First Things First

A recent essay from the Brookings Institution began with a point about the current  attacks on education that should be obvious–but clearly isn’t.

What is missing from the larger discussion on systems transformation is an intentional and candid dialogue on how societies and institutions are defining the purpose of education. When the topic is discussed, it often misses the mark or proposes an intervention that takes for granted that there is a shared purpose among policymakers, educators, families, students, and other actors.

Eleanor Roosevelt argued for education that builds “good citizenship.” Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that education transmits “not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living..”  E.D. Hirsch added cultural literacy– knowledge of a given culture’s signs and symbols, as well as its language, allows culturally-literate people to communicate with each other.

Privatizers ignore any emphasis on these civic and social benefits; they define education  solely as  a consumer good– the transmittal of skills individuals need to operate successfully in the marketplace. I have previously argued two things: that education is an essential element of democracy via the creation of an informed and engaged citizenry–and that a broad liberal arts education enables human flourishing.

Beliefs about the purposes of education will rather obviously inform approaches to education policy. 

If, as the privatizers and voucher advocates insist, education is simply the transmittal of skills that will allow individuals to succeed in the economy, there’s no particular reason to give government the job. (On the other hand, you might think evidence that private schools don’t transmit those skills as well as public schools would lead to some re-thinking, but evidently not.)

If you are Ron DeSantis, Florida’s “anti-woke” Governor, and you see education as indoctrination, your primary goal will be to substitute yourself as the indoctrinator–to control the educational institutions in your state in order to protect your ideological and/or religious beliefs from examination and the possibility that they–and you–will be discarded.

If you are a college like Marymount,  and education is just a product you are offering, you move to eliminate undergraduate majors in English, history, philosophy and other subjects when your analysis suggests they are less profitable than the job training subjects on offer.

Even the major in theology and religious studies — a staple at many colleges but especially those with Catholic affiliation — would be cut. The plan, which has spurred fierce faculty protest, represents a pivotal moment for a 3,700-student institution in Arlington that describes itself as a “comprehensive Catholic university.”
 
Marymount President Irma Becerra endorsed the cuts in a Feb. 15 letter to the university’s Faculty Council. In all, the plan calls for phasing out nine bachelor’s degree programs. Among other majors that would be eliminated: art, mathematics, secondary education and sociology. For economics, the Bachelor of Arts would be cut, but the Bachelor of Science would remain. Also proposed to be cut: a master’s program in English and humanities.

Marymount points to the small number of students majoring in these subjects as justification for eliminating them. Opponents of the plan point out that those courses continue to draw substantial enrollment from students majoring in other disciplines.

Among the university’s larger programs are nursing, business administration and information technology. As one faculty member accurately noted,
“What it looks like we’re going to be doing is focusing on majors that are training you for a very specific job. That’s a real change from the mission and identity of the university.”

Marymount and similar institutions are substituting a focus on the bottom line for fidelity to an educational mission. 

Meanwhile, lawmakers’ widespread disrespect for education has led a significant number of K-12  teachers to leave the profession. In Indiana, nearly 95% of Indiana school superintendents say they are contending with a shortage of qualified candidates for teacher openings. Districts are responding to the shortage by issuing emergency permits and using  teachers outside their licensed areas, among other stop-gap measures.

A number of those “emergency” permits are going to people who could not qualify under existing state standards–a situation that members of the World’s Worst Legislature consider irrelevant.After all, if education is just job training, anyone who can impart a set of limited skills can teach.

Who cares if the science instructor has ever read Shakespeare–or anything else? So what if the math teacher is ignorant of history and civics? For that matter, do the schools really need to teach science? A number of the voucher schools don’t–they teach creationism instead, and they still “qualify” as educational institutions entitled to receive our tax dollars.

Bottom line, baby!

It is past time for America to have a conversation about the purpose–for that matter, the definition– of education.

