Education and the U.S. Moral Economy

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ORTLAND, Ore. — The admissions team at Reed College, known for its free-spirited students, learned in March that the prospective freshman class it had so carefully composed after weeks of reviewing essays, scores and recommendations was unworkable.

Money was the problem. Too many of the students needed financial aid, and the college did not have enough. So the director of financial aid gave the team another task: drop more than 100 needy students before sending out acceptances, and substitute those who could pay full freight.

College in Need Closes a Door to Needy Students, Jonathan D. Glater, New York Times, June 9, 2009

Here’s a simple question. Why is it that when a public institution is forced, or feels forced, into cut-backs in programs they always cut programs that help the neediest? One apparent answer is that these programs are the most expensive. Another is that these programs are seen as peripheral: “We believe in helping, but it’s not our primary responsibility.”

This story about Reed College is instructive because it illustrates how the moral economy works in the Untied Sates. It’s easy to imagine a hundred different ways the school might have saved money in order to allow students with little money to attend. Imagine, for example, that administrators and tenured faculty all agreed to a temporary 20% cut in salaries.

I don’t know if that would raise the money they need. But we would have to imagine a very different moral culture in order to imagine that as the first gesture made by the college. There may have been teachers and even administrators at the college who proposed this sort of idea, of course. Obviously, it wasn’t persuasive. We don’t think that way.

Posted in: Economics, Professional, Writing

More Good News: Why Go Back?

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WESTPORT, Conn. — Math students in this high-performing school district used to rush through their Algebra I textbooks only to spend the first few months of Algebra II relearning everything they forgot or failed to grasp the first time.

So the district’s frustrated math teachers decided to rewrite the algebra curriculum, limiting it to about half of the 90 concepts typically covered in a high school course in hopes of developing a deeper understanding of key topics. Last year, they began replacing 1,000-plus-page math textbooks with their own custom-designed online curriculum; the lessons are typically written in Westport and then sent to a program in India, called HeyMath!, to jazz up the algorithms and problem sets with animation and sounds.

Connecticut District Tosses Algebra Textbooks and Goes Online, Winnie Hu, June 8, 2009

As I said on Friday, some good ideas are so good they seem like common sense and it’s hard to understand why they are not commonly used. Even more than that, there are entire industries that do nothing but waste our time and money. The private health care industry is a great example. Why should so many people spend so much time trying to make a profit on keeping us healthy?

As has often been said, that makes no more sense than creating an entire infrastructure dedicated to making a profit off of fire or police services. (We’ve really suffered from the desire to make a profit from war, too.) These are all very large-scale, dramatic examples that seem to generate all sorts of passions, perhaps because the changes seem so enourmous.

The end of the textbook industry, however, is a good example of a less-than-earth-shattering transformation that makes as much sense as a single payer health care system. As the Connecticut example shows, with a small investment (in their teachers) school districts can save a lot of money by simply by-passing a completely unnecessary, wasteful industry.

This is the sort of change– like SPIN farming– that is no doubt accelerated by the mess that conservatives have made of the economy. It’s also the kind of thing– like SPIN farming– that should be developed further as a part of the economic recovery. I think this could have gone even further, too. Districts could combine resources, for example, and hire local programmers.

Posted in: Composition, Economics, Language, Online Places

“SPIN stands for S-mall P-lot IN-tensive”

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SPIN stands for S-mall P-lot IN-tensive

SPIN-Farming is a non-technical, easy-to-learn and inexpensive-to-implement vegetable farming system that makes it possible to earn significant income from land bases under an acre in size. Whether you are new to farming, or want to farm in a new way, SPIN can work for you because:

* Its precise revenue targeting formulas and organic-based techniques make it possible to gross $50,000+ from a half- acre.
* You don’t need to own land. You can affordably rent or barter a small piece of land adequate in size for SPIN-Farming production.
* It works in either the city, country or small town.
* It fits into any lifestyle or life cycle.

SPIN is being practiced by first generation farmers because it removes the two big barriers to entry – land and capital – as well as by established farmers who want to diversify or downsize, as well as by part-time hobby farmers.

What is Spin Farming?

I watched “Earth 2100” the other night and it was so effective at communicating a sense of slow-moving doom that I had to go find something to clear my often-pessimistic political palate. The “Spin” plan is one of those simple, clear-headed ideas that seem so obvious that it’s hard to believe it’s not common practice.

It’s also interesting to think about what the site calls “first generation” farmers. I think it’s easy to see history as very linear: we lost all or most of the small farms and most of us left the countryside for the city and suburb and there’s no going back. The Spin folks seem to suggest all sorts of other ideas.

Maybe, a rust-belt city like Detroit, now being laced with small garden plots and farms, will become the model of a sustainable culture. Maybe]some of us will become farmers again. Instead of isolated, large scale plots of land, though, they will weave their farms into the ruins. It’s a great thought.

Posted in: Economics, Online Places