U.S. Education

I sat down to write something about the U.S. educational system and remembered that a forum discussion I had back in 2005 summed up a lot of what I wanted to say. Below is a collection of forum posts from February of 2005 with names edited for privacy reasons, just in case. I’ve also done some light editing and have not included several off-topic posts as this thread became quite the hot topic, took a few different tangents, and grew to nearly 100 posts. I’ll also note the rather cynical tone in my writing… back then I was far less savvy communicating my arguments without my anger and frustration getting in the way… you have been warned.

Subject: Sorry kids… Papa Bush’s Budget Forgot About You
Feb 7, 2005

If you’re in the U.S….

Sorry kids, but after being attacked by some people, Papa Bush decided to go kill a lot of people who had nothing to do with it and make a lot of other people angry. And, because of his little snit, we’re not going to be able to keep the schools running. You get to learn from those old dusty books, learn in a classroom with 50 kids per 1 teacher, and we won’t get around to fixing those structural problems… so let’s get used to wearing hard-hats while we learn about how we “enlightened” them evil “injuns,” how we (white folks) were all created by God, how those “darkies” whining about that myth called “slavery” just don’t remember how good they had it, how mom is supposed to take care of the house and have dinner ready when dad gets home….

[Here I had a list of racist, sexist and homophobic school books that were still in elementary and junior high school libraries. The images of these books--covers and samples of their contents--are no longer available.]

From today’s (Feb 7, 05) Washington Post:

President Bush plans to unveil a $2.5 trillion budget today eliminating dozens of politically sensitive domestic programs, including funding for education, environmental protection and business development, while proposing significant increases for the military and international spending, according to White House documents….

About 150 programs in all would be shuttered or radically cut back to help meet Bush’s goal of shaving the budget deficit in half by 2009. One out of every three of the targeted programs concerns education. Medicaid funding would be reduced significantly….

Here’s a gem:

“We are being tight,” Vice President Cheney said yesterday. “This is the tightest budget that has been submitted since we got here.”

That’s pretty funny, considering the Bush admin’s spending would cause most fiscally responsible conservatives and democrats of the days of yore to roll over in their graves. It’s like sticking a twig in the middle of a raging river and claiming that you’ve “significantly reduced the river’s water flow due to your ingenious and tireless efforts.”

But wait, it gets better. According to that lovable teddy bear, Dick Cheney:

“It’s not something we’ve done with a meat ax, nor are we suddenly turning our back on the most needy people in our society.”

and… perhaps most importantly, for those that are wondering why these numbers look so good….

The spending plan does not include future expenses of the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor does it include upfront transition costs of restructuring Social Security as Bush has proposed. The administration will submit a separate supplemental request largely for Afghanistan and Iraq operations in the current fiscal year, which will be reflected in the budget charts, officials said, but war costs in 2006 and beyond will not be. Nor will be the cost of Bush’s Social Security plan, which would begin in 2009 and result in $754 billion in additional debt over its first five years.

So let’s take a look, shall we, at just what programs are getting slashed and burned….

Here’s a quick overview for those that don’t want to read through a bunch of documents:

(check out the changes on the far right… that’s everything non-defense/non-war-related… and also note that the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not included in the 2004/2005 spending estimates… that’s why those bars are so small)

So what does that mean?

Here’s the official Office of Management and Budget documents analyses for those that do want to wade through the documents:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/pdf/spec.pdf

If you care about things like:

Mass Transit… forget it.
Education… forget it.
Pollution control… forget it.
Community Development, construction and housing assistance… forget it.
Water potability… really forget it. Despite the fact that Clinton was the bastard who started the trend of not improving the country’s water supply, Bush has continued… or rather, accelerated this trend. But who cares about water and natural resource projects anyway? Potable drinking water is for tree-hugging pussies! REAL Americans buy their water in bottles. Ah, yes… capitalism and extraordinarily useless waste at its finest.

Education:

The U.S. education system, already struggling, and in many cases, hanging on by a thread, will get a minor boost from the federal component of the grants to state/local gov’ts, but only in specific areas. These increases, however, are not sufficient to properly address any of the serious problems with U.S. schools. Furthermore, the direct federal funding of education is reduced in several areas.

