Category: Education in America

Homeschoolers Want Your Tax Dollars

The Daily Escape:

Rich Mountain Fire Tower, Marshall, NC – August 2023 photo by Michael Morris. This photo has a painterly quality to it.

Americans’ interest in homeschooling has soared in recent years. Migrating from mainstream education to homeschooling tracks with the rising fears among parents that schools are failing their children.

For parents frustrated with their child’s public school education, the pandemic provided another reason to give homeschooling a try. Homeschooling has become a significant element in education in the US. According to the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), there are 3.7 million homeschooled students in the US, about 6.7% of the school-age children in K-12. The popularity of homeschooling is growing rapidly, with an annual growth rate of 10.1% between 2016 and 2021.

Home schooling is legal in all 50 states, with the highest number of homeschoolers in North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. About 10% of states have strict laws regulating homeschooling: New York, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Another 18 states have no to low regulation, while 11 states provide complete freedom to parents regarding homeschooling. In New Jersey, parents do not have to let anyone know about their decision to homeschool their children. They don’t even have to produce any kind of proof at any time, explaining that their kids were homeschooled. Here’s a view of homeschooling regulation in the US:

Source: HSLDA

In many states, there is little oversight of homeschooling. And for many, what regulations do exist were adopted in the 1980s, when homeschooling was almost exclusively provided by a family member at home. Now, with the number of homeschool students soaring, much of the educating is now being provided by third parties.

The WaPo reports that there is an emergence of “microschools” provided by for-profit companies, such as Prenda which provide online courses and syllabi to the microschools. Last year, Prenda served about 2,000 students across several states by connecting homeschool families with microschools that host students, often but not exclusively in homes. The local educator is called a “guide” for students who study math and reading online while depending on the “guide” for other subjects. Families pay Prenda $2,199 per year, plus additional fees set by the guides, which can range from $2,800 to $8,000 per child although there is often a multi-child discount.

Many similar options to Prenda are transforming home schooling in America. More from WaPo:

“Demand is surging: Hundreds of thousands of children have begun homeschooling in the last three years, an unprecedented spike that generated a huge new market. In New Hampshire, for instance, the number of homeschoolers doubled during the pandemic, and even today it remains 40% above pre-covid totals.”

More:

“For many years, homeschooling has conjured images of parents and children working together at the kitchen table. The new world of homeschooling often looks very different: pods, co-ops, microschools and hybrid schools, often outside the home, as well as real-time and recorded virtual instruction. For a growing number of students, education now exists somewhere on a continuum between school and home, in person and online, professional and amateur.”

Still more:

“Microschools sometimes provide all-day supervision, allowing parents to work full time while sending their children to “home school.” Hybrid schools let students split their days between school and home. Co-ops, once entirely parent run, might employ a professional educator.”

All of this is adding to the conundrum of how K-12 education is financed in the US. The WaPo says that about a dozen states allow families to use taxpayer funds for home-school expenses. Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs, direct thousands of dollars to families that opt out of public school, whether the destination is a private school or their own homes.

Nonprofits, including school-choice advocates, are directing millions of dollars in charitable giving toward homeschool organizations, linking two powerful but traditionally separate movements into one interest group that seeks to move taxpayer money away from the local public school system into private hands.

In the past, homeschoolers and school-choice activists didn’t see themselves as aligned. The latter group wanted taxpayer money to pay for charter, private and religious schools, whereas homeschoolers looked to limit any government involvement.

But since the pandemic, they found themselves in common cause. Historically, homeschool advocates have been wary of any government money or involvement, for fear it would lead to rules and regulations.

But many school-choice advocates incorporate support for homeschoolers into their advocacy work, including for school vouchers that give these families tax dollars to pay education costs. Where they used to be a defensive constituency, today they have become partners.

And venture capitalists have invested tens of millions of dollars in new businesses to serve what they see as a growing, and potentially huge market. One entrant is Outschool, an online marketplace for classes, which has raised $255 million since 2015. This year, Outschool has delivered 500,000 live learning sessions to more than 150,000 students globally.

WaPo says Prenda has raised about $45 million. Primer, another microschool company formed to serve homeschoolers, has raised about $19 million, though its campuses are becoming more like tiny private schools, an example of the fuzzy line between traditional and home schooling. WaPo spoke to Michael Moe, founder of GSV, a venture capital firm in the Silicon Valley, who has invested in several education technology start-ups: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The mega trend of [school] choice is wildly important to us…All these shifts create opportunities for companies providing solutions that allow parents and communities to take more control of the learning.”

That’s “venture capitalspeak” for more privatizing of the commons in search of higher financial returns.

Vouchers that once paid only for tuition at private and parochial school can now, in some places, be used for homeschoolers. Most sweeping are Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs, which allow families to claim state tax dollars to use at their own discretion for any education expense.

This increasingly means taxpayer money is following the student out of the public school. It flows to whatever a family chooses. That can include things like Prenda’s fees, online classes or home-school curriculum, as well as tuition at private schools.

In Detroit, a program called Engaged Detroit , is a cooperative that’s part of a network specifically to serve Black families looking for schooling options in response to the pandemic. Among Engaged Detroit’s backers is the VELA Education Fund, which has made more than 2,400 grants totaling more than $28 million since 2019. VELA’s primary funders are longtime advocates for school choice: the Walton Family Foundation and the Charles Koch foundation, Stand Together.

