What 'Critical Theory' Is Actually All About

 

This is a copy of an essay which appeared in the Perspective Section of the Oct. 23 Sunday Edition of the Tampa Bay Times.

https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/10/20/what-critical-theory-is-actually-all-about-column/

 

What ‘Critical Theory’ Is Actually All About 

It is a method of seeking answers when the purported solution is actually part of the problem

Edward Renner, PhD

And

LaSonya Moore, EdD

“Critical theory” is a straightforward but important area of study that is often misunderstood and maligned. And yet, it’s pretty simple: It studies how reforms are necessary when a government agency or function (the courts or criminal justice process and the like), or an academic discipline (for example, law or history) contribute in major ways to the very problem that they are intended to solve.

 

Here’s an example. Critical law theory emerged as a specific sub-field more than 50 years ago in the United States when feminist scholars documented how women who reported their rape to the police were further victimized by the legal process. The result was revisions to the criminal code to eliminate those barriers and to create a new understanding of “sexual assault.” In short, the goal was to prosecute the perpetrator and not blame or further traumatize the victim. Nothing controversial in that.

Currently, the discipline of history is questioning whether commonly accepted accounts of the past may actually be contributing to the persistence of racism, requiring reconsideration from the perspective of the present. Designating lynching locations in the south as National Historical Sites is an example of re-focusing that history.

When the specific focus of critical theory is about racial issues, it is a sub-area of study known as “critical race theory,” whether it is about a civic process, such as how the justice system functions, or within the structure of academic disciplines such as history. Simply put, racism is structural, not just personal.

Many states, including Florida, have passed laws restricting the teaching of critical race theory in their colleges and universities. The legislative purpose of these laws is to restrict the teaching of critical race theory and other topics that lawmakers have labeled as “divisive concepts.” When Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the “Stop Woke” Act, he had his picture taken behind a sign that read “Freedom From Indoctrination.”

But “critical theory” — whether it’s critical law theory or critical race theory or something else — isn’t intended to indoctrinate. It simply investigates why systems fail at the very problem they’re supposed to solve.

For example, in the United States today, one of the most prominent racial areas of national concern is the large number of failing, largely minority, urban schools. The Pinellas County school system provides a classic case study of such failing schools resulting in discipline and achievement gaps between Black and white students.

In 2015 the Tampa Bay Times identified five elementary schools in predominately Black neighborhoods of St. Petersburg that went from successful, partially desegregated schools in 2006, to racially segregated, failing schools a decade later. As a result of their investigative reporting, Pinellas County schools undertook a 10-year, wide-ranging reform effort called “Bridging the Gap.” While the outcome assessments are ongoing, the annual reports have been positive.

How does critical race theory help to study this problem? From the perspective of critical race theory, a common misperception of our schools is that there is a hierarchically organized set of independent elements that proceed in a circular sequential order: A causes B, B causes C, and C causes A. For example:

When students do not behave, teachers cannot teach. When teachers cannot teach students do not learn. When students do not learn, the schools fail. When schools fail students do not behave.

When a school system becomes segregated — as in urban, largely minority, failing public schools, illustrated by the five Pinellas schools — then these vicious circles are about minority students and their parents, and the situation becomes a racial issue. In this case, the behavior and achievement of the Black students becomes the focus of attention.

However, vicious circles have neither definite starting nor end points. One starting point focuses on the students and their parents, and implicitly blames them. A second starting point implicitly blames the teachers. And a third implicitly blames the schools.

When none of the three are prepared to accept responsibility for the failure of the other two, no solution is obvious, and the problem appears intractable.

How to break the circle? That is the problem to be solved. Should we train the teachers in classroom management or give them diversity training? Should we discipline or use positive behavioral modification procedures with the students? Should we modify institutional and situational factors that result in largely minority schools? Which of the elements is broken and who should be held responsible to break the chain?

Critical race theory provides an alternative perspective on how to approach these issues. Specifically, that the success of any school is a function of the teacher/student relationship, that the success of the teacher is a function of the school/student relationship, and that the success of the student is a function of the school/teacher relationship.

Simply put, no one of the three sets of relationships can succeed without the other two sets of relationships also being successful. Each is dependent on the other two. They are interactive and not organized hierarchically. They are simultaneous, not sequential.

