NEA Sheds Crocodile Tears for the Poor

President Obama has sent his budget plan to Congress, hoping to appease Republicans by slashing $400 billion from Medicare and other health programs (according to NEA Today) and cutting cost of living increases for Social Security recipients. Not surprisingly, Republicans are saying this isn’t enough and they have no intention of supporting any tax hikes, whatsoever. Some pundits are referring to the process as Obama negotiating with himself.

Needless to say, the cuts will hurt seniors and the poor the most (but on the brighter side, the wealthy will be able to continue to enjoying record low tax rates and subsidies for their businesses). These cuts could also have a trickle-down effect on schools. By stripping away some of the safety net for poor families, children will inevitably feel some of the cuts, which could lead to increases in malnutrition, untreated medical conditions, premature births, stress and elevated levels of cortisol, and other factors that can impair cognitive development, memory and learning.

National Educators Association (NEA) President Dennis Van Roekel criticized the plan, saying:

“Right now the focus should be on protecting and increasing benefits for our seniors, not pulling the rug out from under them . . . Social Security belongs to the people who have worked hard all their lives, contributed to the program, and relied on the promise that they and their family will be able to collect benefits that accurately reflect the cost of living when they retire. . . Any budget proposal must be balanced and fair by demanding more of the wealthiest and corporations while staying true to our nation’s commitment to seniors and those most in need.”

These comments are little more than crocodile tears coming from a man who earns close to $400,000 per year in salary and benefits and who will likely be set for life with a comfortable retirement, thanks to his members’ dues. While he may in fact feel sympathy for the poor and seniors, he is completely unwilling to do anything about it besides making a few impotent complaints—and certainly nothing that might jeopardize his income, status or personal freedom.

If NEA was a fighting union, if it really gave a damned about the wellbeing of America’s poor families and children (or simply wanted to see significant gains in educational outcomes), it would mobilize its hundreds of thousands of members to protest the entire budget debate vigorously, with direct action, civil disobedience and even strikes. The NEA is the largest union in the country. It has vast resources and could have significant influence on policy if it were to move away from its unreliable and weak strategy of lobbying and campaign financing and start exercising its true power: its members’ ability to withhold their labor.

One reason why the NEA will not do this is because it does not want to offend its darling in the White House. Despite the fact that Obama has done nothing to reduce the damage caused by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and actually worsened it with his Race to the Top (RttT), he continues to pay lip service to the notion of improving public education (which seems to be sufficient to mollify many on the left). In fairness, his budget proposal does include an additional $75 billion to fund pre-school for all low- to moderate-income 4-year-olds. Yet for many middle class families, the only preschool options available are expensive private schools that suck up large portions of their disposable income. Obama’s budget will provide no relief for these families. More to the point, since we know that pre-K programs have significant benefits for children’s long-term academic success, why not extend the existing free public education system to include all children, starting at the pre-K level? This would have the additional benefit of allowing many parents to get back to work without having to lose a large chunk of their income to overpriced private preschools.

Van Roekel is also probably pleased with the supposed billions of dollars that will go toward education jobs to replace those lost due to the sequester cuts. However, jobs, in and of themselves, are nothing to support, particularly if those jobs are for low pay, with poor benefits and unreasonable demands or lack security. Why not increase unemployment benefits, welfare and other safety net programs to a level that provides all Americans with material security and comfort until they get back on their feet, instead of continuing with the cynical and punitive system that provides only a fraction of what one needs to survive and only for a timeframe that is insufficient for finding another decent job?

Additionally, why strive for putting teachers back in front of 30-40 kids per classroom, which is all that will happen with Obama’s proposal? Why not demand sufficient funding to bring all high school classes in the country down to 20 students per teacher, and the lower grade levels down to 10 or 15 students per teacher? This would not only create a lot of jobs, but it would provide teachers sufficient time to attend to the individual and diverse needs of their students; identify physical, emotional or academic problems before they spiral out of control; and provide more engaging, student-centered, inquiry-based lessons and rely less on canned curriculum, bubble in tests and rote memorization.

Back to the “Golden Age” for Those in Their Golden Years?

In his quest to find a “middle ground” (read appease the ruling elite), President Obama has been meeting with Republicans behind closed doors to come up with a plan to dismantle Medicare. According to the New York Times, Obama has proposed cost savings by combining Medicare A and B, which would significantly increase seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses.

