A very important collection of other-statistics

There’s too much talk about the academic attainment of places like Finland and Singapore in education babble these days. Americans would be wise to stop dwelling on the international comparisons of student test scores.

Instead, we need to take a serious look at other indicators, such as the ones below. Then, we should begin the conversation about how much the figures are a reflection of our deeper attitudes about families and children. And that is not a pretty picture.

Mostly, we need to stop getting distracted by comparing ourselves to the Joneses and start to deal with our own enormous flaws. And we especially need to put an end to that fixation on supposed inadequacies of public school teachers. The failures of our children aren't the teachers' fault.

The figures are from the well-reviewed site NationMaster which draws from international studies and always cites the source. Note: "=" means a tie with other countries.

So read up. "Thar’s gold in them thar hills."

HOME AND FAMILY LIFE

Soft drink consumption (Litres per person per year)

# 1 United States: 216 litres

# 2 Ireland: 126 litres

= 3 Canada: 119.8 litres

# 15 Finland: 52 litres

# 17 France: 37.2 litres

Households with television (Households with television are the share of households with a television set. Some countries report only the number of households with a color television set, and therefore the true number may be higher than reported.)

# 2 Norway: 99.97 % 2002

= 9 Canada: 99 % 2003

= 9 Japan: 99 % 2004

# 23 United States: 97.84 % 2002

# 25 United Kingdom: 97.5 % 2001

# 48 Finland: 94.1 % 2005

Television viewing (hours per person per week)

= 1 United Kingdom: 28 hours

= 1 United States: 28 hours

= 11 Finland: 18 hours

= 11 Norway: 18 hours

= 11 Sweden: 18 hours

Infant mortality rate

# 1 Angola: 182.31 deaths/1,000 live births

# 3 Afghanistan: 154.67 deaths/1,000 live births

= 111 Mexico: 19.01 deaths/1,000 live births

# 185 United States: 6.3 deaths/1,000 live births

# 194 Canada: 5.08 deaths/1,000 live births

# 219 Finland: 3.5 deaths/1,000 live births

Abortions (per capita)

# 1 Russia: 19.2885 per 1,000 people

# 6 United States: 4.0945 per 1,000 people

# 15 Finland: 1.8924 per 1,000 people

Teenage birth rate (The number of births to women aged below 20 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19.)

# 1 United States: 52.1

# 2 United Kingdom: 30.8

# 8 Canada: 20.2

# 20 Finland: 9.2

# 27 Japan: 4.6

Age of women at first childbirth

# 1 New Zealand: 29.9 years old

# 8 Finland: 27.4 years old

= 14 United States: 24.9 years old

Marriage rate (Number of marriages per 1,000 people per year)

# 1 United States: 9.8

# 2 Russia: 8.9

# 10 United Kingdom: 6.8

# 26 Finland: 4.8

Divorce rate (Number of divorces per 1,000 people per year)

# 1 United States: 4.95

# 3 Russia: 3.36

# 4 United Kingdom: 3.08

# 9 Finland: 1.85

Lone parent families

# 1 Canada: 11%

# 2 United Kingdom: 10%

= 3 United States: 9%

= 3 Finland: 9%

= 18 Japan: 5%

= 18 Germany: 5%

# 23 Sweden: 3%

Paid maternity leave

Brazil - 120 days

Canada - 55% up to $413/week for 50 weeks (15 weeks maternity + 35 weeks parental leave shared with father)

Costa Rica - 4 months

Finland - 105 days

Japan - 14 weeks

Singapore - 12 weeks

United Kingdom - 6 weeks (90%) 20 weeks at a fixed amount (as of March 2006 = £108.85)

United States - 0 weeks

Working mothers (Working proportion of mothers with children under 6 years old 2001)

# 1 Sweden: 76

# 8 United States: 61

= 9 Finland: 59

# 12 United Kingdom: 55

Trade union membership

# 1 Sweden: 82%

= 2 Finland: 76%

# 9 Canada: 30%

# 10 United Kingdom: 29%

# 11 Germany: 26%

= 14 New Zealand: 22%

= 14 Japan: 22%

# 17 United States: 13%

ECONOMIC

Child poverty (Child poverty index is defined as the share of the children living in the households with income below 50% of the national median.)

