Although I tend to concentrate these posts on K-12 education, I had the distinct privilege to spend yesterday involved in a meet-up with an exceptional group of college students in the state of Georgia who have organized to push back against the austerity budget cuts, fee hikes, and tuition increases being inflicted on public schools and universities by the Republican administration in that state.
The organization, Georgia Students for Public Higher Education or GSPHE, began as emerging grassroots campus efforts to resist egregious tuition increases formed a coalition more capable of mobilizing a statewide public campaign. Eventually, the organization allied with immigrant student groups, such as the Georgia DreamersGeorgia Dreamers who are pushing for an open pathway to citizenship for undocumented youth who were brought to this country and for fair access, tuition, and treatment of students who are undocumented.
I was there to explain "the bigger picture", but these young students were already up to speed. Unlike the out-of-touch leaders of the Democratic Party and the sycophant punditry "on the left" who follow them, these young adults had already made the situation analysis and had come to all the right conclusions:
* Access to quality education is a matter of human rights, and public schools are a cornerstone of our democracy - not just in the US but around the world.
* Current calls to cut education are not a necessary response to the housing crisis and ensuing financial collapse - on the contrary public education has been the constant target for attacks since the Reagan administration, if not longer.
* The efforts to transform public universities and K-12 schools are not about "reform," but are instead being driven by a concerted, broad, and well-organized coalition of forces bent on monetizing students, privatizing pubic schools, and transferring public assets into private hands (although the efforts to privatize universities differs from the efforts aimed at K-12, which I will come back to).
* Attempts to transfer the assets of our public schools into the hands of privateers and profit seekers is similar to how other public assets - in transportation, criminal justice, the military - are being sold off to "entrepreneurs" despite the fact that these contracts rarely lead to costs-savings to the public - indeed they often cost more and the service to the public declines.
* What's happening to public schools, teachers, and students in Georgia and across the US is part of a worldwide effort driven by a neoliberal ideology imposed by the IMF and the World Bank.
Even though these students hadn't heard of Diane Ravitch and were unaware of the ins-and-outs of ESEA they didn't need to. They already instinctively "got it" just from their experiences of organizing against something that curtails their right to an education and threatens their future wellbeing. And as the meeting progressed, we linked up - via Skype - with others around the world who got it too, and I began to wonder, "Is this where it begins?"
In much the same way that the end of apartheid in South Africa began when students staged protests against a law prohibiting instruction in schools to be in any language but Africkaans and English, and student sit-ins were a catalyst for advancing the Civil Rights movement in the US, were students around the world going to have to be the ones to lead the push-back against the advancing effort to transfer public assets around the world into the coffers of the very wealthy and powerful?
"The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done - men who are creative, inventive and discoverers" ~ Jean Piaget [Swiss Psychologist. Pioneer in the study of child intelligence. 1896-1980]
"The purpose of education is to enable us to develop to the fullest that which is inside us" ~ Norman Cousins [Essayist, Editor associated with Saturday Evening Post 1912-1990]
"America's noble experiment, universal education for all" may have become but an idealized theory. In practice it long seemed the impossible dream. However, for the hopeful this statement was a reverie, although the veracity was virtually unrecognizable at best. Still the notion lived on. The powerful prose marveled many. That is all but believers in a for-profit privatized educational system. Today, corporate aficionados have conquered. Commerce controls School District Administrators. It shapes decisions made. Countless elementary and secondary school campuses are transformed in accordance. Big business buys and sells city classrooms. Our forefathers would have thought present-day headlines could only appear in fictional accounts. Nonetheless banners blare, "This Class Is Brought to You By. [fill in the corporate enterprise of your choice]"
With the election over, it's time to move on to new things, and the folks at the Campaign for America's Future have asked me to do some writing about Social Security, which sounds like some big fun, so here we are.