Teachers will still be extremely-underpaid, classrooms will still be packed with too many students per teacher, books and resources will remain outdated, after-school programs that keep many kids safe, active and healthy will be cut (sorry single moms… you get to spend your food money on child care or you can tell your kid to grow up real fast and look after themselves), school buildings in major disrepair will go another year (at least) in that state, and things like art, music, and even gym/physical education and activity will be reduced because they aren’t “core” subjects.

Oh, but these schools are still expected to meet the revised “No Child Left Behind” standards….

For those poor bastards still unemployed… well… you won’t be getting much help from the Bush administration unless you somehow come up with the money to put yourself back into school… which should be no problem, even though you’ve been unemployed for months (or over a year, possibly). Yup, those vocational and training programs really come in handy for the folks that need ‘em the most.

And then there are the programs like the ones that fund my wife’s job… that are apparently nearly useless to the Bush administration. Things like: domestic violence and homeless shelters. Sorry ladies… but if your husband beats you, it seems Bush would rather give you an incentive to get and/or stay married to the cocksucker than fund a safe-haven for you and your kids. So, buck up, ladies… wipe that blood from your face, the tears from your eyes, and get back to work. And you better make sure you don’t piss off your man, because there will be little chance of you finding a safe place to stay if you decide to stick up for yourself and leave.

But hey… we’ll be installing a real government in Iraq soon and that’ll make it all worthwhile… right?

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m wrote:
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A very strong message Goliathvt.
To be fair, your essay is only pointing out the negative portions of the Bush administration’s policies.
But as an average American taxpayer ( combined income less than $80,000) I cannot find examples that come to mind of anything positive it has done for us.

Never mind how he got reelected, but what’s worse is how as a people we allow the richest, most privileged and isolated one percent of our society to incompetently and maliciously govern the rest of us without restraint.

I’m not optimistic but perhaps the only good that can come of this bitter experience is that the other 99% wake up and decide we deserve a lot better that this.

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p replied:
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goliathvt wrote:

Teachers will still be extremely-underpaid, classrooms will still be packed with too many students per teacher, books and resources will remain outdated, after-school programs that keep many kids safe, active and healthy will be cut (sorry single moms… you get to spend your food money on child care or you can tell your kid to grow up real fast and look after themselves), school buildings in major disrepair will go another year (at least) in that state, and things like art, music, and even gym/physical education and activity will be reduced because they aren’t “core” subjects.

LOL! nice summary of our education system.

spending more money isn’t what our education system needs. we spend more money every year on education (at the local, state and federal level) and it gets worse, not better. we spend WAY too much on education. i’d like to see the education budget cut by half. thats right, by half!

what we spend now is simply to support the teacher’s union which has a strangle hold on the whole system. they don’t care about education. they only care about more funds, more control and more power.

money WILL NOT solve the problem. nor will class size. nor will new books. nor will new schools. class size, HA! this has nothing to do with a good education. this is a myth supported by the teacher’s union because smaller class size means more teachers which means more money for them. this is so obvious it hurts my head.

you want a good education? all you need is a piece of chalk, a black board and properly motivated teacher and system. right now the system is broken. what do you need to do to get more funding? do a poor job teaching our kids and the federal government will throw money at you with a blind eye hoping it will get better. what a joke.

Oh, but these schools are still expected to meet the revised “No Child Left Behind” standards…

damn right!

Sorry ladies… but if your husband beats you, it seems Bush would rather give you an incentive to get and/or stay married to the cocksucker than fund a safe-haven for you and your kids. So, buck up, ladies… wipe that blood from your face, the tears from your eyes, and get back to work. And you better make sure you don’t piss off your man, because there will be little chance of you finding a safe place to stay if you decide to stick up for yourself and leave.

give me a break. this is SOOOOOO typical of liberals. they try to demonize republicans and make you feel guilty by generating a strong emotional response to every political situation.

the federal government should NOT be so involved in our lives. it was never intended to do so and this country would be better off if it got out of my business and yours.

why on earth should the federal government be involved with spouse abuse? seriously, why? the federal government!?!?! it makes no sense to me when this problem could be addressed locally and privately. if you care about this problem, then start your own nonprofit foundation with private and donated funds. or better yet, dontate some money to a local shelter. your money will be better spent and the help will get to where its needed most.

when the government gets involved, you might as well flush 50 cents for every dollar down the toilette!!!!

this is all socialism nonsense. it doesn’t work. it never has worked and it never will work.