There are pluses and minuses to homeschooling. There are situations where it’s appropriate to homeschool, but the loose oversight and lack of expertise might mean that some homeschooled kids are going to be at risk. When parents say they don’t trust the trained/educated teachers in their public school, but instead want their kids to get the viewpoints of only one or two specific people, the kids are entering a small world. Later in life, they’ll have to adjust to a larger reality.

Wrongo is fully aware of the weaknesses of our public school systems. It’s possible that SOME of these small private schools that they say are “home schools”, are teaching those kids better than some public schools do. So Wrongo is ok if kids learn there. But there should be no problem with requiring these kids to take end-of-year minimum standards tests, proving that they learned the base-level material in each subject.

Without some testing, society has no idea if these kids learned anything. The lack of oversight, particularly in those situations where taxpayer money was diverted to homeschooling, seems well—Wrong.

The literature is clear: Some homeschooled children have attended Ivy League schools and won national spelling bees. Some have also been the victims of child abuse. Some are taught using the classics of ancient Greece, others with Nazi propaganda.

Many parents say home education empowers them to withdraw from schools that fail their children. Or they want to provide instruction that better reflects their personal values. But should the rest of us pay for those individual decisions?

Time to wake up America! Homeschooling may offer certain advantages, but also comes with a set of disadvantages that should also be considered. And it’s clear that those who would privatize K-12 education want to take funding from the public school systems wherever they can.

To help you wake up, listen to Steely Dan’s “My Old School” from their 1973 album “Countdown to Ecstasy”. Steely Dan always used outside musicians, and on the record, they had the late Skunk Baxter on guitar and four (!) saxophones. But Steely Dan didn’t like to tour. Today, we’re going to see a rare video of a Steely Dan live performance on “The Midnight Special” where Skunk had a blistering solo for the song’s finale:

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Reshoring The Semiconductor Industry: The Chips Act

The Daily Escape:

Sunset in Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, MA – July 2023 photo by Cynthia Maciaga

The semiconductor industry is big, complex, and important. Semiconductors are also an important test case for America’s ability to revive its domestic manufacturing base. There’s a lot riding on Biden’s Chips Act that became law one year ago. It is a $50 billion package of subsidies, tax credits and other sweeteners designed to bring advanced chipmaking back to America.

As a result, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is investing $40 billion in Arizona. Samsung is investing $17 billion in Texas. Intel, America’s biggest chipmaker, will spend $40 billion on four semiconductor fabrication plants, or “fabs” in semiconductor parlance, in Arizona and Ohio. Both Democrats and Republicans regard it as a bipartisan legislative triumph.

But, finding highly skilled labor is key to the Act’s success. While America still has world-class semiconductor researchers and designers, we no longer have the kind of skilled labor that turns silicon wafers into electronic circuits. Chief Investment Officer magazine quotes Joseph Quinlan of Bank of America (BOA):

“America’s manufacturing renaissance could either be delayed or derailed by mounting structural headwinds….The US will have graduated only 108,000 technicians (who operate, maintain and fix electronic gear) by 2030, but demand is for 130,000 by then….Similarly, the nation will have produced 42,000 engineers and 21,000 computer scientists at that point, yet will need 69,000 and 34,000, respectively.”

BOA says that the other shortfall is construction workers. Construction of US factories has climbed 80% from a year ago, yet the nation has 374,000 unfilled construction jobs. We’re already seeing the problem. From the Economist:

“…The first of TSMC‘s factories was due to start production next year. But in July it announced that the launch would be put back to 2025 because it could not find enough workers with the expertise to install equipment at such a high-tech facility.”

The problem is during the delicate final phase of installing the most high-end equipment. Mark Liu, TSMC’s chair, said in a July earnings call:

“…there is an insufficient amount of skilled workers with those specialized expertise required for equipment installation in a semiconductor-grade facility.”

As a result, TSMC is sending skilled workers from Taiwan to teach Americans how to do the job. The Commerce Department forecasts that about 100,000 workers may be needed for the construction of these new fabs in the US.

The chip market breaks down into “leading edge” chips, followed by “advanced” chips and “trailing edge” chips, sorted from the smallest chips to the largest. The Economist says that by 2025, American chip factories expect to be churning out 18% of the world’s leading-edge chips (see chart below):

This seems highly optimistic if we can’t get these new plants built or staff them. Leading-edge fabs that are built in America will take longer to build and will be smaller than those in Asia. In China and Taiwan, companies can build out a new fab in 650 days. In America, the average construction time is expected to be 900 days, or 40% longer. Construction costs, therefore, can be 40% more in America than in Asia.

Regarding size, in Arizona, TSMC plans to make 50,000 wafers a month—equivalent to two “mega-fabs”, as the company calls them. In Taiwan, TSMC operates four “giga-fabs”, each producing at least 100,000 wafers a month. Size matters: The more chips a fab makes, the lower the unit cost.

More from the Economist: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“America will produce enough cutting-edge chips to meet only about a third of domestic demand. Apple will keep sourcing high-end processors for its iPhones from Taiwan.”

Overcapacity is a possible threat. The Economist says that in 2019, China made one fifth of “trailing-edge” chips, which go into everything from washing machines to cars and aircraft. But by 2025 it will produce more than a third of them. It’s possible that excess supply from China will put downward pressure on prices. In the long run, this could hurt higher-cost American fabs.