We're going to start with some reasonably simple stuff today, just to get your feet wet; by the time we get a few stories down the road there will be some complicated economic analysis to work through-but let's begin today by looking a bit south.
Those who support privatizing Social Security in this country often point to Chile as an example we could follow, and that seems like a good place to get the conversation going...so set your personal WayBack Machine to Santiago, May, 1981, and let's see what we can learn.
In the fall of 2008, decades of finance-first, bankers-know-best economic policies coalesced to create one of the worst economic crises in history, one that the banks themselves could not survive without staggering levels of government support.
Yet astonishingly, nearly two years after the crash, Wall Street is still setting the economic agenda in Washington. As Congress begins to examine broader economic policy, lawmakers are under heavy Wall Street pressure to reduce the federal budget deficit-even though that could mean deepening the jobs crisis without any substantive economic benefits.
Small-bore reforms
At the same time, the financial reform bill that Congress is on the verge of passing leaves quite a bit to be desired. As the editors of The Nation emphasize, that legislation includes several small-bore fixes to ease the damage caused by Wall Street excess, but almost nothing to actually curb the excesses themselves. The capital markets casinos will largely be left untouched. Congress still has time to improve the bill over the next month as the House and Senate iron out their differences, and many useful reforms remain in play.
Nevertheless, Wall Street's lobbyists have succeeded in taking the most important reforms off the table. We will not break up the biggest banks this year, nor will we tax reckless financial speculation. We aren't even banning economically essential banks from participating in risky securities businesses.
Et tu, Buffet?
As Annie Lowrey notes for The Washington Independent, the crisis has even discredited Warren Buffett, one the few financial superstars who previously had a reputation as a "straight-shooter" that invested in responsible enterprises.
Buffett was once a harsh critic of credit rating agencies, the firms who slapped top ratings on toxic mortgage-backed securities and derivatives. But Buffett himself is also a top shareholder in Moody's, one of the worst ratings agencies. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission had to compel Buffett's testimony at a recent hearing via subpoena after Buffett turned down multiple requests to appear. At the hearing itself, Buffett did everything he could to pass the buck from himself and Moody's to any other possible target.
Slashing the deficit
Wall Street's ugly influence on economic policy extends far beyond the realm of bank regulation itself. Right now, financial elites are pushing hard on a right-wing plan to slash the federal budget deficit, and even many moderate Democrats are coming out in support of reduced government spending.
This strategy is a tremendous political blunder, as Steve Benen emphasizes for The Washington Monthly. It's true that the deficit does not poll very well-but the deficit is only one side of the issue. Cutting the deficit means slashing federal support for jobs-we can help the economy or we can slash the deficit, but we cannot do both at the same time.
Nearly everyone believes that creating jobs should be a top priority for the government, but if politicians only ask questions about the deficit, they won't hear answers about the economy. The political imperative is clear, as Benen notes:
This really shouldn't be complicated: invest in more job creation, help struggling states as they keep laying off workers, and make clear to voters that the economy is more important than the deficit. Do this immediately, without apology.
Replacing Social Security with credit cards?
Wall Street loves cutting social services in the name of deficit reduction. Every public good that can be efficiently provided for by the government can also be inefficiently provided by the private sector-replacing public benefits with corporate profits. The bank lobby would like nothing more than to replace Social Security with credit cards for senior citizens. Wall Street doesn't make a dime on the government's Social Security payments-but they can make a killing on a privatized market.
Weak job growth=Weak private sector
Lest there be any question about whether or not the government needs to take strong action to strengthen the labor market, take a look at Friday's jobs report. As Tim Fernholz notes for The American Prospect, this report was the most disappointing piece of economic news in months. While the economy gained 431,000 new jobs during the month, 411,000 of them were temporary hires by the U.S. Census, meaning the private sector is not able to support much new hiring.
There's a critical lesson there: The only serious engine of job growth in the month of May was the federal government. Absent government hiring, the economy is not improving at all. There is an almost bottomless supply of critical social needs that require work right now, but no private-sector momentum to meet those needs.