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My reply:
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p wrote:
You want a good education? All you need is a piece of chalk, a black board and properly motivated teacher and system.

I totally agree. It’s a shame that in the U.S. we don’t pay teachers even half what would be considered “decent wages,” so the brightest and most talented minds tend to work in other fields instead of lending their knowledge and experience towards teaching the next generation. I mean… how motivated is a teacher supposed to be if their school can’t even afford chalk, let alone a chalkboard. If they’re spending half of their time trying to parent 30, 40 or yes, in some places, 50 kids every day… and the rest of their time worrying about how to scrape by on their shitty salary, what incentives do they have to be effective teachers? And notice that I said “parent” instead of “teach” because that’s often times what teachers are reduced to since, in many families these days, both parents are working so much they don’t have time to do it themselves.

Does anyone else notice a slight flaw in the system?

And how can you say schools don’t need more money? When was the last time you walked through the halls of a rural or urban school? Have you ever been in a school with a rat problem? Ever try to study when fuzzy things are scurrying about the room? Or have you visited a school with holes in the wall, ceiling tiles falling down, etc.? Or maybe you should stroll through a school that has a library stocked with books like the ones in the first post. I’m not sure how you are supposed to fix those problems without proper funding. I’ll completely agree that the funding is not being spent well and needs to be reorganized… but cutting any school’s budget arbitrarily without even understanding the problems they’re facing or posing an alternative way to fix them is really not a good idea.

In my view, given that we’re stricken with this retarded capitalist society, one answer is to make teaching jobs truly competitive. That is, pay teachers the same kinds of salaries that other valued professions make. After all, teachers are the few people whose efforts personally impact much of our youth. Our ability to create, imagine and progress as a species is directly related to whether or not we’re able to confront new challenges with fresh ways of thinking… and you don’t get a lot of those types of opportunities in the kind of society in which we’re currently living, let alone within our current school system.

No, instead, in this back-asswards society of ours, we pay teachers utter crap and then wonder why our system sucks, why it’s so “broken,” and why schools are scrounging around the professional “bargain bin” in order to keep a teaching position full. And even then, we wonder why students and teachers can’t meet the requirements of some stupid misguided program like “No Child Left Behind”. While throwing more money into the school system won’t solve any problems directly, if re-distributed and spent carefuly, funding can certainly be used to alleviate or eliminate a number of the severe problems schools are currently facing.

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p replied:
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goliathvt wrote:
And notice that I said “parent” instead of “teach” because that’s often times what teachers are reduced to since, in many families these days, both parents are working so much they don’t have time to do it themselves.

that’s another problem all together. parents should be more involved…

Quote:
And how can you say schools don’t need more money? When was the last time you walked through the halls of a rural or urban school? Have you ever been in a school with a rat problem? Ever try to study when fuzzy things are scurrying about the room? Or have you visited a school with holes in the wall, ceiling tiles falling down, etc.?

because not every school is like this. with these conditions, you are probably talking about 2% of all the schools. in my city alone (population of 100,000), we have built or remodeled every highschool at the cost of millions of dollars.

because very we spend more money on education every single year. there has not been a single year in which the amount of funds has gone down. and yet the problem gets worse every year. the amount of monsey spent is not the problem! its HOW its spent…

Quote:
In my view, given that we’re stricken with this retarded capitalist society, one answer is to make teaching jobs truly competitive. That is, pay teachers the same kinds of salaries that other valued professions make.

then make it performance based. if the quality of education goes up, the teacher’s salary also goes up. simple, no?

and one more thing. education has been a problem for at least generation. why do you feel the need to lay blame on bush?

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My reply:
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I never said Bush was at fault for the problems with our educational system…. What I did say, more or less, was that Bush’s budget won’t help the situation.

p wrote:
that’s another problem all together. parents should be more involved…

And how are parents supposed to be more involved when both of them have to work full-time jobs just to put food on the table? Unlike my grandfather’s generation, where a single job might be enough to raise a family, we’re living in very different times that totally undermine the entire family system. I’ve never figured that one out… conservatives (and democratic leaders) are always whining about “family values,” yet their economic policies totally undermine the whole notion of a “family.”

