TRNN - US Student Homelessness Up 10% Since Last Year

TYT - Half Of College Graduates In Jobs That Don't Require A Degree

BP - How America Could Be the Happiest Country on Earth

RT - Rich Kids Now Eating Your Financial Aid

DN - U.S. Student Loan Bubble Saddles a Generation With Debt and Threatens the Economy 2/2

DN - U.S. Student Loan Bubble Saddles a Generation With Debt and Threatens the Economy 1/2

Save Now, But Pay Through the Nose Later!

Trey Smith

Back on August 5 in the Morning News slot, I shared with readers a Young Turks' report on the hideous "bargain" President Obama had struck with conservatives in Congress in regards to the student loan interest rate. This legislation -- which was signed into law last Friday -- will keep student loan rates relatively low...for now. However if the Wall Street economy improves -- NOT the Main Street economy -- rates will be far higher than they've ever been and students certainly will feel the pain.

At times, it's really hard to remember that Obama is a Democrat! This bill is a fiscal conservative's dream, yet he was one of the champions of it.

While it wouldn't be fair to students either way, Team Obama might be given a tad bit of leeway IF they were making efforts to pump some life into the economy that impacts most people. But they are making no such efforts! So, future students and graduates still face a tough employment market, one that is increasingly predominated by low wage service sector jobs. Combine this with the fact that the cost of higher education continues to climb and what we will wind up with is a huge student loan bubble that will explode eventually.

Of course, when that happens, Obama won't be president anymore. Some other schmuck will get the blame and have to figure out a way out of the mess.

But hey, why worry about that now, right?

TYT - How Students Lose and President Obama Wins

Class Distinctions as Seen Through the Lens of Big Time College Athletics

Trey Smith

The elites just hate it whenever someone brings up the issue of class divisions. We are a classless society, they say, and, when you bring up the issue of class, all you are trying to do is foment class warfare. (How is this possible if our society indeed is classless?) Of course, the real reason they don't want the minions to focus on class is that THEY have been instigating class warfare for decades!

We see class distinctions all throughout the way society operates. To offer one example, our justice system is basted in class. If you happen to be a member of the upper class and your financial institution is caught red-handed laundering billions of dollars from drug traffickers, you don't need to worry about seeing the inside of a courtroom or going to jail. You only have to pay a teensy fine and you can go on your way.

If you don't happen to be a member of the upper class and, in most states, you are found to possess even small amounts of marijuana, chances are very good that you will definitely see the inside of a courtroom plus the inside of a jail cell.

In a piece written by CBS Sports National Columnist Gregg Doyle, we see another example of the class divisions in society and the patently unfair way one class is given significant freedom while the other is not.

In big time college sports, the upper class is made up of head coaches (and athletic administrators). While most of them supposedly value loyalty to one's school, they have a funny way of showing it. If another school dangles better benefits and higher pay in front of their eyes, few head coaches will say no. So, after telling recruited athletes the vital importance of loyalty to the school, the head coach abruptly leaves for a bigger pay day.

The head coach that Doyel writes about is Brian Kelly of the University of Notre Dame.

When Kelly was at Cincinnati -- I live in Cincinnati, not that it matters; Mark Dantonio of Michigan State left Cincinnati in 2006, and he's my favorite football coach -- he left for Notre Dame. And he didn't leave at a good time, either.

He didn't leave, for example, in June.

Kelly left Cincinnati in December 2009. After Cincinnati had gone 12-0 in the regular season, but before the Bearcats played Florida in the Sugar Bowl. Cincinnati had a shot at perfection, at magic, but Kelly was gone. Why? Because he could. Because the system let him. Because Notre Dame was a better job and who cares if Cincinnati was in the middle of its season?

The irony here is that Head Coach Brian Kelly has decided to make life very difficult for one of his current college football recruits. This young man -- who just graduated from high school -- signed a National Letter of Intent to play for/attend Notre Dame, but then he changed his mind. The young man decided he wanted to stay closer to home by attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). But Coach Kelly doesn't want the young man to change his mind. He wants him to honor his commitment to Notre Dame.

Kelly has refused to allow this 18 year old kid to opt out of his letter of intent. By doing this, the young man either must go to a school he doesn't really want to go to OR he can attend UCLA without a scholarship and this star recruit won't be allowed to play football this year either. And why is Brian Kelly being such an insensitive hard ass in this situation? Because the system allows him to be this way!

