Fuckery With Purpose

There's no mystery about the student loan problem - or with Biden's difficulty in helping to get people out from under an unfair debt burden.

1. Erosion of Real Wealth
2. The near elimination of Labor's participation in Productivity Gains over the last 25 years
3. Predatory lending practices
4. GOP running interference for the lenders

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the federal government stopped requiring regular payments of student loan debt — a pause that has lasted more than three years. But student loan repayment had been dwindling for at least a decade before the pause.

You can imagine the stock of outstanding student debt as an overflowing bathtub: More students purchasing more undergraduate and advanced degrees at increasing tuition prices is the water gushing out of the faucet, and non-repayment is a blockage in the drain. The drain is blocked because despite what economists, policy-makers and educational administrators claim, a college degree doesn’t always “pay off.”

In recent years, many Americans with student loans weren’t making enough money to pay even the accumulating interest on their debt, let alone make progress on the principal. Wage stagnation is a long-running phenomenon that worsened after the Great Recession. But an important additional source of student loan misery is the widening and diversifying nature of the Americans who take them out. It’s increasingly the case that people who were always going to have low earnings no matter their educational attainment are also overloaded with student debt — think of underpaid teachers who acquired expensive master’s degrees for only a modest pay increase. The promise of higher education leading directly to high incomes is hollow.

Regardless of what happens after the scheduled resumption of payments in September and to the Biden administration’s plans for partial student debt forgiveness following the Supreme Court’s ruling in June, we predict that most of the outstanding balances — not to mention the roughly $100 billion in new loans issued every year — won’t ever be repaid. In the meantime, while the administration and the courts wrangle over the executive branch’s ability to waive student debt under existing law, student debtors feel forced to downsize their life plans. They delay or forgo marriage and family formation, homeownership, retirement and their children’s education: a profound failure of social reproduction.

Our student debt research uses credit reports, both from an annual, representative cross-section of student borrowers and from a single group of borrowers we’ve been following since 2009. We found that counterintuitively, the repayment pause was the best thing that ever happened to help student loans get repaid. That’s because in normal times, student debt balances mostly increase, thanks to monthly interest payments many borrowers are unable to keep up with. In 2020, 60.7 percent of outstanding student loans had a higher balance than when they were first issued. By 2022, that number had declined to 53.7 percent because interest was waived during the pandemic and some borrowers continued to pay down their principal.

The chart below compares repayment progress on loans in our 2020 cross-section with progress in 2022. The group with increasing balances shrank enormously during the repayment pause. Notably, Black and Latino borrowers had more loans with increasing balances before the pause; they benefit disproportionately while it remains in effect.

Student borrowers are not a monolithic group, and some demographic groups fare far better with their education debt than others. From the group of 2009-era debtors we’ve been following, we learned that female, Black and Latino borrowers generally saw their loan balances continue to increase above their 2009 level; male, white and Asian borrowers generally were able to make progress in paying their balances down (albeit not to zero — and the standard repayment term on federal loans is 10 years).

The diverging trajectories of Americans with student loans
On average, male, white and Asian borrowers made progress on their loans between 2009 and 2022. Female, Black and Latino borrowers had increasing balances until the repayment pause came into effect.

These divergent trajectories are due to structural inequalities in the labor market, which disadvantaged workers try to overcome with increased educational attainment. More advantaged workers don’t need to borrow as much to earn a decent salary and can start paying off the debt they do take on more quickly. The pandemic repayment pause changed the game, causing balances that had been increasing over the prior decade to start to fall. A student loan system in which borrowers do not generally repay their student loans during normal times, but in which they do repay them when they’re not required to, cannot be said to be functioning well.

This situation is the fruit of a tacit agreement among state legislatures, college administrators and the federal government dating back to the 1970s: defund public colleges and universities and shift them to a tuition-based revenue model, with the federal government backstopping the system with student debt so that more students can continue to obtain more expensive education. This change was justified by the idea that higher education “pays off” in the labor market.

Opportunities for middle-class employment without a college degree have certainly dwindled. But increasing the educational credentials required for any given job or salary doesn’t magically make pay go up. It just means the higher education system gets to take a larger slice of a worker’s lifetime earnings on the front end. And if the debt can’t be repaid, taxpayers swallow the loss on the back end — but only after the borrower has endured years of mounting balances and their negative consequences for wealth accumulation and creditworthiness.

This odd structure — in which federal funding comes in the form of student loans that won’t ever be repaid, as opposed to direct funding of colleges and universities — lets school administrators off the regulatory hook. In theory, the market of students selecting their preferred college experience is supposed to discipline schools’ financial conduct. In reality, it does not. This is why college administrators resist free-college proposals that amount to direct federal funding in return for capping tuition: They fear their socioeconomically segregated business models wouldn’t survive the regulatory scrutiny attached to those dollars.

The $1.7 trillion tower of mostly unrepayable student debt is a symbol of education policy failure. Unfortunately, politicians in both parties seem unable to think outside the neoliberal box that got us here. Republicans in Congress have proposed limits to federal loans, barring students from the system once their balances reach a certain threshold. That is an exclusionary vision that seeks to return higher education to its pre-G.I. Bill status as a bastion of white privilege for a tiny elite.

And there's that razor blade.

The Biden administration proposes to regulate (some) colleges based on whether their students can eventually repay their student loans and to force all programs to disclose post-graduation earnings and debt burden before students enroll. Those proposals cling to the idea that the labor market is where the value of an education is ultimately determined. Colleges can convincingly object that they don’t control their students’ lives after graduation and would be penalized for enrolling needier students.

So, NYT, Biden shouldn't go for a little tempering regulation because the people who're acting all shitty now would act shitty?

To get a handle on the student debt crisis, the government will eventually have to redesign its relationship with American higher education. The current era of tuition-based revenue models has colleges competing for the students who can pay full freight, which can relegate the neediest students to the least-resourced institutions. A healthier system would look more homogenous, with students from all over the income scale spread across institutions nationwide, instead of being an elite scramble between students and schools to fill a few open seats at the top.