Regardless, your suggestion, while a good one that I might otherwise agree with, makes no sense given the realities of our forced-work-a-holic society.

pbmax wrote:
because not every school is like this. with these conditions, you are probably talking about 2% of all the schools.

Source?

pbmax wrote:
the amount of money spent is not the problem! its HOW its spent…

I agree with you on this… again. And, again, I ask: how are schools that are totally dilapidated supposed to measure up to things like “No Child Left Behind” when they can’t even keep their building from disrepair? That kind of arbitrary standard-setting makes no sense and is just a complete waste of money.

pbmax wrote:
then make it performance based. if the quality of education goes up, the teacher’s salary also goes up. simple, no?

No, it’s not that simple, and you have it completely backwards, I’m sorry to say. Again, why would any sane teacher worth his or her salt want to stay and teach at a school making thousands of dollars less per year than if they worked elsewhere? Anyone who would be capable of the kinds of quality and performance you’re talking about aren’t going to give teaching any real consideration because they won’t be paid worth a damn. So… what’s the incentive to perform?

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r wrote:
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Here in Florida, they make the kids take this school assessment test. You know what happens when a school fails? They take teachers from an A school and send them to the failing school.

Sounds good but you know what happens? The A school drops a grade or two the next year. It’s similar to the whole robin hood “take from the rich and give to the poor” only it’s teachers as opposed to gold that is the commodity here.

Now what you do when you have a problem like this is you don’t take away from the “rich” and give to the “poor”. You try and shift the whole scale.

See, people generally come in two flavors and it doesn’t matter what you try it’s always going to be that way. They are either smart, dumb or somewhere in between.

Nobody is born that way. They just kind of grow into it. It could be their parents, it could be their friends, whatever.

What we don’t want to do is take from the smart and give to the dumb because if we do that we’ll end up with a bunch of average joes. People who are too smart to bag your groceries but not quite smart enough to launch satellites into space.

In other words, we’ve got two glasses of milk. One is chocolate and the other is white. Now if we want two glasses of chocolate milk we don’t mix both glasses together, instead we take the white milk and add some syrup to it.

Now I don’t work for a school board so I can’t speak for how money is being spent but I do know this…

I went to a middle school where the pillars in the cafeteria were made from 4 sheets of plywood and the inside was filled with the carcasses of a couple million roaches. The desks had writing carved into them so deep you had to do your work on top of a book so you didn’t punch through the paper with your pencil. At the beginning of the year when you had to go buy school supplies we had to buy chalk for the blackboard.

Of course, that was just the middle school that I attended. Things weren’t anywhere near as bad at the high school I attended.

In the four years I spent in high school, I watched a new football stadium, library, science building, and computer science building get built. I seen the entire campus get a fresh coat of paint every year. I can’t remember seeing a single roach or piece of battered equipment and I didn’t need to buy the school supplies.

In either case none of that was the fault of teachers. Infact, I’d have to say that it probably had something to do with the fact that the high school I went to was in a rich part of town and the only reason I got to go there was because my dad was the janitor.

I don’t think the problem was that one school was getting too much money. No, I think the problem is that the other school wasn’t getting enough.

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p wrote:
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here’s an idea…
bust up the teacher’s union.

@goliath: this “two income families” stuff is bs. families in the u.s. can get by fine on one income. its about priorities. families put more emphasis on material items than what is really important. how many of these “two income families” have 3 cars? a boat? a 3,000 square foot home? an rv? 5 tv’s? 5 dvd players? 3 xbox’s? daycare?

families can get buy on one income. my family is doing it now so my wife can stay home with the kids. we have to make a lot of sacrifices, but we are making it work. people don’t need two incomes to survive in america…

My reply:
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p wrote:
@goliath: this “two income families” stuff is bs. families in the u.s. can get by fine on one income. its about priorities. families put more emphasis on material items than what is really important. how many of these “two income families” have 3 cars? a boat? a 3,000 square foot home? an rv? 5 tv’s? 5 dvd players? 3 xbox’s? daycare?