To empirically evaluate the critical race theory perspective, we have used three public databases for the 2013-14 academic year (the semi-annual Civil Rights Data Collection series, the Pinellas County Schools’ website, and the Florida Department of Education accountability reports). This is the last set of public data before the investigative reporting by Tampa Bay Times resulted in the reform efforts now in progress by the Pinellas School District.

In these five schools, from 2006 through 2015, the level of segregation increased from 51% to 80% Black, and the schools declined from a state-issued letter grade of B- to F. Teachers had transferred out of the schools, or resigned from the system, resulting in new, inexperienced teachers at the beginning of each school year.

 By 2015, 59.9% of the students failed to meet grade-level academic standards, and the schools received a failing grade of F. When students did not learn, there was lack of parental support; only 11.1% of the teachers felt they received positive parental support. When there was a lack of parental support, there was a high rate of teacher turnover, resulting in 45% of new, inexperienced teachers. Schools with new, inexperienced teachers had more classroom management problems, resulting in 390 formal disciplinary actions. When classroom management was an issue, only 14.4% of the students were seen as well behaved. When students misbehaved, there were many referrals (2,165) for staff and administrative support. When there was no school history of administrative support, only 57.2% of the teachers looked forward to coming to school each day. When teachers did not want to come to work, morale was low, with only 44% reporting positive morale. Schools with low morale had a failing grade of F. In failing schools, only 8.3% of the teachers felt parents were involved.

Three sets of dysfunctional relationships. Every negative element made every other element worse. It was a vicious circle, spiraling downward ever faster.

For the comparison, we selected five of the most successful elementary schools, which had remained integrated over the same period, 2006 through 2015, but had a stable white majority (70% to 66%).

In these schools, 84.8% of the students met high academic standards, and the schools received a Grade of A. When students learned, 100% of the teachers experienced strong positive parental support. When there was parental support, there was a low rate of teacher turnover with only 5% of new, inexperienced teachers. Schools with experienced teachers had no serious problems which resulted in formal disciplinary actions. When classroom management was not an issue, 100% of the teachers felt their students were well behaved. When students were well behaved, there were only 8 referrals requiring staff and administrative support. In the schools with a history of a stable experienced staff working together as a team, 96.8% of the teachers looked forward to coming to school each day. When teachers wanted to come to work 86% reported having positive morale. Schools with high morale were successful (earning the schools an A grade). In the successful schools, 100% of the teachers felt the parents were involved.

At the end of this successful continuum, there was a clear, positive, mutually reinforcing climate. Happy teachers, with cooperative students and parents, had a high-performing school. A school with happy and stable staff had manageable classrooms. And a successful school with cooperative parents had stable and happy teachers.

Traditionally, educational research has focused separately on schools (for example, comparative achievement, quality of facilities), teachers (for example, retention rates, credentials, personal characteristics) and students (for example, preparedness, achievement gap, head start) as if they were independent issues, each with their own independent solutions.

From the perspective of critical race theory, one cannot blame the teachers, the students, or the failing schools themselves. None alone can fix the problem. Instead, one must blame the process that binds the three together in a specific way, at a specific time and place, as illustrated by our case study of 10 elementary schools in Pinellas County.

Critical race theory is the necessary perspective for informing “Bridging the Gap” of its specific obligations to the five failing schools in Pinellas County. It is a well-established area of scholarship that identifies how the specific issues at a particular time and place are actually contributing to the problems for which they are the intended solution. In no way is this being “woke,” as critics would dismissively claim.

A broader and more sophisticated understanding of both our physical and social worlds is the engine of change we recognize as human progress. Change always has been and always will be disruptive to someone’s comfort level. Clearly, this has been the case for critical race theory with some elected officials who would prefer not to have their current political agendas disrupted in this way.

We did not need to be “protected” from knowing about five failing schools in St. Petersburg or the location of historical lynching sites in Florida. A healthy and thriving democracy depends on this type of uncensored scholarship. It is something that needs to be cherished, supported, and protected.

 Critical race theory is not an indoctrination of individuals, it is the foundation for creating improvements and lasting change toward eliminating racism in the United States. It is the political censorship of critical race theory that is a dangerous form of indoctrination.

Edward Renner is a retired University Professor who has been a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois. He has served as an Adjunct instructor at the University of South Florida. LaSonya Moore is an assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg.

