In response to a recent post concerning recommendations from economist Joseph Stiglitz, Rick wrote: “It should not be the policy of the United States government to reduce inequality. That is not an enumerated power.”

It is American democracy’s right and obligation to create laws and structures so that America will have the best chance of fulfilling its mission: “liberty and justice for all.”

But which comes first — liberty or justice?

For the development of American history, in my view, it would have been better if Patrick Henry would have emphasized justice, rather than liberty and  would have promulgated the idea:  “Give me justice or give me death.” Liberty has remained a driving force of American political thinking. But, when we start with the idea that justice must come first — that Justice Is A Prerequisite For Liberty — then we arrive at a philosophy of government, very different then the philosophy that starts with the idea that liberty comes first.

Although “liberty and justice for all” is our nation’s mission, we are far from realizing that ideal. The problem is, both liberty and justice cost money and in the U.S., a lot of people simply don’t have enough money. We have liberty to freely travel, for example, but, without money to pay for traveling expense, such liberty is irrelevant. We have liberty to enjoy good medical care, but it takes money to do so. We have liberty to seek justice within our legal system, but again, money is important to the whole process.

Since sufficient money is essential in order for an American citizen to enjoy “liberty and justice,” then a good question our democracy must ask and must answer is:  How should Our Society Be Best Organized So That All Citizens Have Access To Sufficient Money?

A reasonable goal is that government should be helpful, via its power to tax and make regulations, in creating a system where all citizens have a good chance of sufficient money to enjoy “liberty and justice.”  Yes, if the least economically successful among us are raised up, then inequality is reduced.  If the economic middle is strengthened then opportunities and goods previously only available to the wealthy become within reach of many more.  Inequality is reduced. If government can implement structure to create such a system, then, in a democracy, it would seem obligated to do so.

The motive for raising up the bottom or strengthening the middle does not come from class envy  and to suggest that those who seek a fair society are motivated by envy amounts to an ad hominem argument.  The motive is to make our society work to accomplish its mission:  “Liberty and justice for all.” The reduction of inequality is not the point, the reduction of inequality is a by-product of a better, a more successful, a more just society.

If a person holds to the principle that the U.S. government should not seek to advance policies that help to more evenly distribute wealth, then the most generous assumption is not that the person is indifferent to suffering or injustice, but, rather, that the person feels that the solution to inequality is through the market and through individual initiative. The second most generous assumption is that the person has irrational views — hatred of government, etc. — guided by an irrational belief system.

I recently bookmarked an article in the The American Prospect that said:

Just as serfs once accepted that their position was allotted to them by a divine order, today’s growing inequality in wealth is considered acceptable if it is the outcome decreed by the ideal, uncorrupted free market.Progressives must make it clear that they support the premise of fair compensation for the contributions of each individual, but dispute the notion that fairness is best achieved by an extreme laissez-faire version of capitalism.

I like the thought that the religion of the free market is used to justify the enslavement of the serfs of today just like religion was used to justify the enslavement of the serfs 500 years ago. Arguably, the irrational reverence shown to “the market” can be explained as evidence of indoctrination, the direct result of the relentless propaganda advanced by the oligarchy.

This religion of the free market advances the belief that given enough freedom, the market will produce a prosperous nation “with liberty and justice for all.” Regardless that this belief has been discredited by much evidence throughout history, it is interesting that millions, to their own disadvantage, continue to hold to this irrational belief as a matter of faith.

The founding fathers, I’m sure, would have been horrified to think that the provisions outlined in the 16th Amendment would ever be part of the constitution.  But the right of government to impose a system of progressive income taxation is now fully constitutional.  When Eisenhower was president the top income tax rate was 91%. Think of that.  After earning enough millions, for every additional million earned, in Eisenhower’s time the taxpayer kept $90,000 and handed $910,000 to the government.

It would be interesting to find congressional testimony that justified the imposition of such a confiscatory tax rate. I wonder if such testimony would reveal that the motive for such a radical tax policy was, in fact, driven by envy of the rich, rather than driven by a rational theory of how to create an economy where everyone is successful.

In conclusion, I agree “reducing inequality” is a poor guiding principle for public policy, and so I agree with the proposition — “The U.S. Government Should Not Advance Policies Aimed At Reducing Inequality.”