What kind of fantasy land are you living in? Maybe you’ve never had a chance to walk around a poor community, but folks there are a bit more worried about being able to buy food and fix holes in their ceilings than buy things like DVD players or whatever. You obviously have no idea what life is like for a very large section of our country’s population.

Personally, I’ve been very privileged. Sure, there were times when I was growing up when it was mac-n-cheese and hot dogs 4 nights in a row because that’s what we could afford…. But all-in-all, I’ve been fairly well off my whole life. I mean, not that it’s any of your business, but my parents made the (foolish) decision to live in one of the nicest, most expensive parts of Virginia… Arlington). I suppose they did it for some sort of status symbol or maybe b/c my dad was working for the State Department… who knows. But, what I do know was that my mom struggled on her single income to keep things together after my dad split. She sacrificed a whole lot to make sure that my brother and I had access to some of the best public schools in the nation, and some of the best resources in the state.

But, just because I had that privileged upbringing doesn’t mean I should assume that my experience is the same as everyone else’s… I shouldn’t be blind to everyone else’s struggles. And, after traveling around a bit and talking with folks here and there, the consistent picture I get is that I had it extremely good. Like I said, most people are just making it… no DVD players, no boats, no 5 TVs or multiple cars in the driveway. That’s a dreamworld for most and a reality for just a few.

p wrote:
families can get by on one income.

No, privileged families can get by one one income. And yes, it takes a lot of sacrifices, and I’m glad you’re able to do it. When my wife and I get around to having kids, I hope we’re able to do it, too. But you have to understand that most families wouldn’t be able to do it. Think about it… how is someone… let’s say a single mom, with two really nice (compared to many, at least) part-time jobs @ 20 hours a week (20 x 2) making $6.80 at one job and $7.00 at another supposed to raise a family?

Their gross pay would be $552 per week, roughly $2,373.60 per month. That’s about $28,483 per year. Let’s say she lives in Virginia. Take out state and federal taxes, she’d be left with about $22,573 per year. Now, let’s say she’s got two kids… so add back in the child credit stuff… so that’s $24,173. Per month, that’s a $2,014 net pay. Let’s say per year, clothes cost $200 for both kids… the average in 2001 was more like twice that per child, but we’re on a budget, so we shop thrift store style. So that brings our total gross monthly down to $1,997.

Let’s spend it…

Her income, combined with the often-delinquent child support from the father, is high enough that she doesn’t qualify for food stamps or other assistance.

Also, since she works 2 part-time jobs, she has no benefits whatsoever.

The mom and her kids need health insurance… and one of her kids has chronic asthema problems, so the family needs decent insurance due to the high volume of meds (and ER visits if they can’t afford the meds and an emergency occurs) and Anthem is the only provider that was willing to approve the family due to past family history medical issues, so that’s a $222 premium paid per month.

Rent is roughly $580 per month for a small 2-bedroom apartment.

Her apartment only pays for water, all other utilities are out of pocket… and she has electric heat, so subtract about $250 per month for heat, power, and other utilities (conservative estimate).

She can’t afford a cell phone, but her home land-line is not used frequently and she doesn’t have a long-distance plan, so she only pays about $25/month for her phone service.

There’s no public/mass transit in the area and no one has similar shifts at her work for a carpool, so mom has to have a car to get to and from each job… both jobs are 10 and 25 minute drives from her home, and while she can only afford an old piece of shit that is thankfully paid for, it gets decent gas mileage, so that’s $30/week spent on gas, or $129/month (very conservative estimate).

Okay, at this point, mom has a job, a way to get there, and a roof over her and her kids’ heads… and she’s able to put clothes on the kids. The subtotal is:

$1997 – $1,206 = $791 per month.

But… she still has no clothes for herself, no food and she hasn’t accounted for any incidentals. Also, the kids aren’t old enough to go to school yet, so they must be cared for during the day while she’s working….

The average cost of child day care in the area is $5,000 per year per child, so that’s more than $400 per month, and $800 for two kids per month.

Let’s say mom shops around and finds a crappy service and only has to pay $300 per month per kid. Subtract $600. But she works out a deal with a local babysitter, so she only has to leave the kids at the more expensive day-care 3 out of 5 days a week. So the total cost is only $500 per month.

Now we’re down to $291 to cover the cost of food, groceries, and incidentals.