The BP oil catastrophe should underscore how important new, green energy is to the U.S. economy-yet U.S. efforts to develop green energy solutions have fallen far behind those of China and other industrial powerhouse nations. Major federal investment into the research and implementation of green energy would be good for our environment and good for our economy.
Don't let social services suffer
But astoundingly, the advice on the world economy currently coming from top policymakers at the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund and European central banks is echoing the bank lobby line: Slash social programs now, and let the job market fend for itself. As Dean Baker emphasizes for AlterNet, these are the exact same policymakers who missed the housing bubble, made the wrong calls on bank regulation and sent the global economy into freefall.
There has been little change in personnel and no acknowledgment of error at the central banks whose incompetence was responsible for the crisis . . . . their agenda seems to be the same everywhere, cut back retirement benefits, reduce public support for health care, weaken unions and make ordinary workers take pay cuts.
In short, Wall Street and the Wall Street policy agenda remain ascendant, despite economic catastrophe. In the Great Depression, the government actually learned its lesson-we regulated the banks, created Social Security and put millions to work through government hiring programs. That same basic agenda is needed today. Failing to meet it could well mean decades of economic decline.
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[Note]: This was not a diary I had planned for today
The Bush Administration jumped on Katrina as an opportunity to advance their privatization agenda, with two major targets: public schools and public housing. As Open Left's focus on education has shown (see Jeff's regular Sunday "Left Ed" diaries at 4 PM), Obama's education agenda has actually expanded Bush's attack on public education. Now, as David Kaib highlights in quick hits, Obama is attack public housing as well.
There is a need for money to invest in public housing, and it would have been a perfect fit within a decently-conceived stimulus package. But of course, there wasn't room for it because of all the tax cuts and its deliberate small size. So now, privatization is the answer, as if the private housing market hadn't already done enough damage to last the rest of the century. David links to a Dkos diary by George Lakoff. "Below the Radar: HUD is Trying to Privatize and Mortgage Off All of America's Public Housing" which begins thus:
The Obama Administration's move to the right is about to give conservatives a victory they could not have anticipated, even under Bush. HUD, under Obama, submitted legislation called PETRA to Congress that would result in the privatization of all public housing in America.
The new owners would charge ten percent above market rates to impoverished tenants, money that would be mostly paid by the US government (you and me, the taxpayers). To maintain the property, the new owners would take out a mortgage for building repair and maintenance (like a home equity loan), with no cap on interest rates.
With rents set above market rates, the mortgage risk would be attractive to banks. Either they make a huge profit on the mortgages paid for by the government. Or if the government lowers what it will pay for rents, the property goes into foreclosure. The banks get it and can sell it off to developers.
Sooner or later, the housing budget will be cut back and such foreclosures will happen. The structure of the proposal and the realities of Washington make it a virtual certainty.
The banks and developers make a fortune, with the taxpayers paying for it. The public loses its public housing property. The impoverished tenants lose their apartments, or have their rents go way up if they are forced into the private market. Homelessness increases. Government gets smaller. The banks and developers win. It is a Bank Bonanza! The poor and the public lose.
And a precedent is set. The government can privatize any public property: Schools, libraries, national parks, federal buildings - just as has begun to happen in California, where the right-wing governor has started to auction off state property and has even suggested selling off the Supreme Court building.
The rich will get richer, the poor and public get poorer. And the very idea of the public good withers.
And Lakoff quotes from PETRA the statement that bill's intent is to:
provide the opportunity for public housing agencies and private owners to convert from current forms of rental assistance under a variety of programs to long-term, property-based contracts that will enhance market-based discipline and enable owners to sustain operations and leverage private financing to address immediate and long-term capital needs and implement energy-efficiency improvements.
