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WHY SHOULD WE FIX AMERICAN SCHOOLS?
Because blond-haired, blue-eyed, white males might lose out on a job to a Finnish dude. So says Ed in '08, the Bill Gates and Eli Broad-funded drive to make education a top priority in the presidential election, with a particular focus on how math and science education could bolster the economy. Here is the group's new commercial:
It should be crystal clear to most thinking people that the American children most in need of school reform aren't white kids standing on docks (like the boy in this commercial), but rather the rural and inner-city children whose schools have the fewest resources and who tend to be taught by the least qualified teachers. Putting that obvious point aside, does it make much sense to link school reform to the broader success of the American economy, as opposed to the abilities of individuals to get better-paying jobs and climb the socioeconomic ladder? Consider Larry Mishel and Richard Rothstein's "Schools as Scapegoats," an essay from last October's Prospect print edition. They demonstrate that past periods of strong American economic growth (such as the Internet boom of the 1990s) were largely divorced from changes in the skill-level of the workforce, writing:
Rising workforce skills can indeed make American firms more competitive. But better skills, while essential, are not the only source of productivity growth. The honesty of our capital markets, the accountability of our corporations, our fiscal-policy and currency management, our national investment in R&D and infrastructure, and the fair-play of the trading system (or its absence), also influence whether the U.S. economy reaps the gains of Americans' diligence and ingenuity. The singular obsession with schools deflects political attention from policy failures in those other realms.But while adequate skills are an essential component of productivity growth, workforce skills cannot determine how the wealth created by national productivity is distributed.
That doesn't mean there isn't a moral imperative to fix public education now. Every day in a failing school is a day a child can't live up to his or her potential. But above all else, school reform should be about enriching kids -- not enriching our financial markets.
--Dana Goldstein
COMMENTS (9)
"Because blond-haired, blue-eyed, white males might lose out on a job to a Finnish dude."
Careful, Dana, your Jewishness is showing again.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 22, 2008 3:09 PM
I don't know, I think that competitiveness tied to public education had a history in this country, at least in the 20th c. (Sputnik, etc). I kind of don't like making education the solution to all our economic problems, because I think a decent job market and labor rights are actually necessary (and not just the bunch of overeducated and underemployed people like we have today), but it could be that national competetiveness worked better than the post-60s liberal racialized discourse that emphasized domestic divisions in terms of supporting the very idea of public education.
You know, you could decide to do a little work and report back. Because right now, it looks to me like you're still parked on your ass, utilizing the cliches the liberal drug addicts pumped you full of in your freshman year.
Makes me want to go out and hire a nice, hard working Mexican.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 22, 2008 4:04 PM
Geez, lotsa trolls crawling out from under the bridge! Anyway, setting aside Anonymous Coward's bullshit above...
As far as I can tell, Dana, you're saying that education policy ads should focus on the moral imperative to educate kids, rather than to the benefits to the economy that might accrue from an educated workforce.
As a question of advertising, this is actually pretty interesting---would a moral appeal do more to convince viewers than a practical one? I suppose the answer really depends on what audience is this ad trying to reach. An ad aimed at Northeastern bankers would work pretty differently, I would think, than an ad aimed at female office workers in Iowa, or male blue collar workers in the Pacific Northwest, or whatever.
But these are media strategy questions, and that doesn't seem to be what you're talking about. You seem to be making the case that a moral imperative case is simply better. There's something to be said for the argument that a truer case is easier to sell, but I find it hard to believe that "do it for the children" would *actually* be more convincing to the viewer than "do it for America." Maybe I'm underestimating the viewing public, but on that question, I say look to P.T. Barnum. And the idea that using attractive, blue-eyed blonde white kids to tug at the viewers heartstrings is wrong because those aren't the kids most likely to be affected, well, that is unfortunately about as wrong (about how ads work) as it gets.
Posted by: That Fuzzy Bastard | July 22, 2008 4:58 PM
TFB, thanks for your response. Anonymous assholes were really getting me down. In any case, you bring up some good points -- maybe using nationalist appeals and attractive white kids to get people upset about education is really a more effective PR strategy. I guess part of my discomfort stems from the fact that I think the Ed in 08 campaign (I attended their DC conference a few months ago) is pretty thin on research-tested, politically-savvy policy solutions, so I wonder to what end this sorta deceptive ad? If it magically gets a ton of parents lobbying Congress on education, that would be awesome. I guess I'm just a skeptic that people are losing sleep over our children's math scores relative to those of Scandinavian nations.
Posted by: Dana | July 22, 2008 5:25 PM
Well, if an ad really wants people to lose sleep, it should be comparing America's darling white children to the teeming hordes of sinister, high-scoring Chinese tots threatening to make our chillun suck the lead paint right off their action figures.
It is depressing to hear that Ed in 08 is as short on researching as I feared. I'm constantly annoyed by how much lamer political ads are than regular ads, partly because of fears of controversy, partly because of lower budgets, but also because their market research is based on weak metrics and audience testing that would get you laughed out of a midwestern public-access producer's office. I have been struck that this is the first year that Republican presidential ads don't look like they were shot in the mid-70s---hopefully it won't help.
But hey, maybe Ed in 08 will be able to improve our educational system enough that no child has to grow up as dumb as the above commenters, and that'll at least be something.
Posted by: That Fuzzy Bastard | July 22, 2008 8:59 PM
Anonymous assholes need Assholes Anonymous. There's a meeting near you.
Posted by: dSmith | July 22, 2008 9:25 PM
untermensch
Posted by: request anon | July 22, 2008 10:06 PM
Anonymous assholes need Assholes Anonymous.
Or maybe some kind of troll-rating system so readers can filter out the worst of the lot? I mean, if an anonymous troll wants to go straight for anti-Semitism on the first comment, it's a free country, and if anyone wants to read it it's their right, but it might be nice to be able to just read the comments of the people who are trying. The comments here and at Ezra's have got really bad lately.
Posted by: Matt Weiner | July 22, 2008 10:44 PM
Yeah, Weener, you could have a dial with different settings on it. I suggest three:
1)Liberal moderate
2)Dyed in the wool liberal
3)Then there's the "I want to abort your kids and make sure everyone is a homosexual" liberal
Posted by: El Viajero | July 23, 2008 6:50 PM