Education Can't Solve Poverty
September 23, 2017 1:23 PM Subscribe
So Why Do We Keep Insisting That It Can? An interview with historian Harvey Kantor, the author, with Robert Lowe, of a 2013 paper on the history of Educationalizing the Welfare State (8.4MB PDF).
Because then we can blame systemic failures on individuals and avoid the work of fixing them. Next question.
posted by PMdixon at 2:11 PM on September 23, 2017 [48 favorites]
posted by PMdixon at 2:11 PM on September 23, 2017 [48 favorites]
Makes me think of Harold Alden's work in the 1980s (Illiteracy and Poverty in Canada: Toward a Critical Perspective). I particularly like his ideas about the shortcomings of the popular "personal deficiency model" of explaining poverty:
As we have seen, both the liberal and conservative perspectives see deficiencies and shortcomings of the poor as a primary cause of poverty and unemployment. According to this "deficiency model", labour markets and the economy in Canada distribute success and failure more or less 'fairly' based on effort, abilities and qualifications. Therefore, the difficulties experienced by individuals in achieving adequate employment and income can in large measure be attributed to their personal shortcomings, which in the view of liberals mainly consist of lack of basic education, life skills and job skills ("human capital"), and in the view of orthodox conservatives consist of more fundamental deficiencies which cannot be easily or efficiently corrected, if at all.
In contrast, the critical perspective rejects the personal deficiency model. Its adherents share the view that the Canadian economy and its labour market are far from fair, and that in fact they constitute the primary source of poverty and unemployment. In effect, a new explanatory variable--i.e. the capitalist economic structure--is introduced into the discussion of illiteracy and poverty. (from Chapter 4, p. 2)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:22 PM on September 23, 2017 [12 favorites]
As we have seen, both the liberal and conservative perspectives see deficiencies and shortcomings of the poor as a primary cause of poverty and unemployment. According to this "deficiency model", labour markets and the economy in Canada distribute success and failure more or less 'fairly' based on effort, abilities and qualifications. Therefore, the difficulties experienced by individuals in achieving adequate employment and income can in large measure be attributed to their personal shortcomings, which in the view of liberals mainly consist of lack of basic education, life skills and job skills ("human capital"), and in the view of orthodox conservatives consist of more fundamental deficiencies which cannot be easily or efficiently corrected, if at all.
In contrast, the critical perspective rejects the personal deficiency model. Its adherents share the view that the Canadian economy and its labour market are far from fair, and that in fact they constitute the primary source of poverty and unemployment. In effect, a new explanatory variable--i.e. the capitalist economic structure--is introduced into the discussion of illiteracy and poverty. (from Chapter 4, p. 2)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:22 PM on September 23, 2017 [12 favorites]
So Why Do We Keep Insisting That It Can?
There is a tendency among most people to credit truth and knowledge with success, otherwise it is very disturbing to think that it comes down to mostly luck, corruption, favors, charm, or other cracks and holes in the system; hence the denial.
posted by Brian B. at 3:02 PM on September 23, 2017 [30 favorites]
There is a tendency among most people to credit truth and knowledge with success, otherwise it is very disturbing to think that it comes down to mostly luck, corruption, favors, charm, or other cracks and holes in the system; hence the denial.
posted by Brian B. at 3:02 PM on September 23, 2017 [30 favorites]
Also "job training" - for what jobs? Call centers?
posted by thelonius at 3:15 PM on September 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 3:15 PM on September 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
I agree that the causes of poverty are endemic to the culture and the economy, and it's one of my hobbyhorses that everybody wants the schools to do far more than they can possibly do, but I do hope this isn't being framed as an either/or binary. We guarantee doom to the poor if we do NOT offer education to all.
posted by Peach at 3:26 PM on September 23, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Peach at 3:26 PM on September 23, 2017 [6 favorites]
Poverty isn't a problem to be solved. It's the default condition of humankind. Resources are scarce. Entropy rules the universe. The question to ask is: How did the human race manage to achieve stable ownership of property, surplus means of exchange, and food security for the enormous number of people who today have these things, and how can we expand their number without destroying whatever it was that made this widespread and historically unprecedented prosperity possible?
If you approach poverty as an anomaly and a problem, it won't make sense and you'll go chasing after non-solutions.
posted by Modest House at 3:27 PM on September 23, 2017 [40 favorites]
If you approach poverty as an anomaly and a problem, it won't make sense and you'll go chasing after non-solutions.
posted by Modest House at 3:27 PM on September 23, 2017 [40 favorites]
Education Can't Solve Poverty—So Why Do We Keep Insisting That It Can?
Actual thought process: "Well the pertinent question is 'cui bono' – this is Latin for 'who benefits' my god I am educated and poor"
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:29 PM on September 23, 2017 [17 favorites]
Actual thought process: "Well the pertinent question is 'cui bono' – this is Latin for 'who benefits' my god I am educated and poor"
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:29 PM on September 23, 2017 [17 favorites]
ricochet biscuit: Actual thought process: "Well the pertinent question is 'cui bono' – this is Latin for 'who benefits' my god I am educated and poor"
Heh... perfect.
But, in answer to 'cui bono'... hmm... teachers? School administrators? Everyone who's had some success and thinks they deserved it because they did well in school? Everyone who doesn't want to pay more taxes, or who only wants to pay taxes in their local district that'll benefit their own children?
posted by clawsoon at 3:36 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
Heh... perfect.
But, in answer to 'cui bono'... hmm... teachers? School administrators? Everyone who's had some success and thinks they deserved it because they did well in school? Everyone who doesn't want to pay more taxes, or who only wants to pay taxes in their local district that'll benefit their own children?
posted by clawsoon at 3:36 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
Teachers benefit less and less, as they are expected to do more with increasingly fewer resources and less time. Administrators are equally beleaguered. I agree that those who have success and attribute it to their success in school benefit. But the benefits of education keep getting tied to financial rewards, and the market model applied to schools keeps assuming students are a "product." I'd argue the benefits and the results are no less important for being less remunerative.