IDK what the fuck you're talking about, NYT. And I have no idea why you seem to think the Republicans are suddenly going to reverse themselves and get all cuddly with a Dept Of Education that they've been actively and publicly trying to kill for 25 years.

What political system are you even watching?

To get there, the Department of Education should make institution-level eligibility for federal student loans contingent on a uniform, very low cost of attendance for undergraduates and affordable tuition levels for professional programs. The structure of federal student loans should reflect society’s long-term needs, not just those of employers and universities preying on the generosity of the student loan program and of students desperate for jobs in an economy that feels ever more winner-take-all.

One way of ensuring and backstopping those policy goals could be the creation of a new federal university system, in which the campuses would be homogeneous in terms of financial and other resources and the student bodies socioeconomically diverse, rather than the other way around. But it’s more comfortable and politically convenient to continue to fight the culture war over higher education than to confront the facts about the causes and consequences of this ugly mountain of student debt. The Supreme Court has ruled. The Biden administration is searching for a new way forward. It’s time for a change of course.

These Fucking Fucks

UVa. board member apologizes for disparaging text messages

‘All I can say is I’m sorry,’ Bert Ellis told colleagues on the University of Virginia’s governing board

And all I can say, Mr Ellis, is fuck you and fuck all these fucking fucks who get appointed by these fucking Republican Governors, with obvious intent to fuck up Mr Jefferson's vision of an academical village.

The University of Virginia board member who disparaged administrators and certain student groups in text messages to colleagues that recently came to light apologized Friday at a board meeting in Charlottesville.

Bert Ellis, who joined U-Va.’s governing Board of Visitors last year, sent a series of combative texts during the summer to allies and three other board members who, like him, were appointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R). Redacted versions of the texts were obtained last month by a Richmond-based author, Jeff Thomas, under the state Freedom of Information Act. The Washington Post disclosed the text conversations in a Feb. 23 article.

In one text, Ellis pointed out the webpage of a vice provost and wrote: “Check out this numnut who works for [U-Va. Provost Ian] Baucom and has nothing to do but highlight slavery at UVA.” In others, he referred to unnamed people who work for U-Va. President James E. Ryan as “schmucks” and referred to members of the Student Council and the Cavalier Daily student newspaper as “these numnuts.”

Those and other texts drawn from Ellis’s cellphone shook the 26,000-student university and its community of faculty, staff and alumni.

On Friday, Ellis appeared contrite as he spoke to the board in a meeting shown via a live stream.

“As the elephant in the room, may I once again to all of my colleagues offer my apology,” Ellis said. “You know, those were private and confidential messages that were still out of place. I am emotional, and I have occasion to do things that I would never expect to be on the front page of The Washington Post. I have learned my lesson about FOIA, but I can’t put the genie back in the bottle. So all I can say is I’m sorry.”

Ellis, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from U-Va., is an entrepreneur and investor who runs a business based in Atlanta. He co-founded and leads a group of U-Va. alumni and others known as the Jefferson Council, which opposes limits on free speech and seeks to protect the legacy of Thomas Jefferson at the public university he founded in 1819.

The U-Va. board has 19 members who serve staggered terms. As of now, the majority were appointed by Youngkin’s Democratic predecessors. Among them is Whittington W. Clement, who holds the title of rector and leads the board. Ellis also criticized Clement in one of the texts, calling a letter the rector wrote to former board members “a damn whitewash.”

As he opened the meeting, Clement noted that he had read The Post article about Ellis’s texts.

“The rhetoric of those messages, particularly ones that disparage students, faculty and staff, really run contrary to the values that Thomas Jefferson sought to instill in this community and which we as members of the university’s governing board, in turn, try to impart on our students,” Clement said. He also praised the “professionalism” of the U-Va. finance department, which was the subject of a text exchange Ellis had with a senior university official.

Another board member, Thomas A. DePasquale, who was first appointed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2016, urged colleagues to avoid “Monday morning quarterbacking” of the U-Va. administration. “It’s just destructive,” he said.

After DePasquale finished, Clement sought to move past the awkward moment. “So let’s get on with our agenda,” the rector said.

Plutocracy Rising

How it started

How it's going

Creation of a permanent underclass is both indicative of (and mission-critical for) a fledgling plutocracy.

As more and more power and money are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, more and more people have less and less.

Duh.

At some point, as the ever burgeoning lower class begins to realize they have practically nothing left to lose, a charismatic leader will emerge - always presenting as "one of you".

Duh again.

The leader will form a core group of devotees who pretend to represent the majority, and push for restoration of a once glorious and virtuous nation - and blah blah blah.

Old Saying: The man on the white horse always promises peace and freedom and prosperity - but always delivers nothing but further immiseration.

Hopefully, regular visitors dropping in to check on my daily madness will recognize all of that as one big DUH.

Anyway, here's a bigly important cog in that plutocratic machinery.

How To Make the Labor Market Work For More Americans

In one of the richest nations on earth, the path to prosperity has narrowed significantly in recent decades — especially for those without a college education. More than 62 percent of Americans ages 25 and up do not hold bachelor’s degrees, and the earnings gap between those with a college education and those without one has never been wider. In 2021, the difference between the median earnings of younger workers with bachelor’s degrees and workers of the same age with high-school diplomas only was $22,000 — the largest since the Federal Reserve Bank of New York began tracking earnings in 1990. That’s happening even as the cost of college spirals upward, putting it out of reach for many. This has fueled anxiety, bitterness and a sense of alienation among the millions who see themselves as shut out of an economy that does not value them.

Making college more affordable is important, but there are other keys to the doors of opportunity as well. With an executive order issued on Jan. 18, his first full day as governor, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania used one of them: He eliminated the requirement of a four-year college degree for the vast majority of jobs in the state government, a change similar to one that Maryland and Utah made last year. This demonstrates both good policy and good leadership, representing a concrete change in hiring philosophy that stops reducing people to a credential and conveys that everyone — college-educated or not — has experience and worth that employers should consider. It is a step — and a mind-set — that other leaders should consider as well.

