The Private Sector is Doing Fine

The end of democracy and defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.  Thomas Jefferson

Earlier this month President Obama made the comment that “the private sector is doing fine”, for which the right has excoriated him.  Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney claims the President is “out of touch” with mainstream America.  I suppose it all depends on your definition of just who is the private sector. 

Is the private sector the company CEO’s or the workers that they exploit?  Working class Americans are struggling, but CEO’s and other corporate executives are living the good life and piling up the cash with impunity. All while the republican machine continues to vilify the working class and singing the praises of corporate greed.

When Governor Romney and his surrogates pontificate on the state of the economy we often hear about the “job killing” regulations and restrictions that President Obama has imposed on US business.  That claim is a bald-faced lie. 

Millions of American workers are unemployed or under employed, but corporate profits are at record highs.  Corporations are flush with cash, but that cash is going into the pockets of executives and stock holders, not for job creation or payroll increases for workers who may have experienced salary reductions or at best no salary increase for several years.  The web site Oregonstrongvoice.org reported last year (07/2011) that compensation for corporate CEO has increased 23% from 2010 through 2011.  The same article reports that the record profits are due to “reductions in wages and benefits”, and that labor compensation is at a 50-year low relative to US GDP and company sales.

Writing for MarketWatch, Rex Nutting reported in July 2011, that according to the US Commerce Department for the years 2008 – 2010 corporate profits were $343 billion higher than previously estimated, but that income for workers and families was $265 billion lower than estimated over the same period.   

Earlier this year, (April 4, 2012) Matt Krantz wrote in USA Today that US business interest reported a 6.7% profit growth, on average, for the first quarter of 2012.  It was the tenth consecutive period of profit growth with 81% of companies exceeding expectations.  Still the American worker is suffering.  The record profits for companies and the dire straits many workers are suffering are the result of unmitigated greed.  It seems the republicans and their backers have taken Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” to a new level believing greed is godly. 

I say this because so many conservatives base their worldview and their politics on their interpretation of Christianity, and biblically speaking, they have that interpretation very wrong.

The Bible has much to say on greed and on how society should treat the poor and down trodden, those Jesus calls “the least of these”.  In the story of the Israeli exodus from Egypt God supplied daily food for His people in the form of Manna.  The people were instructed to gather what they needed for each day.  They were not to store the food up for long-term use, only enough to feed themselves and their families for that day.  In Leviticus 19 God instructs the Israelites on harvesting their crops, and when doing so they are not to pick the fields and vineyards clean, but are to leave some around the edges, and any crops that are dropped should be left for “the poor and the foreigners living among you”.  The Mosaic Law is replete with instructions on proper treatment of the poor and needy, all of which stand in stark contrast with the current mindset of the political right in America. 

Additionally, Jesus himself had much to say about the treatment of the poor and much of it directed at the religious leaders of his day.  However, one of his most scathing critiques, known as The Parable of the Rich Fool is recorded in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 12.

15Then he (Jesus) said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.”  16Then he told them a story: “A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. 17He said to himself, ‘What should I do? I don’t have room for all my crops.’ 18Then he said, ‘I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods. 19And I’ll sit back and say to myself, “My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!”’  20“But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’  21“Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

Let me be clear, there is no sin in being rich the sin lies in greed.  Storing up more than we can ever use in our lifetime is a sign of greed.  Today US corporations exceed the greediness of Midas.  Right wing ideology is driven by greed and a fear that someone is trying to take something away from them.  They begrudge the worker a fair days pay and decent benefits all in the name of profit.  Now that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are people, the influence of money in politics has no end.  If we choose to worship at the altar of profit to the detriment of our fellow citizens then we are indeed hastening the demise of our republic.

President Obama is not the one out of touch.  The vaunted “private sector” which the right trumpet as the savior of all things economic is doing quite well, record profits tell the story.  The ordinary people are the ones suffering unjustly at the hand of corporate greed.  Allowing republican ideology in its current form to occupy the halls of government will only exacerbate our economic malady.

Why I Quit School

In January of 2011, I became a statistic, and some say part of the reason our education system is failing our kids.  The previous August I started my second career teaching sixth grade Language Arts at a Title 1 school in Jacksonville, Florida.  I did not make it to the end of the second semester. 