Our current political scene illustrates all too well the consequences of a less educated citizenry.
posted by Peach at 3:56 PM on September 23, 2017 [8 favorites]
Our current political scene illustrates all too well the consequences of a less educated citizenry.
posted by Peach at 3:56 PM on September 23, 2017 [8 favorites]
One side wants to exploit human nature for power and profit. The other side wants to eliminate poverty, but not at the cost of losing whatever advantages they have. In other words, Country Club Republicans vs Limousine Liberals, and that's a battle that Republicans will always win. Senators live too good a life to rock the boat. Same with powerful members of Congress.
For real change we need a super majority of young Democrats who grew up in poverty. That would be a good start, I think.
PS, Universal Basic Income, now.
posted by Beholder at 4:27 PM on September 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
For real change we need a super majority of young Democrats who grew up in poverty. That would be a good start, I think.
PS, Universal Basic Income, now.
posted by Beholder at 4:27 PM on September 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
So let's have everyone get a college education, hell, get a PHD.
Who will bus the dishes and mow the lawns and clean up the poop at the old folks home?
Jobs (in capitalism) are a pyramid with the most numerous and worst paying on the bottom. Education doesn't change that picture. And with robotics and automation, the bottom is getting smaller as is the whole pyramid. We have plenty of stuff, it just doesn't get to all the people who need it because capitalism.
posted by charlesminus at 4:54 PM on September 23, 2017 [10 favorites]
Who will bus the dishes and mow the lawns and clean up the poop at the old folks home?
Jobs (in capitalism) are a pyramid with the most numerous and worst paying on the bottom. Education doesn't change that picture. And with robotics and automation, the bottom is getting smaller as is the whole pyramid. We have plenty of stuff, it just doesn't get to all the people who need it because capitalism.
posted by charlesminus at 4:54 PM on September 23, 2017 [10 favorites]
Jobs (in capitalism) are a pyramid with the most numerous and worst paying on the bottom.
Exactly. The GOP mantra is clear, the bottom sucks, so work harder or something something. The Liberal mantra should be that since there will always be a bottom, let's find ways to make it suck less.
posted by Beholder at 5:06 PM on September 23, 2017 [18 favorites]
Exactly. The GOP mantra is clear, the bottom sucks, so work harder or something something. The Liberal mantra should be that since there will always be a bottom, let's find ways to make it suck less.
posted by Beholder at 5:06 PM on September 23, 2017 [18 favorites]
I read the article, but it didn't really talk me out of what I went in believing: most people, at least among the people with money and power, don't really believe education *will* reduce inequality; nor do they want it to. They just haven't managed to get rid of it yet.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:01 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:01 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
As a former multi-college student and educator, the comments above don't leave out much.
In the following years of self-education, I've seen plenty of examples, not only of during-their-lifetime 'failures' (van Gogh stands out) but of people who 'made it' and then fell into poverty anyway (Tesla stands out).
I'll conclude with a link to this recent article about educational standards at modern Harvard. TLDR: the deck's stacked.
posted by Twang at 6:21 PM on September 23, 2017
In the following years of self-education, I've seen plenty of examples, not only of during-their-lifetime 'failures' (van Gogh stands out) but of people who 'made it' and then fell into poverty anyway (Tesla stands out).
I'll conclude with a link to this recent article about educational standards at modern Harvard. TLDR: the deck's stacked.
posted by Twang at 6:21 PM on September 23, 2017
So Why Do We Keep Insisting That It Can?
The people suggesting and/or enacting policies uniformly have succeeded in life due to their educations. It's all they know.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:28 PM on September 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
The people suggesting and/or enacting policies uniformly have succeeded in life due to their educations. It's all they know.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:28 PM on September 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
The Liberal mantra should be that since there will always be a bottom, let's find ways to make it suck less.
inspiring. have you considered entering politics?
posted by indubitable at 6:33 PM on September 23, 2017 [3 favorites]
inspiring. have you considered entering politics?
posted by indubitable at 6:33 PM on September 23, 2017 [3 favorites]
Non-educators keep insisting that education can solve poverty because it gives them something convenient to blame when it doesn't work.
Educators know it doesn't work perfectly, but we believe we can make it work if we just try hard enough. And we know it works somewhat, because we've seen it happen, and sometimes it works really well. But even if the educational process succeeds, what our graduates walk out into is going to beat them down.
I spent two and a half decades in education trying to make a difference to those kids who came under my sphere of influence, and some of the really disadvantaged ones have done really well through the efforts of a lot of us in my school. And now I teach college students who are spending one day a week in an urban school as part of their teacher training. Here's the pop quiz I gave them on Wednesday:
1. How many students are in your class?
2. How many started after school began?
3. How many are homeless?
4. How many speak no English?
5. How many qualify for free lunch because they are below the poverty level?
6. How many have had a family member shot?
7. How many read above grade level? (More than you'd think, but many are below))
8. How many have an IEP (Individualized Education Plan because of learning, emotional, or psychological issues)?
None of the college students knew yet (it was only their second time in the classroom there). But I can tell them that the answer to 1 is as many as 34 and as few as 18, and the rest of the answers are nonzero. In the city neighborhood where I live, I know the answer to #6 is all of the children in my immediate area. Except the children of the white gentrifiers.
How is a few hours a day going to change any of that?
posted by Peach at 6:47 PM on September 23, 2017 [17 favorites]
Educators know it doesn't work perfectly, but we believe we can make it work if we just try hard enough. And we know it works somewhat, because we've seen it happen, and sometimes it works really well. But even if the educational process succeeds, what our graduates walk out into is going to beat them down.