 

The Long Term Financial Impact of COVID 19

 The rationale for the early opening of the country was economic: Our national economy could not afford to stay locked down. The actual truth is the exact opposite: Our national economy could not afford to open early.

Edward Renner

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the US in 2019 was 21.747 trillion dollars. It was projected to grow by 2.2% in 2020 to 22.2 trillion dollars. That was before the economic impact of COVID 19 and the “stay at home” orders issued in March and April.

What Happened Then?

By the end of the second quarter of 2020 (June) the GDP has fallen to 19.408 trillion dollars, a direct loss of 2.4 trillion dollars to the economy, as officially compiled quarterly by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the US Government.

To put these numbers in perspective, the total budget for the Federal Government for the 2019-2020 fiscal year was about 4 trillion dollars. The expected revenue was about 3 trillion dollars, resulting in an anticipated deficit of about 1 trillion dollars to be added to the national debt.

The actual dollar costs of COVID to date can be estimated by adding the 3 trillion dollars stimulus to the 2.4 trillion reduction to the GDP, for a total economic cost of 5.4 trillion dollars from January to the end of June 2020.

What cannot be determined is the cost of each of the components of COVID 19 and the economic benefits of partially lifting restrictions in May and June. These impacts are imbedded in source data and could not be separately identified by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

What we do know is the daily number of new cases occurring in the US in comparison to other countries of the world. The US chose to start reopening the economy much sooner than Canada, Europe and Asia, contrary to the criteria established by the Center for Disease Control based on scientific knowledge.

As a result, the number of new cases by the end of July swelled to the point where they are roughly double what the numbers were in May/June. The number of new cases then started to decline again once new mitigation measure were adopted in some states.

In contrast, other nations, such as Germany, stayed closed-down longer, brought the number of new cases under manageable control through mitigation measures, testing, and contact tracing. As a result, they are in the process of successfully re-opening their economies. 

 

Source: New York Times data base. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-coronavirus&region=TOP_BANNER&context=storylines_menu

What Are the Financial Consequences of Re-opening too Soon?

The financial cost of COVID to the US economy before starting to reopen was about 500 billion dollars of lost GDP (CBO) and 2.5 trillion dollars of stimulus money, for a conservative estimate of 3 trillion dollars due to the first wave of new cases.

Using the costs of the first wave (3 trillion dollars) as an estimate, the surge of at least twice as many new cases after partial reopening would require a 6 trillion dollars stimulus to offset the loss of GDP, and to hopefully return us by Sept/Oct to where we were when we first started to re-open back in May/June.

However, since we started to reopen too soon, some additional amounts of costs and time would be required to stay closed down long enough to reduce the number of new cases to a manageable level to be able to safely open-up, like Europe, Canada and Asia countries have done.

The United States, at the very least, has made a 6 trillion-dollar mistake if we act immediately to bring the virus under manageable control. If we fail to do so, the cumulative costs will continue to grow. These are unnecessary, but real, cost that could have been avoided by following the scientific advice of health experts, like the other developed nations.

What Will Be the Long-term Effects of This Mistake?

 Before the virus, the Federal Government was expected to have a 1 trillion-dollar budget deficit for this fiscal year. However, with the 3 trillion stimulus the annual deficit for this finical year will be 4 trillion dollars, raising our total national debt to 101% of our GDP.

 If we add an additional 6 trillion-dollars new stimulus money to the annual deficit, the ratio of debt to GDP will be 127%. This is not sustainable, and it would require sever austerity measures that would likely push the economy into a recession.

 But, not containing the virus also has economic costs. The GDP of the US lost a record breaking 9.4% in the second quarter of 2020 (BEA). Unfortunately, as the price for our bungling, we have given our economic competitors who prevented a protracted COVID 19 impact – such as China and Germany -- a significant advantage for years to come.

 This is the unequivocal financial message we should be receiving from our Federal Government.

 Yet, beyond the unnecessary financial costs, the continued disruptions to our social and personal lives, and our deeply diminished position in the world, there are a still an undetermined number of needless deaths – perhaps in the 100’s of thousands – for our moral conscience to bear.

Our response to COVID 19 has been a collective national disgrace.

 Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis: Table 1.1.5 Gross Domestic Product (page 5) https://apps.bea.gov/national/pdf/SNTables.pdf;  Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2020 https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/gdp2q20_adv_0.pdf; The Federal Budget 2020 https://www.thebalance.com/fy-2020-federal-budget-summary-of-revenue-and-spending-4797868

Excessive Use of Force by the Police

Police Reform Is Not an Intractable Problem

Edward Renner and Thom Moore

The killing of George Floyd filled the streets with protesters. Unfortunately, the nation has been here many times since the 1960s. Perhaps an example from then can provide an illustration of how to do better now.

A member of the Black Coalition challenged us “An ambush is being planned, and if it happens, more Black people than police officers will end up getting killed. What are you going to do about it?”

Thom and I were professors at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana. At the time, there was outrage in the Black community. A small child was left alone in the house when Mrs. B, a Black mother, was arrested on her front porch for assaulting a police officer who had asked to talk with her son.

As we learned later, whenever the police use force, they will often charge the person they had harmed with assaulting a police officer or resisting arrest. The Prosecution would then drop those charges in exchange for a guilty plea of disorderly contact, and any complaint against the officer was officially resolved with no recourse. That was the case with Mrs. B, and was the reason prompting the visit from the member of the Black Coalition.

Clearly, there were racial issues with policing in our city. Then, no less than now, the challenge of “What are you going to do about it,” required at least a personal commitment and an honest answer.

The ambush – if it was ever considered -- never happened. In response to the challenge, Thom and I examined the previous four years of court records to identify every instance of assaulting or resisting a police officer and the name of the charging officer. If assaulting or resisting was an action initiated by the citizen, then every police officer should have had an equal chance of being the one dispatched to the scene. We went to the police department to obtain the data on patrol assignments that was necessary to calculate the probability statistics. It took over one year and required going through open hearings at meetings of the City Council.

When we crunched the numbers we found that the officer on Mrs. Bs porch was involved in so many of the cases where the arrested person “assaulted” a police officer or “resisted arrest” that the odds were one in a million that it could have happened that way by chance. Two other officers had one chance in 10,000 of encountering so many citizens who assaulted or resisted. (The results of this methodology were later published in The Journal of Police Science and Administration in 1975.)

We presented our finding privately to the Command of the Police Department. The Lieutenant in charge of records said “They have identified the three people we know are our problem officers, and we have not done anything about it. I think we should cooperate with the research.” The Chief agreed: “What records do you want?”

We replied, “If you give us access to the records, and we give you the results, you will be in exactly the same position you are now in with the three officers in question. You will know there is an issue, but if you attempt to deal with it, it will put you in an adversarial position with the front-line officers and the union, and you will be unlikely to do anything with the new information.” We suggested an alternative:

“Let us describe the results of our study to all the officers at the change of shift briefings. We will give each officer a confidential code number where they can see where they stand on the use of force in the probability distribution.”

Clearly, if the If the ambush had occurred, each officer could have been the one dispatched. They carry each other’s grief. That was no empty possibility. On one occasion the police had responded to a call in the north end and were fired upon. A photo of the patrol car, with the bullet holes, was on display in the police briefing room as a daily reminder

It is in each individual officer's best interests to find a solution to the problem. They collectively own the issue and must come to assume responsibility for it themselves. We agreed to work with the officers to help resolve community relations issues, provided the Command would create an internal culture to make that ownership possible.

The officers formed a community relations group to meet and work with us and our students. One of the projects was to have each officer interviewed by a student at the end of their shift to record any incident where the citizen did not behave in the way the officer anticipated. The collection of “critical incidents” provided a data base for categorization, analysis and public discussions about actual sources of potential conflict. One of the incidents would be handed out at each shift change for the officers to discuss with each other. One day, I was walking across the street while an officer was engaged with a citizen. He looked up and hollered: “Hey Renner, I have one for us here,” meaning an incident for the file.

The Command never knew the name of any individual officer on any data collection, but every individual officer personally knew where they stood. With this internal climate, the officers were assuming responsibility for their collective ownership of their relationships with the community. 

It seems strange – and perhaps unforgivable – for the need to be revisiting this story from fifty years ago. What we described was a project that involved the police, the university, and the community in a transparent, data driven exercise of discovery and change.

We submit that this is one example of what collaborative relationships can look like. These relationships are not only possible, especially with today’s data collection and communication capacities, but essential for both police agencies and their communities.

