The other day I found myself reading a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. It said that we are becoming a society in which the poor tend to stay poor, no matter how hard they work; in which sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago.
This is from an article by Paul Krugman in the Nation entitled The Death of Horatio Alger. What leftist rag was he reading? Business Week.
The inability of many of our nation's poor to extricate themselves from that situation is, to my mind, one of the largest domestic problems in our nation. It leads to higher crime rates, higher rates of teen pregnancy and drug use, and a number of other social ills. Though there is evidence that the shrinking of the middle class is due largely to more people moving upwards than down, this does not reduce the stratification of our society. As has been noticed before, a solid middle class is essential to a stable society as it serves as something of a buffer between the upper and lower classes, reducing social tension and providing hope and incentive for the poorer members of society. So, not only is social mobility essential for purely egalitarian reasons, it is also necessary to the stability of our country. To me, the answer to this problem is better education. The abysmal state of public education in this nation, particularly in the poorer neighborhoods, is a key reason that it is so difficult to move up into the middle class.
I agree that the state of public education is abysmal. As a remedy I would suggest then that Left stop their trenchant opposition to school choice. Why not at least allow it for failing schools on a temporary basis?
I have no opinion on vouchers since I have seen no truly convincing argument for either side. Do you have links to some that you find convincing? I'm inclined to be against it simply because it seems like a cop-out to me. The priority should be fixing the public schools rather than sending everyone to private schools.
In the meantime, I would suggest that the Right stop their opposition to spending on social services. :)
A good rant on the current state of education in France, but easily applicable to ours:
http://constantin_h.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_constantin_h_archive.html#107156194900690840
In French, but babelfish does a fair job with it. Basically, he points out something that I failed to mention- the crucial role parents play in preparing their children to be educated.