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If Demography Is Destiny…

Ultimately, of course, demography is destiny, but if significant changes in the makeup of the population fail in the short term to change the status quo, those changes do tell us a lot about our current civic unrest, including acts of domestic terrorism.

The Brookings Institution has issued an analysis of the most recent census and it points to the demographic realities that have triggered the racist backlash we are experiencing.

The big picture shows healthy growth in our larger cities–what the report calls “major metro areas”–despite the fact that the nation as a whole experienced historically low growth over the past decade. (The decline in the nation’s overall growth rate is attributed to reduced immigration, a decline in fertility and an increased death rate due to an aging population.)

The disproportionate growth of urban America was characterized by increased racial and ethnic diversity, especially among youth populations–a data point that undoubtedly feeds the grievances of MAGA Republicans. Much of that metropolitan growth occurred in the South.

Reflecting changes from earlier decades, six of the fastest-growing metro areas in 2010-2020 were located in the traditional Sun Belt magnet states of Texas (Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio) and Florida (Orlando and Jacksonville), along with three southeastern metro areas (Raleigh, N.C., Charlotte, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn.) as well as Seattle.

Brookings notes that every metro area with greater than 10% growth is located in either the South or West except three: Columbus, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. I was pleasantly surprised to find Indianapolis in that category. (The rapidly changing populations of Florida and Texas may help to explain the increasingly frantic efforts of Abbott and DeSantis to energize their GOP bases before the demographic shift overtakes them…)

The most politically potent information was the data on increased diversity.

The 2010-2020 decade continued the nation’s “diversity explosion” that was already evident in the 2010s. This was especially the case among the nation’s major metro areas. While people of color (those identifying as Latino or Hispanic, Black, Asian American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, Native American/Alaska Native, or as two or more races) together comprise more than two-fifths (42%) of the total U.S. population, they now comprise over half (50.3%) of the combined populations of major metro areas.

The impact of this minority concentration is most apparent in 20 of the 56 major metro areas, where people of color now comprise more than half of the 2020 population. This was the case for only 14 major metro areas in 2010 and just nine in 1990. The newcomers to this category are metro area Dallas, Orlando, Fla., Atlanta, Sacramento, Calif., New Orleans, and Austin, Texas. As shown in Map 2, most of these are located in California and Texas, where the greatest minority populations tend to be Latino or Hispanic. Metro area Chicago is close to being next in tipping to minority-white status.

Rising diversity is not specific only to these minority-white metro areas. Each of the nation’s 56 major metro areas registered a decline in its white population share since 2010 and, in 41, the decline was 5 percentage points or more. Metro area Seattle led all others, with a decline from 68% white in 2010 to 58% in 2020. Las Vegas experienced the largest 20-year change, from 60% white in 2000 to 39% in 2020.

Brookings also looked at the data on neighborhood segregation, finding limited improvement nationally. Milwaukee, interestingly, remains the most highly segregated city in the U.S.

Another very troubling finding was an absolute decline in the youth population.

The 2020 census data allows for an assessment of the size and recent changes in the nation’s under-age-18 population (referred to here as the “youth” population).

An especially noteworthy finding is the overall decline in this population by over 1 million during the 2010- 2020 decade. In a country that is rapidly aging, such an absolute decline in the youth population represents a demographic challenge for the future.

As White American fertility has declined, the percentage of the youth cohort that is White has also declined.

 The 2020 census shows that more than half of the youth population in 37 major metro areas are people of color, up from 24 in 2010 and 16 in 2000. The rise of youths of color is a key element of the changing demographics of America’s under-age-18 population. These groups have not only stemmed a sharp decline in the youth population but, as they age, will be driving most of the growth in the nation’s labor force.

There’s lots more data and many charts at the link, but the overall picture is clear: America is becoming more urban; it is also aging and rapidly diversifying.  Many older White Americans perceive these demographic shifts as an assault–not just on their status as the “real Americans,” but on their very concept of what America is.

They’re terrified and they’re angry. And they’ll vote for candidates who promise to prevent the inevitable.

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