I spent two and a half decades in education trying to make a difference to those kids who came under my sphere of influence, and some of the really disadvantaged ones have done really well through the efforts of a lot of us in my school. And now I teach college students who are spending one day a week in an urban school as part of their teacher training. Here's the pop quiz I gave them on Wednesday:
1. How many students are in your class?
2. How many started after school began?
3. How many are homeless?
4. How many speak no English?
5. How many qualify for free lunch because they are below the poverty level?
6. How many have had a family member shot?
7. How many read above grade level? (More than you'd think, but many are below))
8. How many have an IEP (Individualized Education Plan because of learning, emotional, or psychological issues)?
None of the college students knew yet (it was only their second time in the classroom there). But I can tell them that the answer to 1 is as many as 34 and as few as 18, and the rest of the answers are nonzero. In the city neighborhood where I live, I know the answer to #6 is all of the children in my immediate area. Except the children of the white gentrifiers.
How is a few hours a day going to change any of that?
posted by Peach at 6:47 PM on September 23, 2017 [17 favorites]
. . . and one other thing. Anyone who goes to school from kindergarten to 12th grade and spends 4 years in college has spent 17 years looking at school from the point of view of a student and thinks they understand teaching. It's what the sociologist of education Lortie called "the apprenticeship of observation" in 1975 and it's dead wrong. One of the little joys of teaching as long as I did was when a young man I had taught in fourth grade came back as a teaching intern; he thought it would be easy, but had to rethink his entire worldview. I still remember his shock when he went on the 9th grade overnight field trip and realized it actually gelled the class and made them work as a unit rather than being an exercise in well-meaning adult ignorance, which is what he had thought it was when he was a 9th grader. To his credit, he did admit the fact.
posted by Peach at 7:13 PM on September 23, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by Peach at 7:13 PM on September 23, 2017 [8 favorites]
We guarantee doom to the poor if we do NOT offer education to all.
Precisely. Education may not solve poverty, but a lack thereof is certain to worsen it.
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:21 PM on September 23, 2017 [12 favorites]
Precisely. Education may not solve poverty, but a lack thereof is certain to worsen it.
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:21 PM on September 23, 2017 [12 favorites]
Education solves a certain kind of poverty: mostly extant in developing nations. It delays marriage, reduces the number of children and gets people away from a subsistence lifestyle where they are vulnerable to famine and disease. It allows a cash economy. It particularly lifts girls and women and very poor men out of being chattel and gives them some agency and an ability to earn for themselves and handle money, contracts, real estate deeds and the like. A base level of education does indeed make a huge difference in that situation.
However it doesn't do shit for post-industrial poverty, I know many a person with a master degree who is unemployed. And those degrees are STEM, not medieval English poetry. Inequality in society is structured differently now, we don't still live in the 19th century, although many "leaders" seem to think we do.
posted by fshgrl at 8:35 PM on September 23, 2017 [29 favorites]
However it doesn't do shit for post-industrial poverty, I know many a person with a master degree who is unemployed. And those degrees are STEM, not medieval English poetry. Inequality in society is structured differently now, we don't still live in the 19th century, although many "leaders" seem to think we do.
posted by fshgrl at 8:35 PM on September 23, 2017 [29 favorites]
fshgrl: Education solves a certain kind of poverty: mostly extant in developing nations. It delays marriage, reduces the number of children and gets people away from a subsistence lifestyle where they are vulnerable to famine and disease. It allows a cash economy. It particularly lifts girls and women and very poor men out of being chattel and gives them some agency and an ability to earn for themselves and handle money, contracts, real estate deeds and the like. A base level of education does indeed make a huge difference in that situation.
Indeed. If I'm remembering correctly, one of the things that Amartya Sen found in cross-state studies in India was that one of the strongest (inverse) indicators of birth rate - of women tied to the home as nothing more than bearers of children - was education and employment for women.
On the other hand, I do like this anecdote from P. J. O'Rourke, as shitty and glib as he can often be:
Indeed. If I'm remembering correctly, one of the things that Amartya Sen found in cross-state studies in India was that one of the strongest (inverse) indicators of birth rate - of women tied to the home as nothing more than bearers of children - was education and employment for women.
On the other hand, I do like this anecdote from P. J. O'Rourke, as shitty and glib as he can often be:
At my tourist hotel on the rim of the Ngorongoro, I asked the bartender why Tanzania was so poor. He said "lack of education" and then held forth with a fifteen-minute dissertation on the mathematics of the exchange rate that left me heavily shortchanged and in some doubt about his theory.posted by clawsoon at 9:20 PM on September 23, 2017 [7 favorites]
5. How many qualify for free lunch because they are below the poverty level?
All of them.
This year we are implementing anchor tasks, collecting evidence before, during, and after the task, shortening whole group instructional time, dividing students into groups based on individualized data for each student, providing different practice to each group, using a technology for individualized practice either above or below grade level, working with 4-5 students at a time in small grous, and so on...
All of these new initiatives announced to us on the second day of school after we had already begun instruction, with no extra desks for stations, no access to the department copier (all work must be sent to the print shop 3-4 days in advance), 10 reams of paper for 15 math teachers for the month of September, one calculator for every two students, one desk per student (no extra desks for stations), one computer for every three students although we are required to assign computers to students so they always use the same computer but also share them between teachers but also not let them leave the room, etc...
I agree with all of these initiatives in theory but it often seems there are not enough hours in the day, plus the material support is not there and no one in the district has really thought through the implementation. PS while a few kids are at grade level, most are somewhere around 4th-6th grade (I teach high school juniors).
posted by subdee at 9:36 PM on September 23, 2017 [7 favorites]
All of them.
This year we are implementing anchor tasks, collecting evidence before, during, and after the task, shortening whole group instructional time, dividing students into groups based on individualized data for each student, providing different practice to each group, using a technology for individualized practice either above or below grade level, working with 4-5 students at a time in small grous, and so on...
All of these new initiatives announced to us on the second day of school after we had already begun instruction, with no extra desks for stations, no access to the department copier (all work must be sent to the print shop 3-4 days in advance), 10 reams of paper for 15 math teachers for the month of September, one calculator for every two students, one desk per student (no extra desks for stations), one computer for every three students although we are required to assign computers to students so they always use the same computer but also share them between teachers but also not let them leave the room, etc...