The decision was driven in part by the realities of a tight labor market. Unemployment in Pennsylvania is 3.9 percent — close to the national average of 3.5 percent — and lower than it was before the pandemic. Public and private employers have been struggling to find qualified applicants, prompting a re-evaluation of hiring criteria. As Mr. Shapiro’s order notes, “In the modern labor market, applicants gain knowledge, skills and abilities through a variety of means, including apprenticeships, on-the-job training, military training and trade schools.”

His move opens up 92 percent of state government jobs — approximately 65,000 positions — to anyone with “the relevant work experience and skills-based training, regardless of their educational attainment.” Job postings will emphasize experience over education.

The nonprofit organization Opportunity@Work has been promoting the idea of skills- and experience-based hiring since 2015. It estimates that 50 percent of the American work force comprises workers who have gained their skills through alternative routes such as apprenticeships, military service, trade schools, certificate programs and on-the-job training rather than acquiring bachelor’s degrees — a deep pool of underutilized and undercompensated talent. If employers don’t have a strategy for engaging this pool, said Byron Auguste, the group’s chief executive and co-founder, “they don’t have a talent strategy — they only have half a talent strategy.”

If the United States can’t find ways to tap into all of this talent, we will not be able to solve our most urgent problems, like climate change and pandemic preparedness, or build a stronger and fairer country. Too many Americans see our society and economy as profoundly unfair, set up to serve the needs of well-connected elites and providing more benefits to people who went to college or know how to work the system. And too many feel that political leaders don’t care about them and that government and institutions don’t work for them. Opening up jobs may seem small-bore, but it shows that government is listening and helps build trust among those who may feel unseen or looked down upon by parts of the labor market.

The private sector has been moving gradually in this direction already. Major players to embrace skill-based hiring include General Motors, Bank of America, Google, Apple and Accenture. IBM is recognized as a particular leader; about half of its U.S. job openings no longer require a four-year degree.

This trend has been concentrated among what is termed “middle-skill jobs,” which call for some education or training beyond high school, according to a 2022 report by researchers from Harvard Business School and Emsi Burning Glass, a labor market data firm. These middle-skill jobs, the report notes, “have long served as an important steppingstone to the middle class.”

During the Great Recession, many of those steppingstones were removed. Unemployment was high, and many employers responded with “degree inflation” — larding college education requirements onto jobs that previously had not called for them — even though the work involved remained the same. As a result, the report notes, “key avenues for upward mobility were closed to roughly 80 million prime working age Americans at a time when income inequality was already widening.”

Over the last few years, this degree inflation has begun to recede. If this “degree reset” continues, an additional 1.4 million jobs would be opened to workers without college degrees over the next five years.

This could also help make the American work force more diverse and inclusive in several ways. Black and Hispanic job-seekers are less likely to have bachelor’s degrees than non-Hispanic whites and Asian Americans. Rural Americans would also benefit; only 25 percent of them hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. “No part of the country is more disadvantaged by degree screening than rural America,” Mr. Auguste said.

The public sector should join this reset more aggressively. In June 2020, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to make skills more important than degrees in federal hiring. The Biden administration has also taken a couple of steps in that direction.

Getting more states on board could provide a valuable boost; state governments are among the largest employers in many states, so their hiring criteria play a special role in validating workers without college degrees. Last March, Larry Hogan of Maryland became the first governor to announce that his state was doing away with college degree requirements for many jobs. In December, his fellow Republican, Spencer Cox of Utah, followed suit. “Degrees have become a blanketed barrier to entry in too many jobs,” Mr. Cox said. “Instead of focusing on demonstrated competence, the focus too often has been on a piece of paper.”

With Mr. Shapiro, a Democrat, weighing in for Pennsylvania, the nation’s fifth most populous state, the movement’s bipartisan credentials have been burnished. It is a move that Americans in every state should actively encourage.

Expanding the terms for who can get hired is a change that would reverberate far beyond individual jobs and job seekers. It would bring a greater degree of openness and fairness into the labor market and send a message about government’s ability to adapt and respond to the concerns of its citizens. In a country where a majority of people do not have bachelor’s degrees, policies that automatically close off jobs to so many people contribute to the perception that the system is rigged against them.

A healthy democracy recognizes and promotes opportunity for everyone. Americans need to hear that message.

Dems Deliver

I really do hate that I sound like some kinda zombie cheerleader for Biden, but I think there's a need for people to stand up strong for the things he and the Democrats are doing &/or trying to get done. Especially in light of what the dog-ass GOP is trying to pull.

Maintaining a kind of moderation and modulation has always ended up being perceived as Wishy-Washy - like we think maybe it's OK what they're doing, but it's all a big "Meh - whatever, dude".

So when the Republicans get all assertive - even though most of what they say is a little light on fact, and often a flat-out lie - an awful lot of people fall for their bullshit because it's presented with a confident gung-ho attitude.

Sometimes I have a little trouble remembering that progressive ideas always win because progress is inevitable. Gotta keep that in mind.

Of course, the caveat is that progressive ideas win when we remember our history, and we regard it accurately. So maybe we need to be even more wary of Republican efforts to fudge that history and to actually prohibit the thorough examination necessary to interpret it correctly. But that's a whole different rant.

Anyway, I'm not going to be shy about saying I think Biden's doing what he should be doing - what I want someone to be doing.

Biden Administration has engineered $32 billion in student loan forgiveness so far.

Yahoo Finance:

President Biden forgives close to $4 billion in student debt — what’s next?

President Joe Biden wiped $3.9 billion from the student loan records Tuesday.

More than 200,000 former students, who still owe on a federal student loan from their time at ITT Technical Institute will see their loan balances cleared, whether they’ve applied for forgiveness or not.

ITT Educational Services closed its campuses in 2016 after years of questioning and scrutiny of its accreditation standards and recruiting processes. At the time, the institution had about 45,000 students across 130 campuses.

Some of the former students were already eligible for federal student loans forgiveness but this move applies to all borrowers who took on debt attending the school between 2005 and September 2016, when the school closed.

