I could hug you.

money calls the shoots in the usa today..education is viewed as socialistic (which it is), and which the wealthy would prefer to leave open to only the wealthy (hence the focus on 'private' educational places over 'public' educational ones... until people put more value in society and people then they do in money, the federal reserve will take precedence over issues like education and etc..

ummm...Don't we already have a Department of Education? Perhaps we should be holding its feet to the fire instead of creating yet another department...

No, the Dept. of Education has been either gutted or infested with loyal Bushies. I say blow it up. And instead of the Department of Humanity, we shall call it the Department of Future Humanity thereby narrowing its mission to something more manageable.

Or not.

-AF
Andrew Sullivan Is A Fraud

Don't know if Reich answers comments but would be interested on his take on one of the rumored names for Labor Secy: Mary Beth Maxwell

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? This is what conservatives or shall we say elites always wanted. They got it and most americans just lay down and take it. I guess this explains why slavery exists because no one fights back. Emerson comes to mind.

By the way, did anyone see who was on the cover of time this week? The lady who can fix everything with an axe of course. She says, we'll pay you more now if you give up any job safety, never mind what happens to your wages later. She bounces around claiming merit is the key but we been here before. There will soon be no public education, no bail out for the poor, just a meager "fuck you" to the poor.

Oh please, schools are awash in money. Through good times and bad times, students are coming out dumber and more ignorant.

As someone that came up through parochial schools with unpaid teachers and 60 student classrooms, I can safely say that school systems have plenty of money. What they don't have, is enforced discipline to provide a learning environment, and too many unfunded mandates unrelated to education. Factor in political correctness with trendy theories of learning and it's no wonder high school graduates pre-WW2 were better educated than quite a few college graduates today.

New Jersey ran out of money to build and refurbish buildings after half the projects budgeted were completed. Amount? $6 billion. Washington DC is paying students for attendance, good behavior, and grades. That is admitting failure in spite of spending more per pupil, than most if not all the other states.

This was an excellent article.

I spent 25 years as a professor at a major university. Across this time, republican initiatives (e.g., anti-property taxes) and republican legislative schemes (e.g., corporate welfare) led to a huge drop in state funding for higher education and K-12. Our university, for example, lost 50% of its state funding. My department went from 13 faculty to 6 faculty across these 25 years. These cuts tended to be across the board, targeting virtually all departments except engineering and of course the athletic department.

This was a disaster for the students. Their tuition had to be increased, class sizes increased enormously, and there were fewer professors available for teaching and advising. It's nothing new, and it is extremely sad.

I'm not sure conservatives want to eradicate public education. Rather the goal is to corporatize it (like the media). In other words, the public would still be paying much of the bill, but the corporations would be reaping the benefits (e.g., the knowledge and trainees produced by the university)

Methinks Robert Reich would make a pretty good Secretary of Humanity himself.
What Say You All?

Credit and the credit system is about the turnover of capital, the ability to produce commodities and to run businesses without those engaged in those having to front their own cash. That's basic to the operation of capitalism, which is why Wall Street is being bailed out. The production of future labor ("human capital") is overhead in the system, since payment for it comes directly and indirectly out of capitalist profits (via taxes and workers' wages). In times of crisis, capitalism tends to retrench toward the basic, if not the primitive, since demand for labor is immediately reduced and capitalists, especially the American version, have a hard time planning or spending very far ahead when demand is unknown. That's why Wall Street 'naturally' comes first.

The sad thing is that many would probably object to the idea of a Department of Humanity just because of the title...

-- Cris
My site: Obama Wallpaper Archive

"In times of crisis, capitalism tends to retrench toward the basic, if not the primitive, since demand for labor is immediately reduced and capitalists, especially the American version, have a hard time planning or spending very far ahead when demand is unknown. That's why Wall Street 'naturally' comes first."

Actually during the Great Depression, Roosevelt's programs vastly expanded Educational Opportunities. The National Youth Administration provided funds for High School and College Work-Study programs, and between 1930 and 1940 the country as a whole moved from 40% of High School ages students seeking to graduate, to, in 1940, we passed the 50% mark.

Many of the CCC camp facilities offered GED programs for participants, others offered vocational programs. There was a very high rate of participation and GED completion, depending, of course on whether particular CCC camps organized the programs. Where it was organized it was 35 hours work per week, and 12 hours of classes. Since Army Officers ran the individual CCC camps, many a recent West Point Cadet got seconded for teaching duty.

At least one "cause" of the great depression was the poverty of education resulting in too many unskilled and semi skilled workers chasing too few jobs of that nature. FDR had two considerations in mind -- first to reduce that unskilled laborforce looking vainly for jobs, and in the process bidding down the wages, when the solution to at least one aspect of the depression was to inflate wages along with other factors. Thus keeping impoverished students in school by paying them was one method of reducing the job seeking laborforce. Wages and Hours laws eventually pushed this objective forward. The second issue FDR confronted, particularly after 1937-38, was his understanding that the healthy economy he visualized required at least 30% of young Americans to study beyond High School, particularly in the science and technology field, and that in the late 30's only 5% of Americans were going to College or post high school trade programs. The war prevented him from acting on that understanding -- but the primary reason he signed the GI Bill in 1944 was because of the College Tuition program. And yes, by the mid 50's the US was educating slightly more than 30% of its post High School youth in college level programs.

The problem today is the huge inflation in the cost of education, and the Loan programs beginning in the late 1960's, that put costs on credit. It is just not a sustainable model for how you properly supply an advanced technical society with the educated workforce it requires. It is going to take some brave work by Congress to sort this one out.

I have to agree with most of what you wrote. The education problems in this country did not pop up over night. These problems have been years in the making. The biggest problem I see overall is accountability. We're bailing out the big three because management was arrogant and reckless for over 30 years. We're bailing out the big three because MOST of the factory workers were lazy, greedy and never wanted to learn job skills that are actually marketable (part of that may involve getting a four year degree at night). Why knock yourself out going to school at night (been there and done that myself) when you can act like a big dumb cow screwing bolts for 10 hours a day making a 100k a year with overtime?

I don't think I need to elaborate about the lack of accountability in the financial sector...

Throwing money at the banking and automobile problems in this country is a quick fix that does not fix the problems and will change NOTHING.

I would predict that investing in education would be less popular in the long term because by its very nature there would be some sort of accountability. If you don't produce or reach some level of competency, you don't go on. No old boy network or amount of money can get you out of that. Also, to be effective, YOU MUST HAVE ACTIVE PARENT INVOLVEMENT through high school. Most parents are unwilling to make sure ther children are actually learning or doing their work. Once again, the accountability issue props up again.

Without active parent involvement, no amount of government funding to education will make any sort of significant difference. Without a decent education, retraining displaced workers (such as the factory workers from the big 3) is probably a total waste of time...

Reich is a true genius who thinks differently from those in power, on the left or the right. I hope the President-elect sees this and brings him in to an important advisory position.

"Reich argued that the class of "symbolic analysts" would be responsible for ensuring "America's future competitiveness" and would make up around 20% of the labor force."

Yeah, and it's a fine mess they've gotten us into! It seems to me that it's exactly this kind of thinking that permits disinvestment in the public and widespread labor exploitation amongst the canaille.

On the other hand, if we're prepared to propose that the top 20% is itself dumb as a box of rocks, then maybe we can get somewhere.

Thus far, I don't see it.

Because education isn't valued in America. We have always seemingly given more credence to atheletes and the popular crowd than we do to academians. Until we can financially see the benefits of a good education (and get people to stop looking down on those Ivy League elitists)... we will continue to have crappy public schools.