# 1 Mexico: 26.2

# 2 United States: 22.4

#7 Canada: 15.5

#13 Germany: 10.7

# 21 Finland: 4.3

Population below median income (Percentage of population living below 50% of median income.)

# 1 Mexico: 22.1

# 2 Russia: 20.1

# 3 United States: 17

# 24 Sweden: 6.6

# 25 Finland: 5.4

Income distribution: Poorest 10% [The share of income or consumption (%) held by the poorest 10%]

= 1 Belarus: 5.1%

= 1 Slovakia: 5.1%

# 3 Japan: 4.8%

= 7 Finland: 4.2%

= 7 Rwanda: 4.2%

= 84 Burundi: 1.8%

= 84 Mali: 1.8%

= 84 United States: 1.8%

Income distribution: Richest 10% [The share of income or consumption (%) held by the richest 10%]

# 1 Swaziland: 50.2%

# 2 Nicaragua: 48.8%

# 3 Brazil: 48%

# 54 United States: 30.5%

# 108 Japan: 21.7%

# 109 Finland: 21.6%

PSYCHOLOGICAL

Child maltreatment deaths

= 1 Mexico: 2.2 per 100,000 children

= 1 United States: 2.2 per 100,000 children

= 7 Canada: 0.7 per 100,000 children

= 7 Finland: 0.7 per 100,000 children

= 24 Italy: 0.2 per 100,000 children

= 24 Ireland: 0.2 per 100,000 children

# 27 Spain: 0.1 per 100,000 children

Cannabis use (Percentage share of people who have used cannabis, generally including people 15 and above. Different nations have, however, focussed their studies on different age groups.)

# 1 New Zealand: 22.23%

# 2 Australia: 17.93%

# 3 United States: 12.3%

# 4 United Kingdom: 9%

# 21 Finland: 2.49%

# 25 Sweden: 0.98%

# 26 Japan: 0.05%

Amphetamine use (Percentage of people who have used amphetamines, generally for ages 15 and over.)

# 1 Australia: 3.6%

# 2 United Kingdom: 3%

# 6 United States: 0.7%

= 20 Sweden: 0.19%

= 20 Finland: 0.19%

# 22 Canada: 0.15%

Happiness level: Not very or not at all happy (Proportion of people who answered the survey question "Taking all things together, would you say you are: very happy, quite happy, not very happy, or not at all happy?" by stating that they were "not very" happy or "not at all" happy.)

# 1 Bulgaria: 62%

= 31 Japan: 14%

# 34 Canada: 12%

= 36 Finland: 8%

= 36 United States: 8%

= 39 United Kingdom: 7%

= 44 Australia: 5%

Happiness level: Very happy (Proportion of people who answered the survey question: "Taking all things together, would you say you are: very happy, quite happy, not very happy, or not at all happy?" by stating that they were "Very happy".)

