I had heard that there would be a good deal about education in the speech. Had I any doubts, a quick look at the White House website indicated that education would be a key part - among the four staffers made available for the discussion afterwards was Roberto Rodrigues, a key assistant on education. And then I had an email asking if I wanted to talk with Dennis Van Roekel of the National Education Association shortly after the speech. Clearly the NEA believed the speech would address key issues on education. And it did.
Below the fold I will examine the two key aspects of the speech that specifically addressed education. I will offer my reaction both to those and to the other parts of the speech.
I will share some of what I heard from others who watched the speech - my spouse (who watched with me), some congressional electives, some staffers, etc.
I invite you to keep reading.
The first reference to education came in the following two paragraphs, where I have bolded the specific educational references:
There are private construction companies all across America just waiting to get to work. There’s a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky that’s on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America. A public transit project in Houston that will help clear up one of the worst areas of traffic in the country. And there are schools throughout this country that desperately need renovating. How can we expect our kids to do their best in places that are literally falling apart? This is America. Every child deserves a great school – and we can give it to them, if we act now.
The American Jobs Act will repair and modernize at least 35,000 schools. It will put people to work right now fixing roofs and windows; installing science labs and high-speed internet in classrooms all across this country. It will rehabilitate homes and businesses in communities hit hardest by foreclosures. It will jumpstart thousands of transportation projects across the country. And to make sure the money is properly spent and for good purposes, we’re building on reforms we’ve already put in place. No more earmarks. No more boondoggles. No more bridges to nowhere. We’re cutting the red tape that prevents some of these projects from getting started as quickly as possible. And we’ll set up an independent fund to attract private dollars and issue loans based on two criteria: how badly a construction project is needed and how much good it would do for the economy.
A number of years ago I wrote Raw sewage, mold, and mice droppings, a posting in which I explored and reacted to a report by the American Federation of Teachers on the poor and decaying quality of many of our school buildings. In this December 2006 piece one thing I remembered from the AFT report immediately came to mind, something on which I had focused when I wrote:
in 1995 the GAO reported 25,000 school buildings needed extensive repairs and replacements then costing $112 billion to bring the buildings into conformity with MINIMUM building standards.
The numbers are far higher now. With schools, as with other parts of our public structures, we have not maintained them as we should. Too often students have to attend school in buildings whose conditions are so vile that they learn perhaps unintended lessons. As I wrote then:
Students are often far more perceptive than adults realize. They see the conditions in which they attend school and quickly draw the conclusion that their learning is really not important, otherwise they would not be subjected to such indignities. As adults we would be quite upset to be confined by force of law to such an environment and then be expected to perform to a set of standards that were already in many cases unreasonable. Were we describing such conditions in a manufacturing environment we might rightly attached the pejorative label of sweatshop, and we would expect that the authorities would intervene on the grounds of public health and safety. And yet for far too long we have tolerated such conditions in our public schools.
When I spoke with Dennis van Roekel, President of the NEA, after the speech, while his primary focus was on the other educational reference, jobs, he was absolutely clear that just this part of the speech could seriously help address the issue of more than 1.5 million construction workers currently unemployed. In communities all across the nation construction workers could be going back to work, suppliers of materials would see their business pick up, and the additional pay generated by such efforts would provide a major boost to small businesses in the communities in which the schools being improved were located.
Shortly after the paragraphs on infrastructure and schools, the President spoke these words:
Pass this jobs bill, and thousands of teachers in every state will go back to work. These are the men and women charged with preparing our children for a world where the competition has never been tougher. But while they’re adding teachers in places like South Korea, we’re laying them off in droves. It’s unfair to our kids. It undermines their future and ours. And it has to stop. Pass this jobs bill, and put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong.
This year the impact of the contraction of state and local government revenues has hit schools hard. The original stimulus bill had helped postpone what seemed inevitable, and then the $10 billion public jobs bills had enabled districts to avoid midyear layoffs. But the revenue streams for state and local governments had continued to contract, and that impact was felt seriously in schools. To stretch budgets, districts like mine offered one-time bonuses (of up to $20,000 in our case) to encourage senior teachers already eligible for retirement to step down - even with such a bonus in some cases the salaries of those accepting the buyout could result in 2 beginning teachers being hired for the same money. We lost 7 of our most experienced teachers, some of whom were absolutely among the best teachers in the building. We have a large enough faculty with enough experienced and terrific teachers that this was not hugely harmful, but it could result in the loss of institutional memory, of the experience necessary to mentor new and younger teachers.
Across our district we have seen a significant decrease in the number of teachers. Class sizes are growing. Some key elective programs have been eliminated. Schools are resorting to charge fees for participation in things like athletics and bands and theater.
