Federal Education, Cordell Hull, and States Rights

I am reading Cordell Hull's Memoirs. This is the last major work I plan to take notes on before starting on the final draft of The U.S. War Against Asia. I knew little about Cordell Hull except that he was Secretary of State under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which meant he played a major part in the events leading up to the Battle of Pearl Harbor. This just illustrates how even history buffs like myself tend to think in terms of Presidents, when actually Congress is the body that is entrusted to govern our nation. Problem is, there is a lot of history, so it is a lot easier to remember the names and actions of a few Presidents, rather than the tens of thousands of citizens who have been elected to Congress since 1776.

Cordell Hull was from a Confederate family in the hills of eastern Tennessee, and he took an interest in politics from an early age. He reports:

"It was at that age, and at Celina, that I saw my first daily newspaper. This was the Nashville American. In that year, 1886, a Senator from New Hampshire, Henry W. Blair, introduced a bill for Federal aid to State education. That was the major issue in the 1886 campaign. I read about it avidly in the newspaper, and we discussed it among ourselves. The bill was considered to be an attempt to infringe on State rights and to give the Federal Government power to go down into the States and interfere with their education systems. The amount of Federal aid the Senator proposed was only nominal at the time, but the incident is illustrative of how serious such issues could be in those days." [Memoirs of Cordell Hull, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1948, p. 17-19]

The U.S. Constitution says nothing about education. It is a fair argument that for a very long time education was a matter reserved to states and localities. On the other hand, the Constitution says nothing about education. It does not explicitly say that Congress can't spend money on education.

I don't know the full history of federal funding of education. Aside from research grants to universities, I believe Head Start and the School Lunch program were among the earliest large scale programs. Head Start was authorized in 1964. But the School Lunch program was initiated much earlier, in 1946. Federal money for school lunches for children from poor families would not, in itself, have any effect on how local schools were run, like the curriculum or teaching methods. It was not even used as a wedge to desegregate (black and white) schools.

I was on a local school board for 7 years, and I can only describe federal funding of public schools as a mixed blessing. The amount of "paperwork" involved, mostly computer work now, was staggering. The federal money was not just targeted, in the sense that it could only be spent on one type of thing (hence the paperwork to prove that). It often brought rules with it that were really unrelated to the cause for which the money was given. This included the school lunch program. Do this, don't do that, or we will take the school lunch money away.

I'm not sure how effective the federal rules are, including No Child Left Behind. Intentions, I think, were good. It just is not possible to legislate good behavior of students, parents, or teachers (or school boards, for that matter). I used to joke that my School Board should just pass a resolution that "All children in the district shall behave all the time." Like that would put an end to our discipline problems. Behave, Suzy, or we'll send you to detention at the White House Oval Office. Fail to read at grade level, and the First Lady will read with you at night when you would rather be playing video games.

I believe that, on the whole, schools would be better off if they were governed by local school boards using local (including statewide) funds. Sure, some districts would be poorly governed, but most would not, and none of them would be stuck with federal paperwork and misguided guidelines. The main problem with the all-state and local solution is that not all states and localities have healthy economies that can easily support good schools. You can see how a collapsing rust belt city, or a poor rural area, would be unable to provide good schools with local funding. Worse, anti-tax states and localities might refuse to raise taxes needed to fund good schools, even though their economies were strong enough to support the additional taxation.
Leaving this educator, on the whole, feeling that we need a more pragmatic approach to funding.

Those who believe in the wisdom of a national education system should work for an amendment to the Constitution that would give Congress the power to run or at least oversee the public schools of the entire nation, using a federal tax base. Those who want a states-only education system should try to pass an amendment to forbid the federal government from interfering with state education systems.

The rest of us should aim for excellence and hope to muddle through. Send federal money, not a complex set of rules and regulations that take up too much teacher and administration time. Increase the local tax base for public education. Focus, district by district and school by school, on what (and who) works. Some things may work in every district in America, but a lot of actions need to be district specific, school specific, even child specific. Large bureaucracies can have their beneficial moments, but they are notoriously bad at dealing with rapidly changing specific situations.