# 1 Venezuela: 55%

# 2 Nigeria: 45%

= 7 United States: 39%

# 28 Uruguay: 21%

= 29 Finland: 20%

# 31 Bangladesh: 18%

Suicide rates in ages 15-24

# 1 New Zealand: 26.7 per 100,000 people

# 2 Finland: 22.8 per 100,000 people

= 4 Canada: 15 per 100,000 people

= 4 Austria: 15 per 100,000 people

# 7 United States: 13.7 per 100,000 people

EDUCATION

Average years of schooling of adults

# 1 United States: 12

# 4 Canada: 11.6

# 6 Australia: 10.9

# 8 Germany: 10.2

# 9 Finland: 10

= 35 Mexico: 7.2

= 35 Italy: 7.2

= 83 Haiti: 2.8

Duration of compulsory education

= 1 Germany: 13 years

= 1 Netherlands: 13 years

= 7 New Zealand: 12 years

= 7 United Kingdom: 12 years

= 7 United States: 12 years

= 34 Finland: 10 years

= 34 Mexico: 10 years

= 34 Japan: 10 years

= 34 Russia: 10 years

Adults at high literacy level

# 1 Sweden: 35.5%

# 2 Norway: 29.4%

= 4 Finland: 25.1%

= 4 Canada: 25.1%

# 8 United Kingdom: 19.1%

# 9 United States: 19%

# 10 Germany: 18.9%

# 11 New Zealand: 17.6%

Adults at low literacy level

# 1 Portugal: 80.1%

# 5 New Zealand: 50.6%

# 6 United Kingdom: 50.4%

# 7 United States: 49.6%

# 10 Canada: 42.9%

# 13 Finland: 36.8%

Public spending on education: % of GDP

# 1 Kiribati: 16.53 % 2002

# 6 Cuba: 9.77 % 2005

# 19 Sweden: 7.53 % 2003

# 31 Finland: 6.53 % 2003

# 45 United States: 5.85 % 2003

# 48 Mexico: 5.79 % 2003

= 64 Canada: 5.23 % 2002

Public spending on education: % of government expenditure

# 1 Yemen: 32.78 % 2000

# 5 Saudi Arabia: 27.57 % 2004

# 70 United States: 15.25 % 2003

# 71 Denmark: 15.08 % 2003

# 101 Finland: 12.82 % 2003

Student attitude: Dislike of school

# 1 Belgium: 42%

# 2 Italy: 38%

# 5 United States: 35%

# 12 Finland: 26%

= 13 Japan: 25%

= 13 Germany: 25%

Student attitude: Find school boring

# 1 Ireland: 67%

# 2 United States: 61%

= 3 Finland: 60%

= 16 France: 32%

= 16 Japan: 32%

CRIME

Prisoners (per capita)

# 1 United States: 715 per 100,000 people

# 2 Russia: 584 per 100,000 people

# 3 Belarus: 554 per 100,000 people

= 113 Finland: 71 per 100,000 people

Adults prosecuted (per capita)

# 1 United States: 48.029 per 1,000 people

# 2 Finland: 31.6349 per 1,000 people

# 3 New Zealand: 31.059 per 1,000 people

Murders (per capita)

# 1 Colombia: 0.617847 per 1,000 people

# 2 South Africa: 0.496008 per 1,000 people

# 5 Russia: 0.201534 per 1,000 people

# 6 Mexico: 0.130213 per 1,000 people

# 24 United States: 0.042802 per 1,000 people

# 30 Finland: 0.0283362 per 1,000 people

% homicides with firearms

# 1 Thailand: 79.5805

# 3 Colombia: 45.2092

# 7 United States: 39.5604

# 17 Mexico: 20.6051

# 21 Australia: 16.3435

# 32 Singapore: 2.6316

Additional information

Re single parent trends, from the Census Bureau:

The growth rate of single parents was nearly 4 percent a year in the first half of the 1990s, but that growth rate, which establishes a trend for the remainder of the present decade, was not significantly different from that of the 1980s, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau reported today.

And, according to the report titled, "Household and Family Characteristics: March 1994," P20-483, the numerical decline in 2-parent families that began in the 1970s and stabilized in the 1980s appears to have reversed during the first half of the 1990s. There were about 25.1 million married-couple families with children in the United States in 1994, an increase of about 521,000 since 1990, the report said.

There were an estimated 11.4 million single-parents in 1994. Of that number, 9.0 million owned or rented their own home, 1.8 million lived in a relative's home (related subfamilies), and 650,000 lived in the home of a non-relative (unrelated subfamilies).

In 1994, there were about 9.9 million single mothers versus 1.6 million single fathers. About 38 percent of single parents in 1994 had never been married, and roughly the same proportion were divorced at the time.

Single parents accounted for almost two-thirds (65 percent) of all African American family groups with children present, compared with 35 percent among Hispanics and 25 percent among Whites.

