Education and Opportunity: Rosie’s Dream

We’ve received some thoughtful posts on Politics and Knowledge ’08, and I hope to continue the conversation soon.

For the moment, though, I want to send along an opinion piece published on Sunday, 10/19/08, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in which I compare the McCain and Obama education plans. If you find it useful, please feel free to circulate it.

Last week, I did an interview for the Huffington Post on this topic, though it got edited down to a focus on Senator McCain’s proposals for school choice. If you’re interested, here’s the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erika-szostak/mccains-plan-of-public-sc_b_134525.html

My mother's big dream was that I would go to college, and she worked double-shifts to start me on that journey. When I graduated, Rosie Meraglio Rose was there with her camera.

Education has been pretty much absent from center stage during this year's presidential campaign, but it is a big issue for families having a hard go of it and worrying about their children's future. With my mother in mind, I decided to examine what Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama offer the average family.

I got the candidates' positions from their Web sites, johnmccain.com and barackobama.com. Mr. McCain's education policy runs to four pages; Mr. Obama's, at 33 pages, is far more detailed. For instance, Mr. Obama cites examples from 13 states as evidence that his programs would work. Mr. McCain offers one.

Both candidates cover the same broad topics (early education, teacher recruitment, college) and share some general solutions, such as expanding Head Start or offering incentive pay for teachers who work in difficult schools.

But there are striking differences, too, which make me think Mr. Obama's plan is better for working families and the public schools that most of their children attend.

Consider early childhood.

The McCain plan calls for the neediest children to have access to high-quality programs and he would provide funding to turn exemplary Head Start programs into Centers of Excellence. He also wants to streamline and coordinate existing programs.

Mr. Obama shares these goals, but incorporates them into a broader plan to help children from birth through age five. He would help support low-income, first-time mothers and encourage states to adopt voluntary, universal pre-school. He wants to improve both the quality and accessibility of child care, and expand the tax credit for it.

For education policies to work, policy makers must know the on-the-ground realities of schooling. The Obama plan reflects a deeper understanding of those realities.

When it comes to teachers, for example, both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain propose monetary incentives for difficult assignments or needed expertise, but Mr. Obama also realizes that most teachers crave other types of rewards: to continue their education, to have a meaningful role in improving curriculum, to mentor others, to bring their ideas into the broader reform arena. When teachers are fulfilled, children learn more.

Mr. Obama's underlying philosophy of reform is preferable to that of Mr. McCain, as well.

The twin engines driving Mr. McCain's approach are school choice and No Child Left Behind-style accountability. Accountability is also an element in Mr. Obama's plan, but he does not rely on the marketplace to improve our schools. "Choice" is an appealing notion to Americans, but it's worth considering its limitations as the primary mechanism of school reform.

Experiments have demonstrated that for school choice to work there must be enough good schools from which to choose. They need to be nearby or there must be a reasonable way to get to them. To offer real choice to some students, many charter or private schools would need additional resources for special-needs programs or simply to respond to increased demand. Most private schools also would need to relax admissions requirements.

In short, for a plan like Mr. McCain's to work on a broad scale, he would need to intervene significantly in the market, something that his philosophy of government and voting record suggest he would not do.

As the last few weeks have made clear, markets can be terribly unstable and inequitable. It's easy to claim in the abstract that broad-scale school choice would allow poor schools either to get better or fail as competition drives improvements overall. But failed schools bring turmoil to surrounding communities.

The bottom line is that while charter and private schools in many places succeed and prompt reforms in public schools, many also fail. They are not a wholesale solution to what ails our schools.

Another plus for Mr. Obama's education plan is that it reflects a richer sense of what education can mean to families of limited resources.

In "Reclaiming the American Dream," the speech in which Mr. Obama discussed college affordability, we see families after plant closings trying to make ends meet. We see people worrying about their homes, about health care, about sending their kids to school. I think about my mother in another difficult time, as the railroads failed and the shops closed and she worried about keeping a roof over our heads.

It is in this context that Mr. Obama calls for "putting a college education within the reach of every American." He proposes a $4,000 tax credit, programs to better prepare young people for college and ways to further develop community colleges. By the time we get to these proposals in Mr. Obama's plan, we have met the kinds of people they will help, people whom Mr. Obama encountered while working on the streets of Chicago. He puts a human face on public policy.