I agree with all of these initiatives in theory but it often seems there are not enough hours in the day, plus the material support is not there and no one in the district has really thought through the implementation. PS while a few kids are at grade level, most are somewhere around 4th-6th grade (I teach high school juniors).
posted by subdee at 9:36 PM on September 23, 2017 [7 favorites]
I'm hoping it'll get easier as the year goes on but man, are we expected to do a lot in a short amount of time right now. Even having a week's advanced warning would have been nice. I didn't even know what rooms I'd be in until a week into the school year.
posted by subdee at 9:45 PM on September 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by subdee at 9:45 PM on September 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
I think the author is trying to answer the question: "Is the current system of 'education' solving the problem of income and wealth disparity", because that would be a no.
posted by Laotic at 10:47 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Laotic at 10:47 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
So Why Do We Keep Insisting That It Can?
Ohh! ooh! Classism! To protect certain rich men's money, and to guard against people thinking of how to achieve economic democracy. Someone always has to clean the toilets-- to do hard, boring, mind-killing, dangerous work that ensures the workers are too tired for political participation. classists want to ensure it's never them.
did i get it right, do i get an A?
posted by eustatic at 11:10 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
Ohh! ooh! Classism! To protect certain rich men's money, and to guard against people thinking of how to achieve economic democracy. Someone always has to clean the toilets-- to do hard, boring, mind-killing, dangerous work that ensures the workers are too tired for political participation. classists want to ensure it's never them.
did i get it right, do i get an A?
posted by eustatic at 11:10 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
Ohh! ooh! Classism! To protect certain rich men's money, and to guard against people thinking of how to achieve economic democracy.
That's probably part of it, but... hmm... it seems to me like the people who are most vocally and viscerally tied to the idea that education is the cure-all are well-educated middle class people. There's a level of religious fervour to it, where going to an inner city school or Third World country to teach is like being a missionary to the poor benighted heathens in Papua New Guinea so that they can go to heaven, too. I don't hear rich people talking about the miraculous power of education unless they're rich people like Bill Gates who were immersed in middle-class values growing up. Like you point out, the rich - the aristocratic rich - want and need a lower class in order to be an upper class. But the middle class is a missionary class, and it has set up educational systems unprecedented in human history with the goal of making everyone middle class (by belief and shared knowledge, if not by income).
I think that middle class people desperately want to believe that education is what matters most, because it's what matters most to them.
posted by clawsoon at 11:25 PM on September 23, 2017 [5 favorites]
That's probably part of it, but... hmm... it seems to me like the people who are most vocally and viscerally tied to the idea that education is the cure-all are well-educated middle class people. There's a level of religious fervour to it, where going to an inner city school or Third World country to teach is like being a missionary to the poor benighted heathens in Papua New Guinea so that they can go to heaven, too. I don't hear rich people talking about the miraculous power of education unless they're rich people like Bill Gates who were immersed in middle-class values growing up. Like you point out, the rich - the aristocratic rich - want and need a lower class in order to be an upper class. But the middle class is a missionary class, and it has set up educational systems unprecedented in human history with the goal of making everyone middle class (by belief and shared knowledge, if not by income).
I think that middle class people desperately want to believe that education is what matters most, because it's what matters most to them.
posted by clawsoon at 11:25 PM on September 23, 2017 [5 favorites]
I'd like to non-briefly address the claim that poverty is somehow normal/natural/default, with the corrolary that any policy toward poverty must avoid killing the golden goose of business/capitalism/rugged individualism (or those who have the gold ). Concisely proposed here by Modest House. In a proud tradition.
It's the default condition of humankind. Resources are scarce. Entropy rules the universe. The question to ask is: How did the human race manage to achieve stable ownership of property, surplus means of exchange, and food security for the enormous number of people who today have these thing
Well abundance, non-competition via niche diversification, cooperation within and between social groups and species is the norm in nature. Yes, some animals kill other animals, so there is some Red teeth and claws, no doubt; and no animals have Ferrari's so I suppose they are poor.
Poverty is an artifact of civilization, it is an artifact of property. Our observations of hunter-gatherers, and of archeological records of pre-urban human ancestors, and our observations of animals and plants in the wild speak to abundance and culling.
We work many more hours than our ancestors, than other predators, than other omnivores, and it is unhealthy and unevenly distributed. If your image of the default is the factories of Manchester 100 years ago, or the plantations of Georgia 200 years ago, or the serfs on the black sea, etc... you are picking a default which is already cut off from nature: a bonzai tree shaped by power. Show me land that I (or better yet my family and my kin) can hunt, gather and cultivate on without the violence of other humans interferring, and I will show you abundance by default. Property is an invention, one that takes much resources to defend and much training in the home, the school and the prison to instill and maintain. Property for some, means power for some. When the whole world is someone elses property, you have no power, you have no abundance, you have poverty. The default condition of people is not to be homeless, particularly in the presence of millions of empty homes and apartments. You do not see a stratum of nestless birds among the nested. Are therer wolves that failed geometry and don't have dens? Are there sheep that get kicked out of pasture for eating someone elses grass?
I could go on, but this is already too long. Science and cooperation made this recent prosperity, despite the enormous subjugation and overpopulation wrought by patriachy/property and we are not quite living as well as our ancestors by some measures, even if we now live better by others. Being hungry in the midst of food is not default, it is perversion. Being able to travel by air or watch a TV is not the moral absolution of that perversion.
TL;DR - maybe we should see what the golden goose tastes like to really know if hunger can't be solved.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:10 AM on September 24, 2017 [22 favorites]
Well abundance, non-competition via niche diversification, cooperation within and between social groups and species is the norm in nature. Yes, some animals kill other animals, so there is some Red teeth and claws, no doubt; and no animals have Ferrari's so I suppose they are poor.
Poverty is an artifact of civilization, it is an artifact of property. Our observations of hunter-gatherers, and of archeological records of pre-urban human ancestors, and our observations of animals and plants in the wild speak to abundance and culling.