Re childhood obesity trends, from the CDE:

Childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years. The prevalence of obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5% in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008. The prevalence of obesity among adolescents aged 12 to 19 years increased from 5.0% to 18.1%.

Re the dramatic rise in daily media use among children and teens, from the Kaiser Family Foundation:

With technology allowing nearly 24-hour media access as children and teens go about their daily lives, the amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among minority youth, according to a study released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

A national ed policy trick?

“We face a critical shortfall of skilled scientists and engineers who can develop new breakthrough technologies.” -- AND -- “The failure to produce mathematicians, scientists and engineers in America is a tremendous threat to America's economic security.”

Comments like this are meant to be scary, scary, scary!

OR -- Is it that those types of comments are being launched by the corporatocracy to serve as a distraction, or a manipulation of public sentiment? The facts don't seem to jibe, and the arguments don’t make sense.

To expand your critical thinking, read the article by Beryl Lieff Benderly in the 2/22/2010 issue of Scientific American, Does the U.S. Produce Too Many Scientists?: American science education lags behind that of many other nations, right? So why does it produce so many talented young researchers who cannot find a job in their chosen field of study? Here are some excerpts, the bolding is mine:

For years, Americans have heard blue-ribbon commissions and major industrialists bemoan a shortage of scientists caused by an inadequate education system. A lack of high-tech talent, these critics warn, so threatens the nation’s continued competitiveness that the U.S. must drastically upgrade its K-12 science and math education and import large numbers of technically trained foreigners by promptly raising the current limit on the number of skilled foreigners allowed to enter the country to work in private industry. “We face a critical shortfall of skilled scientists and engineers who can develop new breakthrough technologies,” Microsoft chairman Bill Gates testified to Congress in March 2008.

But many less publicized Americans, including prominent labor economists, disagree. “There is no scientist shortage,” says Harvard University economist Richard Freeman, a leading expert on the academic labor force. The great lack in the American scientific labor market, he and other observers argue, is not top-flight technical talent but attractive career opportunities for the approximately 30,000 scientists and engineers—about 18,000 of them American citizens—who earn PhDs in the U.S. each year.

~~~~~~~

At the same time, however, the U.S. annually admits large numbers of foreign graduate students and postdocs and finds itself increasingly dependent on an inherently unreliable stream of young foreign scientists, mostly in the country on short-term, non-resident visas, to do much of the routine labor that powers American research. [more of the cheap labor we adore]The American research enterprise—the indispensable engine of national prosperity and the world’s leading innovation establishment—has therefore become vulnerable, observers say, to conditions beyond its borders and its control. At the same time, experts note that recruiting sufficient amounts of the talent needed for vital defense-oriented scientific and engineering work that requires security clearances has become increasingly difficult.