I don't agree with all of Mr. Obama's education proposals, and in some cases I wish he had gone further. I see things in Mr. McCain's proposals that are laudable. Furthermore, given the disasters on Wall Street, neither candidate will be able to institute all of his plans, at least in the short term.

Still, when I look at the plans and consider their particulars, their underlying spirit and the degree to which they reflect an understanding of real schools and average families, it is Mr. Obama's that offers the most educational opportunities to kids like Rosie's.

Work, Intelligence, and the Blue-Collar Vote, Part Two

In my entry for 08/08/08 "Work, Intelligence, and the Blue-Collar Vote" I said that I was trying to fashion these ideas into an opinion piece. Well, I finally did, and I offer it below. It appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on 09/11/08 (as "Blue-Collar America is Smarter Than You May Think").

LOS ANGELES - "They treat us like mules," the guy installing my washer tells me, his eyes narrowing as he wipes his hands. I had just complimented him and his partner on the speed and assurance of their work. He explains that it's rare that customers speak to him this way.

I know what he's talking about. My mother was a waitress all her life, in coffee shops and fast-paced chain restaurants. It was hard work, but she liked it, liked "being among the public," as she would say. But that work had its sting, too – the customer who would treat her like a servant or, her biggest complaint, like she was not that bright.

There's a lesson here for this political season: the subtle and not-so-subtle insults that blue-collar and service workers endure as part of their working lives. And those insults often have to do with intelligence.

We like to think of the United States as a classless society. The belief in economic mobility is central to the American Dream, and we pride ourselves on our spirit of egalitarianism. But we also have a troubling streak of aristocratic bias in our national temperament, and one way it manifests itself is in the assumptions we make about people who work with their hands.

Working people sense this bias and react to it when they vote. The common political wisdom is that hot-button social issues have driven blue-collar voters rightward. But there are other cultural dynamics at play as well. And Democrats can be as oblivious to these dynamics as Republicans – though the Grand Old Party did appeal to them in St. Paul.

Let's go back to those two men installing my washer and dryer. They do a lot of heavy lifting quickly – mine was the first of 15 deliveries – and efficiently, to avoid injury. Between them there is ongoing communication, verbal and nonverbal, to coordinate the lift, negotiate the tight fit, move in rhythm with each other. And all the while, they are weighing options, making decisions and solving problems – as when my new dryer didn't match up with the gas outlet.

Think about what a good waitress has to do in the busy restaurant: remember orders and monitor them, attend to a dynamic, quickly changing environment, prioritize tasks and manage the flow of work, make decisions on the fly.

There's the carpenter using a number of mathematical concepts – symmetry, proportion, congruence, the properties of angles – and visualizing these concepts while building a cabinet, a flight of stairs, or a pitched roof.

The hairstylist's practice is a mix of technique, knowledge about the biology of hair, aesthetic judgment, and communication skill. The mechanic, electrician, and plumber are troubleshooters and problem solvers. Even the routinized factory floor calls for working smarts.

When has any of this made its way into our political speeches? From either party. Even on Labor Day.

Last week, the GOP masterfully invoked some old cultural suspicions: country folk versus city and east-coast versus heartland education. But these are symbolic populist gestures, not the stuff of true engagement.

Judgments about intelligence carry great weight in our society, and we have a tendency to make sweeping assessments of people's intelligence based on the kind of work they do.

Political tributes to labor over the next two months will render the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight against biceps. But few will also celebrate the thought bright behind the eye, or offer an image that links hand and brain.

It would be fitting in a country with an egalitarian vision of itself to have a truer, richer sense of all that is involved in the wide range of work that surrounds and sustains us.

Those politicians who can communicate that sense will tap a deep reserve of neglected feeling. And those who can honor and use work in explaining and personalizing their policies will find a welcome reception.

Work, Intelligence, and the Blue-Collar Vote

As we head into August, I would like to orient some of the entries on this blog toward the election. So we’ll consider education, work, and social policy with an eye on November 2.

