“Preface” in “THE EDUCATION MYTH”
Preface
This is a book about what has been politically possible in American history: specifically, the narrowing of political opportunity, over the past fifty years or so, toward the idea that only those who acquire the right human capital are worthy of economic security and social respect. I argue the path we’ve been on now threatens our very democracy, imperfect as it is. Indeed, in the recent past, Americans have seen our nation become increasingly unequal and our politics become increasingly divisive. It is not an exaggeration to say we face a political crisis on the scale of the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression. Further, as I have studied our past, I have become convinced there is only one path forward that will save us: a dramatic recommitment to social democracy, or the idea that every citizen in our country deserves not just equality before the law and the right to political participation, but also a set of social and economic rights that guarantee a fundamental level of human dignity and equality. For a democracy to function, we all need economic security, which includes the right to a livelihood. Furthermore, everyone’s contribution to our society through their work each day must be valued, no matter what their education level.
I want to begin by putting my cards on the table: my position, and the premise of this book’s argument, stems from my perspective as an historian, as a union activist, and as a teacher, respectively. First, as an historian, I believe in the promise of American democracy. Embedded in the Declaration of Independence, our nation’s political creed, is the idea that governments are instituted in order to secure every citizen’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Of course, I recognize the limits to those rights—around race, gender, and social class—in the late eighteenth century. I also recognize that no one was talking about guaranteeing jobs in 1776. But, as an historian, I also understand that things change over time. The promise of American democracy is that we are all equals and we are all entitled, as the political theorist Danielle Allen puts it, to equal access to the machinery of American government.1 In a modern world where one’s livelihood is subject to a whole host of forces outside of one’s control—from racism to macroeconomic conditions—ensuring life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness requires the machinery of government to do much more than it did in an agricultural society that had accommodated chattel slavery. Most Americans, for much of the twentieth century, understood that reality, but unfortunately, a different narrative—one based on the idea that you only deserve an economic livelihood if you get yourself the right education—has dramatically lowered our expectations in our recent past.
Second, I am a proud member of my union (UWGB-United) and serve as vice president of higher education for the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin. As a labor activist, I understand the dignity of work. A crucial aspect of the American social democratic promise is the ideal of industrial democracy: that no matter where one works, every worker has the right to have a say in their working conditions and the means to make them better. Social democracy also means our society should value the important contributions every worker makes each day, and that no worker should be devalued for not having specific academic credentials. No job, no matter what level of training it requires, should be bereft of economic security, and no one should be excluded from having healthcare or a home because of the job they work.
Finally, I am a teacher. I began my career teaching high school, and for the past decade, I’ve been teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, which is very much a nonelite institution. Most of my students come from working families, and many are the first in their family to go to college. They grow up in both urban and rural parts of Wisconsin, and though I’ve never systematically asked, there seems to be a rough level of parity between those who grew up in conservative environments and those who grew up in more liberal environments. Most of them, however, have internalized as common sense the idea that acquiring education constitutes their primary shot at a decent livelihood. Some of them appreciate this possibility, while others resent it and clearly come to college grudgingly. Others still object to any intrusion—like general education courses—on their pragmatic path to a specific career. But virtually every student understands that without more education, they seem to have a limited chance at long-term economic security. In this respect, they are like millions of millennials across the country who have internalized the notion that, above all, their lives should be devoted to acquiring “human capital.” For this generation, the economic and political assumptions of the world in which they have come of age have been nothing short of catastrophic, causing them to live with heightened levels of economic insecurity, stress, and anxiety. 2
In this regard, they view education differently than Americans in the past. Sure, generations that came before us have seen public education as important in acquiring skills to do well in the labor market, but Americans in the past half century are unique in seeing public education as being the primary—even the sole—avenue toward any chance at economic security. The reason for this prevailing view is because politicians, intellectuals, and others have pushed the notion that investing in “human capital” could replace social democratic alternatives that were once at the center of our political mainstream.
This book, then, explains how education—once a major piece of a broad vision for helping Americans gain economic security and facilitate democratic citizenship—was reduced, since the 1960s, to little more than a commodity through which to compete for a diminishing number of good economic opportunities. In the recent past, neither major party has offered much of a realistic vision to help working people enjoy more economic security or live better lives. The result has been growing political disaffection and division across the political spectrum. To restore and deepen American democracy at this critical time, we must think much more broadly about public education and its place in a nation that ensures all of us true life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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