~~~~~~~

One thing that’s not in short supply are scientifically talented American students, whose academic achievements have been increasing rather than declining in recent years. “Students emerging from the oft-criticized K-12 system appear to be studying science and math subjects more and performing better in them, over time,” said Teitelbaum in Congressional testimony in November 2007. “Nor are [they] lagging far behind comparable students in economically competitive countries, as is oft asserted.” The number of Americans earning PhDs in science and technical fields has risen by 18 percent since 1985, according to the authoritative Scientific and Engineering Indicators 2008, published by the National Science Board.

~~~~~~~

Arguments for the shortage based on the inadequacy of American education generally begin with the results of standardized tests used in international comparisons. Average scores for K-12 students in the U.S. never top those lists in either science or math (although they do in both reading and civics). On one widely cited assessment, Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), which tested American third and eighth graders between 1995 and 2003 and American 12th graders in 1995 and 1999, U.S. students ranked between fifth and 12th in math and science—results bemoaned by many as dangerously deficient.

But a detailed study of students’ performance on TIMSS as well as on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), another widely reported international comparison test, by B. Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration and Hal Salzman of the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., suggests otherwise. “Their point is that the average performance of U.S. students on these comparative international tests is not a meaningful number,” Teitelbaum says. Far from trailing the developed world in science education, as some claim, “on PISA, the U.S. has more high-scoring kids in science than any other country” and nearly as many in the top math category as top-scoring Japan and Korea, Salzman says.

But crucially from a statistical standpoint, U.S. students are by far the most diverse of any industrialized country, ranging from some of the world’s best-prepared to some of the worst among the developed countries. On tests comparing the U.S., Japan and five Western European countries, for example, white Americans on average substantially outscored the Europeans in math and science and came second to the Japanese. American whites came first in reading by a wide margin. American black and Hispanic students, however, trailed significantly behind all other groups on average.

But scientists are not generally recruited from the average students, Salzman notes, but from those with the top scores, of whom America has large numbers. Compared with the products of Asian secondary schools, American students “are free thinkers,” says Vivek Wadhwa of Duke and Harvard Universities. “They didn’t spend the last 12 years of their lives memorizing books…. They’ve spent the last 12 years dealing with real problems and solving them. [In America], you can walk up to your teacher and tell her that she’s wrong or he’s wrong.” In Asia, he continues, “you wouldn’t dare do that.”

Raising America’s average scores on international comparisons is, therefore, not a matter of repairing a broken educational system that performs poorly overall, as many critiques suggest, but rather of improving the performance of the children at the bottom, overwhelmingly from low-income families and racial and ethnic minorities. This discrepancy, of course, is a vital national need and responsibility, but it does not reflect an overall insufficient supply of able science students.

~~~~~~~

Spot shortages may exist in certain limited fields, especially those that are new or that require citizenship for security clearance. But in general, writes Harvard’s Freeman, “the job market for young scientists and engineers has worsened…relative to… many other high level occupations, which discourages US students…[but] the rewards are sufficient to attract large immigrant flows, particularly from less developed countries,” in a study published by National Bureau of Economic Research.

~~~~~~~

Recruiting abroad "benefits the country by tapping a large and relatively inexpensive pool of talent at the cost of reduced incentives for native-born individuals to go into science and engineering,” he writes. His Harvard economics colleague, George Borjas, for example, has demonstrated that inflows of foreign students and scientists do, indeed, depress opportunities and incomes for both Americans and foreigners.

~~~~~~~

And from an Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) abstract on a 2005 paper published in the Phi Delta Kappan, “Is the United States Really Losing the International Horse Race in Academic Achievement?”:

It is widely believed and lamented that U.S. students perform poorly on international comparisons of academic achievement. For example, Edward Silver reports that U.S. seventh- and eighth-grade students performed poorly on the mathematics section of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 1995) and that this indicates "a pervasive and intolerable mediocrity in mathematics teaching." Likewise, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education attributed the reportedly poor performance of U.S. middle- grade students on the TIMSS 1995 mathematics assessment to the ineffectiveness of mathematics education. Such perceptions have led to grave concerns about the future economic competitiveness of the U.S. For example, Rita Colwell, the former director of the National Science Foundation, has stated that if the U.S. is to maintain its position in the world economy, it is critical for the nation's students to achieve at high levels in mathematics and science. The results of international assessments of student achievement are far more nuanced than the headlines lead citizens to believe. Having examined six comparisons of performance--in various subjects and at various levels--by students in the U.S. and other industrialized nations, Mr. Boe and Ms. Shin conclude that the dire pronouncements about America's standing are greatly exaggerated. Their examinations are described in this article.

Why can't these legitimate points get adequate national attention and traction? Why would the extremely smart Bill Gates and others want to spread misinformation?

Perhaps the CEO oligarch-types, now in charge of U.S. public education, might actually want to see a glut of highly educated American scientists produced, so they can eventually pay them even less. This would reduce their dependence on the cheap foreign workers they prefer to currently employ.