Currently, Medicare A is used for hospital visits and has a deductible of $1,184 per year, while Medicare B, which is used for out-patient services and doctors’ visits, is only $147. Patients can see their doctors as often as they need to and typically use Medicare B (the cheaper of the two programs) much more frequently. Combining the two into one program would necessarily result in higher costs for patients, as the new deductible would fall somewhere in between and, more significantly, patients would be paying the higher deductible for the more common outpatient services and doctors’ visits.

Obama has been saying for months that he is open to compromise on Medicare if that is what is necessary to get Republicans to support a tax increase. The Times suggests that the Medicare deal would likely end Republican threats to privatize Medicare and even end debate on the matter. However, Democrats and Republicans still remain far apart on “revenue increases,” the euphemism being used to indicate that the final deal might not include any tax increases at all and could even include further austerity for the middle class, like an end to the mortgage interest deduction on their income taxes. In typical Obama fashion, he started bargaining from a position of weakness and offered the store without winning anything concrete in return.

Increasing Medicare costs is a risky move politically, as seniors have among the highest rate of voter participation in the country and have almost universal support for the program. Medicare, which was implemented in 1965, along with the expansion of Social Security, contributed to a decline in poverty among seniors from 30% in 1965, to less than 10% today, the WSWS reports.

Inexpensive health care for seniors has also contributed to their increasing longevity. According to a Harvard study, 45,000 Americans die each year because they lack health coverage. The study also found that uninsured working-age Americans had a 40% higher chance of dying prematurely than their insured counterparts. Slashing Medicare benefits and making them more expensive will likely increase the death rate for seniors, too, because they will be less likely to see their doctors for routine checkups and maintenance of chronic illnesses.

Consequently, the new plan could take seniors back to a time when they were dying much sooner from treatable conditions and had a worse quality of life because of poverty.

The “debate” over Medicare has little to do with resolving any sort of budget crisis and everything to do with reducing government spending on “entitlements” that benefit the majority of Americans so that there is more tax revenue available to subsidize low taxes for the rich and to subsidize their businesses. The rich already have Cadillac insurance plans, subsidized by their employees, and not only have no need for Medicare themselves, but find it outrageous that any of their taxes should go toward keeping people alive who are no longer “productive” (read: exploitable at the workplace).

3 of California’s “Top” Schools On the Chopping Block, And Good Riddance

What makes a “top” school, top? According to the San Francisco Chronicle (and most other media) it is test scores. Thanks to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Obama’s Race to the Top (RttT), test scores are all that matter these days. This has led to numerous cheating scandals, as well as a reduction in science, arts, physical education and other curricula to make room for more test preparation. It has also led to a number of other scandals, such as the one at Oakland’s American Indian Charter Schools, now under threat of closure for financial improprieties, despite its relatively high test scores.

The American Indian schools are currently being investigated by the Alameda County district attorney for funneling $3.8 million to founder and former director Ben Chavis and his wife for shady real estate deals and services, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. As director, Chavis signed school checks over to himself for properties he rented to the schools. In one case, he charged the schools $1.09 per square foot per month, when Oakland Unified was charging one-fifth of that ($2.50 per year).

The Oakland school board has asked the school to shape up and convince them their books are now in order. The board will make its final decision on March 20.

The problem is that it is not just financial improprieties that call the schools’ quality into question. Chavis, who ran the schools from 2001 until 2007, has been accused of humiliating students, swearing at them and calling them names publicly. The East Bay Express reports that he also made racist and sexist comments in front of students, while the WSWS reports he physically abused an adult visitor to the campus and forced a student to shave his head as a punishment. The Express also found that the schools’ high test scores had nothing to do with good teaching or school structure, but were the result of cherry-picking higher performing students—a form of cheating that violates OUSD’s own policies. In essence, the schools were phony “top” schools that rigged the system in order to look good, maintain high enrollment, and serve as a cover for Chavis’ embezzlement schemes.

While the OUSD is threatening to revoke the schools’ charters and shut them down, they should not be seen as the hero riding in on their white horse. According to the Express, the school board had known for years about Chavis’ abuses and misconduct, yet continually renewed the schools’ charters, citing their wonderful test scores as justification. Indeed, the OUSB, due its lack of effective oversight, was complicit in both the cheating scandal and Chavis’ embezzlement of millions of dollars from the district

The OUSD likewise had no problem with the schools’ refusal to hire unionized teachers or its rabid anti-communism (one of the schools’ “10 Commandments” was “Thou shalt be aware of quacks who believe in communism. Hast thou ever heard of illegal immigrants risking their lives to enter Cuba?”