So, while there has been substantial progress in just a year, the US isn’t going to undo 20+ years of offshoring chip manufacturing in the next 24 months. The Commerce Department says it wants companies to collaborate on building up a construction workforce, so that workers trained for one project can move on to other fabs that are being built. In this respect, TSMC’s plan to import Taiwanese trainers is less of a bug than a feature, part of the process of helping to build knowledge.

Once the fabs are built, they’ll need technicians to operate them. Such workers have historically required two years of training at a community college or a vocational school. But companies and educators are experimenting with much shorter courses. Columbus State Community College in Ohio, where Intel is building two fabs, is offering a one-year program. The aim is for students to be job ready for Intel as their fabs come online.

But, will these companies be willing to put candidates with one year’s training anywhere near the multi-million-dollar machinery inside their fabs?

The fabs also need engineers to run them. Universities near some of the fabs under construction, including Arizona State and Ohio State, have expanded their offerings of semiconductor courses as part of degrees in engineering and physical sciences. Leading the charge is Purdue University in Indiana: last year it launched a semiconductor degree program for both undergraduates and graduates.

And the flow of students seems encouraging. Intel expected 100 registrants for its quick-start courses, but 900 showed up. At Purdue enrollment has also been very strong. Handshake, a job platform for recent graduates, reported that applications for full-time jobs at semiconductor companies were up by 79% compared with last year, versus 19% in other sectors.

Returning to having a strong, vibrant high tech manufacturing industry in the US is good, both strategically and economically. But for the immediate future, it remains a gamble: We’re saying that the economic reasoning for moving manufacturing offshore in the past still exists. But it’s important enough strategically that we (and these profit-seeking corporations) will somehow underwrite the cost disadvantages.

Relearning basic skills such as cutting wafers into chips and packaging them in hard plastic casings will take time. The welcome news for these new fabs is that colleges and universities see an opportunity in helping train the new labor force.

But we will still be dependent on other countries. We do not have a secure domestic supply of lithium, nickel, graphite and other minerals needed to expand production of solar panels, wind turbines, semiconductors and electric vehicles. BOA points out that American imports of lithium-ion batteries from China more than doubled in 2022, to $9 billion.

So, while there’s lots going on that may someday be positive, China represents a potentially dangerous choke point given that US-Sino bilateral relations are at a decade’s low. We’re depending on them to continue providing much of the materials crucial to our new manufacturing capacity, while we’re in the middle of a serious rift with them.

Reshoring manufacturing, especially high value manufacturing is America’s dream. But it will take unprecedented cooperation between the government, multinational firms and our higher education system to make it happen.

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Economic Illiteracy

The Daily Escape:

The confluence of the Green River (L) and the Grand River (R) form the Colorado River, Canyonlands NP, UT – July 2023 photo by Michael L Mauldin. In 1921, the Grand River was renamed the Colorado.

Wrongo doesn’t think that political polls have much value if they have a national focus, but still, he presents an  Economist / YouGov Poll taken between July 8th and 11th of a nationwide sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,296 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 2.8%, and for registered voters is 2.9%. They asked whether the country is in a recession:

Responses show that about 47% of adults and 48% of registered voters believe the US economy is currently in a recession. But, it’s not true.

We’re still seeing inflation: The BLS reported the Consumer Price Index was up 3% year over year in June. Inflation in June 2022 was 9% and it’s been falling ever since. It is now back near what the Fed says is its target for inflation, 2%.

But having inflation, even severe inflation, doesn’t mean we’re also in a recession. In fact, employment has continued to grow, even as economic growth has slowed. Growth has slowed from about 7% in 2021 to about 2% in the first quarter of 2023. But the economy isn’t shrinking. And the jobless rate in June was 3.6%, still at very low levels not seen consistently since the late 1960s. That would be 50+ years ago.

CNN quotes Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan:

“We’re running out of time for a 2023 recession….We’ve never had a recession when the labor market was running this hot. In fact, it would be absurd to use r-word at a time when we’re creating jobs at this rate.”

Americans need to be taught economics. And also to read. It shouldn’t be so difficult to understand that the US economy is still humming along. Sadly though, most high schools don’t teach economics, and many college degrees don’t require it. This has resulted in economically ignorant adults (including voters) who just believe what lying politicians and an ambivalent media tell them.

The media’s endless ranting about inflation and recession has been a problem for Democrats. There’s plenty of economic unease and a lot of it is generated by so-called media “experts”.

People seem to want more concrete indications that we’ve turned a corner. But we’ve gone from  ̶800,000 jobs a month to full employment. Isn’t that turning a corner? We’ve had real wage gains after 44 years of declining real wages: Isn’t that turning a corner?

If you’re not someone who pays much attention to politics and/or if most of your information is coming from mainstream media, this is what you remember hearing about the Biden presidency:

  • The economy sucks because nobody wants to work.
  • INFLATION!!
  • Home prices are rising, which is why YOU can’t afford one!
  • Home prices are falling, which is why YOU can’t retire!
  • GAS PRICES!!! OMG!
  • There’s going to be a MASSIVE recession any day now!

Every night since Biden took office, the media has blanketed us with some flavor of all of those narratives. Every night, every newscast.

But some of us say that it’s a complete mystery why Biden’s poll numbers won’t budge.

OTOH, the cost of housing is increasing year over year. Insurance premiums are increasing by double digits year over year. The plumber or HVAC guy costs way more. But since the headline rate of inflation is down, let’s all go out for steak and lobster tonight.