And remember, the CEO oligarchs are a big piece behind the starvation and privatization of U.S. public education. The "create-a-crisis" approach is a well-documented neoliberal tactic used to create panic and fear, so drastic changes never thought possible before, can be slipped by the citizens who have been emotionally-destabilized. It happens all the time; just read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine.

In this instance, global lies about public education inadequacies are being used to build suspicion and mass anti-public education public opinion -- it costs too much money, all the teachers are lazy, the schools are failures and need to be abolished, and everything is the unions' fault. In such a milieu, the structure can be more easily destroyed. To learn more, read the work of Gerald Bracey who passed away in October 2009, some of which is here:

• Believing the Worst About Schools: A Lack of Logic From Sputnik to Tough Choices
• Education Hell: Rhetoric vs. Reality
• On Education, Obama Blows It

A High School Teacher Responds

This is the second piece I've posted by Steve Miller, a longtime Oakland public school teacher.—P.P.

A High School Teacher Responds to Obama’s Speech to Students

Obama’s Back-to-School speech deserves commentary on many points. Here I am going to simply mention some telling assumptions that are laced through the presentation.

The President, of course, gets some points for talking about how students must accept responsibility for their own achievement. Though fundamental, this is hardly new. The elephant in the room is – achievement… for what? What is the real purpose of an education – a public education – in America 2009?

1) Obama talks about getting a good job as a major goal of going to school: “You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You are going to need a good education for every single one of those careers”.

The idea that America today is full of good jobs, waiting for each year’s crop of graduates has been exploded many times. Here’s one from Gerald Bracey, for years a harsh critic of the notion that America’s schools are failing:

From On Education, Obama Blows It, by Gerald Bracey:

I have not the expertise to address the merits of President Obama’s speech to Congress on the issues of the economy. I do claim some expertise on education. He blew it.

He accepted the same garbage that the propagandists, fear mongers such as Lou Gerstner, Bill Gates, Roy Romer, Bob Wise, Craig Barrett and many others—God help us, Arne Duncan?--have been spewing for years.

Obama said, ”Right now, three quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma, and yet just over half of our citizens have that level of education. Scary, huh? Not really. This statistic was a favorite of ex secretary of education of education Margaret Spellings, about whom we can all express a sigh of relief that the operative word is, “ex.”

If you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics stats on job projections, it is almost true (but not really) that what Obama said is right. But there are two hugely compromising factors that make this statistic much less fearsome that it first appears:

1. The definition of “more than a high school diploma” is a weasel phrase, an incredibly slippery statistic. It does not mean a B. A., an Associates Degree, nor even a year of on-the-job training. The BLS projects that the overwhelming majority of jobs to be created between now and 2016 will require “short term on the job training.” That’s one week to three months.

2. The “fastest-growing occupations” account for very few jobs. For every systems engineer, we need about 15 sales people on the floor at Wal-Mart (and we have three newly minted scientists and engineers for every new job in those fields). The huge job numbers in this country are accounted for by retail sales, janitors, maids, food workers, waiters, truck drivers, home care assistants (low paid folk who come to take care those of us who are getting up in years), and similar low-trained, low-paid occupations. Note that I did not say these people are “low-skilled.” As Barbara Ehrenreich showed after she spent two years working in “low-skilled” jobs, there really is no such thing (see her Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America).

The reality, that every President knows full well, is that computer-driven automation is polarizing the labor market and eliminating most high paying jobs. Hi-tech robotic production is labor-replacing technology that requires a tiny few highly skilled engineering-level jobs on one hand, while “creating” jobs that require little sophistication for those who can actually get them.

Manufacturing as a percent of all employment has dropped from 26% in 1970 to about 10.5% today.

No one who looks seriously at the labor market makes any projections about enough new jobs to put America back to work.

2) In the next paragraph Obama states, “What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country”. Then in the next paragraph, he says, “You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.”

Isn’t it a little disingenuous to conflate “this country” with “new companies”? Is it only corporations who can offer us a decent future? They aren’t doing a very good job on handling the present these days.