 

Misguided Moralism From Both Sides of the Gun Debate

Many have questioned why it took the tragedy at Sandy Hook to jump start the debate on gun control, a massacre so horrific that even some staunchly pro-gun politicians have started to suggest that perhaps some new regulations might be in order.

"The Suicide" Edouard Manet, 

This outpouring of support for tighter gun control was due largely to the fact that the Sandy Hook massacre involved the slaughter of “innocents.” Young school children are seen by many as the most vulnerable, unsullied and worthy members of our society (unless you include unborn fetuses and the rich, whose worth to society is unquestioned).

This distinction between worthy and unworthy victims has permeated the discourse on gun control on both sides of the issue, with the focus being on how to make our schools safer (i.e., protecting the “innocents”) rather than how to make society safer or how to cut the overall social costs associated with gunshot wounds and deaths.

Yet, as tragic as it is for children to be gunned down at school, school shootings make up only a tiny fraction of the total annual gun deaths (less than 300 since 1980, or less than 10 per year). The sad reality is that tens of thousands of Americans die each year from gun violence, primarily due to suicide. In 2010, there were 19,392 gun-related suicides, or 63.6% of the total gun-related deaths, according to Wikipedia. In contrast, there were 11,078 gun-related homicides, or 36.4% of the total. Very few of the homicides occurred at schools or other public settings. Nevertheless, President Obama promised on January 16 to make our schools safer by keeping guns out of the wrong hands and improving mental health surveillance and services. Like his sanctimonious colleagues in Congress and the media, the focus is on the “innocents,” while the bulk of gun victims are ignored.

Biggest Bang for the Buck: Depression or Psychopathy?

In one sense, the discussion of better mental health monitoring and treatment is welcome. For too long mental health services have been inaccessible or unaffordable to many who need them, while prejudice and shame prevent some from attempting to obtain these services even when they are accessible.

The problem is that this aspect of the discourse has focused on almost entirely on psychopathic rampages, which account for very few gun deaths, while virtually ignoring depression, PTSD and other conditions that lead to suicide, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of gun deaths. From the perspective of cost effectiveness, it would make a great deal of sense to improve mental health access and services for everyone who needs it—not just those who are seen as potential homicidal maniacs.

Another problem with the mental health “solution” is that it tends to be discussed in essentially moralistic and prejudicial rather than rational terms. For example, Obama’s call for schools to become “more nurturing” implies that mean teachers or impersonal schools are somehow responsible for school shootings. His call for more mental health workers in the schools to curb “student-on-student violence” (rather than to treat all student mental health conditions) suggests a distinction between the worthy but rare victims of school rampages, and the less worthy but abundant victims of depression, anxiety, and stress (conditions which, if left untreated, could lead to suicide). His call for more police on campuses sends the message that school shooters are bad guys who must be punished or killed, rather than troubled youth in need of help. Yet there is no clear evidence that school safety officers have any effect on reducing crime or violence at school.

Moralism is also behind the lynch mob demanding a national registry for the mentally ill and the denial of their second amendment rights. The assumption is that because some crazy people have committed shooting rampages, that all crazy people are untrustworthy and violent and therefore need to be carefully monitored and controlled. Yet statistically, crazy people are no more likely than anyone else to commit acts of violence. Thus, identifying them and preventing them from buying guns should have only a nominal effect on the total number of annual gun deaths. On the other hand, the implementation of a national registry could scare away many people who need mental health services from seeking help, thus putting themselves (and possibly the public) at greater risk.  

A Rational Person in the Asylum? (Or Not)

One would think that mental health practitioners would take this unique opportunity to talk about depression, PTSD, and other problems that can lead to suicidal thoughts, now that the media has latched onto the idea that the government might do something to improve access and affordability of mental health services. Yet when the media interview mental health experts about the role of mental health in reducing gun violence, the experts rarely mention suicide. They, too, seem to be caught up in the moralism and hysteria (or perhaps they were told in advance to avoid mentioning suicide since it is a downer, far less titillating than massacres and therefore bad for advertising). 

Of course those who commit suicide rarely take out large numbers of “innocents” in the process. They simply shoot themselves, often when no one is watching. Furthermore, they have made their own decision when and how to die, in contrast to the “innocents,” whose choice was made for them by their murderer.

Yet suicide, like school violence, has significant social costs, including the loss of income and the emotional trauma for surviving family members (including the “innocents” they leave behind). Suicide can require emergency services, often at the taxpayers’ expense. It is disruptive to colleagues who must pick up the slack at work as they mourn the loss of their workmate and friend; and to their bosses, who must suddenly find a replacement; and to landlords, who lose rental income while their bloodied apartment is being cleaned.  