From a political perspective, shouldn’t the Democrats fulfill the wishes of the voters who think we’re in a recession by having one now rather than waiting until 2024? A recession next year would make the Biden reelection effort (along with the efforts to take control of the House and keep control of the Senate) less viable.

We’re a nation of economic illiterates who can’t figure out when the economy actually is good. Right now, they are telling pollsters that they’re doing okay, but the economy is terrible.

And since they vote, Democrats will do substantially better in 2024 with a soft landing rather than a mild recession, regardless of whether polls are still showing voters believe that the country’s in a recession.

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Poetry Banned in Florida

The Daily Escape:

Storm, Outer Banks, NC – May 2023 photo by OBXbeachbum

You may remember that 18 days after the Jan 6th attack, a 22-year-old poet named Amanda Gorman stood on the steps of the Capitol. She addressed the nation’s fresh wounds and its uncertain future:

“A nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.” What a beautiful sentiment.

But those exact words offended a Miami Lakes, Florida serial book banner named Daily Salinas. Salinas alleged that “The Hills We Climb “ included references of critical race theory, indirect hate messages, gender ideology and indoctrination, according to school district records obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project. The Daily Beast reports that Salinas is an avid supporter of Ron DeSantis. She worked as a volunteer on his “Education Agenda Tour” in August 2022.

You can read Gorman’s full poem here. A video of Amanda Gorman reciting her poem at the 2020 Inauguration is here. Gorman reacted, saying in a Facebook post:

“Unnecessary #bookbans like these are on the rise, and we must fight back…”

A review by the WaPo of complaints in 153 school districts across the country for the 2021-2022 school year found that a:

“…majority of the 1,000-plus book challenges analyzed by The Post were filed by just 11 people.”

The WaPo says that each of these people brought 10 or more challenges against books in their school district; one man filed 92 challenges:

“Together, these serial filers constituted 6% of all book challengers — but were responsible for 60% of all filings….In some cases…these serial filers relied on a network of volunteers gathered together under the aegis of conservative parents’ groups such as Moms for Liberty.”

Not surprisingly, Daily Salinas is one of them. Miami Against Fascism alleges in a tweet thread that Salinas is associated with Moms for Liberty Miami-Dade county as well as with the Proud Boys and County Citizens Defending Freedom USA (CCDF), and a Christian nationalist group. From the LA Times:

“When asked if she was aware of professional reviews of the National Youth Poet Laureate’s poem, Salinas wrote, “I don’t need it.” And when asked to list the author, she wrote Oprah Winfrey. (Winfrey wrote the forward for the book version of the poem published in March 2021.)”

Here’s the form that Salinas filled out:

Look again at pgs. 12-13 from Gorman’s poem above. If you can detect a hate message, let Wrongo know. And saying that poetry will indoctrinate students? We should be so lucky. Gorman reacted in a tweet:

“I’m gutted…They ban my book from young readers, confuse me with Oprah, fail to specify what parts of my poetry they object to, refuse to read any reviews, and offer no alternatives,”

This is the Florida of Ron DeSantis. And this is the America he wants to create. DeSantis’s campaign merchandise touts that he will “Make America Florida.” Here are some stats that show how well DeSantis is governing Florida: Florida is 34th in fatal overdoses, 26th in teen birth rates, and 31st in infant mortality.  FL ranks dead last in providing long-term care for older adults. Florida ranks 48th in teacher pay, 45th in per-pupil spending. Despite having a fairly high cost-of-living index (23rd), Florida ranks dead last in providing unemployment benefits, giving recipients just $236 a week for just 12 weeks.

Most Americans would rather their states remain free from the fascist landscape that DeSantis has given Florida.

BTW: the Bible includes: Rape, incest, torture, slavery, bestiality. But apparently, it isn’t subject to the same standards that Daily Salinas uses, despite on the surface, being one nasty book.

We can’t let today go by without thinking about Tina Turner. She was one of the most important recording artists in American history. It’s pretty hard to describe how incredible and important she was for so many decades. In my twenties, Ms. Right and I got to see Ike and Tina Turner (and the Ikettes) live at Fillmore East in January 1970.

Later in her life (and ours) it was just Tina. One thing was consistent: Tina Turner blew the lid off of any joint where she performed. You can’t say that about many acts, but Tina could do just that. Sadly, the soundtrack to Wrongo’s life is growing fainter with time. Tina Turner’s passing adds to the growing list of performers from the past 70 years that Wrongo admired.

Take a few minutes to watch and listen to Tina and Mick Jagger perform “State Of Shock / It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” in front of 100,000 people at Live Aid in 1985 at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia:

Let’s hope Ike is burning in Hell.

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A Few Wealthy A—holes Want To Secede From America

The Daily Escape:

Poppy bloom, Picacho Peak SP, Picacho, AZ – February 2023 photo by Leila Shehab

Wrongologist blog commenter Terry McK had this to say responding to Wrongo’s post about Speaker McCarthy and his lieutenant Marjorie Taylor Green’s antics surrounding gifting Tucker Carlson with the J6 videos:

“We lie to ourselves about the nature of our government…..Nor have we a marketplace of ideas. We could have – but the marketplace is dominated by the intellectual equivalent of soda and snacks….Now most speeches are performance art delivered to an empty chamber. ”

He’s correct. Here are a few recent developments that track with Terry’s thinking. First, Joe Perticone in the Bulwark: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A strange proposal is working its way through the Idaho state legislature that would have that state envelop more than a dozen of Oregon’s most conservative eastern counties—in effect, shifting the border between the states 200-plus miles to the west. While last Wednesday’s vote in the Idaho House approving this “Greater Idaho” idea is nonbinding, it does legitimize the movement that has long been promoting the plan.”