Written by Paul J. Poposky
Tuesday, 08 December 2009
One in 31 adult citizens in the U.S. are in prison. The so called "land of the free" locks away more of its citizens than Russia or China - and the problem is getting worse.
The US prisoner population has increased dramatically over the last decades.
A recent report by the Pew Center on the States reveals that in 2007 a record 7.3 million Americans - 1 in every 31 adults - served time in jail, prison, on probation or parole. This according to Justice Department and Census Bureau statistics. The report found that the United States, which has 5 percent of the world population, has 25% of all the world's prison inmates, based on comparative studies. The U.S. - the "land of the free" - locks away far more of its own citizens than Russia and China or any of the tyrannies that the U.S. props up around the world; and the problem is only getting worse!
In 1999, statistics placed the number of Americans incarcerated at 1 in 149. By 2008, the Pew Center reported that the number had skyrocketed to 1 in 100. It should come as no surprise that, in a nation founded on the enslavement of Blacks and the near extermination of the Native population, the prison population is primarily made up of minorities. Since the 1990s, over 50% of those incarcerated have been non-white. Consider that Black men are 4 times as likely as whites to be locked up. One in 3 Black men are in the corrections system when you include those on probation or parole, and 1 in 11 are in jail or prison each year. The rate of incarceration for women also continues to grow, but is outpaced by men of all races at a rate of 5 to 1.
The comparison to slavery doesn't stop there. While some states still field chain-gangs for forced hard-labor, most states have legalized forced prison labor; 37 states to date have made it legal to contract prison labor to private corporations like Boeing, AT&T, Target and Microsoft. Prison laborers routinely make pennies per hour and profits on prison labor have reached into the billions of dollars. Since prisoners have no rights to form a union or struggle for better labor conditions under U.S. law, it is no wonder that companies that once exploited sweat shops in Mexico, China and S.E. Asia are returning to exploit the prison labor available in the U.S. penal system.
Photo of anonymous artwork by Katayun.
When you consider that crime has been on a two-decade long decline, it seems strange that incarceration rates have increased by over 300% in the past 30 years. Not coincidentally, an explosive growth in for-profit prisons and privatization of the prison systems parallels the increase in rate of incarceration. Because a private prison cannot turn a profit unless it is kept full, the prison industrial complex has a vested interest in keeping prisons overcrowded and pressuring lawmakers and judges to increase the rate of convictions and enforce more harsh "mandatory minimum sentences" for minor offenses. Over 70% of U.S. prisoners are locked up for non-violent, drug related offenses, and 79% of the growth in drug-related convictions in the 1990s came from arrests for marijuana possession.
Michael Moore's recent hit documentary Capitalism: A Love Story further exposed the lengths to which privately owned corrections centers will go to guarantee their profits. In Wilkes-Barre, PA, Luzerne County judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan are awaiting trial after admitting to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks from two privately run detention facilities in exchange for helping secure $30 million in county contracts and wrongly convicting and sentencing hundreds of juveniles to serve time at the facilities. The case has made national headlines as a federal corruption investigation has now expanded to members of local school boards, and a class action law suit has been organized on behalf of the scheme's juvenile victims.
These and many other examples have become typical in an age of the dismantling of the public sector and the social safety net. In the current crisis of capitalism - and for decades before - massive cuts and privatization schemes, the capitalist class' answer to the decreasing rate of profits, have ravaged the "welfare state" and all the concessions won by the American working class through organized struggle in the post-war period of economic growth.
Even as both major political parties pour billions in taxpayer dollars into wars on poor people in foreign lands, and into our domestic prison industrial complex, they are carrying out a slash and burn policy toward funding for public education, health care, public works, job creation, infrastructure, and social investment; the very factors essential to changing the conditions which lead to crime in the first place.