Food for a family of three… if you’re buying the cheapest shit out there and cooking every night, just might cost $291… but you’d have to be pretty creative.

Buying things like toilet paper, diapers, and other “luxury” items like laundry detergent (let alone having money to run the machines) would be a fucking privilege.

God help her if her car breaks down or if the kids get sick.

So… as you can see, there are no 5 DVD players… no 3 cars, no 5 TVs (and no cable costs), no computers, no xboxes, and she sure as hell doesn’t live in a 3,000 square-foot home. She does happen to pay for daycare… but only because she has to do so. Forget about eating out periodically at a restaurant. Forget about taking a day off from work, even when she or her kids are terribly sick. She can’t afford it. Hell, she can’t even afford to wipe her own ass.

You know, perhaps you should actually think about other people’s experiences instead of your privileged, pampered, sniveling, whiny, me-me-me existence, p, and stop assuming everyone has it as good as you. Most don’t.

x replied:
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you never fail to amaze me with your ignorance, goliathvt…

My reply:
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Yes, x, and your contributions are always teeming with sources and facts to back up your views, so, clearly, I must be ignorant and horribly mistaken.

p replies:
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goliath, when we are debating large and complex issues like this, facts can be become so insignificant that they are rendered almost meaningless.

how can i be sure YOUR facts are true, correct and accurate. your backups are nothing but links to lengthy articles written from a leftist view point. that’s not going to change my mind. or you throw out a number with no context such as a number in bush’s budget proposal. that budget proposal is at least 500 pages long. a few hand selected “facts and figures” from a federal spending proposal means nothing to me. so bush wants to cut a social program. big deal. i’m sure there are spending increases in there that would surprise you as well. or i can just as easily pull out of my ass some economic numbers that make bush look like the greatest president ever.

i’d much rather deal with ideas and philosophies than get bogged down with fact checking. anyone can throw facts and numbers around…

My reply:
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I get your point, and agree that sometimes, especially with statistics, throwing numbers around isn’t helpful. But in this case, I think looking at the actual budget plans is really important if you want to have a meaningful discussion.

You’re right…. you have no way of knowing if my facts are “true”… unless you look stuff up for yourself. I’ve said it over and over again…. I hope you don’t believe my facts, and instead investigate these things on your own, and then make your own decisions. I’ve already offered some suggestions on how to go about doing that elsewhere, so I won’t repeat it here.

Now, as far as tossing out liberal sources and what-not… I usually don’t have all of the book references (liberal and conservative) at hand that I might otherwise use to back up my arguments because I don’t buy every book I read, for one, and sometimes I just don’t remember stuff. Also, I’m a geek, and therefore an internet junkie, so I tend to use the web as my library. Regardless, a lot of times my sources are from things like the New York Times or Washington Post… and while you personally have said that you think of those establishments as “liberal rags” (forgive me if I’ve misquoted), most of the rest of the world does not. Not that it really matters, but I source Fox News from time to time… but, as with any resource, I only do so if what it says meshes with what has been reported in a bunch of other places (again, accounting for both liberal and conservative sources, within and outside the U.S.).

Also note that I’ve sourced declassified government documents whenever I remember to do so… which, surely you can’t label as liberal or conservative… I mean, these things aren’t written with “public opinion” in mind. Why do I do that? Well, usually it’s to demonstrate that those crazy “liberal rags” I keep citing are generally correct with respect to facts and the historical record… hopefully giving people something to think about when considering which news sources should be considered trustworthy and/or useful.

So, while I agree somewhat with your point of view, I would much rather you take the time to offer me a counter-argument instead of just dismissing what I have to say simply because it doesn’t correspond to what you read on some blog on WorldNetDaily, FreeReplubic or whatever. If you truly believe something, then you should be able to defend it. Hell, I’m fine if you defend your beliefs with a blog… but just know it’ll be easy to debunk your source if you do. If you can’t or don’t want to, then you don’t have to participate. It’s that simple.