This brings the total amount of loan discharges under Biden to nearly $32 billion and leaves many wondering what more could be forgiven or at least if payments will remain on pause.

The pause has been helpful for millions

After mortgages, student loans make up the biggest chunk of household debt at more than $1.5 trillion, according to the Brookings Institution.

At the start of the pandemic, the government froze student loan repayments for most borrowers. In April, the White House extended the moratorium for the sixth time through to August 31.

“This pause will help 41 million people keep up with their monthly bills and meet their basic needs,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in an announcement. “It will give borrowers some urgently needed time to prepare for a return to repayment.”

A letter addressed to Biden and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and signed by more than 100 lawmakers highlighted those positive effects of the freeze.

“For the first time, many borrowers have had the opportunity to pay down debt, open a savings account, purchase a home, and save for retirement — none of which would have been possible without the payment pause.”

As the letter pointed out, many used the break to save up to buy homes, pay off credit cards or catch up on other bills.

“Resuming student loan payments would force millions of borrowers to choose between paying their federal student loans or putting a roof over their heads, food on the table, or paying for child care and health care,” the lawmakers wrote.

A path to forgiveness

Mark Kantrowitz, a student loans expert who’s written five books about scholarships and financial aid, says there are three potential paths to forgiveness: regulation, legislation or executive authority.

If the president were to use executive action to cancel student debt, he would face legal challenges that Kantrowitz does not expect would not go Biden’s way. And Congress has not yet passed legislation for broad loan forgiveness, nor does it seem poised to.

Regulation might be the president’s best bet, says Kantrowitz, whose books include How to Appeal for More Financial Aid.

The federal government offers four income-driven repayment plans, which set loan payments at amounts meant to be affordable to borrowers based on their incomes and family size.

Most people forget these are also loan forgiveness plans, Kantrowitz says. After making qualifying payments for 20 or 25 years, depending on the plan, borrowers can have their remaining debt eliminated. Those who work in public service may qualify for forgiveness after just 10 years of payments.

One of four plans — the Income-Contingent Repayment Plan — gives the U.S. Department of Education broad regulatory authority such that it could be remade into a means-tested loan forgiveness program, says Kantrowitz.

Means testing, a method of determining eligibility for government assistance, is a way of addressing the concern over helping people who might not need it.

Biden “doesn’t believe that — that millionaires and billionaires, obviously, should benefit or even people from the highest income,” former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said after Biden’s remarks in the spring. “So that’s certainly something he would be looking at.”

Will he or won’t he?

One likely reason that Biden hasn’t followed through on his campaign proposal is the economic and geopolitical fallout of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, says Siri Terjesen, a management professor and associate dean at Florida Atlantic University.

“With year-on-year inflation closing in on 10%, policymakers who remember basic economics will want to curb further stimulus in order to bring inflation back under control,” she said in an email. “A large student loan forgiveness program would drive up inflation even faster.”

Since the beginning of 2020, Biden has forgiven billions of dollars worth of student debt through other programs. Those include plans for borrowers who were misled by their schools, those with disabilities and others who work in public service.

The push for more continues.

The majority of Americans support student debt cancellation, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren argued in a Senate committee hearing this spring.

“There is scarcely a working person in America who does not have a friend or family member or coworkers who is weighted down by student loan debt,” said Warren, who supports forgiving $50,000 per borrower.

Canceling that amount would cost $904 billion and forgive the full balances of about 30 million — or 79% — of borrowers, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York economists.

Forgiving $10,000 per borrower would cost $321 billion and eliminate the entire balance for 11.8 million borrowers, or about 31%.

Adding an income cap to forgiveness proposals “substantially reduces the cost of student loan forgiveness and increases the share of benefit going to borrowers who are more likely to struggle repaying their debts,” the report says.

Potential problems with broad student debt forgiveness

Advocates of broad forgiveness argue that student loans contribute to racial and socioeconomic wealth gaps. But there are better ways to reduce racial wealth gaps, argues Adam Looney, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Looney posits that student loan forgiveness is regressive and only targeted debt relief policies can work to address inequities caused by federal student loan programs.

“Measured appropriately, student debt is concentrated among high-wealth households and loan forgiveness is regressive whether measured by income, educational attainment, or wealth,” he writes. “Across-the-board forgiveness is therefore a costly and ineffective way to reduce economic gaps by race or socioeconomic status.”

The next steps

Kantrowitz expects Biden to make one more extension of the payment pause and interest waiver that will last until after the upcoming midterm elections.

While the White House has kept its cards close to its chest, Kantrowitz believes that loan forgiveness is likely to happen. “And if it happens it’s likely to be limited in amount and eligibility,” he says.

Biden has already ruled out canceling $50,000 worth of debt, but $10,000 of forgiveness is still on the table.

Meanwhile, the issue continues to shine light on the rising costs of going to college.

College tuition and fees were about 170% more expensive in 2021 than in 2001, Tejersen cites in a new book on reducing higher education bureaucracy.

“The silver lining in the student debt fiasco,” she says, “is that more Americans recognize the need to identify affordable college options.”

Annoyance

Question:
How large are the endowments of colleges and universities in the United States?

Response:

At the end of fiscal year 2020, the market value of the endowment funds of colleges and universities was $691 billion, which was 2 percent higher than the beginning of the fiscal year, when the total was $675 billion.

The five institutions with the largest endowments at the end of fiscal year 2020 were:

1. Harvard University ($42 billion)
2. Yale University ($31 billion)
3. The University of Texas System ($31 billion)
4. Stanford University ($29 billion)
5. Princeton University ($26 billion)

Obviously, most colleges and universities don't enjoy endowments in the billions of dollars, but there's a shitload that do, and while some smaller schools are going broke and closing their doors (largely the old religious schools, and some for-profit joints), almost none have been really hurting for cash, even as they cut corners and poor-mouth the shit out of it all the fucking time.

So I have to ask - Why does it cost me $100,000 to send a kid thru 4 years of college, when American schools are worth more than the GDP of 175 countries around the world?