Democracies, Republics, and School Boards

When I wrote America: Republic or Democracy?, I wrote in terms of generalities, but used the federal government of the United States of America as the main example. Also when I wrote the essay (in 2002) the ultra-conservatives were not pushing so hard at their idea that America should be a republic where only a few (presumably self-selected) citizens will be allowed to vote for their representatives. I certainly did not expect that school boards would need to decide whether my essay could be used at their schools.

One great thing about school boards is that they are perfect illustrations of the fact that governance can satisfy both democratic and republican forms at the same time. The larger the proportion of the population that is allowed to vote, the more democratic the form of government. Post the collapse of discrimination against African-Americans (and Hispanic, Asian, and native Indian-American) who wanted to vote, in the 1960's, every American public school board has been subject to election by potentially all of the adult population of their respective school districts. Yet the system is not direct democracy, where every person can vote on every issue at every meeting.

The Republican form means that the actual government (at least the legislative branch) is elected, or representative. In an undemocratic republic only a select group of people are allowed to vote for the elected officials. In a democratic republic everyone can vote for the officials. At the edges of the definitions of republic and democracy there are some strange fish. For instance, if there is only one official, who is thereby basically a dictator once elected, in theory if there is a free election and everyone could vote, you could still call it a sort of democracy. On the other hand, you might have a thousand people elected to parliament or a House of Representatives, but a tiny number of voters (say the district's ten wealthiest men), and technically it would still be a republican form of government.

However, another factor is the size (mostly in population) of the school district. There is a big difference between the operation of the Point Arena, California school district where I served and the San Francisco school district, for instance. We don't have a word for it, but in my view Point Arena, precisely because of its small size, is more democratic. If even 10% of the citizens wanted to lobby a school board member for assorted changes in the curriculum in San Francisco, for instance, how much time could each person have with their elected representative? Not much. But in Point Arena it was no problem for me to take a phone call at home, or see someone out in the street, or listen to them at a board meeting. If they cared to tell me what they thought, they could tell me. If they wanted to know why the district was doing something, I could explain it to them.

There is a tendency to want to merge school districts together for administrative purposes, and I suppose that sometimes is a bit more, or even a lot more efficient. But if you want democratic control of the school board and schools, you want a small school district.

This also opens up the topic of the hierarchical structure of government in the United States. The Point Arena schools get bossed around quite a bit by the state of California and the federal government, and for the most part they are not very helpful, as far as I can tell. I can see how their bossiness might be good for the kids in a school district that had an incompetent school board, administration, and teaching staff. But bossing everyone around from Washington is like making everyone eat at McDonald's Corporation. Sure, you know what you are getting, and you won't starve, but wouldn't cooks with a little autonomy be likely to do better rather than worse?

So hurray for the Alpine School District in Utah. They censored my essay and crumbled before a crazy person who does not understand basic political theory and practice [See Republic or Democracy Essay Censored in Utah]. But to me, that is just a risk of democracy. It beats the risk of having the crazy people take over with no way to vote them out, as they did in Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, Fascist France, and General Franco's Spain.

As an added benefit I learned that they actually allow teaching evolution at Brigham Young University (see also their nematode evolution page). The Mormon Church theologians are not keen on the idea of evolution through natural selection, but the funny thing is that Joseph Smith and Charles Darwin were contemporaries and both were innovators. I wonder what Darwin would have thought of Big Love?

America: Republic or Democracy Essay Censored in Utah

Yesterday, Friday the 26th of February, suddenly a lot more people started viewing my web sites. Not a tidal wave, but about 10x my normal rate. Looking at my web statistics, I found the site that had been sending people to my sites.

It turns out my essay America: Republic or Democracy? had been linked to from the Alpine School District web site in Utah. "Educating All Students to Ensure the Future of Our Democracy," a staff member had added the link in response to parents who have been influenced by the radical right-wing view that democracy is a bad thing.