We work many more hours than our ancestors, than other predators, than other omnivores, and it is unhealthy and unevenly distributed. If your image of the default is the factories of Manchester 100 years ago, or the plantations of Georgia 200 years ago, or the serfs on the black sea, etc... you are picking a default which is already cut off from nature: a bonzai tree shaped by power. Show me land that I (or better yet my family and my kin) can hunt, gather and cultivate on without the violence of other humans interferring, and I will show you abundance by default. Property is an invention, one that takes much resources to defend and much training in the home, the school and the prison to instill and maintain. Property for some, means power for some. When the whole world is someone elses property, you have no power, you have no abundance, you have poverty. The default condition of people is not to be homeless, particularly in the presence of millions of empty homes and apartments. You do not see a stratum of nestless birds among the nested. Are therer wolves that failed geometry and don't have dens? Are there sheep that get kicked out of pasture for eating someone elses grass?
I could go on, but this is already too long. Science and cooperation made this recent prosperity, despite the enormous subjugation and overpopulation wrought by patriachy/property and we are not quite living as well as our ancestors by some measures, even if we now live better by others. Being hungry in the midst of food is not default, it is perversion. Being able to travel by air or watch a TV is not the moral absolution of that perversion.
TL;DR - maybe we should see what the golden goose tastes like to really know if hunger can't be solved.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:10 AM on September 24, 2017 [22 favorites]
Also, sadly education is as much about sort and separating and labelling children as it is about "improving" or helping them. Control and reproduction of the social structure - thats why the middle class need it. the inheritance of wealth will insure the rich in all but the most tumultuous of times, but the middle class need education to get their legs up in the rat race.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:36 AM on September 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:36 AM on September 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
Education is necessary but not sufficient to alleviating poverty to varying degrees at different levels of abstraction:
Example 1: When elected officials aren't well educated enough to understand the bare minimum of monetary and economic theory/practice required to oversee economic policy in a nation, they mismanage it and govern by popular economic myth (like erroneous ideas about tax brackets penalizing the middle class and being the source of excessive complexity in the tax code when in reality it's exemptions and credits that make filing overly complicated and provide opportunity for the wealthy to evade their fair tax burden, or the idea income tax is primarily about creating money supply for public spending when in reality it was implemented to address the problem of surplus wealth and there's never been any real problem with so-called fiat currencies beyond how new money supply produced by fiat has historically been distributed in inefficient/corrupt ways that promote wealth hoarding and don't directly and immediately produce enough real economic value to justify the increase in money supply in the economy, etc.)
Example 2: Liberal arts education can give you the basic skills to further educate yourself. I came to America as a nonnative language speaker. Thanks to a decent public school education, I learned English well enough to make a living as a technical writer and later software developer. However, that wouldn't necessarily have been possible outside the unique conditions of the particular regional market I landed in after college, where formal credentials may give you a leg up in finding entry level work in IT but aren't strictly required (since I only had a general liberal arts education with some emphasis on writing and formal logic and no formal business or IT training).
Ironically, I think the emphasis on education as job and vocational training makes general liberal arts education less effective as a strategy for promoting economic mobility because it pushes us toward specialty focuses that don't equip us for the kinds of rapid industrial change and economic disruption modern American workers have to be prepared to deal with. Narrower, specialized credentials from education programs that focus primarily on training currently marketable job skills as opposed to general education and critical thinking end up being a big waste of everyone's time and money when the rules and norms within industries and professions change so often your job training might be out of date by the time you finish and start seeking work. The emphasis on specific educational credentials, too, ends up too easily becoming corrupted into the sort of elitist sorting and labelling mechanism others have suggested education already is in practice in many markets like Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.
Tl;dr: Education is necessary but not sufficient for ameliorating poverty and in the current American economic reality, it may be even less sufficient than it has been historically when general education and scholarship were more culturally valued and less stigmatizing. Nowadays a general liberal arts education almost gives you a black eye and marks you as an unserious, unambitious dilletante.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:46 AM on September 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
Example 1: When elected officials aren't well educated enough to understand the bare minimum of monetary and economic theory/practice required to oversee economic policy in a nation, they mismanage it and govern by popular economic myth (like erroneous ideas about tax brackets penalizing the middle class and being the source of excessive complexity in the tax code when in reality it's exemptions and credits that make filing overly complicated and provide opportunity for the wealthy to evade their fair tax burden, or the idea income tax is primarily about creating money supply for public spending when in reality it was implemented to address the problem of surplus wealth and there's never been any real problem with so-called fiat currencies beyond how new money supply produced by fiat has historically been distributed in inefficient/corrupt ways that promote wealth hoarding and don't directly and immediately produce enough real economic value to justify the increase in money supply in the economy, etc.)
Example 2: Liberal arts education can give you the basic skills to further educate yourself. I came to America as a nonnative language speaker. Thanks to a decent public school education, I learned English well enough to make a living as a technical writer and later software developer. However, that wouldn't necessarily have been possible outside the unique conditions of the particular regional market I landed in after college, where formal credentials may give you a leg up in finding entry level work in IT but aren't strictly required (since I only had a general liberal arts education with some emphasis on writing and formal logic and no formal business or IT training).
Ironically, I think the emphasis on education as job and vocational training makes general liberal arts education less effective as a strategy for promoting economic mobility because it pushes us toward specialty focuses that don't equip us for the kinds of rapid industrial change and economic disruption modern American workers have to be prepared to deal with. Narrower, specialized credentials from education programs that focus primarily on training currently marketable job skills as opposed to general education and critical thinking end up being a big waste of everyone's time and money when the rules and norms within industries and professions change so often your job training might be out of date by the time you finish and start seeking work. The emphasis on specific educational credentials, too, ends up too easily becoming corrupted into the sort of elitist sorting and labelling mechanism others have suggested education already is in practice in many markets like Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.
Tl;dr: Education is necessary but not sufficient for ameliorating poverty and in the current American economic reality, it may be even less sufficient than it has been historically when general education and scholarship were more culturally valued and less stigmatizing. Nowadays a general liberal arts education almost gives you a black eye and marks you as an unserious, unambitious dilletante.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:46 AM on September 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
Had a discussion with a young friend the other day who argued that she shouldn't have had to study vocationally-irrelevant subjects in high school. She was startled to hear that everyone there disagreed with her, because she spends so much of her life in an echo chamber of like-minded folk. And we disagreed with her because even though education is often framed (in order to appeal to those who are motivated entirely by economics) as vocational, it is not.