It may not seem like a big deal to expand the size of classes by one or two students. If you teach 6 periods as do those who teach in our building, that means an additional dozen papers for each assignment. it adds up. At some point one reaches the capacity of rooms, and the ability of the teacher no matter how gifted to get all students involved in discussions - a critical part of how I teach - begins to suffer. That means the quality of the learning experience is diminished for all students. That is also true because one cannot give as much individual attention to the students who may need it - there are simply too many.
As an educator, I applaud these aspects of what I heard, even as I still want to examine the proposed legislation in detail. I now have access to the talking points, to which I may respond at a later time, but I also want to see the specifics.
Dennis van Roekel of NEA was quite pleased with this part of the speech, as one would expect. We need to keep our teachers if we are going to fulfill our responsibility of giving a quality education to all of our students. Remember, those of us who go into teaching rarely have money as a prime motivator, but we need enough to live. Too often once a teacher is laid off, s/he moves on to other occupations and even if there is the opportunity to return may worry about her own future economic stability. As it is we lose too many teachers because of financial pressures, just as we lose too many who burn out because even before the current crisis the burden on teachers in many schools was ridiculous - I know of teachers with 40 or more in a class, with total student loads in excess of 200. It is almost impossible to sustain quality teaching with such crushing loads.
None of the people with whom I discussed the speech was anything but complimentary about the portions of the speech I have just discussed. That includes an elected with responsibility for education, staffers, my wife, people who lobby on a variety of topics including education, people in think tanks, etc.
Overall the speech got pretty high marks.
But there were clear concerns.
One person told me that he wished this speech had been given 6 months ago.
Another immediately raised the question of whether when the Republicans refused to allow a vote on the full bill to occur, either by not bringing it up in the House or by threatening a filibuster in the Senate - both of which s/he expected because of the provision to raise taxes on the wealthy - the President would "cave" and allow the bill to be broken apart, with only those portions that Republicans support such as tax breaks for business to be passed separately.
It is clear to me that the Republicans do NOT want to allow the President to claim any success in addressing jobs issues. Hell, as one person recently retired from the military remarked, when the Republicans would not stand or applaud for jobs for veterans, you know their game plan is to continue obstructionism.
One person who in general was very supportive still objected to the remarks about the health care programs. S/he does not understand why we are paying for needed repairs to infrastructure on the backs of the medical needs of seniors and poor people.
Several people remarked that they understood that to pay for this the President has asked for up to another $500 billion in cuts, and they do not understand how one can accomplish that without seriously hurting programs that help the American people.
I am already on Medicare in part, although most of my health insurance is still through my employment. I can if I choose keep working until I am 70. In my case it is a choice. Raising the age for Social Security and Medicare is unfair to those who do work involving large amounts of physical labor - coal miners and many in construction for example. It requires them to keep working, which can create obstacles for younger people to obtain jobs. One can argue that facilitating retirement at an earlier age is healthier for the economy, and it is far more equitable for those whose employment is hard to sustain as a senior.
Like those whose remarks I noted above, I have concerns with that part of the speech.
I am also concerned with the continuation of the payroll tax holiday, because it is establishing a dangerous set of precedents which will allow those whose goal is to dismantle or privatize Social Security and Medicare to further undercut those critical programs.
But any program intended to create jobs must put more money in the hands of those who will spend it, because it will be consumption by ordinary people that will lead to increased production and more people being hired for sales and service jobs. The more people added to payrolls the better it will be for all of us. I like the idea of a tax break for those who have been without jobs for extended periods, but I also would like to have seen a provision that prohibited discrimination in hiring against those who have been unemployed: I think we need that stick as well as the carrots of the bill.
Some people gave the speech an A. Dennis van Roekal was quite positive about it. Many people with whom I spoke want to believe that this indicates a new approach by the administration, a willingness to go to the mat on behalf of the American people.
I want to be hopeful. I reserve judgment. I have already heard Republicans and their supporters be very critical. Thus I think it important to make the case forcefully. I heard words that encourage me, that the case for government is being made:
But what we can’t do – what I won’t do – is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades. I reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose between their jobs and their safety. I reject the argument that says for the economy to grow, we have to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury, or laws that prevent the health insurance industry from shortchanging patients. I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy. We shouldn’t be in a race to the bottom, where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards. America should be in a race to the top. And I believe that’s a race we can win.
Shortly I will leave for school. I want to hear the reaction of my students. I teach because of them, because I want them to have as many choices in their future as possible. I hope the President's words spoke to them.
Most of all, I hope these words are supported with strong actions. I know the President and his administration are planning events to try to sell the approach to the American people. I hope the media will understand that there are too many people already in need, that those who obstruct for political reasons need to be called out on their bullshit.
It is not just the elections of next year that will be impacted by how people respond to this. It is quite possibly the very future of our nation as a functioning liberal democracy in which the needs of ordinary people carry as much weight as does the greed and thirst for power of those already blessed by wealth and power.
I give the speech a B+ or A-. Now I wait and hope for the actions and deeds that will fulfill those words.
Peace? I sure as hell hope so.