You’ve Been Schooled: Class War, Class Struggle

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A few years ago,  maybe less, the big insult from the right was to call Obama, or anyone they did not like, a socialist. It drove anyone who was literate nuts, simply because the Obama administration was nearly as far from socialist as you could imagine, at least in the traditional sense.  Arguably, something  had to be done less capitalism implode, but would a socialist spend all or most of his time saving the banks?

That doesn’t even take into account the endless wars and illegal assassinations and the cowardly abandonment of single payer health care and the endless compromises. Obama has certainly accomplished some amazing things but he’s not used the crisis to move the country in a decisively new direction. Clinton was Reagan with a (slight) difference and Obama is Clinton’s Reaganomics with a (slight) difference.

The socialist charge hasn’t disappeared but it’s been overshadowed by the latest charge: class warfare.  This too ought to drive anyone in education and anyone who’s educated nuts. It’s not simply that there’s no war, or implied violence. It’s that this idea serves is, in effect, a denial of the reality of capitalism as an ongoing class struggle over resources and power, not necessarily in that order. It’s not war but it is a struggle.

The last thirty years or so have shown that if ordinary people don’t respond to the struggle with their own struggle, resources and wealth tend to concentrate at the top.  It’s incorrect to think of this in terms of individuals, aka the millionaire’s tax. Instead this has to be thought of in terms of how resources and power are distributed and as a result what sort of society you want to create. That’s the real question.

That’s what the Occupy Wall Street reaction– it’s not  yet a movement–is about. Do we want a morally sound society in which everyone has access to food, health care, and education as a human right? If we do, we have to accept limits on the ability to accumulate resources and power.  That’s the discussion the Occupation has begun. I think the proposed limits in Obama’s Jobs Bill is a good start, but only a start.

Posted in: Economics, Professional, Uncategorized

Occupy the Left

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I’ve watched the Occupy Wall Street folks, as well as their education analog, Occupy Colleges, and I have to say that I am a little surprised at the seeming reticence of much of the “usual suspects” left. I think a lot of us feel either confused– we’re taking a wait and see attitude– or simply unwilling to tinker– even only rhetorically–with what might be a genuine and growing popular uprising.

Doug Henwood has a nicely cogent analysis that suggests that an authentic movement should be, in effect, rudderless, at least for a while.Robert Reich has pointed out that it’s going to be difficult for the Obama led Democratic party follow the lead of the protesters, simply because Wall Street has done so much to support the current administration. I think the left, maybe especially the educational left, needs to start talking.

We’ve been thinking about these things for years, and I think we have lots ideas that might be put high on the educational agenda if the movement begins to enter what Henwood calls “another stage of more organization and specificity.”  I know I have more than a few. In the long run, we need to figure out how regulations–tied to federal aid– can address the rise of administrative costs and the loss of full-time tenured positions.

In the short-term, we need a student deb forgiveness plan that has real substance.  I think this could have several possible components. It has to include a switch  to a grant based system that would prevent debt in the first place. Another part might be a drop in interest rates on all current loans to 1% as suggested by the “Reduce the Rate” people. Last we need a 100% forgiveness program for anyone in public service.

Posted in: Economics, Professional, Writing

Why the Right Hates Teachers

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I was reading yet another piece about Republican efforts to demonize college professors– in this case, by targeting Labor Studies professors– and thinking about why the right-wing hates teachers so much (“Groups Investigating E-Mails of Professors in Michigan and Wisconsin Produce No Evidence of Wrongdoing“). Luckily, this particular witch hunt has so far failed to find anything that might be used to drum up the sorts of fear and anger that have made the right-wing so effective in recent years.

At one level, this is very straightforward hardball politics, similar to the ongoing efforts to restrict voter registration. If  you can demonize government officials, you can by extension make it easier to destroy the last real bastion of organized labor. If you can destroy or undermine organized labor, you can undermine the democratic party and so retard social progress. Social progress, of course, is anathema to the right because it by definition shifts wealth away from the rich and powerful and to the rest of us.

It’s also a part of the right’s embrace of anti-intellectualism, which it confuses (perhaps deliberately) with populism. You can’t believe in global warming, or evolution because that would suggest support for the people “behind” these things, the intellectuals, that is, the scientists and teachers who develop and teach these ideas. That would mean support for the public schools and that would mean support for the public school unions.  All of that reduces profits. It’s a Matryoshka doll of nested craziness.

 

Posted in: Economics, Professional, Union, Writing

Coming in from the Cold

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The  ongoing consolidation of the online higher education system, especially in the for-profit sector, is one of the most important developments in the last twenty years.  Yet, like the emergence of the internet in the early to mid 1990’s, it remains almost completely invisible in the mainstream– I am tempted to say lamestream— media.  I think it’s under-reported even in the education media.

There’s a lot to be concerned about the emerging online system– arguably, the most transformative development of the internet so far– yet the emergence of the new institutions seems to be happening without much public discussion, much less scrutiny.  The discussion that is going on, such as in Inside Higher Ed (“Going Off on Online Rankings“) seems so lost in the trees that it never considers the forest.

The U.S. News and World Report’s rankings of online schools are significant because they signal the first stages in the maturation of the online industry, led by for-profits, but increasingly joined by public schools. The final shape of the system– it’s ratio of for and not for profit institutions– has yet to be determined, mostly because the online system so radically widens the pool of potential students.

We need answers or at least a debate. Will the new system make life-long learning a practical reality? It’s not a part of  the Republican or Democrat deadbeats’ agendas, but ironically that absence  may signal its significance.  Just as importantly, is this emerging system going to reproduce the traditional system’s exploitative labor policies,  massive debt, and alienating mass consumption?

Posted in: Economics, Professional, Union, Writing