Education Data Initiative - Melanie Hanson

Average Cost of College & Tuition

Report Highlights.

• The average cost of college* in the United States is $35,331 per student per year, including books, supplies, and daily living expenses
• The average cost of college has more-than doubled in the 21st century, with an annual growth rate of 6.8%.
• The average in-state student attending a public 4-year institution spends $25,487 for one academic year.
• The average cost of in-state tuition alone is $9,349; out-of-state tuition averages $27,023.
• The average traditional private university student spends a total of $53,217 per academic year, $35,807 of it on tuition and fees.
• Considering student loan interest and loss of income, the ultimate cost of a bachelor’s degree can exceed $400,000.

(*In this context, college refers to any 4-year postsecondary institution that offers an undergraduate degree program; this is the average cost to first-time, full-time undergraduates.)

Jump to a state:

AL | AK | AZ | AR | CA | CO | CT | DE | FL | GA | HI | ID | IL | IN | IA | KS | KY | LA | ME | MD | MA | MI | MN | MS | MO | MT | NE | NV | NH | NJ | NM | NY | NC | ND | OH | OK | OR | PA | RI | SC | SD | TN | TX | UT | VT | VA | WA | WV | WI | WY

Stop wondering why people are pissed off. Start voting for people who want to sort it all out and make it a little more fair before we tip completely into a system of inflexible stratification according to class - cuz we're pretty fuckin' close to that right now.

Today's WTF

Basically: "I don't know what Critical Race Theory is, but lemme tell you what it is."

"The majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro. They believe that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony ... unfortunately, this is a fantasy of self deception and comfortable vanity." --MLK

Today's Beau

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

"Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime." -- Thomas Paine

Today's Reddit

A school should be a palace, and a top flight teacher should be pulling down 6 figures.

Who Ya Callin' Snowflake?

From the good folks who constantly sneer at "safe space", and who love to bitch about all the cupcake libtards who can't stand a little hardship.

WaPo: (Kimberlé Crenshaw - Twitter: @sandylocks)

The nation’s summer holiday season was refreshed this year with the addition of Juneteenth National Independence Day a few weeks before the Fourth of July. The day symbolizes the end of enslavement in the United States, and its place on the federal calendar was won in large part thanks to the energy of the broad movement that emerged last year in response to the murder of George Floyd.

The speed and virtual unanimity with which June 19 joined July 4 might seem to foretell a new reckoning with America’s brutally racist past, spurred on by 2020’s push to confront injustice. Yet instead of a new era of honesty and critical inquiry, the United States is being dragged into a moral panic about anti-racism itself, as agitated parents, right-wing activists and red-state lawmakers rail against their version of critical race theory. Their assault would allow only for a “history” that holds no contemporary consequences; racism ended in the past, according to the developing backlash, and we would all be better off if we didn’t try to connect it to the present.

So in the same week when Juneteenth became a national holiday, schoolteachers in Texas, where the commemoration originally marked the end of slavery in that state, could teach about these events only at their peril: Texas now precludes any teacher from exploring the state’s own history of enslavement if any student should “feel discomfort, guilt, [or] anguish . . . on account of the individual’s race or sex.” On the federal level, the same Republican senators who voted for the Juneteenth holiday also demanded that the Education Department end its effort to encourage schools to fully explore the history of enslavement, saying the push involved “divisive, radical, and historically-dubious buzzwords and propaganda.”

In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an ill-conceived, overbroad bill that chills the long-overdue reckoning with the Tulsa Race Massacre — a vicious orgy of racist violence carried out in 1921 against one of the nation’s most affluent African American communities. This new law, passed under a special emergency provision, bans the teaching of “divisive concepts” implying that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.”

Texas and Oklahoma join a list of six states that have ratified such legislation, with more than a dozen others considering it. These laws cut off the necessary classroom discussion of racial justice and reconciliation taking shape in Tulsa, Houston, Minneapolis, Louisville, Atlanta, Chicago and other communities across the country inspired by and responsive to #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName.

Banning ‘critical race theory’ would be bad for conservatives, too

Proponents of such reactionary legislation insist that nothing in the laws bans teaching about historical racism. Technically, that’s true: The text of these laws does not necessarily mention particular historical events, critical race theory or the 1619 Project. That would be far too obvious.

Instead, the laws’ language — often eerily identical — is even more insidious: It explicitly sets out to sanction certain feelings as part of a disingenuous crackdown on racial division. In closing off room to explore the impact of America’s racist history by citing “division” — a subjective condition that turns on any student’s (or parent’s) claim to feel resentment or guilt — the laws directly threaten any teacher who pursues a sustained, critical understanding of the deeper causes, legacies or contemporary implications of racism in fomenting uncivil discord.

The hysteria about this putatively un-American inquiry is possible in part because Americans are not often taught about the policies and practices through which racism has shaped our nation. Nor do we typically teach that racist aggression against reform has been repeatedly legitimized as self-defense — an embodiment of an enduring claim that anti-racism is racism against White people.

The whole point of Confederate monuments is to celebrate white supremacy

This pattern of defending white supremacy by resorting to group interest embodies the very opposite of the individualism so frequently touted in conservative politics. Very few Americans learn that just after the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson vetoed legislation protecting the civil rights of newly freed African Americans, essentially claiming such laws to be preferential treatment for Blacks and reverse discrimination against Whites. Nor is there much candid discussion today about how the wave of White racial terrorism that destabilized Radical Reconstruction in the South was framed as self-defense. This was followed by White segregationist rule for the better part of the 20th century, buttressed by the acquiescence of the Supreme Court and the supposed greatest legal minds of the era.

The reverse-racism trope emerged again after World War II, when segregationists denounced the simple demands for nondiscrimination in public accommodations as assaults on Whites’ civil rights. Likewise, the Southern Manifesto against school desegregation, signed by dozens of White lawmakers, framed widespread resistance to the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in terms of defending White heritage and the well-being of vulnerable White schoolchildren. Unsurprisingly, White children are once again the front line in this current war against critical race theory in the classroom — it’s a tried-and-true method of racial retrenchment.