A Bluer Oregon and a Redder Idaho. This movement is by the far-Right members of Idaho’s government. And among the 15 Oregon counties targeted to become part of Idaho, 11 have so far formally expressed their support for the plan. So unlike Taylor Greene’s rantings about a national divorce, this idea has a lot of elected officials on board.

Second, Ars Technica reports that:

“Two Republican lawmakers in Idaho have introduced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for anyone in the state to administer mRNA-based vaccines—namely…COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.”

This probably won’t go anywhere. And state-level politicians everywhere also have tons of bad ideas.

Finally, a sober look how some of the wealthy in the fancy towns across the western US are angling for succession or civil war comes from Vanity Fair’s James Pogue. Writing about Jackson Hole, Wyoming:

“…there was a constant traffic of small jets and private aircraft, humming into and out of a town that has become a modern refuge for people with remote jobs…many of them driven to the Northern Rockies by a worry…that the rest of America is on its way toward environmental, political, or economic breakdown.”

Pogue speaks with Catharine O’Neill, great-great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller. She’s a Conservative who worked in Trump’s State Department and after the 2020 election moved to Wyoming:

“She…views the corporate elite as enemies of America and believes that we’re on the cusp of a populist uprising against the brand of transnational capitalism championed by Republicans for most of the last half-century.”

She lives on a 580-acre “vertically integrated cattle operation” she started. Today she’s anti both Parties but would happily vote for Tucker Carlson if he’d step forward. These are the thoughts of the “dissident right”. A few of the wealthy have created secretive groups to help people “exit’ from society and from what they see as a failing American system.

From Pogue:

“Who even needs a civil war,” one…texted me recently, “when the institutions are doing such a good job of delegitimizing themselves?”

This cohort sees the Northern Rockies as one of a few places in America that will be livable once life in much of America is fighting heat waves, floods, storms, and fires. They’re focused on how to live through “managed decline,” the wind-down period after the age of cheap fossil-fuels and rapid economic and technological progress wane.

They’re certain that will also bring about the erosion of America’s “state capacity”, the government’s ability to do things. Then our “real economy” will hollow out, and our political divisions will worsen, even more than currently.

But this movement isn’t only supported by the wealthy. Average American workers are increasingly priced out of housing and better educational opportunities for their kids. Many of these workers have service jobs that support the wealthy from Los Angeles to Jackson Hole, and from Cape Cod to Miami Beach. A Moody’s Analytics report says that for the first time in 20 years, the average American is “rent-burdened”, meaning they put at least 30% of their income towards housing.

This makes many middle class Americans very susceptible to arguments by the dissident right about how corporate elites and modern capitalism are hurting their chances to realize the American Dream. This was the basic thrust of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in 2011. Now, the right wing is trying to take up their cause.

Will there be a second civil war? It doesn’t need to be a war. People don’t understand how easy it would be to launch an insurgency in America. We should take a lesson from the way the Taliban defeated the American military using small arms, and there are plenty of small arms in America. Insurgencies are less a war than an extended political conflict, in which the insurgents try to get governments to overreact. And when they inevitably do, the insurgents build support. It doesn’t take all that much to create a plausible scenario for conflict.

This is Wrongo’s second wakeup call this week. We can’t do much about the wealthy who tell themselves that they’re better off without America.

But we can and must do a lot to persuade average Americans not to fall victim to their rhetoric.

Jimmy Carter’s 1976 stump speech included this:

“I’ll never lie to you”…and…”we need a government as good as its people…”

Would living his message today help us hold the country together?

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Monday Wake Up Call – February 20, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Oatman, AZ on Route 66 – February 2023 photo by Laurel Anne Lindsay

Some of you may have heard about a study called “The Hidden Tribes of America” by the group More in Common. It’s trying to understand the forces driving political polarization in America today. They classify the American electorate into seven distinct groups, they call “Tribes”.

But their key conclusion is that most people don’t belong on the far left or far right: (brackets by Wrongo)

“
the largest group that we uncovered in our research has so far been largely overlooked. It is a group of Americans we call the Exhausted Majority…representing a two-thirds majority of Americans, who aren’t part of the Wings….most members of the Exhausted Majority aren’t [simply] political centrists or moderates. On specific issues, their views range across the spectrum.”

More:

“But while they hold a variety of views, the members of the Exhausted Majority are also united in important ways: They are fed up with the polarization plaguing American government and society
.. [they] are so frustrated with the bitter polarization of our politics that many have checked out completely
.. they aren’t ideologues who dismiss as evil or ignorant the people who don’t share their exact political views. They want to talk and to find a path forward.

This chart from the study graphically illustrates the seven tribal groups of the American populace. As you can see, there is a left-wing group that is about 8% of the US population. And there are two right-wing groups that equal about 25% of Americans. That leaves four groups in what the authors call the “Exhausted Majority”. They are 67% of the American populace.

