UPDATE: Spoke briefly today with Ted Pitts, who said the governor’s proposal was attached to the relevant press release on the governor’s website. Which seems rather obvious, now that he points it out…
Someone complained, sort of, that I didn’t comment on Nikki Haley’s education proposal yesterday. Sorry. I wasn’t sure I knew enough about it, based on the news stories. (I sort of had the same reaction a bunch of lawmakers did. I wanted to know more.)
But now I have a little more confidence than I did in saying this: It looks really good. It addresses one of the most serious problems in SC public education, and does so in a way that I think is politically courageous for a Tea Party Republican.
If you doubt it, look no further than the lame response from Democrats. Vincent Sheheen said essentially, Hey, I’ve had a lot of good education proposals way before Nikki did. Todd Rutherford said, Yeah, but how come we had to wait four years for her to pay attention to education? The state party said pretty much what Rutherford did.
If it looks good to me, and even those with a huge motivation to find fault with it can’t find anything to criticize, it must be pretty good, right?
Here’s why it’s good: The public education problem in South Carolina is, to oversimplify a bit, a rural poverty problem. Normally, what you hear from Republicans of a certain stripe is, “Look at those awful standardized test scores (really, they mean the SAT, because we don’t look all that bad on other measures); they prove that public education is a failure.”
But the truth is, we do know how to do public education in affluent suburbs, where there are sufficient resources and kids come to school ready to learn. Not so much in poorer parts of the state.
One of the nagging problems is that kids who start at the back of the pack and who don’t have a lot of help and support at home are harder to educate. And yes, that can mean “more expensive to educate.” They need more highly skilled teachers — not just those who couldn’t get a job in the ‘burbs — and more support services to catch up.
So, how do you get a state where the real political power resides in the suburbs (in those white districts that vote Republican) to go for a plan that sends more of their tax money to the poor, rural areas?
Well, somebody has to exert some leadership to make it happen.
Which is what the governor is proposing to do here. Good for her, and I certainly hope she succeeds.
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1) I’m not sure that the schools in the “affluent” suburbs are all that great anymore, at least around here.
2) If an Indian-American Sikh girl from Bamberg can grow up to be governor, how bad can the rural schools be?
Just because she is exceptional, and she attended Orangeburg Prep, a private school, does not mean Bamberg schools are fine!
IIRC, the Governor’s parents came here on an educational fellowship from the government of India. That indicates a family setting in which learning is valued, which is a prerequisite for success in school. I find it most unusual to be defending the Governor, but that’s they way I see it.
Poverty is pretty much a function of single parent households. The only education reform that should be required is the lesson that covers “Don’t have any kids if you aren’t married and under the age of 20”. Reducing the incidence of unwed teenage mothers having babies would do more to improve South Carolina than any literacy coach could ever do.
Having a child when you can’t afford to starts the ball rolling on poor childcare, no time to spend on improving skills, etc.
Some facts from research on South Carolina’s children ages 0-3:
http://www.zerotothree.org/public-policy/state-community-policy/baby-facts/south-carolina-baby-facts.pdf
31% of age 0-3 live in poverty, 55% live in homes earning less than twice the poverty level. 44% live with a single parent.
You have great advice for people who are under 20 and unmarried — don’t have kids. That’s good.
But what advice do you have for the rest of us, who actually live in a world in which not all single folk under 20 follow your advice? I can’t do anything about the choices they make; I’m just one of the millions of people stuck with the consequences.
The libertarian view is, “Everyone should take personal responsibility, and if they don’t, that doesn’t matter to me.”
My view, which is based on real life, is that everyone should take personal responsibility, but not everyone does, and that creates a big problem for the rest of us.
Life isn’t just about you and the choices you make. It just isn’t. You live in a state where the economy is dragged down by the fact that not enough kids are ready for good jobs. This affects us all. So what are we going to do about it? That’s what public schools are for.
If schools and churches and the rest of the community made a MUCH stronger effort to educate kids on the nearly certain case of unwed teenage motherhood leading to dire consequences, we should see a drop in the rate of those births. You want to deal with the after effects in greater proportion than the prevention.
When was the last time you think a pastor or teacher in a low income area stood in front of his/her audience and said “If you have a baby before you get your high school diploma, you’re doomed.” or said to young men that “if you get a young woman pregnant and don’t intend to marry her, you’re an idiot”? Those messages should be constantly drilled into their heads from the time they hit middle school.