The simple conclusion of our project, published jointly with the Command in The Police Chief in 1976, was: Police Community Relations Is a Continuous Ongoing Process, Not a Product.

Edward Renner is a retired professor living in Hendersonville, NC., and Thom Moore is a retired professor living in Urbana, IL.

Build the Wall: A distraction from debt

“Build the Wall!” A distraction from debt

Edward Renner

The biggest threat to our national security is borrowing against the future, not the southern border. The Federal debt and the future economic security of the country should be the context for the debate over building the wall.

The current Federal debt is $22 trillion, and over the term of President Trump, expenses will exceed revenue by $866 billion per year based on current projections (see Box). The recently proposed 2019 budget would increase this amount to over $1 trillion per year.

 

 

An individual has no reference point for such amounts of money. So, let’s turn those amounts into a personal example which parallels the current debate about funding the wall.

Suppose your uncle – let’s call him Sam – has an income of $50,000 a year with a no cash reserves. He is due for a $500 raise at the end of year. His current debt is $52,000 (104% of his income). This means he has been borrowing money every year to cover several thousand dollars of excess living expenses. Now, he wants to borrow a relative small amount of additional money to purchase something that has no commercial value – say a portrait of himself.

Suppose further that, instead of the $500 raise, an anticipated market correction (10%) occurs, and his actual earnings drop to $45,000. When that happens, he will have to borrow $7,000 to stay even, for just for the first year. His total debt will jump to 120% of his reduced income.

Under these conditions, why would Sam want to buy the portrait in the first place, and why would anyone lend him any more money? Sam may soon need to default on his house mortgage, as did many people in 2008, and move back home to live with his parents.

 Borrowing money to build the wall is the same as Sam borrowing money for his portrait. Like Sam, the current Federal debt is 104% of the national income which is measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This debt will increase to 108% under the current budget of the US Government (see Figure).

 

 When the Federal debt exceeds the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – which is now the case -- and interest rates are larger than economic growth – which is now possible – then the entire national debt becomes more expensive. This situation requires even greater borrowing and/or a reduction of government services. Both can restrict growth, widen the gap with the cost of borrowing, and trigger a downward spiral of accelerating debt and additional austerity measures. As a result the nation gets poorer each year.

 

But, the big catastrophe occurs when the next recession comes -- as many expect in near future. When the GDP drops, the nation is caught in the same trap as Sam when his income fell by 10 percent. That is what happened to Greece. No cash, big expenses and no way to borrow more, which would only have made the situation worse. The parallel, with Sam moving back home, is significant reductions in social programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, and other big budget areas, such as the Department of Defense. 

The economic stimulus required to reverse the recession of 2008, was possible only because the national debt had been reduced to manageable levels as a result of the “peace dividend” during the Clinton years. The stimulus spending over the Obama era produced a period of steady economic growth, but at the cost of a huge increase in the national debt (104% of GDP) to a level that is not sustainable.

The current projections are for economic growth to slow in the future. Without growth, similar to Sam’s anticipated $500 raise, the ratio of debt to GDP increases wildly, as it did over the G W Bush era as the result of annual budget deficits, the recession and reduced revenue from a tax cut. Any reoccurrence of these events, all of which are currently on the table, will crash the economy again. But, this time there is no capacity for additional borrowing by the Government to stimulate a recovery -- just as Sam has no capacity to come up with an extra $7,000 per year.

Building the wall doesn’t provide national security, it is not an immigration policy, and it does not serve the body politic. It only fulfills a campaign promise akin to Sam purchasing his portrait. Building the wall is a distraction, while a real storm, the growing national debt, is gathering on the political and economic horizon – a distraction that puts at risk everything that defines the American Way of Life.

 

The real Uncle Sam would never do this.

 

Data Sources: Congressional Budget Office, Office of Management and Budget, compiled at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/ and https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/. See also http://www.usdebtclock.org/.

Ransom for wall is bad government

An abridged version of this essay, “Ransom for wall is bad government,” was published in the Jan. 4, 2019 Tampa Bay Times, A08, in response to Trump’s 1/3/19 demand: “Wall money or else”

 

Let’s Just Be Reasonable

Edward Renner

President Trump is currently holding government workers hostage to get money for his wall. “I will not sign a temporary budget that does not include money for the wall.”

Maintaining a functioning civil service in time of political dysfunction is essential for national stability and international self-respect. Civil servants should not suffer because political leaders cannot find a way to set new spending priorities for the coming year.