However, I support the proposition: The U.S. Government Should Advance Policies Aimed At Empowering “Liberty and Justice For All.” In other words, I support the idea that our government should advance policies whose purpose is  to increase income to all of its citizens so that every citizen can fully enjoy liberty and justice.  When successful, the by-product of these policies would be a reduction in inequality, but even if these policies were fully successful there would remain enormous differences in the wealth of individual citizens.

In order to address the essential question — What Is The Public Education That Will Sustain An Ever More Successful America? — there needs to be some imagining:

1. What does a successful America look like in the future?
2. What are the qualities citizens must possess in order to sustain an ever more successful America?
3. What is the system of public education that has the best chance to produce those qualities?

For all of the sound and fury concerning the system of American public education, there seems little effort to define system aim / purpose / mission of the system.

A vision of a successful America in the future should be what directs discussions about public education. It would make a wonderful seminar discussion to flesh out, with practical examples, what a successful America in the future might look like.

I find it disturbing that President Obama and his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, define the mission of American public education almost exclusively in economic terms. Obama, for example, says, “Our future is on the line. Giving our kids the best education is an economic imperative.” And Duncan says, “Nothing — nothing is more important in the long-run to American prosperity than boosting the skills and attainment of the nation’s students.”

The mission of America is one that transcends prosperity. I agree that a successful America in the future will enjoy increased prosperity. But widely spread prosperity, I believe, will come as a byproduct of a successful democracy. Every totalitarian state, I’m sure, wants to produce a “competitive work force” that will secure an economic advantage over other nations. But, according to its historical mission, reflected in the pledge of allegiance we commonly repeat, America wants much more. America wants “liberty and justice for all.”

Unfortunately, it is the oligarchy’s POV concerning American education that frames the discussion. So we are told education is an economic imperative vital to our future prosperity and that it should center of Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) education. We are fed propaganda that increasing test scores by 5% will result in a $41 trillion windfall.

As I note in “Just Singing A Song Won’t Change The World,” since I started to keep a web log, I find myself coming back to the central POV I started with — “Democracy is the Answer.” Name a problem — more democracy is the answer:

• Raising America’s standard of living — more democracy is the answer.
• Transforming our system of public education — more democracy is the answer.
• World peace — more democracy is the answer.

Here are my answers to the first two of the three questions I posed at the beginning of this post:

1. A foundational requirement for a successful America in the future, I believe, is that it operates as a vigorous representative democracy, with a government that is of the people, by the people and for the people. Any future where there is an optimal outcome for America requires that our democracy operate effectively. What does a successful America look like in the future? A vigorous democracy.
2. In order to get to that future, the mission of the American system of public education, it follows, must be to develop within American citizens the capacity and inclination to fully participate in their democracy. The qualities in students education should seek to develop are those qualities needed for effective citizenship.

The oligarchy, of course, defines the mission of education as preparing workers for world class competition, and says education is all about STEM. If there could arise a consensus that the mission of public education is to develop citizens, not workers, the importance of STEM education would fade and a whole different set of educational goals and objectives would be pursued.

The point is, if we define the mission of education as developing individual potential and structure public education to develop the capacities of individuals needed for effective citizenship — thoughtfulness, independence, knowledge, intellectual confidence, curiosity, empathy, ability to communicate and work in groups, etc. — economic growth will occur as a natural byproduct of individual initiative and entrepreneurship.  Citizens ready to give leadership to strengthening democracy will be ready to give leadership to strengthening the economy as well.

The question I posed — What Is The Public Education That Will Sustain An Ever More Successful America? –– is a system question. Every system is focused on achieving an aim and achieving an aim is what drives a system. I am suggesting that the aim of public education, broadly speaking, should be all about developing effective citizenship.

Previously I suggested that the aim of education is to give every citizen effective opportunity. I asked, “If The Aim Of Public Education Is To Provide Opportunity — How Should $150,000 Per Student Be Spent?”

The POV I am coming to is that although providing individual opportunity is an important mission, it is embedded in a bigger mission. A more comprehensive question that might serve as a good thought question is: “If The Aim Of Public Education Is To Develop Effective Citizens — How Should $150,000 Per Student Be Spent?”

Last night on ABC News, David Muir made a truly whopping claim. With a straight face he reported that, according to a Stanford study, “a 5% increase in American test scores would translate into a $41 trillion increase in the American economy in the next 20 years.”

Wow.  Let that idea sink in.  It’s amazing propaganda. As I’ve previously concluded: The idea that the focus of our system of public education should be to maintain and improve the American standard of living is an idea so often expressed, we don’t recognize it as propaganda.