Of course, I can’t tell you what to do… and in most cases, I probably don’t care what you do… but if you intend on having a discussion, it might be useful to let me know what you think and why you think it.

x replies:
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if you’re in the situation where you need to support a family you seriously need to re-evaluate your employment. for one, if youre working at a burger joint to suppport a family your already setting yourself up for failure. get a real job. learn a trade. oh wait, i forgot thats the problem isnt it? we want a world where you can slack your ass off through life and live on minimum wage. floppin burgers for a living is an excuse for lazyness IMO.

if you cant support your family cause youre floppin burgers you NEED to get a better job, no excuses. you know how many people i know from highschool that are dirt fuckin poor and living on the streets now because they decided working at Publix was a good career path. all those grocery baggers from high school made NO attempt at making themselves employable. they chose the lazy-ass route and didnt make any career plans whatsoever as do many other people. why should i care that you’re struggling when you’re making no effort to improve the situation by working at Burger King. either you get a dead end minimum wage job that will never provide you with your needs or you find an equally low paying job with the possibility of advancement and training that will get you better jobs in the future. think hard about that before you say that im joking.

My reply:
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x, you’re extremely classist and really outside any notion of reality.

You make two assumptions:

1) That anyone who tries hard enough can improve themselves and/or get a better job.

if your only working 40hrs a week and you dont have a place to live you not exactly trying hard enough. some people are putting in over 60-70 hours between two jobs just to make ends meet.

2) And, anyone who didn’t “make it,” simply didn’t care or didn’t try.

all those grocery baggers from high school made NO attempt at making themselves employable

These assumptions are completely worthless because they “might” be true 0.00000001% of the time. That is, most people will continue to struggle to improve their lot in life (if it’s possible) until they are comfortable.

However, the barriers to improvement and success in this country aren’t typically linked to one’s ability or effort, but instead, linked to the availability of jobs, the ability for someone to obtain the proper training and/or education required for a position, social barriers, and the degree of freedom that a person has to re-work his or her life to fit a new career if the one they’re in blows goat nuts.

Putting these things into context:

A lot of places just aren’t hiring. The only reasons why the unemployment numbers look even halfway decent in this country is because people’s unemployed benefits have RUN OUT and therefore, a lot of jobless folks don’t even get counted towards our nation’s unemployment rate. Every single month, I read in the Wall St. Journal about how job estimates were way off, and the actual job increases, while positive, where hardly what was expected.

A lot of people don’t have access to decent schools, which means meeting the fundamental education requirements for many jobs is impossible. Not only is it difficult to go back to school later in life if a person’s situation improves, but it’s also really expensive… yet another barrier to “pulling one’s self up by the bootstraps.” Furthermore, a lot of cultural pressure enters into the picture… especially for women… concerning their education and/or career path. While we all like to think everything is equal and all that BS, the reality is a bit different. For example, in rural areas, girls going to college is still pretty frowned upon by some families because they still think that women, while it’s okay to learn stuff, it’s only to a point. That is, a woman’s education shouldn’t interfere with her ability to churn out and raise kids. After living in Blacksburg, VA for a few years and getting to know some of the locals, I was amazed at how prevalent these lines of thinking have remained. Or, let’s say you’re a young kid in an urban situation. If you’re in a single-parent home, often times you become the “second parent,” meaning that you pass up opportunities to further education and/or improve your chances of making a decent living in order to help out at home and take care of your siblings.

Also, you have to understand that, even with stuff like “Equal Opportunity Employers” and Affirmative Action, a lot of jobs are still acquired through the Good Ol’ Boy network. Meaning, it’s not “what you know,” it’s “who you know” that helps you get a decent job. Well, it’s probably more of a mixture of the two, but the latter is a huge factor. I can tell you from personal experience that my first “real job” was obtained because I happened to be friends with someone who worked in a field in which I was interested in working. It helped that I had the skills to back up my desires for the job, but I never would have gotten the interview without knowing the right people. Now, think about it: How is Juan Ganzalez, a genious in business management in all of his classes… straight-A student and all that… going to run into Mr. Smith, the CEO at ACME Corp.? Unless Juan knows Mr. Smith’s son or a friend of a friend, Juan’s gonna have to get lucky at a college career scouting period or he’ll have to post his resume on a job search service and hope for the best. “Hitting the pavement” or banging on doors to let people know you’re looking for that kind of job won’t cut it. And, the reality is, Mr. Smith’s company tends to hire from “within the family…” and sure, it works out well… the friends and family members are skilled, productive and successful… but what does that mean for Juan’s chances? In other words, Juan has a better chance of getting a job with Mr. Smith’s company if he focused less on improving his resume and knowledge and instead spent more time trying to become friends with someone from Mr. Smith’s corporate family.

