Pro vs Con

Here are the facts:

• Between March 2001 and March 2008 the nation lost almost 3.3 million manufacturing jobs, and only gained 5.3 million jobs overall—just slightly more than half the number of jobs needed to keep pace with the 9.8 million people added to the labor force during that period. That's why the unemployment rate is 15.7 percent higher in March 2008 than it was in March 2001. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• The share of the population with jobs declined from 64.3 percent of the population in March 2001 to 62.6 percent of the population in March 2008. It's the first time on record that a period of "economic recovery" has been marched by an actual decline in the employment rate. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economic Policy Institute)
• Hourly wages rose 3.6 percent over the past year, the slowest growth rate in two years, and well behind recent inflationary readings, which have been around 4 percent. What's worse, employees on average have been keeping their workers on the job for fewer hours in the past year, so weekly earnings are up only 3.3 percent over the past year. (Economic Policy Institute).
• Since the late 1990's, average incomes fell by 2.5 percent for those in the bottom fifth of the income scale and rose by just 1.3 percent for those in the middle fifth. Meanwhile, incomes climbed 9 percent for those in the top fifth, not counting income from capital gains. (Economic Policy Institute)
• At the same time, the consumer price index from March 2001 to March 2008 has increased 17.5 percent. (Inflation Data.com)
• People in the top 1 percent of the income bracket captured about half of the overall economic growth between 1993 and 2006. (Emmanuel Saez, University of California, Berkeley)

"Some people mistakenly believe that funding for domestic discretionary programs has exploded since 2001," says a February 2008 report by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. The reality is that funding for domestic discretionary programs outside homeland security is lower as a share of the economy in 2008 than it was in 2001. And, between 2002 and 2008, the overall funding level for domestic discretionary programs outside homeland security declined 2.6 percent in real per capita terms. In other words, spending on dozens of important and widely supported programs has not kept pace with inflation the past few years.

The real threat to our fiscal health is continued government disinvestment in vital education, health, safety net and infrastructure programs, as well as the continuation of the disastrous war in Iraq.

The federal government has never met the pledge to fund the costs of educating the disabled. And now it's failing its part in keeping college affordable. In 1975-76 a Pell grant covered 84% of tuition at a four-year public school—now it only covers 40%.

Everyone knows teachers aren't paid well, especially in comparison to their importance. The reality is that teacher pay has decreased by more than 3% over the past 10 years when adjusted for inflation. We will soon face the largest wave of teacher retirements ever, and younger teachers are leaving the classroom at alarming rates. This is a market-based society. Salaries have to be competitive. Surveys show that teachers are less likely to leave schools with competitive pay.

We all want kids to learn and get a good education. Standards and testing are important, but we need to move beyond snapshots on a standardized test. We must evaluate portfolios of work over time, graduation and dropout rates and teacher retention and training. In the end, however, it isn't enough to measure the problem—we've got to support the reforms and invest the necessary resources to enact a solution.

Sure, there are bad schools that waste money. But too often schools are the scapegoat, serving as the front line in dealing with problems outside the classroom. Kids who go hungry, or who don't have decent access to health care, or who come from a troubled family background have a harder time learning. A child who is sick and lacks medical attention has a hard time concentrating. Schools in poor neighborhoods do worse in large part because of what happens outside the classroom not what happens inside.

Bush and Congress broke the president's promise to fund the No Child Left Behind law, leaving it short by more than $13 billion for 2006 alone, with more than $55 billion in broken promises since the law was enacted [1]. Given this failure it should be no surprise that so many schools are being labeled "in need of improvement." The testing involved in the NCLB program deters teachers from actually teaching, instead public school teachers are spending increasing amounts of time teaching to the test and promoting "rote memorization and a drill and grill" learning, not intellectual development [2].

We know how to build public schools that work—we do it in communities across America. But it takes resources, reforms, accountability, and skilled teachers. We need to provide the basics to every child. That will take more investment not less.