To recap. Kelly signed a legal contract to coach football at the University of Cincinnati, but then welched on his signed contract to take a better job at Notre Dame DURING the football season. Kelly was afforded the ability to do this without penalty because he is a member of the big time college athletics upper class. The 18 year old football recruit is not a member of this upper class and so he must pay a steep price for changing his mind even though he has yet even to enroll at Notre Dame.

If you want to understand most facets of American life, you need to brush up on the distinctions of class in our "classless" society.

TYT - Cashing In On Students

Graduation "Gift"

Trey Smith

So, you went off to college to prepare yourself for the workaday world. You are now deeply in debt to the tune of tens of thousands or, maybe, hundreds of thousands of dollars. As you walk through the line to receive your degree, the nation is waiting to give you your graduation "gift." Here it is, wrapped with a big bow.

In April, unemployment among workers under the age of 25 was at 16.1 percent, more than double the national rate.

While the unemployment rate for young college graduates between the ages of 21-24 who are not enrolled in further schooling is 8.8 percent, the underemployment rate, a gauge of those only working part time or who want a job but have given up looking, is at 18.3 percent. The jobless rate for this group was 5.7 percent in 2007; the underemployment rate was 9.9 percent.

Have at it, kiddos. Welcome to the world of underemployment!

Don't Know Much About Geography

Trey Smith

There is something vitally wrong with the state of education in this country. It doesn't seem to matter if we're talking about public, private or home schooling either. Too many Americans these days smack of being ignorant...or easily confused. For example, many of the younger generations don't have a good grasp on world geography.

The Czech ambassador to the United States has put on record his alarm that during the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect so many Americans on social media appeared to confuse his own country - in central Europe - with Chechnya - a republic in south-west Russia.

As the identities of Chechen brothers Dzokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev - the suspects in Monday's attack which killed three and injured over 150 - filtered across the internet, many people tweeted that the pair were from the Czech Republic.

In a statement posted on his embassy's website, Petr Gandalovic said he was "deeply shocked by the tragedy," adding: "As more information on the origin of the alleged perpetrators is coming to light, I am concerned to note in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding in this respect. The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities."

Hmm. To be fair, they both start with the letter C. Another similarity is that both countries are over there somewhere, not here. So, there's that. On the other hand, no true student of geography would say they are adjacent nations -- they are separated by approximately 1,700 miles. That roughly would be like confusing Connecticut for Colorado!

Here is another major difference. As has been widely reported, most Chechens are Suni Muslims. Czechs, on the other hand, are not all that religious. Catholics are the most prominent group with about 11 percents of Czechs identifying with that faith. Of course, from the standpoint of fundamentalist American Christians, Muslims and Catholics are both heretics, so I guess for those folks this doesn't represent a significant difference or set off any red flags!

No Child Left Behind?

Trey Smith

In 2008 Rick Shenkman, the Editor-in-Chief of the History News Network, published a book entitled Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth about the American Voter (Basic Books). In it he demonstrated, among other things, that most Americans were: (1) ignorant about major international events, (2) knew little about how their own government runs and who runs it, (3) were nonetheless willing to accept government positions and policies even though a moderate amount of critical thought suggested they were bad for the country, and (4) were readily swayed by stereotyping, simplistic solutions, irrational fears, and public relations babble.

Shenkman spent 256 pages documenting these claims, using a great number of polls and surveys from very reputable sources. Indeed, in the end it is hard to argue with his data. So, what can we say about this? One thing that can be said is that this is not an abnormal state of affairs. As has been suggested in prior analyses, ignorance of non-local affairs (often leading to inaccurate assumptions, passive acceptance of authority, and illogical actions) is, in fact, a default position for any population.

To put it another way, the majority of any population will pay little or no attention to news stories or government actions that do not appear to impact their lives or the lives of close associates. If something non-local happens that is brought to their attention by the media, they will passively accept government explanations and simplistic solutions.
~ from The Decline of Critical Thinking by Lawrence Davidson ~

Public education ain't what it used to be! When I was in school in the Kansas City Public School District, we were taught to think. I'm certainly not saying my public education was perfect, but it was much better than public education today.

So, what changed?