But the comfort of a ban on whatever conservatives imagine critical race theory to be will further deny students and scholars the chance to understand the past. The massacre in Tulsa a century ago is just one telling example of how the convergence of law, institutions and individuals enabled diabolical attacks on American citizens. Examining Tulsa through the prism of the real critical race theory, which I’ve been a leading scholar in developing, would involve unearthing the conditions that allowed White institutions and leaders of the time to mobilize the law to set a massacre of hundreds in motion, and uncovering the long-term consequences. The legal dimensions would include the formal deputizing and arming of White citizens, the rounding up and interning of survivors, and the filing of charges against victims for inciting violence. Oklahoma’s new law and the others around the country would apparently forbid a close look at the massacre’s legal aftermath — namely, the failure to indict or prosecute anyone. Teachers would be further discouraged from mounting a broader inquiry into the massacre’s legal backdrop — the laws that corralled Blacks into certain neighborhoods and that shored up the economic segregation of professions. The prohibition of any discussion suggesting that there are contemporary responsibilities shared by society as a whole precludes consideration of what a long-overdue commitment to justice might entail.

What is critical race theory and why did Oklahoma just ban it?

We know from the history of race in America just where sanitized and whitewashed versions of our past lead — to assumptions that yawning inequalities in health, wealth and a range of other areas are simply inherent features of American life. The fact that the 1921 Tulsa Massacre happened was always knowable — a few survivors are still alive — but without a critical confrontation with our history, the long-term impact of the massacre fades into a bloody mist.

Those who want to expand our nation’s literacy about our racial past and those who wish it to remain illegible to all but a determined few do agree on one thing: that examining our history has consequences. The disagreement becomes volatile when those who embrace America’s promises ask that we take up the truths of our history, while critics claim it is only patriotic to perpetuate a lie. (Martin Luther King Jr. warned of just this sort of turn more than 50 years ago, in “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?,” his final book before he was murdered: “In the days ahead we must not consider it unpatriotic to raise certain basic questions about our national character.”) Theirs is not a debate about ideas but rather an attempt — on behalf of the racially inequitable status quo — to shut down debate altogether.

The impulse to quash discussion of racism comes out of the same political movement that believes that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election — and that mobs ransacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 were justified in their bloodthirsty assault on democracy because they contend they were there to save it. Understood in context with parallel efforts to suppress democracy and protest, it should be clear that the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Indeed, beyond this incendiary 2022 campaign strategy lies the future of America. We cannot fight to realize our loftiest values if past and present injustices are made unspeakable. This is why anyone who marched for justice for George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery or Breonna Taylor, anyone who can acknowledge that a sanitized history of the Civil War and Reconstruction led to nearly a century of segregation, anyone who does not want their children insulated from our nation’s past, anyone who is concerned about a creeping authoritarianism and the myths of the past that abet it, and anyone who believes in a truly multiracial democracy should be relentless in opposing the new efforts to banish anti-racist thought and speech from public institutions.

When it comes to racial reckoning, the future of our country depends not on whether we litigate who among us is guilty but whether we all see ourselves as responsible. Let us together stand up to these cynical attacks — we have seen them too many times before to fall prey to another cycle of race, reform and retrenchment.

Buncha whiny-butt pussies.

Republican Freak Show Du Jour

What this latest bullshit comes down to is the Republicans getting their undies all knotted up over Critical Race Theory because Americans are saying we prefer a dose of healing reality instead of the continuation of the GOP's toxic fantasies.

• CRT has been around for decades
• It's available as an elective at some law schools and at some universities 
• It's not being taught anywhere in K12 - because it's not a body of knowledge - it's a study tool

Learning more about America's history of systemic racism and the sometimes-totally-ineffectual attempts to change it will not cause anyone to hate this country. And if that's what you think, then this country is so thoroughly fucked up that we can't afford not to teach people about it so we can have a decent shot at fixing it.

The Texas Tribune:

What is critical race theory? Explaining the discipline that Texas' governor wants to "abolish"

Those who study the discipline say attacks on it are targeting any teachings that challenge and complicate dominant narratives about the country’s history and identity.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill last week that restricts how current events and America’s history of racism can be taught in Texas schools. It’s been commonly referred to as the “critical race theory” bill, though the term “critical race theory” never appears in it.

But in signing the bill, Abbott said “more must be done” to “abolish critical race theory in Texas,” and announced that he would ask the Legislature to address the issue during a special session this summer.

Meanwhile, the debate has taken hold across the nation. Last year, conservative activist Christopher Rufo began using the term “critical race theory” publicly to denounce anti-racist education efforts. Since then, conservative lawmakers, commentators and parents have raised alarm that critical race theory is being used to teach children that they are racist, and that the U.S. is a racist country with irredeemable roots. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and others have called the theory racist itself for centering the nation’s story on racial conflict. In addition, conservative commentator Gerard Baker has argued that critical race theory bans critical thought in favor of what resembles religious instruction.

Those who study the discipline say that the attacks have nothing to do with critical race theory, but instead are targeting any teachings that challenge and complicate dominant narratives about the country’s history and identity.

They say that critical race theory itself actually shifts emphasis away from accusing individuals — in history or in the classroom — of being racist, which tends to dominate liberal discussions of racism. Instead, it offers tools for shifting public policy to create equity and freedom for all.

So what is critical race theory, and why is it relevant to Texans? And why is there an effort against it in Texas — and around the nation?

What is critical race theory?

Critical race theory is a discipline, analytical tool and approach that emerged in the 1970s and ‘80s. Scholars took up the ways racial inequity persisted even after “a whole set of landmark civil rights laws and anti-discrimination laws passed” during the civil right movement, Daniel HoSang, professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale University, said.

“These scholars and writers are asking, 'why is it that racial inequality endures and persists, even decades after these laws have passed?'” HoSang said. “Why is racism still enduring? And how do we contribute to abolishing it?”