It may seem as though some lawmakers are beginning to soften their "tough on crime" stance. For example, in California, where, in February, a federal judge ordered that the state must reduce the number of inmates in its prisons by 40% to put an end to the violation of prisoners' constitutional rights. However, this has little to do with any "change of heart" and far more to do with the crushing financial burden on the state in keeping these people locked up in the midst of epic budget crises. As America learned in the 1980s under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, the state turning desperate people out onto the streets does nothing to solve the bigger problems which lead them there to begin with.
To eliminate crime we first have to address the conditions which lead to crime: unemployment, desperation, poverty and despair. We must fight for quality, stimulating jobs at a living wage, free cradle-to-grave education, affordable-quality housing and free, quality health care and access to healthful, nutritious food for all. We must struggle to put an end to the exploitation of labor in the prison system, as well as in the work place.
Ultimately, we must put an end to the greatest crime of all; the appropriation of the wealth created by the working class by the capitalists and their laws, police, troops, political parties, courts and prison system. Of course, only by fighting for and achieving Socialism can we truly put an end to this state of affairs and build a better world for all humanity.
In the last issue of Random Lengths News (Dec. 3), I wrote an article about the University of California fee hikes in the context of the California budget crisis. In it, I wrote about the same dynamic I discussed in my Nov 21 diary here, "California's higher education crisis: "Shock Doctrine" in action". More and more, the UC is operating like a private business, making decisions out of a private business mindset, rather than a public trust mindset.
The big picture here is that conservatism is about elite rule, and maintaining or resurrecting social structures, institutions and practices that support it, while liberalism is about the spread of individual freedom, equality, and open, democratic self-governance. Close to the heart of this difference is the issue of how money functions in the society. It's most important to have Democratic budget processes, in which the broadest possible choices between public spending priorities are made in the most open, transparent and representative manner. More specific choices are properly delegated to those with specific administrative authority, but always within the confines defined by democratically adopted laws. This is key to the creation and maintenance of a liberal democratic order, as opposed to a neo-feudal one, which is what we have been in the grip of increasingly since Reagan's election in 1980--right around the time that cyberpunk novelists invented the dystopian neo-feudal vision.
Under neo-feudalism, budgetary powers are constrained by an elaborate framework of structural and procedural restrictions that effectively insulate decisions from broad democratic accountability, empowering entrenched special interests against the common good. Instead of everything being on the table at once, so that big-picture choices can be made that truly reflect the broad consensus of public priorities, different procedures help ensure that different logics apply to different areas of public expenditure. That's why elites are currently trying to create a special commission to gut Medicare and Social Security, for example. The story of higher education in California is the story of that process in action over a period of nearly two decades now.
California's Budget Crisis:
Privatization vs. Democratization
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
On November 19, the University of California Board of Regents approved a 32-percent fee hike, amidst waves of protests by UC students, faculty, staff and supporters. The massive fee hike contrasted sharply with the staunch refusal to raise general revenue taxes, which has resulted in the most massive cut-backs in state services ever seen in California history. But the total UC fee increases since 1992 are actually ten times that amount-318 percent, adjusted for inflation.
In Major Downturn 1 (1992-1995), UC lost about 20% of its state funding and raised fees (excluding campus fees) from $1624 to $3799, an increase of 134% in 3 years.
In Major Downturn 2 (2002-2005), UC lost about 16% of its state funding and raised fees from $3834 to $6141, an increase of 60%.
In Major Downturn 3 (2008-??), UC has already lost 25% of its state funding. This is by far the worst of the downturns, and is hitting the state workforce hard. Fees started at $7126 in 2008. Were they to rise by the average of the two previous increases, or say 100%, they would be at about $14,250 by 2011-12 - up another $4000 from 2010-11 (set yesterday at $10,302).
Adjusted for inflation, the 1992 fees of $1624 would be $2462.30, less than 1/4 the new fee level.
According to leading "education researchers" (sub required), the draft guidelines that the Obama administration has published for federal economic-stimulus money and Title I aid for schools "have no credible basis in research."
