Why you SHOULD have some fucks to give:

Inequality, in the most basic terms, is an imbalance of something; it could be anything. When considering the various implications of these inequalities, it is important to evaluate the distinction between natural and unnatural inequalities. A natural inequality refers to a quality or aptitude that individuals are born with and the latter is basically everything else: social, political, economic, and structural relationships of power are defined by the random assignment of birth (Surowiecki, 2014). These qualities and relationships interact inextricably resulting in the various dynamics that manifest in a given society. The tricky part is trying to figure out which inequalities are acceptable by our contemporary (and ever changing) standard of living and which are pernicious in the everyday lives of individuals. Luckily, we are advanced enough to understand how to modify our rules and codes to manage or eliminate many of these unnatural inequalities.

The question then stands: what responsibility do we have to others? To what extent do we consider ourselves connected to the suffering of another human being? Moral arguments for such imbalances abound, but even when we look at the problem in strict economic terms, different kinds of inequality have different effects on a society in real ways. The persistence of poverty examined by Raj Chetty, for example, demonstrates the concentration and intergenerational effect of economic inequalities that manifest in higher rates of child malnutrition, high school drop outs, crime, etc. that create concentrations of poverty (Reich, 2015). Economic inequalities are perhaps one of the more complex dimensions of inequality in that they function as a product of a structural system upon which our ability to survive is dependent, but the structure requires our participation to function.

It has been demonstrated time and again that the median wage in the United States is stagnant, productivity is up, and the minimum wage simply does not cover the cost of the basic necessities to participate fully in American society (Casselman, 2014; Brooks, 2014). Even Republicans are beginning to take notice as we move towards the 2016 Presidential race watching Mitt Romney’s attempts to re-envision himself an anti-poverty advocate; ironic in light of the consistent voting record on raising the minimum wage - spoiler alert: they said no. (Bobic, 2015; Lowrey, 2014). It is with the wage, primarily, that concerns over inequality take particularly troublesome forms. There was once an understanding between employers and employees that the exchange should be fair to both parties, but unionized jobs are hard to come by now and many service sectors actively try to dissuade their employees from such collective effort (Pyke, 2014). Without the incentive of profit, there is no reason for a businessperson to go into business, but unless the employee is afforded the opportunity to earn enough money to survive, he or she is not a consumer in the full sense – which is, of course, exactly what the businessperson needs the employee to be in order for his or her business to thrive. In order to be consumers, the wages of individuals must rise above subsistence levels.

Fortunately, humans like stuff – we are masters at creating, collecting, and coveting. The problems of economic inequalities arise only in absolute terms of food, housing, and clothes (because, let’s be honest, people can’t be running around naked). Access to education and medical care are more complicated, but have rightly come to be seen as human rights in most developed and in many developing countries. If our wage is a reflection of the value of our labor, as it allows us to maintain our existence, then these absolute terms must be treated as an extension of that wage. If social mobility is our primary concern as a meritocratic democracy, as suggested by the intense debate over inequality, then equality of opportunity must include the opportunity of full-time employment to escape poverty, not working full-time to live in it (Surowiecki, 2014).

 

Bibliography

Bobic, I. (2015, January 17). Mitt Romney's Re-Invention As Anti-Poverty Warrior. Retrieved February 4, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/17/mitt-romney-poverty-2016_n_6492894.html

Brooks, D. (2014, January 17). The Inequality Problem. The NY Times. Retrieved February 4, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/opinion/brooks‐the‐inequality‐problem.html?rref=collection/column/david‐brooks

Casselman, B. (2014, September 22). The American Middle Class Hasn't Gotten A Raise In 15 Years. Retrieved February 4, 2015, from http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-american-middle-class-hasnt-gotten-a-raise-in-15-years/

Lowrey, W. (2014, April 30). Senate Republicans block minimum wage increase bill. Retrieved February 4, 2015, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/04/30/senate-republicans-block-minimum-wage-increase-bill/

Pyke, A. (2014, January 16). Here’s Walmart’s Internal Guide To Fighting Unions And Monitoring Workers. Retrieved February 5, 2015, from http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/16/3171251/walmart-leaked-powerpoint-unions/

Reich, R. (Director) (2015, January 30). Wealth and Poverty Week 2: Why Should We Care?. PP103. Lecture conducted from UC Berkeley, Berkeley.

Surowiecki, J. (2014, March 3). The Mobility Myth. The New Yorker.

“What do you think is the greatest challenge for education?”

“What do you think is the greatest challenge for education?”, is typically the first thing someone asks when they discover I’m interested in education policy reform. This question, in turn, prompts the response that the simplest answer is that there is no easy answer and that articulating the ‘greatest challenge for education’ is incredibly difficult because of the integrated role that the institution plays in our society. From day one, a child is taught how to think; he or she is given a box of tools and pictures that will serve as mechanisms to define and organize his or her world. Some of these tools are multipurpose - those which encourage collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. Others are unilaterally used to measure the child through a system of standardizations, pushing forward a certain set of criteria and information which have been deemed necessary by the status quo in order to identify him or her as ‘educated’. Hand in hand with these criteria are a system of values that are superimposed onto the student based on perceptions of effort, intelligence, and ability. These values are then used to assess the student and funnel them into vacancies in the world at large. Unfortunately, rather than allow each student to determine for him or her self which path is most appropriate or which path will render the most fulfillment, the result is instead a buckshot effect wherein students succeed (or fail) on the basis of a random assortment of advantages and disadvantages established by birth and being able to test well. It is with this narrow vision of success with which I take the greatest issue.

The American education system, birthed out of the Industrial Revolution as a means to house truants after the introduction of child labor laws, not only structures itself after industry but also focuses its merit on industrial production through a means of return on investment thereby distorting the value of education, placing emphasis on capital success rather than inspiration and edification of the individual student. This model, as described by Sir Ken Robinson in his TED presentation, culminates in the increasing implementation of the standardized test in order to classify, rank, and otherwise issue a variety of opportunity to the individual based on his or her performance on an exam. In a society which postulates the notion of self-determination and pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, this structure of placement and evaluation subjects students to a de facto segregation based on his or her ability to successfully complete a very rigid exam and does not necessarily take into account learning styles, pedagogical strengths and weaknesses, cultural or social capital available to the student, or any other of the myriad of factors which may support or inhibit the students’ ability to perform a specific series of tasks on command.

Functionally, such examinations have come to serve one purpose: to secure federal funds for a given school. This focus on resources not only undermines the intent of the exams, which is to ensure that all students are receiving and succeeding at what the federal government has determined to be the minimum standards in core subjects of reading, writing, math and science (whether or not the tests truly get at this issue is another paper in and of itself), but also serves to divide communities between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Couple this division with policies such as the Bush administrations’ “No Child Left Behind” and the Obama administrations “Race to the Top” (same schpeal, new moniker), the result is an ever widening achievement gap as struggling schools see their funding cut, resulting in students falling farther behind and successful schools being rewarded, despite not necessarily needing the additional funding. The greatest critique that I have for the American education system can be summed up by a quote from philosopher Allen Bloom (with whose philosophy I still have GREAT issue, but that is, again, for another time): "Education is not the taming or domestication of the soul's raw passions -- not suppressing them or excising them, which would deprive the soul of its energy -- but forming and informing them as art." Education, while requiring a certain amount of measurement to ensure progress, should not have its’ funding beholden to the ability of the student to fill in a tiny little rectangle on a scantron. Education requires something more to connect with the student, to reach out to those sidelined by the standard model and help them find their place in the world, just as it has done for the academically gifted for generations.