HoSang described critical race theory not as “content,” or a “set of beliefs,” but rather an approach that “encourage[s] us to move past the superficial explanations that are given about equality and suffering, and to ask for new kinds of explanations.”

In the introduction of Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, a seminal collection of the foundational essays of the movement edited by principal founders and scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw and Neil Gotanda, the editors write that critical race theory is about transforming social structures to create freedom for all, and it’s grounded in an “ethical commitment to human liberation.”

Key concepts

Racial formation: One key concept in critical race theory is racial formation. Developed by sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant, the theory rejects the idea that race — Black, white, Asian — is a fixed category that has always meant the same thing. Instead, it traces the way that race has been defined, understood and constructed in different ways throughout history. Omi and Winant define race as an “unstable and ‘decentered’ complex of social meanings constantly being transformed by political struggle.”

For example, they write that in the U.S., the racial category of "Black" was created as slavery was established and evolved. Africans whose specific identity was Ibo, Yoruba or Fulani in Africa were grouped into the category "Black” as they were enslaved in America. Part of the meaning of being “Black” in America was being less than human and therefore enslavable. James Baldwin wrote in “On Being White and Other Lies” that Europeans who moved to America became “white” through a process of “denying the Black presence, and justifying the Black subjugation.”

Omi and Winant describe racial formation as the “process by which social, economic and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings” — a process that has continued throughout history.

Monica Martinez, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in Latinx history, described how racial formation has played out in Texas in the racialization of Mexicans and the history of anti-Mexican violence.

“Before this region became Texas, there were debates about the character of Mexicans as a group of people,” she said. Figures like Stephen F. Austin and John Calhoun cast them as “treacherous people, thieves and murderers.”

From 1910 to 1920, she explained, hundreds of ethnic Mexicans were victims of lynchings, as well as violence at the hands of police and the Texas Rangers. Many of them were American citizens, and they included labor organizers and journalists who were writing about race and injustice. This amounted to an effort to “remove Mexicans from having economic or political or cultural influence,” she said.

“Oppression was enacted through violence, and it was sanctioned by governors, Texas legislators and local courts,” she said.

Oppression was furthered by “Juan Crow” segregation laws that racially segregated communities, relegated Mexican American children to poorly developed schools and intimidated Mexicans from voting. This system of laws and policies had lasting effects on Mexican Americans and how they’re conceived of today.

Rhetoric has played a role in racial formation as well, continually loading the term “Mexican” with racial meaning.

“100 years ago, people talked about Mexicans as bandits, as thieves, and as a threat,” she said. “Today, they talk about them as potential cartel members and gang members.”

This language contributes to racial profiling and violence today. “In communities in south Texas, anybody who looks 'Mexican,' or looks like an 'immigrant,' can be targeted—not just with policing, but also by [general] hostility,” she said.

Racism is structural: The mainstream understanding is that racism is an individual prejudice and choice. The default is to be free of bias and racism, so racism is an exception from the norm. It can be addressed by individual measures, such as humiliating and punishing the person who messes up, and enforcing moral codes on an individual level.

On the other hand, critical race theory says that racism is inherent in our institutions and structures of governance. It’s ordinary, and it’s baked into all our consciousnesses in complex ways through our education, government, the media, and our participation in systems. Racism must be addressed not just by punishing individuals, but by shifting structures and policies.

HoSang, the Yale professor, explained that critical race theory isn’t focused on “the stock characters of a racist,” such as Bull Connor, who directed police to use fire hoses on civil rights protesters in Birmingham, Alabama. HoSang said that a focus on denouncing individuals is “not a good use of our energy.” Instead, he said, the question is, “Even in places where civil rights and anti-discrimination laws passed, why do these forms of inequality persist?”

“So [critical race theory] actually says, no, we shouldn't be preoccupied with trying to discern ‘who is the racist here,’ because that moves the attention away from the structures,” he said.

One example of this is in housing segregation — how “many, many complex layers” of “policies around zoning, lending and redlining, around private realtors and developers” have reproduced unequal access to housing, which in turn furthers gaps in generational wealth and stability, HoSang said.

In his article for the Austin American-Statesman, Dan Zehr traces how this process has played out in Austin, which has one of the highest levels of income segregation in the nation. In 1928, city plans created a “negro district” east of Interstate 35 and denied public services and utilities to Black people outside of it, pushing Black residents to the eastern part of the city. When the government began offering loans to promote homeownership and help citizens rebuild wealth as part of the New Deal after the Great Depression, neighborhoods for people of color were excluded through a practice called “redlining.” Austin’s “negro district” was the largest redlined zone in the city, Zehr writes.

“As most Americans gained equity in new homes or upgraded the value of their existing houses, the black population saw a racial wedge driven deeper between Anglo affluence and African-American poverty,” he explains.

All these processes are systemic. “You can’t explain [this] through any one person's biases and prejudices.” HoSang said.

Is critical race theory being taught in K-12 classrooms?

Experts and teachers put it plainly.

“Nobody in K-12 is teaching critical race theory,” Andrew Robinson, an 8th grade U.S. history teacher at Uplift Luna Preparatory in Dallas, said. “If I tried to walk in and teach critical race theory, my kids would just have a blank stare on their face.”

“Critical race theory is not being taught in schools,” Martinez said.

Keffrelyn Brown, a professor of cultural studies in education at UT-Austin and a teacher-educator, agreed.

“A vast majority of teachers in K-12 schools don't know critical race theory,” she said. “They are not coming into the classroom and saying, ‘I'm going to teach critical race theory.’”

HoSang pointed out that to begin with, critical race theory is not “a body of content that can be taught.”

Given that, Abbott’s calls to “abolish critical race theory in Texas” make no sense, those who study it said.

“I don't think you can ‘abolish’ a theory,” Brown said.

How does Texas' new law and surrounding debate discuss critical race theory?

While it has gained the ire of national Republicans on Fox News and elsewhere for months, critical race theory was thrust in the political spotlight in Texas this spring because of the progress of HB 3979. Lawmakers claimed that it combats the theory.