What About Gun Control?

Gun enthusiasts like to point out that during the 10-years assault rifle ban, there was no reduction in gun fatalities in the U.S. However, the ban was pretty leaky, with loopholes that allowed the purchase of numerous high powered weapons. It also did nothing to reduce the 270 million guns circulating in the U.S. (close to nine guns per every 10 people).

However, it is hard to imagine how a total reduction in circulating guns (rather than temporary bans on the sale of certain types of guns) could not reduce gun fatalities. Consider that slightly more than 50% of suicides in the U.S. are committed with firearms. When guns already exist in the household, they provide a quick and highly efficient means of killing oneself. Since other methods are less reliable, more painful, or more difficult to plan and carry out, reducing access to guns should reduce the number of suicide attempts, as well as the success rate. 

A reduction in the number of guns in circulation also ought to reduce accidental gun deaths (which average around 600 per year). Though statistically rare compared with suicides and homicides, slightly more than half of the accidental gun deaths involve children, and thus account for far more deaths of “innocents” than do school rampages. However, the otherwise upstanding adults whose negligence or irresponsibility contributed to these accidents are far more sympathetic (and formidable, when it comes to threatening their right to bear arms) than are crazies like Adam Lanza (the Sandy Hook killer).

Poverty is Violence

Since the pundits and politicians have taken suicide off the table, let’s talk about homicide, because even here there is a lot of moralism and prejudice in the public discourse. Certainly it is scary to imagine oneself or one’s child the victim of an armed robbery, rape, terrorist attack or school massacre. But for most Americans this fear is exaggerated. In the majority of homicides, the victim is poor, with a prior criminal record.

One might justly wonder why the left isn’t calling for “economic justice” or programs to help ex-cons integrate back into society, in addition to gun control and improved mental health access, since this could help reduce the number of gun deaths. But then again, ex-cons and the poor, in general, are not considered worthy victims. If we really wanted to reduce their unnecessary deaths, we would have to provide housing to the homeless so they didn't die of exposure. Employers would have to slow down the factories and provide sufficient safety equipment so their low income employees would stop dying on the job. They'd have to provide healthcare so they could keep their employees' diabetes and hypertension under control, and increase their pay so they had less stress and material insecurity (which contribute to their elevated rates of hypertension, diabetes, cancer and heart disease).

Lastly, a significant fraction of the homicide victims are women who were killed by their partners. In 2000, according to the Violence Policy Center, 1,342 women were shot to death by their partners (about 50% of the total domestic violence deaths). But why worry about a thousand dead women (some of whom left behind orphaned “innocents”) when there are ten innocent school children who need protecting? 

11,000 Educators Fired in December

Clean Up Your Act Teachers or You're Out! (Image from Flickr, by  emilydickensonridesabmx)

The Great Recession has been officially over for more than three years, but the plunder of the public sector and middle class wealth continues. According to the Department of Labor, more than 13,000 public sector workers were laid off in December, more than 11,000 of whom were teachers or other school employees (see WSWS).

This is unusual. Typically, teacher layoff notices go out in February or March in anticipation of coming budget shortfalls, giving teachers the summer to look for work (or to be rehired, as often occurs when revenue picks up). Mid-year layoffs are an indication just how desperate many school districts are, with states continuing to have large deficits and the feds continuing to do nothing about it.

Indeed, by ignoring the problem, state and federal governments facilitate the deterioration of public education, making it easier to argue that it is broken beyond repair, or that it can only be repaired through privatization. Since 2008, the private sector has hired about 725,000 new workers, while the public sector has lost almost the same number of jobs (again, see WSWS)—a statistic that is largely due to the divestment of tax dollars from the public sector. Obama, despite receiving early endorsements and massive support from the NEA and AFT, has made no indication that he intends to help struggling school districts.

Many cities are shuttering their schools and selling off their facilities or the operation of their schools to private for-profit education management organizations (EMOs). According to the WSWS, Philadelphia plans to close 36 schools. Detroit has closed dozens of schools over the past few years, with former financial manager Robert Bobb attempting to close half the city’s schools in 2011. Many of the closed schools were sold or rented to private charter school operators. Recently, secret leaked documents revealed that Chicago has been planning to close or consolidate as many as 95 schools, with many of them going to private charter operators. New Orleans already has 70% of its students attending charter schools.