I’ll begin with a revision of an opinion piece I wrote for the Los Angeles Times a while back. I’m convinced – though I haven’t fully worked out the argument – that one way to bridge the cultural and emotional divide between the Democratic party and some working-class voters is not only to respond to the bread and butter issues they face but, as well, to demonstrate understanding of the detail and texture of their daily lives.

I’d love to hear from readers on this issue.

***

I am watching a carpenter install a set of sliding French doors into a tight wall space. He stands back, chin in hand, surveying the frame, his eyes moving over it. I ask him what he is doing. He says he is “picturing the door in my mind.” He is imagining the pieces as he would assemble them, thinking, for example, how the threshold will have to angle down so that the rain will run off it. He is also picturing the sliding panels moving across the stationary ones, and considering where problems might develop. As well, he is imagining the look of the casings that came with the door, and realizing that they’re too big, given the other woodwork in the room, and trying to visualize alternative casings he could fashion.

The carpenter is assembling the French doors in his mind’s eye and is also reflecting on them, and the mental work he’s doing involves both the function of the doors as well as their appearance. This is intellectually rich. But you won’t find mention of such intelligence in the typical political speech this election season – even from Democrats.

Blue-collar and service workers are addressed and invoked, of course, but usually in the context of healthcare, job security, and the like. These bread and butter issues are critical ones. But when the working class is celebrated, the tribute is typically some combination of the economic contribution labor has made to the country and the value of the work ethic. What is curious is that we rarely hear about the intelligence that goes into work, the thought it takes to do work, any work, well. I grew up watching among my family and their friends the daily display of know-how, strategy, sound judgment, and tricks of the trade. And a while back I spent six years studying the thinking involved in physical work, exploring the way knowledge is gained and used strategically in trade schools and job sites, in businesses ranging from the restaurant to the welding shop. And I’ve been struck by the intellectual demands of what I saw.

Consider what a good waitress has to do in the busy restaurant: remember orders and monitor them, attend to a dynamic, quickly changing environment, prioritize tasks and manage the flow of work, make decisions on the fly. The carpenter regularly uses a number of mathematical concepts – symmetry, proportion, congruence, the properties of angles – and develops the ability to visualize these concepts while building a cabinet, a flight of stairs, a pitched roof…or those French doors. The hairstylist’s practice is a mix of technique, knowledge about the biology of hair, aesthetic judgment, and communication skill. The mechanic, electrician, and plumber are troubleshooters and problem solvers. Even the routinized factory floor calls for working smart. When has any of this made its way into our political speeches?

The omission, I think, points to a larger cultural issue: an underappreciation of – at times blindness to – the mental content of manual labor.

For some time, we in the United States have made distinctions between work of the hand and work of the mind, blue collar versus white collar. These distinctions do reflect real and consequential differences. Many types of white collar and professional work, for example, require a huge investment in formal schooling. And, on average, white-collar work leads to higher occupational status and income, more autonomy, and less physical risk. Little wonder that my parents, like most working class parents, wanted their offspring to move from blue collar to white.

But these distinctions carry with them unwarranted assumptions about the mental capacity of the people who do physical work. The assumptions have a long history, from portrayals of Eighteenth-Century mechanics as illiterate and incapable of participating in government to the autoworkers I heard labeled by one supervisor as “a bunch of dummies.” Such beliefs are intensified in our high-tech era. Listen to the language we use: new work involving electronic media and “symbolic analysis” is “neck up” while old style manufacturing or service work is “neck down.” In the body only. Mindless.

Judgments about intelligence carry great weight in our society, and we have a tendency to make sweeping assessments of people’s intelligence based on the kind of work they do. Political tributes to labor over the next three or four months, especially around Labor Day, will render the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight against biceps, but few will also celebrate the thought bright behind the eye, offer no image that links hand and brain.

It would be fitting, in a country with an egalitarian vision of itself to have a truer, richer sense of all that is involved in the wide range of work that surrounds and sustains us. And I think that those politicians who can communicate that sense will tap a deep reserve of neglected feeling.

Judgments about intelligence affect our sense of who we are and what we can do, as individuals and as a society. If we think that whole categories of people, identified by their occupations, are not that intelligent, then we reinforce the social separations that divide us and constrict the kind of civic life we can imagine.