In my opinion, the biggest change is in society's valuation of teachers. During my school days, public school teachers were highly valued. They were viewed as foundations of society. People admired them and they showed this admiration by providing sufficient financial resources for teachers, schools and students to succeed.

The conservative elite has never liked the idea of strong public schools because they churn out thinking adults and thinking adults are not so easy to manipulate! You see, the elite want a docile and stupefied population -- people who will do and think what they are told without asking pesky questions. They don't desire critical thinkers among the unwashed masses.

And so, in a concerted effort, they have assailed public education for the past few decades. They have mercilessly attacked teacher's unions. They have starved public education of the funds needed to keep pace both with inflation and an ever changing world. They have promoted the concept of charter schools because they utilize public monies without much public oversight. And they are steadfast supporters of standardized testing which robs students of individuality.

This decades long assault is bearing the desired fruit today. Tired of being cast as society's scapegoats, many of our brightest and most innovative public educators are getting out of the field. Charter and magnet schools are the big rage across the country. Many public schools have become decrepit relics of the past. Public schools today must pinch pennies and charge fees to students to participate in extracurricular activities.

All the while, average folks grow more ignorant...and the wealthy elite smiles!

One of the Three Rs

Trey Smith

The battle in education right now pits public schools against ones of the for-profit variety. It turns out that many of those pushing the latter only care about one of the proverbial 3 Rs. It's not reading. It's not 'riting. It's the last one: 'rithmetic. The 'rithmetic these folks care most about is how to add millions or billions of dollars to their bottom line!

As David Sirota explains in his recent column, Getting Rich Off of Schoolchildren, a good number of the businessmen pushing various varieties of so-called educational reform have a vested interest in their outcomes. If school districts adopt these reforms, then guess who will be there to sell them the products and services?

This is nothing more than another privatization scheme. Corporations desperately want to get their hands on public resources because it will turn into easy money. They make all sorts of promises about the wonderful services they will provide -- so much more efficiently than "bad" government -- but it is mostly a lie. In case after case, the savings aren't realized and the services and products delivered are inferior or, in some cases, not actually delivered at all.

But what do they care? They don't devise these schemes because they are altruistic; they do it because they are greedy bastards! They want to fatten their already fattened wallets while putting forth minimal effort.

Why can't people see this?

Heroic Leeches?

Trey Smith

Let’s just note that the heroic teachers who died while courageously trying to protect their kids at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, and the others who survived but stayed to protect the kids, were all part of a school system where the employees are members of the American Federation of Teachers.

Let’s just let that sink in for a moment. Those teachers, who are routinely being accused by our politicians of being drones and selfish, incompetent money grubbers worried more about their pensions than about teaching our children (though most, even after 10 years, earn less than $55,000 a year for doing a very difficult job that involves at least 12-14 hours a day of work and prep time counting meetings with parents), stood their ground when confronted with a psychotic assailant armed with semi-automatic pistols and an automatic rifle, and protected their kids. The principal too, a veteran teacher herself, stood her ground, reportedly suicidally charging at the assailant along with the school’s psychologist in a doomed effort to tackle him and stop the carnage.

How many of us would have had to the courage to stand in front of a closet door to keep an armed madman from finding the kids hidden behind it, as one slain young teacher, Vicki Soto, 29, died doing? How many of us would charge at an armed shooter, to almost certain death, in an effort top stop him from further killing? How many would bravely hide in a bathroom with a class of kids when we could have run away and saved ourselves?

And this: How many of the politicians in Washington and in state capitals and how many conservative think-tank “researchers” who attack teachers as leeches and drones would have shown such heroism under fire?

~ from America’s Teachers: Heroes or Greedy Moochers at the Public Trough? by Dave Lindorff ~

You know, this is one of the first thoughts that came to my mind as news reports started coming in reporting the deaths of teachers and administrators at Sandy Hook Elementary School. These educators, who have been so denigrated over the past few years, literally gave their lives in an attempt to save those of their young students!

Throughout the country, the school's principal, vice principal, psychologist and teachers are being lauded for their heroism -- AS THEY SHOULD BE. They are being held up as models of what it means to be caring and courageous individuals.

And yet, when these same people ask to be compensated fairly and for more resources to be provided to their schools, many of the same people who are honoring them today call them all sorts of vile names. They are called greedy, selfish and several names I care not to repeat.