As schools close and teachers are let go, the teachers unions lose members and strength, something they seem unwilling or unable to fight. In fact, the social contract union leaders have made with the bosses to keep their members on the job at all costs (not to mention the no-strike clauses in many of their contracts and state prohibitions against public sector strikes) has effectively stymied the unions and is leading to their own downfall. The laid off teachers, however, are free to sell their labor to the highest bidder—Increasingly nonunionized private charter school operators that pay less and require far more work than the traditional public schools.

Unions Collaborate With Obama to Squeeze American Workers

Image from Flickr, by DonkeyHotey

With the country moving ever closer to the “fiscal cliff,” the Obama Administration is doing everything it can to strike a “grand bargain” that appeases the ruling elite. The grand bargain is a euphemism for an austerity package that will maintain low taxes for the wealthy and subsidies for their business by slashing social spending and services that help keep the rest of the country from sinking further into poverty.

Union leaders met with the president on Tuesday to give their support for his plan which will include large cuts to social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps and other welfare programs, the WSWS reported this week. Because there is broad support for most of these programs, the President is depending on the unions to help quell popular opposition and avert the kinds of protests and mass discontent seen in Greece, Spain, Portugal and the UK.

While the unions have claimed they are fighting to protect American workers from austerity, their actions indicate that their actual goal is to sell the president’s scam as a good deal for their members.  AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, for example, said his organization was committed to making sure that the middle class and workers don’t end up “paying the tab for a party that we didn’t get to,” and he asserted that the president had the same commitment. Also present at the meeting were Mary Kay Henry, head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Lee Saunders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association (NEA). Mary Kay Henry said “We expect to have the president’s back on the agenda that the voters just declared support for. The president has always said he needs a movement behind his mandate.”

Unions Have President’s Back (As He Attacks the Middle and Working Classes)

In 2011 Obama proposed a deficit-reduction plan that would have raised the eligibility age for Medicare, cut Medicare benefits, reduced Social Security benefits, slashed Medicaid, and reduced tax deductions for the middle and working classes. According to the WSWS, William Daley (White House chief of staff when Obama first proposed this “grand bargain”) told Bloomberg News that this would be Obama’s starting point for the next round of negotiations with Republicans. To make matters worse, the extension on unemployment benefits will automatically expire on January 1, ending payments to over 2 million unemployed workers and Obama has said nothing about how (or if) he would avert this disaster.

The “bargain” in this Grand Bargain is Obama’s insistence that taxes must be raised on those earning more than $250,000 per year. However, he has indicated that he would be willing to consider other ways of increasing revenue from the wealthy, like maintaining current tax rates, but decreasing deductions. In either case, the rich earn most of their income through capital gains, which are taxed at the relatively low rate of 15%. Thus many, like Mitt Romney, end up paying a far lower effective rate than the majority of Americans (who earn most or all of their income through salaries) and will continue to do so even if Obama wins approval for tax increases on the wealthy.

Further evidence that Obama is planning austerity for the majority of Americans comes from a secret document leaked last week to Meet the Press. The document indicates that in 2011 Obama proposed over two dollars in cuts for every dollar in increased revenue ($2.8 trillion in cuts and $1.2 trillion in tax increases), setting the stage for raising the debt ceiling and the automatic spending cuts that comprise the “fiscal cliff.” The document revealed that Obama was willing to cut TRICARE (health insurance for the military and veterans) and to lower tax rates for business and for the wealthy. The document also suggested cutting Medicare by $250 billion between 2012 and 2021 and by $800 billion between 2022 and 2031. It proposed cutting Social Security payments by $112 billion over the next 10 years and cutting veterans’ disability payments by $24 billion. It also suggested slashing $11 billion from military retirement and $33 billion from benefits for retired federal employees, as well as $2 billion from nutrition assistance, $4 billion from flood insurance and $10 billion from higher education.

All this sounds exactly like an attempt to make American workers pay the tab for a party they didn’t attend. The Republicans have refused to sign off on any tax increases for the wealthy and Obama has indicated he would be willing to lower their tax liability. A few Republicans, like Mitch McConnell, have indicated they might accept a cap on deductions in exchange for cuts to entitlements (e.g., slashing Medicare and Social Security) and Obama has indicated he is open to this. In the end, the rich will sacrifice little or nothing toward closing the federal deficit, which will be subsidized almost entirely by reductions in services and programs that benefit the majority. Yet the deficit is almost entirely a byproduct of gifts to the wealthy, like subsidies to defense contractors, oil and coal companies, and big Agri-business; bailouts of banks; and tax breaks for the wealthy and their businesses.