It is, in an ideal sense, much more about gaining the general knowledge and intellectual tools to operate in a world in which jobs disappear and change.
And in a non-ideal sense, graduation certificates serve a gatekeeping purpose, one that is not functional at all but which serves to filter applicants out. There is no particular reason for most jobs to require a degree; it just makes it easier to keep the applications down. The result is racist, sexist and classist.
Aspirational women, recognizing the gatekeeping purpose of degrees, have industriously become the majority of those pursuing graduate degrees. But they are stymied by the fact that ultimately most jobs are further filtered not by credentials but by implicit prejudice, degree of comfort, and/or personal acquaintance with the applicant.
posted by Peach at 4:47 AM on September 24, 2017 [13 favorites]
It is, in an ideal sense, much more about gaining the general knowledge and intellectual tools to operate in a world in which jobs disappear and change.
And in a non-ideal sense, graduation certificates serve a gatekeeping purpose, one that is not functional at all but which serves to filter applicants out. There is no particular reason for most jobs to require a degree; it just makes it easier to keep the applications down. The result is racist, sexist and classist.
Aspirational women, recognizing the gatekeeping purpose of degrees, have industriously become the majority of those pursuing graduate degrees. But they are stymied by the fact that ultimately most jobs are further filtered not by credentials but by implicit prejudice, degree of comfort, and/or personal acquaintance with the applicant.
posted by Peach at 4:47 AM on September 24, 2017 [13 favorites]
This theme is very short-sighted.
Yes -- education of the poor as a class won't solve their poverty as a class, that's true, and it's also true that there all kinds of vested interests profiting from ill-considered "education of the poor" initiatives of both the conventional and "reform" kind.
But -- education very effectively lifts smart poor people into the middle class. That is an extraordinary moral victory of societies of the West. While I'm sure there are some people in this thread who descend from land-owning aristocrats, I bet a lot more don't have to look back more than a couple or three generations to find the working class forbear whose college education brought the family into the middle class or higher.
And -- education of smart people (not exclusively smart poor people) has dramatically reduced the scope of poverty in the modern era. "Our poor people are rich by historical standards" is a superficial take, but the huge increase in calories-available-per-real-dollar, real-GDP-per-capita, etc., are all driven by education-enabled agricultural and industrial productivity improvements.
posted by MattD at 7:03 AM on September 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Yes -- education of the poor as a class won't solve their poverty as a class, that's true, and it's also true that there all kinds of vested interests profiting from ill-considered "education of the poor" initiatives of both the conventional and "reform" kind.
But -- education very effectively lifts smart poor people into the middle class. That is an extraordinary moral victory of societies of the West. While I'm sure there are some people in this thread who descend from land-owning aristocrats, I bet a lot more don't have to look back more than a couple or three generations to find the working class forbear whose college education brought the family into the middle class or higher.
And -- education of smart people (not exclusively smart poor people) has dramatically reduced the scope of poverty in the modern era. "Our poor people are rich by historical standards" is a superficial take, but the huge increase in calories-available-per-real-dollar, real-GDP-per-capita, etc., are all driven by education-enabled agricultural and industrial productivity improvements.
posted by MattD at 7:03 AM on September 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Nitpicky, but free and reduced-price lunch eligibility guidelines are based on household income 1.3 and 1.85 times over the federal poverty level.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:33 AM on September 24, 2017
posted by elsietheeel at 7:33 AM on September 24, 2017
Education without dignity is the seed of revolution.
posted by ethansr at 8:43 AM on September 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ethansr at 8:43 AM on September 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'd like to circle back to vocational training and training for university. When I was a kid, every public high school had classes in things like auto mechanics, and plumbing and air conditioner work, etc., such that kids graduating could slide right into apprenticeship and a real, not badly paid job right out of high school. Now, I dunno the last time any of y'all had to hire workman, but they don't come cheap. There was no shame in being a blue collar worker when I was in school.
My kid just started hs this year. They have been pushing college in our isd since he was in 2nd grade. They have to declare a "degree plan" that locks in their high school college track in 8th grade. It's ridiculous. HS should be all about exploring different fields and options, and learning how to navigate social interactions. Instead, my 14 year old was pushed into taking four ap classes, plus his other classes, his first semester. For all intents and purposes, this means he's taking four college classes as a high school freshman, and reader, it is killing him. But he's terrified that if he doesn't do all this, plus team, plus extracurricular stuff, that he won't get into college. He doesn't even know what he wants to go to college for, just that college has been the goal since he was seven.
They don't have vocational programs except at the school where they send discipline problems, with the implication being, well these kids will never amount to anything, might as well teach them how to weld.
The push for all kids to go to university, as though it is a natural progression in everyone's life, to suggest that anyone who doesn't go to university is somehow a lesser member of society, to admit that high school graduates are not fully educated enough to manage finances and find a job that pays a living wage, is an indictment of the culture and the educational model.
My plumber is not a lesser human because I have a graduate degree and he doesn't. I can't do his job. I struggle to manage our outflow vs income, he is able to support his six kids, while training two of them up as apprentices.
Everyone in this country should be able to make a living wage. Everyone should be able to read, write and do basic sums. But to insist that everyone needs four years of post high school education at cost of $100,000+ as a barrier to anything but minimum wage existence is obscene.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:46 AM on September 24, 2017 [18 favorites]
My kid just started hs this year. They have been pushing college in our isd since he was in 2nd grade. They have to declare a "degree plan" that locks in their high school college track in 8th grade. It's ridiculous. HS should be all about exploring different fields and options, and learning how to navigate social interactions. Instead, my 14 year old was pushed into taking four ap classes, plus his other classes, his first semester. For all intents and purposes, this means he's taking four college classes as a high school freshman, and reader, it is killing him. But he's terrified that if he doesn't do all this, plus team, plus extracurricular stuff, that he won't get into college. He doesn't even know what he wants to go to college for, just that college has been the goal since he was seven.