Furthermore, the lack of jobs, especially quality jobs in the US is a direct result of corporate policy to move jobs out of this country into regions where workers can be paid pennies an hour. Corporate interests, by law, must always be antithetical to the interests of the public, since corporations are required to place maximum profit above any other concern.

The Bail-Out of Wall Street is up to $13 trillion dollars to corporations, all paid for by working people (since corporations now pay a small and ever-decreasing share of taxes). For this price, don’t we deserve someone in leadership who can separate the public of “this country” from organizations that increasingly proclaim their right to privatize our public schools?

For $13 trillion, the Bail-Out could have paid off the mortgage of every household in the country. That money would have gone into the banks that went bust for speculating with other peoples’ money, then the public and corporations would have been solvent. But… that didn’t happen. And Wall Street isn’t even required to tell the public what it is doing with our money!

3) Eight paragraphs later, the President states one of the great, unchallenged platitudes, “No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.”

How true is this, really?

– Did the millions of families who will be evicted because they were suckered by predatory mortgages write their own destiny?

– How about the thousands of people who will be denied health care by corporations because they had “pre-existing conditions”?

– How about the California state workers who have been forced to work 4 day weeks and lose close to 20% of their income, while less than 50% of the profitable corporations in the state pay zero income taxes?

The list of people who were worked really hard but were screwed by a system that glorifies it’s right to make a profit off of human misery would fill Wikipedia. This idea that America offers success for all who work hard has been a crock since it was first propagated by Horatio Alger. But it is the flip side that is so dangerous today.

It is not so strange that a country that was obsessed with slavery for three centuries can think of nothing but working hard. The corollary to the “Your Own Bootstraps” myth is another false idea that is preached across our country everyday: “It’s your fault that you are poor. You didn’t work hard enough. Everyone else can do it, but you chose not too. Now you want a free ride.”

What else can the President be saying? “You make your own future”. So if you are poor that is the future you made. Tell it to the hundreds of thousands of good high school students without papers who are not allowed to go to college unless they can pay cash. Tell it to the thousands of Detroit auto workers who were denied – by Obama – any kind of Bail-Out and whose pensions and health care are virtually day-to-day.

It’s this corporate vision of what education is that needs to be changed. For over a hundred years, corporations have used their vast power to guarantee that public education should be is tied to a job. Well, since they aren’t providing too many of those these days, maybe we can develop a more transformative vision.

This has been well stated by The Charter for Public Education, developed by the teachers of British Columbia [It has nothing to to with charter schools!]. This charter says:*

Public Education is a Sacred Trust.

As a community we promise to prepare learners for a socially responsible life in a free and democratic society, to participate in a world which each generation will shape and build. We promise a public education system which provides learners with knowledge and wisdom, protects and nurtures their natural joy of learning, encourages them to become persons of character, strength and integrity, infuses them with hope and with spirit, and guides them to resolute and thoughtful action.

Everyone has the right to a free, quality public education.

Each first nation has the right to be recognized and respected by those within the educational institutions located in their traditional territory.

We promise:

• To recognize that the learner is at the center of public education. To offer learners a broad-based education which includes aesthetic, artistic, cultural, emotional, social, intellectual, academic, physical and vocational development in order that they can find and follow their hopes, dreams and passions.
• To nurture and value critical thinking so that learners are equipped to be reflective and analytical global citizens.
• To respect, encourage and foster the learner's role as a full participant, together with others in the educational community, in developing their own goals, learning activities and curricula.
• To create an environment in which each learner can reach their greatest potential, each learning style is affirmed, and the achievements of each learner are measured and assessed accordingly.
• To provide a safe and respectful environment for life-long learning which celebrates diversity, embraces the physical, spiritual, emotinal and intellectual integrity of each individual, recognizes and acknowledges differences and prevents discrimination in all of its forms.

We expect:

• Government to be responsible for fully funding all aspects of a quality education.

Steven Miller

Oakland, Ca

8 September 2009

*One official definition of charter: A document outlining the principles, functions, and organization of a corporate body; a constitution.