For Congress to negotiate a payment for the wall as a condition for returning government workers to the payroll would undermine fundamental democratic principles of our country.

The two issues must be separated: First, by introducing a bill to extend the Federal Budget at existing levels of spending until an agreement can be reached on a final budget, and second, by introducing an independent bill for funding the wall. Each Bill should be decided on its own merits through established procedures: If passed by the Congress, either signed or vetoed by the President; and, if vetoed, either over-ridden by Congress or not. Those are the constitutional rules.

If the wall is to add $5 billion to the public debt the essential question is whether that amount of new spending is best spent on health and social security, or on boarder security. And, if the $5 billion is not to be added to the federal debit, then the then the question is what existing government functions are to be eliminated.

The budget is an important public debate to be resolved on its own terms.

The wall is an occasion for extensive civic give and take on at least the issue of whether a physical wall or legislative immigration reform is the proper solution. The wall is not something to be obtained by ransom.

The use of hostages as a demand for ransom has been rejected as public policy by the United States. In June of 2013, the US government signed an agreement with the other members of the G8 against paying ransom for hostages. The purpose was to take away the capacity for terrorists to use this mechanism. The logic was simple: If holding innocent people hostage was an effective way to get money, it would be used repeatedly.

The same logic applies to the current standoff. If the strategy works once, it will be used again. Holding anyone hostage to gain a financial concession is absolutely incompatible with democracy and has no place in the internal political process of the United States.

Let’s just be reasonable.

 

Edward Renner is a retired university professor. He blogs on current social issues at http://forumsforafuture.blogspot.com

Is Free Tuition the Handwritting on the Wall?

The following article was published by EducationDive on why free tuition at public institutions may be the only way to achieving a nationally competitive workforce inclusive of the 99%.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/is-free-tuition-the-writing-on-the-wall-for-college-as-a-personal-expense/532666/

By LaSonya Moore, assistant professor of special education in the College of Education at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, and Edward Renner, courtesy professor, USF.

Is the announcement by the NYU School of Medicine of free tuition the beginning of an inevitable evolution toward free public higher education in the US?

Since the 1960s, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, college enrollment has steadily increased until it peaked in 2011 at 20.6 million students. Over the next six years there has been a steady decrease in enrollment, down to 18.8 million in the Fall of 2017. Over this period there has been a series of institutional failures, and the creditworthiness of institutions of higher education has been downgraded by Moody’s.

Over the 56 years that the Higher Education Price Index has been computed by the CommonFund, it has outpaced the Consumer Price Index by 160% and has maintained that pace over the past six years with 2017 showing the largest one-year increase since the recession of 2008. One result has been a non-sustainable growth in the size of student loan debt. 

In partial response, curriculums have been adjusted to be more practical and job centered, increased focus has been given to student recruitment and retention, and colleges and universities are now competing for transfer students.

While strategic planning is certainly required, it alone will not be sufficient if the six-year graph is capturing an inflection point that is the beginning of a long-term trend. Such a divergence of enrollment and costs is related to two additional issues, for which there is growing awareness.

Disruptive innovation

The limiting case for the two trend lines is consistent with the prediction by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen that more than one-half of higher education institutions will be bankrupt over the next decade or so, following Circuit City, encyclopedias and others as the victims of “disruptive innovation.” Looming in the background is an economic crisis for educational institutions similar to that experienced in 2008 by financial institutions. With the continual expansion of Open Educational Resources (OER), the availability of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and independent certification of competence, there is reduced educational need for a traditional college experience. 

While the doubling rate of knowledge is difficult to measure, the suggestion that half of what one learns over a four-year degree will be outdated by graduation suggest an alternative role to be filled by nonresidential, remote digital continuing education.

Income, wealth and social disparities

In practical terms, if cost continues to rise, fewer students will be willing to assume increasing amounts of student debt. Over-recruiting of marginal students and diluted standards may provide temporary numerical relief, but in the longer-term deepen disillusionment and public confidence, setting the stage for a future larger crisis. Such a crash is increasingly likely with limited annual economic growth in a time of rapidly increasing national debt.

Projecting increased costs and reduced enrollment to their limit provides a graphic picture of the richest 1% bringing a ton of money to the Registrar of the remaining institutions to purchase the additional social, cultural and civic benefits of the four-year college experience — while the 99% are bystanders looking on.