Most teachers thankfully will never face a situation in which they will be asked to face down an individual bent on mass murder. But they regularly must deal with children from broken homes, schools that are crumbling and school programs that are starved for resources. Most of them work long hours; a lot of it out of the classroom.

Today these education professionals are being lauded as heroes, but how will most people treat them and their colleagues across the nation in the weeks, months and years to come?

Diving In?

Trey Smith

Over the past 6 months or so, Della and I have done a lot of soul searching. We've questioned the wisdom of owning our own home and we've come to the conclusion it's probably not for us. While Della enjoys her job as a care provider to elderly folk, the sometimes strenuous nature of the work is taking a toll on her physically. In general, we've been examining where we are and where else we could be.

During this time, my brother Sean began exploring possibilities through AmeriCorps VISTA (something I have been suggesting to him for years!). He ended up applying for several positions and was recently selected by a program in the Kansas City Metro area. He began his year of service this past Monday.

Sean, of course, suggested that Della might take a look into AmeriCorps. In looking at the opportunities here in Washington state, she found one, in particular, that really piqued her interest, the Washington Reading Corps (WRC). WRC members tutor young students who are having a difficult time with learning to read. With 7 years of experience as an Assistant Teacher in the federally-funded Head Start program, Della decided these positions were something she would like to pursue.

The timing of her decision was a bit off of the typical AmeriCorps schedule. She began to look seriously at opportunities about one month AFTER most sites had made their selections for the 2012-13 year. That was okay by us because we realized we have a lot of things we would need to get in order before taking this plunge and so she began the application process early for the 2013-14 year.

She eventually applied to a program that serves school districts in the Columbia Gorge area (on the Washington side). We didn't expect to hear from them for several months. To our utter surprise, they contacted her two weeks ago and she has an interview scheduled for Monday. Even more shocking, they still have several openings for THIS service year!

So, we may be diving into this new world a lot sooner than we anticipated. If selected for one of the open AmeriCorps positions, Della's start date would be January 16, not September 1 (as we had planned for). Talk about a shock to the system!

Putting this situation in Taoist terms, we're prepared to go with the flow...even if that flow has a few more rapids than we were expecting.

Real Life Tao - Different Paths

Trey Smith

In the 1960s, I came across a little book entitled Master Teachers and the Art of Teaching. This unpretentious little book, written by John E. Colman of St. John’s University, not only enlightened me as a young university professor but proved to be invaluable. In it, about a dozen different teaching methods are described along with some information about the master teachers who designed them. Each of these methods was used successfully to teach some subjects to some students. None was used successfully to teach all subjects to all students. Throughout my teaching career, I found opportunities to utilize many of these methods when the right situations arose. The lesson I learned from this little book is that there is no one teaching method that works for teaching all subjects to all students. Finding the right method for the students at hand is at best an art, never a science, and is never easy.

Few people understand this. In fact, teacher training suppresses it. Teaching methods are taught to prospective teachers as fixed, reliable procedures that never fail when, in reality, they rarely succeed.
~ from Fraudulent Educational Reform in America by John Kozy ~

Increasingly, we live in a cookie cutter world. This mentality can be seen in the so-called educational reforms being promoted throughout the country. Built upon the methodology of standardized testing, the aim appears to be NOT about encouraging critical thinking; it's more about spitting out obedient drones!

As with all things in this life, there is no one singular path to anywhere or anything. Each of us will ply different paths at different times in our lives. A successful and harmonious path today may be anything but tomorrow. Like a tree that bends in the wind, we must be flexible enough to switch paths, when needed.

Even a person like me -- someone who follows rather rigid routines -- understands that what worked one time may not work next time. While I tend to cling to well-worn paths, I sometimes must veer off onto new paths, when the situation warrants it!

Standardized testing treats the educational process as a one-size-fits-all proposition. It stresses rote memorization and specific ways of looking at the wide variables of life. In most cases, it discourages students from engaging in thoughtful and careful decision-making. And it pushes teachers to employ a very limited number of teaching strategies.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

The Cookie Cutter Approach

Trey Smith

As I write this post (Monday), the teachers in Chicago have gone out on strike. While you might think the central issue is money, that's only a lesser part of the equation. The big sticking point concerns standardized testing and tying teacher's pay and their very jobs to the test scores of their students.