They don't have vocational programs except at the school where they send discipline problems, with the implication being, well these kids will never amount to anything, might as well teach them how to weld.
The push for all kids to go to university, as though it is a natural progression in everyone's life, to suggest that anyone who doesn't go to university is somehow a lesser member of society, to admit that high school graduates are not fully educated enough to manage finances and find a job that pays a living wage, is an indictment of the culture and the educational model.
My plumber is not a lesser human because I have a graduate degree and he doesn't. I can't do his job. I struggle to manage our outflow vs income, he is able to support his six kids, while training two of them up as apprentices.
Everyone in this country should be able to make a living wage. Everyone should be able to read, write and do basic sums. But to insist that everyone needs four years of post high school education at cost of $100,000+ as a barrier to anything but minimum wage existence is obscene.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:46 AM on September 24, 2017 [18 favorites]
The Liberal mantra should be that since there will always be a bottom, let's find ways to make it suck less.
I would find this a lot more reasonable to listen to than yet another "and here's how we will destroy poverty forever" that will, in fact, do no such thing.
posted by corb at 9:03 AM on September 24, 2017
I would find this a lot more reasonable to listen to than yet another "and here's how we will destroy poverty forever" that will, in fact, do no such thing.
posted by corb at 9:03 AM on September 24, 2017
"WHAT DO WE WANT?"
"MARGINAL IMPROVEMENTS TO THE LIVING CONDITIONS OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN LEFT BEHIND BY SOCIETY!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT?"
"AS SOON AS THERE IS A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS, AND SUFFICIENT PUBLIC SUPPORT TO OVERCOME THE HUMAN INSTINCT TO WORRY MORE ABOUT HYPOTHETICAL THREATS TO US AND THE ONES WE LOVE THAN ACTUAL THREATS TO PEOPLE WE MAY NEVER MEET!"
posted by tonycpsu at 9:10 AM on September 24, 2017 [19 favorites]
"MARGINAL IMPROVEMENTS TO THE LIVING CONDITIONS OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN LEFT BEHIND BY SOCIETY!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT?"
"AS SOON AS THERE IS A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS, AND SUFFICIENT PUBLIC SUPPORT TO OVERCOME THE HUMAN INSTINCT TO WORRY MORE ABOUT HYPOTHETICAL THREATS TO US AND THE ONES WE LOVE THAN ACTUAL THREATS TO PEOPLE WE MAY NEVER MEET!"
posted by tonycpsu at 9:10 AM on September 24, 2017 [19 favorites]
I...guess I'm voting for tonycpsu? Damn, what a world 2017 is.
posted by corb at 9:13 AM on September 24, 2017
posted by corb at 9:13 AM on September 24, 2017
If you lived in Europe, you might not see the choice between vocation and general education as such a classist dilemma, though, since university attendance is basically free. The best thing would be both: plumbers should get a good general education so they can make good choices at the polls even when the policies under consideration don't concern plumbing.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:17 AM on September 24, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 9:17 AM on September 24, 2017 [6 favorites]
I appreciate your support, corb, but to be clear, that was my oblique way of saying that people tend to not be motivated to make even marginal improvements to an area of public policy by realistic goals and incremental solutions, but ambitious goals and more comprehensive solutions. It my be that incrementalism is more tactically sound, but in terms of building a base of support for even the incremental approach, it helps to lay out what the desired end state is, and for me, that's the end of poverty.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:21 AM on September 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by tonycpsu at 9:21 AM on September 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
saulgoodman: If you lived in Europe, you might not see the choice between vocation and general education as such a classist dilemma, though, since university attendance is basically free. The best thing would be both: plumbers should get a good general education so they can make good choices at the polls even when the policies under consideration don't concern plumbing.
I agree with you - I think education in and of itself is a good thing, and having an educated populace benefits us all. (Though "Europe" is a continent, not a country, and education quality varies widely.)
In particular, aaargh we need better civics education in this country! If we want better informed voters who won't be led around by their noses at the whim of "populists" like Seeping Baby Man, we need much better education - not more hours or more years, but better quality - than we have.
A big problem, as I see it, with "education is a good in so far as it helps people become rich" is not just that it fails to lift up all of the poor. It's that education, knowledge, is no longer a good in and of itself, but only a utilitarian good. This is how we get "Why educate women? They're just going to get married and be housewives anyway!" (thankfully we don't hear that in the mainstream anymore) or right-wing men, especially, saying "Education is a waste! Ha ha Underwater Feminist Liberal Arts Basketweaving would you like fries with that?!"
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 9:54 AM on September 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
Nowadays a general liberal arts education almost gives you a black eye and marks you as an unserious, unambitious dilletante
This is a popular thing to say, but it is said most often by new college grads, new entering college freshmen looking to choose a major without reference to their interests, and nervous parents. that is, people who are trying to imagine what an unknown future holds and trying to envision what's inside a mysterious black box, not the people who know what's in the box because they put it there.
and what I mean by that is: nowadays, it is truer than it used to be, like you say. but where did everybody go who was educated thenadays and has a liberal arts degree that got them somewhere, or no degree but who read a lot of books and started working when you didn't have to have a degree in file-cabinetry to be allowed to file papers? many of them are now Olds, due to the passing of time, but not retired, and most Olds are in higher positions of authority than most Youngs, due to undeserved promotions and pointless respect for seniority, and are therefore in positions where they can make hiring decisions and write job listings.
and so I wonder why it is that 30-40+ year olds, who grew up when this was not true, would decide to make it true. if indeed they have done so to the extent many people vehemently believe. the only time I had full hiring discretion to pick whoever I wanted, I picked the French major because he included an unnecessary footnote in his cover letter. he did just fine. runner-up was the one who talked about her Jane Austen blog the whole interview. the job had nothing to do with footnotes, or French. or Jane Austen. or blogging. can I be the only out-of-touch impractical liberal-artsy old who has been a position of very low-level bureaucratic power? I cannot be.