Why is it that I am responsible for others irresponsible behavior? Unfortunately, in today’s world you can’t tell someone he or she is being irresponsible and stupid. That’s not nice. We’re supposed to just accept the results, say “there but for the grace of God”, and keep paying for other people’s bad choices.
And let’s not pretend that YOU personally want to do everything possible to help. You just want to tell everyone else to pitch in.
Thank you, Brad! I heartily agree!
I also agree. My father and uncle grew up in a single parent household (due to death, not divorce) but nonetheless made successes of their lives. But that was in the 20s and 30s. . .
Anecdotes don’t negate basic facts. Single parenthood and not attaining a high school diploma are the primary factors driving poverty in the U.S.
And correlation is not causation.
Except in this case. The poverty level of married couples with advanced degrees is pretty low.
Again, correlation is not causation.
The level of advanced degrees is highest among people whose parents have advanced degrees. Ditto being married, mutatis mutandis.
Yes, but if those in poverty DO achieve an advanced degree (even a H.S. diploma), they have a far better chance of escaping poverty. And if they stop having kids, the poverty level drops after a generation.
From the WSJ today:
None of which is surprising, but it’s interesting sometimes to see numbers attached to the things we know…
” For Hispanics, the figure was 52.5% and for African-Americans 72.3%. ”
But don’t say that too loudly.
It’s too bad we don’t have a high ranking African American politician who could address that 72.3% number. If only there was someone who had a bully pulpit… someone who could get 90% of the black vote across the country.
The primary factor driving poverty in the U.S. is the scarcity of full-time jobs that pay livable wages.
Productivity gains did not go to workers.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/where-the-productivity-went/?_r=0
Trickle down economics did not go to workers.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/youre-all-losers/
And regarding out-of-wedlock births, this analysis by Ta-Nehisi Coates is crucial. The percentage quoted by wsj is going up because the marriage rate in general is going down and because married people are having fewer children.
Black unmarried women are having fewer children now, not more.
Michael, I’m having trouble understanding why those considerations you raise make the high proportion of children born out of wedlock — in all demographic groups (among whites, it’s four times what it was for the whole population) — any less worrisome.
Those are the kids most likely to grow up in poverty. Which was the point of the piece…
Thank you for your question Brad. I’m not saying the statistics are not very worrisome. I’m saying that the statistics are not the cause of the problem: job-scarcity, not moral decay, is causing fewer marriages and fewer children by married couples. The implied story from the wsj’s perspective is that unwed black mothers are leading our whole society into moral decay. I reject that story.
I’ll ask again – what jobs can those in poverty do? Certainly there are some who would be willing and able to do manual labor (emphasis SOME)… what else can they do?
Describe the jobs you would create to reduce poverty.
I can describe millions of such jobs using one letter three times: CCC>.
Brad, that WSJ article is from Ari Fleischer, and his prescription is don’t raise the tax rates at the top and do give the poor a stern talking to. The poor don’t want and certainly don’t need a stern talking to. They need jobs.
Nice try – what is an unwed mother going to do as part of a Civilian Conservation Corps?
And you realize this is 2014, not 1934, right? You really think there are young poor people who are going to give up their “draw” to spend time building roads and bridges? Let’s be serious.
I bet you could go into the worst county in South Carolina and offer $25 an hour for anyone willing to give up food stamps, etc. to go do manual labor and get very few interested people. Not even for $50/hr.
An unwed mother would marry a guy who worked for the CCC.
Here’s what the CCC was…
“The typical CCC enrollee was a U.S. citizen, unmarried, unemployed male, 18–25 years of age. Normally his family was on local relief. Each enrollee volunteered and, upon passing a physical exam and/or a period of conditioning, was required to serve a minimum six-month period with the option to serve as many as four periods, or up to two years if employment outside the Corps was not possible. Enrollees worked 40 hours a week over five days, sometimes including Saturdays if poor weather dictate”
You have to be living in dreamland to think there are a bunch of 18-25 year poor males in South Carolina waiting to go dig ditches.
There are tons of people who would love to work 40 hours a week for $25 an hour. That’s $50,000 annual. SC’s median household income is $44,623. More than half of SC’s households would be better off financially.
Not if it involves working hard outside.
Do you really live in such a fantasy world that you think that once a guy is making $50K, that he’s going to take on an unwed mother with one or more kids?
Seriously, you need to get out into the real world.
Thank you, Doug, for this lively discussion.
Wait a sec — let me stick up for Todd Rutherford a bit…
What I said above is perfectly true, with regard to the official statement he put out.
But he’s quoted as saying something much better in The State today:
That’s the kind of thing I like hearing from an opposition party. When the other side comes up with an idea you like, don’t just complain that it took her so long. Support it.