Here are some demographic characteristics of the seven groups:

  • Progressive Activists: younger, highly engaged, secular, cosmopolitan, angry.
  • Traditional Liberals: older, retired, open to compromise, rational, cautious.
  • Passive Liberals: unhappy, insecure, distrustful, disillusioned.
  • Politically Disengaged: young, low income, distrustful, detached, patriotic,
  • Moderates: engaged, civic-minded, middle-of-the-road, pessimistic, Protestant.
  • Traditional Conservatives: religious, middle class, patriotic, moralistic.
  • Devoted Conservatives: white, retired, highly engaged, uncompromising,

Wrongo identifies as one of the Traditional Liberals, their description rings true.

The authors say that in their research, this tribal membership predicted differences in Americans’ views on various political issues better than demographic, ideological, and partisan groupings. You can read or download the whole study here.

An “Exhausted Majority” may be a positive political development. Wrongo spends nearly every day thinking that there are just two opposing camps. And that they each view each other with fear and loathing, refusing to listen to anything that doesn’t fit their existing narrative. As we’re entering the next presidential campaign, it’s good to know that Wrongo’s view of our polarization might be well, wrong.

Is the “Exhausted Majority” merely a new response to our dysfunctional politics? Wrongo isn’t alone in thinking that what’s wrong with our country will take decades to overcome. Faced with that, people start to look for quick fixes, or a way to stop listening to the wrangling. And you don’t have to be unaligned with either Party to share this sense of exasperation.

The people described in the “Exhausted Majority” are similar. It’s also true that for most people, politics isn’t the be-all-end-all of their lives. They’d prefer that the business of government didn’t require their involvement. They’re trying to get their kids educated, and to keep them safe. They prefer to see political compromise happen without needing to be involved.

But if you can walk away from politics when it frustrates you, then you’re in the lucky minority:

  • There are large numbers of parents who have discovered that their child is addicted to opioids.
  • There are many people who had lost their health insurance when they were laid off.
  • Many sent their daughter to college in the South only to learn that she no longer has any reproductive rights.
  • Many are worried that books are being taken from public school libraries.
  • Some fear that they may lose the right to vote.

These people can’t simply throw up their hands and walk away. Only political action will help them. We all know that the political radicals are irredeemable. We also know they make the most noise, but they’re a minority.

The fed-up people on both sides and in the middle have to find a way to take the country back from the radicals, instead of allowing ourselves to be herded into existing opposing camps.

Time to wake up America! We can’t simply drop out. There’s too much at stake. Democrats need to find candidates and a message that can motivate an additional 5%-15% of the “Exhausted Majority” to vote with them. To help you wake up, watch, and listen to the RedMolly band play a very nice cover of Richard Thompson’s “Vincent Black Lightning 1952”. It’s a surprise how beautifully it adapts to a bluegrass idiom, and the dobro work makes it:

“Vincent Black Lightning” is one of the most perfect songs ever written. We saw Thompson perform it live at Tanglewood last summer.

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Saturday Soother – February 4, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Grist Mill, Brewster, Cape Cod, MA – February 2023 photo by Nick Haveran

Ah, Florida. Wrongo and Ms. Right will be making our annual visit to the land of DeSantis in late March to see family. Florida has always been a destination for older Americans who are tired of the -2°F with the windchill making it feel like -25°F that we had last night in Northwestern Connecticut.

Martin Edic in his Medium column has it right:

“Picture a…retirement community with rules set by a Homeowner’s Association or HOA. An idyllic place to see out one’s final years, undisturbed by the reality of the outside world.

And then a man is elected leader of your HOA and he becomes consumed by writing rules and dictating how you should live your life….Welcome to the State of Florida under Ron DeSantis.”

Historically, Florida’s population skewed older. But its demographics have changed, driven in part by a large Latino population that is traditionally politically conservative. The older voters and the Latino block have become fertile ground for wedge cultural issues like those put forth by its governor Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis has a vision for Florida: His vision says that slavery really never happened in the Deep South, but if it did, it wasn’t as bad as people in the North say.

But since that’s controversial, DeSantis has ordered the Florida educational system to eliminate curriculum that differs from his worldview: No black history. No recognition that gay and gender fluid people exist.

His vision is to lesson plan by state government. If DeSantis says slavery was not a legitimate issue in Florida history, then it wasn’t. If kids have questions about their sexuality or gender preference, make it illegal for them to learn about it. Also make it illegal to help them.

So it’s no surprise that as we enter Black History Month, DeSantis announced a proposal to all but remove both the teaching about that history and the descendants of those who survived it from Florida’s public schools and universities:

“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he intends to ban state universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives….It really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter…”

In a press release about the legislation, his office called diversity, equity and inclusion programs “discriminatory” and vowed to prohibit universities from funding them. From CNN:

“The proposal is a top priority for DeSantis’ higher education agenda this year, which also includes giving politically appointed presidents and university boards of trustees more power over hiring and firing at universities and urging schools to focus their missions on Florida’s future workforce needs.”

DeSantis has seen his standing among conservatives soar nationwide following his public stances on hot-button cultural and education issues.

He announced his higher education agenda in Bradenton, a 15-minute drive from New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college where DeSantis has installed a new board with a mandate to remake the school into his conservative vision for higher education.

On top of all that, DeSantis wants to radically change the curriculum of Florida’s public education system:

“The core curriculum must be grounded in actual history, the actual philosophy that has shaped Western civilization,….We don’t want students to go…at taxpayer expense, and graduate with a degree in Zombie studies.”