It is to this point one of the great failures in my life, but it was not because I did not work at it.  It was the hardest job I have ever had.  My contract required me to report for duty at 8:50 and stay until 4:10, but the reality was I was at work by 7:00 and often times did not leave until 5:30 or later.  I spent hours upon hours working at home and gave up at least one of my weekend days every weekend.  This is not uncommon for new teachers, and I did not mind the hard work.  I wanted to succeed.  I wanted to make a difference in the lives of the kids in my classroom, but the deck was stacked against me.

Maybe I was too old.  Perhaps I was too stuck in my ways, or maybe just too white to be relevant to a student population that was more than sixty percent non-white.  I wanted to be the teacher whose class was tough, but who made sure that the students knew I cared about them.  I wanted to impart my love of learning to them, to show them that education was the way to success.   I wanted them to know they did not have to allow their circumstances or their culture define who they were or what they could become.

Probably the biggest reason for my lack of success was the fact I accepted a job I should never have taken.  By academic training, I am a historian, but I took a position teaching Language Arts, English, as we used to call it.  I was already behind the eight-ball before the game even started.  Coupled with all the demands of a new teacher and the ridiculous curriculum and testing required by the state, things went downhill faster than an Olympic bobsled team. 

The people who claim teachers are lazy and the bottom of the academic barrel need to be slapped and sterilized, but not until they spend at least a semester in an urban school setting.  Just swooping in for one day and observing does not give a clue to the complexity of the situation.  Allow me to explain.

My student population was something else.  What a revelation.  We had an assignment for the kids to write a biographical essay.  As I went around the room checking their work and offering help I was shocked at what I read.  One boy was writing about the day that he saw his Uncle shot and killed during a drive by shooting.  Another student was describing the day her sibling drowned, while still another was recalling the night the police came in and arrested his stepdad for being a drug dealer, and how they hauled the man and the drugs out of the house.   Additionally, I had a student whose older sister, also a student at our school, had just tried unsuccessfully to kill herself by putting a gun to her chest and pulling the trigger.  She survived thank goodness, but who knows what has become of her since.  These are not stories that sixth graders should be telling.

I had kids in my classes that read on a second grade level.  Let me repeat that, a second grade reading level.  How did they get to sixth grade?  Who was responsible for these kids passing through the system as functional illiterates?  Most of my students were reading below grade level and very few if any had any desire to remedy the problem.  During a time of what is known as SSR, silent sustained reading, I approached one student who was obviously not reading and encouraged her to pick up her book and get started.  She replied very sternly, “I don’t read”, I said, “This is language arts sweetie, reading is what we do”; she reiterated, “I don’t read”.  How do you fix that?  I had set up a library in the back of the classroom with books acquired at my own expense, many were donated from other teachers, some were purchased at thrift stores, and all were approved by the state as appropriate for grade level.  I brought in the local paper everyday and kept a weekly supply of the paper in our reading area so that they could peruse whatever might interest them.  Most of these kids had no interest in being educated or in being informed of the world around them.  They did not see education as holding any value for them.

The mantra in Duval County Schools is to meet the students where they are.  So after I found I had kids several years behind grade level I asked permission to allow these students to begin reading material on the level they were at and then see if we couldn’t move them up a level or two before the end of the school year.  Oh no Mr. DeGrove, you must stick to the curriculum provided.  But they can’t read the current grade level curriculum I argued.  Stick to the curriculum they demanded, no variation from the county mandated plans.

Rookie teachers really are an island to themselves.  The experienced teachers are too busy with all that is required of them to be much help, although many gave encouragement and offered to help the truth was when I asked they simply did not have time.  Our grade level had four Language Arts teachers; three of us were first year teachers.  The experienced teacher had one year under her belt and half of that she spent on maternity leave.  The administrators would come in and observe the classroom and the instruction, leave a list of things I needed to do to improve and then leave.  I had the principal, three assistant principals, the standards coach, another administrator whose position I never figured out, a retired teacher from a mentoring program, and a few other well meaning folks visit my class and analyze me on a regular basis.  They all had time to criticize, but nobody had time to show me what to do to improve.

My students were not learning anything in my classroom.  I became discouraged, I became beaten down, and finally I just gave up.  It was more than I could take.  Everyone lost.  I lost a dream of a second career.  The school system lost a teacher who desperately wanted to succeed.  Most importantly and shamefully, the kids lost.  I was just another adult who did not keep his promise, another white guy who told them how much they mattered then walked out on them.  Our education system in Duval County is set up for failure, and at that, we have been successful.