Beyond tinkering

If disruptive innovation and even greater inequalities are the outcome of sticking with the status quo, then tinkering with enrollment strategies, student loan forgiveness, deferred maintenance, more adjuncts and practical job training will not be sufficient.

If the goal is to ensure the K-16 pipeline, a much bolder vision will be required.

Free tuition for all at public institutions may be a necessary current policy debate to have in the U.S. The pending economic crisis facing public institutions could offer the opportunity of following other Western democracies by restructuring financial support as a public cost, rather than bailing out the status quo as was done in 2008 for the financial system. This would create an education system where excessive wealth cannot provide, nor poverty deny, access to public higher education, creating a new system where only competitive ability and personal motivation are the currency of exchange for entry. Such a change may be the only way to achieving a nationally competitive world-class workforce that is inclusive of the 99%. 

Without radical thinking, the handwriting on the wall suggested by the NYU Medical School announcement of free tuition may signal the beginning of end of the dead idea that knowledge is a commodity to be purchased as a personal expense, rather than a national investment in the future of the nation itself.

The Economic Side of Suicide

Published in the Tampa Bay Times, 06/22/2018, page A007

The Economic Side of Suicide

The US Government’s Center for Disease Control recently released data on suicide rates. For the three year period ending in 2001, to the three year period ending in 2016, the suicide rate in the US increased 25%.

The increase has been treated as a mental health epidemic. Individual are encouraged to learn the dangers signals and seek help for themselves or their family and friends.

Yet, in over half (54%) of all the instances the individuals did not have a known mental health condition.

One way to try to explain such trends is to ask what else was changing at the same time. While two similar trends do not prove the two are related, identifying those relationships often offers clues to how better understand what is causing the problem and how it might best be solved.

Of all of things that have happened since the turn of the century up to the present, what are the most remarkable? 

The financial crisis of 2008, economic globalization, the loss of well paying jobs to technology and the wealth and income disparities between the 1% and the 99% are prime candidates.

If we take 2001 as a reference point, when suicide started to increase, what do we know about changes in wealth during the same period:

·      The best-off of the poorest 20% of the population were  60% poorer in 2016 than in 2001

·      The middle class person with the median level of wealth was 17% poorer in 2016 than in 2001

·      The worst-off of the richest 10% of the population were 19% richer in 2016 than in 2001

The figure helps to explain why the richest nation in the world has:

·      40 million people live in poverty, 13.3 million of them children

·      The largest income and wealth disparities of any developed country in the world

The housing crisis of 2007 resulted in millions of foreclosures. Those owners then competed with existing low income people for affordable housing. As a result, the number of renters increased by nearly 10 million by 2016, driving up rental rates in the face of reduced financial resources. Families living in poverty have no place to go and cannot afford where they live. That is hard on the human spirit. 

As financial hardships continue to grow for the majority of the population, and in particular for the poorest among us, suicide rates have gone up. Is this relationship between the concentration of wealth at the top and suicide rate simply a coincidence? If not, what are the implications?

To define suicide as a mental health epidemic implies that we should help the poor and over-stressed to better accept their fate as an individual responsibility. The alternative is to define the rapid rise in economic inequality as a situational cause and as a social responsibility.

The alternative solution is not difficult. The economic hardships that cause despair, loss of personal identity and hope, can be reduced through free entitlements available to all, rich and poor alike; such as: universal health care, and quality public education through college based on personal motivation and academic ability, not family wealth and ability to pay. Such universal entitlements account for why all of the other western democracies have lower levels of income and wealth inequalities. 

Often it is more effective to have a level playing field by fixing the situation causing the problem, rather than constantly trying to repair those who have been damaged by the situation.

As a Professor of Psychology, I have been convinced for over 40 years that many of the problems we consider to be “mental health” or individually based, cannot be separated from the context in which the person lives.

Sources:

Center of Disease Control: https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/suicide/index.html

Urban Institute: https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/

Congressional Budget Office: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51846-familywealth.pdf

Pew Research Center: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/19/more-u-s-households-are-renting-than-at-any-point-in-50-years/

Prof. Edward Renner is a retired university professor. He blogs on current social issues at http://forumsforafuture.blogspot.com. He may be reached at erenner@kerenner.com