Say goodbye to Black history, gender study, and any queer history courses in the state. And there’s also DeSantis’ criticism of the College Board’s new curriculum for its AP course in African American Studies.

DeSantis announced in January that he would ban it, because state education officials said it wasn’t historically accurate and violated state law that regulates precisely how race-related issues are taught in public schools.

That sent the College Board into edit mode, stripping much of the subject matter that had angered DeSantis and other conservatives:

“The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism. It ushered out some politically fraught topics, like Black Lives Matter, from the formal curriculum. And it added something new: “Black conservatism” is now offered as an idea for a research project.”

The College Board’s revisions address most of the DeSantis’s objections. Why? Because the College Board makes most of its revenue from AP courses. From Popular Information:

“In 2019, the College Board made over $1.1 billion dollars in revenue, according to documents filed with the IRS. Almost half of this revenue came from “AP and Instruction,” and 40% came from “assessments” like SAT exams. In 2020, revenue shrunk to $800 million dollars. “AP and Instruction” now constituted the majority of revenue…”

For the College Board, right-wing criticism of the AP African American Studies course presents a financial threat. Assessments are dying: Compared to 2019, when 55% of colleges required test scores, only 4 % of schools had a testing requirement this past fall. So it needs more students than ever to enroll in its AP courses.

So much for the Republican’s vision of “limited government.” DeSantis’ objective is seemingly to provide White Floridians with a version of the past that they can be comfortable with, regardless of whether it’s true.

On to our frigid weekend here in the Northeast: It’s time for our Saturday Soother. Try to forget about the Chinese spy balloon slowly traversing the US, or why Nikki Haley thinks she has a path to the presidency.

Instead, put on a turtleneck and grab a seat by a window. Now, listen to Gustav Holst’s “The Planets – IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” which can mean gayness (sorry DeSantis) played in Royal Albert Hall in London at the 2015 Proms by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Susanna MĂ€lkki:

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More On Student Loan Forgiveness

The Daily Escape:

Death Valley dunes, CA – August 2022 photo by George Cannon

At a dinner party over the weekend, blog reader Marie S. said that she felt ambivalent about Biden’s loan forgiveness plan. Several others (some were Democrats) echoed her viewpoint.

Republicans have attacked it because they’re desperate to change the subject from the extremist abortion position that they’re now trying to rapidly back away from. They’re also desperate to keep Trump off of the front page. With the loan forgiveness, they see an opportunity to excite their base and divide the Dems.

Wrongo agrees that there are things to dislike and also things to like about the plan. The major thing not to like is something that the Biden administration isn’t in a position to control: The high cost of higher education. Many say that it will be business as usual for our colleges and universities, with loan forgiveness needing to happen every ten years or so.

The cost of higher education is out of hand when we look at the growth in the cost of college and fees compared to the US consumer price index (CPI):

The chart shows that the cost of college is up exponentially more than CPI over the past 40+ years. For any child not born to affluent parents (or getting a hefty scholarship), the choice is foregoing college or taking on a ton of student debt.

Dealing with the increase in college costs isn’t something that the US government can do easily, if at all. We’re talking about a broad spectrum of privately owned institutions and an array of institutions owned by individual states. Biden has got zero power to flatten the cost curve.

Also, nothing is being demanded of the banks who made questionable student loans or the schools who gave students unrealistic information about their future earnings prospects, inducing them to commit to school.

One change that Biden could have made would be to make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, as they were before the 2005 bankruptcy “reform” that then-Senator Biden helped push through Congress.

Businesses that make bad decisions get to restructure their debts and carry on. Individuals who have a run of bad luck (big medical bills or job loss) can file for bankruptcy, but students cannot. Why should college debt be carved out as not dischargeable in bankruptcy?

The program’s means-testing could have been tighter. The $125k (individual) and $250k (for married couples) income caps do seem high considering those levels of earnings puts you in the 76th and 94th percentile of earners respectively. OTOH, it sounds worse than it truly is. See this chart:

Wrongo also doesn’t like the fact that the government is still charging high interest rates on student loan debt. The average interest rate for existing borrowers under the program is 5.8%. A 5.8% interest rate on the $1.6 trillion of outstanding student debt equates to $93 billion a year in interest payments if all of those people were paying back their loans. Much of that big number could stay in borrowers’ pockets at a lower interest rate.

Finally, the US government owns 92% of all student loan debt. Why does the government need to make so much money on this debt? Wouldn’t a lower rate be a good investment to make for future generations of workers?

Wrongo does like that younger people are finally being helped out by our government. Pundits complain young people don’t get out and vote. Maybe that’s because politicians don’t help young people enough.

It feels like the government has ignored people under 40 in favor of the Boomers and corporations. Today’s young people have much higher costs for essentials: Their student loans, daycare, healthcare, their cost of housing, all are much more than previous generations had to deal with.

Wrongo does like the possible psychological benefit this could give people who felt like they were stuck. The White House estimates that more than 43 million people will qualify for loan forgiveness. Wrongo thinks that the majority of these 40+ million people are overjoyed by this news. His narrow survey of college age grandchildren shows them to be deliriously happy.

And most borrowers will likely experience some psychological relief along with their financial relief. It may allow some people to buy a home sooner than expected. Or get married or start a business. Or just stress a little less about money.