The study Muir referred to — “The High Cost of Low Educational Performance: THE LONG-RUN ECONOMIC IMPACT OF IMPROVING PISA OUTCOMES” — as it turns out, is not nearly so confident about a test score / economic growth causation as ABC News would have its viewers believe.

The study offers “five approaches” to argue test score / economic growth causation.  But, significantly, the report admits:  “none of the approaches addresses all of the important issues. Each approach fails to be conclusive for easily identified reasons. However, the combination of approaches, with similar support for the underlying growth models, provides some assurance that the most obvious problematic issues are not driving the results.”

“Some assurance” in its conclusion, is a far reach from the confidence about the study’s conclusion that ABC News projected last night.  “Some assurance” suggests, maybe, a 20% possibility, not a 100% certainty reported by ABC News.

The study centers around results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests of 15 year olds from around the globe. Last night ABC news reported the latest PISA results:  “The U.S. now ranks 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading out of the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.”

Diane Sawyer said the report was a “wake-up call.”  David Muir said the numbers were “stunning,” and quoted President Obama as saying, “this is our Sputnik moment,” and showed a video clip of John Kennedy during the 1960 presidential campaign speaking with alarm concerning the Soviets’ space breakthrough.

Muir, in the context of this PISA report, gave an amazing interpretation of history — “Money was poured into math and science and 10 years later we put a man on the moon” — implying that a ten year effort to improve high school math and science resulted in our moon shot!  This is breathtaking propaganda — deliberate misinformation.  The actions that actually succeeded in bringing the space program together had zero to do with efforts to improve high school education from 1960 to July 20, 1969.

Then, Muir repeated the impossible notion that that a 5%  increase in American test scores would translate into a $41 trillion increase in the American economy in the next 20 years. “Just a 5% increase,” Muir said to Diane Sawyer, who replied, evidently referring to the notion that improved high school education led to the 1969 moon walk, “We did it before and we can do it again.” (Hear the message: just like in the 1960’s, when we responded to the Sputnik challenge by gearing up our math and science education, we now need to respond to the current economic challenge by gearing up our math and science education.  If how to gain $41 trillion in 20 years is the question, then achieving greater educational rigor is the answer.)

The notion that a 5% increase in student test performance will translate, over 20 years, into $41 trillion increase in the economy is a truly stunning claim.  The statistical analysis needed to justify such a conclusion is very much debatable. The study identifies the key issue: “Work on cross-country growth analysis has been plagued by legitimate questions about whether any truly causal effects have been identified, or alternatively whether the estimated statistical analyses simply pick up a correlation without causal meaning.”

Here is an abbreviated version of the “five approaches” that together, according to the report, give “some assurance” of causation:

• First, this estimated relationship is little affected by including other possible determinants of economic growth. …
• Second, to tackle the most obvious reverse-causality issues, Hanushek and Woessmann (2009) separate the timing of the analysis by estimating the effect of scores on tests conducted until the early 1980s on economic growth in 1980-2000. …
• Third, the analysis traces the impact on growth of just the variations in achievement that arise from institutional characteristics of each country’s school system (exit examinations, autonomy, and private schooling). This estimated impact is essentially the same as previously reported, lending support both to the causal impact of more cognitive skills and to the conclusion that schooling policies can have direct economic returns. …
• Fourth, one major concern is that countries with good economies also have good school systems – implying that those that grow faster because of the basic economic factors also have high achievement. To deal with this, immigrants to the United States who have been educated in their home countries are compared to those who were educated in the United States. … Looking at labour-market returns, the cognitive skills seen in the immigrant’s home country lead to higher incomes – but only if the immigrant was educated at home. Immigrants from the same home country schooled in the United States see no economic return to home- country quality, thus pinpointing the value of better schools.
• Fifth, perhaps the toughest test of causality is reliance on how changes in test scores over time lead to changes in growth rates. This approach eliminates country-specific economic and cultural factors. Figure 8 (see below) simply plots trends in educational performance and trends in growth rates over time for OECD countries.25 This investigation provides more evidence of the causal influence of cognitive skills. The gains in test scores over time are related to the gains in growth rates over time.  As with the other approaches, this analysis must presume that the pattern of achievement changes has been occurring over a long time, because it is not the achievement of school children but the skills of workers that count. Nonetheless, the consistency of the patterns and the similarities of magnitudes of the estimates to the basic growth models is striking (see Hanushek and Woessmann, 2009).