If you need some real-world examples, just take a look at the Bush administration. Have you bothered to see how many of the administration’s members are friends of Bush from his college days or are former business associates? Have you bothered to see if those people have any qualifications for the jobs they currently hold? A lot of them don’t even come close to being qualified.

Extending this example… I’m guessing you’re white and you’ve never had to walk into a classroom or an interview where everyone else in the room isn’t your color. While I can’t say I have either, since I’m white, I’ve been told that it’s fairly uncomfortable at best, and extremely frustrating at worst.

Okay, so let’s assume that Juan here gets the job, despite these barriers. Let’s talk about advancement. Now, where does a lot of corporate business really take place? On the golf course, of course. Or maybe the hunting range… or some such place. In other words, places that tend to be pricey and exclusive. And how much does it cost to gain entry to those kinds of places? How many people of color have you seen participating in those kinds of activities? Ever?

A quick personal note: Once a friend and I tried a small social experiment. We crashed an “exclusive” golf club, just to see what would happen. I was able to walk in, dressed like the teenage geek that I was, and, while I got a few dirty looks for my attire, I wasn’t stopped. I walked up to the lobby info desk or whatever the hell it was and chatted up a conversation with the person working there. My friend, who was the wrong color, walked in, dressed a lot more professionally than me, and was immediately stopped before he even reached the same info desk.

So… yeah, I’m well aware that not all clubs are as racist as this place, but many “exclusive clubs” remain deeply so. Furthermore, just think about how much it costs to join those kinds of things… which means they’re prohibitive to lower classes as well.

And finally, if you’ve ever moved homes… and I don’t mean “your parents moved and you went with them, as a kid,” I mean, you, then you can probably remember what a pain in the ass it was to uproot, afford everything that goes along with the move, sell off the old place, and then re-settle elsewhere. Well, for people that are barely living paycheck to paycheck, the idea of uprooting and/or moving is pretty much unthinkable. For them, there would be no way to even dream of paying the costs to do so, and it would be economic suicide to attempt it, because if they failed or something went wrong, they would lose what little they currently have.

These are a few of some fairly common barriers that people face when making career choices. Of course, I’m not saying that everyone’s life is like this, but surely you can see how, through no fault or poor choice of their own, a fair number of people are tossed into all kinds of situations in which their career opportunities will be limited to one degree or another.

Now… I’m guessing by your attitude that you’ve never really had to struggle economically… good for you. However, maybe you should not make assumptions that everyone else has had the same luck. And, if you’re the kind of guy who has gone from “rags to riches,” that’s great, too. But perhaps you should keep in mind that you didn’t do it all on your own. If you think you have, you’re lying to yourself, or you are just too blind to see all of the people and social structures that helped you along the way. So, if that’s the case, again, please don’t make assumptions about everyone else’s opportunities and life choices… because you’re really, really wrong on the matter.

x replied:
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there are plenty of people out there who simply dont want to make an effort towards bettering their lives. i know people who sit at home on wellfare because they’d rather sit at home and collect a check. my statements are direct at those who can improve but simply refuse to.

My reply:
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Thank you for proving my point. I don’t care if you personally know a bunch of lazy people. That’s fine… but you’re talking about a very small portion of the population… namely, the lazy people you know… so you shouldn’t say things like this:

if you’re in the situation where you need to support a family you seriously need to re-evaluate your employment. for one, if youre working at a burger joint to suppport a family your already setting yourself up for failiure. get a real job. learn a trade. oh wait, i forgot thats the problem isnt it? we want a world where you can slack your ass off through life and live on minimum wage. floppin burgers for a living is an excuse for lazyness IMO.

and speak about them as if they were widespread problems. Since you were responding to my comments about the economy and budget and [other] comment[s] about minimum wage, and made no distinctions between anyone working low-paying jobs, I (and everyone else here) can only guess that you meant everyone. And, given your other comments on the matter, it seems you most likely did mean everyone.

But, once again…

your experience

isn’t

everyone else’s experience.

If you don’t know and haven’t bothered to find out, don’t guess. It’s that simple.