On balance, given the good and the not-so-good, Wrongo thinks the program is a good idea.

In the meantime, the politics bear watching. Republicans are trying to stoke jealousy, and they might succeed. Republicans don’t agree that this relief should take place. But every complaint makes it clear why Biden was right to do this.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 28, 2022

A thought experiment about Trump’s collection of classified documents. Forget for a minute that we’re talking about Trump.

What does the US government (USG) do if it finds out a former employee took home dozens of boxes of sensitive/classified government information without authority? And then the USG finds out that the documents the former employee had taken included information on some of its foreign operations. And that the employee kept them in an unlocked closet for eighteen months?

The USG would assume that every one of those operations had been compromised, because it’s totally wrong to assume otherwise. So, the USG would move to close the affected operations down. It would pull its people and invent a cover story that the other side might buy as plausible. It would attempt to insulate its foreign operatives.

The agencies involved (CIA, DIA, AID, State Department, FBI) would lose some credibility for a blown operation, along with the budget for those operations. It would need to find the money to wind up and cover them up. They would have to lay the groundwork for replacement operations along with new budgets. That would take time. They would have to repair the damage to their networks: The foreign governments and recruited private actors, all because some shit for brains former USG employee stole classified records.

How do we estimate the costs Trump has imposed on this country, just from the activities implicated in his set of stolen secret documents? And what was his purpose? On to cartoons.

He can’t just take his sharpie and write DECLASSIFIED on it:

What the forgiveness means in real life:

Opinions differ about the value of the bailout:

How is it possible to get everything wrong?

Midterm voters now cite “threats to democracy” as their top issue:

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Saturday Soother – August 27, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Super moon over Lake Champlain, Burlington, VT – August 2022 photo by Adam Silverman Photography

Republicans are outraged this week about Biden’s cancellation of student loan debt! Americans now owe a total of more than $1.6 trillion for higher education. From the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The result is one of the most significant changes to American higher education policy in decades — and a new cornerstone of the president’s economic legacy. Biden’s decision will dramatically change the financial circumstances of tens of millions of Americans, fully erasing the student loans of roughly 20 million people.”

Student debt played a minor role in American life through the 1960s when Wrongo accrued his $5k of college debt while attending Georgetown. But it increased during the Reagan administration. It then shot up after the 2007-2009 Great Recession as states made huge cuts to funding for their college systems.

But the argument that “tuition has gone up because public support for higher education has declined” isn’t the only one. While it’s valid for some institutions, it doesn’t explain the “arms race” among colleges and universities to add student amenities and layers of administrative staff over the past 10 years.

Over the last decade, revenue at independent (non-religious) private colleges and universities in the US has increased by 148% on an inflation-adjusted (real) per student basis. At religiously affiliated private colleges and universities revenue has increased by 87% in real per-student terms over the last 10 years.

Meanwhile, at public institutions, revenue has increased by just 23.4% on the same basis. However, this is still 36% greater than per capita GDP growth over the same 10 years.

The headline is that our elite educational institutions have gotten obscenely wealthy. And many of our second tier institutions chased after them, causing education budgets everywhere to explode.

It’s become another example of America’s new gilded age.

Opinions differ about the ethics of loan forgiveness for student debt, and that’s understandable. The general thrust of the Republican railing about the educational loan forgiveness is about how unfair it is when one group of Americans is getting a benefit at the cost of other Americans.

This tweet from former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is on point for most of the GOP:

“Joe Biden wants those who didn’t go to school, didn’t take out loans, or already paid off their loans to pay off $300 billion of other people’s debts…..It’s socialism, it’s un-American, and only makes his record-setting inflation worse.”

But it isn’t socialism when our government bails out one group at the expense of another; it happens all the time. No Republican complained about the Trump tax cuts which were directed at America’s wealthy and its corporations. No Republican complained about the bank bailout in 2008. No Republican objected when Trump gave $16 billion to farmers hurt by the Trump tariffs.

Second, despite what the GOP is saying, the $300 billion in loan forgiveness isn’t inflationary. It’s true that it’s money that student borrowers won’t be paying back. But because of the student debt moratorium, they had already stopped payments in 2020, so there’s no change going forward. They simply won’t have to restart making payments on that $10,000 of debt.

It isn’t clear that there will be much impact to inflation or the Consumer Price Index. Since they weren’t making payments, it’s likely they were already spending those funds that might have gone to loan repayments. So no new spending.

We can have a debate about how much higher education should cost per student. We live in a society that is a whole lot wealthier than it was 40 years ago, but many of our students do not come from those few wealthy families.

The political calculus of Biden’s decision will be seen in November. The WaPo reported that a majority of Americans support limited debt forgiveness. Biden’s pollster, John Anzalone said:

“This is a motivator for young people….It’s a huge issue for young people — the support levels for them are in the high 60s.”

Let’s hope they turn out to vote on November 8.

Now, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we decompress from another week of body blows to America and find a few moments to gather ourselves for the week to come.

Here on the Fields of Wrong, we had a day of very satisfying brush clearing although we’re still waiting for rain.

Go get a big mug of decaf cold brew coffee and grab a chair in the shade. Now listen to Schubert’s “Impromptu in G flat Op. 90 No. 3”, written in 1827, and played here in 2012 by Olga Jegunova at the Bishopsgate Institute in London:

Schubert really understood how to capture emotion in his music.

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