Glimpses of the New America being born now

Larry Kummer, Editor

11 years ago

Summary: Here we look at two stories that powerfully illustrate the trends that are creating a New America on the ashes of the old. It’s not too late to stop this process. Doing so becomes more difficult each day. Soon it will be too late to stop, let alone reverse — it will become our legacy to our children.

Here are two stories showing outlines of the New America now emerging. They’re worth reading in full.

An artistocrat mingles with the proles
Building an unequal America thru poor schools

The many trends concentrating wealth and income are not just happening; these reflect long-standing policies of elements in our ruling elites.

This requires no conspiracy, just like-minded people in an open-source movement. There are nodes, key individuals and institutions (mostly non-profit think-tanks). It is an open-sourced insurgency, as described in John Robb’s great book Brave New War.

(1) One of our national leaders mingles with the common people

This is a oft-told story in oligarchic societies. An aristocrat wanders among the peasants, learns about their lives, returns home and shares her tale about their colorful but hard lives. It’s just an anecdote because nothing happens as a result of this experience.

“‘This was really eye-opening for me’: Fed’s Raskin shocked at low quality of work at local job fair”, Reuters, 17 June 2013 — Excerpt:

I became interested in this question of quality somewhat by accident. I did something atypical one day. I decided on my way into work I would stop at a jobs fair. There was a jobs fair at a local community college close to my home and I thought, instead of pounding through all this heavy data that we typically look at at the board of governors, let me just go into this job fair. It turned out to be a really interesting morning.

… This was really eye-opening for me.

(2) Building an unequal America thru poor schools

“The Great Divide: Schooling Ourselves in an Unequal America“, Rebecca Strauss, New York Times, 16 June 2013

Averages can be misleading. The familiar, one-dimensional story told about American education is that it was once the best system in the world but that now it’s headed down the drain, with piles of money thrown down after it.

The truth is that there are two very different education stories in America. The children of the wealthiest 10% or so do receive some of the best education in the world, and the quality keeps getting better.

For most everyone else, this is not the case. America’s average standing in global education rankings has tumbled not because everyone is falling, but because of the country’s deep, still-widening achievement gap between socioeconomic groups.

And while America does spend plenty on education, it funnels a disproportionate share into educating wealthier students, worsening that gap. The majority of other advanced countries do things differently, at least at the K-12 level, tilting resources in favor of poorer students.

… Historically, broad educational gains have been the biggest driver of American economic success; hence the economist’s rule of thumb that an increase of one year in a country’s average schooling level corresponds to an increase of 3 to 4% in long-term economic growth.

… No matter how much wealthier children keep gaining, there are not enough of them to raise that number. The only way America will again rise to the top in education is by lifting every student up.