Krugman's wrong on poverty and education

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Monday January 09, 2012 · 5:46 PM PST

2012/01/09 · 17:46

I don't usually disagree with Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate in economics who writes for the New York Times. But this week, he blew it in his column about the unequal playing field facing Americans trying to pursue their dreams. Here, he tried to describe some of the obstacles that make advancement impossible for millions of Americans:

The failure starts early: in America, the holes in the social safety net mean that both low-income mothers and their children are all too likely to suffer from poor nutrition and receive inadequate health care. It continues once children reach school age, where they encounter a system in which the affluent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to private schools, while less-advantaged children get a far worse education.

I won't dispute for a moment that poor children in the United States are getting a worse education than kids from affluent families - a quick look at test scores will show that even though test scores for poor children have been rising in the United States over the past decade, they still lag other students' scores, and the gap is growing.

But who's to blame for that? Krugman doesn't explicitly say it, but when Krugman writes that "affluent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools," it's not hard to imagine that the reader will take from that statement an assumption that the poor end up with the "bad" schools.

Here's the trouble with that hypothesis, though: If inadequate schools are the problem that prevent children in poverty from advancing, why are the middle-class children who attend those same schools succeeding?

RobertNiles

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Sunday October 09, 2011 · 10:40 AM PDT

2011/10/09 · 10:40

My two children, ages 14 and 11, attend their local public schools, and have since kindergarten. Why do I send my children to public schools?

1. Public schools work. Every year, millions of American children graduate from public schools across the country, having completed the toughest curricula in our nation's history, surpassing standards that get tougher by the year. In our public schools, students can learn calculus, analyze complex themes by Nobel Prize-winning authors, study advanced chemistry, biology and physics, program computers, and perform music and dance in international competitions in front of crowds of thousands. Every year, public school students learn, graduate and go on to the world's best colleges and the world's most competitive jobs.

But what about all those news stories about bad test scores and failing schools? Aren't many kids falling behind?

It's true that we've got a huge gap between students in our country - one that grows with each grade level as kids advance from kindergarten into high school. But that's not because we have an education problem in America. It's because we have a large, and growing, child poverty problem in our country.

The children whose parents can afford to send them to school with money for lunch, and who have the ability to help them with their increasingly difficult homework at night, typically thrive in the public schools, as they always have. But those aren't the majority of kids anymore in many districts.

RobertNiles

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Friday June 24, 2011 · 7:24 PM PDT

2011/06/24 · 19:24

Here's the 60-second TV/radio commercial I would love to hear some Democratic candidate the grow the backbone to deliver:

"Our government is drowning in debt. So we're laying off teachers and now the people in Washington are talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security. Why are we in this mess? Because for too long, Washington's top priority has been to cut taxes for the rich.

"But look around. Cutting taxes for the rich hasn't created any new jobs. Tax cuts for the rich don't help working people afford new homes, or even stay in the ones they have. Tax cuts for the rich simply starve our communities of the money they need to hire teachers, build roads, provide health care for the elderly and to keep us safe.

"We need to get Americans back to work. We need to make a change. So let's make that change by quitting giving tax cuts to the rich and by asking wealthy Americans to pay their fair share again. Raising taxes on Americans who make more than a quarter-million dollars a year can give us the money we need to improve our schools, provide better health care for all and to get Americans working again.

"I'm ___ and I approve the message so I can fight for working Americans."

RobertNiles

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Wednesday November 03, 2010 · 10:51 AM PDT

2010/11/03 · 10:51

Like many of you, I've spent time during past campaigns trying to get out the vote. But every morning after an election, I find myself asking: "Did it matter?"

For every would-be voter I have a good talk with, many more either hang up or hurry me off the line. The opposition knows that GOTV can be annoying, which is why they're using fake GOTV calls as dirty tricks in campaigns. I want to help elect progressives and don't want to do anything to hurt.

Here's the problem I see with traditional GOTV: I don't know these people. Think about the six steps of community organizing. With GOTV calls to prospective voters, we're skipping to step four - mobilize to action - without taking the time for steps one through three - listening, relationship building and developing an action plan. We've got to get to know the individuals we touch in GOTV before we ask them to cast their ballot.

Yeah, that takes time. Which is why GOTV for 2012 has to start TODAY.

RobertNiles

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Wednesday December 16, 2009 · 8:51 PM PST

2009/12/16 · 20:51

Richard Sherman, the man who brought the world the "It's a Small World" song, recently told a story about Walt Disney. Walt was screening the dailies of a film the studio was working on one day, and watched as a gag fell flat. Another studio exec complained, but Walt turned on him:

'I don't care if you don't like it,' Walt said. 'Tell me what we can do to make it better.'

Who knew that Walt Disney, not exactly Mr. Progressive in his political beliefs, had something to teach today's Democrats?

RobertNiles

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Tuesday June 09, 2009 · 5:20 PM PDT

2009/06/09 · 17:20

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today asked for his Twitter followers to suggest ideas to address California's multi-billion-dollar budget mess.

He's asked people to tweet their ideas, using the hashtag #myidea4CA.