The wording of the bill is vague — for example, it bans discussion of current events unless a teacher “strive[s] to explore those topics from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective,” and teachers can’t teach that “with respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.”

In an early statement supporting the legislation, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that critical race theory is a “woke philosoph[y]” that “maintain[s] that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex or that any individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive.”

The phrase “critical race theory” does not appear in the bill once, however.

Brown described the way the term “critical race theory” has been mobilized as a label that has nothing to do with critical race theory itself.

“It has become the catch-all phrase for any kind of perspective, or any kind of framework, or any kind of knowledge that shows the roots of racism and how deeply they are embedded in our society,” she said.

Experts pointed out several key mischaracterizations of critical race theory.

Political discourse has claimed that critical race theory unfairly assigns guilt and blame to individuals based on their race. In one section that lists concepts teachers can’t teach, the bill prohibits teaching that “an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual's race or sex.”

“[Critical race theory] has nothing to do with sentiment, guilt or shame,” HoSang said. “In fact, one of its premises is that those are not actually helpful places to examine. It's taking us out of racism as a psychological and emotional question, and is focusing much more on the structures, the policies that people create that govern our lives.”

Martinez said the worry comes out of “false claims that when you teach histories of slavery, or race, or racism, that you make some white students feel guilty or shame for being white.”

To focus on directly instilling racial guilt would be taking a liberal, individualistic approach that critical race theory actually critiques.

The bill also prohibits teaching that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,” or that “an individual, by virtue of the individual's race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

If anything, Martinez said, the current, longstanding way of teaching Texas history already teaches that one race is superior. “Look at how it teaches the history of the Texas revolution — that people like Stephen F. Austin are racially superior to the treacherous Mexican, like Santa Anna,” she said. “Texas history has been taught in a way that celebrates people who were fighting for the institution of slavery, that were espousing publicly that Mexicans were an inferior race.”

HoSang agreed. "There’s so much of the dominant curriculum that does just what the bills claim they're objecting to, in terms of constructing a moral ideology," he said. “One could argue the current curriculum promotes intolerance and animosity against Indigenous people, and that it does the same for immigrants.”

Future impact

Brown, the UT-Austin cultural studies professor, described the new Texas law as an effort to “try to stop the momentum over the last year and a half of families and communities saying we need to know more about racism.”

“We need to understand [our history of racism] so that we actually can get to a place where we are operating with justice, with equity, with fairness,” she said.

Instead, she said, the bill may “create enough confusion and possible concern that teachers or districts would just simply not talk about issues of race, or racism, for fear that it's going to create some conflict.”

Abbott’s press office did not comment on what he additionally wants the legislature to do about “critical race theory” during this summer’s special session. But many teachers worry about the “chilling effect” that the new law will already have on their attempts to teach history well — which includes nurturing students’ critical thinking skills by bringing in multiple perspectives on historical events, and showing how the past has impacted present day issues.

“What they're trying to say with this is that the actions of the past aren't affecting the present,” said Robinson, the 8th grade history teacher in Dallas. “They want us to act like slavery and Jim Crow have no bearing on the issues in our society right now. And if that's the case, then they should cancel my class.”

And don't overlook the subtext of all this bluster: the pearl-clutching carries with it further attacks on public schools and teachers unions.

The Arts

Art Education helps us develop critical thinking skills and a sense of shared experience (empathy).

Brian Kasida & Daniel Bowen, Brookings:

Engaging with art is essential to the human experience. Almost as soon as motor skills are developed, children communicate through artistic expression. The arts challenge us with different points of view, compel us to empathize with “others,” and give us the opportunity to reflect on the human condition. Empirical evidence supports these claims: Among adults, arts participation is related to behaviors that contribute to the health of civil society, such as increased civic engagement, greater social tolerance, and reductions in other-regarding behavior. Yet, while we recognize art’s transformative impacts, its place in K-12 education has become increasingly tenuous.

A critical challenge for arts education has been a lack of empirical evidence that demonstrates its educational value. Though few would deny that the arts confer intrinsic benefits, advocating “art for art’s sake” has been insufficient for preserving the arts in schools—despite national surveys showing an overwhelming majority of the public agrees that the arts are a necessary part of a well-rounded education.

Gee - I wonder why "conservatives" are always trying to cut back on what the arts can do for us.

Maybe it's because the problems we love to bitch about - poverty, crime, ignorance, tribalism, the degeneration of civil discourse, etc - can be at least partly attributed to the erosion of the skills we need, but don't get to learn about anymore, because Republicans keep shitting on the arts by cutting the funding.

And maybe those problems are due to deliberate efforts to cause the problems, blame it all on "the other", and then trade on that disinformation to gain ideological advantage and political power.

The GOP Playbook, Page 1:

1. Fuck something up
2. Wait
3. Point at it and say, "Whoa, look - it's fucked up."
4. Run for office by promising to fix it
5. "Fix" it by contracting the solution out to your pals
6. Collect "contributions" from those pals
7. Get re-elected as a "Problem Solver"
8. Start again at #1 above

- and -

We find that a substantial increase in arts educational experiences has remarkable impacts on students’ academic, social, and emotional outcomes. Relative to students assigned to the control group, treatment school students experienced a 3.6 percentage point reduction in disciplinary infractions, an improvement of 13 percent of a standard deviation in standardized writing scores, and an increase of 8 percent of a standard deviation in their compassion for others. In terms of our measure of compassion for others, students who received more arts education experiences are more interested in how other people feel and more likely to want to help people who are treated badly.

When we restrict our analysis to elementary schools, which comprised 86 percent of the sample and were the primary target of the program, we also find that increases in arts learning positively and significantly affect students’ school engagement, college aspirations, and their inclinations to draw upon works of art as a means for empathizing with others. In terms of school engagement, students in the treatment group were more likely to agree that school work is enjoyable, makes them think about things in new ways, and that their school offers programs, classes, and activities that keep them interested in school. We generally did not find evidence to suggest significant impacts on students’ math, reading, or science achievement, attendance, or our other survey outcomes, which we discuss in our full report.