure that I agree with Kantor’s slant that Great Society ed-policy singled out ed as a cure-all, leading inexorably to NCLB & RTTT.
’60’s Great Society programs ran the gamut from civil rights to anti-poverty measures to ed, health (Medicare & Medicaid) to arts/ culture, transportation, environment, consumer protection. What they had in common was the theory that ‘economic equilibrium’ was not inherent in the free market, but could be achieved by govt measures [top-down mandates plus fed $, otherwise known as ‘social engrg’].
Although our % of poverty [not to mention environment!] has improved greatly since those days, many economists today do not credit the Great Society programs, suggesting that outcomes were mainly due to a booming economy (& its residue). Meanwhile the conservative backlash has created inroads on anti-poverty measures, great curtailing of arts/culture, transportation & consumer protection, & presently open attack on environmental measures. And current Rep health measure that just passed house undermines Medicaid. And all civil-rights’ groups now agree that various states’ free-market incursions on ’60’s equal-access-to-quality-ed measures [incentivized by Clinton/ Bush/ Obama admins] have actually diminished minority access to qual ed.
When Great Society ed laws were passed, ed-policy was promulgated by the Dept of Health, Ed, & Welfare agency, supported in a context of related policies. I see ed isolation in its own ’79 Carter-era dept as making ed stand out as an easy scapegoat [allowing potshots at separate health & welfare funding]. Fed funding reps perhaps 10% of public-ed funding, but now is freely targeted & burdened w/the anti-poverty free-equal-access goals of the ’60’s, amidst abandonment of the funding for arts/ culture, environment, transportation, & consumer-protection law, inroads on anti-poverty & recent healthcare law– all of which relate directly to supporting free & equal access to qual ed– & if Rep healthcare measure passes Senate, even pulling Medicaid out from under SpEd funding.
Let’s say for a moment that education can cure poverty. (It can’t; let’s pretend.)
A child begins her formal education at age 4 (K1), then attends 13 years more. After high school, she goes to college and gets a BA. Because she really doesn’t want to be poor, she decides to become a lawyer. So law school for 3 years (she’s a terrific student!).
She lands a job at a prestigious firm and begins raking in the bucks (Bernie Sanders is president, so she has no college debt to repay.)
She’s 25 and has been poor all her life.
Or we could fix poverty and not wait 25 years.
Um…no.
This question reminds me of the statements DT made to the media about healthcare being incredibly complex or some such, making even “grumpy”* Bernie Sanders laugh.
(Good thing he wasn’t at a Jeff Sessions event–he might have been sentenced to a year in jail.)
*I highly recommend Matt Taibbi’s new book,” Insane Clown President: Dispatches From the 2016 Circus.” He describes Bernie’s (the “NYT remarked upon his ‘grumpy demeanor'”) as such because “he’s thinking about vets who need surgeries, guest workers who’ve had their wages ripped off, kids w/o access to dentists or some other g-dforsaken problem that most of us normal people can care about for maybe a few minutes on a good day, but Bernie worries about more or less all the time. I first met Bernie Sanders ten years ago, and I don’t believe there’s anything else he really thinks about.”
“Reform” not only allows the billionaires to forget about poverty, it allows them to claim that their support for “free market” for profit charter schools is helping children out of poverty without the help of the government.