Oh, and so you can judge for yourself, here’s the full Rutherford statement put out by the House Democratic Caucus:
Her plan does sound good. But it doesn’t sound new. Poverty, literacy coaches, and technology have been focuses for quite awhile now in the world of education. I agree they are important things to focus on. But its not like its big news. At least she finally got the message, I guess. Now just throw in universal 4k, and then we’ll be getting somewhere.
Anyone who think spending more money on education for poor counties should read this post on Andrew Sullivan and the linked article that describes the way of life in the poorest county in Appalachia.
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/01/11/in-the-nations-poorest-county/
EBT cards are used to purchase soda (the black market currency) that are then traded for illegal painkillers.
That’s what happens when you provide a “safety net” to people forever.
One response to the article echoes my feeling:
“What do you do with people like that? Many of us — conservatives and liberals both — are outraged at the idea that there is nothing that can realistically be done to ease their estate, to deliver them from this kind of grinding suffering. But what if, for some people, it’s true? What if the reality of the situation defeats idealism? What do you do then? Can you do anything that matters? I’m not asking rhetorically; I mean it.”
The issue, as it always has been, is that there aren’t jobs. When the private sector isn’t providing jobs, the public sector must, otherwise joblessness leads to moral decay.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/a-hammock-in-kentucky/?_r=0
What jobs can they do? They have to have skills and a work ethic. Those that do tend to have a better shot at escaping poverty. Those that don’t, won’t.
And as the author of the article wrote:
“Those who have the required work skills, the academic ability, or the simple desperate native enterprising grit to do so get the hell out as fast as they can, and they have been doing that for decades. As they go, businesses disappear, institutions fall into decline, social networks erode, and there is little or nothing left over for those who remain. It’s a classic economic death spiral: The quality of the available jobs is not enough to keep good workers, and the quality of the available workers is not enough to attract good jobs. These little towns located at remote wide spots in helical mountain roads are hard enough to get to if you have a good reason to be here. If you don’t have a good reason, you aren’t going to think of one.”
I know I’m posting a lot about this one topic but the story by Kevin Williamson is so good at capturing one of the real root causes of the poverty… I highly recommend taking the time to read the story of his trip to that Kentucky county.
““The draw,” the monthly welfare checks that supplement dependents’ earnings in the black-market Pepsi economy, is poison. It’s a potent enough poison to catch the attention even of such people as those who write for the New York Times. Nicholas Kristof, visiting nearby Jackson, Ky., last year, was shocked by parents who were taking their children out of literacy classes because the possibility of improved academic performance would threaten $700-a-month Social Security disability benefits, which increasingly are paid out for nebulous afflictions such as loosely defined learning disorders. “This is painful for a liberal to admit,” Kristof wrote, “but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency.””
The problem with the safety net is that it punishes people who work because benefits are lost. The conservative argument that government policies should align with encouraging not discouraging people from working is 100% true for people at the lowest income levels (and 0% true for people at the highest income levels). The liberal solution is to slow down the benefit loss and speed up the income gain. Certainly benefits losses must not overwhelm income gains, which is the case now.
Too little, too late! This, to me, looks like Governot Haley is grasping for a campaign theme to make it for two years until NJ Gov. Chris Christie picks her for as his Vice President candidate . Four years ago, she campaigned for ethics reforms. As we found out, she is all for ethics reform as long as it doesn’t apply to her. She is Boss Hogg from the TV show “Dukes of Hazzard”; she’s one of the Good Ol’ Boys. She is Jakie Knotts!
Actually, I would question how well we “know how to do public education in affluent suburbs.” Much is missed in those locales, from physical education to adequate arts to the citizenship side of social studies. The students in those schools produce better test scores, often due to factors beyond instructional design and sound pedagogy. I’ve seen the pressure to produce test scores narrow curriculum and diminish development of students’ potential in the most successful affluent schools. As a teacher, I paid close attention to students’ progress in language arts and math, but I gave precedence to their development as collaborators, as goal-setters, and as each others’ neighbors. I didn’t have the test-score scrutiny that most teachers are under these days. Redefining the mission of schools toward a one-dimensional test score orientation has made them all less than we need them to be, and it skews our perception of their quality.
Most of Haley’s proposals have real merit. Some are just guided by popular group-think – though likely harmless on their own, they reflect unsound belief in unproven gimmicks such as the latest flashy technology. At least she proposes teaching teachers to use that stuff, but experience shows its obsolescence usually outpacing its effective implementation.