An angry parent who does not think his children are smart enough to stand being exposed to ideas other than his own attacked the district, and the controversy went to a school board meeting. Rather than summarize that second hand, I'll let you read "District Parents Parents Angry Over Radical Web Link" at the Utah Valley Daily Herald.

The angry parents, or their leader anyway, had navigated from my www.williampmeyers.org site where the essay in question is posted, to www.iiipublishing.com. As regular readers know, III Publishing began as a publisher of satire. And there is still a great deal of satire at this site. As the home page says, "This site includes a mix of serious, carefully researched factual matter, fiction, satire, and opinion, just like the major news sources." He lied to the other parents and school board (lying is a classic when the truth leans against you) saying the districts site linked directly to where I advocate "radical socialism, limiting families to two children, abortion to term, homosexuality, worshipping the sun instead of a 'dead Jesus,' saying that Mary was just an unwed pregnant teenager, and many other socialist political views." I think he must feel I advocate homosexuality because I did take a position in favor of marriage rights for gay couples, back in 2004 when that was more controversial even in California.

Since I myself served on a public school board, I know what it is like to be in a room with a potential lynch mob. Probably the board had more important things to do (like teaching kids to read, write, do math, and think critically) than spend the next year defending my essay to a lunatic who believes that Jesus rose from the dead, that God wrote the U.S. Constitution, and that democracy is a bad thing. The link had already been removed, and the Board said it had been a mistake all along. Since I am a critic of religion, they could have said (had they done some research, and been capable of critical thinking themselves) that the link violated the separation of church and state. That would have probably have put angry leader in a bit of a bind.

The story might have gotten lost, but a scientist blogger picked it up and defended me. He has a similar last name, PZ Myers, and his blog is called Pharyngula. The actual entry is I am offended! There are lots of good comments to the blog entry.

I think America: Democracy or Republic? stands up to criticism pretty well. That is why American fascists hate it. It does take a pro-democracy position, but the framework is factual. I think conservatives are correct in saying that the U.S. Constitution established an undemocratic republic. What is scary about a tiny-but-vocal minority of conservatives is that they advocate returning to a republic where only people owning substantial amounts of property (and even then not women or non-Europeans) would be allowed to vote.

There is always a danger when you use irony or write satire that you will be mistaken for the nut case, rather than the guy who is illustrating the nuttiness of other people. I accept that. Vampires or Gods? is written in the style of a serious, non-fiction book, which is why it is such a good satire.

Beware of Obama Bearing Infrastructure

Aside from keeping the Bush tax cuts for the rich, the key announced component of Obamonomics so far is heavy infrastructure spending. Given that many members of the Barack Obama economics team are Bill Clinton era globalizers and deregulators, this bears examination.

Infrastructure is a broad word. Spending on infrastructure could mean that the potholes on your street will be fixed, or you might finally get broadband Internet access. It could mean repairing old infrastructure, or building new. It is the choice of what new infrastructure is to be built that concerns me.

Infrastructure is typically roads (including bridges and railroads), sewers and utilities (including communications), and public buildings.

Infrastructure can be a make-work boondoggle, often on a Congressional district by district basis, that creates profits for a segment of the building industry but little long term public benefit. When massive amounts of money are spent, be assured the taxpayers will be buying a healthy dose of this kind of infrastructure.

Money for schools I can go for. You can't make our public schools too nice, in my opinion. They are often a long way from being close to nice.

Infrastructure can serve special interests. The developers of a new mall or housing development, for instance. It can hurt particular interests too, as when a megastore drains the economy of nearby small towns.

What most concerns me is the likelihood that a big part of any infrastructure spend will be on globalization projects, in particular the free-trade, low-wage corridors being developed under the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership) plan. This plan would drain the life blood of main street America to build up the global corporate elite. It is a really, really bad plan for the environment and for most American citizens. Promoted by the corporate elite of the United States, it also encompasses Mexico and Canada.