With just 140 characters, we're talking brief thoughts here, not than bill-ready proposals, and who knows who'll actually read them? But his appeal's got my creative juices flowing. Follow me after the jump for my tweets:

RobertNiles

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Tuesday March 24, 2009 · 2:26 PM PDT

2009/03/24 · 14:26

I live in Pasadena, California. For the past six years, my wife and I have been wanting to buy a house (we'd be first-time home buyers), but since we did not want to take out an option ARM or some other exotic loan, we've not been able to afford any houses in our community.

The median price for a single-family home in Pasadena in January of this year was more than $420,000, down from more than $650,000 a year ago, but still too high for us. (For the record, our household income is more than $100,000 a year.) And, I suspect, that's way too high for most families in Pasadena. The median household income in the city is about $54,000 a year. (That's the 2005 estimate - the latest I could find.) Half the kids who attend my children's public elementary school are on free or reduced price school lunch.

When you look at this data, the nation's economic problem seems clear: Houses cost too much. They cost more than people are able to pay, so banks won't loan the money. And since people won't, and can't pay, these prices, banks are having to eat the money they lent for folks to buy homes at even higher prices.

RobertNiles

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Thursday February 12, 2009 · 9:51 AM PST

2009/02/12 · 09:51

This morning, I appeared as a guest on WHYY's Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane, talking about the future on newspapers. Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism was the other guest and we discussed how journalism will be paid for in the Internet era.

The death of newspapers need not be the death of journalism. Kossacks know newspapers aren't the only, or even best, source of news. Years of cuts have left too few newsrooms with the ability to pursue in-depth reporting. And the industry's doctrine of fairness has too often led to a reticence to directly confront powerful sources who lie. Those are two of the reasons why so many readers have turned to the Internet to read alternate news sources, as well as why so many knowledgeable readers have turned to the Internet to become alternate sources.

None of this is news to Daily Kos readers. What I wanted to ask you today is to take the next step, to help those of us who remain in the news industry ensure that investigative reporting remains as powerful a tool for public policy reform.

RobertNiles

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Tuesday October 28, 2008 · 9:57 AM PDT

2008/10/28 · 09:57

Help us, Kossacks. (Violin-playing Kossacks, especially. You'll see why later in the post.)

We need some help handling the wingnuts who are out in force on our own site. My wife posted a blog entry on her community website earlier this week. The site's not political; it's for violinists and violin fans, but she throws in light personal posts from time to time. But one recent post has brought out the right-wingers and they're shouting down all attempts at reason.

Here's the one in question:

RobertNiles

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Tuesday September 30, 2008 · 2:24 PM PDT

2008/09/30 · 14:24

I think many journalists and analysts are missing the core story underlying the populist revolt over the Bush administration's proposed Wall Street bailout.

People aren't merely upset with the idea of their tax money going to prop up rich Wall Street businesses and investors. They're disgusted with an American economy that increasingly values gambling over work. Not only that, many of these Americans are perfectly willing, even eager, to watch this gamblers' economy fail.

In many neighborhoods across the country, families can no longer afford to buy a home and anticipate a comfortable retirement on the money that they make working. Salaries and wages just don't provide enough cash.

RobertNiles

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Wednesday September 24, 2008 · 2:31 PM PDT

2008/09/24 · 14:31

Here's the ad I would love to see on my TV^* today:

NARRATOR:
John McCain says he's suspending his presidential campaign because of trouble in the U.S. economy.

Funny, last week McCain said the fundamentals of the economy were strong.

They weren't then, and they aren't now. Barack Obama understands the problems facing working Americans: Layoffs. Lower incomes. Home foreclosures.

OBAMA:
Presidents don't get to call a time-out when America is in trouble. That's why I am moving ahead with my campaign to help American families. And why I oppose the Bush plan to give Wall Street a blank-check bail-out. I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this message.

RobertNiles

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Sunday September 21, 2008 · 10:18 PM PDT

2008/09/21 · 22:18

Here is the message that I just sent to my representative and two Senators in the U.S. Congress about the Bush administration's $700 billion-plus bailout plan for its Wall Street cronies:

I am writing to urge you not to approve a $700 billion blank check for the Wall Street investors who did so much to foul up the nation's economy.

All my life, I've played by the rules, telling the truth about my income, paying my taxes and not skipping out on my debts. When the price of homes in California exploded, my wife and I refused to lie about our incomes to get a mortgage, and we refused to take out an Option ARM mortgage (like so many people urged us to do), because we knew we wouldn't be able to repay it if home prices went down. Which they did....

We need to fix the nation's housing market, but not in this way. Not with another multi-billion-dollar blank check for the Bush administration. And especially not after the way this administration botched the Iraq war. Please, for those folks like me who played by the rules, who acted with responsibility and who didn't mortgage our future on risky investment schemes, please vote NO on this bailout plan.

The rest of my letter, and how you can help, after the jump.

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Krugman's wrong on poverty and education

Why I send my children to public schools

Message for 2012: Tax cuts for the rich vs. jobs

GOTV for 2012 starts TODAY

Hello, cruel world!

Schwarzenegger asks for CA budget ideas, via Twitter

The Geithner get-rich-quick scheme for house flippers

It's up to you to spread the news now. Will you?

Ugh, the wingnuts are taking over our site

Why do Americans hate the bailout? It's the gambling, stupid.

My dream Obama ad, 9/24/08

My 'No on the Bailout' Letter