so I wish people would stop trying to terrify teens out of majoring in sex poetry or whatever, and stop trying extra hard based on class. if they can't get a job after that, it will be because they went to a terrible college, or they have no skills, or there are no jobs. especially the last one. but the first two factors apply ten times as hard to any business or communications major, none of whom I would ever hire for anything if you paid me. which I guess you would be doing, in such a hypothetical. (or any STEM major either, unless they made it sound interesting in their cover letter, which is a hard bar to clear.)
if you don't have a college degree, you are devalued and mistreated in all kinds of ridiculous and offensive ways, that's terrible and true. but among those who do have one, being a liberal arts ponce suits a youth as well today as it ever did for talking one's way into places one doesn't belong. that's the other half of the reason the poorer you are, the more you're encouraged to be afraid of that world -- your parents might warn you away because they're worried it won't help you succeed, but other people will warn you away because they're worried that it will. nobody should ever be e.g. an English major because it's easy and who cares what you major in as long as you graduate. not only is it unwise at this point, they don't deserve it. but being one does not destroy your future or brand a scarlet E on your bosom even today. all it does is give you a good excuse for why you can't find a job, if you have to give excuses to people who don't understand "the economy."
now somebody say Ha ha yes encourage kids to major in English if you want them to work at STARBUCKS! and I can give my outraged speech about how a person who hates to see a literate barista is an enemy of the state. because they are. people need to interrogate their need to have service workers and manual laborers who are less educated and (presumed) less intelligent or well-read than they are. interrogate it good and hard.
posted by queenofbithynia at 11:59 AM on September 24, 2017 [15 favorites]
This is a popular thing to say, but it is said most often by new college grads, new entering college freshmen looking to choose a major without reference to their interests, and nervous parents. that is, people who are trying to imagine what an unknown future holds and trying to envision what's inside a mysterious black box, not the people who know what's in the box because they put it there.
and what I mean by that is: nowadays, it is truer than it used to be, like you say. but where did everybody go who was educated thenadays and has a liberal arts degree that got them somewhere, or no degree but who read a lot of books and started working when you didn't have to have a degree in file-cabinetry to be allowed to file papers? many of them are now Olds, due to the passing of time, but not retired, and most Olds are in higher positions of authority than most Youngs, due to undeserved promotions and pointless respect for seniority, and are therefore in positions where they can make hiring decisions and write job listings.
and so I wonder why it is that 30-40+ year olds, who grew up when this was not true, would decide to make it true. if indeed they have done so to the extent many people vehemently believe. the only time I had full hiring discretion to pick whoever I wanted, I picked the French major because he included an unnecessary footnote in his cover letter. he did just fine. runner-up was the one who talked about her Jane Austen blog the whole interview. the job had nothing to do with footnotes, or French. or Jane Austen. or blogging. can I be the only out-of-touch impractical liberal-artsy old who has been a position of very low-level bureaucratic power? I cannot be.
so I wish people would stop trying to terrify teens out of majoring in sex poetry or whatever, and stop trying extra hard based on class. if they can't get a job after that, it will be because they went to a terrible college, or they have no skills, or there are no jobs. especially the last one. but the first two factors apply ten times as hard to any business or communications major, none of whom I would ever hire for anything if you paid me. which I guess you would be doing, in such a hypothetical. (or any STEM major either, unless they made it sound interesting in their cover letter, which is a hard bar to clear.)
if you don't have a college degree, you are devalued and mistreated in all kinds of ridiculous and offensive ways, that's terrible and true. but among those who do have one, being a liberal arts ponce suits a youth as well today as it ever did for talking one's way into places one doesn't belong. that's the other half of the reason the poorer you are, the more you're encouraged to be afraid of that world -- your parents might warn you away because they're worried it won't help you succeed, but other people will warn you away because they're worried that it will. nobody should ever be e.g. an English major because it's easy and who cares what you major in as long as you graduate. not only is it unwise at this point, they don't deserve it. but being one does not destroy your future or brand a scarlet E on your bosom even today. all it does is give you a good excuse for why you can't find a job, if you have to give excuses to people who don't understand "the economy."
now somebody say Ha ha yes encourage kids to major in English if you want them to work at STARBUCKS! and I can give my outraged speech about how a person who hates to see a literate barista is an enemy of the state. because they are. people need to interrogate their need to have service workers and manual laborers who are less educated and (presumed) less intelligent or well-read than they are. interrogate it good and hard.
posted by queenofbithynia at 11:59 AM on September 24, 2017 [15 favorites]
I've had managers literally scoff in my face when they find out my educational background is liberal arts, and I'm a 43 year old dude with almost 20 years in IT at this point, so I'm skeptical it's only new grads that get this impression.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:04 AM on September 25, 2017
posted by saulgoodman at 8:04 AM on September 25, 2017
I've had managers literally scoff in my face when they find out my educational background is liberal arts, and I'm a 43 year old dude with almost 20 years in IT at this point, so I'm skeptical it's only new grads that get this impression.
Were all of those managers also in IT? Because that is likely to be your problem. The IT hostility to anything outside of STEM is by no means universal.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 8:36 AM on September 25, 2017
Were all of those managers also in IT? Because that is likely to be your problem. The IT hostility to anything outside of STEM is by no means universal.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 8:36 AM on September 25, 2017
Yeah, but ironically, they weren't technical themselves but MBAs and PM types. There's definitely a hostility to liberal arts education among that cohort.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:50 AM on September 25, 2017
posted by saulgoodman at 9:50 AM on September 25, 2017
An analogy popped into my head: Water can't stop you from starving to death, but it IS one of the necessary criteria to not die of starvation. Education is like water - it needs to be available prodigiously to everyone, as much of it as they need, and it should not cost the earth to get good clean water. But to give someone a glass of water and say "Here, now you're no longer starving!" is disingenuous at best and maliciously selfish at worst.
posted by Alnedra at 8:38 PM on September 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Alnedra at 8:38 PM on September 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
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posted by Snowishberlin at 1:58 PM on September 23, 2017