Are you worried about global warming and carbon emissions? Then you should be very wary of new infrastructure. One of the largest components of carbon dioxide emissions is seldom talked about: the creation of cement for concrete. This involves roasting limestone, which releases its carbon dioxide. Limestone itself, which is mostly calcium carbonate, is one of the great carbon dioxide sinks of the planet. When you are talking infrastructure, you are almost always talking substantial, even gargantuan, quantities of concrete. The SPP is particularly concrete intensive. As envisioned, it will use more concrete than any previous construction program in the U.S.

What the country and the world really need is a population program. That is, humans need to start consciously managing the size of the human population for long-term environmental sustainability. Building massive amounts of new infrastructure at this point in time, without a population program, is an exercise in economic or environmental suicide, or probably both.

So follow the infrastructure spending plan. Let your Congress know that if there is spending, you want it to benefit local economies, not international corporations.

Can the leaders of the Democratic Party serve the same corporate interests that the Republican Party serves? Yes We Can!

More data:

SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America) at Wikipedia
U. S. Government SPP Propaganda site

"Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts" - English folk saying

"Put not thy faith in any Greek" - Euripides, Iphigenia

"I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts" - Virgil, the Aeneid, Book II, line 49

Generally believe to be a reference to the story of the Trojan Horse in Homer's Iliad.

Charities of the Rich, and a Suggestion

My parents sent me to Catholic schools in Jacksonville, Florida, but I was spared the torture of Bishop Kenny High School when I won a scholarship to The Bolles School. My dad had a military pension plus his pay as a school teacher; he could afford Catholic school, but the private Bolles School would have been beyond his means without the scholarship.

Last week I received a postcard from the Bolles alumni office that reminded me of a scam of major proportions that is seldom talked about (because it is not in the interest of the rich to talk about it). This is the income tax deduction for charitable donations, which are often not really charity at all.

The postcard notified me that two different people gave $1 million donations to Bolles. For a new boat house. Seems the crew (rowing) facilities are inadequate at Bolles. The tennis courts are okay, the swimming pool is state-of the art, the parking lot for the rich kids SUVs is adequate. But the old dock on the St. Johns River is a disgrace.

Me, my mother went to school bare foot and Bolles was where I started learning about the winsome ways of the ruling class. I learned my clothing being clean and within the guidelines was not adequate. One particularly class-insensitive twit (son of a powerful man who would later sit on the Federal Reserve Board) told me a thousand dollar stereo (back then that was half a year's work at minimum wage) was an absolute necessity. I listened to music on a $7 AM radio. But hey, that was all okay, mostly people were very nice to me and I was there to learn. I learned English (funny, I thought I knew it before I arrived there), French, math, and a fair degree of science. Definitely worth the occasional insensitive ridicule.

But what I want to ask you hear is this: what really is a charitable donation? What should be considered a self-serving donation? And as public policy, what should be tax deductible?

I would submit that giving rich kids a boat house is no more charity than giving them allowances for cocaine, although it might be a better use of the money.

In fact, when it comes to private schools, getting a tax deduction means you are taking money away that could potentially be used for public schools. I ccould go along with a tax deduction for money that goes into a scholarship fund, maybe even a library if it were also open to the public.

I've heard this problem riddles the upper classes. Many prefer to give donations to private hospitals that serve the rich, while ignoring the hospitals that serve the poor. Should that rate a tax deduction?

I also have a problem with so-called educational tax deductions, right and left and middle-of the road, for groups that are really political. I'll go into that in more detail in a later blog.

I don't think that a donation to a religious group is, in itself, charitable. If you are donating to build a church, and you are going to attend the church, I don't see how that is different than building yourself a private home. To get a charitable deduction I would require that the end serve the poor: feeding, housing, healing, clothing, teaching them job skills, or otherwise helping them.

The charitable tax deduction, for the most part, is a scam, and it is a scam that the rich benefit the most from.

People should give to charity because it is the right thing to do, not to get praise and a tax deduction.

My favorite charity? Doctors Without Borders.

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