Addressing Inequality Through Education

/ The Old Crank

Jared Bernstein, writing for the New York Times’ Economix blog, responding to Miles Corak’s recent commentary on inequality, arguing that he doesn’t go far enough in his policy recommendations:

It’s a common default for economists and policy makers to present a trenchant analysis of a problem with many deep roots and then conclude, “That’s why we need better education and skill development.”

The problem is that a central thesis of the inequality/mobility nexus is that skills alone won’t crack it. Again, no question that overcoming the barriers that block lower-income children from achieving their intellectual (and economically productive) potential is an essential part of this, but if you don’t deal with the politics — really, the power — you’ll end up with a bunch more children who fortunately have gone a lot further in their personal development, but remain stuck in or near the income decile of their birth. (my emphasis)

I think that’s true, and I also had another thought.

When you look at the history of adult literacy in the U.S., you’ll find that for most of that history, adult literacy education was mainly focused on increasing the political agency of the individuals being taught. Only over the last 20-25 years or so (as adult education has become somewhat more institutionalized in schools and community colleges) has the focus shifted (at least in the policy arena) to more of an emphasis on employment and training. I realized, reading this commentary, that my discomfort with the pre-K movement stems not just from the fact that proponents often brush aside the fundamental pedagogical role that parents and the home environment play in children’s literacy development. That’s a problem to be sure, but the more fundamental problem with ignoring parents and parents’ education—particularly the parents of the poor—is that it fails to acknowledge or address the political agency of those parents—political agency needed in order to bring about meaningful political change.

Those who argue that education is not enough to solve the inequality problem without additional political change raise some valid points. But education does play a role in developing the critical thinking and self-reflection needed to bring about political changes. Education can do more than just help people reach their economic potential, it can also play a bigger role in bringing about the political changes Bernstein (and others) suggest.

Is the Allegory of the Cave a parenting skill? I suspect some would argue that it is.

Important Congressional Hearings Coming Up for Adult Education Over the Next Two Weeks

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

(Updated Below)

Congress is getting ready to leave town for a long August recess, but not before holding two hearings—one in the House and one in the Senate—that are of significance to adult education supporters.

First, the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee is going to mark up a FY 2014 appropriations bill this Thursday morning. (When and whether this bill ever gets to the floor is another matter.) This will be an interesting hearing, to say the least. The budget adopted by the House majority establishes a $121.8 billion top-line discretionary spending level for their Labor-HHS-Education spending bill, which is $42.5 billion less than the Senate’s. (See Table 2, in this CPBB report.) That’s a big difference—almost 26% less than the Senate bill—and the widest disparity, by the way, between any of the subcommittee discretionary allocations by far.

Most observers have been saying that the House Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee will have to cut funding in their bill by about 20% from FY 2013 levels in order to stay under the budget allocation they were handed. That would be, I believe, an unprecedented reduction. That doesn’t mean, though, that each program covered by this bill (and adult education is one of them) will all be cut across-the-board by 20%, or receive 26% less than what was appropriated in the Senate bill—some could be cut more, some less—as long as the entire bill stays under that $121.8 billion cap.

A lot of education advocates I know have been urging House Reublican to produce a bill, not because they expect to like what they’ll see in it, but because at least they’ll see it–that is, they’ll finally be able to see what programs House Republican propose to cut—and by how much— in light of the budget they produced last spring. Maybe a lot of the hits will come at the expense of Obamacare, but even so, I don’t see how you get to $121.8 billion without substantial cuts to a lot of education programs. Like I said, this bill, and the hearing on Thursday, should be interesting.

Secondly, it looks like there is going to be further action on WIA in the Senate before the break. I’ll post details on this once they become publicly available.

UPDATE 7/24: No House Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee hearing after all: “Due to scheduling uncertainties surrounding the House consideration of the Defense bill and the State and Foreign Operations full committee mark-up, the Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee mark-up scheduled forThursday morning at 9:00 am has been postponed.”

Big Boost in Adult Education Funding for Undocumented Immigrants in New York City

/ The Old Crank

According to this article in the New York Times, New York City plans to spend $18 million over the next two years to help young unauthorized immigrants qualify for a temporary reprieve from deportation under federal government’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) rules.

The Times reports that this money will add 16,000 seats (!) to adult education programs throughout the city, with priority for those slots given to immigrants who appear to qualify for DACA.

The Wages and Productivity Debate

/ The Old Crank

Interesting post here by James Tankersley on a study conducted by James Sherk, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation on the perceived wage/productivity gap. Sherk argues that total compensation (not just wages), if properly adjusted for inflation, has actually kept pace with productivity over the last 40 years, even wages have haven’t grown much since the 1970s.

Sherk argues that you have to take into account the growing share of compensation going to health care benefits—not just wages—and then makes some seemingly valid adjustments to the way productivity is measured and how inflation should be tracked for real wages and output. This results in what appears to be a much smaller gap between productivity and pay.

Tankersley writes:

The real problem, [Sherk] says, is that far too many workers are stuck in low-productivity jobs, particularly in the health-care sector; he argues policymakers should be focused on helping those workers gain more skills and move into more productive sectors — specifically, by looking for ways to reduce the cost and increase the accessibility of higher education. (my emphasis)

According to Tankersley, Sherk blames market forces for pushing lower-skilled workers into low-productivity jobs: “If those workers could more easily and cheaply gain more skills — say, through widely available, low-cost online education — they could compete for higher-productivity jobs.”

But this points again to an issue I’ve never been able to figure out (actually two issues, but I’m going to put aside my question about how to best measure productivity among health care workers*):

If everyone currently in a low-skilled/low pay job was to gain the skills they need to move out of those jobs and into a better one (this assumes, of course, that enough of those better jobs are actually out there), in most cases we’ll still need people to do those low-skilled jobs. This is particularly true in the health care sector that Sherk cites here, where the demand for low-skilled workers, like home health aids, is pretty high. Training people out of low-skilled jobs doesn’t eliminate the low-skilled jobs. I just think at some point you’ve got to address wages at the low end even as we expand education and training opportunities for those workers. (And as I’ve argued before, raising wages probably increases the likelihood that people in those low skilled jobs can take advantage of the education and training opportunities that are available.)

Anyway, for those who find Sherk’s research compelling, I’d suggest checking out Dean Baker’s response to Tankersley’s post, in which he essentially agrees that, yes, the problem has been not so much a wage/productivity gap, but an “upward redistribution from middle and lower income workers to those at the top, doctors, lawyers, and especially Wall Street types and CEOs.” He also argues that a wage/productivity gap does appear to have emerged in the years since the crash.

None of this suggests that low wages aren’t a problem. There’s some really good data, for example, in this post by Janelle Jones and John Schmitt at CEPR that shows how the minimum wage has lagged behind inflation. And in this post, Felix Salmon makes about as cogent argument in favor of raising the minimum wage I’ve ever read. His point about how the government essentially subsidizes companies that pay lousy wages is a good one, especially in light of the living wage controversy here in the District.

*I’m also ignoring Sherk’s obligatory plug for online learning.