Though I am no Confucian scholar, from what I've read in the Confucian texts and various analyses of such, Confucius may well have supported this new educational strategy. Confucianism is a system of ethics brought about through education, the adherence to rituals and the following of rules of proper etiquette. Confucians feel that, with the right training, society can flourish because we will all learn what is right and wrong.

The Taoist sages, particularly Zhuangzi, bristled at this methodology. They contended that right and wrong are subjective and their values change from generation to generation and from society to society. Rather than focus on external norms, mores and rules, the Taoists suggested that the learning of virtue was more individualistic. We each must find our own path.

Needless to say, I side with the Taoists. This new fangled concentration on test scores is, in my mind, a cookie cutter approach to education. The goal seems to be to turn out multitudes of same shaped and sized cookies. Students aren't necessarily taught to think for themselves, but to regurgitate the dominant paradigm. It's a great strategy for turning out miniature robots who will not argue when they later are assigned a role as a little cog in the establishment machine.

In my view, the whole problem with a standardized anything is it pushes everyone towards a pre-defined position. In education, it discounts the notion that different people learn at different speeds and in different ways. While some students are proficient in rote memorization, others are not. Some students are more visual, while others learn better through auditory means.

For me, I learned best under those teachers and professors who taught me to look at issues and then thresh them out in my own mind. Rather than be instructed on WHAT to think, I was simply encouraged to think. Test and assignments were not graded based on "right answers," but by any answer a student submitted PROVIDED that it was well thought out and defended or documented.

While there will always be a place for some standardized testing, I much prefer an educational system that exposes students to a plethora of ideas and provides the tools to look at these ideas and concepts in a critical manner. My hope is that the students of the future will be appreciators of art (in all its various forms), knowledgeable about history (to aid society in moving forward and not repeating the same mistakes) and skilled thinkers and doers.

Afternoon Matinee: Education and Climate Change

Not Giving Up Power

Trey Smith

Secrecy and back door politicking were also the tools used by [former Penn State President Graham] Spanier to secure his control of university operations and to insure only a timid and uninformed rubber stamping from the Board of Trustees. This proclivity did not go unnoticed by at least some Board members. In 2004, seven of them drafted good governance proposals calling for more scrutiny of the President and his decision-making. They were presented to the PSU Board of Trustees but a full vote was deferred. The changes to the by-laws would have greatly enhanced the Board’s oversight of Spanier and clarified its role as the final arbiter in matters of both policy and day-to day operations like removing senior administrative officers. You can read the proposed changes here.

Long-time board member, Joel Myers, has said the changes would have prevented situations like the Sandusky scandal from escaping the Board’s notice since the by-law changes required the president to present periodic reports on university operations and also empowered the Board to obtain follow-up reports. Spanier sensed the threat and fought the proposals deftly and, with the aid of then chairwoman and current general counsel, Cynthia Baldwin, the matter was tabled before a vote could be taken. (Spanier’s cohort, Cynthia Baldwin, has been criticized in the Freeh report for opposing an independent investigation of the Board’s actions or inactions during the Sandusky scandal while serving as PSU’s General Counsel thus completing the circle of secrecy). The failed attempt to rein in Spanier’s presidency was the last chance for the Board to fulfill its obligation to oversee university operations.
~ from Down In The Valley V: Spanier’s Culture of Secrecy And Penn State’s Other Ignored Child Sexual Abuse Scandal by Mark Esposito ~

In the previous post, I briefly mentioned how the average shareholder has no real power in relation to the governance of publicly-traded corporations. As Esposito indicates in the snippet above, the problem was just as evident when it came to a university president and his Board of Trustees!

Simply put, those in power do not like democracy because it has the potential to constrain their words, deeds and actions. They like democracy so long as it is nothing more than a window-dressing; it provides a nice facade that can be utilized in certain situations...like when things go bad.

When something goes awry, they try to hide behind democracy as a way of evading any personal responsibility. "Hey, this isn't solely my doing," they claim. "Everybody agreed to it. I'm simply carrying out the will of the majority!"

Of course, in far too many cases, the powers that be manipulated the outcome to their liking. They subverted democracy to satisfy their own craven desires. This part of the equation rarely is stated.

When things are going well -- at least as far as those in power are concerned -- they want the people to stay the hell out of their way!