The researchers point to two regulatory priorities in particular that are lacking in research evidence: evaluating teachers based on students' standardized test scores and promoting the growth of charter schools.
"One theory of action seems to be that holding teachers more accountable for the gain in their students' test scores will induce them to become better teachers," writes Duke University's Helen Ladd. "At this point, I am not aware of any credible evidence in support of that proposition."
And research on the performance of charter schools has shown that their track record is "highly variable." ....
I wrote an earlier diary, back in June, about the research on charter schools--which came from charter school advocates, actually. I also managed to find an open link to the article, here.
Jeff goes on to say:
The article points out that the Bush administration was famous for insisting that schools adhere to policies and programs that were based on "scientific research" while it promoted an agenda that had nothing "scientific" about it.
Now, the Obama administration is insisting that schools make decisions based on "data that shows what works," while it pursues mandates that have no data to support them.
What's the difference?
The difference is, apparently, that just like Clinton with NAFTA, a Democratic President has much easier time screwing the Democratic base than a Republican would.
In order to comply with new transparency requirements under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, state governments across the country are scrambling to put up websites that track how they spend recovery dollars. In just the last week, the White House’s count of state transparency websites has jumped from ten to twenty-five. Of all these websites, not one lists the number of jobs to be created by private contractors. Without such data, the sites are close to meaningless.
Fortunately, Oregon is leading a push to require contractors to report the number of jobs they create, as well as the hours worked and wages received by their employees. These requirements, created under Oregon HB 2037, would ensure that Oregonians get a website that doesn’t just make an empty gesture toward transparency but one that ensures their tax money actually goes toward creating quality jobs.
The benefits of such a site are simple. If contractors are creating jobs with recovery money, they can get more. If they aren’t creating jobs, the state can take away their money and target it to contractors that are. If they are serious about using recovery dollars to turn the economy around, Oregon lawmakers should make it a top priority to adopt these new standards
If the country is serious about getting the recovery plan right, they will push their states to follow in Oregon's example. Considering the fact that states are poised to distribute over $300 billion of the $787 billion set aside under ARRA, the transparency standards we adopt at the state level will more or less amount to the transparency standards we adopt as a nation.
This frightens me. I'm sorry, but I just can't ignore it any longer. I need to ask this question. Is President Obama considering privatizing Social Security and/or Medicare?
All three of the Obama transition team leads charged with reviewing the Department of Transportation are privatization advocates. Not only that, but their private sector activities suggest that they stand to profit substantially from further privatization of the nation's transportation infrastructure (highways, bridges, tunnels, and so on).
The Summers-for-Treasury rumors are a good chance to draw attention to an incredible, but little-known story: how a gang of Harvard professors stole vast sums from Russia and escaped any form of punishment. The full, incredible story was published in Institutional Investor Magazine, but here's the summary:
In 1991, Lawrence Summers was on leave from Harvard (where he was an economics professor) to be chief economist for the World Bank. As the Soviet Union collapsed, he had the US send his protegé, Andrei Shleifer, to teach Russia about privatization. And Shleifer did -- US-style: he privatized Russia right into his pocket.
The DC People's Property Campaign is a resident-led campaign to stop the sale of public property for private profit and to save public property for public use. Mayor Fenty and Chancellor Rhee have closed dozens of schools and Empower DC is trying to preserve their use of public use rather than be sold to Fenty's business cronies.
Reading Liberally Page Turner
by Amanda Milstein, Living Liberally
A friend said Hi to me on the subway while I was reading Prison Profiteers, an anthology of shocking articles about the privatization of prisons edited by Tara Herivel and Paul Wright. I had to send him an e-mail explaining that if I had looked like I was about to throw up it was not because of him, but rather because I was totally and utterly disgusted by the account I was reading about medical conditions going untreated in prisons managed by private corporations.
The paragraph I was reading when my friend saw me was about the medical neglect of a 57 year old man who was imprisoned for rape:
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